Version 2.0 of the Utopia Documents now available to download for FREE

May 24, 2012

Lost Island Labs Ltd (LIL) have, in collaboration with Academic Concept Knowledge Ltd (AQnowledge), released version 2.0 of the Utopia Documents web-enabled PDF-reader for scientific content. It is freely downloadable from http://utopiadocs.com and currently available for Mac and Windows, with a Linux version coming soon.

The Utopia Documents PDF-reader bridges the ‘linkability gap’ between HTML and PDF, and makes the latter just as easily linked-in to the Web as the former (as long as you are online, of course). Utopia Documents allows readers, if they so wish, to experience dynamically enriched scientific articles. Utopia Documents is publisher-independent and is providing ‘article-of-the-future-like’ enrichment for any modern PDF (bitmap-only image scans excepted – they can be read with Utopia Documents, but without the enrichment features).

‘Enrichment’ means easy link-outs, directly from highlighted text in the PDF, to an ever-expanding variety of data sources and scientific information and search tools. It means – for articles from participating publishers – the possibility to export any tables into a spreadsheet format, and a ‘toggle’ that converts numerical tables into easy-to-read scatter plots. It means Altmetrics, whenever available, that lets the reader see how articles are doing. It means a comments function that lets researchers (and students) carry out relevant discussions that stay right with the paper, rather than having to go off onto a blog somewhere. It means being able to quickly flick through the images and illustrations in an article.

With Utopia Documents, publishers and libraries can offer enriched scientific articles just by encouraging the scientists and students they serve to use the free Utopia Documents PDF-reader, and so make more of the scientific literature at hand. Utopia Documents is truly free – registration is only needed if one uses the comments function (for reasons of maintaining the integrity of scientific discourse, Utopia Documents does not allow anonymous comments).

Some journals, such as the Biochemical Journal published by Portland Press, and those published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, provide extra tags in their PDFs that enable Utopia Documents to extend its functionality even further, for instance by rendering pictures of protein structures into dynamic, rotatable, manipulable 3D formats. Publishers who wish to do the same or introduce similar features are encouraged to take up contact with us at info@utopiadocs.com.

Utopia Documents is usable in all scientific disciplines, but its link-out resources are currently especially optimized for the biomedical/biochemical spectrum.

http://utopiadocs.com

Bowker Research Shows Australia is a Global Leader in e-Book Adoption

May 23, 2012

Australia is one of the leading markets for e-book adoption, according to Bowker® Market Research’s Global eBook Monitor, a study that tracks consumer attitudes to and purchasing of e-books in 10 major world markets. Australia ranks along with the U.K. and the U.S. in adoption of e-books, with 43 percent of its online population reporting they have downloaded at least some digital content in the past six months. About a third of wired Aussies downloaded a free e-book, but 21 percent felt committed enough to the format to pay for a book. Bowker Market Research is a service of Bowker, an affiliated business of ProQuest.

“Australia is a particularly ripe area for the e-book market to develop,” said Jo Henry, director of Bowker Market Research. “There’s a long tradition of early adoption of technology and a wired population, with few barriers to downloading digital material.”

Indeed, Bowker’s Global eBook Monitor found the majority of Australian respondents have regular and convenient access to desktop and laptop computers. More than half have access to smartphones, about a quarter are using tablets and another 10 percent have access to dedicated e-readers. The connections to devices that support e-books means the market is primed for further development. “We expect, conservatively, that just under a quarter of the Australian population will purchase an e-book in the next six months, and there’s a real possibility of much steeper growth. One third of the entire online population down under could be purchasing an e-book within six months,” said Ms. Henry.

Who are the buyers? The Global eBook Monitor finds that men are slightly more likely to have engaged with the digital book market than women. The 18-24 age group leads in use, just a little ahead of those aged 25-34. However, that may change shortly. “Although current e-book use tends to decrease with age, those most likely to come into the market in the next six months are somewhat older than current buyers,” said Ms. Henry. “That’s the pattern we’re seeing in both the U.S. and the U.K. The Global eBook Monitor (GeM) tracks consumer purchases of e-books, and attitudes about e-books, in ten major world markets and aims to inform the publishing industry during a critical period of change. An annual study, over time it will create a unique view of market shifts in response to new digital formats. GeM currently operates in partnership with Pearson, Tata Consultancy Services, AT Kearney, and Book Industry Study Group (BISG). It employs online surveys hosted by Lightspeed Research or their affiliates in 9 countries, and by MTi in the US. The minimum number of respondents in each country was 1000; samples were designed and weighted to be representative of the adult (18+) population in terms of age, sex and region, but were by definition drawn from the online population only.

