The Flora Scales Catalogue

Review: The Flora Scales Catalogue (https://florascales.com/) demonstrates the clear benefits of presenting a comprehensive catalogue of an artist’s work online. Whereas traditional printed catalogs may only reach a limited audience, Flora Scales is intentionally openly accessible, and overflowing with high-quality images. Some of the drawbacks of the site, including aspects of its usability, are also eminently fixable because of its digital format. The affordances of presenting the catalogue digitally seem to far outweigh the pitfalls

Sustaining MedArt: Assessing the Persistence and Longevity of a Pioneering DH Project

This study takes contemporary user analysis of historical digital objects as a central component of a responsible digital preservation strategy. The direct object of inquiry is a scholarly website, “Images of Medieval Art and Architecture” (http://www.medart.pitt.edu), created in 1995 at the very dawn of the World Wide Web. This site continues to serve a global community of scholars who investigate the art and architecture of Western Europe between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, and has become the de facto reference standard for study images for this period. Although the web presence has benefitted from some minor updates, the digital object has remained more or less untouched for the past two decades, a period of drastic change in the surrounding digital environment. Using a usability analysis survey that examines the intellectual, aesthetic, and technical elements of this important digital humanities project, this early-stage study reveals the ways in which contemporary functional and aesthetic interactions can identify important preservation criteria that need to be addressed when designing long-term preservation strategies.ye

Disrupted sleep and associated factors in Australian dementia caregivers: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Sleep disturbance is an issue reported by caregivers. Waking at night is a feature of dementia and by proxy, sleep disturbance among caregivers is reported to be high. Little is known about the characteristics of dementia caregivers\u27 sleep and the factors that may influence sleep disruption. The purpose of this study was to investigate the sleep characteristics and disturbances of Australian caregivers of a person living with dementia. In addition, it evaluated the psychological wellbeing of caregivers by evaluating associations between mood and sleep in this population. METHODS: This study used a cross-sectional, descriptive, correlation design. Participants were recruited with the assistance of Alzheimer\u27s Australia, Dementia Australia and targeted social media advertising. In total, 104 adult, primary, informal caregivers of people with dementia participated, completing a questionnaire on demographic characteristics, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). RESULTS: In this study, 76% of caregivers were female who had been caring for someone living with dementia on average for 4.8 years. 44% of participants had two or more co-morbidities namely cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis and diabetes. 94% of participants were poor sleepers with 84% with difficulty initiating sleep and 72% reporting having difficulty maintaining sleep. Overall, psychological distress was common with high levels of moderate to severe depression, anxiety and stress. Global PSQI scores were significantly positively associated with depression and anxiety, with the strongest correlation seen with stress scores. Depression scores were also moderately associated with daytime dysfunction. Stress was identified as a significant predictor of overall sleep quality. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep problems are common within the population of dementia caregivers. Due to the nature and duration of caregiving and the progression of dementia of the care recipient, there is the potential for a decline in the caregivers\u27 mental and physical health. Caregivers of those living with dementia are more likely to have comorbidities, depression, anxiety and stress. Sleep quality is correlated with emotional distress in dementia caregivers although the direction of this association is unclear. Therefore, sleep and psychological wellbeing may be intertwined, with improvements in one aspect resulting in a positive impact in the other

Decomposing the social gradient in children's vocabulary skills at 3 years of age: A mediation analysis using data from a large representative cohort study

Disparities in children's expressive language by socio-economic status are evident early in childhood and impact children's development and educational attainment. This study investigated the processes by which maternal education, as a powerful indicator for socio-economic status, affects early expressive language. A nationally representative cohort study of 8,062 children resident in the Republic of Ireland were assessed on the British Ability Scales (BAS)Naming Vocabulary Test at 36 months. A significant difference of almost six points was found between the mean vocabulary test scores of children whose mothers had completed the minimum level of educational attainment compared with children whose mothers had a degree-level qualification. Mediation analysis revealed that 78% of the difference was explained by mediating variables, with differences in household income, parental practice, and material resources accounting for most of the variation. The findings support interventions which redress gaps in maternal education, income, and caregiving

Leptin modifies the prosecretory and prokinetic effects of the inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 on colonic function in Sprague–Dawley rats

