bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Knowledge sharing and management in open access e‐resources & communities
Authors: Zhang Qiping , Krichel Thomas , Malone Cheryl , Pfeiffer Heather D. , Shreeves Sarah L.
Published: June 2009

An open access community is a digital repository or an online community where scientific information and communication are free to the public through computing technologies (Hanauske, M., et al 2007; Hubbard, C., et al, 2005). Open access community provides a new way for knowledge sharing and knowledge management. It takes advantage of collective expertise by providing a repository for research papers and research data that are scattered or take a long time to be published. The panel will discuss experiences and challenges people face in various open access communities. Particularly, we will discuss the following issues:

How did each community or repository achieve the functions of “organize” and “share” among people having a common interest in the community?

How long did it take to launch and establish an open‐access community?

What impact of such an open‐access community / repository has on people's interaction with information? Impact on fee‐based digital libraries or traditional libraries?

What the tradeoffs are between opened vs. controlled?

How well do they address privacy issues?

How well is current open access community/ repository meeting human needs, and what should future technology research and development involve to better meet user needs?
People transforming information – information transforming people: What the Neanderthals can teach us
Authors: Cole Charles
Published: June 2009

This paper examines the issue of people transforming information and in turn information transforming people, starting from a human adaptation event occurring 35,000‐50,000 years ago, called Enhanced Working Memory (EWM). This hypothesized adaptation separated human cognitive and social development from the Neanderthals' allowing humans to adapt and survive through drastically changing social and physical environments while the Neanderthals did not. EWM and the advantages to humans it provided are examined in terms of giving humans improved and more flexible decoding and encoding cognitive and social architectures. As a result of these architectures, what constitutes information for humans has also evolved. A Socio‐cognitive Framework Model for Transformational Information Use illustrates how adaptive decoding and encoding structures work together to facilitate human adaptation to social and environmental changes.
A tale of two DRM: The co‐construction of access and use rights for licensed digital library resources
Authors: Eschenfelder Kristin R. , Walden Barbara
Published: June 2009

This paper explores the process by which access and use rights for licensed digital resources are co‐constructed between owners and users of intellectual property through a longitudinal social process. It describes this co‐construction process for the development of digital rights management (DRM) technologies on two digital scholarly resources—the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) Digital Library and ARTstor. The ARTstor DRM development process could be seen as “the best of times” where the vendor actively sought stakeholder input and engaged in user testing. In contrast, the SAE DRM development process can be seen as “the worst of times” where the publisher imposed a DRM on a user group with no input and no user testing. While in both cases the DRM were reconfigured after initial user reactions, the reconfiguration in the ARTstor case was relatively managed and positive in tone, and the reconfiguration in the SAE case was chaotic and openly hostile. Differences in the co‐construction of the DRM can be explained in part by differences in publisher attitudes toward academic libraries as customers, difference in the publishers' traditional business models, and differences in ownership of the content within the two digital libraries.
Documentation evaluation model for social science data
Authors: Niu Jinfang , Hedstrom Margaret
Published: June 2009

Information technology and data sharing policies have made more and more social science data available for secondary analysis. In secondary data analysis, documentation plays a critical role in transferring knowledge about data from data producers to secondary users. Despite its importance, documentation of social science data has rarely been the focus of existing studies. In this paper, based on an introduction of the concept of documentation and its role in secondary data analysis, the authors proposed the Documentation Evaluation Model(DEM) for social science data. In the model, two indicators are used to evaluate the documentation for social science data: sufficiency and ease‐of‐use. Then the authors review the sufficiency problems of documentation, identify three factors that affect the sufficiency of documentation: users, data, and the ease‐of‐use of documentation, and formulate hypotheses about how those factors affect the sufficiency of documentation. In future research, a survey instrument will be created based on the model and the factors affecting the sufficiency of documentation. The survey instrument will then be applied to the secondary users of social science data. Hypotheses will be tested based on the survey data.
Reactive tendencies of bibliometric indicators: Trends in the alphabetization of authorship in economics and information science
Authors: Frandsen Tove Faber , Nicolaisen Jeppe
Published: June 2009

The paper adds a category to the list of possible negative steering effects of bibliometric indicators with a category for changes in credit assignment. The results of a longitudinal study of credit assignment practices in the fields of economics and information science are presented. The practice of alphabetization of authorship is demonstrated to vary significantly between the two fields. A slight increase is demonstrated to have taken place in economics during the last 30 years (1978‐2007). A substantial decrease is demonstrated to have taken place in information science during the same period. A possible explanation for the demonstrated difference could be that information scientists have been much more aware of the bibliometric consequences of being first author compared to their colleagues in comparable fields (e.g., economics). This and other possible reactive tendencies of bibliometric indicators are presented and discussed.
Large‐scale multiple hypothesis testing in information retrieval: Towards a new approach to document ranking
Authors: Efron Miles
Published: June 2009

