Search Results (1,286)

This article explores, within the historical context of two-way exchanges between Chinese and Arab-Islamic civilizations, the profound relationship between the communal ethos embedded in these traditions and the construction of a “community with a shared future for mankind.” By examining and comparing the “Tianxia worldview” and the wisdom of “harmony and integration” in Chinese civilization with the concept of “Ummah” and the peace-oriented ideal of “Salam” in Islamic civilization, this study reveals deep commonalities. Both civilizations share a focus on humanity’s collective well-being, the establishment of a moral order, the assumption of ethical responsibilities, and the management of the relationship between diversity and unity. The research demonstrates that the concept of a “community with a shared future for mankind” is deeply rooted in the philosophical traditions of both civilizations; it represents a modern transformation and integrated innovation of their core spirits. As such, it provides essential intellectual resources and practical pathways for transcending Western-centric governance paradigms, promoting substantive civilizational dialogue, and building a more just and inclusive global order. Full article

The United Nations 2030 Agenda often employs universalist metrics that overlook situated territorial ontologies. This study analyzes the Reverdece Association in Ráquira, Colombia, where an evolving self-determined peasant-mestizo family has articulated a model of resilience rooted in a Muisca-inspired worldview. Utilizing Participatory Action Research (PAR) and qualitative modeling in ATLAS.ti 26, this research examines how community practices generate functional sustainability outcomes. The findings reveal that the association’s efficiency stems from a “Coherence Framework” that synchronizes Identity (Being), Social Agency (Doing), and an Economy of Rootedness (Having). Central to this operational logic is the community making resource management decisions based on direct, somatic interactions with the landscape—such as evaluating fiber quality or water cycles—rather than relying on abstract market signals. By intentionally prioritizing long-term permanence, the association demonstrates that ecological regeneration is a natural outcome of their daily practices. This study concludes that community-led initiatives are more successful in achieving global sustainability goals than top-down institutional interventions. By recognizing situated epistemologies as valid forms of knowledge, the research suggests that the most resilient approaches to sustainability emerge from a collective commitment to regenerate ecosystems and maintain a dignified life within the territory. This indicates that locally grounded practices can complement and, in some cases, surpass standardized global indicators. Full article

This paper argues for the Catholic Church to receive and nurture the synod on synodality toward transformative decolonization through stronger and humbler engagement with Indigenous communities (primarily from North and South America) and their worldviews that parallel, augment, or challenge ecclesial doctrines and praxes laid out in the synod. The paper will first analyze the trend toward decolonization in the synodal process and then propose two clear opportunities for decolonial synodality informed by Catholic–Indigenous dialogue: the church as the people of God and as a community firmly rooted in and attentive to local contexts and, thus, place and space. Following these areas of relative harmony, the paper will highlight two regions likely to produce tension. The first is the significantly different worldviews of Indigenous cultures from the West that still dominate the church’s vision, language, and practice. The second is the possible refusal of Indigenous individuals or communities to engage in an “ecclesiology of recognition” that seeks to “include” Indigenous people and perspectives while exploiting them without challenging or changing the imperial and colonial heritages of Christianity. The paper will end by reaffirming the worth and necessity of decolonial synodality imagined, explored, and realized in creative and tense relationships with Indigenous communities. Full article

Defining professional youth work and its activities presents a challenge for developing international consensus in the university level training and education of professional youth workers. This research is concerned with the question of ‘how youth work students in universities are educated and prepared for professional youth work practice, and, in particular, with diverse young people’. The article presents research examining the experiences of those undertaking the education and training of professional youth workers in universities located in five countries: Estonia, Croatia, Macedonia, Ireland and Australia. Educators from a university in each of the five participating countries completed a survey on the content and underpinning values of their course, and educators from each university participated in a focus group interview discussing their motivations to teach youth work, theoretical underpinnings, and pedagogical practices. The article finds that across the five national contexts there is broad agreement among the university youth work educators that youth work is a ‘social and critical pedagogic’ practice with a commitment to broad values of ‘social justice’ and ‘social inclusion’ for young people. However, the specific expression of these concepts differs depending on the national context, often influenced by historical and political events. The personal values, worldviews, and biographies of youth work educators play a role, both in the conception of themselves as educators, as well as their motivations and teaching practice. Educators also stressed the importance of youth work as a profession and distinct academic discipline, especially in the context of neoliberal pressures in universities that seek to conflate youth work with similar disciplines and areas of study. Full article

