Search Results (13)

This paper introduces the concept of rural mining, defined as the systematic recovery and reuse of construction materials from abandoned rural building stock within a circular economy framework. Although rural depopulation and its consequences have been extensively studied, the material dimension of abandonment, the substantial quantities of construction materials embedded in deserted rural settlements, has received comparatively little systematic analytical attention. Three interconnected contributions respond to this gap. First, the paper operationalizes the concept of rural mining, consolidating a term that remains terminologically rare and theoretically underdeveloped. Second, it develops the Rural Mining Potential Assessment Framework (RMPAF), an original ten-criterion analytical tool spanning the material, infrastructural, legal, economic, institutional, cultural, and technological dimensions of rural mining potential. Third, it articulates an ethical foundation establishing the non-negotiable boundaries of rural mining practice. The RMPAF is applied through a comparative assessment of three European national contexts, Serbia, Slovenia, and Greece, revealing that rural mining potential is neither uniform nor straightforwardly derivable from the scale of depopulation alone. Across all three contexts, ownership fragmentation, the absence of legal recognition, and the lack of dedicated policy instruments emerge as shared structural barriers. Development of operational protocols for culturally mediated rural mining and legal recognition of the concept are identified as priority directions for future action. Full article

Background: While the consumer experience of psychosis has received significant attention in Western research, a substantial gap exists regarding the experiences of women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In this context, religious, cultural, familial, and gender-specific factors uniquely shape the experience of psychosis, help-seeking behaviors, and recovery. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of Saudi women with psychosis across three phases: first-episode onset, hospitalization or follow-up, and community living after discharge. Methods: This hermeneutic phenomenological study, guided by van Manen’s methodology, employed all six lifeworld existentials: lived space, lived body, lived time, lived self-other, lived thing, and lived cyborg. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 women diagnosed with psychosis at two hospitals in Riyadh, KSA. Data collection included 13 audio-recorded interviews and eight documented via field notes, supplemented by creative methods such as drawings, poems, and written texts analyzed using van Manen’s vocative method. All Arabic data were professionally translated and verified for accuracy. Results: Three overarching themes emerged. First, women’s lived experiences of first-episode psychosis highlighted the process of understanding causes and developing insight during onset. Second, experiences during admission and follow-up revealed the impact of clinical encounters, nursing care, and the critical need for therapeutic healing spaces. Third, living with psychosis in the community emphasized the complexities of medication adherence, family dynamics, and the pursuit of recovery through education, employment, and religious practice. Conclusions: The participants articulated user-based recovery perspectives, including empowerment, shared decision-making, and hope, which contrasted sharply with the service-based approaches they received. Culturally specific stressors and pervasive stigma shaped every phase of their journey. To the authors’ knowledge, no prior study has examined this population using a hermeneutic phenomenological framework; these findings provide a women-focused, culturally situated evidence base for developing gender-specific recovery models and enhanced discharge planning within the KSA mental health system. Full article

Healthcare systems operate in safety-critical environments where rapid adaptation and sustained functioning must occur simultaneously, yet existing safety frameworks tend to conceptualise agility and resilience as separate, sequential, or retrospective capabilities. This conceptual separation limits understanding of how safety is enacted during disruption, when healthcare workers and organisations must respond in real time without temporal or structural buffers. This paper introduces agilience as an emerging conceptual construct that captures the concurrent enactment of agility (rapid adaptation) and resilience (sustained functioning, recovery, and learning) under conditions of uncertainty. Drawing on safety science, resilience engineering, organisational theory, and comparative industry literature, this conceptual commentary clarifies how agilience extends existing Safety-I and Safety-II paradigms by addressing the temporal gap between prevention-focused and learning-focused approaches. Agilience is positioned as both an explanatory lens and an aspirational organisational state, highlighting the alignment required between individual adaptive capability and organisational structures to support safe, sustainable care delivery. The paper outlines the defining features, boundaries, and system conditions under which agilience becomes visible, and illustrates its relevance through healthcare examples. By articulating agilience as a distinct conceptual contribution, this work provides a foundation for future empirical investigation, measurement development, and application in healthcare safety management. Full article

