Providing Enhanced Digital Access to a Collection of Material Photographs: a Considered Approach

The material-turn in photographic studies reveals that photographs cannot be correctly understood without direct interpretation of their physicality; however, institutions with photograph collections are increasingly offering digital access to these physical objects. With the benefits of digital access being too great to ignore, this research determines how a public institution can best enhance access to a collection of material photographs through digital media, while maintaining the core needs of the institution, its users, and the meaning of the photographs themselves. Using the Charles Chusseau-Flaviens collection at George Eastman House as an example, this research reveals practical benefits of combining Web 2.0 technologies such as Flickr with Encoded Archival Description (EAD) into an effective and efficient collection-level finding aid. This thesis presents an approach to providing enhanced digital access to a large collection of photographs while considering their materiality. The resulting finding aid can be found at: http://www.ryanbuckley.ca/findingaid/chusseau-flaviens.xml.

Providing Enhanced Digital Access to a Collection of Material Photographs: a Considered Approach

The material-turn in photographic studies reveals that photographs cannot be correctly understood without direct interpretation of their physicality; however, institutions with photograph collections are increasingly offering digital access to these physical objects. With the benefits of digital access being too great to ignore, this research determines how a public institution can best enhance access to a collection of material photographs through digital media, while maintaining the core needs of the institution, its users, and the meaning of the photographs themselves. Using the Charles Chusseau-Flaviens collection at George Eastman House as an example, this research reveals practical benefits of combining Web 2.0 technologies such as Flickr with Encoded Archival Description (EAD) into an effective and efficient collection-level finding aid. This thesis presents an approach to providing enhanced digital access to a large collection of photographs while considering their materiality. The resulting finding aid can be found at: http://www.ryanbuckley.ca/findingaid/chusseau-flaviens.xml.

Approach to management of heterogeneous swarms of devices

The paper describes an approach to management of heterogeneous swarm of cyber-physical devices. This approach includes 3 functional levels: the aggregation level, the peripheral level and the data collection level. Variants of using this approach are considered: a crisis management network, a robotic complex for monitoring premises and a system for detecting security incidents in premises.

The Circular Economy and Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste Recycling Strategies

Densely populated areas with large incoming populations have difficulty achieving high separate collection rates of municipal solid waste. The manuscript analyzes the link between biowaste collection and circular economy requirements as a fulfilment of the recycling rates and using biogas as a sustainable energy source. Three biowaste collection scenarios and three technical scenarios for its treatment are considered. The first scenario assumes only composting for biowaste treatment, the next includes also anaerobic digestion. In the years 2020–2050, the separate biowaste collection level will increase, depending on the scenario, from 26.9 kg/inh. up to 148.1kg/inh. By 2030, the quantity of biogas generated from biowaste can grow to almost 9 million m3/year, enabling the production of renewable energy at annual levels of almost 17 GWh and 69 TJ. Using the third scenario, the quantity of biogas generated grows more than twice (in 2035). If the capture rate of biowaste increases from 15% to 20% and then to 25%, the quantity of biogas generated grows by, respectively, 65% and more than 100%. Unfortunately, none of the scenarios enables the required municipal solid waste recycling rates in 2030 (60%) and 2035 (65%), which demonstrates the significant need to develop more effective separate collection systems, including biowaste. Methodology applied in the paper can be used for other cities and regions trying to meet circular economy demands.

More product, more process: metadata in digital image collections

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the implications of current theories that advocate for minimal levels of description in digital collections. Specifically, this paper looks at the archival theory of “More Product, Less Process” and its encouragement of collection-level description. The purpose of the study was to analyze how levels of description impact resource retrieval. Design/methodology/approach This study analyzed 35 images from a New York Public Library (NYPL) digital collection present on the NYPL website and on Flickr. The methodology was designed to reflect users’ information seeking behavior for image collections. There were two research questions guiding this study: what are the descriptive terms used to describe items in digital collections? and what is the success rate of retrieving resources using assigned descriptive terms? Findings The results of this study revealed that the images from the NYPL collection were more difficult to find on the institution’s website as compared with Flickr. These findings suggest that lesser levels of description in digital collections hinder resource retrieval. Research limitations/implications These findings suggest that lesser description levels hurt the findability of resources. In the wake of theories such as “More Product, Less Process”, information professionals must find ways to assign metadata to individual materials in digital image collections. Originality/value Recent research concerning description levels of digital collections is several years old and focuses mostly on the usefulness of collection-level metadata as a supplement to or substitute for item-level metadata. Few, if any, studies exist that explore the implications of description levels on resource retrievability and findability. This study is also unique in that it discusses these implications in the context of less-is-more theories of archival processing.

BioSCOOP – Biobank Sample Communication Protocol. New approach for the transfer of information between biobanks

Dynamic development of biobanking industry (both business and science) resulted in an increased number of IT systems for samples and data management. The most difficult and complicated case for the biobanking community was cooperation between institutions, equipped with different IT systems, in the field of scientific research, mainly data interchange and information flow. Tools available on the market relate mainly to the biobank or collection level. Efficient and universal protocols including the detailed information about the donor and the sample are still very limited. Here, we have developed BioSCOOP, a communication protocol in the form of a well documented JSON API. The main aim of this study was to harmonize and standardize the rules of communication between biobanks on the level of information about the donor together with information about the sample. The purpose was to create a communication protocol for two applications: to transfer the information between different biobanks and to allow the searching and presentation of the sample and data sets.

The Heritability of Some Qualitative and Quantitative Traits at One Set of Spring Barley Genotypes

Work collections are subjected to a renewal process, therefore a regular evaluation is needed inorder to appreciate the genetic advance of the existing variability at collection level and further to identify valuable genotypes in terms of morphoproductive and qualitative traits (protein, starch). The barley intended for brewing must correspond to some qualitative parameters, of which proteins and starch content are of major importance. For this purpose, a study was conducted to assess the variability and heritability indicators corresponding to the two traits at 48 barley genotypes. The genotypes that were the subject of this study were sown in three experimental years 2013, 2014 and 2016. The mean values of 2013 year was 13.71 compared with only 10.77, and 11.27 in 2014 and 2016. The significant value of the heritability coefficient along with the genetic advantage of 0.81 indicates the success of selection work for this important chemical trait.

A logic-based framework for collection/item metadata relationships

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for the articulation of relationships between collection-level and item-level metadata as logical inference rules. The framework is intended to allow the systematic generation of relevant propagation rules and to enable the assessment of those rules for particular contexts and the translation of rules into algorithmic processes. Design/methodology/approach The framework was developed using first order predicate logic. Relationships between collection-level and item-level description are expressed as propagation rules – inference rules where the properties of one entity entail conclusions about another entity in virtue of a particular relationship those individuals bear to each other. Propagation rules for reasoning between the collection and item level are grouped together in the framework according to their logical form as determined by the nature of the propagation action and the attributes involved in the rule. Findings The primary findings are the analysis of relationships between collection-level and item-level metadata, and the framework of categories of propagation rules. In order to fully develop the framework, the paper includes an analysis of colloquial metadata records and the collection membership relation that provides a general method for the translation of metadata records into formal knowledge representation languages. Originality/value The method for formalizing metadata records described in the paper represents significant progress in the application of knowledge representation techniques to problems of metadata creation and management, providing a flexible technique for encoding colloquial metadata as a set of statements in first-order logic. The framework of rules for collection/item metadata relationships has a range of potential applications for the enhancement or metadata systems and vocabularies.