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Spatial justice, specifically accessibility, Universal Design and the fulfilment of human rights for vulnerable groups are increasingly important issues in urban research and city-level agendas concerning public spaces. Although the development of older adult–friendly urban environments is part of the agenda to promote healthy ageing societies, public spaces (e.g., urban parks) often exclude those in the advanced age group in the community. This article aims to clarify the everyday activities of older adults in urban parks by focusing on the extreme case of Sham Shui Po. Sham Shui Po is a low-income, high-density and public space–scarce neighbourhood in Hong Kong, a city characterised by a rapidly ageing population and high socio-spatial inequality. Through on-site observations and notetaking, two small urban parks, namely the Nam Cheong Street Park (NCSA) and Tai Hung Tang Park (THTP), were studied. NCSA, located in a congested vehicular street median, is predominantly for social activities. It forms a part of the daily route of residents and inhabitants from different ethnicities. Unaccompanied older adults, with limited mobilities, regularly use NCSA to navigate the neighbourhood. THTP is a site for older adults to engage in physical activities and also accommodates large groups and caregivers. Defensive architecture and design layout may affect the group size in the parks, while sittable edges may directly contribute to the park use by older adults with physical impairment, particularly near street crossings. The findings from this extreme neighbourhood highlight the critical role of landscape infrastructure for healthy ageing societies. Read the full article in accessible html-format here.

The public space plays a crucial role in providing adequate infrastructure for vulnerable social groups in the context of high-density urban Asia. In this study, a well-known elevated pedestrian network in Hong Kong emerges as a revelatory case for the comparative analysis of the pattern of stationary uses before and after the COVID-19 pandemic out-break. Findings reveal a significant decrease (-20 %) in the total number of users and a shift in the pattern of activities, comprising a significant shrinkage of socially oriented uses and a vast increase of individual behaviors. This study advocates a responsive policymaking that considers the peculiar post-outbreak needs of migrant workers in Hong Kong and in high-density urban Asia Keywords: Covid-19; public space; migrant domestic workers; behavioural mapping eISSN 2514-751X © 2020 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians / Africans / Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ajebs.v5i17.374

This study aims to investigate urban ergonomics features through the healthy city approach. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is adopted to make a pairwise comparison and ranking of multiple features of urban ergonomics. A small online panel was organized with ten experts of architecture and urban design with a minimum of 10 years of experience. Findings from the literature were shared with these experts, and they were asked to compare the ergonomics features pairwise and rank them. For the next step, two main urban squares from Istanbul and two main public spaces of Singapore are examined. Keywords: Ergonomics; Healthy city; Istanbul; Singapore. eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6i16.2725

Using abstract concepts is a hallmark of human cognition. While multiple kinds of abstract concepts exist, they so far have been conceived as a unitary kind in opposition to concrete ones. Here, we focus on Institutional concepts, like justice or norm, investigating their fine-grained differences with respect to other kinds of abstract and concrete concepts, and exploring whether their representation varies according to individual proficiency. Specifically, we asked experts and non-experts in the legal field to evaluate four kinds of concepts (i.e., institutional, theoretical, food, artefact) on 16 dimensions: abstractness-concreteness; imageability; contextual availability; familiarity; age of acquisition; modality of acquisition; social valence; social metacognition; arousal; valence; interoception; metacognition; perceptual modality strength; body-object interaction; mouth and hand involvement. Results showed that Institutional concepts rely more than other categories on linguistic/social and inner experiences and are primarily characterized by positive valence. In addition, a more subtle characterization of the institutional domain emerged: Pure-institutional concepts (e.g., parliament) were perceived as more similar to technical tools, while Meta-institutional concepts (e.g., validity) were characterized mainly by abstract components. Importantly, for what concerns individual proficiency, we found that the level of expertise affects conceptual representation. Only law-experts associated Institutional concepts with exteroceptive and emotional experiences, showing also a more grounded and situated representation of the two types of institutional concepts. Overall, our finding highlights the richness and flexibility of abstract concepts and suggests that they differ in the degree of embodiment and grounding. Implications of the results for current theories of conceptual representation and social institutions are discussed.

