Gender Bias After Death: The Case of the Clergical Cemetery, St. John’s Orphanage, Thurgoona, NSW, Australia

Cemeteries are commonly seen as reflective of the historic environment in which they were created and therefore form a unique interpretive tool for the cultural heritage manager. As this case study of clergical cemetery documents, physical heritage of a cemetery may well reflect the power hierarchy at the time, but it does not accurately reflect the historic reality. The effective manipulation of the tangible evidence left behind for future generations has effectively enshrined a gender bias in perpetuity

Rites of Passage: Germination of Vertebrate Dispersed, Regurgitated or Defecated Phoenix canariensis Seeds

Canary Island Date Palms are widely planted as ornamental plants in private and public spaces. As both prolific and long-duration seeders, their drupes provide food for a range of volant and terrestrial vertebrates. This study experimentally examined the germination of vertebrate digested seeds. Whereas seeds in Flying- fox spat did not yield a higher germination rate than undigested controls, seeds that had passed through the gastro-intestinal tract and were deposited in scats, or those that were ingested and regurgitated from the crop, have a significantly better probability of germinating. This establishes Pied Currawongs as effective short-range dispersers and canid frugivores, such as the Red Fox, as major medium- and long-distance vectors of ornamental palms

Establishing Genealogies of Born Digital Content: The Suitability of Revision Identifier (RSID) Numbers in MS Word for Forensic Enquiry

Born-digital content is rapidly becoming the norm for literary works, professional reports, academic journal articles, and formal corporate correspondence. From the perspective of digital forensics, there is a need to understand the origin of a document and its entire creation process, from outlining and drafting to editing the final version of the text. Revision save identifier (RSID) numbers embedded in MS Word documents have been used to examine the nature and extent of individual edits within a document. These RSIDs remain logged in the metadata even if the text with which they were associated has been removed. As copies of such files retain the original’s RSIDs, this metadata can be used to determine the order in which documents were cloned from each other. As a proof-of-concept, this paper examined over 400 template files generated by a single publisher for manuscript submissions to its journals. The study can show that it is possible to establish genealogies and thus relative chronologies of born digital content by first identifying those documents that share a document (root) RSID and then seriating those RSIDs that are shared between two or more documents

Exhibiting the Heritage of COVID-19—A Conversation with ChatGPT

The documentation and management of the cultural heritage of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the heritage of the digital age are emerging discourses in cultural heritage management. The enthusiastic uptake of a generative artificial intelligence application (ChatGPT) by the general public and academics alike has provided an opportunity to explore (i) whether, and to what extent, generative AI can conceptualize an emergent, not well-described field of cultural heritage (the heritage of COVID-19), (ii), whether it can design an exhibition on the topic, and (iii) whether it can identify sites associated with the pandemic that may become significant heritage. Drawing on an extended ‘conversation’ with ChatGPT, this paper shows that generative AI is capable of not only developing a concept for an exhibition of the heritage of COVID-19 but also that it can provide a defensible array of exhibition topics as well as a relevant selection of exhibition objects. ChatGPT is also capable of making suggestions on the selection of cultural heritage sites associated with the pandemic, but these lack specificity. The discrepancy between ChatGPT’s responses to the exhibition concept and its responses regarding potential heritage sites suggests differential selection and access to the data that were used to train the model, with a seemingly heavy reliance on Wikipedia. The ‘conversation’ has shown that ChatGPT can serve as a brainstorming tool, but that a curator’s considered interpretation of the responses is still essential

Growth of ornamental palms, Phoenix and Washingtonia, as epiphytes on suburban street trees in Albury, NSW, Australia

Palms are ubiquitous as landscaping plants in many urban areas. Dispersed by frugivorous birds and often tolerated as self-seeded plants by the property owners, Phoenix canariensis (Canary Islands date palms) and two species of fan palms (Washingtonia robusta and Washingtonia filifera) in particular, have become established in many urban spaces. This paper examines the establishment of such self-seeded palms as epiphytic growth in crooks and branch scars of suburban street trees. Given the limited nutrient availability and the restricted space for rootmass development, these palms undergo a natural bonsai process. Some palms have persisted for over a decade without reaching sexual maturity. While the epiphytic growth demonstrates the palms' further dispersal capability, it does not appear to increase their potential invasiveness into new areas of land

ChatGPT and the Generation of Digitally Born “Knowledge”: How Does a Generative AI Language Model Interpret Cultural Heritage Values?

