Human practices is essential as a cross-cutting component of the project. In order to accomplish a safer, greener, and more convenient project that contributes to the restoration of murals, we have divided the Human practices into three modules: 1. Human practices is divided into three modules: 1. expert guidance 2. social research 3. synthetic biology and project promotion.
We interviewed Dr. Wang Yanyi from Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology，Chinese Academy of Sciences who is the first author of the experimental reference paper. We contacted her through email, and we maintained wechat contact throughout the experiment. In our communication, Dr. Yan Yi Wang answered many of our questions. For example in the following figure we had doubts about the experimental principle when using crystal violet to determine biofilms, we thought crystal violet might stain the biofilms of bacteria and thus could not judge whether biofilms were generated. Dr. Yan Yi Wang recommended that we should pour the supernatant of the culture dish before staining, while the large intestine.The biofilm produced by the Ecoli would stick to the wall of the Petri dish and would not pour off along with the supernatant, we actually stained the biofilm on the wall of the dish.We used the advice of Dr Yanyi Wang, and eventually we succeeded.
Fig.1Some chat records with Dr. Yan Yi Wang
For some of our controversial issues as well as mineralization scenarios during biofilm mineralization, we also consulted Dr Yanyi Wang and were answered. We selected the mineralized products for SEM scanning according to her recommendations.In the mineralization process, Dr. Yanyi Wang suggested that we changed SBF once a day, but we thought that once a day was more conducive to biofilm mineralization, so we did not adopt the recommendation of Dr. Yanyi Wang. We also travelled to Shenzhen Institutes of advanced technology, and Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a face-to-face interaction with Dr. Yanyi Wang, and the following was some Q and A of the day.
Fig.2The photo of Dr. Yan Yi Wang with our team member
Q1：When you first look at this item, what do you intuitively feel? A1：Um, and first I think that is to look definitely really interesting, and then the design is reasonable, but it can still be refined. Q2:So second, what are your expectations and concerns about our technology? A2:First I look at your scheme, which in fact is reasonable at the front, but there is a question because you last if you were to use this to repair a mural wall, which is equivalent to the breakdown of this wall is most likely of arbitrary shape, and if mineralization were to occur again in solution, you would have difficulty in achieving mineralization of the wall in situ. I feel thisThe point is one that needs to be considered when you actually use it. Q3：Is there a better way for you to address the issue of instability of pigment protein expression. A3：You can consider giving him some additional tags that are protein expression. （We looked for some relevant information after the interview, but because we believe that the pigment proteins we use now can tentatively act as more stable mural colours, we made no changes.） Q4：What suggestions do you have for later forms of application and how can this really be applied to mural repairs? We have an idea that we would like to apply to 3D printing technology of biomaterials and utilize our bacteria laden hydrogel to fabricate it in a mineralized liquid environment.How you think？ A4：This is actually what I feel is most problematic after I have looked through your program. I think you can think that this way is really smart, but that's quite a lot of attempts, and I actually wanted to try it in fact recently. We apply this method because of the desire to maintain its activity. Say, we now use this, also, just on a myograph, and you don't have a way to make a peeled off material, so what we think is also done with cement Neurospora, but mineralization still requires a liquid environment. You are sure to work on that wall if you're going to repair itMineralization, it's not too line if you go through the frame and put it on again. So it's actually a possibility and then it needs to be tried. （We received encouragement from Dr Yanyi Wang to explore this direction in subsequent experiments.） We also raise many other questions and revise the project according to Dr. Yanyi Wang.
How exactly do front-line personnel restore cultural relics? Since we could not visit the site and the information on the Internet was not comprehensive, this question troubled us for a long time. We decided that we needed to find a professional restorer. Finally, through some channels, we contacted Professor Li Zhuangzhi.
Fig.3The photo of zhuangzhi Li
Li is an associate professor in the Department of Fine Arts, School of Fine Arts and Art, Faculty of Fine Arts, Shenzhen University, a PhD from Renmin University of China, a visiting scholar from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lebin, Russia, and the director of the Research Center for Art Identification and Restoration, Institute of Cultural Industries, Shenzhen University. Li Zhuangzhi is mainly engaged in research on oil painting, mixed media painting and oil painting materials and restoration. We contacted him and did a formal interview on certain issues of fresco restoration, the meaning of fresco restoration.
