The Fascinator: A lightweight, modular contribution to the Fedora-commons world

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Fedora User Group PresentationsDate: 2009-05-20 01:30 PM – 03:00 PMThe Australian government has supported the development of repository infrastructure for several years now. One product of this support was the ARROW project (Australian Research Repositories Online to the World). The ARROW project sponsored a hybrid commercial/open-source approach to building vendor-supported repository infrastructure with open-source underpinnings. One of the open-source contributions, which complements the vendor-sourced product adopted by many of the ARROW partners is a simple to install and configure front-end web service for Fedora repositories known as "The Fascinator". The Fascinator was conceived initially as a way to prove a point in an ongoing dialogue within the ARROW project about repository architecture. The goal was to test the hypothesis that it would be possible to build a useful, fast, flexible web front end for a repository using a single fast indexing system to handle browsing via facets, full-text search, multiple 'portal' views of subsets of a large corpus, and most importantly, easy-to administer security that could handle the most common uses cases seen in the ARROW community. This contrasted with the approach taken by ARROW's commercial partner, which used several different indices to achieve only some of the same functionality in an environment which was much more complex to manage and configure. We will give an overview of the product in both functional and technical terms. Functionally, The Fascinator offers: Click-to-create portals. Easy to configure security based on a query-based filter system, the repository owner can express security in terms of saved-searches that define what a user or group is allowed to see. Highly flexible indexing of a Fedora repository for administrators (and by extension anything the harvesting module can scrape-up). Technically, The Fascinator is a modular system, written in Java so it is easy to deploy with Fedora and Solr, consisting of: An indexing system for Fedora which builds on the standard G-Search supplied with the software, and some work done by the Muradora team. A configurable harvesting application which can ingest data from OAI-PMH, ORE, and local file systems. A web portal application which can be used to build flexible front end websites or act as a service to other sites via an HTTP API. An OAI-PMH (and ATOM archive) system which can create sub-feeds from a repository very easily without complexities like OAI-PMH sets. An easy to use installer for Unix based platforms allowing a systems administrator to install the application along with Fedora and Solr with a few keystrokes. While The Fascinator's goals were modest it has been met with some enthusiasm by repository managers in Australia and beyond, and is being trialled and/or piloted in a small number of sites across the world.ARROW project, Monash Universit

Towards an Understanding of the Mutual Dependency of Consciousness and Matter

The notion in quantum mechanics that observation causes the collapse of the probability wave function brings consciousness directly into physical theory. To date, however, there has not been an adequate explanation as to how this could be the case, a circumstance that leads some to view this notion as unparsimonious and speculative. This paper attempts to provide an a priori reason for the mutual dependency of consciousness and matter by considering the consequences of the indistinguishably of elementary particles and the temporally extended nature of consciousness. In doing so, it is hoped that an ontology is elucidated which is applicable within many mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics

Communication Habits and Relationship Satisfaction within College Students’ Romantic Relationships

Honors (Bachelor's)SociologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112142/1/nlucido.pd

Privacy Protection Gaps, Free Apps, and Marketing Traps: Determining who are “Subscribers” Under the Video Privacy Protection Act

Article published in the Michigan State Law Review

Do-It-Ourselves Slideshow

The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming book by Corrine Lucido to be published by The Feminist Press. Community Workshops On Children\u27s Books grew out of a project funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund. Have you ever thought of using a slide show to dramatize the findings of a feminist project you\u27ve been working on in your own community? If so, you probably wondered how much time was involved, how much it would cost and what special skills you might need to make one. We asked these same questions last year when we considered making slides for our Community Workshops on Children\u27s Books in Mt. Holyoke, Mass., Baltimore, Md. and Westbury, N.Y. Ultimately, two of the Workshops decided to go ahead and make slides on stereotypes in local children\u27s book collections. Though there are several slide shows which deal with the subject, we wanted to produce shows about particular books in our communities. We\u27d like to share with you what we learned from those experiences

Understanding the Role of Social Norms in Organ Donation Decision Making Among African American Adults

Background: African Americans (AAs) comprise a disproportionate number of those waiting on the national transplant list and are underrepresented among registered organ donors. While barriers to organ donation are well understood, little research has explored factors that facilitate interest in donation. Because AAs are often characterized by strong extended relationships and shared decision-making, social norms may be an influential factor in donation behavior. Utilizing the Theory of Reasoned Action, this study demonstrated the application of theory to understand the role social norms play in donation decisionmaking, among AAs. Methods: Self-administered questionnaires were completed by 425 AA adults residing in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Social norms were measured using a Likert scale consisting of two items that addressed perceptions of favorability of donation and levels of influence a loved one has over the participant’s donation decision making. Main outcomes assessed were donation intentions and expression of donation intentions via designation on one’s driver’s license. Results: Logistic regression results indicate that a loved one’s level of favorability of donation is associated with both intention (OR=2.14, p≤0.01) and expression (OR=1.71, p≤0.01); however, findings approached significance with the level of influence a loved one has on intentions (OR=1.47, p=0.07) but was not associated with expression (p\u3e0.05). Conclusions: The results suggest that a loved one’s level of favorability has an effect on donation decision making, but, conversely, a loved one’s level of influence does not impact donation decision making. Focusing on social norms and encouraging communication may prove useful for future interventions to improve engagement in donation among AAs