63 research outputs found
OpenFest 2023 Sheffield Showcase session recording: Keynote 2 - Andrew Beckerman (University of Sheffield), The Central Role of Being Nice in Open Science
No full textRecording of the second keynote from the OpenFest 2023 Sheffield Showcase', which took place on 6 September 2023 and which brought together researchers from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University to discuss open research practice:Andrew Beckerman (University of Sheffield), The Central Role of Being Nice in Open ScienceProfessor Beckerman has been an Editor-in-Chief for more than 10 years at a large Open Access Journal and collaborates with a PhD student focusing on barriers and opportunities in Open Research, Open Data and Open Access. Here, he'll focus on how being nice - as a scientist, author, referee, Associate Editor, Editor and even Publisher, can go a long way towards accelerating the benefits of OR/OD and OA.Andrew Beckerman is Professor in Evolutionary Ecology in the School of Biosciences at the University of Sheffield. He is also the editor in chief for Ecology and Evolution and a member of the Board of Directors at Dryad. His work addresses the structure, complexity and dynamics of food webs, using optimal foraging theory to define the rules linking predators and prey and predicting the impacts of multiple simultaneous threats to ecosystems.</p
Molecular and Cellular Signaling
No full textA small number of signaling pathways, no more than a dozen or so, form a control layer that is responsible for all signaling in and between cells of the human body. The signaling proteins belonging to the control layer determine what kinds of cells are made during development and how they function during adult life. Malfunctions in the proteins belonging to the control layer are responsible for a host of human diseases ranging from neurological disorders to cancers. Most drugs target components in the control layer, and difficulties in drug design are intimately related to the architecture of the control layer. Molecular and Cellular Signaling provides an introduction to molecular and cellular signaling in biological systems with an emphasis on the underlying physical principles. The text is aimed at upper-level undergraduates, graduate students and individuals in medicine and pharmacology interested in broadening their understanding of how cells regulate and coordinate their core activities and how diseases arise when these regulatory systems malfunction, as well as those in chemistry, physics and computer science interested in pursuing careers in biological and medical physics, bioinformatics and systems biology. To that end, the book includes background information and review sections, and chapters on signaling in the immune, endocrine (hormonal) and nervous systems. It has chapters on cancer, apoptosis and gene regulation, and contains chapters on bacteria and viruses. In those chapters not specifically devoted to pathogens, connections between diseases, drugs and signaling are made. Each chapter also features a problem set to facilitate further discussion and understanding. About the Author: Martin Beckerman, Ph.D. is Senior Scientist at the Center forMartin Beckerman, PhD, is a senior research scientist at the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN. Prior to assuming his current position at the Y-12 NSC, Dr. Beckerman held teaching and research positions at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the University of Rochester, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has authored over 130 publications and has been included in 1400 citations
Dollarization and semi-dollarization in Ecuador
No full textOver the 1980s and 1990s, GDP growth had stagnated because of oil export price volatility and natural disasters, the sacrifice of capital formation to heavy external public debt service, and incomplete and uneven structural reform. The exchange rate depreciation that proved continually necessary to sustain the net-export surplus and limit external debt accumulation induced Ecuadorians to dollarize spontaneously. The 1998 shocks affected real economic activity--hence bank loan portfolios, and widened the fiscal and current acccount deficits. The external imbalance led to exchange rate depreciation. Dollar-denominated bank loans whose borrowers lacked dollar income increasingly turned non-performing. At the same time, the depreciation swelled the locla currency value of dollar deposit liabilities. Many depositors, fearing that banks had become unsafe, withdrew, and over 1999 the Central Bank had to provide banks massive liquidity support. By year's end, the resulting monetary issue ledto the exchange rate collapse and incipient hyperinflation that forced the move to full dollarization. Ecuador's Central Bank will continue operating, using its foreign exchange holdings to carry out limited liquidity management and lender-of-last-resort activities. Ecuador's public accounts and banking system remain vulnerable to commodity-price and natural shocks. Exchange rate adjustment and monetary expansion are no longer available, however, to manage the external accounts, accommodate the public deficit, or assist failing banks. Further structural reform remains essential to assure fiscal discipline and banking system safety.Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Financial Intermediation
Practicing with gradual increases in contextual interference enhances visuomotor learning
No full textThe purpose of this study was to determine if practicing with gradual increases in contextual interference (CI) facilitated the learning of a continuous motor skill that required visuomotor tracking. We hypothesized the group that practiced with increasing amounts of CI would perform significantly better on a retention and transfer test compared to participants that practiced with blocked and random scheduling. A total of 78 participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups (i.e. Blocked, Increasing, Random). The level of CI was modified by varying the number of revolutions per minute (RPM) on a rotary pursuit tracker. Following the acquisition phase, participants returned after a 24-hour period and completed the 12-trial
retention and transfer test. The results of statistical analysis indicated that all three groups improved their performance during practice. The posttest analysis indicated the Increasing group was better than the Blocked and Random groups on the retention and transfer test
"The clinical eye" : constructing and computerizing an anesthesia patient record [Elektronisk resurs]
