Seeing Smell: Sourcing Olfactory Imagery Using Artificial Intelligence

How can artificial intelligence help to “see” smells in works of art? This article discusses the ways in which the Horizon 2020 Odeuropa project uses computer vision to search for olfactory imagery in digital heritage collections. It provides a literature review of the latest approaches to researching smell in art, and outlines the methodology for mining digital collections. It also raises questions about what it means to source smell in digital archives, the challenges encountered when working with the technology, and its possibilities. It concludes with a case study illustrating the potential of such an approach, where computer vision was used to find perfumed gloves in works of art, resulting in an olfactory guided tour of Museum Ulm

Nose-First. Towards an Olfactory Gaze for Digital Art History

What are the historical smells and olfactory narratives of Europe? How can we make use of digital museum collections to trace information on olfactory heritage? In recent years, European cultural heritage institutions have invested heavily in large-scale digitization, which provides us with a wealth of object, text and image data that can be browsed and analysed by humans and machines. However, as heritage institutes, as well as humanities and computer science scholars, have had a long-standing tradition of ocular-centric thinking, it is difficult to find relevant information about smell in digital collections. The historical gaze, for a long time, has been visually biased, leaving smell overlooked within many digital collections. This paper offers a roadmap towards an olfactory gaze for digital cultural heritage collections. The work we present here is part of the Odeuropa project, an action of the Horizon 2020 programme, which promotes research and innovation. It presents a work in progress on olfactory heritage and sensory mining in digital art collections. First, we will describe the current state of the art, showing how olfactory information is traditionally missing or even omitted from digital art collection management systems. We present a baseline research, which maps the gaps and biases in art thesauruses and iconographic classification systems. Next, we will present two connected solutions that we are currently developing in the Odeuropa project: a) a database with olfactory information related to historical artworks, aimed to enrich existing metadata and improve search solutions b) computer vision methodologies for sensory mining. Finally, we pitch a new idea: a nose-first scent wheel. When integrated into current digital collection interfaces, the scent wheel would encourage audiences to develop an olfactory gaze and offer new ways to uncover the rich storylines of olfactory heritage within digital collections

A new method for accurate assessment of DNA quality after bisulfite treatment

The covalent addition of methylgroups to cytosine has become the most intensively researched epigenetic DNA marker. The vast majority of technologies used for DNA methylation analysis rely on a chemical reaction, the so-called ‘bisulfite treatment’, which introduces methylation-dependent sequence changes through selective chemical conversion of non-methylated cytosine to uracil. After treatment, all non-methylated cytosine bases are converted to uracil but all methylated cytosine bases remain cytosine. These methylation dependent C-to-T changes can subsequently be studied using conventional DNA analysis technologies. The bisulfite conversion protocol is susceptible to processing errors, and small deviation from the protocol can result in failure of the treatment. Several attempts have been made to simplify the procedure and increase its robustness. Although significant achievements in this area have been made, bisulfite treatment remains the main source of process variability in the analysis of DNA methylation. This variability in particular impairs assays, which strive for the quantitative assessment of DNA methylation. Here we present basic mathematical considerations, which should be taken into account when analyzing DNA methylation. We also introduce a PCR-based assay, which allows ab initio assessment of the DNA quality after bisulfite treatment and can help to prevent inaccurate quantitative measurement resulting from poor bisulfite treatment

Stemness of the Organ of Corti Relates to the Epigenetic Status of Sox2 Enhancers

In the adult mammalian auditory epithelium, the organ of Corti, loss of sensory hair cells results in permanent hearing loss. The underlying cause for the lack of regenerative response is the depletion of otic progenitors in the cell pool of the sensory epithelium. Here, we show that an increase in the sequence-specific methylation of the otic Sox2 enhancers NOP1 and NOP2 is correlated with a reduced self-renewal potential in vivo and in vitro; additionally, the degree of methylation of NOP1 and NOP2 is correlated with the dedifferentiation potential of postmitotic supporting cells into otic stem cells. Thus, the stemness the organ of Corti is related to the epigenetic status of the otic Sox2 enhancers. These observations validate the continued exploration of treatment strategies for dedifferentiating or reprogramming of differentiated supporting cells into progenitors to regenerate the damaged organ of Corti

Vitamin B2 as andioxidative reagent : Measurment of Vitamin B2 and its Coenzym-subclasses in samples of iron-overloaded patients and iron-overloaded laboratory animals

In der vorliegenden Arbeit sollte untersucht werden, ob Flavincoenzyme (FMN, FAD) in Patienten mit Eisenüberladung bzw. in experimentell eisenüberladenen Ratten antioxidativ wirksam sind. Dazu wurden die Flavinkonzentrationen in verschiedenen biologischen Proben (Serum, Leberhomogenaten) bestimmt und mit multiplen laborchemischen Parametern des Eisenstoffwechsels korreliert. Als Bestimmungsmethode wurde eine empfindliche HPLC-Methode entwickelt und die Probenvorbereitung optimiert. Die vorliegende Arbeit leistet somit auch einen methodischen Beitrag zur Analyse von Flavinen in biologischen Proben. Es wurde die voher nicht beschriebene Umwandlung von FAD zu 4’,5’-cFMN während der Aufarbeitung von Serumproben demonstriert. In der Untersuchung an Rattenlebergewebe konnte eine Abnahme der Flavinkonzentration mit ansteigender Eisenkonzentration nachgewiesen werden, was evtl. auf den Verbrauch eines antioxidativ wirksamen Viatmins bei Eisenüberladung hindeutet. In Serumproben von Thalassämiepatienten findet sich dieser Zusammenhang nicht. Als mögliche Erklärung kommt eine nicht evaluierte unterschiedliche Ernährung der Patienten und die damit verbundene unterschiedliche Aufnahme von antioxidativ wirkenden Vitaminen in Betracht. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studie sollten genutzt werden, weitere Untersuchungen durchzuführen, die den Zusammenhang von Vitaminzufuhr und eiseninduzierten Organschädigung zu klären