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In the over three decades since its establishment in 1990, the Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) Library has been a leader through taking the initiative in developing and maintaining partnerships for the benefit of its primary user community: the firefighters of Illinois. Partnerships at the local, state, national, and international levels have allowed the IFSI Library to respond to the unique information needs of firefighters through the creation and continued use of services and programs which have been created specifically to meet these unique needs, and the IFSI Library's place within the Illinois state fire academy allows these services and programs to be promoted and made available to firefighters across the state. By taking the initiative to create partnerships for the benefit of firefighters, the IFSI Library has established itself as a leader in partnership with both the library and information science field as well as to the fire service. The services and programs made possible through the IFSI Library's partnerships have contributed to Illinois firefighters' ability to access the information and resources that they need to continue keeping their communities safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the second part of a special issue of Library Trends that focuses on the cultural heritage of China and the digital scholarship being applied to it. The first part covered various aspects of cultural heritage digital scholarship work in China, including international collaboration, technology, and diversity. The second part includes seven articles that highlight international collaboration, technology, and access and application in the study and preservation of China's cultural heritage. These articles demonstrate how digital scholarship can make cultural heritage more accessible and usable for scholars, students, and the general public. The authors hope that readers will gain a deeper understanding of China's cultural heritage and be inspired to explore innovative applications of digital scholarship in their own countries. [Extracted from the article]

This article is an introduction to a special issue of Library Trends that focuses on cultural heritage and digital scholarship in China. It highlights the richness and diversity of China's cultural heritage, including well-known sites like the Great Wall and Forbidden City, as well as the artifacts and knowledge of ethnic minority and underserved communities. The article emphasizes the importance of preserving and protecting cultural heritage, as well as the innovative use of digital scholarship in this endeavor. The special issue covers a wide range of topics, including international collaboration, technology, diversity, and access to cultural heritage resources. It concludes by calling for continued efforts to safeguard and share Chinese cultural heritage for the benefit of the world. [Extracted from the article]

Hwa-Wei Lee, former chief of the Library of Congress's Asian Division and dean emeritus of Ohio University Libraries, was born in China, did his undergraduate studies in Taiwan, and completed [...]

Porcine circovirus type 4 (PCV4) is a novel virus associated with porcine dermatitis and nephropathy syndrome (PDNS)-like signs identified firstly in China in 2019. However, the details of the molecular epidemiology of PCV4 are unclear at this time. A total of forty-two related sequences were selected from the GenBank database to explore the spread of PCV4 and its rule in genetic evolution. Of the selected strains, 41 were from south China in 2019 to 2021 and the other was a foreign representative strain. Phylogenetic tree construction, nucleotide and amino acid (aa) sequence alignment, gene recombination and antigen structure prediction were performed on the collected sequences using bioinformatics softwares. The 42 PCV4 strains were divided into two subgenotypes: PCV4a (35/42) and PCV4b (7/42), according to the constructed genetic evolution tree. PCV4a is the main epidemic strain, and it can be further divided into two different gene clusters: PCV4a-1 (22/35) and PCV4a-2 (13/35). The pairwise comparison analysis showed that the complete genome sequence similarity of the 42 PCV4 strains ranged between 97.9% and 100%, and the aa sequences of the Cap proteins of 42 PCV4 strains had three major heterogenic or hypervariable regions—27–28, 96 and 212—all located near the antigenic epitope of the Cap protein. The results of this study can provide some basis for further studying the spread and epidemic growth of PCV4, and the prevention and control of PCV4 infection in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) Library provides fire and emergency library and information assistance and services to the Institute's instructional staff, students, Illinois fire departments and firefighters, and other fire/emergency-related users in the successful and effective performance of their jobs. In response to the COVID pandemic, IFSI Librarians have developed new services and resources to continue serving patrons. At the same time, new procedures and services were adopted. With the staff's return to the library's physical location, IFSI's Learning Resource and Research Center building, new COVID-19-related safety measures have been instituted. IFSI Librarians worked with IFSI staff to create the COVID-19 Archives Collection to preserve important documents