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One function of the central executive component of the working memory model is the coordination of two simultaneous tasks (the dual-task method). The concept of a coordination function has proved effective in identifying brain damaged patients with severe behavioural problems and in discriminating the performance of patients with mild Alzheimer's disease from that of healthy elderly. A computerised version of the dual-task method was successfully used in previous laboratory studies but it is not suited to use in a practical, clinical setting. Thus a paper and pencil version of the dual-task method was devised. The present study was aimed at refining the paper and pencil dual-task method; investigating whether or not age per se affects performance; assessing its test-retest reliability and providing norms for the Georgian population. The new paper and pencil version of the dual-task was administered to 64 young and 64 middle-age and elderly participants. A new, modified, simpler version of the paper and pencil dual-task, the "Tbilisi paper and pencil motor task" was developed. This task has high test-retest reliability and correlates with the established computerised version of the task. No age or education effects were detected.

Market producers often seek to position themselves in different categories over time. Successful repositioning is difficult, however, as audiences often devalue offerings that depart from a producer's past creations. Prior research suggests that this penalty arises as evaluators withhold opportunities for producers to reposition because of presumptions of a lack of competence in different categories. In this paper, we develop understanding of a novel evaluator-driven challenge to producers' repositioning efforts: evaluators are prone to "categorical stickiness," by which the categories they have come to associate with a producer through its prior offerings shape their perceptions of the producer's subsequent offerings. The result is a systematic mismatch between what producers claim and what evaluators perceive when a producer repositions. We further propose that audience members who have the greatest prior experience with a producer are the least likely to recognize its repositioning efforts. We examine evidence for our theory using data from Goodreads.com on authors within the book publishing industry, 2007–2017. We first build a novel deep-learning framework to predict categorization of a given book based solely on an author's description of its content. We then use data on how Goodreads users categorize and evaluate books as well as their past reading behavior to test for evidence of our proposed mechanism. Overall, our results extend understanding of the evaluative processes that generate categorical constraints and how these may differ among various types of audience members. This paper was accepted by Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, organizations. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.02070. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discrimination in the labor market hinders efficient labor allocation, impeding socio-economic health. With the rapid population aging in China, addressing multifaceted discrimination to enhance labor allocation efficiency emerges as a crucial area of research. To explore the relationship between five types of discrimination (age, gender, hukou, educational background, and occupation) and labor misallocation, this paper based on intersectionality theory, employs the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method to conduct a configurational analysis of data from China. The research findings indicate that none of the five forms of discrimination can be deemed a necessary condition for achieving high-level labor misallocation. The study identifies five distinct pathways of multiple discrimination to form high-level labor misallocation, which can be classified into four interaction modes: age-hukou, gender-hukou, gender-occupation, and age-gender-educational background. Meanwhile, there are four configuration paths for the absence of labor misallocation. This study reveals the intricate mechanisms by which multiple forms of discrimination contribute to labor misallocation in China's labor market, and provides valuable insights for addressing employment discrimination and improving the efficiency of labor allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flow has been described as a state of optimal performance, experienced universally across a broad range of domains: from art to athletics, gaming to writing. However, its phenomenal characteristics can, at first glance, be puzzling. Firstly, individuals in flow supposedly report a loss of self-awareness, even though they perform in a manner which seems to evince their agency and skill. Secondly, flow states are felt to be effortless, despite the prerequisite complexity of the tasks that engender them. In this paper, we unpick these features of flow, as well as others, through the active inference framework, which posits that action and perception are forms of active Bayesian inference directed at sustained self-organisation; i.e., the minimisation of variational free energy. We propose that the phenomenology of flow is rooted in the deployment of high precision weight over (i) the expected sensory consequences of action and (ii) beliefs about how action will sequentially unfold. This computational mechanism thus draws the embodied cognitive system to minimise the ensuing (i.e., expected) free energy through the exploitation of the pragmatic affordances at hand. Furthermore, given the challenging dynamics the flowinducing situation presents, attention must be wholly focussed on the unfolding task whilst counterfactual planning is restricted, leading to the attested loss of the sense of self-as-object. This involves the inhibition of both the sense of self as a temporally extended object and higher-order, meta-cognitive forms of self-conceptualisation. Nevertheless, we stress that self-awareness is not entirely lost in flow. Rather, it is pre-reflective and bodily. Our approach to bodily-action-centred phenomenology can be applied to similar facets of seemingly agentive experience beyond canonical flow states, providing insights into the mechanisms of so-called selfless experiences, embodied expertise and wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The artificial intelligence required to create self-directed automobiles relies heavily on the capability of precisely perceiving the environment around oneself. Most self-driving automobiles include several detectors, which work together to form a multi-source perception of the surroundings. Extended use of a system that drives autonomously will introduce a variety of worldwide and local failure indications due to the extreme sensitivity of the instruments involved to ambient or environmental situations. These failure indications pose significant risks to the technique's security. The paper presents a real-time information synthesis system incorporating techniques for identifying flaws and accepting faults. The compact connection can be recognized if the qualities mentioned above are provided, and the input information properties may be retrieved in real-time. One way to use the newly introduced method for assessing device reliability is to compute the detectors' worldwide and local degrees of trustworthiness. In order to ensure the precision and dependability of information combination, problem data is filtered out, and monitor duplication is used to assess both the worldwide and local assurance levels of data from sensors at the moment. The chronological and geographic association of data from sensors allows for this. Experimental findings show that the network's algorithms can outperform current techniques in terms of both rapidity and precision and can pinpoint the object's location even when specific sensors are blurry or broken. This research established that the