Culture: the past gives up its secrets
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #39 - Culture: the past gives up its secrets
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:41:06
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery. Welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery. With me, Abigail Acton. We see cultural artifacts hear music composed centuries ago, and if we're lucky, get to handle pieces that were created by long forgotten makers. But what about bringing to life the smell of a historic scene or an object no longer made. When we turned to ancient manuscripts to understand the past, we've long focused on what was written on the parchment and the vellum.
00:00:41:08 - 00:01:05:01
Abigail Acton
But what can the material itself tell us about the lives of the animals that gave up their skins and of the people tending them? There's no exploration of the past without the artifacts themselves. So today we will also be considering how to preserve and protect historic buildings from the threat of earthquake damage and vibration. Italy alone has 818 registered monuments and sites, which are threatened by more extreme weather events.
00:01:05:03 - 00:01:34:21
Abigail Acton
The seismic activity the country faces and other environmental factors. So anticipating damage and identifying where structures have become undermined is crucial. From the ephemeral to the massive. How have all three guests given a new voice to the artifacts that enrich our lives? Exploring these new avenues with the help of EU funding are Inger Leemans, a professor of cultural history at the Vrije Universiteit and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
00:01:34:23 - 00:01:44:19
Abigail Acton
Her research covers topics such as the history of sexuality and emotion and smellscapes of the past. Inger is passionate about making her work accessible to everyone. Hello Inger.
00:01:44:22 - 00:01:46:00
Inger Leemans
Hi Abigail.
00:01:46:02 - 00:02:13:13
Abigail Acton
Matthew Collins is fellow of the Danish and Swedish Royal Academies and chair of the archeology section of the British Academy. He holds chairs in Cambridge and Copenhagen universities. Matthew explores the ways in which archeology can borrow tools from biology to explore ancient artifacts and tissues, from shells to bones to parchments and pots. Hello, Matthew. Michaela Rossi is scientific project officer at the Joint Research Center, JRC of the European Commission.
00:02:13:19 - 00:02:26:02
Abigail Acton
Her main research interests include structural safety assessments of historic buildings, seismic and energy retrofitting of existing buildings, structural health monitoring and digital fabrication. Welcome, Michaela.
00:02:26:04 - 00:02:27:24
MIchaela Rossi
Hello Abigail.
00:02:28:01 - 00:02:47:16
Abigail Acton
Inger I'm going to turn to you first. The ODEUROPA project set out to pin down that most elusive sensory stimulant: smell. But to make things even more challenging, your project Inger was focused on smells of the past. Museums were already trying to provide odor as part of the experience of visiting an exhibit. Where did the idea of taking this further come from?
00:02:47:22 - 00:03:16:12
Inger Leemans
Well, a great opportunity to work on a pilot project with one of the smell pioneers from the Rijksmuseum. And we were doing tours with smells through the Rijksmuseum. And then we thought, how wonderful it would be if you also could do this for digital, a heritage collection. So say you go to the Louvre website and you wouldn't search for artists, but for how painting, smell or how you could do that for a text.
00:03:16:12 - 00:03:26:23
Inger Leemans
And then the European Union had a call about how to make digital heritage collections more tangible. And then we thought: Yeah.
00:03:27:04 - 00:03:41:17
Abigail Acton
Yeah, Funny combination. Okay. so is this descriptions of smells that you're setting out because, you know, when we associate odors in museums, of course, they're somehow released into the atmosphere around us. So here it's a description of the kind of smells. Is that correct?
00:03:41:22 - 00:04:08:02
Inger Leemans
Yeah. So the bulk of the project is actually about opening up historical texts and paintings and prints to the nose to think about smell events in the past. So what we did is we actually invited the different computer science groups to design methodologies for sensory mining. And that was fantastic because most of these groups had never worked on smell whatsoever.
00:04:08:04 - 00:04:23:06
Inger Leemans
And also this is quite new. So we really had to think from the start about what is a smell event. How can you teach the computer to capture information about smells in historical text and images?
00:04:23:08 - 00:04:30:20
Abigail Acton
So can you tell us a little bit about the methodology? How do you actually train a computer to do that? I mean, you're using AI and machine learning, I guess.
00:04:30:22 - 00:04:55:05
Inger Leemans
Using a different ratios of AI on the one hand, a text mining component. So we annotate the text and then we train that computer to automatically detect what we call nose witnesses. So people that are actually talking about smells in the past. And then we have an image recognition group that try to capture smell moments in historical images.
00:04:55:05 - 00:05:21:00
Inger Leemans
Think about the nose when it reaches to an object, for instance. But also people pinching their nose when apparently there is a stench or seminal smell moments like when Christ is going into the hell and engages with the smell. The smell of hell. The semantic group brought that all together in a knowledge graph.
00:05:21:01 - 00:05:34:19
Abigail Acton
So, I mean, there's all this sort of iconographic imagery of frankincense and myrrh and the gifts of the three kings and stuff. But I think also you were looking at everyday objects like pomanders that are frequent in the Elizabethan period as the immediate one that comes to my mind.
00:05:34:21 - 00:05:57:09
Inger Leemans
Yes. So have we trained the computer to capture pomanders from all different kind of paintings or gloves which were also heavily scentered in the early modern periods? And then for that, the text components you've researched for historical recipes or perfumes that were made for these gloves or pomander recipes.
00:05:57:15 - 00:06:03:22
Abigail Acton
fascinating. So you're combining the text with the image in order to get a clearer idea of actually what's behind the image. Is that correct?
00:06:03:24 - 00:06:23:16
Inger Leemans
Yes. And we then we use that also for historical smell, reconstructions and recreation. So that's the next part of the project. The first part of the project is really about the, the AI and the mining. And then the next part of the project was about smell reconstructions and recreations.
00:06:23:16 - 00:06:38:00
Abigail Acton
So first you identify references and then you reconstruct what is being referred to. So tell us about that. How do you go about from, you know, a pomander in a painting to recreating the actual object, the smell of the object, or another example maybe?
00:06:38:06 - 00:07:09:10
Inger Leemans
Yeah. So here we worked with perfume industry, so a completely different line of knowledge and also with heritage science and chemistry expertise sometimes really to capture molecules from a historical object. So think if you have a pomander that actually has some residue or old books, for instance, and then with gas chromatography, you can make reconstructions of actual scents, but also following historical recipes.
00:07:09:10 - 00:07:41:16
Inger Leemans
of a pomander for instance, and sometimes thinking more about historical interpretations. So if you think about the smell of hell, we have so many descriptions of what the hell smelled like in the early modern mind, for instance, so we could follow a more creative, you might say, trajectory to think about the components of the smell of hell. So think about a scatological, burning, sulfur. I tracked it around the smell of hell.
00:07:41:16 - 00:07:43:20
Inger Leemans
It's really quite offensive. So.
00:07:43:20 - 00:07:46:14
Abigail Acton
Okay, so you actually created this, didn't you?
00:07:46:16 - 00:07:46:23
Inger Leemans
yes.
00:07:46:23 - 00:07:49:09
Abigail Acton
Have a little file of what hell would smell like.
00:07:49:15 - 00:08:01:14
Inger Leemans
We do, and we sprayed around and then it has people smell it in front of paintings. Where the paintings then become more to life and become more tangible also to different kinds of visitors.
