Digital libraries for creative communities

Digital library technologies have a great deal to offer to creative, design communities. They can enable large collections of text, images, music, video and other information objects to be organised and accessed in interesting and diverse ways. Ordinary people—people not traditionally viewed as 'creators' or 'designers'—can now conceive, assemble, build, and disseminate new information collections. This paper explores the development rationale behind the Greenstone digital library technology. We also examine three examples of creative new techniques for accessing and presenting information in digital libraries and stress the importance of tailoring information access to support the requirements of the users and application area

Picoliter-volume inkjet printing into planar microdevice reservoirs for low-waste, high-capacity drug loading.

Oral delivery of therapeutics is the preferred route for systemic drug administration due to ease of access and improved patient compliance. However, many therapeutics suffer from low oral bioavailability due to low pH and enzymatic conditions, poor cellular permeability, and low residence time. Microfabrication techniques have been used to create planar, asymmetric microdevices for oral drug delivery to address these limitations. The geometry of these microdevices facilitates prolonged drug exposure with unidirectional release of drug toward gastrointestinal epithelium. While these devices have significantly enhanced drug permeability in vitro and in vivo, loading drug into the micron-scale reservoirs of the devices in a low-waste, high-capacity manner remains challenging. Here, we use picoliter-volume inkjet printing to load topotecan and insulin into planar microdevices efficiently. Following a simple surface functionalization step, drug solution can be spotted into the microdevice reservoir. We show that relatively high capacities of both topotecan and insulin can be loaded into microdevices in a rapid, automated process with little to no drug waste

Concepts of Soil Formation and Classification in Arctic Regions

Discusses, on basis of studies in northern Alaska, soil forming processes in arctic regions and considers the relation between vegetation and soils and problems of classification and mapping. Tundra soils are poorly drained, mineral in nature, and underlain by permafrost at depths of 1-2 ft Arctic brown soils form under free drainage, are mineral in character, and confined to ridges, terrace edges, and stabilized dunes. The active layer in such soils is usually deep. Downslope movement and frost action tend to disrupt any orderly morphology in both wet and well-drained sites. Moisture conditions in arctic soils exert a marked selective influence on vegetation.--from SIPRE

Variability of the pullout strength of cancellous bone screws with cement augmentation

Background Orthopaedic surgeons often face clinical situations where improved screw holding power in cancellous bone is needed. Injectable calcium phosphate cements are one option to enhance fixation. Methods Paired screw pullout tests were undertaken in which human cadaver bone was augmented with calcium phosphate cement. A finite element model was used to investigate sensitivity to screw positional placement. Findings Statistical analysis of the data concluded that the pullout strength was generally increased by cement augmentation in the in vitro human cadaver tests. However, when comparing the individual paired samples there were surprising results with lower strength than anticipated after augmentation, in apparent contradiction to the generally expected conclusion. Investigation using the finite element model showed that these strength reductions could be accounted for by small screw positional changes. A change of 0.5 mm might result in predicted pullout force changes of up to 28%. Interpretation Small changes in screw position might lead to significant changes in pullout strength sufficient to explain the lower than expected individual pullout values in augmented cancellous bone. Consequently whilst the addition of cement at a position of low strength would increase the pullout strength at that point, it might not reach the pullout strength of the un-augmented paired test site. However, the overall effect of cement augmentation produces a significant improvement at whatever point in the bone the screw is placed. The use of polymeric bone-substitute materials for tests may not reveal the natural variation encountered in tests using real bone structures.Dr V. Stadelmann (AOR, Davos, Switzerland) and Mr. M. Behrens (Stryker, Selzach, Switzerland). Professor Procter and Dr Arnoldi were employed by Stryker Trauma. Dr Bennani's PhD studies at Brunel University were funded by Stryker Trauma AG

Basic Math in Monkeys and College Students

Adult humans possess a sophisticated repertoire of mathematical faculties. Many of these capacities are rooted in symbolic language and are therefore unlikely to be shared with nonhuman animals. However, a subset of these skills is shared with other animals, and this set is considered a cognitive vestige of our common evolutionary history. Current evidence indicates that humans and nonhuman animals share a core set of abilities for representing and comparing approximate numerosities nonverbally; however, it remains unclear whether nonhuman animals can perform approximate mental arithmetic. Here we show that monkeys can mentally add the numerical values of two sets of objects and choose a visual array that roughly corresponds to the arithmetic sum of these two sets. Furthermore, monkeys' performance during these calculations adheres to the same pattern as humans tested on the same nonverbal addition task. Our data demonstrate that nonverbal arithmetic is not unique to humans but is instead part of an evolutionarily primitive system for mathematical thinking shared by monkeys

