Network Based Educational Environment: How Libraries and Librarians Become Organizers of Knowledge Access and Resources

In this paper we will highlight some important issues which will influence the redefinition of roles and duties of libraries and librarians in a networked based educational environment. Although librarians will also keep their traditional roles of faculty support services as well as reference service and research assistance, we identify the participation in the instructional design process, the support in the evaluation, development and use of a proper authoring system and the customization of information access, as being the domains where libraries and librarians should mainly involve themselves in the next future and make profit of their expertise in information and knowledge organization in order to properly and effectively support the institutions in the use of Information Technology in education

Analysis of gene mutation in plant cell wall by dielectric relaxation

Arabidopsis Thaliana is a plant composed mainly of cellulose and lignin. Geneticists need techniques able to make differences at the molecular level between modified plants (DML6, CAD C/D) and non-modified ones. Thermo-stimulated current (TSC) analysis is a promising route to identify gene mutations. For the non-modified plant, at low temperatures, TSC thermograms highlight three dielectric relaxation modes. From −150 to −110 ◦C, γCellulose is attributed to CH2OH and –OH groups of cellulose. Between −110 and −80 ◦C, βLignin is detected. From −80 to −40 ◦C, βCellulose is characteristic of the molecular mobility of glycosidic linkages. For the CAD C/D modified plants, only γCellulose and βLignin are observed; due to analogous enthalpy values, those modes have the same molecular origin as in the non-modified plant. So, the βLignin mode is associated with the molecular mobility of the lignin-OH groups. The CAD C/D gene mutation changes the chemical structure of lignin, which promotes hydrogen bonds in the network and inhibits molecular mobility of glucosidic rings. It is also interesting to note that the DML6 gene mutation induces a higher cooperativity of this βCellulose relaxation than in wild vegetal composites. In fact, this mutation promotes molecular mobility of glycosidic rings thanks to β1–4 glycosidic linkages

New-Generation Objective and Reproducible Isoseismals, and Tests of Source Inversion of the USGS Felt Reports

We present two new techniques for treating earthquake intensity data objectively and reproducibly. First, our natural-neighbor, n-n, isoseismals (program: ConVor) are used to draw objective and reproducible isoseismals of the Whittier Narrows ML=5.9, 1987 earthquake from the earthquake damage (“felt reports”) sparsely observed in the region by the U.S.G.S. ConVor uses the n-n coordinates to weight and interpolate the observations; thus, the weights of the experimental sites which are natural neighbors to a new point are proportional to the areas of the intersections of their Voronoi polygons. It is shown that the n-n isoseismals: 1) honour the experimental data completely, and are, thus, frequency-complete representations; 2) are easy-to-grasp and reliable overviews of regional earthquake damage; 3) do not ballast any subsequent quantitative treatment, because they do not introduce new (contouring) parameters. Secondly, we demonstrate that the approximate source geometry and kinematics of this earthquake can be back-predicted by inverting its intensity data automatically. The inversion involves twelve parameters, the most sensitive of which are the epicentral co-ordinates and the fault plane solution; our trial-and-error technique minimizes the sum of the squared residuals (calculated intensity - minus - observed intensity) at the surveyed sites, and the errors of the source parameters are also estimated

Visual geographies and mountain psychogeographic drift. The geography workshops of the Childhood and Primary Teachers Education course of the University of Turin.

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the theoretical background, the methodological tools and the main findings of the integration of visual methods to psychogeographic drift as a technique of exploration and interpretation of places. The experimentation has been carried out in the last three years during the workshops organized for students of the Childhood and Primary Teachers Education course of the University of Turin. Based on the idea of territorial education as a complex approach to geographic education, the workshops take place in the mountain village of Prali (Western Alps) and their location is fundamental in creating a fruitful learning environment. Visual methodologies are variously used during the workshops and in the last three editions they became part of the “mountain drift” activities, inspired by the psychogeographic “urban drift”, and used as a learning tool with students

Reflections, Relationships and Art Class

My homeroom class was 8H. At that time the district grouped students homogeneously by rank or GPA. The “lowest” ranking class was 8H and they were mine. I remember the first day I met them, I was full of knowledge after completing my Master of Art Education just a few months before. I knew just what to do, just what to say. Undoubtedly, the students would love and respect me, and I would inspire them and teach them to love art. They would use art as another language for learning, I would differentiate to meet their needs and identify their “intelligence” based on Howard Gardner’s work (I had his book handy, just in case!). They would become lifelong learners--, after all this was all part of my newly developed teaching philosophy. Students began filtering into the room. “Who the “f” are you?” some of them asked. Most of them ignored me. Some brought coffee and snacks, one sat under my back table, a couple on the window stills, and a few quietly sat at their desks. I introduced myself to the kids that were listening, I tried to engage with kids that weren’t and somehow, I got through it. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. I knew right away that I was completely unprepared for these circumstances. I felt like an impostor. Although I lived in the same city they did, I went to private schools. I was a 35- year-old white woman, in a racially and ethnically diverse school, with no, “street cred” as my students freely told me. I needed to figure out how to earn their trust and respect, and I needed to do it immediately

Capillary geochemistry in non-saturated zone of soils. Water content and geochemical signatures.

International audienceThe unsaturated zone (UZ) retains aqueous solutions against gravity by capillary forces. This suction state corresponds to a decreasing internal pressure of the water, which modifies its thermodynamic properties. Accordingly, the speciation of solutes and the solubility of solids and gases in such capillary solutions change. The volumetric capillary water content of the soil at high suction can be calculated extrapolating the water retention curves (WRC) with the Rossi–Nimmo model. Interestingly, several tens of liters per cubic meter of soil can be thus suctioned, a sufficiently large volume to support that: (1) capillary water is not restricted to nanosized pores, which means it disobeys the Young–Laplace law and is metastable with respect to vapor (superheating); and (2) the geochemistry of capillary solutions might significantly influence the subsurface mass transfer. Two field situations are here interpreted using the capillary thermodynamic properties: (1) the trapping of sand grains during the growth of desert roses (gypsum), and (2) the development of abnormal paragenetic sequences in some saprolites. The capillary approach is extended to the soil solids, so that the micro-mineralogy can be explicitly (though sketchily) integrated in the calculations. The key conclusion is that capillarity changes the saturation indexes (and so the reaction rates) at given solution composition, in a way consistent with the field observations. This perspective amounts to geochemically distinguishing the capillary and percolating solutions, which is interestingly analogous to the immobile and mobile water distinction already often integrated in UZ flow model