Search Results (374)

Post-socialist urban landscapes often undergo spontaneous transformation where formal governance is fragmented or discontinuous, yet the spatial logic of these transitions remains insufficiently quantified. This study examines Krzemionki, a landscape archaeological heritage site in Krakow, Poland, using multi-temporal land cover classification based on QGIS-based geospatial analysis, AI-assisted segmentation, and manual verification. Between 2009 and 2025, spontaneous vegetation cover increased by 36.27 ha, whereas developed spatial fragments increased by only 4.82 ha, revealing substantially unequal dynamics between ecological regeneration and anthropogenic spatial persistence. Change frequency analysis further shows that 76.85% of mapped improvised spatial practice area was located in areas experiencing zero or one land cover transition. This pattern suggests a spatial concentration of observable improvised practices in relatively stable interstitial spaces. This observed pattern may reflect selective spatial anchoring, although it should be interpreted as an indication of spatial tendency rather than direct evidence of persistent practices over the entire study period. By integrating ecological regeneration, fragmented development, and everyday spatial practices into a unified framework, this study identifies three differentiated types of spatial logic—expansion, persistence, and spatial distribution of observable practices—that characterise the observed landscape transition. Selective spatial anchoring is further proposed as one possible interpretation of these patterns. These findings support differentiated planning responses based on spatial stability, including selective formalisation in stable areas, temporary or adaptive use in low-frequency transition zones, and limited intervention in highly dynamic areas. Full article

Nearly four decades after the 1986 reactor explosion, several hundred semi-feral dogs persist within the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Genomic work has characterised their population structure and shown that radiation-induced mutation does not, on current evidence, drive the differentiation between groups; the cause of that differentiation remains unresolved, and their epigenome has never been examined. These dogs are a potentially valuable model for chronic, low-dose, multi-stressor exposure, not because they are “radiation-adapted”, a contested claim, but because they are a human-adjacent, densely sampled, pedigreed mammal for which comparative canine–human tools already exist. Since 2017, a humane sterilisation programme, carried out at the request of and in cooperation with the Ukrainian authorities, has reached near-complete coverage of the established populations. That programme was justified: dogs are formally prohibited in the zone, they injure workers, free-roaming animals inside an operating nuclear facility raise security as well as veterinary concerns, and reproduction was outpacing what the environment could support. Our argument concerns timing rather than policy. The scientific value of this population was never evaluated while it was still breeding, and the archived material that does exist, roughly 400 dogs including parent–offspring trios and repeat-sampled individuals, was assembled for population genetics rather than for the regulatory questions now worth asking. That archive should be analysed for methylation and expression now, as this is the only access to the population as it was. The animals themselves have not gone: several hundred identified dogs are still alive there, so sampling at veterinary contact and the retention of tissue at natural death or clinically indicated euthanasia remain possible, provided they are planned and funded in advance rather than improvised. More generally, the scientific evaluation of a population should accompany the decision to manage it rather than follow it, because sterilisation is not reversible at the population scale and an archive cannot be assembled retrospectively. We set out what such an evaluation requires at the outset of a programme. Its most concrete element asks nothing of the animals: a sterilisation clinic is the only routine access to a free-roaming population under anaesthesia, and the reproductive tissue it removes—the one material capable of addressing germline questions—is discarded as surgical waste. Full article

