The sheer computing power of modern information technology is changing the face of research not just in science, technology and mathematics, but in humanities and cultural studies too. Recent decades have seen a major shift both in attitudes and deployment of computers, which are now vital and highly effective tools in disciplines where they were once viewed as elaborate typewriters. This revealing volume details the vast array of computing applications that researchers in the humanities now have recourse to, including the dissemination of scholarly information through virtual ‘co-laboratories’, data retrieval, and the modeling of complex processes that contribute to our natural and cultural heritage. One key area covered in this book is the versatility of computers in presenting images and graphics, which is transforming the analysis of data sets and archaeological reconstructions alike. The papers published here are grouped into three broad categories that cover mathematical and computational methods, research developments in information systems, and a detailed portrayal of ongoing work on documenting, restoring and presenting cultural monuments including the temples in Pompeii and the Banteay Chhmar temples of the Angkorian period in present-day Cambodia. Originally presented at a research workshop in Heidelberg, Germany, they reflect the rapidly developing identity of computational humanities as an interdisciplinary field in its own right, as well as demonstrating the breadth of perspectives in this young and vibrant research area.

This book provides insights into the state of the art of digital cultural heritage using computer graphics, image processing, computer vision, visualization and reconstruction, virtual and augmented reality and serious games. It aims at covering the emergent approaches for digitization and preservation of Cultural Heritage, both in its tangible and intangible facets. Advancements in Digital Cultural Heritage research have been abundant in recent years covering a wide assortment of topics, ranging from visual data acquisition, pre-processing, classification, analysis and synthesis, 3D modelling and reconstruction, semantics and symbolic representation, metadata description, repository and archiving, to new forms of interactive and personalized presentation, visualization and immersive experience provision via advanced computer graphics, interactive virtual and augmented environments, serious games and digital storytelling. Different aspects pertaining to visual computing with regard to tangible (books, images, paintings, manuscripts, uniforms, maps, artefacts, archaeological sites, monuments) and intangible (e.g. dance and performing arts, folklore, theatrical performances) cultural heritage preservation, documentation, protection and promotion are covered, including rendering and procedural modelling of cultural heritage assets, keyword spotting in old documents, drone mapping and airborne photogrammetry, underwater recording and reconstruction, gamification, visitor engagement, animated storytelling, analysis of choreographic patterns, and many more. The book brings together and targets researchers from the domains of computing, engineering, archaeology and the arts, and aims at underscoring the potential for cross-fertilization and collaboration among these communities.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Large-Scale Scientific Computations, LSSC 2017, held in Sozopol, Bulgaria, in June 2017. The 63 revised short papers together with 3 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 63 submissions. The conference presents results from the following topics: Hierarchical, adaptive, domain decomposition and local refinement methods; Robust preconditioning algorithms; Monte Carlo methods and algorithms; Numerical linear algebra; Control and optimization; Parallel algorithms and performance analysis; Large-scale computations of environmental, biomedical and engineering problems. The chapter 'Parallel Aggregation Based on Compatible Weighted Matching for AMG' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

This book aims to provide a deep look into Italian actions taken in some fields of science and high performance computing (HPC), and the Italian effort to bridge the HPC gap with respect to Europe. The Italian PON ReCaS Project is written for graduate readers and professionals in the field of high performance computing. It presents and discusses innovative and important technological solutions, and describes interesting results in various fields of application.ReCaS stands for 'Rete di Calcolo per SuperB e altre applicazioni' and is a computing network infrastructure in Southern Italy devoted to scientific and non-scientific applications within the vision of a common European infrastructure for computing, storage and network. The ReCaS project is part of the 2007-2013 European Union strategy, and was funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Education (MIUR) for the development and enhancement of a distributed computing infrastructure of the Grid/Cloud type over the four EU 'Convergence' regions in Southern Italy: Campania, Puglia and Sicily and Calabria.The network will be open and accessible to all researchers, public and private, and will be characterized by unprecedented computing power and storage capacity. Posted in the European Grid Infrastructure EGI, ReCaS is also an opportunity to the countries of the Mediterranean area and extends the potential of the current network.

