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Many tomb murals have punctate losses, cracks, and craquelure due to underground subsidence and changes in their physical support. Visual non-destructive detection techniques enable rapid assessment of how much tomb murals are affected by cracking, providing suggestions for their conservation. However, tomb murals are typically created by sketching outlines and then colored. Detailed sketches can easily interfere with crack detection work, requiring the use of deep learning network to better learn crack features and improve detection accuracy. At the same time the limited data of tomb mural presents a challenge to build a deep learning network. To address these issues, this paper introduces a novel dual-attention detection network (DADNet) for crack segmentation of tomb murals. In this work, a customized dataset is first constructed by collecting mural images from the Tang Dynasty tombs. Then the ConvNeXt framework serves as the basis for feature extraction, enhancing the process. Lastly, a dual-attention module utilizing neighborhood attention and biaxial attention is employed to accurately identify the crack regions. Neighborhood attention performs a local self-attention operation around the pixel point, addressing the limitations of self-attention. This approach significantly reduces computational demands as the image size increases. Biaxial attention performs attention calculations in the horizontal and vertical directions. This compensates for the limitation of neighborhood attention in capturing global dependencies. Our DADNet outperformed the competing methods, achieving the highest recorded scores of 78.95% for MIoU and 61.05% for the Jaccard index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Plants that contain brewing microorganisms are used in traditional fermentation starters, which are an essential part of local diet, nutrition, life, and health. Regionally, the plant species used and the microorganisms included in traditional fermentation starters are diverse, endowing local fermented drinks with different flavors and health benefits. However, related traditional knowledge has been scarcely documented or revealed. Methods: An ethnobotanical survey was conducted in five towns of Nayong County in northwestern Guizhou, China. Snowball sampling, semi-structured interviews, free lists, and participatory observation were used to collect information on Jiuqu Plants (JPs) and jiuqu-making techniques. The PacBio platform was used to study the microbial community structure and diversity in the Chuanqing people's jiuqu. Results: In total, 225 informants were interviewed, including 116 who provided plants and technological processes for making Chinese baijiu jiuqu (CBJ) and 139 who provided information about making fermented glutinous rice jiuqu (FGRJ). This study found that older people have more abundant knowledge about CBJ plants. Poaceae was found to be the dominant family used in making CBJ and FGRJ (7 species each). Compared to individual plant parts, the whole plant is most commonly used in two kinds of jiuqu (19.5% in CBJ and 22.6% in FGRJ). The Chuanqing people's jiuqu is used to treat dietary stagnation and indigestion. The highest relative frequency of citation of the CBJ plant was Ficus tikoua Bureau, and the counterpart of the FGRJ plant was Buddleja macrostachya Benth. The dominant bacterial species in jiuqu were Gluconobacter japonicus (YQ1, YQ4) and Pediococcus pentosaceus (YQ2, YQ3), and the dominant fungal species was Rhizopus oryzae. Conclusion: For the first time, this study documents the unique traditional jiuqu knowledge and reveals the microbial mystery behind the FGRJ of the Chuanqing people. Therefore, this study encourages the use of online social media platforms in order to spread Jiuqu culture, the use of the new media wave in order to create multimedia databases, and also suggests that local communities should develop preservation intervention programs, in addition to nurturing the inheritors in order to prevent the disappearance of traditional Jiuqu knowledge. This research contributes to the conservation and demystification of the traditional jiuqu knowledge of the Chuanqing people and lays the foundation for further research on its microbiology, nutrition, and metabolomics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restoring the murals' various kinds of deteriorations is urgently necessary given the growing awareness of the need to protect cultural relics. Virtual restoration starts with an accurate extraction of deterioration. It is challenging to precisely extract scratches from murals because of their intricate information. Hyperspectral images are used to accentuate scratches of mural in this paper. First, a technique for improving information was put forth that involved the transformation of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and a high-pass filter. Second, by using multi-scale bottom hat transformation, Otsu threshold segmentation, and non-deterioration mask, the deterioration information was extracted from the enhanced result. Third, the morphological transformation and connected component analysis were used to denoise the extracted results. Additionally, the scratched image was repaired using an improved exemplar-based region filling method. The results of deterioration information under different enhancement methods were discussed, and the deterioration extraction method proposed in this paper was contrasted with other deterioration extraction methods. The extraction accuracy was greatly increased by the suggested method. Additionally, we assessed the accuracy of various virtual restoration techniques for image restoration and discovered that our suggested restoration method did a good job of maintaining the structural integrity of the mural's information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the role of culture in urban competitiveness is becoming increasingly important. How historic cities identify and protect the spatial structures formed since ancient times, which are the carriers of urban culture, has become an important issue. Fuzhou was awarded the first Global Sustainable Development City in 2023, indicating that it has a set of sustainable models that can be promoted in various aspects, including cultural sustainable