Effect of Street Performance (Busking) on the Environmental Perception of Public Space.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ho R
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8042224 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:We developed a psychometric scale for measuring the subjective environmental perception of public spaces. In the scale development process, we started with an initial pool of 85 items identified from the literature that were related to environmental perception. A total of 1,650 participants rated these items on animated images of 12 public spaces through an online survey. Using principal component analyses and confirmatory factor analyses, we identified two affective factors (comfort and activity) with 8 items and six cognitive factors (legibility, enclosure, complexity, crime potential, wildlife, and lighting) with 22 items. These eight factors represent the core attributes underlying environmental perception of public spaces. Practicality of the scale and limitations of the study are also discussed.
| S-EPMC7719834 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In this paper we report two experiments in which the effect of perspective projection on presence and space perception was investigated. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to score a presence questionnaire when looking at a virtual classroom. We manipulated the vantage point, the viewing mode (binocular versus monocular viewing), the display device/screen size (projector versus TV) and the center of projection. At the end of each session of Experiment 1, participants were asked to set their preferred center of projection such that the image seemed most natural to them. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to draw a floor plan of the virtual classroom. The results show that field of view, viewing mode, the center of projection and display all significantly affect presence and the perceived layout of the virtual environment. We found a significant linear relationship between presence and perceived layout of the virtual classroom, and between the preferred center of projection and perceived layout. The results indicate that the way in which virtual worlds are presented is critical for the level of experienced presence. The results also suggest that people ignore veridicality and they experience a higher level of presence while viewing elongated virtual environments compared to viewing the original intended shape.
| S-EPMC3819378 | biostudies-literature
Project description:As environmental problems continue to intensify, public environmental awareness and participation have become key forces in a modernized environmental governance system. Recognizing the importance of public participation in environmental governance, this study explores the influence of public pressure on environmental pollution and its implications for China's long-term environmental management efforts. Using statistical and internet search data from 284 prefecture-level cities between 2011 and 2020, the study finds that a 1% increase in public environmental concern leads to a 0.009% reduction in pollution. The study also highlights the strengthening effect of government environmental regulation on the impact of public environmental concern. Moreover, regional heterogeneity analysis reveals a stronger effect of public environmental concern in cities facing low economic pressure. The findings of the study provide a reference for the construction of a coordinated and sustainable environmental governance model in China as well as in developing countries.
| S-EPMC10434905 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Bacterial conjugation is one of the most abundant horizontal gene transfer (HGT) mechanisms, playing a fundamental role in prokaryote evolution. A better understanding of bacterial conjugation and its cross talk with the environment is needed for a more complete understanding of HGT mechanisms and to fight the dissemination of malicious genes between bacteria. Here, we studied the effect of outer space, microgravity, and additional key environmental cues on transfer (tra) gene expression and conjugation efficiency, using the under studied broad-host range plasmid pN3, as a model. High resolution scanning electron microscopy revealed the morphology of the pN3 conjugative pili and mating pair formation during conjugation. Using a nanosatellite carrying a miniaturized lab, we studied pN3 conjugation in outer space, and used qRT-PCR, Western blotting and mating assays to determine the effect of ground physicochemical parameters on tra gene expression and conjugation. We showed for the first time that bacterial conjugation can occur in outer space and on the ground, under microgravity-simulated conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrated that microgravity, liquid media, elevated temperature, nutrient depletion, high osmolarity and low oxygen significantly reduce pN3 conjugation. Interestingly, under some of these conditions we observed an inverse correlation between tra gene transcription and conjugation frequency and found that induction of at least traK and traL can negatively affect pN3 conjugation frequency in a dose-dependent manner. Collectively, these results uncover pN3 regulation by various environmental cues and highlight the diversity of conjugation systems and the different ways in which they may be regulated in response to abiotic signals. IMPORTANCE Bacterial conjugation is a highly ubiquitous and promiscuous process, by which a donor bacterium transfers a large portion of genetic material to a recipient cell. This mechanism of horizontal gene transfer plays an important role in bacterial evolution and in the ability of bacteria to acquire resistance to antimicrobial drugs and disinfectants. Bacterial conjugation is a complex and energy-consuming process, that is tightly regulated and largely affected by various environmental signals sensed by the bacterial cell. Comprehensive knowledge about bacterial conjugation and the ways it is affected by environmental cues is required to better understand bacterial ecology and evolution and to find new effective ways to counteract the threating dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes between bacterial populations. Moreover, characterizing this process under stress or suboptimal growth conditions such as elevated temperatures, high salinity or in the outer space, may provide insights relevant to future habitat environmental conditions.
