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In the field of heritage science, especially applied to buildings and artefacts made by organic hygroscopic materials, analyzing the microclimate has always been of extreme importance. In particular, in many cases, the knowledge of the outdoor/indoor microclimate may support the decision process in conservation and preservation matters of historic buildings. This knowledge is often gained by implementing long and time-consuming monitoring campaigns that allow collecting atmospheric and climatic data.

Sometimes the collected time series may be corrupted, incomplete and/or subjected to the sensors' errors because of the remoteness of the historic building location, the natural aging of the sensor or the lack of a continuous check of the data downloading process. For this reason, in this work, an innovative approach about reconstructing the indoor microclimate into heritage buildings, just knowing the outdoor one, is proposed. This methodology is based on using machine learning tools known as variational auto encoders (VAEs), that are able to reconstruct time series and/or to fill data gaps.

The proposed approach is implemented using data collected in Ringebu Stave Church, a Norwegian medieval wooden heritage building. Reconstructing a realistic time series, for the vast majority of the year period, of the natural internal climate of the Church has been successfully implemented.

The novelty of this work is discussed in the framework of the existing literature. The work explores the potentials of machine learning tools compared to traditional ones, providing a method that is able to reliably fill missing data in time series.

The overall objective of this study is envisaged to provide decision makers with actionable insights and access to multi-risk maps for the most in-danger stave churches (SCs) among the existing 28 churches at high spatial resolution to better understand, reduce and mitigate single- and multi-risk. In addition, the present contribution aims to provide decision makers with some information to face the exacerbation of the risk caused by the expected climate change.

Material and data collection started with the consultation of the available literature related to: (1) SCs' conservation status, (2) available methodologies suitable in multi-hazard approach and (3) vulnerability leading indicators to consider when dealing with the impact of natural hazards specifically on immovable cultural heritage.

The paper contributes to a better understanding of place-based vulnerability with local mapping dimension also considering future threats posed by climate change. The results highlight the danger at which the SCs of Røldal, in case of floods, and of Ringebu, Torpo and Øye, in case of landslide, may face and stress the urgency of increasing awareness and preparedness on these potential hazards.

The contribution for the first time aims to homogeneously collect and report all together existing spread information on architectural features, conservation status and geographical attributes for the whole group of SCs by accompanying this information with as much as possible complete 2D sections collection from existing drawings and novel 3D drawn sketches created for this contribution. Then the paper contributes to a better understanding of place-based vulnerability with local mapping dimension also considering future threats posed by climate change. Then it highlights the danger of floods and landslides at which the 28 SCs are subjected. Finally it reports how these risks will change under the ongoing impact of climate change.

Climate-induced damage is a pressing problem for the preservation of cultural properties. Their physical deterioration is often the cumulative effect of different environmental hazards of variable intensity. Among these, fluctuations of temperature and relative humidity may cause nonrecoverable physical changes in building envelopes and artifacts made of hygroscopic materials, such as wood. Microclimatic fluctuations may be caused by several factors, including the presence of many visitors within the historical building. Within this framework, the current work is focused on detecting events taking place in two Norwegian stave churches, by identifying the fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity caused by the presence of people attending the public events.

The identification of such fluctuations and, so, of the presence of people within the churches has been carried out through three different methods. The first is an unsupervised clustering algorithm here termed “density peak,” the second is a supervised deep learning model based on a standard convolutional neural network (CNN) and the third is a novel ad hoc engineering feature approach “unexpected mixing ratio (UMR) peak.”

While the first two methods may have some instabilities (in terms of precision, recall and normal mutual information [NMI]), the last one shows a promising performance in the detection of microclimatic fluctuations induced by the presence of visitors.

The novelty of this work stands in using both well-established and in-house ad hoc machine learning algorithms in the field of heritage science, proving that these smart approaches could be of extreme usefulness and could lead to quick data analyses, if used properly.

This article introduces the Special Issue on Sustainable Management of Heritage Buildings in long-term perspective.

