National Archives

Summary Positive relationships between the density and distribution of species in taxonomic assemblages are well documented, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Two factors that are expected to be important in explaining variation in these relationships are the spatial scale of analysis and the relative mobility of the study species. We examined density–distribution relationships in British butterflies at a variety of spatial scales. Distributions were proportions of grid squares occupied: 50 m grid within 0·25 km 2 areas (local), 500 m grid in 35 km 2 (regional), 10 km grid across England, Wales and Scotland (national), 153 000 km 2 grid squares across Europe (European), and also seven categories of international distribution (Global; 1 = European endemic to 7 = in 5 + continents). Densities were measured using transect counts at local, regional and national scales. Different relationships between density and distribution occurred at different scales of analysis. When we controlled for the effects of mobility and/or phylogenetic association, a positive relationship between density and distribution was apparent at local, regional and national scales. Species’ national densities in Britain were positively correlated with their European distribution sizes, but significantly negatively correlated with their global range sizes. Butterfly mobility had a positive effect on distribution and a negative effect on density at all spatial scales. For a given total abundance, more mobile species had lower densities but wider distributions, i.e. they were less aggregated than more sedentary species. The decreasing strength of the density–distribution correlation, and the eventual reversal of the pattern, with the increasing magnitude of difference between the scale at which density was measured relative to distribution, suggests that some element of niche may be important in determining densities and distributions. However, the measure of niche breadth analysed did not explain significant variation in density, distribution, or in the density–distribution relationship.

The Pittsburgh Project researchers focused on defining the functional requirements for recordkeeping in a corporate context, and developing means to satisfy them through a blend of policy, system design and implementation strategies that would enable compliance with emerging standards for ‘business acceptable communications’ (records). Part of their brief, particularly associated with the research of Wendy Duff, has been to discover the ‘literary warrant’ for the functional requirements—specifically to determine whether the credibility of particular functional requirements can be established by reference to authoritative sources such as the law, and the standards and best practices of related professionals, for example lawyers, auditors and information technologists, as codified in their literature.1 This article explores the nature of personal recordkeeping and broad social mandates for its role in witnessing to individual lives, and constituting part of society's collective memory and cultural identity. It posits that social mandates for personal recordkeeping may be found in sociology and in creative and reflective writing, and provides some examples of how the ‘urge to witness’, the ‘instinct to account for ourselves’, the need to leave behind ‘the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories’, are represented there. It also considers a range of personal recordkeeping behaviours and the role archivists play in carrying a personal archive beyond the boundaries of an individual life and into the collective archives—how evidence of me becomes evidence of us.This article was originally published in Archives and Manuscripts; the kindness of the editor and the author in allowing it to be republished here is acknowledged.This is a refereed article.A kind of witnessing…Keep them, burn them—they are evidence of me. (Matthew Pearce, nineteenth century surveyor and amateur geologist, referring to his notebooks, in Graham Swift's Ever after, Picador, London, 1992, p52.)2They spent long hours together over little meals she prepared and talked about life and love and literature, assuring each other how wise they were. Now that he's moved back to Europe he writes her frequent letters, making her a witness to his life…(Edmund White, ‘Straight women, gay men’ (1991) in The burning library: writings on art, politics and sexuality 1969–1993, Picador, London, 1995, p.313.)

