Search Results (911)

This study examines the socio-spatial dynamics of rural overtourism and landscape commodification in a peripheral municipality in Northwestern Italy. Employing a qualitative, longitudinal ethnographic design, data were collected between May 2020 and October 2021 in San Giovanni (Piedmont). The methodology combined extensive participant observation in public, commercial, and agricultural spaces with ethnographic interviews with six stakeholder groups: local promoters, municipal administrators, professional farmers, long-term residents, shopkeepers, and visiting tourists. Qualitative data were processed using inductive thematic analysis. The results indicate that visitor surges were initiated endogenously by local promoters through the installation of an open-access, gamified “Big Bench” attraction designed to counter long-term demographic and economic contraction. The influx of day-trippers generated localized spatial intrusion, traffic congestion, and physical disruptions to agricultural operations during peak harvest periods, as well as to residents’ daily activities. Rather than driving generalized economic revitalization, the intervention produced host–visitor friction and intra-community polarization between local promoters seeking external visibility and residents experiencing spatial disruptions and loss of privacy. The study demonstrates that overtourism can develop endogenously through promoter-led self-commodification and provides a three-tiered governance framework encompassing policy, destination management, and community-level strategies for fragile rural territories. Full article

Background: Pakistan is one of only two countries where wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) continues to persist. Vaccine refusals challenge efforts to end the virus, especially in high-risk communities. Methods: A qualitative exploratory study took place from September to November 2025 in three High-Risk Union Councils (HRUCs) of Karachi, Pakistan. The study examined reasons for refusing the polio vaccine and identified specific communication and operational strategies to improve vaccine acceptance. A total of 23 in-depth interviews and 10 focus group discussions were conducted with 71 participants, including parents who refuse the vaccine, polio program staff, physicians, and government stakeholders. Data were analyzed using a sequential inductive and deductive thematic approach, mapping findings onto the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM) with NVivo 15 (Lumivero, Denver, CO, USA). Results: Factors influencing polio vaccine refusals were interconnected and spanned multiple levels. At the intrapersonal level, campaign fatigue, a lack of knowledge about poliomyelitis, concerns about side effects, and rumors about infertility were common. Community-level factors included household gatekeepers, local influencers, and digital misinformation. Institutional barriers included weak communication from the frontline, inadequate supervision, workforce shortages, poor tracking of refusals, and limited involvement of physicians. At the policy level, refusals were linked to distrust in governance, poor municipal services, and dissatisfaction with vertical campaign methods. Recommended strategies included integrating polio services with routine immunization and primary healthcare, strengthening counseling by physicians, engaging trusted local influencers and community leaders, expanding targeted social media campaigns to counter misinformation, implementing quick responses to rumors, enhancing workforce capacity, and using data-driven microplanning, including targeted SNIDs and focused interventions in areas with chronic refusals. Conclusions: Polio vaccine refusals are shaped by social, communication, operational, and structural factors. Improving communication and operational guidelines by reducing the number of campaigns, increasing active engagement at the frontline, integrating polio activities into routine health services, and addressing misinformation with a dynamic communication strategy may enhance vaccine acceptance and support polio eradication efforts. Full article

Existing studies often reduce private firms’ environmental behaviors to mere greenwashing, rarely unpacking the underlying mechanisms that drive polluting enterprises to develop and sustain substantive compliance. This paper constructs a “Relational Self-Governing” analytical framework grounded in Self-Governance Theory’s core premise of stakeholder interdependence, identifying local social relationality as a critical mechanism that addresses the theory’s inherent limitations of narrow actor scope and interest-bound action logic. This mechanism drives polluting firms to maintain stable, substantive environmental compliance that exceeds minimum legal requirements. This finding expands Self-Governance Theory’s interest-centered practical strategy spectrum and enriches the analytical connotation of corporate agency embedded in localized environmental governance practices. Hierarchical environmental supervision pressures push firms to align operational targets with governmental environmental objectives, while embedded local social relations reinforce compliance incentives to sustain long-term substantive environmental practices. Three core relational paths underpin this process: goal alignment with local governments, peer recognition among firm owners, and shared environmental responsibility with local residents. Leveraging these paths, firms build stable interactive systems spanning government information sharing, inter-firm mutual supervision, and resident collaborative action, collectively constructing organizational legitimacy. This process gradually institutionalizes substantive environmental compliance and fosters public interest-aligned compliance behaviors. This study counters the one-sided greenwashing narrative in prior literature, extending Self-Governance Theory’s application by unpacking the unique operational logic of corporate substantive compliance in environmental governance. Full article

