Island networks: Transformations of inter-community social relationships in the Lesser Antilles at the advent of European colonialism

The Caribbean Sea was a conduit for human mobility and the exchange of goods and ideas during the whole of its pre-colonial history. The period cal. AD 1000-1800, covering the Late Ceramic Age and early colonial era, represents an archaeologically understudied time during which the Lesser Antilles came under increasing influence from the Greater Antilles and coastal South America and participated in the last phase of indigenous resistance to colonial powers. This article summarizes the results of the Island Network project, supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in which a multi-disciplinary set of archaeological, archaeometric, geochemical, GIS, and network science methods and techniques have been employed to disentangle this turbulent era in regional and global history. These diverse approaches reveal and then explore multi-layered networks of objects and people and uncover how Lesser Antillean communities were created and transformed through teaching, trade, migration, movement, and exchange of goods and knowledge

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe

Rethinking GIS Education: Teaching Critical Spatial Storytelling in Libraries (Lightning Round)

At Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Libraries, we are working to change the focus of GIS education from the “how to” method to “why model” method. This includes broadening efforts to engage students and faculty in spatial literacy, not only in understanding analysis of large spatial data sets but how and for what purpose these data sets were generated. We also engage students in critical evaluations of the algorithms and software behind the maps they make. To explore this topic in library settings, we have organized a spatial storytelling workshop series that brings people from different colleges around CMU together with members of the broader Pittsburgh community to evaluate methods of digital storytelling through online story mapping platforms or tools. By approaching GIS skills through the lens of data analysis and finding a research story, we communicate to students the importance of critical spatial thinking alongside the basics of GIS tool use. We hope that by providing these workshop materials publically anyone from academic or community libraries to K-12 educators can participate

WAML 2020: Role of Libraries in Geography and GIS Education

Presentation at the Western Association of Map Libraries 2020. This presentation describes the insights from our Role of Libraries in Geography and GIS Education project, you can learn more here: www.library.cmu.edu/gis/rolgge.<br

The Role of Libraries in Geography and GIS Education: Report on a series of conversations about libraries, geography, GIS, and education in 2020.

This is a report of our activities during the Role of Libraries in Geography and GIS Education project. A.k.a. ROLGGE (pronounced "Role G”), the project was a grant funded effort to foster the development of a community of libraries, data practitioners, and educators to enable effective teaching, consultation, and outreach around spatial literacy education. Funding for the project was awarded by the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) as a Transformative Research in Geography Education grant. The funds from the project were dedicated to network building activities like in-person and virtual meetings. The project was organized by Emma Slayton and Jessica Benner who work in the Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University. Over the course of the project, we hosted 11 conversations. </p

Bridges of Pittsburgh

The Bridges of Pittsburgh is a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative public-facing project that pays homage both to an innovative, field-defining mathematical problem and to one of the defining features of our city. We proposed to discover how many of Pittsburgh’s 446 bridges could be traversed without crossing the same bridge twice, in the process addressing issues in processing crowdsourced GIS data, performing graph traversal with complex constraints, and using network analysis to compare communities formed by this road network to the historically-defined neighborhoods of Pittsburgh.This ZIP file contains an RStudio project, with package dependencies bundled via packrat (https://rstudio.github.io/packrat/).- The osmar/ directory contains OSM data, our processing code, and outputs used to generate the map at https://bridgesofpittsburgh.net - 2019_final_community_analysis/ contains code and derived datasets for the community analysis portion of the projectwar- The legacy/ directory contains experimental datasets and code from the earliest phase of this project, which were later superseded by the main pipeline in the osmar/ directory.Each directory contains further README.md files documenting their structure.</p

Tecnología marítima de los Kalinagos de las Antillas menores durante los siglos xvi y xvii

