The Relevance of Academic Libraries in the Twenty-First Century

The biggest challenge facing the library profession in the twenty-first century is staying relevant to its users. It is often stated that the Internet and Google have changed librarianship. This challenge, while significant, does not mean that libraries will go away. It is causing us to re-evaluate what we do, how we do it, and what role libraries have in the academy and in our culture at large. This column addresses some of the ways in which academic libraries can stay relevant throughout the twenty-first century

Duodenal-Jejunal Bypass and Jejunectomy Improve Insulin Sensitivity in Goto-Kakizaki Diabetic Rats Without Changes in Incretins or Insulin Secretion

Gastric bypass surgery can dramatically improve type 2 diabetes. It has been hypothesized that by excluding duodenum and jejunum from nutrient transit, this procedure may reduce putative signals from the proximal intestine that negatively influence insulin sensitivity ( S I ). To test this hypothesis, resection or bypass of different intestinal segments were performed in diabetic Goto-Kakizaki and Wistar rats. Rats were randomly assigned to five groups: duodenal-jejunal bypass (DJB), jejunal resection (jejunectomy), ileal resection (ileectomy), pair-fed sham-operated, and nonoperated controls. Oral glucose tolerance test was performed within 2 weeks after surgery. Baseline and poststimulation levels of glucose, insulin, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) were measured. Minimal model analysis was used to assess S I . S I improved after DJB ( S I = 1.14 ± 0.32 × 10 −4 min −1 ⋅ pM −1 ) and jejunectomy ( S I = 0.80 ± 0.14 × 10 −4 min −1 ⋅ pM −1 ), but not after ileectomy or sham operation/pair feeding in diabetic rats. Both DJB and jejunal resection normalized S I in diabetic rats as shown by S I levels equivalent to those of Wistar rats ( S I = 1.01 ± 0.06 × 10 −4 min −1 ⋅ pM −1 ; P = NS). Glucose effectiveness did not change after operations in any group. While ileectomy increased plasma GIP levels, no changes in GIP or GLP-1 were observed after DJB and jejunectomy. These findings support the hypothesis that anatomic alterations of the proximal small bowel may reduce factors associated with negative influence on S I , therefore contributing to the control of diabetes after gastric bypass surgery

The Gattini cameras for optical sky brightness measurements at Dome C, Antarctica

The Gattini cameras are two site testing instruments for the measurement of optical sky brightness, large area cloud cover and auroral detection of the night sky above the high altitude Dome C site in Antarctica. The cameras have been operating since installation in January 2006 and are currently at the end of the first Antarctic winter season. The cameras are transit in nature and are virtually identical both adopting Apogee Alta CCD detectors. By taking frequent images of the night sky we obtain long term cloud cover statistics, measure the sky background intensity as a function of solar and lunar altitude and phase and directly measure the spatial extent of bright aurora if present and when they occur. The full data set will return in December 2006 however a limited amount of data has been transferred via the Iridium network enabling preliminary data reduction and system evaluation. An update of the project is presented together with preliminary results from data taken since commencement of the winter season

The Estimation of Cortical Activity for Brain-Computer Interface: Applications in a Domotic Context

In order to analyze whether the use of the cortical activity, estimated from noninvasive EEG recordings, could be useful to detect mental states related to the imagination of limb movements, we estimate cortical activity from high-resolution EEG recordings in a group of healthy subjects by using realistic head models. Such cortical activity was estimated in region of interest associated with the subject's Brodmann areas by using a depth-weighted minimum norm technique. Results showed that the use of the cortical-estimated activity instead of the unprocessed EEG improves the recognition of the mental states associated to the limb movement imagination in the group of normal subjects. The BCI methodology presented here has been used in a group of disabled patients in order to give them a suitable control of several electronic devices disposed in a three-room environment devoted to the neurorehabilitation. Four of six patients were able to control several electronic devices in this domotic context with the BCI system

First-Phase Insulin Secretion Restoration and Differential Response to Glucose Load Depending on the Route of Administration in Type 2 Diabetic Subjects After Bariatric Surgery

OBJECTIVE—The purpose of this study was to elucidate the mechanisms of diabetes reversibility after malabsorptive bariatric surgery

First AMBER/VLTI observations of hot massive stars

AMBER is the first near infrared focal instrument of the VLTI. It combines three telescopes and produces spectrally resolved interferometric measures. This paper discusses some preliminary results of the first scientific observations of AMBER with three Unit Telescopes at medium (1500) and high (12000) spectral resolution. We derive a first set of constraints on the structure of the circumstellar material around the Wolf Rayet Gamma2 Velorum and the LBV Eta Carinae