COVID-19 is expected to impact the low-income groups' use of public space and related quality of life beyond the current pandemic outbreak. To what extent may the current pandemic affect the use of public space once some restrictions will be lifted? This study focuses on the migrant domestic workers’ spatio-temporal changes in the patterns of public space use during social distancing relaxation period in Hong Kong. The findings highlight increase of individual leisure activities, decrease of density around informal food-production and of gathering group, comparatively to the pre-pandemic situation. Keywords: Covid-19, public space, migrant domestic workers, behavioural mapping eISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5i15.2461.

In high-density Asian cities, the increasing scarcity of public open spaces gives rise to the need for stationary activities to tap into spaces originally conceived exclusively to channel pedestrian movements, such as grade separation pedestrian systems. However, the types and patterns of stationary activities on elevated walkways remain mostly unexplored. This study focuses on Hong Kong, wherein the scarcity of public open space characterises an extreme condition and where the burden of this scarcity falls most heavily on disadvantaged social groups, such as migrant workers. The findings highlight the prevalence of socially oriented activities and the importance of food as a gathering factor.Keywords: Grade separation pedestrian system; Elevated pedestrian network; Public open space; Migrant domestic worker; Hong KongeISSN 2514-751X © 2020 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/aje-bs.v5i15.361

Humans have this extraordinary cognitive ability: They imagine inexistent objects, they treat them as if they were real, and by doing so they make them real. They thus give rise to a shared institutional reality that enables them to cooperate in ways that would be impossible otherwise. In this paper, we would like to revisit the account that HLA Hart gives of the practice of collective acceptance that makes a legal system possible. We try to provide an explanation of what Hart calls the 'internal point of view', on the basis of experiments on institutional concepts, drawing on the paradigm known as 'embodied cognition'. Experts and non-experts in law rated the role of several cognitive dimensions for a list of words referring to two kinds of abstract concepts (institutional and theoretical/scientific) and two kinds of concrete ones (food and artifact). Institutional concepts were distinguished into pure-institutional (e.g., 'contract', 'state', 'property') and meta-institutional (e.g., 'norm', 'duty', 'justice'). The results provide an empirical account of how our way of thinking about institutions changes as we acquire expertise in the legal field, thus shading light on the cognitive underpinnings of the 'internal point of view'.

Social distancing and isolation have been imposed to contrast the spread of COVID-19. The present study investigates whether social distancing affects our cognitive system, in particular the processing of different types of brand logos in different moments of the pandemic spread in Italy. In a size discrimination task, six different logos belonging to three categories (letters, symbols, and social images) were presented in their original format and spaced. Two samples of participants were tested: one just after the pandemic spread in Italy, the other one after six months. Results showed an overall distancing effect (i.e., spaced stimuli are processed slower than original ones) that interacted with the sample, revealing a significant effect only for participants belonging to the second sample. However, both groups showed a distancing effect modulated by the type of logo as it only emerged for social images. Results suggest that social distancing behaviors have been integrated in our cognitive system as they appear to affect our perception of distance when social images are involved.