A report on the Australian ebook market, based on GeM data, is available now, priced at AUS $795, from Bowker Market Research: Rachel@bookmarketing.co.uk. Discounts are available for subscribers to Australian Bookseller & Publisher.

Individual country reports for the other 10 markets covered on the study are available by contacting Bowker Market Research: jo@bookmarketing.co.uk.

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) offers site license access to Spektrum der Wissenschaft

May 23, 2012

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is pleased to offer site license access to Spektrum der Wissenschaft, the German-language edition of Scientific American, as well as to Spektrum’s sister publications and archives. All titles, available in German, will be hosted on the Spektrum.de platform. Together with Scientific American, Spektrum der Wissenschaft complements the consumer media portfolio of NPG to the German speaking scientific community.

Spektrum der Wissenschaft has offered site license access directly to institutional customers for many years. NPG institutional customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland can now work with one sales representative for NPG journals, Scientific American and the Spektrum der Wissenschaftsite license platform.

The NPG sales team will offer site license access to government, corporate and academic customers. A current site license subscription includes access to the current year and the previous 4 years in PDF format. Archive articles before 2003 are only accessible in full-text HTML.

The Spektrum der Wissenschaft media portfolio includes:
• Spektrum der Wissenschaft, the flagship title and best-selling consumer science magazine in German speaking countries. The archive is available back to 1993.
• Gehirn & Geist (Brain & Mind), a psychology magazine with international editions in 9 countries, including Scientific American MIND in the United States. The archive is available back to 2002.
• Sterne und Weltraum (Stars and Space), a high-level journal on astronomy. The archive is available back to 2005.
• epoc, an archaeology and history magazine, published quarterly. The archive is available back to 2008.
• Spektrum – die Woche, a weekly digital newspaper on science. The archive is available back to 2004.

The archive package from Spektrum also includes former titles Abenteuer Archaelogie (Archeology Adventure: 2004-2007) and Astronomie heute (Astronomy Today: 2003-2007). All users can browse the archive online. The archive is searchable by keyword, author, article title and subject area. Alternatively, users can also browse by year and issue.

Licences and customer support will be continued to be handled directly by the Spektrum team, to ensure that customers are dealing with native German speakers and have support in their timezone.

The Spektrum der Wissenschaft portfolio, hosted on the Spektrum platform, is the latest in archive offerings from NPG. Scientific American’s complete archive, back to volume 1, issue 1 in 1845, is available on nature.com. The Nature archive 1869-1996 is also available on the nature.com platform.

More than 100 campuses sign up for CCC’s Get It Now service

May 23, 2012

Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a not-for-profit organization and leading provider of licensing solutions, announces over 100 campuses have signed up for CCC’s Get It Now service since its 2011 launch. Get It Now complements an institution’s Interlibrary Loan (ILL) borrowing services by providing digital copies of journal articles in minutes as opposed to days.

Institutions of higher education use Get It Now to provide library patrons with immediate fulfillment of full-text articles from unsubscribed journals 24 hours a day, seven days a week through a single, cost-effective and easy-to-use application integrated directly into their workflow. Such institutions include Drake University, Eastern Kentucky, Nazareth College of Rochester, St. Anselm College, University of Wisconsin Madison and West Virginia University, among others.

