Digital Twins and the Stendhal Syndrome

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have to admit that, while having experience working with the Digital Humanities (from the informatics side), I am not knowledgeable on ontologies. This makes it hard for me to truly evaluate the novelty and impact of this paper's contribution. That being said, the authors tell a compelling story and the paper is well written. I agree with the problematics described, their importance, and also love framing within the Stendhal syndrome, but its hard for me to say how much this is differs from the "state-of-the-art" and, furthermore, how practical it is to register all of these semantic and semiotic aspects, and if this would not cause an "ontologic explosion" of sorts. I learned a lot from the paper and it seems to be adequately constructed in terms of theoretical background and references, therefore I would lean towards accepting it in its present form.

Author Response

Comments 1: I have to admit that, while having experience working with the Digital Humanities (from the informatics side), I am not knowledgeable on ontologies. This makes it hard for me to truly evaluate the novelty and impact of this paper's contribution. That being said, the authors tell a compelling story and the paper is well written. I agree with the problematics described, their importance, and also love framing within the Stendhal syndrome, but its hard for me to say how much this is differs from the "state-of-the-art" and, furthermore, how practical it is to register all of these semantic and semiotic aspects, and if this would not cause an "ontologic explosion" of sorts. I learned a lot from the paper and it seems to be adequately constructed in terms of theoretical background and references, therefore I would lean towards accepting it in its present form.

Response 1: We are most grateful to the reviewer for the kind appreciation of our work and the insightful comments. We particularly noted the positive remarks and agreement, and appreciated the overall positive inclination towards acceptance of our work.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is very well written. It focuses on how to create a semantic organisation of heritage's data, considering its intangible dimension in the framework of Digital Twins. 
In section 1 (Introduction), I would suggest the authors also to include more initiatives that are working in the same research line, such as ECHOES and the COST action CA23128 - Connecting Landscape Architecture Archives to enhance European landscape practice, research and education (ConnectLAA). Also, it would be relevant to analyse the "Landscape Convention", and make some comments about the intersection between the definition of cultural landscape and its intangible aspects - of course is another scale but some concepts and the way we treat "perception" could be translated as a common issue when we document heritage. 
The paper's approach between the Burra Chart, the concept of place, CIDOC and Pleiades is very well explained. 
In section 7 (Conclusion and future work) I would suggest the authors to add some thoughts on how this model could be used, reused and intercommunicated with other models using CIDOC-CRM. 
Regarding the diagrams presented, I suggest the authors to differentiate by color what is proposed and what is already in the CIDOC ontology.  

Author Response

Comments 1: The paper is very well written. It focuses on how to create a semantic organisation of heritage's data, considering its intangible dimension in the framework of Digital Twins. In section 1 (Introduction), I would suggest the authors also to include more initiatives that are working in the same research line, such as ECHOES and the COST action CA23128 - Connecting Landscape Architecture Archives to enhance European landscape practice, research and education (ConnectLAA).

Responses 1: We are aware of the COST action mentioned, but it has just started (28.10.2024) and we will follow its development to take inspiration from its outcomes and align its results. Concerning ECHOES, it is still planning the development of both its data model and digital twin paradigm. Also in this case we will consider the forthcoming relevant results. In both cases we think that it would not be appropriate to quote two initiatives which are still in their initial stages.

Comments 2: Also, it would be relevant to analyse the "Landscape Convention", and make some comments about the intersection between the definition of cultural landscape and its intangible aspects - of course is another scale but some concepts and the way we treat "perception" could be translated as a common issue when we document heritage.

Responses 2: We have included the reference to the Landscape Convenction, as suggested, in the Discussion and further work section.

Comments 3: The paper's approach between the Burra Chart, the concept of place, CIDOC and Pleiades is very well explained. In section 7 (Conclusion and future work) I would suggest the authors to add some thoughts on how this model could be used, reused and intercommunicated with other models using CIDOC-CRM.

Responses 3: We preferred to avoid including in this paper considerations about applications to other domains which also use CIDOC CRM or compatible models, to keep the paper focused on the intangible aspect issue. However, we have addressed this aspect in other related papers of ours, quoted in the references.

Comments 4:Regarding the diagrams presented, I suggest the authors to differentiate by color what is proposed and what is already in the CIDOC ontology. 

