In landscapes affected by human activity, understanding the spatial dynamics, predation behaviour and habitat preferences of large carnivores is essential for developing effective conservation strategies. The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) plays a vital role in maintaining the ecological balance of temperate and boreal forests in Europe and Asia. However, the ecological patterns and behavior of lynx populations in Ukraine remain poorly studied. This study, based on GPS telemetry data collected from February to August 2023 in the Rivnenskyi Nature Reserve and adjacent territories, is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of lynx home range, predation ecology and habitat selection in Ukraine. The average annual home range size of the lynx ranged from 181 to 255 km², depending on the home range estimator used (95 % MCP, KDE, and AKDE), with significant seasonal variation: larger ranges in summer (172 km², 95 % MCP) compared to smaller winter ranges (113.2 km², 95 % MCP). The lynx primarily preyed on roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and brown hare (Lepus europaeus), occasionally targeting smaller prey and carnivores, including the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides). Kills and resting sites were located in dense, low-visibility areas such as swampy coniferous and deciduous forests. Moreover, the study demonstrated that lynx actively avoided human settlements and roads, particularly during summer, highlighting the influence of anthropogenic factors. While our findings align with patterns observed in other European lynx populations, they also reveal regional variations driven by local landscape features. Of the lynx telemetry observations, 30.5% occurred within protected areas and 69.5% in forestry enterprises, degraded marshlands and hunting grounds. These results emphasise the importance of spatial ecology in carnivore conservation and highlight the need for continued monitoring to assess the impact of human activity on lynx populations in Ukraine. Furthermore, this study provides valuable insights for developing targeted conservation strategies involving local communities and stakeholders for the species in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. It also emphasises the need for standardised monitoring to facilitate comparative analyses of lynx ecology across different regions, including the Baltic and the Carpathians.
TY-type intersecting joints are widely used in ultra-high voltage long-span transmission towers. To improve the ultimate bearing capacity of TY-type intersecting joints, this paper proposes a composite externally stiffened intersecting joint based on the TY-type joint, which involves setting vertical gusset plates and vertical stiffeners on the outer surface of the TY-type joint. In this paper, 3 different TY-type intersecting joints are designed, and experimental studies are carried out to explore the failure modes, load–displacement relationships, and plastic development laws of these different TY-type intersecting joints. The results show that stiffening measures can effectively enhance the ultimate bearing capacity and initial stiffness of the joints. Based on the experimental results, the correctness of the numerical simulation is verified. Taking the composite externally stiffened intersecting joint as the base model, 256 stiffened joint models are established, and numerical simulation is used to investigate the influence of different geometric parameters on the ultimate bearing capacity of the joints. The results indicate that: The use of gusset plates and stiffeners can significantly improve the ultimate bearing capacity and overall stiffness of the unstiffened joints; The failure mechanism of the composite stiffened joints is consistent with that of the unstiffened joints, both characterized by buckling in the core of the main pipe; The ultimate bearing capacity of the composite stiffened joints is positively correlated with the diameter ratio of the branch pipe to the main pipe, the thickness ratio of the external stiffening plate, the thickness ratio of the external stiffener, and the height ratio, while it is negatively correlated with the diameter–thickness ratio of the main pipe. The research results on the new-type intersecting joints in this paper can provide a design reference for their practical engineering applications in transmission towers.
Lucy Deba Enomah, Joni Downs, Michael Acheampong
et al.
Using LULC change detection analysis, it is possible to identify changes due to urbanization, deforestation, or a natural disaster in an area. As population growth and urbanization increase, real-time solutions for the effects of urbanization on land use are required to assess its implications for food security and livelihood. This study seeks to identify and quantify recent LULC changes in Limbe, Cameroon, and to measure rates of conversion between agricultural, forest, and urban lands between 1986 and 2020 using remote sensing and GIS. Also, there is a deficiency of research employing these data to evaluate the efficiency of LULC satellite data and a lack of awareness by local stakeholders regarding the impact on LULC change. The changes were identified in four classes utilizing maximum supervised classification in ENVI and ArcGIS environments. The classification result reveals that the 2020 image has the highest overall accuracy of 94.6 while the 2002 image has an overall accuracy of 89.2%. The overall gain for agriculture was approximately 4.6 km<sup>2</sup>, urban had an overall gain of nearly 12.7 km<sup>2</sup>, while the overall loss for forest was −16.9 km<sup>2</sup> during this period. Much of the land area previously occupied by forest is declining as pressures for urban areas and new settlements increase. This study’s findings have significant policy implications for sustainable land use and food security. It also provides a spatial method for monitoring LULC variations that can be used as a framework by stakeholders who are interested in environmentally conscious development and sustainable land use practices.