00:08:01:14 - 00:08:11:07
Abigail Acton
Yes, absolutely. Yes, different kinds of visitors, too. That's true. Because of your stimulating senses. That might be the most important senses for certain types of visitors.
00:08:11:09 - 00:08:38:06
Inger Leemans
Yes. So you can think about visually a challenge to people, but also use groups, for instance. And the really great thing about bringing smell into a heritage context is that it opens up conversations with people because sort of they smell is democratic. Everyone, every one of us has something to say when it comes to smell. So you can bring your own expertise and share that.
00:08:38:07 - 00:08:43:11
Abigail Acton
It's instantaneous. There's no kind of thought process behind it. It just hits us immediately and we have a reaction.
00:08:43:13 - 00:08:45:20
Inger Leemans
It has a very powerful emotion.
00:08:45:24 - 00:08:50:05
Abigail Acton
Especially your smell of hell, apparently, not to be taken lightly.
00:08:50:07 - 00:09:05:00
Inger Leemans
So the nice thing about the smell of hell is that people really reengage. We became fascinated with it, so it was horrible. But still they wanted to smell it all the time, which is comparable to sin. I think sin, you shouldn't do it. But still people did.
00:09:05:00 - 00:09:15:13
Abigail Acton
It as an attraction to it. Very good. This is wonderful. I love this project. Super. Thank you so much for explaining it to us. Does anyone have any questions linger? Yes, Michaela, you have a question?
00:09:15:15 - 00:09:41:23
MIchaela Rossi
Yes, actually, I have a first question, but I mean, Inger already provide the answer because I was curious about if they managed to reproduce in a lab environment. It's kind of smart. So the answer is yes. So my second question is, if you have an idea to compare the emotions raised by the smells of the past with the reactions that they cause in a person today.
00:09:42:00 - 00:09:50:04
MIchaela Rossi
So I think that what you said, that the reaction that was raised in the past can be different from a modern person.
00:09:50:06 - 00:09:52:07
Abigail Acton
That's very interesting question, Michaela. Inger, what do you think?
00:09:52:12 - 00:10:33:16
Inger Leemans
Yeah, we think about it in terms of the period. So indeed, smelling and the meanings around smell could be quite different in, let's say, 17th and 18th century than now. So, for instance, that smell of hell I was just talking about, we'd have a completely different religious and moral connotation than for us now. Also, because if we smell sulfur, then that takes us to matches, for instance, or if we think about incense, we probably think about teenagers burning incense in their rooms instead of a religious ceremony in a church or a synagogue, for instance.
00:10:33:16 - 00:10:48:16
Abigail Acton
And indeed, I guess also we’re tuned into the idea of commodities that are expensive as being desirable. So maybe there are scents which, you know, we would consider to be wonderful because we know them to be rare and expensive. And that presumably changes with a period nose as well.
00:10:48:18 - 00:11:02:04
Inger Leemans
Absolutely. And also there was a lot of sense produced for aromatherapy. So there was much more of a medical purpose to the usage of olfactory.
00:11:02:06 - 00:11:24:16
Abigail Acton
Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you so much. That's really fascinating. Matthew, I'm going to turn to you. The Beasts 2 Craft project documented the biological and craft records in parchment in order to reveal the entangled histories about animal husbandry and parchment production in Europe from 500 to 1900 A.D. BioCodicology, Matthew, a new term for a completely new approach.
00:11:24:18 - 00:11:36:07
Abigail Acton
So this is another very intriguing idea that takes artifacts with which we're familiar and explores them in a completely different way. So I'm going to repeat the first question I actually put to Inger and ask you, where did the idea come from Matthew?
00:11:36:09 - 00:12:12:15
Matthew Collins
The idea came from failure, the challenge of trying to identify animal populations based on fragmented remains because when we eat and consume animals, we tend to smash them up. I had a poor student trying to look at the age structure of ancient Iron Age in Viking cattle populations and was only able to identify 12 to 29 animals from about 4000 fragments, and then to walk through an archive and realize that every single document was made of the skin of an animal.
00:12:12:15 - 00:12:35:15
Matthew Collins
And I was looking at tens of thousands and just thinking, this is an extraordinary documentary record of biology where we have the skins of animals with, in the case of legal documents, the date written on them and the place at least where the legal document was signed, was an incredibly rich biological archive.
00:12:35:18 - 00:12:54:13
Abigail Acton
Yeah, what a resource. And a fascinating new take on the concept. We're all poring over what was written and struggling to deal with, you know, medieval Latin. But in fact, the support itself has so much to tell us as well. So tell me how you went about the analysis. What did your team actually do?
00:12:54:15 - 00:13:27:18
Matthew Collins
The team began with a horrible realization that despite the vast quantities of material, we weren't allowed to take even the tiniest cut piece of parchment. In sheer desperation, and often the best ideas are born of desperation. Sarah Fetterman, who is really the coin of the term BioCodicology, looked at all the waste products from a conservation studio at York and analyzed everything that they threw away once the treated the parchment.
00:13:27:20 - 00:13:52:20
Matthew Collins
And to our great delight, we discovered that when they use a dry PVC eraser, the same things that you used when you're at school to rub away pencil marks, which is commonly used to clean the dirt off the surface of parchment. It was a fabulous trap, first of proteins and then subsequently of DNA. And of course, what that did is it switched the whole project around.
00:13:52:22 - 00:14:15:11
Matthew Collins
No longer were we going to ask conservation studios, archives and libraries, could we please come and sample? Instead, we went and talked to conservators and said: Don't throw the waste away. Here's some boxes with little tubes in them. Put the waste in. Then when you're ready, send the box to us and we can analyze them for you.
00:14:15:13 - 00:14:27:21
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. That's wonderful. It's one of those eureka moments. Fascinating. And does the rubber itself not interfere, is it so inert and just doesn't get in the way the traces of the eraser?
00:14:27:22 - 00:14:36:14
Matthew Collins
What's interesting is that first of all it seems to stabilize the data and the proteins so that we can leave boxes at room temperature with the eraser rubbings for a long time.
00:14:36:20 - 00:14:37:24
Abigail Acton
It traps them in it, I suppose.
00:14:37:24 - 00:14:58:18
Matthew Collins
It traps them in it. And secondly, we can then just lift them off chemically from the surface and certainly as far as the analysis goes with the kind of analysis we do, we don't see any additional signal. If we look for metabolites, low macro organic molecules, we would certainly see components in an eraser. But those are not the analysis we do.
00:14:58:20 - 00:15:12:00
Matthew Collins
And what it's meant is that, you know, instead of us having to go to libraries, we've been able to analyze over 7000 parchment samples sent to our labs by these conservators. And they've, of course, been very engaged in the project.
00:15:12:02 - 00:15:13:04
Abigail Acton
Well, it's so intriguing.
00:15:13:05 - 00:15:26:17
Matthew Collins
So it actually reminds me of what Inger was saying, that, you know, if the democratization of this work, which I think is actually really exciting in this field, nobody is an expert, as you learn very quickly. And by working together, you learn so much more.
