Life in the FASt Lane: Speedy Workflows for Providing a Faculty Assisted Submission (FAS) Service for Your IR

Including faculty papers in your repository is an essential function of an IR, but it can be tough to manage the solicitation and review of previously published materials. What can we legally add to faculty collections? Are there any requirements for posting? Can you rely on faculty to submit their work and comply with publisher policies? At the University of Pennsylvania, we have been developing workflows and processes to systematically run permissions on faculty CVs and upload them to Penn’s IR, ScholarlyCommons. Through our Faculty Assisted Submission (FAS) service, we are maximizing the libraries’ ability to support faculty works in the repository with as little effort as possible for the faculty member and the IR manager. Now in the second year of this program, we have quadrupled the number of faculty papers submitted since the first year, adding thousands to our collections. By leveraging free tools and common Library purchases, we have expanded the breadth of participation and fostered a growing sense of faculty interest in participating in Penn’s IR. All of this has been achieved by implementing a comprehensive training program for student workers and external administrators with oversight from a two-person scholarly communications team. While this program is by no means completely effortless, by investing heavily in the training of student workers up front, we have engaged students in scholarly communication literacy and provided the library with a mechanism for reliable ingestion of faculty materials into the IR. In this presentation, we will provide our shareable resources and give a step-by-step overview of our training module, permissions process, and ingestion workflows. We will discuss some of the challenges we still face and how you can leverage these approaches for your own institution

A multicomponent diffusion model for prediction of microstructural evolution in coated Ni based superalloy systems

A multicomponent model which can simulate the microstructural evolution of a coated Ni based superalloy system has been developed. The model consists of a one-dimensional finite difference diffusion solver to calculate the component distribution, a power law based model for predicting surface oxidation and a thermodynamic calculation routine for determining the phase evolution. Apart from forecasting concentration and phase profiles after a given thermal history, the model can estimate the losses due to oxidation and the remaining life of a coating based on a concentration and/or phase fraction dependent failure criteria. The phase constitution and concentration profiles predicted by the model have been compared with an experimental NiCoCrAlY coated CMSX-4 system, aged for times up to 10 000 h between 850 and 1050°C, and many experimental features can be predicted successfully by the model. The model is expected to be useful for assessing microstructural evolution of coated turbine blade systems

Parallel Workflows for Data-Driven Structural Equation Modeling in Functional Neuroimaging

We present a computational framework suitable for a data-driven approach to structural equation modeling (SEM) and describe several workflows for modeling functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data within this framework. The Computational Neuroscience Applications Research Infrastructure (CNARI) employs a high-level scripting language called Swift, which is capable of spawning hundreds of thousands of simultaneous R processes (R Development Core Team, 2008), consisting of self-contained SEMs, on a high performance computing system (HPC). These self-contained R processing jobs are data objects generated by OpenMx, a plug-in for R, which can generate a single model object containing the matrices and algebraic information necessary to estimate parameters of the model. With such an infrastructure in place a structural modeler may begin to investigate exhaustive searches of the model space. Specific applications of the infrastructure, statistics related to model fit, and limitations are discussed in relation to exhaustive SEM. In particular, we discuss how workflow management techniques can help to solve large computational problems in neuroimaging

