Exploiting open standards in academic web services

In Digital Library-related technologies, there is a whole host of open standards and protocols that are at varying stages of definition or emergence and acceptance or agreement. Nevertheless, specifically in an academic context, these have led to some valuable improvements in the quality and value of services provided to teachers, learners and researchers alike. However, it often remains difficult for these information seekers to find relevant resources that are not immediately 'visible', they may be effectively hidden within database-driven web services or proprietary applications. The focus of this paper is upon a project based at the UK academic data centre, MIMAS, which provides web-based services to the education community in the UK, Ireland and beyond. The project's principle aim was to increase the visibility and accessibility of 'appropriate' resources by exploiting a number of relevant open standards and initiatives to ensure interoperability. This principally required focusing on machine-to-machine metadata interchange

Early Integrators and the Passive Majority: An evaluation study of a large web-based bibliographic reference database

An evaluation is reported of user responses to zetoc, a service that provides access to the British Library electronic table of contents database and an email alerting service. Two questionnaire surveys and an interview programme gave data on over 800 users. The results show that about 17% are active users who are achieving a personal information management routine by integrating zetoc with other services (the early integrators). The other 83%, the `passive majority', make limited use of zetoc and do not achieve integration with other services. The interviews reveal that some of this group have a stable but restricted usage routine that limits information overload. The usage by others is less controlled and they make little use of the information they receive. The paper examines the impact of enhancements to the zetoc service to support integration and it discusses the barriers that prevent many users exploiting the potential of services available to them

Customising location of knowledge

The process of scholarly research involves the discovery of material of interest, followed by its location and subsequent perusal. Zetoc is a current awareness citation service available to UK researchers for the initial discovery step. This paper highlights some recent discovery enhancements to Zetoc, and describes the subsequent location via OpenURL technology of articles discovered in Zetoc. The later steps within the scholarly research workflow, of location, request and delivery of research literature, are provided by further services, which may be chosen by either institution librarians or individuals. The dissemination of bibliographic citation details as interoperable components enables their use by downstream applications unknown to the source service, thus providing further opportunities for customisation of the location of knowledge

A Genetic and Developmental Analysis of a Soluble Acid Deoxyribonuclease in Drosophila melanogaster

A deoxyribonuclease, called DNase-1, that is active at acid pH in the presence of EDTA has been studied in Drosophila melanogaster. The locus for the enzyme maps genetically to 61.8 on the right arm of the third chromosome. Cytogenetically, DNase-1 has been localized to within five to ten bands between 90C-2 and 90E. This analysis utilizes both electrophoretic variants and the Y-autosome translocations of Lindsley et al. (1972). DNase-1 is present in all stages of the life cycle, and the paternal genome actively contributes DNase-1 to the embryo between 0 and 1 hr after fertilization

Customising location of knowledge

The process of scholarly research involves the discovery of material of interest, followed by its location and subsequent perusal. Zetoc is a current awareness citation service available to UK researchers for the initial discovery step. This paper highlights some recent discovery enhancements to Zetoc, and describes the subsequent location via OpenURL technology of articles discovered in Zetoc. The later steps within the scholarly research workflow, of location, request and delivery of research literature, are provided by further services, which may be chosen by either institution librarians or individuals. The dissemination of bibliographic citation details as interoperable components enables their use by downstream applications unknown to the source service, thus providing further opportunities for customisation of the location of knowledge

An Analysis of Gene-Enzyme Variability in Natural Populations of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans

Nine populations of D. melanogaster and two populations of D. simulans were analyzed for polymorphism in 10 gene-enzyme systems by the technique of gel electrophoresis. In the eight natural populations of D. melanogaster, an average of 54% of the enzymes were polymorphic, and the average heterozygosity was 22.7%. An experimental population of D. melanogaster, which has been maintained in a laboratory cage for 20 years, showed levels of polymorphism equivalent to those of natural populations. The D. simulans populations had much less variability. The possible factors involved in maintaining these polymorphisms are discussed