00:15:26:19 - 00:15:41:15
Abigail Acton
That's wonderful. Excellent. So now tell me, what did you actually do? So you have these samples that coming to you from all over the place, which of course, is massively more efficient and it's spiking a lot of people's curiosity and so on. So what sort of analysis did you actually do?
00:15:41:21 - 00:16:03:24
Matthew Collins
Well, we started off with a very simple question, which was we use proteomics to ask what animal skin was used to make this parchment. And so one of the very first things was parchment is often called vellum for very fine parchment, coming from word veal. So the calfskin. And the idea was that the very finest parchments were always made of calfskin.
00:16:04:01 - 00:16:24:07
Matthew Collins
We were able to show quite early, That's not true. They actually made of the local livestock near where the site of production was. So it's all actually about the cross skill. And we were very lucky in our project when the key project members were somebody who makes parchment. And so he could really explain to all of us the materiality and the look and feel of this material.
00:16:24:09 - 00:16:52:07
Matthew Collins
And once we've done that, we started asking more questions and we keep asking more questions and they go on and on. So the way the parchment was made, what kind of salts are associated with it? What are the sex of the animal that's used to make parchment? You realize that is a very rich biological material. We can even go so far as to ask what was a rainfall like in the spring of the year in which the animal was killed?
00:16:52:09 - 00:16:54:08
Matthew Collins
It really is extraordinary.
00:16:54:10 - 00:17:03:15
Abigail Acton
It's amazing. I mean, yes, a step further than counting rings on trees. Brilliant. And can you tell us some of the things that you found?
00:17:03:17 - 00:17:11:15
Matthew Collins
it goes on and on and that's very hard to answer because it's literally every time you look at a new object, you get a different story.
00:17:11:16 - 00:17:14:02
Abigail Acton
Choose your favorite story. Choose your favorite story.
00:17:14:04 - 00:17:36:16
Matthew Collins
My favorite story is we looked at a book very early on where we could see there were two scribes were writing this text and they set up to write this text with a very ordered structure of calf and sheep together. And then a very strange thing happens in middle and calf, which you think to me about a better quality text is suddenly all being used up.
00:17:36:18 - 00:18:01:10
Matthew Collins
And then the very last section of the book, and this is the 12th century book from Canterbury, a gloss Luke was much was made of sheepskin, but in the middle there was a there was a piece of goatskin, and we realized that this was probably a scribal joke. The original scribe seems to have realized he couldn't complete the text and had used up all of the calfskin.
00:18:01:12 - 00:18:33:02
Matthew Collins
And as he was writing the story of the Prodigal Son, which if you recall, the sender stays back home and doesn't go off and doesn't get given the fact that calf complaint is not even given the goat to have a feast with his friends. And just after he's written that text and just before he leaves the book to the second scribe who has to use a poor quality sheepskin inserts right in the middle two skins, the front half of a flea bitten goat.
00:18:33:04 - 00:18:47:14
Matthew Collins
And as we almost never see goats again in English documents, I suspect that was his final comment. I've used up the best calf. Here's a bit of a goat. And now the second scribe, you've just got some miserable sheepskin.
00:18:47:14 - 00:18:54:08
Abigail Acton
Sheepskin to go down with. I mean, the coincidence is really a bit too great, isn't it? Yeah, it is. That's a wonderful story.
00:18:54:10 - 00:18:58:21
Matthew Collins
There are so many stories like that. And that's the story is that every dog that tells the story.
00:18:58:23 - 00:19:06:02
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Excellent. So what do you think is the next step for this area of study?
00:19:06:08 - 00:19:19:06
Matthew Collins
Well, I mean that's interesting. It seems to be growing and growing. The fact that we can now see the pathogens on the surface of the skin may mean we can document pathogens of co-evolution.
00:19:19:08 - 00:19:26:20
Abigail Acton
Now, when you say the pathogens and the pathogens of co-evolution, be more precise, what are you talking about here? What sort of pathogens and what do you mean by co-evolution?
00:19:26:22 - 00:20:02:14
Matthew Collins
So now we're beginning to look at the DNA on the surface, and we are seeing the presence of pathogens of animals, which are probably coming from the slaughterhouse where the parchments are being made. And so one question is the relationship between those pathogens and that evolution. And then secondly, I think the genetics of the animals and how they are changing in space and time, because what's been intriguing is to analyze texts and copying errors in texts.
00:20:02:16 - 00:20:23:16
Matthew Collins
They are using very similar informatic tools to the ones that they're using for genetics. And of course, that means that every single skin has a text written on the surface with a story of the copying history of those texts and in the genetics, the animals and the effect of the copying history, the ancestor of the animals themselves.
00:20:23:19 - 00:20:33:00
Abigail Acton
Now working in parallel. Fascinating. Thank you so much. That was a wonderful explanation. Does anyone have any questions for Matthew? Yeah, Inger.
00:20:33:02 - 00:20:38:13
Inger Leemans
Yeah, a very obvious one. Or at least for me, of course. Do you use nose knowledge?
00:20:38:14 - 00:21:00:21
Matthew Collins
We should be Inger. We should be, but we don't. Because one of the things that we can't identify well are sheep and goats. And you know from your nose that they smell very different. I mean, the goats’ smell is very clear. And I think it's one of the things that we should be using more.
00:21:01:01 - 00:21:15:11
Matthew Collins
So because again, it's another sensory component. And I also ask the question, when you make fresh goatskin and sheepskin, they're actually quite hard to tell apart visually. But I bet at the time the scribes could smell the difference.
00:21:15:13 - 00:21:16:09
Inger Leemans
Absolutely.
00:21:16:11 - 00:21:53:04
Abigail Acton
Can you use gas spectrometry again? Wonderful. Okay, thanks. I'm going to move on to Michaela. We've gone from the totally insubstantial idea of smell in tangible and abstract ideas of image and so on and a fine tuning of genetics. And now, Michaela we're going to go to something really big. We're going to go to huge, strong, big buildings because STRETCH devised a new sensing system that can be placed non-invasively in sensitive monuments and buildings to determine their structural integrity, to show the impact of an earthquake or the vibration of traffic.
00:21:53:04 - 00:21:58:13
Abigail Acton
For example. Michaela, what inspired you to become interested in how monuments withstand earthquakes?
00:21:58:19 - 00:22:36:10
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, I mean, as a building engineer and architect, I've always been fascinated by the preservation of historic structures. That's what really left a mark on me and probably shaped my career in the future was the experience that I had back in 2009. At the time, I had just graduated and my teacher supervisor invited me to take part in a survey campaign and the historical centers hit by the earthquake in the center of Italy to assess the state of damage and gathered documentation.
00:22:36:12 - 00:23:10:08
MIchaela Rossi
And so I jumped at the opportunity and it turned out to be a very valuable experience. But of course, the devastation firsthand, it was something else, we are talking about ordinary, historic buildings, monumental buildings such as churches and palaces in pieces. So that moment I knew that I wanted to do something, anything to help prevent such destruction in the future with my job.
00:23:10:10 - 00:23:27:14
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Yeah, that would be a powerful, a powerful motivator. So what did STRETCH actually develop? You said you wanted to do something to try and prevent this from happening again in the future as far as possibly can be prevented? What is STRETCH doing? What did it develop?