Subrata Haldar, Somnath Mandal, Subhasis Bhattacharya
et al.
Abstract The peri-urban region of Durgapur Municipal Corporation (DMC) area has experienced substantial socioeconomic changes throughout the last decade (2011–2023). Most of the literature focused on urban expansion, landuse changes and industrial expansion with little attention to complex interaction between urbanization, industrialization and their effects on livelihoods and quality of life (QoL). This study examines the socio-economic transformations in the peri-urban zone of the Durgapur Municipal Corporation (DMC) from 2011–2023, emphasizing how urbanization and industrialization shape livelihoods and quality of life (QoL). The study collected primary data and used satellite-driven data for constructing several indices like the Peri-Urban Development Index (PUDI), Peri-Urban Development Transition Index (PUDTI), Livelihood Diversity Index (LDI), and Quality of life (QoL). By the systematic sampling method, the study considered 830 households with 10% marginal error and 20% non-sampling for the primary survey. Furthermore, statistical analyses like multiple linear regression and ANOVA have been applied to identify the variation in QoL across the study units. The study reveals a positive association between livelihood diversification and PUDTI, underscoring how economic diversification supports socio-economic advancement in peri-urban areas. Multilinear regression analysis highlights that demographic and economic factors especially sex ratio, household mobility, and educational opportunities are stronger predictors of QoL than land use and infrastructure improvements. Additionally, ANOVA results show that inner peri-urban areas experience more substantial QoL improvements than outer areas, likely due to better access to educational institutions, healthcare, transportation, and banking facilities, which have all seen significant upgrades. Despite these advancements, the study also identifies challenges, including displacement from traditional occupations and rising income inequality. These findings underscore the need for integrated development policies to address the diverse and complex factors influencing urbanization and the well-being of peri-urban residents, offering valuable insights for policymakers aiming to foster balanced growth in peri-urban zones.
Cities. Urban geography, Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology
The present study focuses on sacred manuscripts related to Reformed funeral rites — the so-called funeral hymnals — based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Hungarian-speaking settlements of Transcarpathia, specifically in the former counties of Ugocsa and Bereg. Its aim is to analyse the texts of mortuary hymn poetry by tracing their sources and demonstrating how and through what means they were incorporated into manuscript collections. The examination of funeral hymnals and sacred manuscripts, as well as their texts, has only recently become a central topic of research. In Transcarpathia, their systematic uncovering has gained momentum and attracted greater scholarly attention in recent years. The analysis of these texts places the significance of the manuscripts in a new context. The study primarily examines selected manuscript examples and, at the same time, refutes the earlier claim that the hymns used during wakes and funerals were original compositions by Reformed cantors. The research clearly shows that although a few original compositions exist, the vast majority of funeral hymn texts derive from earlier printed sources. The study classifies the texts into two main categories: original compositions and texts borrowed from earlier printed or manuscript sources. Within the latter category, it distinguishes between texts adopted verbatim and those that were modified or adapted, with each case supported by specific examples. The research does not uncover primary sources in the strict sense but rather demonstrates the origins of the texts. Furthermore, the study addresses the practice of song dictation (énekdiktálás) — a singing custom and mood indispensable to understanding funeral hymnals, as the texts they contain were sung following dictation. It highlights an important aspect: the international parallels of this practice, which is known in scholarly terms as lining out. While the work does not undertake a comprehensive survey of such parallels, it cites the Scottish Gaelic singing tradition as an example and notes that many other analogues could be mentioned, further supporting the view that the singing practices of these communities have clear international counterparts.
This article discusses the names of settlements in Belozerye, including designations of settlement types (выселок, городок, двор, мыза, погост, починок, слобода, усадьба, хутор), several terms with the suffix -ище (дворище, городище, погостище, селище, усадище, etc.), denoting places of former settlements, and some definitions characterising the ownership status of lands (казённый, монастырский, барский, боярский, княжий). In addition, the author examines the issue of the use of terms under consideration naming the types of settlements as a designation of the type of object in the official lists of settlements and in the speech of residents. The study refers to data from the lists of settlements of Olonets (1905) and Novgorod (1911–1912) provinces, and for the later period, to data from field collections of the Toponymic Expedition of the Ural University of the 1960s–2010s. The difference in the toponymic use of certain terms of land ownership is mainly explained by the peculiarities of the settlement of the territory and the existing types of land ownership (this is especially typical of the characterising names: казенный, монастырский, княжий, etc.). The designations of settlement types turn out to be less dependent on the established land tenure practices and more susceptible to subsequent administrative regulation, although certain historical patterns can be traced here: the terms городок and городище mark the sites of archaeologically confirmed and documented medieval fortified settlements; the Novgorod toponymic models Большой Двор and Великий Двор make it possible to clarify the zone of Novgorod development of the territory and delimit it from the more eastern Rostov-Suzdal. The term погост is most widely represented on the territory of the former Novgorod pyatinas which inherited the Old Russian system of pogosts; the appearance of the term хутор in Belozerye is clearly connected with the Stolypin reform, although it was known in other Great Russian territories before that time.