The University of Texas and University of Vermont went even farther. They recently embraced both Get It Now and the Annual Copyright License for Academic Institutions enabling them to obtain copyrighted content quickly and efficiently and share it with faculty, students and staff in course materials and scholarly research. Other institutions that have both Get It Now and the Annual Copyright License include Brooklyn Law School, St. Catherine University, SUNY Tompkins Cortland Community College and The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

“With the Annual Copyright License, we can now make the content from Get It Now more widely available to our students and faculty,” said Mara Saule, Dean of Libraries, University of Vermont.
“Since its successful launch last year, we’ve listened to customer feedback and added several new features, such as integration with Atlas Systems’ popular Odyssey electronic document delivery service, automated duplicate order prevention, and integration partnerships with leading link resolver vendors Ex Libris, Innovative Interfaces Inc. and Serial Solutions.” said Miles McNamee, VP, Licensing and Business Development, CCC.

Get It Now was developed with the cooperation of The California State University system, the Information Delivery Services Project at The State University of New York at Geneseo, and Elsevier. It includes content from over 15 leading journal publishers, including Informa Healthcare, John Wiley & Sons, Nature Publishing Group, Springer and Wolters Kluwer, representing more than 8,500 journals and millions of articles. Additional publishers are being added every month.

PLoS calls for papers for Text Mining Collection

May 22, 2012

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) seeks submissions in the broad field of text-mining research for a collection to be launched across all of its journals in 2013. All submissions submitted before October 30th, 2012 will be considered for the launch of the collection. Please read the following post for further information on how to submit your article.

The scientific literature is exponentially increasing in size, with thousands of new papers published every day. Few researchers are able to keep track of all new publications, even in their own field, reducing the quality of scholarship and leading to undesirable outcomes like redundant publication. While social media and expert recommendation systems provide partial solutions to the problem of keeping up with the literature, systematically identifying relevant articles and extracting key information from them can only come through automated text-mining technologies.

Research in text mining has made incredible advances over the last decade, driven through community challenges and increasingly sophisticated computational technologies. However, the promise of text mining to accelerate and enhance research largely has not yet been fulfilled, primarily since the vast majority of the published scientific literature is not published under an Open Access model. As Open Access publishing yields an ever-growing archive of unrestricted full-text articles, text mining will play an increasingly important role in drilling down to essential research and data in scientific literature in the 21^stcentury scholarly landscape.

As part of its commitment to realizing the maximal utility of Open Access literature, PLoS is launching a collection of articles dedicated to highlighting the importance of research in the area of text mining. The launch of this Text Mining Collection complements related PLoS Collections on Open Access and Altmetrics(forthcoming), as well as the recent release of the PLoS Application Programming Interface, which provides an open API to PLoS journal content.

As part of this Text Mining Collection, we are making a call for high quality submissions that advance the field of text-mining research, including:

New methods for the retrieval or extraction of published scientific facts
Large-scale analysis of data extracted from the scientific literature
New interfaces for accessing the scientific literature
Semantic enrichment of scientific articles
Linking the literature to scientific databases
Application of text mining to database curation
Approaches for integrating text mining into workflows
Resources (ontologies, corpora) to improve text mining research

Please note that all submissions submitted before October 30th, 2012 will be considered for the launch of the collection (expected early 2013); submissions after this date will still be considered for the collection, but may not appear in the collection at launch.

Submission Guidelines
If you wish to submit your research to the PLoS Text Mining Collection, please consider the following when preparing your manuscript:

All articles must adhere to the submission guidelines of the PLoS journal to which you submit.
Standard PLoS policies and relevant publication fees apply to all submissions.
Submission to any PLoS journal as part of the Text Mining Collection does not guarantee publication.

When you are ready to submit your manuscript to the collection, please log in to the relevant PLoS manuscript submission system and mention the Collection’s name in your cover letter. This will ensure that the staff is aware of your submission to the Collection. The submission systems can be found on theindividual journal websites.

Please contact Samuel Moore (smoore@plos.org) if you would like further information about how to submit your research to the PLoS Text Mining Collection.

Gary Bloom Joins MarkLogic as Chief Executive Officer

May 22, 2012

MarkLogic Corporation, the company powering mission-critical Big Data Applications around the world, today announced that Gary Bloom, a proven technology executive who was most recently the CEO and president at eMeter, has been named president and chief executive officer.

Gary brings an exceptional background that includes more than two decades of successful leadership in enterprise software. He was the CEO and president at eMeter, which provides smart grid management software for electric, gas, and water utilities. eMeter was recently acquired by Siemens Corporation. Prior to that, Gary was a consultant of TPG, a leading global private investment firm.

