Search Results (114)

Built heritage environments are increasingly recognized as important components of the built environment that shape human experiences beyond their cultural and historical values. However, how heritage-related experiences are associated with restorative perceptions through cultural interpretations and human–place relationships remains insufficiently understood. This study examines the mechanisms underlying perceived restorativeness in built heritage environments by integrating heritage identity and place attachment. Using the built heritage of the Macao Peninsula as a case study, an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach was adopted, combining large-scale social media semantic analysis with questionnaire-based structural modeling. Analysis of 23,838 user-generated reviews identified key dimensions of public experiences associated with heritage environments, which informed the development of the measurement framework. Survey data from 234 visitors were subsequently analyzed using structural equation modeling and mediation analysis. The results reveal that restorative experiences in built heritage environments are shaped through a cognitive–identity–place pathway. Cultural cognition is associated with heritage identity formation, which is further associated with place attachment and perceived restorativeness. Place identity plays a significant mediating role in linking heritage identity with restorative experiences. These findings highlight that the value of built heritage environments lies not only in their physical characteristics but also in the cultural meanings and emotional connections they foster. This study provides implications for heritage conservation, adaptive reuse, and human-centered design and management of historic environments. Full article

Urban streets are critical public spaces that support residents’ daily psychological recovery, and their landscape quality is directly related to pedestrians’ physical and mental well-being. In the rapid urbanization process, numerous urban streets have exhibited problems such as excessive building density, cluttered visual interfaces, a lack of natural elements, and an absence of regional characteristics, leading to a continuous decline in the psychological restorative capacity of street spaces and failure to meet residents’ demands for a healthy urban environment. Existing research mostly employs qualitative assessment methods to evaluate walking experiences and psychological restoration levels of street environments, lacking high-precision, pixel-level quantification of street landscape elements and rarely incorporating regional cultural elements into the analytical framework of restorative environments. This study takes Foshan, a famous historical and cultural city in China, as the research object, and selects five typical streets in the main urban area, including comprehensive streets, living streets, landscape streets, commercial streets, and historical–cultural streets, to construct a technical route of “data collection–element quantification–model construction–effect analysis.” Leveraging the pre-trained Mask2Former semantic segmentation model and pedestrian-perspective street-view images (SVIs), combined with field research, the study quantifies 22 street landscape elements across five dimensions: environment, transportation, social interaction, facilities, and culture. Through PCA principal component analysis and K-means clustering, 20 typical photos were objectively sampled, and public psychological evaluations were conducted using the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS). A stepwise multiple linear regression model was then employed to construct an exploratory explanatory model for street psychological restoration, identifying key influencing factors and their effect intensities. The results indicate the following: (1) Environmental and cultural elements are the core characteristics associated with pedestrians’ psychological restoration, whereas transportation, social, and facility elements are correlated only with certain restoration dimensions and show no significant association with the overall psychological restoration level. (2) Among the 22 element indicators, the Green View Index showed the strongest positive association with psychological restoration (β = 0.681, p < 0.001); historical memory markers and the Blue View Index also exhibited significant positive associations. (3) By integrating the elements associated with pedestrians’ psychological restoration and their association strengths, an exploratory explanatory model of the psychological restoration benefits of urban street landscapes was constructed, with an adjusted coefficient of determination of 69.8%, accounting for 69.8% of the variation in street psychological restoration levels. The findings establish an exploratory analytical framework and furnish empirical evidence for healthy city planning and street renewal in similar historical and cultural cities. Full article

