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PEPAdb (Prehistoric Europe's Personal Adornment Database) is a long-term, open-ended project that aims to improve access to archaeological data online. Its website (https://pepadb.us.es) publishes and analyses datasets about prehistoric personal adornment, drawing on the results of various research projects and bibliographic references.

The importance of rivers and streams for fresh water, food, and recreation is well known, yet there is increasing evidence that degradation of running waters is at an all-time high. However, most restoration projects are small scale, and information on their implementation and outcome is not readily accessible. Here, Bernhardt et al report a synthesis of information on 37,099 projects in the National River Restoration Science Synthesis database.

Research summary: The experience of Encyclopaedia Britannica provides the canonical example of the decline of an established firm at the outset of the digital age. Competition from Microsoft's Encarta in 1993 led to sharp declines in the sales of books, which led to the distressed sale of the firm in 1996. This article offers new source material about the actions at both Encarta and Britannica, and it offers a novel interpretation of events. Britannica's management did not misperceive the opportunities and threats, and Britannica did not lack technical prowess. This narrative stresses that Britannica's management faced organizational diseconomies of scope between supporting lines of business in the old and new markets, which generated internal conflicts. These conflicts hindered the commercialization of new technology and hastened its decline. Managerial summary: An established and leading firm, such as Encyclopaedia Britannica, would seem to have enormous advantages over its competitors in a new market. Why would a successful firm come to have severe difficulties organizing for a new market? Of particular importance for explaining Britannica's decline are theories that stress its inherited capabilities, especially inherited technological (in)abilities and inherited (mis)perceptions about the potential for new market opportunities. This article argues that Britannica's management did not misperceive the opportunities and threats, and Britannica did not lack technical prowess. This narrative stresses that Britannica's management faced organizational diseconomies of scope between supporting lines of business in the old and new markets, which generated internal conflicts. The narrative directs attention at managing commercialization activity around new products using new technologies.

This viewpoint article explores Scopus AI—Elsevier’s innovative add-on to the Scopus database—which allows users to engage with Scopus in natural language rather than via Boolean operators. Scopus AI’s strength lies in combining the communication properties of a large language model with the information integrity of peer-reviewed sources. It does not substitute the need to review the literature but can be helpful in search, especially if stakes are low and a systematic approach is unnecessary. Because of increased sophistication of tools and information systems, the degree of competencies required from users also increases. Reasonable understanding of how AI works, as well as search expertise, a critical approach to source evaluation, and scientific skepticism remain essential. With these in place, and with a clear understanding of the purpose of various information tasks, users can be better positioned to decide how best to employ various tools to get the job done.

Many institutional repositories continue to struggle with low engagement. A combination of factors is often at play, including overburdened faculty, confusion about copyright, and lack of awareness. Adding to these barriers on the researcher side are resource constraints on the administrative side, with many libraries citing limitations in budget and staffing for institutional repositories. Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte sought to address these issues by strategically leveraging citation and copyright information that already existed in Web of Science to grow their institutional repository, Niner Commons. Keeping user needs and staff limitations top of mind, Atkins Library launched a project to reframe the approach to increasing participation with the repository: instead of continuing to expect users to deposit works on their own, the library developed a service in which staff could quickly and sustainably deposit works on behalf of users.

Most current definitions of blended learning refer to a blend of online and face‑to‑face instruction. It seems that few authors notice the irony that the definition of blended learning does not include the concept of learning at all. The problem with these definitions is that they are devoid of theory and thus lead to trial‑and‑error research. This paper argues that the definition of blended learning should be built around learning theory and should refer to a blend of direct instruction and learning‑by‑doing. The paper reports on research conducted to validate a model that puts behavioural and constructivist learning at right angles and considers if the two can occur simultaneously. The model is then placed in the context of a framework of knowledge management and from there a definition is derived that includes context, theory, methodology and technology.

Education for children with special needs, in Indonesia language known as Anak Berkebutuhan Khusus or ABK, at an early age plays a significant role in triggering their abilities to communicate by using sign language. This paper discusses the results of research on the development of sign language learning media for ABK with age range 6-9 years. The stage of designing learning media includes the SDLC method (System Development Life Cycle). The result of the design is a Multimedia Application for Introduction to Sign Language for Deaf Children age 8-12 years in the form of CD-ROMs. The first is the CD-ROM for PC / computer which contains Indonesian language learning element, examples of simple sentences, practice questions and puzzles, and each item includes a sign-language video, the second is in the form of VCD containing Indonesian language learning material and in each element comprises sign language video.

Semantic integration has been a long‐standing challenge for the database community. It has received steady attention over the past two decades, and has now become a prominent area of database research. In this article, we first review database applications that require semantic integration and discuss the difficulties underlying the integration process. We then describe recent progress and identify open research issues. We focus in particular on schema matching, a topic that has received much attention in the database community, but also discuss data matching (for example, tuple deduplication) and open issues beyond the match discovery context (for example, reasoning with matches, match verification and repair, and reconciling inconsistent data values). For previous surveys of database research on semantic integration, see Rahm and Bernstein (2001); Ouksel and Seth (1999); and Batini, Lenzerini, and Navathe (1986).