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Accounting for the complexity of intercultural interactions in highly multicultural-fluid times requires re-imagining of (a) the fundamental constructs that have shaped our perceptions of interculturality and (b) the factors that contribute to smooth functioning in intercultural situations. Researchers' epistemological and methodological positioning can strongly influence the range of findings and interpretations; thus, examining the theoretical stances embraced in papers in a specific geographical context can propel the rigorousness of its scientific research. Many perspectives and theories in intercultural communication scholarship have signalled a shift from national-wide and generalisable perceptions of cultural-communication dyadic relationship towards a consideration of sense-making processes and intersubjectivity. However, some treatments of interculturality still often reproduce, consciously or not, the same preponderant epistemologies that benchmark intercultural interactions as static and essentialist, especially at the inter-individual level. Liquid interculturality, as a postmodernist alternative responsive to the construction of cultures and identities, responds to the non-linearity of intercultural encounters and considers the fluidity of individuals' representations of themselves and other interlocutors. This paper, by highlighting the shift from solid to liquid paradigms in intercultural communication theory and research, seeks to (a) situate and critically reflect on Moroccan intercultural communication scholarship with regards to today's relevant research and (b) clarify how researchers tend to conceptualise intercultural encounters in reference to the theoretical underpinnings of liquid interculturality. Findings revealed that most research methods have been based on solid representations of interculturality with few signs of liquid interculturality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Density dominates current urban discussions, especially in light of still-developing understandings of Covid-19's impact on urban populations. This paper argues that critical scrutiny of visual representations of urban density is both missing from academic focus and critically important for understanding how perceptions of density are both created and reproduced. The political rhetoric of density shapes public perceptions as much as it responds to them, and scrutiny of visual density politics adds a new lens to critical density debates. This research takes the speculative imagery of imagined future density created for a public ballot referendum in Zurich, Switzerland as the main focus, and compares the verbal and written campaign rhetoric to the visual images produced as tools of public persuasion. By assessing the gap between what the campaigns claim and what the campaign imagery represents, the research finds embedded in conventional rhetoric a deep-seated and self-defeating assumption that the electorate unilaterally fears density and the changes it might bring. As a winning electoral strategy assuming fear of density worked; as a tool of persuasion it failed, and risks amplifying or creating the perception it assumes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid negative societal implications from water management actions, the complex interrelations between water and conflict need to be understood. Assessment of such links in complex adaptive systems, characterized by various factors which mutually influence each other, is challenging. This paper explores how the use of participatory methods can support the identification of water-related conflict risks in one such complex adaptive system: the Inner Niger Delta in Mali. We find that participatory analysis not only facilitated the identification of systemic risks in a complex adaptive system, but also shapes the perceptions of these interlinkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this response paper, we start by addressing the main points made by the commentators on the target article's main theoretical conclusions: the existence and characteristics of the intermediate shape-centered representations (ISCRs) in the visual system, their emergence from edge detection mechanisms operating on different types of visual properties, and how they are eventually reunited in higher order frames of reference underlying conscious visual perception. We also address the much-commented issue of the possible neural mechanisms of the ISCRs. In the final section, we address more specific and general comments, questions, and suggestions which, albeit very interesting, were less directly focused on the main conclusions of the target paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News about celebrity athlete transgressions is nearly an everyday occurrence in today's media channels. Whether the public stigmatizes these individuals as a result of these indiscretions and how this process is enacted is not yet evident in the literature. This paper seeks to answer the question of whether and how the psychological process of stigma formation occurs with regard to celebrity athletes who transgress. Further, the paper also seeks to clarify the impact of this stigmatization in the context of sponsorship and celebrity endorsement. A total of 219 US residents who were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk participated in this experimental study. We employed structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. The results show that the impact of negative moral emotions on stigma formation for transgressed athletes is partially mediated by internal attribution. Moreover, negative moral emotions and stigmas have a direct positive (negative) impact on moral coupling (moral decoupling and rationalization), and ultimately influence the attitude toward the transgressed athlete and sponsored brand. The findings suggest that brand managers should consider the transgression history as a key determinant for endorsement decisions because sport consumers may have already formed a strong perception of stigma toward those athletes and those perceptions in turn determine the overall evaluations of endorsed athletes and sponsored brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated senior South African high school students' levels of knowledge, perception, attitude, and awareness toward nuclear energy using paper-based, semi-structured questionnaires and digital data collection instruments through online Google forms. The sample consisted of 100 high school students from two schools. Fifty students were chosen from a public school, and fifty students were selected from a private/independent school. It was found that regardless of the type of school, students showed little