Arts and Humanities

Abstract: This article examines the official citations of Canada’s 81 Victoria Cross (VC) recipients as a corpus of historical texts documenting battlefield heroism. Drawing on archival material from the London Gazette and the Government of Canada’s Department of National Defence, the study analyzes the narratives describing the actions for which the decoration was awarded. Using NVivo to organize and code the text, the study employed both inductive and deductive approaches to identify recurring themes in the citations. These themes include sacrificial devotion to comrades, decisive individual initiative, inspirational battlefield leadership, and perseverance in the face of severe injury or overwhelming enemy fire. Descriptive analysis of the recipients also reveals structural patterns in award distribution across conflicts, ranks, and demographic backgrounds. Taken together, the findings highlight how official military narratives constructed and commemorated heroism within the Canadian wartime experience. The article also reflects on the absence of Canadian VC awards in recent conflicts, suggesting that acts of exceptional bravery in contemporary operations, including those in Afghanistan, merit renewed consideration, in line with recognition practices in other Commonwealth nations.

Abstract: Colonial and apartheid legacies have profoundly shaped land ownership, land use management, and rural spatiality in South Africa. In Ndlovukazi (also known as Lesseyton) Village, located outside Komani (formerly Queenstown) within the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality in the Eastern Province, the rural patterns that emerged after 1994 remain closely linked to these historical legacies. This paper provides a historical analysis of colonial-apartheid influences on land ownership and land use management, as well as a perspective on recent developments in rural spatial trends in Ndlovukazi Village. These historical dynamics are examined within the broader context of South Africa’s post-1994 land justice, rural spatiality, land use management and on-going challenges of racialised land ownership in South Africa.

Abstract: Records of classic texts are gradually changing from analog to digital formats, and thus various analytical visualizations are appearing that use text data. These digital visualizations allow users to grasp the storylines of books more quickly. A process for defining the relational data between characters and expressing it in data networks has been developed recently. Consequently, we can now easily analyze the core information obtained within relevant historical periods. It is possible to analyze an event in detail using different types of data and visualizations. Therefore, in this study, we developed a visualization system called Echoes of Joseon, which can analyze an event by focusing on the attribute data for each character. To test the feasibility of this system, we used data from the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. This system establishes and utilizes metadata related to character information in the Annals, thereby allowing us to easily find, compare, and analyze various patterns related to character attributes in each period. Furthermore, by quantifying multi-dimensional metrics through a Quantitative Archetype Matrix, our approach enables a deeper and more structured ex-amination of evolving character trajectories and their systemic impacts.

Abstract: This study provides an exhaustive contrapuntal analysis of the narrative representations of collective trauma, ontological disruption, and identity fragmentation arising from the 2003 Anglo- American invasion of Iraq. By setting Ahmed Saadawi’s novel Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013) into direct textual confrontation with Kevin Powers’s war novel The Yellow Birds (2012), the paper interrogates the structural "crisis of testimony"—the fundamental breakdown of established linguistic, symbolic, and narrative frameworks when confronted with industrialized destruction and existential terror. Mobilizing the conceptual paradigms of contemporary trauma studies (Cathy Caruth, Elaine Scarry), Giorgio Agamben’s ontology of the remnant and the impossible witness, Judith Butler’s critique of differential grievability, Edward Said’s contrapuntal methodology, and Gayatri Spivak’s interrogation of subaltern articulation, this paper traces how literary form registers historical catastrophe. The analysis demonstrates that while Saadawi constructs a monstrous, palimpsestic assemblage of severed somatic remains (the Whatsitsname) to allegorize the violent collapse of sectarian purity and national integrity through the aesthetic mechanisms of satirical abjection and dirty realism, Powers resorts to a high-modernist, elegiac lyricism that interiorizes catastrophic violence, effectively converting structural imperial conquest into an individualized narrative of moral injury. This paper argues that this literary encounter yields no reciprocal cross- cultural reconciliation; rather, it documents an unbridgeable epistemic rupture wherein the occupying power exercises the geopolitical privilege of psychic retreat, clinical recuperation, and historical amnesia, while the occupied population remains permanently tethered to ontological precarity, somatic mourning, and the perpetual labor of surviving amidst persistent ruins.

