Exploring a Hybrid Model to Develop the IR: Liaisons and Functional Specialists Collaborate to Engage and Support Scholarship

Smaller institutions may not have full-time dedicated positions to provide technical support and campus engagement for their IR, therefore alternative strategies to grow a program supporting institutional scholarship may be necessary. For example, at Trinity University we do not have a Scholarly Communication Librarian or a dedicated IR Manager, but instead, depend on the collaboration of liaisons and technical services staff to engage and support institutional scholarship. At Trinity, our low librarian-to-faculty ratio means that we have strong liaison relationships with our academic departments. While librarians at Trinity locate and create opportunities to communicate with students and teachers about digital scholarship, we also make referrals to colleagues with more specialized technical expertise in IR management or copyright in order to use our time and our resources in creative and effective ways. Rather than make the advancement of digital scholarship programs in our library and institution a province of one department or a specified group of individuals, technical and public services focus on what we each “do best” to support the work of students and faculty but we also work together to achieve our goals. This model has proved beneficial for engaging and supporting scholars on campus. However, this model can also surface tensions between liaisons and their specialist colleagues. This hybrid model of liaisons and functional specialists requires effective collaboration as well as a strong referral system. In this case-study presentation, the Head of Discovery Services and the Head of Instruction Services will offer specific examples and evidence of the ways that technical services and liaisons work together to drive the library’s and the university’s digital scholarship initiatives. Essential factors in facilitating this work will also be considered

Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing-Based Approaches Can Help Transform Our Economies

Despite wider recognition of human interdependence with the rest of nature, our economies continue to fail to adequately value ecosystem services. This failure is largely attributed to the economic frameworks and related measures that focus on the production and consumption of marketed goods and services, but do not consider the other essential elements upon which our lives depend. This paper highlights how the Ecosystem Services approach can shift the focus to human wellbeing while remaining within biophysical planetary boundaries. An Ecosystem Services approach applies three fundamental principles of Ecological Economics: sustainable scale, efficient allocation, and fair distribution, which are vital for sustainable economies and societies. We provide case studies, from both a local and national scale, demonstrating how such an approach offers a holistic perspective of understanding what “development” actually means. Transforming our economies to appropriately consider planetary limits, overcome societal addictions, learn from Indigenous and local communities about ways of sustainable living, and realizing the importance of ecosystem services will contribute to developing economies that are resilient, and that enhance sustainable human wellbeing

Metadata Implementation for Building Cross-Institutional Repositories: Lessons Learned from the Liberal Arts Scholarly Repository (LASR)

Institutional repositories are an exciting innovation in scholarly communication and liberal arts institutions have a unique opportunity to create repository collections that reflect their tradition. However, the challenges of cost, staffing, infrastructure, standardized metadata, and content recruitment that are part and parcel of developing institutional repositories may be daunting to individual liberal arts institutions. The idea that multiple, like-minded institutions could join forces to share their efforts, unique challenges, and maximize their efficiencies grew into the Liberal Arts Scholarly Repository (LASR). Initial steps in this collaboration included the development of a group mission and a statement of collection policies. Technical specifications and metadata best practices were developed to facilitate searching and to ensure the interoperability of the repository. This article outlines the history of the project and the process of collaborating on metadata standards

Changes in authorship, networks, and research topics in ecosystem services

A large network of researchers and practitioners have been working on ecosystem services (ES) for decades. In the inaugural issue of this journal, in 2012, we analysed the authorship structure, citations, topics, and journals publishing on ES. Here we update and expand that analysis and compare results with those we found in our previous analysis. We also analyse the influence that the journal Ecosystem Services has had on these variables over its first 10 years. We look at which articles have had the most influence on the field (as measured by the number of citations in Ecosystem Services) and on the broader scientific literature (as measured by total citations). We also look at how authorship networks, topics through keywords, and the types of journals publishing on the topic have changed. Results show that between the two time periods (before and after the establishment of the journal Ecosystem Services in 2012) there has been significant growth in the number of authors (12,795 to 91,051) and number of articles published (4,948 to 33,973) on ES. Authorship networks have also expanded significantly, and the patterns of co-authorship have evolved in interesting ways. The journal Ecosystem Services is now the most prolific publisher of articles on ES among the 4,286 journals that have published in the area. There is a cluster of 9 top journals that cite, and are cited by each other, within this rapidly expanding policy-relevant research area

Critical role for prokineticin 2 in CNS autoimmunity

Objective: To investigate the potential role of prokineticin 2 (PK2), a bioactive peptide involved in multiple biological functions including immune modulation, in CNS autoimmune demyelinating disease. Methods: We investigated the expression of PK2 in mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS), and in patients with relapsing-remitting MS. We evaluated the biological effects of PK2 on expression of EAE and on development of T-cell response against myelin by blocking PK2 in vivo with PK2 receptor antagonists. We treated with PK2 immune cells activated against myelin antigen to explore the immune-modulating effects of this peptide in vitro. Results: Pk2 messenger RNA was upregulated in spinal cord and lymph node cells (LNCs) of mice with EAE. PK2 protein was expressed in EAE inflammatory infiltrates and was increased in sera during EAE. In patients with relapsing-remitting MS, transcripts for PK2 were significantly increased in peripheral blood mononuclear cells compared with healthy controls, and PK2 serum concentrations were significantly higher. A PK2 receptor antagonist prevented or attenuated established EAE in chronic and relapsing-remitting models, reduced CNS inflammation and demyelination, and decreased the production of interferon (IFN)-γ and interleukin (IL)-17A cytokines in LNCs while increasing IL-10. PK2 in vitro increased IFN-γ and IL-17A and reduced IL-10 in splenocytes activated against myelin antigen. Conclusion: These data suggest that PK2 is a critical immune regulator in CNS autoimmune demyelination and may represent a new target for therapy

Optimization and characterization of tungsten thick coatings on copper based ally substrates

Tungsten is a promising armour material for plasma facing components of nuclear fusion reactors because of its low sputter rate and favourable thermo-mechanical properties. Among all the techniques able to realise W armours, plasma spray looks particularly attractive owing to its simplicity and low cost. The present work concerns the optimisation of spraying parameters aimed at 4–5 mm thickWcoating on copper–chromium–zirconium (Cu,Cr,Zr) alloy substrates. Characterisation of coatings was performed in order to assess microstructure, impurity content, density, tensile strength, adhesion strength, thermal conductivity and thermal expansion coefficient. The work performed has demonstrated the feasibility of thick W coatings on flat and curved geometries. These coatings appear as a reliable armour for medium heat flux plasma facing component