Introduction

Bibliographic, full-text and multimedia databases available through intranets, extranets and the Internet are of paramount importance to all organizations large and small. Networked information services have proved to be an indispensable part of every day lives of users working for both commercial and non-profit organizations as well as of more casual users with personal interests to pursue. Almost half a billion people try to get access to networked information sources and services every day. More often than not they are confronted with too much information. Although search engines, “knowbots”, and “intelligent agents” are of some use in this area, trying to find information among billions of electronic sources is likened to trying to “drink water from a fire hydrant”. Well-designed electronic information management systems and services can facilitate users’ tasks and enable them to better cope with too much information in their private and professional lives. This special issue of Information Services & Use on Electronic Information Management aims to review current developments in electronic information management. Authors of six papers explore a wide variety of operational and policy issues with regards to electronic information management ranging from available sources and services to the description, organization, management, preservation and archiving of electronic information collections to infrastructure, and intellectual property rights of electronic information provision

Harnessing NASA Goddard’s Grey Literature: The Power of a Repository Framework

This article submitted to IUPUI ScholarWorks as part of the OASIS Project. Article reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Permission granted through posted policies on copyright owner’s website or through direct contact with copyright owner.The NASA Goddard Library collaborated with several projects on-Center to create a framework for the development of web-accessible repositories of grey literature. Tools and methods for collaboration were developed through a series of prototypes with a variety of Goddard projects based on the Library’s Digital Asset System (DAS), a repository to describe and provide access to project information including images, videos, web sites, and technical reports. Metadata is a key component of this framework. The Goddard Core Metadata Element Set, an extension of the Dublin Core, is used to describe these resources. Additional elements include project name, project code and instrument name. A taxonomy of controlled subject terms has been developed which can also be extended and tailored for each project. This provides consistent searching across the DAS, while at the same time enhancing the search precision for each project collection when it is accessed as a separate collection in the DAS or through its own web site. To-date, the Library has used the framework with a number of different projects. A commemorative CD with key documents, web sites and oral histories by the project managers was developed for the Hitchhiker Project as it was being disbanded. Metadata from the Swift project library was transformed and made more accessible with pointers to documents in the Swift project library. The Landsat Legacy Project, a joint project with the Landsat Program Science Office, the US Geological Survey, and the NASA History Office, is creating an archive of essential technical-, policy-, and science-related documentation. To gather significant documentation from the over 35-year-multi-agency history of Landsat, the Library added components for external submission of documents for potential inclusion in the new repository and for scanning paper documents. In addition, video histories are being captured from Landsat veterans. Through these projects, the NASA Goddard Library has developed a methodology for collaborating with different kinds of projects. It involves procedures for analyzing the needs of a project and determining how the metadata, taxonomy, and interface might need to change, while remaining consistent with the DAS framework for cross-repository access. Ultimately, the Library plans to extend the effort to other projects. (At any given point in time, Goddard has more than 30 projects in various stages of completion.) As part of Goddard’s knowledge management activities, the DAS provides a framework for sharing grey literature that would otherwise be scattered across independent project libraries. Benefits include the ability to more quickly find and reuse information to decrease project costs, enhance safety and promote innovation

A Study of First- and Continuing-Generation College Students\u27 Use of Internet Communication Technologies in Social Capital and Its Contribution to Their Persistence in College

