Context Lost: Digital Surrogates, Their Physical Counterparts, and the Metadata that Is Keeping Them Apart

2021 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-118
Author(s):  
Donald C. Force ◽  
Randy Smith

ABSTRACT The digitization of archival collections has become ubiquitous in the modern age. Contrary to the prevalence and popularity of these virtual collections, they are not without their limitations. Archivists have not sufficiently addressed the relationship between digital surrogates and their original objects. This article reviews a project undertaken by the authors who examined forty-two digitized archival collections from seven midwestern states. The study sought to determine whether digital surrogates include sufficient metadata to enable the viewer to understand that the virtual object is a representation of a physical object, that the physical object may be accessed, and that the physical object is part of a larger collection. The article concludes that the metadata fields used to describe digital surrogates vary across repositories, as well as within the institutions; and that very little metadata provides strong connections between the virtual images and the physical materials they represent. The authors conclude by providing recommendations for how archivists might improve the linkages between digital surrogates and their physical counterparts.

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-150
Author(s):  
Eleonora Rai

AbstractThis article retraces the intra-Jesuit theological debates on the theology of salvation, including the relationship between the elements of predestination, God’s foreknowledge, Grace, and free will, in the delicate passage between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, and within the debates on Augustine’s theological legacy. Specifically, it explores the Flemish Jesuit Leonard Lessius’ theology and the discussions raised by it within the Society of Jesus, in order to show how soteriology has been central in the process of self-definition of the Jesuit identity in the Early Modern Age. This is particularly clear from the internal debates developed between Lessius, on the one hand, and General Claudio Acquaviva and curial theologian Roberto Bellarmino, on the other hand. Not only does the article investigate little known aspects of intra-Catholic theological debate in the post Tridentine period, but it also shows how deep pastoral and moral concerns strongly contributed to the rise of Lessius’ open-minded theology of salvation, which seemed to deprive God’s sovereign authority in favour of humankind’s free will, and human agency in the process of salvation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-67
Author(s):  
Sergey Polyakov ◽  
V. Akimov ◽  
A. Polukazakov ◽  
Vladimir Zolnikov ◽  
P. Enin

The article deals with the issues of modeling and management of life support systems of a residential building. The resulting model of the liquid level in the tank allows you to establish the relationship between the level and the flow rate of the liquid. The results of the selection and justification of the fluid level control structure are presented. An algorithm that implements the operation of a virtual object is given. The structure of the automatic control system (ACS) of the liquid level is technically implemented in an open type. The results confirming the achievability of the proposed structural changes are obtained. The results of experimental studies are presented. The choice and justification of the method of controlling the heating system and the liquid level in the tank are considered. Programs for managing subsystems of a residential building in Assembly language, C++, and ladder diagrams are presented. A model for controlling the liquid level in a Multisim environment is proposed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-259
Author(s):  
Anila Yasmin ◽  
Riffat Iqbal

The present study aims to explore the nature of justice and rationality and a relationship between them that how it has become a base for any society and culture in ancient, medieval and modern age. And how different thinkers present rival and compatible views about justice and rationality and how they both impact in our society. Any society benefits from having justice as a prevailing virtue. This helps ensure that wrongs will be ended and rights will be upheld thereby leading to a safer society for everyone. Its strong relation with virtues maintains that it cannot uphold without the presence of virtues. The most basic virtue is rationality without which no justice is possible. Different thinkers in ancient medieval and modern times give different views about the relationship between justice and rationality. But Macintyre holds that there is no neutral conception of justice but there are different standards of justice and rationality in every society.


Author(s):  
Stephen R. Ellis ◽  
Urs J. Bucher

The influence of physically presented background stimuli on distance judgements to optically overlaid, stereoscopic virtual images has been studied using head-mounted stereoscopic, virtual image displays. Positioning of an opaque physical object either at the perceived depth of the virtual image or at a position substantially in front of it, has been observed to cause the virtual image to apparently move closer to the observer. In the case of physical objects positioned substantially in front of the virtual image, subjects often perceive the opaque object as transparent. Evidence is presented that the apparent change of position caused by interposition of the physical object is not influenced by the strengthening of occlusion cues but is influenced by motion of the physical objects which would attract the subjects ocular vergence. The observed effect appears to be associated with the relative conspicuousness of the overlaid virtual image and the background. This effect may be related to Foley's models of open-loop stereoscopic pointing errors which attributed the stereoscopic distance errors to misjudgment of a reference point for interpretation of retinal disparities. Some implications for the design of see-through displays for manufacturing will also be discussed briefly.


