Doing History with Online Mapping Tools: An Introduction

In November, 2014 the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass., offered a presentation titled How to Do History with Online Mapping Tools as part of a series related to the Museum and Library’s collection of historic maps sponsored by the Ruby W. and LaVon P. Linn Foundation. The invited presenters were Jessie Partridge from the MetroBoston DataCommon, a provider of free applications that make it possible to map data, and Joanne Riley, University Archivist and Curator of Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston. Both presenters helped lay historians, data fans, and map enthusiasts discover how visualizations of data and space related to our region can help us understand our history. Riley\u27s presentation and handout are made freely available here

Working with Data in Archival Settings

Structured data plays a vital role in archival administration, preservation and access activities. Three case studies are presented that demonstrate different applications of metadata: Medici Archive Project: Documentary Sources for the Arts and Humanities 1537 – 1743 (Relational database); The History of the Accademia di San Luca, c. 1590 – 1635: Documents from the Archivio di Stato di Roma (Text markup – TEI); Healey Library’s OpenArchives (Dublin Core Schema in a proprietary data system)

The Mass. Memories Road Show: Some Notes on Bridging and Bonding

Four years ago, the Mass. Studies Project at UMass Boston launched a cultural heritage project that we dubbed the “Mass. Memories Road Show,” a real-world mashup of PBS’s Antiques Road Show (people bring their personal stuff to a local event for professional perusal) and the Library of Congress’ American Memory Project (digitize historic stuff and share it with the world). Our ambitious goal was – and still is! – to visit each of the 351 communities in Massachusetts, inviting residents to bring in photographs that reflect themselves and their families in that community. At the public “Road Show” events, we digitize the photos, capture information, videotape the story behind the photo, and then enter all of that information into a searchable, online database. From the beginning, we were operating from the simple idea that sharing personal photographs in a public event would both document and strengthen a community, and would also be a lot of fun. Our goal is to build a realistic, composite portrait of Massachusetts from thousands of contributions of photos and stories

Batch Uploading to ContentDM with the Help of MS Access

Microsoft Access is a great tool for minimizing headaches, streamlining data entry and ensuring quality control in preparing batch uploads for CONTENTdm collections. At UMass Boston, we store our descriptive metadata in MS Access tables by way of easy data entry forms. Then we use Access queries to automatically create all of the other necessary fields, to check for errors and, finally to generate a delimited text file that imports easily into the Project Client - almost always ;). This process has saved staff a great deal of time and effort and keeps their metadata safely backed up and available locally in the Access database. For this how to demo session Joanne will use the University Archives Historic Photographs collection, which includes more than 4,000 photo and video records. http://openarchives.umb.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15774coll2

Online Social Networking for the Humanities: the Massachusetts Studies Network Prototype

The Massachusetts Studies Project (MSP) aims to create an online social network specifically for those who are involved in local studies in Massachusetts. This first, Level I phase of the project will allow us to assess a promising open source development platform called "Ning," which offers powerful new tools for building customized social networks. Building a test network on Ning, and planning and prototyping the code to add functionality tailored to humanities practitioners, will position us to take the next steps in building a full-fledged, model social network to meet the collaborative needs of educators, scholars, librarians, and local studies practitioners

Integrated aerodynamic/dynamic optimization of helicopter rotor blades

An integrated aerodynamic/dynamic optimization procedure is used to minimize blade weight and 4 per rev vertical hub shear for a rotor blade in forward flight. The coupling of aerodynamics and dynamics is accomplished through the inclusion of airloads which vary with the design variables during the optimization process. Both single and multiple objective functions are used in the optimization formulation. The Global Criteria Approach is used to formulate the multiple objective optimization and results are compared with those obtained by using single objective function formulations. Constraints are imposed on natural frequencies, autorotational inertia, and centrifugal stress. The program CAMRAD is used for the blade aerodynamic and dynamic analyses, and the program CONMIN is used for the optimization. Since the spanwise and the azimuthal variations of loading are responsible for most rotor vibration and noise, the vertical airload distributions on the blade, before and after optimization, are compared. The total power required by the rotor to produce the same amount of thrust for a given area is also calculated before and after optimization. Results indicate that integrated optimization can significantly reduce the blade weight, the hub shear and the amplitude of the vertical airload distributions on the blade and the total power required by the rotor

Recent advances in the use of opioids for cancer pain

Opioids are the mainstay of treatment for moderate to severe cancer pain. In recent years there have been many advances in the use of opioids for cancer pain. Availability and consumption of opioids have increased and opioids other than morphine (including methadone, fentanyl, oxycodone) have become more widely used. Inter-individual variation in response to opioids has been identified as a significant challenge in the management of cancer pain. Many studies have been published demonstrating the benefits of opioid switching as a clinical maneuver to improve tolerability. Constipation has been recognized as a significant burden in cancer patients on opioids. Peripherally restricted opioid antagonists have been developed for the prevention and management of opioid induced constipation. The phenomenon of breakthrough pain has been characterized and novel modes of opioid administration (transmucosal, intranasal, sublingual) have been explored to facilitate improved management of breakthrough cancer pain. Advances have also been made in the realm of molecular biology. Pharmacogenetic studies have explored associations between clinical response to opioids and genetic variation at a DNA level. To date these studies have been small but future research may facilitate prospective prediction of response to individual drugs

Optimization methods applied to the aerodynamic design of helicopter rotor blades

Described is a formal optimization procedure for helicopter rotor blade design which minimizes hover horsepower while assuring satisfactory forward flight performance. The approach is to couple hover and forward flight analysis programs with a general-purpose optimization procedure. The resulting optimization system provides a systematic evaluation of the rotor blade design variables and their interaction, thus reducing the time and cost of designing advanced rotor blades. The paper discusses the basis for and details of the overall procedure, describes the generation of advanced blade designs for representative Army helicopters, and compares design and design effort with those from the conventional approach which is based on parametric studies and extensive cross-plots

The Mass. Memories Road Show: a State-Wide Scanning Project

The Mass. Memories Road Show (http://blogs.umb.edu/massmemories) is a public scanning project based at the University of Massachusetts Boston which partners with local communities to digitize family photographs and stories at public events with the goal of creating a digital portrait of all the 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. This article describes how the project works to ensure broad participation in the planning and execution of the project, as well as a detailed description of the logistics of a Road Show event, which could be replicated in other communities

The Mass. Memories Road Show: a State-Wide Scanning Project

Running a state-wide digital history project on a shoestring budget and staffed primarily by volunteers is not only possible, but brings immeasurable rewards for the contributors, volunteers, organizers and staff while gathering priceless documentation of their communal heritage. The Mass. Memories Road Show (http://www.MassMemories.net) is a public scanning project based at the University of Massachusetts Boston which partners with local communities to digitize family photographs and stories at public events with the goal of creating a digital portrait of all the 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. This article describes how the project works to ensure broad participation in the planning and execution of the project, as well as a detailed description of the logistics of a Road Show event, which could be replicated in other communities