Search Results (186)

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into higher education, instructors and institutions face urgent questions about its implications for teaching, learning, and scholarly practice as well as power, agency, and access. This study draws on a critical AI media literacy framework to analyze user-generated discussions in the two largest higher education subreddits on Reddit.com. Through thematic content analysis, I explore faculty perceptions, pedagogical tensions, and imaginative possibilities surrounding AI’s academic role in shaping the current and future landscape of higher education. Findings reveal that discussions of student cheating, AI policies, writing practices, and faculty labor are not merely technical debates but sites where surveillance regimes, accountability structures, and academic precarity are negotiated in real time. Ultimately, I argue that AI in higher education is not simply a technological shift but a structural transformation requiring deliberate, critically informed governance grounded in equity and human agency. Full article

The constant development of new forms of body modification and ideas of intervening in consciousness, as expressions of human striving for optimization, fuels the controversially discussed technification of humans. The article first raises the question of the roots of the desire for optimization. In doing so, the fact of human limitation and vulnerability, which is also decisive for man’s religious self-understanding, is placed into the context of the subconscious and the potential of deprivation to cause offence. This deprivation is tied back to the starting point of all experiences, namely corporeality and being a lived body. Using the example of being ill as a fundamental human experience, it is shown that the recognition of human limitation arises from bodily experience and that the erasure of vulnerability, which is founded in the lived body, cannot be achieved through his progressive optimization or through the technical manipulation of consciousness. In opposition to the utopia of technical omnipotence, it is advocated to pay attention to a hitherto little-noticed ‘physiological insult’, insofar as the thesis is pursued that this ‘insult’ also shapes the current understanding of consciousness. Full article

We propose a semantic, geometric, and statistical framework for quantifying and ordering textual cohesion in long-form discourse. Sentences are embedded into a semantic similarity graph and Ollivier–Ricci curvature is used to extract sentence- and document-level structural profiles, represented as step functions on a normalized rhetorical-time axis. On this functional space we define the Weighted Utopia Index (wUI), a corpus-relative measure of weighted shortfall from an upper-envelope profile under a dominance-type ordering. The rhetorical-time weighting function is learned self-supervised: we generate controlled sentence-order perturbations with known ordinal coherence degradation and estimate the weight parameters via an ordered probit model on a training split. We evaluate ordering recovery on held-out State of the Union speeches using rank correlations, pairwise and adjacent ordering accuracy, and violation-localization diagnostics with bootstrap uncertainty. Across these criteria, wUI systematically outperforms embedding-only adjacent-similarity baselines, while a Nash-type aggregation provides an interpretable semantic–structural trade-off score. An application to later-period speeches illustrates how the method yields interpretable cohesion rankings and curvature-profile diagnostics without requiring external annotations. Full article

This article examines the influence of tradition, particularly Orthodox thought and icons, on the “Russian” and Soviet avant-garde. This field of research was systematically initiated in the 1990s and continues to this day, as evidenced, among others, by recent articles in the Arts Journal. The present article contributes to this field by broadening the perspective, which has overwhelmingly focused on art. The step towards architecture is taken with a case study on the famous Soviet architect Ivan Leonidov. The article positions him in the context of contemporary debates on icons led by theorists Evgeniy Trubetskoy, Pavel Florensky and Nikolay Tarabukin, but also in connection with the emergence of Suprematism, which was introduced by Kazimir Malevich and further developed by El Lissitzky. Leonidov’s geometric bodies, which dynamically “float” in space, prove to be relevant to “Russian”/Soviet aesthetic interpretations of icons and “Russian”/Soviet artistic forms of expression. Just as the icon aimed at bringing believers closer to God, or Suprematism sought to reveal to the masses a higher spiritual or scientific truth, Leonidov’s architecture offered a metaphysical spectacle for a corresponding universalist goal: the creation of a pan-humanist utopia. Full article

