Rural libraries : some perspectives on resources, felt needs, and alternatives in East Tennessee

Small libraries in rural areas are often the only public agency for miles around to which people can turn for help. Is it a worthwhile investment to retain their small numbers or to attempt to upgrade their resources and services at the expense of providing other needs of the community? How do Tennessee and especially its rural communities stack up in providing adequate library service to its information-hungry citizens? Rural libraries, because of the inherent problems of inadequate resources, scattered population, and difficult terrain, in many instances do not meet the standards of service set by the library profession. The literature on library service in recent years has dealt with the problems of urban and metropolitan library service. Little information exists regarding the conditions of rural libraries. This study was an attempt to explore the problems and inadequacies of public libraries in rural Tennessee. The analysis included three areas of concern: (1) compilation of available secondary data offering an overview of public libraries in the United States and Tennessee; (2) a two-part survey, measuring on the one hand the physical resources of local libraries in East Tennessee and on the other the felt needs of the librarians; and (3) preliminary estimation of costs and benefits associated with upgrading library service in rural counties. Analysis of existing data showed that the public libraries across the nation face increasing costs of providing various services to their patrons. As the demand for various sources of information has risen, so too has the cost of equipping the library with needed books, periodicals, personnel, and audiovisuals. Comparing Tennessee\u27s public libraries with the American Library Association\u27s Minimum Standards for Public Libraries indicated a lack of adequate library service in the more rural areas. The respondents of the survey consisted of 12 regional library directors throughout the state and 42 local librarians in the 16 counties of the East Tennessee Development District (ETDD). The first part of the survey dealt with measurable items, such as the size of the library building, number of hours open, and number of personnel employed per library. The second part of the survey was designed to elicit the felt needs of librarians with regard to trends, major concerns, financing, and cooperation with other agencies. Rural communities, in which the 42 librarians were located, were divided into small, medium, and large categories for evaluation purposes. The analysis on available resources and services showed that in small communities the libraries fell far short of the suggested standards in hours open, total floor and shelving space, supply of books and audiovisual equipment, and professionally trained staff. For the most part, libraries in the medium communities fell short in the same areas. However, in the large communities, the libraries met the minimum standards in all respects. They had an abundance of qualified personnel, more than adequate floor and shelving space, and offered much more than the minimum amount of books, periodicals, and services to the public. In the second part of the survey, respondents in the small - and medium -sized communities felt the greatest needs were in the areas of adding more space to the existing structure or building a new library and opening more hours. In the larger communities, the librarians were more concerned with expanding their services. Utilizing the results of the felt needs survey, an attempt was made to study the key inputs and their costs of providing improved service. Added costs and savings of the following selected alternatives were considered: (1) opening the library for more hours, (2) building on more space, (3) constructing a new library facility and equipping it with the needed books, shelves, furniture, and personnel, and (4) setting up and operating two different delivery systems—bookmobile and books by- mail. The preliminary results suggested that non cost considerations may be important in the decision-making process. It was found during the course of this study that economies of size may be reached in regard to public libraries. This suggests that one large library can operate more inexpensively than two small ones. This does not mean that all small libraries should be abolished but merely implies that if one chooses to expand the number of small libraries or retain their number, it must be recognized that it is not a costless decision

Epidemiology of ticks and tick-borne diseases in eastern, central and southern Africa. Proceedings of a workshop

The first part of this report comprises country reports that deals with epidemiology of ticks and tick-borne diseases in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The second part of the report covers topics on assessing the efficacy of immunization against tick-borne diseases, evaluating delivery systems for the control of tick-borne diseases and measuring the impact of immunization on livestock productivity. The paper ends with a discussion on coordination, collaboration and planning

Development and analysis of a low power A-C instrument servomechanism

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1964 G23Master of Scienc

Replacing the Social Security Tax with a Value-Added Tax: Policy Perspectives

On October 22, 1979, Representative Al Ullman (D-Ore.), then Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, introduced the Tax Restructuring Act of 1979, which would have lowered the rates of the individual income, corporate income and social security taxes along with certain other tax benefits and would have replaced the lost revenues from such reductions with the revenues from a 10% value-added tax (VAT). The introduction of the bill followed a speech delivered by Sen. Russell B. Long (D-La.), then Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, at the 1978 Tulane Tax Institute, in which he advocated an overhaul of the tax system similar to the proposals contained in Ullman\u27s bill. Although there was nothing particularly novel in the proposals of Long and Ullman, the mere fact that the two members of Congress with the most influence over tax legislation were advocating a major overhaul of the entire tax system was enough to spark a lively debate on the merits of substituting a value-added tax for part or all of the components making up the present federal tax system in the United States

Catalyst for carbon monoxide oxidation

A catalyst is disclosed for the combination of CO and O2 to form CO2, which includes a platinum group metal (e.g., platinum); a reducable metal oxide having multiple valence states (e.g., SnO2); and a compound which can bind water to its structure (e.g., silica gel). This catalyst is ideally suited for application to high-powered pulsed, CO2 lasers operating in a sealed or closed-cycle condition

Data-Driven Spectral Submanifold Reduction for Nonlinear Optimal Control of High-Dimensional Robots

Modeling and control of high-dimensional, nonlinear robotic systems remains a challenging task. While various model- and learning-based approaches have been proposed to address these challenges, they broadly lack generalizability to different control tasks and rarely preserve the structure of the dynamics. In this work, we propose a new, data-driven approach for extracting low-dimensional models from data using Spectral Submanifold Reduction (SSMR). In contrast to other data-driven methods which fit dynamical models to training trajectories, we identify the dynamics on generic, low-dimensional attractors embedded in the full phase space of the robotic system. This allows us to obtain computationally-tractable models for control which preserve the system's dominant dynamics and better track trajectories radically different from the training data. We demonstrate the superior performance and generalizability of SSMR in dynamic trajectory tracking tasks vis-a-vis the state of the art, including Koopman operator-based approaches.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, Submission to International Conference for Robotics and Automation 202

Trends in PROMIS Scores in the Early Post-operative Period following Various Lateral Ankle Ligament Reconstructive Techniques

Introduction/Purpose: Lateral ankle ligament injuries are common conditions accounting for 25% of musculoskeletal injuries. When conservative management fails and chronic instability ensues, operative treatment is often sought. Though surgical outcomes are generally good following lateral ankle ligament reconstruction, literature suggests current scoring systems for evaluating outcomes and monitoring progression have deficiencies. Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information (PROMIS) scores have recently been established as a method of monitoring patient outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the trends in post-operative PROMIS physical function (PF), pain interference (PI), and depression scores in patients undergoing lateral ankle ligament reconstruction