This study addresses the long-standing scholarly debate regarding the relationship between the thought of Rabbi Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel, known as the Maharal of Prague, 1512–1609, and the Kabbalistic tradition. While many scholars categorize the Maharal as a philosopher or suggest a stance of indifference toward Kabbalah, we argue that his conception of the Torah is fundamentally rooted in a Kabbalistic worldview. Through a meticulous textual analysis of Chapter 13 of Tiferet Israel a programmatic chapter featuring the work’s title and its only explicit Zoharic citation—we compare his teachings with earlier authorities such as R. Moshe Cordovero and R. Isaac Arama. Our analysis demonstrates that the Maharal employs a philosophical idiom to conceal mystical foundations, envisioning the Torah as a living organism with layered dimensions—garment, body, and soul. We contend that his emphasis on devekut (cleaving) through Torah study shifts the focus from intellectual apprehension to a magico-spiritual attachment. These findings situate the Maharal within the concealed Kabbalistic milieu of the sixteenth century and suggest a structural synthesis between homiletic and esoteric traditions. Full article

Although spiritual care has developed within Christian cultures, in Japan, Buddhism has shaped people’s views on life and death and their understanding of suffering. To our knowledge, concrete practices of spiritual care in Buddhism have not been adequately documented. This study aims to describe spiritual care from the perspective of Japanese Buddhism. A literature search was conducted using the literature databases Ichushi-Web, J-STAGE, and CiNii Research. Qualitative content analysis based on Graneheim & Lundman was performed on 19 articles related to Buddhism and spiritual care. Six categories were extracted: “Fundamental involvement that supports the meaning and value of life in the face of death,” “Involvement that accepts and shares life narratives and emotions as they are,” “Respect for and involvement with a person-centered worldview,” “Practice of mutual transformation in helping relationships,” “Involvement that supports understanding suffering and self-liberation,” and “Involvement that supports life and death through Buddhist teachings and prayers.” From a Buddhist perspective, spiritual care has a multilayered structure grounded in the relationships among patients, care providers, and families or communities. It involves a process of mutual transformation and insight into suffering, and integrative support through Buddhist practices. Furthermore, it is realized not merely through individual meaning-making but through coexistence within relationships with others. This finding presents a new perspective on spiritual care based on relationships and practice. Full article

Pansharpening plays an important role in remote sensing image processing. Its purpose is to fuse a high-spatial-resolution panchromatic (PAN) image and a low-spatial-resolution multispectral (LRMS) image, thereby reconstructing a high-resolution multispectral (HRMS) image with both high spatial clarity and high spectral fidelity. In recent years, diffusion models have shown great potential in image generation. However, existing diffusion-based pansharpening methods usually adopt a fixed denoising strategy, making it difficult to adapt to the stage-wise changes in the denoising process and complex degradation distributions. Based on this, we propose PanDiM, an efficient generative framework for pansharpening. Specifically, we reformulate pansharpening as a high-frequency residual restoration process constrained by multimodal conditions. To improve the response accuracy of the model in complex regions, we design a Degradation-Posterior Guidance Module (DPGM), which extracts dual-scale physical detail priors from the PAN image, explicitly infers the degradation posterior, and converts it into dynamic control variables to adaptively regulate the state evolution of Mamba. In addition, we propose a time-aware mechanism, which allows temporal information to directly intervene in posterior estimation and state-space modeling, so as to accurately match the modeling requirements of different denoising stages. Considering the characteristics of residual reconstruction, we further propose a frequency-decoupled loss (FDL), which separates low- and high-frequency components in the frequency domain and applies targeted constraints. This significantly enhances the model’s ability to represent textures and achieves more robust spectral fidelity. Extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets, including WorldView-3, GaoFen-2, and QuickBird, show that PanDiM significantly outperforms existing mainstream methods in both reduced-resolution and full-resolution evaluations, providing a new solution for high-fidelity pansharpening in complex scenarios. Full article

