“Libres” by Moro: Politicizing Sound

The study aimed at finding user challenges for the commonly used online database systems in Higher Education Institutions in Tanzania (HEIs). Two research objectives were formulated as a means to guide and meet the research aim stated above. The study adopted a case study with both quantitative and qualitative methods approach in which a survey was run across 12 HEIs in Tanzania. In order to draw a representative sample of the population, a simple random sampling strategy was adopted in which all participants were given equal chance of being selected. As a result, a total of 559 students, and 149 Academic Staff participated in the study. The major findings show that Wiley online library, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect and JSTOR are the commonly used databases but the level of access is very low (mostly to students) due to internal and external challenges like slow internet connection, the difficulty of using online databases, unavailability of online databases, and poor support. The overwhelming evidence collected from the survey suggests that HEIs ought to do enough to ensure the value for money on the subscribed online resources.

Exposure to tobacco-related content on social media may foster positive attitudes toward tobacco products and brands, and influence the likelihood of initiating or continuing use of tobacco, especially among adolescents and young adults. To perform the first systematic review and meta-analysis, to our knowledge, on studies that examined the association between exposure to tobacco content on social media and lifetime tobacco use, past 30-day tobacco use, and susceptibility to use tobacco among never users. Tobacco, social media, and marketing search terms were entered into online databases, including MEDLINE, ISI Web of Science, Scopus, and PsychINFO. Study characteristics, including research design and methods, sampling strategy, and demographics, were assessed for each study. Studies reporting odds ratios (ORs) for self-reported exposure to, or experimentally manipulated, tobacco content on social media and lifetime tobacco use, past 30-day tobacco, and susceptibility to use tobacco among never users. The systematic search produced 897 independent articles, of which 29 studies met inclusion criteria. A 3-level random-effects meta-analysis was used to estimate ORs, 95% CIs, and heterogeneity (I2) for each tobacco use outcome. Study quality and publication bias were assessed. Lifetime tobacco use, past 30-day tobacco use, and susceptibility to use tobacco among never users. Tobacco use included e-cigarettes, cigarettes, and other (cigar, hookah, smokeless tobacco). The total sample size across the 24 included datasets was 139 624, including 100 666 adolescents (72%), 20 710 young adults (15%), and 18 248 adults (13%). Participants who were exposed to tobacco content on social media, compared with those who were not exposed, had greater odds of reporting lifetime tobacco use (OR, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.54-3.08; I2 = 94%), past 30-day tobacco use (OR, 2.19; 95% CI, 1.79-2.67; I2 = 84%), and susceptibility to use tobacco among never users (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.65-2.63; I2 = 73%). Subgroup analyses showed similar associations for tobacco promotions, active engagement, passive engagement, lifetime exposure to tobacco content, exposure to tobacco content on more than 2 platforms, and exposure to tobacco content among adolescents and young adults. Findings suggest that a comprehensive strategy to reduce the amount of tobacco content on social media should be developed by federal regulators. Such actions may have downstream effects on adolescent and young adult exposure to protobacco content, and ultimately tobacco use behaviors.

ObjectivesDespite continuous efforts to improve influenza vaccination coverage, uptake among high-risk groups remains suboptimal. We aimed to identify policy amenable factors associated with vaccination and to measure their importance in...

One of the best ways to share and disseminate biodiversity information is through the digitization of data and making it available via online databases. The rapid growth of publicly available biodiversity data is not without problems which may decrease the utility of online databases. In this study we analyze taxonomic, geographic and temporal data gaps, and bias related to existing data on selected marine invertebrate occurrences along the coastline of two African countries, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. The final marine invertebrate dataset comprises of 19.910 occurrences, but 32% of the original dataset occurrences were excluded due to data gaps. Most marine invertebrates in Mozambique were collected in seagrasses, whereas in São Tomé and Príncipe they were mostly collected offshore. The dataset has a temporal coverage from 1816 to 2019, with most occurrences collected in the last two decades. This study provides baseline information relevant to a better understanding of marine invertebrate biodiversity data gaps and bias in these habitats along the coasts of these countries. The information can be further applied to complete marine invertebrate data gaps contributing to design informed sampling strategies and advancing refined datasets that can be used in management and conservation plans in both countries.

A new inference control, called random sample queries, is proposed for safeguarding confidential data in on-line statistical databases. The random sample queries control deals directly with the basic principle of compromise by making it impossible for a questioner to control precisely the formation of query sets. Queries for relative frequencies and averages are computed using random samples drawn from the query sets. The sampling strategy permits the release of accurate and timely statistics and can be implemented at very low cost. Analysis shows the relative error in the statistics decreases as the query set size increases; in contrast, the effort required to compromise increases with the query set size due to large absolute errors. Experiments performed on a simulated database support the analysis.

We present a decade-long research initiative of biodiversity genomics, which aimed at sequencing all vascular plant species occurring in the biodiversity hotspot of the European Alps, along with related lineages occurring in other mountain ranges and the arctic region. We detail the sampling and sequencing strategies, an online database of genome skimming datasets, and bioinformatic procedures to retrieve sequence data. Based on low coverage shotgun sequencing of 6,105 species, we generated a dataset of 81 orthologous chloroplast loci, including all standard barcodes. Using maximum likelihood, we inferred a species-resolved phylogeny which covers 96% of the flora occurring above treeline in the Alps and 92% of the Arctic Flora, along with many additional non-alpine species to improve species sampling and allow fossil dating. The data released here provide the baseline of a unique, ever-growing genomic resource for various applications such as phylogenomics, systematics, conservation and metabarcoding of the arctic–alpine realm.