Empires, Local Traditions, and the Spread of Knowledge: A Case Study in Water Management in Early Islamic Palestine

Islam in Indonesia has a unique characteristic reflected in its integration with local traditions. This relationship has been established since the early arrival of Islam in the archipelago, shaping an inclusive and distinctive Islamic identity. However, in the era of modernization and globalization, the harmony between Islam and local traditions faces significant challenges, including cultural erosion, polarization among Islamic groups, and the emergence of extreme views rejecting local traditions. This study aims to examine the dynamics of the relationship between Islam and local traditions in Indonesia, focusing on the challenges posed by modernization and the opportunities to maintain this harmony. The approach utilized includes historical and sociological analysis, with case studies of local Islamic traditions such as Maulid Nabi, tahlilan, and Grebeg Maulud. The findings reveal that local traditions not only serve as a means of cultural preservation but also as an effective medium for Islamic propagation. Nevertheless, modernization has significantly influenced younger generations, who tend to abandon local traditions. On the other hand, social media and information technology present opportunities to strengthen the harmony between Islam and local traditions when utilized wisely. This study emphasizes the importance of dialogue among Islamic groups and the preservation of local traditions as an integral part of national identity. With an inclusive approach, Islam and local traditions can continue to coexist, contributing positively to Indonesia's cultural diversity amidst global challenges.

Ziying You. Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, . xiii,  pp. Hardcover $., ISBN ----. Paperback $., ISBN ----. E-Book $., ISBN -- --. A major twenty-first-century cultural trend in China has been the UNESCOinspired preservation of local cultural traditions now referred to as intangible cultural heritage (ICH). These efforts have led to large-scale economic support from the government and impacted local and regional tourism. This book offers insight into how this process is negotiated on the ground in a particular locality for a particular tradition, and how participants at different levels from the local to the national interact with one another. The author has written an in-depth ethnography that focuses on the role of grassroots scholars in “transmitting, producing, and reproducing local traditions,” looking at how their efforts become part of the “controversies and conflicts” that emerge during “the reconstruction of tradition and the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) within local contexts in contemporary China” (p. ). The book focuses on people involved in perpetuating a tradition located in southwestern Shanxi Province—the “living beliefs” of people in Hongtong County, Shanxi Province, who worship the ancient sage-kings Yao and Shun, together with Yao’s daughters who became Shun’s wives—Ehuang and Nüying. Each year, local people hold an annual ritual procession known as “the custom of visiting sacred relatives in Hongtong” (Hongtong zouqin xisu), which was designated as a national-level item of Chinese intangible cultural heritage in  (p. ). The book’s author, Ziying You, coins the term folk literati to describe the local intellectuals in Hongtong (as in other parts of China) “who are skilled in classical Chinese, knowledgeable of local traditions, and capable of representing them in writing” (p. ). Their goal, she says, is “to maintain cultural continuity,” an idea colloquially symbolized by the vernacular phrase that serves as the book’s subtitle—“incense is kept burning” (xianghuo buduan) (p. ). You explores the life narratives of eight local folk literati involved in the interpretation, preservation, and promotion of this tradition, and the roles that they play in “tradition revival and reconstruction” (p. ). The book is based on Review©  by University of Hawai‘i Press fieldwork that You conducted in Hongtong County in , , and , during which time she interacted with a wide a range of local people and witnessed first-hand efforts to preserve and promote the local tradition, interviewing folk literati, local community members, cultural workers, members of local associations, ritual specialists, local officials, villagers, and so on, all of which helps her to delineate an overall perspective of the tradition’s ecological system (see chapter , discussed below). The book presents a fascinating case study of the roles that grassroots intellectuals play in negotiating the preservation and interpretations of local heritage in connection with other social actors and institutions. More broadly, it provides the reader with an in-depth, well-contextualized, contemporary view of the various participants involved on the ground in China’s promotion of ICH preservation. The book’s introduction traces the evolution of Chinese and Western scholarly discourses surrounding the terms tradition, heritage, intangible cultural heritage, and chuantong (the Chinese term commonly translated as “tradition,” yet one with its own long and complex history), putting them into conversation with one another as You focuses on the case study at hand. You introduces Hongtong’s local tradition that venerates legendary figures who are significant to Chinese cultural history and also seen as deified ancestors of the local population. She highlights the role that local folk literati play in maintaining the tradition and how they fit into her larger participant observation fieldwork, and contextualizes the folk literati’s agency with a discussion of the shifting role of literati in modern China. In chapter , You introduces the setting of her case study, Hongtong County, Shanxi Province, outlining its history, local beliefs, and social and cultural frameworks. She discusses how local beliefs and rituals related to Ehuang and Nüying are interpreted and enacted by local people in three sites within the county, in connection with temples devoted to the deities in those sites. Chapter  explores the role...

