Search Results (99)

Long-term data loss resulting from sensor malfunctions, communication interruptions, and other factors in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) significantly undermines the reliability of damage identification and safety assessment. Existing methods—ranging from statistical approaches and low-rank matrix completion to traditional machine learning and deep learning imputation techniques—often suffer from either limited accuracy or excessive model size and slow inference, making deployment in resource-constrained scenarios difficult. To address these challenges, this paper proposes TEFN–Imputation, a lightweight and efficient time-series imputation model. This model utilizes observation-driven non-stationary normalization to mitigate the impact of time-varying characteristics and dimensional discrepancies. It employs linear projection for temporal length alignment and constructs BPA-style mass representations from dual perspectives of time and channel. Furthermore, it replaces strict Dempster–Shafer belief combination with an expectation-based evidential aggregation (readout), thereby significantly reducing computational overhead while enabling uncertainty-aware evidential indicators for interpretation rather than claiming a direct accuracy gain from uncertainty modeling. The observed accuracy and robustness improvements are primarily attributed to the normalization and dual temporal–channel modeling design under the same lightweight readout. Systematic experiments on two real-world bridge monitoring datasets, Z24 and Hell Bridge, demonstrate that TEFN consistently maintains low Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and minimal volatility across various combinations of training and testing missing rates, exhibiting high robustness against variations in missing rates and train–test mismatches. Concurrently, compared to RNN and large-scale Transformer baselines, TEFN reduces parameter count and CPU inference time by one to two orders of magnitude. Thus, it achieves a superior trade-off among accuracy, efficiency, and model scale, making it highly suitable for online SHM and imputation tasks in practical engineering applications. Across the settings on Z24, TEFN achieves a mean MAE of 0.218 with a standard deviation of 0.002, while using only 0.02 MB parameters and 2.73 ms per batch CPU inference. Full article

This study positions the podcast Question Everything as an innovative case of metanarrative podcast journalism amid the growing crisis of distrust in news media. Through in-depth interviews with host Brian Reed and producer Zach St. Louis, along with textual analysis of all 27 episodes of the first season, this study examines how self-reflexive narrative storytelling both critiques and reimagines journalism. The dual-method approach explores not only what the podcast says about journalism, but also how the performance of podcasting becomes a mode of journalistic epistemology. Grounded in Metajournalistic Discourse Theory, findings demonstrate how Question Everything challenges traditional definitions of journalism, enacting metajournalistic discourse through four mechanisms: (1) inviting and exploring criticism, (2) performing transparency in the editing process, (3) experimenting with epistemology, and (4) embracing uncertainty and ambiguity. This paper argues that podcasts like Question Everything enact a performative mode of journalism that reconfigures how audiences make sense of truth, credibility, and authority. Full article

This paper examines the contrasting yet complementary approaches of the Constrained Disorder Principle (CDP) and Stefan Hell’s deterministic optical nanoscopy for managing noise in complex systems. The CDP suggests that controlled disorder within dynamic boundaries is crucial for optimal system function, particularly in biological contexts, where variability acts as an adaptive mechanism rather than being merely a measurement error. In contrast, Hell’s recent breakthrough in nanoscopy demonstrates that engineered diffraction minima can achieve sub-nanometer resolution without relying on stochastic (random) molecular switching, thereby replacing randomness with deterministic measurement precision. Philosophically, these two approaches are distinct: the CDP views noise as functionally necessary, while Hell’s method seeks to overcome noise limitations. However, both frameworks address complementary aspects of information extraction. The primary goal of microscopy is to provide information about structures, thereby facilitating a better understanding of their functionality. Noise is inherent to biological structures and functions and is part of the information in complex systems. This manuscript achieves integration through three specific contributions: (1) a mathematical framework combining CDP variability bounds with Hell’s precision measurements, validated through Monte Carlo simulations showing 15–30% precision improvements; (2) computational demonstrations with N = 10,000 trials quantifying performance under varying biological noise regimes; and (3) practical protocols for experimental implementation, including calibration procedures and real-time parameter optimization. The CDP provides a theoretical understanding of variability patterns at the system level, while Hell’s technique offers precision tools at the molecular level for validation. Integrating these approaches enables multi-scale analysis, allowing for deterministic measurements to accurately quantify the functional variability that the CDP theory predicts is vital for system health. This synthesis opens up new possibilities for adaptive imaging systems that maintain biologically meaningful noise while achieving unprecedented measurement precision. Specific applications include cancer diagnostics through chromosomal organization variability, neurodegenerative disease monitoring via protein aggregation disorder patterns, and drug screening by assessing cellular response heterogeneity. The framework comprises machine learning integration pathways for automated recognition of variability patterns and adaptive acquisition strategies. Full article

