Seeing the Story in Data Series – Kick off Talk – Vetria Byrd PhD

logo for the Data and Computational Science Series 20200

 

JOIN us for the first in a four part data visualization series entitled:

Seeing the Story in the Data

A well thought out and designed visualization can convey meaning and deep insight into vast amounts of data.  In this four part lecture series, data visualization researchers and experts will discuss visualizations from different disciplines and highlight choices made to find the “so what”.

This series is a part of the Data and Computational Science Series.

Our first speaker will be Vetria Byrd PhD Assistant Professor of Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University.  Dr. Byrd is interested in interdisciplinary research topics such as uncertainty visualization (it’s role and impact on reasoning in decision-making), big data, and high performance visualization.

Title: The Role of Data Visualization in Science and Computational Science

Date: March 2, 2022

Time: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST

 Please register https://ce.uc.edu/FacDev/Workshops/Details/17323 for the zoom link

This free event is hosted by UC Libraries Research and Data Serivces and the Office of Research – Research Computing and Data and funded by the Office of the Provost Universal Provider Grant and is open to all.

Oesper Collection Highlights: Honoring African-American Chemists (Alice Ball)

The Oesper Collections and Museum in the History of Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati is pleased to present a new blog series, Oesper Collection Highlights.  We will feature items from our amazing collections of rare books, prints and portraits, and online collections that will inspire and educate all.  We thank our student intern, Brenna Kobes, for researching and preparing these posts.  If you have questions about the Oesper Museum, please contact Ted Baldwin, Ted.Baldwin@uc.edu, Director of the UC Science and Engineering Libraries. 

Our first installments in the Oesper Collection Highlights will celebrate African-American History Month. African-American Chemists selected for these profiles were early pioneers in the field – some were the first to achieve PhDs in chemistry, whereas others made significant contributions to study and practice. Sometimes their stories and voices have not been heard.  We aim to highlight and celebrate these accomplished African-American chemists who contributed across the spectrum of the chemistry discipline.

Alice Ball

Fig. 1, Alice Ball

Alice Ball (Figure 1) was born in 1892.  She is best known for developing the Ball Method, which was the best know treatment for leprosy in the 20th century.  Ball earned her master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Hawaii and is known as the university’s first African-American professor as well as its first female professor. Her love for chemistry began early, thanks to her grandfather and parents, all of which worked in the photography field. The development of photographic images relied heavily on mercury vapors and iodine sensitized silver plates, all of which would have provided young Alice with a first glimpse of chemistry in action (Latchman, 2020).

In 1912, Ball completed a bachelor’s degree in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Washington. Two years later, she completed a second bachelor’s degree in the science of pharmacy. While at the University of Washington, she co-wrote a pap­er with her professor Williams Dehn, entitled Benzoylations in Ether Solution” (Collins, 2016) . She was offered opportunities at both the University of California Berkeley and the College of Hawaii (now known as the University of Hawaii).  Ball accepted the latter and began work on her master’s degree in chemistry. Her research investigated the chemical properties of the Kava plant, a native of the Pacific islands. This deep understanding of the chemical properties of plants would later work in her favor.  She was invited to work and research alongside Harry T. Hollmann, then employed by the U.S. Public Health Service in Hawaii and serving as acting assistant surgeon at the Leprosy Investigation Station. Ball studied the chemical properties of chaulmoogra oil, derived from a tree of the same name and used medically for centuries. Several issues were present with use of the oil, however.  Topical application was very difficult due to its very sticky nature, the oil had an unpleasant taste which made ingestion hard for patients, and the oil could not be absorbed by the body – it simply just sat under the skin (Wermager & Heltzel, 2007). Ball developed her namesake method that isolated different compounds within the oil and modified them, thereby producing an oil that retained the medical benefits, but could be absorbed by the skin.

