Be Creative, Determined, and Wise: Open Library Publishing and the Global South

Libraries throughout the world are increasingly involved in the production of scholarly publications. Much of this has been thanks to the growth of open access (OA) publishing in all its forms, from peer-reviewed “gold” journals to “green” self-archiving, and electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) repositories. As a result, more and more of the world’s scientific, medical, and scholarly research is freely available online. Libraries’ quickly evolving capacity as OA publishers holds great promise for students, teachers, and researchers—not to mention farmers, entrepreneurs, and civil society groups—in developing regions of the world. The vast majority of research is still produced and used in a handful of economically powerful countries. This disparity of access to knowledge is slowly being corrected, at least in some disciplines, thanks in no small part to the work and advocacy of librarians

Christian Traditions in the Contemporary Middle East: A Bibliographic Essay

Following the bibliographic trails begun in the preceding works will lead the reader to a range of primary and secondary resources treating many aspects of the various traditions addressed in this essay, including works dealing in greater depth with the particular Churches. As this essay was being completed, dramatic events have been unfolding in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere in the region. The broader consequences of these events, as well as their significance for the Christian communities there, are uncertain. Some continue to urge a more integrated role for the Churches in public life, while others warn of further marginalization. It is hoped that the works recommended above will provide useful guidance to those interested in learning more about the contemporary circumstances of these important and dynamic Christian traditions

Change in high-risk behaviors during the first college year categorized by gender, first-generation status, and admission index demographics as measured by the CIRP and YFCY

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 26, 2010).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Phillip Messner.Vita.Ed. D. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.The purpose of this case study was to evaluate change in five high-risk behaviors among three demographic groups of first-year college students. The study utilized the CIRP and YFCY surveys to gain pre- and post-measurements of behavior for smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, drinking wine or liquor, feeling depressed, and feeling overwhelmed. This quantitative study measured the change in high-risk behaviors in one cohort of students at a moderately selective Midwestern, four-year public, Masters I University using previously collected, archival data. The independent variables were gender, first-generation status, and admission index. Data were analyzed using the following statistical analysis procedures: descriptive statistic analysis, independent t-tests, multivariate analysis of variance, and discriminant function analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to determine change in high-risk behavior from the beginning of the fall semester (CIRP) to the end of the first year (YFCY). All high-risk behaviors increased during the first-year of college for all independent variables. Independent t-Tests were utilized to evaluate significances among independent variables. A MANOVA was used to evaluate variance among and between independent variables. Significant differences were noted for several combinations of independent variables and high-risk behaviors. However, the measures of power and variance indicated low practicability of data. The discriminant analysis predicted membership using cigarette smoking as the high-risk variable. While the statistical significance was low, important realizations were noted. This research indicates that high-risk behaviors do increase during the first year of college for most students. However, these behaviors were present during the final year of high school. This understanding changes the dialogue of administrators who are charged with designing programs and services to acculturate students to campus life. It is not practical to prevent high-risk behaviors during the first year of college, rather the dialogue consider impacting previously existing behaviors.Includes bibliographical references

Philanthropy, Faith, and Influence: Documenting Protestant Missionary Activism during the Armenian Genocide

American Protestant missionaries played important political and cultural roles in the late Ottoman Empire in the period before, during, and after the Armenian genocide. They reported on events as they unfolded and were instrumental coordinating and executing relief efforts by Western governments and charities. The Burke Library’s Missionary Research Library, along with several other important collections at Columbia and other nearby research repositories, holds a uniquely rich and comprehensive body of primary and secondary source materials for understanding the genocide through the lens of the missionaries’ attempts to document and respond to the massacres

Is There Anything New under the Sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:9): A Local Report on the Research Practices of Scholars in Religion and Theology

This study of research support services for scholars in religion and theology was sponsored by Ithaka S&R and three professional associations (the American Theological Library Association, the American Academy of Religion, and the Society of Biblical Literature). The Burke Library (Columbia University Libraries) was one of eighteen participating libraries. The overall goals of the study were (1) to understand the research habits and needs of scholars in the fields of religion and theology, and (2) to develop recommendations and strategies for libraries (the Burke Library in particular and ATLA libraries in general) that address these needs by either improving current services or developing new services

Discrimination of prostate cancer cells and non-malignant cells using secondary ion mass spectrometry

This communication utilises Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) combined with multivariate analysis to obtain spectra from the surfaces of three closely related cell lines allowing their discrimination based upon mass spectral ions

Deubiquitylating enzymes and disease

Deubiquitylating enzymes (DUBs) can hydrolyze a peptide, amide, ester or thiolester bond at the C-terminus of UBIQ (ubiquitin), including the post-translationally formed branched peptide bonds in mono- or multi-ubiquitylated conjugates. DUBs thus have the potential to regulate any UBIQ-mediated cellular process, the two best characterized being proteolysis and protein trafficking. Mammals contain some 80–90 DUBs in five different subfamilies, only a handful of which have been characterized with respect to the proteins that they interact with and deubiquitylate. Several other DUBs have been implicated in various disease processes in which they are changed by mutation, have altered expression levels, and/or form part of regulatory complexes. Specific examples of DUB involvement in various diseases are presented. While no specific drugs targeting DUBs have yet been described, sufficient functional and structural information has accumulated in some cases to allow their rapid development

Treatment of estrogen-induced dermatitis with omalizumab

In 1945, Drs Bernhard Zondek and Yehuda Bromberg demonstrated intradermal treatment with estrone and estradiol benzoate induced urticarial lesions in some patients.1 Fifty years later, Shelley et al,2 who introduced the concept of progesterone dermatitis several decades prior, defined estrogen dermatitis based on studies of 7 women with premenstrual flares of skin eruptions including papulovesicular, urticarial, or eczematous lesions or generalized pruritus. Previously described therapies for estrogen dermatitis include estrogen desensitization, tamoxifen, leuprolide, and oophorectomy.3 Here we report a case of estrogen-induced dermatitis successfully treated with omalizumab

Technology Criticism for Technophiles

Matthew Baker is a recent graduate of the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Here he makes the case for librarians to recognize both the strengths and limitations of technology, and to guide students toward that recognition as well

Generalised Elliptic Functions

We consider multiply periodic functions, sometimes called Abelian functions, defined with respect to the period matrices associated with classes of algebraic curves. We realise them as generalisations of the Weierstras P-function using two different approaches. These functions arise naturally as solutions to some of the important equations of mathematical physics and their differential equations, addition formulae, and applications have all been recent topics of study. The first approach discussed sees the functions defined as logarithmic derivatives of the sigma-function, a modified Riemann theta-function. We can make use of known properties of the sigma function to derive power series expansions and in turn the properties mentioned above. This approach has been extended to a wide range of non hyperelliptic and higher genus curves and an overview of recent results is given. The second approach defines the functions algebraically, after first modifying the curve into its equivariant form. This approach allows the use of representation theory to derive a range of results at lower computational cost. We discuss the development of this theory for hyperelliptic curves and how it may be extended in the future.Comment: 16 page