Historical Buildings and Monuments as Cultural Heritage In Situ—Perspectives from a Medium-Sized City
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is interesting especially for its originality in applying EGIS. It is well structured presenting a clear hypothesis and research objectives. However, it tells little on answering the research objective O1 ("to what extent the historical buildings in Craiova are a valuable asset from the point of view of cultural tourism), since the tourists were not involved in the research study. It is advised, therefore, either to prove valid results on this research objective or to leave this objective out.
Methodology is fairly described but is somewhat vague on some points, e.g. it mentions "several field surveys and visits", which should be clearly quantified and explained (what was the purpose of each of the surveys and visits? why there was a need for XX surveys and visits? what has been performed in/by each of them?). Further on, more information is needed as additional explanation how the results of previous surveys (31, 32) have been matched with GIS as to achieve EGIS.
Further literature regarding research on the scientific capture and representation of emotions in research is suggested, e.g.:
- Ramachandran, V.S., and W. Hirstein. 1999. “The science of art: a neurological theory of aesthetic experience”. Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (6-7): 15–51.
- Jelincic, D.A.; Sveb, M.; Stewart, A.E. (2022). Designing sensory museum experiences for visitors' emotional responses. Museum and management curatorship, 37, 5, 513-530, doi:10.1080/09647775.2021.1954985
- Schreuder, E., J. van Erp, A. Toet, and V. L. Kallen. 2016. "Emotional responses to multisensory environmental stimuli: A conceptual framework and literature review." Sage Open 6 (1): 1-19. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016630591
- Brouwer, A., N. Van Wouwe, C. Mühl, J. B. F. Van Erp, and A. Toet. 2013. "Perceiving blocks of emotional pictures and sounds: effects on physiological variables." Frontiers in human neuroscience 7: 295.
- Motte, D. 2009. “Using brain imaging to measure emotional response to product appearance”. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces – DPPI’09, edited by A. Guéand, 187-198. Compiègne, France: Université de Technologie de Compiègne
The English language use is fair with minor technical issues are to be solved:
- change the font of the following citing numbers in the brackets: lines 82, 102, 120, 131, 134, 222 - not superscript
- close the bracket in lines 190 and 343
- line 140-141 - change the citing method - do not mention names but put the number within the brackets
- line 174 - mention the name of the author and not the bracket (instead, you may additionally add the bracket at the end of the theory)
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are very grateful for the time and effort you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript, as well as for the insightful comments and valuable improvements. We believe your suggestions considerably improved our revised manuscript. Please find attached a point by point explanation for your comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper “Historical buildings and monuments as cultural heritage in situ. Perspectives from a medium sized city” delves into the usage of EGIS in the conservation of built heritage and its functionality as a tourist attraction. The EGIS is a newly created methodology in GIS research that requires more attention from researchers in various domains. By utilizing the ancient city core of Craiova, the authors were able to make good use of the technique.
The statistical work in the study is based mostly on the authors' two earlier works, referred to as 31 and 32 in the report. In my opinion, the section Materials and Methods should include at least a brief discussion of statistical methodology and how it is integrated into GIS systems.
References must be double-checked and must be consistent with the text.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The English is fine needs some minor changes regarding the format.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are very grateful for the time and effort you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript, as well as for the insightful comments and valuable improvements. We believe your suggestions considerably improved our revised manuscript. Please find attached a point by point explanation for your comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I found very interesting the approach of an emotional GIS, although the application is not very clear. I have some general questions, maybe not referred to specific points of your well organized paper.
How is it possible to measure the degree of appreciation of cultural heritage in a town? Do you use simply inquiry on the inhabitants?
Moreover, is the musealization the only way to preserve urban heritage? Maybe it is the preferred way for people who uses the town, but for example it push away from historic centres all the ancient inhabitants in order to use dwellings as hotels, restaurants and shops for tourist: this happens in many historic centres and usually changes a lot the face of a town. It seems that the goal is to find the more valuable way to exploit the heritage, not to preserve it or preserve the unique identity of the town.
By the way, the built heritage is not made only by single buildings listed as heritage, but also by the relationships between these buildings, and others not listed, composing roads, squares and other public spaces: these aspects are worth of a big consideration in a preservation plan, so that your tool must consider also the quality of public spaces or neighbours as targets.
some minor corrections follows:
in page 3, lines 102, 120, 131 and 134: references must be in full body, not as headings
line 117: must be Musealisation
page 4: heading 3 is repeated in line 151 and 175: is the first one a subheading 2.3?
Fig. 1: the maps on the left are not well readable, are them necessary?
fig. 2, please correct the caption. what are the prisms in the picture? why do you put here a big map of Romania (not explained)?
page 7, line 259: what are HORECA units?
fig 3 in the caption explai what portion of the city is illustrated
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are very grateful for the time and effort you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript, as well as for the insightful comments and valuable improvements. We believe your suggestions considerably improved our revised manuscript. Please find attached a point by point explanation for your comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