History (General) and history of Europe, Language and Literature
This article examines how water – a finite commodity, known in Setswana as metsi – has been distributed over time in Botswana. It argues that from pre-colonial times to the era of the post-colony there have been ever-growing calls for the rational and equitable distribution of water among all the inhabitants of the country. However, despite the increasing demand for equitable distribution of the resource, water has been unevenly and selectively distributed across space. Rain (known as pula in Setswana) is precarious. The disparities in the distribution of scarce water resources in a predominantly desert environment without much rain are historically evident in the distribution of the resources among indigenes (e.g. the San), village Africans, and non-indigenous minority communities occupying the so-called white enclaves. In the pre-colonial and colonial periods, water was administered and distributed by ‘tribal authorities with no serious focus on minority Indigenous groups (indigenes) such as the Kalahari San, who over time have been unequivocally displaced from their original lands or habitats. The colonial administration of the Bechuanaland Protectorate did not only neglected the San but was also disinclined towards developing the water sector beyond the few white enclaves dotted in parts of the arid-to-semi-arid country to beneft the ever-expanding African village settlements. Such a discriminatory, selective, and non-inclusive approach to water delivery had telling consequences for the sector’s development in colonial and post-colonial Botswana continued to negate a small, albeit increasingly growing Kalahari San voice for the extension of water and land rights to this marginalised community.
The Covid-19 pandemic has driven changes in various fields in the application of technology, including in the tourism sector. Increasing the use of social media is a new challenge for tourism workers to carry out digital marketing. However, human resources capable of using technology and conducting digital marketing in tourism management are not always available. The purpose of this community service is to improve the quality and ability of Sunrise Land Lombok (SLL) employees to digitize and use social media. The implementation of community service will be carried out from October to December 2022 by providing training and assistance SLL tourism workers. The stages carried out in this service include the stages of observation and interviews, training, mentoring, and evaluation. Based on observations and interviews with the director of SLL, it is known that SLL workers face several obstacles in utilizing social media. These obstacles include more understanding about creating engaging social media content. Based on these problems, the training materials provided include: 1) Content planning, Canva, and website training for scheduled posting; 2) Press release writing and copywriting training and 3) practice video editing using CapCut and VN. The training is carried out online and is divided into several meetings, with each meeting accompanied by assignments for workers to practice the material given during the delivery.
W tekście zaprezentowano problemy badawcze odnośnie do małych miast ziemi łęczyckiej w średniowieczu i wczesnej epoce nowożytnej. Na podstawie wybranych przykładów ukazano i omówiono takie trudności jak: brak ksiąg miejskich, niejednoznaczność łacińskich terminów, zaburzenia w chronologii źródeł, identyfikacja osób, odróżnienie wsi od miast o takich samych nazwach. Dokonano również charakterystyki źródeł pisanych, w których znajdują się informacje na temat małych miast. W obliczu wskazanych problemów to właśnie księgi grodzkie i ziemskie oraz rejestry podatkowe pozostają podstawowymi źródłami do badania dziejów tych terenów.
