Search Results (94)

The rapid development of medical technologies requires architects to implement a future-proofing approach while designing medical facilities, despite the inherent uncertainty of long-term change. This challenge is particularly visible within hospital emergency departments (HEDs), which play a critical role as first-contact units and life-saving infrastructures. Due to their specific function, HEDs are a challenging environment for implementing new solutions, as they rely on proven frameworks designed to ensure continuity of care and operational efficiency. This raises the key question: how can modern technologies and architectural strategies streamline workflows in HEDs without overwhelming medical staff? Considering current challenges, an equally important factor in the development of emergency departments is their preparedness for crisis situations, such as pandemics, war threats and natural disasters. How can architectural design enable the implementation of given design strategies, aiming to ensure opportunities for development while simultaneously preparing for all-hazard scenarios? The authors gathered existing trends and solutions aimed at preparing hospital emergency departments for future challenges: positive/neutral, such as technological development, but also negative, such as currently ongoing war threats or risk of the next pandemic. Despite the apparent thematic extremity, certain systematic architectural solutions using a transdisciplinary approach may be the answer to these occurrences. The mentioned architectural solutions and factors were synthesized and subjected to design-oriented review based on existing case studies of a few Polish hospitals, which are simultaneously studied as case studies for broader doctoral research in the field of effectiveness assessment. The selected Polish hospital emergency departments are used as an illustrative, analytical reference to support the interpretation and synthesis of the reviewed literature. The contextual analysis enables the identification of transferable, design-oriented strategies relevant to broader emergence medicine architecture and applicable within European units. Examples from Polish units in particular are used as reference and background for discussion, rather than as empirical case studies. The study provides an overview of contemporary and future-oriented solutions in hospital architecture, focusing on the impact and feasibility within the hospital emergency departments. The synthesis highlights the importance of designing flexible spaces prepared for future technological advances, such as oversized service shafts, increased floor heights, and modular layouts. Additionally, the study focuses on the spatial connotations of emerging technologies like medical robotics, their maintenance areas and possible challenges. All of this is interrelated to social, demographic, and economic trends. These include the development of hospital networks, the evolving patient profile, inter-hospital information flow, and the growing role of highly specialized medical units. In terms of rapid challenges like wars or armed threats, factors revealed within the review indicate levels of HED readiness to face the conflict, mainly in terms of surge capacity but also structural durability and reserve resources. The post-pandemic context, in turn, assumes rapid expansion of the hospital into temporary and flexible structures and reversible zoning allowing for patient segregation and separation. Together, these insights outline pathways for creating resilient, adaptable, and efficient emergency care environments resilient to unforeseen challenges. Considering future scenarios of emergency departments, two main scenarios were identified: “the hospital of the future”, continuing overall development and adapting to rapid technological innovations, and “the crisis-resilient hospital”, resistant to various crisis scenarios, such as pandemics or war threats. The optimal development of the unit assumes both openness to technological changes and preparation of key zones for all-hazard scenarios. This review aims to synthesize architectural implications of technological and socio-demographic changes, not to provide a full empirical study. Adopting an exploratory framework, the review refers to technological innovations and crisis preparedness as external drivers shaping the spatial organization of hospital emergency departments and their adaptability to future challenges. Because of various inhibitors (economic, political, hierarchical), not all hospitals can introduce the described improvements, but the synthesis may serve as a knowledge source for future investments. The review was also conducted to support design decisions under conditions of uncertainty. The choice to address all the external factors collectively was induced to provide transferability of solutions and coherence of possible scenarios, which may happen simultaneously. Full article

Personal experiences, even when recounted as autobiographical novels, can deepen our understanding of the past, as they present a lived history of real events. In the novel De două mii de ani (For Two Thousand Years), Iosef Mendel Hechter, using the literary pseudonym Mihail Sebastian, recounts his experience as a young Jewish intellectual, born and raised in Romania, in a society divided by ethnic tensions driven by ultra-nationalism and anti-Semitism. Our study aims to critically examine, through a historical perspective, the socio-political realities depicted by the author, the collective mentality, and the typological stereotypes of his fictional characters. These reflect the actual choices and paths taken by Romanian Jews in their responses to the anti-Semitic pressures of the era. We believe that adopting this less frequently explored perspective will enrich both our understanding of that period and the depth of the novel itself. Thus, autobiographical literature and history engage in a meaningful dialogue, where microhistory, represented by the individual experience of the main character, Ștefan Valeriu, can verify or refine macrohistory, particularly the social, political, and economic context in which interwar Romanian society developed. Full article

