Search Results (11,994)

Social Virtual Reality (VR) is emerging as a powerful medium for remote social interaction and collaboration, enabling multiple users to share experiences together while apart. Likewise, recent advances in multimedia technologies have proposed strategically combining diverse content formats and introducing interaction techniques for recreating virtual environments and engaging with them, respectively. This study pioneers the joint exploration of Social VR enhanced with holographic communication, multimodal content integration, and advanced interaction methods to deliver realistic and interactive group visits to reconstructed cultural heritage sites, specifically an existing restaurant–museum. The reconstructed space is further augmented with Points of Interest (PoIs), which can be freely visited and dynamically activated to provide rich contextual and historical information about the venue. The proposed technology and scenario have been evaluated objectively and subjectively. Results from objective tests offer relevant insights into the technical requirements, performance metrics (including bandwidth usage and latency), and overall system stability. Results from subjective tests with 22 participant pairs reveal high levels of user satisfaction, particularly in terms of immersion, presence, togetherness, and interaction quality regardless of whether participants acted as Guides (interacting with the VR environment) or Followers (observing and following the Guide’s actions). Beyond demonstrating feasibility, the findings from this study prove, for the first time, how strategically combining multi-user holoportation with multimodal content and role-based interactions can enable guided, collaborative cultural or touristic visits that preserve social presence while supporting rich exploration and contextual learning. Full article

Traditional villages embody regional culture and local knowledge, yet culture–tourism integration often suffers from a mismatch between resource value and effective transformation. To address this problem, this study proposes a two-dimensional “benefit–obstacle” diagnostic and strategy-matching framework and tests its case-based applicability in Dayuwan Village. First, a cultural landscape gene (CLG) atlas was constructed for the village based on a geo-information coding scheme, covering both tangible and intangible CLGs. Second, a four-dimensional evaluation system was operationalized through five expert judgments and 106 valid on-site questionnaires collected from tourists (n = 67) and residents (n = 39). Criterion weights were determined using an AHP–entropy combination approach, and the comprehensive benefit closeness coefficient was calculated via TOPSIS. Third, an obstacle degree identification model was employed to pinpoint key constraints and derive composite obstacle degrees. Results within the Dayuwan case show that the TOPSIS closeness coefficients of the 17 genes ranged from 0.653 to 0.782 (mean = 0.714), with 4, 6, and 7 genes classified as excellent, good, and medium, respectively; composite obstacle degrees ranged from 0.0228 to 0.1975. In Dayuwan Village, higher obstacle degrees clustered mainly in intangible CLGs, whereas Ming–Qing architecture and frequently practiced folk-cultural genes showed comparatively lower obstacle degrees. The transformation process is constrained by four mechanisms—landscape character protection, economic transformation, social identity, and market demand—with economic transformation constraints being the most prominent. Based on the benefit–obstacle matrix, 17 CLGs were classified into five activation scenarios and matched with corresponding revitalization strategies. This framework links benefit ranking, obstacle diagnosis, and strategy matching, and provides a case-based diagnostic reference for the conservation and culture–tourism integration of villages with comparable heritage conditions, subject to local recalibration of indicators, weights, and thresholds. Full article

The conservation of tuff- and coral rock-built architectural heritage structures (AHS) is challenging because access to original tuff and coral rock has become difficult and severely limited due to urbanization, land reclamation, the depletion of stone quarries, anti-mining and anti-quarrying legislation. An emerging approach to address this issue is to create compatible “replacement” rocks via geopolymerization, a process that is more sustainable and greener than the use of conventional cement and concrete. To explore the potential of geopolymers for AHS conservation strategies, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were implemented; 103 eligible articles were identified and classified into geopolymers for AHS (34 articles), tuff-built AHS (60 articles), and coral rock-built AHS (9 articles). Tuff substrates in AHSs appear in a variety of colors (yellowish-brown, grayish-cream, reddish-brown, pale greenish-gray and pink hues), densities (1.0–2.5 g/m³), and compressive strengths (3–100 MPa). Meanwhile, coral rock substrates in AHSs appear in whitish-cream color and are coarse-pored (1–5 MPa), fine-grained (8–15 MPa), and calcarenite (50–60 MPa). In terms of geopolymer formulation, metakaolin was reported as the most popular main precursor or admixture, while NaOH and Na₂SiO₃ were used simultaneously as alkaline activators. Aggregates used in geopolymer formulations depended on local availability, including quartz sand, river sand, crushed stones, carbonate stones, volcanic rock, volcanic sand, tuff, brick, ceramic tiles, and waste materials. Aesthetics, chemical composition, physical attributes, and mechanical properties have been identified as key criteria to ensure geopolymer compatibility for AHS conservation application. To date, geopolymers have been applied for AHS conservation as repair mortars, consolidants (i.e., grout and adhesives), and masonry strengthening (i.e., fiber-reinforced mortar). Finally, geopolymers formulated for AHS conservation have similar durability as the original substrate based on accelerated aging tests (i.e., salt mist, wet-dry, and freeze–thaw) and long-term outdoor exposure experiments. Full article

