Social Gerontology- Integrative and Territorial Aspects: A Citation Analysis of Subject Scatter and Database Coverage

To determine the mix of resources used in social gerontology research, a citation analysis was conducted. A representative sample of citations was selected from three prominent gerontology journals and information was added to determine subject scatter and database coverage for the cited materials. Results indicate that a significant portion of gerontology research, even from a social science perspective, relies roughly equally on medical resources as it does social science resources. Furthermore, there is a small but defined core of literature constituting scholarly “territory” unique to gerontology. Analysis of database indexing indicated that broad, interdisciplinary databases provide more comprehensive coverage of the cited materials than do subject-specific databases

Real-rooted polynomials in combinatorics

Combinatorics is full of examples of generating polynomials that have only real roots. At the same time, only a few classical methods are known to prove that a polynomial, or a family of polynomials, has this curious property. In this dissertation we advocate the use of a multivariate approach that relies on the theory of stable polynomials, which has recently received much attention. We first present a proof of the Monotone Column Permanent conjecture of Haglund, Ono and Wagner, which asserts that certain polynomials obtained as permanents of a special class of matrices have only real roots. This proof is joint work with Brändén, Haglund and Wagner. A special case of this result reduces to the well-known fact that all roots of the Eulerian polynomials are real. Furthermore, it gives rise to a multivariate stable refinement of these polynomials. The (univariate) Eulerian polynomials have been generalized in various directions and some of their variants have also been showed to have only real roots. With the use of the multivariate methodology we are able to strengthen these real-rootedness results to their stable counterparts. We give meaningful combinatorial descriptions for such refinements over Stirling permutations (joint work with Haglund) and for some reflection groups (joint work with Williams). Our approach provides a unifying framework with often simpler proofs. Finally, a partial result on a further refinement of Eulerian polynomials is also included in order to emphasize that the multivariate approach can also be successfully employd to tackle problems other than real-rootedness or stability

Service Equality in Virtual Reference

Research is divided about the potential of e-service to bridge communication gaps, particularly to diverse user groups. According to the existing body of literature, e-service may either increase or decrease the quality of service received. This study analyzes the level of service received by different genders and ethnic groups when academic and public librarians answer 676 online reference queries. Quality of e-service was evaluated along three dimensions: timely response, reliability, and courtesy. This study found no significant differences among different user groups along any of these dimensions, supporting the argument that the virtual environment facilitates equitable service and may overcome some challenges of diverse user groups