Information retrieval (IR) may be considered an instance of a common modern statistical problem: a massive simultaneous hypothesis test. Such problems arise often in biostatistics where plentiful data must be winnowed to name a small number of potentially “interesting” cases. For instance, DNA microarray analysis requires researchers to filter thousands of genes, searching for genes implicated in a particular condition. This paper describes a novel approach to IR that is based on the notion of simultaneous hypothesis testing. In this case the test is performed on each document and the null hypothesis is that the document is non‐relevant. After a mathematical derivation of the proposed model, we test its performance on three standard data sets against the effectiveness of two baseline IR systems, a vector space model and a language modeling‐based system. These preliminary experiments show that the hypothesis testing approach to IR is not only philosophically appealing, but that it also operates at the state of the art in effectiveness.
Hunting for hip, hipsters, and happenings on YouTube
Authors: Shah Chirag , Marchionini Gary
Published: June 2009

The changing nature of information and evolving role of information sources have made it possible for almost anyone to be a consumer as well as a producer of information. Thus, many information services are focused on user participation and support different user roles. It has become essential for information scientists, social analysts, and digital library curators to recognize and study these social factors while analyzing the content of these information sources. In this paper we present these ideas in the light of our work with collecting and analyzing election videos from YouTube. Over the course of more than 8 months and 200 passes of data collection, we have gathered about 15000 videos along with nearly two dozen attributes for each video relating to US presidential elections 2008 from YouTube. Using this collection, we demonstrate how various social attributes such as tags, ratings, and comments can be used to detect significant trends, people, and events. This detection can help us gaining a better understanding of not only the content, but also the population that produces and consumes it.
Interactive 3D visual retrieval for art history education
Authors: Benoit Gerald
Published: June 2009

This paper describes partially the architecture and the salient characteristics of a larger visual information retrieval (IR) project for Humanities purposes. The system uses a novel form of interaction for retrieval, sustainable, interactive exploration of retrieval sets, and the types of relationships that are germane to the use of the images, beyond what IR systems typically supply. There are gaps between the expression of a query and the retrieval set and the end‐user's ability to establish significance for the set members. The paper sketches the architecture, interaction, and collection metadata created in response to a survey of art history student and instructors' educational needs.

It is argued that a 3D model provides visually‐oriented people with a way to comprehend large datasets and, through the interactive control panel and additional graphics, identify facets of value by experts in the field and for local needs.
Supporting document triage via annotation‐based visualizations
Authors: Bae Soonil , Hsieh Haowei , Kim DoHyoung , Marshall Catherine C. , Meintanis Konstantions , Moore J. Michael , Zacchi Anna , Shipman Frank M.
Published: June 2009

For open‐ended information tasks, users must determine how to best use their time in sifting through many potentially relevant documents. Document triage is the process of rapidly assessing the potential value of documents with respect to the task at hand. Normally, people perform triage using multiple applications in concert: a search engine interface presents lists of potentially relevant documents; a document reader displays their contents; and a third tool—a text editor or a more specialized application—is used to record notes and assessments. To support document triage, we have developed a multi‐application environment that combines an information workspace with a modified document reader. This environment infers users' interests based on their interactions with both applications, coupled with an analysis of the characteristics and content of the documents they are interacting with. It then uses this interest profile to generate visualizations that bring users' attention to documents or parts of documents that match those inferred interests.
Thematic maps of 19 iSchools
Authors: Chen Chaomei
Published: June 2009

The identity of iSchools has drawn widespread attention in the iSchool movement. What is special about an iSchool? What do people do in an interdisciplinary iSchool? How does one iSchool differ from another? How do iSchools fit together as a community? There are many ways to address these questions at different levels. For example, one may choose to interview all the iSchool deans, all the iSchool faculty members, and/or all the iSchool graduates; and one may choose to study the mission statement and strategic plan of each individual iSchool. In this paper, we introduce a macroscopic‐and‐microscopic analysis of the nature of the iSchool community in terms of scholarly communication patterns and emerging as well as established specialties associated with individual iSchools. Two different types of thematic maps are illustrated: author‐concept maps depicting what iSchool authors publish and citation maps of what iSchool authors regarded as important. Author‐concept maps of six intellectually diverse iSchools and one overall thematic map of 19 iSchools are presented.
The effect of need for cognition on search performance
Authors: Liu Jingjing , Zhang Xiangmin
Published: June 2009

