Tag: #bigdata

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Digital geospatial data, a tool for interpretation of our past – by Gregor Završnik

How can the benefits of digital geospatial data be leveraged? How can the discoverability and accessibility of geospatial records in a uniform and accessible way can be assured? The workshop “New Digital Exponential Technologies Towards The Generation Of Business Models” discussed these issued in both the technological and also the archival world.

Gregor Završnik.

Bio. Gregor Završnik is an international consultant with more than 20 years of experience in the Geospatial field. His geospatial digital records preservation engagement started on the E-ARK project in 2015 and continues until today with his work on the CEF eArchiving Building Block. As a member of the E-ARK3 team, he is leading the development of specifications and training for the eArchiving Building block in the field of geospatial information. His clients range from archives to mapping agencies and digital preservation solution providers. He is also a member of the Digital Information LifeCycle Interoperability Standards Board (DILCIS) and a short-term consultant for the World Bank.

Abstract. Maps and modern geospatial records are a useful tool to understand better objects and phenomena. With the development of exponential technologies such as social networks, artificial intelligence geospatial data became a fundamental component in the development of the digital economy. However, the benefits of this technology can only be leveraged if the discoverability and accessibility of geospatial records can be assured in a uniform and accessible way. A lot of data is stored in different formats with different levels of documentation and is often only accessible in closed systems. Mr Završnik shows how, using both simple and advanced technologies, geospatial data can be used for visualisation and analysis to understand better and make more use of our past data and present.

He discusses what generally brings value to data and what challenges are being faced in the data-driven economy. He goes on to propose how the Common Information Type Packaging Specifications for geospatial records, developed in the EU eArchiving building block, can support creating an Interoperable and connected information platform that can facilitate innovation and generate new business models. The solution is based on international standards from the geospatial and archival domains. The use of eArchiving specification ensures an open and transparent approach that will be sustainable and will ensure legal compliance.

Watch the session on YouTube here and check the manuscript paper prepared for the workshop here.

Written by Leonard Callus, the European Digital Treasures Team & Gregor Završnik.

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Link-Lives – Building historical big data from archival records for use by researchers and the Danish public – by Barbara Revuelta-Eugercios

Barbara Revuelta-Eugercios.

The third presentation on September 3rd at the workshop in Alicante was held by Barbara Reuvelta-Eugercios. She is associate research professor with special responsibilities at the National Archives of Denmark and associate research professor at the SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen. Her focus is on historical demography, mortality inequality and digital methods in history. After her doctoral studies in Spain, she has worked in research institutions in Sweden, France and Denmark in the fields of economic history, demography and history. She co-directs the Link-Lives project since 2019.

Abstract. The Link-Lives project is a cross-disciplinary research project. The aim is to take the difficult and time-consuming task of combining information from diverse archival sources relating to any given person, to build life-courses and family relations. The timespan for the project is from 1787 to the present. The results will be freely and easily available to everybody. The project will expand the scope of registry-based research from decades to centuries and open new avenues for intergenerational research in the health and social sciences. It will also ease the access to some of Denmark’s digital treasures to the average citizen. Link-Lives is a collaboration between the Danish National Archives, the Copenhagen City Archives and the University of Copenhagen. It is funded through two grants by the Innovation Fund Denmark, the Carlsberg Foundation and two small grants from the Ministry of Culture.

You can watch the whole session on YouTube here & read the manuscript paper here!

Written by Barbara Revuelta-Eugercios & the European Digital Treasures Team.

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Browsing through sealed historical documents: noninvasive imaging methods for document digitization – by Daniel Stromer

 

The European Digital Treasures team wants to disclose the various presentations held within the workshop “New digital exponential technologies towards the generation of business models” on 2nd and 3rd of September, 2021 at the Provincial Historical Archive of Alicante (Spain). For this reason, we are posting about each of the presentations.

Daniel Stromer.

One of the speakers was Daniel Stromer, who started to study medical engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in 2010. In 2019, he finished his PhD (Dr.-Ing.) in Computer Science with the title “Non-invasive imaging for Digital Humanities, Medicine, and Quality Assessment“. Daniel is now heading the Learning Approaches for Medical Big Data (LAMBDA) group of the Pattern Recognition Lab (PRL) at FAU. In parallel, he joined Siemens Healthineers as collaboration manager for Digital Health. He is currently project lead of a multimodal document digitization project as well as interested in research where pure image data is being enriched and correlated with new data sources.

Abstract. Historical documents are witnesses of history that provide us with valuable information about former times. Many of these relics are too fragile to open them, such that innovative non-invasive imaging techniques can help to reveal hidden contents. In this work, we present our research on Computed Tomography, Phase-contrast and Terahertz imaging. We use image processing methods to visualize the digital data for the naked eye. Our use cases are mainly books, but also Asian bamboo scroll data is shown. As an outlook, our future research will focus on hybrid imaging approaches combined with intelligent image processing. Our research aim is to gain insights, and based on them, provide guidelines for specific documents. Therefore, the space of documents and modalities is presented. We try to utilize advantages and counter disadvantages of certain modalities. Finally, the future of this highly translational research is discussed and possible considerations for potential commercialization are presented.

You can watch the whole session on YouTube here & read the manuscript paper here!

Written by Daniel Stromer & the European Digital Treasures Team.