Art restorers strive (1) in ensuring that beloved works of art (2) will last as long as possible. Art restoration is the repair of artworks such as paintings that have been (3) damaged; be it by the passing of time, natural disasters, or human error. While restoration (4) attempts are sometimes unsuccessful, the effort can result in a rewarding career path for artists and art enthusiasts alike.

Art restorers are experts in how canvas and other surfaces interact with paints and chemicals. Because restoration often involves risky methods such as the use of abrasive solvents, restorers must exercise the utmost precision when they subject valuable (5) works, and in many cases, very old ones—to such treatments. For example, Judith Watkins Tartt, a restorer who has worked on canvases by painters including Auguste Borget and Rembrandt Peale, must sometimes repair older oil paintings that have become discolored as the varnish used to finish them yellows overtime. To correct this issue, Tarrt (6) meticulously removes the layer of varnish with just the right amount of solvent so as not to erase the paint or chemically burn the surface. (7) In preparation for such delicate work, restorers often take chemistry classes and study under master restorers, in addition to completing the usual coursework required for a fine arts degree, (8)  Such training helps art restorers identify forgeries, an increasing problem in the world of fine art. 

Professional restorer Tomoko Murakami restores all manner of paintings, but her expertise is in (9) thangkas: Tibetan Buddhist paintings on cotton or silk appliques. At her studio near San Francisco, Murakami works on thangkas in addition to canvas paintings. She is adept at relatively straightforward tasks such as removing surface dirt, treating discoloration, and correcting the flaking of paint. She also addresses more difficult problems such as creases, warps, and even tears by patching the painting surface, a process that can take days. Murakami has restored paintings from (10) conspicuous museums across the United States, including the Asian Art across the United States, including the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. She holds several degrees-including a bachelor of fine arts in Japanese painting and a master of fine arts in printmaking-and also apprenticed for nine years under the tutelage of a Japanese master art restorer. 

Like Murakami, many restorers (11) have extensive academic and professional credentials; others are employed by museums, libraries, galleries, and antique stores. Though the artistically inclined often consider becoming artists. Those dedicated to the continuity of art may enjoy breathing new life into artworks as restorers. 

(12)  When a historic building has been sitting empty for years, it can seem easier to build a new structure than to rehabilitate the old one. Vacant historic buildings may contain (13) mold; faulty wiring and other costly damage. Nonetheless, communities can benefit from adapting such buildings to suit modern needs. As the rehabilitation of the Vogue Theatre in Manistee, Michigan, (14) argues, renovating historic buildings can be a source of community spirit and economic growth.  The Vogue Theatre was an outstanding feature of downtown Manistee when it was built in 1938. With its art deco features, including the exterior's striking vertical and horizontal lines and vibrant red sign, the theater stood out as a modern landmark against the city's predominantly Victorian architecture. By the time of its closing in 2006, (15) therefore, the theater had fallen into disrepair. Rather than see the building continue to deteriorate, the Downtown Development Authority of Manistee bought Vogue 2010. [ 1] The ensuing renovation project demonstrates how recuperating historic structures can engage and enliven a community. [2] A large fund-raising campaign in Manistee and its environs (16) raised money around the city and neighboring areas, which helped meet the costs of fixing the exterior and purchasing new furnishings and equipment for the interior. [3] More than three hundred volunteers assist in running the theater, and a video that plays before each film (17) showcases the community members who contributed to the renovation. [4] Additionally, because the theater's art deco style has been maintained, the building forms a vital link between the community and its past. (18)

Having sold more than 60,000 tickets in 2016, the Vogue continues to be profitable and has also brought more tangible benefits to Manistee. The theater has become a unique destination that attracts area residents and tourists alike to historic downtown Manistee. Steven Brower, treasurer of the theater's board of directors, has identified a (19) ripple effect in the city's commercial development. Since the reopening, new restaurants and businesses have appeared (20) downtown many business owners attribute higher sales to the renovations. 

(21) The renovation of private homes confronts homeowners with its own set of difficulties. Given the potentially high cost of renovation, community leaders must carefully evaluate to what extent (22) the building anchors the community's identity and heritage? For commercial properties such as the Vogue, they should also consider whether the property will offer a financial return. Not every old structure may merit the expense of rehabilitation, but there is often much to be gained by giving landmark buildings a fresh start. 