Prior studies have shown that students who are the first in their families to attend college fail to persist in college more so than their continuing-generation (CG) counterparts do. Prior research on this phenomenon has helped to identify various factors that contribute to the lower college persistence of first-generation (FG) students. For example, social capital has been identified as a factor that improves student persistence in college. Prior studies have shown that FG students tend to enter college with lower social capital than their CG student counterparts do. Additionally, while in school, FG students tend not to engage in behaviors that can help them in the creation of social capital. There has been growing research on how Internet communication technologies (ICTs) may be used as a resource in the creation of social capital. Specifically, there have been several studies that have examined how the Internet has provided opportunities for the creation of both bonding (relationships with persons inside one\u27s cultural network, like family and close friends) and bridging (persons outside one\u27s cultural network) forms of social capital. This study used a non-experimental design approach to compare the differences in technology-enabled bonding (TEBD) and technology-enabled bridging (TEBR) behaviors of FG and CG students. This study also used a predictive design approach aimed at predicting the persistence in college of first-year students based on the contributions of TEBD and TEBR behaviors, as well as socioeconomic status (SES) and high school grade point average (GPA). Finally, this study sought to develop and validate an instrument that could reliably measure the TEBD and TEBR behaviors of college students for use in future studies. A sample of 316 full-time first- to second-year students at a small, private, college in the Midwestern United States were surveyed on the dimensions of their TEBD (emotional support, access to resources, and sociability behavior) and TEBR (involvement in campus activities, contact with others unlike themselves, sociability behaviors, and academic activities) behaviors, as well as three dimensions of SES (parental education, parental income, and parental occupations) and high school GPA. Findings of this study showed there was no significant difference in the TEBD and TEBR behaviors of FG and CG students, which in itself is significant. Additionally, this study found high school GPA and one dimension of SES (parental income) to be positive predictors of student persistence in college. This study also found one dimension of TEBD (access to resources), one dimension of TEBR (contact with others unlike themselves), and one dimension of SES (parental occupation), to be negative predictors of student persistence in college. This study made the following three important contributions: 1) the development of an instrument for measuring TEBD and TEBR behaviors of college students; 2) an investigation of the differences in TEBD and TEBR behaviors of FG and CG students; and, 3) an investigation of key constructs that contribute to student persistence from their first-to-second year of college. Recommendations for future research were made which included extending this research to 1) include other types of technology communication devices, such as cell phones; 2) examine the contributions of TEBD and TEBR to persistence in college between semesters; 3) improve the methodology for collecting survey data; and 4) investigate if there are significant differences between FG and CG students on the amount of time spent online engaged in social and academic activities, as well as examine if time spent online is a predictor of student persistence in college

Electronic Collection Management and Electronic Information Services

This post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of the article submitted to IUPUI Scholar Works as part of the OASIS Project. Article reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Permission granted through posted policies on copyright owner’s website or through direct contact with copyright owner.As the life cycle of information products has become increasingly digital from “cradle to grave”, the nature of electronic information management has dramatically changed. These changes have brought new strategies and methods as well as new issues and challenges. At the bottom line the services are increasingly delivered to a desktop from distributed publishers or information providers. Information organizations act either as primary information providers or as brokers between the user and the primary service provider. This paper covers developments in the factors and strategies affecting collection management and access. It discusses major trends in electronic user services including electronic information delivery, information discovery and electronic reference. Finally, it addresses the challenges in user and personnel education in response to this electronic environment and an increasingly information literate user population

Using peer review to support development of community resources for research data management

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication. The definitive version was published in Journal of eScience Librarianship 6 (2017): e1114, doi:10.7191/jeslib.2017.1114.To ensure that resources designed to teach skills and best practices for scientific research data sharing and management are useful, the maintainers of those materials need to evaluate and update them to ensure their accuracy, currency, and quality. This paper advances the use and process of outside peer review for community resources in addressing ongoing accuracy, quality, and currency issues. It further describes the next step of moving the updated materials to an online collaborative community platform for future iterative review in order to build upon mechanisms for open science, ongoing iteration, participation, and transparent community engagement.DataONE is supported by US National Science Foundation Awards 08- 30944 and 14-30508, William Michener, Principal Investigator; Matthew Jones, Patricia Cruse, David Vieglais, and Suzanne Allard, Co-Principal Investigators

Gas-Phase Ambient Air Contaminants Exhibit Significant Dioxin-like and Estrogen-like Activity in Vitro

