iSchools and archival studies

Whispers and rumors about the iSchool movement lead some to fear that this represents yet another shift away from the valued traditions of library schools, threatening something far different than what library science pioneers ever envisioned. Predating the iSchool movement, however, were other programmatic shifts such as those that led to the formalization of graduate archival education. This essay argues that such evolution is essential to our future, as iSchools tackle the increasingly complex issues confronting a digital society. We consider the mission and history of iSchools and of archival studies, the basic elements and concepts of archival studies that are critical to iSchools, and the relationship between iSchools and the changing nature of personal and institutional archives. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V

Do Online Trolling Strategies Differ in Political and Interest Forums : Early Results

This study compares the effectiveness of different trolling strategies in two online contexts: politically oriented forums that address issues like global warming, and interest-based forums that deal with peo- ple’s personal interests. Based on previous research, we consider trolling as context-bound and suggest that relevance theory and common ground- ing theory can explain why people may attend and react to certain types of troll posts in one forum, but pay scant attention to them in another. We postulate two hypotheses on how successful (i.e., disrup- tive) trolling varies according to context: that trolls’ messaging strate- gies appear in different frequencies in political and interest forums (H1), and that context-matching strategies also produce longer futile conver- sations (H2). Using Hardaker’s categorization of trolling strategies on a covert–overt continuum, our statistical analysis on a dataset of 49 online conversations verified H1: in political forums covert strategies were more common than overt ones; in interest forums the opposite was the case. Regarding H2 our results were inconclusive. However, the results moti- vate further research on this phenomenon with larger datasets.Peer reviewe

Yield and Economic Performance of Organic and Conventional Cotton-Based Farming Systems – Results from a Field Trial in India

The debate on the relative benefits of conventional and organic farming systems has in recent time gained significant interest. So far, global agricultural development has focused on increased productivity rather than on a holistic natural resource management for food security. Thus, developing more sustainable farming practices on a large scale is of utmost importance. However, information concerning the performance of farming systems under organic and conventional management in tropical and subtropical regions is scarce. This study presents agronomic and economic data from the conversion phase (2007–2010) of a farming systems comparison trial on a Vertisol soil in Madhya Pradesh, central India. A cotton-soybean-wheat crop rotation under biodynamic, organic and conventional (with and without Bt cotton) management was investigated. We observed a significant yield gap between organic and conventional farming systems in the 1st crop cycle (cycle 1: 2007–2008) for cotton (229%) and wheat (227%), whereas in the 2nd crop cycle (cycle 2: 2009–2010) cotton and wheat yields were similar in all farming systems due to lower yields in the conventional systems. In contrast, organic soybean (a nitrogen fixing leguminous plant) yields were marginally lower than conventional yields (21% in cycle 1, 211% in cycle 2). Averaged across all crops, conventional farming systems achieved significantly higher gross margins in cycle 1 (+29%), whereas in cycle 2 gross margins in organic farming systems were significantly higher (+25%) due to lower variable production costs but similar yields. Soybean gross margin was significantly higher in the organic system (+11%) across the four harvest years compared to the conventional systems. Our results suggest that organic soybean production is a viable option for smallholder farmers under the prevailing semi-arid conditions in India. Future research needs to elucidate the long-term productivity and profitability, particularly of cotton and wheat, and the ecological impact of the different farming systems

Maternal Obesity, Overweight and Gestational Diabetes Affect the Offspring Neurodevelopment at 6 and 18 Months of Age – A Follow Up from the PREOBE Cohort

The study was registered at www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier:NCT01634464).Background: Brain development in fetal life and early infancy is critical to determine lifelong performance in various neuropsychological domains. Metabolic pathologies such as overweight, obesity, and gestational diabetes in pregnant women are prevalent and increasing risk factors that may adversely affect long-term brain development in their offspring.Objective: The objective of this research was to investigate the influence of maternal metabolic pathologies on the neurodevelopment of the offspring at 6 and 18 months of life.Design: This was a prospective case-control study of 331 mother- and child pairs from Granada, Spain. The mothers were included during pregnancy into four groups according to their pre-gestational body mass index and their gestational diabetes status; overweight (n:56), obese (n:64), gestational diabetic (n:79), and healthy normal weight controls (n:132). At 6 months and 18 months we assessed the children with the Bayley III scales of neurodevelopment.Results: At 6 months (n=215), we found significant group differences in cognition composite language, and expressive language. Post hoc test revealed unexpectedly higher scores in the obese group compared to the normal weight group and a similar trend in overweight and diabetic group. The effects on language remained significant after adjusting for confounders with an adjusted odds ratio for a value above median in composite language score of 3.3 (95% CI: 1.1, 10.0; p=0.035) for children of obese mothers. At 18 month (n=197), the offspring born to obese mothers had lost five points in language composite scores and the previous differences in language and cognition was replaced by a suggestive trend of lower gross motor scores in the overweight, obese, and diabetic groups.Conclusions: Infants of obese mothers had a temporary accelerated development of cognition and language, followed by a rapid deceleration until 18 months of age, particularly of language scores. This novel observation prompts further confirmative studies to explore possible placental and neurodevelopmental mechanisms involved.This study was funded by Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science. Junta de Andalucía: Excellence Projects (P06-CTS-02341); Spanish Ministry of Education (Grant no. SB2010-0025); Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BFU2012-40254-C03-01); Further support was received by Abbott Laboratories, Granada, Spain

