Proposal for an IMLS Collection Registry and Metadata Repository

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign proposes to design, implement, and research a collection-level registry and item-level metadata repository service that will aggregate information about digital collections and items of digital content created using funds from Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grants. This work will be a collaboration by the University Library and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. All extant digital collections initiated or augmented under IMLS aegis from 1998 through September 30, 2005 will be included in the proposed collection registry. Item-level metadata will be harvested from collections making such content available using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI PMH). As part of this work, project personnel, in cooperation with IMLS staff and grantees, will define and document appropriate metadata schemas, help create and maintain collection-level metadata records, assist in implementing OAI compliant metadata provider services for dissemination of item-level metadata records, and research potential benefits and issues associated with these activities. The immediate outcomes of this work will be the practical demonstration of technologies that have the potential to enhance the visibility of IMLS funded online exhibits and digital library collections and improve discoverability of items contained in these resources. Experience gained and research conducted during this project will make clearer both the costs and the potential benefits associated with such services. Metadata provider and harvesting service implementations will be appropriately instrumented (e.g., customized anonymous transaction logs, online questionnaires for targeted user groups, performance monitors). At the conclusion of this project we will submit a final report that discusses tasks performed and lessons learned, presents business plans for sustaining registry and repository services, enumerates and summarizes potential benefits of these services, and makes recommendations regarding future implementations of these and related intermediary and end user interoperability services by IMLS projects.unpublishednot peer reviewe

Mapping and explaining the productivity of Pinus radiata in New Zealand

Mapping Pinus radiata productivity for New Zealand not only provides useful information for forest owners, industry stakeholders and policy managers, but also enables current and future plantations to be visualised, quantified, and planned. Using an extensive set of permanent sample plots, split into fitting (n = 1,146) and validation (n = 618) datasets, models of P. radiata 300 Index (an index of volume mean annual increment) and Site Index (an index of height growth) were developed using a regression kriging technique. Spatial predictions were accurate and accounted for 61% and 70% of the variance for 300 Index and Site Index, respectively. Productivity predicted from these surfaces for the entire plantation estate averaged 27.4 m³ ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ for the 300 Index and 30.4 m for Site Index. Surfaces showed wide regional variation in this productivity, which was attributable mainly to variation in air temperature and root-zone water storage from site to site

Mechanistic explanations of community structure: Introduction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75364/1/j.1654-1103.1999.tb00597.x.pd

Cooling and the SU(2) Instanton Vaccuum

We present results of an investigation into the nature of instantons in 4-dimensional pure gauge lattice $SU(2)$\ obtained from configurations which have been cooled using an under-relaxed cooling algorithm. We discuss ways of calibrating the cooling and the effects of different degrees of cooling, and compare our data for the shapes, sizes and locations of instantons with continuum results. In this paper we extend the ideas and techniques developed by us for use in $O(3)$, and compare the results with those obtained by other groups.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, uuencoded compressed tarfile of figures sent separately. Full (compressed) postscript version (118k)available from ftp://rock.helsinki.fi/pub/preprints/tft/Year1995/HU-TFT-95-21/paper.ps.

Alignment of patient and primary care practice member perspectives of chronic illness care: a cross-sectional analysis

Polly H. Noel and Luci K. Leykum are with the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, 7400 Merton Minter Blvd, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA -- Polly H. Noel, Ray F. Palmer, Raquel L. Romero, Luci K. Leykum, Holly J. Lanham, and Krista W. Bowers are with the Department of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Dr, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA -- Michael L. Parchman is with the MacColl Center for Healthcare Innovation, Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, 1730 Minor Ave 1600, Seattle, WA 98101, USA -- Holly J. Leykum is with the The McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, 2110 Speedway, Stop B6000, Austin, TX 78712, USA -- John E. Zeber is with the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, 1901 S. 1st St, Temple, TX 76504, USA and Scott and White Healthcare Center for Applied Health Research, 2401 S. 31st St, Temple, TX 76508, USABackground: Little is known as to whether primary care teams’ perceptions of how well they have implemented the Chronic Care Model (CCM) corresponds with their patients’ own experience of chronic illness care. We examined the extent to which practice members’ perceptions of how well they organized to deliver care consistent with the CCM were associated with their patients’ perceptions of the chronic illness care they have received. Methods: Analysis of baseline measures from a cluster randomized controlled trial testing a practice facilitation intervention to implement the CCM in small, community-based primary care practices. All practice “members” (i.e., physician providers, non-physician providers, and staff) completed the Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (ACIC) survey and adult patients with 1 or more chronic illnesses completed the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC) questionnaire. Results: Two sets of hierarchical linear regression models accounting for nesting of practice members (N = 283) and patients (N = 1,769) within 39 practices assessed the association between practice member perspectives of CCM implementation (ACIC scores) and patients’ perspectives of CCM (PACIC). ACIC summary score was not significantly associated with PACIC summary score or most of PACIC subscale scores, but four of the ACIC subscales were consistently associated with PACIC summary score and the majority of PACIC subscale scores after controlling for patient characteristics. The magnitude of the coefficients, however, indicates that the level of association is weak. Conclusions: The ACIC and PACIC scales appear to provide complementary and relatively unique assessments of how well clinical services are aligned with the CCM. Our findings underscore the importance of assessing both patient and practice member perspectives when evaluating quality of chronic illness care.Information, Risk, and Operations Management (IROM)[email protected]

Diet Specialization by the Scarlet Kingsnake, Lampropeltis elapsoides (Colubridae)

Based on 34 natural prey items, Lampropeltis elapsoides eats primarily elongate squamates (97%), especially skinks (74%) and colubroid snakes (15%). N o ontogenetic or geographic variation is evident; prey items are swallowed headfirst and average 19% of predator mass. The diet substantially overlaps that of juveniles of some other lampropeltines, including sympatric L. triangulum, but is unusually narrow compared to adults of most other species

Diet Specialization by the Scarlet Kingsnake, Lampropeltis elapsoides (Colubridae)

Based on 34 natural prey items, Lampropeltis elapsoides eats primarily elongate squamates (97%), especially skinks (74%) and colubroid snakes (15%). N o ontogenetic or geographic variation is evident; prey items are swallowed headfirst and average 19% of predator mass. The diet substantially overlaps that of juveniles of some other lampropeltines, including sympatric L. triangulum, but is unusually narrow compared to adults of most other species

Novel methods for spatial prediction of soil functions within landscapes (SP0531)

Previous studies showed that soil patterns could be predicted in agriculturally managed landscapes by modelling and extrapolating from extensive existing but related integrated datasets. Based on these results we proposed to develop and apply predictive models of the relationships between environmental data and known soil patterns to predict capacity for key soil functions within diverse landscapes for which there is little detailed underpinning soil information available. Objectives were: To develop a high-level framework in which the non-specialist user-community could explore questions. To generate digital soil maps for three selected catchments at a target resolution of 1:50000 to provide the base information for soil function prediction. To use a modelling approach to predict the performance of key soil functions in catchments undergoing change but where only sparse or low resolution soil survey data are available. To use a modelling approach to assess the impact of different management scenarios and/or environmental conditions on the delivery of multiple soil functions within a catchment. To create a detailed outline of the requirements for ground-truthing to test the predicted model outputs at a catchment scale. To contribute to the development of a high-level framework for decision makers