Organizations increasingly measure and report sustainability, yet the impacts they report are produced in projects. This paper proposes a relational reconceptualization of sustainability maturity in project management, as the coupling of measurement means to the project decisions where sustainability ends are produced, and examines it against practitioners’ accounts. Sixty interviews (from an initial corpus of 62) with project management practitioners across six sectors and three organizational scales were analyzed through hybrid qualitative content analysis (27 codes; blind double coding, κ = 0.70). Practitioners rated their organizations readily but on improvised scales that were differentiated internally and narrated as trajectory, including regression; no participant invoked any named maturity model. In this sample, measurement accumulates at the organizational level while the project level frequently goes unmeasured: 26% of the 54 organizations, and 47% of the multinationals among them, maintain corporate measurement with no project-level measurement. This asymmetry is an observable signature consistent with vertical, means–ends decoupling; whether the corporate measurement that exists fails to inform project decisions is an inference the present design cannot test. External requirements dominate the reported drivers and are frequently welcomed as resources for growth; in exploratory sector comparisons, construction shows the highest project-level measurement and IT the lowest. The findings are consistent with the coupling conception, which they were used to develop rather than to test, and point to measurement attachment, rather than instrument availability, as the likely binding constraint in sustainability management systems. Full article

Rescue operations in abandoned and structurally compromised buildings represent a specific type of technical intervention in which the rapid evacuation of injured persons must be ensured while maintaining a high level of rescuer safety. The selection of an appropriate rope rescue method is influenced by multiple technical, organizational, and time-related factors, whose comprehensive assessment requires a systematic multi-criteria evaluation approach. The aim of this study was to develop a numerical model and to demonstrate its calculation procedure and internal applicability using data obtained from a case-specific full-scale rescue exercise. The proposed model is based on experimental data obtained during a full-scale rescue exercise conducted by members of the Fire and Rescue Service of the Slovak Republic, in which two casualty evacuation techniques—the Arizona Vortex Rescue System and the Improvised Rope Traverse System—were evaluated within the same predefined exercise scenario. Each method was performed once by the same five-member rescue team. The evaluation combined measured operational parameters, expert assessment of qualitative criteria, multi-criteria analysis, and criterion weighting using the Fuller pairwise comparison method. Because each rescue method was represented by a single trial, the observations do not permit an assessment of experimental repeatability or general comparative effectiveness. Based on the proposed mathematical procedure, a composite indicator, the Rescue Method Performance Index (RMPI), was developed to integrate all evaluated criteria into a single performance measure enabling the quantitative comparison of the evaluated rescue methods. The pilot study did not include dedicated safety-risk indicators, such as rescuer fall risk or system-stability risk, and future research should incorporate such parameters to extend the operational applicability of the proposed model. Within the evaluated exercise, the Arizona Vortex Rescue System yielded an RMPI of 0.880, whereas the Improvised Rope Traverse System yielded an RMPI of 0.790. The experimental comparison further showed that the AVRS achieved a shorter rope-rescue operation time and more favourable operational-complexity and casualty-transport comfort ratings, whereas the IRTS demonstrated simpler deployment under the evaluated conditions. These case-specific values illustrate the application of the model and do not establish the general superiority of either rescue method. The proposed approach provides a methodological framework for the evaluation of rope rescue methods and establishes a basis for future validation through replicated full-scale exercises under different types of technical rescue operations. Full article

This article examines a group of Torah arks made for rural Jewish communities in German lands during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Scholarship on Ashkenazi synagogue furnishings has largely focused on monumental Torah arks associated with larger and wealthier communities. The examples discussed here reveal a different tradition, one that emerged under distinct social and material conditions and served smaller rural congregations. Drawing on an analysis of construction techniques, materials, and design, the article demonstrates that these arks were rooted in regional woodworking practices shared with contemporary furniture, cabinetry, and church furnishings. Produced in local workshops, likely by Christian craftsmen, they adapted familiar carpentry forms to Jewish liturgical requirements. Visible structural compromises, improvised solutions, and simplified construction techniques preserve traces of this process. Rather than evaluating these arks primarily against monumental urban examples, this study situates them within the regional material and craft environments in which they were produced. Their forms reflect a localized process of sacralization through which ordinary woodworking traditions were transformed into ritual furnishings and focal points of communal worship. By highlighting this group of objects, whose carpentry, construction, and relationship to regional furniture traditions have not been systematically examined, the article expands current scholarship on Torah ark design and demonstrates the diversity of material solutions developed by Jewish communities in early modern German lands. Full article

