Sustaining Digital History

This project seeks to build a scholarly community for the practice of the emerging field of digital history by 1.) enhancing communication and collaboration among scholars and journal editors, 2.) creating model forms of scholarship and peer review, and 3.) establishing a clearinghouse for all peer-reviewed digital history scholarship. Digital History has grown up in the last fifteen years through and around the explosion of the World Wide Web, but historians have only just begun to explore what history looks like in the digital medium. Increasingly, university departments seek scholars to translate history into this fast-paced environment and to work in digital history; however, they have found that without well-defined examples of digital scholarship, established best practices, and, especially, clear standards of peer review for tenure, few scholars have fully engaged with the digital medium. Our challenge now is to create a wider scholarly community around Digital History

Participation, Preferences, and Characteristics of Outlying-Cabin Users in Alaska National Forests

The development and management of public-use cabins have been planned, or at least considered, by several federal and state agencies in Alaska. This bulletin reports the results of a pilot study of the cabin program of the U.S. Forest Service. There are problems of aggregated data which did not allow for detailed analysis; however, the report does provide an overview of the Forest Service outlying cabin program-who uses it, how they use it, and how they feel about it. The manager should be careful in applying the results without consideration of the total recreational spectrum, i.e., where the cabin program fits within this spectrum, and its cost in terms of other recreation opportunities that may be specified. It is the opinion of the authors that it would be unwise to simply mass reproduce the outlying cabin program in all areas having periods of inclement weather. The study sampled only cabin users-not all users or potential users of the particular landscape setting. To over-emphasize an expanded cabin program would reduce the continuum of opportunities. While subsequent studies of the cabin user population would likely find this group to prefer the new program, the users who did not prefer it or who were unwilling to adopt to new conditions would have been displaced. Thus, while the results have some direct applicability, it is also important to consider the maintenance of the continuum of recreational opportunities, only one portion of which is covered by outlying cabins

Cell cycle regulation of a Xenopus Wee1-like kinase

Using a polymerase chain reaction-based strategy, we have isolated a gene encoding a Wee1-like kinase from Xenopus eggs. The recombinant Xenopus Wee1 protein efficiently phosphorylates Cdc2 exclusively on Tyr- 15 in a cyclin-dependent manner. The addition of exogenous Wee1 protein to Xenopus cell cycle extracts results in a dose-dependent delay of mitotic initiation that is accompanied by enhanced tyrosine phosphorylation of Cdc2. The activity of the Wee1 protein is highly regulated during the cell cycle: the interphase, underphosphorylated form of Wee1 (68 kDa) phosphorylates Cdc2 very efficiently, whereas the mitotic, hyperphosphorylated version (75 kDa) is weakly active as a Cdc2-specific tyrosine kinase. The down-modulation of Wee1 at mitosis is directly attributable to phosphorylation, since dephosphorylation with protein phosphatase 2A restores its kinase activity. During interphase, the activity of this Wee1 homolog does not vary in response to the presence of unreplicated DNA. The mitosis-specific phosphorylation of Wee1 is due to at least two distinct kinases: the Cdc2 protein and another activity (kinase X) that may correspond to an MPM-2 epitope kinase. These studies indicate that the down-regulation of Wee1-like kinase activity at mitosis is a multistep process that occurs after other biochemical reactions have signaled the successful completion of S phase

Railroads and the Making of Modern America -- Tools for Spatio-Temporal Correlation, Analysis, and Visualization

This project aims to integrate large-scale data sources from the Digging into Data repositories with other types of relevant data on the railroad system, already assembled by the project directors. Our project seeks to develop useful tools for spatio-temporal visualization of these data and the relationships among them. Our interdisciplinary team includes computer science, history, and geography researchers. Because the railroad "system" and its spatio-temporal configuration appeared differently from locality-to-locality and region-to-region, we need to adjust how we "locate" and "see" the system. By applying data mining and pattern recognition techniques, software systems can be created that dynamically redefine the way spatial data are represented. Utilizing processes common to analysis in Computer Science, we propose to develop a software framework that allows these embedded concepts to be visualized and further studied

A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF FACTORS INFLUENCING FARM MACHINERY PURCHASE DECISIONS

This paper presents a model of the farm management process. The model suggests that certain socioeconomic characteristics of farm managers will influence their decision-making process. Several characteristics are hypothesized an tested using multivariate techniques (multivariate analysis of variance, range tests, and multiple comparisons). The analysis indicates that the soil zone, value of machinery inventory, operator's age, and operator's education influence the importance placed on each of 20 factors. On the basis of the analysis it was concluded that such a model of the farm management process can contribute to an understanding of farm management decisions. In addition, it was concluded that farm managers, farm machinery dealers, and extension agents had significantly different perceptions of the importance of these factors to farm managers. This latter conclusion suggests that more research related to the actual process of decision making is warranted.Farm Management,