Responses 4: We have updated the diagram as suggested.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all, I would like to congratulate the authors on the article, as it clearly reflects an effort in its development. Unfortunately, despite being extensive, the article is too ambiguous in explaining the main ontology, while excessively elaborating on Stendhal syndrome and the examples. As a result, the article is very difficult to read and process beyond understanding its utility through the examples. The final outcome relies on very few examples, which additionally do not evaluate whether the proposed approach is useful compared to what already exists in the base standard. Moreover, there is no external expert or entity demonstrating its use. Consequently, the conclusions and future work lack solid support.

Due to these issues, I recommend a thorough revision of the article, the creation and application of real usage experiments, and a complete rewriting of the article based on these results. Additionally, there should be a reference location for the resulting RDF and the underlying OWL.

Furthermore, it is unusual for the reference emails to be personal rather than institutional.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Excessively colloquial terminology, such as the management of distances using expressions like "as the crow flies," or explanations based on subjective or personal perspectives regarding historical elements. There are also explanations of historical elements that do not contribute to the article and other aspects that undermine its quality, giving it an overly informal tone.

Author Response

Comments 1: First of all, I would like to congratulate the authors on the article, as it clearly reflects an effort in its development. Unfortunately, despite being extensive, the article is too ambiguous in explaining the main ontology, while excessively elaborating on Stendhal syndrome and the examples. As a result, the article is very difficult to read and process beyond understanding its utility through the examples. The final outcome relies on very few examples, which additionally do not evaluate whether the proposed approach is useful compared to what already exists in the base standard. Moreover, there is no external expert or entity demonstrating its use. Consequently, the conclusions and future work lack solid support.
Due to these issues, I recommend a thorough revision of the article, the creation and application of real usage experiments, and a complete rewriting of the article based on these results. Additionally, there should be a reference location for the resulting RDF and the underlying OWL.

Response 1: First of all, we would like to clarify the nature and objectives of our work, which may have been misunderstood in its methodological basis. Our paper is fundamentally theoretical and philosophical in scope. Its primary aim is to define new classes and properties within our RHDT ontology so that they may be examined and discussed at a conceptual level. This approach aligns with the well-established methodology of the CIDOC CRM Special Interest Group (SIG), which entails formulating conceptual entities, evaluating their suitability, also with simple examples that demonstrate their validity for describing a given domain, and, if necessary, refining and reformulating them. This is a widely accepted methodology by those working in ontology development.
In this perspective, the lack of an RDF implementation in our opinion is not an issue: foundational papers such as the above-mentioned Smith and Varzi papers, key ones published by Martin Doerr and the CRM SIG team on the CIDOC CRM and its compatible models, and many others, discuss the underlying theory before rushing to implementation and RDF. A quick search on Google scholar shows that the number of papers addressing the RDF implementation of the CRM is less than half of the theoretical papers dealing with the CRM: are the latter all “informal” ones?
In keeping with this tradition, our focus has been on the conceptual validity of these entities, also with simple examples intended to illustrate cases and clarify their intended use, and to articulate the rationale behind their introduction. Only once the conceptual soundness of these entities is established they can be implemented in real-world application scenarios. This, however, was beyond the intended scope of our paper.
Consequently, the suggestion to adopt the opposite approach, i.e., conducting real-world application experiments first and subsequently deriving conceptual formulations, does not align with established ontological research practices. Moreover, a complete rewriting of the paper along these lines would not be appropriate, as it would entail a fundamental shift in its purpose and methodology.
We hope this response clarifies the intent of our work. We remain open to discussing refinements that enhance its clarity while maintaining its theoretical integrity.

Comments 2: Furthermore, it is unusual for the reference emails to be personal rather than institutional.

Response 2: The comment about using personal emails rather than “institutional” ones goes well beyond the role of a reviewer. They are provided only to facilitate contacts with the audience, and information on the institution is provided. If the editors believe that more institutional information is relevant, they might ask authors to add for example their ORCID code, which enables full information about the researcher.
Any inference deriving from the email provided has moreover no sensible base: all employees of an institution have the same institutional root address, including the administrative staff and the janitor. 

Comments 3: Excessively colloquial terminology, such as the management of distances using expressions like "as the crow flies," or explanations based on subjective or personal perspectives regarding historical elements. There are also explanations of historical elements that do not contribute to the article and other aspects that undermine its quality, giving it an overly informal tone.

