Search Results (157)

Throughout the history of civil aviation, radio navigation aids have played a crucial role in ensuring the safety and continuity of air transportation. Although the development of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) over the past half-century has significantly improved positioning accuracy, the system’s vulnerability to interference considerably reduces its reliability and poses a risk to civil aviation safety. This limitation highlights the crucial role of ground-based radio navigation networks in ensuring nominal flight operations. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the global coverage and performance of radio navigation aid networks and assesses the implementation level of Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) by Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) worldwide. A novel methodology is proposed for network performance evaluation, incorporating spatial characteristics of parameter distribution across global airspace using a geospatial indexing framework to determine airspace configurations compliant with various area navigation (RNAV) specifications. The performance of DME/DME, VOR/DME, and VOR/VOR positioning methods is evaluated within the official ICAO regional airspace structure. The results indicate that the European and North American regions currently maintain the most developed DME and VOR networks and propose reliable infrastructure sustainability. Globally, RNAV 1 capability is supported within approximately 20.2% of airspace using DME/DME and 3.45% using VOR/DME, while RNAV 5 coverage extends over 23.61% of global airspace, which approves resource efficiency distribution. RNAV 10 coverage could be supported by the VOR/VOR positioning method only in 13.48% of global airspace. Overall, the obtained results confirm the limited positioning performance of VOR network compared with DME, supporting the continuation of VOR network rationalization strategies and highlighting the need for optimized resource sharing to ensure the resilience and safety of the global air navigation system. Full article

Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) have a higher risk of contracting hepatitis C (HCV) than the general population, but these individuals are often poorly served by traditional healthcare systems. The elimination of HCV as a threat to public health relies on the treatment of this population. Novel care models designed with input from PWID may help to better align care to the needs of PWID. Methods: We designed and implemented a community-based, point-of-care testing program for HCV delivered by a syringe service program, combined with facilitated access to a healthcare provider, care navigation, and financial incentives. We collected participant demographics and drug use patterns, testing and treatment history, and communication preferences. Descriptive analyses include the number of people tested between 15 October 2021 and 1 February 2025, their seropositivity rate, and the number who completed pre-treatment laboratory tests, completed treatment and achieved cure by sustained virologic response (SVR12) by 1 August 2025. Results: The program engaged 464 unique individuals, of whom 98 (21.1%) had a known diagnosis of HCV. Of 389 unique individuals who underwent point of care (POC) HCV antibody (Ab) testing, including 31 with a known prior diagnosis of HCV, 97 (24.9%) had a positive result. Of 439 unique individuals who underwent POC HIV Ab testing, only 1 had a positive result. Of 164 individuals with either a positive POC HCV Ab test or a known HCV diagnosis, 66 completed pre-treatment laboratory tests, identifying 52 viremic participants. Of those, 35 started and completed treatment. Among those who completed treatment, 9 (25.7%) achieved SVR12, 3 (8.6) failed to achieve SVR12, and 23 (65.7%) had outstanding laboratory orders for SVR12 determination. Conclusions: An incentivized, community-based, point-of-care testing program with facilitated linkage to care successfully engaged a high-risk population in HCV and HIV testing and treatment. However, substantial attrition occurred at each step of the care cascade, particularly at SVR12 determination. Additional strategies are needed to optimize retention throughout the entire care cascade. Full article

Universities have become central arenas in which the terms of racial justice are negotiated, contested, and at times sanctioned. This article examines how decolonial discourse in Belgian higher education navigates the tension between dialogic and authoritative discourse. Decolonial discourse in Belgium tackles racial illiteracy or the lack of institutional capacity to engage with the histories and contemporary realities of race. The study draws on a qualitative analysis of thirteen publicly available documents, including open letters, manifestos, and institutional responses produced between 2017 and 2021, with a dialogic analysis of five key texts within the Ghent University Association. Using Bakhtin’s framework of dialogic and authoritative discourse, operationalised through Matusov and von Duyke’s concept of internally persuasive discourse (IPD), the analysis identifies three modes of responding to racial illiteracy: appeals to personal conviction (IPD1), the formulation of new institutional norms (IPD2), and dialogic inquiry that treats illiteracy as a shared pedagogical problem (IPD3). The findings show that while decolonial movements expose the structural and epistemic conditions that sustain racial illiteracy, institutional responses from students, staff, and governing bodies often address these critiques by enforcing ‘decolonial’ personal convictions and institutional norms, risking the reproduction of the very illiteracy they seek to remedy. The article concludes that decolonial transformation requires cultivating dialogic practices that position racial illiteracy as a collective site of learning within the university’s civic mission. Full article