We examine in this paper how need for cognition (NFC), one of the personal characteristics, affects search performance in two aspects: effectiveness measured by precision and efficiency measured by search time. Forty participants were invited individually to an on‐campus usability laboratory for the study. Each was asked to perform two search tasks, make usefulness judgments on search results they obtained, and rate the task difficulty level upon finishing each task. Their NFC levels were collected by a standard psychologist‐developed NFC Scale. Factor analysis, T‐test and General Linear Model in SPSS were used to analyze the collected data. NFC was found to have effects on search effectiveness in general, but not on time (efficiency). Not significant though, there were tendencies that the interaction of task difficulty and NFC affected search effectiveness and efficiency. Results proved that NFC is a significant facet that could influence search performance. More studies are needed to further explore the interaction effect of NFC and the level of task difficulty/complexity. Further research will also examine the effect of elaborative processing of information in contributing to the better performance of people with high NFC level.
Credibility and the use of geospatial media in activism and advocacy
Authors: DeNicola Lane
Published: June 2009

Earth remote sensing (ERS)—the science and craft of interpreting images of the terrestrial surface collected at high altitude by aircraft or satellite—is unquestionably a premier source of current knowledge about our environment, and offers vast possibilities for improving environmental stewardship, whether by state agencies, corporations, or civil society. However, it has also been critiqued as a tool that can too easily shape knowledge according to dominant interests, bringing into question recent experimentation with ERS by advocacy groups and activists. This essay considers the claim that ERS is in danger of suffering from an “imagery credibility paradox,” allegedly a result of the recent influx of inexperienced “imagery activists” whose unorthodox priorities threaten to destabilize public confidence in ERS imagery as a source of knowledge. I explore the rhetorical dichotomization of the ERS community into “traditional” and “new” users, reframing the imagery credibility paradox as an attempt 1) to democratize a previously exclusive technology, and 2) to renegotiate the terms of credibility and expert authority. In this effort I support an argument for “imagery activists” as vital contributors to a more appropriate use of “geospatial media” and to a needed discussion on the ethical use of such media.
Developing and evaluating a reliable measure of user engagement
Authors: O'Brien Heather L. , Toms Elaine G. , Kelloway E. Kevin , Kelley Elizabeth
Published: June 2009

Increased emphasis on user experiences with technology demonstrates that systems must be not only usable, but engaging. Engagement, defined as a quality of user experience, is a multidimensional construct characterized by aesthetic appeal, novelty, perceived challenge, feedback and control, attention, motivation, and affect. To measure engagement, we developed a multidimensional instrument and surveyed 440 online shoppers to assess its reliability and construct validity. Results of exploratory factor analysis showed that engagement is comprised of six distinct factors: perceived usability, aesthetics, focused attention, involvement, novelty, and endurability.
Understanding and supporting multi‐session web tasks
Authors: MacKay Bonnie , Watters Carolyn
Published: June 2009

We explore how users manage multi‐session web tasks (tasks that require more than a single web session to complete). When users are performing multi‐session web tasks, they must ‘make sense’ of information that they gather during each of the Web sessions and they must also ‘keep a sense’ of the information between the sessions. We present the results from two studies that examine how users are performing multi‐session tasks and outline three prototype tools that we are currently evaluating to help users perform multi‐session tasks.
Progressive information engagement model: Using, losing, and rejecting information in crisis situations
Authors: Westbrook Lynn
Published: June 2009

The pervasive, personal crisis of intimate partner violence (IPV) demands the full panoply of community and governmental information resources. IPV survivors must make effective use of those varied information resources but the more fully those resources are used, the more complex their information applications become. This study triangulates two populations and two data‐gathering techniques encompassing IPV survivor interactions with both formal and informal information systems. The first segment analyzed the information issues of IPV survivors in 1,793 postings from an active bulletin board (BB) community. The second segment analyzed in‐depth interviews with 57 individuals (24 shelter staff, 14 police officers, and 19 IPV survivors) in ten contrasting cities. In addition to a clearly defined matrix of information needs that are reported elsewhere, an unexpected pattern emerged which has been tentatively labeled as the “progressive information engagement model.” This four‐stage model provides significant indicators of the different qualities that determine successful information interactions at different stages in survivors' movement towards safer living. Each stage is delineated by three factors: the primary information need, the affective influences on efforts to meet that need, and the information myths that are cognitive barriers to successful information utilization. This paper explicates the stages and their characteristics.
FRBR applied to scientific data
Authors: Hourclé Joseph A.
Published: June 2009

The distinction between a creative work and the physical item that contains that work is clearly delineated in FRBR and other research by the Library Science community. A similar confusion exists in the scientific realm between the underlying scientific data and the digital objects that contain those data. We present a similarly scoped reference framework for sensor‐based scientific data, drawing on the concepts in FRBR, and compare it with the application of FRBR for cataloging other non‐book records.
SHARE: A superordinate online rural community
Authors: Capps Janet , Howard Sarah , McKeown Jonathan , DeMeester Karen
Published: June 2009