Response 3: This consideration is wrongly placed in the review section “Quality of English Language”, as if it concerned the quality of the English e.g. grammar, constructs and so on. It instead concerns the tone, in the reviewer’s words, and the “colloquial terminology”. 
As regards the expression “as the crow flies” quoted as an example, its technical use is discussed below.
The reviewer exemplifies what is considered a “colloquial tone” citing the expression “as the crow flies”. Contrary to the reviewer’s belief, this is both literary acceptable (it dates back to Charkes Dickens’ Oliver Twist, 1838) and a technical expression, well accepted by major journals.
Here is a short list, with the DOIs to check our statement and correct the reviewer’s misrepresentation of the expression.

Papers with the expression in the title:
GL Savino et al (2020) “Point Me In the Right Direction: Understanding User Behaviour with As-The-Crow-Flies Navigation” ACM DL, doi: 10.1145/3379503.34035

Priya Raghubir, Aradhna Krishna (1996) “As the Crow Flies: Bias in Consumers' Map-Based Distance Judgments Get access”, Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press),  doi: 10.1086/209464

K. C. Ruegg and T. B. Smith (2002) “Not as the crow flies: a historical explanation for circuitous migration in Swainson's thrush”, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2032

Papers using the expression in the text with a technical meaning:
P. Bahn (1985) “Archaeology: Megalithic recycling in Brittany”, Nature, volume 314, page 671

T. Madl et al (2013) “Exploring the Structure of Spatial Representations“, Plos One, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0157343

S. Madhavan et al (2017) “Distance or location? How the geographic distribution of kin networks shapes support given to single mothers in urban Kenya”, The Geographical Journal  (published by Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers), doi: 10.1111/geoj.12230

From the above, it is apparent that our opinion of the scientific nature of the expression “as the crow flights” coincides with the one of the editors of ACM DL, Oxford Academics, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Nature, Plos One, and of the Geographical Journal, which deny the reviewer’s opinion.

In general, the tone has not been considered as “excessively informal” by other reviewers coming from the heritage sector, who may better evaluate if it is appropriate to the current domain practice. It is instead “plain”, as it avoids technical jargon and explains why the solution proposed better fits with the needs of cultural heritage documentation. We consider a mistake by technology writers to hide their lack of interest for the applicative needs behind a curtain of professional terms that sound exoteric to the applicative domain and prevent any consideration of suitability and utility. So the tone is tailored to appropriate data stewardship, addressing questions related to research data with a subject-specific approach to contextualise data management with disciplinary practices, research questions and methods: see e.g. Ayres, B., Lehtsalu, L., Parton, G., Ádám Száldobágyi, Warren, E., Whyte, A., & Zimmer, N. (2022). RDA Professionalising Data Stewardship – Current Models of Data Stewardship: Survey Report. Research Data Alliance. Doi: 10.15497/RDA00075.

Elaboration on the Stendhal Syndrome, and on other theoretical aspects such as the statements by UNESCO, ICOMOS, Council of Europe, EU documents, heritage studies etc. is required to illustrate to heritage professionals how this technological solution could comply with the disciplinary requirements and the novel aspects introduced by such works. Other historical aspects are intended as justification of the introduction of new subclasses and subproperties, showing that the issues explained in the paper could not be resolved just with the “typization” of existing ones and thus the extension to include new classes is a useful add-on. All the discussion is not just small talk about history and other technically irrelevant aspects, it instead aims at demonstrating with heritage-related arguments that the proposed solution addresses discipline-specific issues. Of course, it is open to factual criticism and integration but refuses a hasty dismissal of unfamiliar ideas. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is a very interesting article, insightful and very clear. The examples, however, have a diverse level of complexity and even in the main case have been simplified, as the authors themselves acknowledge. The main difficulty about the DT is not only to establish the properties, but to differenciate the various temporal and also functional layers: for example, in the case of Santa Croce, humidity is a factor that affects (now, historically?) the physical artifact and has to be detected and monitored in the DT? or just as part of the Digital story of the digital representation of the object itself?

In the case of very complex objects with an extensive intangible dimension, ie the way(s) o Santiago, it is very important to establish a chronological dimension: in the Middle Ages no route from Madrid existed; the so-called 'French' route was the preeminent one (who to indicate it?); there is an enormous volume of literary texts in various languages, oral and written, attached to the way--but some of them take it as a fictive element, other were produced or disseminated on the Way and others deal on the Way and were produced on it (for instance Liber Calixitinus).

