Beyond books: the concept of the academic library as learning space

© 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose: The paper aims to explore the issues surrounding the user conceptualisation of academic libraries. The paper will solidify the role of academic libraries as learning spaces and problematise how libraries are conceptualised by users. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is a literature-based conceptual paper and draws on a wide range of literature to challenge the concept of academic libraries and presents how they are becoming reframed as different spaces. Findings: The paper argues that the concept of a library is at risk. While libraries have undergone substantial changes, the concept of a library has lingered. This paper demonstrated that libraries need to proactively engage users in this debate. Originality/value: The spatial approach taken by this paper demonstrates the complicity behind the user conceptualisation of libraries. Developing an understanding of this process is an important foundation for libraries to develop their user engagement

RowHammer: Reliability Analysis and Security Implications

As process technology scales down to smaller dimensions, DRAM chips become more vulnerable to disturbance, a phenomenon in which different DRAM cells interfere with each other's operation. For the first time in academic literature, our ISCA paper exposes the existence of disturbance errors in commodity DRAM chips that are sold and used today. We show that repeatedly reading from the same address could corrupt data in nearby addresses. More specifically: When a DRAM row is opened (i.e., activated) and closed (i.e., precharged) repeatedly (i.e., hammered), it can induce disturbance errors in adjacent DRAM rows. This failure mode is popularly called RowHammer. We tested 129 DRAM modules manufactured within the past six years (2008-2014) and found 110 of them to exhibit RowHammer disturbance errors, the earliest of which dates back to 2010. In particular, all modules from the past two years (2012-2013) were vulnerable, which implies that the errors are a recent phenomenon affecting more advanced generations of process technology. Importantly, disturbance errors pose an easily-exploitable security threat since they are a breach of memory protection, wherein accesses to one page (mapped to one row) modifies the data stored in another page (mapped to an adjacent row).Comment: This is the summary of the paper titled "Flipping Bits in Memory Without Accessing Them: An Experimental Study of DRAM Disturbance Errors" which appeared in ISCA in June 201

TRIO LOGIC REGRESSION - DETECTION OF SNP - SNP INTERACTIONS IN CASE-PARENT TRIOS

Statistical approaches to evaluate higher order SNP-SNP and SNP-environment interactions are critical in genetic association studies, as susceptibility to complex disease is likely to be related to the interaction of multiple SNPs and environmental factors. Logic regression (Kooperberg et al., 2001; Ruczinski et al., 2003) is one such approach, where interactions between SNPs and environmental variables are assessed in a regression framework, and interactions become part of the model search space. In this manuscript we extend the logic regression methodology, originally developed for cohort and case-control studies, for studies of trios with affected probands. Trio logic regression accounts for the linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure in the genotype data, and accommodates missing genotypes via haplotype-based imputation. We also derive an efficient algorithm to simulate case-parent trios where genetic risk is determined via epistatic interactions

Reading and company: embodiment and social space in silent reading practices

Reading, even when silent and individual, is a social phenomenon and has often been studied as such. Complementary to this view, research has begun to explore how reading is embodied beyond simply being ‘wired’ in the brain. This article brings the social and embodied perspectives together in a very literal sense. Reporting a qualitative study of reading practices across student focus groups from six European countries, it identifies an underexplored factor in reading behaviour and experience. This factor is the sheer physical presence, and concurrent activity, of other people in the environment where one engages in individual silent reading. The primary goal of the study was to explore the role and possible associations of a number of variables (text type, purpose, device) in selecting generic (e.g. indoors vs outdoors) as well as specific (e.g. home vs library) reading environments. Across all six samples included in the study, participants spontaneously attested to varied, and partly surprising, forms of sensitivity to company and social space in their daily efforts to align body with mind for reading. The article reports these emergent trends and discusses their potential implications for research and practice

The engineering classroom is still relevant

Citation: Fitzsimmons, E. J., Tucker-Kulesza, S. E., Li, X., Jeter, W., & Fallin, J. R. (2016). The engineering classroom is still relevant.Attrition in engineering is a complex issue with dynamically linked variables related to teaching methods in the classroom, student learning behaviors, and student perceptions of difficult material. Extensive research has been conducted in order to understand common, yet ineffective teaching practices in engineering that result in the loss of numerous future engineers. The objective of this study was to determine student actions necessary to achieve a desired grade in any engineering course, regardless of course delivery method and instructor effectiveness in the classroom. An anonymous survey was disseminated and logistic regression models were developed in order to determine relationships between self-regulated learning behaviors and final grades in seven freshman to senior engineering classes taught by civil engineering faculty. A total of five prediction models were developed for each letter grade, with the failing grade "F" serving as the baseline condition, or null model. The models found three significant variables that affect a student's final grade: regular class attendance, note-taking during class, and if he or she could keep up with the instructor during lecture. These interactive learning behaviors were all identified as critical for success, defining success as receiving an "A" in an engineering course. The combination of students taking notes and attending class showed the highest probability of a student receiving an "A." Results of this study have been summarized into a graphic that the authors show and discuss during the first class with students. This powerful graphic shows students what they can do in classes of all levels of civil engineering to succeed in their ever-changing learning environment. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2016

“Gap hunting” to characterize clustered probe signals in Illumina methylation array data

Additional file 6: Figures S26–S31. All remaining SBE site scenarios. Each additional scenario of a SBE site-mapping SNP delimited in Fig. 4 not including the scenario shown in Fig. 5. Each of these figures contains 4 plots, showing every combination of CpG site interrogations on the forward and reverse strand as well as which nucleotide is the reference nucleotide

ASSOCIATON TESTS THAT ACCOMMODATE GENOTYPING ERRORS

High-throughput SNP arrays provide estimates of genotypes for up to one million loci, often used in genome-wide association studies. While these estimates are typically very accurate, genotyping errors do occur, which can influence in particular the most extreme test statistics and p-values. Estimates for the genotype uncertainties are also available, although typically ignored. In this manuscript, we develop a framework to incorporate these genotype uncertainties in case-control studies for any genetic model. We verify that using the assumption of a “local alternative” in the score test is very reasonable for effect sizes typically seen in SNP association studies, and show that the power of the score test is simply a function of the correlation of the genotype probabilities with the true genotypes. We demonstrate that the power to detect a true association can be substantially increased for difficult to call genotypes, resulting in improved inference in association studies

Learning development in a time of disruption

The Covid-19 Pandemic had (and continues to have) a significant worldwide impact on Higher Education (Watermeyer et al., 2021; Sharaievska et al., 2022). How Learning Development responded to this challenge varied considerably across the sector.Many of the challenges and solutions for Learning Development are represented in the Compendium of Innovative Practice: Learning Development in a Time of Disruption, a special issue of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (JLDHE, 2021). The Compendium issue of JLDHE contained 102 peer-reviewed reflections, identifying numerous challenges and responses to teaching in Covid-19.This conference paper will share the findings of a research project that has systematically analysed all 102 contributions to the compendium. Each reflection was analysed using structural, topic and thematic coding to identify common responses and challenges to pandemic teaching.The findings of this study have identified a range of individual and shared challenges for both students and third space professionals. One of the core findings relates to the diversity of responses that have been designed to meet these challenges, with over 100 distinct pedagogic and technical solutions to pandemic teaching. From these, five core themes have emerged: emergency remote teaching; reflective practice and evaluation; pedagogy and technology support; collaboration and shared practice; and, course design for the long-term.This paper will reflect on implications for future practice in times of disruption and provide delegates with the opportunity to consider how it relates to their institutions