to no knowledge, low awareness, and significant ignorance of nuclear energy. The majority of students had never heard of nuclear energy. In terms of initial exposure to the concept of nuclear energy, private school learners seemed to have been exposed to the industry more through television. In contrast, for public school learners, educators were their main sources of introduction. Conversely, the perception of this form of energy is much more positive in private schools than in public schools. This study highlights the existence of a severe gap in high school education regarding the teaching and learning of nuclear energy. Hence, an energy-cognizant curriculum is needed to bridge the gap in both public and private schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the emerging field of critical data studies, there is increasing acknowledgement that the negative effects of datafication are not experienced equally by all. Research on data and discrimination in particular has highlighted how already socially unequal populations are discriminated against in data-driven systems. Elsewhere, there is growing interest in public perceptions of datafication, amongst academic researchers interested in producing 'bottom up' understandings of the new roles of data in society and non-academic stakeholders keen to establish positive perceptions of data-driven systems. However, research into public perceptions rarely engages with the issue of inequality which is so central in data and discrimination scholarship. Bringing these two issues together, this paper explores public perceptions of datafication through the lens of inequality, focusing on the relationship between understandings and feelings within these perceptions. The paper draws on empirical focus group research into how audiences perceive the data practices that signing in to access BBC digital services enable. The paper shows how inequalities relating to age, dis/ability, poverty and their intersections played a role in shaping perceptions and that these social inequalities informed understandings of and feelings about data practices in complex and diverse ways. It concludes with reflections on the significance of these findings for future research and for data-related policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts around transport mega-projects, driven by social and environmental impacts, are increasingly prevalent around the world. While environmental impacts have received significant attention, less is known about how the intangible social impacts of these projects stimulate conflict. Assessment of these impacts is crucial; however, the process is often influenced by the underlying power relationships within neoliberal governance. This paper analyses the discursive context of state-community conflicts in transport mega-projects and explores how power dynamics shape the perceptions of both the intensity and extent of its social impacts. Drawing on a case study of the WestConnex project, a controversial motorway development in Sydney, the paper analyses government policy documents and online community submissions to explore the conflicts around the project. Through critical discourse analysis, the paper provides insights into the nature of power relationships that limit the scope of impact assessment and underpin conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homeostasis, a self-regulating process that aims for stability, is presented to be the most fundamental regulatory principle of the psyche. Stability, or avoiding the extremes, is crucial for survival. The mind operates on different layers of homeostasis. Freud’s three phylogenetic layers and regulating principles, namely nirvana, constancy, and psychic structure, are reviewed here. The self-image and its identity of perception form the core of the structure. In a clinical context, a cure that deviates too much from the self-image is perceived as threatening stability. The therapeutic relationship is an ideal setting for fostering the ego’s mentalization capacity and the development of psychic structure. This paper demonstrates how mentalization and autonomous self-regulation challenge pathologic homeostatic regulation through clinical examples. The defensive resistance to cure, with its intriguing deep unconscious phylogenetic roots in homeostatic regulation, underscores the practical implications of these theoretical viewpoints in a clinical setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Interracial Communication, Gender Communication, Interpersonal Communication. Objectives: Students will (1) identify how positionalities shape perception, and (2) practice reflexive writing to understand and analyze experiences related to privilege and oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being some of the harshest environments to design for and inhabit, deserts are considered some of the most malleable in our imagination. Countless military bases, proving grounds, gunneries, and practice fields that simulate other locales prove that in military imagination, deserts are nondescript proxy spaces waiting to be filled with the character of whatever location they are to imitate. The developers' imagination is not far behind. Through a historical case study of California City, an ambitiously planned but only partially built desert development project, and unpacking of the terms "desert" and "wasteland," this essay examines the colonial gaze towards the desert that often shapes our perceptions of this unique environment and exposes the fallacies in our thinking that lead us to imagine deserts as a blank slate waiting to be transformed. The paper also highlights the dangers of overconfidence in technology to create techno-utopias and the need to acknowledge the reality of the desert's harsh environment in any planning or development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how cultural narratives from people at varying positions in a team culture affect athletes' attitudes toward concussion injures and concussion reporting. Power Five National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes (N = 226) competing in high-concussion risk sports completed a survey exploring the frequency with which they heard performance or safety narratives from three distinct organizational sources: coaches, Athletic Trainers (ATs), and teammates. Athletes then completed scales measuring perceived immediacy of concussion consequences, perceived probability of suffering short- and long-term consequences of concussions, and three distinct dimensions of attitudes toward concussion-reporting behavior. Regression analyses revealed that both message frequency and source matter to athletes when forming attitudes and perceptions about the concussion-reporting behaviors that