Prim Drift, CopyBots, and Folk Preservation: Three Copyright Parables about Art in the Digital Age

This paper employs a series of case studies from the domains of digital arts and creative/experimental new media to elicit tensions and contradictions in the current state of copyright and intellectual property law. I pay particular attention to the role of the "pirate" as preservationist--rather than taint or corrupt, historically we know that piracy has helped guarantee the survival of important works of literature and art. Throughout, I insist that the humanist is not a dabbler or interloper in these matters; humanistic knowledge, particularly semiotics (the study of sign systems) has the potential to lend consistency and coherence to case law that is currently shot through with loopholes, contradictions, and dead ends. To that end, I also outline the potential of a center devoted to intellectual property law and humanities advocacy

Portrayal: Leveraging NLP and Visualization for Analyzing Fictional Characters

Many creative writing tasks (e.g., fiction writing) require authors to write complex narrative components (e.g., characterization, events, dialogue) over the course of a long story. Similarly, literary scholars need to manually annotate and interpret texts to understand such abstract components. In this paper, we explore how Natural Language Processing (NLP) and interactive visualization can help writers and scholars in such scenarios. To this end, we present Portrayal, an interactive visualization system for analyzing characters in a story. Portrayal extracts natural language indicators from a text to capture the characterization process and then visualizes the indicators in an interactive interface. We evaluated the system with 12 creative writers and scholars in a one-week-long qualitative study. Our findings suggest Portrayal helped writers revise their drafts and create dynamic characters and scenes. It helped scholars analyze characters without the need for any manual annotation, and design literary arguments with concrete evidence

"Printing Fictions"

Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: Information is not just about contextualizing data. The machines we use to generate, manage, understand, and share our views of the world are also part of how we think critically about the information landscape. This assignment for graduate and undergraduate students is of note because it asks students to consider how information infrastructure errors may be inspirational and spur innovative design. Using Philip K. Dick’s “Pay for the Printer” story of 3-D-printed things as a motivational premise for considering the advantages of machine error, the assignment “Printing Fictions” gives students the opportunity to design their own versions of the deformed artifacts, tools, and objects described in Dick’s postapocalyptic world. Through this assignment, students are introduced to a critical perspective on the value of noticing and interrogating a technology’s breakdown or the moments in which the processes or algorithms of an information system such as a 3-D printer become apparent to the user; more important, they are empowered to use these moments to enact previously unimagined uses for which the machine was not originally intended

"Bibliocircuitry and the Design of the Alien Everyday"

Curatorial note from Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities: “Bibliocircuitry and the Design of the Alien Everyday” details student exploration of the concept of reflective design through projects that investigate the book as interface. This activity perfectly highlights the way that exposure to and emphasis on process leads to unforeseen insight. These student authors also emphasize that digital work requires consideration of hardware and physical and tactile design. Instructors inspired by this article might select a particular type of object and ask students to devise ways to alter or enhance users’ interaction with it. Students would demonstrate learning not only through their work in designing and redesigning objects but also through oral or written presentations of them (much as the student authors of this journal article have done)

Approaches to Managing and Collecting Born-Digital Literary Materials for Scholarly Use

Digital Humanities Level 1 Start-Up funding ($11,708) was received in support of a series of site visits and planning meetings for personnel working with the born-digital components of three significant collections of literary material: the Salman Rushdie papers at Emory University’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Library (MARBL), the Michael Joyce Papers (and other collections) at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the Deena Larsen Collection at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland. The meetings and site visits were undertaken with the two-fold objective of exchanging knowledge amongst the still relatively small community of practitioners engaged in such efforts, and facilitating the preparation of a larger collaborative project proposal aimed at preserving and accessing the born-digital documents and records of contemporary authorship. The grant period was September 2008-March 2009. The only specified deliverable was this white paper; however, as the Outcomes and Next Steps sections (below) suggest, a small initial investment by NEH has yielded significant benefit in the form of infrastructure, knowledge sharing, and future collaboration

Preserving Virtual Worlds Final Report

The Preserving Virtual Worlds project is a collaborative research venture of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Linden Lab, conducted as part of Preserving Creative America, an initiative of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress. The primary goals of our project have been to investigate issues surrounding the preservation of video games and interactive fiction through a series of case studies of games and literature from various periods in computing history, and to develop basic standards for metadata and content representation of these digital artifacts for long-term archival storage

Coding Variation in ANGPTL4, LPL, and SVEP1 and the Risk of Coronary Disease.

