Review of Research Data Curation Practices and Attitudes of Stakeholders

Advances in technology have allowed researchers to create large amounts of reusable digital data sets. This phenomenon, e-Research, encompasses not only innovative forms of scholarship in the sciences, but the humanities and social sciences as well (Lynch 2008). While digital data benefits research by permitting new types of problems to be addressed, increases ability to collaborate across disciplines and institutions, and allows for replication of previous results, it is easily lost for future use unless action is taken to manage it from its inception. Data curation is the process of managing digital data from the moment of its creation so that it can be accessed, understood and potentially re-used in the future (Lord and Macdonald 2003). The steps necessary to curate research data have been outlined through the Data Curation Centre’s Curation Lifecycle Model (Digital Curation Centre n.d.). Activities for data management include planning for the creation of data, describing the data using standardized metadata, housing the data set in a repository, creating data management plans, migrating objects as necessary to overcome media decay and format obsolesence, and appraising for selection and deselection. Long-term management of digital data sets is still in its infancy, and numerous issues such as what kind of expertise is needed to properly curate data and how they should be financially provided for into the future when grant money ceases are not fully resolved (Lynch 2008, Lyon 2007). Due to the importance of digital data for research, many librarians have discussed what their future role of librarians may be at academic institutions (Council on Library and Information Resources 2008, ARL 2006, Hey and Hey 2006). The increase in digital research data has created an opportunity for library involvement in data curation (Gold 2007). In response, libraries, universities, and other organizations, have surveyed either researcher’s data curation needs and current practices or library involvement and policies in data curation. However, little research has been conducted on individual librarians to assess current activities in data curation, and, in particular, their attitudes towards it

Cognitive Information Processing

Contains reports on three research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAB07-74-C-0630)National Science Foundation (Grant GK-33736X2

The 21-SPONGE HI Absorption Survey I: Techniques and Initial Results

We present methods and results from "21-cm Spectral Line Observations of Neutral Gas with the EVLA" (21-SPONGE), a large survey for Galactic neutral hydrogen (HI) absorption with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). With the upgraded capabilities of the VLA, we reach median root-mean-square (RMS) noise in optical depth of $\sigma_{\tau}=9\times 10^{-4}$ per $0.42\rm\,km\,s^{-1}$ channel for the 31 sources presented here. Upon completion, 21-SPONGE will be the largest HI absorption survey with this high sensitivity. We discuss the observations and data reduction strategies, as well as line fitting techniques. We prove that the VLA bandpass is stable enough to detect broad, shallow lines associated with warm HI, and show that bandpass observations can be combined in time to reduce spectral noise. In combination with matching HI emission profiles from the Arecibo Observatory ($\sim3.5'$ angular resolution), we estimate excitation (or spin) temperatures ($\rm T_s$) and column densities for Gaussian components fitted to sightlines along which we detect HI absorption (30/31). We measure temperatures up to $\rm T_s\sim1500\rm\,K$ for individual lines, showing that we can probe the thermally unstable interstellar medium (ISM) directly. However, we detect fewer of these thermally unstable components than expected from previous observational studies. We probe a wide range in column density between $\sim10^{16}$ and $>10^{21}\rm\,cm^{-2}$ for individual HI clouds. In addition, we reproduce the trend between cold gas fraction and average $\rm T_s$ found by synthetic observations of a hydrodynamic ISM simulation by Kim et al. (2014). Finally, we investigate methods for estimating HI $\rm T_s$ and discuss their biases.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 24 pages, 14 figure

Adequate Yearly Progress in Small Rural Schools and Rural Low-Income Schools

Adequate yearly progress (AYP) on No Child Left Behind criteria was examined for a randomly selected sample of districts that qualify for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP). The sample involved 10% of districts that were eligible for the Small Rural Schools Achievement (SRSA) program and 10% that were eligible for the Rural and Low-income Schools (RLIS) program. Based on district reports, nearly 80% of SRSA schools made AYP, 11% failed, and 11% did not have adequate data. For schools in the RLIS program, districts reported that 65% made AYP, 29% failed, and 6% did not report adequate data. The SRSA and RLIS samples had different patterns for the categories of students that did not make AYP. Also, SRSA and RLIS districts were differentially distributed across the United States. Implications for interventions are discussed

