Natural Space Research Articles

ω-Limit Sets of Impulsive Semigroups for Hyperbolic Equations

In this paper, we investigate the qualitative behavior of an evolutionary problem consisting of a hyperbolic dissipative equation whose trajectories undergo instantaneous impulsive discontinuities at the moments when the energy functional reaches a certain threshold value. The novelty of the current study is that we consider the case in which the entire infinite-dimensional phase vector undergoes an impulsive disturbance. This substantially broadens the existing results, which admit discontinuities for only a finite subset of phase coordinates. Under fairly general conditions on the system parameters, we prove that such a problem generates an impulsive dynamical system in the natural phase space, and its trajectories have nonempty compact ω-limit sets.

Moduli Spaces for the Fifth Painlevé Equation

Isomonodromy for the fifth Painlevé equation ${\rm P}_5$ is studied in detail in the context of certain moduli spaces for connections, monodromy, the Riemann-Hilbert morphism, and Okamoto-Painlevé spaces. This involves explicit formulas for Stokes matrices and parabolic structures. The rank 4 Lax pair for ${\rm P}_5$, introduced by Noumi-Yamada et al., is shown to be induced by a natural fine moduli space of connections of rank 4. As a by-product one obtains a polynomial Hamiltonian for ${\rm P}_5$, equivalent to the one of Okamoto.

Unpacking the black box of ‘energy technology’: How abstraction and resource fungibility obscure ecologically unequal exchange

Transitions to low-carbon energy technologies and other forms of climate mitigation tend to involve disempowerment and environmental injustices of various kinds. This paper argues that such tendencies are inherent in the social rationale of technological systems promoted by the logic of the world market. The production and operation of technological artifacts are imbued with economic rationality and must not be conceptualised as distinct from the organisation of society. This is illustrated by the energy transition that occurred during the Industrial Revolution, in which the underlying incentives of ecologically unequal exchange and environmental load displacements were transmuted into seemingly neutral concerns of economic rationality and technological progress. The distributive dimensions of markets and technologies become apparent as we now aspire to abandon the fossil energy regime, revealing how our concepts of ‘energy’ and ‘technology’ may obscure global processes of appropriation of human labour time and natural space. Such processes are as insidiously inscribed in low-carbon energy technologies as in the fossil-fueled technologies that they are intended to replace. To identify such pervasive injustices as inherent in technologies rather than contextual contingencies requires an acknowledgement of the social essence of technical artifacts. This in turn requires a deep transdisciplinarity that links physics, industrial ecology, the philosophy of technology, social theory, world trade, and the history of ideas. Current efforts to transcend the distinction between the social and the material pervasively fail to integrate social theory and physical resource theory. Rather than investigate the social and ecological repercussions of technological systems, the focus of energy justice research should be to discover the tacit, distributive functions that are inscribed in the technologies to begin with.

The Nature and Production of Urban Space in Latin America: A Historical Review of the Case of Ibagué (Colombia)

The production of urban space in Latin America turns out to be a social product resulting from a historical process in which natural space undergoes significant transformations. This paper analyses how the urban history of Ibagué (Colombia) is related to three historical processes crossed by nature, identifying common aspects with other Latin American cities: nature as a limit to urban growth (conquest and colony), nature as an artifice of urban space (modern city), and nature as a transition zone between the city and the countryside (metropolitan edge). Methodologically, the article is approached from the historical perspective proposed by Fernand Braudel as the longue durée. To this end, an analysis of primary sources was carried out. These sources allowed us to see how urban space was constructed and planned throughout history. The primary sources emphasized written sources: chronicles of the Indies, royal ordinances, municipal decrees, pilot plans for urban growth, and urban development plans. Visual sources were also used: maps, sketches, engravings, and photographs to construct an image of the city and its relationship with nature. The results showed the importance of urban planning by considering the relationship between urban space and nature as two inseparable elements and providing elements for reflecting on contemporary environmental problems.

