Cost Studies of Borrowing & Subscriptions:Chinese Dissertations Theses

The purpose of this study is to compare the cost of inter-library loan (ILL) service to borrow Chinese language monographs verses the per item usage cost through database subscription, using the Chinese dissertation and theses (d&t) database as an example. In recent years, many publicly-funded research and institutional electronic d&t have been mandated for open access by official OA policies. However, since most OA d&T are limited to STE titles at present, scholars in North America still have to use ILL services or use library subscribed d&t databases to access Chinese language d&t. The ILL Chinese monograph borrowing cost is based on the Lars Leon and Nancy Kress 2012 study and with further assistance provided by Lars Leon. The uncontrolled cost data used for the ILL study were October 2012 Chinese Japanese and Korean (CJK) language monographs borrowing costs of the University of Kansas (KU). The elements of cost studied include the cost charged by suppliers, staff handling, equipment/system maintenance, and postage. In addition, several d&t were borrowed through KU ILL from national libraries of China, Japan, and South Korea that were not available in North America for a controlled study. Although the ILL cost study in the presentation included Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, the cost study of d&t databases by subscription is for Chinese language only because of the commercial d&t database availability and practices of OA in Japan and Korea. Chinese d&t subscription cost per download was a study of subscriptions of two Chinese d&t databases, and their cost and usage by 11 North America East Asian libraries plus the University of California system in 2011 and 2012. The result shows ILL borrowing cost is similar to the cost at the higher end in the range of per item usage cost. Other commercial models such as the pay-per-use were suggested due to the similar cost of subscription and ILL, if subject areas are not as demanding and/or if the user population is smaller. The study finding can be used to assist East Asian libraries in North America to make data driven collection management decisions. On the other hand, the data may convince a few Chinese databases publishers and vendors to offer pay-per-use service. PPU service is more affordable for medium and small size libraries which have been using their ILL services to get materials that are not subscribed due to database subscription package costs. The presentation concluded that purchasing, borrowing, lending/leasing, and open access sources of library collections are shifting quickly due to the acquisition of more electronic resources, the open access policy, and the economic downturn and budget cuts

Problems in the Establishment of Nonunique Chinese Personal Headings with Special Reference to NACO Guidelines and Vendor-Supplied Authority Control

Current vendor software for authority control is found to generate negative results for nonunique Chinese headings in the local catalog. After authority control, nonunique Chinese names in the bibliographic records are found routinely altered to match authority headings established in the Library of Congress (LC) authority file that are unrelated to the Chinese script of the bibliographic record. Headings with standard diacritics in the Wade-Giles romanization scheme are the most problematic. The name headings that are negatively affected in the authority control services need to be corrected before the LC Pinyin conversion project takes place around the year 2000 to prevent headings from being distorted further in the Pinyin conversion process. In this paper, I examine the reasons why vendor software produces negative results for nonunique Chinese names, and suggest measures for Chinese-Japanese-Korean (CJK) libraries in North America and vendors who supply authority-control services that include CJK data to improve the situation. These include vendor software upgrades, modifications to CJK Name Authority Cooperative procedures, etc. The authority control service at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is used to illustrate the problem

Text difficulty in extensive reading: Reading comprehension and reading motivation

This study investigates the effects of the text difficulty of extensive reading materials on the reading comprehension and reading motivation of English as a foreign language (EFL) vocational high school students in Taiwan. Two experimental groups were assigned, on an individual basis, to read graded readers at either one level below (‘i-1’) or one level beyond (‘i+1’) their current level, while a control group followed their regular curriculum. The results showed that after treatment, the ‘i-1’ group improved their overall comprehension and the subset of literal comprehension. They also outperformed the ‘i+1’ group on the same measures. For reading motivation, the ‘i+1’ group’s overall motivation was promoted. Both groups enhanced their reading engagement, while only the ‘i-1’ group inhibited reading avoidance. Moreover, the ‘i+1’ group outperformed the ‘i-1’ group in the perception of self-efficacy. Overall, the ‘i-1’ level yielded better effects on reading comprehension; the ‘i+1’ level, on reading motivation

