Publish or Practice? An Examination of Librarians' Contributions to Research

This article examines authorship of LIS literature in the context of practitioner and non-practitioner production of published research. For this study, 4,827 peer-reviewed articles from twenty LIS journals published between 1956 and 2011 were examined to determine the percentage of articles written by practitioners. The study identified a decrease in the proportion of articles authored by practitioners between 2006 and 2011. Topic analysis of articles revealed subtle yet distinct differences in research subject matter between practitioner-authored and non-practitioner-authored articles. If present trends continue, the character of LIS literature may shift away from many issues relating to practical librarianship

Gibbs Sampling with Low-Power Spiking Digital Neurons

Restricted Boltzmann Machines and Deep Belief Networks have been successfully used in a wide variety of applications including image classification and speech recognition. Inference and learning in these algorithms uses a Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedure called Gibbs sampling. A sigmoidal function forms the kernel of this sampler which can be realized from the firing statistics of noisy integrate-and-fire neurons on a neuromorphic VLSI substrate. This paper demonstrates such an implementation on an array of digital spiking neurons with stochastic leak and threshold properties for inference tasks and presents some key performance metrics for such a hardware-based sampler in both the generative and discriminative contexts.Comment: Accepted at ISCAS 201

What is traditional acupuncture - exploring goals and processes of treatment in the context of women with early breast cancer

Background: Despite the increasing popularity of acupuncture, there remains uncertainty as to its effectiveness and how it brings about change. Particular questions are posed over whether acupuncture research has sufficient model validity and reflects acupuncture as practised. Exploring traditional acupuncture (TA) in practice should help to expose processes essential to the theory of TA. The aim of this study was to examine what TA practitioners aim to achieve, their rationale and how they follow this through in their practice. Methods: A longitudinal study of TA for women with early breast cancer (EBC) was performed. Study participants comprised 14 women with EBC and two experienced TA practitioners, all taking part in in-depth interviews, conducted before and after receipt of up to 10 treatment sessions, and analysed using grounded theory methods. Additional data came from practitioner treatment logs and diaries. Results: Practitioners sought long-term goals of increasing strength and enabling coping as well as immediate relief of symptoms. They achieved this through a continuous process of treatment, following through the recursive and individualized nature of TA and adjusted, via differential diagnosis, to the rapidly fluctuating circumstances of individual women. Establishing trust and good rapport with the women aided disclosure which was seen as essential in order to clarify goals during chemotherapy. This process was carefully managed by the practitioners and the resultant therapeutic relationship was highly valued by the women. Conclusion: This study provided insight into the interdependent components of TA helping to demonstrate the multiple causal pathways to change through the continuous process of new information, insights and treatment changes. A good therapeutic relationship was not simply something valued by patients but explicitly used by practitioners to aid disclosure which in turn affected details of the treatment. The therapeutic relationship was therefore a vital and integral part of the treatment process

Teen, Parent, and Clinician Expectations About Obesity and Related Conditions During the Annual Well-Child Visit

Purpose: This study aimed to examine family (patient, parent/guardian) and clinician preferences for identification and management of obesity and obesity-related conditions during the well-child visit. Methods: Four focus groups with teen patients (n = 16), four focus groups with parents (n = 15) and one focus group with providers (n = 12) were conducted using a structured moderator guide tailored to each population. Eligible patients had a well-child visit during the past 12 months and a diagnosis of overweight, obesity, hyperlipidemia or elevated blood pressure. Parents who attended their child’s well-child visit and whose child met the diagnostic criteria were eligible. Teen focus groups were divided by gender (male/female) and age (14–15/16–17 years). Focus group transcripts were coded for concepts and themes using qualitative data and thematic analysis. Analysis was performed across groups to determine common themes and domains of intersect. Results: Teens and parents expect weight to be discussed at well-child visits and prefer discussions to come from a trusted clinician who uses serious, consistent language. Teens did not recognize the health implications from excess weight, and both parents and teens express the need for more information on strategies to change behavior. Providers recognize several challenges and barriers to discussing weight management in the well-child visit. Conclusions: A clinician-teen-family relationship built on trust, longevity, teamwork, support and encouragement can create a positive atmosphere and may improve understanding for weight-related messages for teens and families during a well-child visit

Bridging the Gap Between Neural Networks and Neuromorphic Hardware with A Neural Network Compiler