This article presents a novel methodology for assessing the visibility and reachability of cultural heritage objects within urban structures, tested through a pilot study in Kaunas New Town (Naujamiestis), Lithuania. While heritage protection policies usually emphasize architectural composition, details, and external visual protection zones, interior urban views and functional spatial dynamics remain underexplored. Building upon Space Syntax theory and John Peponis’s concepts of distributive and correlative situational codes, this study integrates detailed visibility analysis with graph-based accessibility modeling. Visibility was quantified through a raster-based viewshed analysis of building footprints and street-based observation points, producing a normalized visibility index. Reachability was examined using a new graph indicator based on the ratio of reachable polygon area to perimeter (A²/P), further weighted by the area of adjacent buildings to reflect the potential for urban activity. Validation against independent datasets (population, companies, and points of interest) confirmed the superior explanatory power of the proposed indicator over traditional centralities. By combining visibility and reachability in a bivariate matrix, the model provides insights into heritage objects’ dual roles as landmarks, everyday hubs, or hidden sites, and offers predictive capacity for evaluating urban transformations and planning interventions. Full article

This paper investigates the investigators behind the distinct ‘moral panic’ that targeted mixed-race families residing in Britain’s multiracial port communities during the interwar period. This period witnessed heightened social anxieties following the First World War, exacerbated by the economic downturn and the visible presence of multiracial populations, a consequence of wartime labour demands. The 1919–1920 ‘race riots’, erupting in various British port cities, served as a critical catalyst in the exposure of underlying racial prejudices and anxieties surrounding interracial relationships and mixed-race children. In our paper we explore how the ensuing ‘moral panic’ was not simply a spontaneous societal reaction fuelled by sensationalist and prejudiced reporting in the press, but was actively constructed and sustained through a confluence of official investigations and the actions of key individuals within government and society. These forces collectively contributed to a pathological legacy that profoundly impacted the treatment and perception of mixed-race families in Britain well beyond the interwar years. Our paper builds upon our collaborative work with Peter Aspinall, to whom this paper is dedicated as one of his last scholarly endeavours. Full article

Previous research on financial contagion has mostly looked at volatility spillovers using static or fixed parameter models. These models don’t always take into account how inter-market links change and depend on frequency during big crises. This study fills in that gap by looking at how changes in volatility in the G20 equity markets affected four big global events: the global financial crisis of 2008, the European debt crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine war. The study uses a Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression (TVP VAR) framework along with the Baruník-Křehlík frequency domain spillover measure to look at how connectedness changes over short-term (1–5 days) and long-term (5–Inf days) time periods. The results show that systemic connectedness changes a lot during crises. For example, the Total Connectedness Index (TCI) was 24–25 percent during the GFC and EDC, 34 percent during COVID-19, and a huge jump to 60 percent during the Russia-Ukraine war. During the global financial crisis and the war between Russia and Ukraine, the US constantly emerged as the largest transmitter. During the European debt crisis, on the other hand, emerging markets like Turkey, South Africa, and Japan acted as net transmitters. During all crisis times, short-term spillovers are the most common. This shows how important high-frequency volatility transmission is. This study is different from others because it uses both time-varying and frequency domain views. This gives us a better idea of how crises change the way global finances are linked. The results are very important for policymakers and investors because they show how important it is to coordinate risk management, improve market safety, and make systemic stress testing better in a global financial world. Full article

