Search Results (443)

This article analyzes how twentieth- and twenty-first-century Afro-Colombian women poets from the Pacific region challenge and reframe the feminization of the land and the naturalization of the Black female body within colonial and Eurocentric epistemologies. Drawing on a framework that conceptualizes body, territory, spirituality, and community as an interdependent continuum, the article conducts close textual analysis to demonstrate how these poets construct territory and the Black female body as sentient sites. These sites are simultaneously shaped by historical violence, forced displacement, extractive economies, and racialized gender constructs, while preserving ancestral knowledge and collective memory. The findings show that Valencia Córdoba develops the body–territory through metaphor and anaphora as a generative space; Grueso Romero deploys orality and the sea as transatlantic archives of ancestry and identity; and Truque articulates urban displacement as an ontological rupture that affects memory and Black subjectivity. Ultimately, the article advances the concept of body–territory as a decolonial aesthetic and analytical tool through which Afro-Colombian women’s poetry articulates environmental justice, gendered racialization, and forms of resistance within the Afrodiasporic diaspora. Full article

Electromagnetic spectrum planning is a critical challenge in modern wireless communication systems, characterized by multiple conflicting objectives including spectrum utilization efficiency, interference minimization, and fairness among users. This paper proposes an Enhanced Discrete Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (EDMOPSO) algorithm specifically designed for spectrum assignment problems. The proposed method introduces a novel probabilistic discrete velocity update mechanism with adaptive dynamic bounds, an adaptive inertia weight strategy based on normalized population diversity, and an improved archiving technique with enhanced diversity preservation. To handle the discrete nature of spectrum allocation, we develop a binary encoding scheme combined with a problem-specific repair mechanism for constraint satisfaction. The algorithm is evaluated on both synthetic benchmark problems and real-world spectrum planning scenarios. Experimental results demonstrate that EDMOPSO achieves competitive performance advantages over seven established multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, with Hypervolume improvements of 18.7% and Inverted Generational Distance reductions of 23.4% compared to the second-best-performing algorithm. A comprehensive ablation study with 15 configurations validates the synergistic interaction between components. The proposed method provides an effective solution for macro-level periodic spectrum management in complex electromagnetic environments. Full article

(1) Background: Climate change and inequality are topics of major interest in Mediterranean Archaeology. However, comparatively less attention has been dedicated to how these themes are interlinked in the literature. No scoping review has ever addressed this issue. This study aims to identify major research trends on inequality and climate change in the Mediterranean c. 4000 BC–AD 500. It also pinpoints current research gaps on the topic and nascent areas of enquiry. (2) Method: We performed a scoping review on JSTOR, Scopus, Google Scholar and PubMed in December 2025–January 2026. A modified version of the PRISMA-ScR protocol was followed. We sampled journal articles, book chapters, edited volumes and monographs published between 2015 and 2025 which matched the search and inclusion criteria. Additional searches were done on Google Scholar in February 2026 to expand upon emerging research trends relevant to our topic but largely absent from the scoping review. We manually extracted, charted, analysed and synthesised the data. (3) Results: A total of 154 studies were eligible for the scoping review. We identified six research trends prominent in the sampled literature: 1. the rise and fall of world systems, macroscale causal links, and collapse research; 2. inequality, subalternity, and marginality; 3. agriculture, crops, and diet; 4. natural resource management, and water supply; 5. epistemology and methodology; and 6. natural archives and climate proxy datasets. We also recognised the following research gaps or topics that were comparatively less addressed: collapse research applied to the microscale level and marginalised communities; isotope analysis applied to both climate change and inequality in the same study; biomedical approaches applied to both climate change and inequality in the same study; social marginality as a complex construct in human–climate interactions; and the environmental and climate dimensions of the early Roman expansion, especially regarding marginality and the microscale. Finally, we identified artificial intelligence (AI), Big Data, environmental and climate activism, and the perception of climate hazards by subaltern communities as nascent topics of interest that might rise to prominence in the future. (4) Conclusions: We identified major research trends and gaps on climate change and inequality in the ancient Mediterranean in literature published 2015–2025. We also recognised nascent or unexplored topics. The review is intended as a benchmark for developing novel research on the cutting-edge of Mediterranean Archaeology. Full article