Background/Objectives: Dietary supplements (DSs) and over-the-counter (OTC) medications for mood improvement and stress relief are widely used, but little is known about how their use relates to coping preferences, trust in physicians, and communication with doctors. This exploratory cross-sectional study compared users and non-users of such products in Poland. Methods: Data were collected between October 2024 and May 2025 and included 798 adults recruited through a mixed-mode convenience sampling strategy (636 online and 162 in person). Participants were classified as current users (CUs; n = 184), past users (PUs; n = 297), or never-users (NUs; n = 317). The outcomes included hypothetical future coping strategies (under an assumption of unlimited resources), trust in physicians using an author-translated adaptation of the Trust in Doctors in General (T-DiG) scale and three-category communication-related attitudes. Multivariable models were adjusted for age, gender, education, medical or health science background, and recruitment mode. Results: Overall, 60.3% of respondents reported current or past use. Compared with NUs, both CUs and PUs had higher adjusted odds of selecting future DS/OTC use (CUs: aOR = 5.60, 95% CI 3.44–9.14, p < 0.001; PUs: aOR = 2.44, 95% CI 1.52–3.93, p < 0.001). PUs also had higher adjusted odds of selecting psychotherapy (aOR = 1.50, 95% CI 1.04–2.17, p = 0.031; overall p = 0.018). Product-use status was associated with selected items of T-DiG: communication competency (overall p = 0.031) and global trust (overall p < 0.001). Compared with NUs, CUs had lower adjusted scores on both subscales (aMD = −0.19, 95% CI −0.33 to −0.04, p = 0.010 and aMD = −0.40, 95% CI −0.59 to −0.21, p < 0.001, respectively). Overall product-group effects were also observed for the first two communication items: CUs had lower relative risk ratios than NUs for discussing product-related doubts first with their physician (RRR = 0.52, 95% CI 0.35–0.78, p = 0.001) and for feeling free to raise such doubts (RRR = 0.57, 95% CI 0.36–0.92, p = 0.022). Conclusions: Product-use status showed selective associations with hypothetical coping preferences, physician trust, and communication-related attitudes rather than a uniform pattern of reluctance to seek professional support. Current use was most strongly associated with lower trust and less favorable product-related communication attitudes. Given the cross-sectional design and hypothetical nature of the coping outcomes, these findings do not establish causality, temporal ordering, or actual healthcare-seeking behavior. Full article

Non-human animals are systematically excluded from public narratives, rarely recognized as sentient subjects, and instead framed within anthropocentric narratives of production and consumption; efforts to challenge this pattern and make the more-than-human world visible often encounter editorial resistance and structural constraints. This study examines how anti-speciesist journalists in Spanish written media navigate such resistance to make non-human animals legitimate subjects of news. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with nine self-identified anti-speciesist journalists, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis, the study identifies strategies organized across four non-mutually exclusive categories, namely, discursive, relational, framing, and structural, ranging from self-censorship and strategic language use to coalition-building and the creation of independent platforms. Findings reveal a key distinction between visibility strategies, which succeed in securing publication, and root-level strategies, which challenge the carnist and anthropocentric assumptions structuring newsworthiness itself. These practices reveal the pragmatism, creativity, and resilience of journalists working under structural, ideological, and normative constraints, while also highlighting the limits of anti-speciesist reporting within mainstream media. The study contributes to Critical Animal Media Studies, environmental communication, and journalism research by illuminating the intersection of ethical advocacy, professional strategy, and counter-hegemonic practice and offers recommendations for expanding coverage of the more-than-human world across ideological, editorial, and structural divides. Full article

