The socio-cultural architectural features of vernacular and contemporary dwellings for sustainable desert dwellings design in southwest Libya

Southwest Libya is one of the most important desert regions in Libya with its significant historical oases and towns. This region is characterised by the unique design of vernacular desert dwellings, with a rich architectural heritage and a remarkable convergence of cultures from the locals in the region. The nature of these dwellings is founded on the harmonious blend between architecture and people, which has formed its architectural identity over centuries. However, in recent decades, the vernacular architecture of desert dwellings, which were sustainable for many centuries, is no longer able to keep up with the contemporary lifestyle for different generations. The vernacular architecture of desert dwellings and the architectural landscape in Southwest Libya face several serious challenges. These challenges include rapid changes to the building of contemporary dwellings with ‘modern’ trends for desert dwellings. Such trends have led to transformative patterns of socio-cultural life, which have recently resulted in the distortion of the architectural landscape of the region. Southwest Libya has experienced defects in desert-dwelling designs in terms of the lack of compatibility of those dwellings with the socio-cultural needs of the locals, including a lack of harmony with the architectural identity and patterns of contemporary life. This is in addition to the distortion of the architectural landscape of historical towns, which is caused by the rapid intercalation of imported contemporary architectural trends into the socio-cultural features of the region. This condition is worsened by the fact that the current desert dwellings are, nevertheless, still designed and implemented as a result of the same trends, causing problems in meeting the requirements of socio-cultural sustainability for the locals. Through the literary reviews it turned out that there is a great lack of consideration of aspects of social and cultural sustainability in Southwest Libya, and, in general, it is the aspect that is explored the least in the prevailing literature. This research highlights the absence of social and cultural sustainability considerations in the design of contemporary desert dwellings in southwest Libya. This research examined the levels of satisfaction of different generations, regarding both vernacular and contemporary desert-dwelling designs. Particular focus was placed on the views of the new generation with respect to architectural identity and contemporary lifestyle. In addition to, investigate the views of professionals and architects on the advantages and disadvantages of both vernacular and contemporary desert dwellings design as well as the socio-cultural features of sustainable desert dwellings design, including the issue of architectural identity and identity changes for young generations. Data is collected through mixed-methods techniques: questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Three historical towns Ghadames, Sabha and Ghat in Southwest Libya are selected which are distinguished by the unique vernacular architecture expressing the identity, diversity and cultural heritage of its people as the case study. The findings of the questionnaire showed different levels of satisfaction of the respondents with respect to the social and cultural sustainability features for both vernacular and contemporary desert-dwelling designs, most of which refer to levels of satisfaction with vernacular dwelling designs in terms of traditional values and cultural heritage; the levels of satisfaction with contemporary dwelling designs were about features that relate to the contemporary lifestyle. The findings also showed the new generation’s response levels for architectural identity, architectural heritage, and contemporary lifestyle, as well as the preferences and desires of the population. The findings of the interviews showed an in-depth understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of desert dwellings design. The features highlighted the socio-cultural sustainability of both vernacular and contemporary desert dwellings in Southern Libya, which integrated and synthesised later with the findings of the questionnaire. A set of guidelines was then formulated, based on the integration of the findings of the questionnaire and interviews with the lessons learned from vernacular architecture and the advantages of contemporary desert dwellings, to represent the fundamental points towards socio-cultural sustainability in desert dwellings design in Southwest Libya to increase residents’ satisfaction with the design of their dwellings which fulfil their social and cultural needs. In addition to the most important steps to be taken by the relevant authorities to promote cultural identity and preserve the architectural identity, especially for the younger generations

Boundary relations and generalized resolvents of symmetric operators

The Kre\u{\i}n-Naimark formula provides a parametrization of all selfadjoint exit space extensions of a, not necessarily densely defined, symmetric operator, in terms of maximal dissipative (in \dC_+) holomorphic linear relations on the parameter space (the so-called Nevanlinna families). The new notion of a boundary relation makes it possible to interpret these parameter families as Weyl families of boundary relations and to establish a simple coupling method to construct the generalized resolvents from the given parameter family. The general version of the coupling method is introduced and the role of boundary relations and their Weyl families for the Kre\u{\i}n-Naimark formula is investigated and explained.Comment: 47 page