Malaria and anaemia among children in two communities of Kumasi, Ghana: a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: A survey in Kumasi, Ghana found a marked Plasmodium falciparum prevalence difference between two neighbouring communities (Moshie Zongo and Manhyia). The primary objective of this follow-up study was to determine whether this parasite rate difference was consistent over time. Secondary objectives were to compare prevalences of clinical malaria, anaemia, intestinal parasite infections, and malnutrition between these communities; and to identify potential risk factors for P. falciparum infection and anaemia. METHODS: A cross-sectional house-to-house survey of P. falciparum parasitaemia, clinical malaria, anaemia, anthropometric indices, and intestinal helminths was conducted in April-May 2005. Data collection included child and household demographics, mosquito avoidance practices, distance to nearest health facility, child's travel history, symptoms, and anti-malarial use. Risk factors for P. falciparum and anaemia (Hb < 11 g/dl) were identified using generalized linear mixed models. RESULTS: In total, 296 children were tested from 184 households. Prevalences of P. falciparum, clinical malaria, anaemia, and stunting were significantly higher in Moshie Zongo (37.8%, 16.9%, 66.2% and 21.1%, respectively) compared to Manhyia (12.8%, 3.4%, 34.5% and 7.4%). Of 197 children tested for helminths, four were positive for Dicrocoelium dendriticum. Population attributable risks (PAR%) of anaemia were 16.5% (P. falciparum) and 7.6% (malnutrition). Risk factors for P. falciparum infection were older age, rural travel, and lower socioeconomic status. Risk factors for anaemia were P. falciparum infection, Moshie Zongo residence, male sex, and younger age. CONCLUSION: Heterogeneities in malariometric indices between neighbouring Kumasi communities are consistent over time. The low helminth prevalence, and the twofold higher PAR% of anaemia attributable to P. falciparum infection compared to malnutrition, indicate the importance of malaria as a cause of anaemia in this urban population

Feminizing political parties: women’s party member organizations within European parliamentary parties

Party member women’s organizations were early features of party development. While some contemporary studies maintain these are important sites for the substantive representation of women, there is also a claim that they are in decline. Our primary purpose here is to establish the existence of party member women’s organizations – as one test of the first dimension of party feminization: the inclusion of women. We draw on new survey data of 17 European countries provided by Scarrow, Poguntke and Webb. We establish that almost half have a party member women’s organization. The new data also permits analysis of relationships between party member women’s organization and gender quotas for the top party leadership body (National Executive Committee (NEC)), women’s presence among the party leadership and candidate quota rules. Together we see these (i) as a means to establish whether women are marginalized within the party, thereby limiting descriptive representation and (ii) as surrogate measures for women’s substantive representation. We importantly find that the presence of a party member women’s organization does not come at the cost of women’s presence on the NEC. In the final section, we turn our attention to building a new comparative research agenda that more fully addresses substantive representation

The gene-rich genome of the scallop Pecten maximus.

BACKGROUND: The king scallop, Pecten maximus, is distributed in shallow waters along the Atlantic coast of Europe. It forms the basis of a valuable commercial fishery and plays a key role in coastal ecosystems and food webs. Like other filter feeding bivalves it can accumulate potent phytotoxins, to which it has evolved some immunity. The molecular origins of this immunity are of interest to evolutionary biologists, pharmaceutical companies, and fisheries management. FINDINGS: Here we report the genome assembly of this species, conducted as part of the Wellcome Sanger 25 Genomes Project. This genome was assembled from PacBio reads and scaffolded with 10X Chromium and Hi-C data. Its 3,983 scaffolds have an N50 of 44.8 Mb (longest scaffold 60.1 Mb), with 92% of the assembly sequence contained in 19 scaffolds, corresponding to the 19 chromosomes found in this species. The total assembly spans 918.3 Mb and is the best-scaffolded marine bivalve genome published to date, exhibiting 95.5% recovery of the metazoan BUSCO set. Gene annotation resulted in 67,741 gene models. Analysis of gene content revealed large numbers of gene duplicates, as previously seen in bivalves, with little gene loss, in comparison with the sequenced genomes of other marine bivalve species. CONCLUSIONS: The genome assembly of P. maximus and its annotated gene set provide a high-quality platform for studies on such disparate topics as shell biomineralization, pigmentation, vision, and resistance to algal toxins. As a result of our findings we highlight the sodium channel gene Nav1, known to confer resistance to saxitoxin and tetrodotoxin, as a candidate for further studies investigating immunity to domoic acid

'To live and die [for] Dixie': Irish civilians and the Confederate States of America

