Creating and Sharing Fedora Installation Package for Ubuntu

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Conference PostersOpen repositories are enterprise information systems that face ongoing challenges of maintaining low operating costs, high efficiency, and high reliability. This poster proposal presents an open source strategy to help address some of these challenges. The NSF funded NSDL Materials Digital Library Pathway (MatDL) offers a Fedora-based open repository and is moving toward using the Ubuntu distribution of Linux on all of its servers to capitalize on the advantages of Ubuntu. However, currently there is no easy way to implement Ubuntu with Fedora-based repositories. This poster describes MatDL's efforts to co-develop and host a Fedora installation package for Ubuntu.The Materials Digital Library Pathway (DUE-0532831) is supported by the National Science Foundation

Facilitating Wiki/Repository Communication with Metadata

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Fedora User Group PresentationsDate: 2009-05-20 01:30 PM – 03:00 PMThe National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Materials Digital Library Pathway (MatDL) has implemented an information infrastructure to disseminate government funded research results and to provide content as well as services to support the integration of research and education in materials. This paper describes how we are enabling two-way communication between a digital repository and open-source collaborative tools, such as wikis, to support users in materials research and education in the creation and re-use of compelling learning resources. A search results plug-in for MediaWiki has been developed to display relevant search results from the Fedora-based MatDL repository in the Soft Matter Wiki established and developed by MatDL and its partners. Wiki-to-repository information transfer has also been facilitated by mapping the metadata associated with resources originating in the wiki onto Dublin Core (DC) metadata elements and making the metadata and resources available in the repository.The Materials Digital Library Pathway (DUE-0532831) is supported by the National Science Foundation

Maintenance of aversive memories shown by fear extinction-impaired phenotypes is associated with increased activity in the amygdaloid-prefrontal circuit

Although aversive memory has been mainly addressed by analysing the changes occurring in average populations, the study of neuronal mechanisms of outliers allows understanding the involvement of individual differences in fear conditioning and extinction. We recently developed an innovative experimental model of individual differences in approach and avoidance behaviors, classifying the mice as Approaching, Balancing or Avoiding animals according to their responses to conflicting stimuli. The approach and avoidance behaviors appear to be the primary reactions to rewarding and threatening stimuli and may represent predictors of vulnerability (or resilience) to fear. We submitted the three mice phenotypes to Contextual Fear Conditioning. In comparison to Balancing animals, Approaching and Avoiding mice exhibited no middle- or long-term fear extinction. The two non-extinguishing phenotypes exhibited potentiated glutamatergic neurotransmission (spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents/spinogenesis) of pyramidal neurons of medial prefrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala. Basing on the a priori individuation of outliers, we demonstrated that the maintenance of aversive memories is linked to increased spinogenesis and excitatory signaling in the amygdala-prefrontal cortex fear matri

Building a Disciplinary, World-Wide Data Infrastructure

Sharing scientific data, with the objective of making it fully discoverable, accessible, assessable, intelligible, usable, and interoperable, requires work at the disciplinary level to define in particular how the data should be formatted and described. Each discipline has its own organization and history as a starting point, and this paper explores the way a range of disciplines, namely materials science, crystallography, astronomy, earth sciences, humanities and linguistics get organized at the international level to tackle this question. In each case, the disciplinary culture with respect to data sharing, science drivers, organization and lessons learnt are briefly described, as well as the elements of the specific data infrastructure which are or could be shared with others. Commonalities and differences are assessed. Common key elements for success are identified: data sharing should be science driven; defining the disciplinary part of the interdisciplinary standards is mandatory but challenging; sharing of applications should accompany data sharing. Incentives such as journal and funding agency requirements are also similar. For all, it also appears that social aspects are more challenging than technological ones. Governance is more diverse, and linked to the discipline organization. CODATA, the RDA and the WDS can facilitate the establishment of disciplinary interoperability frameworks. Being problem-driven is also a key factor of success for building bridges to enable interdisciplinary research.Comment: Proceedings of the session "Building a disciplinary, world-wide data infrastructure" of SciDataCon 2016, held in Denver, CO, USA, 12-14 September 2016, to be published in ICSU CODATA Data Science Journal in 201

