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Today, access to digital information is essential to patrons using public libraries, whether they have contact with computers at home, work or school or whether the public library is their only contact. In order to evaluate and ultimately enhance public library digital resources and services, it is critical for administrators, librarians and digital information architects to recognize the impact their current digital offerings have on users. This study utilizes a survey to gauge the perceptions of patrons who use digital resources and services in six urban New England public libraries as part of ongoing research into digital information access in public libraries in the United States from the perspective of users.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discover whether the social styles of patrons affects their perception (and librarians' perception) of the quality of the reference interview. Also, whether learning to assess social styles of patrons improves perception of the quality of the reference interview. Design/methodology/approach: The researcher observed 24 reference interviews, assessed the social style of each patron using a checklist of behavioral characteristics; both patrons and librarians confidentially filled out a survey to assess the outcome of the reference interview. Findings: It appears that the social style of patrons has some effect on how both librarians and patrons perceive the outcome of the reference interview. There also appears to be a correlation between the librarians' awareness of the social styles of people and the outcome of the reference interview. Practical implications: Literature has not provided any data on how social style theory on the four social styles (analytical, expressive, driver, amiable) could be used to improve the reference interview. Originality/value: Social style theory has been explored in academic settings and in the areas of marketing and sales, but not yet in public libraries. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Context Both elder self-neglect and abuse have become increasingly prominent public health issues. The association of either elder self-neglect or abuse with mortality remains unclear. Objective To examine the relationship of elder self-neglect or abuse reported to social services agencies with all-cause mortality among a community-dwelling elderly population. Design, Setting, and Participants Prospective, population-based cohort study (conducted from 1993 to 2005) of residents living in a geographically defined community of 3 adjacent neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois, who were participating in the Chicago Health and Aging Project (CHAP; a longitudinal, population-based, epidemiological study of residents aged ¿= 65 years). A subset of these participants had suspected elder self-neglect or abuse reported to social services agencies. Main Outcome Measures Mortality ascertained during follow-up and by use of the National Death Index. Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess independent associations of self-neglect or elder abuse reporting with the risk of all-cause mortality using time-varying covariate analyses. Results Of 9318 CHAP participants, 1544 participants were reported for elder self-neglect and 113 participants were reported for elder abuse from 1993 to 2005. All CHAP participants were followed up for a median of 6.9 years (interquartile range, 7.4 years), during which 4306 deaths occurred. In multivariable analyses, reported elder self-neglect was associated with a significantly increased risk of 1-year mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 5.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], 5.20-6.51). Mortality risk was lower but still elevated after 1 year ( HR, 1.88; 95% CI, 1.67-2.14). Reported elder abuse also was associated with significantly increased risk of overall mortality (HR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.07-1.84). Confirmed elder self-neglect or abuse also was associated with mortality. Increased mortality risks associated with either elder self-neglect or abuse were not restricted to those with the lowest levels of cognitive or physical function. Conclusion Both elder self-neglect and abuse reported to social services agencies were associated with increased risk of mortality. JAMA. 2009; 302(5):517-526 www.jama.com

In this study, we investigate whether the performance of emerging market hedge funds (EMHFs) follow a pattern similar to that reported for advanced market hedge funds. In contrast to the pre-2007 period, our results for the post-2006 period show that EMHFs exhibit performance patterns similar to those reported for hedge funds that focus on the developed markets. Unlike in the pre-2007 period, EMHFs in general do not exhibit significant exposure to specific asset classes in the post-2006 period. On a risk-adjusted basis, we find that EMHFs do not consistently outperform the benchmarks. The reported performance patterns may provide useful insights to both academics and portfolio managers.

P¿Countries are showing interest in accumulating foreign reserves to ensure macroeconomic stability. There has been some debate whether to beef up the level of nations' foreign reserves or make it lower, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. Whereas some argue that the foreign reserve determines the country's rating in the global market, others hold opposing views. In this light, this paper examined the interactive influence of foreign reserve (FRS) on some macroeconomic variables such as: economic size (GDP); trade; level of capital inflows (KFL); exchange rate (EXR); and inflation. Analyzing secondary data from CBN statistical bulletins (1970-2007), the econometric results obtained from cointegration test, vector error correction (VEC) within the framework of autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) revealed the following: (1) existence of a long-run relationship between the variables and two cointegrating equations; (2) possibility of convergence of the variables from the short run to the long run with slow speed of adjustment. It is thus the conclusion of this paper that accumulation of large foreign reserves is not very productive in Nigeria due to its inability to induce some of the macroeconomic variables.

In this paper, we examine the differences in information asymmetry and financing patterns and a generalized version of the trade-off theory across countries with different institutional environments. We find that firms in Civil law countries have higher information asymmetry, rely more on internally generated funds, and use more short-term debt to finance their financing deficit, relative to those in Common law countries. In both Civil law and Common law countries, factors suggested by the trade-off theory explain the financing deficit coefficient in the generalized version of the trade-off model. Overall, the generalized version of the trade-off theory provides a better explanation for the changes in capital structure relative to the pecking order theory, even in countries with higher information asymmetry.