Several adverse health effects, such as respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity, have been linked to exposure to particulate matter in ambient air; however, the biologic activity of gas-phase ambient organic air contaminants has not been examined as thoroughly. Using aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR)–based and estrogen receptor (ER)–based cell bioassay systems, we assessed the dioxin-like and estrogenic activities of gas-phase organic ambient air contaminants compared with those of particulate-phase contaminants using samples collected between seasons over 2 years from an urban and a rural location in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada. The concentration of the sum (∑) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which was highest in the gas phase, was 10–100 times more abundant than that of ∑polychlorinated biphenyls, ∑nitro-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and ∑organochlorine pesticides, and 10(3) to 10(4) times more abundant than ∑polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins/dibenzofurans. Gas-phase samples induced significant AHR- and ER-dependent gene expression. The activity of the gas-phase samples was greater than that of the particulate-phase samples in the estrogen assay and, in one case, in the AHR assay. We found no strong associations between either summer or winter seasons or urban or rural locations in the relative efficacy of the extracts in either the ER or AHR assay despite differences in chemical composition, concentrations, and abundance. Our results suggest that mechanistic studies of the health effects of ambient air must consider gas and particulate phases because chemicals present in both phases can affect AHR and ER signaling pathways

Poxvirus-based vaccine therapy for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Purpose</p> <p>An open-label Phase 1 study of recombinant prime-boost poxviruses targeting CEA and MUC-1 in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer was conducted to determine safety, tolerability and obtain preliminary data on immune response and survival.</p> <p>Patients and methods</p> <p>Ten patients with advanced pancreatic cancer were treated on a Phase I clinical trial. The vaccination regimen consisted of vaccinia virus expressing tumor antigens carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and mucin-1 (MUC-1) with three costimulatory molecules B7.1, ICAM-1 and LFA-3 (TRICOM) (PANVAC-V) and fowlpox virus expressing the same antigens and costimulatory molecules (PANVAC-F). Patients were primed with PANVAC-V followed by three booster vaccinations using PANVAC-F. Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) was used as a local adjuvant after each vaccination and for 3 consecutive days thereafter. Monthly booster vaccinations for up to 12 months were provided for patients without progressive disease. Peripheral blood was collected before, during and after vaccinations for immune analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The most common treatment-related adverse events were mild injection-site reactions. Antibody responses against vaccinia virus was observed in all 10 patients and antigen-specific T cell responses were observed in 5 out of 8 evaluable patients (62.5%). Median overall survival was 6.3 months and a significant increase in overall survival was noted in patients who generated anti CEA- and/or MUC-1-specific immune responses compared with those who did not (15.1 vs 3.9 months, respectively; <it>P </it>= .002).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Poxvirus vaccination is safe, well tolerated, and capable of generating antigen-specific immune responses in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.</p

Large-scale genome-wide association studies and meta-analyses of longitudinal change in adult lung function.

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous loci influencing cross-sectional lung function, but less is known about genes influencing longitudinal change in lung function. METHODS: We performed GWAS of the rate of change in forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) in 14 longitudinal, population-based cohort studies comprising 27,249 adults of European ancestry using linear mixed effects model and combined cohort-specific results using fixed effect meta-analysis to identify novel genetic loci associated with longitudinal change in lung function. Gene expression analyses were subsequently performed for identified genetic loci. As a secondary aim, we estimated the mean rate of decline in FEV1 by smoking pattern, irrespective of genotypes, across these 14 studies using meta-analysis. RESULTS: The overall meta-analysis produced suggestive evidence for association at the novel IL16/STARD5/TMC3 locus on chromosome 15 (P  =  5.71 × 10(-7)). In addition, meta-analysis using the five cohorts with ≥3 FEV1 measurements per participant identified the novel ME3 locus on chromosome 11 (P  =  2.18 × 10(-8)) at genome-wide significance. Neither locus was associated with FEV1 decline in two additional cohort studies. We confirmed gene expression of IL16, STARD5, and ME3 in multiple lung tissues. Publicly available microarray data confirmed differential expression of all three genes in lung samples from COPD patients compared with controls. Irrespective of genotypes, the combined estimate for FEV1 decline was 26.9, 29.2 and 35.7 mL/year in never, former, and persistent smokers, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: In this large-scale GWAS, we identified two novel genetic loci in association with the rate of change in FEV1 that harbor candidate genes with biologically plausible functional links to lung function