Support professionals in organizational domains—encompassing information technology, administrative services, human resources, and records and archives management (RAM)—confront enduring obstacles, including peripheral status, interdisciplinary coordination imperatives, and standards proliferation. This conceptual synthesis investigates how congruence with Management System Standards (MSSs) can alleviate these predicaments by advancing system-level integration across support areas. Rooted in General Systems Theory, the inquiry scrutinizes ISO standards from pivotal technical committees and 2024 ISO Survey adoption metrics. It accentuates the voluminous standards burdening support functions and the attendant systemic complexity. The communal Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA) cycle and High-Level Structure (HLS) of MSSs are framed as unifying instruments that diminish fragmentation and augment coherence. Employing RAM as the principal exemplar, the examination discloses constrained alignment with overarching MSSs despite vigorous global embrace of standards like ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO/IEC 27001. A succinct conceptual model is advanced to depict how PDCA and HLS can interlink support subsystems with organizational objectives. The study underscores strategic harmonization to amplify the prominence of underappreciated support roles, with ramifications for information technology (IT), human resources (HR), and administrative services. Recommendations are proffered for standards developers, practitioners, and professional associations, as well as educators, complemented by avenues for future empirical scholarship. Full article

StoryMapping has emerged as an accessible geotechnological approach that combines spatial analysis, interactive cartography and digital storytelling to communicate urban landscape transformations. This study aims to demonstrate the methodological potential of StoryMaps for integrating historical cartography, GIS-based analysis and narrative visualisation to explain long-term urban landscape change in an accessible and scientifically rigorous way. Using a case study of Madrid, the research integrates more than 150 years of historical maps, georeferenced images and thematic GIS layers to visualise shifts in blue–green infrastructures, land-use patterns and morphological configurations. The methodology includes the compilation of historical cartographic sources, GIS processing of contemporary datasets, georeferencing of archival materials and the construction of an interactive narrative using ArcGIS Pro 3.6 StoryMaps. Results show that StoryMapping enhances public understanding of complex urban processes, supports participatory planning, and provides a bridge between technical analyses and community engagement. The study concludes that StoryMapping is not only a powerful communication tool but also a valuable geotechnological solution for sustainable landscape planning, complementing traditional GIS approaches and promoting interdisciplinary perspectives in urban studies. Full article

Aims: To assess echocardiographic practice within a regional healthcare system. The Emilia-Romagna region, a high-performing, digitally advanced context, was therefore used as a “stress test” setting in which observed heterogeneity is unlikely to be overestimated. Methods: A region-wide census of echocardiography laboratories collected data on governance, staffing, workflow, digital infrastructure, and imaging capabilities. A 5-item structural–digital readiness index (0–5) included: Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) archiving, structured reporting, Electronic Health Record (EHR) integration, availability of advanced echocardiographic tools, and an appointment slot for transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) of ≥20 min. High quality was defined as ≥4. Logistic regression identified independent predictors. Results: Of 148 centers, 122 (82%) responded, reporting 294,156 TTEs in 2023 (range < 500 to >15,000 per center); 46% were accredited private centers. Public institutions showed greater digital maturity than private centers (p < 0.001), with higher PACS availability and structured reporting. Overall, 86% reported ≥ 20 min per examination. Advanced modalities were unevenly distributed: left ventricular strain (50%), 3D imaging (33%), and stress echocardiography (42%). Workforce limitations were common, with 80% of centers lacking sonographers. A high structural–digital readiness index (score ≥ 4) was achieved by 38 laboratories (31%) and was associated with digital infrastructure and advanced imaging (p < 0.001). In multivariable analysis, university affiliation (OR 8.2–9.1) and a designated echocardiography lead (OR 4.1) independently predicted high quality, whereas procedural volume was not independently associated with quality. Conclusions: Marked variability in echocardiographic infrastructure and quality persists despite an advanced organizational and technological context. Leadership and digital infrastructure are the primary determinants of quality. Full article