This article proposes the term ‘generative artifact’ to define a new method of imagining the future, one derived from artistic and architectural interpretations of non-linear time, material exploration, and relationship building. This contrasts the imagining that happened in the past by European and North American dominant culture, born out of fears of a declining Western hegemony and resulting in socially constructed hierarchies based on race. To investigate this historic and outdated imagining of culture, we trace the history of Chinatown and the ornamented feminine body as a physical example of hypervisibility in the North American city. First, we examine the current discourse on Chinatowns’ Orientalist aesthetics, legitimacy through institutionalized nonspecificity, and architectural/artifactual heritage, which serve as a mirror and moor for the Chinese diaspora today. Here, we find clues on how to navigate and leverage the spectacle of the racial image, the continuous merging of person and thing, and the tropes that the racialized body might find itself answering for. To illustrate the potential of the generative process and through the lenses of Anne Anlin Cheng’s theory of ornamentalism and Legacy Russell’s glitch feminism, this article places Chinatown adjacent to the worldbuilding and artistic practices of seven contemporary artists and architects. This includes Astria Suparak (performance critique), Curry J. Hackett (AI, installation), Shellie Zhang (sculpture), Lan “Florence” Yee (textile), Debra Sparrow (weaving, murals), Thomas Cannell (sculpture), and the author (performance). All are from varied cultural backgrounds who create ‘generative artifacts’ in their creative practices—works that playfully slip between sign/icon, high/low tech, and authentic/invented culture to point towards a path to imagining more expansive futures. Full article

In response to the increasing demand for effective bridge management and the shortcomings of current proprietary solutions, this work presents an open-source, web-based platform designed to support bridge inspection and data management, particularly for small and medium-sized public administrations, which often lack personnel or funding for implementing context-specific tools. The system addresses fragmented workflows by integrating multi-format geospatial and 3D data—such as point clouds, CAD/BIM models, and georeferenced imagery—within a unified, modular architecture. The platform enables structured inventory, interactive 2D/3D visualization, defect annotation, and role-based user interaction, aligning with FAIR principles and interoperability standards. Built entirely with free and open-source tools, the P.O.N.T.I. prototype ensures scalability, transparency, and adaptability. A multi-layer navigation interface guides users through asset exploration, inspection history, and immersive 3D viewers. Fully documented and publicly available on GitHub, the system allows for deployment across varying institutional contexts. The platform’s design anticipates future developments, including integration with IoT monitoring systems, AI-driven inspection tools, and chatbot interfaces for natural language querying. By overcoming existing proprietary limitations and providing access to a versatile single space, the proposed solution supports decision-makers in the digital transition towards a more accessible, transparent and integrated infrastructure asset management. Full article

The Boxer Rebellion, as a significant historical episode in modern Chinese history, has been primarily studied through official archives and Boxer propaganda Posters. Chinese Christian literature remain underutilized in current scholarship. Quan Huo Ji 拳祸记 (The Record of Boxer Rebellion), is an important ecclesiastical document, compiled by the Catholic priest Li Wenyu. While reflecting an apologetic stance, it nonetheless provides valuable insights from the perspective of common people and narrates the experiences of marginalized individuals, offering a systematic account of the suffering endured by various dioceses. Within this text, three categories of common people emerge. First, the lay faithful, who, under the violent threat of “apostasy or death”, remained steadfast in their faith. Second, anti-Christian civilians, whose motivations—though often framed as expressions of national or social grievance—may in fact reflect a release of personal frustrations and desires. Third, those sympathetic to Christians either maintained a neutral stance or offered assistance within their limited capacity. These individual experiences, often overlooked by mainstream historiography, compensate for the limitations of conventional analytical frameworks. They also vividly illustrate how ordinary people navigated between forced compromise and active resistance. Through a microhistorical lens, these personal trajectories offer a multi-dimensional portrayal of the survival dilemmas. Full article