Comprehensive School Reform in Rural K‐8 Schools in the Southeast: Integrative Technologies for Quality Initiatives is a three‐year technology intervention funded by the US Department of Education. As part of this project, teachers in eight rural K‐8 schools in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama were given access to an online community Web‐portal built on Sakai called SHARE (Schools Helping to Advance Rural Education). This Web‐portal supports the project's goal to expand teachers' ability to access and exchange information by providing server space for each school community as well as the larger project community. Through SHARE, communities of teachers at the school level can create a new community of information exchange among all project teachers and across all project schools. The exchange at the higher project level creates a superordinate level.

Data collected through multiple methods is used to make comparisons between teachers' attitudes and online information exchange practices in base‐level communities and in the larger superordinate community established through the SHARE Web‐portal. The four‐tier pyramid of Hersberger, Murray, and Rioux (2007) is used to inform the evaluation of the teachers' information sharing activities and to assist in the assessment of the overall level of gratification or discontentment of the project's community of teachers.
Exploring the information‐to‐knowledge experience of English Language Learner (ELL) students: From the cognitive, behavioral and affective perspectives
Authors: Kim Sung Un
Published: June 2009

This study seeks to understand the information‐to‐knowledge experience of English Language Learner (ELL) students in a Guided Inquiry project undertaken by the school librarian and subject teachers. As a pilot study, it provides an in‐depth examination of two Korean 11th grade students in a biology class of a high school in New Jersey. During the project, data were collected through questionnaire, surveys, search journal, search sessions, observation, students' papers, and semi‐structured interviews. The findings of this study will contribute to understanding of how ELL students experience information search and knowledge building through a complex research project in English so that school environments, including school libraries, can provide meaningful instructional and service interventions for them.
An investigation of image users across disciplines: A model of image needs, retrieval and use
Authors: Beaudoin Joan
Published: June 2009

This study investigates the image behaviors of twenty‐four participants in four separate user groups (six in each group: archaeologists, architects, art historians and artists). These groups of participants were chosen due to their heavy reliance on images to perform their daily work routines. Two of the image user groups, archaeologists and art historians, are expected to need images for pedagogical and research purposes while the two remaining groups, architects and artists, are believed to need images for inspiration and problem‐solving aims. Additionally, the inclusion of these groups of image users will allow for an assessment of image users' behaviors by discipline and underlying needs. This study will identify the critical characteristics of users' image needs, retrieval and use and these characteristics, in turn, will be used to develop a theoretical model to explain users' image behaviors.
Assessing and adapting Drupal content management system as a digital library application
Authors: Moore Tony A.
Published: June 2009

DSpace (http://www.dspace.org/) and Greenstone (http://www.greenstone.org/) are the two leading digital library software applications. While these applications are wildly adopted they are not flexible enough to provide more robust interactivity. Web2.0 technologies are not explicitly changing how individuals interact with information. The changes we see are related to what this class of technologies are enabling. I believe, and this poster will show that coupled with digital libraries, this class of technologies stimulates knowledge creation. CANDDIL is a work in progress that has been designed and developed to illustrate my argument. In this paper I present the findings from an assessment and initial adaptation of Drupal, an open source content management system for the purposes of serving as a digital library. This report presents the current state of CANDDiL and its potential for advancing digital library research.
When digital objects change — exactlywhatchanges?
Authors: Renear Allen H. , Dubin David , Wickett Karen M.
Published: June 2009

Formal accounts of digital objects often characterize them asbit strings, graphs, sets, tuples, relations,or other similar constructs from discrete mathematics. Such characterizations imply that these objects cannot undergo changes such as losing or gaining parts, or having their parts rearranged. Yet our discourse about digital objects seems, if taken literally, to imply that those objects routinely undergo such changes. One strategy for dealing with this inconsistency is to affirm an account which leaves digital objects immutable and re‐locates change in the persons interacting with these objects.
Coherent knowledge structure and theory‐based approach to categorization
Authors: Assefa Shimelis
Published: June 2009

