Mapping the West: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photographs from the Boston Public Library

This is the catalogue of the exhibition "Mapping the West" at Boston University Art Gallery

Boston Unplugged: Mapping a Wireless Future

Reviews a variety of models that would allow Boston to provide free or low-cost high-speed Internet access citywide. Outlines the benefits and mechanics of citywide WiFi, and lists factors to consider in designing, developing, and deploying a system

X-Ray Scanner for Atlas Barrel TRT Modules

X-ray scanners for gain mapping of ATLAS Barrel Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) modules were developed at Hampton University for quality assurance purposes. Gas gain variations for each straw of the TRT modules were used to decide whether wires should be removed or restrung, and to evaluate overall module quality.Comment: Conference proceeding in the XXIV Physics in Collisions Conference (PIC04), Boston, USA, June 2004, 3 pages, LaTeX, 6 eps figures. MONP0

The Shortest Path to Happiness: Recommending Beautiful, Quiet, and Happy Routes in the City

When providing directions to a place, web and mobile mapping services are all able to suggest the shortest route. The goal of this work is to automatically suggest routes that are not only short but also emotionally pleasant. To quantify the extent to which urban locations are pleasant, we use data from a crowd-sourcing platform that shows two street scenes in London (out of hundreds), and a user votes on which one looks more beautiful, quiet, and happy. We consider votes from more than 3.3K individuals and translate them into quantitative measures of location perceptions. We arrange those locations into a graph upon which we learn pleasant routes. Based on a quantitative validation, we find that, compared to the shortest routes, the recommended ones add just a few extra walking minutes and are indeed perceived to be more beautiful, quiet, and happy. To test the generality of our approach, we consider Flickr metadata of more than 3.7M pictures in London and 1.3M in Boston, compute proxies for the crowdsourced beauty dimension (the one for which we have collected the most votes), and evaluate those proxies with 30 participants in London and 54 in Boston. These participants have not only rated our recommendations but have also carefully motivated their choices, providing insights for future work.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 201

Experimental maps of DNA structure at nucleotide resolution distinguish intrinsic from protein-induced DNA deformations

Recognition of DNA by proteins depends on DNA sequence and structure. Often unanswered is whether the structure of naked DNA persists in a protein–DNA complex, or whether protein binding changes DNA shape. While X-ray structures of protein–DNA complexes are numerous, the structure of naked cognate DNA is seldom available experimentally. We present here an experimental and computational analysis pipeline that uses hydroxyl radical cleavage to map, at single-nucleotide resolution, DNA minor groove width, a recognition feature widely exploited by proteins. For 11 protein–DNA complexes, we compared experimental maps of naked DNA minor groove width with minor groove width measured from X-ray co-crystal structures. Seven sites had similar minor groove widths as naked DNA and when bound to protein. For four sites, part of the DNA in the complex had the same structure as naked DNA, and part changed structure upon protein binding. We compared the experimental map with minor groove patterns of DNA predicted by two computational approaches, DNAshape and ORChID2, and found good but not perfect concordance with both. This experimental approach will be useful in mapping structures of DNA sequences for which high-resolution structural data are unavailable. This approach allows probing of protein family-dependent readout mechanisms.National Institutes of Health [R01GM106056 to R.R., T.D.T.; U54CA121852 in part to T.D.T.]; Boston University Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program [Faculty Matching Grants to D.O. and Y.J.]; USC Graduate School [Research Enhancement Fellowship and Manning Endowed Fellowship to T.P.C.]. R.R. is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Funding for open access charge: Boston University. (R01GM106056 - National Institutes of Health; U54CA121852 - National Institutes of Health; Boston University Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program; USC Graduate School; Boston University)https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/46/5/2636/4829691?searchresult=1https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/46/5/2636/4829691?searchresult=1Published versio

A system for automated lexical mapping

Thesis (S.M.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 19-20).Merging of clinical systems and medical databases, or aggregation of information from disparate databases, frequently requires a process where vocabularies are compared and similar concepts are mapped. Using a normalization phase followed by a novel alignment stage inspired by DNA sequence alignment methods, automated lexical mapping can map terms from various databases to standard vocabularies such as UMLS (Unified Medical Language System) and SNOMED (the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine). This automated lexical mapping was evaluated using a real-world database of consultation letters from Children's Hospital Boston. The first phase involved extracting the reason for referral from the consultation letters. The reasons for referral were then mapped to SNOMED. The alignment algorithm was able to map 72% of equivalent concepts through lexical mapping alone. Lexical mapping can facilitate the integration of data from diverse sources and decrease the time and cost required for manual mapping and integration of clinical systems and medical databases.by Jennifer Y. Sun.S.M

Mapping School Choice in Massachusetts: Data and Findings 2003

School choice is a highly controversial topic in Massachusetts' educational policy circles these days. In recent years, the Commonwealth has offered students and their families a variety of school choice options, but very little funding has been dedicated to studying the impact, availability and enrollment trends of school choice. As a result, policymakers are forced to shape a policy agenda based upon conjecture rather than evidence.The Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, with the support of the Boston Foundation, commissioned this school choice mapping research to fill the informational gap. With this study, prepared by the researchers at the University of Massachusetts' Center for Education Policy, we seek to provide independently gathered evidence to better inform policymakers and researchers and to draw attention to policy issues that require further attention and investigation. We believe that school choice will continue to play a central role in the education reform debate and that this initial mapping is essential to display and benchmark current school choice phenomena while providing a basis for future trend analysis.This report describes the various school choice options in Massachusetts and details the extent to which each school choice option is available and exercised. School choice options that were examined include:Charter schoolsPrivate and parochial schoolsInter-district school choiceHome-schoolingMETCOVocational optionsIntra-district school choiceSpecial education programsTo the extent possible using current data, the report includes:Information on the national context;Statewide information on utilization of each of the options; andIn-depth look at school choice dynamics in the metropolitan Boston area.This report is intended to provide baseline data, rather than in-depth analysis of the status of school choice in Massachusetts. In addition, this report contains a policy brief that highlights the impact of trends in student enrollment and the availability of school choice in the Commonwealth

Planning a Central Cartographic Web Portal for the Revolutionary War Era, 1750-1800

The Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library is developing a Central Cartographic Web Portal, focusing on the American Revolutionary War Era. This curated database will provide broad access to primary source documents that will include a judicious selection of the best and most informative printed and manuscript maps from approximately ten collections in the U.S. and Europe. The materials will focus on military mapping; 18th century American maritime charts; and urban mapping. The theme of the American Revolutionary War Era will serve as a pilot and model for additional themes in future years. Two advisory teams, one composed of curators and humanities experts, the other of technical expertise for cataloging and data management, will advise and create protocols for all aspects of the project. The site will improve access to vastly expanded resources through technology; advancing the scholarly, educational and cultural enrichment missions of all participating institutions