Creating and modelling personal socio-economic networks in on-line banking

The banking industry is observing how new competitors threaten its millennial business model by targeting unbanked people, offering new financial services to their customer base, and even enabling new channels for existing services and customers. The knowledge on users, their behaviour, and expectations become a key asset in this new context. Well aware of this situation, the Center for Open Middleware, a joint technology center created by Santander Bank and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, has launched a set of initiatives to allow the experimental analysis and management of socio-economic information. PosdataP2P service is one of them, which seeks to model the economic ties between the holders of university smart cards, leveraging on the social networks the holders are subscribed to. In this paper we describe the design principles guiding the development of the system, its architecture and some implementation details.

Creating Information Literacy Toolkits For HBCU Libraries

Information literacy is the set of research skills needed to access, retrieve, and analyze information. By creating an information literacy plan and an online toolkit that the entire campus uses for research purposes, faculty and students will be equipped with the necessary tools to become better researchers, understand the importance of citing information and the significance of searching for peer-reviewed articles.

Creating a Web-accessible, point-of-care, team-based information system (PoinTIS): the librarian as publisher*

The Internet has created new opportunities for librarians to develop information systems that are readily accessible at the point of care. This paper describes the multiyear process used to justify, fund, design, develop, promote, and evaluate a rehabilitation prototype of a point-of-care, team-based information system (PoinTIS) and train health care providers to use this prototype for their spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury patient care and education activities. PoinTIS is a successful model for librarians in the twenty-first century to serve as publishers of information created or used by their parent organizations and to respond to the opportunities for information dissemination provided by recent technological advances.

Creating local bibliographic databases: new tools for evidence-based health care*

The Internet has created new opportunities for librarians to present literature search results to clinicians. In order to take full advantage of these opportunities, libraries need to create locally maintained bibliographic databases. A simple method of creating a local bibliographic database and publishing it on the Web is described. The method uses off-the-shelf software and requires minimal programming. A hedge search strategy for outcome studies of clinical process interventions is created, and Ovid is used to search MEDLINE. The search results are saved and imported into EndNote libraries. The citations are modified, exported to a Microsoft Access database, and published on the Web. Clinicians can use a Web browser to search the database. The bibliographic database contains 13,803 MEDLINE citations of outcome studies. Most searches take between four and ten seconds and retrieve between ten and 100 citations. The entire cost of the software is under $900. Locally maintained bibliographic databases can be created easily and inexpensively. They significantly extend the evidence-based health care services that libraries can offer to clinicians.

Creating a dynamic picture of the sliding clamp during T4 DNA polymerase holoenzyme assembly by using fluorescence resonance energy transfer

The coordinated assembly of the DNA polymerase (gp43), the sliding clamp (gp45), and the clamp loader (gp44/62) to form the bacteriophage T4 DNA polymerase holoenzyme is a multistep process. A partially opened toroid-shaped gp45 is loaded around DNA by gp44/62 in an ATP-dependent manner. Gp43 binds to this complex to generate the holoenzyme in which gp45 acts to topologically link gp43 to DNA, effectively increasing the processivity of DNA replication. Stopped-flow fluorescence resonance energy transfer was used to investigate the opening and closing of the gp45 ring during holoenzyme assembly. By using two site-specific mutants of gp45 along with a previously characterized gp45 mutant, we tracked changes in distances across the gp45 subunit interface through seven conformational changes associated with holoenzyme assembly. Initially, gp45 is partially open within the plane of the ring at one of the three subunit interfaces. On addition of gp44/62 and ATP, this interface of gp45 opens further in-plane through the hydrolysis of ATP. Addition of DNA and hydrolysis of ATP close gp45 in an out-of-plane conformation. The final holoenzyme is formed by the addition of gp43, which causes gp45 to close further in plane, leaving the subunit interface open slightly. This open interface of gp45 in the final holoenzyme state is proposed to interact with the C-terminal tail of gp43, providing a point of contact between gp45 and gp43. This study further defines the dynamic process of bacteriophage T4 polymerase holoenzyme assembly.

The Lie That Tells the Truth: Creating Truth in Fiction and the Novel Delivering Hope

What makes fiction believable is the truth behind the words. This Capstone Project explores the ways in which authors put the truth on the page while simultaneously fabricating stories. The Reflective Paper examines writing techniques used to make the reader trust the story and the storyteller. The Creative Capstone is the result of applying these craft skills to Delivering Hope, a novel in progress about a critically ill baby bringing a dysfunctional family back together. The author relies on her personal experience of high- risk pregnancy and preterm birth to help create truth in her fiction.

Creating Beautiful Art: Challenging Comfort

Creating Beautiful Art: Challenging Comfort investigates the notion of beauty and its relationship to art while asking what is and can be art. Throughout the work, research supports the concept of beauty elevating art even with the use of atypical, unconventional, or mundane materials. Direct attention is given to this idea by completion of a Creative Capstone Project. I incorporated aesthetics with unconventional materials in order to challenge viewing comfort, as well as added value to the existing body of knowledge concerning beauty in contemporary art. The reflective section summarizes the importance of unconventional materials creating beauty in art in order to progress itself linearly by creating and reinventing the new.

Recommendations for Creating and Implementing Climate Change Mitigation Strategies for Municipalities

The effects of climate change are beginning to show themselves globally and not enough is being done to counteract these changes. Institutional action is a necessity, and municipalities have an opportunity to fill this void by developing mitigation strategies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This report critically reviews the municipal climate action plans for Portland, Oregon; Boulder, Colorado; and Toronto, Ontario and provides recommendations for other municipalities who wish to create and implement climate change mitigation plans.

Examining the University of Denver's Family Friendly Benefits Plans: A look at Creating More Family Friendly Benefits to Drive Employee Retention

In the latter half of the twentieth century the workforce dynamic changed when the number of women entering the workforce increased by record amounts. In direct opposition to this change was the inability of organizations to meet the needs of employees with childcare concerns. Organizations and employees alike are best served when policies, procedures, and benefits are implemented to achieve a positive work/life balance. Companies that institute benefits that are supportive to families observe decreases in turnover and increased employee retention. Employees who are offered family friendly resources have been known to stay with companies even when offered a higher salary elsewhere. Demonstrating that retention of valued employees is linked to an organizations ability to offer support for family needs.

ConfChem Conference on A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education—The Global Experiment of the IYC2011: Creating Online Communities for Education and Science

The Global Experiment, Water: A Chemical Solution, was one of the flagship activities of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC). During the virtual colloquium of the spring 2012 online ConfChem conference, the main results of this year-long experiment were presented and discussed online for a week. Some of the main conclusions of the virtual conversations relate to the benefits of creating online communities of people sharing similar interests, the use of online educational platforms to gather massive amounts of data, and specific questions about the development of this IYC initiative. The activities of the global water experiment (GWE) were designed by a team of experts and the protocols are available online on the GWE Web site. The results were shown in one interactive world map that allowed students to learn about data visualization, validation, and interpretation. The feedback obtained from the participants of the GWE and later by the contributors of the virtual colloquium was very positive. Many participants asked specific and technical questions about the development of this experiment, while others excitedly endorsed the convenience of these large open-access activities to promote chemistry worldwide. The estimate is that over 2 million people took part in the GWE during the IYC. This communication summarizes one of the invited papers to the ConfChem online conference: A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education, held from May 18 to June 29, 2012 and hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education and the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education.