Open access to scholarly communications: advantages, policy and advocacy

The Open Access (OA) movement regards OA modes of disseminating research as the unequivocal future of scholarly communication. Proponents of the open access movement itself have, over the last ten years, carried out systematic research to show how OA can tangibly benefit researchers, institutions and society at large. Even so, the number of research papers being uploaded to OA institutional repositories remains relatively low, frequently based on concerns which often contradict the facts. Policies for OA have been introduced to encourage author uptake, and these are also discussed here. Briefly delineating aspects of these phenomena, this paper will then move on to outline and discuss advocacy for OA in organisations, and whether this should be “downstream”, in the form of informational campaigns, or “upstream”, in the form of top-down change management. This paper seeks to make a contribution to these issues in the OA sphere, by brining into the debate strands from the literature of the sociology of science and management science that will hopefully elucidate aspects of author reactions to OA, and the perceived changes that its adoption gives rise to

Open access to scholarly communications: advantages, policy and advocacy

The Open Access (OA) movement regards OA modes of disseminating research as the unequivocal future of scholarly communication. Proponents of the open access movement itself have, over the last ten years, carried out systematic research to show how OA can tangibly benefit researchers, institutions and society at large. Even so, the number of research papers being uploaded to OA institutional repositories remains relatively low, frequently based on concerns which often contradict the facts. Policies for OA have been introduced to encourage author uptake, and these are also discussed here. Briefly delineating aspects of these phenomena, this paper will then move on to outline and discuss advocacy for OA in organisations, and whether this should be “downstream”, in the form of informational campaigns, or “upstream”, in the form of top-down change management. This paper seeks to make a contribution to these issues in the OA sphere, by brining into the debate strands from the literature of the sociology of science and management science that will hopefully elucidate aspects of author reactions to OA, and the perceived changes that its adoption gives rise to

Denoising time-resolved microscopy image sequences with singular value thresholding.

Time-resolved imaging in microscopy is important for the direct observation of a range of dynamic processes in both the physical and life sciences. However, the image sequences are often corrupted by noise, either as a result of high frame rates or a need to limit the radiation dose received by the sample. Here we exploit both spatial and temporal correlations using low-rank matrix recovery methods to denoise microscopy image sequences. We also make use of an unbiased risk estimator to address the issue of how much thresholding to apply in a robust and automated manner. The performance of the technique is demonstrated using simulated image sequences, as well as experimental scanning transmission electron microscopy data, where surface adatom motion and nanoparticle structural dynamics are recovered at rates of up to 32 frames per second.Junior Research Fellowship from Clare CollegeThis is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2016.05.00

Using an intranet to deliver multimedia training material in colleges

The development of web-based training is now well established and is leading away from the notion of software being released solely on a CD-Rom; instead, it is made available additionally via Internet portals. The significance of this is that colleges with Intranets capable of delivering multimedia via an Intranet are well placed to take advantage of the growing market place for such training. The basis for this research stems from the desire for increasingly faster and more efficient use of multimedia, which is delivered via an Intranet as opposed to the utilisation of CD-Rom technology. The implication is that software/ multimedia authors will develop more efficient systems that take best advantage of existing web-based technologies. The trends evident from the small survey reported, show a general acceptance of the Intranet as a medium for the delivery of teaching and learning materials in addition to the established use of CD-Rom multimedia software. The inference is that the Intranet will not replace CD-Roms; rather, it will be used to complement it. The education and training sector has become a major industry within the multimedia arena. Direction is sought to define the future trends in the development of multimedia training packages and styles from within this sector. The technology opens up new opportunities for learning and is an enabling factor in the restructuring of educational philosophies worldwide. However, the education and training sector has not allowed multimedia to cause a change in direction, rather, it is using it and other Information Technologies to engender and facilitate this required change. It is commonplace to find complex computing equipment in all areas of education and the uptake of multimedia, as a learning resource is widespread. This research seeks to investigate the means of delivering multimedia in an educational context comparing the efficiencies and deficiencies of established techniques for the deployment of educational multimedia

O uso da técnica cliente oculto como ferramenta de avaliação do atendimento aos usuários de bibliotecas públicas: uma experiência brasileira na graduação de Biblioteconomia

In the context of a brief review of some methods and techniques found in the literature on the subject of service evaluation, this article reports the experience of the application of the mystery shopping technique for the assessment of service attendance to the public in a network of public libraries in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Details of how the technique was applied and the tabulated results are presented. Excluding the control group, 60% of the evaluated libraries attained the value of 'excellent' for the variable 'informing', which refers to the ability of the professional helping the user to solve his questions and searches. This result is considered to be highly satisfactory. In relation to the form employed by the personal in charge with the mystery shoppers, the overall evaluation was also very good, with 50% of the libraries attaining the value 'excellent' for the attribute 'greeting//welcoming approach'. The application of the technique occurred in the context of the course module 'Reference and Information Services' offered on the undergraduate LIS course in a federal university in Brazil, with the students of the course acting as the mystery shoppers for the services provided by the assessed public libraries. In this way it was hoped that the exercise might contribute to forming reflexive librarians with the future ability to propose new evidence–based services, procedures and measures

Iterative Methods for the Stochastic Diffusion Problem

It is the purpose of this thesis to develop iterative methods for solving the linear systems that arise from application of the stochastic finite element method to steady-state stochastic diffusion problems. Although the theory herein is sufficiently general to be applicable to a variety of choices for the stochastic finite elements, attention is given to the method of polynomial chaos. For the second-order problem a multigrid algorithm is defined wherein the spatial discretization parameter is varied from grid to grid while the stochastic discretization parameter is held constant. It is demonstrated that the convergence rate of this method is independent of the discretization parameters. For the first-order problem, which produces a linear system that is symmetric and indefinite, the MINRES algorithm is applied with a preconditioner that incorporates a multigrid algorithm. This multigrid algorithm, as for the one applied to the second-order problem, varies the spatial discretization from grid to grid while holding the stochastic discretization parameter constant. Again, it is demonstrated that the convergence rate of this method is independent of the discretization parameters

Investigando o papel de cientistas em estrategias para desenvolvimento sustentavel local : visões e perspectivas da comunidade cientifica

Orientador : Newton Muller PereiraTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de GeocienciasDoutorad