Accurate collision detection in off-line robot simulation is essential for ensuring safety in modern manufacturing. However, current simulation environments often neglect flexible components such as wire harnesses, which are attached to articulated robots with irregular slack to accommodate motion. Because these components are rarely modeled in CAD, the absence of accurate 3D harness models leads to discrepancies between simulated and actual robot behavior, which sometimes result in physical interference or damage. This paper addresses this limitation by introducing a fully automated framework for extracting, segmenting, and reconstructing 3D wire-harness models directly from dense, partially occluded point clouds captured by terrestrial laser scanners. The key contribution lies in a motion-aware segmentation strategy that classifies harnesses into static and dynamic parts based on their physical attachment to robot links, enabling realistic motion simulation. To reconstruct complex geometries from incomplete data, we further propose a dual reconstruction scheme: an OBB-tree-based method for robust centerline recovery of unbranched cables and a Reeb-graph-based method for preserving topological consistency in branched structures. The experimental results on multiple industrial robots demonstrate that the proposed approach can generate high-fidelity 3D harness models suitable for collision detection and digital-twin simulation, even under severe data occlusions. These findings close a long-standing gap between geometric sensing and physics-based robot simulation in real factory environments. Full article

Rehabilitation after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction cannot be reduced to a linear, time-based sequence of protection, strength, and return to sport. Persistent asymmetries, quadriceps inhibition, and variable re-injury rates highlight that recovery is a complex adaptive process in which outcomes emerge from dynamic interactions between biological, neural, and psychological subsystems. Grounded in complexity science and chaos theory, this editorial reframes rehabilitation as the regulation of variability rather than its suppression. The Control–Chaos Continuum provides a practical structure to translate this concept into progressive exposure, where clinicians dose uncertainty as a therapeutic stimulus. Adaptive periodization replaces rigid stages with overlapping macro-blocks that respond to readiness, feedback, and context. Neuroplastic mechanisms and ecological dynamics justify the deliberate introduction of controlled “noise” to foster coordination, confidence, and resilience. Ultimately, the goal is not perfect control but stable performance under variability—the ability to function “at the edge of chaos.” This conceptual perspective articulates a clinically actionable framework—linking the Control–Chaos Continuum with adaptive periodization—to guide non-linear decision-making and safe return-to-sport. Full article

Tourism and climate change have a two-way relation. Spatial planning can challenge this correlation, by making tourism destinations more resilient to climate change and tourism contributing less to the climate change acceleration. Based on literature review and theoretical research, this paper unravels the spatial structure of tourism destinations and presents systematically the way tourism affects—and is affected by—climate change. The objective of this paper is to articulate policy and planning recommendations and guidelines to address resilience against climate change at all destination scales. The paper identifies as most threatened the destinations facing extreme weather events, temperature fluctuations, and sea level rise (and more precisely the coastal and mountainous destinations), followed by areas facing water shortage and droughts, areas with fragile tourism resources (natural and cultural), and those experiencing overtourism. In regard to spatial planning for tourism (cross-cutting or sectoral), the paper argues that it has a proactive nature (making tourism destinations less vulnerable to climate change) but also can contribute to the earlier recovery of them after a disaster/damage has occurred. Spatial planning is also important for moderating the uncontrolled tourism growth responsible for climate change acceleration. A key conclusion is that a risk assessment and analysis should be an integral part of spatial tourism planning, focusing on the hazards and threats related to climate change. Full article

