Transitional Space Research Articles

In and out of the city: Generational disaffiliation among evangelicals in the age of mobility and religious choice

The intergenerational transmission effect reveals an important trend behind the current growth of ‘nones’ in Canada, the fastest-growing religious identity in North America. On the other hand, ‘dones’, who distinguish themselves from ‘nones’ in terms of non-religion, reveal another important facet of this trend. These are people who have distanced themselves from their religious affiliation. This article highlights issues of generational succession and religious transmission in the disaffiliation process. Drawing from qualitative interviews with 12 formerly self-identifying evangelicals aged 25 to 36 in Quebec, it argues that evangelical disaffiliations are also influenced by the religious choices of one’s parents. Like their children, parents’ conversion often involved disaffiliation from the religion of their upbringing, which in Quebec is mostly Roman Catholic. In the contemporary context, high geographical mobility also plays an important role in the disaffiliation of these young evangelicals, creating the conditions for a gradual erosion of social ties. At the same time, the emergence of new urban churches, combined with a sense of generational unity, has created a space for transition outside the traditional evangelical milieu. Taken together, these factors suggest that, even in evangelicalism, a religious movement that resisted decline until very recently, certain features of modern religious transmission are implicated in the disaffiliation process.

Inhabiting temporariness: the agency-in-waiting of Eritrean refugees in the city

Protracted displacement turns what should be a temporary protection status, asylum, into a long-term process that defines the existence of millions of people. The unresolved causes of displacement, a flawed asylum system and restrictive refugee policies all force refugees to inhabit a state of temporariness in cities. We discuss the unfulfilled potential of Eritrean refugees in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and show how urban migration becomes part of a waiting game on a journey towards the realization of this potential. Using Brun’s concept of agency-in-waiting, we illustrate how Eritrean refugees use their agency in cities, finding ways to remain hopeful, circumvent restrictions and prepare for unpredictable futures. Our findings challenge the dominant discourse on Addis Ababa as a transit space where Eritreans remain inactive and unproductive, idly waiting for resettlement. Rather, they work towards their ultimate goal – to establish a secure life with full rights, wherever this might be.

From Freud to Film: The Uncanny Psychology of Zombies in Popular Culture

This paper employs a multidisciplinary framework, integrating psychodynamic theory, film studies, and cultural analysis to explore the unsettling nature of zombies and the transitional space between life and death they occupy. It connects this unease to the uncanny valley theory, where entities that resemble humans but lack intrinsic features can provoke feelings of unease. Furthermore, the paper examines cognitive dissonance, particularly in the context of the familiar and unfamiliar, the living and the dead, and the human and the monster within the zombie narrative. It also explores how many characters within zombie stories grapple with cognitive dissonance through identification and disidentification with the zombie; to cling to the human version of the zombified creature, or to dissociate the then-human from the now-monster. Ultimately, this paper unveils the intricate psychology behind the fear of zombies, highlighting the creatures as reflections of our anxieties about «the other» and as unsettling mirrors of ourselves.

A lattice Boltzmann model with sharp interface tracking for the motion and growth of dendrites in non-equilibrium solidification of alloys

A lattice Boltzmann model (LBM) with sharp interface tracking is developed to simulate the motion and growth of dendrites in non-equilibrium solidification of alloys. The model is validated through comparative analysis with the drafting-kissing-tumbling (DKT) phenomena of two and three particles and the continuous growth model (CGM), and demonstrates its computational efficiency advantage without compromising accuracy by comparison with the multi-phase field (MPF) model. Subsequently, the model is utilized to investigate the dendrite morphology transition and primary dendritic arm spacing (PDAS). It is found that the velocity dependent solute partition and the resulting changes in constitutional undercooling strongly influence the estimated morphology region and PDAS. Moreover, the segregation and microstructure evolution during the rapid solidification were studied. And the results revealed that free dendrites lead to significant changes in microstructure and segregation under the influence of non-equilibrium effects. This work illustrates the great potential of the proposed model in simulating dendrites and microstructure evolution under a wide range of solidification conditions. Its suitability for extreme conditions and non-equilibrium solidification can contribute to the understanding of microstructure formation patterns and solute segregation in rapid solidification.

