Cultural Diversity and the Digital Humanities

Digital humanities has grown and changed over the years; we have moved away from expecting technology to be a tool to make humanities research easier and faster into one where we are now equal partners. Our collaborative projects drive forward the research agendas of both humanists and technologists. There have been other changes too. The focus of our scholarly interest has moved away from its historical origins in text-based scholarship, although that now has many more possibilities, and we are seeing an interest in exploring culture and heritage more widely. Where the progress is slower is in our moves towards openness and inclusivity, and this is to some extent hampered by a lack of linguistic diversity. This is being addressed with specialist groups within the major DH organizations on a national and a global level. DH has grown rapidly in China, and the anglophone world could do more to engage with practitioners and potential colleagues in this new vibrant and emerging area. There are certainly Western centres that specialize, particularly in Chinese texts and historical documents, but this needs to be extended further if we are not to impose limits on the conversations, synergies and collaborations that can result

Language and the Subjects of Study in the Digital Humanities

This article considers some of the problems associated with the development of the digital humanities in the Western sphere with a focus on text-based scholarship and the English language． It is part of growing initiatives which seek to address concerns about the anglophone dominance within digital humanities and move towards greater inclusivity and diversity．It seeks to ask questions about the causes of the clear lack of engagement with some geographical areas ( here considering mainland China) and how we might make positive steps to bring us all together to create a truly global digital humanities to the benefit of us all

Encouraging Diversity of Dialogue as part of the iSchools Agenda

This paper takes the conference themes of Diversity, Divergence, Dialogue and applies them to an analysis of the published topic headings and keywords from previous iConferences to determine the extent to which diversity is an important aspect within the iSchools community. It follows previous research from 2016 where Bogers and Greifeneder conducted a quantitative analysis of the metrics for submission and acceptance of papers for the 2014 iConference in Berlin. Their interest was in the potential for bias resulting from a lack of diversity in the established review process. We look at topic headings, language and country of presenters as a sub-set of diversity and how we might move away from the Anglophone dominance towards more demographic diversity and in doing so widen the channels for scholarly communication and dialogue. The move to a virtual conference removes any geolocational difficulties and competition for limited travel budgets. The 2021 Chinese track accepts submissions in Chinese, removing the difficulties of the English-language requirement for scholars of the host nation. Language, publication and travel are determining factors for encouraging and facilitating diversity; these should be reinforced within the iSchools movement to develop a sense of community with members as stakeholders so that they feel that they are part of a diverse but inclusive community. This Short Paper is the first stage in a wider study looking at the changes that the innovations for the 2021 iConference have on diversity, divergence, and dialogue for papers and published proceedings

Endotoxin-free purification for the isolation of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus E2 protein from insoluble inclusion body aggregates

Background: Protein expression in Escherichia coli may result in the recombinant protein being expressed as insoluble inclusion bodies. In addition, proteins purified from E. coli contain endotoxins which need to be removed for in vivo applications. The structural protein, E2, from Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus (BVDV) is a major immunogenic determinant, and is an ideal candidate as a subunit vaccine. The E2 protein contains 17 cysteine residues creating difficulties in E. coli expression. In this report we outline a procedure for successfully producing soluble and endotoxin-free BVDV E2 protein from inclusion bodies (IB).Results: The expression of a truncated form of BVDV-E2 protein (E2-T1) in E. coli resulted in predominantly aggregated insoluble IB. Solubilisation of E2-T1 with high purity and stability from IB aggregates was achieved using a strong reducing buffer containing 100 mM Dithiothreitol. Refolding by dialysis into 50 mM Tris (pH 7.0) containing 0.2% Igepal CA630 resulted in a soluble but aggregated protein solution. The novel application of a two-phase extraction of inclusion body preparations with Triton X-114 reduced endotoxin in solubilised E2-T1 to levels suitable for in vivo use without affecting protein yields. Dynamic light scattering analyses showed 37.5% of the protein was monomeric, the remaining comprised of soluble aggregates. Mice immunised with E2-T1 developed a high titre antibody response by ELISA. Western hybridisation analysis showed E2-T1 was recognised by sera from immunised mice and also by several BVDV-E2 polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies.Conclusion: We have developed a procedure using E. coli to produce soluble E2-T1 protein from IB, and due to their insoluble nature we utilised a novel approach using Triton X-114 to efficiently remove endotoxin. The resultant protein is immunogenic and detectable by BVDV-E2 specific antibodies indicating its usefulness for diagnostic applications and as a subunit vaccine. The optimised E. coli expression system for E2-T1 combined with methodologies for solubilisation, refolding and integrated endotoxin removal presented in this study should prove useful for other vaccine applications

