A geo-temporal information extraction service for processing descriptive metadata in digital libraries

In the context of digital map libraries, resources are usually described according to metadata records that define the relevant subject, location, time-span, format and keywords. On what concerns locations and time-spans, metadata records are often incomplete or they provide information in a way that is not machine-understandable (e.g. textual descriptions). This paper presents techniques for extracting geotemporal information from text, using relatively simple text mining methods that leverage on a Web gazetteer service. The idea is to go from human-made geotemporal referencing (i.e. using place and period names in textual expressions) into geo-spatial coordinates and time-spans. A prototype system, implementing the proposed methods, is described in detail. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approaches

Linking early geospatial documents, one place at a time: annotation of geographic documents with Recogito

Recogito is an open source tool for the semi-automatic annotation of place references in maps and texts. It was developed as part of the Pelagios 3 research project, which aims to build up a comprehensive directory of places referred to in early maps and geographic writing predating the year 1492. Pelagios 3 focuses specifically on sources from the Classical Latin, Greek and Byzantine periods; on Mappae Mundi and narrative texts from the European Medieval period; on Late Medieval Portolans; and on maps and texts from the early Islamic and early Chinese traditions. Since the start of the project in September 2013, the team has harvested more than 120,000 toponyms, manually verifying almost 60,000 of them. Furthermore, the team held two public annotation workshops supported through the Open Humanities Awards 2014. In these workshops, a mixed audience of students and academics of different backgrounds used Recogito to add several thousand contributions on each workshop day. A number of benefits arise out of this work: on the one hand, the digital identification of places – and the names used for them – makes the documents' contents amenable to information retrieval technology, i.e. documents become more easily search- and discoverable to users than through conventional metadata-based search alone. On the other hand, the documents are opened up to new forms of re-use. For example, it becomes possible to “map” and compare the narrative of texts, and the contents of maps with modern day tools like Web maps and GIS; or to analyze and contrast documents’ geographic properties, toponymy and spatial relationships. Seen in a wider context, we argue that initiatives such as ours contribute to the growing ecosystem of the “Graph of Humanities Data” that is gathering pace in the Digital Humanities (linking data about people, places, events, canonical references, etc.), which has the potential to open up new avenues for computational and quantitative research in a variety of fields including History, Geography, Archaeology, Classics, Genealogy and Modern Languages

Bronfenbrenner in context and in motion

Urie Bronfenbrenner\u27s contributions to the understanding of human development span the multilayered contexts he himself identified. He succeeded in reframing the study of development, from an exclusive focus on the decontextualized individual to viewing developing persons in dynamic transaction with the multiple, nested layers of the (changing) environments in which they are embedded. He has been equally influential in moving scholarship in the social sciences beyond the false dichotomy differentiating \u27basic\u27 from \u27applied\u27 research, as well as the artificial divides between science and social policy. Urie\u27s greatest contribution is this: He transformed the way all of us - scholars, parents, teachers, policy makers - study, conceptualize, write about, and seek to enhance human development. His theories and concepts have been usefully employed by scholars located within and/or working across a wide range of societal, disciplinary, substantive, and age-graded boundaries. (DIPF/Orig.)Urie Bronfenbrenners Beitrag die menschliche Entwicklung zu verstehen, umfasst den mehrschichtigen Kontext, der durch ihn selbst gekennzeichnet wurde. Es gelang ihm die Untersuchung der Entwicklung von einem außergewöhnlichen Blickwinkel aus neu zu entwerfen: die Analyse die sich entwickelnder Personen in ihrer dynamischen Beziehung mit den vielfältigen ineinander geschachtelten (und sich verändernden) Umgebungen, in denen sie eingebunden sind. Er hat ebenso maßgeblich dazu beigetragen, die Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft in den Sozialwissenschaften dahingehend zu beeinflussen, die falsche Dichotomie von \u27einfacher\u27 und \u27angewandter\u27 Forschung zu überwinden, genauso wie die künstliche Trennung zwischen Wissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Uries größter Beitrag ist, dass er die Denkweise von uns allen - Wissenschaftlern, Eltern, Lehrern und Verantwortlichen in der Politik - veränderte, die Art und Weise wie die menschliche Entwicklung zu untersuchen, begrifflich gedacht, darüber zu schreiben und zu verbessern sei. Seine Theorien und Konzepte wurden von Wissenschaftlern nutzbringend angewendet, die sowohl innerhalb ihrer Grenzen als auch über diese gesellschaftlichen, disziplinären, substanziellen und altersgestuften Grenzen hinaus arbeiten. (DIPF/Orig.