| S-EPMC10269834 | biostudies-literature
Project description:How does the organizational culture of local governments influence the type and extent of procedural justice in environmental policy processes? Using the culture theory developed by Mary Douglas and others, this research seeks to bring a new conception and new measures of organizational culture to the study of policy making by local governments. To contribute to the development of the conceptualization and measurement of procedural justice in the environmental policy processes of those governments, item response theory (IRT) graded response model (GRM) is used to show variations in difficulties and frequencies of adopting distinctive public participation strategies for improving procedural justice across local governments. In this study, original survey data is collected from Illinois municipalities and a finding is suggestive of cultural variables explaining the two dimensions of procedural justice, equal and authentic public participation, while other variables can, at best, explain only the equal public participation. Furthermore, as hypothesized, egalitarianism increases both equal and authentic public participation, individualism increases equal public participation, and fatalism decreases both.
| S-EPMC8504256 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In this paper, we measured the amount of urban green space (UGS), defined here as park greenery and street greenery, in the Guangzhou Beltway region using remote sensing image data and the green view index (GVI) based on human visual images. We also evaluated the benefits of UGS comprehensively considering park greenery and street greenery within the Guangzhou Beltway region. We then calculated the urban green space score (UGSS) by assessing the amount of street greenery and park greenery and then juxtaposing the score with the population distribution of the region. The results show inequities in the spatial distribution of UGSS values within the Guangzhou Beltway region. The benefit score of street greenery is low. The service area of parks can’t cover the whole study area. The comprehensive benefit score of UGS is composed of two parts, the park greenery score and the street greenery score, but the spatial distribution of UGSS values remains uneven. The UGS benefits enjoyed by one-half of the population of the study area are low, and the UGSS values of the more densely populated areas are not high.
| S-EPMC9484692 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Various insects and small animals can navigate in turbulent streams to find their mates (or food) from sparse pheromone (odor) detections. Their access to internal space perception and use of cognitive maps still are heavily debated, but for some of them, limited space perception seems to be the rule. However, this poor space perception does not prevent them from impressive search capacities. Here, as an attempt to model these behaviors, we propose a scheme that can perform, even without a detailed internal space map, searches in turbulent streams. The algorithm is based on a standardized projection of the probability of the source position to remove space perception and on the evaluation of a free energy, whose minimization along the path gives direction to the searcher. An internal "temperature" allows active control of the exploration/exploitation balance during the search. We demonstrate the efficiency of the scheme numerically, with a computational model of odor plume propagation, and experimentally, with robotic searches of thermal sources in turbulent streams. In addition to being a model to describe animals' searches, this scheme may be applied to robotic searches in complex varying media without odometry error corrections and in problems in which active control of the exploration/exploitation balance is profitable.