No full textThe overall purpose in this research has been to investigate what happens when somebody or something intervenes in a knowledge worker´s every-day life. Empirically, the author has chosen to explore how an anesthesia patient record is constructed to be what it becomes and then computerized and the implications of this for the anesthesist and the anesthesia nurse. The research takes place among a group of people that call themselves emergency people. Some of them think that the art of the performance will be at risk if the anesthesia patient record is computerized. The author has used a theoretical framework integrating ideas about knowledge management with concepts from structuration theory and theories about sensemaking, representations and schema use. Integrating knowledge management with structuration theory makes it possible to capture the complexity of what takes place when a knowledge worker shuttles between transformation and routine in an organizational setting in the knowledge society. “The clinical eye” emerges as a concept that influences how an anesthesist searches for information, how knowledge is exercised in anesthesia and how a patient record should be designed. The author concludes that the clinical eye is a central concept for understanding how an anesthesist exercises his or her knowledge, how the content of a patient record is constructed and designed and how reactions to a changed evolve. The author introduces two concepts “knowledge structuring” and “knowledge domination” that are considered important and interrelated. Exercising knowledge is a structured activity. In our heads we make plans for what to do, how to do it and what to do next. When an organizational setting is structured the knowledge that is exercised in this setting also becomes structured. An anesthesist exercises the practice of anesthesia in a structured order in a certain space during a certain time-period. When upgrading and computerizing the anesthesia patient record, both a transformation and an additional structuring of how knowledge is exercised take place. The question then becomes how this new structuring influences the practice of performing anesthesia. In addition to this the author theorizes that if the computerized patient record is conceptualized as a knowledge management system the way it is used changes. Many more services are included, and it is not “just” a patient record anymore
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Patent Law
No full textThis article addresses the contemporary issue of balancing the need for patent protection for intellectual property with the resulting restriction of public access to new technology. The author argues that patent law protects private property rights rather than creating monopolies. Additionally, the author discusses how restricting access to patented technology, such as pharmaceuticals, can affect public health problems, such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic in developing nations. The author then concludes with some proposals for making patented technology available to people in developing nations who need access to such technology but who are unable to afford its high costs due to patent protection
Patent Law: Balancing Profit Maximization and Public Access to Technology
No full textThis article addresses the contemporary issue of balancing the need for patent protection for intellectual property with the resulting restriction of public access to new technology. The author argues that patent law protects private property rights rather than creating monopolies. Additionally, the author discusses how restricting access to patented technology, such as pharmaceuticals, can affect public health problems, such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic in developing nations. The author then concludes with some proposals for making patented technology available to people in developing nations who need access to such technology but who are unable to afford its high costs due to patent protection
Institutional reform in emerging securities markets
No full textIn the long run, sound, efficient securities markets can contribute to economic growth; in the short run, they play an important role in financial liberalization. The author provides a guide to issues involved in institutional and regulatory reform of securities markets - and a discussion of the practical implications of different policy options and sequencing decisions. He argues that establishing sound securities markets requires institutional development that is a substantial task for many developing countries. Prerequisities for the development of securities markets include: (a) a macroeconomic and fiscal environment conducive to the supply of quality securities; (b) a legal, regulatory, and institutional infrastructure that can support efficient operation of the securities market. Essentially such an infrastructure must provide four things: (a) certainty about property rights and contracts; (b) transparent trading and other procedures and public disclosure by companies of all information relevant to the value of their securities; (c) protection against unfair practices by insiders and intermediaries; and (d) protection against the financial failure of intermediaries and market institutions such as clearinghouses. The author also provides examples of the policy conflicts and uncertainties that are routine in securities market reform and development, and suggests approaches to managing them.Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research
Radio sources in the Chandra Galactic Bulge Survey
No full textWe discuss radio sources in the Chandra Galactic Bulge Survey region. By cross-matching the X-ray sources in this field with the NRAO VLA Sky Survey archival data, we find 12 candidate matches. We present a classification scheme for radio/X-ray matches in surveys taken in or near the Galactic plane, taking into account other multiwavelength data. We show that none of the matches found here is likely to be due to coronal activity from normal stars because the radio to X-ray flux ratios are systematically too high. We show that one of the source could be a radio pulsar, and that one could be a planetary nebula, but that the bulk of the sources are likely to be background active galactic nuclei (AGN), with many confirmed through a variety of approaches. Several of the AGN are bright enough in the near-infrared (and presumably in the optical) to use as probes of the interstellar medium in the inner Galaxy
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