Abstract: An interdisciplinary environmental baseline assessment was conducted on the submerged Roman remains of the Villa dei Pisoni, located within the Underwater Archaeological Park of Baiae (Poz-zuoli Bay, southern Italy), to characterize the physical and geochemical conditions that may influence the site’s long-term preservation. High-resolution morpho-bathymetric data were integrated with sedimentological and geochemical analyses performed at seven environmental stations surrounding the submerged villa. Sediments are predominantly composed of poorly sorted gravelly sand, indi-cating a shallow, wave-influenced depositional environment where sediment remobilization may contribute to mechanical abrasion of exposed archaeological surfaces. Organic geochemical analyses reveal a pronounced spatial heterogeneity in PAHs, with a maximum concentration of 3904 μg/kg at ENV_3, largely dominated by high-molecular-weight compounds. Diagnostic PAH ratios indicate a predominantly pyrogenic signature, suggesting a localized anthropogenic influence potentially re-lated to maritime activities and the proximity of the site’s mooring area, although a direct fuel-spill contribution cannot be demonstrated. Inorganic geochemical analyses identify a regional enrichment in As, consistent with the geochemical influence of the active Phlegraean hydrothermal system, to-gether with a distinct Cr–Ni–Rb anomaly at ENV_5, which is more consistent with local lithological and/or mineralogical controls. The results demonstrate that the environmental pressures affecting the site are inherently spatially heterogeneous and highlight the value of a holistic framework inte-grating sedimentological, geochemical, and high-resolution spatial data for the establishment of a comprehensive environmental baseline and the effective management of long-term preservation strategies.

Abstract: We describe and test a complete construction design for the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Each course is finished, casing included, before the next. Thirty-five tiers (mastabas) of dry-laid block stand against the four faces, their heights generally following the quarry beds. Two back-and-forth ramps at 1:8 climb the east and south faces. The east ramp is 11 m wide to the King's Chamber floor and 9 m to 65.9 m, for the granite beams, and carries two lanes of sledges below 65.9 m. Two short rubble ramps on the north and west faces serve the lowest courses. The men come down a ramp on the west face and the empty sledges, tethered in threes, down a timber chute. After the pyramidion is set, the tiers are taken down from the top while the face is dressed, and their blocks are reused.We assume the stone is waiting at the foot of the ramps and simulate the construction itself, course by course: the haul up the ramps, the haul across the course, the setting of core and casing, the setting out of each course and the granite beams. A minute-by-minute route model, which reproduces the result of our first paper, feeds a course model built on Petrie's course table. For each unmeasured value we give an expected case, our best reasoning, and a worst case. With every unmeasured value at its worst, the lift takes 22.1 years and the whole work 24.5, within the 27 years attested by the Diary of Merer. With expected values the ramps and the setting have a capacity of 12.0 years of lift; this theoretical figure gives a scale, not an estimate of the build. The tiers and ramps hold 268,800 m³ of block, 10.4 per cent of the pyramid. The work is about 47 million man-days whatever the pace, so the reign sets the size of the camp: about 5,800 men on average for a build of 27 years and 6,900 for 23 years. The result depends most on the time a turn and a loading take at the ramps.

Abstract: This article examines the development of muralism on the island of Tenerife between 1850 and 1950, focusing on its main manifestations, artists, iconographic characteristics, techniques, and conservation conditions. The study analyses the transition of religious painting from the nineteenth century, when it was primarily devotional in character, to the gradual incorporation of mural painting into civic and institutional spaces during the first half of the twentieth century. Through the study of representative works, the contributions of artists such as Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre, Mariano de Cossío, and José Aguiar are assessed, while the technical transition from dry painting on lime-based mortars to techniques such as encaustic painting and marouflage is documented. The material characteristics of the artworks and the influence of Tenerife's climatic conditions on their deterioration and conservation processes are also considered. In conclusion, the study highlights the close relationship between muralism, architecture, and territorial identity, emphasizing the urgent need to develop preventive conservation strategies adapted to the microclimatic conditions of the buildings.