This study provides a structured and differentiated review of the literature on platform labour from the workers’ perspective, examining how platform-mediated work affects multiple dimensions of workers’ employment conditions and well-being as well as their subjective experiences. Platform labour is a new form of work where companies create online platforms which match consumers with service providers, thereby providing workers with a new type of employment opportunity, casually referred to as “being your own boss”, accompanied by a certain degree of flexibility and autonomy. However, it is important to note that this flexibility and autonomy is limited by factors such as algorithmic management, and it has also led to the spread of increased precarity and social inequality. Existing studies highlight that these effects vary substantially across types of platforms, worker groups and socio-institutional contexts. The subjective experience of platform workers is neither an absolute “good” nor “bad” experience, but is a function of their own unique work and life experiences and personal needs. Based on these themes, we suggest that attention to the needs of different groups of platform workers, their diverse identities and interests, and to labour equity and social protection is key to the sustainable development of the platform economy. Future research could further prioritise cross-regional differences, algorithmic governance (including emerging technologies), the effectiveness of regulatory and organisational innovations in advancing labour equity and social protection, and the long-term, intersectional effects of platform labour, with a view to promoting a more inclusive and sustainable platform ecosystem. Full article

In Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides, the “face” serves not only as a visual subject but also as a methodology. Continuing the previous realistic shooting style, this film utilizes the faces of ordinary individuals as a poignant commentary on the era. Simultaneously, by leveraging the proper noun “Zhao Tao’s face,” it achieves nonverbal emotional expression while sketching the evolution of Chinese independent film aesthetics. Compared to faces captured in moving images, the faces of lifelike “quasi-human” sculpture resist being fixed as mere images through their vivid presence, autonomously generating narrative momentum by being viewed across different times and spaces. Moreover, in this media age of breakneck technological advancement, the “crisis of the face” has also transformed into a broader “existential crisis.” How to preserve the warmth and vitality of the human face may be the most profound and provocative question the film leaves its audience. Full article

This study explores how Generation Z imagines sustainable tourism and how these imaginaries reflect values and norms associated with responsible tourism consumption. Data were collected from 59 university students in Türkiye who created written utopian narratives and AI-assisted visuals depicting their visions of sustainable destinations. Using thematic and visual content analysis, the findings reveal three dominant axes: (i) nature-integrated living practices, (ii) environmentally and community-oriented sustainability, and (iii) futuristic utopian visions. The results demonstrate that Generation Z imagines tourism not merely consumption but as a lifestyle embedded in ecological harmony, collective participation, and cultural continuity. Their dual orientation combining nostalgic “return to nature” imaginaries with techno-utopian futures illustrates how young people reconcile local identity with technological innovation. By bridging the frameworks of tourism imaginaries and responsible tourism consumption, the study introduces an “imagination–consumption bridge,” conceptualizing imaginaries as cognitive and normative mediators that translate values into practices. Methodologically, the integration of AI-assisted visualization offers an innovative approach to capturing mental models and prototyping sustainable futures. Practically, the emphasis on equity, accessibility, and participatory governance provides insights for designing more inclusive and ethically grounded tourism policies. The study thus contributes theoretically, methodologically, and practically to advancing sustainable tourism research. Full article

From a critical feminist perspective, it is hypothesised that the gender digital divide may be related to new forms of virtual gender-based violence that particularly affect girls and young women. If this is the case, these forms of violence would fall within the dimension of exploitation or quality of use of technologies that characterises the digital divide. To test this hypothesis, a documentary analysis of the phenomenon was carried out by reviewing different cases reported in various media outlets, which show that the well-being of girls and adolescents is at risk when technology is involved. Four categories emerge that reflect situations in which technology becomes a tool for promoting self-harm and suicide among minors through exposure to harmful content, grooming, sexting and/or sextortion; the digital sexual exploitation of underage girls through deepfakes or intimate images generated with artificial intelligence; the consumption of violent and hateful content in mass chats; and the incitement of gender-based violence through video games. The results show the reproduction and perpetuation of gender-based violence in the digital world. To guarantee safe, inclusive and equitable digital environments, various measures are essential, including European policies or plans aimed at guaranteeing digital security and rights, and those related to critical digital literacy with a gender perspective in formal education (school and university) and informal education (parents, carers and guardians). Finally, we urge that the focus be placed on personal digital resilience, since thinking of a completely secure digital world is a naive and unattainable utopia. Full article