Basel II and fostering the disclosure of banks\' internal credit ratings

ISSN:1566-7529ISSN:1741-620

Detection and attribution of human influence on regional precipitation

Understanding how human influence on climate is affecting precipitation around the world is immensely important for defining mitigation policies, and for adaptation planning. Yet despite increasing evidence for the influence of climate change on global patterns of precipitation, and expectations that significant changes in regional precipitation should have already occurred as a result of human influence on climate, compelling evidence of anthropogenic fingerprints on regional precipitation is obscured by observational and modelling uncertainties and is likely to remain so using current methods for years to come. This is in spite of substantial ongoing improvements in models, new reanalyses and a satellite record that spans over thirty years. If we are to quantify how human-induced climate change is affecting the regional water cycle, we need to consider novel ways of identifying the effects of natural and anthropogenic influences on precipitation that take full advantage of our physical expectations

Open source GIS platform for water resource modelling: FREEWAT approach in the Lugano Lake

The FREEWAT platform is an innovative Free and Open Source water resource modelling platform integrated in the QGIS geospatial software, using the SpatiaLite database, and including globally-established simulation codes from the USGS MODFLOW models family. This paper demonstrates its application to the Lugano Lake basin case study, Switzerland and Italy. Two specific modules of the platform were used to execute data integration and analyses: the Observation Analysis Tool and the Lake Package. The first one is a newly developed module facilitating the integration of time-series observations into modelling by enabling pre- and post-processing in the model environment; the latter is an existing MODFLOW package allowing dynamic evaluation of groundwater/ lakes interaction. In the case study implementation, a participatory approach was adopted to enhance trust and acceptance of results. These show that integration of simulation codes within GIS is highly appreciated. Furthermore, its openness and freeness allow easily sharing of developed analysis and models. Stakeholders also positively evaluated the participatory process as it empowers decision making with a better understanding of model results and uncertainties. The combination of the FREEWAT platform and the participatory approach may constitute a valuable methodology to include scientifically based analysis to be used for policy design and implementation

A long view of liberal peace and its crisis

The ‘crisis’ of liberal peace has generated considerable debate in International Relations. However, analysis is inhibited by a shared set of spatial, cultural and temporal assumptions that rest on and reproduce a problematic separation between self-evident ‘liberal’ and ‘non-liberal’ worlds, and locates the crisis in presentist terms of the latter’s resistance to the former’s expansion. By contrast, this article argues that efforts to advance liberal rule have always been interwoven with processes of alternative order-making, and in this way are actively integral, not external, to the generation of the subjectivities, contestations, violence and rival social orders that are then apprehended as self-evident obstacles and threats to liberal peace and as characteristic of its periphery. Making visible these intimate relations of co-constitution elided by representations of liberal peace and its crisis requires a long view and an analytical frame that encompasses both liberalism and its others in the world. The argument is developed using a Foucauldian governmentality framework and illustrated with reference to Sri Lanka

Comparison of techniques used to count single-celled viable phytoplankton

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Applied Phycology 24 (2012): 751-758, doi:10.1007/s10811-011-9694-z.Four methods commonly used to count phytoplankton were evaluated based upon the precision of concentration estimates: Sedgewick Rafter and membrane filter direct counts, flow cytometry, and flow-based imaging cytometry (FlowCAM). Counting methods were all able to estimate the cell concentrations, categorize cells into size classes, and determine cell viability using fluorescent probes. These criteria are essential to determine whether discharged ballast water complies with international standards that limit the concentration of viable planktonic organisms based on size class. Samples containing unknown concentrations of live and UV-inactivated phytoflagellates (Tetraselmis impellucida) were formulated to have low concentrations (<100 ml-1) of viable phytoplankton. All count methods used chlorophyll a fluorescence to detect cells and SYTOX fluorescence to detect non-viable cells. With the exception of one sample, the methods generated live and non-viable cell counts that were significantly different from each other, although estimates were generally within 100% of the ensemble mean of all subsamples from all methods. Overall, percent coefficient of variation (CV) among sample replicates was lowest in membrane filtration sample replicates, and CVs for all four counting methods were usually lower than 30% (although instances of ~60% were observed). Since all four methods were generally appropriate for monitoring discharged ballast water, ancillary considerations (e.g., ease of analysis, sample processing rate, sample size, etc.) become critical factors for choosing the optimal phytoplankton counting method.This study was supported by the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center under contract HSCG32-07- X-R00018. Partial research support to DMA and DMK was provided through NSF International Contract 03/06/394, and Environmental Protection Agency Grant RD-83382801-0

Fitness Landscape Transformation through a Single Amino Acid Change in the Rho Terminator

Regulatory networks allow organisms to match adaptive behavior to the complex and dynamic contingencies of their native habitats. Upon a sudden transition to a novel environment, the mismatch between the native behavior and the new niche provides selective pressure for adaptive evolution through mutations in elements that control gene expression. In the case of core components of cellular regulation and metabolism, with broad control over diverse biological processes, such mutations may have substantial pleiotropic consequences. Through extensive phenotypic analyses, we have characterized the systems-level consequences of one such mutation (rho*) in the global transcriptional terminator Rho of Escherichia coli. We find that a single amino acid change in Rho results in a massive change in the fitness landscape of the cell, with widely discrepant fitness consequences of identical single locus perturbations in rho* versus rhoWT backgrounds. Our observations reveal the extent to which a single regulatory mutation can transform the entire fitness landscape of the cell, causing a massive change in the interpretation of individual mutations and altering the evolutionary trajectories which may be accessible to a bacterial population