Repeated dyadic interactions are characterized not only by average multimodal signal levels but also by how cross-modal consistency evolves over time. This study investigated whether the joint temporal organization of within-person face–body cross-modal consistency and probabilistic cross-modal affective agreement, quantified by the Consistency Index for Affective Synchrony (CIAS) and the Probabilistic Multimodal Consistency Index (PMCI), yielded reproducible session-level dynamic representations associated with repeated dyadic interaction. The primary analysis included 24 improvised and 17 naturalistic sessions, with 12 dyads in each condition. Time-varying signals from both partners were summarized through dynamic-state occupancy, dwell structure, transition characteristics, and temporal variability and evaluated using relational permutation analysis with shared-participant and technical controls. In naturalistic interaction, repeated sessions of the same dyad were significantly more similar ($\beta$ = −2.0180, FDR q = 0.0114), with significant dyad-specificity beyond shared-participant similarity ($\Delta$$\beta$ = −2.4670, q = 0.0033). Representation ablations showed that PMCI provided the dominant state-separation structure, whereas CIAS contributed modest and condition-dependent complementary information. Most notably, frozen participant-disjoint evaluation on 73 naturalistic sessions from six dyads and 11 previously unseen participants retained significant dyad-associated structure and achieved session-weighted nearest-dyad accuracy of 0.8356 and macro-dyad accuracy of 0.8512. Additional robustness analyses showed that the principal pattern persisted across state-count specifications, temporal-window settings, partner-order reversal, and explicit technical-quality adjustment. Overall, the findings support the existence of reproducible session-level multimodal dynamic structure associated with repeated dyadic interaction and its transfer to previously unseen participants, while not implying direct interpersonal synchrony or psychologically defined interaction states. Full article

Transseptal puncture constitutes the foundational step required for left atrial access, serving as the critical gateway for pulmonary vein isolation, left-sided electrophysiological ablations, and percutaneous structural heart interventions. Although fluoroscopically guided transseptal puncture demonstrates high technical success rates alongside low reported complication rates, procedural training historically relies on unstructured apprenticeship models where overlooked mechanical nuances generate the majority of periprocedural adverse events. Methodological execution demands precise interatrial septal mapping, preprocedural left atrial thrombus screening, systemic anticoagulation, and rigorous hardware de-airing protocols. Real-time imaging using transesophageal or intracardiac echocardiography enhances fluoroscopic landmarks, facilitating precise localized puncture at the thin fossa ovalis while safeguarding adjacent anatomical structures such as the aortic root, posterior left atrial wall, and pericardial space. Modern auxiliary technologies, including radiofrequency crossing devices, provide systematic escalation strategies for fibrotic or altered septal substrates. Left atrial access must be unequivocally confirmed before dilator or sheath advancement using appropriate imaging, hemodynamic, or other procedural confirmation methods according to the technique employed. Ultimate procedural safety and operator competence depend on maintaining rigorous multi-modality confirmation protocols rather than relying on technical improvisation. Full article

Globalization has led to the widespread adoption of dominant Western understandings of creativity in music education curricula and educational policies worldwide. These Western understandings often emphasize particular markers of musical creativity, taking for granted the need for exploration, improvisation, creation, originality, and individual expression. However, a growing body of research in certain East and Southeast Asian educational settings reveals persistent mismatches between these imported understandings and local classroom realities. In this conceptual paper, we claim that musical creativity, as conceptualized by Western scholars, should not necessarily be the core of music teaching and learning practices in Asian classrooms. To make this case, we synthesize findings from empirical studies conducted in these Asian contexts, focusing on teachers’ practices, stakeholders’ beliefs, and scholarly discourses on musical creativity. We argue that music educators in Asia should not evaluate their practices against imported Western understandings of musical creativity. Instead, we advocate for a reorientation toward developing culturally meaningful and contextually appropriate musical practices. We propose that the concept of musical creativity does not need to be abandoned, but if used, it should be decentered and locally defined. In conclusion, we call for a glocalized approach to musical creativity that is globally aware of dominant Western ideas, but prioritizes locally situated musical practices. Full article