This paper argues that the colonial introduction of Christianity in Africa must be understood as a reordering of personhood, moral feeling, and the conditions under which lived experience becomes intelligible, rather than as a change in formal religious affiliation alone. Drawing on scholarship in African philosophy, religious history, European intellectual history, and African psychology, the paper traces how missionary Christianity reclassified African spiritual worlds, recoded suffering and misfortune, and disrupted the transmission of spiritual knowledge across generations. Crucially, it situates this encounter within the longer history of Christianity’s own disenchantment: the suppression, within dominant Protestant and Enlightenment traditions, of enchanted practices that had characterised European Christianity for over a millennium. The missionary traditions that condemned African spirit mediation, ancestral veneration, and ritual healing were carriers of a tradition that had practised structurally analogous things before disciplining them out of its own self-understanding. The paper shows that colonial religion produced layered forms of subjectivity in which ancestral obligation, Christian doctrine, communal personhood, moral anxiety, and therapeutic pluralism coexist in tension. The concept of ontological compression is proposed to name the condition under which parts of the self become unsayable within authorised vocabularies, a condition rendered doubly intense by the fact that the compressing tradition had already performed this narrowing upon itself. Rather than treating African spirituality as residue, superstition, or cultural background, the paper proposes that it should be approached as a living philosophical and psychological archive through which many people continue to interpret suffering, relation, responsibility, and reality itself. Full article

This article explores the contemporary landscape of Athonic monasticism, examining how the Holy Mountain (Ἅγιον Ὄρος) preserves its identity within the framework of modern Christianity. Moving beyond a purely archival study, the analysis is deeply informed by long-term personal engagement and experiential observation. Through a synthesis of historical-theological inquiry and first-hand experience, it analyzes the demographic shift toward a younger, highly educated monastic population and the universal restoration of coenobitic structures, interpreting these developments as tangible signs of a spiritual renaissance. The study addresses the growing tension between the traditional hesychastic ethos and the pressures of globalization, technological mediation, and mass pilgrimage. These observations highlight the nuanced ways in which Athonite communities negotiate visibility and withdrawal, creating a “monastic firewall” to protect inner stillness (hesychia). It argues that contemporary Athonic identity is best understood as a form of dynamic traditionalism—a living synthesis of rigorous fidelity to Byzantine liturgical and spiritual typika with a prudent, selective engagement with modern realities. Ultimately, the paper suggests that Mount Athos offers a paradigmatic model of continuity without fossilization, standing as a “spiritual battery” and a theological reference point for global Orthodoxy. By maintaining a balance between solitude and hospitality, the Holy Mountain contributes meaningfully to current discussions on the future of religious tradition, providing a solid counter-narrative to the “liquid” identities of modernity. Full article

Given the lack of research on the intersection of media and religion outside the U.S. and in South Korea, this study analyzed how two mainstream daily newspapers have depicted Christianity and compared their tones and frames toward this religion and megachurches in Korea. News stories on three major religions—Protestantism, Buddhism, and Catholicism—were identified and collected from the newspapers’ online archives. Overall, 302 out of 895 articles were focused on Christianity. Quantitative content analysis was utilized with a manual holistic approach. One of the major findings is that Chosun Ilbo, a conservative-leaning publication, described Protestantism in a more positive manner than Kyunghyang Shinmun, a liberal-leaning newspaper. Another finding is that there has been a shift in religion news coverage between 2011 and 2022 in terms of frames applied. Frames such as political power and corrupt were used more often in 2011, whereas the social work frame was employed more frequently in 2022, when covering Protestantism. The findings offer critical implications for journalists, religious communities, and the public by identifying journalistic practices that potentially fuel audience polarization. This exploratory study serves as a foundational step in advancing scholarly discourse on the media–religion interface in South Korea. Full article