We studied Lycaena helle (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) population genetics in lowlands and mountains of East-Central Europe using the microsatellite markers previously applied in population studies mainly in mountains of Western Europe. As in the West, the East-Central populations are genetically diverse (mean expected/observed heterozygosity 0.67/0.49), affected by drift processes (mean inbreeding coefficient 0.277) and widely differentiated (mean F_ST 0.209). The Polish lowland populations, all of them bivoltine in contrast to mountain populations, are less differentiated than Romanian populations, which are bivoltine in low and univoltine in high altitudes. The lowland Romanian population Vad is extremely genetically impoverished. A transferred CZ population from Western Europe is impoverished relative to its donor population, but the genetic parameters remain within a range of other studied so far. Dendrogram of allelic frequencies suggests that the populations form two branches, one rooted in southeastern Poland and branching towards Carpathians in Romania, one encompassing populations in central and northern Poland. We conclude that the lowland Romanian populations, plus populations in unglaciated southeastern Poland, represent sites where the species survived the glacial cycles in situ, comprising rear edge of subsequent upslope expansion, while northern Poland was colonised from more easterly regions. Full article

Various heritage objects can be subjected to various types of biodegradation and biodeterioration. Mold fungi can destroy many types of art—be it monumental art or easel paintings. Tempera paintings on wood are at risk of biodeterioration, since the wide variety of organic and inorganic materials in art objects often provide an optimal habitat for biological colonization, causing aesthetic and structural damage. In this regard, timely identification and characterization of their microbiological destructive potential are critical. The fungi Syncephalastrum sp. STG-160 and Cladosporium sphaerospermum STG-161, isolated from bio-lesion sites of the 16th century icon “Descent into Hell” from State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, were identified and characterized morphologically and molecularly in our work. Syncephalastrum sp. was found in an unusual habitat that has not been previously described for this species. To determine the biodegradability of the identified fungi, their cells were inoculated onto mock layers—egg yolk ochre, cobalt green tempera pigments, and watercolor black. The results show that some pigments were more degradable than others. The addition of cobalt green completely inhibited STG-161 growth and significantly deceleratedSTG-160 mycelium development, most likely due to the presence of heavy metal ions in the pigment. Ochre, a frequently used pigment in restoration practice, is the most degradable material for Syncephalastrum sp. STG-160. Combining culture-dependent methods with SEM and fluorescence microscopy allowed us to identify an invisible individual spore of Syncephalastrum sp. STG-160 and a single hypha of Cladosporium sphaerospermum STG-161 directly on the icon’s surface in clean-contaminated zones, potentially allowing their development in cases of adverse temperature and humidity conditions. Therefore, in order to ensure rapid and effective conservation, it is crucial to assess and quantify the presence of biological systems causing damage to the heritage object itself as well as its individual art components. Full article

The idea of hell entails a type of extramundane retribution, and such extramundane retribution is useful as a deterrent to antisocial behaviour. This functionalist view of extramundane retribution was, in fact, explicitly countenanced during pre-imperial China. Also, like many roughly contemporaneous pre-Christian cultures in western Eurasia, pre-imperial China had a notion of an “underworld”. For early China, then, the more relevant “problem of hell” might be this one: why does hell appear to be so marginal? This paper surveys the idea of hell in the pre-Qin and Han periods, and concludes that an answer may be found in the Ruist appropriation of Zhou ideas about acquisition of virtue-power (de) and the afterlife, which were promulgated as state orthodoxy during the Han. With the fall of the Han, however, this state orthodoxy crumbled, and the culturally-adaptive memetic power of hell reasserted itself in the interdynastic and Tang periods. During these periods, a mélange of Buddhist and Daoist ideas of hell more strongly informed popular belief, and the idea of hell was arguably thereafter marginal in appearance only. Full article

