Resource Leveling for a Mass Digitization Project

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the nature of the project management concept of resource leveling, particularly how it can be utilized for grant-funded mass digitization projects where time, cost and available resources – the elements of the project scope triangle – are in tension with each other to define the scope and quality of a project. Design/methodology/approach – This article presents a case study of resource leveling for a mass digitization project in an academic library. Details on the use of resource leveling through deconstructing activities, smoothing and alternative scheduling are described in relation to this project. Findings – Resource leveling techniques can assist digitization project managers to meet project milestones on time and within budget and may be particularly useful for digitization projects with limited budgets. Originality/value – As digitization projects become more universal for libraries and cultural heritage institutions, this original case study offers insights into applying no-cost project management techniques

Expressions of Social Presence in Agricultural Conversations on Twitter: Implications for Agricultural Communications

Computer-mediated environments such as social media create new social climates that impact communication interactions in un-mediated environments. As computer-mediated communication (CMC) stimulates more social communities, many communication behaviors will evolve and adapt to the unique social environment created by CMC. This study examined social variables during two different synchronous conversations on Twitter through a qualitative document analysis that coded messages into affective, interactive, and cohesive categories. Categories were determined by indicators within each message such as emoticons, direct responses, and the use of individuals’ names. The researcher concluded that most social variables in the Twitter conversations fit into the interactive social presence category but that affective and cohesive responses supported personal connection and structure within the conversations. It was also found that the same category of responses could function differently in each conversation. However, both conversations in this study appeared to be successful. Therefore, agricultural communicators should feel comfortable using CMC that contains social presence dimensions to circulate agricultural information among populations across the globe. Additional research should be conducted to examine social presence among new topics, populations, and other forms of CMC

Participant Satisfaction Related to Social Presence in Agricultural Conversations using Twitter: Implications for Agricultural Communications

Communication has evolved from predominantly face-to-face environments to include greater use of computer-mediated environments such as social networking sites for sharing information, meeting new people, and learning. Aspects of computer-mediated communication related to perceptions of social presence impact the way communication occurs in un-mediated environments. This study examined perceived social presence, participant satisfaction, and relationships between social presence and satisfaction among Twitter users during streaming conversations. Data were collected through an online questionnaire that was created using qualtrics.com and made available to respondents over a one-week period. Two groups of survey respondents agreed with 10 of 21 and 13 of 21 statements about social presence and 10 of 13 and 12 of 13 statements about satisfaction. Findings indicated that positive and negative relationships exist between social presence and satisfaction. Participants felt they were in close virtual proximity with other participants, and social presence can be fostered through text-based variables, such as emoticons, to compensate for lack of nonverbal or face-to-face cues. Therefore, agricultural communicators should use techniques that foster social presence to support virtual relationships and circulate agricultural information through chatting, messaging, and blogging

Characteristics of Usual Physical Therapy Post-Total Knee Replacement and their Associations with Functional Outcomes

OBJECTIVE: Although total knee replacement surgery (TKR) is highly prevalent and generally successful, functional outcomes post-TKR vary widely. Most patients receive some physical therapy (PT) following TKR, but PT practice is variable and associations between specific content and dosage of PT interventions and functional outcomes are unknown. Research has identified exercise interventions associated with better outcomes but studies have not assessed whether such evidence has been translated into clinical practice. We characterized the content, dosage and progression of usual post-acute PT services following TKR, and examined associations of specific details of post-acute PT with patients\u27 6-month functional outcomes. METHODS: Post-acute PT data were collected from patients undergoing primary unilateral TKR and participating in a clinical trial of a phone-based coaching intervention. PT records from the terminal episode of care were reviewed and utilization and exercise content data were extracted. Descriptive statistics and linear regression models characterized PT treatment factors and identified associations with 6-month outcomes. RESULTS: We analyzed 112 records from 30 PT sites. Content and dosage of specific exercises and incidence of progression varied widely. Open chain exercises were utilized more frequently than closed chain (median and interquartile range (21(4,49) vs 13(4,28.5)). Median (interquartile range) occurrence of progression of closed and open chain exercise was 0 (0,2) and 1 (0,3) respectively. Shorter timed stair climb was associated with greater total number of PT interventions and use and progression of closed chain exercises. DISCUSSION: Data suggest that evidence-based interventions are under-utilized and dosage may be insufficient to obtain optimal outcomes

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Receipt of Guideline-Concordant Care Among Older Women With Stage I-III Breast Cancer: A Population-Based Study

Background: This study examined receipt of guideline-concordant care (GCC) according to evidence-based treatment guidelines and quality measures and specific types of treatment among older women with breast cancer. Patients and Methods: A total of 142,433 patients aged ≥66 years diagnosed with stage I–III breast cancer between 2007 and 2011 were identified in the SEER-Medicare linked database. Algorithms considering cancer characteristics and the appropriate course of care as per guidelines versus actual care received determined receipt of GCC. Multivariable logistic regression estimated the likelihood of GCC and specific types of treatment for women aged ≥75 versus 66 to 74 years. Results: Overall, 39.7% of patients received GCC. Patients diagnosed at stage II or III, with certain preexisting conditions, and of nonwhite race were less likely to receive GCC. Patients with hormone-negative tumors, higher grade tumors, and greater access to oncology care resources were more likely to receive GCC. Patients aged ≥75 years were approximately 40% less likely to receive GCC or adjuvant endocrine therapy, 78% less likely to have any surgery, 61% less likely to have chemotherapy, and about half as likely to have radiation therapy than those aged 66 to 74 years. Conclusions: Fewer than half of older women with breast cancer received GCC, with the lowest rates observed among the oldest age groups, racial/ethnic minorities, and women with later-stage cancers. However, patients with more aggressive tumor characteristics and greater access to oncology resources were more likely to receive GCC. Considering that older women have the highest incidence of breast cancer and that many are diagnosed at stages requiring more aggressive treatment, efforts to increase rates of earlier stage diagnosis and the development of less toxic treatments could help improve GCC and survival while preserving quality of life