China’s Future Countryside Model Construction and Development Level Evaluation

Communities and villages are holistic organisms, representing a complete system formed by natural space and human activities. Since the concept of “future community” was put forward by the Drucker Foundation in the United States at the end of the 20th century, “future community” has expanded from the city to the countryside. Governments and scholars of various countries have started the practical and theoretical research into “future community”. Based on the theory of “village organism”, this paper constructs the structural model of the future countryside, and then constructs the health evaluation index system of the future countryside. This effectively makes up for the shortcomings of previous studies, and provides a new perspective and systematic analysis method for the study of community and village issues. Using entropy weight method and TOPSIS method, Jindong District was used as a case to conduct the quantitative evaluation of the development level of 46 administrative villages in the region. The results showed that: (1) the development level of the villages in the region was not high, and far from the requirements of future countryside, indicating that countryside revitalization has a long way to go; (2) within the region, competitive convergence occurs in the development process of all villages; (3) of the two major countryside systems in the future, the health level of the physical space system is higher than that of the social system, indicating that the local government pays more attention to the construction of the “external” image of the countryside and ignores the improvement of the “internal” function of the countryside society; (4) in the prospective construction of nine scenes of future countryside, an observable trend towards “grouping” differentiation emerges. This phenomenon underscores existing deficiencies in countryside construction, indicating that countryside areas still fail to realize the function of being “self-hematopoietic”. The determination and selection of sample indicators exhibit regional cultural disparities, permitting various regions to customize indicators with their specific contextual circumstances. Nevertheless, the universal approach of treating countryside areas as holistic entities remains essential in scholarly inquiry.

Multi-source data integration and multi-scale modeling framework for progressive prediction of complex geological interfaces in tunneling

A reliable geological model plays a fundamental role in the efficiency and safety of mountain tunnel construction. However, regional models based on limited survey data represent macroscopic geological environments but not detailed internal geological characteristics, especially at tunnel portals with complex geological conditions. This paper presents a comprehensive methodological framework for refined modeling of the tunnel surrounding rock and subsequent mechanics analysis, with a particular focus on natural space distortion of hard-soft rock interfaces at tunnel portals. The progressive prediction of geological structures is developed considering multi-source data derived from the tunnel survey and excavation stages. To improve the accuracy of the models, a novel modeling method is proposed to integrate multi-source and multi-scale data based on data extraction and potential field interpolation. Finally, a regional-scale model and an engineering-scale model are built, providing a clear insight into geological phenomena and supporting numerical calculation. In addition, the proposed framework is applied to a case study, the Long-tou mountain tunnel project in Guangzhou, China, where the dominant rock type is granite. The results show that the data integration and modeling methods effectively improve model structure refinement. The improved model's calculation deviation is reduced by about 10% to 20% in the mechanical analysis. This study contributes to revealing the complex geological environment with singular interfaces and promoting the safety and performance of mountain tunneling.

The Space Imagination in Li Bai’s Poetry: Centered on Mount Skyland Ascended in a Dream — A Song of Farewell

Mount Skyland Ascended in a Dream — A Song of Farewell contains Li Bai’s unique philosophy of life and self-will. It was written before he was rewarded and banished with money, returned to his hometown in Donglu, and set off again after temporarily residing. This is a significant turning point in his life. In the poem, he uses his dream as the basis, and with his excellent space imagination, shows the world multiple fantastic and magnificent poetic spaces — natural space, fairyland space, and free space. These space imaginations loop back and forth, layer upon layer, allowing people to appreciate the beauty of poetry and at the same time embody Li Bai’s unique life experience, illuminating his philosophical thinking and detachment about life, all of which are derived from his high-spirited self-conscious.

