The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a member of the family Arecaceae. It is cultivated for its sweet and nutritious fruits, consumed as a staple food by millions of people in many countries, especially in Southwest Asia and North Africa. It is one of the oldest cultivated fruit crops in the world. Dates have been used for both dietary and pharmaceuticals purposes. Date fruits are a source of carbohydrates such as sucrose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, as well as dietary fiber, and are also rich in micronutrients, vitamins and minerals. Despite dates being sugar-packed, many date varieties have a low glycemic index (GI) and do not stimulate any metabolic and inflammatory markers associated with chronic diseases. Dates are an excellent source of chemical compounds like phenolic acids, tannins, flavonoids, phytosterols, and carotenoids that act as potential therapeutic agents against several diseases, including cancer and heart disease. Ayurvedic practitioners also use date fruit as a remedy for several diseases. The wide bioactive profile of dates makes them an excellent option for use as nutraceuticals. This chapter addresses these health benefits and the nutraceutical composition of dates, along with their potential utilization.

Abstract There has always been an interest in the professional communities of libraries, archives and conservation science to find ways of estimating the rate of degradation of paper under archival conservation conditions. Previously we reported a number of considerations for developing a kinetic degradation model based on Whatman no.1 paper. In the present research, this model was extended to 10 different papers and validated. Various physical and chemical properties of acidic, neutral, and alkaline papers were measured, such as the degree of polymerization (DP), tensile strength, equilibrium moisture content (EMC), and pH, as well as alkaline reserve when applicable. The activation energy (Ea) based on DP of cellulose and zero-span tensile strength were determined. Ea and pH had the most significant influence on the simulated decay of paper. Papers with a high Ea (> 120 kJ mol-1), alkaline such as those containing at least 2% CaCO3, and acidic –but good printing quality papers made of bleached chemical pulp– were found the most durable in ambient conditions. Papers with a lower Ea (< 110 kJ mol-1) such as lignocellulosic papers containing significant amount of mechanical pulp were much less stable over time. Whatman filter papers, used as models of pure cellulosic papers, were found to have low Ea despite the good quality cotton fibers. A generic isoperm equation based on Ea was developed to predict the changes in the state of papers under various climatic conditions, and was applicable independently of the pH of the paper. The model developed allows a better quantification of the deterioration rate of printing papers such as those that are currently, and will be in the future, found in our archival collections.

The creative economy has been recognized as key in urban development and planning, which the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) consolidates. While benefiting from the label, the tourism sector also plays a fundamental role in the creative strategy. This paper explores how intangible heritage and creative industries can work as a tourism asset for creative cities and thus participate in their development. An NVivo thematic content analysis of all the tourism-related actions listed in the UCCN reports was performed to identify what types of cultural tourism products and actions are linked to the creative cities and to understand how they relate to their UNESCO creative fields to detect gaps and potentials. Tourism activity represents 17% of the total actions listed in the creative cities’ reports, mostly concentrated in the Crafts & Folk Art field. The empirical results highlight tendencies that can be applied and adapted to future destinations with intangible assets on their territory and that want to work with the creative industries. Thus, this paper unveils an underexplored potential of synergies between two important economic and creative activities.

The essays in this book reveal the remarkable pace of change in heritage conservationHeritage conservation theory and practice since World War II and especially in the last two decades. Each chapter focuses on a specific topic relevant to current practice, difficult topics with no easy solutions: Historic Urban LandscapesHistoric urban landscapes, intangible heritageIntangible heritage, view protection, cultural landscapesCultural landscapes, sustainabilitySustainability, heritage communicationHeritage communication, wind turbines, the cultural value of nature, climate changeClimate change, reconstructionReconstruction and tourism. In the early 1990s, three important developments in the implementation of the World HeritageWorld Heritage Convention introduced a global dialogue that prepared the ground for this change. The framework for cultural landscapesCultural landscapes paved the way for sites with associated intangible values, the Nara DocumentNara Document on authenticity built the foundation for a new vision of conservationConservation doctrine, and the Global Strategy for a balanced, representative and credible World HeritageWorld Heritage List enlarged the scope beyond historical, aesthetic and scientific values to take into account new perspectives. These three achievements are indicators of a paradigm shift in conservation theoryConservation theory and practice that subsequently unfolded in the twenty-first century. By this time, heritage conservationHeritage conservation practitioners were aware that they were operating in silos, and that heritage doctrine and practice needed to change. The most urgent issues that emerged concerned the construction of values, the implications of applying a cultural landscapesCultural landscapes approach to site management and the expanded reach of heritage.

This book focuses on current trends in cultural heritageCultural heritage conservationHeritage conservation and their influence on heritage practice. It draws on fourteen MontrealMontreal Round Tables of the Canada Research Chair on Built Heritage at the University of MontrealMontreal, held between 2006 and 2018. These meetings linked theory and practice by considering the doctrinal underpinnings of heritage conservationHeritage conservation policy as well as practical solutions at the site level. Whether understood through the perspective of World HeritageWorld Heritage, historic urban landscapesHistoric urban landscapes, heritage tourismHeritage tourism, climate changeClimate change or the nature-culture nexus, challenging issues call for innovative approaches to protect and conserve our heritage placesHeritage places. The book brings together the voices of different stakeholders in the heritage conservationHeritage conservation process, ranging from scholars, experts, site managers and government officials to young professionals and students. The chapters of this book, written by participants at various Round Table sessions, explore fourteen international debates on difficult conservationConservation issues encountered by the World HeritageWorld Heritage Committee and heritage generally in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.