The source of documentation for the various aspects is here crucial, and to be realistic it would require a lot of work in documenting the intangible. Where are the limits?

Finally, how many elements can be introduced in the model without it becoming so noisey as to be unfeasible to build or to use? Non multiplicanda entia sine necessitate was the motto of William of Ockham, a master of scholasticism, a philosophical and methological system based on distinguishing categories...    

Author Response

Comments 1: It is a very interesting article, insightful and very clear. The examples, however, have a diverse level of complexity and even in the main case have been simplified, as the authors themselves acknowledge. The main difficulty about the DT is not only to establish the properties, but to differenciate the various temporal and also functional layers: for example, in the case of Santa Croce, humidity is a factor that affects (now, historically?) the physical artifact and has to be detected and monitored in the DT? or just as part of the Digital story of the digital representation of the object itself?

Responses 1: We agree with the reviewer and have removed/changed some less useful (and perhaps confusing) examples accordingly.

Comments 2: In the case of very complex objects with an extensive intangible dimension, ie the way(s) o Santiago, it is very important to establish a chronological dimension: in the Middle Ages no route from Madrid existed; the so-called 'French' route was the preeminent one (who to indicate it?); there is an enormous volume of literary texts in various languages, oral and written, attached to the way--but some of them take it as a fictive element, other were produced or disseminated on the Way and others deal on the Way and were produced on it (for instance Liber Calixitinus).

Responses 2: We agree with the comment. However, the present intangible dimension of a cultural asset, the one that needs to be stated now, of course derives from the history of past intangible dimensions. These may be referred to separately in a different or more different archives. See also our answer to Comment 3.

Comments 3: The source of documentation for the various aspects is here crucial, and to be realistic it would require a lot of work in documenting the intangible. Where are the limits?

Responses 3: In 1991, Sir Anthony Kenny, then President of the British Academy, declared that he could not hope to read more than a very small part of the articles published in the UK and the USA relevant for his (reportedly) “narrow” field of interest, philosophy. [Kenny A., (1991). “Technology and Humanities Research”. In: Katzen M. (ed.), (1991). Scholarship and Technology in the Humanities. Bowker Saur, London. 1-10.]. More than 30 years later, the situation has not been substantially improved by online publication. We may only expect that digital technologies help in managing digital libraries with improved tools. Nevertheless, this difficulty cannot be the reason to ignore the aspect discussed in the paper, or at least to point out that it should be considered. In some cases (e.g. the Stendhal syndrome) it may be easier, in other cases (e.g. the Santiago route) may be overwhelmingly difficult. But the heritage documentation system must be ready to take this aspect into account: even if all the background documentation cannot be included - at least, for the moment being.There should be a warning that the Santiago route cannot be found on Google maps, at least by referencing some fundamental documentation.

Comments 4: Finally, how many elements can be introduced in the model without it becoming so noisey as to be unfeasible to build or to use? Non multiplicanda entia sine necessitate was the motto of William of Ockham, a master of scholasticism, a philosophical and methological system based on distinguishing categories... 

Responses 4: We guarantee that Occam’s motto is our guiding principle. The paper aims at showing that necessitas adest quia multiplicamus: there is a need of recognizing that some concepts=classes (e.g. the place) are conceptual rather than factual (geometric, in the case of place). The distinctions among conceptual spaces, conceptual objects and conceptual persons might have been addressed with typization, that is adding a type to differentiate the different kinds of conceptual objects, such as “has type: space”, “has type: object”, “has type: person” etc. The decision for choosing instead distinct subclasses of the same class rather than distinct types for it is motivated by the possibility of defining further relationships (= properties) in their respective domains, for example to link them to other classes and moreover to give substance to our novel approach which stresses the importance of “conceptual” versus “physical”. 

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper proposes to extend an existing ontology for CH (the Heritage Digital Twin ontology) with a set of new conceptual classes and properties representing intangible aspects of CH. Such new classes include the representation of spaces, things and agents (individuals or groups), as well as properties to link to other entities such as their physical/tangible counterparts.