Different from developing neural networks (NNs) for general-purpose processors, the development for NN chips usually faces with some hardware-specific restrictions, such as limited precision of network signals and parameters, constrained computation scale, and limited types of non-linear functions. This paper proposes a general methodology to address the challenges. We decouple the NN applications from the target hardware by introducing a compiler that can transform an existing trained, unrestricted NN into an equivalent network that meets the given hardware's constraints. We propose multiple techniques to make the transformation adaptable to different kinds of NN chips, and reliable for restrict hardware constraints. We have built such a software tool that supports both spiking neural networks (SNNs) and traditional artificial neural networks (ANNs). We have demonstrated its effectiveness with a fabricated neuromorphic chip and a processing-in-memory (PIM) design. Tests show that the inference error caused by this solution is insignificant and the transformation time is much shorter than the retraining time. Also, we have studied the parameter-sensitivity evaluations to explore the tradeoffs between network error and resource utilization for different transformation strategies, which could provide insights for co-design optimization of neuromorphic hardware and software.Comment: Accepted by ASPLOS 201

Genetic Connectivity and Diversity of a Protected, Habitat-Forming Species:Evidence Demonstrating the Need for Wider Environmental Protection and Integration of the Marine Protected Area Network

Funding Information: This work was largely funded by Heriot-Watt University (James Watt Scholarship) and NatureScot (formerly Scottish Natural Heritage). Additional funding was received from the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) and their support is gratefully acknowledged. MASTS was funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Habitual intake of flavonoid subclasses and risk of colorectal cancer in two large prospective cohorts

Background: Flavonoids inhibit the growth of colon cancer cells in vitro. In a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial, the Polyp Prevention Trial, a higher intake of one sub-class, flavonols, was significantly associated with reduced risk of recurrent advanced adenoma. Most previous prospective studies on colorectal cancer evaluated only a limited number of flavonoid sub-classes and intake ranges, yielding inconsistent results.  Objective: To examine whether higher habitual dietary intakes of flavonoid subclasses (flavonols, flavones, flavanones, flavan-3-ols and anthocyanins) are associated with lower risk of colorectal cancer.  Design: Using data from validated food frequency questionnaires administered every four years and an updated flavonoid food composition database flavonoid intakes were calculated for 42,478 male participants from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and for 76,364 female participants from the Nurses’ Health Study.  Results: During up to 26 years of follow-up, 2,519 colorectal cancer cases (1,061 in men, 1,458 in women) were documented. Intakes of flavonoid subclasses were not associated with risk of colorectal cancer in either cohort. Pooled multivariable adjusted relative risks (95% confidence interval) comparing the highest with the lowest quintile were 1.04 (0.91, 1.18) for flavonols; 1.01 (0.89, 1.15) for flavones; 0.96 (0.84, 1.10) for flavanones; 1.07 (0.95, 1.21) for flavan-3-ols; and 0.98 (0.81, 1.19) for anthocyanins (all p-values for heterogeneity by sex >0.19). In subsite analyses, flavonoid intake was also not associated with colon or rectal cancer risk.  Conclusion: Our findings do not support the hypothesis that a higher habitual intake of any flavonoid sub-class decreases the risk of colorectal cancer

Paradoxical activation of the protein kinase-transcription factor ERK5 by ERK5 kinase inhibitors.

The dual protein kinase-transcription factor, ERK5, is an emerging drug target in cancer and inflammation, and small-molecule ERK5 kinase inhibitors have been developed. However, selective ERK5 kinase inhibitors fail to recapitulate ERK5 genetic ablation phenotypes, suggesting kinase-independent functions for ERK5. Here we show that ERK5 kinase inhibitors cause paradoxical activation of ERK5 transcriptional activity mediated through its unique C-terminal transcriptional activation domain (TAD). Using the ERK5 kinase inhibitor, Compound 26 (ERK5-IN-1), as a paradigm, we have developed kinase-active, drug-resistant mutants of ERK5. With these mutants, we show that induction of ERK5 transcriptional activity requires direct binding of the inhibitor to the kinase domain. This in turn promotes conformational changes in the kinase domain that result in nuclear translocation of ERK5 and stimulation of gene transcription. This shows that both the ERK5 kinase and TAD must be considered when assessing the role of ERK5 and the effectiveness of anti-ERK5 therapeutics