Among the important tasks of Trinitarian theology today is the need to rethink its basic conceptual coordinates. This contribution is a proposal for a phenomenological and existential approach to Trinitarian theology. The starting point is the analysis of three essential existential operators, by means of which the depth of the filial experience of Jesus is expressed. These operators are: being, having, and entering into relations. Their analysis in light of the data of the Gospel narrative allows us to create an interesting conceptual framework for a new articulation of the Trinitarian discourse. The article builds on the conviction that the concrete shapes and modalities of Jesus’ life are essential moments of the revelation of the Trinity. Before it is simultaneously closed and opened in concrete historical forms of discourse and in concrete metaphysical concepts, it is accomplished in the categorical decisions, actions, and words of Jesus, in which his filial consciousness is revealed. The ambition of the text is to reintroduce metaphysics into theology, however, from a different perspective than was conducted, for example, by classical scholasticism. It is about the existential recovery of metaphysical potential in theology. Revelation takes place in history and in the concrete of life. The metaphysics that theology needs must realize this and, above all, be up to the task of pointing to the living, historical center of Revelation and all theology. The article argues that such an existential deepening of metaphysics for Trinitarian theology can be conducted through collaboration with phenomenology. In such a perspective, the fragments of Jesus’ life, especially his way of being, having, and entering into relations, are ways in which the Trinity reveals itself in history. In this way, Trinitarian theology ceases to be a mere intellectual puzzle, becoming an existential paradigm, and the fragments of Revelation reveal an impressive structure in which speculation and life become integral paths toward the Mystery. On the formal side, the text argues for the integration and use of both metaphysics and phenomenology in Trinitarian theology to enhance its existential impact. This in turn implies a rethinking of how metaphysics, phenomenology, and theology itself are usually understood as well. Full article

Cybersecurity protects cyberspace from a wide range of cyber threats to reduce overall business risk, ensure business continuity, and maximize business opportunities and return on investments. Cybersecurity is well achieved by using appropriate sets of security governance frameworks. To this end, various Information Technology (IT) and cybersecurity governance frameworks have been reviewed along with their benefits and limitations. The major limitations of the reviewed frameworks are; they are complex and have complicated structures to implement, they are expensive and require high skill IT and security professionals. Moreover, the frameworks require many requirement checklists for implementation and auditing purposes and a lot of time and resources. To fill the limitations mentioned above, a simple, dynamic, and adaptive cybersecurity governance framework is proposed that provides security related strategic direction, ensures that security risks are managed appropriately, and ensures that organizations’ resources are utilized optimally. The framework incorporated different components not considered in the existing frameworks, such as research and development, public-private collaboration framework, regional and international cooperation framework, incident management, business continuity, disaster recovery frameworks, and compliance with laws and regulations. Moreover, the proposed framework identifies and includes some of the existing frameworks’ missed and overlapped components, processes, and activities. It has nine components, five activities, four outcomes, and seven processes. Performance metrics, evaluation, and monitoring techniques are also proposed. Moreover, it follows a risk based approach to address the current and future technology and threat landscapes. The design science research method was used in this research study to solve the problem mentioned. Using the design science research method, the problem was identified. Based on the problem, research objectives were articulated; the objective of this research was solved by developing a security governance framework considering different factors which were not addressed in the current works. Finally, performance metrics were proposed to evaluate the implementation of the governance framework. Full article

Morphing technology is increasingly emerging as a novel and alternative approach for performing the controlled re-entry and precise landing of space vehicles by using adaptive aeroshell structure designs. This work is intended as a preliminary conceptual design of an innovative shape-changing mechanism for the controlled re-entry and safe recovery of CubeSat class systems aimed at recovering payloads and data from LEO at low cost for post flight inspections and experimentations. Such an adaptive and mechanically deployable aeroshell consists of a multi-hinge assembly based on a set of finger-like articulations having two-modal capabilities. The deployable surface can be modulated by a single translational actuator in order to adapt the lift-to-drag ratio for guided entry. Furthermore, once deployed, the system can activate eight small movable aerodynamic flaps that can be individually morphed via an SMA-based actuation to enhance the capsule maneuverability during the re-entry trajectory, by using exclusively aerodynamic forces to guarantee additional precision in landing. Multi-body simulations on retraction/deployment of the system are addressed to investigate the most critical aspects for actual implementation of the concept. Additionally, the morphing behavior and the control effect of the shape memory alloy actuation are preliminary assessed through parametric analysis. This paper is framed within a scientific cooperation between Italy and Brazil in the framework of the SPLASH project, funded in part for the Italian side by a grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), and by CONFAP through the involved State Funding Agencies (FAPs) for the Brazilian side. Full article

