Library leadership: innovative options for designing training programmes to build leadership competencies in the digital age

Library leaders may not be fully equipped to deal with the demands and rigours of the digital age and its consumers. The advent of the internet, search engines and social media require a paradigm shift in the development of these leaders. Whilst much has been written about the required competencies, there seems to be no clear guiding principle on how the development should take place. The authors propose that the development of library leaders is a process, best illustrated through movement through Drotter’s Leadership Pipeline. The importance of thinking preferences, based on Herrmann’s Whole Brain Model, is highlighted and it is shown how these often clog development through this Pipeline. Utilising data from the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) assessments of the 120 participants in six of the Centre for African Library Leadership (CALL) development programmes, the authors show how the thinking preferences of these library leaders could enable or detract from their readiness to develop the appropriate competencies in the digital age. Recommendations are made on how best to overcome this to prepare library leaders to deal with the requirements of the digital age consumer.http://sajlis.journals.ac.za/am201

Activating whole brain® innovation : a means of nourishing multiple intelligence in higher education

The interconnectedness of the constructs ‘whole brain® thinking’ and ‘multiple intelligence’ forms the epicentre of this article. We depart from the premise that when whole brain® thinking is activated multiple intelligence can be nourished. When this becomes evident in a higher education practice it can be claimed that such a practice is innovative. Whole brain® thinking that informs intelligence and vice versa is inevitable when it comes to facilitating learning with a view to promoting quality learning in the context of higher education. If higher education is concerned about the expectations of industry and the world of work there is no other option as to prepare students in such a way that they develo as holistic – whole brained and intelligent – employers, employees and entrepreneurs who take responsibility for maximising their full potential. Becoming a self-regulated professional and being reflexive are some of the attributes of the 21st century which should be cultivated in all students. Research on whole brain® thinking and multiple intelligence shows that these human attributes form an integral part of one’s interaction with life – one’s environment and especially people as integral part of the environment. This focus on people highlights the need for developing soft skills within every curriculum. The epistemological underpinning of our reporting of experience in practice and research of the application of the principals of the constructs is metareflective in nature. Instead of a typical traditional stance to research we do not report on the numerous sets of data obtained over a period of more than 15 years. Our approach is that of a meta-reflective narrative as most of the studies we were involved in and still are, are reflective as it is most often than not action research-driven. And action research is a reflective process. We report on evidence-based practice that includes fields of specialisation such as health sciences, engineering, academic staff development, financial sciences, teacher education and higher education. Important aspects of any higher education practice, such as curriculum development, facilitating of learning and assessment are addressed. Practice-based evidence of each, where applicable, is offered as claims of innovation.http://www.td-sa.netam201

Constructing a comprehensive learning style flexibility model for the innovation of an information literacy module

The Department of Information Science in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology at the University of Pretoria is responsible for offering a semester module on Information Literacy to all first-year students across all faculties. The Department has embarked on a process of curriculum innovation of the module. For this purpose the learning style theory of Herrmann (1995) and related principles are implemented. At the same time we have expanded the learning style model, referred to as the Whole Brain learning model that Herrmann has developed. We constructed a comprehensive learning style flexibility model or comprehensive whole brain model based on our scholarly engaging with the application of the related principles in numerous contexts. These contexts include our own teaching practices and research and supervision of postgraduate students. The Information Literacy module serves as an exemplar of curriculum innovation based on the concept of learning style flexibility or whole brain learning as it is reflected in our comprehensive model. The model answers the question of how a comprehensive teaching and learning model can be constructed to serve as a guideline for facilitating learning in a learning style flexible/whole brain fashion, accommodating differences in terms of learning preferences and developing students’ and lecturers’ full potential? The differences in terms of learning preferences referred to in the question were scientifically determined by means of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) (Herrmann 1995). However, the model was not constructed based on this quantitative data only. Through different qualitative methods, such as text analysis, observations, student feedback and interviews, used in different contexts, we as authors extracted from our own work and students’ work the ideas that helped shape the model. A constructivist approach was followed as it is embedded in the process of action research.http://www.reference-global.com/loi/libram201