The development of Motor Imagery (MI) Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCIs) is systematically constrained by low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs), signal non-stationarity, and acute data scarcity. While complex Blind Source Separation (BSS) methods optimize signal clarity, their computational overhead introduces propagation delays that challenge real-time constraints. This study addresses this engineering trade-off by introducing a localized architectural framework to evaluate whether a lightweight pipeline operating without BSS (No-BSS) is sufficiently efficient for real-time control when compared against two BSS-equipped pipelines utilizing Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD). Validated across the BCI Competition IV Dataset 2A and the PhysioNet MI dataset, all three pipelines share an identical processing chain designed to maximize efficiency. To mitigate low SNRs, an Adaptive Laplacian spatial filter isolates neural intent across target sensorimotor electrodes (C3, C4, and Cz). Data scarcity is countered via a Gaussian noise injection data augmentation strategy, while session-to-session variability is addressed during feature extraction using Wavelet Packet Decomposition (WPD) paired with a Fisher Score criterion to dynamically isolate subject-specific time-frequency nodes. Redundant features are subsequently eliminated using a Genetic Algorithm (GA) before classification. Experimental evaluation reveals a distinct performance stratification: while the ICA (92.80%) and EMD (92.69%) pipelines yield the highest average accuracy for the PhysioNet dataset by isolating non-stationary and physiological noise, the No-BSS baseline (90.28%) remains the superior framework for the BCI Dataset 2A. Across all pipelines across both datasets, a stable classification hierarchy emerges wherein the Support Vector Machine (SVM) leads performance due to its maximum-margin decision boundary, followed by k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN), a modified EEGNet, and Decision Trees. The No-BSS baseline achieves classification accuracies highly competitive with its BSS counterparts while entirely bypassing their algorithmic overhead. Given the strict latency constraints of live BCI control loops, these findings establish the optimized No-BSS pipeline as a highly viable alternative for low-latency, real-time implementations. Full article

The fight against disinformation has become a major issue within the European context and, therefore, also affects public media. This research analyzes the evolution, over the years 2023 and 2024, of the perceptions held by the European regional public broadcasters that make up the CIRCOM network, as they pertain to this struggle. To this end, a total of 28 interviews were conducted, including with the heads of 21 broadcasters from 16 countries, with the aim of observing the possible similarities and differences between different geographical areas (northern, southern, eastern and western Europe), including by comparing with the Spanish regional broadcasters and by determining the main needs and challenges in this regard. It is evident that the fight against disinformation is a very important issue for 80% of those interviewed. Roughly three-quarters of networks combine human and digital resources in their verification processes, though only about one in five has a dedicated fact-checking department. Among the main challenges is the need to strengthen audiences’ media literacy, to incorporate specialized professional profiles in combating disinformation, and to understand new technological tools that may be involved in disinformation, such as AI-generated image manipulation. It is essential that regional public television stations consolidate their position throughout Europe as a benchmark in the production of truthful information and in the development of joint strategies to strengthen verification and media literacy. Although differences between the media systems reflect their distinct institutional structures, the disparities in counter-disinformation resources warrant collective attention. Full article

Cooperative sensing systems that exchange state estimates are exposed to two types of adversaries, namely, insiders who transmit correctly authenticated falsified content and outsiders who modify messages in transit after compromising a symmetric link key, each requiring a distinct mitigation strategy. These attacks are observationally identical to a detector that examines only message content, although an insider must be revoked and an outsider must be countered through key rotation and link hardening. To distinguish between insider falsification and outsider in-transit message modification, a cross-layer intrusion detection and attack-attribution framework named QSec-DAI is proposed. Per-message anomaly scores are supplied by a recurrent detector, and a hybrid-symmetric, post-quantum and quantum authentication stack is arbitrated by belief-desire-intention agents under a finite-key budget. Authentication is used as an active probe because a suspicious link is hardened, and the persistence or disappearance of the anomaly is then observed. On real cooperative-localization data, an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.981 is achieved. Benign, insider and outsider classes are attributed with a macro-averaged accuracy of 0.794 and a man-in-the-middle recall of 0.719. Under the explicitly defined attribution mapping, outsider recall is zero for the evaluated baselines that remain in fixed-symmetric mode after key exposure. In the real-data evaluation, malicious influence on fusion is limited to 0.10 percent. The no-cooperation control indicates that several classical defenses suppress attacks mainly by discarding cooperative information rather than by preserving useful cooperation. Protocol-level fault injection shows that replay is rejected while monotonic freshness state is intact, whereas compromise of the verifier or of all independent strong credentials removes defensible outsider identifiability. The quantum component is therefore presented as one resource-constrained strong-authentication option rather than as a source of quantum-enhanced anomaly detection. Full article