Recent recoveries of peptide sequences from two Cretaceous dinosaur bones require paleontologists to rethink traditional notions about how fossilization occurs. As part of this shifting paradigm, several research groups have recently begun attempting to characterize biomolecular decay and stabilization pathways in diverse paleoenvironmental and diagenetic settings. To advance these efforts, we assessed the taphonomic and geochemical history of Brachylophosaurus canadensis specimen MOR 2598, the left femur of which was previously found to retain endogenous cells, tissues, and structural proteins. Combined stratigraphic and trace element data show that after brief fluvial transport, this articulated hind limb was buried in a sandy, likely-brackish, estuarine channel. During early diagenesis, percolating groundwaters stagnated within the bones, forming reducing internal microenvironments. Recent exposure and weathering also caused the surficial leaching of trace elements from the specimen. Despite these shifting redox regimes, proteins within the bones were able to survive through diagenesis, attesting to their remarkable resiliency over geologic time. Synthesizing our findings with other recent studies reveals that oxidizing conditions in the initial ~48 h postmortem likely promote molecular stabilization reactions and that the retention of early-diagenetic trace element signatures may be a useful proxy for molecular recovery potential. Full article

Resilience plays an important role in improving robustness for robots in harsh environments such as planetary exploration and unstructured terrains. As a naturally compliant structure, tensegrity presents advantageous flexibility for enhancing resilience in robotic applications according to existing research. However, tensegrity robots to date are normally based on monolithic morphologies and are slow in locomotion. In this paper, we demonstrate how we adopt such flexibility to improve the robustness of wheeled robots by articulating modules with tensegrity mechanisms. The test results reveal the robot is resistant and resilient to external hazards in a fully passive manner owing to the continuous elasticity in the structure network. It possesses a good number of DoFs and can adapt to various terrains easily either with actuation or not. The robot is also capable of crawling locomotion aside from wheeled locomotion to traverse uneven surfaces and provide self-recovery from rollovers. It demonstrates good robustness and mobility at the same time compared with existing tensegrity robots and shows the competitiveness with conventional rigid robots in harsh scenarios. The proposed robot presents the capability of tensegrity robots with resilience, robustness, agility, and mobility without compromise. In a broader perspective, it widens the potential of tensegrity robots in practical applications. Full article

Cranioplasty is a procedure performed to repair defects in the human skull bone by surgically reconstructing the shape and function of the cranium. Several complications, both intraoperative and postoperative, can affect the procedure’s outcome (e.g., inaccuracies of the reconstructed shape, infections, ulcer, necrosis). Although the design of additive manufactured implants in a preoperative stage has improved the general quality of cranioplasties, potential complications remain significant, especially in the presence of critical skin tissue conditions. In this paper, an innovative procedure to improve the chances of a positive outcome when facing critical conditions in a cranioplasty is described. The proposed approach relies on a structured planning phase articulated in a series of digital analyses and physical simulations performed on personalized medical devices that guide the surgeon in defining surgical cuts and designing the implant. The ultimate goal is to improve the chances of a positive outcome and a fast recovery for the patient. The procedure, described in extenso in the paper, was positively tested on a cranioplasty case study, which presented high risk factors. Full article

Recovery of articulated 3D structure from 2D observations is a challenging computer vision problem with many applications. Current learning-based approaches achieve state-of-the-art accuracy on public benchmarks but are restricted to specific types of objects and motions covered by the training datasets. Model-based approaches do not rely on training data but show lower accuracy on these datasets. In this paper, we introduce a model-based method called Structure from Articulated Motion (SfAM), which can recover multiple object and motion types without training on extensive data collections. At the same time, it performs on par with learning-based state-of-the-art approaches on public benchmarks and outperforms previous non-rigid structure from motion (NRSfM) methods. SfAM is built upon a general-purpose NRSfM technique while integrating a soft spatio-temporal constraint on the bone lengths. We use alternating optimization strategy to recover optimal geometry (i.e., bone proportions) together with 3D joint positions by enforcing the bone lengths consistency over a series of frames. SfAM is highly robust to noisy 2D annotations, generalizes to arbitrary objects and does not rely on training data, which is shown in extensive experiments on public benchmarks and real video sequences. We believe that it brings a new perspective on the domain of monocular 3D recovery of articulated structures, including human motion capture. Full article