00:23:27:16 - 00:24:02:08
MIchaela Rossi
The STRETCH project explores a novel technological solution to provide simultaneous retrofitting combined with a structural health monitoring which is particularly tailored for cultural heritage buildings. So the base of the of this technology, there's the use of high strength, lightweight textile that can be made of carbon, glass, basalt, or even natural fibers such as hemp, flax, and seeds which are embedded in a mortarmatic's.
00:24:02:10 - 00:24:38:14
MIchaela Rossi
And the result of this combination mortar, a plastic sail, is a composite material that can be applied to the measuring building's external walls to provide an additional strength and steel structures. But in STRETCH we thought, why then choose this technology and embed in the mortar, not just the textile, but some sensor that can detect any anomalies in the structure, not even the structure, but also in changes of other parameters like temperature, humidity.
00:24:38:14 - 00:24:51:14
MIchaela Rossi
And so, yeah, we realised a kind of smart, multifunctional material that can retrofit the building at the same time, monitor the state of the building.
00:24:51:19 - 00:25:09:16
Abigail Acton
Lovely. Excellent. Fantastic. So it is like patches of material, how big are the pieces of material and whereabouts do you place them in the building? Do you place the foundation or higher up? I imagine perhaps you place them higher up because that's where they would be more of a response to vibrations. Where does the material go and how big is it?
00:25:09:18 - 00:25:41:04
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, the material goes to cover the entire surface of the measuring wall. But we can even decide to not just apply it on the entire surface, but select some particular portion of the building that is most more vulnerable. And this vulnerabilities can be detected by the monitoring system. We can control the effectiveness of the applied retrofitting system with this integrated monitoring system.
00:25:41:06 - 00:25:53:13
MIchaela Rossi
So yeah, it's like realizing the kind of nervous system that cover the building, allowing to detect and report any potential issues in real time.
00:25:53:15 - 00:26:01:06
Abigail Acton
Now that reporting is fascinating because that leads me to my next question, of course, is that you're collecting data with these sensors, but then what happens to the data? Where does it go and who sees it?
00:26:01:08 - 00:26:40:06
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, we decided to use this technology of optical fiber sensor because these sensors are able to detect along their land all this changes, but at the same time they are also the means for this data are communicated to what? To a kind of box, like a station that's called the interrogator, where all the data are collected and there they can be locally, let's see, analyze it, or they can even send it to a remote control system or a central station via wired communication, but also one wireless communication.
00:26:40:08 - 00:26:58:02
MIchaela Rossi
So the best way to use this kind of system is to use that Internet of Things system so that we can send this data remotely. We can then analyze the data and so we can like create a way to manage our building.
00:26:58:05 - 00:27:22:00
Abigail Acton
So it's basically like the invisible becoming visible. I like to a nervous system idea. So the building is reporting back to you the areas in which it is vulnerable and where you may be need to think about reinforcing structurally and so on. And I think that's fascinating. Absolutely brilliant. Super. Thank you very much. And if you project yourself into the future, imagine ten years or so, Michaela, where do you hope this technology that you've developed will be being used?
00:27:22:00 - 00:27:25:08
Abigail Acton
Is it already being placed in situ in some places.
00:27:25:10 - 00:27:56:13
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah. This technology is already used in some places, but not with a real integration, with a monitoring system. And a further idea of the project is also to include a way to increase the energy performance of the building. So this is because of course the historical buildings are also very energy inefficient. And so if we really want to protect them and prevent for other damages in the future, we want to live in this building.
00:27:56:14 - 00:28:18:22
MIchaela Rossi
So we will we want to live inside the building and also increase the internal comfort. I would also like to see a development of a really integrated structural plus energy retrofitting system for instance, using mortar that are not only helpful to increase the mechanical costs and the properties, but also the thermal insulating properties of the material.
00:28:19:02 - 00:28:27:14
Abigail Acton
All the while with the sensors telling you where there are areas that need to be corrected. Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you very much. Michaela. Does anyone have any questions for Michaela? Yes, Matthew.
00:28:27:16 - 00:28:41:00
Matthew Collins
Yes, I do. Michaela, given you are now monitoring these buildings with such detail, how long will it be before the data you collect enables you to be able to predict similar conditions in buildings which lack your monitoring system?
00:28:41:02 - 00:29:21:20
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, actually, you this is a very good question because indeed the best way to use this data is to connect this data with some beam and modus which are like 3D ReachTEL model data or use it to design, construct and also manage buildings. And also another optimal idea is to use this data with artificial intelligence. So to create some model, some structural numerical model that can analyze what is happening in real time with some models that are predicting the behavior of these buildings.
00:29:21:20 - 00:29:32:08
MIchaela Rossi
So you can like fine tune what is really happening with your numerical model prediction.
00:29:32:10 - 00:29:53:17
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you very much. That's super. Okay. Well, three wonderful projects that are either bringing heritage to life in a completely new way or making sure that we still have ancient heritage going into the 21st century, the end of the 21st century and onwards. So thank you very much for all your hard work there and for the time you spent this morning sharing these ideas with me,
00:29:53:19 - 00:29:54:20
Abigail Acton
Thank you very much.
00:29:54:20 - 00:29:55:17
Inger Leemans
Thank you so much.
00:29:55:17 - 00:29:57:01
Matthew Collins
Thank you very much indeed.
00:29:57:03 - 00:29:59:10
MIchaela Rossi
Thank you. Thank you very much.
00:29:59:12 - 00:30:21:09
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. If you've enjoyed this episode, follow us on Spotify or Apple or wherever else you get your podcasts and check out the CORDIScovery homepage on the Cordis website. Subscribe to make sure the hottest research and EU-funded science isn't passing you by. And if your friends ask if you've heard of any good science podcasts recently, why not spread the word?
00:30:21:13 - 00:30:45:22
Abigail Acton
We've talked about the effect magic has on crows and the dynamics between climate change and violence. In our last 38 episodes, there will be something there to tweak your curiosity. Perhaps you want to know what other-EU funded projects are doing to analyze and preserve our cultural heritage. The CORDIS.EU website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe that are working in this area.
00:30:45:24 - 00:31:11:00
Abigail Acton
Check out the projects brought together in a pack called Preserving Culture and Cultural Heritage. The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects, from isotopes to epitopes. There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain, so come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick.
00:31:11:02 - 00:31:22:03
Abigail Acton
We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line. Editorial @cordis dot Europa dot EU until next time.
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:41:06
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery. Welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery. With me, Abigail Acton. We see cultural artifacts hear music composed centuries ago, and if we're lucky, get to handle pieces that were created by long forgotten makers. But what about bringing to life the smell of a historic scene or an object no longer made. When we turned to ancient manuscripts to understand the past, we've long focused on what was written on the parchment and the vellum.
00:00:41:08 - 00:01:05:01
Abigail Acton
But what can the material itself tell us about the lives of the animals that gave up their skins and of the people tending them? There's no exploration of the past without the artifacts themselves. So today we will also be considering how to preserve and protect historic buildings from the threat of earthquake damage and vibration. Italy alone has 818 registered monuments and sites, which are threatened by more extreme weather events.
