Openness in Higher Education: Open Source, Open Standards, Open Access

For national advisory services in the UK (UKOLN, CETIS, and OSS Watch), varieties of openness (open source software, open standards, and open access to research publications and data) present an interesting challenge. Higher education is often keen to embrace openness, including new tools such as blogs and wikis for students and staff. For advisory services, the goal is to achieve the best solution for any individual institution's needs, balancing its enthusiasm with its own internal constraints and long term commitments. For example, open standards are a genuine good, but they may fail to gain market acceptance. Rushing headlong to standardize on open standards may not be the best approach. Instead a healthy dose of pragmatism is required. Similarly, open source software is an excellent choice when it best meets the needs of an institution, but not perhaps without reference to those needs. Providing open access to data owned by museums sounds like the right thing to do, but progress towards open access needs to also consider the sustainability plan for the service. Regrettably institutional policies and practices may not be in step with the possibilities that present themselves. Often a period of reflection on the implications of such activity is what is needed. Advisory services can help to provide this reflective moment. UKOLN, for example, has developed of a Quality Assurance (QA) model for making use of open standards. Originally developed to support the Joint Information Systems Committee's (JISC) digital library development programmes, it has subsequently been extended across other programmes areas. Another example is provided by OSS Watch's contribution to the development of JISC's own policy on open source software for its projects and services. The JISC policy does not mandate the use of open source, but instead guides development projects through a series of steps dealing with IPR issues, code management, and community development, which serve to enhance any JISC-funded project that takes up an open source development methodology. CETIS has provided a range of services to support community awareness and capability to make effective decisions about open standards in e-learning, and has informed the JISC policy and practices in relation to open standards in e-learning development. Again, rather than a mandate, the policy requires development projects to become involved in a community of practice relevant to their domain where there is a contextualised understanding of open standards

Species matter when considering landscape effects on carabid distributions

Increasing the abundance and diversity of carabid beetles is a common objective of farm habitat management to deliver sustainable pest control. Carabid spatial distributions in relation to crop areas are important to the delivery of this ecosystem service. We used pitfall count data at distances from edge habitats into crop centres, from farm sites across the UK, to determine the effects of in-field and adjacent environmental features on carabid abundance and diversity. Overall carabid abundance increased towards the crop centre, whilst species richness and diversity decreased. The analyses of carabid abundance based on all the species pooled together strongly reflected the behaviour of the most abundant species. Species preferences varied by crop, soil type, and environmental features. For instance, some species were positively associated with habitats such as margins, while others responded negatively. This contrast in individual species models highlights the limitations on pooled models in elucidating responses. Studies informing farm-habitat design should consider individual species’ preferences for effective enhancement of pest control services. Diverse cropping and landscape heterogeneity at the farm scale can benefit the varied preferences of individual species, help build diverse communities and, potentially increase service resilience and stability over time

IR observations of MS 1054-03: Star Formation and its Evolution in Rich Galaxy Clusters

We study the infrared (IR) properties of galaxies in the cluster MS 1054-03 at z=0.83 by combining MIPS 24 micron data with spectra of more than 400 galaxies and a very deep K-band selected catalog. 19 IR cluster members are selected spectroscopically, and an additional 15 are selected by their photometric redshifts. We derive the IR luminosity function of the cluster and find strong evolution compared to the similar-mass Coma cluster. The best fitting Schechter function gives L*_{IR}=11.49 +0.30/-0.29 L_sun with a fixed faint end slope, about one order of magnitude larger than that in Coma. The rate of evolution of the IR luminosity from Coma to MS 1054-03 is consistent with that found in field galaxies, and it suggests that some internal mechanism, e.g., the consumption of the gas fuel, is responsible for the general decline of the cosmic star formation rate (SFR) in different environments. The mass-normalized integrated SFR within 0.5R_200 in MS 1054-03 also shows evolution compared with other rich clusters at lower redshifts, but the trend is less conclusive if the mass selection effect is considered. A nonnegligible fraction (13%) of cluster members, are forming stars actively and the overdensity of IR galaxies is about 20 compared to the field. It is unlikely that clusters only passively accrete star forming galaxies from the surrounding fields and have their star formation quenched quickly afterward; instead, many cluster galaxies still have large amounts of gas, and their star formation may be enhanced by the interaction with the cluster.Comment: 49 pages, 9 figures, accepted by Ap

Surface dosimetry for breast radiotherapy in the presence of immobilization cast material

