Approximations to b* in the prediction of design effects due to clustering

Kish’s well-known expression for the design effect due to clustering is often used to inform sample design, using an approximation such as b in place of b. If the design involves either weighting or variation in cluster sample sizes, this can be a poor approximation. In this article we discuss the sensitivity of the approximation to departures from the implicit assumptions and propose an alternative approximation

Design effects for multiple design samples

In some situations the sample design of a survey is rather complex, consisting of fundamentally different designs in different domains. The design effect for estimates based upon the total sample is a weighted sum of the domainspecific design effects. We derive these weights under an appropriate model and illustrate their use with data from the European Social Survey (ESS)

The University Library System, University of Pittsburgh: How & Why We Publish

The University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh began its e-journal publishing program in 2007 and in five years has quickly grown to publish 34 peer-reviewed scholarly research journals. In this chapter, we will describe the rationale for and the genesis of this program to publish new original content, explain how the program evolved, and give insight into what direction it is likely to take in the future. The ULS has built an extensive digital publishing program over the past two decades. Beginning with digitization projects to reformat the ULS’ unique collections, the program now includes well over 100,000 digital objects in over 100 thematic digital collections including photographs, manuscripts, maps, books, journal articles, electronic theses and dissertations, government documents, and other gray literature such as working papers, white papers, and technical reports. The development of the ULS publishing program was driven by a strong and enduring institutional commitment to Open Access to scholarly information. The organization has placed strategic emphasis on leadership in transforming the patterns of scholarly communication and supporting researchers not only in discovering and accessing scholarly information, but in the production and sharing of new knowledge and the creation of original scholarly research. In pursuit of these goals, the ULS has developed a suite of specific tools and techniques to build a highly cost-efficient e-journal publishing program. The ULS provides its publishing partners with a hardware and software platform and associated electronic publishing services using the open source Open Journal Systems (OJS) software developed by the Public Knowledge Project. This platform allows for richly customizable management of all stages of editorial workflow. In addition, OJS sports a number of reader tools to enhance content discovery and use, including multilingual support for both online interfaces and content in many languages, persistent URLs, RSS feeds, tools for bookmarking and sharing articles through social networking sites, full-text searching, and compliance with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. Additional services offered by the ULS include consultation on editorial workflow management, software configuration, graphic design services, initial training, online usage statistics, review of all new published issues for metadata quality, and ongoing systems support. The ULS also provides ISSN registration, assigns DOIs, and assists in promotional efforts to establish the journal. Digital preservation is facilitated through LOCKSS. Steps to start up a new scholarly journal are covered. We will also describe common pitfalls to avoid and techniques that help with clear communications and management of mutual expectations between publisher and publishing partners. Quality control is discussed, including careful selection of partners, conducting peer reviews, maintaining academic quality, advising on publishing best practices, and measuring impact. With each passing year and each acquisitions budget cycle, research libraries have more to gain by becoming publishers. By publishing new Open Access content, libraries can not only help meet the most fundamental needs of the researchers they support, but they can simultaneously help transform today’s inflationary cost model for serials. The publication model described in this paper can serve as a guide for libraries wishing to implement similar programs

Model collaboration: university library system and rehabilitation research team to advance telepractice knowledge.

This Publisher's Report describes the collaboration between a university library system's scholarly communication and publishing office and a federally funded research team, the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Telerehabilitation. This novel interdisciplinary collaboration engages librarians, information technologists, publishing professionals, clinicians, policy experts, and engineers and has produced a new Open Access journal, International Journal of Telerehabilitation, and a developing, interactive web-based product dedicated to disseminating information about telerehabilitation. Readership statistics are presented for March 1, 2011 - February 29, 2012

Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talks

This series of talks focuses on issues in scholarly communication and publishing presented to University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh colleagues by staff members of the ULS Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing. Many of these talks feature "toolbox" tips on how to apply knowledge gained from the talks. Links to recordings of the talks are provided when available. For topics and presentations, see the record for each talk

Sustainability and professional sales: a review and future research agenda

Sustainability has become a consideration for every firm operating in today’s business landscape. Scholars are tasked with uncovering bridges and barriers to successfully implement sustainability strategies, and the academic community has largely responded. However, while sustainability research has proliferated across business disciplines, it is conspicuously missing from professional selling and sales management. This is partly due to conceptual ambiguity, but also because sustainability generally involves firm-level policies and programs, and therefore domains like consumer behavior, marketing strategy, and supply chain management have occupied the space. This is problematic because while executives develop sustainability strategies, the sales force is responsible for conveying those priorities to external stakeholders. Therefore, the goals of our manuscript are to: 1) organize and refine the definition of sustainability in a professional selling context, 2) review relevant literature that examines sustainability in that context, 3) explore emergent themes from this review that 4) reveal gaps in our understanding, and 5) present a research agenda for sales scholars to bridge these gaps and advance our understanding of the role of sustainability in sales and vice versa

Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talk #12: Kickstarting Open Access Week 2014

For the June 2014 talk, we discussed plans for Open Access Week 2014, the 7th Open Access Week commemorated internationally and the 4th at Pitt. We began with a report on the recent SPARC-sponsored 2014 Open Access Week Planning Kickoff Webcast. Featuring speakers from California, Kansas, and Kenya, the webcast offered many good ideas on how to engage faculty, students, and library colleagues in Open Access Week activities and scholarly communications issues. Then we continued with some brainstorming to generate ideas on how we can use Open Access Week to get our message out about the open sharing of knowledge and how we can all deliver that message in a way that resonates with Pitt faculty and students. We also discussed some of our ideas for this year's Open Access Week, scheduled for October 20-26, 2014

Three-dimensional Models of Core-collapse Supernovae From Low-mass Progenitors With Implications for Crab

We present 3D full-sphere supernova simulations of non-rotating low-mass (~9 Msun) progenitors, covering the entire evolution from core collapse through bounce and shock revival, through shock breakout from the stellar surface, until fallback is completed several days later. We obtain low-energy explosions [~(0.5-1.0)x 10^{50} erg] of iron-core progenitors at the low-mass end of the core-collapse supernova (LMCCSN) domain and compare to a super-AGB (sAGB) progenitor with an oxygen-neon-magnesium core that collapses and explodes as electron-capture supernova (ECSN). The onset of the explosion in the LMCCSN models is modelled self-consistently using the Vertex-Prometheus code, whereas the ECSN explosion is modelled using parametric neutrino transport in the Prometheus-HOTB code, choosing different explosion energies in the range of previous self-consistent models. The sAGB and LMCCSN progenitors that share structural similarities have almost spherical explosions with little metal mixing into the hydrogen envelope. A LMCCSN with less 2nd dredge-up results in a highly asymmetric explosion. It shows efficient mixing and dramatic shock deceleration in the extended hydrogen envelope. Both properties allow fast nickel plumes to catch up with the shock, leading to extreme shock deformation and aspherical shock breakout. Fallback masses of <~5x10^{-3} Msun have no significant effects on the neutron star (NS) masses and kicks. The anisotropic fallback carries considerable angular momentum, however, and determines the spin of the newly-born NS. The LMCCSNe model with less 2nd dredge-up results in a hydrodynamic and neutrino-induced NS kick of >40 km/s and a NS spin period of ~30 ms, both not largely different from those of the Crab pulsar at birth.Comment: 47 pages, 27 figures, 6 tables; minor revisions, accepted by MNRA

Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talk #1: ULS Journal Publishing -- Why We Do It

This series of talks focuses on issues in scholarly communication and publishing presented to University Library System (ULS), University of Pittsburgh colleagues by staff members of the ULS Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing. Many of these talks feature "toolbox" tips on how to apply knowledge gained from the talks. Links to recordings of the talks are provided when available. For topics and presentations, see the record for each talk

Short-term exposure to heat stress attenuates appetite and intestinal integrity in growing pigs 1

Acute heat stress (HS) and heat stroke can be detrimental to the health, well-being, and performance of mammals such as swine. Therefore, our objective was to chronologically characterize how a growing pig perceives and initially copes with a severe heat load. Crossbred gilts (n=32; 63.8±2.9 kg) were subjected to HS conditions (37°C and 40% humidity) with ad libitum intake for 0, 2, 4, or 6 h (n=8/time point). Rectal temperature (Tr), respiration rates (RR), and feed intake were determined every 2 h. Pigs were euthanized at each time point and fresh ileum and colon samples were mounted into modified Ussing chambers to assess ex vivo intestinal integrity and function. Transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) and fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled dextran (FD4) permeability were assessed. As expected, Tr increased linearly over time (P\u3c0.001) with the highest temperature observed at 6 h of HS. Compared to the 0-h thermal-neutral (TN) pigs, RR increased (230%; P\u3c0.001) in the first 2 h and remained elevated over the 6 h of HS (P\u3c0.05). Feed intake was dramatically reduced due to HS and this corresponded with significant changes in plasma glucose, ghrelin, and glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (P\u3c0.050). At as early as 2 h of HS, ileum TER linearly decreased (P\u3c0.01), while FD4 linearly increased with time (P\u3c0.05). Colon TER and FD4 changed due to HS in quadratic responses over time (P=0.050) similar to the ileum but were less pronounced. In response to HS, ileum and colon heat shock protein (HSP) 70 mRNA and protein abundance increased linearly over time (P\u3c0.050). Altogether, these data indicated that a short duration of HS (2-6 h) compromised feed intake and intestinal integrity in growing pigs