Background/Objectives: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States (U.S.). Virginia, South Carolina, and North Carolina are among the U.S. states with extraordinarily high rates of lung cancer mortality, particularly among Black residents. The current lung cancer screening guidelines, revised in 2021, support screening for younger, non-Medicare age-eligible individuals who smoke. However, their health insurance, if any, may not cover their screening. This lack of access could create more disparities in lung cancer mortality rates. Methods: To address this concern, the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center, and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center secured a four-year Stand Up To Cancer^® (SU2C) grant titled “Southeastern Consortium for Lung Cancer Screening (SC3) Study” with a novel aim to test the effectiveness of a multimodal, multilevel, barrier-focused patient navigation intervention to promote lung cancer screening among Black patients from federally qualified health centers. Results: A total of 170/675 Black participants have been recruited to date. The majority of participants (n = 134; 78.82%) were aged 55–74 years. Most participants were unmarried (n = 100; 58.82%), more than half had a high school education/GED or less (n = 111; 65.29%), most currently smoked (n = 142; 83.53%), and more males than females participated (n = 107; 62.94% male). Their reported lung cancer screening barriers, addressed by the patient navigators, were cost concerns, insurance coverage issues, and recent medical history precluding screening. Conclusions with Relevance to Cancer Health Equity: This SC3 study includes a unique lung cancer screening cohort that is in direct contrast to the predominantly White cohort in the National Lung Screening Trial. The SU2C study has created a novel, community-engaged approach to lung cancer screening navigation that could become the gold standard in high-risk medically underserved populations. Full article

Rodents are the most diverse group of mammals, yet the natural history of many species remains poorly understood due to their elusive behavior. In this study, we examined the population structure, home range, space use, and food selection of two sympatric sigmodontine rodents, Euryoryzomys russatus and Sooretamys angouya, in the Morro Grande Forest Reserve, Brazil. E. russatus was more abundant than S. angouya, with its capture rates influenced by temperature. In contrast, the population variation of S. angouya showed no clear relationship with the assessed biotic (fruits and arthropods) or abiotic factors (temperature and precipitation), suggesting different primary regulatory factors for its population or a more generalist ecological strategy. The two species exhibited vertical stratification in space use: S. angouya displayed scansorial and arboreal locomotion, while E. russatus remained strictly terrestrial. Home range size, space use, and mobility were primarily influenced by resource availability, reproductive cycles, and individual body size. Our findings provide insights into the life strategies of these species, specifically regarding their vertical stratification in space use and their distinct responses to environmental resource fluctuations, enhancing our understanding of how sympatric rodents navigate shared spatial and temporal environments. Full article

Visibility on roads can be poor during winters owing to snowstorms and other factors. Optical devices, including Light Detection and Ranging devices, are ineffective under whiteout conditions. Moreover, buildings, trees, and other obstacles reduce the accuracy of the Global Positioning System. Therefore, we investigate vehicle navigation using an Ultrahigh Frequency Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system. This study extends a previously developed RFID-based navigation system for paved roads to unpaved roads. Unpaved roads, particularly those in mountainous or forested areas, can become unstable because of weather conditions and present unique challenges regarding the stability of RFID tags. We use geocells to provide road stability and maintain the RFID tags at the ideal position and attitude. We insert RFID tags into polyvinyl chloride pipe holders and attach them to geocells. We also use the vehicle heading angle from the inertial navigation system (INS). In some areas, the INS is disturbed and shows incorrect direction. We utilize the RFID tag reading history to improve vehicle positioning accuracy by compensating for errors in the INS. Applying this correction reduces the average deviation from the lane center. Driving experiments are conducted on a straight unpaved road, and good results are obtained. These results validate the robustness of the proposed vehicle navigation system, which combines an RFID system with a geocell, providing insights into its successful implementation on unpaved roads. Full article

Inspired by the free-flight capabilities of the gannet in both aerial and underwater environments, a foldable-wing air–water cross-medium vehicle was designed. To enhance its propulsive performance and transition stability across these two media, aero-hydrodynamic performance analyses were conducted under three representative operating states: aerial flight, underwater navigation, and water entry. Numerical simulations were performed in ANSYS Fluent (Version 2022R2) to quantify lift, drag, lift-to-drag ratio (L/D), and tri-axial moment responses in both air and water. The transient multiphase flow characteristics during water entry were captured using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method. The results indicate that: (1) in the aerial state, the lift coefficient increases almost linearly with the angle of attack, and the L/D ratio peaks within the range of 4–6°; (2) in the folded (underwater) configuration, the fuselage still generates effective lift, with a maximum L/D ratio of approximately 2.67 at a 10° angle of attack; (3) transient water entry exhibits a characteristic two-stage force history (“initial impact” followed by “steady release”), with the peak vertical load increasing significantly with water entry angle and velocity. The maximum vertical force reaches 353.42 N under the 60°, 5 m/s condition, while the recommended compromise scheme of 60°, 3 m/s effectively reduces peak load and improves attitude stability. This study establishes a closed-loop analysis framework from biomimetic design to aero-hydrodynamic modeling and water entry analysis, providing the physical basis and parameter support for subsequent cross-medium attitude control, path planning, and intelligent control system development. Full article

