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DiSSCo (The Distributed System of Scientific Collections) is a Research Infrastructure (RI) aiming at providing unified physical (transnational), remote (loans) and virtual (digital) access to the approximately 1.5 billion biological and geological specimens in collections across Europe. DiSSCo represents the largest ever formal agreement between natural science museums (114 organisations across 21 European countries). With political and financial support across 14 European governments and a robust governance model DiSSCo will deliver, by 2025, a series of innovative end-user discovery, access, interpretation and analysis services for natural science collections data. As part of DiSSCo's developing data model, we evaluate the application of Digital Objects (DOs), which can act as the centrepiece of its architecture. DOs have bit-sequences representing some content, are identified by globally unique persistent identifiers (PIDs) and are associated with different types of metadata. The PIDs can be used to refer to different types of information such as locations, checksums, types and other metadata to enable immediate operations. In the world of natural science collections, currently fragmented data classes (inter alia genes, traits, occurrences) that have derived from the study of physical specimens, can be re-united as parts in a virtual container (i.e., as components of a Digital Object). These typed DOs, when combined with software agents that scan the data offered by repositories, can act as complete digital surrogates of the physical specimens. In this paper we: investigate the architectural and technological applicability of DOs for large scale data RIs for bio- and geo-diversity, identify benefits and challenges of a DO approach for the DiSSCo RI and describe key specifications (incl. metadata profiles) for a specimen-based new DO type.

DiSSCo (The Distributed System of Scientific Collections) is a Research Infrastructure (RI) aiming at providing unified physical (transnational), remote (loans) and virtual (digital) access to the approximately 1.5 billion biological and geological specimens in collections across Europe. DiSSCo represents the largest ever formal agreement between natural science museums (114 organisations across 21 European countries). With political and financial support across 14 European governments and a robust governance model DiSSCo will deliver, by 2025, a series of innovative end-user discovery, access, interpretation and analysis services for natural science collections data. As part of DiSSCo's developing data model, we evaluate the application of Digital Objects (DOs), which can act as the centrepiece of its architecture. DOs have bit-sequences representing some content, are identified by globally unique persistent identifiers (PIDs) and are associated with different types of metadata. The PIDs can be used to refer to different types of information such as locations, checksums, types and other metadata to enable immediate operations. In the world of natural science collections, currently fragmented data classes (inter alia genes, traits, occurrences) that have derived from the study of physical specimens, can be re-united as parts in a virtual container (i.e., as components of a Digital Object). These typed DOs, when combined with software agents that scan the data offered by repositories, can act as complete digital surrogates of the physical specimens. In this paper we: investigate the architectural and technological applicability of DOs for large scale data RIs for bio- and geo-diversity, identify benefits and challenges of a DO approach for the DiSSCo RI and describe key specifications (incl. metadata profiles) for a specimen-based new DO type.

IntroductionThe purpose of the study presented here was to determine how well tactile graphics (specifically data analysis graphs) in secondary mathematics and science braille textbooks correlated with the print graphics.MethodA content analysis was conducted on 598 separate data analysis graphics from 10 mathematics and science textbooks. The researchers (the authors) cross-validated the findings through a comparative analysis of the tactile graphics of five shared textbooks.ResultsDiscrepancies were found between the print graphic and the tactile graphic in 12.5% of the sample. The most common discrepancy was differences in how data lines and data points were individualized in the print graphic compared to the tactile graphic. On the basis of the reviews of the graphics, the researchers answered a 5-point Likert-scale question (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) asking if the "tactile graphic is a valid representation of the print graphic." The overall score for the sample was 3.71 (SD = 1.60), with a Krippendorff alpha of 0.6328 (the measure of disagreement and alpha > 0.70 are consider moderate).DiscussionThe findings demonstrate that while the majority of tactile graphics have good correlations to their print counterparts, there is still room for improvement. Some transcribers omitted a tactile graphic without providing a reason. Forty graphics (6.7%) were omitted from the braille transcription. Two textbooks were missing more than 85% of the tactile graphics of the data graphs.Implications for PractitionersTactile graphics in math and science books are important for a student to understand. Although most transcribers do an excellent job of creating valid tactile graphics, problems with many graphics still exist in textbooks. Practitioners need constantly to review the tactile graphics that are used in all classrooms and be prepared to create their own if needed.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the sex ratio at birth in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Republic, became very skewed. Historical data suggest that the collapse of the Soviet safety net, coupled with the increased availability of ultrasounds and longstanding son preference, may have facilitated the practice of sex/gender selection in post-Soviet Azerbaijan.

Subsidized campus childcare was hard-won and remains very effective, while budget cuts and the privatization of childcare threaten centers across the country.

Based on considerations concerning justice, average and minimum wages as well as unemployment aid are determined. The derived guidelines refer to net product and reflect `reasonable' proportions between the income categories. Thus, deviations from the suggested principles may be classified as inappropriate.

Since the early 1990s the United States has seen a 10-fold increase in autism diagnoses. In 2007, 1 in 150 children were diagnosed with it, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

It was 2008, early in the presidential campaign season. Everyone was talking about whether a woman or an African American would be the Democratic party nominee for president. And then they began talking about community organizing. In the early days of the Democratic primary we learned that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had connections to it. Clinton had written her undergraduate thesis on the famous community organizer Saul Alinsky. Obama had actually done it in Chicago through the Gamaliel Foundation, one of the national faith-based community organizing networks.