00:01:05:03 - 00:01:34:21
Abigail Acton
The seismic activity the country faces and other environmental factors. So anticipating damage and identifying where structures have become undermined is crucial. From the ephemeral to the massive. How have all three guests given a new voice to the artifacts that enrich our lives? Exploring these new avenues with the help of EU funding are Inger Leemans, a professor of cultural history at the Vrije Universiteit and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
00:01:34:23 - 00:01:44:19
Abigail Acton
Her research covers topics such as the history of sexuality and emotion and smellscapes of the past. Inger is passionate about making her work accessible to everyone. Hello Inger.
00:01:44:22 - 00:01:46:00
Inger Leemans
Hi Abigail.
00:01:46:02 - 00:02:13:13
Abigail Acton
Matthew Collins is fellow of the Danish and Swedish Royal Academies and chair of the archeology section of the British Academy. He holds chairs in Cambridge and Copenhagen universities. Matthew explores the ways in which archeology can borrow tools from biology to explore ancient artifacts and tissues, from shells to bones to parchments and pots. Hello, Matthew. Michaela Rossi is scientific project officer at the Joint Research Center, JRC of the European Commission.
00:02:13:19 - 00:02:26:02
Abigail Acton
Her main research interests include structural safety assessments of historic buildings, seismic and energy retrofitting of existing buildings, structural health monitoring and digital fabrication. Welcome, Michaela.
00:02:26:04 - 00:02:27:24
MIchaela Rossi
Hello Abigail.
00:02:28:01 - 00:02:47:16
Abigail Acton
Inger I'm going to turn to you first. The ODEUROPA project set out to pin down that most elusive sensory stimulant: smell. But to make things even more challenging, your project Inger was focused on smells of the past. Museums were already trying to provide odor as part of the experience of visiting an exhibit. Where did the idea of taking this further come from?
00:02:47:22 - 00:03:16:12
Inger Leemans
Well, a great opportunity to work on a pilot project with one of the smell pioneers from the Rijksmuseum. And we were doing tours with smells through the Rijksmuseum. And then we thought, how wonderful it would be if you also could do this for digital, a heritage collection. So say you go to the Louvre website and you wouldn't search for artists, but for how painting, smell or how you could do that for a text.
00:03:16:12 - 00:03:26:23
Inger Leemans
And then the European Union had a call about how to make digital heritage collections more tangible. And then we thought: Yeah.
00:03:27:04 - 00:03:41:17
Abigail Acton
Yeah, Funny combination. Okay. so is this descriptions of smells that you're setting out because, you know, when we associate odors in museums, of course, they're somehow released into the atmosphere around us. So here it's a description of the kind of smells. Is that correct?
00:03:41:22 - 00:04:08:02
Inger Leemans
Yeah. So the bulk of the project is actually about opening up historical texts and paintings and prints to the nose to think about smell events in the past. So what we did is we actually invited the different computer science groups to design methodologies for sensory mining. And that was fantastic because most of these groups had never worked on smell whatsoever.
00:04:08:04 - 00:04:23:06
Inger Leemans
And also this is quite new. So we really had to think from the start about what is a smell event. How can you teach the computer to capture information about smells in historical text and images?
00:04:23:08 - 00:04:30:20
Abigail Acton
So can you tell us a little bit about the methodology? How do you actually train a computer to do that? I mean, you're using AI and machine learning, I guess.
00:04:30:22 - 00:04:55:05
Inger Leemans
Using a different ratios of AI on the one hand, a text mining component. So we annotate the text and then we train that computer to automatically detect what we call nose witnesses. So people that are actually talking about smells in the past. And then we have an image recognition group that try to capture smell moments in historical images.
00:04:55:05 - 00:05:21:00
Inger Leemans
Think about the nose when it reaches to an object, for instance. But also people pinching their nose when apparently there is a stench or seminal smell moments like when Christ is going into the hell and engages with the smell. The smell of hell. The semantic group brought that all together in a knowledge graph.
00:05:21:01 - 00:05:34:19
Abigail Acton
So, I mean, there's all this sort of iconographic imagery of frankincense and myrrh and the gifts of the three kings and stuff. But I think also you were looking at everyday objects like pomanders that are frequent in the Elizabethan period as the immediate one that comes to my mind.
00:05:34:21 - 00:05:57:09
Inger Leemans
Yes. So have we trained the computer to capture pomanders from all different kind of paintings or gloves which were also heavily scentered in the early modern periods? And then for that, the text components you've researched for historical recipes or perfumes that were made for these gloves or pomander recipes.
00:05:57:15 - 00:06:03:22
Abigail Acton
fascinating. So you're combining the text with the image in order to get a clearer idea of actually what's behind the image. Is that correct?
00:06:03:24 - 00:06:23:16
Inger Leemans
Yes. And we then we use that also for historical smell, reconstructions and recreation. So that's the next part of the project. The first part of the project is really about the, the AI and the mining. And then the next part of the project was about smell reconstructions and recreations.
00:06:23:16 - 00:06:38:00
Abigail Acton
So first you identify references and then you reconstruct what is being referred to. So tell us about that. How do you go about from, you know, a pomander in a painting to recreating the actual object, the smell of the object, or another example maybe?
00:06:38:06 - 00:07:09:10
Inger Leemans
Yeah. So here we worked with perfume industry, so a completely different line of knowledge and also with heritage science and chemistry expertise sometimes really to capture molecules from a historical object. So think if you have a pomander that actually has some residue or old books, for instance, and then with gas chromatography, you can make reconstructions of actual scents, but also following historical recipes.
00:07:09:10 - 00:07:41:16
Inger Leemans
of a pomander for instance, and sometimes thinking more about historical interpretations. So if you think about the smell of hell, we have so many descriptions of what the hell smelled like in the early modern mind, for instance, so we could follow a more creative, you might say, trajectory to think about the components of the smell of hell. So think about a scatological, burning, sulfur. I tracked it around the smell of hell.
00:07:41:16 - 00:07:43:20
Inger Leemans
It's really quite offensive. So.
00:07:43:20 - 00:07:46:14
Abigail Acton
Okay, so you actually created this, didn't you?
00:07:46:16 - 00:07:46:23
Inger Leemans
yes.
00:07:46:23 - 00:07:49:09
Abigail Acton
Have a little file of what hell would smell like.
00:07:49:15 - 00:08:01:14
Inger Leemans
We do, and we sprayed around and then it has people smell it in front of paintings. Where the paintings then become more to life and become more tangible also to different kinds of visitors.
00:08:01:14 - 00:08:11:07
Abigail Acton
Yes, absolutely. Yes, different kinds of visitors, too. That's true. Because of your stimulating senses. That might be the most important senses for certain types of visitors.
00:08:11:09 - 00:08:38:06
Inger Leemans
Yes. So you can think about visually a challenge to people, but also use groups, for instance. And the really great thing about bringing smell into a heritage context is that it opens up conversations with people because sort of they smell is democratic. Everyone, every one of us has something to say when it comes to smell. So you can bring your own expertise and share that.
00:08:38:07 - 00:08:43:11
Abigail Acton
It's instantaneous. There's no kind of thought process behind it. It just hits us immediately and we have a reaction.
00:08:43:13 - 00:08:45:20
Inger Leemans
It has a very powerful emotion.
00:08:45:24 - 00:08:50:05
Abigail Acton
Especially your smell of hell, apparently, not to be taken lightly.
