Locked down not locked out – assessing the digital response of museums to COVID-19

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown, many museums have developed and put in place online digital offerings. Rebecca Kahn reflects on how museums and museum researchers have approached the digital exhibition as an opportunity for museums to communicate their research in new ways

Airflow Based Model to Estimate Commercial Building HVAC Energy Use: Analysis to determine principal factors for different climate zones

The paper presents an airflow based modeling method to estimate HVAC energy consumption in large commercial office buildings. The model was developed by analyzing operational data from building automation system, relating load profiles and efficiency of key HVAC equipment,  based on economizer control policies that determine outside and return airflow rates. The model predicts annual energy use for buildings HVAC loads based on  hourly climate data (temperature and relative humidity), and building airflow requirements.  The model determines HVAC energy use in terms of building airflow rates for systems utilizing central air handler units with economizers, and identifies the key consumption drivers.  Some parts of the model (economizer performance and fan energy use) were based on data collected from the building automation system, relating major component energy use in terms of airflow rates and control laws. Data was obtained for three commercial scale office-lab buildings at Boston University.  Results are given in terms of major contributors to HVAC energy use and cost in terms of heating, cooling, and fan motor power for 4 different US cities.  A comparison to other building HVAC models used to disaggregate CBECs data is presented

On Membership, Humility, and Pedagogical Responsibilities: A Correspondence on the Work of Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is a novelist, essayist, conservation activist and farmer who has had a lot to say over the last half century about the impact of modern industrial society on small farm communities and the land especially since WWII. In this three-way conversation, the authors take up central aspects of Berry’s work to think about how it has influenced their thinking as teacher educators focused on the intersections between social and ecological crises challenging our world. Themes of responsibility, leadership, community membership, friendship, “settler colonialism,” racism, land use, and ecological sustainability are brought to bear on education for just and healthy communities

Stepping up to prevent falls: a fall prevention program for post-acute rehabilitation

Older adults who experience a fall will often sustain injuries which impact on their mobility and their ability to perform functional activities. Having one fall can lead to an increased risk of having another fall, and may also lead to a fear of the participating in functional activities, especially the activity that caused the fall. Every year, 3 million older adults are treated in the emergency room for falls, and at least 300,000 people are hospitalized due to falls (Centers for Disease Control, 2017). After hospitalization, some individuals require a stay in post-acute rehabilitation. In post-acute rehabilitation, these patients are at risk of having another fall, as they are in a new, unknown environment, and because they regularly practice mobility and functional activities with the goal of becoming independent. Preventing falls in the post-acute rehabilitation setting is critical because research has demonstrated that those who experience a fall in this setting have decreased functional outcomes and are less likely to return to their prior living environment. Stepping Up to Prevent Falls: A Fall Prevention Program for Post-Acute Rehabilitation is an interprofessional and multi-modal fall prevention program. The program consists of staff education, patient education, and implementation of environmental fall prevention interventions. The staff education component will include an in-service discussing the definition of a fall, the risk factors for falls, a fall risk assessment tool and interventions to prevent falls. Non-clinical staff will be educated on fall prevention strategies through posters in the breakroom. Patients will be educated via handouts and one-to-one discussions on how to prevent falls, the risk factors for falls, the consequences of a fall and what to do if a fall occurs. The goal is to decrease falls in order for patients to have better functional outcomes and be able to return to prior level of functioning

Oop vir interpretasie: an examination of the South African media's take-up and representation of the music of Fokofpolisiekar

ABSTRACT Popular music is rarely seen as a valid vehicle for public debate anywhere in the world, and especially in South Africa. Popular music is traditionally seen as “low art” – to be reported in the arts and entertainment pages of publications, and nothong more. The music of Afrikaans punk band Fokofpolisiekar, however, has been a catalyst for public debate in both the Afrikaans and English print media, in editorial and opinion pages as well as in the news sections of publications. Drawing on theories of the public sphere, public intellectual life and the media, this research shows that the media’s response to the band has brought many discussions around Afrikaner identity in post-apartheid South Africa into the public sphere, beyond the arts and entertainment pages of newspapers, and that through the act of cultural consecration by other public intellectual figures, the band has been validated as commentators in the South African public sphere