Generalized boundary triples, I. Some classes of isometric and unitary boundary pairs and realization problems for subclasses of Nevanlinna functions

© 2020 The Authors. Mathematische Nachrichten published by Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

De Branges spaces and Krein's theory of entire operators

This work presents a contemporary treatment of Krein's entire operators with deficiency indices $(1,1)$ and de Branges' Hilbert spaces of entire functions. Each of these theories played a central role in the research of both renown mathematicians. Remarkably, entire operators and de Branges spaces are intimately connected and the interplay between them has had an impact in both spectral theory and the theory of functions. This work exhibits the interrelation between Krein's and de Branges' theories by means of a functional model and discusses recent developments, giving illustrations of the main objects and applications to the spectral theory of difference and differential operators.Comment: 37 pages, no figures. The abstract was extended. Typographical errors were corrected. The bibliography style was change

Immune reconstitution and clinical recovery following anti-CD28 antibody (TGN1412)-induced cytokine storm

Cytokine storm can result from cancer immunotherapy or certain infections, including COVID-19. Though short-term immune-related adverse events are routinely described, longer-term immune consequences and sequential immune monitoring are not as well defined. In 2006, six healthy volunteers received TGN1412, a CD28 superagonist antibody, in a first-in-man clinical trial and suffered from cytokine storm. After the initial cytokine release, antibody effect-specific immune monitoring started on Day + 10 and consisted mainly of evaluation of dendritic cell and T-cell subsets and 15 serum cytokines at 21 time-points over 2 years. All patients developed problems with concentration and memory; three patients were diagnosed with mild-to-moderate depression. Mild neutropenia and autoantibody production was observed intermittently. One patient suffered from peripheral dry gangrene, required amputations, and had persistent Raynaud's phenomenon. Gastrointestinal irritability was noted in three patients and coincided with elevated γδT-cells. One had pruritus associated with elevated IgE levels, also found in three other asymptomatic patients. Dendritic cells, initially undetectable, rose to normal within a month. Naïve CD8+ T-cells were maintained at high levels, whereas naïve CD4+ and memory CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells started high but declined over 2 years. T-regulatory cells cycled circannually and were normal in number. Cytokine dysregulation was especially noted in one patient with systemic symptoms. Over a 2-year follow-up, cognitive deficits were observed in all patients following TGN1412 infusion. Some also had signs or symptoms of psychological, mucosal or immune dysregulation. These observations may discern immunopathology, treatment targets, and long-term monitoring strategies for other patients undergoing immunotherapy or with cytokine storm

Abstract kinetic equations with positive collision operators

We consider "forward-backward" parabolic equations in the abstract form $Jd \psi / d x + L \psi = 0$, $0< x < \tau \leq \infty$, where $J$ and $L$ are operators in a Hilbert space $H$ such that $J=J^*=J^{-1}$, $L=L^* \geq 0$, and $\ker L = 0$. The following theorem is proved: if the operator $B=JL$ is similar to a self-adjoint operator, then associated half-range boundary problems have unique solutions. We apply this theorem to corresponding nonhomogeneous equations, to the time-independent Fokker-Plank equation $\mu \frac {\partial \psi}{\partial x} (x,\mu) = b(\mu) \frac {\partial^2 \psi}{\partial \mu^2} (x, \mu)$, $0<x<\tau$, $\mu \in \R$, as well as to other parabolic equations of the "forward-backward" type. The abstract kinetic equation $T d \psi/dx = - A \psi (x) + f(x)$, where $T=T^*$ is injective and $A$ satisfies a certain positivity assumption, is considered also.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX2e, version 2, references have been added, changes in the introductio

The class of n-entire operators

We introduce a classification of simple, regular, closed symmetric operators with deficiency indices (1,1) according to a geometric criterion that extends the classical notions of entire operators and entire operators in the generalized sense due to M. G. Krein. We show that these classes of operators have several distinctive properties, some of them related to the spectra of their canonical selfadjoint extensions. In particular, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions on the spectra of two canonical selfadjoint extensions of an operator for it to belong to one of our classes. Our discussion is based on some recent results in the theory of de Branges spaces.Comment: 33 pages. Typos corrected. Changes in the wording of Section 2. References added. Examples added. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1104.476