“MarkLogic customers are solving some of the largest, most complex data challenges in the world,” said Bloom. “Leveraging Big Data has become one of the technology industry’s leading challenges, and MarkLogic is enabling companies to drive business value from the ever-increasing amount of unstructured data driving the Big Data movement. The market opportunity is tremendous, and MarkLogic has the right technology at the right time to help organizations turn their data into valuable business information.”

Gary was also the former vice chair and president of Symantec Corporation, where he led the company’s line of business organizations and corporate development efforts. Gary joined Symantec through the company’s merger with Veritas Software where he was the chairman and CEO. Before joining Veritas, Gary held senior executive positions at Oracle. During his 14-year career at Oracle, Gary led Oracle’s database business, worldwide marketing, support, education, and alliance organizations, and was responsible for mergers and acquisitions.

Gary earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, where he currently serves on the President’s Cabinet and the Board of the Cal Poly Foundation. He also serves on the board of directors of BMC Software.

Best-Selling Drug Reference for Nurses Now a Mobile App

May 22, 2012

Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry, today broke new ground in patient care by introducing the first mobile application for the Nursing Drug Handbook, the best-selling drug reference for nurses. Available for Apple iPhone, iPad and iTouch and all Android devices, the new application is the first drug reference for nurses to offer weekly updates. Published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), theNursing Drug Handbook App gives the fastest access to the most current drug information for nurses.

“The Nursing Drug Handbook app improves the quality of care that nurses can give at bedside due to its combination of mobility, speed, and current information,” said Judith McCann, MSN, RN, Chief Nurse, Professional & Education, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. “Because of these benefits and because it is designed specifically for nurses, we believe it will quickly become the top drug app used by nurses.”

The new app provides the industry’s fastest access to nursing-specific drug information allowing nurses to find drug facts in less than 10 seconds but usually in less than five. Conversely, many drug reference apps take twice the time to run the same searches. Intuitive keyword searching provides fast-access to 965 generic and more than 1,500 brand-name drugs – including new drug information not found in the app’s print counterpart.

The true breakthrough though is the ability to access the most current drug information through weekly updates, which are refreshed automatically via Apple iTunes and Google Play for the full term of a subscription. While most drug reference apps provide at best monthly updates, Nursing Drug Handbook is the first to offer them weekly.

“Having automatic updates on a weekly basis ensures that nurses are accessing current information about FDA warnings, adverse reactions and other critical changes that occur regularly,” said McCann. “Nurses who use the mobile Nursing Drug Handbook are going to be instilled with more confidence.”

The new app features almost 900 drug monographs addressing more than 2,500 generic and brand name drugs. It currently has the most comprehensive collection of pill images – more than 400 are included – to help nurses confidently identify their patients’ medications. The app allows nurses to search for desired drugs alphabetically, by pharmacologic class and by therapeutic class. The full version of the app also includes a dosage calculator, customizable notes, a favorites list, and detailed monographs, all in a user-friendly program.

The Nursing Drug Handbook App is priced at $44.99 and available immediately as an iTunes download and by early next week as a Google Play download. The 2013 print version will be made available starting May 21. To learn more about the Nursing Drug Handbook or to purchase, visit www.thePoint.lww.com/NDHApp, find it on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/NursingDrugHandbook or follow Nursing Drug Handbook o

Wiley-Blackwell Launches New Open Access Journal: Food Science & Nutrition

May 22, 2012

Wiley-Blackwell, the scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., today announced the launch of Food Science & Nutrition as part of the Wiley Open Accesspublishing program. The journal will provide authors with a new platform for the rapid dissemination of the latest research and will be published in collaboration with the Society of Chemical Industry, the Institute of Food Science & Technology and other prominent societies.

Food Science & Nutrition will publish the latest peer reviewed research from across all areas of food sciences, but will focus on the results of fundamental and applied research related to human food and nutrition. The journal will also publish reviews, research methods, invited editorial pieces and commentaries.

