A Needs-Driven and Responsive Approach to Supporting the Research Endeavours of Academic Librarians

In this article, the authors describe a grassroots model for research support and explore the success and evolving directions of this model based on three iterative needs assessments administered by the Librarian and Archivist Research Support Network (LARSN) Steering Committee at The University of Western Ontario. Needs assessments were identified as a critical tool to ensure that LARSN programming is relevant to librarians’ and archivists’ changing research needs. In the first four years of LARSN, three needs assessments were administered: in fall 2007, fall 2009, and spring 2011. The iterative needs assessments aimed to capture how the environment and research needs were evolving over time and the ways in which LARSN might continue to support a healthy and productive research environment. LARSN is faced with challenges that include a diversity of needs within its community, inconsistent participation levels in LARSN initiatives, and the inability to be all things to all people at all times. Still, LARSN is well received overall and rated positively by its community members. This is, in large part, because it has stayed true to its original mission to be needs-driven and responsive

How Do Patients with Mental Health Diagnoses Use Online Patient Portals? An Observational Analysis from the Veterans Health Administration

Online patient portals may be effective for engaging patients with mental health conditions in their own health care. This retrospective database analysis reports patient portal use among Veterans with mental health diagnoses. Unadjusted and adjusted odds of portal feature use was calculated using logistic regressions. Having experienced military sexual trauma or having an anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, or depression were associated with increased odds of portal use; bipolar, substance use, psychotic and adjustment disorders were associated with decreased odds. Future research should examine factors that influence portal use to understand diagnosis-level differences and improve engagement with such tools

‘Albania: €1’ or the story of ‘big policies, small outcomes’: how Albania constructs and engages its diaspora

Since the fall of the communist regime in the early 1990s, Albania has experienced one of the most significant emigrations in the world as a share of its population. By 2010 almost half of its resident population was estimated to be living abroad – primarily in neighbouring Greece and Italy, but also in the UK and North America. This chapter discusses the emergence and establishment of the Albanian diaspora, its temporal and geographical diversity, and not least its involvement with Albania itself. Albania’s policymaking and key institutions are considered, with a focus on matters of citizenship; voting rights; the debate on migration and development; and not least the complex ways in which kin-state minority policies – related to ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo, Montenegro, southern Serbia, Macedonia and Greece – are interwoven with Albania’s emigration policies

Synthesis Of Polyesters By The Method Of Equilibrium Polycondensation

Aromatic polyesthers were synthesized on the base of policiclicbisphenols and dichloroanhydride of aromatic dicarboxylic acid by the method of equilibrium polycondensation in solvent. The obtained polymers are characterized by high heat-and thermal stability, are well soluble in chlorinated hydrocarbons and they form transparent films from solutions which are characterized by good mechanical and dielectric properties

Study of Polycondensation Process of Carbamide with Formaldehyde to Receive Biodegradable Polymers

Biodegradation of polymers of spatial structure is complicated at the impact of soil destructive microorganisms and biodegradation requires long time. We have implemented target-oriented synthesis of a polymer to receive linear structure polymers where labile peptide bonds are preserved.To implement target-oriented synthesis of a polymer and to determine optimal conditions for reaction mechanism we studied the process of kinetics and its regularities – reaction temperature, duration, components ratio, concentration, reaction speed constant and activation energy. The Arrhenius factor and succession of introduction of initial components to the reaction medium were computed, catalyst nature and other properties were determined.High effect of prolongation was achieved, when carbamide and formaldehyde molar ratio was 1:1. In this case linear structure polymer is formed where peptide -CH2 – NH – are preserved.The simplified structure of linear polymer is expressed as followed: – HNCONHCH2[ NHCONHCH2 ]n – HNCONHCH2 –

Curing Of Diglycidal Esters Of Bisphenols With Acid Hardeners

The unique properties of epoxy polymers have led to their wide application in various fields of modern technology. The influence of the structure of bisphenols on the properties of epoxy polymers, especially thermal ones, is known. However, the chemical structure of the hardener also affects the properties of cured epoxy polymers. As hardeners, we used acid hardeners of various structures: anhydrides of maleic, phthalic, pyromellite, methyltetrahydrophthalic and other acids. The following hardeners give high results in heat resistance: pyromellite and methyltetrahydrophthalic anhydrides. Polymers obtained by curing with these hardeners are deformed in the temperature range of 220-245°C. The use of these hardeners gives high results in terms of thermal stability. These polymers are formed by curing these components. It is known that the properties of epoxy polymers depend on the chemical structure of the glycide ether. There was some interest in investigating the influence on the properties of epoxy polymers as a chemical structure, as well as the nature of hardeners. For this purpose, diglycidal esters based on bisphenols were synthesized

Scalable signal reconstruction for a broad range of applications

Signal reconstruction problem (SRP) is an important optimization problem where the objective is to identify a solution to an underdetermined system of linear equations that is closest to a given prior. It has a substantial number of applications in diverse areas, such as network traffic engineering, medical image reconstruction, acoustics, astronomy, and many more. Unfortunately, most of the common approaches for solving SRP do not scale to large problem sizes. We propose a novel and scalable algorithm for solving this critical problem. Specifically, we make four major contributions. First, we propose a dual formulation of the problem and develop the DIRECT algorithm that is significantly more efficient than the state of the art. Second, we show how adapting database techniques developed for scalable similarity joins provides a substantial speedup over DIRECT. Third, we describe several practical techniques that allow our algorithm to scale-on a single machine-to settings that are orders of magnitude larger than previously studied. Finally, we use the database techniques of materialization and reuse to extend our result to dynamic settings where the input to the SRP changes. Extensive experiments on real-world and synthetic data confirm the efficiency, effectiveness, and scalability of our proposal

Potential of Personal Health Record Portals in the Care of Individuals with Spinal Cord Injuries and Disorders: Provider Perspectives

CONTEXT/OBJECTIVE: Although personal health record (PHR) portals are designed for patients, healthcare providers are a key influence in how patients use their features and realize benefits from them. A few studies have examined provider attitudes toward PHR portals, but none have focused on those who care for individuals with spinal cord injuries and disorders (SCI/D). We characterize SCI/D provider perspectives of PHR portals, including perceived advantages and disadvantages of PHR portal use in SCI/D care. DESIGN: Cross-sectional; semi-structured interviews Setting: Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Centers in the Veterans Health Administration Participants: Twenty-six SCI/D healthcare providers Interventions: None Outcome Measures: Perceived advantages and disadvantages of PHR portals Results: The complex situations of individuals with SCI/D shaped provider perspectives of PHR portals and their potential role in practice. Perceived advantages of PHR portal use in SCI/D care included the ability to coordinate information and care, monitor and respond to outpatient requests, support patient self-management activities, and provide reliable health information to patients. Perceived disadvantages of PHR portal use in SCI/D care included concerns about the quality of patient-generated health data, other potential liabilities for providers and workload burden, and the ability of individuals with SCI/D to understand clinical information accessed through a portal. CONCLUSION: Our study highlights advantages and disadvantages that should be considered when promoting engagement of SCI/D healthcare providers in use of PHR portals, and portal features that may have the most utility in SCI/D care