Historical discussions regarding labour organizing within American prisons tend to focus on the period stretching from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, framing those years as both the origin and apex of nationalized and organized inmate-led strikes behind bars. This focus is partly due to a counter-historical assumption that the rebellions of previous eras were primarily focused on “good housekeeping” and were not political in nature. This article challenges ongoing scholarly assumptions that incarcerated Americans were ever pre-political, providing a microhistorical account of the first significant labour unrest at New York’s Attica State Prison in 1932. Through an analysis of the strike’s leadership structure, this paper claims that there is no reason to believe that incarcerated Americans lacked political identities prior to their contact with conscientious objectors, Marxist revolutionaries, and other educated ideologues. Rather, this article contends that the Depression-era Jewish and Italian inmates who led the 1932 Attica strike carried into the prison their own form of political pragmatism, drawn from their experiences operating within interwar-era organized crime syndicates. While this was not a universal experience among incarcerated people, it is indicative of the notion that interwar-era strikes throughout the country surely drew from their own local, informal political norms. This paper concludes that it is unlikely any penal rebellion could exist outside of politics and that historians of prison rebellions must be more willing to look for indirect indicators of political identities that naturally emerge from the struggles of everyday life. Full article

This research is an in-depth qualitative case study of a historic homestead in the town of Čekiškė, located in Lithuania, through the lens of sustainability aesthetics and cultural ecology. The research addresses a gap in the literature where aesthetic expressions of sustainability are predominantly examined in urban settings, while rural hybrid environments, intertwining urban and traditional features, remain underexplored. The homestead, with architectural and landscape features dating back to the early 20th century, was studied across four temporal stages: the interwar period (1922–1946), the early Soviet period (1946–1976), late Soviet to post-independence (1976–2021), and the period of a proposed vision for its sustainable development (2025 and beyond). The theoretical framework developed and applied in this research combines four complementary approaches: (1) the cultural ecology model by J. Steward, (2) environmental ethics trends (egocentrism, homocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism), (3) the principles of biophilic design, and (4) the ecological aesthetics framework by M. DeKay. Data collection included continuous qualitative in-depth on-site observations, analysis of the relevant literature sources, archival documents and photographs, and the recording of information in photographs and drawings. The findings reveal nuanced and evolving aesthetic expressions of sustainability tied to cultural practices, land use, ownership attitudes, and environmental perception. While earlier periods of development of the analyzed homestead reflected utilitarian and homocentric relations with the environment, later stages showed increased detachment from ecological sensitivity, resulting in the degradation of both material and intangible heritage; future perspectives of the homestead being transformed into a private museum, actualizing heritage through sustainability aesthetics, were also presented. The study highlights the role of tacit knowledge and lived experience in shaping hybrid sustainable aesthetics and provides insights for design and landscape planning in rural and small town heritage contexts. The research reveals that sustainability aesthetics in rural hybrid spaces is shaped by a confluence of environmental adaptation, socio-cultural transitions, and embedded values. It argues for a more context-sensitive and historically aware approach to sustainability discourse, particularly in heritage conservation and rural development. Full article

Background: Armed conflicts impose complex logistical and behavioral challenges on healthcare systems, particularly in managing acute conditions such as ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and ischemic stroke. Although both diagnoses require timely intervention, their clinical pathways differ significantly. Few studies have systematically compared their management during active warfare, particularly within the warzone. Methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted at Soroka University Medical Center (SUMC), the sole tertiary hospital in southern Israel and the main referral center for cardiovascular and neurological emergencies in the region. We included all adult patients (≥18 years) admitted with new-onset STEMI or ischemic stroke during three-month periods of wartime (October–December 2023) and matched routine periods in 2021 and 2022. Patients with in-hospital events, inter-hospital transfers, or foreign citizenship were excluded. Data on demographics, comorbidities, arrival characteristics, treatment timelines, and outcomes were extracted from electronic medical records. Categorical variables were compared using Chi-squared or Fisher’s exact test, and continuous variables using t-tests or Mann–Whitney U tests, as appropriate. Multivariable logistic and linear regression models were adjusted for age, sex, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), and mode of arrival. Interaction terms assessed whether wartime modified the associations differently for STEMI and stroke. Results: A total of 410 patients were included (193 with STEMI and 217 with stroke). Patients with STEMI were significantly more likely to arrive by self-transport during the war (38, 57.6% vs. 32, 25.2%, p < 0.001) and had higher rates of late arrival beyond 12 h (19, 28.8% vs. 13, 10.2%, p = 0.002). These findings support the conclusion that patients were more prone to delayed and unstructured presentations during a crisis. In contrast, patients with stroke showed a reduction of 354 min in symptom-to-door times during the war [median 246 (30–4320 range) vs. 600 min (12–2329 range), p = 0.026]. Regression models revealed longer delays for stroke vs. STEMI in routine settings [β = 543.07 min (239.68–846.47 95% CI), p < 0.001], along with significantly lower in-hospital (OR = 0.39, 95% CI= 0.15–0.97, p = 0.05) and 30-day mortality (OR = 0.43, 95% CI= 0.19–0.94, p = 0.04). However, these differences were no longer significant during wartime. Patients with STEMI showed a trend toward lower 180-day mortality during the war (OR = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.09–0.99; p = 0.07), although this difference did not reach statistical significance. Conclusions: During wartime, patients with stroke arrived earlier and in greater numbers, while patients with STEMI showed reduced admissions and delayed, self-initiated transport. Despite these shifts, treatment timelines and short-term outcomes were maintained. These diagnosis-specific patterns highlight the importance of reinforcing EMS access for STEMI and preserving centralized protocol-based coordination for stroke during crises. Full article