Designing sustainable pedestrian infrastructure in hyper-arid cultural landscapes requires balancing visitor experience, heritage protection, and environmental constraints. This study develops a statistically grounded model for planning sustainable walking trails in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia, using multi-spectral remote sensing data integrated with expert-based evaluation. A GIS-based Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) framework was applied to assess topographic slope, vegetation cover (NDVI), built-up density (NDBI), Land Surface Temperature (LST), and solar exposure. Indicator weights were validated through a three-round Delphi survey involving fifteen experts. The results indicate strong consensus among experts, identifying LST (21%) and slope (20%) as the most influential determinants of trail suitability in desert environments. These findings highlight the critical role of thermal stress in shaping safe and sustainable pedestrian mobility in hot climates. The optimized 44.5 km trail network, classified into three difficulty levels, improves energetic efficiency by reducing caloric expenditure by 24% compared to conventional routing. In addition, the proposed network has the potential to reduce carbon emissions associated with heritage-related travel by approximately 75% through modal shift from vehicles to walking. The framework provides a practical decision-support tool for planners seeking to develop low-carbon, climate-responsive tourism infrastructure aligned with the objectives of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. Full article

The Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) was launched to conserve, sustainably manage, and enhance the viability of the world’s agricultural heritage systems. The Cascade Tank-Village Irrigation system in the Sri Lankan dry zone was recognized as a GIAHS in 2018. Sri Lanka has conserved and used this water system sustainably for more than 2000 years but has not yet capitalised on its potential for tourism. Therefore, this paper identifies innovation opportunities for developing agricultural heritage tourism in the dry zone of Sri Lanka with implications for other agricultural heritage sites worldwide. We adopted an innovation strategy framework to identify areas of innovation to develop for GIAHS-based tourism sites with a focus on product development, processes, management, logistics, and institutional aspects. We conclude by presenting a novel Agricultural Heritage Tourism Development Framework that highlights the critical elements necessary to consider for developing agricultural heritage tourism sites. Full article

Adaptive reuse of industrial heritage from a tourism perspective presents a complex design challenge requiring a balance between heritage preservation, functional innovation, and diverse stakeholder expectations. However, current practices often face issues such as ambiguous demand interpretation and a disconnect between design generation and systematic evaluation. Addressing these limitations, this paper proposes and illustrates a human–machine collaborative design paradigm that integrates generative AI into a closed-loop process of “demand analysis–intelligent generation–comprehensive evaluation.” The method first employs Kansei Engineering and the KANO model to qualitatively extract and quantitatively prioritise heterogeneous user needs, translating subjective perceptions into structured design constraints and optimisation objectives. Next, these needs are encoded as text prompts to drive targeted spatial exploration by the generative AI tool Nano Banana AI. Finally, the TOPSIS method is applied for multi-criteria performance evaluation and solution selection. A case study of Shanghai Libo Brewery suggests that this paradigm can enhance design efficiency and show potential to outperform traditional methods across dimensions such as historical preservation, public accessibility, ecological integration, social inclusivity, and formal innovation. The research offers a quantifiable and systematically documented intelligent design methodology for industrial heritage renewal, while acknowledging the exploratory nature of the generative phase. Furthermore, it provides a visitor-demand-driven innovation pathway for developing industrial heritage tourism destinations, thereby potentially enhancing cultural experiences and tourism appeal at heritage sites. This research illustrates a move from an experience-driven paradigm toward a data- and value-driven approach, contributing theoretical methodologies to the intersection of cultural tourism and artificial intelligence. Full article

Rapid renewal and tourism-driven commercialization intensify tensions between heritage conservation and redevelopment in historic districts, and decision-oriented tool chains that translate Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) layering into change management remain limited. Taking Chengdu’s Kuanzhai Alley and Daci Temple historic districts as comparative cases, this study traces four benchmark time slices (1911, 1933, 1994, and 2025) using georeferenced historical maps, remote-sensing imagery, planning base maps, archival documents, and field checks. An auditable morphological-evidence coding manual is developed for street–alley skeletons, plot integrity, redevelopment intensity, interface commodification, connectivity, and heritage-anchor integrity, and it is triangulated with resident-population and commercial-mix evidence to interpret regeneration mechanisms. The results show that morphological continuity can coexist with social discontinuity. Kuanzhai Alley retains a legible street–alley backbone, while plot/operational consolidation and intensive commodification coincide with resident withdrawal. The Daci Temple district experiences broader street–plot reconfiguration and upscale clustering that heightens landmark visibility but challenges contextual integrity and community continuity. Based on these mechanisms, four renewal zoning prototypes and zone-specific monitoring indicator domains are proposed to operationalize HUL’s feedback loop and to support balanced governance of heritage, everyday life, and sustainable urban heritage tourism. Full article