Sex differences in physiological responses and thermal perception during repeated extremely cold exposure (−15 °C)

People working in cold regions often need to move frequently between indoor and outdoor environments. Due to sex differences in metabolic rates and thermal sensitivity, repeated exposure to large temperature differences may stress physiological and perceptual systems of males and females differently. This study aims to explore the physiological responses and thermal perception changes in males and females repeatedly exposed to −15 °C. The experiment involved 20 participants (gender balanced), who experienced two consecutive cycles of cold exposure. Each cycle included 30 min of cold exposure and 30 min of recovery. During the experiment, multiple physiological parameters as well as overall and local thermal perception were recorded. The experimental results indicate that repeated cold exposure can lead to thermal habituation in both males and females. Males exhibited higher skin temperatures in extremities such as the hands, fingers, face, and feet, while females reported lower thermal sensations in these areas during the recovery period. Furthermore, repeated cold exposure has a greater impact on the rate of recovery of extremity skin temperatures in females, requiring a longer recovery time compared to males. This article has reference value for considering sex differences in the design of temporary transition spaces in winter, which is beneficial to improving thermal comfort and energy efficiency.

Assessing Eye Clinic Accessibility: A Study Validating and Applying the SiteWise Survey.

To validate the SiteWise survey as a reliable tool for assessing the accessibility of outpatient ophthalmology clinics for visually impaired patients and to compare accessibility between hospital-based and satellite clinics. This quality improvement study, conducted from January to December 2023, used the SiteWise survey to assess design features in seven satellite and two hospital-based clinics within the Wilmer Eye Institute network. Independent surveyors evaluated elements such as parking, sidewalks, entrances, and interior areas. Reliability was measured using Krippendorf's alpha, and accessibility scores were compared using generalized estimated equations, analyses of variance, and t tests. The SiteWise survey demonstrated high reliability with a Krippendorf's alpha of 0.99. Hospital-based clinics had higher accessibility scores (mean 78.9%) compared to satellite clinics (mean 71.3%, P < 0.05). Areas such as hallways (mean 89%) and waiting areas (mean 87%) scored highest, whereas parking lots/sidewalks (mean 61%) and stairways (mean 61%) scored lowest, indicating significant room for improvement in these areas. The SiteWise tool is reliable and effective in identifying accessibility deficiencies in outpatient ophthalmology clinics. Although indoor areas generally scored well, outdoor and transitional spaces require significant enhancements to improve accessibility for visually impaired patients. This study bridges the gap between basic research and clinical care by providing a validated tool to assess and improve the accessibility of eye care facilities, ensuring they meet the needs of visually impaired patients.

Urban green space in transition: A cross-continental perspective from eight Global North and South cities

Urban green space (UGS) plays a vital role in enhancing the resilience and livability of cities. However, the distribution and accessibility of these spaces often vary significantly within and between cities, raising concerns about environmental justice and social equity. This study aims to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamics of UGS and assess population exposure and equality implications across eight diverse cities from the Global North (GN) and Global South (GS) over the past three decades. Employing a multimethod approach combining geospatial analysis, remote sensing, and statistical techniques, this study reveals an alarming global trend of decreasing UGS, with GS cities experiencing more rapid decline than GN cities. The analysis of UGS exposure uncovers distinct trends and variations across cities, with GN cities generally having higher exposure but showing a concerning decline over time, while GS cities display mixed patterns. Arid-climate cities Phoenix and Riyadh have managed to maintain low but stable UGS levels despite their unique climatic challenges. Urbanization emerges as a dominant force driving the decline in UGS, with GS cities facing significantly higher pressures than GN cities. The findings highlight the urgent need for comprehensive urban greening strategies that prioritize UGS protection and expansion, innovative policies, community engagement, and data-driven decision-making to promote equitable and sustainable urban environments. This study contributes to the growing research on urban greening by providing a comparative analysis of UGS trajectories and exposure equality implications across diverse cities, underscoring the importance of context-specific approaches and inclusive planning processes.