The paper is overall clear and easy to read, and the proposed changes are well justified and exemplified. I just have some minor remarks:

- Starting sentences in the abstract and introduction: instead of stating "the syndrome mentioned in the title" I would just use the name itself ("The Stendhal Syndrome ..."). 
- The last section (Conclusions and FW) is more centered on a discussion than really conclusions for me, so maybe better call this Discussion and FW
- Line 750: 829] --> [28]

Author Response

Comments 1: The paper is overall clear and easy to read, and the proposed changes are well justified and exemplified. I just have some minor remarks:
- Starting sentences in the abstract and introduction: instead of stating "the syndrome mentioned in the title" I would just use the name itself ("The Stendhal Syndrome ..."). 
- The last section (Conclusions and FW) is more centered on a discussion than really conclusions for me, so maybe better call this Discussion and FW
- Line 750: 829] --> [28]

Responses 1: We thank the reviewer for the appreciation and for usefully pointing out the corrections and amendments, which we have implemented in the text.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all, thank you for your comments and explanations. Unfortunately, they do not address the questions that were raised to reject the article.

To begin with, the use of an ontology without a real validation process may be common in more theoretical and philosophical fields, but from a technical and scientific perspective, innovative and research-related elements require at least a practical case analysis that clearly validates that such use is both necessary and sufficient, and justifies the extension of the ontology. In a computer science publication such as the one in which this article is submitted, these types of demonstrations are particularly valuable. Given the current body of work on ontological concepts, where semantic and syntactic aspects are essential for system interconnection, it is important to precisely explore the necessity (or lack thereof) of each element to avoid redundancy or overfitting.

The use of institutional email addresses allows the publication to be easily traceable to its authors and to relate them to previous works, institutions, and research groups. Part of the review process involves adapting to this format to ensure traceability of the article both now and in the future. The use of an institutional email acts as an international link to the creator of the work and aids in the review process. While the email domain may be shared by the entire institution, a general or personal email address may be shared by thousands of people and even by AI tools unrelated to the academic world.

Regarding the technical aspect, and given your detailed explanations, I apologize for the comment on the informal tone. Many of the expressions, as you correctly point out, are commonly used at a technical level in research. However, in the technical fields of computing and mathematics, they are not so common, which is what raised my concern.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of the English is sufficient and has been adequately demonstrated in the response to the reviewer.

Author Response

Although we have different opinions, we thank the reviewer for his comments about the paper.

It seems that there are two kinds of approaches to papers in semantics, in our opinion both valuable and acceptable. Differently from the reviewer’s one, ours starts from an analysis of the community needs, proposes and discusses a semantic solution and when this stable prepares the RDF as required. All the steps are published. This is for example what we did in previous work concerning a subset of the current ontology: it was published at the end of 2022, well accepted by the reference community and now the corresponding RDF is published on GitHub. Sometimes, the discussion about the proposed solution or its details do not come to a full-fledged RDF.

This approach is usually accepted by major journals or in books, as demonstrated by the following publications, among others by Dr. Martin Doerr, a well-known expert and the father of the CIDOC CRM ISO 2117:2023 standard.

Doerr, M. (2009). Ontologies for Cultural Heritage. In: Staab, S., Studer, R. (eds) Handbook on Ontologies. International Handbooks on Information Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_21

Hiebel, G., Doerr, M. Eide, Ø. (2017)CRMgeo: A spatiotemporal extension of CIDOC-CRM. Int J Digit Libr 18, 271–279 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-016-0192-4

Doerr, M., Athina Kritsotaki, A., Boutsika, K. (2011) Factual argumentation—a core model for assertions making. ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), Volume 3, Issue 3, Article No.: 8, Pages 1 – 34, https://doi.org/10.1145/1921614.1921615

Fafalios, P., Kritsotaki, A., Doerr, M. (2023) The SeaLiT Ontology – An Extension of CIDOC-CRM for the Modeling and Integration of Maritime History Information. ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, Volume 16, Issue 3, Article No.: 60, Pages 1 – 21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3586080

Fafalios, P., Doerr, M.  et al. (2021). Towards Semantic Interoperability in Historical Research: Documenting Research Data and Knowledge with Synthesis. In: Hotho, A., et al. The Semantic Web – ISWC 2021. ISWC 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12922. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88361-4_40

Ronzino, P., Toth, A. Falcidieno, B. (2022) Documenting the Structure and Adaptive Reuse of Roman Amphitheatres through the CIDOC CRMba Model. ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), Volume 15, Issue 2, Article No.: 36, Pages 1 – 23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3485466

Niccolucci, F. (ed.) (2017) Extending, Mapping and Focusing the CIDOC CRM. Special issue of International Journal on Digital Libraries, Vol. 18 n.4 – and the 9 papers thereof.