Leptin ameliorates the prosecretory and prokinetic effects of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 on rat colon. Leptin also suppresses the neurostimulatory effects of irritable bowel syndrome plasma, which has elevated concentrations of interleukin-6, on enteric neurons. This may indicate a regulatory role for leptin in immune-mediated bowel dysfunction. In addition to its role in regulating energy homeostasis, the adipokine leptin modifies gastrointestinal (GI) function. Indeed, leptin-resistant obese humans and leptin-deficient obese mice exhibit altered GI motility. In the functional GI disorder irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), circulating leptin concentrations are reported to differ from those of healthy control subjects. Additionally, IBS patients display altered cytokine profiles, including elevated circulating concentrations of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6), which bears structural homology and similarities in intracellular signalling to leptin. This study aimed to investigate interactions between leptin and IL-6 in colonic neurons and their possible contribution to IBS pathophysiology. The functional effects of leptin and IL-6 on colonic contractility and absorptosecretory function were assessed in organ baths and Ussing chambers in Sprague–Dawley rat colon. Calcium imaging and immunohistochemical techniques were used to investigate the neural regulation of GI function by these signalling molecules. Our findings provide a neuromodulatory role for leptin in submucosal neurons, where it inhibited the stimulatory effects of IL-6. Functionally, this translated to suppression of IL-6-evoked potentiation of veratridine-induced secretory currents. Leptin also attenuated IL-6-induced colonic contractions, although it had little direct effect on myenteric neurons. Calcium responses evoked by IBS plasma in both myenteric and submucosal neurons were also suppressed by leptin, possibly through interactions with IL-6, which is elevated in IBS plasma. As leptin has the capacity to ameliorate the neurostimulatory effects of soluble mediators in IBS plasma and modulated IL-6-evoked changes in bowel function, leptin may have a role in immune-mediated bowel dysfunction in IBS patients

Striving to Persist: Museum Digital Exhibition and Digital Catalogue Production

Although museum automation emerged in the mid-1960s, American and British art museums continue to have a difficult relationship with digital technology. Indeed, within the broader cultural heritage network, art museums have been particularly reluctant to disseminate their missions online. Particularly since the eighteenth century, art museums have remained beholden to certain perceptions of authority that are tied to the authentic object. Yet, as new technologies offer more efficient and cost-effective ways to store and disseminate information and promise greater accessibility, these museums have continued in their efforts to incorporate digital methods into their practices. The following document considers the role of information organization in the creation of knowledge and value within and beyond the space of the art museum by interrogating two major scholarly products of the well-endowed, early 21st century Western art museum’s ecosystem: online catalogues and online exhibitions. Given their contexts, the questions sustaining this research converge at the junction of three major areas: the new museology movement, exhibition culture, and museum computing. Public-facing, museum-based digital scholarship practices have emerged fairly recently (mostly from the mid-1990s onwards). The impact of these practices within the space of the art museum has not yet received a critical treatment, so the costs and benefits of this new mode of interpretation and production remain a mystery. In this study, the author first defines physical exhibitions and catalogues to contextualize their digital counterparts, and building on this, examines two sites in depth using a case study approach. Although The Gallery of Lost Art and On Performativity are inherently different in that one represents an online exhibition and the other an online catalogue, they shared overlapping lifespans and emerged in similar technological and museological landscapes. They also documented ephemeral artworks. The data collected throughout demonstrates the significance of socio-technical infrastructures and project management approaches, and how museums have struggled to adapt these practices to produce new information outputs. Museum computing seems to remain “disruptive” in 2019. Rather than revolutionizing through decentralization or democratization, computing seems to disrupt the mechanisms occurring behind the scenes in an art museum

Introduction to Data Storytelling Syllabus 2020

Syllabus for Spring 2020 digital humanities/data science course featuring revised assignments and readings that reflect the transition to remote teaching/learning

Dance Conversations

Dance Conversations is a cross-border documentary film co-directed by Aoife McGrath and Mary Wycherley in which 3 pairs of dance artists (3 from Northern Ireland and 3 from the Republic of Ireland) reflect on their experiences of working in dance on the island in both movement and conversation. The film is part of the Dance Conversations project developed by Dr Aoife McGrath (QUB) and Dr Victoria Durrer (UCD) in collaboration with Dance Ireland and Theatre and Dance NI and funded by the Co-Operation with Northern Ireland funding scheme of the Irish government's Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Dance Conversations explores how dance artists’ embodied experiences of their profession might inform the development of dance strategy and policy