about the pandemic as it occurs. The Library received grant awards respectively from IMLS and ALA. During the pandemic, the IFSI International Programs continued to provide information resources and access to international users. The Library organized online academic activities via Zoom on a variety of workshops, lectures, and discussions to ensure that users were able to receive enough resources to continue their study and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early triage of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is pivotal in managing the disease. However, studies on the clinical risk score system of the risk factors for the development of severe disease are limited. Hence, we conducted a clinical risk score system for severe illness, which might optimize appropriate treatment strategies. We conducted a retrospective, single-center study at the JinYinTan Hospital from January 24, 2020 to March 31, 2020. We evaluated the demographic, clinical, and laboratory data and performed a 10-fold cross-validation to split the data into a training set and validation set. We then screened the prognostic factors for severe illness using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and logistic regression, and finally conducted a risk score to estimate the probability of severe illness in the training set. Data from the validation set were used to validate the score. A total of 295 patients were included. From 49 potential risk factors, 3 variables were measured as the risk score: neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (OR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.15–1.39), albumin (OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.70–0.83), and chest computed tomography abnormalities (OR, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.41–2.86) and the AUC of the validation cohort was 0.822 (95% CI, 0.7667–0.8776). This report may help define the potential of developing severe illness in patients with COVID-19 at an early stage, which might be related to the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio, albumin, and chest computed tomography abnormalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses issues surrounding the development of a small special library's Internet reference services to support firefighter distance learners for the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute's (IFSI) online Firefighter II Certification Program, the first of its kind in the nation. Planning for the Internet reference services involves consideration of user needs, funding, staff management, and collection development. In addition, this article explores how the IFSI Library has established a collaboration and partnership with the online course and Information Technology teams, and local public and community college libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Illinois Fire Service Institute Library (FSI Library) has the most comprehensive and popular nonprofit fire emergency collection in Illinois. Besides providing providing descriptive cataloging for nonprint materials, the Library assigns in-depth subject terms and modified Library of Congress Classification to the catalog records. The Library reviewed its subject list and found numerous inconsistencies and duplications, because catalog records are acquired from sources using different subject vocabularies. The Library began a project in August 1999 to map the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) from the National Library of Medicine, and other fire vocabulary systems. The project developers created FireTalk, a new FSI thesaurus with a mix of LCSH, MeSH terms (identified as such), plus more specific fire science terms. FireTalk is used with the Library's Online Public Access Catalog at the Institute's website to enhance retrieval of relevant bibliographic citations and facilitate multiple database searching. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This report explored the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA)'s strategic planning process for 2020-2025 during COVID-19. The paper introduced CALA's mission statement, values, and discussed the importance of the strategic plan. A strategic planning task force was formed to create an opportunity for membership input in virtual town hall meetings and surveys. The authors presented a case study on the process of revising a strategic plan and discussed the implementation phases. The authors also shared the challenges and recommendations in organizing strategic planning for a library association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 2021, the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA), in partnership with the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), received $100,000 in funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program National Forum Grant in the Lifelong Learning project category for Path to Leadership: National Forum to Advance Asian/Pacific Islander American (APIA) Librarianship. Funding from the grant resulted in an online national forum, webinars, and a reunion program. This paper details the planning and implementation of this project. It also includes project evaluation and a proposed curriculum outline to fully develop an APIA leadership program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing need to understand Chinese American librarians as one of the largest ethnic librarian groups in American