It starts by reviewing the gaps in knowledge and practice which led to the creation and implementation of the research project SyMBoL—Sustainable Management of Heritage Buildings in long-term perspective funded by the Norwegian Research Council over the 2018–2022 period. The SyMBoL project is the motivation at the base of this special issue.

The editorial paper briefly presents the main outcomes of SyMBoL. It then reviews the contributions to the Special Issue, focussing on the connection or differentiation with SyMBoL and on multidisciplinary findings that address some of the initial referred gaps.

The article shortly summarizes topics related to sustainable preservation of heritage buildings in time of reduced resources, energy crisis and impacts of natural hazards and global warming. Finally, it highlights future research directions targeted to overcome, or partially mitigate, the above-mentioned challenges, for example, taking advantage of no sestructive techniques interoperability, heritage building information modelling and digital twin models, and machine learning and risk assessment algorithms.

The second wave (true Norwegian) black metal music scene has garnered attention for its ostensible negative impact upon contemporary consumption. Producers and consumers of the scene, as potential heretics, have been associated with acts of church burning, Satanism, murder, and violence. Such actions have circulated under the signifier of evil, and have been associated with anti-Christian semiotics and pagan practices. Contemporary media has positioned such acts of evil beyond rational comprehension via the deployment of a rhetoric of evil. This enframement has evaded the psychoanalytic question of evil and the significant role of negative ethics in theorizing the allure and potential impact of black metal music. The purpose of this paper is to examine the evil in the music scene, its relation to ID evil, and its consumption and production practices.

Drawing upon Zizek’s (2006) development of evil through Lacan’s three registers, this paper examines evil production and consumption through a detailed analysis of true Norwegian black metal. The authors rehabilitate the complex corridors of evil against its conceptual collapse as merely the ontological absence of good. Via Zizek, the authors offer a reconsideration of the anti-establishment violent activities enacted by some proponents of black metal ideology. Herein, the authors deploy a reading of ideological evil in order to interrogate the role of enjoyment and desire at work in the black metal scene.

After extensive immersion in the true Norwegian black metal scene, the authors elucidate on the key issues surrounding good, evil and Satanism, and their relationships to production and consumption. What many might term as “evil” is far more complex than what appears on the surface-level aesthetics.

While there have been examinations of the black metal scene, there has been scant literature that delves deep into the symbolism of the Satanic and the evil beyond the surface. This paper sheds light on the value of exploring evil in a scene as something that is much more than the mere absence of what is considered good.

In Norway the most critical effects of climate change are predicted to be increased rain and snow, higher temperatures, increased wind loads, and sea‐level rise. This will increase the number of floods and landslides, along with more cycles around the freezing point and increased exposure to high moisture. The main issue for protecting Norway's historical monuments from climate change is how to be aware of and how to handle the coming problems. One challenge is to define and give this information to heritage owners and local authorities. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the practical threats related to climate change, and provide suggestions for mitigation and adaption strategies.

Theoretical information of the problem is useful at a general level, but the practical impact has to be used at a local level. Improved knowledge about the risks for deterioration at different exposure levels, thorough surveys, and practical solutions, can significantly reduce the negative effects. This knowledge must reach the people that have local and daily contact with the cultural heritage. Information to the owners and responsible authorities about the normal risk of deterioration and how to identify risks related to climate change is crucial.

The main results of the authors' work is a methodology dealing with the problem step‐by‐step production of a web‐site based on fact sheets for heritage owners and managers. The fact sheets are divided amongst different subjects and are designed to be informative and easy to use for owners and responsible authorities.

The results presented in this paper will increase the knowledge of how owners of cultural heritage can be prepared for climate change on a practical, hands‐on level. This can, for example, be done by a brief overall analysis of the threats of the cultural heritage in a specific municipality. The analysis can be summarised in a list of increased possible risks, with direct practical information given to those needing it, and placed online. This would enable detection of and reaction to warning signs of an unusual situation. Information, training and production of both general and specific plans for action in case of extreme situations are also important in order to prevent the negative effects of climate change.