scholarly journals Access to Natural History Collections – from SYNTHESYS to DiSSCo

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Knapp ◽  
Sarah Vincent ◽  
Christos Arvanitidis ◽  
Katherine Dixey ◽  
Patricia Mergen
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Community Change ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Access Programme ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Physical Access

Any one collection of objects never tells the whole story. Enabling access to natural history collections by users external to a given institution, has a long history–even that great stay-at-home, Linnaeus, relied on specimens in the hands of others. Neglecting collections outside one’s institution results in duplication and inefficiency, as can be seen in the history of synonymy. Physical access had always been the norm, but difficult for the single individual. A student in the late 20th century had to decide if money were better spent going to one collection or another, or if the sometimes rather fuzzy photographs really represented the taxon she was working with. Loans between institutions were a way to provide access, but came with their own risks. The very individualised–to users as well as institutions–system of access provisioning still operates today but has fundamentally changed in several respects. The SYNTHESYS (Synthesis of Systematic Resources) projects brought a set of European institutions into a consortium with one aim: to provide access to natural history collections in order to stimulate their use across communities. The SYNTHESYS Transnational Access (TA) programme provided access not only to the collections of participating institutions, but also to infrastructures such as laboratories and analytical facilities. The trajectory of TA has led to a change in thinking about natural history collections, along with access to them. Because access has been subsidised at both the individual and institutional levels, participating institutions began to function more as a collective; one infrastructure, albeit loosely dispersed. In the most recent iteration of the SYNTHESYS programme, SYNTHESYS+, access has changed yet again with the times. Technological advances in imaging permit high-quality surrogates of natural history specimens to be exchanged more freely, and Virtual Access (VA) forms an integral part of the SYNTHESYS+ access programme, alongside TA. Virtual access has been operating for some time in the natural history collections community, but like TA, with individual scientists requesting images/sequences/scans from individual institutions or curators. VA, as a centralised service, will be piloted in SYNTHESYS+ in order to establish the basis for community change in access provisioning. But what next? Will we continue to need physical access to specimens and facilities as VA becomes increasingly feasible? As European collections-based institutions coalesce into the DiSSCo (Distributed System of Systematics Collections) infrastructure, will the model established in SYNTHESYS+ continue to function in the absence of centralised funding? In this talk, we will explore the trajectory of access through SYNTHESYS and provide some scenarios for how access to natural history collections–both physical and virtual–may change as we transition to the broader infrastructure that DiSSCo represents.

scholarly journals SYNTHESYS+ Virtual Access - Report on the Ideas Call (October to November 2019)

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Hardy ◽  
Sandra Knapp ◽  
E. Louise Allan ◽  
Frederik Berger ◽  
Katherine Dixey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Access Programme ◽  
Physical Access ◽  
First Time

The SYNTHESYS consortium has been operational since 2004, and has facilitated physical access by individual researchers to European natural history collections through its Transnational Access programme (TA). For the first time, SYNTHESYS+ will be offering virtual access to collections through digitisation, with two calls for the programme, the first in 2020 and the second in 2021. The Virtual Access (VA) programme is not a direct digital parallel of Transnational Access - proposals for collections digitisation will be prioritised and carried out based on community demand, and data must be made openly available immediately. A key feature of Virtual Access is that, unlike TA, it does not select the researchers to whom access is provided. Because Virtual Access in this way is new to the community and to the collections-holding institutions, the SYNTHESYS+ consortium invited ideas through an Ideas Call, that opened on 7th October 2019 and closed on 22nd November 2019, in order to assess interest and to trial procedures. This report is intended to provide feedback to those who participated in the Ideas Call and to help all applicants to the first SYNTHESYS+Virtual Access Call that will be launched on 20th of February 2020.