Around 20,000 Irishmen served in the Confederate army in the Civil War. As a result, they left behind, in various Southern towns and cities, large numbers of friends, family, and community leaders. As with native-born Confederates, Irish civilian support was crucial to Irish participation in the Confederate military effort. Also, Irish civilians served in various supporting roles: in factories and hospitals, on railroads and diplomatic missions, and as boosters for the cause. They also, however, suffered in bombardments, sieges, and the blockade. Usually poorer than their native neighbours, they could not afford to become 'refugees' and move away from the centres of conflict. This essay, based on research from manuscript collections, contemporary newspapers, British Consular records, and Federal military records, will examine the role of Irish civilians in the Confederacy, and assess the role this activity had on their integration into Southern communities. It will also look at Irish civilians in the defeat of the Confederacy, particularly when they came under Union occupation. Initial research shows that Irish civilians were not as upset as other whites in the South about Union victory. They welcomed a return to normalcy, and often 'collaborated' with Union authorities. Also, Irish desertion rates in the Confederate army were particularly high, and I will attempt to gauge whether Irish civilians played a role in this. All of the research in this paper will thus be put in the context of the Drew Gilpin Faust/Gary Gallagher debate on the influence of the Confederate homefront on military performance. By studying the Irish civilian experience one can assess how strong the Confederate national experiment was. Was it a nation without a nationalism

Motivators of online vulnerability: the impact of social network site use and FOMO

Continued and frequent use of social network sites (SNS) has been linked to a fear of missing out (FOMO) and online self-promotion in the form of friending and information disclosure. The present paper reports findings from 506 UK based Facebook users (53% male) who responded to an extensive online survey about their SNS behaviours and online vulnerability. Structural equation modelling (SEM) suggests that FOMO mediates the relationship between increased SNS use and decreased self-esteem. Self-promoting SNS behaviours provide more complex mediated associations. Longitudinal support (N = 175) is provided for the notion that decreased self-esteem might motivate a potentially detrimental cycle of FOMO-inspired online SNS use. The research considers the implications of social networking on an individual’s online vulnerability

A positron emission tomography imaging study to confirm target engagement in the lungs of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis following a single dose of a novel inhaled αvβ6 integrin inhibitor

© 2020 The Author(s). Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive lung disease with poor prognosis and a significant unmet medical need. This study evaluated the safety, pharmacokinetics (PK) and target engagement in the lungs, of GSK3008348, a novel inhaled alpha-v beta-6 (αvβ6) integrin inhibitor, in participants with IPF. Methods: This was a phase 1b, randomised, double-blind (sponsor unblind) study, conducted in the UK (two clinical sites, one imaging unit) between June 2017 and July 2018 (NCT03069989). Participants with a definite or probable diagnosis of IPF received a single nebulised dose of 1000 mcg GSK3008348 or placebo (ratio 5:2) in two dosing periods. In period 1, safety and PK assessments were performed up to 24 h post-dose; in period 2, after a 7-day to 28-day washout, participants underwent a total of three positron emission tomography (PET) scans: Baseline, Day 1 (~ 30 min post-dosing) and Day 2 (~ 24 h post-dosing), using a radiolabelled αvβ6-specific ligand, [18F]FB-A20FMDV2. The primary endpoint was whole lung volume of distribution (VT), not corrected for air volume, at ~ 30 min post-dose compared with pre-dose. The study success criterion, determined using Bayesian analysis, was a posterior probability (true % reduction in VT > 0%) of ≥80%. Results: Eight participants with IPF were enrolled and seven completed the study. Adjusted posterior median reduction in uncorrected VT at ~ 30 min after GSK3008348 inhalation was 20% (95% CrI:-9 to 42%). The posterior probability that the true % reduction in VT > 0% was 93%. GSK3008348 was well tolerated with no reports of serious adverse events or clinically significant abnormalities that were attributable to study treatment. PK was successfully characterised showing rapid absorption followed by a multiphasic elimination. Conclusions: This study demonstrated engagement of the αvβ6 integrin target in the lung following nebulised dosing with GSK3008348 to participants with IPF. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time a target-specific PET radioligand has been used to assess target engagement in the lung, not least for an inhaled drug. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT03069989; date of registration: 3 March 2017