Show me the data!: Partnering with instructors to teach data literacy

The shift to quantitative research methods in social science disciplines is not news in today’s academy, however the relative ease of acquiring data sets via the Internet and the availability of online analysis and visualization tools have brought data into the mainstream of instruction in many academic departments. Teaching faculty are increasingly using numeric and spatial data sets in their courses. In turn, faculty and students need specialized instruction in finding, formatting and analyzing data. Academic libraries have supported data users for decades, but only recently has “data services” appeared widely in library job titles and advertised services. As demonstrated by the recent library literature, a new profession in the library has emerged, "Data Services Librarian." It is progressively clear that academic libraries are positioning data services offerings in order to support teaching and learning. Since there is not a single model for data services in academic libraries, each library faces its own challenges and opportunities in understanding how relevant data service offerings could be constructed to meet the disciplinary needs of an institution. At a large Midwestern university, the library partnered with an established data consulting service on campus to offer fifteen hours per week of consultation office hours. As the number of consultations increased, the assigned library committee was able to consider ways to expand the service. A survey of faculty, staff, and graduate students across academic departments was conducted to examine the use of data sets in research and/or teaching. This survey informed ongoing efforts including what type of data sets in which to invest monies, demand for specific software and the hardware necessary to support it, prioritizing training for librarians and staff, and working with the institutional repository for archiving data sets. The contributed paper will look closely at survey results in relation to teaching with data, discuss implications for instructors who are using data and consider how the library can expand data services to support teaching. The paper will focus on addressing the following questions: 1. What kind of assistance do instructors want from the library to support their teaching and for their students working with data sets? 2. How can the library develop partnerships and programs to meet these needs creatively, given existing financial constraints and skill levels? 3. What types of assessment data will need to be gathered in order to demonstrate that programs and training are successful? Our survey findings will be used as a starting point in consideration of the issues librarians face to support courses that work with data sets. The presentation will complement research findings as enumerated in the contributed paper by discussing the overall impact of data needs on library services. Final paper conclusions will argue that training needs to extend beyond simply helping users to access data sets by graduating to a deeper understanding for how faculty and students use data. In other words, the area of data services requires librarians to take a leadership role in advocating for true research partnerships. Learning outcomes: 1. Attendees will be introduced to how a sample of teaching faculty are using data sets in instruction in order to promote conversation regarding data services at their institution. 2. Attendees will learn about ways in which librarians can support courses that work with data sets by partnering with instructors in order to generate ideas for possible service offerings at their institutions. 3. Attendees will identify other librarians with similar issues in offering data services in order to develop a peer network for brainstorming and sharing of best practices.unpublishedis peer reviewe

Modelling the circular polarisation of Earth-like exoplanets: constraints on detecting homochirality

Stars and planetary system

Semantics-based information extraction for detecting economic events

As today's financial markets are sensitive to breaking news on economic events, accurate and timely automatic identification of events in news items is crucial. Unstructured news items originating from many heterogeneous sources have to be mined in order to extract knowledge useful for guiding decision making processes. Hence, we propose the Semantics-Based Pipeline for Economic Event Detection (SPEED), focusing on extracting financial events from news articles and annotating these with meta-data at a speed that enables real-time use. In our implementation, we use some components of an existing framework as well as new components, e.g., a high-performance Ontology Gazetteer, a Word Group Look-Up component, a Word Sense Disambiguator, and components for detecting economic events. Through their interaction with a domain-specific ontology, our novel, semantically enabled components constitute a feedback loop which fosters future reuse of acquired knowledge in the event detection process

Macromolecular Traits in the African Rice Oryza glaberrima and in Glaberrima/Sativa Crosses, and Their Relevance to Processing

Molecular properties of proteins and starch were investigated in 2 accessions of Oryza glaberrima and Oryza sativa, and in one NERICA cross between the 2 species, to assess traits that could be relevant to transformation into specific foods. Protein nature and organization in O. glaberrima were different from those in O. sativa and in NERICA. Despite the similar cysteine content in all samples, thiol accessibility in O. glaberrima proteins was higher than in NERICA or in O. sativa. Inter-protein disulphide bonds were important for the formation of protein aggregates in O. glaberrima, whereas non-covalent protein-protein interactions were relevant in NERICA and O. sativa. DSC and NMR studies indicated only minor differences in the structure of starch in these species, as also made evident by their microstructural features. Nevertheless, starch gelatinization in O. glaberrima was very different from what was observed in O. sativa and NERICA. The content of soluble species in gelatinized starch from the various species in the presence/absence of treatments with specific enzymes indicated that release of small starch breakdown products was lowest in O. glaberrima, in particular from the amylopectin component. These findings may explain the low glycemic index of O. glaberrima, and provide a rationale for extending the use of O. glaberrima in the production of specific rice-based products, thus improving the economic value and the market appeal of African crops

Lysozyme side effects in Grana Padano PDO cheese: new perspective after 30 years using

Since thirty years, hen\u2019s egg white lysozyme is in use as an anti-clostridial agent in Grana Padano PDO cheese manufacturing in order to avoid the cheese blowing defect. However, as the EU legislation includes egg among allergens, Grana Padano falls into the category of food products containing allergens. In view of discontinuing this situation, this work aimed to investigate the effects of abandoning lysozyme use on cheese characteristics. Nine manufacturing processes, conducted with and without lysozyme, were monitored from milk to ripened cheese at four different dairies. Both the lactic acid bacteria microbiota (LAB) and chemical parameters related to cheese maturation were evaluated. The presence of the enzyme seems to affect the capacity of some LAB species and biotypes to grow in cheese during ripening. Accordingly, primary proteolysis was not affected, whereas differences were found in amino acids release that could be traced back to the lysozyme-dependent LAB growth

Proteolytic Activity and Production of γ-Aminobutyric Acid by Streptococcus thermophilus Cultivated in Microfiltered Pasteurized Milk

A set of 191 strains of Streptococcus thermophilus were preliminarily screened for the presence of the genes codifying for cell envelope-associated proteinase (prtS) and for glutamate decarboxylase (gadB) responsible for \u3b3-aminobutyric acid (GABA) production. The growth and proteolytic activity of the gadB-positive strains (9 presenting the prtS gene and 11 lacking it) were studied in microfiltered pasteurized milk. Degradation of both caseins (capillary electrophoresis) and soluble nitrogen fractions (HPLC) and changes in the profile of free amino acids (FAAs; ion-exchange chromatography) were evaluated at inoculation and after 6 and 24 h of incubation at 41 \ub0C. None of the strains was capable of hydrolyzing caseins and \u3b2-lactoglobulin, and only two hydrolyzed part of \u3b1-lactalbumin, these proteins being present in their native states in pasteurized milk. Contrarily, most strains were able to hydrolyze peptones and peptides. For initial growth, most strains relied on the FAAs present in milk, whereas, after 6 h, prtS+ strains released variable amounts of FAA. One prtS+ strain expressed a PrtS- phenotype, and two prtS- strains showed a rather intense proteolytic activity. Only five strains (all prtS+) produced GABA, in variable quantities (up to 100 mg/L) and at different rates, depending on the acidification strength. Addition of glutamate did not induce production of GABA in nonproducing strains that, however, unexpectedly were shown to adopt the degradation of arginine into citrulline and ornithine as an alternative acid resistance system and likely as a source of ATP