Developing a Web Analytics Strategy for the National Science Digital Library

In August 2004, a two-day workshop was held on Developing a Web Analytics Strategy for the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) . The workshop was sponsored by the NSDL Educational Impact and Evaluation Standing Committee (EIESC) and was jointly organized with the NSDL Technology Standing Committee (TSC). It brought together 26 representatives from government and industry, as well as some of the projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) NSDL program, to discuss how web metrics could be implemented in a pilot study to identify current NSDL use and develop strategies to support the collection of usage data across NSDL in the future. This new pilot follows a study that the EIESC conducted in 2002 to identify and collect basic web metrics data for NSDL.A bibliography on web metrics was prepared and distributed to the participants of the 2004 workshop. During the workshop, participants first reviewed the processes and technology used to gather web metrics data by two different organizations: the Association of Research Libraries E-Metrics Project and Sun Microsystems. Through a series of breakout and plenary sessions, participants identified high-level goals for the new pilot study, formulated and prioritized a list of desired effects and requirements for collecting web metrics across NSDL, and developed recommendations for implementing web metrics data collection on a project and program level. The workshop concluded with the EIESC and TSC establishing a joint taskforce to lead the pilot study in NSDL over the next year. Web analytics will be used to address two high-level goals. That high quality learning resources be accessible to a large spectrum of the US population That there be value added to users and projects by participating in NSDL.This workshop report provides a brief history of previous evaluation activities across NSDL and discusses the importance of web analytics to NSDL. After a review of the literature on web metrics, the report identifies cross-cutting issues that affect implementing web metrics in the upcoming pilot study (e.g., build vs. buy, data ownership and storage, organizational structure that supports ongoing data collection, user privacy); describes the goals and requirements for the pilot study; and lists near term action items for the joint task force. Documents from the workshop, including a preliminary report entitled Workshop on Web Metrics in NSDL , slides from ARL and Sun Microsystems presentations, participant statements and the web metrics bibliography can be found on the workshop website

Influence of pre-reproductive maternal enrichment on coping response to stress and expression of c-Fos and glucocorticoid receptors in adolescent offspring

Environmental enrichment (EE) is an experimental setting broadly used for investigating the effects of complex social, cognitive, and sensorimotor stimulations on brain structure and function. Recent studies point out that parental EE experience, even occurring in the pre-reproductive phase, affects neural development and behavioral trajectories of the offspring. In the present study we investigated the influences of pre-reproductive EE of female rats on maternal behavior and adolescent male offspring's coping response to an inescapable stressful situation after chronic social isolation. For this purpose female Wistar rats were housed from weaning to breeding age in enriched or standard environments. Subsequently, all females were mated and housed in standard conditions until offspring weaning. On the first post partum day (ppd 1), mother-pup interactions in undisturbed conditions were recorded. Further, after weaning the male pups were reared for 2 weeks under social isolation or in standard conditions, and then submitted or not to a single-session Forced Swim Test (FST). Offspring's neuronal activation and plastic changes were identified by immunohistochemistry for c-Fos and glucocorticoid receptors (GRs), and assessed by using stereological analysis. The biochemical correlates were measured in the hippocampus, amygdala and cingulate cortex, structures involved in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis regulation. Enriched dams exhibited increased Crouching levels in comparison to standard reared dams. In the offspring of both kinds of dams, social isolation reduced body weight, decreased Immobility, and increased Swimming during FST. Moreover, isolated offspring of enriched dams exhibited higher levels of Climbing in comparison to controls. Interestingly, in the amygdala of both isolated and control offspring of enriched dams we found a lower number of c-Fos immunopositive cells in response to FST and a higher number of GRs in comparison to the offspring of standard dams. These results highlight the profound influence of a stressful condition, such as the social isolation, on the brain of adolescent rats, and underline intergenerational effects of maternal experiences in regulating the offspring response to stress