Abstract: Spatial regeneration and the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are paired in policies for China’s traditional villages, yet seldom examined together. This correlational literature review analyzes the full texts of 35 peer-reviewed case studies published in 2017–2026. The corpus was assembled purposively; a later check of two bibliographic databases flagged at least 238 further potentially eligible records, so the 35 papers cover only part of the literature. Each paper was coded for regeneration strategies, CCI categories, village type, governance mode, outcomes, and conflicts, and the analysis combines keyword co-occurrence, φ coefficients, and a qualitative classification of outcomes. Five of six regeneration strategies are reported in more than two-thirds of the papers. Cultural tourism is reported in every paper, followed by performing arts, crafts, and museums, whereas architecture, design, film, and digital content appear in eight papers. No strategy–category association remains significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Of 140 outcome judgments, 47.1% are realized positive, 35.7% mixed, and 10.0% realized negative; negative results concentrate in the social dimension. The sample is too small to test differences by region, village type, or governance mode. In these papers, the link between spatial regeneration and cultural activity is documented almost exclusively through tourism.

Abstract: This study introduces the Principle of Conditional Cultural Adaptiveness, establishing that the evolutionary performance of cultural strategies depends strictly on environmental state variables and shifts through equilibrium migration as those macro-conditions change. Modernity is formally conceptualized not as cultural erosion, but as equilibrium migration between state-dependent optima. Existing scholarly interpretations of Javanese maternal domesticity and the construct of kanca wingking frequently emphasize patriarchal gender hierarchies, symbolic cosmology, or moral norms without formally modeling how domestic practices dynamically adjust to resource volatility, environmental hazards, and shifting household bargaining power. We develop an environment-dependent game-theoretic framework linking selected maternal instructions to material resource allocation, homeostatic regulation, risk management, health capital investment, cultural information transmission, and costly signaling. By integrating ethnographic philology with evolutionary game theory, bargaining theory, dynamic optimization, and eco-evolutionary feedback modeling, this research provides a formal computational social science framework for representing cultural persistence and transformation while explicitly differentiating stable household equilibria from equitable distributions of welfare.

Abstract: The rapid ascent of Large Language Models (LLMs) has highlighted the possibility that complex syntactic reasoning and semantic manipulation may occur without subjective experience (qualia), raising fundamental questions about the relationship between cognition and consciousness and challenging key assumptions of computational functionalism. This paper introduces the Ontological Interface Hypothesis (OIH), a speculative ontological framework that proposes a triadic distinction between cognition, consciousness, and biological self-preservation. Within this framework, cognition is conceived as an algorithmic, potentially substrate-independent process, while consciousness and biological negentropy are hypothesized to involve non-algorithmic aspects of a more fundamental ontological layer. The thalamocortical complex is tentatively proposed as a phase-synchronized biological interface linking algorithmic processing to this hypothesized layer, rather than as an additional computational engine. Drawing on concepts from information theory, thermodynamics, and the philosophy of mind, the paper explores the potential implications of this framework for understanding the limits of algorithmic explanations of consciousness and life. It also examines functionalist counterarguments and considers whether artificial systems lacking the proposed biological interfaces might differ fundamentally from living organisms in their capacity for subjective experience, self-preservation, and autonomous agency. Ultimately, the framework suggests that the apparent sentience of advanced AI operates as a hermeneutic illusion, demonstrating that while complex syntax can be computationally simulated, genuine meaning and subjective experience likely require a non-algorithmic ontological anchor. The OIH is presented as a conceptual hypothesis whose ontological assumptions and proposed physical mechanisms remain open to further philosophical analysis and empirical investigation.