Methane ($C{H}_4$) is the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas, accounting for approximately 30% of current global warming. Since 2007, atmospheric methane concentrations have been increasing at an accelerating rate, reaching a record 1945.85 ppb in November 2025. The emergence of high-resolution satellite constellations has transformed our ability to detect, quantify, and attribute methane emissions from space. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the current state of high-resolution global methane mapping, examining: (1) the evolution of satellite missions from coarse-resolution sounders like TROPOMI (5.5 × 7 km) to very high-resolution imagers including WorldView-3 (3.7 m), GHGSat (50 m), and the recently launched Tanager-1 (30 m); (2) advances in retrieval algorithms, including the transition from physics-based matched filter methods to deep learning approaches such as U-Net architectures achieving F1-scores of 78.4% on Sentinel-2 imagery; (3) integration of satellite observations with atmospheric inverse models for flux estimation; (4) the impact of satellite-derived data on policy frameworks including the Global Methane Pledge and EPA’s Super-Emitter Program; and (5) remaining challenges including cloud contamination, detection limit trade-offs, and the need for sustained validation networks. We synthesize findings from over 200 peer-reviewed studies and analyze 42 years of NOAA global methane observations to demonstrate how the convergence of improved spatial resolution, machine learning, and international coordination is enabling unprecedented transparency in global methane monitoring. The review concludes with recommendations for future satellite missions and data assimilation strategies needed to meet the Global Methane Pledge target of 30% emission reductions by 2030. Full article

Mining of sulfide-rich deposits enhances the oxidation of sulfide minerals, generating acid mine drainage (AMD) characterized by high sulphate and dissolved metal concentrations and the formation of secondary iron minerals (hematite, goethite, and jarosite). As these minerals display diagnostic features in the visible–near-infrared (VNIR) region, multispectral satellite data provide a cost-effective means of monitoring. Here, the performances of Sentinel-2 and the VNIR bands from WorldView-3 are assessed and compared for the mapping and discrimination of secondary iron minerals in Sierra Minera de Cartagena–La Unión (SE Spain). Both datasets were analyzed using a band ratio and a parabola fitting technique focused on reflectance maxima. Band ratio results were interpreted as broad spectral patterns rather than definitive mineral identifications. Mineral maps were validated by applying X-ray diffraction on 74 surface soil samples. Although both sensors were able to reproduce the main spatial patterns of iron mineral distribution, Sentinel-2 data better discriminated hematite, goethite, and jarosite, especially when using the parabola fitting approach, whereas WorldView-3 VNIR data distinguished mainly hematite from the combined goethite–jarosite group. The better performance of Sentinel-2 is attributed to its red-edge and near-infrared band configuration. These findings indicate that freely available Sentinel-2 imagery can support systematic monitoring of oxidation processes in mining environments and contribute to environmental risk assessment in degraded landscapes. Full article

The rapid development of deep learning methods has significantly improved the effectiveness of object detection in Earth Observation (EO) imagery. However, standard metrics such as Mean Average Precision (mAP) do not fully reflect their utility in operational analyses. This paper proposes a multi-stage methodology for evaluating vehicle detection models, combining classical evaluation with functional analysis encompassing object counting, density estimation, and occupancy index. The research was conducted on high-resolution imagery (WorldView, Pleiades) and the xView dataset, evaluating five YOLO variants alongside transformer-based and two-stage detectors under three training strategies, including fine-tuning. The results show that models achieving high mAP values (up to 0.952) can simultaneously produce significant errors in object count estimation. Models trained exclusively on xView exhibit a substantial performance drop (mAP@0.50 ≈ 0.45) under domain shift conditions. The best results were obtained using a fusion-based approach combining YOLOv9 and YOLOv12, which reduced the mean relative error to 0.14 and the counting error to 13 objects, maintaining a low density error (0.0023). Functional validation across 20 parking areas confirmed the stability of the proposed approach. The findings confirm that functional analysis constitutes a critical complement to classical evaluation in remote sensing applications. Full article

Over the past fifty years, urban and rural spaces have been reshaped by global sustainability policies, digital innovation, and emerging socio-ecological needs. This article investigates the convergence of agro-urban planning strategies, Smart City infrastructures, and adaptive governance models, proposing an integrated agro-urban paradigm for sustainable territorial transformation. Drawing on a literature review and comparative analysis of international case studies—including Toronto, Milan, and Woven City—the research develops a triadic interpretative framework based on worldview, program, and faith. The study identifies AgroCities as systems centered on food sovereignty and ecological resilience, Smart Cities as efficiency-driven digital ecosystems, and Adaptive Cities as flexible, human-centered responses to complexity. Findings suggest that integrating food systems, technological innovation, and participatory governance enhances urban resilience and sustainability across scales. The article concludes by advocating for multi-scalar planning tools, cross-sectoral policies, and civic engagement to support the transition toward inclusive and regenerative cities. This framework offers a theoretical and operational contribution to reimagining urban planning in line with the principles of Smart Land and adaptive urbanism. Full article