Progress in improving the quality and quantity of water used by people in rural areas of the developing world has been unsatisfactory in two respects: (1) supplies that have been built are frequently neither used correctly nor properly maintained and (2) extension of improved service to unserved populations has been slow. Though this poor record is not the result of a single factor, a major impediment to improved performance is inadequate information on the response of consumers to new service options. The behavioral assumptions that typically underlie most rural water supply planning efforts are simple. It is commonly assumed that so long as financial requirements do not exceed 5% of income, rural consumers will choose to abandon their existing water supply in favor of the "improved" system. Several reviews by the World Bank, bilateral donors, and water supply agencies in developing countries have shown, however, that this simple model of behavioral response to improved water supplies has usually proved incorrect.1 In rural areas many of those "served" by new systems have chosen to continue with their traditional water use practices.

A few years ago, I wrote an editorial article like this on case studies in operations management (Childe 2011), looking briefly at what can be learned from cases and encouraging researchers to publ...

BackgroundManaging change has not only been recognized as an important topic in medical informatics, but it has become increasingly important in translational informatics. The move to share data, together with the increasing complexity and volume of the data, has precipitated a transition from locally stored worksheet and flat files to relational data bases with object oriented interfaces for data storage and retrieval. While the transition from simple to complex data structures, mirroring the transition from simple to complex experimental technologies, seems natural, the human factor often fails to be adequately addressed leading to failures in managing change.MethodsWe describe here a case study in change management applied to an application in translational informatics that touches upon changes in hardware, software, data models, procedures, and terminology standards. We use the classic paper by Riley and Lorenzi to dissect the problems that arose, the solutions that were implemented, and the lessons learned.ResultsThe entire project from requirements gathering through completion of migration of the system took three years. Double data entry into the old and new systems persisted for six months. Contributing factors hindering progress and solutions to facilitate managing the change were identified in seven of the areas identified by Riley and Lorenzi: communications, cultural changes in work practice, scope creep, leadership and organizational issues, and training.ConclusionsDetailed documentation of the agreed upon requirements for the new system along with ongoing review of the sources of resistance to change as defined by Riley and Lorenzi were the most important steps taken that contributed to the success of the project. Cultural changes in tissue collection mandated by standards requirements introduced by the Cancer Bioinformatics Grid (CaBIG®) and excessive reliance on the outgoing system during a lengthy period of dual data entry were the primary sources of resistance to change.

World Health Organization reports state 'Water scarcity affects one in three people on every continent of the globe' [8]. With the increase in population and greater demand by business, water is slated to become more important than oil. Water is a precious resource; however it is used like it is limitless. Water management has been one area where there have been few improvements over a long period and businesses are just awakening to the need of managing it better. The recent floods in Thailand and the drought in Texas have had far reaching consequences for businesses by directly impacting their operations. This paper uses one of the sustainability leaders in India, Infosys Limited, as a case study in water management. Infosys has development centers in multiple locations at India and has proactively implemented various initiatives for improving water efficiency and conservation. The study acts as a foundation for charting the functionality of the automated water management system. The paper also explores the possibility of providing the water management system as a service that can integrate with existing infrastructure. Water cannot be looked at in isolation; there is a need for a holistic approach to managing it better. Disruptive innovation will set the direction for better water management systems.