The introduction of Christian culture to China during the late Ming Dynasty marked a pivotal moment in Sino–Western cultural exchanges. Jesuit missionaries, adhering to a strategy of aligning with Confucianism while rejecting Buddhism, encountered significant challenges in gaining acceptance. Their discourse on “hell” provoked opposition from both Confucian scholars and Buddhists. This paper focuses on key missionary works from the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, specifically Tianzhu shilu 《天主实录》 (True Record of the Lord of Heaven), Tianzhu shiyi 《天主实义》 (The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven), Sanshan lunxue 《三山论学》 (The Records of Debate in Fuzhou), Tianzhu shengjiao shilu 《天主圣教实录》 (True Record of the Sacred Teachings Concerning the Lord of Heaven) and Kouduo richao 《口铎日抄》 (Diary of Oral Admonitions). Exploring this notable cultural controversy and analyzing the intricate process of rejection and acceptance within this cultural collision will undoubtedly provide special insights into deepening our understanding of different religions’ beliefs about the afterlife and facilitating dialogue among civilizations. Full article

This article concerns nōsatsu, also known in Japanese as senjafuda and generally known as “votive slips” in English. Nōsatsu emerged in the 18th century out of popular practices related to pilgrimage in the city of Edo. Nōsatsu practitioners who visited Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines would paste votive slips on walls or other surfaces in the belief that the pasted slip would function as a proxy for the pilgrim, continuing in prayer vigil after the pilgrim had left. Practitioners persisted in their pasting activities in the face of opposition from temples and shrines. Later, nōsatsu evolved into full-color pictorial woodblock prints meant for exchanging and collecting, rather than pasting, but the early history of pilgrimage, proxy devotion, and institutional resistance remained in both the memories of the practitioners and the iconography of the slips themselves. Through close visual analysis of several slips depicting Buddhist themes, this article will describe the attitude of transgressive devotion that characterizes nōsatsu culture. Full article

Background and Clinical Significance: Hell’s Itch is a rare, intensely uncomfortable post-sunburn condition with burning pruritus emerging 24–72 h after UV exposure. This condition often goes unrecognized and is frequently misdiagnosed by healthcare providers due to a lack of knowledge and familiarity. Standard antipruritic measures are often ineffective, and patients frequently rely on anecdotal self-management. Case Presentation: Three healthy adult males between 23 and 28 years old experienced multiple episodes of delayed-onset intense pruritus following moderate-to-severe sun exposure. The patients experienced a burning or stinging pain which they described as “fire ants” or “thumbtacks,“ and their symptoms started between 24 and 72 h after sun exposure without any rash or fever symptoms. The patients did not achieve symptom relief from standard treatments which included oral antihistamines and topical lidocaine, NSAIDs, aloe vera, and cold compresses. The patients received β-alanine treatment through pre-workout supplements or pure powder after consulting non-clinical sources. Each patient ingested β-alanine and reported rapid relief (itch 8–10/10 → 1–2/10) lasting 2–3 h. The only adverse effect reported by one patient was mild paresthesia. Conclusions: This case introduces β-alanine as a potential off-label therapy for Hell’s Itch and emphasizes the psychological burden and clinical complexity of the condition. While anecdotal, further study is needed to elucidate the mechanism of action of β-alanine in relieving symptoms of Hell’s Itch, as well as assess safety and efficacy in controlled settings. Increased clinical awareness of Hell’s Itch may reduce patient distress and improve management strategies. Full article

This paper employs allegory to examine how pupils experience exclusion in mathematics education. Using Dante’s Inferno as a structural frame, I present nine fictional narratives aligned with the nine circles of Hell. These depict recurring learner experiences: displacement, disorientation, mechanical drill, grade-chasing, resistance, doubt, internalised failure, performance without understanding, and withdrawal. The narratives are not verbatim accounts but constructed stories synthesising themes from research, classroom practice, and observed discourse. Through narrative inquiry, each story reframes issues such as language barriers, high-stakes assessment, proceduralism, and stereotype threat—not as individual shortcomings but systemic conditions shaping learner identities. The allegorical mode makes these conditions vivid, positioning mathematics education as a moral landscape where inclusion and exclusion are continually negotiated. The analysis yields three insights: first, forms of exclusion are diverse yet interconnected, often drawing pupils into cycles of silence, resistance, or performance; second, metaphor and fiction can serve as rigorous research tools, allowing affective and structural dimensions of schooling to be understood together; and third, teacher education and policy must confront the hidden costs of privileging narrow forms of knowledge. Reimagining classrooms through Dante’s allegory, this paper calls for pedagogies that disrupt exclusion and open pathways to belonging and mathematical meaning. Full article