universities are advocating. Implications and recommendations for organizations designed to motivate athletes to report concussions to conclude the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual harassment remains pervasive in the workplace. Complementing past research examining the intra-organizational effects of sexual harassment, this paper investigates its extra-organizational consequences by considering reputational damage organizations can suffer from sexual harassment claims. Four experiments (NTotal = 1,534) show that even a single sexual harassment claim can damage public perception of gender equality of an organization, which reduces organizational attractiveness. However, an organizational response characterized by proactive consideration of the claimant (compared to no mention of sexual harassment, mention of sexual harassment with no response, or a minimizing response to a sexual harassment claim) fully restores, and sometimes even increases, public perceptions of the organization's commitment to due process and gender equality. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The everyday practice of food sovereignty varies across place, and efforts to democratize food systems and create more holistic and equitable forms of food production and access are highly politicized. Considering the "geo" of these practices assists with understanding how perceptions of place shape imaginaries about food sovereignty in place. Using the example of education-based food sovereignty tourism in Cuba I examine, in this paper, how outsiders from the US map geopolitical imaginaries onto Cuba in their efforts to see the "real Cuba" and authentic food sovereignty practices. I argue that the myopic character of food sovereignty tours creates a re-writing of space based on participants' hopes and fears regarding agricultural production and consumption. Drawing on a feminist geopolitical framing, I use recent theorizations that consider geopolitical encounters via tourism to elucidate what I observed, which trended towards paternalistic geopolitical imaginaries of Cuba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Threat perception has been central in the field of international relations, especially in the literature of states' alliances and conflict solutions. International Relations (IR) balance of power and alliance theories have largely equated "threat" to "power." A standard narrative in Singapore's foreign policy toward great powers is its reluctance to choose between both. Singapore's immediate neighbor, Indonesia, the largest archipelagic country in the world, has voiced similar inclinations. Studies have concentrated on the larger power threat interpretation and their responses toward the change in the international order arising from China's growth or the rise of terrorism but rarely examining issues from small states' point of view. According to Realists' logic, small states possess little capacity to influence the fate of their own survival; therefore, they can only choose between balancing and band wagoning. Threat perceptions play an intermediary role in connecting the external environment and state foreign policy behavior. Hence, the study of threat perception is critical as it influences states foreign policies regarding issues ranging from defense spending to states' level of commitment toward international multilateral cooperation. IR scholars have examined how states form threat perceptions from various psychological and non-psychological perspectives. However, these factors are often studied independently. This paper argues that Gestalt principles of threat perception offer a more thorough analysis of Singapore's threat perception by bridging the gap between realist and constructivist studies by demonstrating how Singapore's threat perception as a small state is magnified due to its unique geographical position and its shared cultural affinity with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lookism refers to discrimination based on physical attractiveness or the lack thereof. A whole host of empirical research suggests that lookism is a pervasive and systematic form of social discrimination. Yet, apart from some attention in ethics and political philosophy, lookism has been almost wholly overlooked in philosophy in general and epistemology in particular. This is particularly salient when compared to other forms of discrimination based on race or gender which have been at the forefront of epistemic injustice as a topic of research. This paper argues that lookism is associated with various forms of epistemic injustice. In the specific case of lookism, hermeneutic injustice takes the shape of the taboo of acknowledging that unattractive people are unattractive. This, on the one hand, results in a hampered understanding of one's own situation insofar as one is deterred from seeing one's looks as one major factor for one's social position. On the other hand, this hermeneutic injustice serves as the backdrop of instances of a special kind testimonial injustice in which the ugly person's burgeoning realization that their looks influence their social standing detrimentally is discounted due to the pejorative nature of ascribing someone the property of being unattractive or ugly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maritime ship classification is essential for effectively monitoring oceanic activities but faces challenges when using heterogeneous remote sensing data. This research presents a novel dataset called Heterogeneous Ship Data, created by combining synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical satellite images of ships. The integration of multimodal data aims to harness the complementary advantages of SAR's all-weather imaging capabilities and optical data's higher interretability and shape discrimination. To leverage the heterogeneous dataset, this paper proposes an ensemble deep learning model called MS3Net (Multi-convolutional network using Spatial attention and Second-order pooling for Ship image classification). MS3Net integrates spatial attention mechanisms and second-order pooling. MS3Net has multiple convolutional branches, each tailored to extract distinct representations from the SAR and optical data through varied filter sizes and kernels. The spatial attention units focus the learning on the most informative parts of the image while suppressing irrelevant features. The second-order pooling captures higher-order interactions between feature elements to model complex relationships. A concatenation fusion strategy aggregates the diverse branch outputs into a joint multimodal feature representation for enhanced discrimination. Extensive experiments demonstrate MS3Net's superior classification accuracy over prior state-of-the-art