Fig.4Video Interviews
We finished the interview with Professor Li Zhuangzhi from the Department of Fine Arts of SZU on August 14. The interview went very well and Prof. Li gave us a lot of constructive comments. The following is the flow and summary of the whole interview.
Q1: I started the interview by giving Professor Li a brief introduction of our project, including the advantages of our project and our views on manual restoration of paintings. A1: that he felt that our research should be directed at using synthetic biology techniques to 1. make organic pigments more stable 2. make a reversible glue (there is an easy way to remove the glue after it dries) to connect the painting layer and the substrate layer. Especially the second direction. Prof. Li told us that there is no particularly good glue for this purpose. For example, the American Biffa glue has to be dissolved in a toxic thinner, which may cause harm to human body, and it is not reversible and can only be used to connect cloth to cloth. He suggested us to change our research idea to synthesize a pure, natural and harmless raw material like sturgeon swim bladder, which would be very helpful for restorers. Q2: In "The Aesthetic Differences between Chinese and Western Painting", you wrote that painting is realized through the material materials and that the pigments require chemical stability, safety, effectiveness and reversibility. Can you be more specific about this stability? What standard of stability is required of pigments? On this question, Professor Li gives us a historical perspective on the "evolution" of pigments. A2:In response to this question, Professor Li gave us an art historical perspective on the "evolution" of pigments. From the very early days, mineral pigments such as lapis lazuli were used. These pigments do not change color, but they are rare and expensive. Later on, the demand for color increased and chemical pigments were used, which were more unstable than mineral pigments. This kind of pigment is more unstable than mineral pigment. Even though the color is relatively stable with today's technology, it can still fade in the medium and during the preservation process. In this respect, we need to improve the stability of the color proteins. You can ask Dr. Yangyi Wang on the 27th for the corresponding improvement. Q3:Nowadays, the way to avoid the fading of paintings A3 1. to use good materials, 2. the artist has enough ability to use these materials, and 3. the environment where the paintings are kept is important. No direct sunlight but not without sunlight either. The humidity is 50% and the temperature is around 35℃. Q4: the combination of restoration and technology. A4: Shenzhen University has a research center: Art and Crossing Laboratory. There are teachers of material science, computers and fresco restoration in it. They get together and use the power of technology to help the front-line workers to restore the murals. For example, using x light to see the base layer, how the color was painted on. How the color layer is connected to the base layer. Then we use Raman spectroscopy to analyze the composition of the colors. Spectroscopy, color separation, and displaying the color rgb parameters. This is the combination of technology and restoration. Q5: The similarities and differences between fresco restoration and oil painting restoration. A5: Reinforcing the pre-existing color and base layers, followed by filling in the missing parts. Find and analyze what the raw material of the fresco is and find the exact same color as them. Use the exact same adhesive to restore it, which is the most standard restoration. Q6: When we do this, we also hear voices saying that these things are of no value to society, that we need to move on and do something pragmatic. These kinds of statements. How would you feel about such remarks or whether you would respond to them A6:Professor Li said politely that those who say such things do not know much about the profession. Because preserving the existing art and culture is a great contribution to the society. It's not that making money is a contribution to society. Some of the problems in society now are that everyone is looking forward, too utilitarian. The spirit of craftsmanship is gone. This is not right. Q7:In "Seepage and Support", you wrote that every innovation in the art of painting is accompanied by economic prosperity and productivity progress, which directly induces the innovation and improvement of painting materials. What would be your ideal painting material in the near future? Do you have any expectations for the future of the painting restoration industry? A7:The future is definitely a combination of machines and people. Machines to analyze colors, or machines to synthesize the desired colors. In the end, it is the human who paints it out. This step cannot be omitted. Because the machine can replace the manual, that is the distant future, very, very difficult to achieve.