Correspondence between Adolphe Brongniart and Robert Schomburgk: trading natural history collections for honours

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-336
Author(s):  
PIOTR DASZKIEWICZ ◽  
MICHEL JEGU
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Herbarium Specimens ◽  
British Guiana ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
German Naturalist

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses some correspondence between Robert Schomburgk (1804–1865) and Adolphe Brongniart (1801–1876). Four letters survive, containing information about the history of Schomburgk's collection of fishes and plants from British Guiana, and his herbarium specimens from Dominican Republic and southeast Asia. A study of these letters has enabled us to confirm that Schomburgk supplied the collection of fishes from Guiana now in the Laboratoire d'Ichtyologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. The letters of the German naturalist are an interesting source of information concerning the practice of sale and exchange of natural history collections in the nineteenth century in return for honours.

scholarly journals Natural History of NAFLD

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1161
Author(s):  
Raluca Pais ◽  
Thomas Maurel
Keyword(s):  
Liver Disease ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Disease Progression ◽  
Specific Treatment ◽  
Alcoholic Fatty Liver ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

The epidemiology and the current burden of chronic liver disease are changing globally, with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) becoming the most frequent cause of liver disease in close relationship with the global epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The clinical phenotypes of NAFLD are very heterogeneous in relationship with multiple pathways involved in the disease progression. In the absence of a specific treatment for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), it is important to understand the natural history of the disease, to identify and to optimize the control of factors that are involved in disease progression. In this paper we propose a critical analysis of factors that are involved in the progression of the liver damage and the occurrence of extra-hepatic complications (cardiovascular diseases, extra hepatic cancer) in patients with NAFLD. We also briefly discuss the impact of the heterogeneity of the clinical phenotype of NAFLD on the clinical practice globally and at the individual level.

Emerson's Atom and the Matter of Suffering

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-47
Author(s):  
Mark Noble
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Classical Field Theory ◽  
Classical Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Solid Bodies ◽  
Lines Of Force

This essay argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson's interest in the cutting-edge science of his generation helps to shape his understanding of persons as fluid expressions of power rather than solid bodies. In his 1872 "Natural History of Intellect," Emerson correlates the constitution of the individual mind with the tenets of Michael Faraday's classical field theory. For Faraday, experimenting with electromagnetism reveals that the atom is a node or point on a network, and that all matter is really the arrangement of energetic lines of force. This atomic model offers Emerson a technology for envisioning a materialized subjectivity that both unravels personal identity and grants access to impersonal power. On the one hand, adopting Faraday's field theory resonates with many of the affirmative philosophical and ethical claims central to Emerson's early essays. On the other hand, however, distributing the properties of Faraday's atoms onto the properties of the person also entails moments in which materialized subjects encounter their own partiality, limitation, and suffering. I suggest that Emerson represents these aspects of experience in terms that are deliberately discrepant from his conception of universal power. He presumes that if every experience boils down to the same lines of force, then the particular can be trivialized with respect to the general. As a consequence, Emerson must insulate his philosophical assertions from contamination by our most poignant experiences of limitation. The essay concludes by distinguishing Emersonian "Necessity" from Friedrich Nietzsche's similar conception of amor fati, which routes the affirmation of fate directly through suffering.

Tracking changes in natural history collections utilization: A case study at the Museum of Southwestern Biology at the University of New Mexico

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethany L. Abrahamson
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
University Of New Mexico ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Data Source ◽  
History Of Use ◽  
The University

AbstractNatural history collections (NHCs) are used in many fields of study, but general knowledge regarding their uses is poor. Because of this, funding and support for NHCs frequently fluctuate. One way in which collections professionals can illustrate a collection’s contribution to a variety of fields is based on the collection’s history of use. Tracking NHC utilization through time can increase NHC value to others outside of the collection, allow for the analysis of changes in specimen-based research trends, and assist in effective collection management. This case study focuses on NHC usage records held by the Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB), a currently growing university collection used in many research fields, and presents methods for quantifying collections utilization through time. Through an exploration of these data, this paper illustrates MSB’s growth and changes in research produced over time and offers explanations for the changes observed. Last, this study provides suggestions for how collections professionals can most greatly benefit from considering NHC records as a data source. Understanding NHC usage from “the collection’s perspective” provides a new way for NHC professionals to understand NHCs’ value in the context of the research it supports and demonstrates the importance of this key infrastructure to a broader audience.