approaches. The proposed heterogeneous data representation coupled with the attention-based deep ensemble learning model contributes to maritime surveillance by enabling robust ship recognition across diverse sensing modalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the contradictions that exist between economic development and gender equity in India. It deploys concepts of cultural violence and symbolic hegemony to understand how gender and caste-based violence is normalized and institutionalized over time through cultural norms. It also uses an intersectional lens to examine the layers of marginalization and oppression. Based on field studies in rural Bihar, it shows that despite development gains, old forms of gender-based discrimination and violence such as son-preference, dowry, witch-hunting, and discriminatory practices associated with menstruation persist. It notes that there are new forms of violence used by the upper caste groups against the lower ones when the latter resist and refuse to continue performing traditional caste-based tasks. We argue that this refusal by lower caste women can be seen as symbolic resistance against historically defined norms of caste. The emerging patterns of violence discussed in the paper need a more concerted and nuanced exploration of reconfigurations of relations within and between caste groups, as well as the cultural and social contexts in which changes are taking place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social & Cultural Geography is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since the end of 2017, Bosnia and Herzegovina has experienced a significant increase in the number of migrants transiting through the country. Based on an ethnographic reading of nineteen recollections of 'personal migration experiences' of Bosnians during 1992–1995 war, which form the basis for popular perception of migrants in the country, this paper explores how the concept of solidarity is imagined and lived in the context of this significant increase. We argue that Bosnians interpret these recent arrivals as a 'test of humanity', having been in a similar situation in the early 1990s. In this regard, the concept of solidarity opens a window onto the interactions with and between migrants and non-migrants, recognizing a shared set of concerns and orientations, rather than exceptionalizing migrants through the lens of 'crisis'. That said, the concept of solidarity is less popular among those who do not share a so-called 'migrant's faith', resulting in negative perceptions of migrants. In these perceptions, migrants' presence in the country is criminalized, resulting in various calls for more aggressive, even violent, 'popular' handling of migrants transiting or settling in Bosnia and Herzegovina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances the notion that macro-level sociological factors outweigh micro-level social psychological variables in shaping perceptions of place; an idea based on the earlier work of Burns and Dietz (on cultural evolution) who concluded that the realities of daily lifestyles significantly inform the transfer of 'social rules'. The proposition that cultural homogeneity is amended by the context of daily reality is examined by analysing the responses of 12 tourism industry professionals and 85 visitors of Chinese ethnicity visiting Macau. These visitors came from Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan. It is proposed that the different social, economic and political structures outweigh a common cultural structure based on Confucian values, leading to difference in perceptions of Macau. The data were derived from interviews, and suggest that cultural similarities are of less importance than the socio-economic-political frameworks of the visitor originating zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines how leadership in U.S. Islamic institutions is impacted by anti-Blackness. During this ethnographic project, I interviewed 15 participants who identified as part of the Islamic community in one city in the southwestern portion of the United States. The findings in this paper are based on 15 attendees of two mosques and one private Islamic school whose interviews brought up the topic of barriers to leadership as a form of discrimination for Black community members. In particular, I highlight the experiences of two successful Black leaders who have experienced discrimination within the Muslim community. Findings demonstrate that anti-Blackness in Islamic community spaces manifests itself in two distinct ways: (1) lack of leadership opportunities as a result of exclusionary practices and (2) limitations placed on those who may manage to become leaders. Thus, anti-Blackness robs Black Muslim community members of the safety that should be afforded by Islamic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the conventional wisdom that security is governed exclusively by nation states exercising political authority to generate public security goods, the European Union can also be considered a security state: it governs security indirectly by making rules incentivising and steering the provision of public security goods. To what degree, however, does the EU govern defence markets, shape the trajectory of national defence capabilities, and direct efforts towards European strategic autonomy? This paper traces the EU's attempts to regulate arms production and identifies critical junctures in EU authority as a market rule-maker over the means of force. It finds that market rule-takers—non-state defence firms—are shaped by EU epistemic authority and regulation. Specifically, EU rule-making shapes firm perceptions of relative defence market uncertainty. Firms perceiving future home defense markets as less risky due to regulatory oversight are incentivised to reduce their own current profits by self-funding innovation towards future defence requirements and procurement sales to their home states. By incentivising the non-state production of public security goods with its rule-making and relational market power, the EU is a modern regulatory security state, even in the defence domain where it has little political authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains the antecedents of trust in the judiciary. We question both the contention that procedural justice is a main explanation of trust in the judiciary and outcome-based theories that emphasize the role of distributive justice and court decisions in explaining that trust. Using arguments from the public management literature regarding institutional trust, the paper offers a rationale for an output-based theory that adds public perceptions about the judiciary's effectiveness and performance as explanations of trust in the judiciary. We also