Highlights • Sub-kinds of abstract and concrete concepts rely on different grounding sources. • Performing secondary tasks led to interference effects during conceptual processing. • Mouth activation reduces interference with concrete and physical abstract concepts. • Manipulating an object interferes mostly with the concrete concepts of tools. • Interoceptive signals interferes with the most abstract and emotions-social concepts., Recent theories propose that abstract concepts, compared to concrete ones, might activate to a larger extent interoceptive, social and linguistic experiences. At the same time, recent research has underlined the importance of investigating how different sub-kinds of abstract concepts are represented. We report a pre-registered experiment, preceded by a pilot study, in which we asked participants to evaluate the difficulty of 3 kinds of concrete concepts (natural objects, tools, and food concepts) and abstract concepts (Philosophical and Spiritual concepts, PS, Physical Space Time and Quantity concepts, PSTQ, and Emotional, Mental State and Social concepts, EMSS). While rating the words, participants were assigned to different conditions designed to interfere with conceptual processing: they were required to squeeze a ball (hand motor system activation), to chew gum (mouth motor system activation), to self-estimate their heartbeats (interoception), and to perform a motor articulatory task (inner speech involvement). In a control condition they simply rated the difficulty of words. A possible interference should result in the increase of the difficulty ratings. Bayesian analyses reveal that, compared to concrete ones, abstract concepts are more grounded in interoceptive experience and concrete concepts less in linguistic experience (mouth motor system involvement), and that the experience on which different kinds of abstract and concrete concepts differs widely. For example, within abstract concepts interoception plays a major role for EMSS and PS concepts, while the ball squeezing condition interferes more for PSTQ concepts, confirming that PSTQ are the most concrete among abstract concepts, and tap into sensorimotor manual experience. Implications of the results for current theories of conceptual representation are discussed.

Urban areas are increasingly failing to provide citizens with adequate and quality public open spaces. In this regard, Hong Kong characterises an extreme condition with 2.7-2.8 m2 of open space per capita. The burden of this scarcity falls most heavily on economically disadvantaged social groups, such as migrant domestic workers. In this context, grade separation pedestrian systems that were originally designed for mobility purposes, can provide space for sociability-oriented stationary uses. This study finds that the density of stationary activities in a typical elevated pedestrian network is as high as 1.2 person/m2.Keywords: Skywalk; Behavioural mapping; Stationary uses; Hong KongeISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v4i12.1905

With face-to-face interaction proving beneficial for mental health, there is still a paucity of research on the correlation between ground floor features (GFFs), defined here as the features of the ground floor of buildings overlooking a street, and public open space face-to-face interaction density (POSFTFID), defined as the density of human face-to-face interactions in the public open space (POS) adjacent to each building. Is there a correlation between GFFs and POSFTFID? This study aims to answer this question gaining empirical evidence from a Chinese village in the city (ViC). Behavioural mapping and statistical analysis were employed and the following GFFs were tested: Ground floor area, indoor visible space, presence of stairs, POS adjacent area, and land use. Results show an association between POSFTFID and: (1) The area of the POS adjacent to each building, (2) the degree of visibility (ratio of indoor visible space to total internal space) of the ground floor, (3) the presence of stairs. Moreover, food appears to be an important attribute fostering social interaction. Results can provide insights on future implications in urban design strategies and planning policies aiming at enhancing mental health conditions in contemporary cities.

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Objectives: In a cohort of patients with hereditary transthyretin-related amyloidosis (ATTR), we aimed to assess the role of 99mTc-3,3- diphosphono-1,2-propanodicarboxylic acid ( 99mTc-DPD) in detecting myocardial amyloid infiltration across a wide spectrum of cardiac involvement and in predicting major adverse cardiac events (MACE). Background: Hereditary transthyretin-related amyloidosis is a challenging and underdiagnosed condition where both early diagnosis and prognosis remain problematic. Methods: We evaluated 63 patients with ATTR: 40 with and 23 without echocardiographically diagnosed amyloidotic cardiomyopathy (AC). Myocardial uptake of 99mTc-DPD scintigraphy was semiquantitatively and visually assessed at 5 min and 3 h. Results: All patients with AC showed moderate-to-severe myocardial tracer uptake (i.e., visual score 12 mm in combination with H/WB >7.5 was associated with the highest event rate. Conclusions: In ATTR, 99mTc-DPD scintigraphy can identify myocardial infiltration across a wide spectrum of morphologic/functional cardiac involvement, allowing an early diagnosis of the disease (even before the appearance of echocardiographic abnormalities). The 99mTc-DPD myocardial uptake is a prognostic determinant of "cardiac" outcome in ATTR, either alone or in combination with LV wall thickness