The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and smart grids has substantially intensified the cybersecurity challenges associated with smart energy meters (SEMs). The data collected by the plugs are transmitted via a wireless communication protocol to a smart electricity meter that acts as a local gateway. This meter centralizes the information from the various sensors, may perform data pre-processing, aggregation, or validation operations, and then forwards the information to a central server. The main contributions of this system can be categorized into two key aspects. First, the implementation of a centralized wireless local energy consumption network using the Wi-Fi protocol to coordinate smart plugs over distances of up to 20 m. Second, the real-time acquisition of power characteristics and the remote control (ON/OFF switching) of household appliances for direct appliance-level submetering purposes. Data collected by the smart meter are transmitted to a processing unit through a Semtech SX1276 LoRa transceiver communication link. The central server constitutes the processing and storage layer of the system: it receives the collected data, archives it in a dedicated database, and makes it available through analysis, visualization, and decision-support tools. This architecture enables real-time monitoring of energy consumption, anomaly detection, optimization of electrical resource use, and the development of effective energy management strategies for smart electrical grids. Although current smart meter architectures incorporate multi-layer protection mechanisms at the hardware, communication, and data levels, additional security measures are required to counter advanced cyber threats aimed at data interception and manipulation. This paper improves the security framework of smart energy meters by integrating a chaos-based encryption layer to ensure secure data transmission. Chaotic systems exhibit intrinsic properties such as sensitivity to initial conditions, pseudo-randomness, and ergodicity, which render them particularly suitable for cryptographic applications. The proposed framework employs a Lorenz-based chaotic encryption module to secure SEM-utility data exchanges. Full article

Biomolecular and multi-omics approaches have transformed archaeology and heritage science, yet they are still widely conceptualized as ancillary techniques that refine narratives built on artifacts, architecture, and texts. This Perspective argues instead for treating molecules as primary archaeological evidence with their own epistemic status, temporalities, and bias structure. Drawing on a corpus of multi-omics case studies from the central and eastern Mediterranean (chiefly Sicily, Malta, and Egypt), together with comparative material from the lower Danube, Polynesia, and the Andes, and engaging directly with the philosophy of science, we adopt a critical entity realism grounded in the practice of physical intervention on molecular entities, and we develop evidential reasoning chains that connect instrumental data to historical phenomena. From this grounding, we propose a six-dimensional epistemic framework: (1) redefinition of archaeological evidence; (2) molecular counter-archive against preservation bias; (3) polytemporality of molecular signals; (4) ethics and conservation as internal epistemic variables; (5) identity, boundaries, and connectivity in a molecular key; and (6) methodological pluralism and interpretive convergence. The framework has concrete implications for curatorial policies, sampling strategy, and data governance, and opens a productive dialogue between biomolecular heritage science and archaeological theory. Full article

The counter-diabatic shortcut to adiabaticity (CDSTA) has been explored in implementing qudit quantum Fourier transforms (QFTs) via stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) to suppress non-adiabatic leakage. While direct CD driving may introduce unwanted global microwave couplings, seeking an approach without explicit CD fields is highly desirable. By employing rotating-frame absorption, we implement an all-optical CDSTA strategy to synthesize the QFT. Direct CD driving (STIRSAP) removes the adiabatic time floor of STIRAP and sets the acceleration upper bound; the all-optical scheme reproduces this acceleration with a peak-amplitude overhead below $5\%$ in the working regime while eliminating the microwave coupling. The quartit encoding further reduces the integrated energy by a factor of 3 relative to the two-qubit decomposition. Extending to open quantum systems, the all-optical strategy shows improved robustness against amplitude noise and spontaneous emission. Full article

Glioblastoma remains the most lethal primary malignancy of the central nervous system, and the modest gains achieved with maximal surgery, radiotherapy and temozolomide have not been matched by the immune checkpoint inhibitors and antigen-specific vaccines that reshaped the treatment of many extracranial cancers. The recurrent disappointment of these approaches has been attributed less to a single molecular lesion than to a confluence of obstacles: profound intratumoural heterogeneity, a densely immunosuppressive and myeloid-rich microenvironment, sequestration and exhaustion of conventional T cells, and the practical difficulty of delivering effectors across the blood–brain barrier. Against this background, γδ T cells have attracted interest as an unconventional effector population that recognises transformed cells through stress-associated and metabolic cues rather than peptide–major histocompatibility complex (MHC) complexes, that kills in an MHC-unrestricted manner, and that can be expanded from healthy donors for allogeneic, off-the-shelf use with little expectation of graft-versus-host disease. This narrative review examines, with a deliberately critical lens, the biological rationale and the experimental evidence for γδ T cell-based immunotherapy of glioblastoma. We summarise the developmental biology and functional subsets of human γδ T cells, the natural killer group 2 member D (NKG2D)-, DNAX accessory molecule 1 (DNAM-1)- and T-cell-receptor-dependent mechanisms through which they engage glioblastoma cells and glioma stem-like cells, and the in vitro and animal-model studies that underpin the field, taking care not to overstate efficacy that has so far been demonstrated only in preclinical or early-phase settings. We then weigh the principal opportunities—locoregional and repeated dosing, combination with chemoradiotherapy, checkpoint blockade and antibody-based redirection—against barriers that include limited persistence, uncertain intratumoural trafficking, donor and manufacturing variability, and the unsettled requirements of potency testing and trial design. We give particular weight to what becomes of γδ T cells inside a hostile tumour—the exhaustion-like dysfunction that follows chronic stimulation, the oxygen and glucose dependence of their effector programme, the interleukin-17-polarising signals generated by activated microglia and by genotoxic therapy, and the confounding effect of corticosteroids—together with the engineering and pharmacological strategies proposed to counter them. The first peer-reviewed phase 1 report of intracranially delivered, drug-resistant γδ T cells has now appeared and documents tolerability in a small, single-arm cohort without establishing survival benefit. Throughout, γδ T cells are presented as a biologically plausible but still investigational strategy whose clinical value will be determined by adequately powered trials rather than by mechanistic appeal alone. Full article

