Finding Harmony: Social Tags and Name Authority Records in the Popular Music Domain

Libraries and cultural institutions use cataloging and metadata standards to describe works and those responsible for creating them. These standards are used to create name authority records (NAR) to collocate creators’ works under single, authorized versions of their names. NARs employ controlled vocabulary to describe individuals and disambiguate names. NAR production is costly; therefore, few are updated when standards are revised, and controlled vocabularies are slow to adapt to a rapidly changing information landscape. Artificial intelligence provides opportunities to leverage social tagging to update and enhance NARs, while simultaneously improving user search and discovery. Our research demonstrates that social tags in the popular music domain align with the Resource Description and Access cataloging code’s NAR constructs. Next steps will examine how social tags relate to controlled vocabulary terms, as well as explore the use of artificial intelligence to enhance NARs and library search interfaces

LIS Education in a Pandemic Era: Innovative Teaching Methods, Strategies, & Technologies

The evident diversity in LIS programs around the globe calls for a suite of innovative methods and strategies that allow educators not only to impart the necessary content but also the technological and pedagogical know-how required to work across the LIS teaching and learning spectrum. To further explore these themes, the organizers of this panel facilitated an interactive and lively discussion on the topic at the ALISE 2019 conference. There was much interest on the part of the attendees about continuous engagement with, and deeper discussions about the topic. Hence, this is a follow up interactive panel discussion that focusses on lessons learnt and novel approaches to innovative teaching methods, strategies, & technologies for a shifting landscape in LIS education. While the 2019 lively session elicited important issues, including potential risks and challenges of innovative teaching methods, strategies, & technologies; competencies required of educators and students; ensuring student engagement, interaction, participation, collaboration, reflection, and creativity; and producing reflective practitioners, these issues are even more crucial now. Hence, they require continuous discussions, given that the current and similar future pandemics require a shift in how educators teach and students learn. We aim to facilitate a discussion where audience members can react to and provide opinions on questions/scenarios with respect to innovative teaching methods, strategies, & technologies in LIS education. Panelists will begin with an overview of the session to provide some context and set the stage for an interactive audience participation. Small groups will be asked to engage in a deeper discussion of the issues outlined with the ultimate goal of sharing ideas and practices among members of the audience. We aim to generate concrete and actionable ideas and recommendations with respect to: (1) potential risks and challenges of experimenting with and adopting innovative teaching methods, strategies, & technologies; (2) competencies required of both LIS educators and students; and (3) ways to ensure student engagement, interaction, participation, collaboration, reflection, and creativity, especially at a time when what is considered “normal” teaching and learning workflow is disrupted due to the pandemic. We will initiate the development of online shared crowd-sourced links and resources that will provide both summaries of the discussions from the 2019 and 2020 conferences as well as ideas and strategies

Innovative teaching methods & strategies that work for LIS education around the globe

LIS education in North America and the rest of the world come in different forms and shapes. Degrees offered, the names of programs, the academic unit to which programs are attached, the delivery model employed, the types of courses in the curriculum, and the composition of core versus electives, etc., vary greatly. With such profound diversity in LIS curricula, this panel explores innovative methods and strategies around technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge that work across LIS degree offerings around the world. The panel is designed to be more interactive to allow rich engagement with participants

Preoperative ultrasonographic evaluation of the airway vis-à-vis the bedside airway assessment to predict potentially difficult airway on direct laryngoscopy in adult patients—a prospective, observational study

Abstract Background Unanticipated difficult airway remains a challenge for the anesthesiologist with no established standard criteria to predict difficulty in intubation. Our aim was to correlate the pre-anesthetic ultrasonographic (USG) airway assessment parameters with Cormack-Lehane (CL) grade at direct laryngoscopy view under general anaesthesia. This was a prospective, observational study on 150 adult patients between 18 and 70 years with the American Society of Anesthesiologist—Physical Status 1–2 requiring general endotracheal anesthesia for elective surgery. Results The incidence of difficult laryngoscopy was 22.7%. The sonographic distance from anterior neck surface to epiglottis (ANS-E) > 1.67 cm was observed to be a statistically significant USG predictor of difficult laryngoscopic view with sensitivity of 64.71% and specificity of 78.45% (p = 0.000). The sonographic distance from anterior neck surface to hyoid bone (ANS-H) or to anterior commissure (ANS-AC) did not corelate with difficult laryngoscopy. The ultrasound (US) parameters had higher negative than positive predictive value. Conclusions We found ANS-E distance to be the most significant predictor of difficult laryngoscopy in our study. USG is a useful tool to identify the “at-risk” patients for difficult airway

