Codicological Descriptions in the Digital Age

Although some of the traditional roles played by codicological descriptions in the print era have not changed when translated to digital environments, other roles have been redefined and new ones have emerged. It has become apparent that in digital form the relationship of codicological descriptions to the books they describe has undergone fundamental changes. This article offers an analysis of three of the most significant of these changes: 1) the emergence of new purposes of and uses for these descriptions, especially with respect to the usefulness of the highly specific and specialized technical language common to codicological descriptions; 2) a movement from a one-to-one relationship between a description and the codex that it represents to a one-to-many relationship between codices, descriptions, metadata, and digital images; and 3) the significance of a shift from the symmetry of using books to study other books to the asymmetry of using digital tools to represent and analyze books

Counting Sheep: Potential Applications of DNA Analysis to the Study of Medieval Parchment Production

This chapter follows up on several preliminary tests that have shown that DNA survives in medieval parchment manuscript leaves and may be extracted and analyzed, and offers suggestions for defining and implementing future genetic studies of parchment. It articulates the need to consider genetic data in conjunction with other types of evidence—such as historical texts and archaeological data—both in planning tests of parchment and in interpreting the results of such tests. I consider the potential influences of diet, urbanization, market and trade specialization, and changes in agricultural practices and animal husbandry on parchment production, and discuss how genetic analysis can contribute to our knowledge of these topics as well as how historical and archaeological evidence will both complicate and contextualize data derived from genetic testing

(In)Completeness in Middle English Literature: The Case of the Cook’s Tale and the Tale of Gamelyn

This essay considers the ways in which incompleteness – the de facto status of virtually all of Middle English literature – is both a type of failure and a special characteristic of this literature. The discussion is framed around the incomplete Cook\u27s Tale from Chaucer\u27s Canterbury Tales and the Tale of Gamelyn, a romance frequently misattributed to Chaucer that circulated with the Canterbury Tales, often to fill the gap left by the incomplete Cook\u27s Tale

Panel Report: Legal Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age

Following the model established by the previous year’s Symposium, the 2nd Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age concluded with a panel discussion. The overarching topic of the panel was open access and the digitization of medieval legal documents. The panel comprised a group of scholars with diverse specializations, including medieval legal history, medieval charters, information science, papyrology, and epigraphy

Evidence for Updating the Core Domain Set of Outcome Measures for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: Report from a Special Interest Group at OMERACT 2016

Objective. The current Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) Core Set was developed in 1997 to identify the outcome measures to be used in JIA clinical trials using statistical and consensus-based techniques, but without patient involvement. The importance of patient/parent input into the research process has increasingly been recognized over the years. An Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) JIA Core Set Working Group was formed to determine whether the outcome domains of the current core set are relevant to those involved or whether the core set domains should be revised.Methods. Twenty-four people from the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, including patient partners, formed the working group. Guided by the OMERACT Filter 2.0 process, we performed (1) a systematic literature review of outcome domains, (2) a Web-based survey (142 patients, 343 parents), (3) an idea-generation study (120 parents), (4) 4 online discussion boards (24 patients, 20 parents), and (5) a Special Interest Group (SIG) activity at the OMERACT 13 (2016) meeting.Results. A MEDLINE search of outcome domains used in studies of JIA yielded 5956 citations, of which 729 citations underwent full-text review, and identified additional domains to those included in the current JIA Core Set. Qualitative studies on the effect of JIA identified multiple additional domains, including pain and participation. Twenty-one participants in the SIG achieved consensus on the need to revise the entire JIA Core Set.Conclusion. The results of qualitative studies and literature review support the need to expand the JIA Core Set, considering, among other things, additional patient/parent-centered outcomes, clinical data, and imaging data

The First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has validated and made publicly available its First Data Release. This consists of 2099 square degrees of five-band (u, g, r, i, z) imaging data, 186,240 spectra of galaxies, quasars, stars and calibrating blank sky patches selected over 1360 square degrees of this area, and tables of measured parameters from these data. The imaging data go to a depth of r ~ 22.6 and are photometrically and astrometrically calibrated to 2% rms and 100 milli-arcsec rms per coordinate, respectively. The spectra cover the range 3800--9200 A, with a resolution of 1800--2100. Further characteristics of the data are described, as are the data products themselves.Comment: Submitted to The Astronomical Journal. 16 pages. For associated documentation, see http://www.sdss.org/dr