Food Science & Nutrition will be edited by Dr. Y. Martin Lo, Associate Professor of Food Bioprocess Engineering at the University of Maryland. Dr. Lo is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Food Processing and Preservation, a position he has held since 2007. An expert team of editorial board members will work alongside Dr. Lo, including Associate Editor, Dr. Berna Magnuson of the University of Toronto.

Food Science & Nutrition is the latest addition to Wiley’s portfolio of food science journals and will benefit from relationships with titles including Molecular Nutrition & Food Research which has an Impact factor of 4.3 and holds the top ISI rank for Food Science and Technology.

Dr. Lo commented that, “The science of food has evolved significantly over the last two decades and it has become clear that integrated research to interpret the interface between food science and nutrition is critical in attaining full comprehension of functional foods. Additionally, many countries are still in dire need of appropriate technologies to add value to their abundant agriculture products/byproducts, while developed countries are seeking better practices to sustain agriculture. All these efforts take time and need a proper outlet to usher continuous development and stimulate effective communications. It is my vision for Food Science & Nutrition to be the one-stop hub for such.”

“Food Science & Nutrition will provide researchers and authors with a rapid, yet rigorous, peer review process combined with high visibility for their research papers,” says Rachel Burley, VP and Publisher, Life Sciences, Wiley-Blackwell. “The journal will be an important channel for research that will benefit multiple disciplines”.

Please visit the Food Science & Nutrition website for further information and future updates.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. launches new OA journal – BioResearch Open Access

May 22, 2012

The inaugural issue of BioResearch Open Access, a new bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal, was released today by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The Journal provides a new rapid-publication forum for a broad range of scientific topics including but not limited to molecular and cellular biology, tissue engineering and biomaterials, regenerative medicine, stem cells, gene therapy, systems biology, genetics, biochemistry, virology, microbiology, and neuroscience. The first issue is available on theBioResearch Open Access website.

The premier issue includes research papers and a brief report from the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Korea on diverse topics such as tissue engineering, stem cells, HIV, and genetics. Forthcoming papers for the second issue include genetics, xenotransplantation, nuclear transfer, and cardiac research.

The Journal is under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Jane Taylor, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh, and seasoned journal editors as Section Editors, including James M. Wilson, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania; Antonios G. Mikos, PhD, Rice University; Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, OBE FRS FRSE, University of Edinburgh; Peter C. Johnson, MD, Scintellix, LLC, Raleigh, NC; Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey, PhD, SENS Foundation, Cambridge, UK; Alan J. Russell, PhD, Carnegie Mellon University; Thomas Hope, PhD, Northwestern University;Ganes C. Sen, PhD, Cleveland Clinic Foundation; Bruce A. Sullenger, PhD, Duke University Medical Center; Graham C. Parker, PhD, Wayne State University School of Medicine; Carol Shoshkes Reiss, PhD, New York University; Stephen C. Ekker, PhD, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; John B. West, MD, PhD, University of California, San Diego; David L. Woodland, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology; Stephen Higgs, PhD, Kansas State University; Eugene Kolker, PhD, Seattle Children’s Hospital; and Domenico Grasso, PhD, PE, DEE, University of Vermont.

The Journal welcomes basic science and translational research in the form of original research articles, comprehensive review articles, mini-reviews, rapid communications, brief reports, technical reports, hypothesis articles, perspectives, and letters to the editor. All articles in BioResearch Open Access will be published online within 4 weeks of acceptance. Articles will be fully open access and posted on PubMedCentral. All articles submitted through July 15, 2012 will be made open access without article processing charges. BioResearch Open Access is fully NIH-, HHMI-, and Wellcome Trust compliant.

“BioResearch Open Access is a fully refereed multidisciplinary journal and provides all the checks and balances that rigorous peer review ensures,” says Mary Ann Liebert, president of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. “An outstanding editorial team comprised of experienced journal editors guarantees the integrity of the Journal.”

Elsevier and Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Research Announce 2012 Scopus Award Winners

May 22, 2012

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical, and medical information products and services, today announced the winners of the 2012 Algeria Scopus Awards and the institutional winners of the SciVal Awards. The Scopus and SciVal Awards bring international recognition to the scientific achievements of researchers and institutions, respectively.