This study investigates life satisfaction in Greek adults and its association with personal values (PVQ-RR), religiosity, and self-evaluation dimensions, such as general self-efficacy, metacognitive dimensions of general self-efficacy, and four personality dispositions following Rohner’s Interpersonal Acceptance–Rejection Theory (IPARTheory). Data were collected online (N = 706 adults, 72.4% females). The mean age was 28.27 (SD = 12.06), while 74.10% of the participants reported currently staying in urban locations; 66.3% were students, and 43% were married or in a relationship. The main aims were to: (a) identify the structure of personal values in conjunction with religiosity, self-evaluation measures, personality dispositions (negative self-esteem, negative self-adequacy, emotional instability, and negative worldview), and life satisfaction and (b) examine the causal pathways from self-evaluation measures and religiosity to life satisfaction, mediated by higher-order personal values and co-existing personality dispositions. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the structure for the higher-order personal value dimensions—Self-Transcendence, Self-Enhancement, Openness to Change, and Conservation—as combined with single constructs for personality dispositions and self-evaluation. Further results indicated a small partial mediating effect of the higher-order values of Self-Transcendence and Self-Enhancement on the relationship between general self-efficacy and life satisfaction. A religiosity–life satisfaction relation was also mediated through the Self-Transcendence higher-order value. Full article

Women-centred motifs in African rock art form part of the most persistent symbolic repertoire of early cosmologies. Despite their prominence, these figures have received limited sustained analysis. Examination of their contexts reveals four recurrent logics—care, regeneration, boundary mediation, and the social encoding of voice—that structure social and ritual life. A comparative case from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple shows these logics rearticulated in the narrative of Celie’s self-awakening, demonstrating the afterlives of symbolic forms. This perspective clarifies the role of female imagery as a structuring element of cosmology and offers a heuristic for integrating rock-art studies with broader cross-temporal analysis. Full article

Remote sensing has become a key non-invasive tool in archaeological prospection, particularly in regions where logistical constraints limit sustained fieldwork. This study presents the results from Zar Tepe (1st–5th centuries AD), in the Surkhandarya province of southern Uzbekistan, within northwestern Bactria. The research aimed to document the site’s urban layout, accurately relocate Soviet-era excavation sectors within the present-day topography, and refine the interpretation of earlier interventions that were only partially documented and lacked precise georeferencing. A multiscale and multitemporal methodology was applied, integrating CORONA and WorldView-3 satellite imagery, UAV and terrestrial photogrammetry, GNSS Precise Point Positioning, magnetic prospection, and targeted archaeological verification. The workflow followed an iterative laboratory–field sequence, combining remote-sensing analysis, field checks, data refinement, and systematic ground-truth validation. Fieldwork was conducted during two contrasting phenological periods, in June 2024 and December 2025, to assess seasonal variability in surface and subsurface visibility. The integrated approach enabled the accurate spatial fitting of legacy excavation sectors and supported the cross-validation of optical and salt-efflorescence-related anomalies with geophysical evidence. These results provide a stronger basis for the cautious interpretation of buried architectural features and for refining hypotheses concerning Zar Tepe’s urban organization and occupational dynamics. Full article

Post-industrial waterfront regeneration can improve environmental quality and public space, but it may also produce green gentrification and unequal access to regeneration benefits. To support socially responsive planning evaluation, this study examines how green gentrification is spatially manifested and how residents perceive and support waterfront green space development in Shanghai’s Yangpu Riverside. A sequential mixed-methods design combines census, housing price, and green space data from 2000 to 2020 with 317 resident questionnaires. The study identifies socio-spatial changes associated with green gentrification, cross-culturally adapts and validates the Gentrification Worldview Instrument (GWI), and examines the associations among gentrification worldviews, place attachment, and support for green space development. Results show no statistically significant relative acceleration in housing price growth in near-waterfront neighborhoods during the regeneration period, but reveal an expanding housing price premium, educational upgrading, and population decline. These patterns are consistent with a spatially differentiated tendency toward green gentrification embedded in the broader state-led waterfront regeneration process, rather than demonstrating an independent effect of greenbelt construction. The Chinese-adapted GWI retains the three dimensions of neighborhood preservation, development support, and social integration. Among surveyed residents, development support and place identity are positively associated with support for waterfront green space development, whereas neighborhood preservation is negatively associated with support. The results further indicate a statistical mediation pattern in which place identity forms a significant indirect association between development support and support for green space development. The findings provide an evidence-based framework for evaluating inclusive waterfront regeneration and suggest that planning and design should integrate green space accessibility, local memory, residents’ perceptions, and social equity. Full article