To accommodate LSU ID project work, PAWS will not be available on Sunday, August 10, from 7:00 am until 11:00 am. In addition, all applications linked through PAWS will not be accessible during this time. These include the following database systems:

Accounts Payable

Advance Billing

Employee Time

Human Resources

Personal Access Web Services (PAWS)

Procurement

Registration

Security Access Maintenance

Sponsored Programs

Student Records

Treasurer’s Database

Also, the Moodle Learning System will not be available through PAWS, but users may access it directly by going to http://moodle.lsu.edu.

Expected Resolution Date/Time:

Sunday, 8/10/2008, 11:00am.

If you have any questions concerning this change or its effects, please contact the UIS Database Administration group at 578-3700.

LSU Researchers Help Decode Evolutionary History of Birds

The full text of the Science article can be found here.

The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management (http://icwdm.org) is pleased to announce that it has finished scanning and posting the first 16 volumes of the Vertebrate Pest Conference Proceedings, spanning 32 years, to its Digital Commons site http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/icwdm/

The Vertebrate Pest Conference is the longest running animal damage control conference in North America. These proceedings contain valuable information on the management of a variety of animal species that have had negative impacts on human health and safety. It is a veritable gold mine of information for researchers and practitioners.

From Science Direct:

New to ScienceDirect are features that make the platform even more user friendly and deliver better, clearer results in fewer clicks.

Researchers like to quickly evaluate articles before reading them

Researchers can now use preview tabs that provide quick access to the important article assessment components: the abstract, figures/tables and references. These tabs are on the results page, the table of contents page and the article page.

Researchers have to scroll to the foot of articles to view reference information, which hinders reading

We’ve made it possible for researchers to view reference information within the body of a paper when their cursor moves over a reference marker.

Researchers want to access specific information quickly

A new navigation pane on the search results page provides a view of the research output on a subject by year, by content type or by journal/book titles with the most results. By using these filters researchers can refine their search results without having to return to the search form.

Once a researcher has evaluated and read an article, they often want to email it to their peers

A new article toolbox brings together all of the article-related functionality including ‘Cited By’, ‘Download PDF’, ‘E-mail Article’ and more, into one easy-to-find location. Researchers can now take further action quickly and easily with little extra effort.

Researchers are interested to know how other experts rate articles they read

Due to be launched in phases over the coming months, the integration of article comments and ratings from Elsevier’s social collaboration site, 2collab enables researchers to evaluate papers according to colleague-driven comments and ratings of articles right on the article page.

“Introducing BioInformatics Series Tutorials (BITS) brought to you by MIT Engineering and Science Libraries and Harvard’s Countway Library of Medicine.

These video tutorials highlight bioinformatics resources such as NCBI Entrez, BLAST, and the UCSC Genome Browser and focus on specific activities for conducting genomic research. BITS can be viewed at a user’s own pace and own convenience.

The first installment of BITS covers the UCSC Genome Browser, which contains reference sequences and working draft assemblies for a large collection of genomes. Users will learn how to retrieve DNA sequence, display and configure the annotation tracks, identify gene intron-exon boundaries, and use the BLAT tool.

BITS are available here:MIT Engineering and Science Libraries: http://libraries.mit.edu/video
Harvard’s Countway Library of Medicine: http://countway.harvard.edu/video_tutorials

Questions?
MIT Engineering and Science Libraries ask-bioinfo@mit.edu
Harvard’s Countway Library of Medicine countref@hms.harvard.edu”

From David L. Osterbur and Paul A. Bain, Harvard’s Countway Library of Medicine and Courtney D. Crummett, NLM 2^nd Year Associate Fellow, MIT Engineering and Science Libraries

Enjoy streaming videos featuring discussion, analysis and interviews with leading scientists as they share their discoveries.

Video streaming is fast, easy to use and in high quality.

Watch the Moray eel’s mobile set of Jaws grasp its pray, see how researchers slow light to a halt in one box and eject it into another or discover how two new moons for Pluto were found using the Hubble telescope.

This year Nature will continue to provide you with groundbreaking streaming videos on the biggest scientific projects. Access the online video streaming archive today!

We are excited to announce that the new JSTOR platform will be launched on Friday, April 4. The behind-the-scenes process for switching from the existing JSTOR to the new platform will begin around 7:00 a.m. EST. We will be making changes throughout the day, but the vast majority of users should experience no interruption or downtime. If you do have any difficulties, though, please contact support@jstor.org.

A document describing features of the new platform is included in the JSTOR Sandbox (http://sandbox.jstor.org/). The Sandbox also has links to tutorials and training materials focused on the new JSTOR interface. In addition, a list of newly scheduled webinars appears at the end of this announcement, with links to online registration.

We would like to thank all of you for your comments over the past few months and your patience more recently as we performed additional testing. As always, your comments have proven to be invaluable. We look forward to your ongoing feedback as we continue adding enhancements and new content.

Webinars

The following training webinars are led by JSTOR User Services staff. A phone and a computer with online access are required. To register, follow a link in the list below.

Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/507861435

Using the JSTOR Interface
Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/780793020

Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/469266764

Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/401053120

Using the JSTOR Interface
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/680252260

Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/958097487

The April 2008 issue of Proceedings of the IEEE (v.96, no.4) covers the main aspects of multimedia information retrieval research and upcoming challenges in the field. Multimedia information retrieval refers to a set of theories, algorithms and systems that aim at extracting pertinent descriptors or metadata related to multimedia content and allowing search, retrieval and other user functions. In recent years, the tremendous interest of users in multimedia information retrieval has driven a significant amount of research in the field. Primarily, research objectives in information retrieval have been to develop technology breakthroughs that enable fast, natural, intuitive and personalized access to a vast number of multimedia data collections.

This special issue of Proceedings of the IEEE, entitled “Advances in Multimedia Information Retrieval,” begins by outlining specific approaches for multimedia retrieval and looking at the progress to date in the field. Papers have been carefully selected to cover the main aspects of the multimedia information retrieval research, highlight successes, critically analyze the achievements made so far and assess the applicability of information retrieval results in real-life scenarios. The issue provides insights into the current possibilities for building automated and semi-automated methods as well as algorithms for segmenting, abstracting, indexing, representing, browsing and retrieving multimedia content in various contexts. Additionally, future challenges that are likely to drive the research in the multimedia information retrieval field for years to come are also discussed. To learn more, please visit the Proceedings of the IEEE website.

An IEEE Xplore environment upgrade is scheduled for Saturday, 15 March, 2008. During this upgrade, the system will be unavailable for up to four (4) hours beginning at approximately 10:00 am EDT (UTC/GMT - 4 hours). We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

If you have any questions, please contact onlinesupport@ieee.org

From LiveScience:
“Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet’s geologic history has begun.

Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.”