00:08:50:07 - 00:09:05:00
Inger Leemans
So the nice thing about the smell of hell is that people really reengage. We became fascinated with it, so it was horrible. But still they wanted to smell it all the time, which is comparable to sin. I think sin, you shouldn't do it. But still people did.
00:09:05:00 - 00:09:15:13
Abigail Acton
It as an attraction to it. Very good. This is wonderful. I love this project. Super. Thank you so much for explaining it to us. Does anyone have any questions linger? Yes, Michaela, you have a question?
00:09:15:15 - 00:09:41:23
MIchaela Rossi
Yes, actually, I have a first question, but I mean, Inger already provide the answer because I was curious about if they managed to reproduce in a lab environment. It's kind of smart. So the answer is yes. So my second question is, if you have an idea to compare the emotions raised by the smells of the past with the reactions that they cause in a person today.
00:09:42:00 - 00:09:50:04
MIchaela Rossi
So I think that what you said, that the reaction that was raised in the past can be different from a modern person.
00:09:50:06 - 00:09:52:07
Abigail Acton
That's very interesting question, Michaela. Inger, what do you think?
00:09:52:12 - 00:10:33:16
Inger Leemans
Yeah, we think about it in terms of the period. So indeed, smelling and the meanings around smell could be quite different in, let's say, 17th and 18th century than now. So, for instance, that smell of hell I was just talking about, we'd have a completely different religious and moral connotation than for us now. Also, because if we smell sulfur, then that takes us to matches, for instance, or if we think about incense, we probably think about teenagers burning incense in their rooms instead of a religious ceremony in a church or a synagogue, for instance.
00:10:33:16 - 00:10:48:16
Abigail Acton
And indeed, I guess also we’re tuned into the idea of commodities that are expensive as being desirable. So maybe there are scents which, you know, we would consider to be wonderful because we know them to be rare and expensive. And that presumably changes with a period nose as well.
00:10:48:18 - 00:11:02:04
Inger Leemans
Absolutely. And also there was a lot of sense produced for aromatherapy. So there was much more of a medical purpose to the usage of olfactory.
00:11:02:06 - 00:11:24:16
Abigail Acton
Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you so much. That's really fascinating. Matthew, I'm going to turn to you. The Beasts 2 Craft project documented the biological and craft records in parchment in order to reveal the entangled histories about animal husbandry and parchment production in Europe from 500 to 1900 A.D. BioCodicology, Matthew, a new term for a completely new approach.
00:11:24:18 - 00:11:36:07
Abigail Acton
So this is another very intriguing idea that takes artifacts with which we're familiar and explores them in a completely different way. So I'm going to repeat the first question I actually put to Inger and ask you, where did the idea come from Matthew?
00:11:36:09 - 00:12:12:15
Matthew Collins
The idea came from failure, the challenge of trying to identify animal populations based on fragmented remains because when we eat and consume animals, we tend to smash them up. I had a poor student trying to look at the age structure of ancient Iron Age in Viking cattle populations and was only able to identify 12 to 29 animals from about 4000 fragments, and then to walk through an archive and realize that every single document was made of the skin of an animal.
00:12:12:15 - 00:12:35:15
Matthew Collins
And I was looking at tens of thousands and just thinking, this is an extraordinary documentary record of biology where we have the skins of animals with, in the case of legal documents, the date written on them and the place at least where the legal document was signed, was an incredibly rich biological archive.
00:12:35:18 - 00:12:54:13
Abigail Acton
Yeah, what a resource. And a fascinating new take on the concept. We're all poring over what was written and struggling to deal with, you know, medieval Latin. But in fact, the support itself has so much to tell us as well. So tell me how you went about the analysis. What did your team actually do?
00:12:54:15 - 00:13:27:18
Matthew Collins
The team began with a horrible realization that despite the vast quantities of material, we weren't allowed to take even the tiniest cut piece of parchment. In sheer desperation, and often the best ideas are born of desperation. Sarah Fetterman, who is really the coin of the term BioCodicology, looked at all the waste products from a conservation studio at York and analyzed everything that they threw away once the treated the parchment.
00:13:27:20 - 00:13:52:20
Matthew Collins
And to our great delight, we discovered that when they use a dry PVC eraser, the same things that you used when you're at school to rub away pencil marks, which is commonly used to clean the dirt off the surface of parchment. It was a fabulous trap, first of proteins and then subsequently of DNA. And of course, what that did is it switched the whole project around.
00:13:52:22 - 00:14:15:11
Matthew Collins
No longer were we going to ask conservation studios, archives and libraries, could we please come and sample? Instead, we went and talked to conservators and said: Don't throw the waste away. Here's some boxes with little tubes in them. Put the waste in. Then when you're ready, send the box to us and we can analyze them for you.
00:14:15:13 - 00:14:27:21
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. That's wonderful. It's one of those eureka moments. Fascinating. And does the rubber itself not interfere, is it so inert and just doesn't get in the way the traces of the eraser?
00:14:27:22 - 00:14:36:14
Matthew Collins
What's interesting is that first of all it seems to stabilize the data and the proteins so that we can leave boxes at room temperature with the eraser rubbings for a long time.
00:14:36:20 - 00:14:37:24
Abigail Acton
It traps them in it, I suppose.
00:14:37:24 - 00:14:58:18
Matthew Collins
It traps them in it. And secondly, we can then just lift them off chemically from the surface and certainly as far as the analysis goes with the kind of analysis we do, we don't see any additional signal. If we look for metabolites, low macro organic molecules, we would certainly see components in an eraser. But those are not the analysis we do.
00:14:58:20 - 00:15:12:00
Matthew Collins
And what it's meant is that, you know, instead of us having to go to libraries, we've been able to analyze over 7000 parchment samples sent to our labs by these conservators. And they've, of course, been very engaged in the project.
00:15:12:02 - 00:15:13:04
Abigail Acton
Well, it's so intriguing.
00:15:13:05 - 00:15:26:17
Matthew Collins
So it actually reminds me of what Inger was saying, that, you know, if the democratization of this work, which I think is actually really exciting in this field, nobody is an expert, as you learn very quickly. And by working together, you learn so much more.
00:15:26:19 - 00:15:41:15
Abigail Acton
That's wonderful. Excellent. So now tell me, what did you actually do? So you have these samples that coming to you from all over the place, which of course, is massively more efficient and it's spiking a lot of people's curiosity and so on. So what sort of analysis did you actually do?
00:15:41:21 - 00:16:03:24
Matthew Collins
Well, we started off with a very simple question, which was we use proteomics to ask what animal skin was used to make this parchment. And so one of the very first things was parchment is often called vellum for very fine parchment, coming from word veal. So the calfskin. And the idea was that the very finest parchments were always made of calfskin.
00:16:04:01 - 00:16:24:07
Matthew Collins
We were able to show quite early, That's not true. They actually made of the local livestock near where the site of production was. So it's all actually about the cross skill. And we were very lucky in our project when the key project members were somebody who makes parchment. And so he could really explain to all of us the materiality and the look and feel of this material.
