Towards the digital university: a brief introduction to E-Texts and open access

The notion of "E-texts" or "electronic texts" made its way onto the agenda of the Academic Support Committee in April 2009. This interest in E-Text was prompted by an inquiry to the Committee Chair by several faculty members who had questions about academic publisher presentations that were occurring on campus. Following from the Committee discussions, a Subcommittee was struck to examine the trends, tools and potential of e-text as it relates to academic resources. The Subcommittee held its first meeting on May xx, 2009 and established the intial Terms of Reference for the working group. The following document reports our findings and reflects the nature of these conversations. The report conveys how E-Texts are currently dealt with by publishers, by the University Bookstore, and by Library collections. As well, it describes the concept of Open Access as it applies to the individuals' ability to electronically publish academic materials, as a way of making academic information available to students and faculty alike

Contrasting benefits of different artemisinin combination therapies as first-line malaria treatments using model-based cost-effectiveness analysis.

There are currently several recommended drug regimens for uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Africa. Each has different properties that determine its impact on disease burden. Two major antimalarial policy options are artemether-lumefantrine (AL) and dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DHA-PQP). Clinical trial data show that DHA-PQP provides longer protection against reinfection, while AL is better at reducing patient infectiousness. Here we incorporate pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic factors, transmission-reducing effects and cost into a mathematical model and simulate malaria transmission and treatment in Africa, using geographically explicit data on transmission intensity and seasonality, population density, treatment access and outpatient costs. DHA-PQP has a modestly higher estimated impact than AL in 64% of the population at risk. Given current higher cost estimates for DHA-PQP, there is a slightly greater cost per case averted, except in areas with high, seasonally varying transmission where the impact is particularly large. We find that a locally optimized treatment policy can be highly cost effective for reducing clinical malaria burden