This book addresses the application of computing to cultural heritage and the discipline of Digital Humanities that formed around it. Digital Humanities research is transforming how the Human record can be transmitted, shaped, understood, questioned and imagined and it has been ongoing for more than 70 years. However, we have no comprehensive histories of its research trajectory or its disciplinary development. The authors make a first contribution towards remedying this by uncovering, documenting, and analysing a number of the social, intellectual and creative processes that helped to shape this research from the 1950s until the present day. By taking an oral history approach, this book explores questions like, among others, researchers’ earliest memories of encountering computers and the factors that subsequently prompted them to use the computer in Humanities research. Computation and the Humanities will be an essential read for cultural and computing historians, digital humanists and those interested in developments like the digitisation of cultural heritage and artefacts. This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license

Theoretical and practical perspectives from a range of disciplines on the challenges of using digital media in interpretation and representation of cultural heritage. In Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, experts offer a critical and theoretical appraisal of the uses of digital media by cultural heritage institutions. Previous discussions of cultural heritage and digital technology have left the subject largely unmapped in terms of critical theory; the essays in this volume offer this long-missing perspective on the challenges of using digital media in the research, preservation, management, interpretation, and representation of cultural heritage. The contributors--scholars and practitioners from a range of relevant disciplines--ground theory in practice, considering how digital technology might be used to transform institutional cultures, methods, and relationships with audiences. The contributors examine the relationship between material and digital objects in collections of art and indigenous artifacts; the implications of digital technology for knowledge creation, documentation, and the concept of authority; and the possibilities for "virtual cultural heritage"--the preservation and interpretation of cultural and natural heritage through real-time, immersive, and interactive techniques. The essays in Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage will serve as a resource for professionals, academics, and students in all fields of cultural heritage, including museums, libraries, galleries, archives, and archaeology, as well as those in education and information technology. The range of issues considered and the diverse disciplines and viewpoints represented point to new directions for an emerging field. Contributors Nadia Arbach, Juan Antonio Barceló, Deidre Brown, Fiona Cameron, Erik Champion, Sarah Cook, Jim Cooley, Bharat Dave, Suhas Deshpande, Bernadette Flynn, Maurizio Forte, Kati Geber, Beryl Graham, Susan Hazan, Sarah Kenderdine, José Ripper Kós, Harald Kraemer, Ingrid Mason, Gavan McCarthy, Slavko Milekic, Rodrigo Paraizo, Ross Parry, Scot T. Refsland, Helena Robinson, Angelina Russo, Corey Timpson, Marc Tuters, Peter Walsh, Jerry Watkins, Andrea Witcomb

The sheer computing power of modern information technology is changing the face of research not just in science, technology and mathematics, but in humanities and cultural studies too. Recent decades have seen a major shift both in attitudes and deployment of computers, which are now vital and highly effective tools in disciplines where they were once viewed as elaborate typewriters. This revealing volume details the vast array of computing applications that researchers in the humanities now have recourse to, including the dissemination of scholarly information through virtual ‘co-laboratories’, data retrieval, and the modeling of complex processes that contribute to our natural and cultural heritage. One key area covered in this book is the versatility of computers in presenting images and graphics, which is transforming the analysis of data sets and archaeological reconstructions alike. The papers published here are grouped into three broad categories that cover mathematical and computational methods, research developments in information systems, and a detailed portrayal of ongoing work on documenting, restoring and presenting cultural monuments including the temples in Pompeii and the Banteay Chhmar temples of the Angkorian period in present-day Cambodia. Originally presented at a research workshop in Heidelberg, Germany, they reflect the rapidly developing identity of computational humanities as an interdisciplinary field in its own right, as well as demonstrating the breadth of perspectives in this young and vibrant research area.