Dublin Core Metadata Harvested Through OAI-PMH

The introduction in 2001 of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) increased interest in and awareness of metadata quality issues relevant to digital library interoperability and the use of harvested metadata to build "union catalogs" of digital information resources. Practitioners have offered wide-ranging advice to metadata authors and have suggested metrics useful for measuring the quality of shareable metadata. Is there evidence of changes in metadata practice in response to such advice and/or as a result of an increased awareness of the importance of metadata interoperability? This paper looks at metadata records created over a six-year period that have been harvested by the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and reports on quantitative and qualitative analyses of changes observed over time in shareable metadata quality.IMLS National Leadership Grant LG-02-02-0281published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

In vitro and in vivo modification of Neisseria gonorrhoeae lipooligosaccharide epitope structure by sialylation.

After growth of gonococci in the presence of cytidine monophospho-N-acetyl-neuraminic acid (CMP-NANA), their 4.5-kD lipooligosaccharide (LOS) component was increased by approximately 400 daltons, whereas the LOS of strains lacking the 4.5-kD component were unaffected. Expression of mAb-defined epitopes on the 4.5-kD component was decreased on LOS of strains grown in CMP-NANA, and treatment of the LOS with neuraminidase reversed this affect. Gonococci incubated with human PMNs also had decreased expression of the 4.5-kD+ epitopes. A detergent extract of gonococci incorporated radiolabeled NANA in the LOS, suggesting the presence of a sialyltransferase in gonococci. Exogenous sialyltransferases also could use LOS as an acceptor

Ultrafast photodissociation dynamics of pyrazole, imidazole and their deuterated derivatives using ab initio multiple cloning

We present results obtained using the ab initio multiple cloning (AIMC) method to simulate fully quantum dynamics for imidazole and its structural isomer pyrazole along with their selectively deuterated species. We simulate the ultrafast dissociation of the N-H/D bond for these molecules along the repulsive 1πσ* state which agrees well with previous experimental results. Our results give evidence for a two-stage dissociation of the N-H/D bond on the sub-50 fs regime for imidazole, pyrazole and their selectively deuterated species, and give evidence for the importance of the repulsive 1πσ* state along the N-H/D bond coordinate for the relaxation of both imidazole and pyrazole. The ability of these calculations to reproduce experimental results lends confidence that larger complex systems could be explored with predictive capabilities with the AIMC method. These results also confirm the ability of the AIMC method to add detailed insights into which experiments are blind

Minimization of phonon-tunneling dissipation in mechanical resonators

Micro- and nanoscale mechanical resonators have recently emerged as ubiquitous devices for use in advanced technological applications, for example in mobile communications and inertial sensors, and as novel tools for fundamental scientific endeavors. Their performance is in many cases limited by the deleterious effects of mechanical damping. Here, we report a significant advancement towards understanding and controlling support-induced losses in generic mechanical resonators. We begin by introducing an efficient numerical solver, based on the "phonon-tunneling" approach, capable of predicting the design-limited damping of high-quality mechanical resonators. Further, through careful device engineering, we isolate support-induced losses and perform the first rigorous experimental test of the strong geometric dependence of this loss mechanism. Our results are in excellent agreement with theory, demonstrating the predictive power of our approach. In combination with recent progress on complementary dissipation mechanisms, our phonon-tunneling solver represents a major step towards accurate prediction of the mechanical quality factor.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Disambiguating Descriptions: Mapping Digital Special Collections Metadata into Linked Open Data Formats

In this poster we describe the Linked Open Data (LOD) for Digital Special Collections project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and describe some of the particular challenges that legacy metadata poses for representation in LOD formats. LOD formats are primarily based on the World Wide Web Consortium’s Resource Description Framework standard which demands both that entities be named by opaque universal identifiers whenever possible but also that metadata descriptions for entities be as unambiguous as possible. The challenges for disambiguating those descriptions are illustrated through examples drawn from digital special collections based at four different digital librariesOpe

Children grow and horses race: is the adiposity rebound a critical period for later obesity?

BACKGROUND: The adiposity rebound is the second rise in body mass index that occurs between 3 and 7 years. An early age at adiposity rebound is known to be a risk factor for later obesity. The aim here is to clarify the connection between the age at rebound and the corresponding pattern of body mass index change, in centile terms, so as to better understand its ability to predict later fatness. DISCUSSION: Longitudinal changes in body mass index during adiposity rebound, measured both in original (kg/m(2)) and standard deviation (SD) score units, are studied in five hypothetical subjects. Two aspects of the body mass index curve, the body mass index centile and the rate of body mass index centile crossing, determine a child's age at rebound. A high centile and upward centile crossing are both associated separately with an early rebound, while a low centile and/or downward centile crossing correspond to a late rebound. Early adiposity rebound is a risk factor for later fatness because it identifies children whose body mass index centile is high and/or crossing upwards. Such children are likely to have a raised body mass index later in childhood and adulthood. This is an example of Peto's "horse racing effect". The association of centile crossing with later obesity is statistical not physiological, and it applies at all ages not just at rebound, so adiposity rebound cannot be considered a critical period for future obesity. Body mass index centile crossing is a more direct indicator of the underlying drive to fatness. SUMMARY: An early age at adiposity rebound predicts later fatness because it identifies children whose body mass index centile is high and/or crossing upwards. Such children are likely to have a raised body mass index later. Body mass index centile crossing is more direct than the timing of adiposity rebound for predicting later fatness