In science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM)-based music education, sound serves as a shared object of listening, inquiry, design, representation, and artistic expression. Sound is approached as musical material, a physical phenomenon, a technological object, a design problem, and a mathematical structure. Learners investigate vibration, pitch, loudness, timbre, duration, rhythm, melody, and acoustic experience; use digital tools to record, replay, visualize, arrange, and create sound; and apply design processes to plan, test, revise, and present sound-based products or performances. Musical understanding is developed through singing, movement, instrumental performance, composition, improvisation, and reflection, while mathematical reasoning is supported through beat, duration, sequence, proportion, pattern, and timing. In this approach, music provides an integrated context in which learners connect sensory experience with conceptual understanding. It is relevant across general music education contexts because it supports listening, discrimination, comparison, organization, creation, performance, and reflection, with activities adapted to learners’ ages, prior musical experience, and educational levels. Full article

The contribution of this essay to two rather distinct academic literatures is two-fold. First, it reconceives the significance of Wittgenstein’s remarks on aspect–seeing, which are generally taken to be revelatory of language narrowly conceived, and instead explores the connection between aspect–seeing—what Wittgenstein identifies as one “among the concepts of experience”—and the nature of experience itself. It does so by noting the importance to Wittgenstein of inventing “fictitious natural history” to reveal the connection between what we say and the kind of creature we are. It then examines other fictitious natural histories involving aspect–seeing (or its absence) that illustrate some “very general facts of nature”—facts that, the essay contends, help form the fundamental conditions for our finding one another intelligible. Second, the essay reconceives what constitutes the significance of jazz improvisation (and possibly other forms of spontaneous activity, though those are not explored here) by grounding this significance in these same very general facts of nature. It develops this thought by considering the implications of a different fictitious natural history involving musical performance, and through a remarkable if complex instance of an exemplary improvised jazz solo by Charlie Parker. Full article

For a long time, research on creativity has focused more on cognitive aspects (“minds”) rather than the production side (“actions”). This paper examines the creative practice as a subjective experience, using researcher introspection as a qualitative methodology. Through in-depth reflection on the creative development of an Ikebana artist, this study captures the complexity of creative practice, and offers detailed insights into its embodied and procedural dimensions, including experimentation and flow. Drawing on the theory of deliberate practice, the study challenges the notion that creativity is purely spontaneous and demonstrates how improvisation emerges through disciplined practice and deliberate experimentation. We propose a three-stage, practice-based model for training creativity: mastering fundamentals, exploring variations, and ultimately breaking free from established forms. Full article

Across the Global South, heightened contestation over rural land has placed land administration at the centre of policy debates, particularly where mismatches between official land records and lived realities generate disputes, exclusion, and limited access to welfare and compensation. In India, these challenges are shaped by colonial cadastral legacies, fragmented institutional arrangements, and rapidly changing rural and peri-urban landscapes. While digitization of land records is widely promoted as a solution to improve transparency and efficiency, reforms implemented without meaningful community participation risk reproducing existing inequalities in more rigid and legally entrenched forms. This article examines the limits of digitization-led land reforms in India and explores how decentralized and community-engaged governance approaches can strengthen land administration. Focusing on two case-study regions in Western India—Talasari and Chiplun in Maharashtra—the study draws on qualitative field research conducted between December 2024 and October 2025, including Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), institutional process-mapping, and analysis of land administration procedures across multiple departments. The combination of field-based evidence and process-mapping enables a grounded analysis of institutional coordination, governance bottlenecks, and the relationship between formal land records and customary tenure practices. The findings show that digitization without community-engaged implementation processes often reproduces inaccuracies and governance gaps rather than resolving longstanding structural problems. Outdated cadastral records, fragmented institutional arrangements, and weak coordination between departments continue to intensify exclusions, tenure insecurity, and administrative fragmentation. The article therefore argues that strengthening land governance requires hybrid and decentralized approaches that integrate statutory and customary systems through co-governance and community participation. These findings have important policy implications for ongoing reforms such as the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) and the Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA), highlighting the need to align digitization initiatives with local tenure realities, participatory governance, and stronger institutional coordination. Full article

