bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Keeping the Game Alive: Evaluating Strategies for the Preservation of Console Video Games
Authors: Guttenbrunner Mark , Becker Christoph , Rauber Andreas
Published: December 2011

Interactive fiction and video games are part of our cultural heritage. As original systems cease to work because of hardware and media failures, methods to preserve obsolete video games for future generations have to be developed. The public interest in early video games is high, as exhibitions, regular magazines on the topic and newspaper articles demonstrate. Moreover, games considered to be classic are rereleased for new generations of gaming hardware. However, with the rapid development of new computer systems, the way games look and are played changes constantly. When trying to preserve console video games one faces problems of classified development documentation, legal aspects and extracting the contents from original media like cartridges with special hardware. Furthermore, special controllers and non-digital items are used to extend the gaming experience making it difficult to preserve the look and feel of console video games.This paper discusses strategies for the digital preservation of console video games. After a short overview of console video game systems, there follows an introduction to digital preservation and related work in common strategies for digital preservation and preserving interactive art. Then different preservation strategies are described with a specific focus on emulation. Finally a case study on console video game preservation is shown which uses the Planets preservation planning approach for evaluating preservation strategies in a documented decision-making process. Experiments are carried out to compare different emulators as well as other approaches, first for a single console video game system, then for different console systems of the same era and finally for systems of all eras. Comparison and discussion of results show that, while emulation works very well in principle for early console video games, various problems exist for the general use as a digital preservation alternative. We show what future work has to be done to tackle these problems.
An Emergent Micro-Services Approach to Digital Curation Infrastructure
Authors: Abrams Stephen , Kunze John , Loy David
Published: December 2011

In order better to meet the needs of its diverse University of California (UC) constituencies, the California Digital Library UC Curation Center is re-envisioning its approach to digital curation infrastructure by devolving function into a set of granular, independent, but interoperable micro-services. Since each of these services is small and self-contained, they are more easily developed, deployed, maintained, and enhanced; at the same time, complex curation function can emerge from the strategic combination of atomistic services. The emergent approach emphasizes the persistence of content rather than the systems in which that content is managemed, thus the paradigmatic archival culture is not unduly coupled to any particular technological context. This results in a curation environment that is comprehensive in scope, yet flexible with regard to local policies and practices and sustainable despite the inevitability of disruptive change in technology and user expectation.
DMP Online: The Digital Curation Centreâ€™s Web-based Tool for Creating, Maintaining and Exporting Data Management Plans
Authors: Donnelly Martin , Jones Sarah , Pattenden-Fail John W.
Published: December 2011

Funding bodies increasingly require researchers to produce Data Management Plans (DMPs). The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) has created DMP Online, a web-based tool which draws upon an analysis of fundersâ€™ requirements to enable researchers to create and export customisable DMPs, both at the grant application stage and during the projectâ€™s lifetime.
Editorial
Authors: Rusbridge Chris , Ashley Kevin
Published: December 2011

Chris Rusbridge and Kevin Ashley introduce Issue 1, Volume 5
Born Broken: Fonts and Information Loss in Legacy Digital Documents
Authors: Brown Geoffrey , Woods Kam
Published: December 2011

For millions of legacy documents, correct rendering depends upon resources such as fonts that are not generally embedded within the document structure. Yet there is a significant risk of information loss due to missing or incorrectly substituted fonts. Large document collections depend on thousands of unique fonts not available on a common desktop workstation, which typically has between 100 and 200 fonts. Silent substitution of fonts, performed by applications such as Microsoft Office, can yield poorly rendered documents. In this paper we use a collection of 230,000 Word documents to assess the difficulty of matching font requirements with a database of fonts. We describe the identifying information contained in common font formats, font requirements stored in Word documents, the API provided by Windows to support font requests by applications, the documented substitution algorithms used by Windows when requested fonts are not available, and the ways in which support software might be used to control font substitution in a preservation environment.
Use and Impact of UK Research Data Centres
Authors: Collins Ellen
Published: December 2011

UK data centres are an important part of efforts to gain maximum value from research data. However, if they are to operate effectively, the services that they provide must be based upon an understanding of researchers' practices and needs. Furthermore, in order to build a case for ongoing funding, data centres must be able to demonstrate their value to researchers work and, increasingly, their contribution to wider political "impact" agendas. This paper presents the findings of a survey of users of five UK data centres. It suggests that research data centres are highly valued by their users. Benefits appear to be particularly strong around improving research efficiency, especially access to data. Data centres are less important in terms of stimulating novel research questions. Despite a few interesting cases of observable impact, in the main it remains difficult to understand the wider reach of research which draws upon data centre resources.
Assessing the Preservation Condition of Large and Heterogeneous Electronic Records Collections with Visualization
Authors: Esteva Maria , Xu Weijia , Jain Suyog Dutt , Lee Jennifer L. , Martin Wendy K.
Published: December 2011

