On reflexive and participatory approaches in digital preservation today (Interview with Samantha Lutz)

Digitisation brings new demands and new challenges to the realm of cultural heritage, particularly around voice and preservation. Natalie Harrower is Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI), a national digital repository for archiving, preserving and providing access to Ireland’s cultural heritage, humanities and social sciences data. In the interview, Natalie Harrower examines current developments in digital preservation from a practical perspective, offering concrete examples that range from technical and legal challenges and participatory memory practices to future challenges of digital preservation such as creative practices of reuses, economies of sharing cultural heritage and preservation of digitally-born materials. Against this backdrop, she addresses ethical issues and the question of cultural sustainability, spanning the poles of remembering and forgetting and diverging preservation strategies in today’s digital universe.

Introduction to Citizen Journalism and Social Media Minitrack

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Towards a European network of FAIR-enabling Trustworthy Digital Repositories (TDRs) - A Working Paper

This working paper is a bottom-up initiative of a group of stakeholders from the European repository community. Its purpose is to outline an aspirational vision of a European Network of FAIR-enabling Trustworthy Digital Repositories (TDRs). This initiative originates from the workshop entitled “Towards exploring the idea of establishing the Network”. The paper was created in close connection with the wider community, as its core was built on community feedback and the first draft of the paper was shared for community-wide consultation. This paper will serve as input for the EOSC Task Force on Long Term Digital Preservation. One of the core activities mentioned in the charter of this Task Force is to produce recommendations on the creation of such a network. The working paper puts together a vision of how a European network of FAIR-enabling TDRs could be based on the community’s needs and its most important functions: Networking and knowledge exchange, stakeholder advocacy and engagement, and coordination and development. The specific activities hosted under these umbrella functions could address the wide range of topics that are important to TDRs. Beyond these functions and the challenges they address, the paper presents a framework to highlight aspects of the Network to further explore in the next steps of its development

Going Digital: Creating Change in the Humanities: ALLEA E-HUMANITIES WORKING GROUP REPORT

The report is the output of the ALLEA Working Group on E-Humanities, chaired by Dr Sandra Collins, Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland at the Royal Irish Academy. Edited by Dr. Natalie Harrower, the report was co-written by experts in the Digital Humanities from six Academies across Europe. The report discusses the state of the art of Digital Humanities research and support structures in Europe, and makes key recommendations for the innovations required to foster the continued growth and excellence of the digital humanities in Europe, focusing on digital archiving, long-term preservation, digital research tools, sustained e-infrastructures and research networks. Structured around the data life-cycle, the report is aimed at a range of stakeholders, from humanities researchers to those working with data, and from university administrators to HSS and ICT funding bodies.Key recommendations include:Take a long-term view Sustaining long-term archives of unique and important cultural artefacts is critical for Europe’s leadership in Digital Humanities. Adopting best practice for infrastructures is essential.Encourage openness Open Access to data and infrastructures enables enhanced research, research integrity and cost-effectiveness. Open Data needs to be adequately funded.Support your people Training and career progression are essential to prevent the loss of the critical skills needed to retain our competitiveness in Europe. Data management roles need suitable recognition.ALLEA, the federation of All European Academies, was founded in 1994 and currently brings together 58 Academies in more than 40 countries from the Council of Europe region. Member Academies operate as learned societies, think tanks and research performing organisations. They are self- governing communities of leaders of scholarly enquiry across all fields of the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. ALLEA therefore provides access to an unparalleled human resource of intellectual excellence, experience and expertise

Use of sonic tomography to detect and quantify wood decay in living trees.

Premise of the studyField methodology and image analysis protocols using acoustic tomography were developed and evaluated as a tool to estimate the amount of internal decay and damage of living trees, with special attention to tropical rainforest trees with irregular trunk shapes.Methods and resultsLiving trunks of a diversity of tree species in tropical rainforests in the Republic of Panama were scanned using an Argus Electronic PiCUS 3 Sonic Tomograph and evaluated for the amount and patterns of internal decay. A protocol using ImageJ analysis software was used to quantify the proportions of intact and compromised wood. The protocols provide replicable estimates of internal decay and cavities for trees of varying shapes, wood density, and bark thickness.ConclusionsSonic tomography, coupled with image analysis, provides an efficient, noninvasive approach to evaluate decay patterns and structural integrity of even irregularly shaped living trees

Physiotherapy and occupational therapy vs no therapy in mild to moderate Parkinson disease: a randomized clinical trial