scholarly journals The colonial legacy of herbaria

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
DA S Park ◽  
Xiao Feng ◽  
Shinobu Akiyama ◽  
Marlina Ardiyani ◽  
Neida Avendano ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Plant Biodiversity ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Colonial Legacy ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global North ◽  
Herbarium Collections

Herbarium collections shape our understanding of the world's flora and are crucial for addressing global change and biodiversity conservation. The formation of such natural history collections, however, are not free from sociopolitical issues of immediate relevance. Despite increasing efforts addressing issues of representation and colonialism in natural history collections, herbaria have received comparatively less attention. While it has been noted that the majority of plant specimens are housed in the global North, the extent of this disparity has not been rigorously quantified to date. Here, by analyzing over 85 million specimen records and surveying herbaria across the globe, we assess the colonial legacy of botanical collections and how we may move towards a more inclusive future. We demonstrate that colonial exploitation has contributed to an inverse relationship between where plant biodiversity exists in nature and where it is housed in herbaria. Such disparities persist in herbaria across physical and digital realms despite overt colonialism having ended over half a century ago, suggesting ongoing digitization and decolonization efforts have yet to alleviate colonial-era discrepancies. We emphasize the need for acknowledging the inconvenient history of herbarium collections and the implementation of a more equitable, global paradigm for their collection, curation, and use.

scholarly journals Automated Methods in Digitisation of Pinned Insects

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhengzhe Wu ◽  
Jere Kahanpää ◽  
Pasi Sihvonen ◽  
Anne Koivunen ◽  
Hannu Saarenmaa
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
3D Model ◽  
Multispectral Imaging ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Prototype System ◽  
Robot Arm ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Individual Specimen ◽  
The Individual

Digitisation of natural history collections draws increasing attention. The digitised specimens not only facilitate the long-term preservation of biodiversity information but also boost the easy access and sharing of information. There are more than two billion specimens in the world’s natural history collections and pinned insect specimens compose of more than half of them (Tegelberg et al. 2014, Tegelberg et al. 2017). However, it is still a challenge to digitise pinned insect specimens with current state-of-art systems. The slowness of imaging pinned insects is due to the fact that they are essentially 3D objects and associated labels are pinned under the insect specimen. During the imaging process, the labels are often removed manually, which slows down the whole process. How can we avoid handling the labels pinned under often fragile and valuable specimens in order to increase the speed of digitsation? In our work (Saarenmaa et al. 2019) for T3.1.2 task in the ICEDIG (https://www.icedig.eu) project, we first briefly reviewed the state-of-the-art approaches on small insect digitisation. Then recent promising technological advances on imaging were presented, some of which have not yet been used for insect digitisation. It seems that one single approach will not be enough to digitise all insect collections efficiently. The approach has to be optimized based on the features of the specimens and their associated labels. To obtain a breakthrough in insect digitisation, it is necessary to utilize a combination of existing and new technologies in novel workflows. To explore the options, we identified six approaches for digitising pinned insects with the goal of minimum manipulations of labels as follows. Minimal labels: Image selected individual specimens without removing labels from the pin by using two cameras. This method suits for small insects with only one or a few well-spaced labels. Multiple webcams: Similar to the minimal labels approach, but with multiple webcams at different positions. This has been implemented in a prototype system with 12 cameras (Hereld et al. 2017) and in the ALICE system with six DSLR cameras (Price et al. 2018). Imaging of units: Similar to the multiple webcams approach, but image the entire unit (“Units” are small boxes or trays contained in drawers of collection cabinets, and are being used in most major insect collections). Camera in robot arm: Image the individual specimen or the unit with the camera mounted at a robot arm to capture large number of images from different views. Camera on rails: Similar to camera in robot arm approach, but the camera is mounted on rails to capture the unit. A 3D model of the insects and/or units can be created, and then labels are extracted. This is being prototyped by the ENTODIG-3D system (Ylinampa and Saarenmaa 2019). Terahertz time-gated multispectral imaging: Image the individual specimen with terahertz time-gated multispectral imaging devices. Minimal labels: Image selected individual specimens without removing labels from the pin by using two cameras. This method suits for small insects with only one or a few well-spaced labels. Multiple webcams: Similar to the minimal labels approach, but with multiple webcams at different positions. This has been implemented in a prototype system with 12 cameras (Hereld et al. 2017) and in the ALICE system with six DSLR cameras (Price et al. 2018). Imaging of units: Similar to the multiple webcams approach, but image the entire unit (“Units” are small boxes or trays contained in drawers of collection cabinets, and are being used in most major insect collections). Camera in robot arm: Image the individual specimen or the unit with the camera mounted at a robot arm to capture large number of images from different views. Camera on rails: Similar to camera in robot arm approach, but the camera is mounted on rails to capture the unit. A 3D model of the insects and/or units can be created, and then labels are extracted. This is being prototyped by the ENTODIG-3D system (Ylinampa and Saarenmaa 2019). Terahertz time-gated multispectral imaging: Image the individual specimen with terahertz time-gated multispectral imaging devices. Experiments on selected approaches 2 and 5 are in progress and the preliminary results will be presented.