development models. As a traditional way to show the spirit of cities, cultural spaces in Fuzhou have existed for 2200 years, which helps us to conduct systematic research. This study explores the role of multiple actors in the preservation and development of urban cultural spaces, using Fuzhou, China, as a case study. Employing historical atlas translation to extract lists and locations of cultural spaces, and GIS technology to display spatial patterns, our research reveals distinctive spatial distribution characteristics of various cultural spaces and the urban structure shaped by diverse stakeholders' needs. Our findings illustrate the background and distribution pattern of cultural space construction by multi-actors in different periods, offering references for maintaining contemporary urban spatial structure and insights into the sustainable preservation of urban cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past, the construction of high-speed railway stations was mostly concentrated in cities, rarely in cultural reserve area, and the degree of humanistic environmental protection was low. In addition, most of the high-speed railways entered into the city with ground lines, which had adverse effects on the urban environment. In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of the current high-speed railway station construction concepts at home and abroad were analyzed. The design concept and method of the new generation of high-speed railway station and tunnel projects, included environmental integration, safety and comfort, low-carbon environmental protection, etc., were proposed based on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway station and tunnel projects, especially Tsinghua Park shield tunnel with the theme of intelligent construction and underground Badaling Great Wall Station with the theme of cultural protection. Environmental integration includes station scene integration in scenic spots and tunnel-city integration in high-speed railway processes; safety and comfort concept include the safety of the station and tunnel engineering structure and the comfort of the operating environment; Low-carbon environmental protection includes BIM-based environmental protection and efficient whole-process management concepts, as well as green and low-carbon construction and operation concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novelistic genre acquires its full nobility through its dynamic capacity to overcome any canonical forms, incorporating intertexts that belong to other discursive fields. It is a genre with no real borders –its heterogeneous and rhizomic identity corroborates its rebellious and conquering feature. Decrying conformism and traditional mimetic sectarianism, that genre renews its borders by appropriating innovative narrative techniques, consisting of interweaving literary, mythical, cultural, and biblical values. By imbricating those intergeneric or interdiscursive figures, Paule Marshall’s fiction illustrates itself as a crucible of extratextual and complex resources. Through their combination, a poetics of heterogeneity emerges, thus generating a semantic shift, which ranges from spiritual trend to cultural one. The “Annual Excursion,” which is thematized in Praisesong for the Widow, offers a substantial and spiritual way out for a cultural reconnection and wholeness –black characters who are involved in that journey to the homeland, construct their cultural identity, connect themselves with their ancestors’ past, and restore their tarnished image. They also promise faithfulness to the “Old Parents.”1 In return, the latter undertakes to provide the “OutIslanders”2 with spiritual and cultural protection to them. That metaphorical, spiritual covenant, which is anchored in the book of Deuteronomy, is far from being pointless or accidental, for it embodies both spiritual and cultural stakes, which the current study aims to scrutinize through the lens of the semiotics of culture. For that purpose, two points will be considered, namely “metaphorizing black ancestors’ requirements” and “the cultural scope of the spiritual covenant.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article aims to show that the concept of cultures as discrete entities is crucial for arguments for the protection of cultures. In this regard, Will Kymlicka's arguments for cultural protection are critically examined. We show that important aspects of his arguments, particularly the distinctions between 1) external and internal protections and 2) cultural content and structure, as well as 3) the notion of attachment to culture, can only succeed if one can conceive of cultures as distinct entities. In our concluding remarks, we suggest that this is a notion worth investigating. In particular, we suggest that the combination of delineation in terms of historical conflicts (as opposed to cultural essence) and the presence of real exit possibilities may allow for the delineation of cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking Xiaoluoshui Village by the Lugu Lake in Lijiang, Yunnan Province for example, this paper introduced traditional culture and residential culture of Mosuo people, as well as the confusion of Mosuo people in cultural inheritance and development brought by modern society, on this basis, proposed the suggestion for inheriting and promoting local residential culture, i.e. paving a road for Mosuo people pursuing their own culture by establishing communication spaces for Mosuo Culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Belgium's broadcasting history can be considered a perfect example of the overall situation in Western Europe, the country's specific cultural makeup and political shifts are also reflected in its media environment. The media system is characterized by a fairly high degree of cross-ownership, while major differences can be found in the degree of cultural protection. This article examines the stances being taken in the French- and Flemish-Speaking Communities: contextually, in terms of cross-ownership regulation; institutionally, as to the mission of the public broadcaster (pur sang or broader); and content-wise, with respect to home-grown, high identity value productions, as opposed to transnational productions from foreign players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]