The amphitheater represents one of the most emblematic urban buildings in Antiquity. During the Roman period, the ancient city of Reims/Durocortorum, having been elevated to the rank of provincial capital for Gallia Belgica, required construction of one such urban monument. Although the existence of this building in Reims is not mentioned in ancient literary sources, the study of later texts seems to indicate that it was located to the north, on the edge of the city, beyond the Porte de Mars, and that it was still in use in the 13th c. for military inspections. However, other, later sources also indicate that the building was almost completely destroyed in the 16th c. and that it disappeared entirely at the end of the modern era. Its memory was preserved with the bestowal of the toponym “Mont d’Araisne.” Several ancient plans either directly mention or allude to the presence of this amphitheater. In 2007-2008, the installation of a new tramway line presented the opportunity to excavate this area, specifically along the outskirts of the current Saint-Thomas church. This operation brought to light the presence of two curvilinear walls, almost entirely recovered at the end of Antiquity, and filled in between by a thick chalk backfill. These architectural remains are interpreted as constituting the wall of the ancient amphitheater, on the one hand, and an esplanade surrounded by a peribolos wall, on the other. Under this platform and within its vicinity, the remains of an earlier occupation are sufficiently well preserved to reconstruct its organization. These remains attest to the presence of palisaded plots of land whereon buildings with cellars were established. Abundant material goods were retrieved, primarily ceramics (2,757 fragments, minimum number of individuals [MNI]: 216), discarded in the fillings of the hollow structures at the time of the abandonment of these early settlements, prior to the construction of the performance building. The range of ceramics consists mainly of Italic or Gallic-type terra sigillata vessels, as well as Gallo-Belgian style objects. The analysis of this material allows us to propose a chronological connection and approximate date for the construction of the amphitheater. Firstly, this evaluation led to the association of this assemblage with other collections from the area. When examined together, they define and delineate the scope of the overview IV, in terms of the evolution of ancient tableware in Reims. Careful observation of the different proportions of the categories and types of ceramics in the corpus, as well as in other contemporary Reims reference contexts now allows us to subdivide this scope in two. The corpus of material goods from the levels corresponding to the abandonment of the structures and preceding the construction of the amphitheater is consistent with the most recent phase. If the three coins present alongside this material do not appear to indicate a date before the beginning of the 1st c. AD, the other coins associated with these levels allow us to propose a dating between 15-20 and 40-45 AD and, for the most recent phase, between 30 and 40-45 AD. Thus, according to the data collected from this excavation, the Reims amphitheater was most likely built during the second quarter of the 1st c., during Tiberius’ principate. Based on this proposal, the Reims amphitheater appears to have been built during the first construction phase of buildings dedicated to performance in the Roman Empire, concurrently, or shortly after the erection of the amphitheaters of Lyon (Rhône) and Saintes (Charente-Maritime), two other capitals of Gaul. Though knowledge about the amphitheater itself remains very limited, the location of and date of foundation for this emblematic monument of Roman culture in Reims now appear to have been identified thanks to this excavation.
Shahin Garakani Dashteh, Mohammad Mortezaei, Parnia Garakani Dashteh
Seasonal settlements of the Mongol rulers fall into the two general classes of temporary and permanent settlements, which were scattered across the territory under their influence. According to historical reports and archaeological documents, permanent settlements were constructed using building materials in certain Yaylaqs (summer quarters) and Qishlaqs (winter quarters) or on the outskirts of urban centers, and were periodically used by Mongol rulers. Historical texts from the Ilkhanid period use three different names of Qarshi, Kushk and Saray to refer to such settlements, highlighting the differing structures of the pertaining settlements. The present study aims to offer a classification for permanent settlements of the Mongol and Ilkhanid rulers via semantically and functionally interpreting the terms Qarshi, Kushk and Saray. To this end, apart from archaeological documents, Chinese terms referring to the permanent settlements of the Mongol rulers are invoked. The results of this analytical-historical research show that in light of the prefixes used in the Persian texts deriving from the Ilkhanid period, the permanentsettlements of the Mongol empires and Ilkhans split into two categories: Saray and Kushk. Sarays were a series of ceremonial buildings located mostly in the main cities or important seasonal residences and are comparable to the Gongchengs of the Mongols in China. Kushk mainly denoted a midway residence, where the sole existing building was a single Kushk or Qarshi.
W artykule zaprezentowano sylwetki żołnierzy związanych z szadkowską Polską Organizacją Wojskową, powstałą wiosną 1915 r. z inicjatywy Feliksa Szymańskiego. Są to najczęściej postacie mało znane, ale zasłużone w walce z okupantem i zaangażowane w działania prowadzące do odzyskania przez Polskę niepodległości. Informacje o tych osobach autorka zdobyła podczas badania źródeł archiwalnych, znajdujących się w Centralnym Archiwum Wojskowym Wojskowego Biura Historycznego w Warszawie. W artykule nie zabrakło też sylwetek szkoleniowców, m.in. Jerzego Neugebauera czy Stanisława Fruzińskiego. Zaprezentowane biogramy stanowią ważne źródło informacji na temat działalności szadkowskiej komórki POW.
The global sanitation crisis is rapidly urbanizing, but how is sanitation produced and sustained in informal settlements? Although there are data available on aggregate statistics, relatively little is known about how sanitation is created, maintained, threatened, and contested within informal settlements. Drawing on an ethnography of two very different informal settlements in Mumbai, this study identifies key ways in which informal sanitation is produced, rendered vulnerable, and politicized. In particular, four informal urban sanitation processes are examined: patronage, self-managed processes, solidarity and exclusion, and open defecation. The article also considers the implications for a research agenda around informal urban sanitation, emphasizing in particular the potential of a comparative approach, and examines the possibilities for better sanitation conditions in Mumbai and beyond.