“It has been a pleasure to bring to Algeria the second Scopus and SciVal Awards to honor our nation’s most distinguished researchers and institutions,” said Professor Hafid Aourag, Director General of Scientific Research of the Ministry of Higher Education, Algeria. “Elsevier has made it possible for Algeria to share its accomplishments and advancements with the global science community, while enhancing recognition of our researchers’ most important scholarly work.”

The winners in 11 disciplines are:

Engineering: Abdelouahed Tounsi, University of Sidi Bel Abbés
Physics and astronomy: Abdelmadjid Bouhemadou, University of Setif
Computer Science: Nadjib Badache, University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene
Material Sciences: B. Bachir Bouiadjra, University of Sidi Bel Abbes
Mathematics: Smaïl Djebali, Algiers University
Chemistry: Said Djadoun, University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene
Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Noureddine Soltani, University Badji Mokhtar
Chemical Engineering: Oualid Hamdaoui, University Badji Mokhtar
Environmental, Energy, Earth & Planetary Science: Maïouf Belhamel, Center of Renewable Energies Development
Medicine, Immunobiology, Pharmacy & Neurology: Zoubir Harrat, Institut Pasteur
Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular biology: Sofiane Bouacida, Oum El-Bouaghi University

The institutions awarded the SciVal Awards are the University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene and the University Mentouri Constantine.

Isabelle Van Tol, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Dutch Embassy in Algeria said, “The Netherlands are known for fine scientists, Nobel prizes, high caliber research institutions and top notch companies such as Elsevier. Elsevier has created an opportunity to work together with Algeria and intensify our global relations in the scientific domains.”

“The Scopus Awards are a celebration of the knowledge and scientific contributions of Algeria’s researchers and institutions,” said Olivier Dumon, Managing Director of Academic and Government Research Markets at Elsevier. “Elsevier is proud to be partners with the Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Research in bringing recognition to the scientific performance and discoveries of an extraordinary nation.”

Winners of the Scopus awards were selected based on quantity of publications, citations, and H-index. Elsevier provided quantitative analysis using data from SciVerse Scopus, the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature.

Brill and Publishing Technology celebrate launch of Brill Online

May 22, 2012

Publishing Technology, the largest provider of software and services to the publishing industry, along with Dutch publisher and long-term partner BRILL, announce the launch of the new aggregated scholarly portal, Brill Online Books and Journals.

For the first time, all of Brill’s content from 20 subject specialities across three imprints (BRILL, Global Oriental and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers) is integrated within a single resource. At launch, the site includes 175 journals and 2,400 e-books, equating to over 150,000 distinct articles and chapters. The new platform is designed with a semantic architecture providing students, researchers and teachers with an enhanced user experience through enriched content and increased discoverability.

Transitioning much of its content from Publishing Technology’s ingentaconnect solution, Brill has moved to a custom pub2web platform to consolidate content assets previously distributed across multiple resources. The publisher now commands an agile and adaptable site ensuring long-term cost efficiency and a solid and flexible base for future innovation and experimentation.

Brill Online Books and Journals now features;

search and browse of content by title, type, subject or imprint
preservation of individual imprint catalogues and brand
faceted search and browse functionality, facilitating greater discoverability
usability enhancements such as the introduction of auto-suggestions within search
ability to create new categories of collections across both journals and e-books
promotional features for generating content recommendations to libraries
integration with back-end enterprise systems, for consolidated production workflow

Sam Bruinsma, Director of Business Development, BRILL, commented: “We are excited to launch our next generation online platform, one of the richest scholarly resources of its kind. We have worked closely with Publishing Technology to implement a digital strategy which drives discovery and usage, allows us to quickly and easily capitalize on the latest business models for online delivery, and gain important workflow efficiencies with close integration with our key back office systems.”

Louise Russell, Chief Operating Officer for Online Solutions at Publishing Technology, said: “As a highly-valued customer for over 12 years, we are very proud to deliver the next step in BRILL’s digital strategy. The combination of book and journal content within a single platform brings immediate benefits for BRILL and their customers but also generates a number of existing opportunities for future innovation. By providing the reassurance of a leading edge platform with a clear product development roadmap, we provide a foundation for agile and efficient innovation and look forward to collaborating further with BRILL – the journey does not end at launch!”