Social Computing, Folksonomies, and Image Tagging: Reports from the Research Front

Today, the World Wide Web contains a vast collection of multimedia information sources which are mainly created and published by individuals. Image and video sharing services such as Flickr and YouTube pose new challenges in multimedia information indexing and retrieval and demand dynamic sets of solutions. Individuals are not just users but creators and indexers of multimedia information sources through activities such as tagging. User generated tags, taxonomies, and folksonomies of images are gaining popularity. Therefore, how to incorporate users\u27 tags into the process of indexing and retrieval needs urgent attention. Presenters on this panel conducted various studies on image tagging and descriptions by people and the common findings include: (a) tags assigned to groups of images and individual images differ in terms of their level of abstraction, (b) image tagging specificity and exhaustivity levels differ greatly among individuals, and (c) the accordance between existing controlled vocabularies and tags varies in terms of image attributes. To make this panel an interactive one, the audience will have the opportunity to discuss the general topic of social computing (specifically image tagging) and indexing guided by the following questions: Are user‐generated image tags/index terms viable alternatives to index terms assigned by professionals? Or, if tags cannot substitute for indexer‐generated index terms, can we utilize user‐generated tags to complement current indexing schemes by reflecting users\u27 needs which are not found in existing indexing schemes? Can a large image indexing and retrieval system realistically rely on user‐generated tags/index terms? What does the audience think of the criticism that language used by users (or user‐generated tags/index terms) is not precise and controlled? Are we in a better position today, due to the popularity of social tagging, to effectively and efficiently implement truly user‐centered indexing? Or, is social tagging merely a fad that users will not support in the long term? What should the role of traditional indexing tools and systems be

Transurethral resection of prostate: a comparison of standard monopolar versus bipolar saline resection

INTRODUCTION: Transurethral resection syndrome is an uncommon but potentially life threatening complication. Various irrigating solutions have been used, normal saline being the most physiological. The recent availability of bipolar cautery has permitted the use of normal saline irrigation. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In a randomized prospective study, we compared the safety and efficacy of bipolar cautery (using 0.9% normal saline irrigation) versus conventional monopolar cautery (using 1.5% glycine irrigation). Pre and postoperative hemoglobin (Hb) and hematocrit values were compared. Hemodynamics and arterial oxygen saturation were monitored throughout the study. Safety end points were changes in serum electrolytes, osmolarity and Hb/PCV (packed cell volume). Efficacy parameters were the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) and Qmax (maximum flow rate in mL/sec) values. RESULTS: Mean preoperative prostate size on ultrasound was 60 ± 20cc. Mean resected weight was 17.6 ± 10.8 g (glycine) and 18.66 ± 12.1 g (saline). Mean resection time was 56.76 ± 14.51 min (glycine) and 55.1 ± 13.3 min (saline). The monopolar glycine group showed a greater decline in serum sodium and osmolarity (4.12 meq/L and 5.14 mosmol/L) compared to the bipolar saline group (1.25 meq/L and 0.43 mosmol/L). However, this was not considered statistically significant. The monopolar glycine group showed a statistically significant decline in Hb and PCV (0.97 gm %, 2.83, p < 0.005) as compared to the bipolar saline group (0.55 gm % and 1.62, p < 0.05). Patient follow- up (1,3,6 and 12 months postoperatively) demonstrated an improvement in IPSS and Qmax in both the groups. CONCLUSION: We concluded that bipolar transurethral resection of prostate is clinically comparable to monopolar transurethral resection of prostate with an improved safety profile. However, larger number of patients with longer follow up is essential