To Boldly Go: E-Reserves from Home-Grown to Standalone to CMS

Presented at the 2014 Access Services Conference, November 12-14, 2014, Georgia Tech Global Learning Center and the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, Atlanta, Georgia.Many academic libraries are abandoning standalone e-reserves systems, instead saving money and maximizing ease of access for students by utilizing whatever online course management system their campus has adopted. The University of West Georgia is also attempting to use this move to introduce faculty to the concept of using open access texts or materials already available within our subscription databases, instead of expensive textbooks

Effect of Hydrocortisone on Mortality and Organ Support in Patients With Severe COVID-19: The REMAP-CAP COVID-19 Corticosteroid Domain Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Evidence regarding corticosteroid use for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is limited. Objective: To determine whether hydrocortisone improves outcome for patients with severe COVID-19. Design, Setting, and Participants: An ongoing adaptive platform trial testing multiple interventions within multiple therapeutic domains, for example, antiviral agents, corticosteroids, or immunoglobulin. Between March 9 and June 17, 2020, 614 adult patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled and randomized within at least 1 domain following admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) for respiratory or cardiovascular organ support at 121 sites in 8 countries. Of these, 403 were randomized to open-label interventions within the corticosteroid domain. The domain was halted after results from another trial were released. Follow-up ended August 12, 2020. Interventions: The corticosteroid domain randomized participants to a fixed 7-day course of intravenous hydrocortisone (50 mg or 100 mg every 6 hours) (n = 143), a shock-dependent course (50 mg every 6 hours when shock was clinically evident) (n = 152), or no hydrocortisone (n = 108). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary end point was organ support-free days (days alive and free of ICU-based respiratory or cardiovascular support) within 21 days, where patients who died were assigned -1 day. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model that included all patients enrolled with severe COVID-19, adjusting for age, sex, site, region, time, assignment to interventions within other domains, and domain and intervention eligibility. Superiority was defined as the posterior probability of an odds ratio greater than 1 (threshold for trial conclusion of superiority >99%). Results: After excluding 19 participants who withdrew consent, there were 384 patients (mean age, 60 years; 29% female) randomized to the fixed-dose (n = 137), shock-dependent (n = 146), and no (n = 101) hydrocortisone groups; 379 (99%) completed the study and were included in the analysis. The mean age for the 3 groups ranged between 59.5 and 60.4 years; most patients were male (range, 70.6%-71.5%); mean body mass index ranged between 29.7 and 30.9; and patients receiving mechanical ventilation ranged between 50.0% and 63.5%. For the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively, the median organ support-free days were 0 (IQR, -1 to 15), 0 (IQR, -1 to 13), and 0 (-1 to 11) days (composed of 30%, 26%, and 33% mortality rates and 11.5, 9.5, and 6 median organ support-free days among survivors). The median adjusted odds ratio and bayesian probability of superiority were 1.43 (95% credible interval, 0.91-2.27) and 93% for fixed-dose hydrocortisone, respectively, and were 1.22 (95% credible interval, 0.76-1.94) and 80% for shock-dependent hydrocortisone compared with no hydrocortisone. Serious adverse events were reported in 4 (3%), 5 (3%), and 1 (1%) patients in the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively. Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with severe COVID-19, treatment with a 7-day fixed-dose course of hydrocortisone or shock-dependent dosing of hydrocortisone, compared with no hydrocortisone, resulted in 93% and 80% probabilities of superiority with regard to the odds of improvement in organ support-free days within 21 days. However, the trial was stopped early and no treatment strategy met prespecified criteria for statistical superiority, precluding definitive conclusions. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02735707

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

The Myth of Urban Unity. Religion and Social Performance in Late Medieval Braunschweig

Arlinghaus F-J. The Myth of Urban Unity. Religion and Social Performance in Late Medieval Braunschweig. In: Goodson C, Lester AE, Symes C, eds. Cities, Texts, and Social Networks, 400-1500: Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Urban Space. Farnham: Ashgate; 2010: 215-232

I did it my way: Voice, visuality and identity in doctoral students’ reflexive videonarratives on their doctoral research journeys

This paper presents four accounts of UK doctoral students’ engagement in a Higher Education Academy project which used digital video to promote participants’ reflexivity on their doctoral journeys. It focuses on the relations between doctoral research, reflexivity and the use of digital video, and how these relations are articulated in different ways by the project participants in the production of, and reflection on, their own videonarrative. As an ‘assemblage’, the written form of the paper aims to evoke both the collaborative design of the project, in that the paper is constructed as a multivocality, a series of ‘plateaus’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p22), and also the multiple, shifting and always in-process nature of identity, immanent in each individual’s account. In different ways, the accounts address how epistemological, ontological and ethical considerations are articulated within a visual and vocal re-presentation of the self in the form of individual videonarratives. Each narrative both does (and doesn’t) resonate with the others’ narratives and each offers unique insights into the specificities of a particular doctoral journey. In experimenting with this form of presentation, the aim is to bypass traditional accounts of research ‘findings’ as a form of transparent knowledge production and, instead, work within a mode of representation which seeks to acknowledge what Lather (2007, p119) calls the ‘masks of methodology’. Keywords: voice, visuality, identity, doctoral students, reflexivity, videonarrativ