Science advice for global challenges: learning from trade-offs in the IPCC

In the context of ongoing debates about the place of knowledge and expertise in the governance of global challenges, this article seeks to promote cross-sectoral learning about the politics and pitfalls of global science advice. It begins with the intertwined histories of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the global climate policy regime, before examining the politics of different ‘framings’ of the climate problem and the challenges of building and communicating scientific consensus. We then identify three important trade-offs which the IPCC has had to negotiate: global versus local; scientific disinterestedness versus policy-relevance; and consensus versus plurality. These lessons are especially timely as global institutions begin to convene knowledge to address urgent sustainable development challenges posed by anti-microbial resistance (AMR). While the IPCC experience does not provide a wholly transportable model for science advice, we show why similar trade-offs need to be addressed at an early stage by architects of advisory systems for AMR as well as other global challenges

The impact of digitization and digital resource design on the scholarly workflow in art history

The technological progress of the past decades has had a transformative effect on both cultural institutions and academic research. It is generally accepted that mass digitization projects led by museums, libraries and archives have allowed institutions to reach new audiences and increase the impact of their collections, while the emergence of digital libraries and other types of digital resources has opened up new opportunities for scholars in terms of accessing diverse types of information. Yet, our knowledge of the impact of these resources on the scholarly workflow beyond the stage of discovery remains limited; this paper argues for the importance of understanding user behavior and needs for building digital resources that have a positive effect on the whole scholarly workflow. By employing an ethnographic approach to the study of art historians’ habits we get a detailed view of the effect that digitization and digital resource design can have on scholars’ work, from the seeking of the information to the construction of the research argument. The complex information behavior of art historians and the challenges they often face when interacting with digital resources make them a great example to demonstrate the impact that these can have on the research process

A Catalogue of Digital Editions

Since the earliest days of hypertext, textual scholars have produced, discussed and theorised upon critical digital editions of manuscripts, in order to investigate how digital technologies can provide another means to present and enable the interpretative study of text. This work has generally been done by looking at particular case studies or examples of critical digital editions, and, as a result, there is no overarching understanding of how digital technologies have been employed across the full range of textual interpretations. This chapter will describe the creation of a catalogue of digital editions that could collect information about extant digital editions and, in so doing, contribute to research in related disciplines. The resulting catalogue will provide a means of answering, in the form of a quantitative survey, the following research questions: What makes a good digital edition? What features do digital editions share? What is the state of the art in the field of digital editions? Why are there so few electronic editions of ancient texts, and so many of texts from other periods? By collecting data regarding existing digital editions, and corresponding directly with the projects in question, we provide a unique record of extant digital critical editions of text across a range of subject areas, and show how this collaboratively edited catalogue can benefit the Digital Humanities community

Embedding creativity into digital resources: Improving information discovery for art history

Over the past decades, technological advancement and the mass digitization of information resources have led to the development of a range of digital resources for academic scholarship. Understanding the needs of scholars when employing digital resources for their work can lead to the building of digital infrastructure that not only enables access to the required information but also has the potential to transform scholarship through having a positive effect on the whole scholarly workflow. Through this article, we show how the design of digital libraries and resources can be improved to enhance information discovery and use in art history, while also benefiting other key areas of the research process. By employing an ethnographic approach to the study of scholarly practices, we developed a sound understanding of art historians’ behaviour when interacting with information at different stages of the scholarly workflow. Our results show that scholars exhibited highly creative behaviour when conducting core scholarly activities, such as information seeking and use. Yet, the challenges they often encountered showed that there is still more work to be done to improve digital infrastructure and tools for scholarship in the field. Part of this article will focus on the user requirements for designing systems that facilitate discovery, encourage creative use of information, and trigger inspiration