GPS multi-receiver direct position estimation for aerial applications

Modern aviation safety increasingly depends on reliable GPS services, while signal degrading effects such as multipath and masking often occur during critical flight phases, such as take-off and landing. In this regard, we propose Multi-Receiver Direct Position Estimation (MR-DPE), which operates a network of DPE receivers to enhance GPS measurement certainty in degraded signal environments. A DPE receiver directly estimates navigation solutions in the PVT domain with a maximum-likelihood approach, bypassing the intermediate range measurements. Whereas prior works have shown the enhanced measurement certainty of DPE under weak signals, MR-DPE provides further improvement by leveraging the information redundancy and the geometric diversity provided by the network of receivers and antennas. We implemented MR-DPE using software-defined radio and conducted comprehensive, full-scale flight experiments, a first for DPE-related works. A wide range of flight profiles were explored, especially those prone to signal multipath and masking, and preliminary analyses were performed on the data collected to ensure the conceptual validity of MR-DPE

Transforming growth factor-β1 induces matrix metalloproteinase-9 and cell migration in astrocytes: roles of ROS-dependent ERK- and JNK-NF-κB pathways

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are the multifunctional factors during diverse physiological and pathological processes including development, wound healing, proliferation, and cancer metastasis. Both TGF-β and MMPs have been shown to play crucial roles in brain pathological changes. Thus, we investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying TGF-β1-induced MMP-9 expression in brain astrocytes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Rat brain astrocytes (RBA-1) were used. MMP-9 expression was analyzed by gelatin zymography and RT-PCR. The involvement of signaling molecules including MAPKs and NF-κB in the responses was investigated using pharmacological inhibitors and dominant negative mutants, determined by western blot and gene promoter assay. The functional activity of MMP-9 was evaluated by cell migration assay.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we report that TGF-β1 induces MMP-9 expression and enzymatic activity via a TGF-β receptor-activated reactive oxygen species (ROS)-dependent signaling pathway. ROS production leads to activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and c-Jun-N-terminal kinase (JNK) and then activation of the NF-κB transcription factor. Activated NF-κB turns on transcription of the MMP-9 gene. The rat MMP-9 promoter, containing a NF-κB <it>cis</it>-binding site, was identified as a crucial domain linking to TGF-β1 action.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Collectively, in RBA-1 cells, activation of ERK1/2- and JNK-NF-κB cascades by a ROS-dependent manner is essential for MMP-9 up-regulation/activation and cell migration induced by TGF-β1. These findings indicate a new regulatory pathway of TGF-β1 in regulating expression of MMP-9 in brain astrocytes, which is involved in physiological and pathological tissue remodeling of central nervous system.</p

Proteinase 3 promotes formation of multinucleated giant cells and granuloma-like structures in patients with granulomatosis with polyangiitis

OBJECTIVES: Granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) and microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) are autoimmune vasculitides associated with antineutrophil cytoplasm antibodies that target proteinase 3 (PR3) or myeloperoxidase (MPO) found within neutrophils and monocytes. Granulomas are exclusively found in GPA and form around multinucleated giant cells (MGCs), at sites of microabscesses, containing apoptotic and necrotic neutrophils. Since patients with GPA have augmented neutrophil PR3 expression, and PR3-expressing apoptotic cells frustrate macrophage phagocytosis and cellular clearance, we investigated the role of PR3 in stimulating giant cell and granuloma formation. METHODS: We stimulated purified monocytes and whole peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with GPA, patients with MPA or healthy controls with PR3 or MPO and visualised MGC and granuloma-like structure formation using light, confocal and electron microscopy, as well as measuring the cell cytokine production. We investigated the expression of PR3 binding partners on monocytes and tested the impact of their inhibition. Finally, we injected zebrafish with PR3 and characterised granuloma formation in a novel animal model. RESULTS: In vitro, PR3 promoted monocyte-derived MGC formation using cells from patients with GPA but not from patients with MPA, and this was dependent on soluble interleukin 6 (IL-6), as well as monocyte MAC-1 and protease-activated receptor-2, found to be overexpressed in the cells of patients with GPA. PBMCs stimulated by PR3 formed granuloma-like structures with central MGC surrounded by T cells. This effect of PR3 was confirmed in vivo using zebrafish and was inhibited by niclosamide, a IL-6-STAT3 pathway inhibitor. CONCLUSIONS: These data provide a mechanistic basis for granuloma formation in GPA and a rationale for novel therapeutic approaches