Review of \u3ci\u3eHistorical Atlas of the North American Railroad \u3c/i\u3e by Derek Hayes

Lavishly illustrated, beautifully bound, and richly textured, this volume stunningly reproduces the visual culture of the railroad: its maps, brochures, advertisements, broadsides, and pamphlets. Derek Hayes has brought together over 400 maps, ranging from the first railroad survey map drawn in the U.S., filed in 1809, to President Barack Obama\u27s Vision for High Speed Rail in America, published in 2009. This is an impressive compilation, but it is not an atlas in the conventional sense. Hayes considers a map to be any printed item with geographical information on it, whatever its genre. Whether a route map, advertisement, or ticket, whether railroad-produced or not, all are considered maps and treated without regard to their original purpose or format. For this atlas, moreover, Hayes has produced no new cartography, either representational or analytical

The X-ray Properties of Five Galactic Supernova Remnants Detected by the Spitzer GLIMPSE Survey

(Abbreviated) We present a study of the X-ray properties of five Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs) -- Kes 17 (G304.6$+$0.1), G311.5$-$0.3, G346.6$-$0.2, CTB 37A (G348.5$+$0.1) and G348.5$-$0.0 -- that were detected in the infrared by Reach et al. (2006) in an analysis of data from the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) that was conducted by the Spitzer Space Telescope. We present and analyze archival ASCA observations of Kes 17, G311.5$-$0.3 and G346.6$-$0.2, archival XMM-Newton observations of Kes 17, CTB 37A and G348.5$-$0.0 and an archival Chandra observation of CTB 37A. All of the SNRs are clearly detected in the X-ray possibly except for G348.5$-$0.0. Our study reveals that the four detected SNRs all feature center-filled X-ray morphologies and that the observed emission from these sources is thermal in all cases. We argue that these SNRs should be classified as mixed-morphology SNRs (MM SNRs): our study strengthens the correlation between MM SNRs and SNRs interacting with molecular clouds and suggests that the origin of mixed-morphology SNRs may be due to the interactions between these SNRs and adjacent clouds. Our ASCA analysis of G311.5$-$0.3 reveals for the first time X-ray emission from this SNR: the X-ray emission is center-filled within the radio and infrared shells and thermal in nature ($kT$ $\sim$ 0.98 keV), thus motivating its classification as an MM SNR. We find considerable spectral variations in the properties associated with the plasmas of the other X-ray-detected SNRs, such as a possible overabundance of magnesium in the plasma of Kes 17. Finally, we also estimate such properties as electron density $n$$_e$, radiative age $t$$_{rad}$ and swept-up mass $M$$_X$ for each of the four X-ray-detected SNRs.Comment: 78 pages, 26 figures, Astronomical Journal, in pres

Searching for Prosociality in Qualitative Data: Comparing Manual, Closed-Vocabulary, and Open-Vocabulary Methods

Although most people present themselves as possessing prosocial traits, people differ in the extent to which they actually act prosocially in everyday life. Qualitative data that were not ostensibly collected to measure prosociality might contain information about prosocial dispositions that is not distorted by self–presentation concerns. This paper seeks to characterise charitable donors from qualitative data. We compared a manual approach of extracting predictors from participants’ self–described personal strivings to two automated approaches: A summation of words predefined as prosocial and a support vector machine classifier. Although variables extracted by the support vector machine predicted donation behaviour well in the training sample ( N = 984), virtually, no variables from any method significantly predicted donations in a holdout sample ( N = 496). Raters’ attempts to predict donations to charity based on reading participants’ personal strivings were also unsuccessful. However, raters’ predictions were associated with past charitable involvement. In sum, predictors derived from personal strivings did not robustly explain variation in charitable behaviour, but personal strivings may nevertheless contain some information about trait prosociality. The sparseness of personal strivings data, rather than the irrelevance of open–ended text or individual differences in goal pursuit, likely explains their limited value in predicting prosocial behaviour. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psycholog

Do Childhood Vaccines Have Non-Specific Effects on Mortality

A recent article by Kristensen et al. suggested that measles vaccine and bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine might\ud reduce mortality beyond what is expected simply from protection against measles and tuberculosis. Previous reviews of the potential effects of childhood vaccines on mortality have not considered methodological features of reviewed studies. Methodological considerations play an especially important role in observational assessments, in which selection factors for vaccination may be difficult to ascertain. We reviewed 782 English language articles on vaccines and childhood mortality and found only a few whose design met the criteria for methodological rigor. The data reviewed suggest that measles vaccine delivers its promised reduction in mortality, but there is insufficient evidence to suggest a mortality benefit above that caused by its effect on measles disease and its sequelae. Our review of the available data in the literature reinforces how difficult answering these considerations has been and how important study design will be in determining the effect of specific vaccines on all-cause mortality.\u