Archaeological sites are fragile, non-renewable heritage environments where visitors’ inappropriate behavior may cause irreversible damage. This study designed and evaluated a VR serious game, Guarding the Terracotta Warriors, to promote visitors’ responsible visiting behavior intention at archaeological sites. Examining the Terracotta Warriors Museum as a case study, this study identified conservation needs through literature and case analysis, expert interviews, and preliminary visitor interviews, and translated them into four design requirements: path guidance for visiting boundaries, reflection on visiting order, contextualized risk decisions, and concrete feedback on behavioral consequences. Based on the MDA framework, these requirements were further transformed into interactive game mechanisms. A within-subject experiment with 46 participants compared the VR serious game with conservation-content-matched video instruction, followed by semi-structured interviews with 20 participants. Quantitative results showed that the VR serious game produced significantly higher scores than video instruction in presence, experience satisfaction, conservation-related attitude, awareness of consequences, personal norms, and responsible visiting behavior intention. Task load was slightly higher in the VR condition, but its mean score remained below the midpoint of the seven-point scale, indicating a relatively modest level of perceived task load. Qualitative findings further indicated that embodied exploration, safe-to-fail risk decisions, visitor-order feedback, and irreversible restoration feedback helped participants understand conservation boundaries and behavioral consequences. This study provides a design framework and empirical evidence for using VR serious games to support responsible visitor education at archaeological sites. Full article

Climate adaptation depends not only on infrastructure and governance but also on the adaptive capacity of populations, whose psychological correlates are rarely quantified at a national scale. This study tests an integrative model in which environmental identity is associated with psychological adaptation to climate change directly and indirectly through perceived nature restorativeness, a perceptual indicator of a cultural ecosystem service, and negative eco-emotions. Data were obtained from a nationally representative cross-sectional sample of Greek adults (n = 552; stratified systematic random sampling) and analysed with covariance-based structural equation modelling. Environmental identity was positively associated with perceived restorativeness (β = 0.606, p < 0.001), psychological adaptation (β = 0.354, p < 0.001) and eco-emotions (β = 0.211, p = 0.001). Perceived restorativeness was positively related to negative eco-emotions (β = 0.128, p = 0.031), which were in turn associated with adaptation (β = 0.237, p < 0.001); no direct restorativeness–adaptation path was supported. The model explained 36.7%, 23.0% and 9.3% of the variance in restorativeness, adaptation and eco-emotions. These population-level estimates offer baseline social indicators for monitoring adaptive capacity, and identify access to restorative green and blue space and climate-aware mental health services as candidate priorities for the social dimension of sustainable development under SDG 3, 11 and 13. Full article

Fish can perceive and respond to local flow structures when selecting microhabitats, yet how scale-dependent hydrodynamic heterogeneity shapes behavioral habitat choice remains poorly understood. In this study, a multi-scale rock-array flow field was constructed using flume experiments, and the volitional swimming behavior of Schizothorax grahami was observed. Hydrodynamic parameters including velocity magnitude (U_mag), turbulent kinetic energy (TKE), and kinetic energy gradient (KEG) were analyzed. The results indicated that fish distribution changed with rock size: at a rock-element diameter of 0.12 m, fish were dispersed without forming stable high-utilization core areas; at 0.24 m, fish aggregated in the lee-side regions behind the rock elements; and at 0.50 m, fish shifted toward the upstream faces. The hydrodynamic variables significantly associated with fish microhabitat selection varied with rock-array scale: in the 0.24 m rock arrays, KEG differed significantly between high- and low-use units under all flow conditions; in the 0.50 m rock arrays, U_mag and TKE showed consistent and significant between-group differences across flow conditions. Moreover, cross-scale overlap analysis revealed that the utilization range of velocity magnitude had the highest overlap, followed by TKE, with KEG exhibiting the lowest overlap. Collectively, these findings support a hierarchical interpretation of fish microhabitat selection characterized by “velocity rigidity–turbulence elasticity,” providing a potential perspective for understanding differences in the hydrodynamic variables associated with fish microhabitat selection across studies. These results indicate that both mean velocity constraints and local turbulence-creating structures should be considered in river habitat restoration and roughness element configuration. Full article