Armament of the Maeotian Horsemen of the 4th Century BC (Based on Materials from the Prikubansky Burial Ground)

The horsemen, whose graves were discovered in the Prikubansky burial ground, represented the elite of the Maeotian army. Weapons were found in 28 burials. The main types of weapons were iron swords, spearheads, and arrowheads. Swords of the Sindo-Maeotian type were found in 26 burials, and in four burials there were two swords of different lengths. The swords differ in the blade width, the design of the transition space between the guard and the blade, and the shape of the bar-shaped pommel. Spearheads could be found in all the burials. Typically, a set consisted of 4–6 both heavy and light spearheads of various types. One dart tip was found among the spear tips in the three sets. Arrowheads were discovered in twenty burials. Sets of arrows consisted of various numbers of pieces, from a few to several dozens. Mostly, iron three-blade arrowheads were used (415 specimens), bronze (three-blade and triangular) were practically out of use (25 specimens), and bone bullet-shaped ones were represented by isolated finds. The arrows were placed in quivers, which were placed next to or under the sword. In the burials with two swords, there were two quivers. Specific types of weapons are long combat knives (30–42 cm) with bone handles found in seven burials. A set of combat knives could consist of 2–4 pieces. On the grounds of the position in the burial, it can be assumed that the knives were located in a special compartment of the quiver, in a case on the sheath of the sword, or in special wooden sheaths. The equipment of the horsemen included iron axes in the two burials. The dating of the equestrian assemblages is based on a narrow chronology of Greek amphorae from different centers of production, which are present in each burial. The high percentage of horseman complexes among the military burials of the Prikubansky necropolis is probably connected with the location of this group of the Maeotian population near the eastern border of the Asian Bosporus.

Transit as racialized space: Comparing perceptions of refugees along the Mexico–Guatemala border

AbstractScholars have attuned to the challenges Central American migrants face along increasingly perilous northward journeys. However, most studies of “transit spaces” are relatively migrant‐centric, focusing on the meanings these spaces hold for migrants, or how particular locales are reconfigured in relation to migratory processes. There has been less attention to the meanings such places hold for long‐term inhabitants, as well as how they change over time. This article draws on long‐term ethnographic fieldwork along the Mexico–Guatemala border to compare how inhabitants perceived migrants and refugees in two different periods: narratives recalling suspicion of Guatemalan refugees in the 1980s and more recent anxieties held toward Central American migrants. Through the comparison, it problematizes how the very conceptualization of transit spaces and migrants in transit serves to uphold larger racial projects of exclusionary nationalism and the “national order of things” where territory, ethno‐racial identity, and belonging are assumed to align.

The place and role of purgatory in the twenty-first century: a visual content analysis of students’ AI-generated works

This article examines current perceptions of purgatory among young people and its role in society. Architecture students’ visual material explores the evolving concept of purgatory and its importance today. The study analyses how ideas of purification and hybridity are understood in contemporary secular society. Using a structured visual research framework, the study incorporates participatory seminars, art-based methodologies and innovative AI techniques. It investigates young people’s views on purgatory and their understanding of the cosmos, considering contemporary interpretations and the concept of presentism. By combining creative and conventional research approaches, this text aims to enhance understanding and generate new insights. The analysis uncovers how purgatory and transitional spaces are understood in today’s society, revealing individual interpretations of religious teachings. It also highlights the importance of creative research methods in understanding complex religious ideas.