Curative breast radiotherapy typically leaves patients with varying degrees of cosmetic damage. One problem interfering with cosmetically acceptable breast radiotherapy is the external contour for large pendulous breasts which often results in high doses to skin folds. Thermoplastic casts are often employed to secure the breasts to maintain setup reproducibility and limit the presence of skin folds. This paper aims to determine changes in surface dose that can be attributed to the use of thermoplastic immobilization casts. Skin dose for a clinical hybrid conformal/IMRT breast plan was measured using radiochromic film and MOSFET detectors at a range ofwater equivalent depths representative of the different skin layers. The radiochromic film was used as an integrating dosimeter, while the MOSFETs were used for real-time dosimetry to isolate the contribution of skin dose from individual IMRT segments. Strips of film were placed at various locations on the breast and the MOSFETs were used to measure skin dose at 16 positions spaced along the film strips for comparison of data. The results showed an increase in skin dose in the presence of the immobilization cast of up to 45.7% and 62.3% of the skin dose without the immobilization cast present as measured with Gafchromic EBT film and MOSFETs, respectively. The increase in skin dose due to the immobilization cast varied with the angle of beam incidence and was greatest when the beam was normally incident on the phantom. The increase in surface dose with the immobilization cast was greater under entrance dose conditions compared to exit dose conditions

Path tortuosity changes the transport cost paradigm in terrestrial animals

The time that animals spend travelling at various speeds and the tortuosity of their movement paths are two of the many things that affect space-use by animals. In this, high turn rates are predicted to be energetically costly, especially at high travel speeds, which implies that animals should modulate their speed according to path characteristics. When animals move so as to maximize distance and minimize metabolic energy expenditure, they travel most efficiently at the speed that gives them a minimum cost of transport (COTmin), a well-defined point for animals that move entirely in fluid media. Theoretical considerations show though, that land animals should travel at their maximum speed to minimize COT, which they do not, instead travelling at walking pace. So, to what extent does COTmin depend on speed and turn rate and how might this relate to movement paths? We measured oxygen consumption in humans walking along paths with varied tortuosity at defined speeds to demonstrate that the energetic costs of negotiating these paths increase disproportionately with both speed and angular velocity. This resulted in the COTmin occurring at very low speeds, and these COTmin speeds reduced with increased path tortuosity and angular velocity. Logged movement data from six free-ranging terrestrial species underpinned this because all individuals turned with greater angular velocity the slower their travel speeds across their full speed range. It seems, therefore, that land animals may strive to achieve minimum movement costs by reducing speed with increasing path variability, providing one of many possible explanations as to why speed is much lower than currently predicted based on lab measurements of mammalian locomotor performance

National innovation systems, developing countries, and the role of intermediaries: a critical review of the literature

Developed over the past three decades, the national innovation system concept (NIS) has been widely used by both scholars and policy makers to explain how interactions between a set of distinct, nationally bounded institutions supports and facilitates technological change and the emergence and diffusion of new innovations. This concept provides a framework by which developing countries can adopt for purposes of catching up. Initially conceived on structures and interactions identified in economically advanced countries, the application of the NIS concept to developing countries has been gradual and has coincided – in the NIS literature – with a move away from overly macro-interpretations to an emphasis on micro-level interactions and processes, with much of this work questioning the nation state as the most appropriate level of analysis, as well as the emergence of certain intermediary actors thought to facilitate knowledge exchange between actors and institutions. This paper reviews the NIS literature chronologically, showing how this shift in emphasis has diminished somewhat the importance of both institutions, particularly governments, and the process of institutional capacity building. In doing so, the paper suggests that more recent literature on intermediaries such as industry associations may offer valuable insights to how institutional capacity building occurs and how it might be directed, particularly in the context of developing countries where governance capacities are often lacking, contributing to less effective innovation systems, stagnant economies, and unequal development

Effect of Prior Bilateral Oophorectomy on the Presentation of Breast Cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutation Carriers

Purpose: To compare the presentation of invasive breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers with and without prior bilateral oophorectomy. Patients and methods: Women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation with the diagnosis of invasive breast cancer were identified from ten cancer genetics clinics. The medical history, medical treatment records and pathology reports for the breast cancers were reviewed. Information was abstracted from medical charts, including history (and date) of oophorectomy, date of breast cancer diagnosis, stage of disease, and pathologic characteristics of the breast cancer. Women with prior bilateral oophorectomy were matched by age, year of diagnosis, and mutation with one or more women who had two intact ovaries at the time of breast cancer diagnosis. Characteristics of the breast tumours were compared between the two groups

Is There an Upper Limit to Genome Size?

O.H. was supported by the Marie Skłodowska Curie Action Individual Fellowship program (CAPITULA, grant agreement 657918