Biodiversidad para garantizar el desarrollo sostenible de especies fundamentales en la Isla Jambelí, Ecuador

The work was carried out on Jambelí Island, Jambelí Archipelago located in the Santa Rosa canton, El Oro province in Ecuador, the objective of the research was to determine the main anthropic activities through scientific research for the correct social development and conservation of biodiversity. The fieldwork allowed us to know the main activities carried out by its community members to generate sources of work in the place, determining that tourism and the collection of fauna species for sale are common activities among the inhabitants. Although it is a large natural space and important for the environment, conservation is in danger because shrimp farming in the place has triggered a large number of problems for the community members, affecting their proper social development, and causing unfortunate damage to the place. Sustainable social development through bioethics seeks to generate a change in people's awareness to respect life and care for the environment, to achieve a positive impact, mainly benefiting the inhabitants since well-preserved resources create a bridge to a better future. With the study we want to highlight the importance of social development and sustainable development, promoting it from bioethics and achieving the conservation of the habitat of many species that are being lost and that are essential for the food chain and the economic livelihood of many families.

Озеро Светлояр в современном сакральном дискурсе

The purpose of the article is to identify the features of the sacred discourse of Lake Svetloyar. The material of the analysis is the texts of interviews taken from residents of the village of Vladimirsky and guests who visited this place, video content posted on the YouTube social network, publications in the media dedicated to the lake. The conducted discourse analysis reveals the peculiarity of the sacred discourse of Lake Svetloyar today as a complex and conflicting combination of Orthodox discourse, the discourse of neo-pagans, representatives of new age, individual religiosity, as well as the excursion activities of employees of the Museum and Tourist Complex “Grad Kitezh” in the village of Vladimirskoye. The article concludes that for all of them Lake Svetloyar is a natural sacred space, one of those in Russia in which either the Russian national and cultural identity, or the spiritual uniqueness of all mankind, or the source of individual “cultivation of the spirit” is most strongly manifested. The results of the study confirm that Lake Svetloyar, as one of the most important sacred spaces in Russia with a corpus of various narratives revealing its special nature and status, with a complex of ritual practices formed around it, remains significant and actively functioning in the modern socio-cultural space.

Diagnostics of Bolted Joints in Vibrating Screens Based on a Multi-Body Dynamical Model.

The condition-based maintenance of vibrating screens requires new methods of their elements' diagnostics due to severe disturbances in measured signals from vibrators and falling pieces of material. The bolted joints of the sieving deck, when failed, require a lot of time and workforce for repair. In this research, the authors proposed the model-based diagnostic method based on modal analysis of the 2-DOF system, which accounts for the interaction of the screen body and the upper deck under conditions of bolted joint degradation. It is shown that the second natural mode with an out-of-phase motion of the upper deck against the main screen housing may coincide with the excitation frequency or its higher harmonics, which appear when vibrators' bearings are in bad condition. This interaction speeds up bolt loosening and joint opening by the dynamical loading of higher amplitude. The proposed approach can be used to detune the system from resonance and anti-resonance to reduce maintenance costs and energy consumption. To prevent abrupt failures, such parameters as second natural mode frequency, damping factor, and phase space plot (PSP) distortion measures are proposed as bolt health indicators, and these are verified on the laboratory vibrating screen. Also, the robustness is tested by the impulsive non-Gaussian noise addition to the measurement data. A special diagram was proposed for the bolted joints' strength capacity assessment and maintenance actions planning (tightening, replacement), depending on clearance in the joints.

Uniform tail-ends estimates of the Navier-Stokes equations on unbounded channel-like domains

This paper deals with the asymptotic compactness of the solutions of the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations defined in unbounded channel-like domains. In order to overcome the non-compactness of Sobolev embeddings in unbounded domains, we establish the uniform tail-ends estimates of solutions by showing all the solutions are uniformly small outside a sufficiently large bounded domain for all large time and bounded initial data, which implies the asymptotic compactness and hence the existence of global attractors in the natural energy space. The uniform tail-ends estimates are derived by the scalar stream function of the Navier-Stokes equations which is distinct from the reaction-diffusion equation due to the divergence free condition.

Exploring the natural products chemical space through a molecular search to discover potential inhibitors that target the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) prolyl hydroxylase domain (PHD).