Peripheral Visions: Design in ephemeral New Zealand print c1880 – 1914

My thesis is an investigation of design in print in New Zealand circa 1880 – 1914, the period in which it is generally accepted graphic design began in the industrial Western nations. The medium of design studied is New Zealand’s most significant printed product, popular everyday ephemera, which is contextualized within local and international print production, technology, and debates concerning design. The research aim is to contribute to new approaches in the proto-discipline of graphic design history, specifically the current debates concerning purpose, scope and methods, by writing a local study that has relevance here and internationally. In this way it joins the growing number of local and national design studies of countries customarily defined as politically, culturally and geographically peripheral. It further explores alternative approaches by using formal analysis as a tool for the interpretation of visual codes and their rhetoric in print to enable the appraisal of local significances and international relationships. The study follows a model of graphic design as visual communication encompassing purpose, production, and reception, to argue the historic significations, activities, and values of local graphic design are of critical import for their role in social and cultural formation at both national and international levels. It argues against traditional binary models of centre to margin design transmission to assert alternative theories of networks, and of the hybridity of forms (particularly in colonial societies). Theories that, like this study, seek to apprehend complexity and more appropriately explain research findings that indicate the spread of design in print is an active circulation of signifying forms in a process of influence, adaptation and exchange. The argument engages five theoretical debates that are further concerned with contemporary issues of history and its methods as they impinge on graphic design history. They are the current issues of historiography and calls for interdisciplinarity; the status and importance of ephemeral print; relationships of graphic design to modernity; concepts of the peripheral and networks; the use of semiotics in interpreting the visual rhetoric of typography and image. This investigation, allowing for problems with the survival and attribution of material, is formed by three case studies that encompass a range of processes, media and products. The first considers typography and letterpress through the linked printing and writings of compositor/printer Robert Coupland Harding; the second charts the career of lithographic designer and illustrator Robert Hawcridge and his use of visual syntax, rhetoric and iconography. The third considers the composite local illustrated magazine the New Zealand Graphic and the role of design in editorial and advertising matter. New knowledge is diverse, establishing crucial facts about design here, its forms, and the importance it was accorded in supposedly slight material. Widespread and unexpected influences and networks of exchange are traced, and the considerable but neglected role of graphic design in social and cultural formation and the early articulations of a national identity are appraised. While of significance for the development of graphic design history, the findings also have relevance for the wider investigations of new history, including transnational, cosmopolitan, technological, and material histories

Theodore Roosevelt and the World War: Politics, Patriotism, and Preparedness

Unlike most of his predecessors and successors, Theodore Roosevelt long outlived his Presidential years. Because of his unusual physical and mental vigorousness, he could not resign himself to the customary secreted existence of American ex—Presidents. Instead, he maintained a very active interest in politics and national affairs, and his atypical activity in these matters assured him a continuing place in the public spotlight and of being a perpetual target for journalists, authors, and critics. His every utterance concerning domestic issues, national preparedness, international morality, and Administration ineptitudes was interpreted as indicating selfish personal ambitions. His accusers defined him as a man who would not hesitate to stoop to any level in order to achieve the fulfillment of his desires, while his defenders translated Roosevelt as a great leader, a seer, and as the greatest living American. This thesis was undertaken with the view that further study into the last decade of Roosevelt\u27s public life would expose a more moderate and realistic position between the extreme opinions about him. It is believed that the research involved did reveal such a position. His dogmatic and self-asserting manner provided a basis for many types of charges against him. Since his political ambitions were not nearly so apparent to him as to his antagonists, Roosevelt was unable to attribute any credence to these charges. He appears to have been the conscious patriot and the unconscious politician, playing his unique role to the very hilt

Cognitive and neural mechanisms of spatial learning and transfer in adults

Several cognitive theories explain successful learning of spatial visualization skills such as mental rotation. Spatial learning may occur through domain-specific changes to spatial transformation ability (in parietal cortex), embodied sensory-motor changes (in premotor cortex), or domain-general changes to executive functions (in prefrontal cortex). To evaluate these hypotheses, we analyzed brain activity during mental rotation using fMRI in 60 adults who completed 9 weeks of spatial visualization training. Mental rotation robustly activated bilateral parietal, premotor, and prefrontal areas both before and after training, with increased activity in the intraparietal sulcus, premotor cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex after training. However, improvements in spatial visualization and transfer to geometric reasoning were coupled with parietal and premotor changes, and not prefrontal changes. These results support the hypothesis that spatial learning is driven primarily by refinement of spatial transformation and sensory-motor imagery, although other brain regions may adapt secondarily as a byproduct of learning

Connectivity precedes function in the development of the visual word form area

What determines the cortical location at which a given functionally specific region will arise in development? We tested the hypothesis that functionally specific regions develop in their characteristic locations because of pre-existing differences in the extrinsic connectivity of that region to the rest of the brain. We exploited the visual word form area (VWFA) as a test case, scanning children with diffusion and functional imaging at age 5, before they learned to read, and at age 8, after they learned to read. We found the VWFA developed functionally in this interval and that its location in a particular child at age 8 could be predicted from that child's connectivity fingerprints (but not functional responses) at age 5. These results suggest that early connectivity instructs the functional development of the VWFA, possibly reflecting a general mechanism of cortical development.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant F32HD079169)Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Grant F32HD079169)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01HD067312)Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Grant R01HD067312