Where the Queer Things Are: Library Services to LGBTQ Youth

In an age of shrinking budgets, tough decisions and political tensions, libraries must have a strong justification for LGBTQ youth services that is grounded in credible research if they are to stand up to challenges. My research examines why these services are essential in a world that is still unsafe for far too many queer identified youth, how to best engage with the community and what resources libraries can provide to young LGBTQ information seekers. Literacy and education theory were used as a foundation for the examination of the impact literacy has on the development of self through the formation of personal identity, the importance of mentors, and the opportunity for action. Current research about providing services to the LGBTQ community was examined for best practices and effective methods. The most important factors in successful services to the LGBTQ community are authentic and comfortable interactions, and the integration of queer and non/queer resources in reader’s advisory and reference response for all patrons. While statistics on bullying and homophobic remarks indicate that conditions are improving, LGBTQ teens are still at great risk for homelessness, depression and suicide. Libraries must do everything possible to provide a safe space for LGBTQ youth to build their identity and interact with the community

How and Why, Not What and Where

In a time when information expands at an exponential rate the idea that a university course could—or should—even approach comprehensive coverage of the resources in any field is unthinkable. Yet textbooks continue to be written with this approach of instruction. This article examines four texts in music library research instruction: A Guide to Library Research in Music by Pauline Shaw Bayne, Sourcebook for Research in Musicby Phillip D. Crabtree and Donald H. Foster, Music Library and Research Skills, by Jane Gottlieb and Music Research: A Handbook by Laurie J. Sampsel. Resources were analyzed based on their stated purpose, content and current applicability. The growing need for a new perspective on the instruction of library research skills that extends beyond the items themselves to the methods and strategies for information retrieval in a variety of contexts is proposed as an area for future examination

Equal (More or Less)?

Today I am almost equal to you. Almost, but not quite. I am more equal today than I was yesterday. I am more equal today than I was four years ago. What will I be tomorrow? Will I be more equal? Or less

Research-based assessment affordances and constraints: Perceptions of physics faculty

To help faculty use research-based materials in a more significant way, we learn about their perceived needs and desires and use this information to suggest ways for the Physics Education Research community to address these needs. When research-based resources are well aligned with the perceived needs of faculty, faculty members will more readily take them up. We used phenomenographic interviews of ordinary physics faculty and department chairs to identify four families of issues that faculty have around research-based assessments (RBA). First, many faculty are interested in using RBAs but have practical needs around how to do so: how to find them, which ones there are, and how to administer them. They want help addressing these needs. Second, at the same time, many faculty think that RBAs are limited and don't measure many of the things they care about, or aren't applicable in their classes. They want assessments to measure skills, perceptions, and specific concepts. Third, many faculty want to turn to communities of other faculty and experts to help them interpret their assessment results and suggest other ways to do assessment. They want to norm their assessment results by comparing to others and interacting with faculty from other schools to learn about how they do assessment. Fourth, many faculty consider their courses in the broader contexts of accountability and their departments. They want help with assessment in these broader contexts. We also discuss how faculty members role in their department and type of institution influence their perceived wants and needs around assessment.Comment: submitted to Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Researc

Dynamical orbital evolution scenarios of the wide-orbit eccentric planet HR 5183b

