Search Results (40)

Background: Life for women drastically altered after the 2021 US-NATO military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Methods: Applying a gendered general strain theory (GGST) model, this paper presents mixed-method findings from a 2023 semi-structured digital survey of 29 Afghan women, identifying key shared hardships concerning the daily lives of Afghan women (ages 18–65) and psychosocial stress. Results: A thematic analysis of their responses indicates that support for the Taliban’s return to power ranges among women; however, respondents experience diminished quality-of-life (DQOL) factors like persistent food insecurity that affect their views of the current government and affect their psychosocial health. Furthermore, most struggle with financial insecurity and growing governmental restrictions, particularly gender discrimination policies (GDP), further increasing their stress as they try to acclimate to the new political environment. Additionally, we triangulate the key qualitative findings with a statistical analysis to help illustrate emerging patterns between DQOL factors, GDP experiences, and psychosocial stress (PSS). Conclusions: This study is one of the first known semi-structured surveys conducted within the country of Afghanistan after the Taliban reseized control, offering crucial insights into life of Afghan women through their own intimate experiences and perspectives. Full article

Very-Low Earth Orbit Synthetic Aperture Radar (VLEO SAR) satellites, defined as SAR satellites operating at orbital altitudes 350 km or below, offer distinct technical advantages compared to conventional SAR satellites. Equipped with a high-resolution SAR payload, the Haishao-1 (HS-1) satellite was successfully launched on 4 December 2024. According to publicly available information, the HS-1 satellite represents the world’s first VLEO SAR satellite and has successfully demonstrated 1-m resolution Stripmap mode imaging with continuous azimuth coverage. Through an analysis of the HS-1 satellite’s system parameters and imaging results, this paper comprehensively explores the advantages of VLEO SAR satellites over traditional orbit SAR satellites, particularly in terms of enhanced resolution, reduced payload costs, and improved constellation deployment capabilities. VLEO SAR satellites possess significant advantages, including the potential for higher-resolution imagery and lower-cost payload designs, positioning them for extensive application prospects in fields such as space-based military reconnaissance, natural resource surveying, and natural disaster monitoring. Full article

Objective: Assess potential associations between the health behaviors, resilience, and body mass index (BMI) of first-year students and compare these metrics between students at a small military college and a representative national sample. Methods: Cross-sectional data were collected via an online survey administered by the American College Health Association (ACHA) during the fall of 2022 from first-year students at a senior military college (n = 77) and first-year college students who completed the NCHA-III (n = 7644). Results: Military college students had significantly higher levels of weekly vigorous physical activity and strength training than the national sample. Vigorous physical activity, strength training, and better sleep significantly predicted improved psychological resilience and BMI values in the national sample. No behaviors predicted psychological resilience or BMI in the military college sample. Conclusions: Health behaviors like physical activity and sleep may improve resilience and body weight in civilian college students. However, combining military training with college life appears to have less impact on the relationship between health behaviors and resilience. Full article

This paper builds on findings from the first systematic study of military families in Slovenia (2019–2022) to critically examine how military families are perceived and constructed within broader sociocultural and institutional frameworks. Using perspectives from family studies, military sociology, defense studies, and critical military theory, the study investigates whether these perceptions continue to reproduce the traditional binary logic that positions the family as a feminized, private domain and the military as a masculinized, public domain, or whether late modern discourses have begun to disrupt these dichotomies. The analysis focuses on the intersection of gender roles, family practices, parental responsibilities, and the symbolic and practical meanings ascribed to the notion of the “military family.” We used a reflexive approach to thematic analysis, combining qualitative interviews with young adults (aged > 18) who grew up in military families (14 participants), interviews with military and civilian experts (41 participants), survey data from service members, their spouses, and civilian respondents (411 and 125 open-ended responses from separate surveys). Findings reveal significant differences in how military families are understood and experienced. More critically, the study highlights how military institutional power and its greediness extend into the familial realm, not only through logistical demands, but also through the normalization of military values, hierarchical gendered expectations, and parenting practices. Full article