This method remains Ball’s greatest achievement, as she unexpectedly passed away just one year later at the age of 24. It is thought that she died of chlorine exposure and poisoning after teaching the proper way to use a gas mask.  However, the true cause is unknown. Ball did not publish her method and findings before her death.  Fellow chemist Arthur L. Dean stole her work and claimed it as his own work. Hollmann attempted to correct this error by crediting Ball in a paper published in 1922.  However, Ball’s contributions were not truly celebrated until the 1970s. when Kathryn Takara and Stanley Ali (two professors and historians at the University of Hawaii), were able to officially recognize her contributions to the field of chemistry. In 2000, the University of Hawaii honored Ball with a plaque placed at the school’s only chaulmoogra tree (Collins, 2016). In 2020, a short film (Fig. 2) titled The Ball Method was released. This film can be found on streaming video services Kanopy and Amazon Prime. The Ball Method details her life and the contributions that she made to the treatment of leprosy and the field of chemistry.

 

Author: Brenna Kobes, Intern for the Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry

Bibliography

Collins, S. N. (2016, May 12). Alice Augusta Ball: Chemical Drug Pioneer. United States of America .

Latchman, D. (2020, April 22). “The Ball Method” trailer introduces Alice Ball, who discovered treatment for leprosy. Retrieved from medium.com: https://medium.com/science-vs-hollywood/who-is-alice-ball-the-hero-behind-the-ball-method-short-film-69b7c5becc34

Mendheim, B. (2007, September). Lost and Found: Alice Augusta Ball an Extradordinary Woman of Hawai’i Nei. Northwest Hawai’i Times. Hawai’i, United States of America .

Wermager, P., & Heltzel, C. (2007, February). Alice A. Ball Young Chemist Gave Hope to Millions. ChemMatter, pp. 16-19.

New science e-journals

UC now has access to the many new e-journal titles, thanks to our OhioLINK statewide licenses. If you have questions, please contact Chemistry & Biology Ask-A-Librarian. Visit the Ralph E. Oesper Chemistry-Biology Library website to search for other e-journals.

Here are the newly available e-journals for chemistry.

Cover of Microscopy TodayMicroscopy Today

Microscopy Today (MTO) provides information of interest to microscopists working in all fields. Coverage spans all microscopy methods including development and applications in light microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, electron microscopy, ion-beam techniques, and a wide range of microanalytical methods. 

Continue reading

CECH Spotlight: Love Is Love

CECH Spotlight highlights recommended books in the the UC College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH) Library.

Love Is Love / written by Michael Genhart; illustrated by Ken Min / 2018

A young boy with gay parents is constantly teased and bullied at school. They tell him that his “family wasn’t a real family”. Through a conversation between friends, learn how they discover what makes a family real.

Love is Love is a simple, yet beautiful, story that teaches children that it’s love that makes a family real. Told through the conversation between two young friends confiding in one another, this is the perfect picture book to teach young children about love, uniqueness, and inclusion. Inside, there are resources, discussion questions, and more to help begin a gentle conversation about bullying, discrimination, and empowerment.

Love Is Love is available from CECH Library,  as well as the OhioLINK and Search Ohio lending networks.

Review by Sadie Matthews, CECH Library Student Assistant | Elementary Education, CECH 2023

The Illustrated Human – 5th lecture in the Vesalius series to focus on “Presenting and Interpreting the Different Organ Systems”

vesalius illustrationsThe Illustrated Human: The Impact of Andreas Vesalius lecture series continues Tuesday, Feb. 15 at 5:30 p.m. in Kresge Auditorium, Medical Sciences Building, 231 Albert Sabin Way with a presentation titled Vesalius: Presenting and Interpreting the Different Organ Systems. The four speakers, all University of Cincinnati College of Medicine faculty, will present on the anatomy of their respective organ specialties. They will discuss what Vesalius discovered, what he got right and what he got wrong being limited by the current functional understanding of the day.

Offering their insights will be Richard Becker, MD, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Health and Disease; Alvin Crawford, MD, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery; Myles Pensak, MD, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Charles Prestigiacomo, MD, Department of Neurosurgery. With anatomy being foundational to these medical specialties, it is important to consider the role of human dissection in acquiring this foundation for research and practice.

Please register to attend.

More information about The Illustrated Human: The Impact of Andreas Vesalius lecture series and accompanying exhibits, can be found on the series website.

The Illustrated Human: The Impact of Andreas Vesalius is sponsored by Stephen and Sandra Joffe.

 

Love Data Week 2022

graphic representation of International Love Data Week

 

Love Data Week

UC celebrates International Love Data Week. Feb 14-18, 2022.

