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Cultural heritage is wonderfully diverse and as heritage preservation professionals, it is our duty to address the preventive conservation of all cultural heritages. However, there is no one set of...

The history of photography is brief, yet its impact on mankind is immeasurable. Today, significant photography collections exist worldwide from Boston to Bogota and Beirut. These collections—historic and contemporary—are irreplaceable resources that visually document our history, values, achievements, disappointments, creative expression, and ways of life. The international community of photograph conservation strives to protect and preserve our photographic heritage from deterioration, loss, and destruction. Research, led by conservation and materials science laboratories since the 1960s, has advanced our understanding of photograph preservation, generating significant knowledge about how and why photographic materials deteriorate and how to prevent damage and impede natural deterioration of the wide variety of materials found in photograph collections. However, throughout the United States and around the world, our photographic heritage is vulnerable to natural decay and catastrophic loss. Implementing ...

OBJECTIVETo determine the clinical diagnoses associated with the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) pneumonia (PNEU) or lower respiratory infection (LRI) surveillance eventsDESIGNRetrospective chart reviewSETTINGA convenience sample of 8 acute-care hospitals in PennsylvaniaPATIENTSAll patients hospitalized during 2011–2012METHODSMedical records were reviewed from a random sample of patients reported to the NHSN to have PNEU or LRI, excluding adults with ventilator-associated PNEU. Documented clinical diagnoses corresponding temporally to the PNEU and LRI events were recorded.RESULTSWe reviewed 250 (30%) of 838 eligible PNEU and LRI events reported to the NHSN; 29 reported events (12%) fulfilled neither PNEU nor LRI case criteria. Differences interpreting radiology reports accounted for most misclassifications. Of 81 PNEU events in adults not on mechanical ventilation, 84% had clinician-diagnosed pneumonia; of these, 25% were attributed to aspiration. Of 43 adult LRI, 88% were in mechanically ventilated patients and 35% had no corresponding clinical diagnosis (infectious or noninfectious) documented at the time of LRI. Of 36 pediatric PNEU events, 72% were ventilator associated, and 70% corresponded to a clinical pneumonia diagnosis. Of 61 pediatric LRI patients, 84% were mechanically ventilated and 21% had no corresponding clinical diagnosis documented.CONCLUSIONSIn adults not on mechanical ventilation and in children, most NHSN-defined PNEU events corresponded with compatible clinical conditions documented in the medical record. In contrast, NHSN LRI events often did not. As a result, substantial modifications to the LRI definitions were implemented in 2015.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2016;37:818–824

Preservation of photographic materials, both physical and digital, presents numerous challenges, and photographic collections are at risk world-wide. In response to this danger, regional partners have worked with international organizations to forge global training initiatives and platforms centred on experiential learning and designed with curricula tailored to speci c climates, geographies, needs and outcomes. paper highlights three forward-thinking e orts. The Middle East Photograph Preservation Initiative (MEPPI) has provided training to collections in 16 countries. Préservation du Patrimoine Photographique Africain (3PA) has connected and empowered talented African archivists, artists and collections care professionals. Training efforts by APOYO have sought to build a regional network to preserve collections in Latin America. By using problem-based learning, advocacy and community engagement, these programmes offer new paths for collaboration in an effort to protect a critical piece of our world heritage.

There exist hidden treasures in the Eastern Mediterranean, largely unrecognized and cared for by an enlightened few. These treasures are not the artifacts, monuments and architectural wonders that normally come to mind when pondering the incredibly rich and long cultural history of the region, but photographs dating from the early history of the medium to the present day that are the undervalued record of times past, documentation of social, political and cultural history and the expression of past and present societies. In 2006 the Arab Image Foundation (AIF) and two photograph conservators from the United States began a collaboration that ultimately led to a successful two-week Middle East Photograph Preservation Institute (MEPPI), supported by funding from the Getty and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundations. Fourteen individuals from five Middle Eastern countries participated in this unprecedented and highly successful workshop. This has served as a springboard to launch a range of initiatives aimed...

Computer vision techniques have been applied for rapid and accurate structure recovery in many fields. Most methods perform poorly in areas containing little or no texture and in presence of repetitive patterns. We present a portable, cost-effective pattern projector system powered by the flash of a camera, to aid the reconstruction of such areas. No calibration is required between the camera-projector, projector-scene or pattern. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system on various representative surfaces like metal, clay, porcelain and natural fibres with different inherent colors/textures. A pipeline is presented to automatically generate textured, true scale metric models, which can be used for quantitative studies or visualization. The practability of our system is explored in the specific area of digital archiving of historically significant objects.