As collections become larger in size, more complex in structure and increasingly diverse in composition, new approaches are needed to help curators assess digital files and make decisions about their long-term preservation. We present research on the use of interactive visualization to analyze file characterization information for the purpose of assessing the preservation condition of a vast collection of complex electronic records. The case study collection contains over 1,000,000 files of diverse formats arranged in varied record structures and record groups. The visualization application uses tree maps and a relational database management system (RDBMS) to represent the collection's arrangement and to show available characterization information at different levels of aggregation, classification and abstraction. Through this visualization interface curators can interact dynamically with the collections' characterization information to discover trends, as well as compare and contrast various file characteristics across the collection. Curators may select and weight the variables that they want to analyze. They can pursue analysis workflows that go from a high-level overview of the collection's preservation condition based on file format risks, to obtaining more detailed results about the condition of record groups and individual records. While there are various digital preservation planning tools available, to our knowledge none have been designed specifically to visually present assessment information across vast and complex collections. We present research to address the need for such a tool.
Dependency Analysis of Legacy Digital Materials to Support Emulation Based Preservation
Authors: Hsu Aaron , Brown Geoffrey
Published: December 2011

Emulation has been widely discussed as a preservation strategy for digital documents that depend upon proprietary executables, as well as for legacy programs. The fundamental assumption of this strategy is that an artifact (document or program) will be bundled with any required contemporaneous software in an archival information package (AIP) which can be loaded and executed in an emulation environment by patrons wishing to access the preserved artifact, yet little has been written about how to identify the required components for such an AIP. Even where a digital document was distributed with a binary viewer, there may be dependencies on other software libraries. In this paper we discuss a pilot study that performed dependency analysis for digital materials originally distributed on CD-ROM. In particular, we show how to utilize a small number of existing off-the-shelf libraries to build a tool that can analyze executables within ISO (CD-ROM) images, and then examine the results of applying this tool to a body of archived images.
Towards a Holistic Approach to Policy Interoperability in Digital Libraries and Digital Repositories
Authors: Innocenti Perla , Smith MacKenzie , Ashley Kevin , Ross Seamus , De Robbio Antonella , Pfeiffenberger Hans , Faundeen John
Published: December 2011

Underpinning every digital library and digital repository there is a policy framework, which makes the digital library viable - without a policy framework a digital library is little more than a container for content. Policy governs how a digital library is instantiated and run. It is therefore a meta-domain which is situated both outside the digital library and any technologies used to deliver it, and within the digital library itself. Policy is also a key aspect of digital library and digital repository interoperability in a common and integrated information space. Policy interoperability - that is the exchange and reuse of policies - is a step beyond policy standardisation. Furthermore, effective and efficient policy frameworks are also one of the Digital Curation Center (DCC), DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE), nestor and Center for Research Libraries (CRL) core criteria for digital repositories. In this article, we share our research on policy interoperability levels and the experimental survey on policy interoperability conducted with real-life digital libraries, as a contribution towards the definition of a Policy Interoperability Framework.
What Constitutes Successful Format Conversion? Towards a Formalization of 'Intellectual Content'
Authors: Sperberg-McQueen C. M.
Published: December 2011

Recent work in the semantics of markup languages may offer a way to achieve more reliable results for format conversion, or at least a way to state the goal more explicitly. In the work discussed, the meaning of markup in a document is taken as the set of things accepted as true because of the markup's presence, or equivalently, as the set of inferences licensed by the markup in the document. It is possible, in principle, to apply a general semantic description of a markup vocabulary to documents encoded using that vocabulary and to generate a set of inferences (typically rather large, but finite) as a result. An ideal format conversion translating a digital object from one vocabulary to another, then, can be characterized as one which neither adds nor drops any licensed inferences; it is possible to check this equivalence explicitly for a given conversion of a digital object, and possible in principle (although probably beyond current capabilities in practice) to prove that a given transformation will, if given valid and semantically correct input, always produce output that is semantically equivalent to its input. This approach is directly applicable to the XML formats frequently used for scientific and other data, but it is also easily generalized from SGML/XML-based markup languages to digital formats in general; at a high level, it is equally applicable to document markup, to database exchanges, and to ad hoc formats for high-volume scientific data.Some obvious complications and technical difficulties arising from this approach are discussed, as are some important implications. In most real-world format conversions, the source and target formats differ at least somewhat in their ontology, either in the level of detail they cover or in the way they carve reality into classes; it is thus desirable not only to define what a perfect format conversion looks like, but to quantify the loss or distortion of information resulting from the conversion.
Where the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 Meet Format Risk Management: P2 Registry
Authors: Tarrant David , Hitchcock Steve , Carr Leslie
Published: December 2011