Background: Endometriosis is a condition that is very challenging to diagnose and manage. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess the impacts of diagnosis and treatments in the journeys of endometriosis patients in Aotearoa New Zealand. Methods: Two online surveys were conducted with cohorts of 616 and 679 endometriosis patients to assess diagnosis and treatments, respectively. Results: In this exploratory study, the diagnosis cohort self-reported a median delay from symptom onset to confirmation of the diagnosis of 10 years, with a median delay from symptom onset to first seeing a doctor (“doctor delay”) of 4 years. Upon receiving their diagnosis, 53.7% indicated the “number one” emotion they felt was relief. In the treatment cohort, the only medical management strategy perceived as “effective” by over 75% of users was hysterectomy (84.3%), despite this not being a cure for endometriosis. Common first-line treatments were viewed poorly for their perceived effectiveness, with over-the-counter pain relief viewed as effective by 25.8% of users, combined oral contraceptive pills by 23.2% of users, progesterone-only pills by 42.8% of users, and intrauterine contraceptive devices by 49.7% of users. Conclusions: Endometriosis is a condition typified by challenges for patients with its delayed diagnosis, resistance to management, and a high prevalence of discouraging experiences in medical care settings. These large-sample cohorts highlight that improvements in the diagnosis and management of endometriosis warrant urgent attention by clinicians and policymakers alike. Full article

Changes in lake area directly reflect the state of regional hydrological cycles and ecological balance. However, the lack of long-term monitoring data and the complexity of driving factors make it difficult to formulate effective management strategies. This study used landsat imagery and the random forest (RF) algorithm to construct a time series of the lake area of Chirui Lake from 1990 to 2024, revealing a counter-seasonal phenomenon in which the lake area during the low-flow period was significantly larger than that during the high-flow period. To clarify the driving mechanisms behind this phenomenon, a comprehensive analysis of climatic and hydrological factors and lake area was conducted using methods such as the Pettitt test, Morlet wavelet analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), structural equation modeling (SEM), and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks. The results indicate that, from the perspectives of climate and hydrology, sub surface runoff is likely to have played a significant role in the area changes of Chirui Lake, and that between 2025 and 2029, the lake’s surface area is likely to continue to fluctuate significantly between 0.4 km² and 0.6 km². This study explored the influence of climate and hydrology on the changes in the area of Chirui Lake and provides five-year forecast of lake surface area, however, given the inherent uncertainties in the forecast, these findings should be viewed as preliminary references rather than direct decision-making tools for lake management. Full article

Natural fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites have gained increasing attention due to the abundant availability of natural fibers, their ability to effectively reinforce polymer matrices, and the resulting partial biodegradability of the final material. This study presents numerical modeling strategies for investigating the manufacture of spherical caps made from polypropylene composites reinforced with woven flax fabrics. The investigation considers both cold incremental forming and stretch-forming processes, performed either with or without the support of a partial counter die. Building on the findings of a previous experimental study conducted by the authors on compression-molded laminates manufactured using untreated woven flax fabrics and without coupling agents and formed without localized heating, numerical predictions are compared with experimental results in terms of final geometry, forming forces, and failure mechanisms. The findings highlight the need for a thorough understanding of material behavior to fully exploit finite element analysis as a reliable predictive tool in the forming of these innovative lightweight composite structures. Full article