Regenerative agriculture is increasingly promoted as a pathway towards sustainable food production, climate resilience, and the restoration of soil ecosystem functions. However, evidence on the actual uptake of regenerative practices and the factors influencing their adoption remains limited. This study compared the self-reported prevalence of 17 soil-health-oriented regenerative practices among farmers in Poland, Germany, and Belarus using a questionnaire survey conducted in 2025 (N = 150). The survey also examined farmers’ motivations, perceived barriers, knowledge sources, and definitions of regenerative agriculture. Adoption frequencies were assessed using a five-point Likert scale and analysed using non-parametric statistical methods. Several practices, including crop rotation and soil pH management, were widely implemented across all three countries and showed only slight variation. In contrast, more complex, system-based practices, such as agroforestry, biological soil monitoring, and crop–livestock integration, showed lower and more variable levels of adoption. Additional subgroup analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of the observed cross-country patterns. Although some associations weakened after stratification, many significant differences persisted. Across all countries, improving soil health was the primary motivation for adopting regenerative agriculture, whereas financial constraints and limited equipment access were the main barriers. Digital media served as the primary source of knowledge about regenerative agriculture across the surveyed countries, although in Belarus, peers and neighbours also represented a highly important source of information. Farmers in all three countries expressed a preference for online communication channels for further learning about regenerative agriculture; however, Polish and Belarusian farmers prefer social media, whereas German farmers preferred webinars and dedicated websites. In-person training sessions also attracted considerable interest among Polish and Belarusian farmers, but were the least preferred information source among German respondents. On the basis of these results, targeted investment support and direct financial incentives appear to be key priorities for promoting the further uptake of regenerative agriculture across all surveyed countries. However, communication and knowledge-transfer strategies are likely to require greater adaptation to country-specific preferences, although digital media are likely to represent the most effective primary channel for disseminating information on regenerative agriculture. Full article

Green exposure in public spaces plays a critical role in promoting mental health and well-being, especially for populations experiencing elevated psychological pressure in academically demanding environments such as university campuses. However, existing research remains largely limited to coarse-scale assessments, often overlooking the nuanced and nonlinear interactions between visual environmental characteristics and restorative quality across diverse spatial typologies. Addressing this gap, this study proposes a fine-scale, data-driven framework that integrates computer vision (CV) with perception-based evaluations using Shandong Jianzhu University as a case study. A semantic segmentation model (Mask2Former) was employed to extract 14 visual environmental elements from 193 campus photographs, while 426 students provided 4260 image-based evaluations of Perceived Restorative Quality (PRQ). Ridge regression optimized through cross-validation was used to identify key environmental correlates of PRQ, K-means clustering was applied to classify Campus Restorative Space (CRS) typologies, and Generalized Propensity Score Matching (GPSM) was employed to examine nonlinear dose–response relationships between sensory dimensions and restorative quality. The results indicate that natural elements, particularly vegetation and water-related features, are generally associated with higher PRQ scores; however, restorative responses do not consistently follow linear patterns. Several sensory dimensions exhibited threshold effects and diminishing marginal returns, suggesting that restorative benefits depend on balanced environmental composition rather than the simple accumulation of green elements. Furthermore, three CRS typologies—Greenery-Dominant Spaces, Open Landscape Spaces, and Courtyard Spaces—demonstrated distinct restorative pathways, indicating that the effects of environmental characteristics vary across spatial contexts. These findings support a context-dependent understanding of restorative environments and highlight the importance of spatial typology, environmental composition, and nonlinear responses in shaping restorative experiences. The study proposes a transferable analytical framework for assessing campus restorative environments and offers practical implications for evidence-based campus planning and design. Full article

Background: Labia majora atrophy is a common consequence of aging, hormonal changes, and medical conditions, leading to anatomical changes that affect both aesthetic appearance and sexual function. Hyaluronic acid (HA)-based fillers represent a promising, minimally invasive approach to restoring volume and improving the structural integrity of the labia majora. However, clinical data on their efficacy and safety remain limited. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of a cross-linked hyaluronic acid filler for the treatment of labia majora hypotrophy. Methods: This randomised, single-centre, double-arm study included 76 women aged 40–65 years with labia majora hypotrophy, allocated to either a treatment group receiving HA filler injections (n = 40) or a control group with no intervention (n = 36). Primary endpoints included changes in sexual function, assessed using the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) at six months, and anatomical assessment using the Motakef classification as an indirect measure of the labia majora proportion. Secondary endpoints included aesthetic improvement (Global Aesthetic Improvement Scale, GAIS), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale, PSS), and patient satisfaction. Safety was assessed through the systematic monitoring of adverse events. Results: At six months, FSFI scores significantly improved in the treatment group compared to the control group (p < 0.0001), indicating improved sexual function. GAIS scores demonstrated significantly higher aesthetic improvement in the treated group (p < 0.0001). No serious adverse events occurred, and procedure-related pain was minimal (mean NRS: 1.4 ± 1.2). The treatment was well tolerated, with only transient and mild local reactions reported. Conclusions: The findings suggest that HA-based gynaecological fillers may represent a safe and potentially effective minimally invasive option for labia majora augmentation, with improvements in sexual function, aesthetic appearance, and patient satisfaction. These results should be considered preliminary and warrant further long-term investigation. Full article