library communities and a renewed interest to demonstrate a critical role they play in the Library and Information Science profession. This paper documents some strategies Chinese American librarians have adopted to meet the challenges and barriers they face. It is hoped that this study will encourage Chinese American librarians to develop methods for analyzing their careers so as to reach higher career goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing need to understand the role of Chinese American librarians as one of the largest ethnic librarian groups in American library communities and a renewed interest to demonstrate and prove a critical role they play in the Library and Information Science profession. With first-hand insights, this study reports the current status of Chinese American librarians. It helps develop our knowledge about the Chinese American librarians in the 21st Century. A sequel study in a separate paper reports the findings of career development of Chinese American librarians and documents strategies they adapted to meet challenges and barriers facing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the complex and dynamic processes of replication, transcription, and translation of DNA molecules, a large number of replication errors or damage can occur which lead to obstacles in the development process of germ cells and result in a decreased reproductive rate. DNA damage repair has attracted widespread attention due to its important role in the maintenance and regulation of germ cells. This study reports on a systematic review of the role and mechanism of DNA damage repair in germline development. First, the causes, detection methods, and repair methods of DNA damage, and the mechanism of DNA damage repair are summarized. Second, a summary of the causes of abnormal DNA damage repair in germ cells is introduced along with common examples, and the relevant effects of germ cell damage. Third, we introduce the application of drugs related to DNA damage repair in the treatment of reproductive diseases and related surgical treatment of abnormal DNA damage, and summarize various applications of DNA damage repair in germ cells. Finally, a summary and discussion is given of the current deficiencies in DNA damage repair during germ cell development and future research development. The purpose of this paper is to provide researchers engaged in relevant fields with a further systematic understanding of the relevant applications of DNA damage repair in germ cells and to gain inspiration from it to provide new research ideas for related fields., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Wang, Su, Chen, Huang, Ruan, Lv and Li.)

Aim: To study the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) intervention "tonifying the kidney to promote liver regeneration and repair by affecting stem cells and their microenvironment" ("TTK") for treating liver failure due to chronic hepatitis B., Methods: We designed the study as a randomized controlled clinical trial. Registration number of Chinese Clinical Trial Registry is ChiCTR-TRC-12002961. A total of 144 patients with liver failure due to infection with chronic hepatitis B virus were enrolled in this randomized controlled clinical study. Participants were randomly assigned to the following three groups: (1) a modern medicine control group (MMC group, 36 patients); (2) a "tonifying qi and detoxification" ("TQD") group (72 patients); and (3) a "tonifying the kidney to promote liver regeneration and repair by affecting stem cells and their microenvironment" ("TTK") group (36 patients). Patients in the MMC group received general internal medicine treatment; patients in the "TQD" group were given a TCM formula "tonifying qi and detoxification" and general internal medicine treatment; patients in the "TTK" group were given a TCM formula of "TTK" and general internal medicine treatment. All participants were treated for 8 wk and then followed at 48 wk following their final treatment. The primary efficacy end point was the patient fatality rate in each group. Measurements of various virological and biochemical indicators served as secondary endpoints. The one-way analysis of variance and the t-test were used to compare patient outcomes in the different treatment groups., Results: At the 48-wk post-treatment time point, the patient fatality rates in the MMC, "TQD", and "TTK" groups were 51.61%, 35.38%, and 16.67%, respectively, and the differences between groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the levels of hepatitis B virus DNA or prothrombin activity among the three groups (P > 0.05). Patients in the "TTK" group had significantly higher levels of serum total bilirubin compared to MMC subjects (339.40 μmol/L ± 270.09 μmol/L vs 176.13 μmol/L ± 185.70 μmol/L, P = 0.014). Serum albumin levels were significantly increased in both the "TQD" group and "TTK" group as compared with the MMC group (31.30 g/L ± 4.77 g/L, 30.72 g/L ± 2.89 g/L vs 28.57 g/L ± 4.56 g/L, P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in levels of alanine transaminase among the three groups (P > 0.05). Safety data showed that there was one case of stomachache in the "TQD" group and one case of gastrointestinal side effect in the "TTK" group., Conclusion: Treatment with "TTK" improved the survival rates of patients with liver failure due to chronic hepatitis B. Additionally, liver tissue was regenerated and liver function was restored.