Background: Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, countless forcibly displaced individuals facing not only material loss, but also deep psychological distress, have sought refuge across Europe. For those traumatized by war, the absence of a shared language in therapy can hinder healing and exacerbate suffering. While cultural diversity in psychotherapy has gained recognition, the role of native-language communication—especially from a person-centered perspective—remains underexplored. Methods: This narrative review with a thematic analysis examines whether and how psychotherapy in the mother tongue facilitates access to therapy and enhances therapeutic efficacy. Four inter-related clusters emerged: (1) the psychosocial context of trauma and displacement; (2) language as a structural gatekeeper to care (RQ1); (3) native-language therapy as a mechanism of change (RQ2); (4) potential risks such as over-identification or therapeutic mismatch (RQ2). Results: The findings suggest that native-language therapy can support the symbolic integration of trauma and foster the core conditions for healing. The implications for multilingual therapy formats, training in interpreter-mediated settings, and future research designs—including longitudinal, transnational studies—are discussed. Conclusions: In light of the current crises, language is not just a tool for access to therapy, but a pathway to psychological healing. Full article

The development of Daoism in Italy is deeply connected to how its classical texts were received and circulated. Although Italian Christian missionaries were among the earliest Western commentators on Daoism, significant Italian engagement with Daoist works only emerged in the 20th century. During the first half of that century, Italian publishers released six translations of the Laozi, three partial translations of the Zhuangzi, and several general works on Daoism. This surge of interest was influenced by two major 19th-century developments: the rise of sinology as an academic field in France, which spurred European scholarly interest in Chinese culture, and the spread of international esoteric and occult movements, which drew heavily from Eastern philosophies. This paper focuses on two important Italian translations of the Laozi from the interwar period—Julius Evola’s 1923 translation and Attilio Castellani’s 1927 version. These translations exemplify the dual influences of academic sinology and esoteric movements on the Italian reception of Daoism. By comparing these works, this paper highlights how Daoist ideas were introduced and interpreted in Italy, shaped both by the translators’ personal backgrounds and their distinct intellectual aims, thus revealing the varied contexts in which Daoism was received in early 20th-century Italy. Full article

In the present article we propose to analyse the link between Greek religion and philosophical concepts of the human condition as a problem of reconciling determinism and at the same time free will, with its existential and moral implications. This issue has remained a matter of revision and discussion throughout the ages and latitudes within philosophy, but also in the literature, where through myths, these questions reappear, although in very different historical and religious contexts. We propose to approach these themes through the myth of Oedipus, immortalised by Sophocles in his tragedy Oedipus Rex, which Jean Cocteau, in the tragic interwar period, rereads and resemanticises, but without losing the essential question of whether there is an insurmountable destiny that imposes itself on free will. Full article