Cerebellar involvement in cognitive flexibility

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the cerebellar structures are involved in functions requiring cognitive flexibility abilities. The flexibility of the hemicerebellectomized and control animals in learning a four-choice learning task, adapting to ever-changing response rules was investigated. While in the initial phase of the task both experimental groups exhibited similar performances, only the control animals significantly improved their performance as the sessions went by. The lack of improvement in lesioned animals' performance rendered their responses particularly defective in the final phases of the task, when conversely intact animals performed best, exploiting their "learning to learn" ability. The findings demonstrate the defective influence of the cerebellar lesion on the acquisition, not the execution, of new responses. The results underline the crucial role of the cerebellum in mediating cognitive flexibility behaviors

Exposure to an Enriched Environment Accelerates Recovery from Cerebellar Lesion

The exposure to enriched environments allows the maintenance of normal cognitive functioning even in the presence of brain pathology. Up until now, clinical and experimental studies have investigated environmental effects mainly on the symptoms linked to the presence of neuro-degenerative diseases, and no study has yet analyzed whether prolonged exposure to complex environments allows modifying the clinical expression and compensation of deficits of cerebellar origin. In animals previously exposed to complex stimulations, the effects of cerebellar lesions have been analyzed to verify whether a prolonged and intense exposure to complex stimulations affected the compensation of motor and cognitive functions following a cerebellar lesion. Hemicerebellectomized or intact animals housed in enriched or standard conditions were administered spatial tests. Postural asymmetries and motor behavior were also assessed. Exposure to the enriched environment almost completely compensated the effects of the hemicerebellectomy. In fact, the motor and cognitive performances of the enriched hemicerebellectomized animals were similar to those of the intact animals. The plastic changes induced by enhanced mental and physical activity seem to provide the development of compensatory responses against the disrupting motor and cognitive consequences of the cerebellar damage

Interaction does count: A cross-fostering study on transgenerational effects of pre-reproductive maternal enrichment

Pre-reproductive environmental enrichment of female rats influences sensorimotor development and spatial behavior of the offspring, possibly through the changed maternal nurturing. Nevertheless, maternal care could be not the solely responsible for changing offspring developmental trajectories. To disentangle the specific contribution to the transgenerational inheritance of pre- and post-natal factors, a cross-fostering study was performed. Female rats were reared in an enriched environment from weaning to sexual maturity, while control female rats were reared under standard conditions. Following mating with standard-reared males, all females were housed individually. Immediately after delivery, in- or cross-fostering manipulations were performed so that any foster dams received pups born to another dam of the same (in-fostering) or the opposite (cross-fostering) pre-reproductive rearing condition. In lactating dams maternal care and nesting activities were assessed, while in their male pups spatial abilities were assessed through Morris Water Maze (MWM) test at post-natal day 45. Moreover, the expression of Brain-Derived-Neurotrophic-Factor (BDNF) was evaluated in the hippocampus and frontal cortex of dams and pups at weaning. Pre-reproductive maternal environmental enrichment, followed by adoption procedures, loosened its potential in modifying maternal care and offspring developmental trajectories, as indicated by the lack of differences between in-fostered groups of dams and pups. In addition, enriched dams rearing standard pups showed the least complex maternal repertoire (the highest sniffing duration and the lowest nest quality), and their pups showed a reduced spatial learning in the MWM. Nevertheless, pre-reproductive maternal enrichment kept influencing neurotrophic pattern, with enriched dams expressing increased frontal BDNF levels (regardless of the kind of fostered pups), and their offspring expressing increased hippocampal BDNF levels. The present findings enlighten the crucial importance of the early mother-pups interactions in influencing maternal care and offspring phenotype, with the enriched dam-standard pups couple resulting in the most maladaptive encounter. Our study thus sustains that the bidirectional interactions between mother and pups are able to deeply shape offspring phenoty