proposed hybrid structure benefits autonomous vehicles' real-time reliability and speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the logic for using the concept of gender-related violence (GRV) as a broad category that problematises homophobia, transphobia and the policing of gender norms and the gender binary, as well as gender-based violence—understood as primarily violence against women and girls (VAWG). It then evaluates the utility of this concept and its capacity to introduce theoretical refinement to the study of gendered violence, by reviewing its reception within a large international feminist project on gendered violence in the lives of children and young people. The aim of this study was to improve knowledge and understanding of forms of violence and discrimination among practitioners who have everyday contact with general populations of children and young people. It sought to improve their ability to identify and challenge sexist, sexualising, homophobic or transphobic language or behaviour, and their knowledge of how and when to refer children and young people to appropriate support. The paper reports my view of the contribution that the concept of gender-related violence made in each of the four project sites: Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK. The findings are mixed: in Spain and the UK the concept seemed helpful, but in Italy and Ireland it was initially expected to be helpful but, in practice, a conceptualisation closer to gender-based violence plus homophobia was employed. It is tentatively concluded that where LGBTQIA+ rights were well-established as well as the problematisation of VAWG, this framework was successful, but that it was less successful in more heteronormative sites where homophobia was less problematised. It is suggested that, as a concept, GRV can make a valuable intervention in sites like the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of continuum robotics is rapidly developing. The development of new kinematic structures, locomotion principles and control strategies is driving the development of new types of sensors and sensing methodologies. The sensing in continuum robots can be divided into shape perception and environment perception. The environment perception is focusing on sensing the interactions between the robot and environment. These sensors are often embedded on an outer layer of the robots, so the interactions can be detected. The shape perception is sensing the robot's shape using various principles. There are three main groups of sensors that use the properties of electricity, magnetism and optics to measure the shape of the continuum robots. The sensors based on measuring the properties of electricity are often based on measuring the electrical resistance or capacitance of the flexible sensor. Sensors based on magnetism use properties of permanent magnets or coils that are attached to the robot. Their magnetic field, flux or other properties are then tracked, and shape reconstruction can be performed. The last group of sensors is mostly based on leveraging the properties of traveling light through optical fibers. There are multiple objectives of this work. Objective number one is to clearly categorize the sensors and make a clear distinction between them. Objective number two is to determine the trend and progress of the sensors used in continuum robotics. And finally, the third objective is to define the challenges that the researchers are currently facing. The challenges of sensing the shape or the interaction with the environment of continuum robots are currently in the miniaturization of existing sensors and the development of novel sensing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the construction industry, there are a large number of project-based organizations (PBOs), where the efficiency of communication and collaboration among organizational members greatly impacts the success of projects. For PBOs employing both centralized and decentralized communication networks, it is worth delving into the question of under what circumstances which type of network will yield better results. Based on the IMO model and organizational learning theory, this paper conducts a grouped communication experiment involving 598 engineering management personnel to explore the differences in collective effectiveness of varying communication networks from the perspective of task urgency. Beyond task performance assessments, we have included organizational member perception to form evaluation criteria for collective effectiveness. Our research results show that under conditions of weak task urgency, decentralized networks yield higher collective effectiveness. Conversely, under conditions of strong task urgency, centralized networks demonstrate superior collective effectiveness. Furthermore, this study also verifies the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior when task urgency is strong. This research provides significant managerial insights for the establishment of appropriate communication networks for PBOs in the construction industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the reader and the text plays a fundamental role during the act of reading. The book transition from the print to the digital format entails significant changes in how the reader interacts with the text and ascribes meaning to the reading process. These changes, driven by new technological advancements, can profoundly impact the reading experience, eliciting a range of responses from reader acceptance to dissatisfaction with the chosen medium. Despite new electronic devices attempting to emulate the reading experience provided by paper books, the digital realm continues to shape our perception of reading, highlighting the differences in manipulating a physical text compared to one displayed on an e-reader screen. The paper puts forward several themes that have emerged from a case study on the perception of digital reading at the University of Salamanca (ES). The aim is to gain a deeper understanding of and insight into the preferences, expectations, and behaviors of contemporary readers, highlighting the gap that has emerged between analog and digital reading, primarily driven by the structural and aesthetic differences between the two reading formats and, consequently, their interaction with the reader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shape is an objective characteristic of an object. A boundary separates a physical object from its surroundings. It defines the shape and regulates energy flux into and from an object. Visual perception of a definite shape (geometry) of physical objects is an abstraction. While the perceived geometry at an object's sharp interface (macro) creates a Euclidian illusion of actual shape, the notion of diffuse interfaces (micro) allows an understanding of the realistic form of objects. Here, we formulate a dimensionless geometric entropy of plant leaves (SL) by a 2-D description of a phase-field function. We applied this method to 112 tropical plant leaf images. SL was estimated from the leaf perimeter (P) and leaf area (A). It correlates positively with a fractal dimensional measure of leaf complexity, viz., segmental fractal complexity. Leaves with a higher P: A ratio have higher SL and possess complex morphology. The univariate cluster analysis of SL reveals the taxonomic relationship among the leaf shapes at the genus level. An increase in SL of plant leaves could be an evolutionary strategy. The results of morphological complexity presented in this paper will trigger discussion on the causal links between leaf adaptive stability/efficiency and complexity. We present SL as a derived plant trait to describe plant leaf complexity and adaptive stability. Integrating SL into other leaf physiological measures will help to understand the dynamics of energy flow between plants and their environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a novel design approach for shaping a teleoperator's expectations and behaviors