How Can We Teach When We Are Constantly Learning? De/Colonising Canadian Literature in Grade Seven English Language Arts

ABSTRACT In this paper, I explore the transitional spaces of teaching and writing by restorying an anomalous event in my teaching of Canadian literature in a grade seven classroom and my efforts to decolonise that teaching. Thinking with Elizabeth Ellsworth’s concept of pedagogy as it relates to knowledge in the making and the learning self, I take seriously the manner in which this pedagogy challenges the cultural myth of teacher as expert identified by Deborah Britzman. In my story of de/colonising teaching, a transitional space opens up when I become aware of the ways in which I work against the goals of decolonising in my very efforts towards them, the risks I take, and the damage I can do as I implicate myself and my students in this process. As I teach and as I write, I build from the ruins of this difficult knowledge what it means to de/colonise as an educator.

Lessons Learned From a Retrospective Analysis of Medicolegal Risks for Physicians Treated Adolescents and Young Adults With Medical Complexity

PurposeAdolescent and young adult patients occupy a clinically transitional space between pediatric and adult care. Youth with chronic conditions and special healthcare needs may have trouble accessing and receiving appropriate care in this transition, which may lead to patient safety issues and medicolegal risks for physicians. The objectives of this article were to explore patient safety issues and identify medicolegal risks for physicians. MethodsA national repository was retrospectively searched for medicolegal cases (MLCs) involving complaints from youth. The study included MLCs closed at the Canadian Medical Protective Association between 2013 and 2022 involving youth. The study participants were adolescents and young adults aged ≥ 15 and ≤ 21 years with medical complexity. The frequencies and proportions of patient safety events and medicolegal risks for physicians were calculated by exploring factors that contributed to each incident using established frameworks. ResultsA total of 182 eligible MLCs were identified. Of 206 involved physicians, 55 were psychiatrists. The most common reasons for patient complaints were deficient assessment, diagnostic error, and communication breakdown with the patient and/or family. More than half of the cases were related to a harmful incident. Peer experts reviewed the cases and identified factors such as a deficient assessment, a failure to perform a test or intervention, failure to refer the patient, and insufficient provider knowledge/skill as contributing to the patient safety event. DiscussionThe impact of our findings is to identify gaps in care delivery to youth that can inform practitioners of ways to mitigate the gaps and improve patient care and health outcomes.

Impact of transition spaces on the indoor thermal environment: A case study of traditional dwellings in Southern Shaanxi, China

Transition space connecting internal space and external environment of buildings, which has a buffering effect on improving the indoor thermal environment and saving energy consumption. This research focuses on thermal environment regulation performance of the corridor space of traditional dwellings in hot summer and cold winter region in China was investigated. Firstly, the field investigation and thermal comfort measurement were conducted to clarify the regulating performance of corridor space in the indoor thermal comfort and human adaptability to the environment. Then, the research uses the Grasshopper and Energy plus platforms to analyze and quantitatively verify the effectiveness of the corridor space in enhancing the indoor thermal comfort. Finally, based on the multi-objective optimization by NSGA-II, the Pareto set is generated to obtain the optimal solution for the corridor space to meet the thermal comfort. The results show that corridor of dwelling has a width of 2 m, a slope of 15°, and a height of 3.9 m. The traditional dwellings with corridor space could improve the thermal comfort hours increase by 5.1 %, the energy consumption reduce by 18.7 %. This research could help inhabitants achieve the adaptive design of corridor space and improve the livability of residential habitats in southern Shaanxi.