include interpersonal trust as an independent variable. We use a sample of Israeli citizens to test our hypotheses. Findings indicate that both output variables and process variables are important in explaining trust in the judiciary. However, the direct impact of the output variables in the form of perceptions about the judiciary's performance is stronger than the process variables. This result calls for an integrated approach to explaining trust in the judiciary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Photographies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Undergraduate mathematics education can be experienced in discouraging and marginalizing ways among Black students, Latin* students, and white women. Precalculus and calculus courses, in particular, operate as gatekeepers that contribute to racialized and gendered attrition in persistence with mathematics coursework and pursuits in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). However, student perceptions of instruction in these introductory mathematics courses have yet to be systematically examined as a contributor to such attrition. This paper presents findings from a study of 20 historically marginalized students' perceptions of precalculus and calculus instruction to document features that they found discouraging and marginalizing. Our analysis revealed how students across different race-gender identities reported stereotyping as well as issues of representation in introductory mathematics classrooms and STEM fields as shaping their perceptions of instruction. These perceptions pointed to the operation of three racialized and gendered mechanisms in instruction: (i) creating differential opportunities for participation and support, (ii) limiting support from same-race, same-gender peers to manage negativity in instruction, and (iii) activating exclusionary ideas about who belongs in STEM fields. We draw on our findings to raise implications for research and practice in undergraduate mathematics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to better meet the needs of the communities, the Tuvalu Police Service (TPS) commissioned a survey to investigate stakeholder perceptions of police service provision across its nine islands. This paper presents the findings of the survey and examines the responses of community residents (N = 1896) to determine public perceptions of police trustworthiness, police effectiveness and the relationship between the TPS and the community. The results suggest community residents have positive views of the TPS as service providers. However, there are mixed views about police trustworthiness and the ability of TPS officers to respond to crime. We examine how community policing in Tuvalu shapes public perceptions of police, thus building on a small body of scholarship examining perceptions of police in the developing world. As such, this study contributes new knowledge regarding public perceptions of the TPS and police fairness in Tuvalu, an area hitherto under researched in the policing literature examining policing in the South Pacific. It also informs police practice regarding improving policing in communities where justice systems are dominated by cultural practices involving community elders and chiefly councils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals rely on digital media to denounce and shame other individuals. This may serve to seek justice in response to perceived offences, while often reproducing categorical forms of discrimination. Both offence taking and its response are expressed online by gathering and distributing information about targeted individuals. By seeking their own form of social and/or criminal justice, participants may supersede institutions and formal procedures. Yet digital vigilantism includes shaming and other forms of cultural violence that are not as clearly regulated. They may feed from state or press-led initiatives to shame targets, or simply to gather information about them. Digital vigilantism remains a contested practice: Terms of appropriate use are unclear, and public discourse may vary based on the severity of the offence, the severity of response, and on participants' identities and affiliations. This paper advances a conceptually informed model of digital vigilantism, in recognition of its coordinated, moral and communicative components. Drawing upon literature on embodied vigilantism as well as concurrent forms of online coordination and harassment, it considers recent cases in a global context in order to direct subsequent analysis of how digital vigilantism is rendered meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ads making use of sexual appeals have the potential to attract attention, but they also run the risk of offending viewers. In this paper, two studies were performed to explore consumers' third-person perceptions of sexual appeals in advertising for hedonic and utilitarian products. This research examined whether the third-person perception mediates the relationship between attitude toward the ad and purchase intention. We also examined whether these relationships are contingent on attitude toward sexual stimuli (positive vs. negative). Canadian (N = 400) and Turkish (N = 400) undergraduate students participated in each study. Findings consistently demonstrate that third-person phenomenon was supported in each study. The exact form of the third-person perception, however, differs across product types and cultural contexts. Also, attitude toward ads significantly affects third-person perception. In turn, third-person perception significantly affects both purchase intention on self and purchase intention on others. Furthermore, these relationships are contingent on the attitude toward sexual stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in the distribution and availability of images for personal use in the late Middle Ages raises the question of their potential historical value for understanding the societies that produced and made use of them. This paper exposes the effects and the historical meanings of some woodcut illustrations of disputations between Jews and Christians: the woodcuts were widespread during the 1470s and 1480s in Swabia and Bavaria and surrounding areas, and they are still familiar and continue to play a role in shaping perceptions of Jewish-Christian relations of that period. These images do not reflect actual events: rather they are misrepresentations of polemical anti-Jewish sermons, designed as fictitious scholarly discourses. Their historical value is not limited to their ability to expose hidden angles. They can guide us to a better understanding of the written sources and to find new meanings there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes three German political