Background: Irreversible brachial plexus injury can leave patients with a painful, insensate, and nonfunctional flail limb, often after failed reconstructive attempts and with limited remaining surgical options. This study describes a modified transhumeral amputation technique incorporating a passive biceps brachii traction sling to improve residual limb stability and prosthetic readiness in this challenging setting. Methods: This retrospective, uncontrolled five-case series assessed the feasibility, perioperative safety, descriptive clinical outcomes, and early prosthetic integration of transhumeral amputation with a biceps brachii-based traction sling. Eligible patients had irreversible brachial plexus palsy, complete loss of useful upper-limb function, chronic shoulder instability or traction-related symptoms, pain, and persistent distress related to the paralysed limb as a burdensome nonfunctional appendage. Outcomes included the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) score, Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for pain, and SF-36 Physical Functioning and Emotional Well-Being domains. Results are reported descriptively as individual values and medians without hypothesis testing. Results: All five patients completed follow-up, which reached 30 months. After combined transhumeral amputation, biceps sling construction, RPNI, rehabilitation, and prosthetic fitting, patient-reported scores changed in this small uncontrolled series as follows. The median DASH score changed from 64 preoperatively to 50 postoperatively; in this context, DASH reflects global perceived disability and may be influenced by pain relief, altered expectations, prosthetic compensation, psychosocial adaptation, and the removal of a burdensome limb rather than restoration of upper-limb function. Median VAS pain score changed from 7 to 0; VAS captured overall pain intensity only and did not separately measure phantom limb pain, mechanical pain, neuropathic pain, deafferentation pain, or traction-related symptoms. SF-36 Physical Functioning changed from 75 to 100, and Emotional Well-Being from 75 to 100. Four patients were fitted with a myoelectric prosthesis, and one elected to use a cosmetic prosthesis. No postoperative surgical complications, socket-related complications, prosthesis abandonment, clinical shoulder dislocation, or obvious failure of the construct were observed. Two Paralympic athletes returned to competitive sport after rehabilitation. Conclusions: The combined procedure was technically feasible in five highly selected patients and was not associated with observed surgical or prosthetic complications during follow-up. After combined transhumeral amputation, biceps sling construction, RPNI, rehabilitation, and prosthetic fitting, patient-reported scores improved in this small uncontrolled series. The specific contribution of the biceps sling relative to amputation itself, RPNI, prosthetic rehabilitation, and patient selection remains unknown. Larger prospective studies with objective assessment of shoulder and stump stability are needed to validate these preliminary findings and refine patient-selection criteria. Full article

Restorative environment research has overwhelmingly privileged naturalness and greenness, neglecting morphological determinants and situated socio-cultural context. To redress this lacuna, we implemented a 3 (building layout) × 3 (visual openness) full-factorial field experiment across three residential sites in Urumqi, China. Employing a between-subjects protocol, Han and Uyghur residents completed 10 min free-viewing exposures, with perceived restorativeness (PRS-8), affect (PANAS-10), and physiological markers (baseline-normalized change rates) assessed. Building layout significantly modulated short-term cardiac autonomic recovery (heart rate, heart rate variability). Ethnic background, operationalized as a situated socio-cultural grouping variable, independently predicted heart rate variability (SDNN) and perceived restorativeness. Visual openness exhibited null psychological main effects yet significantly predicted peripheral physiological arousal (skin conductance level, skin temperature). Notably, positive affect manifested a significant three-way interaction (layout × openness × ethnicity), evidencing that visual openness acquires affective salience only under specific morphological and socio-cultural configurations, despite its non-significant psychological main effect. These findings indicate that residential morphology furnishes the macro-scale spatial context for immediate restoration, whereas visual openness operates as a micro-scale perceptual cue whose affective and restorative meaning is contingent upon morphological context and socio-cultural background. This study furnishes field-based evidence advocating the integration of macro-scale layout, micro-scale openness, and situated socio-cultural context in restorative residential landscape design. Full article