The recently-discovered giant exoplanet HR5183b exists on a wide, highly-eccentric orbit ($a=18$\,au, $e=0.84$). Its host star possesses a common proper-motion companion which is likely on a bound orbit. In this paper, we explore scenarios for the excitation of the eccentricity of the planet in binary systems such as this, considering planet-planet scattering, Lidov-Kozai cycles from the binary acting on a single-planet system, or Lidov-Kozai cycles acting on a two-planet system that also undergoes scattering. Planet-planet scattering, in the absence of a binary companion, has a $2.8-7.2\%$ probability of pumping eccentricities to the observed values in our simulations, depending on the relative masses of the two planets. Lidov-Kozai cycles from the binary acting on an initially circular orbit can excite eccentricities to the observed value, but require very specific orbital configurations for the binary and overall there is a low probability of catching the orbit at the high observed high eccentricity ($0.6\%$). The best case is provided by planet-planet scattering in the presence of a binary companion: here, the scattering provides the surviving planet with an initial eccentricity boost that is subsequently further increased by Kozai cycles from the binary. We find a success rate of $14.5\%$ for currently observing $e\ge0.84$ in this set-up. The single-planet plus binary and two-planet plus binary cases are potentially distinguishable if the mutual inclination of the binary and the planet can be measured, as the latter permits a broader range of mutual inclinations. The combination of scattering and Lidov-Kozai forcing may also be at work in other wide-orbit eccentric giant planets, which have a high rate of stellar binary companions.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS. A simple board game based on the paper may be found at http://filestore.astro.lu.se/research/alex/HR5183b.pd

Interplay of changing irrigation technologies and water reuse: example from the upper Snake River basin, Idaho, USA

Careful allotment of water resources for irrigation is critical for ensuring the resiliency of agriculture in semiarid regions, and modernizing irrigation technology to minimize inefficient water losses is an important tool for farmers and agricultural economies. While modernizing irrigation technology can achieve reductions in the nonbeneficial use of water, such as bare soil evaporation and nonconsumptive losses, water returned to the landscape is also reduced, often eliminating flow paths that other users rely on. In basins using a combination of surface and groundwater, replenishing aquifer storage by the managed aquifer recharge (MAR) of seasonally available water can mitigate the aquifer drawdown that results from reduced recharge when irrigation efficiency is improved. We examine the effects of MAR on the system-scale efficiency of modernizing irrigation technology and the resulting changes in the reuse of nonconsumptive losses, using a macroscale hydrologic model applied to the semiarid upper Snake River basin (USRB) of western Wyoming and southern Idaho, USA. Irrigation technologies were represented explicitly in the model, and available data informed baseline parameterizations of the irrigation technology. A suite of parameterizations were simulated that updated the existing technologies to be more efficient, both with and without sufficient MAR to cause a stabilization of the aquifer at the present-day head. As expected, simulated changes in irrigation technology resulted in greater downstream export of pristine water and a higher rate of aquifer drawdown when MAR was not simulated. Under current water use and cropping patterns, we were not able to simulate aquifer stabilization and maintain discharge downstream at any level of irrigation efficiency. We found support for the hypothesis that, as efficiency improves, less MAR is required to maintain a stable aquifer than when return flows are reduced due to increased efficiency. To evaluate the hypothesis, we defined the management benefit as a metric that compared the difference between the change in irrigation\u27s net recharge and the change in MAR required as irrigation technology became more efficient. The metric generally indicated that less MAR was needed than net recharge was lost, but only for the most efficient case did the management benefit exceed the MAR needed at the baseline to stabilize the aquifer. Increasing efficiency of irrigation technology reduced the reuse of the gross irrigation derived from prior nonconsumptive losses, but simulating MAR increased reuse for a given parameterization, leading to higher effective irrigation efficiency. We find that local groundwater storage that users depend on is generally more sensitive to management decisions than downstream flows, and the drawdown of the aquifer without MAR always exceeded any decrease in discharge induced by MAR. Improving resource sufficiency in semiarid systems like the USRB will require an array of solutions that will need to balance benefits to local and downstream users

Genome-Resolved Proteomic Stable Isotope Probing of Soil Microbial Communities Using 13CO2 and 13C-Methanol.

