CONSER VATION OF THE WOODEN ELEMENTS IN THE RENAISSANCE HOUSES OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA

Abstract

Furunori (aged paste) is a conservation material that is used for Japanese painting conservation. Furunori is a smoother and weaker adhesive than fresh paste, and it enables the surfaces to be easily peeled apart, with application of water, in a future conservation. Due to these characteristics, furunori has traditionally been used for attaching the backing paper to paintings in Japan, because it is considered that furunori causes less stress on the paintings than fresh paste. This study aims to clarify the characteristics of furunori based on chemical analysis and examination of the microorganisms involved in the early stage of furunori generation. Based on the results obtained, a polysaccharide similar to furunori was prepared.     

Axiomatics for the Hirsch index and the Egghe index

The Hirsch index and the Egghe index are both numbers that synthesize a researcher's output. The h-index associated with researcher r is the maximum number h such that r has h papers with at least h citations each. The g-index is the maximum number g of papers by r such that the average number of citations of the g papers is at least g. Both indices are characterized in terms of four axioms. One identifies outputs deserving index at most one. A second one establishes a strong monotonicity condition. A third one requires the index to satisfy a property of subadditivity. The last one consists of a monotonicity condition, for the h-index, and an aggregate monotonicity condition, for the g-index.     

Social Media References in Newspapers

Social media are increasingly being used as sources in mainstream news coverage. Yet, while the research so far has focused mainly on the use of social media in particular situations, such as breaking news coverage, during crisis news events or in times of elections, little attention is paid to journalists' routine, day-to-day monitoring of social media platforms. The aim of this study is to examine the use and selection of social media as sources in routine newspaper coverage. First, it presents a quantitative overview of all the articles published between January 2006 and December 2013 in the print editions of two Flemish (north Belgian) quality newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen, that explicitly refer to Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Next, a content analysis is conducted of a sample of newspaper articles published in 2013 that explicitly mention Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as sources of information. The goal of this content analysis is to examine the different appearances and functions of social media references in the news. The study thus provides a first insight into Belgian newspaper journalists' regular sourcing routines in relation to social media.     

Extreme value theory applied to document retrieval from large collections

We consider text retrieval applications that assign query-specific relevance scores to documents drawn from particular collections. Such applications represent a primary focus of the annual Text Retrieval Conference (TREC), where the participants compare the empirical performance of different approaches. P^(K), the proportion of the top K documents that are relevant, is a popular measure of retrieval effectiveness. Participants in the TREC Very Large Corpus track have observed that when the target is a random sample from a collection, P^(K) is substantially smaller than when the target is the entire collection. Hawking and Robertson (2003) confirmed this finding in a number of experimental settings. Hawking et al. (1999) posed as an open research question the cause of this phenomenon and proposed five possible explanatory hypotheses. In this paper, we present a mathematical analysis that sheds some light on these hypotheses and complements the experimental work of Hawking and Robertson (2003). We will also introduce C^(L), contamination at L, the number of irrelevant documents amongst the top L relevant documents, and describe its properties. Our analysis shows that while P^(K) typically will increase with collection size, the phenomenon is not universal. That is, the asymptotic behavior of P^(K) and C^(L) depends on the score distributions and relative proportions of relevant and irrelevant documents in the collection. While this article went to press, Yehuda Vardi passed away. We dedicate the paper to his memory.     

Coverage and citation impact of oncological journals in the Web of Science and Scopus

This paper reviews a number of studies comparing Thomson Scientific’s Web of Science (WoS) and Elsevier’s Scopus. It collates their journal coverage in an important medical subfield: oncology. It is found that all WoS-covered oncological journals (n = 126) are indexed in Scopus, but that Scopus covers many more journals (an additional n = 106). However, the latter group tends to have much lower impact factors than WoS covered journals. Among the top 25% of sources with the highest impact factors in Scopus, 94% is indexed in the WoS, and for the bottom 25% only 6%. In short, in oncology the WoS is a genuine subset of Scopus, and tends to cover the best journals from it in terms of citation impact per paper. Although Scopus covers 90% more oncological journals compared to WoS, the average Scopus-based impact factor for journals indexed by both databases is only 2.6% higher than that based on WoS data. Results reflect fundamental differences in coverage policies: the WoS based on Eugene Garfield’s concepts of covering a selective set of most frequently used (cited) journals; Scopus with broad coverage, more similar to large disciplinary literature databases. The paper also found that ‘classical’, WoS-based impact factors strongly correlate with a new, Scopus-based metric, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), one of a series of new indicators founded on earlier work by Pinski and Narin [Pinski, G., & Narin F. (1976). Citation influence for journal aggregates of scientific publications: Theory, with application to the literature of physics. Information Processing and Management, 12, 297–312] that weight citations according to the prestige of the citing journal (Spearman’s rho = 0.93). Four lines of future research are proposed.     

