Purpose – This paper seeks to focus on the design and testing of a web-based online board game for teaching undergraduate students information literacy skills and concepts. Design/methodology/approach – Project team members with expertise in game play, creative writing, programming, library research, graphic design and information seeking developed a web-based board game in which students used digital library resources to answer substantive questions on a scholarly topic. The project team hosted game play in a class of 75 undergraduate students. The instructor offered an extra-credit incentive to boost participation resulting in 49 students on 13 teams playing the game. Post-game focus group interviews revealed problematic features and redesign priorities. Findings – A total of six teams were successful meeting the criteria for the instructor’s grade incentive achieving a 53.1 percent accuracy rate on their answers to substantive questions about the black death; 35.7 percent was the accuracy rate for the seven unsuccessful teams. Discussed in detail are needed improvements to problematic game features such as offline tasks, feedback, challenge functionality, and the game’s black death theme. Originality/value – Information literacy games test what players already know. Because this project’s successful teams answered substantive questions about the black death at accuracy rates 20 points higher than the estimated probability of guessing, students did the research during game play which demonstrates that games have merit for teaching students information literacy skills and concepts.
Currently, there are strong and sustained growth trends observed in multi-disciplinary industrial technologies such as building-integrated photovoltaics and agrivoltaics, where renewable energy production is featured in building envelopes of varying degrees of transparency. Novel glass products can provide a combination of thermal energy savings and solar energy harvesting, enabled by either patterned-semiconductor thin-film energy converters on glass substrates, or by using luminescent concentrator-type approaches to achieve high transparency. Significant progress has been demonstrated recently in building integrated solar windows featuring visible light transmission of up to 70%, with electric power outputs of up to Pmax ~ 30–33 Wp/m2. Several slightly different designs were tested during 2021–2023 in a greenhouse installation at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia; their long-term energy harvesting performance differences were found to be on the scale of ~10% in wall-mounted locations. Solar greenhouse generated electricity at rates of up to 19 kWh/day, offsetting nearly 40% of energy costs. The objective of this paper is to report on the field performance of these PV windows in the context of agrivoltaics and to provide some detail of the performance differences measured in several solar window designs related to their glazing structure materials. Methods for the identification and quantification of long-term field performance differences and energy generation trends in solar windows of marginally different design types are reported. The paper also aims to outline the practical application potential of these transparent construction materials in built environments, focusing on the measured renewable energy figures and seasonal trends observed during the long-term study.
Par une approche metaphorique, on definit le «poste de travail» d'un chercheur d'aujourd'hui comme le type d'organisation lui permettant de disposer de tous les outils, en particulier bibliographiques, necessaires a la redaction et a la publication de ses articles
New information technologies will destroy copyright as we currently know it. Once it is simple to send articles in image form anywhere on the Internet to one or many colleagues, people will begin doing it. No amount of litigation or intimidation will stop the practice, since it facilitates the use of information in a productive way. In addition, much that is now published by publishers will be published by authors on the various networks that will be available to them. Publishers must begin now to plan for a complete restructuring of the information economy.
Alterations in circulating levels of pro- and antiangiogenic factors have been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Heparin is routinely administered to pregnant women, but without clear knowledge of its impact on these factors.We conducted a longitudinal study of 42 pregnant women. Twenty-one women received prophylactic heparin anticoagulation, and 21 healthy pregnant women served as controls. Compared with gestational age-matched controls, heparin treatment was associated with increased circulating levels of soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (sFlt-1) in the third trimester (P<0.05), in the absence of preeclampsia, placental abruption, or fetal growth restriction. Heparin had no effect on circulating levels of vascular endothelial growth factor, placenta growth factor, or soluble endoglin as assessed by ELISA. In vitro, low-molecular weight and unfractionated heparins stimulated sFlt-1 release from placental villous explants, in a dose- and time-dependent manner. This effect was not due to placental apoptosis, necrosis, alteration in protein secretion, or increased transcription. Western blot analysis demonstrated that heparin induced shedding of the N-terminus of Flt-1 both in vivo and in vitro as indicated by a predominant band of 100-112 kDa. By using an in vitro angiogenesis assay, we demonstrated that serum of heparin-treated cases inhibited both basal and vascular endothelial growth factor-induced capillary-like tube formation.Heparin likely increases the maternal sFlt-1 through shedding of the extracellular domain of Flt-1 receptor. Our results imply that upregulation of circulating sFlt-1 immunoreactivity in pregnancy is not always associated with adverse outcomes, and that heparin's protective effects, if any, cannot be explained by promotion of angiogenesis.
This article describes a new tool for teaching information literacy skills to college undergraduates. BiblioBouts is a game built on premises of educational gaming that came out of research published in the October 2008 issue of D-Lib Magazine. BiblioBouts seeks to satisfy student requests for a gaming experience directly integrated into their current coursework. Alpha testing of the game focuses on answering three main questions: Is BiblioBouts an effective approach for teaching undergraduate students information literacy skills? Do students want to play this game? What improvements does BiblioBouts need? Student response has been encouraging on all fronts. Contact information is provided so that interested parties can learn more.
Abstract As information technologies (IT) integrate more seamlessly, they also raise essential ethical questions regarding access to and security of vital personal information. This panel will explore such unintended consequences of recent IT developments as economic inequality between the information rich and poor, potentials for invasions of personal privacy, and threats to democracy inherent in the proliferation of information technology.