Education-to-work transition among war-affected youth in post-conflict settings is fraught with challenges, not least compounded by the little attention placed on individual agency and mental health. This review examines the debate on war-affected youth skilling programmes in post-conflict settings, which neglect the roles of individual agency and mental health in the education-to-work transition. Building on Albert Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory (SET) and the Cumulative Stress Hypothesis (CSH), the review presents an integrated approach to skills development for improving education-to-work transition among war-affected youth. According to SET, the development of self-efficacy is anchored on enactive mastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal. Moreover, individual agency factors such as motivation, aspiration, goal orientation, active efforts, and alignment of intentions with skills are protective factors for effective education-to-work transition, but they are also eroded by the adverse consequences of violent conflicts. Similarly, the CSH also suggests that the effects of exposure to protracted violent conflicts are cumulative and may lead, in turn, to a plethora of mental health problems in the aftermath of violent conflicts. Mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and PTSD are linked to, inter alia, behaviours such as aggression, substance abuse, and apathy, all related to poor employment outcomes. To increase the employability of young people affected by war, skills training institutions and work settings need to prioritise the mental health and individual agency of the youth, as well as skills acquisition for specific trades. Consequently, we propose an integrated model of reintegrating war-affected and vulnerable youth anchored on professional technical and vocational skills training; recognition of individual agency; provision of mental and psychosocial support; and life skills training, all nested within the local economic realities. Full article

Late contact-era depictions of inter-group conflict in southern African rock art include references to the image-makers and their opponents, who must also have been able to view the images. Performance theory allows researchers to go beyond the conventional question about who made the images by also addressing for whom the images were made. This case study uses performance theory to explore several details of the well-known conflict scene at Ventershoek (Jammerberg, Free State Province, South Africa). In it, ‘San hunter-gatherers’ appear to contest the possession of cattle, traditionally the property of ‘Bantu agro-pastoralists’. It is argued that, in addition to depicting conflict, the image-makers painted allusions to their ritualised, spirit-world mediation of conflict, their opponent’s use of protective war medicine and, potentially, lateralised symbols of cattle ownership that would have been comprehensible to audiences on both sides. It is argued further, from performance theory and the painted details, that the Ventershoek conflict scene contributed to the image-makers’ social construction of reality concerning their relationships with other groups. Full article

This article examines the complex process of establishing a unified structure for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) within the post-World War II diaspora, focusing on the formation of the Bishops’ Conference and the concurrent pursuit of the recognition of patriarchal status. Building on earlier inter-diocesan meetings, efforts to create a coordinating body for the dispersed UGCC episcopate gained momentum in the 1950s, culminating in the establishment of the Episcopal Conference. However, these conferences progressively revealed significant internal disagreements, particularly concerning the scope of the Conference’s authority and its relationship with the Roman Curia. The release of Josyf Slipyj from Soviet imprisonment and his subsequent exile in Rome, coupled with the proclamation of the Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches, dramatically altered this dynamic. Slipyj’s advocacy for ritual jurisdiction clashed with the Roman Curia’s desire for centralized control and the divergent views of individual bishops. Significantly, the growing activity of the laity, characterized by persistent demands for autonomy and patriarchal status, and fueled by disillusionment with Vatican policies, played a crucial role in shaping the UGCC’s trajectory. This analysis underscores the intricate interplay of canonical, political, and personal factors that influenced the UGCC’s attempts to forge a coherent identity and assert its rights in the post-war diaspora. Full article

The Mandate of the XXV World Russian People’s Council of 27 March 2024 framed the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine as a “holy war”. This paper presents an in-depth textual analysis of the Mandate followed by an extended thematic and contextual analysis. The findings indicate that the Mandate’s mainstream discourses of eschatological–apocalyptic holy war and katechon state were not previously expressed at the level of official church leadership. They contribute to the ideological escalation of the Russian confrontation with Ukraine and the West around declared traditional values and the holy mission of the Russian people, while the involvement of Orthodoxy in the Russian ‘holy war’ narrative is neither exclusive of other religious referents nor of disbelief in ecclesial doctrine. The main referent of the Self (and correspondingly, of the sacred) is the (Russian) ‘nation’ or ‘people’, for which ‘spiritual’ and ‘civilizational’ are comprehensive religious markers of cultural identity. While two religious adversaries of the Russian geopolitical agenda of Ukraine—the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ukrainian Orthodoxy—are not directly mentioned in the Mandate, it nevertheless attempts to re-formulate an Orthodox ‘just war’ theory, intensifies antagonistic inter-Orthodox relations in the Russia–Ukraine dimension and strengthens the resolve of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the Russian Federation to retain Ukraine’s Orthodox Church as an exclusively Russian space. Full article