Social housing in tropical regions faces critical thermal comfort challenges that will intensify under future climate change, yet current design practices lack systematic frameworks for evaluating long-term performance across multiple climate scenarios. This study assesses the thermal performance of social housing in southeastern Mexico using energy simulation, supervised machine learning, and global sensitivity analysis. Two housing typologies (single-story and two-story) were modeled across four cities (Mérida, Campeche, Cancún, and Tuxtla Gutiérrez) under climate change scenarios (RCP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) for 2050 and 2100. Various machine learning models were trained to predict comfort temperature and cooling degree days. Regression Trees demonstrated superior performance, with R² values exceeding 0.98 for both thermal comfort indicators, achieving RMSE values of 0.0095 °C for comfort temperature and 0.2613 °C for cooling degree days. Global sensitivity analysis using the PAWN method revealed that ambient temperature was the most influential variable, accounting for 45–49% of the total sensitivity, followed by solar radiation (17–22%) and relative humidity (10–12%), while building-specific parameters had modest impacts (0.6–3.8%). Geographic variations were significant, with Mérida and Campeche showing higher cooling demands than Cancún and Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Future climate projections indicate substantial increases in cooling requirements by 2100, with CDD values expected to increase by approximately 40–50% under the RCP 8.5 scenario compared to current conditions. This research presents a computational framework for assessing thermal comfort in social housing, providing evidence-based insights for climate-adaptive building strategies in tropical regions. Full article

Dust storms have a significant impact on the Martian atmosphere and climate. Previous studies have found that regional and global dust storms mainly occur in the Mars perihelion season. However, an anomalous spring regional dust storm occurred in the aphelion season of Martian year 35 (MY 35). The occurrence and evolution of this new type of large dust storm and its impact on the Martian atmosphere are not yet fully understood. Using Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) dust observations, this study investigates the evolutionary characteristics of the MY 35 anomalous spring storm during its pre-storm, onset, expansion, and decay phases, by comparing it with other types of regional dust storms. The evolution of the MY 35 anomalous spring dust storm is more similar to that of the MY 35 C storm, showing north–south mirror symmetry relative to the equator, suggesting that the two storms may have similar evolutionary mechanisms. Additionally, we analyze the effects of the anomalous MY 35 storm on the atmospheric thermal and dynamical structures using a combination of MCS temperature observations and LMD-GCM wind simulation results. Eastward winds in the high latitudes of both hemispheres and westward winds in the low-to-mid latitudes are significantly enhanced during the storm, corresponding to the change in the atmospheric thermal structure and the global circulation. Finally, we performed a preliminary analysis of changes in the wind field during the spring dust storm in the Chryse and Utopia plains, which are two potential landing areas for China’s Tianwen-3 Mars sample-return mission. The vertical profiles of the simulated horizonal wind in the two plains show that, during the E storm peak time, the change in daily mean wind speed is significant above 20 km, but relatively small in the atmospheric boundary layer below ~5 km. Within the boundary layer, the horizontal wind speed shows remarkable diurnal variation, remaining relatively low during the midday hours (10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.). These results can provide necessary environmental parameters related to spring dust storms for China’s Tianwen-3 mission. Full article

This study investigates the impact absorption performance of bamboo-inspired 3D-printed circular tubes in terms of infill type (grid, gyroid, honeycomb, Archimedean chords), infill ratio (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%), wall thickness (0.8, 1.2, 1.6, and 2.0 mm), and inner diameter parameters. The structures designed using Taguchi L16 orthogonal design are printed with PLA material using FDM technology and evaluated by quasi-static compression tests. Peak crushing force (PCF), energy absorption (EA), and specific energy absorption (SEA) criteria are used to analyse crashworthiness performance. The experimental results showed that EA improves as the infill rate increases, but the gain decreases as the infill rate approaches 40% (SEA at 30% is better than that at 40%). By visualising the PCF and EA data relative to the utopia point (the lowest PCF and highest EA), GRID_T16F30D24, HCOMB_T08F30D22, and GRID_T12F20D22 are found to be the best-performing tubes. The grid and honeycomb infill types showed superiority at 20–30% infill rates and similar wall thicknesses. The Archimedean chords type performed poorly due to its tendency to fracture. Full article

Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1D) is an autoimmune disease characterized by the destruction of pancreatic β-cells, predominantly manifesting in childhood or adolescence. The lack of clearly interpretable biological markers in the early stages, combined with the insidious onset of the disease, poses significant challenges to early diagnosis and the implementation of preventive strategies. The applicability of classic T1D biomarkers for understanding the mechanisms of the autoimmune process, preclinical diagnostics and treatment efficiency is limited. Despite advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, which have enabled large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and the identification of polygenic risk scores (PRSs) associated with T1D predisposition, as well as progress in bioinformatics approaches for assessing dysregulated gene expression, no universally accepted risk assessment model or definitive predictive biomarker has been established. Until now, the use of new promising biomarkers for T1D diagnostics is limited by insufficient evidence base. However, they have great potential for the development of diagnostic methods on their basis, which has been shown in single or serial large-scale studies. This critical review covers both well-known biomarkers widely used in clinical practice, such as HLA-haplotype, non-HLA SNPs, islet antigen autoantibodies, C-peptide, and the promising ones, such as cytokines, cfDNA, microRNA, T1D-specific immune cells, islet-TCR, and T1D-specific vibrational bands. Additionally, we highlight new approaches that have been gaining popularity and have already demonstrated their potential: GWAS, single-cell transcriptomics, identification of antigen-specific T cells using scRNA-seq, and FTIR spectroscopy. Although some of the biomarkers, in our opinion, are still limited to a research context or are far from being implemented in clinical diagnostics of T1D, they have the greatest potential of being applied in clinical practice. When integrated with the monitoring of the classical autoimmune diabetes markers, they would increase the sensitivity and specificity during diagnostics of early and preclinical stages of the disease. This critical review aims to evaluate the current landscape of classical and emerging biomarkers in autoimmune diabetes, with a focus on those enabling early detection—prior to extensive destruction of pancreatic islets. Another goal of the review is to focus the attention of the scientific community on the gaps in early T1D diagnostics, and to help in the selection of markers, targets, and methods for scientific studies on creating novel diagnostic panels. Full article

Accurate prediction of photovoltaic performance hinges on resolving the electron density in the P-region and the hole density in the N-region. Motivated by this need, we present a comprehensive assessment of a meshless global radial basis function (RBF) collocation strategy for the steady current continuity equation, covering a one-dimensional two-region P–N junction and a two-dimensional single-region problem. The study employs Gaussian (GA) and generalized multiquadric (GMQ) bases, systematically varying shape parameter and node density, and presents a detailed performance analysis of the meshless method. Results map the accuracy–stability–computation-time landscape: GA achieves faster convergence but over a narrower stability window, whereas GMQ exhibits greater robustness to shape-parameter variation. We identify stability plateaus that preserve accuracy without severe ill-conditioning and quantify the runtime growth inherent to dense global collocation. A utopia-point multi-objective optimization balances error and computation time to yield practical node-count guidance; for the two-dimensional case with equal weighting, an optimum of 19 intervals per side emerges, largely insensitive to the RBF choice. Collectively, the results establish global RBF collocation as a meshless, accurate, and systematically optimizable alternative to conventional mesh-based solvers for high-fidelity carrier-density prediction in P-N junctions, thereby enabling more reliable performance analysis and design of photovoltaic devices. Full article

This paper presents a comprehensive methodology for the multiobjective tuning of MIMO proportional integral derivative (PID) controllers using advanced metaheuristic strategies. The proposed approach formulates a cost function based on two conflicting performance criteria—the integral of absolute error (IAE) and the integral of absolute derivative of control (IADU)—to explore the trade-off between tracking performance and control effort systematically. Three metaheuristic techniques are employed: stochastic hill climbing, a Voronoi-based heuristic, and the Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). A novel Multiobjective Optimization Design (MOOD)-based classification framework is incorporated to facilitate decision making across the Pareto front. The methodology is validated on three benchmark MIMO plants, demonstrating its robustness and generalizability. The results highlight that the NSGA-II controller achieves the lowest IADU value of 0.3694 in the mass damper system while maintaining acceptable performance metrics. The inclusion of a PID-split strategy further enhances system flexibility. This study emphasizes the value of metaheuristics in navigating complex design spaces and delivering tailored control solutions for multiobjective scenarios. Full article