Bringing the Field into the Classroom by Using Dynamic Digital Maps to Engage Undergraduate Students in Petrology Research

This article describes the use of Dynamic Digital Maps (DDMs) in undergraduate petrology courses. A DDM is a stand-alone computer program that presents interactive geologic maps, digital images, movies, animations, text and data. DDMs were developed for use in two undergraduate research projects, and impacts on student learning were evaluated by administering assessments on students before and after participation in one of the projects. Researchers found significant gains in both students' confidence in their ability to do research and to understand petrology, and noted that DDMs are versatile and can potentially be adapted effectively from 100-level introductory geology labs to research-oriented gradute level courses and in a variety of geologic subdisciplines. Educational levels: Graduate or professional, Graduate or professional

A summary of research in elementary school social studies (1948-1950)

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Archives Conservation Discussion Group 2011: Digitization and Its Effect on Conservation Treatment Decisions: How Has Wide-Spread Digitizing of Collections Changed Our Approach to Treatment?

In line with this year’s AIC theme: ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS: ethical principles and critical thinking in conservation, The Archives Conservation Discussion Group 2011 examined the impact of providing digital collections in museums and libraries, and their conservation implications. Presentations and a subsequent discussion covered topics such as: How conservators are balancing ethical concerns, especially as dictated by the AIC Code of Ethics, with increased demand from digital projects. How conservators are keeping pace with large-scale or fast-paced digitizing projects, while maintaining standards. And the impact of limiting access to original materials by providing digital surrogates and its effect on treatment decisions

Digitometric Services for Open Archives Environments

We describe “digitometric” services and tools that add value to open-access eprint archives using the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. Celestial is an OAI cache and gateway tool. Citebase Search enhances OAI-harvested metadata with linked references harvested from the full-text to provide a web service for citation navigation and research impact analysis. Digitometrics builds on data harvested using OAI to provide advanced visualisation and hypertext navigation for the research community. Together these services provide a modular, distributed architecture for building a “semantic web” for the research literature

Analysing trade-offs and synergies between SDGs for urban development, food security and poverty alleviation in rapidly changing peri-urban areas: a tool to support inclusive urban planning

Transitional peri-urban contexts are frontiers for sustainable development where land-use change involves negotiation and contestation between diverse interest groups. Multiple, complex trade-offs between outcomes emerge which have both negative and positive impacts on progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These trade-offs are often overlooked in policy and planning processes which depend on top-down expert perspectives and rely on course grain aggregate data which does not reflect complex peri-urban dynamics or the rapid pace of change. Tools are required to address this gap, integrate data from diverse perspectives and inform more inclusive planning processes. In this paper, we draw on a reinterpretation of empirical data concerned with land-use change and multiple dimensions of food security from the city of Wuhan in China to illustrate some of the complex trade-offs between SDG goals that tend to be overlooked with current planning approaches. We then describe the development of an interactive web-based tool that implements deep learning methods for fine-grained land-use classification of high-resolution remote sensing imagery and integrates this with a flexible method for rapid trade-off analysis of land-use change scenarios. The development and potential use of the tool are illustrated using data from the Wuhan case study example. This tool has the potential to support participatory planning processes by providing a platform for multiple stakeholders to explore the implications of planning decisions and land-use policies. Used alongside other planning, engagement and ecosystem service mapping tools it can help to reveal invisible trade-offs and foreground the perspectives of diverse stakeholders. This is vital for building approaches which recognise how trade-offs between the achievement of SDGs can be influenced by development interventions

Mapping the Historical Discourse of a Right-To-Read Claim: A Situational Analysis

This dissertation project used an interpretivist qualitative research design to study how the right-to-read claim made by seven teenagers attending Detroit public schools in 2016 reflects, addresses, or describes contemporary discussions about educational access. Using situational analysis (SA) as a theory/method, the entirety of the claim comprises the situation of the social phenomenon being studied, not the people. This research combines critical race theory (CRT) with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems and uses situation analysis to map historical discourses to conduct a study that examines the history of a present situation of inquiry as presented by this question: How does the 2016 right-to-read claim made by high school students in Detroit, Michigan reflect, address, or describe contemporary discussions about educational access? The study collected data to allow me to construct a prosopography that articulates an answer to the question that claims access to literacy is a public school policy right. Because situational analysis (SA) is designed to open research data to aspects of a circumstance that may have been overlooked, marginalized, or silenced, I was not certain the research results would answer this exact question. Additionally, critical theory and SA were used to conduct this qualitative research, examining historical data that addresses the right-to-read claim as a Foucaultian programmatic social problem. As such, it seeks to understand the complexities of recurring and historically situated education practices that limit actualizing U.S. education policies that embrace access to basic literacy skills as a human right. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)