ILL Communication: Analyzing five years of Iowa State University’s print Interlibrary Loan requests

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service offered by libraries to supply patrons with materials which are not immediately available for lending. This could be for many reasons; the library might not own the item, the library may own a copy but it is already checked out to another patron, or the assignment of a required but expensive textbook spurs high demand for a particular title

Work in Progress: FLEx—Iowa State University’s Mobile Technology Classroom

This proposal describes the FLEx (Forward Learning Experience) program, a mobile learning environment in a 16-foot trailer designed to deliver advanced technology outreach to students around the state of Iowa. A joint effort of Iowa State University’s College of Design, College of Engineering, and Extension and Outreach, the FLEx has engaged 35,000 K-12 students, educators, and families in 171 events since the fall of 2014. The trailer provides hands-on experiences with virtual reality, immersive visualization, prototyping, augmented reality through an Oculus Rift, interactive circuit building, a Makerbot for 3D printing, and a CNC (computer numerical control) router for complex precision material cutting. The FLEx utilizes learning theories such as constructivist, experiential and situational learning, universal design and game theory, and supports tinkering, play, and self-directed exploration. An early informal program review showed that Design and STEM interest among grades 3-8 increased 72% due to exposure to the FLEx. The FLEx is a groundbreaking program which improves a land-grant university’s potential to reach its state constituents in a novel and focused manner. The program has received national awards, recognition, and interest in its early and initial configuration. Future work will partner with University Extension and 4-H to build capacity to increase exposure and provide this experience to many more students across the state, with a particular focus on supporting rural students and underserved communities. Research is ongoing and being formally proposed to show the educational benefits of the program through workshops and longterm positive outcomes in partnership with state-level educational task forces

Impact of the 2022 OSTP Memo: A Bibliometric Analysis of U.S. Federally Funded Publications, 2017-2021

On August 25, 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memo regarding public access to scientific research. Signed by Director Alondra Nelson, this updated guidance eliminated the 12-month embargo period on publications arising from U.S. federal funding that had been allowed from a previous 2013 OSTP memo. While reactions to this updated federal guidance have been plentiful, to date there has not been a detailed analysis of the publications which would fall under this new framework. The OSTP released a companion report along with the memo, but it only provided a broad estimate of total numbers affected per year. Therefore, this study seeks to more deeply investigate the characteristics of U.S. federally funded research over a 5-year period from 2017-2021 to better understand the updated guidance's impact. It uses a manually created custom filter in the Dimensions database to return only publications that arise from U.S. federal funding. Results show that an average of 265,000 articles were published each year that acknowledge U.S. federal funding agencies, and these research outputs are further examined by publisher, journal title, institutions, and Open Access status. Interactive versions of the plots are available online at https://ostp.lib.iastate.edu/.Comment: 27 pages, including Appendix. 11 figures, 6 table

Sequencing and distribution analysis of Dissociation transposon events throughout the Zea mays genome

The transposon Dissociation is a nonautonomous element derived from Activator. The Ac/Ds project, a collaborative effort to cast stable Ds insertions throughout the maize genome, is a valuable tool for generating a reverse genetics resource. By using Ac::immobilized, an Ac element that cannot mobilize but can produce transposase, a Ds element in the anthocyanin regulating allele r1-sc:m3 can be mobilized. As of October 5th, 2007, 816 unlinked and 126 linked families have been produced and sequenced, with a 77% success rate. Repeat masking shows a low content of repetitive sequence, implying that these events in genic regions. By examining transposition events into the donor chromosome, transposition patterns can be observed. 95% of hits land within 40 cM of the donor site. Because the Ac/Ds project uses the W22 inbred line, sequence from large fDs fragments was compared against GSS assemblies from B73. The identity between B73 and W22 is 96.5%