Nous disposons d'un très grand nombre de descriptions historiques des embarcations amérindiennes antillaises. Ces textes constituent une série continue allant du récit des premiers moments aux études ethnologiques sub-contemporaines. Cet article s'appuie sur une recension d'une ampleur inédite des informations contenues dans ces sources espagnoles, hollandaises, anglaises et françaises précoces ainsi que sur les quelques données archéologiques directes disponibles. Nous avons par ce biais tenté de dégager la nature du rapport entretenu par les populations amérindiennes des Antilles avec l'élément marin, mais aussi d'obtenir la description la plus précise possible des différentes embarcations constituant leur flotte et enfin d'établir la chaîne opératoire de construction des kanawa l'un de ces navires spécifiquement conçu et préférentiellement utilisé pour la navigation en haute mer.A large set of historical documents give us descriptions of Antillean Amerindian boats. These texts constitute a continuous series from the time of first contact to sub-contemporaneous anthropological descriptions. This paper is based on extensive review of the data contained in those early Spanish, Dutch, English, and French sources and also on a review of the few direct archaeological evidences. In this way we tried to analyse not only the nature of the relationship that existed between Antillean Amerindians and the sea but also to obtain an accurate description of their different boat types. Finally we have reconstituted the building process chaîne opératoire of the Kanawa, which were the boat type specifically designed and preferentially used for over-sea navigations

Technologie du fait maritime chez les Kalinago des Petites Antilles aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles

International audienceA large set of historical documents give us descriptions of Antillean Amerindian boats. These texts constitute a continuous series from the time of first contact to sub-contemporaneous anthropological descriptions. This paper is based on extensive review of the data contained in those early Spanish, Dutch, English, and French sources and also on a review of the few direct archaeological evidences. In this way we tried to analyse not only the nature of the relationship that existed between Antillean Amerindians and the sea but also to obtain an accurate description of their different boat types. Finally we have reconstituted the building process chaîne opératoire of the Kanawa, which were the boat type specifically designed and preferentially used for over-sea navigations.Nous disposons d'un très grand nombre de descriptions historiques des embarcations amérindiennes antillaises. Ces textes constituent une série continue allant du récit des premiers moments aux études ethnologiques sub-contemporaines. Cet article s'appuie sur une recension d'une ampleur inédite des informations contenues dans ces sources espagnoles, hollandaises, anglaises et françaises précoces ainsi que sur les quelques données archéologiques directes disponibles. Nous avons par ce biais tenté de dégager la nature du rapport entretenu par les populations amérindiennes des Antilles avec l'élément marin, mais aussi d'obtenir la description la plus précise possible des différentes embarcations constituant leur flotte et enfin d'établir la chaîne opératoire de construction des kanawa l'un de ces navires spécifiquement conçu et préférentiellement utilisé pour la navigation en haute mer

Publishing Reality: Developing a Publishing Model For Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Their Related Pedagogical Materials

How does one publish something that is intended to be a completely immersive and interactive experience such as those designed for Virtual Reality (VR)? How does one convey the subjective experiences of emulated real-world environments? That is the challenge of defining a publishing service model for documenting the experiences of AR and VR. In 2019 representatives from the Carnegie Mellon University digital Sciences, Humanities, Arts, Research and Publishing group (dSHARP) collaborated with faculty from CMU’s English Department to publish materials related to Shakespeare-VR, https://dh-web.hss.cmu.edu/shakespeare_vr/. The Shakespeare-VR project uses virtual reality technologies to bring students face-to-face with professional actors performing Shakespearean soliloquies in a replica of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Playhouse. Beyond Publishing the VR experiences, dSHARP examined the complexity of publishing the accompanying OER-based pedagogical materials produced by Shakespeare-VR. As dSHARP has continued working with colleagues from CMU's Department of English, a need arose to develop an AR/VR Portal where researchers and scholars designing AR and VR experiences with accompanying pedagogical materials could publish and share their scholarship. This presentation will discuss the new initiative at CMU to produce and publish materials related to the experiences of AR and VR through using our institutional repository, KiltHub and its connection to the primary web presence of the Shakespeare-VR Project. This presentation will discuss the background and complexities of working with and documenting AR and VR, and how the challenges of working with AR and VR could be addressed at scale. This presentation will also explore how future library publishers can assist in adding context to the publishing of AR and VR materials, and how these could be incorporated into future OER-based pedagogical materials to teach the design, construction, and use of AR and VR. This presentation was given as part of the 2020 Library Publishing Coalition's Annual Forum. It was delivered remotely in response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. </div