A compressed self-index using a Ziv–Lempel dictionary

A compressed full-text self-index for a text T, of size u, is a data structure used to search for patterns P, of size m, in T, that requires reduced space, i.e. space that depends on the empirical entropy (H _k or H ₀) of T, and is, furthermore, able to reproduce any substring of T. In this paper we present a new compressed self-index able to locate the occurrences of P in O((m + occ)log u) time, where occ is the number of occurrences. The fundamental improvement over previous LZ78 based indexes is the reduction of the search time dependency on m from O(m ²) to O(m). To achieve this result we point out the main obstacle to linear time algorithms based on LZ78 data compression and expose and explore the nature of a recurrent structure in LZ-indexes, the suffix tree. We show that our method is very competitive in practice by comparing it against other state of the art compressed indexes.

Improving document clustering using Okapi BM25 feature weighting

We investigate the effect of feature weighting on document clustering, including a novel investigation of Okapi BM25 feature weighting. Using eight document datasets and 17 well-established clustering algorithms we show that the benefit of tf-idf weighting over tf weighting is heavily dependent on both the dataset being clustered and the algorithm used. In addition, binary weighting is shown to be consistently inferior to both tf-idf weighting and tf weighting. We investigate clustering using both BM25 term saturation in isolation and BM25 term saturation with idf, confirming that both are superior to their non-BM25 counterparts under several common clustering quality measures. Finally, we investigate estimation of the k1 BM25 parameter when clustering. Our results indicate that typical values of k1 from other IR tasks are not appropriate for clustering; k1 needs to be higher.     

Toward a broader conceptualization of jealousy in close relationships: Two exploratory studies

The study of jealousy is typically restricted to the examination of a third‐party threat to one's romantic relationship. In contrast to this rather narrow view, two studies were undertaken to examine the possibility (a) that individuals experience jealousy over a variety of issues, and (b) that jealousy‐of any type—occurs and is expressed in non‐romantic relationships such as cross‐sex friendship. The goal of Study I was to assess the realism of hypothetical situations representing six different types of jealousy suggested within the literature. These included: friend jealousy, arising from an individual's relationships with friends; family jealousy, arising from a partner's relationships with family members; activity jealousy, occurring when a partner is involved in activities such as school, work, or hobbies; power jealousy, arising from influence over a partner being lost to others; intimacy jealousy, arising when one feels that more advice is sought from or disclosed to others; and romantic jealousy, involving a (perceived) third‐party threat to a relationship's exclusive nature. In Study II, participants were presented with the finalized versions of these jealousy‐evoking scenarios and asked to imagine their cross‐sex friends engaging in such behavior. Respondents then rated the degree of jealousy‐related emotions they would experience in response to each situation and reported how they would express such jealousy. Results indicated that individuals’ emotional reactions and response modes differed according to the type of jealousy encountered. In particular, participants reported the most intense reactions to intimacy jealousy and felt that it was best dealt with by direct modes of communication. Implications of these findings for the study of jealousy in close relationships are discussed.     

A multilevel meta-analysis of studies reporting correlations between the h index and 37 different h index variants

This paper presents the first meta-analysis of studies that computed correlations between the h index and variants of the h index (such as the g index; in total 37 different variants) that have been proposed and discussed in the literature. A high correlation between the h index and its variants would indicate that the h index variants hardly provide added information to the h index. This meta-analysis included 135 correlation coefficients from 32 studies. The studies were based on a total sample size of N = 9005; on average, each study had a sample size of n = 257. The results of a three-level cross-classified mixed-effects meta-analysis show a high correlation between the h index and its variants: Depending on the model, the mean correlation coefficient varies between .8 and .9. This means that there is redundancy between most of the h index variants and the h index. There is a statistically significant study-to-study variation of the correlation coefficients in the information they yield. The lowest correlation coefficients with the h index are found for the h index variants MII and m index. Hence, these h index variants make a non-redundant contribution to the h index.     