Abstract: The functioning of complex natural systems, such as living systems, still lacks a generally accepted theoretical basis and respective empirical verification. We propose an experiment to test whether such systems are subject to a hitherto unknown organizing principle, in which the quantum mechanical uncertainty principle enables ordering phenomena in chaotic or nearly chaotic systems in the sense of a strong emergence principle. Contrary to previous proposals, our hypothesis does not require fragile macroscopic quantum coherence, ensuring compatibility with the harsh conditions in living systems. To test this hypothesis, we suggest comparing two virtually identical, complex artificial neural networks as a quantitative benchmark. One setup utilizes deterministic pseudo-random number generators at key sensitive points, while the other uses quantum-based physical random-number generators. A favorable outcome demonstrating the superiority of quantum randomness would have considerable implications beyond artificial networks, particularly for the discussions on consciousness and free will.

Abstract: The cost of study abroad has been a barrier to access for a greater number of students. As a high-impact program, alternative access to study abroad should be pressing. Literature considers study abroad and artificial intelligence in isolation of each other; indicating a deeper widening research gap challenging artificial intelligence as not adequately fitted for alternate resource. Review methodology were limited to high-quality academic research databases. The findings revealed that AI has the capacity to expand access to study abroad through state agency support for institutions, and personalized learning. Access can be enhanced when institutions reverse from operating AI as an isolation, but as exploration of study abroad. Advancing AI supported study abroad programs requires greater investment in technological infrastructure and resources.

Abstract: Historical music dictionaries become digital heritage objects through a chain of editorial, technical, and interpretive transformations. A scan, an OCR file, a segmented entry, a keyword rule, and a plotted category count each preserve something from the historical source, but each also changes what can be found, compared, and cited. I examine that process through Lexicon C19 v3.2.1, a reproducible corpus of eight long nineteenth-century music, dance, biographical, and general reference traditions. The corpus contains 3,760 rule-selected records and a complete pool of 25,186 parsed candidates, with processed witnesses in English, French, German, Russian, and Portuguese; Russian and Portuguese are represented by fewer than 100 selected records. A provenance-first analysis combines source composition, selection yield, category profiles, OCR-surface regularity, exact headword overlap, a 200-record single-annotator audit, and a candidate-level rule-collision diagnostic. Three English-language processed witnesses supply 81.9% of selected records. Only 203 selected records, or 5.4%, match terms from more than one top-level category, which bounds the direct effect of rule precedence on top-level labels and shifts attention to larger asymmetries of sampling frame and ontology coverage. The audit estimates selected-candidate precision at 97.0%. Among real and relevant sampled rows, broad-category self-consistency is 89.7%. These figures are not historical prevalence. They show how sampling frame, translation, typography, OCR, segmentation, and classification rules construct the musical-heritage object available to computation. I argue for a critical computational musicology in which recoverability is modelled as evidence and distant reading organises source-specific close reading rather than replacing it.

Abstract: This article proposes the "pedagogy of risk" as a transformative framework for architectural education amid shifting professional paradigms, economic uncertainty, and rapid technological acceleration. Developed, tested, and refined across diverse international academic settings over a twelve-year period, this research-by-design methodology converts the traditional design studio into a slow, pre-technological experimentation laboratory. The teaching model prioritizes active, self-directed learning and collective inquiry through "object-based cartography", a process in which students construct physical, tactile objects from salvaged materials to sensorially analyze, map, and reinterpret complex and vulnerable contexts. This processual approach integrates material exploration, kinesthetic learning, and public exhibitions to cultivate critical autonomy. Findings from extensive academic implementation demonstrate that this process-oriented framework heightens material sensitivity, mitigates reliance on digital immediacy, drives conceptual innovation, and yields award-winning architectural proposals grounded in adaptive reuse, social engagement, and environmental care. The study concludes that embedding uncertainty, creative risk, and constructive error into design pedagogy serves as an indispensable catalyst for original knowledge generation, ultimately equipping future architects to navigate contemporary socio-spatial challenges with critical discernment, ethical commitment, and environmental responsibility.