The public release of ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence language model, caused wide-spread public interest in its abilities but also concern about the implications of the application on academia, depending on whether it was deemed benevolent (e.g., supporting analysis and simplification of tasks) or malevolent (e.g., assignment writing and academic misconduct). While ChatGPT has been shown to provide answers of sufficient quality to pass some university exams, its capacity to write essays that require an exploration of value concepts is unknown. This paper presents the results of a study where ChatGPT-4 (released May 2023) was tasked with writing a 1500-word essay to discuss the nature of values used in the assessment of cultural heritage significance. Based on an analysis of 36 iterations, ChatGPT wrote essays of limited length with about 50% of the stipulated word count being primarily descriptive and without any depth or complexity. The concepts, which are often flawed and suffer from inverted logic, are presented in an arbitrary sequence with limited coherence and without any defined line of argument. Given that it is a generative language model, ChatGPT often splits concepts and uses one or more words to develop tangential arguments. While ChatGPT provides references as tasked, many are fictitious, albeit with plausible authors and titles. At present, ChatGPT has the ability to critique its own work but seems unable to incorporate that critique in a meaningful way to improve a previous draft. Setting aside conceptual flaws such as inverted logic, several of the essays could possibly pass as a junior high school assignment but fall short of what would be expected in senior school, let alone at a college or university level

The Role of Canary Island Date Palms in Physical Amenity Provisioning for Urban Landscape Settings

Canary Island date palms (Phoenix canariensis) have been planted as a landscaping feature plant throughout warm, temperate, and subtropical climates. The physical amenity provisioning of this species (shade effects, microclimate amelioration, water usage, etc.) has so far not been systematically assessed. This paper reports on temperature and humidity measurements in both a suburban and a rural location in SE Australia. The study demonstrates the effects of the palm canopy as regulator of humidity and provider of shade and, thus, amenity values in urban landscape settings. Drawing on published energy savings and growth requirements of the plant, the paper argues that Canary Island date palms are landscaping plants suitable to ameliorate the microclimate in urban neighborhoods with varied socio-economic conditions

Your solution, their problem. Their solution, your problem: The Gordian Knot of Cultural Heritage Planning and Management at the Local Government Level A/Professor Dirk H.R. Spennemann

ABSTRACT Cultural heritage management is, in essence, a facet of social engineering, whereby physical remains of the past (and present) are selectively preserved pandering to values currently held by the population at large. Indeed, mid-and long-term protection of heritage places can only occur if such places are 'embraced' or 'owned' by the community. However, public opinion, often coloured by nostalgia, omits, consciously or subconsciously, places that do not fit the present value system. Thus, inevitably there are places, which may be identified by expert opinion, that need to be preserved even if a community is apathetic or even antagonistic. Such differences of opinion allow for conflict to occur. Local planning and the implementation of planning priorities is inevitably caught up in it. The political dimension at the LGA level further complicates matters, particularly as we move from one heritage to a multitude of 'heritages.' Over the past decade the management of cultural heritage matters at the local government level has seen the decline of top-down, expert-driven studies, while bottom-up, community-driven, or at least community influenced, studies have increased. Both approaches have their failings and lead to gaps in the record. Furthermore, all too often heritage plans are limited. Great effort is expended focussing on the historic trends and themes of an area, and on inventorising, evaluating and listing of places deemed worth protecting. Yet next to no effort is spent on implementation strategies, ranging from capacity building within the administering local government to education of property owners, wider stakeholders, the public resident in the LGA and outside visitors. This paper discusses the pitfalls inherent in these various planning approaches and outlines strategies for LGA-level planning and management to maximise returns from heritage planning projects.

Turbans vs. Helmets: A Systematic Narrative Review of the Literature on Head Injuries and Impact Loci of Cranial Trauma in Several Recreational Outdoor Sports

When in public, faith-based mandates require practising Sikh men to wear a turban which may not be covered by hats or caps. This makes it impossible for practising Sikhs to wear helmets and other protective headwear, mandatory in many countries and facilities for engagement in recreational pursuits (e.g., skiing) and on adventure outdoor recreation camps mandatorily run for school groups. The result is often social exclusion and ostracisation in the case of school children. Despite studies into the efficacy of protective helmets in some recreational outdoor activity settings, virtually nothing is known about the protective potential of turbans. This paper systematically reviews the extant literature on head injuries in several recreational outdoor activities and sports sectors (aerial, water, winter, wheeled and animal-based sports) and finds that the extant literature is of limited value when trying to understand the spatial distribution of trauma on the cranial surface. As the data do not permit to make inferences on the protective potential of turbans, future systematic, evidence-based epidemiological studies derived from hospital admissions and forensic examinations are required. Failure to do so perpetuates social exclusion and discrimination of religious grounds without an evidentiary basis for defensible public health measures

The Usefulness of the Johari Window for the Cultural Heritage Planning Process

The standard heritage planning process follows the trajectory of identification, nomination, evaluation, listing and protection. The epistemology of the nominations and valuations is only rarely, if ever, examined. The Johari window was developed by the psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham as a tool to examine group dynamics, in particular an individual’s position in, and their relationship and interactions with others in a group. This paper examines the usefulness of the Johari window for the Cultural Heritage Planning Process. Based on the interrelationship of what oneself and others know about each other and are prepared to divulge, the Johari window allows to conceptualize overlapping levels of knowledge and ownership within five newly defined epistemological domains. It also serves as an analytical tool to systematically query the heritage universe of a community and thereby examine the composition and comprehensiveness of heritage registers as well as nominations that have been put forward