Statistics of Insanity of the Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries

1865 ◽  
Vol 11 (54) ◽  
pp. 151-173
Author(s):  
Hugh G. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disease ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Perfect Knowledge ◽  
Long Duration ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Complete History

As mental disease is generally of longer duration than other diseases, especially as seen in asylums for the insane—as it may be of life-long duration, and may frequently recur, or threaten to recur, in a single individual—to obtain a perfect knowledge of insanity, its history should extend from the earliest symptoms, and its subject be traced throughout life. Hence statistics which are made from records extending over a greater number of years are much more valuable than those which embody the results of a shorter period. A perfect series of statistical tables would require to exhibit, as far as they can, the complete history of every case, from the commencement of the mental disease until the death of the individual. This, however, is almost impossible. Dr. Thurnam,∗ under peculiar circumstances, has been able to give a series of statistics which trace the history of individuals beyond the asylum walls; but in ordinary cases such completeness is not obtainable, and we must content ourselves with less perfect results. Generally the history of the patient ceases when he leaves the asylum, and any facts we may obtain in his subsequent career are so few, and possibly inaccurate, that they cannot be embodied as trustworthy statistics. The history of those dying in the asylum, and of those under observation for five years or more, is more complete; but such cases are only those in whom treatment has been unsuccessful. In the cases of readmission, however, we have generally more trustworthy data, and are thus enabled to trace many subjects of mental disease throughout life.

Resources for the History of Science in the Libraries of the British Museum (Natural History)

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. R. Banks
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Blue Whale ◽  
The Public ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
History Of

Alfred Waterhouse's ornate Romanesque building at South Kensington, London, has contained the natural history collections of the British Museum since 1881. First opened to the public on Easter Monday, 18 April, in that year, the British Museum (Natural History) (BM(NH)) has become well-known for the excellence of its exhibition galleries, particularly for its dinosaurs, blue whale, and, more recently, for its revolutionary Hall of Human Biology.

scholarly journals When commerce, science, and leisure collaborated: the nineteenth-century global trade boom in natural history collections

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Coote ◽  
Alison Haynes ◽  
Jude Philp ◽  
Simon Ville
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Global Trade ◽  
Global History ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Business Logistics ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

AbstractNatural history products formed an important, but little studied, component of the globalization of trade in the mid nineteenth century. The trade, specifically in zoology, occurred in the face of considerable challenges. It penetrated some of the more remote areas of the globe; its products were heterogeneous and difficult to price; and exchange occurred among scientists, commercial traders, and collectors, each of whom had their own particular practices and mores. This article charts the dimensions of this trade and offers explanations about the ways in which its complexities were addressed through major developments in taxidermy, taxonomy, transport and business logistics, alternative forms of exchange, and trust-based networks. More broadly, our work speaks to current developments in global history, imperial networks, and the history of scientific collecting.

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