How we understand our surroundings is an age old question. The general understanding is that it is through concepts, categories, and relations that we make sense of our world. This study presents a result of a dissertation that attempted to investigate the nexus between human cognition of concepts/categories and the knowledge structure in the unified medical language system (UMLS). In contrast to the classical account that views category as structures organized in terms of similarity, this study takes a new approach that explains categories as structures organized around theories. The findings reveal that humans largely use simplified rules, definition type descriptions, and naïve explanations as bases for categorization judgment (coherence criteria). These explanations research participants used to characterize their category formation, after a careful text analysis, created meaningful and coherent interrelationships when plotted in a visual link chart. The performance of the cognitive task also showed a remarkable difference between those with subject background and those without. Using the least restrictive notion of ‘distance’ as a function of relatedness, this study also showed a significant correspondence between human conceptual map (based on the cognitive performance) and the knowledge structure in the UMLS, as shown by the goodness‐of‐fit coefficient.
Finding and providing context online
Authors: Buckland Michael K. , Larson Ray R. , Shaw Ryan
Published: June 2009

Knowing the context and relationships involved makes the difference between seeing and understanding. In a print environment the reference collection of the library provides a carefully constructed environment of auxiliary resources well‐designed for exploring context. In the digital environment the need for an easily‐used, well‐stocked, well‐organized reference collection has been neglected. We report on a project to demonstrate techniques to enable anyone to easily use reliable sources to find the background for topics, places, events, institutions, and persons encountered in online reading of biographical texts and journals on Irish culture and history.
Babies in bathtubs: Public views of private behaviors represented in the Flickr domain
Authors: Kramer‐Duffield Jacob , Hank Carolyn
Published: June 2009

Publishing personal content online raises issues of openness, access and privacy. While these issues have been treated in the literature, a substantial subset is youth‐oriented, typically focusing on the potential for negative outcomes from such disclosure and youths' presumed lack of awareness of the consequences of their publication activities. Recent research suggests, however, that adults also demonstrate a lack of discretion in their own publication activities. Through examining a particular class of content ‐ adult publication of photos depicting “babies in bathtubs,” and other candid and bare moments, to Flickr, a Web‐based photo sharing and management application ‐ this study aims to quantify and describe issues of openness, access and privacy to raise awareness that these issues are not limited to generational distinctions, by 1) characterizing images across multiple topical domains from two contextual perspectives, contributor and user, and 2) identifying associations between these image characteristics and contributor behaviors and profiles. The primary assumption motivating this research exercise is that online indiscretion is a youth problem, but in fact, it is broader than that; the collective “we” are all subject to failing to meet the assumed societal norms for deliberate or accidental privacy and discretion when publishing personal content to the Web.
A model of information needs of end‐users (MINE) in the electronic information environment
Authors: Kebede Gashaw , Rorissa Abebe
Published: June 2009

Library and information science researchers have given due attention to the study of and modeling of information needs. However, there is a need for a model that captures the essence of information needs of end‐users as a combination of both content and non‐content (e.g. those related to information resources and end‐users' skills) and the fact that information needs vary according to the information environment in which they occur. Toward this end, we proposed a model of information needs of end‐users (MINE) in the electronic information environment where the nature of “user tasks”, the state of the “electronic information resources”, and the level of “user experience” with the existing electronic information resources give rise to users' “information needs”. The poster will present the setting for the model and state hypotheses regarding interrelationships between the constructs.
Building an integrated model of information behavior through information journals
Authors: Narayan Bhuva , Spink Amanda
Published: June 2009

Information behavior models generally focus on one of many aspects of information behavior, either information finding, conceptualized as information seeking, information foraging or information sense‐making, information organizing and information using. This ongoing study is developing an integrated model of information behavior. The research design involves a 2‐week‐long daily information journal self‐maintained by the participants, combined with two interviews, one before, and one after the journal‐keeping period. The data from the study will be analyzed using grounded theory to identify when the participants engage in the various behaviors that have already been observed, identified, and defined in previous models, in order to generate useful sequential data and an integrated model.
A multi‐case study analysis of indigenous knowledge programs in the United States
Authors: Srikantaiah Deepa
Published: June 2009

The impacts of colonization and modernization have undermined and neglected indigenous knowledge, not only in current day developing countries, but also for select communities in industrialized or developed countries. Over the last decade, however, there has been an increased international interest to revitalize and restore indigenous knowledge. Multilateral development organizations, local and global NGOs, policymakers, education institutions and the private sector, such as pharmaceutical industries, are among the institutions that have shown interest in indigenous knowledge.

For instance, indigenous knowledge has shown to be of great importance in health and development practices. In Southern Africa, the Commercial Products from the Wild (CPWild) project estimates the value of informal herbal remedies to be between $75 million to $150 million per year in the market. Over 1000 indigenous crops and medicinal plants are traded in this informal market system and more than 100,000 people are income earners in this industry.

The international interest shown by these institutions, however, has led to numerous challenges for indigenous knowledge at the global level, and sparked many debates around the nature of indigenous knowledge, who the indigenous knowledge holders are, and whether these knowledge systems are scientifically valid or applicable in conventional knowledge paradigms.