Abstract Floods from the middle part of the River Morava (eastern Czech Republic) are considered over the course of the past three centuries, the study being based on data derived from documentary evidence (1691–1880), measured peak water stages, Hk (1881–1920) and peak discharges, Qk (1916–2009), evaluated with respect to their N-year return period (HN and QN ). Changes in land use and water management (water reservoirs, channel modifications) are discussed, as are factors influencing runoff conditions in the Morava catchment. Decadal synthesis of flood series identifies the highest flood activity in the decades of 1911–1920 and 1961–1970 (11 floods each), 1831–1840, 1891–1900, 1901–1910 and 1931–1940 (10 floods each). Uncertainty in this series is related to some incompleteness of documentary data in the pre-1881 period. Very low flood frequency occurred in the 1990s–2000s, although the most disastrous floods were recorded in this particular period (July 1997 at Q 100 and March/April 2006 at Q 20–Q 50). Changes in flood frequency correspond partly to long-term changes in temperature and precipitation patterns. Citation Brázdil, R., Řezníčková, L., Valášek, H., Havlíček, M., Dobrovolný, P., Soukalová, E., Řehánek, T. & Skokanová, H. (2011) Fluctuations of floods of the River Morava (Czech Republic) in the 1691–2009 period: interactions of natural and anthropogenic factors. Hydrol. Sci. J. 56(3), 468–485.

Patient delay in presentation of rectal bleeding has been identified as a factor in delayed diagnosis among patients with colorectal cancer. The aim of this study was to identify demographic or psychological factors, or beliefs or behaviors related to delay in presentation of rectal bleeding. In 93 patients presenting with this symptom to their general practitioner, delay ranged from 0 to 249 days with a median of 7 days; 27 (29 percent) delayed more than 14 days. Delay was unrelated to age, sex, ethnic origin, competence in English, length of schooling, social status, availability of social support, measured psychologic traits, and to the belief that the cause might be cancer. The proportions delaying more than 14 days were statistically significantly elevated among those who were not worried by the bleeding (47 percent delayed); those who did not regularly look at their feces or the toilet paper after use (37 percent); and those who took some other action before presenting to their general practitioner (43 percent).

The cultivation of the vine ( Vinis vinifera ) that yields grapes for wine manufacture is strongly influenced by the weather. This relationship enables the use of historical viticultural data (e.g., the start date of the grape harvest, notes on wine quality and quantity) for the reconstruction of temperatures and weather extremes in past times. This paper summarises the basics of the relationship between viticulture and climate in the Czech Lands. We compile historical observations before AD 1500 and for the 16th-18th centuries from various types of documentary evidence. The starting dates of the grape harvest in Znojmo for 1800-1890 are used for the reconstruction of April-August temperatures in Brno. The quality of the wine from Bzenec (1800-1890), Znojmo (1802-1845) and Bohutice (1861-1912) is analysed with respect to temperatures corresponding to excellent, good, average and bad wine. Times of flowering and grape harvest are compared with temperatures at the Velké Pavlovice station for the period 1956-2007 and 1984-2007, for various grape varieties.

This study focuses on the changes in properties of cellulose-based paper, which can take place as a consequence of its contamination by dust particles. The PM1 (fine) and PM10 (coarse) fractions of the dust particles from archival repositories were collected on cellulose filters Whatman 41, polytetrafluorethylene, and quartz filters. The latter two types of samples were subsequently analyzed gravimetrically, with ion chromatography, PIXE, and the thermal–optical transmission method, giving mass, ionic, elemental carbon, and organic carbon concentrations. After artificial aging, the viscosity-average degree of polymerization of cellulose (DPv) was measured. It was confirmed that cellulose-based paper can undergo substantial changes when contaminated by dust particles and artificially aged. The decrease of the DPv of cellulose showed a negative correlation with the deposited mass of sulfate ions in the dust particles. Considering the particle size fraction, the results suggest the decisive importance of the fine (PM1) particles. The results provide better understanding of how particulate matter contributes to the chemical degradation of cellulose-based paper. Such knowledge is of importance when considering appropriate conservation measures in archives, libraries, and galleries.

The article examines the effects of democracy and globalization on private investment in Ghana for the period 1980–2012, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test for cointegration and the error correction model (ECM). Two models are used. In Model 1, democracy is proxy by an index for institutional quality (Polity 2), while Model 2 uses an index for civil liberties as proxy for democracy. The results for Model 1 show globalization and public investment increase private investment, while exchange rate volatility and trade openness decrease private investment in both the long and short run. In addition, national income and interest rate reduce private investment in the short run. In the case of Model 2, credit to the private sector and public investment increase private investment, while exchange rate volatility and trade openness decrease private investment in both the long and short run. Finally, national income and interest rate reduce private investment in the short run. The findings and policy recommendations of the article provide vital information for policy implementation in Ghana.