Social sustainability is central to resettlement induced by development. However, the long-term dynamics of cultural change among involuntary resettlers remain underexplored. This paper draws on a 25-year longitudinal ethnographic study of Three Gorges Dam migrants relocated to rural Anhui, China (2000–2025), including participant observation, archival research and in-depth interviews with 22 households. It also examines how cultural adaptation, rupture and continuity unfold over extended time horizons. A rationality-driven analytical framework is used. Three coexisting modalities of cultural change are identified. They are adaptations in livelihood strategies and household labor divisions, rupture via the abandonment of low-return farming and distant kinship ties, and continuity in dialect, cuisine, funerary rituals and close kinship. This paper demonstrates that these modalities are selectively mobilized by three interacting rationalities: survival (ensuring subsistence security), economic (maximizing material returns) and social rationalities (upholding identity and moral obligations). When these rationalities are in conflict, survival rationality commands the highest priority, while social rationality retains veto power in identity-defining domains. In the long run, this leads to a stable pattern of “segmented acculturation”, which involves separation in social interactions, assimilation in economic spheres and cultural distinctiveness in identity-relevant domains. These findings reconceptualize cultural change as an agency-driven process of strategic selection and offer policy guidance for the long-term governance of resettlement communities. Full article

To address the challenge of efficiently and cost-effectively generating images of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) furniture that can adapt to diverse modern spatial contexts for visual communication, this paper proposes and constructs an Generative Artificial Intelligence (AIGC) virtual studio system based on ComfyUI. The system is designed for ICH furniture designers, cultural communicators, and digital preservation practitioners, aiming to overcome the bottlenecks of scene switching encountered in traditional photography and 3D modeling. First, furniture images and user scene descriptions are collected, and a dual lexicon consisting of AI prompts and user prompts is constructed. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is then applied to weight and filter prompt combinations, forming a quantifiable and integrated prompt system. Second, a visual workflow incorporating ControlNet and IPAdapter nodes is built in ComfyUI to enable the transfer of ICH furniture images to various preset spatial scenes. Finally, a Likert-scale comparison is conducted between the experimental group (using AHP-weighted prompts) and the control group (using unweighted prompts). The results show that the experimental group achieves significant improvements in image realism, style consistency, and cultural communication effectiveness. The images generated by this system can be directly used for digital display, e-commerce product pages, design proposals, and cultural archives of ICH furniture. The method is applicable to the context-aware AIGC generation of traditional furniture and home products, provided that a certain amount of image data and a ComfyUI environment are available. This study provides a reusable technical pathway for the modern visual presentation of ICH furniture and offers methodological support and empirical evidence for the integration of AIGC into environmental design. Full article

This paper examines the technological dimension of “handwritten time” a distinctive mode of existence of the Russian Avant-garde. By the mid-1930s, the avant-garde’s stylistic confrontation with Socialist Realism had effectively expelled it from the contemporary literary process, artificially arresting its development—an instance of “unfinished modernity.” The article offers a detailed analysis of the technology of self-archiving (“lit-recycling”) developed by Aleksei Kruchyonykh: a deliberately chosen strategy of uncensored writing oriented toward an implicit reader of the future. The conscious refusal to complete the conventional publishing cycle, together with the systematic archiving of materials, generated a new pragmatics of the Russian avant-garde, enabling continued work under conditions of total censorship. The study considers both the strengths of this pragmatics of self-isolation and its unavoidable costs, above all the rupture of author–reader communication. Drawing on workbooks and diary notebooks from the 1930s, it reconstructs an archiving technology that had fully matured by that decade: the balance between draft and fair copy, as well as the mechanisms of auto-communication and self-censorship. Each stage of textual work is shown to acquire a specific function within a single technological continuum. Special attention is paid to contemporary methods for reconstructing the avant-garde’s creative records. The article reconstructs successive versions of Kruchyonykh’s poems (“Irina in the Fog,” “Trash,” “All Dead Poets…,” “Mind You!,” “Grumbling,” etc.), and cites diaries and handwritten books. It also foregrounds Kruchyonykh’s “prophetic” texts—those marked by a premonition of the coming great war—which conclude his diary and creative notebooks of the 1930s. Full article