Stable isotope probing (SIP) enables tracking the nutrient flows from isotopically labeled substrates to specific microorganisms in microbial communities. In proteomic SIP, labeled proteins synthesized by the microbial consumers of labeled substrates are identified with a shotgun proteomics approach. Here, proteomic SIP was combined with targeted metagenomic binning to reconstruct metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) of the microorganisms producing labeled proteins. This approach was used to track carbon flows from 13CO2 to the rhizosphere communities of Zea mays, Triticum aestivum, and Arabidopsis thaliana. Rhizosphere microorganisms that assimilated plant-derived 13C were capable of metabolic and signaling interactions with their plant hosts, as shown by their MAGs containing genes for phytohormone modulation, quorum sensing, and transport and metabolism of nutrients typical of those found in root exudates. XoxF-type methanol dehydrogenases were among the most abundant proteins identified in the rhizosphere metaproteomes. 13C-methanol proteomic SIP was used to test the hypothesis that XoxF was used to metabolize and assimilate methanol in the rhizosphere. We detected 7 13C-labeled XoxF proteins and identified methylotrophic pathways in the MAGs of 8 13C-labeled microorganisms, which supported the hypothesis. These two studies demonstrated the capability of proteomic SIP for functional characterization of active microorganisms in complex microbial communities

Longitudinal Study of the Variation in Patient Turnover and Patient-to-Nurse Ratio: Descriptive Analysis of a Swiss University Hospital

Variations in patient demand increase the challenge of balancing high-quality nursing skill mixes against budgetary constraints. Developing staffing guidelines that allow high-quality care at minimal cost requires first exploring the dynamic changes in nursing workload over the course of a day.; Accordingly, this longitudinal study analyzed nursing care supply and demand in 30-minute increments over a period of 3 years. We assessed 5 care factors: patient count (care demand), nurse count (care supply), the patient-to-nurse ratio for each nurse group, extreme supply-demand mismatches, and patient turnover (ie, number of admissions, discharges, and transfers).; Our retrospective analysis of data from the Inselspital University Hospital Bern, Switzerland included all inpatients and nurses working in their units from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2017. Two data sources were used. The nurse staffing system (tacs) provided information about nurses and all the care they provided to patients, their working time, and admission, discharge, and transfer dates and times. The medical discharge data included patient demographics, further admission and discharge details, and diagnoses. Based on several identifiers, these two data sources were linked.; Our final dataset included more than 58 million data points for 128,484 patients and 4633 nurses across 70 units. Compared with patient turnover, fluctuations in the number of nurses were less pronounced. The differences mainly coincided with shifts (night, morning, evening). While the percentage of shifts with extreme staffing fluctuations ranged from fewer than 3% (mornings) to 30% (evenings and nights), the percentage within "normal" ranges ranged from fewer than 50% to more than 80%. Patient turnover occurred throughout the measurement period but was lowest at night.; Based on measurements of patient-to-nurse ratio and patient turnover at 30-minute intervals, our findings indicate that the patient count, which varies considerably throughout the day, is the key driver of changes in the patient-to-nurse ratio. This demand-side variability challenges the supply-side mandate to provide safe and reliable care. Detecting and describing patterns in variability such as these are key to appropriate staffing planning. This descriptive analysis was a first step towards identifying time-related variables to be considered for a predictive nurse staffing model

The Potential Trajectory of Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae, an Emerging Threat to Health-Care Facilities, and the Impact of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Toolkit.

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), a group of pathogens resistant to most antibiotics and associated with high mortality, are a rising emerging public health threat. Current approaches to infection control and prevention have not been adequate to prevent spread. An important but unproven approach is to have hospitals in a region coordinate surveillance and infection control measures. Using our Regional Healthcare Ecosystem Analyst (RHEA) simulation model and detailed Orange County, California, patient-level data on adult inpatient hospital and nursing home admissions (2011-2012), we simulated the spread of CRE throughout Orange County health-care facilities under 3 scenarios: no specific control measures, facility-level infection control efforts (uncoordinated control measures), and a coordinated regional effort. Aggressive uncoordinated and coordinated approaches were highly similar, averting 2,976 and 2,789 CRE transmission events, respectively (72.2% and 77.0% of transmission events), by year 5. With moderate control measures, coordinated regional control resulted in 21.3% more averted cases (n = 408) than did uncoordinated control at year 5. Our model suggests that without increased infection control approaches, CRE would become endemic in nearly all Orange County health-care facilities within 10 years. While implementing the interventions in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's CRE toolkit would not completely stop the spread of CRE, it would cut its spread substantially, by half