UC Libraries will celebrate Love Data Week by hosting several workshops and events around campus.

Love Data Week was started to promote data use in higher education by a collection of academic librarians. It has grown into an international movement where data resources, workshops and collections are showcased during Valentine’s Day week. Learn more about its history and other events at https://myumi.ch/ICPSRldw2022events. #LoveData22

The theme this year is “Data is for Everyone.”
Sponsored by the Research and Data Services Department at UC Libraries along with Office of Research -Research Technologies-Research Computing and Data and the Graduate School, there are events daily to support researchers in every aspect of the data lifecycle from Library, Research Computing, and graduate student team members.

Featuring classes on storage and sharing (GitHub), using GIS to tell a story in a user-friendly format (Intro to Story Maps), data analysis, Introduction to XSEDE Big Data and Machine learning, organizing information (for Grad Students), protecting your own data (Consumer Data Protection), and finding data through patents (Find Patents!), this week will have something for everyone! Continue reading

The University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Progress Report, 2020-2021

Looking back as we plan our NEXT Directions.

This year’s Annual Progress Report covers July 2020 through June 2021. It was an exceptionally complicated time, during which we entered the second year of the pandemic, developed and adopted new digital resources to support remote learning and remote research and prepared for the transition back to campus for the 2021 fall semester.

In these unprecedented times, library faculty and staff continuously found ways to transform and elevate library services by bringing their experience, talents and dedication to the forefront so as to continue to fulfill our mission to “empower discovery, stimulate learning and inspire the creation of knowledge by connecting students, faculty, researchers and scholars to dynamic data, information and resources.” Continue reading

New Book Spotlight: The Blackbird Girls

The New Book Spotlight highlights new-to-us titles in the the UC College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH) Library.

The Blackbird Girls / by Anne Blankman / 2020

Content Advisory/Trigger Warning: physical and mental abuse, anti-Semitism

Anne Blankman’s The Blackbird Girls is a historical fiction that jumps between Oksana and Valentina in the aftermath of the Chernobyl power plant explosion in 1986, and Rifka who is on the run from the Nazis in 1941.

Rifka grew up practicing Judaism while Valentina identifies only ethnically with Judism. Separated by over forty years, the two girls experienced anti-Semitism in ways that were similar yet so different. Oksana was the perfect Ukrainian, and all her life she was told to hate Valentina and people “of her kind”.

When the Chernobyl power plant exploded, Valentina and Oksana’s lives were forced together much to their dismay. But when they have to live together in Leningrad with Valentina’s grandmother, they learn how similar they are and how important they are to each other.

Blankman explores the impact World War II and the Holocaust had on Jewish people while showing personal growth in a prejudice time in world history. Blankman has created a story full of hope and resilience in a time of fear and uncertainty.

The Blackbird Girls is available from CECH Library, as well as the OhioLINK and Search Ohio lending networks. It also won the 2020 National Jewish Book Award for Middle Grades Literature.

Review by Alice Somers (she/her), CECH Library Student Assistant | Secondary English Education, CECH 2025

Man Qi joins RDS team as a student research consultant

Man QiMan Qi is joining UC Libraries’ Research and Data Services (RDS) team as a student research consultant where she will provide consultations in the Data & GIS Collab in the Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library.

Her expertise is GIS software, hydrological modeling, SWMM modeling, geographic data processing, spatial analysis, map design, Python and R.

Man Qi is a PhD candidate in Geography & GIS from UC’s College of Arts and Sciences. She is passionate about helping others with data visualization and spatial data analysis. Her main job is to provide support to our UC community in spatial data processing and analysis (e.g., location analysis, spatial interpolation), map design and making using GIS techniques and hydrological modeling using SWMM. In addition, she also works with UC RDS team to develop workshops according to the UC community’s needs in learning GIS techniques, such as ArcGIS StoryMaps workshop.

Welcome, Man!

UC Libraries commemorates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a week-long online learning event

martin luther king, jr.The UC Libraries Racial Equity, Support & Programming to Educate the Community Team (RESPECT) will be hosting an online asynchronous, interactive program to commemorate and celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Visit the online presentation beginning Jan.17 to read and listen to Dr. King’s speech, “The Other America,” then engage in conversation and learning throughout the week of Jan. 17-21.