Riluzole is the only drug approved for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) but its precise mode of action is not properly understood. Damage to axonal transport of neurofilaments is believed to be part of the pathogenic mechanism in ALS and this has been linked to defective glutamate handling and increased phosphorylation of neurofilament side-arm domains. Here, we show that riluzole protects against glutamate-induced slowing of neurofilament transport. Protection is associated with decreased neurofilament side-arm phosphorylation and inhibition of the activities of two neurofilament kinases, ERK and p38 that are activated in ALS. Thus, the anti-glutamatergic properties of riluzole include protection against glutamate-induced changes to neurofilament phosphorylation and transport.

In 2007 the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre undertook the digitisation of H. G. Robley’s Moko; or Maori Tattooing along with associated contextual material. This project prompted much thought and debate within the Centre about the propriety of making such material freely available online and highlighted a number of issues which are likely common to most cultural and heritage organisations looking to undertake the digitisation of Māori-based material. Throughout periods of colonisation indigenous knowledge has been collected by ethnographers, anthropologists, and others, and much of this has found its way into the collections of libraries and archives. This is true in New Zealand as it is overseas. However, despite the existence of this material and a national digital strategy that promotes the benefits of online access to cultural and heritage material, the numbers of organisations who have digitised representations of Mātauranga Māori are few. Within the contexts of both international discourse on indigenous knowledge and the NZETC project this paper addresses these issues which fall into the categories of ownership, control, access, and consultation which we also attempt to frame using the corresponding Te Ao Mārama concepts of rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga, mana and putanga, and kōrerorero whānui. Questions arise in terms of ownership of not just the physical objects themselves but also the knowledge encoded within them, issues of who has the right to control that knowledge and determine who may access it and who may not, as well as discovering who it is appropriate to consult with and how institutions may respond to the results of consultation. We ask whether these issues act as barriers to digitisation of Mātauranga Māori material and consequently whether they provide an explanation for the relative scarcity of these types of projects. Finally we identify opportunities that organisations can gain from undertaking such projects.

A new approach to image retrieval is presented in the domain of museum and gallery image collections. Specialist algorithms, developed to address specific retrieval tasks, are combined with more conventional content and metadata retrieval approaches, and implemented within a distributed architecture to provide cross-collection searching and navigation in a seamless way. External systems can access the different collections using interoperability protocols and open standards, which were extended to accommodate content based as well as text based retrieval paradigms. After a brief overview of the complete system, we describe the novel design and evaluation of some of the specialist image analysis algorithms, including a method for image retrieval based on sub-image queries, retrievals based on very low quality images and retrieval using canvas crack patterns. We show how effective retrieval results can be achieved by real end-users consisting of major museums and galleries, accessing the distributed, but integrated, digital collections.

This paper presents an updated technical overview of an integrated content and metadata-based image retrieval system used by several major art galleries in Europe including the Louvre in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the National Gallery in London. In our approach, the subjects of a query (e.g. images, textual metadata attributes), the operators used in a query (e.g. SimilarTo, Contains, Equals) and the rules that constrain the query (e.g. SimilarTo can only be applied to Images) are all explicitly defined and published for each gallery collection. In this way, cross-collection queries are dynamically constructed and executed in a way that is automatically constrained to the capabilities of the particular image collections being searched. The application of existing, standards based, technology to integrate metadata and content based queries underpins an open standards approach to extending interoperability across multiple image databases.

This paper describes the design and prototype implementation of a novel architecture for integrated concept, metadata and content based browsing and retrieval of museum information. The work is part of a European project involving several major galleries and the aim is to provide more versatile access to digital collections of museum artefacts, including 2-D images, 3-D models and other multimedia representations. An ontology for the museum domain, based on the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, is being developed as a semantic layer with references to the digital collection as instance information. A graphical concept browser is an integral component in the user interface, allowing navigation through the semantic layer, display of thumbnails, or full representations of artefacts and textual information in appropriate viewers and the invocation of conventional content based searching or combined querying. Semantic Web technologies are used in system integration to describe how tools for analysis and visualisation can be applied to different data types and sources. This supports flexible and managed formulation, execution and interpretation of the results of distributed multimedia queries. Combined searches using concepts, content and metadata can be initiated from a single user interface.

This paper describes the design and prototype implementation of a novel architecture for integrated concept, metadata and content based browsing and retrieval of museum information. The work is part of a European project involving several major galleries and the aim is to provide more versatile access to digital collections of museum artefacts, including 2-D images, 3-D models and other multimedia representations. An ontology for the museum domain, based on the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, is being developed as a semantic layer with references to the digital collection as instance information. The challenges of dealing with the import and management of multimedia museum information through the CIDOC CRM based semantic layer include data aggregation/derivation, cleaning, mapping and augmentation. Knowledge engineering precepts are used to guide the development of tools for data mapping and the organisation of workshops to enhance the museum partners' understanding of the ontology in relation to their legacy data. Augmentation agents for automatically extracting missing metadata instances from the Web are being developed as a way of assisting users to populate the semantic layer. Natural language processing techniques coupled with information retrieval tools are used for identifying information sources and structuring them into welldefined formats to be entered in the ontology. An ontological approach is also taken to the design and implementation of the user-interface of which a graphical concept browser is an integral component. This allows navigation through the semantic layer, display of thumbnails, or full representations of artefacts and textual information in appropriate viewers and the invocation of conventional content based searching or combined querying. Semantic Web technologies are used in system integration to describe how tools for analysis and visualisation can be applied to different data types and sources. This supports flexible and managed formulation, execution and interpretation of the results of distributed multimedia queries. Searches integrating concepts, content and metadata can be initiated from a single user interface. Combining system and data ontologies to define and publish the semantics of data retrieval brings closer the semantic web ideal of a self-describing digital heritage archive, accessible to anyone who can read these published semantics. 2 A. StevensonP1P, M. AddisP1P, M. BonifaceP1P, S. GoodallP2P, P. GrimwoodP1P, S. KimP2P, P. LewisP2P, K. MartinezP2P,

This document presents the ARTISTE three-level approach to providing an open and flexible solution for combined metadata and image content-based search and retrieval across multiple, distributed image collections. The intended audience for this report includes museum and gallery owners who are interested in providing or extending services for remote access, developers of collection management and image search and retrieval systems, and standards bodies in both the fine art and digital library domains.