Evaluation and publication delay in Ibero-American scientific journals

This article analyses the review, acceptance and publication dates of a sample of 21,890 articles from 326 Ibero-American scientific journals from all subject areas and countries included in the Latindex Catalogue 2.0 and published between 2018 and 2020 (freely available as an open access dataset). The aim is to discover evaluation and publication times. The evaluation process takes a median of 110 days, the publication process, a median of 82 days, and the whole process, a median of 224 days. Statistical differences are found according to periodicity, subject areas, countries, existence of a printed version and article type (Call for Papers or General articles). From the data we find that the delay in publication is longer than publishers themselves report to the DOAJ. STEM areas present the most similarity in publication patterns, having a higher number of evaluation days (Ed) than publication days (Pd); Arts and Humanities present the opposite pattern, with a higher Pd than Ed. In the case of Social Sciences, the times are similar. General articles and Call for Papers articles differ in terms of Ed, but not Pd, indicating that Call for Papers revisions are faster.     

Maintaining your momentum

After the excitement of this summer's Health Libraries Group conference, it is important to maintain that sense of momentum and enthusiasm that being with like‐minded library and information workers can bring. #HLG2018 certainly presented plenty of opportunities for collaboration and the enthusiasm to put ideas into action. The launch of CILIP's Health Hub, bringing together content and resources co‐produced with CILIP members, together with additional categories specifically designed for those working in health to extend CILIP's. Professional Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB) to that of PKSB for Health means there is every reason and resource available to help maintain your momentum and enthusiasm.     

Using the Quality Matters Rubric to Improve Online Cataloging Courses

Quality Matters is a program that certifies online and hybrid courses. For a course to earn Quality Matters certification, it must meet eight standards of online course design and pass a rigorous peer-review process. In fall 2008, this author's online Cataloging and Classification course went through the Quality Matters peer-review process and was awarded Quality Matters certification. It is the only cataloging course in the nation to earn this certification. The author's Quality Matters peer-review process is discussed as is the potential of the Quality Matters rubric to improve online cataloging courses.     

The Gospel According to: A Theory of Transformative Discursive Allegory

The battle between secular culture and conservative religion is one that pervades modern society. In the face of this vehement clash, a curious collection of books has emerged that attempt to provide a means of reconciliation between faith and popular culture. The Gospel according to book series by Presbyterian publisher Westminster John Knox (WJK) Press pairs seemingly controversial artifacts of popular culture such as The Simpsons with the gospel message. These books function in a way that is similar to allegory but lacks allegorical form. This essay argues for the existence of a distinctive rhetorical strategy called transformative discursive allegory that functions to create an allegorical relationship between a secular and a sacred text. WJK's The Gospel according to book series is shown as an example of how transformative discursive allegory functions to allow the faithful to participate in popular culture while simultaneously affirming one's ideological beliefs as omnipresent in the world. The findings suggest that allegorical function and form are separate elements and that one can create an allegorical relationship without allegorical form or intent.     

E-mail in government: Not post-bureaucratic but late-bureaucratic organizations

Empirical research provides evidence that electronic communication does not change government agencies into post-bureaucratic organizations. Structuration Theory is used to explore the interaction between e-mail use, communication patterns of civil servants, and two bureaucratic characteristics: formalization and hierarchy. Previous research suggested that the use of e-mail leads to less formalization and less hierarchy, but empirical research in three bureaucratic organizations in the Netherlands leads to different conclusions. First, the use of e-mail leads to informal formalization: the style of communication is more informal but the content focuses less on personal issues and emphasizes efficient recordings of agreements. Second, the use of e-mail leads to hierarchical horizontalization: horizontal contacts take a more central position in bureaucratic organizations but these horizontal contacts are tightly linked to vertical structures. The result of the interaction between e-mail and government bureaucracy is horizontal communication directly linked to vertical structures. Electronic communication turns government agencies into late-bureaucratic organizations.     

“There’s nothing I hate more than a racist:” (Re)centering whiteness in American Horror Story: Coven

This article examines race and racism in the popular cable horror-drama American Horror Story: Coven. Centered around a feud between a white witch coven and a black, voodoo group of witches, Coven overtly deals with the issue of racism, but presents racism as a phenomenon contained in the past; something that does not happen anymore. Using critical post-race theory and scholarship on colorblind racism, whiteness, as well as black feminist theory, I show that although the narrative of Coven explicitly decries racism, it simultaneously invests in colorblind racist narratives and dialogue. Whiteness is central in Coven, operating through discourse that ignores racial difference and contemporary forms of oppression and erasure. Coven uses graphic depictions of violence against black bodies, makes explicit connections between black sexuality and animals, and uses exotic and aggressive stereotypes of black women to tell its story. Thus, Coven’s narrative both condemns racism and relies on it. This article shows that the contemporaneous presentations of explicit anti-racist dialogue and racist imagery work to (re)place whiteness at the center of Coven, a TV show that purports to forward a message of equality and justice for those who are different.     

