The State University at Ghent,Belgium, Educates Engineers in Rwanda

Close established ties bemeen Belgium and Rwanda are also reflected in the setting up of civil and electromechanical engineering programmes in Rwanda, by the State University at Ghent, Belgium. The start-up and general organisation of engineering education, the experiences with four such education programmes and their extension into a practical post-university level education for solving urgent tangible problems of the country, are discussed.     

A Sportful History of Christianity: The Case of Twentieth-Century Sweden

Abstract

The sport movement was consolidated in Sweden during the first years of the twentieth century and grew rapidly from the 1920s and onward. Preceding and during these events, the Church of Sweden – the Lutheran state church – was losing its axiomatic position within Swedish society and church attendance was decreasing. In this situation, many perceived the sports movement as a rival to the church or even saw sport as a new religion. However, as the sport movement grew, prominent representatives within the Church of Sweden and other Christian denominations adopted a more pragmatic view of the sports movement in order to appeal to people outside the ranks of the church, especially male youth. The sport field soon became a missionary field. The aim of the current essay is to account for the collaborative as well as the sceptical voices not only in the Church of Sweden, but also within the substantial Swedish revival movements, i.e. the Pentecostal movement and the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. Further, these events will be analyzed from a gender perspective, discussing what was simultaneously perceived as a secularization and feminization of Swedish Christianity.     

Evaluating File Formats for Long-term Preservation

National and international publishers have been depositing digital publications at the National Library of the Netherlands (KB) since 2003. Until recently, most of these publications were deposited in the Portable Document Format. New projects, for example the Web archiving project, force the KB to handle more heterogeneous material. Therefore, the KB has developed a quantifiable file format risk assessment method. This method can be used to define digital preservation strategies for specific file formats. The choice for a specific file format at creation time or later in the life cycle of a digital object influences the long-term access to the digital object. The evaluation method contains seven sustainability criteria for file formats that are weighed for importance. There seems to be consensus on the sustainability criteria. However, as the weighing of these criteria is connected to an institution's policy, the KB wonders whether agreement on the relative importance of the criteria can be reached at all. With this paper, the KB hopes to inspire other cultural heritage institutions to define their own quantifiable file format evaluation method.     

SHAPING COURSE. The Development of the Strategy for the e-Depot of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek,National Library of the Netherlands, in a National and International Context

Operating an international archive for digital information resources by a relatively small organization as the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB) asks for a firm foundation of its policy. Continuing research and development efforts to secure permanent preservation and access to electronic information on a national and international scale require substantial financial, technical and staffing commitments. Cooperation in sharing resources and knowledge is called for. In the national context of the Netherlands the KB recently took the initiative to build the National Digital Preservation Coalition. All relevant sectors of Dutch society are represented. Its aim is to develop a national infrastructure and to assign clear responsibilities. In the European arena the KB, together with the British Library, started the European Alliance for Permanent Access to the Records of Science. The Alliance works towards the widespread and joint responsibility for maintaining the records of science by all major stakeholders, including national governments and the EU. In the global context the KB developed the concept of the "Safe Places Network" . This Network will include a limited number of institutions with certified digital archives for scientific publications, sharing responsibility for complete, world-wide coverage and allocate tasks accordingly.     

Screening ion-channel ligand interactions with passive pumping in a microfluidic bilayer lipid membrane chip

We describe a scalable artificial bilayer lipid membrane platform for rapid electrophysiological screening of ion channels and transporters. A passive pumping method is used to flow microliter volumes of ligand solution across a suspended bilayer within a microfluidic chip. Bilayers are stable at flow rates up to ∼0.5 μl/min. Phospholipid bilayers are formed across a photolithographically defined aperture made in a dry film resist within the microfluidic chip. Bilayers are stable for many days and the low shunt capacitance of the thin film support gives low-noise high-quality single ion channel recording. Dose-dependent transient blocking of α-hemolysin with β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and polyethylene glycol is demonstrated and dose-dependent blocking studies of the KcsA potassium channel with tetraethylammonium show the potential for determining IC₅₀ values. The assays are fast (30 min for a complete IC₅₀ curve) and simple and require very small amounts of compounds (100 μg in 15 μl). The technology can be scaled so that multiple bilayers can be addressed, providing a screening platform for ion channels, transporters, and nanopores.