Impacts of climate change on plant diseases – opinions and trends

There has been a remarkable scientific output on the topic of how climate change is likely to affect plant diseases in the coming decades. This review addresses the need for review of this burgeoning literature by summarizing opinions of previous reviews and trends in recent studies on the impacts of climate change on plant health. Sudden Oak Death is used as an introductory case study: Californian forests could become even more susceptible to this emerging plant disease, if spring precipitations will be accompanied by warmer temperatures, although climate shifts may also affect the current synchronicity between host cambium activity and pathogen colonization rate. A summary of observed and predicted climate changes, as well as of direct effects of climate change on pathosystems, is provided. Prediction and management of climate change effects on plant health are complicated by indirect effects and the interactions with global change drivers. Uncertainty in models of plant disease development under climate change calls for a diversity of management strategies, from more participatory approaches to interdisciplinary science. Involvement of stakeholders and scientists from outside plant pathology shows the importance of trade-offs, for example in the land-sharing vs. sparing debate. Further research is needed on climate change and plant health in mountain, boreal, Mediterranean and tropical regions, with multiple climate change factors and scenarios (including our responses to it, e.g. the assisted migration of plants), in relation to endophytes, viruses and mycorrhiza, using long-term and large-scale datasets and considering various plant disease control methods

ARGOS: the laser guide star system for the LBT

ARGOS is the Laser Guide Star adaptive optics system for the Large Binocular Telescope. Aiming for a wide field adaptive optics correction, ARGOS will equip both sides of LBT with a multi laser beacon system and corresponding wavefront sensors, driving LBT's adaptive secondary mirrors. Utilizing high power pulsed green lasers the artificial beacons are generated via Rayleigh scattering in earth's atmosphere. ARGOS will project a set of three guide stars above each of LBT's mirrors in a wide constellation. The returning scattered light, sensitive particular to the turbulence close to ground, is detected in a gated wavefront sensor system. Measuring and correcting the ground layers of the optical distortions enables ARGOS to achieve a correction over a very wide field of view. Taking advantage of this wide field correction, the science that can be done with the multi object spectrographs LUCIFER will be boosted by higher spatial resolution and strongly enhanced flux for spectroscopy. Apart from the wide field correction ARGOS delivers in its ground layer mode, we foresee a diffraction limited operation with a hybrid Sodium laser Rayleigh beacon combination.12 page(s

Patterns of cortical activity during the observation of Public Service Announcements and commercial advertisings

Background: In the present research we were interested to study the cerebral activity of a group of healthy subjects during the observation a documentary intermingled by a series of TV advertisements. In particular, we desired to examine whether Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are able to elicit a different pattern of activity, when compared with a different class of commercials, and correlate it with the memorization of the showed stimuli, as resulted from a following subject's verbal interview.Methods: We recorded the EEG signals from a group of 15 healthy subjects and applied the High Resolution EEG techniques in order to estimate and map their Power Spectral Density (PSD) on a realistic cortical model. The single subjects' activities have been z-score transformed and then grouped to define four different datasets, related to subjects who remembered and forgotten the PSAs and to subjects who remembered and forgotten cars commercials (CAR) respectively, which we contrasted to investigate cortical areas involved in this encoding process. . Results: The results we here present show that the cortical activity elicited during the observation of the TV commercials that were remembered (RMB) is higher and localized in the left frontal brain areas when compared to the activity elicited during the vision of the TV commercials that were forgotten (FRG) in theta and gamma bands for both categories of advertisements (PSAs and CAR). Moreover, the cortical maps associated with the PSAs also show an increase of activity in the alpha and beta band.Conclusions: In conclusion, the TV advertisements that will be remembered by the experimental population have increased their cerebral activity, mainly in the left hemisphere. These results seem to be congruent with and well inserted in the already existing literature, on this topic, related to the HERA model. The different pattern of activity in different frequency bands elicited by the observation of PSAs may be justified by the existence of additional cortical networks processing these kind of audiovisual stimuli. Further research with an extended set of subjects will be necessary to further validate the observations reported in this paper. © 2010 Babiloni et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

The performance of the blue prime focus Large Binocular Camera at the Large Binocular Telescope

We present the characteristics and some early scientific results of the first instrument at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), the Large Binocular Camera (LBC). Each LBT telescope unit will be equipped with similar prime focus cameras. The blue channel is optimized for imaging in the UV-B bands and the red channel for imaging in the VRIz bands. The corrected field-of-view of each camera is approximately 30 arcminutes in diameter, and the chip area is equivalent to a 23x23 arcmin2 field. In this paper we also present the commissioning results of the blue channel. The scientific and technical performance of the blue channel was assessed by measurement of the astrometric distortion, flat fielding, ghosts, and photometric calibrations. These measurements were then used as input to a data reduction pipeline applied to science commissioning data. The measurements completed during commissioning show that the technical performance of the blue channel is in agreement with original expectations. Since the red camera is very similar to the blue one we expect similar performance from the commissioning that will be performed in the following months in binocular configuration. Using deep UV image, acquired during the commissioning of the blue camera, we derived faint UV galaxy-counts in a ~500 sq. arcmin. sky area to U(Vega)=26.5. These galaxy counts imply that the blue camera is the most powerful UV imager presently available and in the near future in terms of depth and extent of the field-of-view. We emphasize the potential of the blue camera to increase the robustness of the UGR multicolour selection of Lyman break galaxies at redshift z~3.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. Uses aa.cls, 10 pages, 10 figures. Zero points changed in Table