Requests About Explosives and Illicit Drugs: A New Paradigm

This article addresses what reference librarians should do when patrons ask for information about explosives or dangerous drugs, and explores how reference librarians can possibly deter people from dangerous, unmediated searches by proactively providing information and actual examples on the dangers and risks of making and using these materials.     

Ethics in e-trust and e-trustworthiness: the case of direct computer-patient interfaces

In this paper, I examine the ethics of e-trust and e-trustworthiness in the context of health care, looking at direct computer-patient interfaces (DCPIs), information systems that provide medical information, diagnosis, advice, consenting and/or treatment directly to patients without clinicians as intermediaries. Designers, manufacturers and deployers of such systems have an ethical obligation to provide evidence of their trustworthiness to users. My argument for this claim is based on evidentialism about trust and trustworthiness: the idea that trust should be based on sound evidence of trustworthiness. Evidence of trustworthiness is a broader notion than one might suppose, including not just information about the risks and performance of the system, but also interactional and context-based information. I suggest some sources of evidence in this broader sense that make it plausible that designers, manufacturers and deployers of DCPIs can provide evidence to users that is cognitively simple, easy to communicate, yet rationally connected with actual trustworthiness.     

Teaching imaginary children: University students’ narratives about their Latino practicum children

This study investigates the dialogic processes involved in how teachers talk about their students and what consequences their ways of talking (i.e., “narratives”) may have for their guidance. We take a sociocultural perspective on learning as transformation of students’ subjectivity. Teaching, as a process of guiding and facilitating learning, cannot be effective if the teacher does not actively seek how the student perceives and understands reality. We borrow and adapt from Bakhtin (1999) four narrative ways of talking about others: objectivizing, subjectivizing, problematizing and finalizing. The presence of these narratives in web discussion postings of our pre-service teachers about the Latino children they worked with in a community center are analyzed. We then compare their ways of talking about children with print- and web-based discussions about children made by in-service teachers, model teachers and our pre-service teachers in a school-based practicum. Using mixed quantitative and qualitative methodologies, we found an overwhelming predominance of objectivizing and finalizing in our pre-service teachers’ narratives about the children with whom they work that seems to define a certain pedagogical regime that we call here “teaching imaginary children/students.” This “way of talking” about children seems to be characterized by unchecked speculations guiding instruction that are not tested by finding out from the children themselves how they understand the instruction and the world. These speculations, in turn, can lead to a dogmatic approach towards children.     

Efficacy of Tumor Necrosis Factor and Interleukin-10 Analysis in the Follow-up of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Progression

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) is a cytokine involved in systemic inflammation during acute phase reactions. The current study was designed to investigate the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokine (TNF-α) along with the anti-inflammatory cytokine (IL-10) during progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) from simple steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and fibrosis in diabetic patients, and correlate the levels of cytokines with the progression of NAFLD. Fifty-two diabetic patients compared to 18 healthy controls were participated in this study. Based on clinical diagnosis, patients were divided into three groups: simple steatosis, NASH and fibrosis. Serum liver function tests, fasting blood glucose, bilirubin, ALT, AST, TNF-α, IL-10 and lipid profile were measured. TNF-α levels were significantly higher in NAFLD patients compared to control subjects with a significant positive correlation with body mass index and fasting blood glucose (FBG) but with negative correlation with IL-10. Serum IL-10 levels were significantly lower in NAFLD patients compared with controls. A positive correlation between IL-10 and HDL-C with concomitant negative correlation between IL-10 and FBG and triacylglycerides was found. Cytokine analyses showed that there was a prominent imbalance between TNF-α and IL-10 in patients with NAFLD, and this imbalance increase by increasing the progression of NAFLD especially in obese diabetic patients. TNF-α and IL-10 could be used in diagnosis and follow-up of NAFLD stages in a way to avoid liver biopsies in greater proportion of patients.     

Book reviews

Sensible Solutions, Inc.     

Stakeholder perceptions of university library effectiveness

This research in New Zealand, based on the multiple constituencies model, identified key performance indicators in university libraries as perceived by six separate stakeholder groups. Ranked lists and correlations between the lists show similarities, but also confirm that stakeholder groups have different perspectives on library effectiveness.     

The importance of ethnicity in ethnic studies programs

A study was undertaken to determine the importance of ethnicity in an ethnic studies program. Three different dimensions were examined (1) the importance of the ethnicity of the teacher in the opinions of administrators and students; (2) ethnic differences among students in attitudes and expectations regarding such a program; (3) the relationship between the structure or content of the ethnic studies program and the long-range ethnic goals of society. Results of a nationwide sample of academic deans and a sample of students from two colleges in San Antonio, Texas, indicate that the ethnicity of teachers is an important concern for both administrators and students. It was also found that attitudes and expectations, as well as what the primary function of the program and the long-range ethnic goals should be, differed with the ethnicity of students.