Cognitive Information Processing

Contains research objectives and summary of research on eight research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAB07-74-C-0630)National Science Foundation (Grant GK-33736X2)National Science Foundation (Grant EPP74-12653)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 P01 GM19428-03)National Institutes of Health (Grant 3 PO1 GM19428-03S1)National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 PO1 GM14940-07)Peter Bent Brigham Hospital Purchase Order G-33196 #2Associated Press (Grant

Cognitive Information Processing

Contains research objectives and summary of research on five research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant SED74-12653-A01)Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAB07-76-C-1400)National Science Foundation (Grant ENG74-24344)Associated Press (Grant)National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 ROI GM22547-01)National Institutes of Health (Grant 2 PO1 GM19428-04

Arginase-1–Expressing Macrophages Suppress Th2 Cytokine–Driven Inflammation and Fibrosis

Macrophage-specific expression of Arginase-1 is commonly believed to promote inflammation, fibrosis, and wound healing by enhancing L-proline, polyamine, and Th2 cytokine production. Here, however, we show that macrophage-specific Arg1 functions as an inhibitor of inflammation and fibrosis following infection with the Th2-inducing pathogen Schistosoma mansoni. Although susceptibility to infection was not affected by the conditional deletion of Arg1 in macrophages, Arg1−/flox;LysMcre mice died at an accelerated rate. The mortality was not due to acute Th1/NOS2-mediated hepatotoxicity or endotoxemia. Instead, granulomatous inflammation, liver fibrosis, and portal hypertension increased in infected Arg1−/flox;LysMcre mice. Similar findings were obtained with Arg1flox/flox;Tie2cre mice, which delete Arg1 in all macrophage populations. Production of Th2 cytokines increased in the infected Arg1−/flox;LysMcre mice, and unlike alternatively activated wild-type macrophages, Arg1−/flox;LysMcre macrophages failed to inhibit T cell proliferation in vitro, providing an underlying mechanism for the exacerbated Th2 pathology. The suppressive activity of Arg1-expressing macrophages was independent of IL-10 and TGF-β1. However, when exogenous L-arginine was provided, T cell proliferation was restored, suggesting that Arg1-expressing macrophages deplete arginine, which is required to sustain CD4+ T cell responses. These data identify Arg1 as the essential suppressive mediator of alternatively activated macrophages (AAM) and demonstrate that Arg1-expressing macrophages function as suppressors rather than inducers of Th2-dependent inflammation and fibrosis

Large-scale shock-ionized and photo-ionized gas in M83: the impact of star formation

We investigate the ionization structure of the nebular gas in M83 using the line diagnostic diagram, [O III](5007 \degA)/H{\beta} vs. [S II](6716 \deg A+6731 \deg A)/H{\alpha} with the newly available narrowband images from the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We produce the diagnostic diagram on a pixel-by-pixel (0.2" x 0.2") basis and compare it with several photo- and shock-ionization models. For the photo-ionized gas, we observe a gradual increase of the log([O III]/H{\beta}) ratios from the center to the spiral arm, consistent with the metallicity gradient, as the H II regions go from super solar abundance to roughly solar abundance from the center out. Using the diagnostic diagram, we separate the photo-ionized from the shock-ionized component of the gas. We find that the shock-ionized H{\alpha} emission ranges from ~2% to about 15-33% of the total, depending on the separation criteria used. An interesting feature in the diagnostic diagram is an horizontal distribution around log([O III]/H{\beta}) ~ 0. This feature is well fit by a shock-ionization model with 2.0 Z\odot metallicity and shock velocities in the range of 250 km/s to 350 km/s. A low velocity shock component, < 200 km/s, is also detected, and is spatially located at the boundary between the outer ring and the spiral arm. The low velocity shock component can be due to : 1) supernova remnants located nearby, 2) dynamical interaction between the outer ring and the spiral arm, 3) abnormal line ratios from extreme local dust extinction. The current data do not enable us to distinguish among those three possible interpretations. Our main conclusion is that, even at the HST resolution, the shocked gas represents a small fraction of the total ionized gas emission at less than 33% of the total. However, it accounts for virtually all of the mechanical energy produced by the central starburst in M83.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. aastex preprint 12pt, 21 pages, 13 figure