Introduction: Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) prolyl hydroxylase domain (PHD) enzymes are major therapeutic targets of anemia and ischemic/hypoxia diseases. To overcome safety issues, liver failure, and problems associated with on-/off-targets, natural products due to their novel and unique structures offer promising alternatives as drug targets. Methods: In the current study, the Marine Natural Products, North African, South African, East African, and North-East African chemical space was explored for HIF-PHD inhibitors discovery through molecular search, and the final hits were validated using molecular simulation and free energy calculation approaches. Results: Our results revealed that CMNPD13808 with a docking score of -8.690kcal/mol, CID15081178 with a docking score of -8.027kcal/mol, CID71496944 with a docking score of -8.48kcal/mol and CID11821407 with a docking score of -7.78kcal/mol possess stronger activity than the control N-[(4-hydroxy-8-iodoisoquinolin-3-yl)carbonyl]glycine, 4HG (-6.87kcal/mol). Interaction analysis revealed that the target compounds interact with Gln239, Tyr310, Tyr329, Arg383 and Trp389 residues, and chelate the active site iron in a bidentate manner in PHD2. Molecular simulation revealed that these target hits robustly block the PHD2 active site by demonstrating stable dynamics. Furthermore, the half-life of the Arg383 hydrogen bond with the target ligands, which is an important factor for PHD2 inhibition, remained almost constant in all the complexes during the simulation. Finally, the total binding free energy of each complex was calculated as CMNPD13808-PHD2 -72.91kcal/mol, CID15081178-PHD2 -65.55kcal/mol, CID71496944-PHD2 -68.47kcal/mol, and CID11821407-PHD2 -62.06kcal/mol, respectively. Conclusion: The results show the compounds possess good activity in contrast to the control drug (4HG) and need further in vitro and in vivo validation for possible usage as potential drugs against HIF-PHD2-associated diseases.

A real-time Arabic avatar for deaf–mute community using attention mechanism

Speech-impaired people use Sign Language (SL), an efficient natural form of communication, all over the world. This paper aims to use deep learning technology in the realm of SL translation and identification. In order to ease communication between hearing-impaired and sighted individuals and to enable the social inclusion of hearing-impaired people in their daily lives, it presents a transformer as a neural machine translation model. The article details the creation of a machine translation system that converts Arabic audio and text into Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) automatically. It does this by utilizing an animated character to produce the correct sign for each spoken word. Since Arabic has few resources, it was challenging to obtain an Arabic-Sign dataset, so we created our own Arabic–Arabic sign gloss, which consists of 12,187 pairs, to train the model. We use bidirectional encoder representations from transformers as an embedding layer to interpret input text tokens and represent an appropriate natural language vector space for deep learning models. To represent the structure of each Arabic word, the Ferasa Part-of-Speech Tagging module was used and then the extracted rules from the ArSL structure were applied. This paper shows a detailed description of a natural language translator (for converting an Arabic word sequence into a sequence of signs belonging to the ArSL) and a 2D avatar animation module (for playing back the signs). In our prototype, we train the software-based module using the attention mechanism. The evaluation was carried out in our developed Arabic sentences with the corresponding Arabic gloss. The proposed model achieves promising results and indicates significant improvements to direct communication between hearing and deaf people, with a training accuracy of 94.71% and an 87.04% testing accuracy for Arabic–Arabic sign gloss translation.

Research on Identifying Robot Collision Points in Human–Robot Collaboration Based on Force Method Principle Solving

After years of more rigid and conventional production processes, the traditional manufacturing industry has been moving toward flexible manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing in recent years. After more than half a century of development, robotics has penetrated into all aspects of human production and life, bringing significant changes to the development of human society. At the same time, the key technology of human–machine cooperative operation has become a research hotspot, and how to realize a human–machine integrated safety system has attracted attention. Human–machine integration means that humans and robots can work in the same natural space, coordinating closely and interacting naturally. To realize real human–robot integration under human–robot cooperative operation, the good judgment of intentional interaction and accidental collision and the detection of collision joints and collision points when accidental collision occurs are the key points. In this paper, we propose a method to identify the collision joints by detecting real-time current changes in each joint of the robot and solve the collision point location information of the collision joints through the principle of virtual displacement and the principle of force method using the force sensor data installed at the base of the robot as the known condition. The results show that the proposed method of identifying the collision joints using changes in joint current and then establishing a collision detection algorithm to solve the collision point location is correct and reliable.