Research on creativity often treats emotions using broad categories such as positive versus negative affect, which obscure the role of specific emotional states in creative performance. This exploratory study examines how fine-grained emotions relate to linguistic creativity in improvised speech. Thirty adult participants completed speech tasks across happy, neutral, and sad conditions, producing 90 speech samples. The responses were transcribed and evaluated using TTCT-inspired creativity dimensions: fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Fine-grained emotional states were estimated from the transcripts using automatic emotion recognition, and their associations with creativity scores were examined through statistical analysis. The findings suggest that linguistic creativity in improvised speech can be better understood by considering specific emotional profiles rather than relying only on broad positive or negative affect categories. The study contributes an exploratory methodological framework for future research on affect-aware creativity support systems and Computational models of emotion–creativity interaction. Full article

This article examines the extent to which it is possible to reconstruct part of the technical knowledge employed in pre-Hispanic Andean constructions. Drawing on chronicles, colonial representations, linguistic studies, ethnography and direct architectural analysis, it demonstrates that Andean societies possessed specialised trades and a wider repertoire of tools than is commonly recognised. A central finding is the identification of gaveras—wooden moulds for making adobe bricks—whose recognition here shows that carpentry techniques were more developed than has been assumed. The poor documentation of these objects—several of them miscatalogued in Peruvian museums—has reinforced the mistaken assumption that complex construction tools were not used in ancient Peru. The study combines three approaches: direct observation of the built fabric (marks, imprints and textures that reveal construction processes), review of the Quechua vocabulary associated with tools and trades—drawn from three sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dictionaries consulted in the Langas repository of the CNRS—and comparison with current practices in Andean communities. This is complemented by a comparison with records from other cultures and a systematic search of the database of the Ministry of Culture of Peru, where plumb bobs, floats, shovels, axes, chisels and other instruments rarely analysed from a constructive perspective were located. Taken together, the article demonstrates that pre-Hispanic architecture was neither intuitive nor improvised, but the outcome of a technical tradition carried out by specialists, tools that are little known today, and construction methods based on measurement, alignment control, mortar transfer and careful surface finishing. Full article

The Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform at the end of the twentieth century displaced millions of workers into a rapidly shifting market. How do displaced workers navigate the coexistence of historical structures, of relations of production and social reproduction, both old and new? This article takes up these questions through two films by director Zhang Meng—Piano in a Factory and Lucky Dog—that center on former SOE workers amidst postsocialist China’s new economic order. In both films, characters navigate life outside the SOE structure by improvising with limited resources and repurposing what remains available, by way of both creativity and constraint. Reading these acts, this article proposes the term labor of making-do to name a practical, creative activity through which subjects navigate limited material conditions, competing subjectivities, and disrupted social relations in the shifting reality. Drawing on embodied socialist skills and memory, making-do as a particular form of labor reproduces subjects in a new historical structure. In the face of the market, it sometimes functions outside market logics. While informed by the historical legacy of the socialist ideology of labor, the labor of making-do is not primarily a nostalgic attempt to restore socialist ideals; nor is it a deliberate resistance to capitalism. Rather, it demonstrates a lived, spontaneous and often unglamorous process by which precarious subjects negotiate sustenance and survival, and through which revised subjectivities are produced. It is through such contradictory and quotidian processes that social reproduction unfolds across coexisting historical structures. Full article