00:16:24:09 - 00:16:52:07
Matthew Collins
And once we've done that, we started asking more questions and we keep asking more questions and they go on and on. So the way the parchment was made, what kind of salts are associated with it? What are the sex of the animal that's used to make parchment? You realize that is a very rich biological material. We can even go so far as to ask what was a rainfall like in the spring of the year in which the animal was killed?
00:16:52:09 - 00:16:54:08
Matthew Collins
It really is extraordinary.
00:16:54:10 - 00:17:03:15
Abigail Acton
It's amazing. I mean, yes, a step further than counting rings on trees. Brilliant. And can you tell us some of the things that you found?
00:17:03:17 - 00:17:11:15
Matthew Collins
it goes on and on and that's very hard to answer because it's literally every time you look at a new object, you get a different story.
00:17:11:16 - 00:17:14:02
Abigail Acton
Choose your favorite story. Choose your favorite story.
00:17:14:04 - 00:17:36:16
Matthew Collins
My favorite story is we looked at a book very early on where we could see there were two scribes were writing this text and they set up to write this text with a very ordered structure of calf and sheep together. And then a very strange thing happens in middle and calf, which you think to me about a better quality text is suddenly all being used up.
00:17:36:18 - 00:18:01:10
Matthew Collins
And then the very last section of the book, and this is the 12th century book from Canterbury, a gloss Luke was much was made of sheepskin, but in the middle there was a there was a piece of goatskin, and we realized that this was probably a scribal joke. The original scribe seems to have realized he couldn't complete the text and had used up all of the calfskin.
00:18:01:12 - 00:18:33:02
Matthew Collins
And as he was writing the story of the Prodigal Son, which if you recall, the sender stays back home and doesn't go off and doesn't get given the fact that calf complaint is not even given the goat to have a feast with his friends. And just after he's written that text and just before he leaves the book to the second scribe who has to use a poor quality sheepskin inserts right in the middle two skins, the front half of a flea bitten goat.
00:18:33:04 - 00:18:47:14
Matthew Collins
And as we almost never see goats again in English documents, I suspect that was his final comment. I've used up the best calf. Here's a bit of a goat. And now the second scribe, you've just got some miserable sheepskin.
00:18:47:14 - 00:18:54:08
Abigail Acton
Sheepskin to go down with. I mean, the coincidence is really a bit too great, isn't it? Yeah, it is. That's a wonderful story.
00:18:54:10 - 00:18:58:21
Matthew Collins
There are so many stories like that. And that's the story is that every dog that tells the story.
00:18:58:23 - 00:19:06:02
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Excellent. So what do you think is the next step for this area of study?
00:19:06:08 - 00:19:19:06
Matthew Collins
Well, I mean that's interesting. It seems to be growing and growing. The fact that we can now see the pathogens on the surface of the skin may mean we can document pathogens of co-evolution.
00:19:19:08 - 00:19:26:20
Abigail Acton
Now, when you say the pathogens and the pathogens of co-evolution, be more precise, what are you talking about here? What sort of pathogens and what do you mean by co-evolution?
00:19:26:22 - 00:20:02:14
Matthew Collins
So now we're beginning to look at the DNA on the surface, and we are seeing the presence of pathogens of animals, which are probably coming from the slaughterhouse where the parchments are being made. And so one question is the relationship between those pathogens and that evolution. And then secondly, I think the genetics of the animals and how they are changing in space and time, because what's been intriguing is to analyze texts and copying errors in texts.
00:20:02:16 - 00:20:23:16
Matthew Collins
They are using very similar informatic tools to the ones that they're using for genetics. And of course, that means that every single skin has a text written on the surface with a story of the copying history of those texts and in the genetics, the animals and the effect of the copying history, the ancestor of the animals themselves.
00:20:23:19 - 00:20:33:00
Abigail Acton
Now working in parallel. Fascinating. Thank you so much. That was a wonderful explanation. Does anyone have any questions for Matthew? Yeah, Inger.
00:20:33:02 - 00:20:38:13
Inger Leemans
Yeah, a very obvious one. Or at least for me, of course. Do you use nose knowledge?
00:20:38:14 - 00:21:00:21
Matthew Collins
We should be Inger. We should be, but we don't. Because one of the things that we can't identify well are sheep and goats. And you know from your nose that they smell very different. I mean, the goats’ smell is very clear. And I think it's one of the things that we should be using more.
00:21:01:01 - 00:21:15:11
Matthew Collins
So because again, it's another sensory component. And I also ask the question, when you make fresh goatskin and sheepskin, they're actually quite hard to tell apart visually. But I bet at the time the scribes could smell the difference.
00:21:15:13 - 00:21:16:09
Inger Leemans
Absolutely.
00:21:16:11 - 00:21:53:04
Abigail Acton
Can you use gas spectrometry again? Wonderful. Okay, thanks. I'm going to move on to Michaela. We've gone from the totally insubstantial idea of smell in tangible and abstract ideas of image and so on and a fine tuning of genetics. And now, Michaela we're going to go to something really big. We're going to go to huge, strong, big buildings because STRETCH devised a new sensing system that can be placed non-invasively in sensitive monuments and buildings to determine their structural integrity, to show the impact of an earthquake or the vibration of traffic.
00:21:53:04 - 00:21:58:13
Abigail Acton
For example. Michaela, what inspired you to become interested in how monuments withstand earthquakes?
00:21:58:19 - 00:22:36:10
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, I mean, as a building engineer and architect, I've always been fascinated by the preservation of historic structures. That's what really left a mark on me and probably shaped my career in the future was the experience that I had back in 2009. At the time, I had just graduated and my teacher supervisor invited me to take part in a survey campaign and the historical centers hit by the earthquake in the center of Italy to assess the state of damage and gathered documentation.
00:22:36:12 - 00:23:10:08
MIchaela Rossi
And so I jumped at the opportunity and it turned out to be a very valuable experience. But of course, the devastation firsthand, it was something else, we are talking about ordinary, historic buildings, monumental buildings such as churches and palaces in pieces. So that moment I knew that I wanted to do something, anything to help prevent such destruction in the future with my job.
00:23:10:10 - 00:23:27:14
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Yeah, that would be a powerful, a powerful motivator. So what did STRETCH actually develop? You said you wanted to do something to try and prevent this from happening again in the future as far as possibly can be prevented? What is STRETCH doing? What did it develop?
00:23:27:16 - 00:24:02:08
MIchaela Rossi
The STRETCH project explores a novel technological solution to provide simultaneous retrofitting combined with a structural health monitoring which is particularly tailored for cultural heritage buildings. So the base of the of this technology, there's the use of high strength, lightweight textile that can be made of carbon, glass, basalt, or even natural fibers such as hemp, flax, and seeds which are embedded in a mortarmatic's.
00:24:02:10 - 00:24:38:14
MIchaela Rossi
And the result of this combination mortar, a plastic sail, is a composite material that can be applied to the measuring building's external walls to provide an additional strength and steel structures. But in STRETCH we thought, why then choose this technology and embed in the mortar, not just the textile, but some sensor that can detect any anomalies in the structure, not even the structure, but also in changes of other parameters like temperature, humidity.
00:24:38:14 - 00:24:51:14
MIchaela Rossi
And so, yeah, we realised a kind of smart, multifunctional material that can retrofit the building at the same time, monitor the state of the building.