In an era of accelerating secularization, art serves as a vital mediator for non-institutional forms of spirituality. This article examines Robert Rauschenberg’s Inferno series (1958–1960) as a case study of how modern art reconfigures religious narratives to engage with humanity’s “ultimate concerns.” Through his solvent transfer technique, Rauschenberg dismantles Dante’s theological structure and reconfigures it into a fragmented, participatory experience of spirituality. The argument develops in two parts. First, it demonstrates how Rauschenberg secularizes sacred imagery to portray modern social realities as a “contemporary inferno” marked by systemic violence and commodified desire. Second, it theorizes that the materiality of solvent transfer—its blurring, erasure, and contingent traces—creates what may be called “material spirituality,” a sacred presence perceived through absence and indexical trace. Within this reconfigured structure, spectatorship itself takes on a ritualistic character. When confronted with fragmented and unstable imagery, viewers engage in active, contemplative practice, transforming the act of viewing into a secular ritual of attentiveness. Thus, Rauschenberg’s Inferno radically redefines the religious function of art—not as redemption, but as the cultivation of fragile yet enduring forms of spirituality within the estrangement of modern life. Full article

Ochrolechia is a diverse and charismatic lineage of both sexually and asexually reproducing lichens, with centers of species richness in northern temperate areas of the world, including North America. As part of recent work to comprehensively inventory the lichens of the Indian Peaks Wilderness (Arapaho–Roosevelt National Forest, Front Range Mountains, Colorado), we discovered material of a sorediate member of the genus to which no existing names could be applied. This material was collected in very remote, extremely difficult-to-access mid-montane forests of the west slope of the Indian Peaks Wilderness, in a steep and jagged off-trail drainage (Hell Canyon). Subsequent study of this material along with review of pre-existing collections at the COLO Herbarium revealed it to represent a new scientific species. We here formally describe Ochrolechia raynori, in honor of Seth Raynor who led the Indian Peaks Wilderness lichen inventory. We additionally document the occurrence of Dactylospora parasitica on this new lichen species. Ochrolechia raynori is distinctive for its continuous, smooth, shiny thallus that bears discrete soralia and coarse soredia, its occurrence on mosses and other lichens that overgrow rocks, and its chemistry. We generated a molecular phylogeny of this and other members of Ochrolechia using the nrITS locus and show O. raynori to be sister to the widespread, sexually reproducing species O. upsaliensis. This occurrence of an asexual species that is sister to a sexual species is consistent with the “species pair” hypothesis in lichenology, which suggests an intimate role of reproductive mode divergence in the process of speciation. Examination of the phylogeny yielded evidence of four additional pairs in Ochrolechia, for a total of five species pairs, which indicates that this phenomenon may be a common occurrence in this lineage. IUCN Conservation Assessment of Ochrolechia raynori revealed the species to be best considered as Critically Endangered. However, we expect that continued efforts to inventory the lichens of the southern Rocky Mountains, especially in some of its wildest, most remote regions in similar habitats, will likely result in the discovery of additional populations of this remarkable new species. Full article

Ninety-five-year-old Doris Held, a great niece of Sigmund Freud, has been convening the Shakespeare Reading Group in Northampton, Massachusetts, my hometown, since she moved here in 2016. In the following essay, which is a personal response to my experience of this group of Shakespearean readers, to Doris Held, and to the work of Shakespeare in general, I attempt to chart the full impact of the Bard’s work on my life and on the world around me. I am neither a scholar nor a historian. In a true sense, I am a bystander Shakespearean, who has received deep reward and benefit from the experience, but it is Doris Held and her group who opened my eyes to the precise nature of this unexamined reward. Doris brought the spirit of the group from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she had been a dues-paying member for decades of something called the Old Cambridge Shakespeare Association, which itself dates to 1880. My wife Debra and I attended the first meeting in Northampton more than a decade ago, and we have been receiving emails from Doris four times a year ever since. While these communications often induce guilt, they invariably lead to pleasures that I would never want to relinquish. That is a complicated dynamic in my routine, and I try to grapple with its ebb and flow in the pages that follow. Each time I get one, I have a version of the same conversation in my head. Is Doris still doing this? Haven’t they done all the plays by now? All things considered, wouldn’t they—and I—rather be home watching a true crime documentary about Gaby Petito on Netflix? What the hell is William Shakespeare to me anyway? At this point, if I’m honest, Shakespeare is Doris. The experience with this group led me in two directions. One took me back to my now long-ago history with Shakespeare’s work as an actor in college. The other took me via historical research into the prehistory of Doris Held’s previous Shakespeare group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The two paths gave me a deeper grasp of the influence of his work across the world and on my own life. Full article