Complete waveform model for compact binaries on eccentric orbits

We present a time domain waveform model that describes the inspiral, merger and ringdown of compact binary systems whose components are nonspinning, and which evolve on orbits with low to moderate eccentricity. The inspiral evolution is described using third-order post-Newtonian equations both for the equations of motion of the binary, and its far-zone radiation field. This latter component also includes instantaneous, tails and tails-of-tails contributions, and a contribution due to nonlinear memory. This framework reduces to the post-Newtonian approximant TaylorT4 at third post-Newtonian order in the zero-eccentricity limit. To improve phase accuracy, we also incorporate higher-order post-Newtonian corrections for the energy flux of quasicircular binaries and gravitational self-force corrections to the binding energy of compact binaries. This enhanced prescription for the inspiral evolution is combined with a fully analytical prescription for the merger-ringdown evolution constructed using a catalog of numerical relativity simulations. We show that this inspiral-merger-ringdown waveform model reproduces the effective-one-body model of Ref. [Y. Pan et al., Phys. Rev. D 89, 061501 (2014).] for quasicircular black hole binaries with mass ratios between 1 to 15 in the zero-eccentricity limit over a wide range of the parameter space under consideration. Using a set of eccentric numerical relativity simulations, not used during calibration, we show that our new eccentric model reproduces the true features of eccentric compact binary coalescence throughout merger. We use this model to show that the gravitational-wave transients GW150914 and GW151226 can be effectively recovered with template banks of quasicircular, spin-aligned waveforms if the eccentricity e_0 of these systems when they enter the a LIGO band at a gravitational-wave frequency of 14 Hz satisfies e^(GW150914)_0 ≤ 0.15 and e^(GW151226) _0 ≤ 0.1. We also find that varying the spin combinations of the quasicircular, spin-aligned template waveforms does not improve the recovery of nonspinning, eccentric signals when e_0 ≥ 0.1. This suggests that these two signal manifolds are predominantly orthogonal

Clinical Study of Uric Acid Urolithiasis

Uric acid urolithiasis develops from various causes. To investigate the clinical and biochemical presentation of patients with uric acid urolithiasis, a retrospective study was designed. A total of 46 cases were enrolled between January 2004 and December 2005. The compositions of the stones were analyzed by infrared spectrophotometry. There were 39 males (84.8%) and seven females (15.2%), with a mean age of 61.5 ± 10.6 years and mean body mass index (BMI) of 26.7 ± 3.1 kg/m2. The stone location was kidney in 10 (21.7%), ureter in 22 (41.8%), and bladder in 14 (30.5%). Multiple stones were diagnosed in 36 patients (78.3%). Pre-existing comorbidities included diabetes mellitus in 11 patients (23.9%), hypertension in 23 (50%), gout in 13 (28.2%), and benign prostatic hyperplasia in 14 (30.4%). Mean serum creatinine and uric acid was 1.6 ± 0.6 mg/dL and 7.6 ± 1.8 mg/dL, respectively. There were 27 patients (58%) with creatinine > 1.4 mg/dL. The mean urinary pH was 5.42 ± 0.46. Patients with uric acid urolithiasis were predominantly male, older, with higher BMI, multiple stone presentation, with lower urinary pH, and hyperuricemia. Exacerbation of the renal function should also be of concern because of the high proportion of patients with renal insufficiency diagnosed in this study