Search results

CORC is an OCLC project that is developing tools and systems to enable libraries to provide enhanced access to Internet resources. By adapting and extending library techniques and procedures, we are developing a self‐supporting system capable of describing a large and useful subset of the Web. CORC is more a system for hosting and supporting subject gateways than a gateway itself and relies on large‐scale cooperation among libraries to maintain a centralized database. By supporting emerging metadata standards such as Dublin Core and other standards such as Unicode and RDF, CORC broadens the range of libraries and librarians able to participate. Current plans are for OCLC as a full service in July 2000.

OCLC has developed a CD‐ROM‐based system for the storage, distribution, and retrieval of documents. The system stores an ASCII copy of the text of the original document. It also stores page make‐up and font definition codes. These codes are used to control an inexpensive laser printer in the production of copies that closely resemble the original document. The authors discuss trends in the information equipment and printing industries that will govern the future application of this technology.

In 1992, Virginia Tech began its participation in the TULIP (The University Licensing Program) project. OCLC agreed to collaborate, providing a turnkey software solution as well as assistance with implementation and processing. An RS/6000 and optical disc jukebox were ordered during the spring to provide hardware support. Staff from the Computing Center and Library were identified to help with project administration and implementation.

The final report of the Butter Regulations Committee has now been published and it is earnestly to be hoped that Regulations based on the Committee's Recommendations will at once be framed and issued by the Board of Agriculture. It will be remembered that in an Interim Report the Committee recommended the adoption of a limit of 16 per cent. for the proportion of water in butter, and that, acting on this recommendation, the Board of Agriculture drew up and issued the “Sale of Butter Regulations, 1902,” under the powers conferred on the Board by Section 4 of the Food Act of 1899. In the present Report the Committee deal with the other matters referred to them, namely, as to what Regulations, if any, might with advantage be made for determining what deficiency in any of the normal constituents of butter, or what addition of extraneous matter other than water, should raise a presumption until the contrary is proved that the butter is not “genuine.” The Committee are to be congratulated on the result of their labours—labours which have obviously been both arduous and lengthy. The questions which have had to be dealt with are intricate and difficult, and they are, moreover, of a highly technical nature. The Committee have evidently worked with the earnest desire to arrive at conclusions which, when applied, would afford as great a measure of protection—as it is possible to give by means of legislative enactments—to the consumer and to the honest producer. The thorough investigation which has been made could result only in the conclusions at which the Committee have arrived, namely, that, in regard to the administration of the Food Acts, (1) an analytical limit should be imposed which limit should determine what degree of deficiency in those constituents which specially characterise butter should raise a presumption that the butter is not “genuine”; (2) that the use of 10 per cent. of a chemically‐recognisable oil in the manufacture of margarine be made compulsory; (3) that steps should be taken to obtain international co‐operation; and finally, that the System of Control, as explained by various witnesses, commends itself to the Committee.

Developing a performance measure and reporting the results to support decision making at an individual level has yielded poor results in many health systems. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the factors associated with the dissemination of performance information that generate and support continuous improvement in health organizations.

A systematic data collection strategy that includes empirical and theoretical research published from 1980 to 2010, both qualitative and quantitative, was performed on Web of Science, Current Contents, EMBASE and MEDLINE. A narrative synthesis method was used to iteratively detail explicative processes that underlie the intervention. A classification and synthesis framework was developed, drawing on knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) literature. The sample consisted of 114 articles, including seven systematic or exhaustive reviews.

Results showed that dissemination in itself is not enough to produce improvement initiatives. Successful dissemination depends on various factors, which influence the way collective actors react to performance information such as the clarity of objectives, the relationships between stakeholders, the system's governance and the available incentives.

This review was limited to the process of knowledge dissemination in health systems and its utilization by users at the health organization level. Issues related to improvement initiatives deserve more attention.

Knowledge dissemination goes beyond better communication and should be considered as carefully as the measurement of performance. Choices pertaining to intervention should be continuously prompted by the concern to support organizational action.

While considerable attention was paid to the public reporting of performance information, this review sheds some light on a more promising avenue for changes and improvements, notably in public health systems.

Two types of linear on‐line search have been implemented on a data base of 100,000 INSPEC records, and compared with an inverted search program on the same file. It was found that the linear search which does a character‐by‐character scan of the whole file was too slow to be useful as an on‐line search, but that the second linear search, which uses a linear file of keys to select records for full scanning, was useable on‐line. An algorithm suitable for the on‐line searching of the linear file of keys is presented with run time nearly independent of the number of terms in the search query. Neither of the linear searches can compete with an inverted search in terms of user convenience, but they do not require as complex file‐maintenance software, they use less processing time to build indexes, and they have lower storage requirements than inverted files.