discourses that accompanied the 2016 UEFA European Championship: The debate about the right-wing politician Alexander Gauland's comments that people would not enjoy having a Boateng as a neighbor; the public's response to a regional Pegida group's criticism of featuring childhood pictures of Jérôme Boateng and Ilkay Gündogan on chocolate wrappers; and the public discussion triggered by the decision of a German television channel for the first to let a woman serve as an announcer for games during the European Championship. The comparison of these discourses reveals that sexism is the least challenged form of discrimination in the realm of soccer, while explicit racist acts are more or less widely condemned. And it demonstrates that the form of sexism in soccer is quite different from other areas of society, in that soccer still tolerates overt and explicit sexism. Abbreviation:UEFA - Union of European Football Associations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marshrutka minibuses are in charge of providing daily transport services for millions of passengers in the post-Soviet space. In doing so, they shape the perception of public sphere and contribute to the production of community. In this sense, the interior design of marshrutka minibuses contribute to a number of publicly negotiated discourse formations on collective identity patterns, such as nationhood, memory culture, as well as folkloristic values. Drawing on empirical evidence from Kyrgyzstan and Russia, we try to deconstruct multiple layers of marshrutka signposts. In their heterogeneity and contrariness, the marshrutka semiotics unveil the minibuses as a place of encounter and conflict, where fluid social institutions are consistently calling for negotiation. Triggered by the question how cultural trajectories of identity are performed, we will choose a number of marshrutka messages like official licenses, advertisements or patriotic proverbs and analyse them in the local setting of application. The expected insight of this paper is twofold: firstly, we contextualise societal struggles, which are reproduced in everyday marshrutka encounter and secondly, we contribute to a better understanding of the mobility practice as such, pointing to general deficits in the broader marshrutka enterprise, read out from visualised statements in the social space of marshrutka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption is a ubiquitous problem, but implementing serious anti-corruption measures is politically hard – the backlash from the corrupt is certain, but the broader political benefits are uncertain. Consequently, reformers face a dilemma in that even if they can pass reforms, it is not clear that the public will notice or reward them. To date, we have limited evidence on whether citizens notice anti-corruption reforms, how such reforms shape corruption perceptions, and whether there are real political benefits to reformers. In this article, we exploit a quasi-experiment embedded in the rollout of traffic police reform in Ukraine following the Euromaidan Revolution of 2013–14 to address each of these issues in turn. We find that citizens do respond quite accurately and durably in their evaluations of the most immediately affected institutions, but the spillovers to other political institutions are limited, short-lived, and offer little electoral gain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrain reversal effect (TRE) causes reversed 3D shape perception in satellite images and shaded relief maps (SRMs), and introduces difficulties in identifying landforms such as valleys and ridges. With this paper, in a controlled laboratory experiment, we compare how well 27 participants could identify valleys and ridges over 33 locations using SRMs, color satellite images and grayscale satellite images. The main depth cue is shadow both in vertical-view images and SRMs. However, the presence of texture and color in images also affect 3D shape perception. All our participants experience the illusion strongly: with the SRMs, it is very severe (2% accuracy), with grayscale images low but considerably better than SRMs (17.6% accuracy), and slightly worse with color imagery (15.3% accuracy). These differences between SRMs and imagery suggest that the participants who are able to bypass the illusion consciously or subconsciously interpret the photographic information. We support this observation further with a cue-strength analysis. Furthermore, we provide exploratory analyses of the effects of expertise, global convexity bias, and bistable perception. Our original empirical observations serve towards a better understanding of this visual illusion, and contribute towards nuanced and appropriate solutions to correcting for TRE differently for satellite images and SRMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perception of space is a multifaceted process, where humans may direct their behaviour within the environment through the influence of sensory stimuli, cognitive processing and subjective evaluation. Yet in streets, perceptual studies commonly focus on the physical structure of the environment while undermining the psychological and subjective components that shape the environmental perception. This paper has adopted a perceptual-cognitive approach to construct a multisensory perceptual social and physical model. It addresses visual, auditory, haptic, and olfactory stimuli as well as pedestrians' preference score to extract main components of the street perception. Critical review of the literature, the expert's validation, a pilot study, and the exploratory factor analysis are thoroughly used in this study. Factor analysis extracted eight components associated with perception, including Sociability, Mobility, Convenience, Contentment, Urbanization, Pollution, Safety, and Nature. The results exhibit and discuss the latent correlations between street attributes and perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the special issue on gender in impact assessment and management. We discuss the absence of gender-responsive approaches in conventional impact assessment practice and management, and associated implications for meaningfully addressing gender relations and the rights of women and LGBTQI+ people. We also introduce the special issue, which sheds light on gaps in impact assessment but also demonstrates that practical approaches exist to further embed gender-responsive approaches. Collectively, a central argument emanating from the contributions is that gender-neutral approaches to impact assessment and management can perpetuate or even create new forms of gender discrimination. This runs counter to the expectations set by international human rights law and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which