Family visits to libraries and bookshops: observations and implications for digital libraries

This paper explores how families select books for leisure reading. We recruited 17 families (adults and children) for this study, and spent time with each in both bookshops and public libraries. Our research aims to add to understanding of how families interact with books and bookshelves in these places, and how digital libraries might best support the shared needs of these inter-generational users. Much of our understanding of how an eBook should look and feel comes from generalizations about books and assumptions about the needs of those individuals who read them. We explore how children and adults search and browse for books together, with specific focus on the type of information seeking tasks that families undertake and on the families’ shared search and browsing strategies. We further explore the implications of this study for the development of digital libraries for children and families

Nationalization and the Zambian copper mining industry.

This thesis examines whether the performance of a mineral industry in a developing country changed after its nationalization. The criteria for evaluating the performance of a mineral industry were set out at the beginning of the thesis, drawing on the economic theory of the exhaustion of mineral resources and on the considerations of how to determine efficiency that have been at the forefront of the recent debate about the efficiency of the private as opposed to the public sector.The industry to be examined, the copper industry in Zambia, was then placed in its historical and economic context.After compiling and describing the relevant data series for the entire period to be examined, 1960 -1981, the performance of the industry before its nationalization in 1969 was examined. The reasons given at the time for nationalization and for the subsequent cancellation of the management contracts that the former private owners had been awarded were then analyzed, and, in the light of this analysis, the post- nationalization experience of the industry was examined.Two important factors - the war in neighbouring Rhodesia and the collapse of the copper market - could be expected to have affected the industry's performance after nationalization and these were dealt with in a separate chapter.Econometric work on production functions and cost equations produced results that were consistent with the earlier findings that the industry's performance did deteriorate after nationalization and especially after the cancellation of the management contracts

On Birthing Dancing Stars: The Need for Bounded Chaos in Information Interaction

While computers causing chaos is acommon social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order—and the systems we create with it—support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks.We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offerwhat we term ‘bounded chaos’, and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interface

The costs of keeping cool : behavioural trade-offs between foraging and thermoregulation are associated with significant mass losses in an arid-zone bird

Please read abstract in the article.The DST-NRF Centre of Excellence at the FitzPatrick Institute.http://link.springer.com/journal/4422020-09-01hj2019Zoology and Entomolog

High temperatures are associated with substantial reductions in breeding success and offspring quality in an arid-zone bird

Please read abstract in the article.The DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence at the FitzPatrick Institutehttp://link.springer.com/journal/4422021-04-15hj2020Zoology and Entomolog

Non-invasive measurement of metabolic rates in wild, free-living birds using doubly labelled water

Please read abstract in the article.DST-NRF Centre of Excellence at the FitzPatrick Institute for African Ornithology; National Research Foundation of South Africa, Grant/Award Number: 110506; Universities of Cambridge and Zurich; MAVA Foundation, ERC, Grant/Award Number: 294494; University of Pretoria; The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, Grant/Award Number: OMT 20747/01http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fechj2020Mammal Research InstituteZoology and Entomolog

Social information behaviour in Bookshops: implications for digital libraries

We discuss here our observations of the interaction of bookshop customers with the books and with each other. Contrary to our initial expectations, customers do not necessarily engage in focused, joint information search, as observed in libraries, but rather the bookshop is treated as a social space similar to a cafe. Our results extend the known repertoire of collaborative behaviours, supporting further development of models of user tasks and goals. We compare our findings with previous work and discuss possible implications of our observations for the design of digital libraries as places of both information access and social interaction

“Over-reviewing” of research? An analysis of orthodontic reviews

Introduction: Research overviews may be undertaken to identify gaps in the literature, evaluate existing systematic reviews (SRs), and summarize evidence. This paper aims to profile overviews that have been conducted in orthodontics and related interventions since 2012 and to evaluate the degree of overlap among these overviews. Methods: Overviews published between January 1, 2012 and June 20, 2023 were identified using an electronic search involving Google Scholar and PubMed. A descriptive summary was produced, and citation matrices were used to evaluate the percentage of overlap between overviews using corrected covered area and covered area. This was classified as slight, moderate, high, or very high. Results: A total of 35 overviews were identified across a wide range of topics. Eight overviews included 20 SRs (median no. of SRs per overview, 15; range, 3-62). Meta-analysis was conducted in only 5 overviews. Overlap between overviews on the same topic ranged from slight (2.7%) to very high (53.8%). Conclusions: Almost all overview topics address treatments and their effects, with a wide variation in the number and quality of SRs included. There is considerable overlap in some orthodontic overviews, suggesting unnecessary duplication and research waste. Researchers should be encouraged to focus on primary data collection to add more high-quality data to SRs, which will ultimately enhance the yield from secondary and tertiary orthodontic research