VISION OF THE SERMON BY PAUL GAUGUIN: AN EXPLORATION OF MAKING AND MEANING

Abstract

In preparation for a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland in 2005, a thorough technical examination of VISION OF THE SERMON by Paul Gauguin was undertaken for the first time since the painting's acquisition in 1925. An inter-disciplinary approach to the research was adopted in an attempt to assess how innovative were the materials and techniques employed by Gauguin in this iconic work. The importance of the unique customs and religious piety of Brittany in 1888 to the iconography of Vision is discussed, as well as the various ways in which the original appearance of the painting has altered over time. Changes have occurred through both the natural ageing of materials and as a result of human intervention, particularly an aqueous lining and reframing. Analysis suggests that the paint medium consists of several different drying oils, confounding years of speculation that it may contain wax. The discovery that the original surface coating contains beeswax and tallow has grave implications for the feasibility of future conservation treatments. Following Gauguin's accusation of plagiarism by Emile Bernard, a tentative comparison is made between Vision and the latter's Breton Women in the Meadow. This reveals that while compositional similarities exist, Vision is far more complex, both in conception and execution.     

From Grand Narratives of Democracy to Small Expectations of Participation

This article critically examines the invocation of democracy in the discourse of audience participation in digital journalism. Rather than simply restate the familiar grand narratives that traditionally described journalism's function for democracy (information source, watchdog, public representative, mediation for political actors), we compare and contrast conceptualisations of the audience found within these and discuss how digital technologies impact these relationships. We consider how “participatory” transformations influence perceptions of news consumption and draw out analytic distinctions based on structures of participation and different levels of engagement. This article argues that the focus in digital journalism is not so much on citizen engagement but rather audience or user interaction; instead of participation through news, the focus is on participation in news. This demands we distinguish between minimalist and maximalist versions of participation through interactive tools, as there is a significant distinction between technologies that allow individuals to control and personalise content (basic digital control) and entire platforms that easily facilitate the storytelling and distribution of citizen journalism within public discourse (integrative structural participation). Furthermore, commercial interests tend to dominate the shaping of digital affordances, which can lead to individualistic rather than collective conceptualisations. This article concludes by considering what is gained as well as lost when grand visions of journalism's roles for democracy are appropriated or discarded in favour of a participation paradigm to conceptualise digital journalism.     

Consuming the Fractured Female: Lessons from MTV's The Real World

Using MTV's popular long-running program The Real World as a case study, this essay examines the interrelationship of the construction and consumption of bodies in an increasingly surveillance-based, commercial, hybrid media culture. This article is part of a larger project that employed a multi-method approach grounded in feminism combining textual data from The Real World with interviews with producers and female fans of The Real World. The author investigates how Real World viewers make sense of the series' claims to the real, using the body as the site of cultural production. Two key frames of bodies on The Real World are identified: the troubled body and the heteronormative body. The analysis is situated among studies of media realism to interrogate the context in which real women today are recreated as the “fractured female” in popular culture. The author argues that scholars should continue in a move toward interdisciplinary approaches that link the cultural with the capital and offers the body as a major site of cultural production and reception.     

Hydrolates and Gellan: An Eco-innovative Synergy for Safe Cleaning of Paper Artworks

The gellan hydrogel is used as a cleaning agent for paper artworks. The purposes of this work were to give the gellan hydrogel both a microbial resistance and a cytocidal action against the biodeteriogens using hydrolates. Broth microdilution assays were performed to identify the fungicidal action of 16 hydrolates vs 3 fungal strains. The study concerned the Minimal Fungicidal Concentration and pH, colour, and ultra-structural variations on all paper samples, by placing them in contact with GELYD (GELlan?+?hYDrolat). The in vitro tests showed that eight out of 16 hydrolates strongly inhibited fungal growth, but only two of them (Monarda fistulosa, Citrus aurantium subsp amara) showed in situ fungicidal action. Data indicate a new and interesting eco-innovative use of hydrolates, since GELYD is able not only to clean paper artworks, but also to kill the fungal cells present on paper that are potentially harmful for paper and operators.