INESC Porto supports the preservation of cultural heritages
rehabilitation and dissemination of cultural heritage
Imagine that you can visit Israel’s Wailing Wall without having to leave your house. Now try to imagine the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens or even our very own Temple of Diana in Évora perfectly restored to their originals. INESC Porto has been playing an imperative role in the rehabilitation, restoration, preservation and dissemination of cultural heritages as is proof the institution’s participation in two important projects –MOSAICA and H-Know.
Europe and Israel gathered to develop MOSAICA, a multi-cultural Web platform that allows users to go on virtual expeditions and to search for contents related to the Jewish cultural heritage. The objectives are clear: provide a diversified mosaic of the Jewish culture, tradition and legacy, so that it is possible to improve our knowledge on Jewish heritage and thus contribute to its perpetuation.
On the other hand, the growing number of complex works in building restoration and maintenance made it necessary to offer construction companies an advanced and systematic access to relevant knowledge and information rehabilitation, restoration and management (RRM) of buildings. This was the context for the H-Know (Heritage-Knowledge), a European project with a particular emphasis on cultural heritage.
Although assuming clearly different purposes, MOSAICA and H-Know have similar ambitions: following a collaborative strategy, they both promise to revolutionize cultural heritage maintenance and dissemination in order to guarantee its continuity.
MOSAICA – An exploratory, guided and collaborative use of culture
Imagine what it would be like to visit the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre – where Jesus was crucified, according to Christian tradition – in Jerusalem, and getting to know the history of this legendary place without having to leave your house. This is one of the several functionalities of the project MOSAICA - Semantically Enhanced, Multifaceted, Collaborative Access to Cultural Heritage, which had the participation of the Telecommunications and Multimedia Unit (UTM). This project offers a platform that allows users to carry out research and receive contents (video, image, sound and text) on their computers related to the Jewish cultural heritage.
MOSAICA’s fundamental difference in comparison with other search engines on the internet is that we can use ontologies according to the type of content that we intend to find. Thus, it is possible to perform semantic and textual searches that are richer than the simple search by keywords. Other than providing an advanced search engine, with MOSAICA it is possible to create a common repository of contents. The system provides tools for ontology-based annotations for those contents, as well as tools to create and explore virtual expeditions. An ontology can be perceived as a formal definition of real world concepts and of the relations between those concepts.
Thus, while allowing users to create histories, go on virtual expeditions around a certain theme, or even introduce new semantic annotations, MOSAICA presents itself as an exploratory and collaborative platform with purposes that are both entertaining and educational. According to Teresa Andrade, researcher at UTM and coordinator of the project, “while using geographical information (GIS – Geographical Information System) and semantic technologies, virtual expeditions make it possible to associate contents on a certain theme with their geographical locations. Thus, users are capable of geographically locating their research elements.
With MOSAICA, it is also possible to create virtual expeditions around a certain theme – for instance around Moses – that evolve geographically (e.g. the path followed by the Jewish people from Egypt to Palestine). The annotations inserted by the users are eventually evaluated by a committee and then made available to the entire MOSAICA community through the p2p (peer-to-peer) management and storage system.
“INESC Porto was responsible for the content storage system, offering users upload and content search functionalities”. Why were p2p networks used and what is their greatest advantage? “Structured p2p networks enable a faster research and a storage space that is distributed throughout all users. The more users are part of a p2p network, the more copies of the contents will be created and, consequently, the more contents will be disseminated and preserved”, added Teresa Andrade, guaranteeing that this is the better way to achieve a “broader dissemination”.
Other than p2p networks, “we incorporated semantic search functionalities, an effective state-of-the-art progress. The currently used p2p networks do not allow semantic searches, but only a search that provides the name of the file we are looking for. This is effectively a limitation since normally the user doesn’t know the exact name of the file with the intended content”. Moreover, MOSAICA intends to provide access to a set of interconnected contents, and not only to a single file.
The path for a racial, cultural and religious pluralism
Why is there a particular prevalence on the Jewish culture? First of all because MOSAICA’s main objective is to fight intolerance and ignorance among races, cultures and religions. According to Teresa Andrade, “a good way to achieve that is to disseminate cultures, especially to the younger generations and, in that context, MOSAICA plays an important role as an educational tool. Moreover, the Jewish culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world, a culture that influenced other religions immensely”.
On the other hand, “most of the project’s promoters are Israeli. In fact, there are four Israeli institutions in the consortium”, the researcher added. The consortium includes 11 partners from Israel, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Portugal (through INESC Porto). The Portuguese team was set up by Teresa Andrade, Sílvio Macedo (former researcher at INESC Porto and now working at Xarevision), Asdrúbal Costa and Sérgio Marques.