So far, I think it is very difficult to ask experts for offline interviews in HP's activities. This time, I contacted Prof. Zhuangzhi Li with the intention of giving it a try. I got a positive feedback from Prof. Li right away. So I took the time to write the plan, checked the I made an appointment. I thought I must seize this precious opportunity. In the end, the interview was done smoothly. In my communication with Prof. Li, he made a lot of constructive comments on our project. For example, change the direction to have glue specializing in pigment stability, especially glue (i.e. bacteria play an adhesive role). Because now there is no particularly good glue to use. The United States of Bifar glue 10,000 yuan a bag, and to be heated in the laboratory, into the diluent, very troublesome. And once the American one is added is out of stock, then there is no good glue left. So for their front-line workers, the safety stability and reversibility of the available pigments were not a problem, but there was no good glue. So I told this to the experimental group, and they checked the literature and found that our bacteria could adhere directly to the mural, but it was harder to act as a glue. So we ended up adding only adhesive proteins. In my communication with Prof. Li, he made a lot of constructive comments on our project. For example, change the direction to have glue specializing in pigment stability, especially glue (i.e. bacteria play an adhesive role). Because now there is no particularly good glue to use. The United States of Bifar glue 10,000 yuan a bag, and to be heated in the laboratory, into the diluent, very troublesome. And once the American one is added is out of stock, then there is no good glue left. So for their front-line workers, the safety stability and reversibility of the available pigments were not a problem, but there was no good glue. So I told this to the experimental group, and they checked the literature and found that our bacteria could adhere directly to the mural, but it was harder to act as a glue. So the CsgA-Mfp3S-pep fusion protein that we ended up using could produce a biofilm with adhesive properties that could be mineralized to repair the mural. In addition, heritage conservation and restoration has great value and significance. Professor Li said that our ideas are very good and very creative, but we have to do these things with scientific rigor and practical rationality. After the exchange, I was deeply impressed by the difficulty of what we were doing and the importance of our project. Although our project is not yet mature and there is a lot of room for improvement, I believe we will persist in doing it and maybe in the near future we will make a breakthrough and make a contribution to the front-line workers! Finally, Professor Li also wished us success!
Fig.5Final group photo
Questionnaire Summary and Analysis. We created this questionnaire in order to find out how much the public knows about the murals and whether they are receptive to the bioremediation approach proposed by our project, in order to promote our project. A total of 132 questionnaires were received this time. Next I will make a brief analysis of each sub-question, and finally in a general.
The first question: Your age is; from the bar chart, the largest proportion of people under 18 years old is 82.58%. Followed by 19 to 25 years old accounted for 11%, the other accounted for no more than 5%. Therefore I make the results are analyzed in layers.
Fig.6Histogram of the second question of the questionnaire
High school and junior high school accounted for a relatively large number.
Fig.7Histogram of the third question of the questionnaire
All but one had heard of it.
Fig.8Histogram of the fourth question of the questionnaire
This question was a multiple choice question and most chose starting bacteria or mold. This is close to what we expected.
Fig.9Histogram of the fifth question of the questionnaire
Sixty percent had heard of mural restoration techniques. This is not what we expected, we thought most people would not have heard of it. But perhaps there were some people in the data who didn't know but chose to know for face value. So, all things considered, the number of people who have heard of it should be lower to be the final result.
Fig.10Histogram of the sixth question of the questionnaire
Except for the option "other", the data for each option is relatively even.
Fig.11Histogram of the seven question of the questionnaire
82.57% of people thought the project was a novel idea, which was unexpected for me. This also increased my confidence in the attractiveness of the project.
Fig.12Histogram of the eighth question of the questionnaire
Fig.13Histogram of the fifth question of the questionnaire
The question options were also relatively even, but slightly more prominent were options 1, 2,. It shows that people still have their own opinions about the significance of restoring the murals. It reflects that the respondents who filled out the questionnaire have their own thinking. It also determines the value of this question. The highest option is still the second option. It proves that people think that fresco restoration is important for the study of ancient folk culture.
A total of 132 questionnaires were received to investigate the public's knowledge of frescoes and some of their opinions about our project. The results were stratified because the majority of respondents were under 18 years old. The results of the whole questionnaire are still far from expectations. For example, in the question about having heard of Dunhuang murals, all but one person had heard of them. This answer was unexpected. This reflects that the public has some understanding of Dunhuang frescoes. This was a big surprise to the HP group. We saved a lot of time by not having to go over the Dunhuang murals. We received positive feedback on the question "Do you think our idea is new?", with 84% of people finding the project interesting, which increased our confidence in the social research. Overall, based on the feedback from the public, the HP team can boldly go ahead with a series of activities later on, without worrying too much about the knowledge of the public. The above is a summary of the results of the fresco restoration survey.