The Web is increasingly becoming a platform for linked data. This means making connections and adding value to data on the Web. As more data becomes openly available and more people are able to use the data, it becomes more powerful. An example is file format registries and the evaluation of format risks. Here the requirement for information is now greater than the effort that any single institution can put into gathering and collating this information. Recognising that more is better, the creators of PRONOM, JHOVE, GDFR and others are joining to lead a new initiative: the Unified Digital Format Registry. Ahead of this effort, a new RDF-based framework for structuring and facilitating file format data from multiple sources, including PRONOM, has demonstrated it is able to produce more links, and thus provide more answers to digital preservation questions - about format risks, applications, viewers and transformations - than the native data alone. This paper will describe this registry, P2, and its services, show how it can be used, and provide examples where it delivers more answers than the contributing resources. The P2 Registry is a reference platform to allow and encourage publication of preservation data, and also an examplar of what can be achieved if more data is published openly online as simple machine-readable documents. This approach calls for the active participation of the digital preservation community to contribute data by simply publishing it openly on the Web as linked data.
Automation of Flexible Migration Workflows
Authors: Von Suchodoletz Dirk , Rechert Klaus , Welte Randolph , Van den Dobbelsteen Maurice , Roberts Bill , Van der Hoeven Jeffrey , Schroder Jasper
Published: December 2011

Many digital preservation scenarios are based on the migration strategy, which itself is heavily tool-dependent. For popular, well-defined and often open file formats – e.g., digital images, such as PNG, GIF, JPEG – a wide range of tools exist. Migration workflows become more difficult with proprietary formats, as used by the several text processing applications becoming available in the last two decades. If a certain file format can not be rendered with actual software, emulation of the original environment remains a valid option. For instance, with the original Lotus AmiPro or Word Perfect, it is not a problem to save an object of this type in ASCII text or Rich Text Format. In specific environments, it is even possible to send the file to a virtual printer, thereby producing a PDF as a migration output. Such manual migration tasks typically involve human interaction, which may be feasible for a small number of objects, but not for larger batches of files.We propose a novel approach using a software-operated VNC abstraction layer in order to replace humans with machine interaction. Emulators or virtualization tools equipped with a VNC interface are very well suited for this approach. But screen, keyboard and mouse interaction is just part of the setup. Furthermore, digital objects need to be transferred into the original environment in order to be extracted after processing. Nevertheless, the complexity of the new generation of migration services is quickly rising; a preservation workflow is now comprised not only of the migration tool itself, but of a complete software and virtual hardware stack with recorded workflows linked to every supported migration scenario. Thus the requirements of OAIS management must include proper software archiving, emulator selection, system image and recording handling. The concept of view-paths could help either to automatically determine the proper pre-configured virtual environment or to set up system images for certain migration workflows. View-paths may rise in demand, as the generation of PDF output files from Word Perfect input could be cached as pre-fabricated emulator system images. The current groundwork provides several possible optimizations, such as using the automation features of the original environments.
Cost Model for Digital Preservation: Cost of Digital Migration
Authors: Kejser Ulla BÃ¸gvad , Nielsen Anders Bo , Thirifays Alex
Published: December 2011