The Battle of Rhode Island in 1778 was an important event in the revolutionary war leading to the international recognition of U.S. American independence following the 1776 declaration. It culminated in a month-long campaign against British forces occupying Aquidneck Island, serving as the first combined operation of the newly formed Franco-American alliance. The military fortification at Butts Hill in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, served as a strategic point during the conflict and remains well-conserved today. While LiDAR has assisted in the geospatial surface reconstruction of the site’s earthwork fortifications, it is unknown whether other historically documented buildings within the fort remain preserved underground. We therefore conducted a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey to ascertain the presence or absence of architectural features, hypothesizing that GPR imaging could reveal structural remnants from the military barracks constructed in 1777. To test this hypothesis, we used public satellite and LiDAR imagery alongside historical maps to target the location of the historical barracks, creating a grid to survey the area with a GPR module in 0.5 m transects. Our results, superimposing remote sensing imagery with historical maps, indicate that the remains of a barracks building are likely present between circa 5–50 cm beneath today’s surface, warranting future investigations. Full article

Underwater wireless communication (UWC) is an emerging technology crucial for automating marine industries, such as offshore aquaculture and energy production, and military applications. It is a key part of the 6G vision of creating a hyperconnected world for extending connectivity to the underwater environment. Of the three main practicable UWC technologies (acoustic, optical, and radiofrequency), acoustic methods are best for far-reaching links, while optical is best for high-bandwidth communication. Recently, utilizing reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) has become a hot topic in terrestrial applications, underscoring significant benefits for extending coverage, providing connectivity to blind spots, wireless power transmission, and more. However, the potential for further research works in underwater RIS is vast. Here, for the first time, we conduct an extensive survey of state-of-the-art of RIS and metasurfaces with a focus on underwater applications. Within a holistic perspective, this survey systematically evaluates acoustic, optical, and hybrid RIS, showing that environment-aware channel switching and joint communication architectures could deliver holistic gains over single-domain RIS in the distance–bandwidth trade-off, congestion mitigation, security, and energy efficiency. Additional focus is placed on the current challenges from research and realization perspectives. We discuss recent advances and suggest design considerations for coupling hybrid RIS with optical energy and piezoelectric acoustic energy harvesting, which along with distributed relaying, could realize self-sustainable underwater networks that are highly reliable, long-range, and high throughput. The most impactful future directions seem to be in applying RIS for enhancing underwater links in inhomogeneous environments and overcoming time-varying effects, realizing RIS hardware suitable for the underwater conditions, and achieving simultaneous transmission and reflection (STAR-RIS), and, particularly, in optical links—integrating the latest developments in metasurfaces. Full article

The waters surrounding the Five West Sea Islands of South Korea are ecologically important but challenging to survey due to their location within a strategic military zone, strong tidal currents, and significant tidal variation. To assess the fish community in this region, we conducted Korea’s first parallel investigation combining traditional bottom trawl surveys with environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding. Sampling was performed at 10 stations in March, May, and August 2023, and the relationship between fish species occurrence and environmental variables (water temperature, salinity, and depth) was examined. Dominant trawl-caught species included Engraulis japonicus, Johnius grypotus, Coilia nasus, and Okamejei kenojei, each showing seasonal migration and spawning patterns associated with temperature changes. eDNA analysis detected nine additional species absent from trawl catches, such as Ilisha elongata and Thamnaconus modestus, demonstrating its sensitivity in identifying both migratory and sedentary taxa. Our findings confirm that eDNA surveys can complement traditional sampling, improving biodiversity assessment in regions with limited accessibility and complex oceanographic conditions. Full article

Nowadays, integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in military communication systems is reshaping current defense strategies by enhancing secure data exchange, situational awareness, and autonomous decision-making. This survey examines advancements of AI in tactical communication networks, including UAV networks, radar-based transmission, and electronic warfare resilience, thereby addressing a key gap in the existing literature. This is the first comprehensive review of AI applied exclusively to current tactical communication systems, synthesizing fragmented literature into a unified defense-oriented framework. A key contribution of this survey is its cross-sectoral perspective, exploring how civilian AI techniques are applied in military contexts to enhance resilient and secure communication networks. We analyze state-of-the-art research, industry initiatives, and real-world implementations. Additionally, we introduce a three-criteria evaluation methodology to systematically assess AI applications based on system objectives, military communication constraints, and tactical environmental factors, enabling a study of AI strategies for multidomain interoperability. Finally, we draft future research directions, emphasizing the need for AI standardization, enhanced adversarial resilience, and AI-powered self-healing networks. This survey provides key insights into the evolving role of AI in modern military communications for researchers, policymakers, and defense professionals. Full article