This paper introduces a new corpus of multilingual medieval handwritten charter images, annotated with full transcription and named entities. The corpus is used to compare two approaches for named entity recognition in historical document images in several languages: on the one hand, a sequential approach, more commonly used, that sequentially applies handwritten text recognition (HTR) and named entity recognition (NER), on the other hand, a combined approach that simultaneously transcribes the image text line and extracts the entities. Experiments conducted on the charter corpus in Latin, early new high German and old Czech for name, date and location recognition demonstrate a superior performance of the combined approach.

AbstractThis paper deals with documentary evidence of an economic character as a proxy for direct study of meteorological and hydrological extremes. Taxation records and reports of those who administrated domains and estates are described with respect to information about meteorological and hydrological extremes. Based on data from eight domains or estates from Moravia (in the Czech Republic), frequency series of floods and convective storms (including hailstorms) were developed for the period 1650–1849. One example of disastrous weather, which took place on 10 August 1694 in the Pernštejn domain, is used to demonstrate the potential for such studies of the intensity of extremes and their impact on human activities. The importance of economic evidence in the instrumental period is shown through tax rebate data contingent upon hailstorm damage in Moravia (1896–1906). The benefits of employing documentary economic evidence for historical climatology and the study of the impact of meteorological and hydrological extremes on human activities are discussed.Key words: digital photogrammetryglacier velocitiesorthophotosvolume change

In Zimbabwe, at least 97% of the national goat herd is owned by smallholder indigenous farmers. The farmers rarely breed the goats for commercial purposes despite the fact that the country has potential to export goat products. Common breeds in Zimbabwe include the Matabele goats, Mashona goats, Boer goats and the Kalahari goats. With this diversity of the goats’ population, there is need to move from subsistence to commercial production. The drought prone Inyati community is likely to benefit in terms of nutrition and economic security from the goat business. Goats are a rich source of meat (chevon), milk and skins products. While there is a market for goat meat locally, communities can exploit better opportunities in the Southern Africa region such as South Africa as well as beyond the continent, to the Middle East. Goat farming is a viable enterprise and farmers in Inyati district can prosper relying on their indigenous environment. The focus of the study is Inyati community, particularly the smallholder indigenous goat farmers in the area. A purposive sample of 19 goat keeping households was selected on the basis of their flock size from 8 villages under the Inyati community. Data were collected using semi-structured group interviews coupled with personal interviews involving three to four households per village as well as observations. Extension workers, as representatives on the ground were used in the collection of information from communities. Findings of the study revealed that there were management challenges in the rearing and marketing of goats by indigenous farmers. Among other challenges were factors such as high kid mortality and lack of good management practices among farmers, lack of information on the emerging commercial goat production system, economic viability, prospects and constraints of commercial goat farming in the country. Recommended for the study was information on marketing system for goats and their products, and the mechanisms stretch from village level to markets, both locally and abroad. The study came up with a model which promotes the sharing of information between commercial goat farmers in the country. The information shared includes quality of animal’s breeds (germplasm) which are critical for the strengthening of indigenous farmer goat enterprise in Zimbabwe. Key words: Goat flock, goat breed, goat breeding, indigenous, small holder farmers.  