If You Build It, They Will Come: Creating the Space and Support for Real-Time Strategic Learning

· Learning is a key tool for foundations seeking to improve their effectiveness, and they are beginning to use evaluation to learn about and improve their strategies. The Colorado Trust took this a step further and integrated strategic learning into a grant strategy, including supporting learning coaches for 14 of their grantees. · The strategic learning framework consisted of three steps: systematic data collection, collective interpretation of information, and the use of that interpretation to improve strategies. · This article reviews four of the cases, including three grantees and the foundation as a case, identifying methods of learning and resulting changes in strategies. · Effective strategic learning in real time requires a comprehensive approach where each element of a funding strategy is aligned around the concept of learning and putting learning to use

Interobserver Reliability in Describing Radiographic Lung Changes After Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Purpose Radiographic lung changes after stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) vary widely between patients. Standardized descriptions of acute (≤6 months after treatment) and late (\u3e6 months after treatment) benign lung changes have been proposed but the reliable application of these classification systems has not been demonstrated. Herein, we examine the interobserver reliability of classifying acute and late lung changes after SBRT. Methods and materials A total of 280 follow-up computed tomography scans at 3, 6, and 12 months post-treatment were analyzed in 100 patients undergoing thoracic SBRT. Standardized descriptions of acute lung changes (3- and 6-month scans) include diffuse consolidation, patchy consolidation and ground glass opacity (GGO), diffuse GGO, patchy GGO, and no change. Late lung change classifications (12-month scans) include modified conventional pattern, mass-like pattern, scar-like pattern, and no change. Five physicians scored the images independently in a blinded fashion. Fleiss\u27 kappa scores quantified the interobserver agreement. Results The Kappa scores were 0.30 at 3 months, 0.20 at 6 months, and 0.25 at 12 months. The proportion of patients in each category at 3 and 6 months was as follows: Diffuse consolidation 11% and 21%; patchy consolidation and GGO 15% and 28%; diffuse GGO 10% and 11%; patchy GGO 15% and 15%; and no change 49% and 25%, respectively. The percentage of patients in each category at 12 months was as follows: Modified conventional 46%; mass-like 16%; scar-like 26%; and no change 12%. Uniform scoring between the observers occurred in 26, 8, and 14 cases at 3, 6, and 12 months, respectively. Conclusions Interobserver reliability scores indicate a fair agreement to classify radiographic lung changes after SBRT. Qualitative descriptions are insufficient to categorize these findings because most patient scans do not fit clearly into a single classification. Categorization at 6 months may be the most difficult because late and acute lung changes can arise at that time

Revisiting Linking Early Geospatial Documents with Recogito

Recogito is a web-based environment for collaborative semantic annotation. It is open source software, and provides support for working with either text or image documents, including those served via the IIIF protocol. Originally, the tool has been designed for geographic annotation, i.e. the transcription, marking up and geo-resolving of maps and geographical texts (such as itineraries and travel reports) in the context of historical scholarship, e.g. to map or extract data from a source, or to prepare a digital edition. Over time, however, Recogito’s feature set has grown to provide more general annotation functionality, broadening the scope for further potential application areas. Following up from an earlier article we published in e-Perimetron in 2015, in which we first introduced Recogito, this article looks back on the past four years of use and development. We present how Recogito has technologically evolved; how it has been applied in practice in different projects and for different purposes; and how a vibrant user community has sprung up around it that is shaping its further development. The paper also looks forward to some planned next steps, and sets out our future vision for Recogito’s long-term development and sustainability

Making a Research Infrastructure: Conditions and Strategies to Transform a Service into an Infrastructure

In this article, we investigate the making of research infrastructures. Our aim is to identify the relevant context factors, actor constellations, organizational settings, and strategies for a mere service to become an actual infrastructure. To this end, we conducted 36 case studies of non-commercial and commercial research services. Our research sheds light on the motivations and logics behind infrastructure development and the reasons why not every service succeeds in becoming one. We believe that the results of this study are therefore of practical relevance, especially for persons and organizations that want to create and sustain research infrastructured

Choices in vaccine trial design in epidemics of emerging infections.

In a Policy Forum, Marc Lipsitch and colleagues discuss trial design issues in infectious disease outbreaks