How do noise and manipulation affect the accuracy of collective decision rules? This paper presents simulation results that measure the accuracy of ten well known collective decision rules under noise and manipulation. When noise is low these rules can be divided into accurate ("good") and inaccurate ("bad") groups. The bad rules' accuracy improves, sometimes significantly, when noise increases while the good rules' performance steadily worsens with noise. Also, when noise increases the accuracy of the good rules deteriorates at different rates. Manipulation delays the effects of noise: Accuracy improvement and deterioration due to noise emerge only at higher noise levels with manipulation than without it. In some cases at high noise levels there is only a negligible difference between the accuracy of good and bad collective decision rules. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Albeit growing in number, lesbian mothers and their children remain a statistical minority in schools. Lesbian mothers in this study described their families as “normal” or “just like any other family.” From the perspective of queer theory, normal is a socially constructed and insidious concept. This study analyzes both the strategies participants used to be recognized as normal in their children’s schools and the reasons such recognition was perceived to be important by participants. © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Recent debates regarding same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian adoption highlight the role of schools as sociopolitical institutions. Accordingly, teachers operating within social norms have considerable influence through their interactions with students and their families. Previous research points to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) parents' frustrations with their children's schools, particularly as teachers resist representing LGBT families within curricula and fail to intervene when homophobic comments are made. Yet teachers' capacity to embrace diverse family structures while adhering to cultural expectations for teachers remains unexplored. This study, rooted in queer theory, explores the social norms teachers name for parenting in school settings and the way teachers position LGBT parents within these norms. Findings point to social norms for teachers and parents which indicate that teachers operate within heteronormative frameworks. They consider heterosexuality to be normal, while positioning LGBT identities as deviant. This is troubling given documented connections between teacher attitudes and parental involvement and between parental involvement and student achievement. Unchecked, heteronormative practices may result in inequitable school experiences for LGBT parents and their children. Teacher education must minimize heteronormativity through equipping teachers to attend to their own notions and assumptions regarding the intersection of parenting and sexual orientation. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.

The Ecology of Education: Knowledge Systems for Sustainable Development and SustainabilityResearch in knowledge systems for sustainable development (KSSD) seeks to determine how science and technology can be put into effective action at a local level. Teachers in education for sustainability attempt to achieve the same goal. KSSD research has indicated that success is context driven, that panaceas are inappropriate and that knowledge systems at best provide solutions in evolution. In this paper, we describe a teaching framework that we are developing to support KSSD researchers and teachers in education for sustainability based in ecology of education. While a need for ecology in education may be apparent, there is concurrently an equally important need for ecology of education. We argue that one cannot teach ecology in education adequately without an appropriate ecology of education. This paper first explains why teachers need to know this and then describes how teachers of education for sustainability can implement and assess this approach in the classroom.

The purpose of the present study was to explore the themes that counselor education doctoral students perceive as influencing their experience. The results of an exploratory qualitative study in which counselor education doctoral students provided their perceptions of what helped or hindered their progress are presented. Themes identified as both positively and negatively influencing their experiences were departmental culture, mentoring, academics, support systems, and personal issues. Recommendations are provided for counselor educators to consider in their work with doctoral students. © 2009 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved.

During the software lifecycle, the software structure is subject to many changes in order to fulfill the customer's requirements. In Distributed Object Oriented systems, software engineers face many challenges to solve the software-hardware mismatch problem in which the software structure does not match the customer's underlying hardware. A major design problem of Object Oriented software systems is the efficient distribution of software classes among the different nodes in the system while maintaining two features: low-coupling and high software quality. In this paper, we present a new methodology for efficiently restructuring Distributed Object Oriented software systems to improve the overall system performance and to solve the softwarehardware mismatch problem. Our method has two main phases. In the first phase, we use the hierarchical clustering method to restructure the target software application. As a result, all the possible clustering solutions that could be applied to the target software application are generated. In the second phase, we decide on the best-fit clustering solution according to the customer hardware organization.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using simulated data from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) global climate mathematical model to serve as boundary values for a regional model RM3 which has been used by NASA to make predictions about climate dynamics in West Africa. In the past, historical data has been used successfully as boundary data but this approach limits outcomes to time periods in the past. The advantage of using the UKMO data is its potential to provide input boundary data for future time periods resulting in future regional predictions. This study has provided NASA scientists with graphical and statistical summaries including visual animations that provide qualitative and quantitative information necessary for evaluating whether the UKMO data can be used as a driving force for the RM3 model. One definite conclusion of this investigation is that both spatial and temporal interpolation of UKMO results will be necessary in order to make its results compatible with the RM3 model.