Abstract: This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the formation, transformation, and contemporary development of the public catering system in the Fergana Valley during the years of independence, taking into account its historical foundations and socio-economic changes. Particular attention is paid to the region’s national culinary traditions, food products, traditional preparation methods, and the activities of public catering establishments. The study examines the transition from a centrally planned system to a market-oriented economy, including changes in ownership, privatization, the emergence and expansion of private entrepreneurship, modernization, diversification of services, changing consumer demand, foreign economic and cultural relations, tourism development, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recovery. The research employs historical, comparative-historical, chronological-descriptive, historiographical, and content analysis methods and is based on archival documents, statistical materials, normative-legal acts, scholarly publications, conference proceedings, official government decisions, and relevant Scopus-indexed studies. The findings demonstrate that the transformation of public catering was a multidimensional historical process involving changes in ownership and organizational structures, modernization of enterprises, diversification of services, technological innovations, and changing consumer needs. The study also considers the prospective adaptation of social supermarkets (SSMs) and food banks to the socio-economic and institutional conditions of Uzbekistan as potential mechanisms for reducing food waste, strengthening food security, and supporting socially vulnerable groups. Overall, the transformation of public catering in the Fergana Valley reflects the interconnected effects of economic reforms, institutional changes, technological innovations, tourism development, foreign relations, and evolving social and consumer needs during the post-independence period.

Abstract: The rapidly expanding availability of palaeogenomic data provides new opportunities for archaeological chronology, yet genetic evidence is rarely incorporated independently within Bayesian chronological models. Here, we develop an approach for modelling cultural and genetic transitions separately, allowing their temporal relationship to be evaluated explicitly. We apply this framework to the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Denmark using 494 radiocarbon dates from 130 archaeological sites integrated with archaeological, isotopic and palaeogenomic evidence. Consistent with previous research, the preferred model places the rapid establishment of Neolithic cultural practices across Denmark around 4000 BC. The model further indicates that Mesolithic lifeways persisted for several generations, while European farmer ancestry appears 223-515 years after the introduction of Neolithic cultural practices in western Denmark and 324-474 years after in eastern Denmark (68.3% probability). Dietary patterns also differ significantly by genetic ancestry after accounting for chronology, while strontium isotope variation suggests possible differences in landscape use between hunter-gatherer and farming communities. The introduction of Neolithic practices, persistence of Mesolithic lifeways and population turnover therefore represent overlapping rather than synchronous processes. More broadly, the study demonstrates how palaeogenomic evidence can provide independent chronological information within Bayesian models, offering a transferable approach for disentangling cultural and population change by modelling these processes separately and evaluating their temporal relationship.

Abstract: This article reconstructs the emergence of Mekorot, founded in 1937, as a transition from settlement-by-settlement water development to regional water governance in Mandatory Palestine. Drawing on Mekorot protocols, Kishon planning documents, Palestine Economic Corporation records, hydrogeological surveys, and contemporary water-law debates, it asks why a regional utility became attractive in the mid-1930s. The article argues that Mekorot arose from four interacting management problems: hydrological heterogeneity, fragmented capital investment, uncertain demand, and institutional fragmentation. Picard’s 1935–1936 survey showed that much of the western Jezreel Valley had weak or uneconomic local groundwater while fissure zones near the Carmel offered substantially larger yields. The Kishon project responded by pooling sources, capital, and consumers within a common system. By 1938 it reportedly included 18 wells, about 17 km of steel mains, several pumping stations, and contracts with 13 agricultural settlements covering approximately 4550 dunams of initial irrigation demand. Expansion toward Haifa diversified demand and allowed hydraulic costs, economies of network scale, and developmental tariff policy to be managed together. The case shows how regional water governance could emerge before sovereign state institutions while remaining politically bounded and environmentally consequential.