Against the background of promoting coordinated development between conservation and activation, this paper examines the Qingming Bridge Historic District in Wuxi. Drawing on theories of urban morphology and spatial configuration, the study classifies the district into multiple spatial categories. To quantify the relationship between heritage attributes and functional vitality, we propose a “Spatial Value–Spatial Performance” dual-dimensional evaluation framework. Methodologically, this framework integrates space syntax to extract spatial potential, entropy weighting to determine objective indicators, and the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model to measure systemic interactions. Furthermore, spatial units are classified into three distinct typologies: Performance-Lagging, Value-Lagging, and Low-Level Synchronous. In response to the imbalance in the results from the quantitative findings, this paper proposes targeted renewal strategies. The core innovation provides a replicable quantitative tool, offering both empirical evidence and methodological references for the sustainable conservation and regeneration of historic districts globally. Full article

The digitization of tourism has made numerous platforms available, but there remains a significant shortage of tools capable of promoting local events and activities. This study hypothesizes that a decentralized digital interface can mitigate over-tourism. We conducted an experiment by deploying a digital platform to assess the synergy between local providers and visitors through the Tourism Open-ended Experimentation Platform (TOEP), a multi-interface solution designed to directly connect tourism activity providers with residents and visitors. The platform integrates a web portal for providers and a mobile app for users, supported by a recommendation system based on individual profiles and preferences. TOEP stands out for its focus on local and sustainable tourism, facilitating the promotion of smaller events and helping to reduce the concentration of tourist flows in already saturated destinations. Initial validation, conducted with a panel of industry experts, highlighted the ease of use and good organization of the interfaces, with scores above average. Preliminary results confirm the relevance of TOEP as a tool for the sustainable and digitized promotion of local tourism, opening prospects for development towards a smart, participatory tourism ecosystem that can be replicated in different territorial contexts. Full article

This study explores Serbia’s rich ethnopharmacological heritage by systematically documenting the traditional use of medicinal plants for treating skin diseases during the 19th and 20th centuries. Drawing on key ethnographic sources—including monographs, scholarly articles, and field reports—the review analyzes historical records of folk medicine practices and their cultural contexts. A total of 164 plant species from 63 botanical families, as well as one mushroom species, were identified as being used in the treatment of skin-related conditions classified according to the International Classification of Primary Care. Reported ailments were grouped into three main categories: hair and scalp disorders, bites, and various inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. Remedies for wound healing were the most frequently documented, both in terms of application and diversity of plant species employed. By preserving and systematizing this historical knowledge, the study provides a valuable foundation for future pharmacological and dermatological research, highlighting the continued relevance of traditional remedies in modern clinical practice. Full article

This study provides a comparative evaluation of three state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs), namely OpenAI’s (San Francisco, CA, USA) GPT-4.0, Google’s Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA) Gemini 2.0 Flash, and Meta’s (Meta Platforms, Menlo Park, CA, USA) LLaMA-4-Scout-17B-16E, in a decision-oriented framework in which the models generate structured outputs based only on historical closing-price data. The evaluation covers 150 stocks sampled from three countries (India, the United States, and South Africa) across ten economic sectors, including Information Technology, Banking, and Pharmaceuticals. Unlike many prior studies that combine numerical and textual inputs, this study relies solely on three years of numerical time series data and examines model responses in terms of decision labels such as buy, sell, or hold. The LLMs were provided with historical closing-price sequences and prompted with three types of finance-related questions: (a) whether to buy a stock, (b) whether to sell or hold a stock, and (c) in a pairwise comparison, which stock to buy or hold. These prompts were evaluated across two investment horizons: 1 month and 3 months. Model outputs were compared against realized market outcomes during the corresponding test periods. Performance was assessed across four key dimensions: country, sector, annualized volatility, and question type. The models were not given any supplementary financial information or instructions on specific analytical methods. The results indicate that GPT-4.0 achieves the highest average accuracy (56%), followed by LLaMA-4-Scout-17B-16E (48%) and Gemini 2.0 Flash (39%). Overall performance remains moderate and varies across market conditions, with relatively higher accuracy observed in high-volatility regimes (51%). This work evaluates how LLMs behave when presented with structured numerical price sequences in a controlled decision-labeling setting and contributes to the broader discussion on the potential and limitations of LLMs for numerical decision tasks in finance. Full article

