Search Results (4)

The very serious problem of temperature and humidity regulation, especially for small and medium-sized museums, galleries, and private collections, can be mitigated by the introduction of novel materials that are easily applicable and of low cost. Within this study, archive boxes with innovative technology are proposed as “smart” boxes that can be used for storage and transportation, in combination with a nanocomposite material consisting of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and graphene oxide (GO). The synthesis and characterization of the PVA/GO structure with SEM, Raman, AFM, XRD, Optical Microscopy, and profilometry are fully discussed. It is shown that the composite material can be integrated into the archive box either as a stand-alone film or attached onto fitting carriers, for example, those made of corrugated board. By applying the PVA/GO membrane this way, even with strong daily temperature fluctuations of ΔT = ±24.1 °C, strong external humidity fluctuations can be reduced by −87% inside the box. Furthermore, these humidity regulators were examined as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) adsorbers since gas pollutants like formic acid, formaldehyde, acetic acid, and acetaldehyde are known to exist in museums and induce damages in the displayed or stored items. High rates of VOC adsorption have been measured, with the highest ones corresponding to formic acid (521% weight increase) and formaldehyde (223% weight increase). Full article

This study discusses the process of digitizing the Dutch East India Company (VOC) treasures archive from the 17th century to the mid-20th century during the Dutch East Indies colonial government (1818–1942). This VOC archive has been recognized by UNESCO as a world historical heritage, namely, the Memory of the World Register, in March 2004. The National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia (ANRI), as a national archival institution, is responsible for opening these archives online for the public, students, scientists, and all those in need around the world. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a digitization process for easy access to the VOC archives. The purpose of this study was to see how the process of digitizing the VOC archives was carried out and what obstacles were encountered in the process. This research method uses a qualitative approach with a case study method through a narrative description of data analysis that focuses on digitizing activities carried out by the ANRI, especially in the Reproduction and Archive Digitization Sub-Directorate. Data were collected through observation of digitization activities, interviews with archivists involved, analysis of digitizing documents, and literature studies. The results that can be reviewed are the process of digitizing the VOC archives, starting from the archive identification stage, metadata preparation, archive digitization, digitizing quality control, digital archive storage, and making reports of the activity of digitization. The digitized archives are presented on the website of “Sejarah Nusantara-Arsip Nasionalthat”, which can be freely accessed by the public. The conclusion obtained is that the digitization of the VOC archives has been carried out well according to the standard procedures previously established and the practice theory of archive digitization in general. Full article

Regressing the distribution of different sub-populations from a batch of images with learning algorithms is not a trivial task, as models tend to make errors that are unequally distributed across the different sub-populations. Obviously, the baseline is forming a histogram from the batch after having characterized each image independently. However, we show that this approach can be strongly improved by making the model aware of the ultimate task thanks to a density loss for both sub-populations related to classes (on three public datasets of image classification) and sub-populations related to size (on two public datasets of object detection in image). For example, class distribution was improved two-fold on the EUROSAT dataset and size distribution was improved by 10% on the PASCAL VOC dataset with both RESNET and VGG backbones. The code is released in the GitHub archive at achanhon/AdversarialModel/tree/master/proportion. Full article

Important records can be damaged directly and indirectly. Their restoration, if possible, is difficult as it is very time-consuming and costly. Although measures have been taken to permanently preserve records, most studies focus on preventing short-term damage from physical or biological factors and not on preventive measures against chemical damage from long-term polluted air exposure. This study investigated the types, concentrations, and distribution characteristics of hazardous chemicals present in the valuable archive of the National Library of Korea (NLK) and identified the sources of these pollutants. Mean SO₂, NO_X, CO, CO₂, and total volatile organic compound (TVOC) concentrations were 1.49 ± 0.44 ppb, 30.52 ± 19.70 ppb, 0.75 ± 0.21 ppm, 368.91 ± 32.23 ppm, and 320.03 ± 44.20 µg/m³, respectively, meeting the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) of Korea standards. Toluene (66.43 ± 10.69 µg/m³) and acetaldehyde (157.23 ± 6.43 µg/m³) were present at the highest concentrations, respectively. Two principal components were extracted via a principal component analysis; the primary component (66%) was closely related to outdoor pollution sources and the secondary component (33%) to indoor sources. Results contribute to establishing air quality standards and management measures for preservation of this archive. Full article