when teleoperating a robot. Just as how people may drive a car differently based on their expectations of it (e.g., the brakes may be poor), we assert that teleoperators may likewise operate a robot differently based on expectations of robot capability and robustness. We present 3 novel interaction designs that proactively shape teleoperator perceptions, and the results from formal studies that demonstrate that these techniques do indeed shape operator perceptions, and in some cases, measures of driving behavior such as changes in collisions. Our methods shape operator perceptions of a robot's speed, weight, or overall safety, designed to encourage them to drive more safely. This approach shows promise as an avenue for improving teleoperator effectiveness without requiring changes to a robot, novel sensors, algorithms, or other functionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental perception forms the basis of intelligent driving systems and is a prerequisite for path planning and vehicle control. Among them, dynamic multi-obstacle tracking is the key to environmental perception. In order to solve the problem of a large amount of correlation calculations and false correlations in the process of dynamic multi-obstacle tracking, and to obtain more accurate surrounding environment information, this paper first designs an obstacle data correlation algorithm based on improving the joint probabilistic data-association algorithm. Then, in order to solve the problem of obstacle movement mobility and the poor filtering effect of a single model, the interacting multiple model is designed to complete the filtering of multiple behavior patterns of obstacles. An obstacle state estimation algorithm based on the unscented Kalman filter is designed to solve the nonlinear problem of obstacle motion. Finally, an experimental prototype is built and tested. The results show that the data association algorithm designed in this paper can complete the data association of obstacles at different times, and there is no problem of obstacle loss and association error. The average running time of each frame is 51.63 ms. The result comparison between the proposed method and the traditional method shows that the proposed method is more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objectives: Population ageing has rapidly increased the number of people requiring end-of-life care across the globe. Governments have responded by promoting end-of-life in the community. Partly as a consequence, older spouses are frequently providing for their partner's end-of-life care at home, despite potentially facing their own health issues. While there is an emerging literature on young-old caregivers, less is known about spouse carers over 75 who are likely to face specific challenges associated with their advanced age and relationship status. The aim of this review, therefore, is to identify and synthesise the literature concerning the experiences of caregiver's aged 75 and over whose partner is approaching end-of-life. We conducted a mixed-method systematic review and narrative synthesis of the empirical literature published between 1985 and May 2019, identified from six databases: Medline, PsychINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase, Sociological Abstracts and Social Service Abstracts. Hand searching and reference checking were also conducted. Gough's Weight of Evidence and Morgan's Feminist Quality Appraisal tool used to determine the quality of papers. From the initial 7819 titles, 10 qualitative studies and 9 quantitative studies were included. We identified three themes: 1) "Embodied impact of care" whereby caring was found to negatively impact carers physical and psychological health, with adverse effects continuing into bereavement; 2) "Caregiving spouse's conceptualisation of their role" in which caregiver's navigated their self and marriage identities in relation to their partner's condition and expectations about gender and place; 3) "Learning to care" which involved learning new skills and ways of coping to remain able to provide care. We identified a recent up-surge in published papers about very old spousal caregivers, which now comprise a small, medium-quality evidence base. This review outlines a range of potential lines of inquiry for future research including further clarification of the impact of caregiving on the likelihood of mortality, the incidence of men and women providing end-of-life care amongst this age group, and the role of anticipatory grief in shaping their perceptions of their relationship and their own longevity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'sharp power' has recently emerged as a reaction to the assertiveness of authoritarian regimes. It serves to underline the complexity of challenges which are posed by authoritarian regimes, referring to diverse front lines in the overall 'battle', be they culture, education, or the media. The latter, according to Dmitri Trenin, "has become such a crowded battlefield". This paper attempts to fill in the information gap regarding Russia's 'sharp power' manifestations in Lithuania's mass media and focuses on NATO related messages in particular. The paper presupposes that messages which evoke an air of support for Russia's foreign and security policy tend to pass through to Lithuania's mass media, and argues that, as a result of the insufficient activity by Lithuania's mass media in terms of forming an independent perception of Russia vis-à-vis NATO, the preconditions for possible manifestations of Russia's use of sharp power are therefore created. The article is organised into four parts. The first section sets out a theoretical framework for the analysis which focuses on the concept of sharp power. Then the research methodology is outlined. The third section presents features of the informational environment of Lithuania in 2016 and 2019. The final, and most elaborated, section investigates messages which apparently serve to support Russia's foreign and security policy in terms of the NATO's topic in Lithuania's mass media based on the aforementioned criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that divisive views on science and technology span both the Global North and South. This study posits that an individual's perception of their current living standard acts as a mediating factor linking income inequality to attitudes towards scientific and technological advancements. It contends that rising income disparities shape perceptions, making individuals feel their current living conditions have not surpassed those of prior generations. Consequently, such perceptions diminish the likelihood of recognizing the positive impacts of science and technology on societal progress and future prospects. This paper sheds light on how escalating inequality fosters societal rifts concerning science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of experience in determining the deterrent effect of criminal punishment. Economic models of crime typically assume potential offenders know the probability of apprehension. Thus, neither the individual's personal experience of being caught and punished nor the observation of someone else's punishment experience affects that individual's future behavior. This paper incorporates a role for experience in determining criminal activity, distinguishing between (1) how individuals form perceptions of the probability of punishment, including how those perceptions are influenced by what they experience or observe, and (2) how those perceptions, once formed, influence their decisions about criminal activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The corner space, an important area of underground commercial streets, not only converts space functions but also exerts a great impact on the space atmosphere by transforming the environmental quality of the commercial street space. Based on corner space investigations of several underground commercial streets in China, this paper constructs a realistic scene model using virtual