Designing an automated prototype tool for preservation quality metadata extraction for ingest into digital repository

We present a viable framework for the automated extraction of preservation quality metadata, which is adjusted to meet the needs of, ingest to digital repositories. It has three distinctive features: wide coverage, specialisation and emphasis on quality. Wide coverage is achieved through the use of a distributed system of tool repositories, which helps to implement it over a broad range of document object types. Specialisation is maintained through the selection of the most appropriate metadata extraction tool for each case based on the identification of the digital object genre. And quality is sustained by introducing control points at selected stages of the workflow of the system. The integration of these three features as components in the ingest of material into digital repositories is a defining step ahead in the current quest for improved management of digital resources

USER STUDIES FOR DIGITAL LIBRARIES EVALUATION AND DEVELOPMENT

This tutorial - the only one in JCDL 2012 Conference - introduces a range of methods which can be applied to understand better user needs and expectations (surveys, questionnaires, interviews, deep log analysis, personas, eye tracking, ethnographic studies) and to give a practical feel how they work in real practice through a series of recent studies. It includes real life international case study which will help the participants to get a better understanding what studies could be particularly helpful according to the products and services they develop, how to involve user s in digital library evaluation, and how to engage better with users

Crystal nucleation and cluster-growth kinetics in a model glass under shear

Crystal nucleation and growth processes induced by an externally applied shear strain in a model metallic glass are studied by means of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, in a range of temperatures. We observe that the nucleation-growth process takes place after a transient, induction regime. The critical cluster size and the lag-time associated with this induction period are determined from a mean first-passage time analysis. The laws that describe the cluster growth process are studied as a function of temperature and strain rate. A theoretical model for crystallization kinetics that includes the time dependence for nucleation and cluster growth is developed within the framework of the Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami scenario and is compared with the molecular dynamics data. Scalings for the cluster growth laws and for the crystallization kinetics are also proposed and tested. The observed nucleation rates are found to display a nonmonotonic strain rate dependency

User Studies for Digital Library Development

As the information environment becomes increasingly electronic, digital libraries have proliferated, but the focus has often been on innovations in technology and not the user. Research and analysis of users is essential to fine-tune the content and approach of digital libraries to the diverging requirements and expectations of incredibly varied communities and to ensure libraries are effective, accessible and sustainable in the long term. This book provides a clear overview of the user studies domain and user issues in digital libraries

Direct Ascription of Missing Categorical Values in Survey Research Data

The complete datasets are a prerequisite for sustainable analyses, robust an- alytics and unbiased interpretation of results. Missing values in a survey occur when no data value is stored for the variable in an observation. Missing data can have a significant effect on the conclusions that can be drawn from the data. Direct ascription is the process of replacing missing data with predicted values. The aim of this work is to describe an approach to direct ascription of missing categorical values in survey research data based both on the assumption that values in a data set are missing at random and on the implementation of the correspondence analysis