Merging Catalogs in Alaska: Navigating Shifting Boundaries

Presented at the Pacific Northwest Library Association Conference, August 2015The Joint Library Catalog, a network of 72 public, academic, special, and K-12 li-braries that serves 65 percent of Alaska’s population, has conducted three catalog mergers in three years. As new libraries join the consortium, they face changes to OPAC design, lending procedures, and cataloging standards. Their patrons gain access to over 1.7 million titles (4.1 million items) located across the state, availa-ble to hold and send, plus reciprocal borrowing privileges

Algae Lipid Analysis Using Plastic Centrifuge Tubes

Undergraduate Basi

Publishers at the intersection of cultures. The significance of Italo-Dutch contacts in the creation process of Joan Blaeu’s Theatrum Italiae (1663)

Sfogliando le pagine di atlanti urbani come il Theatrum Italiae, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1663 dalla casa editrice Blaeu di Amsterdam, si è sempre potuto fare un viaggio mentale alla scoperta della penisola italiana. Focalizzando la nostra attenzione sul processo editoriale sottostante la creazione dell’atlante, analizziamo che tipo di contatti esistevano tra i Blaeu e i loro partner italiani. Il ruolo di Pieter Blaeu, figlio di Joan, fu essenziale per la fortuna dell’atlante urbano, in particolare per gli interventi culturali da lui svolti tra le parti italiane e olandesi coinvolte nel progetto. I Blaeu hanno voluto offrire ai loro lettori informazioni approfondite sulla penisola italiana attraverso testi e immagini che avevano − per quanto possibile − collezionato e ricevuto dai loro corrispondenti italiani. È stato grazie ai vari contributi offerti da contatti internazionali come lo scrittore Vincenzo Armanni, o il libraio Andries Fries, attivo tra Amsterdam e Venezia, che Joan e Pieter Blaeu hanno potuto ampliare il materiale già pubblicato in precedenza, in special modo il Civitates Orbis Terrarum (Braun e Hogenberg, 1572)

A Semiparametric Bayesian Model for Detecting Synchrony Among Multiple Neurons

We propose a scalable semiparametric Bayesian model to capture dependencies among multiple neurons by detecting their co-firing (possibly with some lag time) patterns over time. After discretizing time so there is at most one spike at each interval, the resulting sequence of 1's (spike) and 0's (silence) for each neuron is modeled using the logistic function of a continuous latent variable with a Gaussian process prior. For multiple neurons, the corresponding marginal distributions are coupled to their joint probability distribution using a parametric copula model. The advantages of our approach are as follows: the nonparametric component (i.e., the Gaussian process model) provides a flexible framework for modeling the underlying firing rates; the parametric component (i.e., the copula model) allows us to make inference regarding both contemporaneous and lagged relationships among neurons; using the copula model, we construct multivariate probabilistic models by separating the modeling of univariate marginal distributions from the modeling of dependence structure among variables; our method is easy to implement using a computationally efficient sampling algorithm that can be easily extended to high dimensional problems. Using simulated data, we show that our approach could correctly capture temporal dependencies in firing rates and identify synchronous neurons. We also apply our model to spike train data obtained from prefrontal cortical areas in rat's brain

Waterborne GPR survey for estimating bottom-sediment variability: A survey on the Po River, Turin, Italy

We conducted an integrated geophysical survey on a stretch of the river Po in order to check the GPR ability to discriminate the variability of riverbed sediments through an analysis of the bottom reflection amplitudes. We conducted continuous profiles with a 200-MHzGPR system and a handheld broadband EM sensor.Aconductivity meter and a TDR provided punctual measurements of water conductivity, permittivity, and temperature. The processing and interpretation of the GEM-2 and GPR data were enhanced by reciprocal results and by integration with the punctual measurements of the EM properties of the water. We used a processing flow that improved the radargram images and preserved the amplitude ratios among the different profiles and the frequency content at the bottom reflection signal.We derived the water attenuation coefficient both from the punctual measurements using the Maxwell formulas and from the interpretation of the GPR data, finding an optimal matching between the two values. The GPR measurements provided maps of the bathymetry and of the bottom reflection amplitude. The high reflectivity of the riverbed, derived from the GPR interpretation, agreed with the results of the direct sampling campaign that followed the geophysical survey. The variability of the bottom-reflection-amplitudes map, which was not confirmed by the direct sampling, could also have been caused by scattering phenomena due to the riverbed clasts which are dimensionally comparable to the wavelength of the radar pulse

How Did Proposed Changes in the New Fair Labor and Standards Act Impact Collegiate Athletics Departments? An Initial Exploration

In 2015, the Department of Labor introduced proposed changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which significantly raised the minimum annual salary required for exempt employees. This proposed legislation had the potential to greatly impact college athletics departments, which traditionally have many employees who work long hours for relatively low salaries. The legislation was halted just days before its effective date. Many universities, however, went forward with changes in order to comply with the potential new law. The purpose of the current study was to determine how many athletic departments were affected by the changes, what types of changes were actually implemented, and how employees viewed the fairness of how resources are being distributed at their institution. Research revealed roughly half of all schools implemented some sort of change as a result of the proposed law, with 67.5% of those schools reporting an increase in salaries for some staff. Measures of distributive justice indicated low levels of perceived fairness in the allocation of salary across all NCAA Divisions, with employees at schools that did not make changes reporting significantly lower levels of perceived fairness. In addition, athletics directors reported statistically significant higher levels of perceived fairness in salary allocation than other staff members

A semi-graphical method of analysis for horizontally curved beams

"October 15, 1938.

A psychotherapy group for latency girls in a school

This paper describes the TOPS (Tavistock Outreach Project in primary schools) experience of running a psychotherapy group for latency girls. The group consisted of five girls in their final year of primary school whose teachers felt could benefit from support in their relationship difficulties. The group ran in the school for just under two terms of weekly sessions and was led by a Child Psychotherapist and an Assistant Therapist. Susan Reid's Psychodynamic group approach (1993) underpinned the therapeutic approach used in the group. A description of TOPS - a school based therapeutic provision, opens the paper, followed by a brief description of the school setting, the rational for group work and the selection criteria. The group’s development over time and the powerful processes that took place in it are demonstrated through the emerging themes discussed: Falling apart and coming together, the therapy box as a trigger for chaos as linked to the mythological story of ‘Pandora’s Box’, the group's relationship with the group leaders, anxieties about changes and endings with the girls imminent move to secondary School and the group’s move from a Basic Assumption group to a Work Group (Bion, 1959). Accordingly, over time, a slow shift in the group's’ state of mind could be observed; from ganging against and excluding a member or the Group Leaders, to gradually becoming more thoughtful, integrated and better accepting of what the group and the Group Leaders had to offer – but in the context of many returns to a gang mentality along this path. The paper concludes with some reflection upon the outcomes of the work and discussion of these. Despite the fairly short life of the group – 12 sessions, pleasing outcomes were reported by the teachers, parents and the group members who saw improvement in their relationship