The Danish Ministry of Culture has funded a project to set up a model for costing preservation of digital materials held by national cultural heritage institutions. The overall objective of the project was to increase cost effectiveness of digital preservation activities and to provide a basis for comparing and estimating future cost requirements for digital preservation. In this study we describe an activity-based costing methodology for digital preservation based on the Open Archice Information System (OAIS) Reference Model. Within this framework, which we denote the Cost Model for Digital Preservation (CMDP), the focus is on costing the functional entity Preservation Planning from the OAIS and digital migration activities. In order to estimate these costs we have identified cost-critical activities by analysing the functions in the OAIS model and the flows between them. The analysis has been supplemented with findings from the literature, and our own knowledge and experience. The identified cost-critical activities have subsequently been deconstructed into measurable components, cost dependencies have been examined, and the resulting equations expressed in a spreadsheet. Currently the model can calculate the cost of different migration scenarios for a series of preservation formats for text, images, sound, video, geodata, and spreadsheets. In order to verify the model it has been tested on cost data from two different migration projects at the Danish National Archives (DNA). The study found that the OAIS model provides a sound overall framework for the cost breakdown, but that some functions need additional detailing in order to cost activities accurately. Running the two sets of empirical data showed among other things that the model underestimates the cost of manpower-intensive migration projects, while it reinstates an often underestimated cost, which is the cost of developing migration software. The model has proven useful for estimating the costs of preservation planning and digital migrations. However, more work is needed to refine the existing equations and include the other functional entities of the OAIS model. Also the user-friendliness of the spreadsheet tool must be improved in future versions of the model. The CMDP is presently closing its second phase, where it has been extended to include the OAIS Functional Entity Ingest. This has also enabled us to adjust the theoretical model further, especially regarding the accuracy and precision of the model and in relation to the underlying parameters used in the equations, such as migration frequency and format complexity. Understanding the nature of digital preservation cost is prerequisite for increasing the overall efficiency, and achieving first quality for preservation of cultural heritage materials.
Are you Ready? Assessing Whether Organisations are Prepared for Digital Preservation
Authors: Sinclair Pauline , Duckworth James , Jardine Lewis , Keen Ann , Sharpe Robert , Billenness Clive , Farquhar Adam , Humphreys Jane
Published: December 2011

In early 2009 the Planets project undertook a survey of national libraries, archives, and other content-holding organisations in Europe to better understand the organisations' digital preservation activities and needs, and to ensure that Planets' technology and services are designed to meet them. Over 200 responses were received including a cross-section of major libraries and archives especially in Europe. The results provide a snapshot of organisations' readiness to preserve digital collections for the future. The survey revealed a high level of awareness of the challenges of digital preservation within organisations. Findings indicated that approximately half of those organisations surveyed have taken measures to develop digital preservation policies and to budget for it, while a majority have incorporated digital preservation into their organisational planning. Organisations predict that within a decade they will need to store large quantities of data in a wide range of formats from a variety of sources; three quarters of them are looking to invest in a solution within the next two years. However, the findings also point to varying degrees of readiness. Organisations with a digital preservation policy are significantly further advanced in their work to preserve digital collections for the long-term than others.
Towards Support for Long-Term Digital Preservation in Product Life Cycle Management
Authors: Wilkes Wolfgang , Brunsmann Jörg , Heutelbeck Dominic , Hundsdörfer Andreas , Hemmje Matthias , Heidbrink Hans-Ulrich
Published: December 2011

Important legal and economic motivations exist for the design and engineering industry to address and integrate digital long-term preservation into product life cycle management (PLM). Investigations revealed that it is not sufficient to archive only the product design data which is created in early PLM phases, but preservation is needed for data that is produced during the entire product lifecycle including early and late phases. Data that is relevant for preservation consists of requirements analysis documents, design rationale, data that reflects experiences during product operation and also metadata like social collaboration context. In addition, also the engineering environment itself that contains specific versions of all tools and services is a candidate for preservation. This paper takes a closer look at engineering preservation use case scenarios as well as PLM characteristics and workflows that are relevant for long-term preservation. Resulting requirements for a long-term preservation system lead to an OAIS (Open Archival Information System) based system architecture and a proposed preservation service interface that respects the needs of the engineering industry.
Editorial
Authors: Ashley Kevin
Published: December 2011

Kevin Ashley, Chief Editor, introduces Volume 6, Issue 2 (2011) of the International Journal of Digital Curation.
“You made it, you take care of it”: Data Management as Personal Information Management
Authors: Fear Kathleen
Published: December 2011

This study explores how researchers at a major Midwestern university are managing their data, as well as the factors that have shaped their practices and those that motivate or inhibit changes to that practice. A combination of survey (n=363) and interview data (n=15) yielded both qualitative and quantitative results bearing on my central research question: In what types of data management activities do researchers at this institution engage? Corollary to that, I also explored the following questions: What do researchers feel could be improved about their data management practices? Which services might be of interest to them? How do they feel those services could most effectively be implemented?In this paper, I situate researchers’ data management practices within a theory of personal information management. I present a view of data management and preservation needs from researchers’ perspectives across a range of domains. Additionally, I discuss the implications that understanding research data management as personal information management has for introducing services to support and improve data management practice.
Saving Second Life: Issues in Archiving a Complex, Multi-User Virtual World
Authors: McDonough Jerome , Olendorf Robert
Published: December 2011