IMPORTANCE It is unclear whether physiotherapy and occupational therapy are clinically effective and cost-effective in Parkinson disease (PD). OBJECTIVE To perform a large pragmatic randomized clinical trial to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of individualized physiotherapy and occupational therapy in PD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS The PD REHAB Trial was a multicenter, open-label, parallel group, controlled efficacy trial. A total of 762 patients with mild to moderate PD were recruited from 38 sites across the United Kingdom. Recruitment took place between October 2009 and June 2012, with 15 months of follow-up. INTERVENTIONS Participants with limitations in activities of daily living (ADL) were randomized to physiotherapy and occupational therapy or no therapy. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was the Nottingham Extended Activities of Daily Living (NEADL) Scale score at 3 months after randomization. Secondary outcomes were health-related quality of life (assessed by Parkinson Disease Questionnaire–39 and EuroQol-5D); adverse events; and caregiver quality of life. Outcomes were assessed before trial entry and then 3, 9, and 15 months after randomization. RESULTS Of the 762 patients included in the study (mean [SD] age, 70 [9.1] years), 381 received physiotherapy and occupational therapy and 381 received no therapy. At 3 months, there was no difference between groups in NEADL total score (difference, 0.5 points; 95%CI, −0.7 to 1.7; P = .41) or Parkinson Disease Questionnaire–39 summary index (0.007 points; 95%CI, −1.5 to 1.5; P = .99). The EuroQol-5D quotient was of borderline significance in favor of therapy (−0.03; 95%CI, −0.07 to −0.002; P = .04). The median therapist contact time was 4 visits of 58 minutes over 8 weeks. Repeated-measures analysis showed no difference in NEADL total score, but Parkinson Disease Questionnaire–39 summary index (diverging 1.6 points per annum; 95%CI, 0.47 to 2.62; P = .005) and EuroQol-5D score (0.02; 95%CI, 0.00007 to 0.03; P = .04) showed small differences in favor of therapy. There was no difference in adverse events. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Physiotherapy and occupational therapy were not associated with immediate or medium-term clinically meaningful improvements in ADL or quality of life in mild to moderate PD. This evidence does not support the use of low-dose, patient-centered, goal-directed physiotherapy and occupational therapy in patients in the early stages of PD. Future research should explore the development and testing of more structured and intensive physical and occupational therapy programs in patients with all stages of PD

Fostering global data sharing: Highlighting the recommendations of the Research Data Alliance COVID-19 working group

© 2020 Austin CC et al. The systemic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic require cross-disciplinary collaboration in a global and timely fashion. Such collaboration needs open research practices and the sharing of research outputs, such as data and code, thereby facilitating research and research reproducibility and timely collaboration beyond borders. The Research Data Alliance COVID-19 Working Group recently published a set of recommendations and guidelines on data sharing and related best practices for COVID-19 research. These guidelines include recommendations for researchers, policymakers, funders, publishers and infrastructure providers from the perspective of different domains (Clinical Medicine, Omics, Epidemiology, Social Sciences, Community Participation, Indigenous Peoples, Research Software, Legal and Ethical Considerations). Several overarching themes have emerged from this document such as the need to balance the creation of data adherent to FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable), with the need for quick data release; the use of trustworthy research data repositories; the use of well-annotated data with meaningful metadata; and practices of documenting methods and software. The resulting document marks an unprecedented cross-disciplinary, cross-sectoral, and cross-jurisdictional effort authored by over 160 experts from around the globe. This letter summarises key points of the Recommendations and Guidelines, highlights the relevant findings, shines a spotlight on the process, and suggests how these developments can be leveraged by the wider scientific community

On reflexive and participatory approaches in digital preservation today. Interview with Samantha Lutz

Digitisation brings new demands and new challenges to the realm of cultural heritage, particularly around voice and preservation. Natalie Harrower is Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI), a national digital repository for archiving, preserving and providing access to Ireland’s cultural heritage, humanities and social sciences data. In the interview, Natalie Harrower examines current developments in digital preservation from a practical perspective, offering concrete examples that range from technical and legal challenges and participatory memory practices to future challenges of digital preservation such as creative practices of reuses, economies of sharing cultural heritage and preservation of digitally-born materials. Against this backdrop, she addresses ethical issues and the question of cultural sustainability, spanning the poles of remembering and forgetting and diverging preservation strategies in today’s digital universe.