The Amazing J. Lawrence Cook of Tennessee

From the SEMLA report of the conference: Alan Wallace of the University of Tennessee gave a presentation on The Amazing J. Lawrence Cook of Tennessee that encouraged attendees to broaden their thoughts on the nature of artistic creation and recorded music. J. Lawrence Cook was a composer and arranger who throughout the course of his life created between 15,000 to 20,000 piano rolls for player pianos. Wallace discussed how the piano roll was the most common medium for recording and replaying music in an era before the widespread use of the phonograph and argued that the jazz music Cook cut into his piano rolls helped to interest people all across the nation in jazz. While the presentation focused on Cook and his creations, Wallace also recounted how his interest in Cook sprang from his inheritance of a player piano and purchase of rolls created by Cook, and how his research was furthered by his discovery of an international internet community sharing an interest in Cook. The work this primarily non-academic group of dedicated researchers has done to record and make available the history and contributions of the little-known Cook is impressive and showcases an emerging research model practically impossible before the advent of the internet

How to Create a Great Video Tutorial (Pre Conference Workshop)

This pre-conference will cover the basics of planning, editing and publishing a video tutorial or tour. The presenters will cover the basics of creating a high quality product. We will discuss and demonstrate audio recording. Attendees will be given video samples to practice hands on editing with iMovie software. At the end of the workshop, students should be comfortable with the process and motivated to plan and produce their own videos

Resolved, Every Librarian a Subject Librarian: Implementing Subject Librarianship Across a Research Library

Many academic research librarians are specialists—catalogers, data curation librarians, electronic resources librarians—and working with students is considered to be a job for public service librarians. The University of Tennessee Libraries is expanding subject librarian responsibility across the Libraries, and research librarians who may have never worked in public services are assuming liaison and collection development roles. Steve Smith, Dean of Libraries, will share his model of learning, research, and collections (LRC) librarianship and explain his rationale for starting the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Libraries down this road. And how is that concept working for us? Hear from a couple of the librarians charged with implementing the vision: a technical services librarian given new LRC subject responsibility and the public service librarian assigned to get that new LRC subject librarian up to speed. We will discuss organizational and implementation challenges and share what we have learned about training and mentoring new subject librarians

From Campus to Community: Making the Case for Open Access by Bringing Nonprofits to Academic Libraries

Summary: Describes how librarians developed a workshop for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to help NPOs access peer-reviewed publications behind paywalls, develop skills in searching (information retrieval), and improve awareness of how academic libraries can support community organizations. NPOs who participated gave feedback in a number of ways, from written surveys to short recorded video interviews. With permission, their feedback was used to develop promotional and informational materials intended for the campus about the value of open access to those working in the local community

Open Access on Campus: Bringing Nonprofits to the Libraries

Low attendance at Open Access Week events caused academic librarians to ask: What can we do to further open access without asking faculty and students to attend events during such a busy time of the semester? Instead of reaching out to faculty directly, librarians at the University of Tennessee Libraries are reaching out beyond the campus community. Health sciences, social sciences, and scholarly communication librarians offer a workshop to East Tennessee nonprofit organizations to assist them in finding and accessing scholarly research. After the workshops, participants are invited to be interviewed on camera about why public access to research matters, giving the Libraries’ important personal stories for Open Access advocacy. After hearing these stories, do faculty ask librarians more questions about how to publish openly? What else can we do to increase the desire to share research publicly

High plasma leptin levels confer increased risk of atherosclerosis in women with systemic lupus erythematosus, and are associated with inflammatory oxidised lipids.