The viae romanae (Roman roads) were constructed according to precise designs and exceptional engineering techniques, ensuring their strength and durability. They represent an immeasurably important factor in human history. Their impact has been universal, facilitating the movement of people, goods, ideas, beliefs and religions over the centuries. The Via Appia Regina Viarum, built between the end of 4th and 1st centuries BCE, connected Rome to Brundisium, spanning the region of Latium and Apulia. The road initially crossed the coastal plains of the Tyrrhenian Sea (in Latium) before cutting through the reliefs and river valleys of the southern Apennines (in Campania) and finally crossing the regio Apulia et Calabria via Tarentum, to the harbor of Brundisium, along the Adriatic coast. In 2024, the Italian Ministry of Culture proposed the ‘Via Appia Regina Viarum’ for inscription on the Unesco World Heritage List, recognizing its unique and exceptional testimony to Roman civilization. Later that same year, the nomination was accepted, and today, the Via Appia is part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. A significant contribution to this nomination came from the multidisciplinary studies and research conducted along the Via Appia between the ancient cities of Beneventum and Aeclanum in the Campanian Apennine, including: (1) geoarcheological investigation aimed at identifying the ancient path of the road, which was not well documented in the area between Beneventum and Aeclanum; (2) studies focused on cultural and geological heritage along the road and its surrounding landscapes, enhancing the value of the nomination; and (3) the organization of social and cultural events designed to disseminate scientific findings and raise awareness among scientists, students, local and national administrators, local food and wine producers, and the general public. This paper highlights the pivotal role of geoscience at all stages of the project: from preliminary field surveys and mapping of landforms and lithofacies, to targeted field and geophysical surveys, to archaeological excavation and geoarchaeological consideration, and to the dissemination of new data through cultural events. Full article

In recent years, Visual Education has emerged as an innovative and interdisciplinary teaching approach aimed at promoting meaningful learning through the conscious use of visual tools and languages. This educational paradigm helps to facilitate the understanding of complex concepts, translating them into clear and intuitive visual representations, while enhancing memorisation skills, critical information processing and the practical application of acquired knowledge. This systematic review, conducted according to the PRISMA (2020) protocol, analyses the most recent empirical evidence on the effectiveness of Visual Education in educational contexts. The main objective is to assess how the intentional use of visual tools—images, concept maps, educational videos, interactive digital materials, and virtual manipulatives—contributes to enhancing learning processes and developing transversal skills. Through a comparative analysis of fourteen international contributions published between 2020 and 2025, selected from the Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO databases, the research highlights how Visual Education significantly influences the improvement of academic performance, motivation and cognitive and emotional engagement of students. The results also confirm the inclusive function of visual teaching, which can encourage participation, self-esteem and cooperation even in individuals with special educational needs. The discussion emphasises the need for the systematic integration of Visual Education into school curricula as a strategy to enhance soft skills and promote more equitable, effective learning geared towards the integral development of the individual. Full article

The accurate interpretation of structural edges requires distinguishing geometry-driven discontinuities from reflectance- and illumination-induced variations. Conventional photogrammetric pipelines rely primarily on radiometric and geometric cues, which often lack physical interpretability under complex material and lighting conditions. This study proposes a photogrammetry–polarimetry fusion framework for physics-guided semantic classification of 3D structural edges. Radiometric, geometric, and polarimetric features are integrated within a noise-normalized representation to enable modality-independent interpretation. A rule-based classification scheme is introduced to assign edges to physically meaningful categories, including geometric, material, specular, illumination, and polarization-driven phenomena. The method is evaluated on a calibrated geometric object and a cultural heritage statue. Results show that polarization provides complementary information that reduces ambiguity between geometry-driven and reflectance-driven edge responses while preserving the underlying reconstructed geometry. On the calibrated dataset, edge detection achieves 88.4% precision, 95.5% recall, and an F1-score of approximately 0.92. Multi-view integration further improves the completeness of geometry-dominant 3D edges. The proposed framework introduces a physics-guided semantic sensing layer for multi-modal 3D perception, enabling more robust and interpretable structural analysis in photogrammetric workflows. Full article

High-resolution Köppen–Geiger projections indicate that several cold desert (BWk) regions are likely to transition toward hot desert (BWh) regimes during the twenty-first century, challenging the environmental logic of vernacular architecture. Despite extensive simulation-based research on passive cooling in established BWh contexts, limited attention has been given to climate-type transition zones and to the morphological continuity of traditional housing systems. This study investigates the adaptive capacity of Bukhara’s courtyard houses under projected BWk–BWh reclassification. Employing an analytical generalization approach, the research integrates systematic literature mapping, typological morphological analysis, and a threshold-based compatibility matrix. Findings reveal that climate transition produces a form of morphological discontinuity by weakening diurnal discharge assumptions embedded in high thermal mass systems. However, courtyard typologies retain a resilient passive core when recalibrated through microclimatic amplification strategies. The proposed staged adaptation framework contributes a heritage-sensitive decision model that reconciles climatic performance with spatial integrity, offering transferable guidance for cli-mate-intensifying desert regions. Full article