Domestic, Not Private: Feminine Proposals for Carabanchel PAU Expansion, Madrid, Spain

This paper offers a gender-based analysis of collective space in the domestic realm, beyond privacy, produced in significant social housing case studies in the urban expansion of Carabanchel neighbourhood (Carabanchel PAU, Madrid, Spain). Designed at the beginning of the 21st century, this period involves the incorporation of women into young architectural teams. Thus, this study seeks to delve into the significance of this role through the detailed study of eleven cases. Focussing on the common spaces of housing buildings, these small elements seem to recall the passage from the safe to the unsafe environment, from the space of the reproductive labour to that of the intersectionality. Following this finding, we propose an incipient study of the transitional spaces between the private and the public, where contacts between neighbours and the exchange of care beyond the private sphere are celebrated, as well as the public representation of domestic life. The methodological approach has stablished four meaning aspects to analyse, related to inhabitants’ life and intended as architectural parameters: spaces for neighbourhood flows, both for residents and visitors; areas of activity and leisure, available for resident daily life; connections between these areas of activity and leisure and, finally, connections of the common areas with the dwellings. The aim is to investigate the extent to which the participation of women architects makes these spaces more effective for care giving—or simply, more suitable for the expansion of intimate life and socialisation with neighbours. The results provide optimistic data for the discipline and its capacity, through this type of sensitivity, to correct some of the errors in the system of production of public space.

The Sea and Underwater Transport in Imraan Coovadia’s The Institute for Taxi Poetry

ABSTRACT This article discusses the link between public transport and literary practices by analyzing Imraan Coovadia’s 2012 novel, The Institute for Taxi Poetry. In this novel, Coovadia comments on South Africa’s palimpsestic history from the precolonial to the postcolonial. One way in which Coovadia does this is through the motif of the taxi. The taxi refers to a mini-bus taxi which in South Africa is a form of public transport primarily used by people from working-class backgrounds. Another way concerns the proposal of a fictional genre that plays a prominent role in this novel: taxi poetry. The article explores the ways in which the novel uses the taxi and submarine vessels to open up the geography of the sea as a transport surface whose impact on the histories of the dispossessed is visible from both below and above the waterline. Through engagement with the humanities turn in mobility studies and with scholarship in the oceanic humanities from the Global South, the article argues that the national and terrestrial readings of public transport in African literature(s) undervalue the sea, a prominent transport arena in Coovadia’s novel, as both a space of transit as well as a public space with shared transnational histories. The article engages the novel’s imagined literary sub-genre to evaluate how the text’s subterranean extensions of the South African taxi industry, and public transport generally, unearth the layered narrative of South Africa as nation.

Care resignification in the pandemic context.

This essay discusses the care process of health professionals in the context of COVID-19 from the perspectives of psychoanalysis, under the prism of Donald Winnicott's transitional space, and of collective health, under the prism of the practical wisdom of José Ricardo Ayres, the micropolitics of live work in action by Emmerson Merhy, and prudent care by Ruben Mattos. It suggests elaborating a care perspective to propose a possible resignification of illness in a pandemic, where health is marked with calamity, health catastrophe, and suffering and anguish, whether in the body or subjectively. In this way, understanding the manifestation of care by health professionals in a pandemic context brought about with narcissistic and heroic meanings and feelings of impotence and helplessness contributes to elaborating a creative conception of care. We conclude that the perspective of expanded care favors the creative possibility of new productions of meaning and support for professionals, resignifying their life experiences through love, creativity, practical wisdom, prudent care, live work in action, and motor imaginary.

TRANSITIONAL AREAS OF DIGITAL GAME ART

Digital games, which constitute a part of new media studies, offer different reality experiences and new expressive environments to a player with multimodal interactions and hybrid reality practices offered by game engines. The alternative environments offered by digital game art create a kind of ‘transitional space’ in the participant’s experience process with ambiguous structures such as reality-fiction. The phenomenon of the transitional area, discussed by Donald W. Winnicott, is the cultural manoeuvring space in which the subject experiences both internal and external reality while constructing the initial fiction of the self, and is closely related to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulation in which fiction and reality are mixed. In contemporary art, where the artistic image becomes a virtual reality, phantasmagoria, in which meaning and reality are reconstructed and staged in new media works referencing digital game practices, takes place in the transitional areas that Winnicott sees as a dynamic and experiential playground. This research focuses on digital game art works of different artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Hesam Jalili, Theo Triantafyllidis, Ian Cheng, and Joon Yong Moon, who create a transitional space in their work with practices such as ‘gamification of space’ and ‘counter gaming’.