reality technology and screens. This paper classifies the corner space elements of underground commercial streets through preliminary experiments. Based on the conclusions, different morphological models of the corner space were constructed by orthogonal experiments and virtual reality technology combined with psychology. A semantic differential was used to quantitatively evaluate and analyze the spatial experience cognition of the subjects. This enabled an analysis of the of underground commercial street corners’ relationship to the component elements and the visitors’ psychological perception of their spatial form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociolinguistic styles and the resultant ascribed identities are understood as the product of simultaneous variables, leading to the notion of bricolage, or the co-occurrence of variables and their collective indexical meanings. Relatively little attention has been paid to these processes as they manifest on social media platforms. The goal of the current paper is to understand which linguistic and thematic features co-occur in the online production of the no sabo kid style and identity, which manifests as a form of linguistic discrimination towards U.S. Latinx youth. "Hashtag communities" were used to locate posts about no sabo kids on TikTok (N = 95), and videos were automatically and manually coded for salient linguistic and discursive resources in the online no sabo kid community. The results show the co-occurrence of code-switching and phonological and lexical variation, alongside discursive themes, namely 'proficiency', 'ethnicity', and 'performative lexical gaps'. I argue that the no sabo kid hashtag community is a mediated manifestation of ideologies surrounding U.S. Latinx bilinguals, where a supposed lack of proficiency in Spanish and grammatical blending of Spanish and English index inauthentic ethnicity. Mediated instantiations of sociolinguistic styles shed light on how linguistic features become enregistered through multimodality and semiotic bricolage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowdsensing uses the participants' smart devices to form a new perception network. The coverage of crowdsensing's tasks determines the quality of services. Under the constraint of budget and the number of participants, the platform needs to increase the participation duration of participants through incentive mechanisms to increase the coverage of tasks. There are two problems with the existing incentive mechanisms: (1) many incentives ignore the participants' characteristics, and using a single incentive mechanism for different participants will make the incentive effect not reach the expectation; (2) many incentives will affect the effectiveness because of the decision problem caused by asymmetric information. Inspired by ensemble learning and prospect theory, this paper proposes the Incentive Mechanism based on Ensemble Learning and Prospect Theory (IMELPT). First, we propose the Deep-Stacking-Generation algorithm based on Dropout (DSGD), to predict the participants and distinguish whether they are long-term or short-term participants. If the participants are short-term, we incentivize them through the Short-term Participant Incentive Mechanism based on Prospect Theory (SPIMPT). We increase the participation duration by transforming the change in reward into asymmetric information that aligns the participant's goal with the platform. If the participants are long-term participants, we motivate them through the Long-term Participant Incentive Mechanism (LPIM), to maintain the participation rate of participants by maximizing their utility. Theoretical analysis and experiments on real datasets demonstrated that IMELPT can reliably improve the coverage of crowdsensing tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heidegger's ontological differentiation and Derrida's deconstruction of metaphysics rearranged the key players of the onto-stage, essence, being, existence, and entity (the being), which had an impact on the contemporary understanding of ontology. This paper focuses on the study of the origins of art, but also on the ontological matter to the extent to which it might be related to the matter of art. It appears that the origins of both ontology and art are at the core of this interaction. The ontological matter is connected to the issue of art in the way that questions: what if freedom, in a co-creative way, is that which is immutable and fundamental to being? What if the essence of being is the freedom of co-creating? Such an essence would always be capable of alteration (via co-creation) and transformation. It is important to note that the perception of form in art, as an experiment of the form, i.e., continuous movement and growth from the conventional to the unconventional, will also be examined. This artistic observation emphasizes the relational dynamics within a work of art, shifting the focus from its "objectivity" (an ontological perspective) to its inherent relational nature (an ontic perspective). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities represent intense battlefields where patriarchal norms are simultaneously defied and reinforced. In India, as elsewhere, the presence of strees [women] in the streets persists as a ulturally contested phenomenon. Movies shape our perception and experience of the city, even outside the cinema hall. This paper explores how contemporary Hindi cinema portrays men's and women's engagement with the urban space. Borrowing analytical tools from urban geography, it uses movies as a medium to map and quantify the extent to which activities, attitudes and experiences in urban spaces are gendered. The sample consists of 10 movies released between 2010 and 2020, set in cities of different types, and comprising at least one pivotal female character. Leveraging more than 3,000 minutes of footage, it identifies statistical trends in the way female and male characters navigate the city. This study introduces original methodological tools to carry spatial analysis in movies. It also sheds light on recent transformations in Hindi cinema vis-à-vis the place of women in the public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased attention to the existing gender asymmetries in academia, which have been extensively studied in the literature. Using the analytical lens of "gendered academic citizenship", this paper takes a micropolitical perspective to examine how the pandemic has impacted the dynamics of academic work, specifically focusing on the often-overlooked aspect of everyday interactions in the work environment. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of survey data collected from 1750 lecturers and researchers in Portuguese higher education and research institutions, the study uncovers that women, especially those who are younger, single, have specific caregiving responsibilities, and are in the early stages of their careers, were more vulnerable to experiencing "everyday" microaggressions such as silencing, exclusion, belittlement, being ignored, lack of validation, and invisibility compared to men during the pandemic. These findings suggest that, while the marginalization of women in academia is a longstanding issue, the virtual work model has created a platform for the expression of subtle forms of disempowerment and discrimination against women. These dynamics are perpetuated within the micropolitics of organizations, shaping subjective feelings of belonging and circulating differential levels of recognition within academic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: Cryptography; Random Number analysis. A one-time password is a security system that uses a password that is only used once for authentication, and it is commonly used in multi-factor authentication systems. The process of generating an OTP is very similar to generating pseudorandom sequences in cryptography. However, since only a part of the bit string is used in OTP, an algorithm is needed to extract that part. In