MACHINE-READABLE RECORDS ARE DEFINED as records created for by a computer. While this definition encompasses a wide variety of storage media including punched cards, magnetic discs, cassettes, and paper tape, the vast majority of machine-readable records are stored on magnetic computer tape. It is reasonable to anticipate that, over the next decade, on-line storage and retrieval devices with random access capability will replace magnetic tape as the primary storage medium. This suggests the possibility that new computer storage technology will radically alter the appraisal of machine-readable records. Current appraisal practices of machine-readable records differ in significant ways from those for textual records; and as computer technology progresses these differences will become even more pronounced. Indeed, it is likely that current practices and standards will be obsolete and irrelevant within a decade. It is quite costly to accession and preserve properly a single reel of computer tape. The proliferation of on-line data base management systems will make this process even more expensive, and costs will receive even greater consideration in appraisal decisions. As a result, the consequences of the rationalization (in the British sense) of the records retention process will become more evident, to the discomfort of archivists and researchers. These possibilities suggest or imply a number of points that merit consideration. The standards and practices now employed in the Machine-Readable Archives Division of the National Archives and Records Service, with attention to the changes likely to occur within the next decade, provide the context for this consideration. Since 1969 the staff of the National Archives has appraised machine-readable records and thereby contributed to the refinement of certain concepts and criteria that comprise the present of the art, as it were. A delineation of the sequence of decisions involved in the appraisal of machine-readable records can convey the current state of the art. The first decision—whether a file will be appraised—is left largely to agency records officers. A disposition schedule for machine-readable records identifies categories of disposable and non-disposable computer tape The former, consisting of files that range from initial data input to update transactions, are automatically disposable without regard to subject matter. In most federal agencies at least 60 percent of computer tape files are disposable as processing files. Most non-disposable files, which must be offered to the National

The term 'wax bloom' is used to describe a thin whitish crystalline layer that develops on the surface of beeswax objects under specific conditions. This phenomenon is undesirable, especially in the cases of objects with aesthetic or informational value, such as wax sculptures or historical seals. A combination of solid-state NMR and FTIR measurements allowed to obtain fairly detailed insight into the problem and to suggest a probable mechanism of its development. Secondary crystallization of unsaturated hydrocarbons from beeswax was determined as a primary cause. After the macroscopic solidification of beeswax from the melt, these molecules remain for months in a highly mobile, liquid-like state. This facilitates their diffusion to the surface, where they eventually crystallize, forming the 'wax bloom' effect. Although these results are of particular interest with respect to the conservation of beeswax artifacts, they are relevant to this material in general and help with understanding its unique properties.

Summary Wafers are thin, flat, baked adhesive discs which were used for a variety of sealing and joining functions. In use as early as 1635, wafers were largely displaced by the end of the 19th century by pre-gummed envelopes and seal papers. Recipes for wafers called for fine white flour, isinglass, glair. yeast and a colorant, typically vermillion. Other pigments such as indigo, verdigris, gamboge and red lead were also used. The ingredients were mixed into a paste, diluted with a gum solution, and baked on a metal sheet, or between the faces of a ‘wafer iron’. After cooling, the wafers were cut out of the sheets by hand with round steel punches. Wafers were produced in different sizes for use as adhesive joins or for affixing paper-covered seals on deeds, indentures or other official documents, and are often mistaken for resinous (sealing) wax seals. The use of wafers for repair of torn paper and for mounting of photographs has been observed. The brittleness of wafers can result in breakage and loss, and they are also susceptible to mold. Repair and/or consolidation is sometimes required. Wafer joins must occasionally be separated to reveal obscured information.

Background: Auditing can support national democratic processes, national development and government good will. Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI), such as offices of Auditor General, publish consolidated reports on audit outcomes for local authorities, government departments, parastatals and related public entities. These reports identify broad areas analysed during audit exercises that often include financial management, governance, asset management, risk management, revenue collection and debt recovery. They highlight trends that were detected during audit exercises at the end of a financial year. The reports further show how records and records management affect audit exercises as well as financial management within the audited institutions.Objectives: The intention of the research was to ascertain the contribution of records management to audit opinions and accountability in financial management in Zimbabwean government entities.Method: A document analysis of Comptroller and Auditor General of Zimbabwe (CAGZ)’s reports was used to identify the types of decisions and recommendations (audit opinions) issued, in juxtaposition to the records management issues raised.Results and Conclusion: This study shows that there is a strong correlation between records management concerns and audit opinions raised by the CAGZ’s narrative audit reports. Inadequate records management within government entities was associated with adverse and qualified opinions and, in some cases, unqualified opinions that had emphases of matter. There was a causal loop in which lack of documentary evidence of financial activities was the source cause of poor accounting and poor audit reports. Errors resulting from incomplete or inaccurate records meant that government entities were not showing a true picture of their financial status and their financial statements could be materially misstated. As an important monitoring and control system, records management should be integrated into the accounting and auditing processes of government entities.