Enhancing mix proportion design of low carbon concrete for shield segment using a combination of Bayesian optimization-NGBoost and NSGA-III algorithm

The demand for segment concrete increases rapidly with the expansion of urban rail transit and underground space, which may lead to carbon emissions (CE). In the production of segment concrete, using supplement cementitious materials (SCM) can be used to reduce CE instead of cement. However, SCM contents are usually determined by many orthogonal experiments, which are often time-consuming and only consider the limited experimental variables. Therefore, a novel hybrid intelligent algorithm combining Bayesian optimization (BO), natural gradient boosting (NGBoost) and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA)-III is proposed, which overcomes these disadvantages. Firstly, NGBoost model after hyperparameter optimization using BO is used to establish a nonlinear mapping relationship between segment concrete mix proportion and performance, which was used as the fitness function of the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-III). Secondly, the optimal Pareto solutions were obtained through NSGA-III, and the reasonable range of segment concrete mixing proportion was obtained. Finally, a segment concrete production case was used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The results showed that the proposed hybrid algorithm combining proposed scheme decision strategy can obtain an optimal design scheme for concrete mix proportion. In addition, the comprehensive optimization rate of the obtained optimal scheme compared to the experimental optimal group was 11.5%. Moreover, the amount of phosphorous slag (PS) and granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) in the optimal scheme was 26%, with a mass ratio of 1:2. Compared to the experimental optimal group, the optimal scheme can reduce the cost and CE per cubic meter by 31.64 yuan and 31.04 kg, respectively. Furthermore, the hybrid algorithm proposed can accurately obtains an optimal amount of SCM, which could be used as a supporting tool to reduce the production cost and CE of segment concrete. Overall, this research contributes to combining machine learning algorithms with actual production processes, which overcomes the data limitations of traditional experiments. It also provides a new intelligent approach and reference cases for the low-carbon design and sustainable development of building materials such as concrete.

Enhancing visual comfort in staircases: A comprehensive analysis and design recommendations

Abstract People should be walking towards the inside of the dwelling through an appropriate visual environment in transitional space; this environment is the staircase in the collective housing. The proper understanding of visual adaptation parameters in the staircase helps architects provide a suitable environment for inhabitants. This paper aims to specify design elements of the staircase in collective housing, to achieve a visual comfort in this transitional space. The work involved two approaches: field measurements and a visual comfort survey using a questionnaire; 144 questionnaires are collected, in four residential buildings with different staircases treatment in the city of Arris, Algeria, to examine the illuminance levels in different staircase positions along the path from outside the building to inside, in summer and winter where illuminance ratios were calculated and compared with CIBSE Code. The discomfort sensations ranged from "subtle” to "dramatic”. The results show that a staircase with the percentage of opening of 88% indicated "strong" and "dramatic" visual shock in many points and as this staircase is open, it is exposed to light conditions and so it does not ensure the necessary transition. This leads to advising against the open staircase. In the case of a staircase treated with transoms of clear glass with the percentage of opening of 11%, these transoms direct the light to specific areas creating "strong" visual shock in many points of the stair landings and hence it leads to advise against that. The staircases treated with vertical bays throughout the façade presenting a percentage of opening between 19% and 22%, these treatments allow the penetration of daylight in a diffused way which ensures a balanced distribution of daylight inside the staircases. The existence of a solid overhang at the entrance; the façade treated with vertical bays, where the percentage of opening of the façade is about 19% and 22%, provided adequate transition leading to reasonable visual comfort.

Spatial influences on first impressions: a case study on how stranger behavior is judged in urban transitional spaces

Spatial influences on first impressions: a case study on how stranger behavior is judged in urban transitional spaces