Despite this focus on the Jewish culture, MOSAICA is a multifaceted project that can represent art work, iconic places, important people, historical descriptions or even music from several cultures. And how is this system different from a visit, let’s say, to the Website of the Louvre Museum, for instance? Teresa Andrade explains: “imagine looking at Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at the Louvre. With MOSAICA, in comparison to the Museum’s Website, besides being able to appreciate the painting, users would have access to a biography of the painter, details on the location where the work was painted, information and other works by the same artist, or even information on other artists influenced by Leonardo da Vinci, among other functionalities”.
Questioned about the possibility of applying this project in Portugal, Teresa Andrade stated that efforts have already been made in that sense. In fact, “we have already presented the idea to the Museum of Serralves and to the Museum of Belmonte”, the researcher revealed adding that “in the case of Serralves, students would benefit largely from this project, but also the general public and senior citizens in particular because of their mobility problems”. In Serralves, it would be possible to use MOSAICA to “create expeditions related to the museum’s works of art or to the species of plants in the museum’s gardens. This is a way to encouragepeople to know more about art, culture and science”, the researcher added.
H-Know – Building rehabilitation, restoration and maintenance
Looking at the number of complex works in the area of building restoration and maintenance as a challenge, it was possible to realise that construction companies would benefit largely from an advanced and systematic access to relevant knowledge and information on this area that could be exchanged - namely on building Rehabilitation, Restoration and Maintenance (RRM)-, as well as on the different types of materials used for these works. This was the context for the project H-Know (Heritage-Knowledge) - Advanced Infrastructure for Knowledge Based Services for Buildings Restoring, in which INESC Porto’s Manufacturing Systems Engineering Unit (UESP) is participating.
This European project started on 1 January 2009 and its aim is to develop an ICT solution for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in the construction work area, offering them a collaborative platform that will facilitate knowledge and information exchange on RRM activities and used materials. Thus, this tool promotes learning and collaboration among partners.
According to António Lucas Soares, researcher from UESP and coordinator of the project, “this platform will offer several functionalities: access to information shared by a company on certain used materials, as well as information on the support and establishment of partnerships for the elaboration of rehabilitation proposals”.
Targeting mainly SMEs specialised in RRM, the expectation is that the project’s results will help companies overcome one of the main problems that they have to face: the growing complexity of RRM projects caused by technical, legal and project coordination/dimension issues. At the same time, “we now have the legal and social responsibility of preserving the environment”, the researcher added.
According to António Lucas Soares, “this requires, on one hand, a high level of cooperation materialised in strategies, resource sharing and process coordination”, proven competences of UESP, and “on the other hand, it requires a higher degree of innovation in RRM products and processes, promoted particularly by a broader knowledge exchange between companies and research centres”.
RRM and the importance of collaborative networks
The specific contribution of INESC Porto for this project “comes from its competences in the design, evaluation and management of collaborative networks – systems to support collaboration and information management – and more specifically from its competences in the areas of social semantics in collaborative networks”, justified the researcher, highlighting the Unit’s consolidated experience of more than 10 years.
So how can INESC Porto benefit from participating in a project such as H-Know? For António Lucas Soares, the project “will certainly consolidate INESC Porto’s position as an expert in collaborative networks, especially with construction companies and associations”. With a duration of three years and coordinated by the Fundación Santa Maria La Real, the project includes a consortium set up by research centres and companies from Spain, France, Italy, Germany and Portugal, represented by UESP. The Portuguese team is set up by researchers António Lucas Soares, Manuel Silva, Jesse Wiersema, Pedro Castanheira, Carla Pereira and Cristóvão Sousa.
With the promotion of information and knowledge exchange and between companies and research centres that provide their know-how, the foundations are set for the application of restoration, rehabilitation and maintenance methodologies and techniques in historical landmarks. This is a fundamental aspect in the preservation of cultural heritage. Even so, “although the designation of the project mentions the word «heritage», the scope of the project is broader, also including RRM for recent buildings”, the researcher added, highlighting that the greatest challenges in this domain have to do with the new legislations for energy efficiency in buildings, a “factor that makes these works even more complex”.
INESC Porto in the quest for preservation of Cultural Heritages
Virtual expeditions and interactive journeys around the world, restoration and rehabilitation of historical landmarks: these are some of the strategies to protect the contents and cultural heritages that time could otherwise erase. INESC Porto has been playing an important role in the rehabilitation, restoration, preservation and dissemination of cultural heritages by participating in projects where the aim is to rehabilitate, protect and promote cultural contents.
Although H-Know and MOSAICA have different scopes, their ambitions are similar: following a collaborative strategy, they both promise to revolutionize the processes of maintaining and disseminating cultural heritages, aiming primarily at their continuation. The projects meet in a sense that they both promote the maintenance of cultural heritages. But more than that, they are both characterised by an unquestionable social component due to the impact they cause on society, providing a new look on culture and heritage.