Author(s):  
Doron Swade

The principles on which all modern computing machines are based were enunciated more than a hundred years ago by a Cambridge mathematician named Charles Babbage.’ So declared Vivian Bowden—in charge of sales of the Ferranti Mark I computer— in 1953.1 This chapter is about historical origins. It identifies core ideas in Turing’s work on computing, embodied in the realisation of the modern computer. These ideas are traced back to their emergence in the 19th century where they are explicit in the work of Babbage and Ada Lovelace. Mechanical process, algorithms, computation as systematic method, and the relationship between halting and solvability are part of an unexpected congruence between the pre-history of electronic computing and the modern age. The chapter concludes with a consideration of whether Turing was aware of these origins and, if so, the extent—if any—to which he may have been influenced by them. Computing is widely seen as a gift of the modern age. The huge growth in computing coincided with, and was fuelled by, developments in electronics, a phenomenon decidedly of our own times. Alan Turing’s earliest work on automatic computation coincided with the dawn of the electronic age, the late 1930s, and his name is an inseparable part of the narrative of the pioneering era of automatic computing that unfolded. Identifying computing with the electronic age has had the effect of eradicating pre-history. It is as though the modern era with its rampant achievements stands alone and separate from the computational devices and aids that pre-date it. In the 18th century lex continui in natura proclaimed that nature had no discontinuities, and we tend to view historical causation in the same way. Discontinuities in history are uncomfortable: they offend against gradualism, or at least against the idea of the irreducible interconnectedness of events. The central assertion of this chapter is that core ideas evidenced in modern computing, ideas with which Turing is closely associated, emerged explicitly in the 19th century, a hundred years earlier than is commonly credited.


2014 ◽  
Vol 687-691 ◽  
pp. 3083-3086
Author(s):  
Sheng Pu Li ◽  
Xiao Hui Wang

RFID can give a unique digital identifier to real physical object, and bridges the physical world with the virtual digital world. Based on the analysis on our experience of RFID applications, some common key issues and requirements of RFID application are presented. A lightweight framework based on Web Service to support ubiquitous RFID application of medicine logistics is designed and implemented. This lightweight framework provides the integration of RFID technology and other holistic applications. Virtual object is used to map the real physical world object and the virtual digital object. Experiment result is given and some future research directions are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Dürnberger

Green genetic engineering is one of the most controversial technologies in recent history. On the basis of a qualitative content analysis of German position papers criticising this technology, this book clarifies three questions: Why is the controversy so vehement and emotional? Why is there no prospect of a compromise on this matter? And what ideas of the relationship between humans and nature play a role in the dispute? ‘Nature’ is omnipresent and dazzling, but how is this term used in current social debates? What concrete interpretations is ‘nature’ associated with? This study understands the controversy over green genetic engineering as an exemplary controversy that exposes fundamental aspects of the modern age and its relationship to nature.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-92
Author(s):  
Kerem Eksen ◽  

The present study is an attempt to contribute to the debates on the relationship between spiritual traditions and Descartes’s Meditations. Taking its point of departure from Pierre Hadot’s inspiring studies, the article aims to describe the nature of the philosophical practice that Meditations embodies and to discuss the ways in which the work can be located in the history of the relations between theory and practice. To this end, Hadot’s suggestion that Meditations should be read as a set of spiritual exercises will be criticized through an analysis of the nature of the “non-argumentative” or “experiential” level that is at work in Descartes’s text. By showing that the transformation intended by Descartes does not reach beyond the level of cognition, it will be argued that even though Descartes makes use of certain key elements of the spiritualist literature, he belongs to the modern age of “philosophy without spirituality.”


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (123) ◽  
pp. 269-290
Author(s):  
Aslaug Nyrnes

Nature is a complex phenomenon; it is both a physical object and a variety of cultural imaginations and representations. The current climate crises challenge the relationship between nature and language in radically new ways. This article examines an example of what we can call the green topology, figures that are part of, and shape the climate course. Virgil's wheel is a topos from the Middle Age, traced back to the pastoral tradition of Virgil, presenting specific connections between literary style and topography. The question in this article is what perspective on nature is implicit in this thought figure. Do Virgil's wheel as a topos challenge the dominant view on nature from the Romantic period? Can we understand Vergil's wheel in opposition to an anthropocentric world-view? If so, does Vergil's wheel have ecocritic potential? The article draws on perspectives from ecocritical theory, rhetorical topological theory and Schiller's philosophy on nature and the sentimental.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Laura Jamieson

<p>Digital collections are increasingly prominent in museums as born-digital material is acquired by institutions, and digital surrogates of physical items are created through digital imaging, digitisation, and reformatting projects. These digital collections are a significant development in museums and a useful tool, particularly for access. When a digital surrogate is created of a physical object, they have an inherent connection to one another. Representing this relationship is important for museums in order to provide context for their collection items. These types of relationships also occur across physical formats, and the consequence of a breakdown in this relationship has been shown in the literature to lead to a loss of context. However, it is unclear how the relationship a physical object has with its digital surrogate is represented in the metadata. Current literature on digital collections only briefly explores existing relationships between digital and physical collections and provides no framework for best practice in a museum context.  This thesis examines how metadata is used to represent the relationship between a physical object and its digital surrogate at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The research involved a single-site case study, with interviews and documentary research which were thematically analysed. This thesis shows how the relationship between physical and digital objects are primarily represented at Te Papa through the collection management system’s structure, with some metadata elements representing the relationship incidentally. It also shows that there are differing worldviews and perspectives across the GLAM domains in the language and the drivers of digitisation.  This research serves as a snapshot of current practice at one institution and encourages further research to better understand the long-term implications of this and other approaches. For museums, understanding how the relationship between physical objects and digital surrogates is currently being represented through metadata could help support professional practice for both types of collections, ensure the relationship is maintained, and help support existing and future digital interventions in museums.</p>


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