Building an Aotearoa New Zealand-wide Digital Curation Community of Practice

How do you build awareness and capability for digital curation knowledge and experience across a country? The National Library of New Zealand has a statutory role in supporting and advancing the work of Aotearoa New Zealand libraries to ensure documentary heritage and taonga is collected and preserved across the country’s memory system. This role includes supporting the collecting and curation of born-digital content. Aotearoa New Zealand’s Gallery Library Archive Museum (GLAM) sector is small but varied and diverse, so requires a flexible and adaptive plan to grow experience and capability in this area. This paper will describe the background research undertaken to gain a better understanding of the current environment, describe the development and delivery of pilot training in managing born-digital archival content, and outline our next steps. Driving this effort has been two foundational principles: 1) theory and practice are always in conversation with each other and practical hands-on experience is as important as theoretical knowledge and understanding; and 2) the work of growing capability should be done in a spirt of collaboration and partnership, meeting each other as equals and learning from each other

Superfund: An Assessment of Superfund Site Remedy Selectioin and Implementation

Since its inception in 1980, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund Program has served as the primary mechanism for coordinating the remediation of sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Although the program has successfully overseen cleanup at hundreds of sites, experts have identified a number of weaknesses in the remedy selection and implementation processes. Our study focuses on two weaknesses that have been identified at individual Superfund sites in the previous literature: Remedy Selection: • Selection of non-permanent remedies over permanent remedies Remedy Implementation: • Inconsistency and non-transparency shown in the documentation of cleanup objectives, site cleanup progress, and problems during remedy implementation Although these weaknesses were well documented in previous literature, our group found little evidence that the underlying cause of these weaknesses had been addressed. Our study adds to the current understanding of these weaknesses by investigating their origins using established policy and engineering systems analysis techniques. We have based our analysis on three Superfund site case studies. We offer several recommendations that address the observed weaknesses in site remedy selection and implementation. Lastly, we include suggestions for areas in which further inquiry may be useful

Interrater reliability of quantitative ultrasound using force feedback among examiners with varied levels of experience

Background. Quantitative ultrasound measures are influenced by multiple external factors including examiner scanning force. Force feedback may foster the acquisition of reliable morphometry measures under a variety of scanning conditions. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of force-feedback image acquisition and morphometry over a range of examiner-generated forces using a muscle tissuemimicking ultrasound phantom. Methods. Sixty material thickness measures were acquired from a muscle tissue mimicking phantom using B-mode ultrasound scanning by six examiners with varied experience levels (i.e., experienced, intermediate, and novice). Estimates of interrater reliability and measurement error with force feedback scanning were determined for the examiners. In addition, criterion-based reliability was determined using material deformation values across a range of examiner scanning forces (1–10 Newtons) via automated and manually acquired image capture methods using force feedback. Results. All examiners demonstrated acceptable interrater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC = .98, p \u3c .001) for material thickness measures obtained using force feedback. Individual examiners exhibited acceptable reliability with the criterion-based reference measures (ICC \u3e .90, p \u3c .001), independent of their level of experience. The measurement error among all examiners was 1.5%–2.9% across all applied stress conditions. Conclusion. Manual image capture with force feedback may aid the reliability of morphometry measures across a range of examiner scanning forces, and allow for consistent performance among examiners with differing levels of experience

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Increasing frailty is associated with higher prevalence and reduced recognition of delirium in older hospitalised inpatients: results of a multi-centre study

Purpose: Delirium is a neuropsychiatric disorder delineated by an acute change in cognition, attention, and consciousness. It is common, particularly in older adults, but poorly recognised. Frailty is the accumulation of deficits conferring an increased risk of adverse outcomes. We set out to determine how severity of frailty, as measured using the CFS, affected delirium rates, and recognition in hospitalised older people in the United Kingdom. Methods: Adults over 65 years were included in an observational multi-centre audit across UK hospitals, two prospective rounds, and one retrospective note review. Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), delirium status, and 30-day outcomes were recorded. Results: The overall prevalence of delirium was 16.3% (483). Patients with delirium were more frail than patients without delirium (median CFS 6 vs 4). The risk of delirium was greater with increasing frailty [OR 2.9 (1.8–4.6) in CFS 4 vs 1–3; OR 12.4 (6.2–24.5) in CFS 8 vs 1–3]. Higher CFS was associated with reduced recognition of delirium (OR of 0.7 (0.3–1.9) in CFS 4 compared to 0.2 (0.1–0.7) in CFS 8). These risks were both independent of age and dementia. Conclusion: We have demonstrated an incremental increase in risk of delirium with increasing frailty. This has important clinical implications, suggesting that frailty may provide a more nuanced measure of vulnerability to delirium and poor outcomes. However, the most frail patients are least likely to have their delirium diagnosed and there is a significant lack of research into the underlying pathophysiology of both of these common geriatric syndromes