addition, the OTP process also includes converting the value of the bit string value into decimal form for human perception. This paper focuses on analyzing the extraction function, which is the step before the hexadecimal is reprocessed into the decimal form. We analyze a function family, which includes functions used in the process of extracting a bit string in terms of distinguishable security. As a result, we conclude that the OTP extraction function family is vulnerable in terms of distinguishable security compared to the random function family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The composition of supervisory and board of directors in companies is extremely important for the successful operation of companies. Nowadays, women in the workplace, and especially in management positions, encounter a form of discrimination that has its own professional name - the phenomenon of "glass ceiling". Therefore, it is very important to analyze the representation of women and men on the company's supervisory board and board of directors. This paper will explain women's leadership style, differences between men's and women's leadership style, and the problems that women in employment, and especially in promotion. The aim off this paper is to determine whether the "glass ceiling" phenomenon is prominent in Croatian companies and to what extent. In addition, women's representation in senior positions will be related to business performance criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Sensory marketing is a recent concept that was initially considered in the field of experience marketing and retail, and later in the field of tourism, regardless of the fact that tourists have always experienced a destination with their five senses. Only in recent years has tourism industry adopted the concept of sensory marketing as a marketing strategy in order to create a competitive advantage in the rapidly growing tourism industry, therefore empirical studies on sensory marketing in tourism are scarce. The paucity of sensory marketing studies in tourism results in insufficient research of the relationship between sensory marketing and tourist experience, as well as the consequences of tourist experience resulting from stimuli in the sensory environment. The reason for this is reflected precisely in the dynamism, intangibility and challenging measurement of tourist experience, and authors mostly limit themselves to descriptions of dimensions of tourist experience, singling out the sensory dimension as one of the significant ones, therefore the relationship between sensory marketing and tourist experience remains insufficiently researched, which defines the research problem. Therefore, the main purpose of the doctoral thesis is to prove that it is possible to influence tourist experience of visitors regarding a tourist destination and their behavioural intentions through sensory marketing. The main goal of the paper, in accordance with the observed gap in the available scientific literature and recommendations for future research, is to develop a theoretical foundation based on the theoretical and empirical findings so far and to create a valid and reliable conceptual model for assessing the impact of the implementation of sensory marketing on the affective and cognitive states of tourists and on the consequences of tourism experience, i.e. satisfaction with tourist experience, destination attachment and tourist behavioural intentions. Methodology In order to test the conceptual model, quantitative research was conducted. The survey method was used for data collection, and the form for data collection is a structured questionnaire designed on the basis of previous research and modified according to the needs of the research. Given that the measuring scales of the constructs were originally developed in English, they were therefore subjected to a content validity check performed by seven experts in the field of marketing and tourism, based on whose suggestions and comments the research instrument was improved. Furthermore, in order to check the content validity of the survey questionnaire, its clarity and comprehensibility, a pre-test was conducted on a sample of 48 respondents. The questionnaire was then translated into German and Italian with the help of one translator and three native speakers. After designing the survey questionnaire, it was tested through a pilot study on a purposeful random sample of 102 respondents in order to perform an analysis of the psychometric characteristics of the survey questionnaire, and the obtained results of the pilot study were used in the analysis of the results related to the assessment of the validity and reliability of the measuring instrument, after which the final version of the survey questionnaire was formulated. The main quantitative research was conducted on a purposeful random sample of 429 respondents. Collected primary data were analysed using univariate and multivariate statistical analysis methods, namely descriptive statistical analysis, explorative factor analysis, reliability analysis and structural equation modelling using partial least squares method (PLS-SEM). After conducting the quantitative research, exploratory qualitative research was conducted. For these purposes of research, an interview method was used with 10 stakeholders in a tourist destination, and an effort was made to determine their attitudes and opinions on the knowledge of the concept of sensory marketing, the importance of senses in tourist experience and their influence on behavioural intentions, as well as the importance of levels of application of the sensory marketing strategy. The processing of primary data collected through interviews was carried out using content analysis. Findings By assessing the measurement model it was observed that the hapticscape contributes the most to the formation of perception of destination sensescape followed by tastescape. Comparing research by Buzova et al. (2021) who developed destination sensescape index that was used in this research; hapticscape represents the second construct that contributes the most to the formation of construct sensescape in urban destinations, while the first refers to the visualscape, which differs from of this research. At the same time, the results of previous research on sensory marketing in the tourist context document visual impressions as the most prominent ones reported by tourists (Xiong et al., 2015; Lv et al., 2020; Kastenholz et al., 2020), while the visualscape in in this research, it is only in the third place of contribution in shaping the construct perception of destination sensescape. Another construct that contributes to shaping the construct perception of destination sensescape is the tastescape, i.e. the importance of local gastronomy in rural destinations, which in the research of Buzova et al. (2021) is in third place. In this research, the soundscape contributes the least to shaping the construct perception of destination sensescape, which is also confirmed by the results of the research by Buzova et al. (2021). The smellscape as the penultimate construct that shapes the perception of destination sensescape is in accordance with the research of the author Buzova et al. (2021) in urban tourist destinations. The assessment of the structural model showed that there were positive and statistically significant influences between the constructs perception of sensescape and affective responses, perception of sensescape and cognitive responses, affective responses and satisfaction with tourist experience, cognitive responses and satisfaction with tourist experience, satisfaction with tourist experience and destination attachment, and satisfaction with tourist experience and behavioural intentions. The strongest relationship was established between the constructs of perception of destination sensescape and affective responses. In addition to the quantitative research, the results of the qualitative research conducted through personal structured