This paper presents findings from a multi‐case study analysis of indigenous knowledge programs or initiatives in three institutions ‐ the World Bank, the National Institutes of Health, and Pennsylvania State University. In each case study the identification, collection, and institutionalization processes used for indigenous knowledge were studied to understand how indigenous knowledge is represented alongside conventional knowledge.
Past futures and technoscientific innovation: The mutual shaping of science fiction and science fact
Authors: Fleischmann Kenneth R. , Templeton Thomas Clay
Published: June 2009

This study explores the relationship between science fiction and science and engineering. Building on the concept of the mutual construction of technoscience and society from the field of science and technology studies and the concept of the book in the life of the reader from the field of library and information science, the study traces the potential influence of science fiction on the career choices and research trajectories of scientists and engineers. This paper reports preliminary findings from interviews with twelve scientists and engineers at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Salient themes emerging from the interviews include science fiction as a a first exposure to science, as an escape from the mundane aspects of everyday life, and as a tool that helps scientists to frame their work. Overall, it appears that, while scientists and engineers reject the notion that science fiction has a completely deterministic impact on their career choices and research trajectories, there definitely appears to be some kind of relationship between an inclination toward the practice of science and the appeal of science fiction. Future research directions may include a broad‐scale survey and educational efforts specifically focused on information science and technology.
A semantic interface for post secondary education programs
Authors: Schumann Eduardo Torres , Brunner Levin , Schulz Klaus U. , Ringlstetter Christoph
Published: June 2009

We describe a prototype for a multilingual semantic interface to the academic programs of a university. Navigating within a graph model of the academic disciplines and fields, the users are led to course and program documents. For core academic concepts, informational support is provided by language specific links to Wikipedia. The web‐based prototype is currently evaluated in a user study.
Technology use in meetings: Information handling & polychronicity
Authors: Kleinman Lisa
Published: June 2009

The proliferation of portable information technologies (e.g. laptops and mobile phones) along with the increasing availability of wireless networks allows individuals to expand and extend their information environment. One context which has been impacted by these changes is the workplace; individuals now multitask in face‐to‐face meetings with other technologies. This multitasking can have a dual impact: the information needs of the face‐to‐face group may be better met by increased access to networked information, but the individuals in the group using the technology may decide to use it for non‐group tasks, which may be disruptive and/or diminish the individual's focus away from the team. In this pilot research, the concepts of information handling and polychronicity (a preference for multitasking) are used to explore qualitative data from interviews with 15 office workers.
Hydroxytyrosol inhibits the proliferation of human colon adenocarcinoma cells through inhibition of ERK1/2 and cyclin D1
Authors: Corona Giulia , Deiana Monica , Incani Alessandra , Vauzour David , Dessì Maria Assunta , Spencer Jeremy P. E.
Published: June 2009

Extra virgin olive oil is rich in phenolic compounds which are believed to exert beneficial effects against many pathological processes, including the development of colon cancer. We show that one of the major polyphenolic constituents of extra virgin olive oil, hydroxytyrosol (HT), exerts strong antiproliferative effects against human colon adenocarcinoma cells via its ability to induce a cell cycle block in G2/M. These antiproliferative effects were preceded by a strong inhibition of extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK)1/2 phosphorylation and a downstream reduction of cyclin D1 expression, rather than by inhibition of p38 activity and cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2) expression. These findings are of particular relevance due to the high colonic concentration of HT compared to the other olive oil polyphenols and may help explain the inverse link between colon cancer and olive oil consumption.
Structure–activity relationships of resveratrol and derivatives in breast cancer cells
Authors: Lappano Rosamaria , Rosano Camillo , Madeo Antonio , Albanito Lidia , Plastina Pierluigi , Gabriele Bartolo , Forti Luca , Stivala Lucia Anna , Iacopetta Domenico , Dolce Vincenza , Andò Sebastiano , Pezzi Vincenzo , Maggiolini Marcello
Published: June 2009

Resveratrol (RSV) is classified as a phytoestrogen due to its ability to interact with estrogen receptors (ERs). We assessed structure–activity relationships of RSV and the analogs 4,4′‐dihydroxystilbene (4,4′‐DHS), 3,5‐dihydroxystilbene (3,5‐DHS), 3,4′‐dihydroxystilbene (3,4′‐DHS), 4‐hydroxystilbene (4‐HS) using as model systems the ERα‐positive and negative MCF7 and SkBr3 breast cancer cells, respectively. In binding assays and transfection experiments RSV and the analogs showed the following order of agonism for ERα: 3,4′‐DHS > 4,4′‐DHS > 4‐HS > RSV, while 3,5‐DHS did not elicit any ligand properties. Computational docking analysis and real‐time PCR revealed for each analog a distinct ERα binding orientation and estrogen target gene expression profile. Interestingly, the aforementioned order of ligand activity was confirmed in proliferation assays which also showed the lack of growth stimulation by 3,5‐DHS. Our data suggest that subtle changes in the structure of the RSV derivatives examined may be responsible for the different ERα‐mediated biological responses observed in estrogen‐sensitive cancer cells.
Role of inertia in falling head permeability test
Authors: Kaczmarek Mariusz
Published: June 2009