The data set includes collected and generated data used to upgrade the integrated hydro-agro-economic model developed in MADFORWATER WP3 to use it as a decision support tool (DST) for defining basin-scale strategies for water & land management in agriculture that integrates water reuse / irrigation technologies and related economic instruments, in order to improve the irrigation efficiency and enhance the treated WW reuse in agriculture. The DST aims at identifying the best management strategies by simulating different scenarios and it has been applied to the three case study areas of MADFORWATER: the irrigated farming system in the Kafr-El- Sheikh Region in Egypt, the citrus farming system in Souss-Massa region in Morocco and the permanent irrigated farming in the Nabeul Governorate in Tunisia. For each simulated scenario, the proposed model allows to identify optimal farmers’ choices related to cropping patterns and agro-techniques. The model also allows to estimate the effects of such choices on water consumption, water distribution among crops, land use changes and farmer income. In the simulated scenarios, the tool considers the impacts of irrigation technologies, increased water availability from wastewater reuse, and regulatory and economic instruments on the socio-economic and environmental systems. Simulated data predict the behavior of the tested innovative irrigation technologies and economic instruments. The data set contains also the elaboration of sustainable water & land management strategies in agriculture for the three case study areas of MADFORWATER. Each proposed strategy includes the identification and analysis of feasible and operational regulatory and economic instruments aimed at enhancing water reuse and the implementation of the efficient irrigation technologies developed in WP3. The strategies are delivered in the form of a report and are based upon qualitative data from policy and literature review, quantitative data from public data sources and collected by local teams, data collected during three fieldwork missions carried out in the region of Nabeul (Tunisia), qualitative information gathered in the MADFORWATER project’s stakeholder consultation workshops, and on results from the model-based Decision Support Tool (DST) developed in the project. Moreover, this data set includes the results of questionnaires and answer sheets provided by expert and stakeholder interviewed during MADFORWATER project for establishing integrated water & land management strategies and for evaluating the suitability of identified measures to overcome country specific barriers for the implementation of the proposed strategies. Potential users for this data include: (i) policy-makers or other decision-makers involved in water management and planning or agricultural policy development; (ii) researchers and companies active in the fields of treated wastewater reuse, water resources management, irrigation and agricultural and natural resource economics.

This study examines the role of water management in the context of sustainability and energy efficiency in urban areas. It emphasizes the necessity of effective water management strategies to preserve the urban water cycle, ensure energy savings, and support ecosystem integrity. The study explores sustainable water management principles and green infrastructure applications within a theoretical framework, analyzing innovative design solutions such as rainwater harvesting, greywater reuse, and permeable surfaces. Selected successful case studies at both national and international levels are evaluated in terms of their integration into urban space design. Ultimately, this study proposes a roadmap for designing energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable urban spaces by introducing policies and technological solutions that promote the efficient use of water resources in cities.

The research aimed to investigate a case study of water management by the Phrae Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO), which is the major local government in Phrae province in Thailand. The PAO was first runner-up in the Good Governance Awards for Local Government in the Fiscal Year 2018, presented by the Thai Prime Minister’s Office, as a result of demonstrating their innovation in water crisis management. The researchers applied a qualitative research methodology, which consisted of in-depth interviews, group interviews, and non-participatory observation. As a result, the researchers found that the case study proved successful in handling the water crisis in a sustainable way, which led the province towards sustainable development. The PAO established Water Management Schools, which represented self-reliant management to encourage people to co-produce this public service. The literature review, by cross-synthesizing the keywords between the co-production approach and sustainable development, demonstrates the linkage of the two concepts and provides significant keywords. Further, the case study identifies the most outstanding elements that proved to be key success factors in water management for sustainability, namely self-reliance and self-efficiency of the population, democratic participation, community engagement, a collaborative approach and partnership, and a leadership and contingency approach.

Advancing Agricultural Water Security and Resilience Under Nonstationarity and Uncertainty: Evolving Roles of Blue, Green, and Grey Water