interviews with stakeholders of the tourist offer and decision makers in rural tourist destinations indicate familiarity with the term sensory marketing (60%) and recognition of the importance of the senses (100%) when experiencing a tourist destination. However, they give the most importance to the sense of sight (60%), followed by the sense of taste (50%), all senses (40%), smell (30%), and hearing (10%) and touch (10%). It is clear that, unlike the results of the quantitative research, which showed that the sense of touch contributes the most to the perception of destination sensescape, the stakeholders in tourism believe that the sense of sight comes first. The sense of taste is in the second place of importance in qualitative research, and it occupies the same place in quantitative research, that is, the tastescape next contributes to the formation of construct of perception of destination sensescape. Furthermore, all respondents recognise the importance of stimulating the activation of tourists' senses in a tourist destination for future behavioural intentions, and for the implementation of a sensory marketing strategy in a tourist destination, the majority of respondents see the responsibility of the tourist boards together with the stakeholders of the tourist offer. Originality of the research The research subject of this paper is the research and assessment of a complex conceptual model of connectivity research and evaluation a complex conceptual model of the connection between the perception of destination sensescape, affective responses, cognitive responses, satisfaction with tourist experience, destination attachment and behavioural intentions. Therefore, the research results of the doctoral thesis represent a contribution to the scientific field of social sciences, the field of economics, the field of marketing, the field of sensory marketing in a conceptual, methodological, and applied sense. The scientific contribution of the conceptual part of the paper is manifested in a systematic review of the literature and a critical analysis of previous conceptual and empirical research in the field of sensory marketing and tourist experience. At the same time, the contribution is visible in the design and testing of the conceptual model for measuring the connection between the perception of destination sensescape, tourist experience and behavioural intentions, as well as in the adjustment of measurement scales used to measure the basic constructs in the model and the testing of the relationship between variables determined by the conceptual model. The scientific methodological contribution is manifested in the use of an innovative approach in the collection of data on the subject of research and their processing. The combination of qualitative and quantitative methods enabled a comprehensive understanding of sensory marketing and tourist experience and their connection from the point of view of tourists and decision makers in the destination. At the same time, the contribution is manifested in the adjustment of measurement scales for measuring the perception of destination sensescape, affective and cognitive responses, satisfaction with tourist experience, destination attachment and behavioral intentions, testing of the conceptual model for determining the role of sensory marketing in the creation of tourist experience, knowledge of the influence of the perception of destination sensescape on affective and cognitive responses, as well as on satisfaction with tourist experience, destination attachment and behavioural intentions. In terms of application contribution, results of the research inform meaningfully about the strategic directions that destinations can follow using sensory marketing to attract tourists, their satisfaction, attachments and recommendations in today's highly competitive tourism industry. At the same time, the contribution is visible in the practical knowledge of rural tourist destinations because previous empirical research was conducted in an urban tourist destination. The limitations of the research are visible in the selection of the research site, i.e. geographic limitation, time limitation because the research was conducted during the main tourist season, the disadvantages of using a survey questionnaire as a data collection technique (such as unintelligibility, length) and qualitative methods of data collection, i.e. interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present the findings of a study investigating the impact of shape on the taste perception of chocolate. Previous research has explored the influence of various sensory information on taste perception, but there has been little focus on the effect of food shape being eaten on taste perception. To explore this, we focused on the Bouba-Kiki effect, illustrating an interaction between shape and several modalities, and investigated the effect of Bouba- and Kiki-shaped (rounded and angular) foods eaten on taste perception. We utilized a 3D food printer to produce four different shapes of chocolate pieces based on the Bouba-Kiki. Participants tasted each piece and completed a chocolate flavor questionnaire. With Bayesian analysis, we determined that the Bouba-shaped chocolate pieces were perceived as sweeter than the Kiki-shaped ones, supporting earlier studies on crossmodal correspondences between shape and taste perception. However, there were no significant differences in ratings of other tastes, such as sourness and bitterness. Our research indicates that shape can affect taste perception during consumption and suggests that 3D food printers offer an opportunity to design specific shapes that influence taste experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the accuracy of deformation perception and shape reconstruction of flexible thin-walled structures, this paper proposes a method based on the combination of FOSS (fiber optic sensor system) and machine learning. In this method, the sample collection of strain measurement and deformation change at each measuring point of the flexible thin-walled structure was completed by ANSYS finite element analysis. The outliers were removed by the OCSVM (one-class support vector machine) model, and the unique mapping relationship between the strain value and the deformation variables (three directions of x-, y-, and z-axis) at each point was completed by a neural-network model. The test results show that the maximum error of the measuring point in the direction of the three coordinate axes: the x-axis is 2.01%, the y-axis is 29.49%, and the z-axis is 15.52%. The error of the coordinates in the y and z directions was large, and the deformation variables were small, the reconstructed shape had good consistency with the deformation state of the specimen under the existing test environment. This method provides a new idea with high accuracy for real-time monitoring and shape reconstruction of flexible thin-walled structures such as wings, helicopter blades, and solar panels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract received. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information in a special section in the current issue of this periodical that focuses on syntactic and structural pattern recognition. The fields of syntactic and structural pattern recognition experienced explosive growth during the 1960s and 1970s, as evidenced by the number of papers published in this area. The syntactic approach takes the view that a pattern is composed of simpler sub patterns which, in turn, are built from even simpler sub patterns.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to draw attention to the heuristic value of intersectionality by historicizing it as a framework appropriate for the use of studying discrimination and discriminatory practices in organizations over time. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing a fusion between amodernist historiography vis-à-vis the nascent ANTi-History approach and intersectional complexity, the authors draw upon historical narratives from archival materials British Airways to empirically examine the utility of, and turn to, intersectional history in historical organization studies. Findings: Analysis of archival materials and commissioned corporate histories revealed subjectivities of socially constructing historicized intersectional identities. This suggests that certain identities have been and continue to "enjoy" privilege while others are marginalized and/or neglected through serial interconnected historical meanings. These processes of privileging and marginalization rely on the way a nexus of meaning is configured. Research limitations/implications: The research process relied and is dependent on limited archival materials within a single organization (British Airways) and industry (civil aviation). The critique herein should not be misinterpreted as judgment of the airline itself as an exemplar of discriminatory practices but rather for its longevity as an ongoing concern; its rich, colonialist history within the United Kingdom and accessibility of data. Archival traces are housed within a semi-public corporate archive which means those traces available for study have been professional and rhetorically curated. Practical implications: From the perspective of workplace diversity, our aim has been to reveal to diversity professionals and activists not only the role of history in shaping discrimination but also, in particular, to be alert to the processes whereby the production of knowledge of the past takes place. The authors hope also to have drawn attention to the power of organizations in the generation of discriminatory historical accounts and the need to further explore how such accounts are produced as knowledge of the past. Finally, the authors introduce the notion of "nexus of meaning" to suggest that in the complexity of intersectionality, the authors need to explore not only how people experience different and combined forms of discrimination but also how those experiences are shaped in a complex series of meaning that owe much to past experiences. Social implications: The research directs attention to the nexus of meaning that constitute intersecting identities. Originality/value: The research attempts to historicize intersectionality as a qualitative framework worthy of consideration in management and organization studies. From the perspective of studying discrimination in organizational life, the aim of this paper is to bring forward the role history plays in shaping discrimination as well as the processes whereby the production of knowledge of the past takes place. Attention is also drawn to the power of organizations in the generation of discriminatory historical accounts and the need to further explore how such accounts are produced. This study introduces the nexus of meaning analytic that understands how the experiences of different and combined forms of discrimination are shaped by meanings of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel bio-inspired edge-oriented approach to perceptual contour extraction. Our method does not rely on segmentation and can unsupervised learn to identify edge points that are readily grouped, without invoking any connecting mechanism, into object boundaries as perceived by human. This goal is achieved by using a dynamic mask to statistically assess the inter-edge relations and probe the principal direction that acts as an edge-grouping cue. The novelty of this work is that the mask, centered at a target pixel and driven by EM algorithm, can iteratively deform and rotate until it covers pixels that best fit the Bayesian likelihood of the binary class w.r.t a target pixel. By creating an effect of enlarging receptive field, contiguous edges of the same object can be identified while suppressing noise and textures, the resulting contour is in good agreement with gestalt laws of continuity, similarity and proximity. All theoretical derivations and parameters updates are conducted under the framework of EM-based Bayesian inference. Issues of stability and parameter uncertainty are addressed. Both qualitative and quantitative comparison with existing approaches proves the superiority of the proposed method in terms of tracking curved contours, noises/texture resilience, and detection of low-contrast contours., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

'Global South', a term frequently used on websites and in papers related to academic and 'predatory' publishing, may represent a form of unscholarly discrimination. Arguments are put forward as to why the current use of this term is geographically meaningless, since it implies countries in the southern hemisphere, whereas many of the entities in publishing that are referred to as being part of the Global South are in fact either on the equator or in the northern hemisphere. Therefore, academics, in writing about academic publishing, should cease using this broad, culturally insensitive, and geographically inaccurate term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social and cultural factors shape the linguistic perception of colour. At the same time, colour terms co-create the linguistic image of the world, which allows us to interpret reality and profile our statements and beliefs. This paper presents six basic colour terms: white, black, red, green, yellow, and blue (both as adjectives and as nouns) in the five different linguistic images of the world of the following languages: English, French, Italian, Polish, and Japanese. The methodological framework is based on cultural linguistics theory and the basis of semantics. The study explores denotative and connotative meanings of colour terms with their collocations. The data gathered from monolingual, bilingual, collocation, and phraseological dictionaries is analysed from the lexical-semantic point of view. The paper discusses semantic differences between contrasting cultures, especially in the blue-green and red lexis. Simultaneously, the findings point to transcultural and global aspects of colour meanings. Both the contexts of cultural diversity and of geographic location are emphasised in the colour semantics. Colours as linguistic signs can specify and categorise reality in terms of feelings, mental attitudes, or sensual reactions. The examined words also refer to location, nature, and the human body. The study shows that colour terms are multifunctional units in the linguistic image of the world, both in terms of the analysed languages separately and as an illustration of the cultural community of different ethnic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that clarifies the construct of pay secrecy. Design/methodology/approach: Paralleling organizational justice research, two continua of pay information – a distributive continuum about pay raise outcomes and a procedural continuum of pay raise processes – are crossed to produce a 3 × 3 matrix with nine distinct forms of pay communication. Findings: Drawing on the substitutability effect from the organizational justice literature, the matrix highlights the importance of considering how the communication of different types of pay information interact with one another as individuals form pay perceptions. Research limitations/implications: The matrix framework illustrates that not only information content shapes pay perceptions, but also the extent to which different types of pay information are communicated, and how these different types of information interact. As with any conceptual framework, the current manuscript is limited by a lack of empirical testing. Practical implications: Managers should be cognizant of the many different ways in which pay information can be communicated. A call is made to reconsider the use of traditionally binary terminology (secret or not) in favor of more accurate descriptions of the nuanced ways in which organizations communicate pay information. Originality/value: The value of the pay communication matrix lies in the nine unique forms of pay communication arising from the interaction of two different forms of pay information – distributive (outcomes) and procedural (process). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiences of wind turbines (WT) shape public perception and acceptance of the technology, influencing government policy, deployment, and land-use policies of wind turbines. This paper attempts to find changes in public perceptions over the last three decades and differences between experts and the public over different land-use options. A semi-structured questionnaire that integrates a visual survey of 10 images of WT technology in different urban, landscape and seascape settings was presented to both groups. The perceptions of siting, proximity, landscape type, and maturity of urban wind turbines' technology in renewable energy generation were contrasted. The results revealed that both the public and experts alike significantly preferred images of WT inclusion in seascape and landscape settings and responded negatively to images of WT as an addition to buildings in urban contexts. Images of wind turbines around transport settings were ranked in the second set of acceptances, after landscape settings, indicating that closer proximity to WT is acceptable, but for a short duration. The analysis also highlighted a preference by the public for aesthetically engaging WT, even if they resulted in lower energy yields, but were less accepted by the experts who based their judgment on technical performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper presents the structure, contents, principles of the organization of the forming experiment on personal reflection development, the results, the interpretation and conclusions of the research. The program of development of creative abilities during the process of understanding the scientific text is described and tested, and it testifies about the significance of creative interpretation for the success of educational and professional activity of students of Humanities of higher educational institutions. The purpose of the paper is to prove that the process of creative interpretation promotes text understanding, determines the formation of adaptive strategies of behavior and reduces the probability of occurrence of stereotyped and maladaptation strategies. The forming activities include training for developing creative abilities, in which group discussion, psychotechnical and psychotherapeutic exercises, elements of psychoanalysis (psychoanalysis, symbol-drama) are used. The paper explores and discusses a concept of personal reflection, which has been used as a means of forming culture of perception of the scientific text during 2019-2020 among the students of the Humanities Faculty at Khmelnytsky National University, Ukraine. In conclusion, the author emphasizes the guided questions for the development of personal reflection as a means of forming culture of perception of the scientific text by humanitarians. Besides, the paper lists and explores benefits and drawbacks of interpretation levels (scientific, emotional-sensitive, creative) and their relations due to the components of intellect, strategies of interpreted behavior, success of educational and professional activity and creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The booming development of 3D virtual technology provides the basis for the innovation of teaching mode of clinical medicine. Integrating 3D virtual technology into the clinical education teaching of medical students can help medical students learn clinical expertise more intuitively, enrich practical experience, improve hands-on ability, and make up for the shortcomings of traditional medical teaching. However, the traditional 3D modeling method has the problems of sparse and insufficient accuracy of output results, which greatly limits the specific application of 3D virtual technology in clinical teaching. Therefore, this paper addresses the shortcomings of previous 3D virtual technology in 3D modeling of organs, introduces deep learning, and then proposes a pyramidal shape perception network with the ability to generate samples on point clouds. Experimental results show that the proposed model not only has a large improvement in accuracy but also shows a high degree of confidence in providing real-time feedback of local image attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why has China delayed commercialization of genetically modified (GM) crops over the last decade given its heavy public R&D investment in biotechnology and maturing GM capacity? Further, imports of GM products for consumption are allowed while similar domestic GM‐crops cannot be commercialized. The paper analyzes, from a political economy perspective, how the delay of commercialization arises from the government balancing interests and conflicts among vested interests to keep social stability based on comprehensive secondary data and unique primary survey data. Anti‐GMO activists have, over time, been able to shape the public perception of biotechnology. Their efforts have garnered widespread acceptance among interest groups and have been sufficient to raise the specter of underlying social instability, which is always near the top of mind for China's government. As a result, no movement on commercialization has been made since 2010—more than a decade ago. The failure to commercialize is important because food production would increase considerably if China were able to commercialize GM crops and the resolution of the biotechnology issue has broad implications for food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, siamese-based trackers have achieved significant successes. However, those trackers are restricted by the difficulty of learning consistent feature representation with the object. To address the above challenge, this paper proposes a novel siamese implicit region proposal network with compound attention for visual tracking. First, an implicit region proposal (IRP) module is designed by combining a novel pixel-wise correlation method. This module can aggregate feature information of different regions that are similar to the pre-defined anchor boxes in Region Proposal Network. To this end, the adaptive feature receptive fields then can be obtained by linear fusion of features from different regions. Second, a compound attention module including a channel and non-local attention is raised to assist the IRP module to perform a better perception of the scale and shape of the object. The channel attention is applied for mining the discriminative information of the object to handle the background clutters of the template, while non-local attention is trained to aggregate the contextual information to learn the semantic range of the object. Finally, experimental results demonstrate that the proposed tracker achieves state-of-the-art performance on six challenging benchmark tests, including VOT-2018, VOT-2019, OTB-100, GOT-10k, LaSOT, and TrackingNet. Further, our obtained results demonstrate that the proposed approach can be run at an average speed of 72 FPS in real time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is an integrated approach to the long-term management of maritime areas, in order to ensure sustainable development and use of marine resources, advocating the need for the sustainable growth as far as maritime economies are concerned. MSP is based on an integrated and participatory decision-making process which involves stakeholders from all sectors of the marine environment, tourism being one sector which requires support from a variety of stakeholders. The aim of this paper is to form a picture of the perception of the MSP stakeholders regarding coastal and maritime tourism, i.e., to see whether it is a priority from the perspective of analyzing land-sea interactions (LSI) in the Romanian Black Sea coastal area. Their views regarding the priorities and role of tourism sustainability in the local economy are needed, considering that LSI is strongly connected to the economic benefits of MSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]