This paper discusses the role of macro‐ and micro‐inertial forces in the falling head permeability test. The model of flow including viscous and dynamic interaction forces is formulated. Then, the model is used to perform numerical simulations of the tests for high‐permeability soils. The presented results prove the existence of a level of permeability of materials above which macro‐and micro‐inertial forces are important and that in all cases the latter forces are dominant. The results suggest limited validity of the standard interpretation of the falling head permeability test and possible usefulness of the test to determine both permeability and the parameter characterizing non‐linear interactions of fluid and solid skeleton. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Localised peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumour (PNET) of the conjunctiva
Authors: Moore Andrew S. , Wilson Peter G. , McKelvie Penny , La Nauze Jamie , Hirst Lawrence W.
Published: June 2009

A 16‐year‐old male presented with a 3‐month history of an asymptomatic, enlarging conjunctival lesion. An excisional biopsy was performed and histologic and immunohistochemical examination showed characteristic features of a peripheral primitive neuroectodermal tumour (PNET) adjacent to a benign compound naevus. FISH analysis, demonstrating a split‐signal at 22q12, confirmed the diagnosis. Staging investigations were negative confirming the primary nature of the lesion. The patient was treated with local wide re‐excision and chemotherapy. He remains alive and well 29 months after initial resection. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2009;53:669–671. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Treatment of children with refractory anemia: The Japanese Childhood MDS Study Group trial (MDS99)
Authors: Hasegawa Daisuke , Manabe Atsushi , Yagasaki Hiroshi , Ohtsuka Yoshitoshi , Inoue Masami , Kikuchi Akira , Ohara Akira , Tsuchida Masahiro , Kojima Seiji , Nakahata Tatsutoshi
Published: June 2009

Background

Although hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is offered as a curative therapy for pediatric myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), it may cause severe complications and mortality. Several reports have shown the efficacy of immunosuppressive therapy (IST) in adult patients with refractory anemia (RA), but its safety and efficacy remains to be fully elucidated in childhood RA.

Procedure

Eleven children diagnosed with RA and enrolled on a prospective multicenter trial conducted by the Japanese Childhood MDS Study Group were eligible for analysis. If patients showed transfusion dependent or suffered from infection due to neutropenia, they received IST consisting of antithymocyte globulin (ATG), cyclosporine (CyA), and methylprednisolone (mPSL).

Results

Eight children received IST, 2 received only supportive therapy, and one underwent HSCT without IST. Five (63%) of eight children who received IST showed hematological response. Of note, one patient showed the disappearance of monosomy 7 after IST. Responders were significantly younger than non‐responders (29 months vs. 140 months; P = 0.03). No severe adverse events related to IST were reported in this study. Of 6 children with chromosomal abnormalities who received IST, four showed hematological response. The probability of failure‐free and overall survival at 5 years was 63 ± 17% and 90 ± 9% respectively.

Conclusion

IST is likely to be a safe and effective modality for childhood RA. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2009;53:1011–1015. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Health‐related quality of life in long‐term survivors of childhood brain tumors
Authors: Reimers Tonny Solveig , Mortensen Erik Lykke , Nysom Karsten , Schmiegelow Kjeld
Published: June 2009

Background

To identify predictors for health‐related quality of life (HRQOL) in survivors of childhood brain tumors and its relationship to cognitive function.

Procedure

One hundred twenty‐six consecutive Danish childhood brain tumor patients treated 1970–1997 and being 7.9–40.4 years at follow‐up were assessed for general intelligence (IQ) and administered the Minneapolis‐Manchester Quality of Life (MMQL) questionnaire.

Results

In multivariate linear regression treatment with RT was the most important risk factor for reduced HRQOL. Lower scores for physical functioning and energy, social functioning, cognitive functioning, body image, outlook of life, and intimate relations were significantly related to RT. Tumor location in the posterior fossa was associated with lower scores for physical functioning and energy, and tumor site in the third ventricle region was associated with lower scores for body image. Younger age at diagnosis was associated with lower scores for social functioning and intimate relations, and younger age at follow‐up was associated with more physical symptoms. When IQ was included as a covariate, RT only remained significant for social functioning and intimate relations while tumor location in the third ventricle region remained significant for body image, younger age at diagnosis for social functioning and intimate relations, and younger age at follow‐up for physical symptoms. In contrasts, neither gender nor presence of hydrocephalus requiring shunt inserted predicted significantly reduced HRQOL in the multivariate analyses.