Abstract: The adaptive reuse of historic buildings is a conservation approach that integrates heritage protection with the principles of sustainable use; however, the effects of such interventions on users’ psychological experience have received limited attention. This study examines the effects of perceived restorativeness on sense of place and cultural heritage attachment, place satisfaction, and place identity in an adaptively reused historic building. The research was conducted at the Seljuk-period Bedriye Madrasa in Aksaray, Türkiye, which has been converted into a library, study space and café, using a convergent parallel mixed-methods design. Quantitative data obtained from 273 users were analysed with structural equation modelling (SEM), and qualitative data from open-ended questions were analysed through content analysis. The findings show that perceived restorativeness has significant positive effects on sense of place and cultural heritage attachment (β = 0.795), place satisfaction (β = 0.386) and place identity (β = 0.458), and that sense of place and cultural heritage attachment significantly predicts both place satisfaction (β = 0.257) and place identity (β = 0.252). The direct effect of place satisfaction on place identity and the hypothesised mediation paths were not supported. The qualitative findings corroborated the quantitative results, revealing that the historic atmosphere, quietness, natural stone texture and courtyard layout strengthen users’ mental restoration, calmness, concentration and sense of cultural belonging. The study demonstrates that the success of adaptive reuse projects should be evaluated not only through physical conservation criteria but also through users’ psychological experiences and the processes by which they form bonds with place.

Abstract: This paper explores and articulates how storytelling, digital fabrication, and Indigenous partnership bridge Indigenous and non-Indigenous design methodologies through experimental and relational making. A biocultural approach situates design in dialogue with Indigenous and decolonial design theory and practice. Central to this exploration is Ometeotl, a culturally significant furniture-sculpture that materialises Indigenous onto-epistemologies of relationality between people and Place. By employing mycelium and Indigenous knowledges as material thinking and metaphor, the research demonstrates how biomaterials engage circular and decolonial methodologies, fostering responsive, relational design practice. Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaboration highlights biocultural design as creative process and cultural conversation, honouring Land, reciprocity, and living systems that sustain design. Reflecting on Ometeotl, the paper examines dynamics and outcomes of cross-cultural collaboration, diverse worldviews and values shaping respectful partnerships, and how Place, Indigenous knowledge, materials, and technology activate creative agency. Ometeotl positions biocultural, relational making as a pathway toward sustainable, diverse, and respectful futures.

Abstract: In ancient Japan, wet-rice agriculture is thought to have been introduced around 1000 BC, followed by sustained population growth. In 1978, Shuichi Koyama estimated the populations of the Jomon and Yayoi periods (ca. 8100 BC–AD 200) on the basis of the number of archaeological sites. However, the number of sites identified and excavated has since increased severalfold, making it desirable to reassess Koyama’s population estimates. In this study, we provide revised population estimates for the Early, Middle, and Late Yayoi periods (ca. 400 BC–AD 200), for which relevant data are relatively readily available. The estimates are based on the latest available nationwide survey conducted by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2021 and follow the basic framework of Koyama’s population estimation method. The results suggest that, over approximately 1,200 years from ca. 400 BC to AD 800, the population growth rate remained relatively constant at approximately 0.35% per year, corresponding to an approximate doubling of the population every 200 years. This pattern indicates that the population of ancient Japan may have increased approximately exponentially during this period. The estimated population for the Late Yayoi period (ca. AD 200) was approximately 600,000, broadly consistent with Koyama’s original estimate. An important exception, however, was observed in Tohoku and Kyushu, where the estimated population declined during the Late Yayoi period. In addition to a cooling climate, this decline may have been linked to social and political upheavals, such as the "Civil War of Wa" in the second century and the turmoil that ensued following the death of Himiko—the queen of Yamatai—in the third century. Fukuoka Prefecture in northern Kyushu is estimated to have had the largest Late Yayoi population, suggesting that Yamatai, a major polity of the period, may have been located there.