From the sensitive thing to the aesthetic thing: The passage from instrumentalization to the configuration of the world


 
 
 Through Heidegger’s re-reading of Descartes, this article explores a fundamental issue in the contemporary conception of worldliness. In a restricted sense, the human being is the maker of the world in that he appropriates what composes it, i.e., the worldly beings or things. Greatly influenced by the Cartesian notion of extensio, this tendency no longer entails the world as a thing in itself, but as a set of measurable things, thus available and open to activity.
 This article articulates the threat relative to the idea of the forming, by the human being, of the essence of the world. Every being, be it an object, an animal or even a human being, seems to be considered as a producer of energy and a structure that could be possessed. For example, such natural space is not campaign or land, but automatically field, that is to say, an agricultural deposit that is symbolically exploited and empirically exploitable. This ontological device prevents us from grasping the world in any other way than in terms of use and productivity.
 As a result, the ontology of the thing becomes an aesthetic issue in its own right. This issue does not involve here the capture of the object as a bearer of Beauty, but an aesthetic relation in the fundamentally etymological sense (αἰσθητικός) of what is felt, of what is sensible and perceptible. The need for an aesthetic rereading of the world and the things that stand in it presupposes, therefore, the evolution of the human gaze and a metaphysical approach to worldliness, detached from the instrumentalization of the beings and focused on their presence or their proximity. This article aims at demonstrating the necessity of a real human aesthetic responsibility, which can be concretized in the metaphysical thought of the thing that the human being unfolds, by considering it as the persistence in the world of an object whose ontological disposition could never be neutral.
 
 

Synthetic biology enabling a shift from domination to partnership with natural space

Synthetic biology is a field of science that examines biological systems through the lens of engineering with the explicit objective of rationally designing live objects for either fundamental or biotechnological purposes. Yet, the same conceptual frame also embodies its exact counterpart: the biologization of engineering, i.e., looking at rationally designed systems through the lens – and with the tools – of biology and evolution. Such a creative tension between technology-driven design and biological processes has one of the most conspicuous battlegrounds in modern architecture. Such an edge occurs in a time dominated by the evidence of climate change, ramping environmental deterioration, and the ensuing instability and mass migrations. The most recent influences of biology in architecture have moved from the adoption of biologically inspired shapes and forms in many types of buildings to the incorporation of new biomaterials (often functionalized with qualities of interest) as assembly blocks, to the amalgamation of live materials with other construction items. Yet, the possibility opened by synthetic biology to redesign biological properties à la carte, including large-scale developmental programs, also unlocks the opportunity to rethink our interplay with space, not as one more step in the way of domination, but as a win-win conversation with the natural environment. While various contemporary architectural tendencies clearly move in that direction, we propose a radical approach–exemplified in the so-called Biosynthetic Towers Project–in which complex buildings are designed and erected entirely through biological programming rather than assembled through standard construction technology. To make this scenario a reality, we need not only tackle a dedicated research agenda in the synthetic biology side, but also develop a new attentive mindset toward the environment, not as a space to be conquered for our exclusive own sake, but as one scenario of sustainable co-existence with the rest of the natural world.

