State of the Nation: A snapshot of Australian institutional repositories

This paper provides the first full description of the status of Australian institutional repositories. Australia presents an interesting case because of the government’s support of institutional repositories and open access. A survey of all 39 Australian universities conducted in September 2008 shows that 32 institutions have active repositories and by end of 2009, 37 should have repositories. The total number of open access items has risen dramatically since January 2006. Five institutions reported they have an institution-wide open access mandate, and eight are planning to implement one. Only 20 universities have funding for their repository staff and 24 universities have funding for their repository platform, either as ongoing recurrent budgeting or absorbed into their institutions’ budgets. The remaining are still project funded. The platform most frequently used for Australian repositories is Fedora with Vital. Most of the remaining sites use Eprints or DSpace

Institutional results from "A census of institutional repositories in Australia" survey sent and completed in September 2008

This is a list of the status of the institutional repositories in 38 Australian universities as at September 200

Monitoring Success in Choice Neighborhoods: A Proposed Approach to Performance Measurement

Offers a framework and tools for performance management in the initiative to transform poor neighborhoods into revitalized, sustainable mixed-income communities. Proposes system components, logic model, management reports, and performance indicators

Scholarly communication competencies: An analysis of confidence among Australasian library staff

Through a nationwide survey of universities and research organizations in Australia and New Zealand, this article investigates the level of confidence that librarians working in scholarly communication have in their current competencies. The results show that while respondents were generally confident across seven competency areas (Institutional repository management, Publishing services, Research practice, Copyright services, Open access policies and scholarly communication landscape, Data management services, and Assessment and impact metrics), the majority combined their scholarly communication tasks with other roles. Challenges across the sector in updating skills and knowledge to keep abreast of current trends and developments were identified, with implications for improving professional development opportunities

Accounting for Market Frictions and Power Asymmetries in Online Labor Markets

Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) is an online labor market that defines itself as "a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence." Early advocates and developers of crowdsourcing platforms argued that crowdsourcing tasks are designed so people of any skill level can do this labor online. However, as the popularity of crowdsourcing work has grown, the crowdsourcing literature has identified a peculiar issue: that work quality of workers is not responsive to changes in price. This means that unlike what economic theory would predict, paying crowdworkers higher wages does not lead to higher quality work. This has led some to believe that platforms, like AMT, attract poor quality workers. This article examines different market dynamics that might, unwittingly, contribute to the inefficiencies in the market that generate poor work quality. We argue that the cultural logics and socioeconomic values embedded in AMT's platform design generate a greater amount of market power for requesters (those posting tasks) than for individuals doing tasks for pay (crowdworkers). We attribute the uneven distribution of market power among participants to labor market frictions, primarily characterized by uncompetitive wage posting and incomplete information. Finally, recommendations are made for how to tackle these frictions when contemplating the design of an online labor market

An evaluation of COVID-19 surveillance system in New Juaben South Municipality of Ghana: a cross-sectional study

Introduction: among others, the objectives of Ghana’s COVID-19 surveillance system are to rapidly detect, test, isolate and manage cases, to monitor trends in COVID-19 deaths and to guide the implementation and adjustment of targeted control measures. We therefore aimed to examine the operations of the COVID-19 surveillance system in New Juaben South Municipality, describe its attributes and explore whether its objectives were being met. Methods: we utilized a mixed method descriptive study design to evaluate the COVID-19 surveillance system in the New Juaben South Municipality of the Eastern Region of Ghana. Desk review and key informant interviews were carried out from 1st February to 31st March 2021 to measure nine surveillance system attributes as an approximation of its performance using the CDC’s 2013 updated surveillance system guidelines. Results: while the COVID-19 surveillance system in New Juaben South (NJS) was highly representative of its population, it was rated ‘moderate’ for its stability, flexibility, sensitivity and acceptability. The system was however characterized by a low performance on data quality, simplicity, timeliness and predictive value positive. The sensitivity and predictive value positive (PVP) of the system were 55.6% and 31.3% respectfully. Conclusion: while the surveillance system is only partially meeting its objectives, it is useful in the COVID-19 response in New Juaben South Municipality. System performance could improve with stigma reduction especially among health care workers, timely testing and simplification of surveillance forms and software

Carbohydrate digestive enzyme inhibition, hepatoprotective, antioxidant and antidiabetic benefits of Persea americana

The medicinal use of Persea americana in the treatment of some diseases like hypertension, diabetes, is often with dearth of supporting scientific proof. Thus, we evaluated its ethnomedicinal benefits for possible scientific justification. Thirty healthy Wistar rats were randomly grouped in fives. Alloxan was used to induce diabetes in the rats in groups II to VI. The diabetic rats in group II were treated with glibenclamide, while those in group III were not treated. Also, the diabetic rats in groups IV to VI were treated with the ethanol extracts of the stem bark, leaf, and root of P. americana respectively. The parts of P. americana comparatively possess highest amounts of phenols (250.50 ± 0.68—bark), saponin (436.80 ± 3.76—leaf), flavonoid (382.80 ± 0.67—leaf) and tannins (58.34 ± 0.09—root). The extracts exhibited high reducing property (FRAP and total reducing), as well as high ABTS and DPPH free radical scavenging ability. The enzyme (alpha-glycosidase and alpha-amylase) inhibitory activity of P. americana increases with increasing concentration of the extracts. Administration of methanol extracts of P. americana bark, leaf and root to alloxan-induced diabetic rats resulted in significant (P < 0.05) decreases in AST, ALP, ALT, Total bilirubin, LPO, plasma glucose and significant (P < 0.05) increases in GSH, CAT and SOD. These effects were like that of glibenclamide. The enzyme inhibitory, hepatoprotective, antioxidant and antidiabetic properties of P. americana are some of the benefits derived from its consumption and ethnomedicinal use

Microevolution during the emergence of a monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium epidemic in the United Kingdom

Microevolutionary events associated with the emergence and clonal expansion of new 27 epidemic clones of bacterial pathogens hold the key to understanding the drivers of 28 epidemiological success. We describe a comparative whole genome sequence and 29 phylogenomic analysis of monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium isolates from the UK 30 and Italy from 2005-2012. Monophasic isolates from this time formed a single clade 31 distinct from recent monophasic epidemic clones described previously from North 32 America and Spain. The current UK monophasic epidemic clones encode a novel 33 genomic island encoding resistance to heavy metals (SGI-3), and composite transposon 34 encoding antibiotic resistance genes not present in other Typhimurium isolates, that 35 may have contributed to the epidemiological success. We also report a remarkable 36 degree of genotypic variation that accumulated during clonal expansion of a UK 37 epidemic including multiple independent acquisitions of a novel prophage carrying the 38 sopE gene and multiple deletion events affecting the phase II flagellin locus

Border crossings in the African travel narratives of Ibn Battuta, Richard Burton and Paul Theroux

This article compares the representation of African borders in the 14th-century travelogue of Ibn Battuta, the 19th-century travel narrative of Richard Burton and the 21st-century travel writing of Paul Theroux. It examines the mutually constitutive relationship between conceptions of literal territorial boundaries and the figurative boundaries of the subject that ventures across borders in Africa. The border is seen as a liminal zone which paradoxically separates and joins spaces. Accounts of border crossings in travel writing from different periods suggest the historicity and cultural specificity of conceptions of geographical borders, and the way they index the “boundaries” of the subjects who cross them. Tracing the transformations in these conceptions of literal and metaphorical borders allows one to chart the emergence of the dominant contemporary idea of “Africa” as the inscrutable, savage continent