How do you measure the width of the outer shell of a nearly 4,000-year-old seed without cutting the seed open and destroying it? (23) That — was the question facing archaeologists Charlene Murphy and Dorian Fuller in 2016. They were trying to track changes over time in the width of the seed coat of the horsegram, a species of bean that was grown in early agricultural societies in South Asia. To Murphy and Fuller, horsegram seed coat width was a clue to understanding the development of agriculture in the 

Archaeologists have long been aware that as societies began to farm, the coats of the farmed (24) plants' seeds' would evolve to become thinner (because seeds with thin coats sprout more quickly, giving them (25) a benefit and advantage over thick-coated seeds in an agricultural environment). (26)They hoped that if they gathered samples ofhorsegram seeds from different time periods and measured the width of the seed coats, they would not only see the seed coats becoming thinner (27) and identify when the thinning occurred. They could then use this knowledge to help determine the timeline of plant domestication. However, they didn't want to destroy any rare seed samples in the process.

[1] The archaeologists (28) will solve the problem by employing a high-tech tool: the synchrotron. [2] A synchrotron uses magnetic fields to accelerate electrons in a loop, generating extraordinarily powerful light that can serve a wide range of research applications.  [3] Murphy and Fuller (29) commandeered twelve samples of horsegram seeds, nine from the period 2000 to 1000 BCE and another three from the period 1 to 500 CE, and brought them to the United Kingdom's Diamond Light Source synchrotron. [4] They then used the light from the synchrotron to create a series of X-rays of the seeds. [5] With these images, the archaeologists could accurately (and harmlessly) determine the thickness of the horsegram seed coats. (30)

As expected, Murphy and Fuller observed a gradual process of thinning in the coats. While the coats of seeds from the period before 1500 BCE were relatively thick (17 or more micrometers), they showed a general tendency to become thinner over that period, suggesting that (31)  almost no domestication was underway before 1500 BCE. Moreover, (32) two of the nine samples from the period 1500 to 1000 BCE had coat widths at or below 15 micrometers (similar to the coat widths of domesticated seeds from the period 1 to 500 CE), providing evidence of further agricultural development. (33) Murphy and Fuller's study of horsegram seeds using the synchrotron illustrates the need for cheaper, more accessible imaging technology in scientific research. 

Traditionally, literary and historical analyses of written texts have been done by scholars who closely read each work to assess (34) their content and then consider the work in relation to other works. Most analyses of Shakespeare's plays, for example, in making arguments about how the plays should be interpreted within their literary and historical contexts, refer to specific lines and characters. There is another way to read such texts, (35) though. Quantitatively. By digitizing a text and allowing scholars to see larger patterns in language and subject matter, the process of quantitative analysis can provide remarkable new insights into the study of literature. 

Many texts already have been or are being digitized for use on the Internet and in databases, and computer programs are being developed to add more specific information within each text. (36) Names of people and places can be tagged as such, as can poem line breaks, chapter breaks, and parts of speech. Texts can then be searched and mapped by key word, syntactic arrangement, or (37) searched and mapped by type of information. A quantitative analysis of The Federalist Papers helped scholars (38) who were sorting the texts by conjunction. The scholars determined that James Madison used the word "whilst" and Alexander Hamilton used the word "while" -a distinction that further allowed scholars to assign authorship to unsigned texts by the two men.  (39) The study of authors' linguistic habits, or stylometry, does not always lead to indisputable conclusions.

This kind of distant reading," a phrase coined by scholar Franco Moretti, can allow the mapping of the popularity of a certain term or phrase over time. (40) Moretti founded the Stanford Literary Lab in 2010. Google's N gram Viewer (41) tool, for instance, shows that references in published works to "violin" have remained steady since 1920, while references to "theremin" have increased sharply since the mid-1990s. The main benefit of distant reading is that it does not require a reader to wade through thousands of texts searching for relevant information: it’s all there in a searchable database. 

Quantitative analysis will likely never be the sole method of scholars looking for meaning in texts. Massive quantities of time and resources are required to digitize and tag material; in addition, many have pointed (42) out, that the simple joys of picking up a physical book and reading are greatly (43) diminished when the words are reduced to mere data points. (44) In other words, there are many aspects of writing that humans are better at picking up on than computers are, such as word connotation and a writer's tone. When combined with traditional analyses, however, quantitative analysis can help open new doors in scholarship.