Ontology-Driven Cultural Heritage Conservation: A Case of The Analects of Confucius

Confucianism, recognized as the belief system of Chinese, is one of the most important intangible cultural heritages of China. The main ideas of its founder, Confucius, are written in The Analects of Confucius. However, its scattered chapters and the obscurity of ancient Chinese have prevented many people from understanding it. In order to overcome this difficulty, it needs some modern ways to reveal the vague connotation of Confucianism. This paper aims to describe how to construct the Lunyu ontology in which all concepts are abstract within the core scope, i.e., morality of Confucianism. The key task of this project lies in identifying essential characteristics, a notion that is compliant with the ISO principles on Terminology (ISO 1087 and 704), according to which a concept is defined as a combination of essential characteristics. This paper proposed an approach in the practice of identifying essential characteristics of abstract concepts from different meanings of its Chinese terms in The Analects of Confucius. With this work, Lunyu ontology established a semantic, formal, and explicit representation system for concepts of Confucianism, and the new proposed approach provides a useful reference for other researchers.

CULTURAL HERITAGE CONSERVATION: CASE STUDY OF PEDAWA VILLAGE, BALI- INDONESIA

Bali, which is famous for its tourist areas, has many cultural heritages, one of them is the Bali Aga villages. Bali Aga Village is an indigenous village that existed before the arrival of community from the island of Java in the era of the Majapahit kingdom. Pedawa Village which is located in Banjar District, Buleleng Regency is one of the Bali Aga Villages in Bali which has many cultural heritages that need to be preserved. This village is very famous for its culture, customs and belief that are still preserved by the local community. One of the cultural heritages is the temple named Pura Dalem Kayehan Desa and Kayehan Desa Alas Jeringo which both have natural springs that are used by all villagers in daily basis. These two temples are used for activities ranging from sacred activities (rituals and traditional ceremonies) to profane (bathing and washing clothes). Local community often experience difficulties when carrying out sacred and profane activities during the rainy season due to the low quality of access that is difficult to pass. Hence, there are no adequate supporting facilities to perform ritual and profane activities. Moreover, the condition of the temple is not well maintained, so it requires immediate treatment. This study raises the concept of preserving these two temples and water springs in Pedawa Village. This conservation is urgent because these two temples are very important for the local community but its condition is not maintained and well organized. Interviews, focus group discussions and field surveys is applied to determine the suitable conservation concept. Results show that the conservation concept applies the Tri Mandala concept (sacred area, middle area and profane area). Further, participation and needs of the local community also has become the important contribution towards the basis of conservation concept of these two temples.

School On Wheels and Multimedia-Aided Instructions as Mediators of Students’ Local Cultural Heritage Awareness

Countless stories are told about local heritage sites. Because these stories are one-of-a-kind, they present a significant challenge to students' knowledge and awareness of their cultural background. Furthermore, literature is scarce on students' historical and architectural knowledge of local cultural heritage places. This study determined the level of local cultural heritage sites knowledge of sixty (60) students through school on wheels and multimedia-aided instructions. The study made use of a duly-validated researcher-made Local Cultural Heritage Sites Questionnaire. Frequency count, mean, and standard deviation were the descriptive statistics used while t-test was used for inferential statistics set at 0.05 level of significance using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The results revealed that the level of students' historical and architectural knowledge of local cultural heritage sites was "moderate" and shifted to "high" when school on wheels and multimedia-aided instructions were introduced. There were significant differences in the historical and architectural knowledge of the students on local cultural heritage sites. Students' knowledge is improved via teaching and learning activities that give experiential and meaningful learning. Increased local cultural heritage knowledge of students is a step forward in promoting cultural heritage conservation and preservation.

Water Dams of the Krakow Fortress: Potential of a Vanishing Heritage

Cultural heritage conservation is a constant process of preserving the valuable historical legacy and transferring it to future generations. The ability to adapt the matter under conservation to changing needs and environmental conditions is an essential element of this process. In this context, climate change and its consequences are a growing challenge, requiring innovative and often simultaneous efforts. This study was conducted in response to the discovery of previously unknown documents on nineteenth-century impoundment structures of the Krakow Fortress’s defensive system. At present, the facilities are almost entirely ruined, yet the need to restore and preserve the memory of their culturally valuable legacy merits investigation. The conditions and requirements of the management of Krakow’s changing hydrological environment became a vital component of this study. The uncovered archival documents were subjected to historical-interpretative analysis. Virtual modeling contributed to identifying the original scope of the dams’ impact. Analysis of the city’s spatial planning documents pointed to their contemporary potential. The entirety of the material collected aided in determining the framework in which protective measures targeting this dying heritage are currently possible. This study features a proposal for a new form of recreating the structures under investigation by assigning them a range of possible simultaneous uses. Thus, the presented research proposal is a form of concern for preserving this historical legacy and an attempt at rising to contemporary challenges posed by an intensively changing environment.

Adapted Reuse of Cultural Heritage & Atmosphere-Making in Lingnan Impression Park

In this article Lingnan Impression Park is taken as case study to research on integrated strategies of cultural heritage conservation with the purpose of its adapted reuse. In process exploitation, a combined strategy reusing architecture heritage is adopted, to produce an atmosphere of traditional Lingnan (Cantonese) culture for tourism development. This strategy has advantages for material recycle, construction energy saving and environmental protection, but arising an issue concerning heritage’s authenticity. It is regarded that it must be adopted a cultural ecology’s views to deal with the concept of authenticity especially in circumstance of heritage reuse with tourism exploitation.

The role of education on the enhancement of heritage awareness and sustainability of the built environment; learning from experts and students

This paper presents the outcomes of Intellectual Output 2 (IO2) of the HERSUS research project. The scope of the survey was to create an argumentative and critically analysed report on the state of learning of sustainability and heritage in higher education. The study is based on the dissemination of two online questionnaires within the five HERSUS participating countries/institutions (Serbia, Italy, Cyprus, Greece and Spain). The first addresses experts in the fields of cultural heritage conservation and sustainable environmental design, occupied in academia, public administration, NGOs and the private sector. The second directs queries to students at master level studies, PhD researchers and recent alumni from academic institutions, in the five participating countries, regarding their experience from their study programs, their expectations and future prospects in the professional environment. The survey analysis was conducted independently for each country and comparisons derive from the review of the international summed outcome. The results of the survey conducted in Greece, are discussed here, reflecting the views of 10 experts and 120 students. The analysis reveals comparable results among responses, with similarity and variation between the views of experts and students. Common ground between the two groups of respondents is found for the establishment of further links between academic education and professional practice, interdisciplinarity in education, and the need for a more systematic correlation between concepts of sustainability and heritage.

Methods and Products for the Conservation of Vandalized Urban Art Murals

The possibility of contemporary mural paintings to be “tagged” by vandals, with spray and/or markers, represents a serious problem for the conservation of urban art. The present study aims to define the applicability of a protective coating on murals’ surface to preserve them against vandalism. The research has been focused on anti-graffiti products currently used in the field of cultural heritage conservation. These products represent an optimum start point to preserve mural artwork from vandal actions. The commercially available anti-graffiti products have been compared with an innovative product, PRO-ART, specifically formulated by YOCOCU in collaboration with Pelicoat, for the conservation of murals. At the same time, it has tested the cleaning of contemporary murals by using different mixtures of solvents and surfactants. The experimentations have been carried out on external walls, followed by the conducting of in situ tests (application tests, empirical evaluations and colorimetric analysis), as well as laboratory investigations (contact angle and optical/electronic microscopy).