Working Experience and Librarians' Knowledge of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Nigerian University Libraries

This paper discuses the influence of librarians' years of working experience and sources of acquisition of ICTs' knowledge and skills. The study is based on 169 librarians working in thirteen university libraries in the universities of six states located in the South-South zone of Nigeria. The purpose of the paper is to find out if years of working experience has an effect on librarians' sources/means of acquisition of ICT knowledge and skills. The questionnaires used were answered by two categories of librarians. Those with longer years of experience – 16 years and above and those with fewer years of working experience. It was concluded that librarians with fewer years of working experience explore means of acquiring ICTs knowledge and skills more than librarians with more years of working experience. It was recommended that librarians with longer years of working experience develop more interest in sources through which they can acquire ICT knowledge and skills.

Information Acceptance and ICT Resistance: Promoting the Role of Information in Rural Community Development

Rural community development is a major issue for developing countries. Much attention has been given Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects to connect rural communities with the global network. However, ICT resistance is a deterring factor in addressing the digital divide in developing countries. It is postulated that reversing the resistance to to ICT can be strategizedthrough "information acceptance." ICT can be accepted by rural communities by creating demand for information. The paper calls for the refocusing on the role of information in rural community development and ICT as a tool for change agent. Initiatives for rural community development must emphasize the importance of information in rural communities.

Divertor map with freedom of geometry and safety factor profile

An explicit, area-preserving and integrable magnetic field line map for a single-null divertor tokamak is obtained using a trajectory integration method to represent equilibrium magnetic surfaces. The magnetic surfaces obtained from the map are capable of fitting different geometries with freely specified position of the X-point, by varying free model parameters. The safety factor profile of the map is independent of the geometric parameters and can also be chosen arbitrarily. The divertor integrable map is composed of a nonintegrable map that simulates the effect of external symmetry-breaking resonances, so as to generate a chaotic region near the separatrix passing through the X-point. The composed field line map is used to analyze escape patterns (the connection length distribution and magnetic footprints on the divertor plate) for two equilibrium configurations with different magnetic shear profiles at the plasma edge.

FLOWS OF INFORMATION AND LANGUAGE IN ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS

Information flows are formed naturally or formally induced in organizational settings, passing from the strategic level to operational level, reflecting, and impacting in the processes that make up the organization, including the decision-making process and therefore the action strategies of organization. The management of organizational environments based on information requires careful attention to various kinds of languages used for communication between sectors and employees of the organization, whose goal is to share, disseminate and socialize the information produced in this environment.

Compton scattering spectrum as a source of information of normal and neoplastic breast tissues' composition

In this work we measured X-ray scatter spectra from normal and neoplastic breast tissues using photon energy of 17.44 key and a scattering angle of 90 degrees, in order to study the shape (FWHM) of the Compton peaks. The obtained results for FWHM were discussed in terms of composition and histological characteristics of each tissue type. The statistical analysis shows that the distribution of FWHM of normal adipose breast tissue clearly differs from all other investigated tissues. Comparison between experimental values of FWHM and effective atomic number revealed a strong correlation between them, showing that the FWHM values can be used to provide information about elemental composition of the tissues. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ACTIVE NETWORKS THAT MAXIMIZE THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION TRANSMISSION

This work clarifies the relationship between network circuit (topology) and behavior (information transmission and synchronization) in active networks, e. g. neural networks. As an application, we show how to determine a network topology that is optimal for information transmission. By optimal, we mean that the network is able to transmit a large amount of information, it possesses a large number of communication channels, and it is robust under large variations of the network coupling configuration. This theoretical approach is general and does not depend on the particular dynamic of the elements forming the network, since the network topology can be determined by finding a Laplacian matrix (the matrix that describes the connections and the coupling strengths among the elements) whose eigenvalues satisfy some special conditions. To illustrate our ideas and theoretical approaches, we use neural networks of electrically connected chaotic Hindmarsh-Rose neurons.