Background: Sensorineural hearing loss represents a significant global health burden affecting over 1.5 billion individuals worldwide. Modern hearing aids, equipped with digital signal processing and smart connectivity features, constitute a cornerstone of neuro-sensory rehabilitation. However, the psychosocial impact of these assistive smart technologies on patient self-esteem remains incompletely characterized. Methods: A cross-sectional multivariate study was conducted with 245 participants, divided into three groups: normal-hearing controls (NH, n = 73), hearing-impaired patients using smart hearing aid technology (HA users, n = 86), and hearing-impaired patients not using hearing aid technology (HA non-users, n = 86). Self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES). Hearing disability and tinnitus severity were assessed with the Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults (HHIA) and Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), respectively. Data analysis included one-way ANOVA, Tukey’s HSD post hoc tests, Pearson correlations, and multivariate regression. Results: Hearing aid users showed significantly higher SES scores (35.41 ± 5.32) compared to non-users (22.99 ± 4.53; p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 2.515). One-way ANOVA indicated highly significant differences among groups (F = 299.00, p < 0.001, η² = 0.712). SES was negatively correlated with HHIA (r = −0.573, p < 0.001) and THI (r = −0.443, p < 0.001), while HHIA and THI were strongly positively correlated (r = 0.729, p < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, HA use remained a strong independent predictor of self-esteem (β ≈ 11.9, p < 0.001), even after adjustment for age, sex, HHIA, and THI. Perceived hearing handicap was independently associated with lower self-esteem, whereas tinnitus severity was not a significant predictor in the fully adjusted model. The model explained approximately 65% of the variance in self-esteem scores. Conclusions: Smart hearing-aid use is strongly and independently associated with higher self-esteem in patients with sensorineural hearing loss. These results support the inclusion of modern audiological rehabilitation devices in comprehensive management strategies for long-term conditions and highlight psychosocial benefits that extend beyond hearing restoration. Full article

High-intensity or repetitive exercise induces metabolic stress and neuromuscular fatigue in skeletal muscle. Using a within-subjects repeated-measures crossover design, eight male amateur swimmers completed five experimental sessions at one-week intervals. Following an isokinetic fatigue protocol, five recovery interventions were applied in a randomized order: control (NT), foam roller (FR), vibration foam roller (VFR), and whole-body vibration at 12 Hz (WBV-12) and 20 Hz (WBV-20). The isokinetic fatigue protocol produced a significant reduction in bilateral extensor peak torque (229.2 ± 37.8%BW to 189.8 ± 27.5%BW; t(7) = 4.19, p = 0.004, d = 1.48), confirming successful fatigue induction. Outcome measures included visual analog scale (VAS) scores, blood lactate concentration, and knee extensor/flexor peak torque (%BW) assessed at three time points. A two-way repeated-measures ANOVA (intervention × time) revealed significant main effects of recovery methods at the post-recovery time point for VAS scores (F(4,28) = 5.98, p = 0.001, η²g = 0.248), blood lactate (F(4,28) = 5.12, p = 0.003, η²g = 0.226), and isokinetic peak torque (F(4,28) = 10.75, p < 0.001, η²g = 0.226). Post hoc Bonferroni analysis indicated that VFR and WBV-20 produced significantly higher lactate recovery rates than NT. Active recovery interventions produced lower perceived fatigue scores and greater lactate reductions than passive rest; however, individual Bonferroni pairwise comparisons for VAS and blood lactate did not reach adjusted significance, and these findings should be considered preliminary. WBV-20 demonstrated statistically confirmed superiority in isokinetic muscle function recovery (Bonferroni p < 0.05 vs. NT, FR, and VFR), suggesting its potential as an effective post-exercise recovery strategy for neuromuscular restoration. Full article