Virtual environments, such as Second Life, have assumed an increasingly important role in popular culture, education and research. Unfortunately, we have almost no practical experience in how to preserve these highly dynamic, interactive information resources. This article reports on research by the National Digital Information Infrastructure for Preservation Program (NDIIPP)-funded Preserving Virtual Worlds project, which examines the issues that arise when attempting to archive regions from Second Life. Intellectual property and contractual issues can raise significant impediments to the creation of an archival information package for these environments, as can the technical design of the worlds themselves. We discuss the implication of these impediments for distributed models of preservation, such as NDIIPP.
DataStaR: Using the Semantic Web approach for Data Curation
Authors: Khan Huda , Caruso Brian , Corson-Rikert Jon , Dietrich Dianne , Lowe Brian , Steinhart Gail
Published: December 2011

In disciplines as varied as medicine, social sciences, and economics, data and their analyses are essential parts of researchers’ contributions to their respective fields. While sharing research data for review and analysis presents new opportunities for furthering research, capturing these data in digital forms and providing the digital infrastructure for sharing data and metadata pose several challenges. This paper reviews the motivations behind and design of the Data Staging Repository (DataStaR) platform that targets specific portions of the research data curation lifecycle: data and metadata capture and sharing prior to publication, and publication to permanent archival repositories. The goal of DataStaR is to support both the sharing and publishing of data while at the same time enabling metadata creation without imposing additional overheads for researchers and librarians. Furthermore, DataStaR is intended to provide cross-disciplinary support by being able to integrate different domain-specific metadata schemas according to researchers’ needs. DataStaR’s strategy of a usable interface coupled with metadata flexibility allows for a more scaleable solution for data sharing, publication, and metadata reuse.
Making Sense: Talking Data Management with Researchers
Authors: Ward Catharine , Freiman Lesley , Jones Sarah , Molloy Laura , Snow Kellie
Published: December 2011

Incremental is one of eight projects in the JISC Managing Research Data programme funded to identify institutional requirements for digital research data management and pilot relevant infrastructure. Our findings concur with those of other Managing Research Data projects, as well as with several previous studies. We found that many researchers: (i) organise their data in an ad hoc fashion, posing difficulties with retrieval and re-use; (ii) store their data on all kinds of media without always considering security and back-up; (iii) are positive about data sharing in principle though reluctant in practice; (iv) believe back-up is equivalent to preservation. The key difference between our approach and that of other Managing Research Data projects is the type of infrastructure we are piloting. While the majority of these projects focus on developing technical solutions, we are focusing on the need for ‘soft’ infrastructure, such as one-to-one tailored support, training, and easy-to-find, concise guidance that breaks down some of the barriers information professionals have unintentionally built with their use of specialist terminology.We are employing a bottom-up approach as we feel that to support the step-by-step development of sound research data management practices, you must first understand researchers’ needs and perspectives. Over the life of the project, Incremental staff will act as mediators, assisting researchers and local support staff to understand the data management requirements within which they are expect to work, and will determine how these can be addressed within research workflows and the existing technical infrastructure.Our primary goal is to build data management capacity within the Universities of Cambridge and Glasgow by raising awareness of basic principles so everyone can manage their data to a certain extent. We will ensure our lessons can be picked up and used by other institutions. Our affiliation with the Digital Curation Centre and Digital Preservation Coalition will assist in this and all outputs will be released under a Creative Commons licence.
An Institutional Approach to Developing Research Data Management Infrastructure
Authors: Wilson James A. J. , Martinez-Uribe Luis , Fraser Michael A. , Jeffreys Paul
Published: December 2011

This article outlines the work that the University of Oxford is undertaking to implement a coordinated data management infrastructure. The rationale for the approach being taken by Oxford is presented, with particular attention paid to the role of each service division. This is followed by a consideration of the relative advantages and disadvantages of institutional data repositories, as opposed to national or international data centres. The article then focuses on two ongoing JISC-funded projects, ‘Embedding Institutional Data Curation Services in Research’ (Eidcsr) and ‘Supporting Data Management Infrastructure for the Humanities’ (Sudamih). Both projects are intra-institutional collaborations and involve working with researchers to develop particular aspects of infrastructure, including: University policy, systems for the preservation and documentation of research data, training and support, software tools for the visualisation of large images, and creating and sharing databases via the Web (Database as a Service).
Curating Scientific Research Data for the Long Term: A Preservation Analysis Method in Context
Authors: Conway Esther , Giaretta David , Lambert Simon , Matthews Brian
Published: December 2011