Does Ocean Acidification Benefit Seagrasses in a Mesohaline Environment? A Mesocosm Experiment in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Ocean acidification is thought to benefit seagrasses because of increased carbon dioxide (CO2) availability for photosynthesis. However, in order to truly assess ecological responses, effects of ocean acidification need to be investigated in a variety of coastal environments. We tested the hypothesis that ocean acidification would benefit seagrasses in the northern Gulf of Mexico, where the seagrasses Halodule wrightii and Ruppia maritima coexist in a fluctuating environment. To evaluate if benefits of ocean acidification could alter seagrass bed composition, cores of H. wrightii and R. maritima were placed alone or in combination into aquaria and maintained in an outdoor mesocosm. Half of the aquaria were exposed to either ambient (mean pH of 8.1 ± 0.04 SD on total scale) or high CO2 (mean pH 7.7 ± 0.05 SD on total scale) conditions. After 54 days of experimental exposure, the δ13C values were significantly lower in seagrass tissue in the high CO2 condition. This integration of a different carbon source (either: preferential use of CO2, gas from cylinder, or both) indicates that plants were not solely relying on stored energy reserves for growth. Yet, after 41 to 54 days, seagrass morphology, biomass, photo-physiology, metabolism, and carbon and nitrogen content in the high CO2 condition did not differ from those at ambient. There was also no indication of differences in traits between the homospecific or heterospecific beds. Findings support two plausible conclusions: (1) these seagrasses rely heavily on bicarbonate use and growth will not be stimulated by near future acidification conditions or (2) the mesohaline environment limited the beneficial impacts of increased CO2 availability

Un/writing the landscape, re/figuring the body

Kelly + Jones' research interests in the process and engagement with writing has shifted away from the production of text. Instead, their research enquiry now focuses on a broader visual and performed investigation into site and the materiality of writing and the place of the body as a scripting phenomena that writes itself into being in proximity to myriad otherness. To do this they have tested out abandoning any form of recognisable text, subverted written language by returning to the gesture, developed an approach that engages with writing instinctively and the materiality whose mark-making predates fixivity. As a result of this enquiry, new material has been generated and formed a new body of work – existing as an area of investigation where writing has become the milieu in which our collaboration operates. The research process is an organic and intermittent collaboration that bubbles in the gaps and suddenly erupts into different spaces and contexts. To this end, Kelly + Jones state that the enquiry has produced the following contributions: Originality - Site specific practice usually engages with one site and most theory and cultural commentary would attest to this. They have created a dialogue between two diverse sites that have expanded each other’s terms and created a conceptual third site that does not belong fully to either and has its own terms. They have decentralised the research opening it up to other researchers at various stages in their career without hierarchy. They have moved outside of the Fine Art community gaining fresh insight into their theoretical framework and site knowledge e.g geographer Professor Helen Walkington who brought new insight about the presence of flint within chalk beds and their significance around human activity. Kelly +Jones practice is of significance as they have created a research cascade which continues to grow and spread outwards. This is evidenced in the zoom research meeting transcript which brought together different research voices from student to Professorship with a specialism in Higher Education pedagogy. Significance in expanded research models that decentralise and strip hierarchy. They have expanded the discourse between site and the body …by splitting the singularity attached to ideas of site/locus in an environmental sense and have also presented the body as a multiple and shifting site as opposed to a fixed entity. In contrast to existing discourse on writing it draws attention to the political implication of the act of writing rather than what is written. What are the conditions and gestures that precede writing? What is the troubled and fruitful relationship between writing and subjectivity, resistance and personhood. We have repurposed the traditional idea of exhibiting visual art as display and as fixed point to exhibiting as research and as touch – to feel the way to the next level, to allow others to intervene and alter course, expand discourse. We chose a response model (listening to the sites rather than demonstrating it with planned gestures). This allowed new and unexpected experience to rise 'which were intimately connected to the presence that live work offers, rather than projection.The publication is an output for this new body of practice as research. The publication takes the form of a newspaper framework and features an edited series of texts, performative gestures and provocations that has been written and edited by Kelly + Jones. It also ‘draws-down’ on several research activities and influences from Kelly + Jones presented in the form of the solo exhibition at The Glass Tank in 2020. The seers-in-residence programme carried out as part of their exhibition at The Glass Tank provided a unique opportunity for research-generation in the form of a series of conversations with invited academics and researchers to be Seers (Professor Helen Walkington, Janice Howard, Deborah Pill and Kate Mahony, Oxford Brookes University). The publication includes essays by Professor Jennie Klein, University of Ohio and Joanne Lee, Sheffield Hallam University. The publication has been internationally peer reviewed and the National Library of Norway has a collection of 7 copies of the publication now on file due to international academic and artistic interests in the publication. The publication has been commissioned by Bergen Performing Arts publishing arm - PABlish.University of Ohio Performance Art Bergen University of Derby Oxford Brookes Universit