BackgroundPatients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are at increased risk of atherosclerosis, even after accounting for traditional risk factors. High levels of leptin and low levels of adiponectin are associated with both atherosclerosis and immunomodulatory functions in the general population.ObjectiveTo examine the association between these adipokines and subclinical atherosclerosis in SLE, and also with other known inflammatory biomarkers of atherosclerosis.MethodsCarotid ultrasonography was performed in 250 women with SLE and 122 controls. Plasma leptin and adiponectin levels were measured. Lipoprotein a (Lp(a)), oxidised phospholipids on apoB100 (OxPL/apoB100), paraoxonase, apoA-1 and inflammatory high-density lipoprotein (HDL) function were also assessed.ResultsLeptin levels were significantly higher in patients with SLE than in controls (23.7±28.0 vs 13.3±12.9 ng/ml, p<0.001). Leptin was also higher in the 43 patients with SLE with plaque than without plaque (36.4±32.3 vs 20.9±26.4 ng/ml, p=0.002). After multivariate analysis, the only significant factors associated with plaque in SLE were leptin levels in the highest quartile (≥29.5 ng/ml) (OR=2.8, p=0.03), proinflammatory HDL (piHDL) (OR=12.8, p<0.001), age (OR=1.1, p<0.001), tobacco use (OR=7.7, p=0.03) and hypertension (OR=3.0, p=0.01). Adiponectin levels were not significantly associated with plaque in our cohort. A significant correlation between leptin and piHDL function (p<0.001), Lp(a) (p=0.01) and OxPL/apoB100 (p=0.02) was also present.ConclusionsHigh leptin levels greatly increase the risk of subclinical atherosclerosis in SLE, and are also associated with an increase in inflammatory biomarkers of atherosclerosis such as piHDL, Lp(a) and OxPL/apoB100. High leptin levels may help to identify patients with SLE at risk of atherosclerosis

Arctic ocean chronology confirmed by accelerator 14C dating

The role of the Arctic Ocean in Earth's climatic and oceanographic development is significant but has become controversial because of disagreements concerning a reliable Arctic chronology. The first Arctic Ocean chronology based on U-Th and 14C data was in agreement with magnetostratigraphy developed later but these data have been challenged by recent amino acid diagenesis dates. New accelerator 14C data support the earlier U-Th-magnetostratigraphic dates and confirm the reliability of the established Arctic Ocean chronology

Judging the impact of leadership-development activities on school practice

The nature and effectiveness of professional-development activities should be judged in a way that takes account of both the achievement of intended outcomes and the unintended consequences that may result. Our research project set out to create a robust approach that school staff members could use to assess the impact of professional-development programs on leadership and management practice without being constrained in this judgment by the stated aims of the program. In the process, we identified a number of factors and requirements relevant to a wider audience than that concerned with the development of leadership and management in England. Such an assessment has to rest upon a clear understanding of educational leadership,a clearly articulated model of practice, and a clear model of potential forms of impact. Such foundations, suitably adapted to the subject being addressed, are appropriate for assessing all teacher professional development

Inhibition of acetyl-CoA carboxylase suppresses fatty acid synthesis and tumor growth of non-small-cell lung cancer in preclinical models.

Continuous de novo fatty acid synthesis is a common feature of cancer that is required to meet the biosynthetic demands of a growing tumor. This process is controlled by the rate-limiting enzyme acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC), an attractive but traditionally intractable drug target. Here we provide genetic and pharmacological evidence that in preclinical models ACC is required to maintain the de novo fatty acid synthesis needed for growth and viability of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. We describe the ability of ND-646-an allosteric inhibitor of the ACC enzymes ACC1 and ACC2 that prevents ACC subunit dimerization-to suppress fatty acid synthesis in vitro and in vivo. Chronic ND-646 treatment of xenograft and genetically engineered mouse models of NSCLC inhibited tumor growth. When administered as a single agent or in combination with the standard-of-care drug carboplatin, ND-646 markedly suppressed lung tumor growth in the Kras;Trp53-/- (also known as KRAS p53) and Kras;Stk11-/- (also known as KRAS Lkb1) mouse models of NSCLC. These findings demonstrate that ACC mediates a metabolic liability of NSCLC and that ACC inhibition by ND-646 is detrimental to NSCLC growth, supporting further examination of the use of ACC inhibitors in oncology