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This dataset was developed only for the Tunisia case study and presents the data from different Stakeholder consultation activities and the derived results of a participatory Multicriteria Mapping (MCM), a special type of the more general Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) that provides a systematic, transparent approach that increases objectivity and can generate reproducible results. The main objective of the MCM is to contrast the opinions of different stakeholders regarding the various solutions identified in the agro-economic model (see datasets of deliverable D5.2, http://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6482) developed in MADFORWATER project in relation to the adoption of Wastewater Treatment Technologies (WWTT) and water management instruments. These options include technological, as well as socioeconomic issues such as new irrigation technologies to increase efficiency in treated wastewater use, improvement of water management, economic incentives and increasing awareness and education. To evaluate the various options a series of criteria have been defined grouped in economic, social, environmental, policy and technological issues. The MCM was supported by multiple-stakeholder engagement actions consisting in successive fieldwork missions and by multiple interviews to selected stakeholders that represent the key interest groups in the area of study. This part of the analysis is used to evaluate potential barriers and opportunities to the adoption of Integrated Water & Land Management Strategies (IWLMS), such as social acceptance, technical requirements, economic constraints and availability of sufficient knowledge and information. It is aimed to identify potential policy measures for facilitating the implementation and social acceptance of the proposed IWLMS, with particular emphasis on the associated economic instruments. Therefore, the dataset collects information from other tasks and datasets of the project and it also includes generated information concerning stakeholder and expert views, the development of a MCM used to analyze the potential adoption of integrated strategies for using new sources of water and the associated obstacles for their implementation.

Environmental crisis, food insecurity and climate change are increasingly showing that human actions let the control variables of several planetary boundaries leave the safe operating space. A radical change in the human development paradigm is needed to maintain the ecosystem capacity for supporting human well-being. Due to its high connectivity, water plays a key role within the ecosystems and it is strictly related to the production of basic services that support human wellbeing, such as food provisioning or energy production (the so-called Nexus). This suggests the necessity of analyzing the interconnections and feedbacks among water, land and energy management to promote a more resilient coupling of environment and society. A new language is needed to improve the existing water management and to promote a new approach where water is a single component of a multiple integrated system. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate interrelationships among water, energy and land management in human-water systems to improve their management and to translate a general Nexus approach into operative frameworks. A multi scale approach is adopted, integrating hydrological modelling with the evaluation of Ecosystem Services and the Water Footprint analysis. Different case studies are elaborated to assess, from an innovative perspective, the interrelations of water management with the other natural resources.

This paper examines the impact of Buddhist art on the evolution of painting techniques during the Jin Dynasty of China through a comprehensive exploration of historical materials and case studies. The introduction of Buddhist art into China is traced, with particular focus on the defining features of the early Gandhara and Mathura styles of Buddhist art. The Gandhara style is marked by its Greco-Buddhist influence, featuring naturalistic depictions, intricate drapery, and expressive three-dimensionality, while the Mathura style emphasizes indigenous Indian artistic traditions, characterized by robust forms and symbolic iconography. These styles played a pivotal role in inspiring innovations in Chinese painting techniques. The diversity of local Chinese painting traditions prior to Buddhism's arrival, such as expressive figure painting, imaginative landscape composition, and traditional techniques like line drawing and color application, is explored. The introduction of Buddhist themes catalyzed innovations in painting, including storytelling composition, enriched line textures, and symbolic color schemes. Using observation, case studies, and comparative methods, representative Jin Dynasty paintings are analyzed to reveal how Buddhist art reshaped painting practices. The findings highlight that Buddhist art was a transformative force, integrating foreign artistic elements with local traditions, thereby marking a key turning point in the development of Chinese painting techniques during the Jin Dynasty.

Book Review| September 01 2021 Review: Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948–1978 Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler and Anat Geva, eds. Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948–1978 Bristol: Intellect Books, 2020, 374 pp., 130 b/w illus. $120/£90 (cloth), ISBN 9781789380644 Noam Shoked Noam Shoked Tel Aviv University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2021) 80 (3): 365–366. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2021.80.3.365 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Noam Shoked; Review: Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948–1978. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1 September 2021; 80 (3): 365–366. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2021.80.3.365 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the Society of Architectural Historians Search For a number of years, the conversation about Israeli architecture revolved around the construction of the so-called White City of Tel Aviv from the 1930s to the 1950s and the legacies of the International Style, which, for the most part, was brought to the country by émigré architects. Over the past two decades, however, historians of the built environment have widened that view, shifting the focus to later periods and moving away from Tel Aviv toward other (at times) more contentious sites. They explored the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem, and even the work of Israeli architects in other countries, such as Iran and Nigeria.1Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948–1978 makes an important contribution to this growing body of literature by bringing together case studies of different kinds of buildings in a variety of sites across Israel and outside the country. In her introduction to... You do not currently have access to this content.