This essay proposes operative creativity as a conceptual and artistic response to the shifting roles of images in the age of algorithmic perception. Departing from Harun Farocki’s seminal artwork Eye/Machine, which first introduced the operative image as functioning not to represent but to activate within machinic processes, it traces the transformation of images from representational devices to machinic agents embedded in systems of simulation and realization. Although operative images were initially engineered for strictly technological functions, they have, from their inception, been subject to repurposing for human perception and interpretation. Drawing on literature theorizing the redirection of operative images within military, computational, and epistemic domains, the essay does not attempt a comprehensive survey. Instead, it opens a conceptual aperture within the framework, expanding it to illuminate the secondary redeployment of operative images in contemporary visual culture. Concluding with the artwork Terms and Conditions, co-created by Ruti Sela and the author, it examines how artistic gestures might neutralize the weaponized gaze, offering a mode of operative creativity that troubles machinic vision and reclaims a space for human opacity. Full article

This paper explores ways to improve the coordinate transformation of maps from the First and Second Military Surveys of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy using airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. The paper analyses the current positional accuracy of georeferenced maps from the first two military mappings from available spatial data sources. Several areas of interest with different terrain ruggedness (plain, undulated terrain, mountains) were selected for analysis to investigate whether terrain ruggedness has an impact on the accuracy of these maps. The next part of the paper deals with the georeferencing of military mapping maps using current, mid-20th-century maps and ALS data using affine and second-degree polynomial transformations. The paper concludes with a statistical analysis and evaluation of the potential of ALS data for solving this type of problem. The results obtained in the paper indicate that ALS data can be a suitable source for finding control points to transform early topographic maps. Full article

One of the most important issues in the coming years will be the decarbonisation of the European Union member states’ energy systems. The majority of the abstract requires modification. I propose that the first sentence of the abstract in the manuscript should better emphasize the formulation of the problem. The remaining part and any corrections were made by the author. Scenarios of the importance of CCS in the process of transformation of energy systems in Poland. One of the most important issues in the coming years will be the transformation of the energy systems of the European Union’s member states, which will require the development of appropriate technological solutions. The research presented here analyses the importance of CCS in energy transformation. This article proposes adapting the energy transformation method to the structure of the energy mix and conditions prevailing in a specific country. Poland was adopted as an example for analysis due to its exceptionally complicated situation, taking into account the structure of energy production. For this purpose, an expert opinion survey was conducted. Both measurable variables, such as the volume of CO₂ emissions and EU ETS prices, and a qualitative variable, i.e., the impact of the political environment on the development of CCS, were introduced to the constructed model. The model allowed us to construct three scenarios describing alternative visions for the future development of CCS: optimistic, pessimistic, and neutral, taking into account different conditions in which CCS can develop. The use of fuzzy sets allowed us to eliminate the most serious drawback of planning scenarios based on expert knowledge, which is the subjectivity of their judgments. This research showed that stable conditions of the political environment and predictable legal regulations will be crucial for the application of CCS in the Polish energy sector. The prepared scenarios will enable a quick response and accurate decisions under various conditions of the turbulent environment. This will facilitate the preparation of energy strategies. The scenarios indicate what combinations of variables, under given environmental conditions, of CCS will be of great importance in the energy transformation, and when it may give way to other technologies. In addition, the scenarios, and especially their visualisation, are extremely valuable for stakeholders, because they will allow them to observe the potential development of the situation under known conditions of the political environment, prices, and CO₂ emissions. They enable understanding the dependence of the importance of CCS in the changing environment. They also enable the detection of critical points for the development of CCS, which, as a result of recent geopolitical events, may be of key importance in the near future for ensuring the energy and military security of Poland and the EU. Full article

Background: Patellofemoral pain (PFP) is one of the most common multifactorial musculoskeletal pathologies affecting the knee joint. The prevalence of PFP in the general population ranges from 11% to 17%, with higher rates observed in specific groups such as females, runners, military personnel, and young athletes. To assess symptoms associated with PFP, the patellofemoral subscale (KOOS-PF) was developed, consisting of 11 questions that evaluate pain, stiffness, and quality of life. The KOOS-PF scale has already been validated and shown to be reliable in both its Spanish and Arabic versions. Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of the KOOS-PF scale in the Greek language among the Greek population with patellofemoral pain. Methods: Fifty-five participants aged 18–65 years who suffered from PFP were evaluated in two phases on the first and third days to determine the reliability and validity of the measures of KOOS-PF in the Greek language. Construct validity was assessed using the knee outcome survey scale—activities of daily living scale (KOS-ADLS). Reliability was measured through repeated measurements (test–retest) using intraclass coefficient correlation (ICC), standard error of measurement (SEM), and smallest detectable difference (SDD). Internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach’s coefficient a. The significance level was set at 5% (α = 0.05). Results: The KOOS-PF measures showed high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha 0.87, p = 0.05) and high test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.95, p = 0.05, SEM = 3.7, SDC = 13.57). Additionally, the Greek version of the KOOS-PF exhibited high construct validity when correlated with the KOS-ADLS scale (r = 0.72, p = 0.001). Conclusions: The KOOS-PF scale displayed high reliability and construct validity for measuring patellofemoral pain in the Greek population. Full article

