Cultural institutions in the digital age: British Museum’s use of Facebook Insights

Over the last decade, museums have experienced a strong cultural shift from objectoriented towards audience-oriented strategic approaches. This paper reviews the relevant literature on this transition and provides supportive evidence of the impact that social media have upon the relationship between cultural organisations and their audiences. Data deriving from the use of the British Museum’s Facebook page provides a comprehensive evaluation of the museum’s general social media strategy. Given the dominance and widespread use of Facebook and other social media, the degree of engagement of cultural organisations with them, seem to have become an inseparable factor on the scale of effectiveness of the relation with their audiences and the levels of visitor attendance. This research aims, by using one of the most prestigious museums in Britain as a case study, to provide an initial comprehensive set of insights into the use of social media by cultural organisations. The findings of this study are based on research conducted for the first author’s postgraduate studies at the Centre for Digital Humanities, Department of Information studies, University College London

A study concerning morphometry of abdominal aorta branches and abdominal viscera: relations and correlation

Research interest on abdominal aorta branches and abdominal viscera morphometry is renewed by technological evolution and development of new radiologic and clinical applications including stent grafts and chemoembolisation materials. Despite that, data on morphometry of abdominal aorta branches and abdominal viscera are lacking. To investigate this subject authors performed a morphometric study on 50 adult fresh and embalmed Caucasian cadavers and examined abdominal aorta branches’, kidney and spleen morphometry. Our results on arteries’ morphometry did not differ significantly from those of the literature; yet, we discovered significant differences between fresh and embalmed cadavers on viscera morphometry, spleen and kidneys. We also found previously unreported correlations between abdominal aorta branches’ morphometric characteristics. Even more, we identified correlations between regional arteries and viscera morphometric characteristics, proposing a new factor determining viscera development. Finally, we performed an extensive literature review so to place our results in an anatomic, embryologic and, even more, a clinical context. We believe that our results add knowledge on abdominal aorta branches and viscera morphometry and are valuable for clinical, radiological and surgical applications including visceral arteries’ aneurysms investigation and treatment, chemoembolisation procedures, stent grafts design and transplantation.

Parallel Evaluation of Multi-join Queries

A number of execution strategies for parallel evaluation of multi-join queries have been proposed in the literature. In this paper we give a comparative performance evaluation of four execution strategies by implementing all of them on the same parallel database system, PRISMA/DB. Experiments have been done up to 80 processors. These strategies, coming from the literature, are named: Sequential Parallel, Synchronous Execution, Segmented Right-Deep, and Full Parallel. Based on the experiments clear guidelines are given when to use which strategy. This is an extended abstract; the full paper appeared in Proc. ACM SIGMOD'94, Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 24–27, 199

Moxifloxacin Liposomes:Effect of Liposome Preparation Method on Physicochemical Properties and Antimicrobial Activity against Staphylococcus epidermidis

The aim of this study was the development of optimal sustained-release moxifloxacin (MOX)-loaded liposomes as intraocular therapeutics of endophthalmitis. Two methods were compared for the preparation of MOX liposomes; the dehydration–rehydration (DRV) method and the active loading method (AL). Numerous lipid-membrane compositions were studied to determine the potential effect on MOX loading and retention in liposomes. MOX and phospholipid contents were measured by HPLC and a colorimetric assay for phospholipids, respectively. Vesicle size distribution and surface charge were measured by DLS, and morphology was evaluated by cryo-TEM. The AL method conferred liposomes with higher MOX encapsulation compared to the DRV method for all the lipid compositions used. Cryo-TEM showed that both liposome types had round vesicular structure and size around 100–150 nm, while a granular texture was evident in the entrapped aqueous compartments of most AL liposomes, but substantially less in DRV liposomes; X-ray diffraction analysis demonstrated slight crystallinity in AL liposomes, especially the ones with highest MOX encapsulation. AL liposomes retained MOX for significantly longer time periods compared to DRVs. Lipid composition did not affect MOX release from DRV liposomes but significantly altered drug loading/release in AL liposomes. Interestingly, AL liposomes demonstrated substantially higher antimicrobial potential towards S. epidermidis growth and biofilm susceptibility compared to corresponding DRV liposomes, indicating the importance of MOX retention in liposomes on their activity. In conclusion, the liposome preparation method/type determines the rate of MOX release from liposomes and modulates their antimicrobial potential, a finding that deserves further in vitro and in vivo exploitation

