A multi-sensor network for the protection of cultural heritage

The paper presents a novel automatic early warning system to remotely monitor areas of archaeological and cultural interest from the risk of fire. Since these areas have been treasured and tended for very long periods of time, they are usually surrounded by old and valuable vegetation or situated close to forest regions, which exposes them to an increased risk of fire. The proposed system takes advantage of recent advances in multi-sensor surveillance technologies, using optical and infrared cameras, wireless sensor networks capable of monitoring different modalities (e.g. temperature and humidity) as well as local weather stations on the deployment site. The signals collected from these sensors are transmitted to a monitoring centre, which employs intelligent computer vision and pattern recognition algorithms as well as data fusion techniques to automatically analyze sensor information. The system is capable of generating automatic warning signals for local authorities whenever a dangerous situation arises, as well as estimating the propagation of the fire based on the fuel model of the area and other important parameters such as wind speed, slope, and aspect of the ground surface. © 2011 EURASIP

Fire detection and 3D fire propagation estimation for the protection of cultural heritage areas

Beyond taking precautionary measures to avoid a forest fire, early warning and immediate response to a fire breakout are the only ways to avoid great losses and environmental and cultural heritage damages. To this end, this paper aims to present a computer vision based algorithm for wildfire detection and a 3D fire propagation estimation system. The main detection algorithm is composed of four sub-algorithms detecting (i) slow moving objects, (ii) smoke-coloured regions, (iii) rising regions, and (iv) shadow regions. After detecting a wildfire, the main focus should be the estimation of its propagation direction and speed. If the model of the vegetation and other important parameters like wind speed, slope, aspect of the ground surface, etc. are known; the propagation of fire can be estimated. This propagation can then be visualized in any 3D-GIS environment that supports KML files

International Approaches to Climate Change and Cultural Heritage

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly threatening cultural heritage; cultural resource managers, communities, and archaeologists are confronting this reality. Yet the phenomenon is happening over such a wide range of physical and sociocultural contexts that it is a problem that is too big for any one organization or discipline to tackle. Therefore the sharing of best practices and examples between the communities dealing with this problem is essential. This article presents examples from communities, cultural resource managers, and archaeologists who are engaging with climate change based threats to cultural heritage. Our presentation of these international activities follows the US National Park Service (NPS) four-pillar approach to climate change threats to cultural heritage, which is that there are four primary components to climate change response: science, mitigation, adaptation, and communication. We discuss this approach and then present a number of cases in which communities or institutions are attempting to manage cultural heritage threatened by climate change through these four pillars. This article restricts itself to examples that are taking place outside of the USA and concludes with some general recommendations for both archaeologists and funding entities

El patrimonio cultural en los programas marco de investigación de la Unión Europea: análisis y tendencias

Esta investigación analiza los proyectos europeos de investigación financiados a través de los programas marco de la Unión Europea, que tienen por temática principal el patrimonio cultural. Pretende por lo tanto entender qué tipo de proyectos se han financiado dentro de la disciplina y cuál ha sido su evolución temática a lo largo del tiempo y para ello, emplea técnicas de análisis de datos y procesamiento de lenguaje natural (NLP) para extraer información de las principales fuentes de información, y procesarla con el fin de aportar luz a la pregunta de investigación: ¿qué temáticas, dentro del ámbito del patrimonio cultural, abordan los proyectos europeos de investigación? Partiendo de el contexto político y legal en el que se financian estos proyectos, el trabajo desarrolla una metodología para identificar, procesar y analizar los datos asociados a los proyectos europeos de investigación sobre patrimonio cultural, metodología que sirve posteriormente para analizar y describir las características y tendencias del conjunto de proyectos. Finaliza la investigación, identificando y describiendo brevemente las políticas actuales que puedan tener una influencia sobre la definición de las temáticas de los proyectos del ámbito del patrimonio cultural en el futuro próximo.This research analyses European research projects funded through the European Union's Framework Programmes, whose main thematic area is cultural heritage. It therefore aims to understand what kind of projects have been funded within the discipline and what their thematic evolution has been over time, using data analysis and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extract information from the main sources of information and process it in order to shed light on the research question: what themes, within the field of cultural heritage, do European research projects address? Starting from the political and legal context in which these projects are funded, we will develop a methodology to identify, process and analyse the data associated with European cultural heritage research projects, a methodology that will help us to analyse and describe the characteristics and trends of the projects as a whole. We will conclude the research by briefly referencing current policies that may influence the definition of project's topics in the field of cultural heritage in the near future.Universidad de Sevilla. Máster de Arquitectura y Patrimonio Históric