Urban residents require space-efficient interventions to mitigate chronic stress. While indoor digital nature shows promise, the precise impact of interactive design parameters remains unclear. This study investigated how interactive feedback intensity (none, slow, fast) and color hue (neutral, warm, cool) influence psychological and physiological restoration. Following negative emotion induction, healthy participants engaged in within-subject conditions evaluated via multimodal assessments, including EEG, HRV, and subjective scales (PANAS, PRS, SAM/PAD). Results identified interactive feedback intensity as the primary driver of restoration. Specifically, fast feedback improved positive affect by up to 20.4% and reduced negative affect by 20.8% compared to passive self-restoration. Neurologically, interactive engagement was associated with elevated EEG alpha-band activity by up to 97.8% relative to standing controls, a pattern consistent with cortical relaxation. Furthermore, while physical interaction was uniformly associated with physiological indices broadly consistent with recovery, color hue significantly moderated subjective outcomes. Neutral and warm hues generated significantly higher overall perceived restorativeness (M = 73.18 and M = 70.14, respectively) than the self-restoration control (M = 61.26). Notably, neutral tones were uniquely associated with modest changes in HRV time-domain indices suggestive of parasympathetic autonomic modulation. These findings provide actionable, empirically validated guidelines for deploying responsive digital interventions to support mental well-being in dense urban interiors. Full article

As a core tenet of Green Urbanism, fostering social sustainability through restorative urban environments is essential for enhancing the psychological resilience of active urban generations. While urban parks are recognized as critical blue-green infrastructure, the micro-mechanisms through which their morphological configurations influence perceived restoration remain insufficiently understood. The aim of this study is to investigate how specific landscape element types and proportions in urban parks modulate the visual behavior and psychological restorative outcomes of young urban populations through a multimodal experimental approach. This study employs a novel assessment framework, integrating VR-based eye-tracking and physiological monitoring (HRV, EDA, EEG), with a sample of 77 young adults (aged 18–30) to investigate how landscape element types and proportions modulate visual behavior and restorative outcomes. The findings indicate that landscape components drive restoration through divergent visual cognitive pathways: natural elements promote recovery by fostering sustained visual engagement and exploratory saccades, whereas artificial elements function as cognitive stressors that fragment visual continuity. Mediation analysis further reveals a “quality-over-quantity” effect, demonstrating that restorative efficacy is governed by specific morphological configurations rather than mere green coverage. We identify critical restorative thresholds where the systematic reduction in artificial visibility, combined with the strategic prioritization of multi-layered vegetation and optimized sky openness, significantly maximizes restorative fascination and physiological relaxation. These evidence-based design strategies offer a precise toolkit for sustainable urban renewal, allowing urban planners to optimize the restorative quality of public spaces. By aligning micro-scale visual perception with macro-scale social sustainability goals, this research contributes to the development of resilient and health-promoting cities under the principles of Green Urbanism. Full article

This study investigated seasonal and sex-based differences in psychological responses and area-of-interest (AOI)-based visual attention, as well as the associations between these variables, using images of the same forest-healing landscape captured in summer and autumn. A total of 40 adults (20 males and 20 females) participated in an eye-tracking experiment combined with psychological assessments, including the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS-11) and semantic differential (SD) evaluations. Mixed-design ANOVA results indicated that perceived restorativeness remained stable across seasons, whereas emotional evaluations were significantly higher in autumn than in summer. Significant interaction effects between season and sex were observed in selected gaze metrics within the sky AOI, while the forest AOI showed a consistent main effect of sex across seasons. Spearman’s correlation analysis revealed a strong positive association between autumn PRS and SD scores, suggesting that aesthetic appreciation contributes to restorative perception. In addition, a significant negative correlation between forest and pond AOIs in autumn indicated a seasonal redistribution of visual attention. These findings highlight the importance of component-level landscape analysis and demonstrate that seasonal variation and user characteristics jointly influence perceptual and attentional responses in forest-healing environments. The results provide empirical implications for evidence-based forest landscape design and seasonal management strategies. Full article