Conclusion

RT is an important predictor of HRQOL primarily due to its effect on general intelligence, which suggests that IQ is a strong determinant of HRQOL. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2009;53:1086–1091. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
RAFT polymerization kinetics: How long are the cross‐terminating oligomers?
Authors: Konkolewicz Dominik , Hawkett Brian S. , Gray‐Weale Angus , Perrier Sébastien
Published: June 2009

We extend a new model for the kinetics of reversible addition‐fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. The essence of this model is that the termination of the radical intermediate formed by the RAFT process occurs only with very short oligomeric radicals. In this work, we consider cross‐termination of oligomers up to two monomers and an initiator fragment. This model accounts for the absence of three‐armed stars in the molecular weight distribution, which are predicted by other cross‐termination models, since the short third arm makes a negligible difference to the polymer's molecular weight. The model is tested against experiments on styrene mediated by cyano‐isopropyl dithiobenzoate, and ESR experiments of the intermediate radical concentration. By comparing our model to experiments, we may determine the significance of cross‐termination in RAFT kinetics. Our model suggests that to agree with the known data on RAFT kinetics, the majority of cross‐terminating chains are dimeric or shorter. If longer chains are considered in cross‐termination reactions, then significant discrepancies with the experiments (distinguishable star polymers in the molecular weight distribution) and quantum calculations will result. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 47: 3455–3466, 2009
Synthesis of amphiphilic biodegradable glycocopolymers based on poly(ε‐caprolactone) by ring‐opening polymerization and click chemistry
Authors: Xu Ning , Wang Rui , Du Fu‐Sheng , Li Zi‐Chen
Published: June 2009

Amphiphilic, biodegradable block glycopolymers based on poly(ε‐caprolactone) (PCL) with various pendent saccharides were synthesized by combination of ring‐opening polymerization (ROP) and “click” chemistry. PCL macroinitiators obtained by ROP of ε‐caprolactone were used to initiate the ROP of 2‐bromo‐ε‐caprolactone (BrCL) to get diblock copolymers, PCL‐b‐PBrCL. Reaction of the block copolymers with sodium azide converted the bromine groups in the PBrCL block to azide groups. In the final step, click chemistry of alkynyl saccharides with the pendent azide groups of PCL‐b‐PBrCL led to the formation of the amphiphilic block glycopolymers. These copolymers were characterized by 1H NMR spectroscopy and gel permeation chromatography. The self‐assembly behavior of the amphiphilic block copolymers was investigated using transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscope, spherical aggregates with saccharide groups on the surface were observed, and the aggregates could bind reversibly with Concanavalin A. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 47: 3583–3594, 2009
A novel physiological investigation of the functional residual capacity by the bias flow nitrogen washout technique in infants
Authors: Morris Mohy G.
Published: June 2009

The dynamic functional residual capacity (FRCdyn), the lung volume most routinely measured in infants, is an unreliable volume landmark. In addition to the FRCdyn, we measured the (passive) static FRC (FRCst) by inducing a brief post‐hyperventilation apnea (PHA) in 33 healthy infants aged 7.4–127.2 weeks. A commercial system for nitrogen (N2) washout to measure FRC, and a custom made system to monitor and record flow and airway opening pressure signals in real‐time were used in unison. Infants were manually hyperventilated to induce a PHA. After the last passive expiration, FRCst was estimated by measuring the volume of N2 expired after end‐passive expiratory switching of the inspired gas from room air to 100% oxygen during the post‐expiratory apneic pause. Repeatable intrasubject FRCst and FRCdyn measurements overlapped in most infants including the younger ones (P = 0.2839). Mean (95% confidence interval [CI]) FRCst was 21.1 (20.0–22.3), and error‐corrected FRCdyn was 21.4 (20.4–22.4) ml/kg. Mean (washout time [t]) tFRCst was longer than tFRCdyn 60 sec (95% CI 55–65) versus 47 sec (95% CI 43–51) (P < 0.0001). The FRC and washout time were dependent on body length, weight and age. We conclude that the FRCst is not different from the FRCdyn in infants. The FRCst is a reliable volume landmark because the PHA stabilizes the end‐expiratory level by potentially abolishing the sedated infant's breathing strategies. The FRCst lacks potential sources of errors and disadvantages associated with measuring the FRCdyn. The findings cast significant doubt on the traditional physiology of air trapping in healthy infants' lungs. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2009; 44:683–692. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.