The challenge of digital preservation of scientific data lies in the need to preserve not only the dataset itself but also the ability it has to deliver knowledge to a future user community. A true scientific research asset allows future users to reanalyze the data within new contexts. Thus, in order to carry out meaningful preservation we need to ensure that future users are equipped with the necessary information to re-use the data. This paper presents an overview of a preservation analysis methodology which was developed in response to that need on the CASPAR and Digital Curation Centre SCARP projects. We intend to place it in relation to other digital preservation practices, discussing how they can interact to provide archives caring for scientific data sets with the full arsenal of tools and techniques necessary to rise to this challenge.
An aqueous chemistry module for a three-dimensional cloud resolving model: Sulfate redistribution
Authors: Vujovic Dragana , Vuckovic Vladan
Published: December 2011

An aqueous chemistry module is created and included into a complex 3D
cloud-resolving mesoscale ARPS model to examine the characteristics of
in-cloud sulfate. The complex orography of Serbia is included in the model.
The chemical species included in the module are sulfur dioxide, sulfate ion,
ammonium ion, hydrogen peroxide and ozone. Six water categories are
considered: water vapor, cloud water, rain, cloud ice, snow and hail. Each
chemical species in each microphysical category is represented by a
differential equation of mass continuity. This paper gives a detailed
description of the chemistry module and demonstrates the utility of an
atmospheric model coupled with the chemistry module in forecasting the
redistribution of chemical species in all water categories. The main mean
microphysical and chemical conversion rates of sulfate averaged over a 2 h
simulation period for a base run are for the oxidation of S(IV) in rain water
and cloud water, SO4 2? scavenging by Brownian diffusion in cloud droplets
and cloud ice as well as the impact scavenging of SO4 2? by rain. The
calculated values of sulfates in all water categories and the shape of
sulfate profiles depend on radar reflectivity.
Breaking into the Movies: Public Pedagogy and the Politics of Film
Authors: Giroux Henry A.
Published: December 2011

This article argues that how we think about education must extend far beyond matters of schooling and include those spaces, practices, discourses and maps of meaning and affect produced through a range of cultural and pedagogical technologies. We live at a time in which the educational influence of the larger culture has become the major force in producing subjectivities, desires and modes of identification necessary for the legitimation and functioning of a neoliberal society. If pedagogy has become central to creating particular modes of agency, public pedagogy represents a new cultural politics in which pedagogy has become central. One such mode of public pedagogy is film. As a form of public pedagogy, film combines entertainment and politics, and a claim to public memory, though in contested ways given the existence of distinctly varied social and cultural formations. In this article, I argue that films not only provide a pedagogical space that opens up the ‘possibility of interpretation as intervention’, they also make clear the need for forms of literacy that address the profoundly political and pedagogical ways in which knowledge, practice, discourse, images and values are constructed and enter our lives. Central to this article is the belief that the decline of public life demands that we use film as a way of raising questions that are increasingly lost to the forces of market relations, commercialization and privatization. As the opportunities for civic education and public engagement begin to disappear, film may provide one of the few mediums left that enables conversations that connect politics, personal experiences and public life to larger social issues. Not only does film travel more as a pedagogical form compared to other popular forms such as television and popular music, but film carries a kind of pedagogical weight that other mediums lack. As a quintessential element of a screen culture, film offers a way to rethink both the importance of cultural politics and public pedagogy as central to what it means to make the political more pedagogical and the pedagogical more political.
Effect of Mn doping on the structural and optical properties of sol-gel derived ZnO nanoparticles
Authors: Ali Abdub , Dejene Francis , Swart Hendrik
Published: December 2011

Un-doped and Mn-doped ZnO nanoparticles were successfully synthesized in an ethanolic solution by using a sol-gel method. Material properties of the samples dependence on preparation conditions and Mn concentrations were investigated while other parameters were controlled to ensure reproducibility. It was observed that the structural properties, particle size, band gap, photoluminescence intensity and wavelength of maximum intensity were influenced by the amount of Mn ions present in the precursor. The XRD spectra for ZnO nanoparticles show the entire peaks corresponding to the various planes of wurtzite ZnO, indicating a single phase. The diffraction peaks of doped samples are slightly shifted to lower angles with an increase in the Mn ion concentration, signifying the expansion of the lattice constants and increase in the band gap of ZnO. All the samples show the absorption in the visible region. The absorbance spectra show that the excitonic absorption peak shifts towards the lower wavelength side with the Mn-doped ZnO nanoparticles. The PL spectra of undoped ZnO consist of UV emission at 388 nm and broad visible emission at 560 nm with varying relative peak intensities. The doping of ZnO with Mn quenches significantly the green emission while UV luminescence is slightly affected.
Functional Training in the Management of Chronic Facial Paralysis
Authors: Prakash V. , Hariohm K. , Vijayakumar P. , Thangjam Bindiya D.
Published: December 2011