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/

Amazon Web Services Launches Dynamic Content Support in Amazon CloudFront

May 15, 2012

Amazon Web Services LLC (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today launched support for dynamic content in Amazon CloudFront. This new capability gives AWS customers a simple, cost-effective way to improve the performance, reliability and global reach of their website by using Amazon CloudFront to deliver all their content, including the dynamic portions of their site that change for each end-user. AmazonCloudFront works seamlessly with dynamic applications running in Amazon EC2, without any custom coding or proprietary configurations, making the service simple to deploy and manage. And, because Amazon CloudFront charges the same low rates for both static and dynamic content, customers can now accelerate all of the content on their website for a low price, without any up-front fees or long term commitments. For more information about delivering dynamic content with Amazon CloudFront, visit http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront.

Previously, developers who wanted to improve the performance and reliability of their dynamic content had limited options, as the solutions offered by traditional CDNs are expensive, hard to configure and difficult to manage. This often requires custom code on their websites, and configuration can take days or weeks. Now, developers running web applications with both dynamic and static content can accelerate their entire website in minutes using only the AWS Management Console, without adding undue cost or complexity to their architecture. Amazon CloudFront has implemented several performance optimizations such as maintaining persistent connections with the origin web servers and other network path optimizations to speed up the delivery of dynamic content. When dynamic content delivery is used with origin web servers running in Amazon EC2, customers get an even better experience as AWS monitors and streamlines the network paths from each Amazon CloudFront edge location to the various AWS Regions for improved latency and reliability. All of these features are available at the same low prices that Amazon CloudFront already offers to its customers.

“With this release, we are continuing on the same path we started when we launched CloudFront: iterating based on customer feedback and making premium and innovative content delivery features that other CDNs sell at high prices much less expensive and much easier to use,” said Tal Saraf, AWS’s General Manager for Amazon CloudFront. “In 2008, CloudFront showed customers that they didn’t need to pay premium prices and sign long term contracts to get great performance and reliability for static content. In 2009, we did the same for video on demand, offering RTMP streaming at the same low prices we were already charging for static object delivery. In 2011, we did the same for live events. Now, with this release, customers can use CloudFront to accelerate their dynamic content, and again, customers don’t have to pay any more than our already low rates. No up-front fees, no requirement to make a long term commitment, no monthly platform fees, no need to hire expensive consultants to help with configuration, no more being over-charged by traditional CDNs that used to be the only ones who could provide this important feature for customers.”

Earth Networks gathers and analyzes environmental observations from around the world to help promote a better understanding of the planet and its atmosphere. “We use Amazon CloudFront to deliver static content and are excited to take advantage of the new capabilities that Amazon CloudFront has added to deliver dynamic content generated by our application servers running in the AWS cloud. With these new features, we can be sure that our customers get the accurate and personalized weather updates they need to plan their day and stay safe from severe weather as quickly as possible,” said Andy Rosenbaum, Development Manager at Earth Networks. “With Amazon CloudFront’s strong performance, ease of use and flexibility, our team can use the API or the Management Console to quickly make changes to our CDN configuration and see the updates within minutes. And with the low cost of delivering dynamic content using Amazon CloudFront, we expect to see significant cost savings as well.”

“We use Amazon CloudFront to deliver over 5 billion requests and 250TB of bandwidth per month to our international user base,” said Steve Corona, CTO of Twitpic. “The reliability of Amazon CloudFront allows our small team to focus on our core products instead of scaling servers and network resources. Support for dynamic content is a natural extension of Amazon CloudFront and is something we’re eager to provide our customers to give them a better user experience at Twitpic.”

With this new feature, requests for dynamic, static and streaming content are all routed through Amazon CloudFront’s full worldwide network of edge locations, giving customers improved performance and reliability through network and route optimizations that accelerate the delivery of content from the origin to the end user. There are no additional costs beyond Amazon CloudFront’s existing low prices for data transfer and requests, and no long-term commitments for use. You can get started at http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront with just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console.