Multidisciplinary collaboration : a necessity for education innovation

Die operasionele konteks van die navorsing waaroor hier gerapporteer word, is die onderrig van 'n module oor Inligtinggeletterdheid op universiteitsvlak. Die spesifieke fokus word geplaas op die verskeidenheid leerstylvoorkeure van die akademiese en professionele personeel wat verantwoordelik is vir kurrikuluminnovering. Data oor leerstylvoorkeure dien as vetrekpunt vir navorsing oor professionele ontwikkeling. Die voortgesette professionele ontwikkeling van akademiese personeel by universiteite het dwingend noodsaaklik geword. Hierdie toedrag van sake is onder andere die gevolg van die nuwe onderwysstelsel wat die belangrikheid van hoër onderwys en opleiding beklemtoon. Dit het gelei tot die skep van 'n Ministerie vir Hoër Onderwys en Opleiding. Hierdie imperatief word deur hoër onderwysinstansies deur middel van talle inisiatiewe ondersteun. Die kurrikuluminnoveringsproses waaroor gerapporteer word, vorm 'n integrerende deel van die professionele ontwikkeling van diegene wat betrokke is. As samevatting van die navorsingsbevindinge kan dit onomwonde gestel word dat die spanpoging, soos in die artikel beskryf, alleenlik suksesvol is omdat die span uit spanlede vanuit 'n verskeidenheid dissiplines bestaan - kundiges met die nodige vakkennis ter sprake in die module onder bespreking, naamlik inligtingkunde en ander vakkundiges wat in kurrikulumontwikkeling, hoër onderwys, en instruksionele ontwerp spesialiseer. Derhalwe word die term multidissiplinêre span in die titel en deurgaans in die teks gebruik. 'n Belangrike voorwaarde vir die sukses van die samewerking wat ter sprake is, is dat die spanlede mekaar die ruimte gun om elkeen binne sy/haar eie voorkeurdenkmodus 'n bydrae te kan lewer. Leerprosesse wat tydens kurrikulumontwikkelingsessies ter sprake kom, word as geleenthede vir professionele ontwikkeling benut. Elke spanlid kry die geleentheid om oor sy/haar eie prakyk te reflekteer, wat deel vorm van 'n konstruktivistiese professionele leerproses wat die diskoers oor kurrikuluminnovering verryk.The operational context of the research reported in this paper is teaching a module on Information Literacy at university level. The specific focus is on the array of learning style preferences of the academic staff responsible for offering the module and of academic and professional staff responsible for curriculum innovation. The learning style profile data set is used as point of departure for professional development activities. Continuing professional development of academic staff at universities has become an imperative in South Africa. This is inter alia a consequence of the new education dispensation that emphasises the importance of higher education and training that has recently resulted in the South African government appointing a minister of higher education and training for the first time. This imperative is underscored by several initiatives taken by higher education institutions in the country. The University of Pretoria is no exception: Professional development of academic staff is increasingly being highlighted in policy documents, in the welcoming speech of the newly appointed Principal, strategic initiatives in this regard by the office of the Vice-principal responsible for undergraduate studies, the Department for Education Innovation that takes responsibility for academic staff development and the Division for Higher Education in the Faculty of Education that offers a formal higher education qualification. The curriculum innovation process reported is an integral part of the professional development of all involved. The Department of Information Science, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment at the University of Pretoria is responsible for offering a semester module on Information Literacy to all first year students across all faculties annually. The module is presented to more than 8000 students. A textbook, "Navigating Information Literacy: Your information society survival toolkit", written by subject specialists from the Department is used as learning material for the module. Although the module has an acceptable pass rate, the scholarly application of the applicable skills linked to the subject content and learning outcomes is limited and in some cases lacking in subsequent academic years of study. In their endeavour to empower students to develop as lifelong learners the Department introduced a collaborative project. It is entitled "Facilitating Whole Brain Information Literacy: A multidisciplinary research project." At the same time, to empower all staff involved, the Department embarked on a research project that covers aspects such as professional development of staff, which forms the focus of this paper. The professional development of academic staff is one of the sub-projects. The overarching project consists of the following sub-projects: Professional development of academic staff Information literacy across the curriculum Education innovation Leadership and management in higher education Community engagement These sub-projects are closely integrated