Background and Purpose

Disability in patients with facial paralysis is the result of impairment or loss of complex and multidimensional functions of the face, including expression of emotions, facial identity, and communication. However, the majority of interventions for facial paralysis are unidimensional and impairment oriented. Thus, a functional training program intended to address various dimensions of disability caused by facial paralysis was devised. This patient-centered, multidimensional approach to the rehabilitation of people with facial paralysis consists of patient education, functional training, and complementary exercises. This approach is focused on various dimensions of disability, including the physical, emotional, and social dimensions, by encouraging context-specific facial functions, positive coping strategies, and social interaction skills.

Case Description

The patient was a 25-year-old woman with chronic complete right facial paralysis caused by a postoperative complication of ear surgery. The patient's problems were evaluated with the Facial Disability Index (physical function subscale score=45/100, social/well-being function subscale score=28/100) and an informal interview exploring her experiences and priorities.

Outcomes

After 8 weeks of functional training, the patient showed considerable improvement in facial functions (physical function subscale score=95/100, social/well-being function subscale score=100/100) and reported positive changes in social interactions and interpersonal relationships.

Discussion

The use of a functional training program was associated with positive changes in emotional expression, psychosocial function, and social integration, thus contributing to reduced disability of a person with chronic facial paralysis.
An Experiment in Open-Access Textbook Publishing: Changing the World One Textbook at a Time
Authors: Morris-Babb Meredith , Henderson Susie
Published: December 2011

The revolt against the ever-increasing costs of postsecondary texts has begun. No one can deny that reselling texts, sharing texts, e-book reserves, and free copies that are resold have forced the commercial publishers to take action. But at what cost to higher education? Just as the cable monopolies are beginning to lose ground to other delivery systems of broadcast content, so too are textbook companies losing ground to other forms of delivery. Most commercially developed e-textbooks are little more than enhanced print editions and have limited access and restrictions on printing and downloading the content. Open-access texts solve many of these problems, but, as many now realize, ‘open’ does not equal ‘no cost.’ This article will explore some of the forces that are driving the open-access phenomenon, and describes the joint effort by the University Press of Florida and the University of Florida Department of Mathematics project for open-access calculus texts.
The Impact of Submission Experiences on Perceptions of Journal Quality and Editorial Support: The Viewpoint of Chinese Authors
Authors: Zhang Zili , Zhang Ziqiong , Law Rob
Published: December 2011

This study examines differences in perceptions of journal quality and editorial support among three categories of Chinese authors: those whose manuscripts were accepted without revision, those whose manuscripts were accepted after revision, and those whose manuscripts were rejected. An analysis of online reviews of journal quality and editorial support in six disciplines revealed the existence of biases caused by authors' submission experiences. The results show that a Chinese author will rate the quality of a journal and its editorial support higher if his or her manuscript was accepted by the journal regardless of whether he or she was required to make revisions. The results also indicate that no major variations exist in perceptions of journal quality and editorial support between authors whose manuscripts were accepted without revision and authors whose manuscripts were accepted after revision.
When You're Criticized
Authors: Martin Brian
Published: December 2011

What should you do when you or your organization is subject to lengthy, published criticism that you think is seriously distorting and misleading? The three main options are to ignore the criticisms, to counter-attack, and to respond with information and arguments. To make a choice, it is important to assess the way audiences' perceptions are likely to be influenced by your response.
Are routine repeat imaging and intensive care unit admission necessary in mild traumatic brain injury?
Authors: Washington Chad W. , Grubb Robert L.
Published: December 2011

Object

More than 1.5 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) each year. Seventy-five percent of these patients have a mild TBI, with Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) Score 13–15. At the authors' institution, the usual practice has been to admit those patients with an associated intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) to an ICU and to obtain repeat head CT scans 12–24 hours after admission. The purpose of this study was to determine if there exists a subpopulation of mild TBI patients with an abnormal head CT scan that requires neither repeat brain imaging nor admission to an ICU. This group of patients was further classified based on initial clinical factors and imaging characteristics.

Methods

A retrospective review of all patients admitted to a Level I trauma center from January 2007 through December 2008 was performed using the hospital Trauma Registry Database, medical records, and imaging data. The inclusion criteria were as follows: 1) an admission GCS score ≥ 13; 2) an isolated head injury with no other injury requiring ICU admission; 3) an initial head CT scan positive for ICH; and 4) an initial management plan that was nonoperative.