At a recent inquest upon the body of a woman who was alleged to have died as the result of taking certain drugs for an improper purpose, one of the witnesses described himself as “an analyst and manufacturing chemist,” but when asked by the coroner what qualifications he had, he replied : “I have no qualifications whatever. What I know I learned from my father, who was a well‐known ‘F.C.S.’” Comment on the “F.C.S.” is needless.

Study conditions of empirical publications on time series modeling and forecasting of electricity prices vary widely, making it difficult to generalize results. The key purpose of the present study is to offer a comparison of different model types and modeling conditions regarding their forecasting performance.

The authors analyze the forecasting performance of AR (autoregressive), MA (moving average), ARMA (autoregressive moving average) and GARCH (generalized autoregressive moving average) models with and without the explanatory variables, that is, power consumption and power generation from wind and solar. Additionally, the authors vary the detailed model specifications (choice of lag-terms) and transformations (using differenced time series or log-prices) of data and, thereby, obtain individual results from various perspectives. All analyses are conducted on rolling calibrating and testing time horizons between 2010 and 2014 on the German/Austrian electricity spot market.

The main result is that the best forecasts are generated by ARMAX models after spike preprocessing and differencing the data.

The present study extends the existing literature on electricity price forecasting by conducting a comprehensive analysis of the forecasting performance of different time series models under varying market conditions. The results of this study, in general, support the decision-making of electricity spot price modelers or forecasting tools regarding the choice of data transformation, segmentation and the specific model selection.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the changing pattern of climatic conditions is likely to impact tourism in Small island developing states (SIDS). Further, the study suggests appropriate management practices that could help in tackling the consequences of climate change on the tourism sector in SIDS.

Recently published articles and reports are analysed in relation to the effects of climate change on the tourism sector, and approaches to improve the resilience of tourism in SIDS.

The study has discovered the likely effects of climate change on the tourism business and found a high possibility of a decline in the tourism-based economy as an outcome. Furthermore, the study found that the absence of institutional alliances, government backing, resilient policy and advanced technological mechanisms are driving the associated risks of climate change in tourism.

The framework presented can assist tourism stakeholders to plan, prepare, mitigate and build resilience against the effects of climate variability on the tourism business in SIDS.

This study presents some practical measures for tourism stakeholders to enable them to reduce the effects of climate change on tourism activities in Small island developing states (SIDS).

One of the commonest excuses put forward in defence of the practice of treating milk, butter, meat, and other foods with ‘preservative’ drugs no longer possesses even the appearance of validity. Several of the large railway companies are adding refrigerator vans in considerable numbers to their rolling‐stock, and this fact should make it no longer possible for defendants to plead that the necessity of sending food‐products a long distance by rail involves the necessity of mixing preservative chemicals with them. Although the excuse referred to will not bear examination, it is a very specious one, and in those instances where evidence has not been brought forward to refute it, it has produced some effect on the minds of magistrates and others. It cannot be too often pointed out that such substances as boracic acid, salicylic acid, and formaldehyde are dangerous drugs, and that their unacknowledged presence in articles of food constitutes a serious danger to the public. Such substances are not foods, and are not natural constituents of any food. In most instances they are purposely introduced into food‐products to avoid the expense attending the proper production, preparation, and distribution of the food, or to conceal the inferior quality of an article by masking the signs of commencing decomposition or incipient putrefaction, and thus to enable a dishonest producer or vendor to palm off as fresh and wholesome an article which may be not only of bad quality, but absolutely dangerous to the consumer. The use of these substances, in any quantity whatsoever, and the sale of articles containing them, without the fullest and clearest disclosure of their presence, is as gross and as dangerous a form of adulteration as any which has at any time been exposed. In no single instance can it be shown that these drugs are, to quote the words of the Act of 1875, matters or ingredients “required for the preparation or production of a food as an article of commerce,” nor, of course, can it be contended that such substances are “extraneous matters with which the food is unavoidably mixed during the process of collection or preparation.” In reality, even under our inadequate and unsatisfactory adulteration laws, through which the proverbial coach‐and‐four can be so easily driven in so many directions, there ought to be no loophole of escape for the deliberate and dishonest drugger of foods. While the presence of preservative chemicals in any quantity whatever in articles of food constitutes adulteration, wherever the quantity is sufficient to allow the production of the specific “preservative” effect of the substance added, that fact alone is enough to make the food so drugged a food which must be regarded as injurious to the health of the consumer—in view of the inhibitory effect which, by its very nature, the antiseptic must produce on the process of digestion. To our knowledge the food market in this country is flooded with all sorts of inferior food‐products which are rarely dealt with under the Adulteration Acts, and which are loaded with so‐called preservatives. There will be no adequate protection for the public against the consumption of this injurious rubbish until the consumer sees the advantage of insisting upon an authoritative and permanent guarantee of quality with his goods, and until manufacturers of the better class at length find it to be a necessity for their continued prosperity that they should supply, apart entirely from their own statements, an independent and powerful guarantee of this kind.