On body dumps : the rhetorics of corporeal narcoterrorism

Though the exact number is unknown, estimates indicate the trade and movement of narcotics have resulted in over 60,000 murders of Mexican citizens. As a result of the rising narcoviolence, Felipe Calderón, early in his presidential administration, made the “War on Drugs” a top priority. Despite this effort to curb the violence, in 2010 alone, more than 15,200 lifeless bodies have been left across Mexico, most likely by drug cartels. A nascent phrase, body dumps, has risen in journalistic reports describing this conscious relocation of the ruined corpse to highly visible traffic areas. This thesis explores the rhetorical constructions of the discourses and labor surrounding body dump practices. Current rhetorical journalistic practices reduce victims to their bodies, then to an indiscriminate aggregate of bodies, and then they liken the bodies to waste needing to be removed from public consciousness. Further, body dump practices adulterate and disturb sites of cultural and historical significance. I use the monument to Christopher Columbus, located in Nuevo Laredo, as a case study to examine the ways rhetorical places are used as a soundboard by the state and drug cartels to communicate messages of control

Electron mobility in nanocrystalline silicon devices

Electron mobility in the growth direction was measured using space charge limited current techniques in device-type nin structure nanocrystalline Si:H and nanocrystalline Ge:H structures. The films were grown on stainless steel foil using either hot wire or remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition techniques. Grain size and crystallinity were measured using x ray and Raman spectroscopy. The size of grains in films was adjusted by changing the deposition conditions. It was found that large ⟨220⟩ grain sizes (∼56nm) role= presentation style= display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px 2px 0px 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3e(∼56nm)(∼56nm) could be obtained using the hot wire deposition technique, and the conductivity mobility at room temperature was measured to be 5.4cm2∕Vs role= presentation style= display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px 2px 0px 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative; \u3e5.4cm2/Vs5.4cm2∕Vs in films with such large grains. The plasma-grown films had smaller grains and smaller mobilities. The mobility was found to increase with increasing grain size and with increasing temperature

Health Care Reform: An Examination of the Case for Individual Mandates

Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton has recently put forth a plan in which individuals would be required to purchase health insurance. Her plan has been the target of intense criticism. Individual mandates would target the free-riders of health care and would likely improve the health of the uninsured. Shortcomings of the mandate are the difficulty of enforcement and the unfair burden placed on lower-middle income people. Careful examination of the evidence suggests that the U.S. should not impose individual mandates for health insurance

A comparison of teaching methods with achievement scores in the home economics classroom

Teaching methods and their relationship to learner achievement have long been an area of concern to educators. Experienced classroom teachers know that some instructional methods are more effective than others for presenting specific types of information to students. Teachers in all curriculum areas and at all grade levels are constantly evaluating methods of instruction in order to determine the methods that will result in the highest level of achievement for their students as the outcome of their instruction. Student achievement received added attention in recent years with the release of the report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) which states that We are a nation at risk (p.11) because of a marked decline in educational achievement since the early 1960\u27s. This report and the concern that it has generated have made educators\u27 concerns for implementing effective methods of teaching more concentrated than in the past

Neospora caninum immunoblotting improves serodiagnosisof bovine neosporosis

Neospora caninum ranges among the major causes of infectious abortion in cattle worldwide. The present study was designed to improve the serodiagnostic tools by complementing a conventional ELISA with a highly sensitive and species-specific N. caninum immunoblot. To evaluate this test combination, sera from several groups of cows were tested. The first group, consisting of experimentally infected calves, showed that immunoblot antibody reactivities were detectable 1 to 3days earlier than those found in ELISA. The first immunodominant bands that appeared were a 29-kDa (NcSAG1) and a 36-kDa (NcSRS2) antigen. Other groups, based upon naturally infected cattle, were used to compare the diagnostic sensitivity of ELISA and immunoblotting. Overall, N. caninum immunoblotting exhibited a higher sensitivity (98%) than ELISA (87%). Conversely, immunoblotting also confirm in two other cases, true transient negativation in some animals. In general, banding patterns and band staining intensity correlated to the semiquantitative ELISA findings. On the other hand, the banding pattern could not be used to discriminate between sera from animals with a recent abortion and those of cows with latent N. caninum infection. We also addressed putative cross-reactions due to infection with Toxoplasma gondii. Sera from animals with a serologically proven T. gondii infection were either clearly negative by Neospora immunoblotting or they yielded a specific immunoblot antibody profile indicating a double infection with N. caninum. Sera from animals with positive findings in both Toxoplasma and Neospora ELISA thus provided dichotomic results in the immunoblot by allowing to confirm or to rule out the specificity of the antibody reaction in Neospora ELISA. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that N. caninum immunoblotting is a very sensitive and specific complementary tool to improve the serology for N. caninum infections in cattl