Navigating ships through one-way channels introduces significant uncertainties due to their unique navigational constraints, yet a comprehensive and tailored risk evaluation system for such channels remains notably underdeveloped. Recognizing its critical role as a global maritime artery, this study selects the Suez Canal as the case study to address this gap. The study begins by analyzing the navigational characteristics of one-way channels, systematically identifying key risk factors such as channel width, traffic density, and environmental conditions. Building on this, a novel risk evaluation model is developed, integrating the entropy weight method to assign objective weights, fuzzy logic to handle uncertainty, and Evidential Reasoning (ER) to aggregate multi-criteria assessments. The Suez Canal is then utilized as a case study to demonstrate the model’s effectiveness and practical applicability. The results reveal that Channel C exhibits the highest risk utility value, consistent with its history of the most grounding incidents, including the notable “Ever Given” event during 2021–2023. These findings not only provide valuable insights for enhancing Suez Canal management strategies but also contribute to filling the existing void in risk evaluation frameworks for one-way channels, paving the way for future research into dynamic risk assessment methodologies. Full article

In January 2023, Wikipedia introduced its most significant user interface (UI) redesign in over a decade, aiming to improve readability, accessibility, and navigation across devices. Despite the scale of this change, little empirical work has assessed its actual impact on user behavior. This study employs a natural experiment framework, leveraging Wikipedia’s exogenous, site-wide redesign date and large-scale, publicly available data—including clickstream, pageview, and edit histories—to evaluate user experience before and after the change. Using a quasi-experimental design, we estimate an immediate jump of ~1.06 million monthly internal link clicks at launch, while average hourly pageviews in January rose 1.25% despite a one-time –1.79 million dip at rollout. These results highlight the potential of large-scale UI changes to reshape user interaction without broadly alienating users and demonstrate the value of quasi-experimental methods for Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Our approach offers a replicable framework for evaluating real-world design interventions at scale. Full article

Obtaining electricity from water wave energy using energy converters has a long history, but there are still relatively few commercial devices in the world compared to other solutions using renewable energy. The probable reasons for this state of affairs are operating costs, the cost of minimizing navigation risk for ships, and the geographical and hydro-meteorological specificity of various sea areas, resulting in the use of different, difficult-to-unify solutions. It can be concluded based on a literature analysis that there are no similar commercial solutions in Poland. This article presents the characteristics of waves in the South Baltic Sea near the Polish coast. Calculations of the output power were carried out for a selected type of wave energy converter (point absorber—PA) with different design parameters stimulated by wave energy with variable amplitude and period. These calculations for three characteristic cases are related to a feasibility study of the placement of power point absorbers in the water area around the port of Łeba in Poland. Finally, a short analysis of the results is presented. The obtained calculation results under Polish EEZ conditions are promising because we obtained above 304 KW of energy for 17% of the wave time per year, which seems to be good for local applications. Full article

The violent dispossession of land in South Africa disrupted more than just homes—it severed Black South Africans from a sacred, ancestral connection to land as a source of identity, belonging, and spiritual dwelling. This article examines how forced removals displaced not only bodies but also histories, memories, and the deep-rooted sense of ikhaya (home). Rooted in the concept of endleleni (being on the road/along the road), this study explores how amaXhosa navigate the in-between journey of landlessness and homecoming. Using indigenous storytelling methodology, it reveals how land is not merely for shelter or sustenance but is intricately tied to birth, the umbilical cord, and death, making its reclamation a fight for existence itself. Full article

Situated at the intersection of social history and psychology, this study examines how early Christian communities in Bithynia-Pontus navigated the persecution narrated in Pliny the Younger’s Epistle X 96. Through systematic textual analysis of Latin and Greek sources—triangulated with comparative evidence from Tacitus and corroborating archaeological data—and interpreted through Conservation-of-Resources and Social Identity theoretical frameworks, we reconstruct the repertoire of collective coping strategies mobilised under Roman repression. Our findings show that ritualised dawn assemblies, mutual economic assistance, and a theologically grounded expectation of post-mortem vindication converted external coercion into internal cohesion; these practices neutralised informer threat, sustained group morale, and ultimately expanded Christian networks across Asia Minor. Moreover, Pliny’s ad hoc judicial improvisations reveal the governor’s own bounded rationality, underscoring the reciprocal nature of stress between the persecutor and persecuted. By mapping the dynamic interaction between imperial policy and subaltern agency, the article clarifies why limited, locally triggered violence consolidated rather than extinguished the nascent movement. The analysis contributes a theoretically informed, evidence-based account of religious-minority resilience, enriching both early Christian historiography and broader debates on group survival under systemic duress. Full article