and confirm the multidisciplinary nature of the project. The multidisciplinary team consists of information science specialists, librarians, instructional designers, educational consultants and staff development professionals. They were invited to participate in a collaborative process to enhance the curriculum, and to design and develop teaching and learning material. The learning material has been developed as a lecturer's "toolkit" that aims at enhancing information literacy skills across the curriculum and instilling a culture of applied information literacy within the learners. The overarching research project commenced with a baseline study. It entailed a quantitative approach to determining the learning style preferences of a cohort of first year students, the lecturers and other professional staff involved. For this purpose the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) (Herrmann 1996) was used. The baseline study, presented at different conferences highlighted the fact that students have different thinking and learning preferences. Therefore, a teaching methodology embracing the notion of "one style fits all" is not effective. It was decided that Herrmann's Whole Brain principles would be applied to all aspects of the project, including multidisciplinary collaboration and cooperation in the context of curriculum innovation. The academic programme under discussion is currently put under a scholarly lens as an investigation from within the Department. An internal locus of control viewpoint is taken when it comes to quality assurance. A scholarly and action research-driven approach is taken. As epistemological underpinning and impetus for education innovation, whole brain learning forms the crux. As research paradigm and process for professional learning action research is promoted. Action research is considered most applicable when it comes to professional development and practitioner research. This paper briefly links the baseline data of the two groups of lecturers and the group of students as background to the discourse on multidisciplinary collaboration below. The curriculum innovation group consists of an array of staff members. So-called professionals include an education consultant, designers of learning material and an information specialist from the library. Two groups of lecturers are implied. A group of senior academics are responsible for developing the academic programme under discussion. The offering of the programme is the responsibility of a group of 16 assistant lecturers. A summary of the research findings highlights the fact that it is clear that the team effort, as discussed in the article, can only be a success if the team consists of members from different disciplines - scholars with the subject knowledge needed for offering the module in question, namely information science and other scholars in the field of curriculum development, higher education and instructional design. For this reason the term multidisciplinary team is used in the title and throughout the text. The success of the collaboration depends on the important condition that each team member is given the opportunity to contribute to the process from the perspective of his/her own preferred mode of thinking. Learning processes that present themselves during the curriculum development process are used as opportunities for professional growth. Each team member is offered the opportunity to reflect on his/her practice that forms part of a constructivist approach to the professional learning process that enriches the curriculum development discourse.http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_akgees.htmlgv201

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Measurement of the top quark mass using charged particles in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

Peer reviewe

MUSiC : a model-unspecific search for new physics in proton-proton collisions at root s=13TeV

Results of the Model Unspecific Search in CMS (MUSiC), using proton-proton collision data recorded at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1), are presented. The MUSiC analysis searches for anomalies that could be signatures of physics beyond the standard model. The analysis is based on the comparison of observed data with the standard model prediction, as determined from simulation, in several hundred final states and multiple kinematic distributions. Events containing at least one electron or muon are classified based on their final state topology, and an automated search algorithm surveys the observed data for deviations from the prediction. The sensitivity of the search is validated using multiple methods. No significant deviations from the predictions have been observed. For a wide range of final state topologies, agreement is found between the data and the standard model simulation. This analysis complements dedicated search analyses by significantly expanding the range of final states covered using a model independent approach with the largest data set to date to probe phase space regions beyond the reach of previous general searches.Peer reviewe