Collected data included age, etiology, initial GCS score, time of injury, duration of ICU stay, duration of hospital stay, and anticoagulation status. Primary outcomes measured were the occurrence of neurological or medical decline and the need for neurosurgical intervention. Imaging data were analyzed and classified based on the predominant blood distribution found on admission imaging. Data were further categorized based on the Marshall CT classification, Rotterdam score, and volume of intraparenchymal hemorrhage (IPH). Progression was defined as an increase in the Marshall classification, an increase in the Rotterdam score, or a 30% increase in IPH volume.

Results

Three hundred twenty-one of 1101 reviewed cases met inclusion criteria for the study. Only 4 patients (1%) suffered a neurological decline and 4 (1%) required nonemergent neurosurgical intervention. There was a medical decline in 18 of the patients (6%) as a result of a combination of events such as respiratory distress, myocardial infarction, and sepsis. Both patient age and the transfusion of blood products were significant predictors of medical decline. Overall patient mortality was 1%.

Based on imaging data, the rate of injury progression was 6%. The only type of ICH found to have a significant rate of progression (53%) was a subfrontal/temporal intraparenchymal contusion. Other variables found to be significant predictors of progression on head CT scans were the use of anticoagulation, an age over 65 years, and a volume of ICH > 10 ml.

Conclusions

Most patients with mild TBI have a good outcome without the necessity of neurosurgical intervention. Mild TBI patients with a convexity SAH, small convexity contusion, small IPH (≤ 10 ml), and/or small subdural hematoma do not require admission to an ICU or repeat imaging in the absence of a neurological decline.
Radiographic PEEK double-lucency finding after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion with local autograft and PEEK spacer: a preliminary study
Authors: Hellbusch Leslie C. , Spangler Wendy J. , Bowder Alexis
Published: December 2011

Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is considered a standard neurosurgical treatment for cervical degenerative disc disease, but the methods for determining fusion after ACDF that involves the use of a polyetheretherketone (PEEK) cage are not well defined. The authors examine an image finding called “PEEK double lucency” that may be useful in identifying fusion. This finding was studied to determine if it would be helpful in identifying fusion on radiographs obtained in 148 patients who underwent an ACDF in which a PEEK cage was filled with local autograft bone (bone spurs in the present cases). The presence of a PEEK double lucency was discovered during review of the plain radiographs and defined as a complete radiolucent ring around the titanium markers within the PEEK cage. In total, 178 spinal levels were examined. Of the 356 (2 for each of the 178 levels) titanium portions examined, the PEEK double lucency was present in 323 or 91% of the titanium portions of the PEEK cages for the patients with complete fusion. The authors conclude that the radiolucent feature of the PEEK cage, which produces the image finding PEEK double lucency, aids in the determination of fusion.
Clinical presentation and surgical outcome of intramedullary spinal cord cavernous malformations
Authors: Tong Xianzeng , Deng Xiaofeng , Li Huan , Fu Zhuang , Xu Yulun
Published: December 2011

Object

Intramedullary spinal cord cavernous malformations (CMs), once thought to be extremely rare, have been diagnosed more frequently since the advent of MR imaging. In the literature, however, only a few studies include more than 10 cases. The aim of this study was to discuss the clinical presentation of intramedullary spinal cord CMs and the outcome of microsurgery for these histologically benign but clinically progressive lesions.

Methods

The authors retrospectively reviewed the records of 20 patients who underwent microsurgery for intramedullary spinal cord CMs. All patients had undergone pre- and postoperative MR imaging, and they were all treated using microsurgical resection. The diagnosis of spinal cord CMs was based on pathological criteria. The pre- and postoperative neurological states of the patients were classified according to the McCormick scale and Frankel scale. The microsurgical outcomes are presented and discussed.

Results

In most cases, CMs can be diagnosed on the basis of MR imaging findings, since these lesions have certain characteristic imaging patterns. Patients with intramedullary spinal cord CMs may present with either a rapid, acute onset of symptoms or slow, progressive neurological decline. The CMs in 19 of 20 patients in this series were totally resected, and most patients neurologically improved postoperatively. As previously reported, the authors confirm that the treatment of choice for symptomatic intramedullary CMs is total removal of the lesion to avoid recurrence and the possibility of further hemorrhage.

Conclusions

This study has defined the clinical features of symptomatic intramedullary spinal cord CMs. Surgery is the mainstay treatment. Surgical outcome is associated with low mortality with a high probability of functional recovery, especially when symptoms are not severe and are of relatively recent onset.