Bengala, a steamer that sank in 1889 near Capo Rizzuto, Italy, was a relatively new vessel for its time, with an unusually short 18-year service life, given that steamers of the period typically operated for 30 to 40 years. Despite its brief history, SS Bengala played a significant role in the development of Italy’s young merchant navy, undergoing multiple ownership changes and serving various Italian shipping companies. Employed mainly along the route to Southeast Asia, it transported Italian migrants overseas and also participated in troop raids during the Italian military expedition to Eritrea in 1887. Despite its historical significance, no iconographic material has yet been found to depict SS Bengala, and archival research conducted in Italy and England has not uncovered any naval plans, photographs, or drawings of the ship. To overcome this gap, the authors employed new technologies and historical information to create a virtual reconstruction. This research combined archival sources with underwater surveys, including a detailed 3D survey by divers and archaeologists. Archival research, including consultation of official documents, provided critical information on the ship’s dimensions, superstructure, rigging, materials, and construction methods. The 3D modelling of the ship’s external hull, based on precise geometric data from the wreck site, offers a first step towards virtual reconstruction. The modelling is grounded in photogrammetric surveying techniques, ensuring high accuracy in the reconstruction process. The model can be used in augmented reality (AR) applications to enhance underwater exploration, allowing divers to visualise the reconstructed ship in its original environment. Additionally, it supports museum exhibits, interactive visualisations, and educational games, making it a valuable resource for engaging the public with maritime history and archaeology. Full article

This work shows the original projection of a 1:57,600 scale map of southern Germany at the end of the 18th century, produced under the direction of Karl-Heinrich von Schmitt (1743–1805). The sections of the map were scanned and georeferenced as part of the MAPIRE project, and the results are publicly available. In the present work, we use contemporary documents, in particular the books of César-Francois Cassini de Thury and manuscript sketches of the map found in the Military Archive of Vienna, to show that the overall projection of the map is identical to that used in Cassini’s survey of France (first half of the 18th century). In the archive, we managed to find the overview sheet on which—in addition to the Paris Cassini coordinate system—the section grid of the Schmitt map was also constructed. This sketch served as the basis for the compilation and copying work, wherein the existing map works and survey sketches were inserted into 197 sections of the Schmitt map. Thus, the map coordinate system can be modeled in GIS systems using the Cassini (or Cassini-Soldner) projection, with the Paris Observatory as the projection origin. The georeferencing accuracy of using the pure Cassini projection is around 1–1.3 km (at the extremes, around 5 km), which is much more inaccurate than the one used in later topographic surveys. It is considered a combined result of the compilation of the different maps, presumably surveyed by graphic triangulation with measuring tables. Full article

High-quality geological remote sensing interpretation (GRSI) products play a vital role in a wide range of fields, including the military, meteorology, agriculture, the environment, mapping, etc. Due to the importance of GRSI products, this research aimed to improve their accuracy. Although deep-learning (DL)-based GRSI has reduced dependence on manual interpretation, the limited accuracy of multiple geological element interpretation still poses a challenge. This issue can be attributed to small inter-class differences, the uneven distribution of geological elements, sensor limitations, and the complexity of the environment. Therefore, this paper proposes a point–surface data optimal fusion method (PSDOF) to improve the accuracy of GRSI products based on optimal transport (OT) theory. PSDOF combines geological survey data (which has spatial location and geological element information called point data) with a geological remote sensing DL interpretation product (which has limited accuracy and is called surface data) to improve the quality of the resulting output. The method performs several steps to enhance accuracy. First, it calculates the gray-scale correlation feature information for the pixels adjacent to the geological survey points. Next, it determines the distribution of the feature information for geological elements in the vicinity of the point data. Finally, it incorporates complementary information from the survey points into the geological elements’ interpretation boundary, as well as calculates the optimal energy loss for point–surface fusion, thus resulting in an optimal boundary. The experiments conducted in this study demonstrated the superiority of the proposed model in addressing the problem of the limited accuracy of GRSI products. Full article