BACKGROUND: The discovery of low-frequency coding variants affecting the risk of coronary artery disease has facilitated the identification of therapeutic targets. METHODS: Through DNA genotyping, we tested 54,003 coding-sequence variants covering 13,715 human genes in up to 72,868 patients with coronary artery disease and 120,770 controls who did not have coronary artery disease. Through DNA sequencing, we studied the effects of loss-of-function mutations in selected genes. RESULTS: We confirmed previously observed significant associations between coronary artery disease and low-frequency missense variants in the genes LPA and PCSK9. We also found significant associations between coronary artery disease and low-frequency missense variants in the genes SVEP1 (p.D2702G; minor-allele frequency, 3.60%; odds ratio for disease, 1.14; P=4.2×10(-10)) and ANGPTL4 (p.E40K; minor-allele frequency, 2.01%; odds ratio, 0.86; P=4.0×10(-8)), which encodes angiopoietin-like 4. Through sequencing of ANGPTL4, we identified 9 carriers of loss-of-function mutations among 6924 patients with myocardial infarction, as compared with 19 carriers among 6834 controls (odds ratio, 0.47; P=0.04); carriers of ANGPTL4 loss-of-function alleles had triglyceride levels that were 35% lower than the levels among persons who did not carry a loss-of-function allele (P=0.003). ANGPTL4 inhibits lipoprotein lipase; we therefore searched for mutations in LPL and identified a loss-of-function variant that was associated with an increased risk of coronary artery disease (p.D36N; minor-allele frequency, 1.9%; odds ratio, 1.13; P=2.0×10(-4)) and a gain-of-function variant that was associated with protection from coronary artery disease (p.S447*; minor-allele frequency, 9.9%; odds ratio, 0.94; P=2.5×10(-7)). CONCLUSIONS: We found that carriers of loss-of-function mutations in ANGPTL4 had triglyceride levels that were lower than those among noncarriers; these mutations were also associated with protection from coronary artery disease. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health and others.).Supported by a career development award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH) (K08HL114642 to Dr. Stitziel) and by the Foundation for Barnes–Jewish Hospital. Dr. Peloso is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH (award number K01HL125751). Dr. Kathiresan is supported by a Research Scholar award from the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Donovan Family Foundation, grants from the NIH (R01HL107816 and R01HL127564), a grant from Fondation Leducq, and an investigator-initiated grant from Merck. Dr. Merlini was supported by a grant from the Italian Ministry of Health (RFPS-2007-3-644382). Drs. Ardissino and Marziliano were supported by Regione Emilia Romagna Area 1 Grants. Drs. Farrall and Watkins acknowledge the support of the Wellcome Trust core award (090532/Z/09/Z), the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Centre of Research Excellence. Dr. Schick is supported in part by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (R25CA094880). Dr. Goel acknowledges EU FP7 & Wellcome Trust Institutional strategic support fund. Dr. Deloukas’s work forms part of the research themes contributing to the translational research portfolio of Barts Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, which is supported and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Drs. Webb and Samani are funded by the British Heart Foundation, and Dr. Samani is an NIHR Senior Investigator. Dr. Masca was supported by the NIHR Leicester Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit (BRU), and this work forms part of the portfolio of research supported by the BRU. Dr. Won was supported by a postdoctoral award from the American Heart Association (15POST23280019). Dr. McCarthy is a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator (098381) and an NIHR Senior Investigator. Dr. Danesh is a British Heart Foundation Professor, European Research Council Senior Investigator, and NIHR Senior Investigator. Drs. Erdmann, Webb, Samani, and Schunkert are supported by the FP7 European Union project CVgenes@ target (261123) and the Fondation Leducq (CADgenomics, 12CVD02). Drs. Erdmann and Schunkert are also supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research e:Med program (e:AtheroSysMed and sysINFLAME), and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft cluster of excellence “Inflammation at Interfaces” and SFB 1123. Dr. Kessler received a DZHK Rotation Grant. The analysis was funded, in part, by a Programme Grant from the BHF (RG/14/5/30893 to Dr. Deloukas). Additional funding is listed in the Supplementary Appendix.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Massachusetts Medical Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa150765

The genomics of heart failure: design and rationale of the HERMES consortium

Aims The HERMES (HEart failure Molecular Epidemiology for Therapeutic targets) consortium aims to identify the genomic and molecular basis of heart failure.Methods and results The consortium currently includes 51 studies from 11 countries, including 68 157 heart failure cases and 949 888 controls, with data on heart failure events and prognosis. All studies collected biological samples and performed genome-wide genotyping of common genetic variants. The enrolment of subjects into participating studies ranged from 1948 to the present day, and the median follow-up following heart failure diagnosis ranged from 2 to 116 months. Forty-nine of 51 individual studies enrolled participants of both sexes; in these studies, participants with heart failure were predominantly male (34-90%). The mean age at diagnosis or ascertainment across all studies ranged from 54 to 84 years. Based on the aggregate sample, we estimated 80% power to genetic variant associations with risk of heart failure with an odds ratio of >1.10 for common variants (allele frequency > 0.05) and >1.20 for low-frequency variants (allele frequency 0.01-0.05) at P Conclusions HERMES is a global collaboration aiming to (i) identify the genetic determinants of heart failure; (ii) generate insights into the causal pathways leading to heart failure and enable genetic approaches to target prioritization; and (iii) develop genomic tools for disease stratification and risk prediction.</p

The genomics of heart failure: design and rationale of the HERMES consortium

Aims: The HERMES (HEart failure Molecular Epidemiology for Therapeutic targetS) consortium aims to identify the genomic and molecular basis of heart failure. Methods and results: The consortium currently includes 51 studies from 11 countries, including 68 157 heart failure cases and 949 888 controls, with data on heart failure events and prognosis. All studies collected biological samples and performed genome‐wide genotyping of common genetic variants. The enrolment of subjects into participating studies ranged from 1948 to the present day, and the median follow‐up following heart failure diagnosis ranged from 2 to 116 months. Forty‐nine of 51 individual studies enrolled participants of both sexes; in these studies, participants with heart failure were predominantly male (34–90%). The mean age at diagnosis or ascertainment across all studies ranged from 54 to 84 years. Based on the aggregate sample, we estimated 80% power to genetic variant associations with risk of heart failure with an odds ratio of ≥1.10 for common variants (allele frequency ≥ 0.05) and ≥1.20 for low‐frequency variants (allele frequency 0.01–0.05) at P &lt; 5 × 10−8 under an additive genetic model. Conclusions: HERMES is a global collaboration aiming to (i) identify the genetic determinants of heart failure; (ii) generate insights into the causal pathways leading to heart failure and enable genetic approaches to target prioritization; and (iii) develop genomic tools for disease stratification and risk prediction