00:24:51:19 - 00:25:09:16
Abigail Acton
Lovely. Excellent. Fantastic. So it is like patches of material, how big are the pieces of material and whereabouts do you place them in the building? Do you place the foundation or higher up? I imagine perhaps you place them higher up because that's where they would be more of a response to vibrations. Where does the material go and how big is it?
00:25:09:18 - 00:25:41:04
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, the material goes to cover the entire surface of the measuring wall. But we can even decide to not just apply it on the entire surface, but select some particular portion of the building that is most more vulnerable. And this vulnerabilities can be detected by the monitoring system. We can control the effectiveness of the applied retrofitting system with this integrated monitoring system.
00:25:41:06 - 00:25:53:13
MIchaela Rossi
So yeah, it's like realizing the kind of nervous system that cover the building, allowing to detect and report any potential issues in real time.
00:25:53:15 - 00:26:01:06
Abigail Acton
Now that reporting is fascinating because that leads me to my next question, of course, is that you're collecting data with these sensors, but then what happens to the data? Where does it go and who sees it?
00:26:01:08 - 00:26:40:06
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, we decided to use this technology of optical fiber sensor because these sensors are able to detect along their land all this changes, but at the same time they are also the means for this data are communicated to what? To a kind of box, like a station that's called the interrogator, where all the data are collected and there they can be locally, let's see, analyze it, or they can even send it to a remote control system or a central station via wired communication, but also one wireless communication.
00:26:40:08 - 00:26:58:02
MIchaela Rossi
So the best way to use this kind of system is to use that Internet of Things system so that we can send this data remotely. We can then analyze the data and so we can like create a way to manage our building.
00:26:58:05 - 00:27:22:00
Abigail Acton
So it's basically like the invisible becoming visible. I like to a nervous system idea. So the building is reporting back to you the areas in which it is vulnerable and where you may be need to think about reinforcing structurally and so on. And I think that's fascinating. Absolutely brilliant. Super. Thank you very much. And if you project yourself into the future, imagine ten years or so, Michaela, where do you hope this technology that you've developed will be being used?
00:27:22:00 - 00:27:25:08
Abigail Acton
Is it already being placed in situ in some places.
00:27:25:10 - 00:27:56:13
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah. This technology is already used in some places, but not with a real integration, with a monitoring system. And a further idea of the project is also to include a way to increase the energy performance of the building. So this is because of course the historical buildings are also very energy inefficient. And so if we really want to protect them and prevent for other damages in the future, we want to live in this building.
00:27:56:14 - 00:28:18:22
MIchaela Rossi
So we will we want to live inside the building and also increase the internal comfort. I would also like to see a development of a really integrated structural plus energy retrofitting system for instance, using mortar that are not only helpful to increase the mechanical costs and the properties, but also the thermal insulating properties of the material.
00:28:19:02 - 00:28:27:14
Abigail Acton
All the while with the sensors telling you where there are areas that need to be corrected. Okay, that's wonderful. Thank you very much. Michaela. Does anyone have any questions for Michaela? Yes, Matthew.
00:28:27:16 - 00:28:41:00
Matthew Collins
Yes, I do. Michaela, given you are now monitoring these buildings with such detail, how long will it be before the data you collect enables you to be able to predict similar conditions in buildings which lack your monitoring system?
00:28:41:02 - 00:29:21:20
MIchaela Rossi
Yeah, actually, you this is a very good question because indeed the best way to use this data is to connect this data with some beam and modus which are like 3D ReachTEL model data or use it to design, construct and also manage buildings. And also another optimal idea is to use this data with artificial intelligence. So to create some model, some structural numerical model that can analyze what is happening in real time with some models that are predicting the behavior of these buildings.
00:29:21:20 - 00:29:32:08
MIchaela Rossi
So you can like fine tune what is really happening with your numerical model prediction.
00:29:32:10 - 00:29:53:17
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you very much. That's super. Okay. Well, three wonderful projects that are either bringing heritage to life in a completely new way or making sure that we still have ancient heritage going into the 21st century, the end of the 21st century and onwards. So thank you very much for all your hard work there and for the time you spent this morning sharing these ideas with me,
00:29:53:19 - 00:29:54:20
Abigail Acton
Thank you very much.
00:29:54:20 - 00:29:55:17
Inger Leemans
Thank you so much.
00:29:55:17 - 00:29:57:01
Matthew Collins
Thank you very much indeed.
00:29:57:03 - 00:29:59:10
MIchaela Rossi
Thank you. Thank you very much.
00:29:59:12 - 00:30:21:09
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. If you've enjoyed this episode, follow us on Spotify or Apple or wherever else you get your podcasts and check out the CORDIScovery homepage on the Cordis website. Subscribe to make sure the hottest research and EU-funded science isn't passing you by. And if your friends ask if you've heard of any good science podcasts recently, why not spread the word?
00:30:21:13 - 00:30:45:22
Abigail Acton
We've talked about the effect magic has on crows and the dynamics between climate change and violence. In our last 38 episodes, there will be something there to tweak your curiosity. Perhaps you want to know what other-EU funded projects are doing to analyze and preserve our cultural heritage. The CORDIS.EU website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe that are working in this area.
00:30:45:24 - 00:31:11:00
Abigail Acton
Check out the projects brought together in a pack called Preserving Culture and Cultural Heritage. The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains and subjects, from isotopes to epitopes. There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain, so come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick.
00:31:11:02 - 00:31:22:03
Abigail Acton
We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line. Editorial @cordis dot Europa dot EU until next time.
Breathing life into our past
We see cultural artefacts, hear music composed centuries ago and, if we are lucky, get to handle pieces that were created by long-forgotten makers. But what about bringing to life the smell of a historic scene, or an object no longer made? When we turn to ancient manuscripts to understand the past, we have long focused on what was written on the parchment and vellum. But what can the material itself tell us about the lives of the animals that gave up their skins, and of the people tending them? There is no exploration of the past without the artefacts themselves, so today we will also be considering how to preserve and protect historic buildings from the threat of earthquake damage and vibration. Italy alone has 818 registered monuments and sites which are threatened by more extreme weather events, the seismic activity the country faces, and other environmental factors. So, anticipating damage and identifying where structures have become undermined is crucial. From the ephemeral to the massive, how have our three guests given a new voice to the artefacts that enrich our lives? Exploring these new avenues with the help of EU funding are: Inger Leemans, a professor of Cultural History at VU Amsterdam and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research on the smellscapes of the past was explored in the ODEUROPA project. Leemans is passionate about making her research accessible to everyone. Matthew Collins is a fellow of the Danish and Swedish Royal Academies, and chair of the Archaeology section of the British Academy. He holds chairs in Cambridge and Copenhagen Universities. Through the Beasts 2 Craft project, Collins explored the ways in which archaeology can borrow tools from biology to explore ancient artefacts and tissues, from shells and bone to parchment and pots. Michela Rossi is a scientific project officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. The STRETCH project examined structural safety assessments of historic buildings, seismic and energy retrofitting of existing buildings, structural health monitoring and digital fabrication.
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Keywords
ODEUROPA, Beasts 2 Craft, STRETCH, smellscapes, monuments, parchment, archaeology, biology, retrofitting, smell, earthquake