| S-EPMC3710851 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Attention readily facilitates the detection and discrimination of objects, but it is not known whether it helps to form the vast volume of visual space that contains the objects and where actions are implemented. Conventional wisdom suggests not, given the effortless ease with which we perceive three-dimensional (3D) scenes on opening our eyes. Here, we show evidence to the contrary. In Experiment 1, the observer judged the location of a briefly presented target, placed either on the textured ground or ceiling surface. Judged location was more accurate for a target on the ground, provided that the ground was visible and that the observer directed attention to the lower visual field, not the upper field. This reveals that attention facilitates space perception with reference to the ground. Experiment 2 showed that judged location of a target in mid-air, with both ground and ceiling surfaces present, was more accurate when the observer directed their attention to the lower visual field; this indicates that the attention effect extends to visual space above the ground. These findings underscore the role of attention in anchoring visual orientation in space, which is arguably a primal event that enhances one's ability to interact with objects and surface layouts within the visual space. The fact that the effect of attention was contingent on the ground being visible suggests that our terrestrial visual system is best served by its ecological niche.
| S-EPMC5699473 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The influence of positive or negative expectations on clinical outcomes such as pain relief or motor performance in patients and healthy participants has been extensively investigated for years. Such research promises potential benefit for patient treatment by deliberately using expectations as means to stimulate endogenous regulation processes. Especially regarding recent interest and controversies revolving around cognitive enhancement, the question remains whether mere expectancies might also yield enhancing or impairing effects in the cognitive domain, i.e., can we improve or impair cognitive performance simply by creating a strong expectancy in participants about their performance? Moreover, previous literature suggests that especially subjective perception is highly susceptible to expectancy effects, whereas objective measures can be affected in certain domains, but not in others. Does such a dissociation of objective measures and subjective perception also apply to cognitive placebo and nocebo effects? In this study, we sought to investigate whether placebo and nocebo effects can be evoked in cognitive tasks, and whether these effects influence objective and subjective measures alike. To this end, we instructed participants about alleged effects of different tone frequencies (high, intermediate, low) on brain activity and cognitive functions. We paired each tone with specific success rates in a Flanker task paradigm as a preliminary conditioning procedure, adapted from research on placebo hypoalgesia. In a subsequent test phase, we measured reaction times and success rates in different expectancy conditions (placebo, nocebo, and control) and then asked participants how the different tone frequencies affected their performance. Interestingly, we found no effects of expectation on objective measures, but a strong effect on subjective perception, i.e., although actual performance was not affected by expectancy, participants strongly believed that the placebo tone frequency improved their performance.
| S-EPMC4493024 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We have established a certification system for antibodies to be used in chromatin immunoprecipitation assays coupled to massive parallel sequencing (ChIP-seq). This certification comprises a standardized ChIP procedure and the attribution of a numerical quality control indicator (QCi) to biological replicate experiments. The QCi computation is based on a universally applicable quality assessment that quantitates the global deviation of randomly sampled subsets of ChIP-seq dataset with the original genome-aligned sequence reads. Comparison with a QCi database for >28,000 ChIP-seq assays were used to attribute quality grades (ranging from âAAAâ to âDDDâ) to a given dataset. In the present report we used the numerical QC system to assess the factors influencing the quality of ChIP-seq assays, including the nature of the target, the sequencing depth and the commercial source of the antibody. We have used this approach specifically to certify mono and polyclonal antibodies obtained from Active Motif directed against the histone modification marks H3K4me3, H3K27ac and H3K9ac for ChIP-seq. The antibodies received the grades AAA to BBA (www.ngs-qc.org). We propose to attribute such quantitative grading of all antibodies attributed with the label âChIP-seq gradeâ. The NGS-QC team has setup a certification procedure for Antibodies dedicated to ChIP-seq applications based on (1)a highly reproducible pipeline for performing ChIP-seq assays including the use of an automated liquid handling platform (TECAN EVO75) for ChIP and sequencing library preparation steps and (2) the use of the NGS-QC Generator tool for providing a ChIP-seq quality grade and to evaluate other parameters like the Optimal sequencing depth, the degree of reproducibility among biological replicates and the comparison of the quality grades of the certified antibody with datasets retrieved in the public domain. This quality certification structure makes possible to assign a measured Quality Stamp to ChIP-seq grade Antibodies.
2016-01-07 | E-GEOD-76618 | biostudies-arrayexpress