rest on the central principles of non-discrimination, substantive gender equality, and 'leaving no one behind'. Four themes for more gender-responsive impact assessment and management are highlighted: (1) gender-responsive context analysis; (2) gender-responsive engagement and increased participation of women and LGBTQI+ people; (3) adaptation of tools, methods, and skills for enhanced gender responsiveness; and (4) embedding gender-responsive approaches from the project level to the governance sphere. Without presuming transferability across contexts, the contributions show that such strategies are necessary and possible in diverse global settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Maternal physical activity may impact behavioral and electrophysiological aspects of brain function, with short- and long-term effects on pre- and postnatal neurodevelopment of the offspring. This study evaluated in the rat the effects of maternal voluntary physical activity (MVPA) on food intake and weight gain in the dams, as well as anxiety-like behavior, short-term memory and the brain excitability-related phenomenon known as cortical spreading depression (CSD) on the mother-pup dyad. Methods: Female Wistar rats (n=33) were individually housed in cages containing a running wheel for a 30-days adaptation period before mating. Rats were classified as inactive (I); active (A) or very active (VA) according to the distance spontaneously travelled daily. During gestation, the dams continued to have access to the running wheel. Mothers and their respective pups (1 pup per mother) were evaluated in the open field test (OFT), object recognition test (ORT), elevated plus maze test (EPMT) and the CSD propagation features. Results: MVPA was directly associated with increased food intake and weight gain during gestation, and maternal anxiolytic-like behavioral responses in the OFT. Pups from VA mothers showed a high discrimination index for shape recognition memory (ORT) and decreased propagation velocities of CSD, when compared with the inactive group. Discussion: The data suggest that MVPA during the gestational period induces neuroplasticity and may modulate the brain functions in the mother-infant dyad in the rat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiagency collaboration between state and municipal actors such as schools, social services and the police is at the core of the Nordic countries' approach to preventing radicalization and violent extremism. Yet, assessment of reported concerns of radicalization differs across countries. This qualitative study analyze how professionals negotiate assessments to identify factors that shape whether a concern of radicalization develops into a perception of risk. We argue that differences in structural factors and "institutional logics" in addition to trustful relations between practitioners at the local level affect collaboration and shape the perception of the task when the assessments of concrete concerns are negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The moral status of the human embryo has gained much attention in debates over the acceptability, or otherwise, of human embryonic stem cell research. Far less attention has been paid to the suppliers of those embryos: people who have undergone IVF treatment to produce embryos to assist them to have a baby. It is sociologically and ethically important to understand their views and experiences of being asked to donate embryos for research if we are to fully understand the wider social and regulatory aspects of hESC science. This paper reports on parallel studies investigating these issues in the UK and in Switzerland. The studies reveal the inextricable entangling of the social and moral status of embryos. Since donors participate in different discursive domains and contexts (public, clinic, family) that shape their perception of "what" an embryo is, their views of embryos embody conflicting ideas and ambivalences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic climate change remains a polarizing topic. As most social media users share articles solely relying on the headline, this raises the question of how emerging digital media reporting – especially in the headlines – shapes the perception of climate change issues and engages audiences. Guided by the dual-systems emotion model and discrete-emotions model, this study compared emotion words used in headlines versus full text among climate change articles – and their social media engagement, using computational methods. Findings suggested that climate change support headlines were more likely to use fear words while denial headlines were significantly more likely to contain emotion words, negatively-valenced words, as well as words for anger, anticipation, disgust, sadness, and surprise. Regarding the full text, denial articles were more likely to contain emotion words, negatively-valenced words, and many discrete emotions related words than support articles. A denial article's engagement was predicted by the total number of emotion words contained in its headline, whereas a support article's engagement was predicted by negatively-valenced words and words for fear used in its headline. Emotions contained in the full text did not predict support and -denial articles' engagement. Findings provide practical guidance on how to increase the engagement level of climate change articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on the history of political arithmetic highlights its significance for classical liberalism, a political philosophy in which subjects perceive themselves as autonomous individuals in an abstract system called society. This society and its component individuals became intelligible and governable in a deluge of printed numbers, assisted by the development of statistics, the emergence of a common space of measurement, and the calculation of probabilities. Our proposal is that the categories, numbers, and norms of this political arithmetic have changed in a ubiquitous culture of personalization. Today's political arithmetic, we suggest, produces a different kind of society, what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls the 'default social'. We address this new social as a 'vague whole' and propose that it is characterized by a continuous present, the contemporary form of simultaneity or way of being together that Benedict Anderson argued is fundamental to any kind of imagined community. Like the society imagined in the earlier arithmetic, this vague whole is an abstraction that obscures forms of stratification and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowd work reflects a new form of gainful employment on the Internet. We study how the nature of the tasks being performed and financial compensation