Strengthening Health Science Libraries and Information Centres in Nigeria through Library Collaboration: The Role of Librarians

Objectives: There is an urgent need for the collaboration between health science libraries and medical research institute in various regions of Nigeria, so as not dissipating their meager resources by trying to specialize in every aspect of medicine at the same time. This need is the after effect of years of economic challenges, insufficient manpower development, dilapidated infrastructure, poor information record keeping, inadequate financial support for research , among many others have resulted in the inability of health sciences libraries and medical research institute to meet up, in a timely manner with the information needs of healthcare providers in Nigeria. Methods: Thirty–four librarians of academic and officer cadre of three first generation university medical colleges and on medical research institute were surveyed. Results: Findings from the investigation revealed that Increase in depth of collection development, Increase in service to clients, Cost saving and Sharing of resources were the major reasons for library collaborations. Resources in the form of financial, human and leadership were the greatest facilitators to successful collaboration among medical libraries. The collaborators Need and knowledge of the accruable benefits and ability to was the highest factors that facilitated collaboration among medical libraries in Nigeria. Several resources of the libraries are already used for collaboration among medical libraries. These include coping and duplicating, Professional Issues, Inter library lending/loan services, and computerized searches of online data bases are the highest in ranking. The major barriers to library cooperation were Funding and Financial Issues. Poor power supply, lack of vision, fear of loss of control and Lack of telecommunication facilities also constituted barriers. Conclusion: Collaboration among medical libraries in Nigeria is already in existence and could get better if Library leaders understand their library’s areas of strength, identified their Library resources and services that will promote effective collaboration between their health institutes and other medical libraries in support of free access to health information. It is recommended that Library leaders must take advantage of their library’s area of strength, New Information and communication Technology, the internet and the world wide web in the inter library collaboration in this digital ag

Time Dependent Finite Difference Modeling of Outgassing of Asteroids via Bulk Heating

We have developed an integrated mathematical model of the outgassing processes associated with thermal mining of carbonaceous asteroids based on thermodynamics, geophysics, and gas-dynamic considerations to account for variability in material properties. This is a time dependent quasi-one-dimensional model of the heating and diffusion of volatiles as they are outgassed from a spherical target. The model accounts for radiative heat transfer into the surface, conductive heat transfer through the interior, and endothermic phase change processes of water and selected other volatiles bound within constituent minerals. The model is based on theoretical considerations with empirical factors for unknown quantities. This model was implemented as a numerical simulation via finite differences and programmed in Python. We used the program to simulate several scenarios mirroring those tested in the experimental effort as well as direct bulk heating of large-scale systems with an eye toward eventual mission application. In the related experimental program 200 to 700 gram samples of granular serpentine mineral, agglomerated and granular Carbonaceous Ivuna (CI) type meteorite simulants, and a Carbonaceous Mighei (CM) type meteorite (Jbilet-Winselwan) where heated in an instrumented vacuum system with outgassed volatiles collected in a cryotrap. The model gave good agreement with experimental results for the serpentine and the CI simulants, predicting a total water yield within 10% of that found from the experiments. Carbon dioxide yield predictions were also in close agreement with experiment; however, predictions for other carbonaceous gas species were less successful due to uncertainties in the stoichiometry of released volatiles. The model of a typical CM meteorite composition over-predicted the total water yield of the CM meteorite relative to experiment probably due to differences between the modeled composition and the actual meteorite composition, which was not available at the time of publication. We also used the model to simulate heating of full-scale CI-composition asteroids in space. We found that water extraction by simple heating is too slow a process to have direct industrial value. There is an upper size limit for practical volatiles production from individual bodies, controlled by the production rate required. Work on a related process called Optical Mining™ is examining approaches to improve production rates

Producing volatiles from Asteroid simulants: Preliminary results

A range of materials representative of carbonaceous near-Earth asteroids was subjected to stepwise heating in vacuum to investigate volatiles release and capture behavior in space. Results show that most of the mass lost during heating is predictable by well-known reactions: dehydroxylation, dehydration, and pyrolysis. Cryotrapping was shown to effectively capture the volatiles produced. These findings form a base for additional investigations, so that the trade space of potential processes for extracting volatile compounds from carbonaceous solar system bodies can be explored effectively