Autopsy as an outcome and performance measure: three years of hospital autopsy as an instrument of clinical audit

An extensive literature documents a high prevalence of errors in clinical diagnosis discovered at autopsy. Multiple studies have suggested no significant decrease in these errors over time. Despite these findings, autopsies have dramatically decreased in frequency in the United States and many other countries. In 1994, the last year for which national U.S. data exist, the autopsy rate for all non-forensic deaths fell below 6%. The marked decline in autopsy rates from previous rates of 40\u201350% undoubtedly reflects various factors, including reimbursement issues, the attitudes of clinicians regarding the utility of autopsies in the setting of other diagnostic advances, and general unfamiliarity with the autopsy and techniques for requesting it, especially among physicians-in-training. The autopsy is valuable for its role in undergraduate and graduate medical education, the identification and characterization of new diseases, and contributions to the understanding of disease pathogenesis. Although extensive, these benefits are difficult to quantify. This review of the last three years of hospital autopsy in Lucca studied the more easily quantifiable benefits of the autopsy as a tool in performance measurement and improvement. Such benefits largely relate to the role of the autopsy in detecting errors in clinical diagnosis and unsuspected complications of treatment. It is hoped that characterizing the extent to which the autopsy provides data relevant to clinical performance measurement and improvement will help inform strategies for preserving the benefits of routinely obtained autopsies and for considering its wider use as an instrument for quality improvement

Prestimulus α/β power in temporal-order judgments: individuals differ in direction of modulation but show consistency over auditory and visual tasks

The processing of incoming sensory information can be differentially affected by varying levels of α-power in the electroencephalogram (EEG). A prominent hypothesis is that relatively low prestimulus α-power is associated with improved perceptual performance. However, there are studies in the literature that do not fit easily into this picture, and the reasons for this are poorly understood and rarely discussed. To evaluate the robustness of previous findings and to better understand the overall mixed results, we used a spatial TOJ task in which we presented auditory and visual stimulus pairs in random order while recording EEG. For veridical and non-veridical TOJs, we calculated the power spectral density (PSD) for 3 frequencies (5 Hz steps: 10, 15, and 20 Hz). We found on the group level: (1) Veridical auditory TOJs, relative to non-veridical, were associated with higher β-band (20 Hz) power over central electrodes. (2) Veridical visual TOJs showed higher β-band (10, 15 Hz) power over parieto-occipital electrodes (3) Electrode site interacted with TOJ condition in the β-band: For auditory TOJs, PSD over central electrodes was higher for veridical than non-veridical and over parieto-occipital electrodes was lower for veridical than non-veridical trials, while the latter pattern was reversed for visual TOJs. While our group-level result showed a clear direction of prestimulus modulation, the individual-level modulation pattern was variable and included activations opposite to the group mean. Interestingly, our results at the individual-level mirror the situation in the literature, where reports of group-level prestimulus modulation were found in either direction. Because the direction of individual activation of electrodes over auditory brain regions and parieto-occipital electrodes was always negatively correlated in the respective TOJ conditions, this activation opposite to the group mean cannot be easily dismissed as noise. The consistency of the individual-level data cautions against premature generalization of group-effects and suggests different strategies that participants initially adopted and then consistently followed. We discuss our results in light of probabilistic information processing and complex system properties, and suggest that a general description of brain activity must account for variability in modulation directions at both the group and individual levels

Web Mining for Web Personalization

Web personalization is the process of customizing a Web site to the needs of specific users, taking advantage of the knowledge acquired from the analysis of the user\u27s navigational behavior (usage data) in correlation with other information collected in the Web context, namely, structure, content, and user profile data. Due to the explosive growth of the Web, the domain of Web personalization has gained great momentum both in the research and commercial areas. In this article we present a survey of the use of Web mining for Web personalization. More specifically, we introduce the modules that comprise a Web personalization system, emphasizing the Web usage mining module. A review of the most common methods that are used as well as technical issues that occur is given, along with a brief overview of the most popular tools and applications available from software vendors. Moreover, the most important research initiatives in the Web usage mining and personalization areas are presented

Towards semantic web mining

Semantic Web Mining aims at combining the two fast-developing research areas Semantic Web and Web Mining. The idea is to improve, on the one hand, the results of Web Mining by exploiting the new semantic structures in the Web; and to make use of Web Mining, on the other hand, for building up the Semantic Web. This paper gives an overview of where the two areas meet today, and sketches ways of how a closer integration could be profitable