jointly shape work perceptions of crowd workers in order to better understand the changing modes and patterns of digital work. Surveying individuals on 23 German crowd working platforms, this work is the first to add a multi-platform perspective on perceived working conditions in crowd work. We show that crowd workers need rather high levels of financial compensation before task characteristics become relevant for shaping favorable perceptions of working conditions. We explain these results by considering financial compensation as an informational cue indicating the appreciation of working effort that is internalized by well-paid crowd workers. Resulting boundary conditions for task design are discussed. These results help us understand when and under what conditions crowd work can be regarded as a fulfilling type of employment in highly developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although the cognitive sequelae of multiple sclerosis have been recognized for more than four decades, the focus of research has been on studying the more common deficits of the disease, including those involving memory and information processing speed. Less understood and investigated are the visual-spatial perceptual disturbances of multiple sclerosis, which can be difficult to assess and interpret given the potential confounds associated with the physical problems and other cognitive disturbances of the disorder. Materials and methods: This study examined the visual-spatial perceptual deficits of multiple sclerosis in 40 participants diagnosed with this condition using two measures generally unaffected by the aforementioned confounds, the Hooper Visual Organization Test and Visual Form Discrimination. Results: Results revealed both measures to be sensitive to the impairments of multiple sclerosis but suggested that they are assessing somewhat different aspects of visual-spatial perception in this population, given their relationship with one another and with disease-related variables. Conclusions: In this light, findings indicate that a complete and accurate understanding of the visual-spatial perceptual sequelae of multiple sclerosis requires the administration of more than a single measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-continuity is a central process of identity that connects one's past and present. Research is limited regarding the life-course determinants of self-continuity and its development in later life. We used multilevel hierarchical models to investigate how the occurrence of life-course adversity (e.g., childhood adversity or partner loss) and the accumulation of resources shapes the perception of self-continuity in mid and later life, with respect to both their levels and changes over time. A three-wave longitudinal data set was used. The sample consisted of divorcees (n = 396), widows and widowers (n = 319), and married individuals (control; n = 513) in the second half of life. The divorcees had the lowest levels of self-continuity compared to the married and widowed individuals. Self-continuity increased with age for all marital status groups but followed differential trajectories. The divorcees were the most vulnerable group regarding their level and development of self-continuity. More childhood adversity was associated with less self-continuity for all groups, showing the influence of distal adversity on later life identity processes. Our findings illustrate that self-continuity changes as a function of age but differs based on the adverse events experienced across the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The Apartheid-era South African military (SADF) underwent dramatic peacetime changes, from a small and underfunded expeditionary element of Commonwealth forces in the 1950s to a regime bulwark with regional capabilities under 'Total Strategy' in the mid-1970s. By comparing internal assessments, changes in the SADF's official view of future wars are traced through security crises of the 1960s and 1970s. Shifting future war perceptions were shaped by the interplay of organizational-political needs during crises of legitimacy for the military. These shifts in future war perception motivated strategic and operational-tactical doctrinal change and shaped the military's view of security crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuation is the process by which humans form their perceptions about others based on a variety of unique attributes of the person. Psychological research finds that personal details can individuate a person, especially when they are perceived as atypical for the social category. We apply this logic to affective disposition theory to determine whether character individuation can influence disposition formation. Two pilot studies validated the typicality and moral irrelevance of six pairs of character details. We then deployed these details in an experiment (N = 822) in which participants viewed a biography of a fictional U.S. Marine character. We manipulated the proportion of atypical character details included in the biography in a continuous fashion. Findings indicate a positive linear relationship between the manipulation and several character perception variables. Adding discriminant validity to the findings, we found a negative relationship between the manipulation and perceived realism. Our experimental design and analyses controlled for objective similarity of the character with the participant and the moral relevance of the character details. Thus, our results suggest character individuation is a unique and previously unidentified route of disposition formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digitalisation of the energy system brings out the question of cyber threats. How this area is perceived and how cyber-security policy in the energy sector develops is driven by the most spectacular cyber-incidents. How do these events shape public perceptions about the dangers of digitalisation? To understand this, we look at the 2016 CrashOverride cyberattack on Ukraine's grid. Hypothesising that cyber-energy security incidents are interpreted in the context of socio-technical imaginaries of the energy sector and security imaginaries linked to foreign policy, we distil four discourses that emerged around the Ukraine attack among Western experts and commentators. One represented it as evidence of an accelerating race towards disaster, another as merely a tip of the iceberg. The third portrayed it as less catastrophic than initially suggested, while the last one as part of Russia's cyber strategy. Not all of these were picked up by the broader public debate in Western security circles, and only the more alarmist discourses had a visible impact beyond niche communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]