Arctos: A Collaborative Collection Management Solution

Arctos (arctosdb.org) is a cost-effective, online collaborative collection management solution employed by more than 180 collections to manage and provide access to >3.5 million biodiversity and cultural records and >775,000 media objects. It also forms the backbone of Harvard’s MCZBase. Arctos leads in providing museums with community-driven solutions to managing and improving collections data, and developing workflows for data cleaning and publication. Arctos integrates biological, earth science, cultural and emerging data types such as environmental DNA and microbiomes to provide a nexus for the full suite of object data, data derivatives and products, and their management. Arctos is used by museum professionals, researchers, educators, students, government agencies, NGOs, and the public.Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC

Recommendations for Effective Integration of Ethics and Responsible Conduct of Research (E/RCR) Education into Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences: A Meeting Report.

Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in an ethical and responsible manner. Educating emergent scholars in the principles of ethics/responsible conduct of research (E/RCR) is therefore critical to ensuring such advancement. The recent impetus to include authentic research opportunities as part of the undergraduate curriculum, via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), has been shown to increase cognitive and noncognitive student outcomes. Because of these important benefits, CUREs are becoming more common and often constitute the first research experience for many students. However, despite the importance of E/RCR in the research process, we know of few efforts to incorporate E/RCR education into CUREs. The Ethics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) was created to address this concern and promote the integration of E/RCR within CUREs in the biological sciences and related disciplines. During the inaugural ENCOUR meeting, a four-pronged approach was used to develop guidelines for the effective integration of E/RCR in CUREs. This approach included: 1) defining appropriate student learning objectives; 2) identifying relevant curriculum; 3) identifying relevant assessments; and 4) defining key aspects of professional development for CURE facilitators. Meeting outcomes, including the aforementioned E/RCR guidelines, are described herein

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Challenges and Opportunities for Collection Data Sharing: dwc:MaterialSample

The Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) MaterialSample Task Group is making progress toward a proposal for a clarification of the dwc:MaterialSample class with its own properties. The Task Group expects the outcome of this process to be a standard for sharing more complete information about biological specimens, including their physical properties and associations with each other, organisms, and research products. At the same time, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is exploring a Grand Unified Model (GUM)*1 that will allow for sharing more complex and rich data than is currently possible. The combination of a more robust dwc:MaterialSample class and the GBIF GUM may create both opportunities and challenges for managing collection data and for publishing that data in a way that takes advantage of proposed new functionality in Darwin Core and GBIF. More importantly, it will require those managing collection data to think more deeply about the objects they manage and to see the importance of information beyond the initial collection occurrence, the first event in the "life" of a museum object. This presentation will touch on some expected challenges and opportunities for collection data management using the new dwc:MaterialSample class

Using the Taxonomic Backbone(s): The challenge of selecting a taxonomic resource and integrating it with a collection management solution

The reality is that there is no single “taxonomic backbone”, there are many: the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Backbone Taxonomy, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) and MolluscaBase, to name a few. We could view each one of these as a vertebra on the taxonomic backbone, but even that isn’t quite correct as some of these are nested within others (MolluscaBase contributes to WoRMS, which contributes to Catalogue of Life, which contributes to the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy). How is a collection manager without expertise in a given set of taxa and a limited amount of time devoted to finding the “most current” taxonomy supposed to maintain research grade identifications when there are so many seemingly authoritative taxonomic resources? And once a resource is chosen, how can they seamlessly use the information in that resource? This presentation will document how the Arctos community’s use of the taxon name matching service Global Names Architecture (GNA) led one volunteer team leader in a marine invertebrate collection to attempt to make use of WoRMS taxonomy and how her persistence brought better identifications and classifications to a community of collections. It will also provide insight into some of the technical and curatorial challenges involved in using an outside resource as well as the ongoing struggle to keep up with changes as they occur in the curated resource

MaterialSample and its Properties

The Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Material Sample Task Group*1 kicked off in the third quarter of 2021. The group’s initial focus was to1) achieve a clear conceptual delineation between the terms MaterialSample, PreservedSpecimen, LivingSpecimen, and FossilSpecimen (the terms used in basisOfRecord in the current DwC-A provided to the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) for describing physical material)2) define the conceptual relationship between these terms and the term Organism3) consider the possible implications of the activities towards the diversification of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) data model*2 and what standards already exist that should inform our work.Based on this conceptual work, the group is now developing a concrete proposal for a clarification of a MaterialSample class with its own properties. Our presentation will provide a brief review of the task group's progress and our thoughts about what comes next

Arctos: Community-driven innovations for managing natural and cultural history collections.

More than tools for managing physical and digital objects, museum collection management systems (CMS) serve as platforms for structuring, integrating, and making accessible the rich data embodied by natural history collections. Here we describe Arctos, a scalable community solution for managing and publishing global biological, geological, and cultural collections data for research and education. Specific goals are to: (1) Describe the core features and implementation of Arctos for a broad audience with respect to the biodiversity informatics principles that enable high quality research; (2) Highlight the unique aspects of Arctos; (3) Illustrate Arctos as a model for supporting and enhancing the Digital Extended Specimen concept; and (4) Emphasize the role of the Arctos community for improving data discovery and enabling cross-disciplinary, integrative studies within a sustainable governance model. In addition to detailing Arctos as both a community of museum professionals and a collection database platform, we discuss how Arctos achieves its richly annotated data by creating a web of knowledge with deep connections between catalog records and derived or associated data. We also highlight the value of Arctos as an educational resource. Finally, we present the financial model of fiscal sponsorship by a nonprofit organization, implemented in 2022, to ensure the long-term success and sustainability of Arctos