Mechanical properties of aged beeswax were studied by an indirect measurement, using hydrogenated beeswax as a model material. The adequacy of the model was evaluated by comparison of its chemical composition and thermal properties with those of samples of historical beeswax. It was found that the gradual decrease in content of unsaturated compounds in beeswax contributes significantly to changes of its mechanical properties. As a consequence, beeswax artefacts become increasingly prone to mechanical damage during natural ageing. Understanding the difference between mechanical properties of recent and historical beeswax is primarily important from the point of view of safe handling and storage of such artefacts. Besides, this knowledge could help conservation scientists, e. g. when preparing model samples for testing new conservation methods.

In this study we investigated the microbial contamination of 126 samples of photographic and cinematographic materials from 10 archival funds in the Czech Republic. Microorganisms were isolated from the light-sensitive layer by swabbing it with a polyurethane sponge. Microbial isolates were identified by MALDI-TOF MS (bacteria) or by phenotype testing and microscopy (fungi). Bacterial contamination was more abundant and more diverse than fungal contamination, and both were significantly associated with archives. The most frequently isolated fungal genera were Cladosporium, Eurotium, Penicillium, Aspergillus and Alternaria. The most frequently isolated bacteria were Gram-positive genera such as Staphylococcus, Micrococcus, Kocuria, Streptococcus and Bacillus. This bacterial and fungal diversity suggests that air is the main vehicle of contamination. We also analysed the impact of the type of material used for the carrier (paper, baryta paper, cellulose acetate and nitrate or glass) or the light-sensitive layer (albumen, gelatine, collodion and other) on the level and diversity of microbial contamination. Carriers such as polyester and cellulose nitrate may have a negative impact on bacterial contamination, while paper and baryta paper may have a partially positive impact on both fungal and bacterial contamination.

At its most basic, digital preservation comprises a series of risks, and strategies to mitigate them. And no matter the scale or type of collections, whether born-digital, digitized, or both, the same challenges and risks apply and similar strategies can be employed. This paper identifies a series of common challenges and potential strategies that can be put in place no matter the type or size of collection or collecting organization.

Journal Article Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism Get access Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism. By Bringhurst Newell G.. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1981. xix + 254 pp. Tables, notes, bibliography, index. $27.50.) Henry J. Wolfinger Henry J. Wolfinger National Archives and Records Service Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 14, Issue 2, April 1983, Pages 219–220, https://doi.org/10.2307/968835 Published: 01 April 1983

Members of the archival profession have demonstrated an increasing interest in standards-related issues, particularly in archival description standards. The author discusses the concepts, principles, and methodologies associated with archival description standards, first by defining the phrase archival description, and then by introducing similar standards in the library profession as a frame of reference. She summarizes existing archival description standards at three levels (data structure, data content, and data value), reviews reasons to develop and use standards along with obstacles blocking their emergence, and explores possible future developments.

Basic archival principles apply to records created by computer technologies. The concepts of informational and evidential value as criteria for retention and the concepts of provenance and original order as keys to arrangement will continue to provide a framework for archival analysis. Description techniques will have to be augmented to accommodate more refined descriptors. Although these basic principles remain applicable, the computer technology forces archivists to address anew the problems of obsolescence and change, privacy and public use, mixed records systems, changing research demands, and the nature of the archival profession itself.