The preparation for next-generation Earth Observation missions, such as the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment (CHIME) and Land Surface Temperature Monitoring (LSTM), requires robust pre-launch proxy datasets. Because current simulation methodologies frequently rely on isolated, platform-specific approaches, this study proposes a comprehensive, unified multisensor framework capable of dynamically generating operationally realistic CHIME and LSTM datasets from diverse airborne and satellite sources. Three distinct processing pipelines were established. For hyperspectral data simulation, precursor satellite imagery (PRISMA and EnMAP) and high-resolution airborne measurements (HySpex) were harmonized to CHIME’s 30 m specifications utilizing Spectral Response Function (SRF) adjustments, Point Spread Function (PSF) spatial resampling, and 6S atmospheric radiative transfer modeling. For thermal data simulation, archive Landsat 8/9 and ASTER imagery were transformed into LSTM’s target 50 m, 5-band configuration using a synergistic two-step approach: a physics-based Spectral Super-Resolution (SSR) module followed by an AI-driven Spatial Super-Resolution (SpSR) transformer network. Evaluated across highly diverse inland, coastal, and riverine testbeds in Italy, the simulated products demonstrated high spectral, spatial, and radiometric fidelity. While inherently constrained by the native spectral ranges of the input sensors and by the current lack of absolute on-orbit mission data for validation, the downscaled images closely reproduced complex thermal patterns and water-quality gradients. Ultimately, this scalable framework provides the remote sensing community with early access to representative datasets and mission performance assessments, while accelerating pre-launch algorithm development and testing for environmental monitoring applications—particularly those focused on water discharges. Full article

Raphiel Eristavi’s [Kakheti, 1824–Telavi, 1901] archival legacy constitutes a unique, underexplored corpus for examining the sociopolitical and cultural processes shaping 19th-century Georgia’s national identity. These archival documents contain his writings as a publicist, his ethnographic and geographical notes, literary texts, and private correspondence, shedding light on the intellectual and cultural dynamics of the period, particularly about reintegrating Muslim Georgian communities into the national space. Eristavi’s contributions to periodicals reflect his publicist activities, illustrating the press’s formative role in shaping public opinion, consolidating cultural identity, and fostering national awareness. His writings articulate his conviction that language, culture, tradition, and shared historical memory function as the primary instruments for reconnecting estranged territories with Georgia’s historical continuum. This entry analyzes Eristavi’s role as an intellectual and cultural mediator in integrating Muslim Georgian populations (i.e., Tao-Klarjeti and Samtskhe) into broader national frameworks, particularly in his writings on the Crimean War and Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, as well as how he engaged with questions about ethnic identity, territorial cohesion, and cultural memory. By situating Eristavi’s archive within the wider efforts of the Georgian intelligentsia, this study seeks to highlight his contribution to preserving language, promoting education, and reaffirming historical unity as essential components of national and state consciousness. Full article

While national agencies increasingly adopt ‘sustainable’ rhetoric, their policies frequently prioritize bureaucratic legitimacy over local landscape realities. This research examines how Thailand’s development policies shape water and spatial governance in riverine landscapes, focusing on Chiang Mai Province and the Phaya-Kham irrigation system. Despite ambitious sustainable development objectives, implementation is marked by institutional silos, overlapping mandates, and scalar misalignments, resulting in fragmented governance that favors short-term economic gains over long-term ecological health. These dynamics undermine water resource management and exacerbate socio-ecological inequalities. Drawing on archival reviews, policy analysis, mapping, and interviews, the study employs political ecology perspectives and David Mosse’s framework of policy performance to investigate the disjuncture between policy intentions and on-the-ground realities. The Phaya-Kham system illustrates how modernization pressures, urban expansion, and agricultural intensification destabilize community-based water governance. Findings underscore that governance challenges in Chiang Mai are fundamentally political, rooted in struggles over authority and resource control rather than technical shortcomings. Sustainability-oriented policy frameworks may reproduce socio-ecological degradation. Achieving fairer water and landscape governance requires confronting these dynamics, integrating local knowledge, and fostering inter-agency cooperation. By recognizing context-based hydrosocial territories, policies can move toward more socio-environmentally healthy frameworks supporting local riverine communities and landscape realities. Full article