Pullback exponential attractors in nonlocal Mindlin's strain gradient porous elasticity

ABSTRACT In this paper, we study the long-time dynamics of a pullback exponential attractors for non-autonomous one dimensional system in nonlocal Mindlin's strain gradient porous elastic theory recently developed by Aouadi [Well-posedness, lack of analyticity and exponential stability in nonlocal Mindlin's strain gradient porous elasticity. Z Angew Math Phys. 2022;73:111]. In this theory, the second gradient of deformation and the second gradient of volume fraction field are added to the set of independent constitutive variables by taking into account the nonlocal length scale parameters effect. By virtue of Galerkin method combined with the priori estimates, we prove the existence and uniqueness of global solution. Then we establish a Lipschitz stability result. We also prove the existence of pullback exponential attractors which as a consequence, implies the existence of a minimal pullback attractor with finite fractal dimension. Finally, we prove the upper-semicontinuity of minimal pullback attractors with respect to the perturbations parameter in natural energy space.

Analysis of Aquifer‐System Deformation in the Doñana Natural Space (Spain) Using Unsupervised Cloud‐Computed InSAR Data and Wavelet Analysis

AbstractThis work is focused on the Almonte‐Marismas aquifer located within Doñana Natural Space (SW Spain); this aquifer is threatened by droughts, irrigation‐driven groundwater overexploitation, urban use, and the potential reactivation of gas extraction and storage projects. We present ground deformation measurements from Sentinel‐1 Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data ranging from 1 to 2.5 cm, covering ∼2,500 km2 from 2014 to 2020. Detecting spatially distributed ground deformation over this agricultural area is challenging due to the low‐coherence radar signals; consequently, the ground movement results are on the same order of magnitude as the errors associated with InSAR data. We have approached this issue by considering auxiliary information such as groundwater levels, climatic time series, and pumping rates and analyzing their spatio‐temporal connections to ground displacements. We correlate InSAR and hydrogeological information through wavelet analysis, developing a Python package that allows applying the same methodology in other similar study areas. For the first time in the Doñana area, a significant relationship between distances to pumping wells and the displacement extent is detected. Moreover, other subsidence‐related triggering factors are identified, such as the soil moisture balance, clay shrinking‐swelling processes, and creep of geological formations. These results are highly valuable to support aquifer management decisions in the Doñana Natural Space; in this border region, three groundwater bodies were officially declared overexploited in 2020. Our findings provide a ground motion baseline assessment to help differentiate historical variations from any future anthropogenic effect in this complex marsh land ecosystem.

Left recurrent nerve lymph node dissection in robotic esophagectomy for esophageal cancer without esophageal traction

BackgroundBecause the robotic arm is located on the dorsal side of the patient, when the esophagus is pulled dorsally for the left recurrent nerve lymph node (LRLN) dissection, the robotic arm interferes with the surgical field. This made it difficult to prepare for the left recurrent lymph node dissection. We developed LRLN dissection in robotic surgery with natural space creation by physiological organ movement and evaluated the short-term results.MethodsIn this retrospective study, we analyzed 102 cases of robot-assisted thoracoscopic subtotal esophagectomy (RATE) among radical subtotal esophagectomies performed between December 2018 and December 2022 using medical records. LRLN dissection is preceded by a dissection of the esophagus from the trachea. Leaving the esophagus on the vertebral side and away from the trachea resulted in a physiological elevation of the esophagus, providing space between the trachea and esophagus.ResultsThe thoracic surgery time in RATE was 181 (115–394) min. The number of LRLNs dissected was 4 (1–14). Six patients (6%) had a postoperative recurrence in the mediastinal lymph nodes. Seven patients (7%) had grade ≥ 1 left recurrent nerve palsy.ConclusionsLRLN dissection with RATE using natural space creation was performed safely with a sufficient number of dissected lymph nodes and little left recurrent nerve palsy.

Existence theorems for nonlinear shell models of Koiter’s type

We first show that the minimization problem associated with the nonlinear shell model of W.T. Koiter becomes coercive over its natural space of admissible deformations when the third fundamental form is added to its functional. Then, under the assumption that the middle surface of the shell is a minimal surface, we approach this minimization problem by a new minimization problem that is well-posed over the same space of admissible deformations.