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Firms often use crowdsourcing contests to develop marketing ideas and solutions. Despite the prevalence—and unique aspects—of marketing ideation crowdsourcing contests (MICCs), there has been little examination of these contests' shareholder wealth implications. Adopting a signaling perspective, the authors conduct an event study of 508 MICC announcements and find that they are associated with higher returns, but also higher idiosyncratic risk, indicating that investors hold a mixed view of such contests. Further, the authors consider how contest design factors and firm marketing resources may signal the cultivation of intellectual and relational market-based assets to shape their stock market impact, providing firms guidance to better design their MICCs. Specifically, they find that returns are enhanced when firms use professional (vs. general public) contests, specifically scoped contests, and contests using crowd judging (vs. expert panels), and for firms with stronger marketing capabilities. However, brand factors have mixed effects on returns, with a brand's relevant stature having a positive effect and its energized differentiation having a negative effect on returns. Product MICCs and generally scoped contests heighten the negative effects on risk, whereas marketing resources have no impact. Results offer implications for practitioners, including the finding that many MICC design choices commonly used in practice (i.e., general public contests and expert panels) are viewed less favorably by investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research introduces a novel approach to crisis management by implementing a multi-agent algorithm within a strategic decision system. The proposed system harnesses multiple agents' collective intelligence and adaptive capabilities to enhance decision-making processes during critical situations. The study first investigates the theoretical foundations of crisis management and multi-agent systems, emphasizing the need for an integrated approach that combines strategic decision-making with autonomous agents. Subsequently, the research presents the design and implementation of the multi-agent algorithm, outlining its ability to gather, process, and analyze diverse data sources in real time. The multi-agent algorithm is specifically tailored to adapt to dynamic crisis scenarios, ensuring a resilient decision-making framework. Experimental simulations present the implementation of a panic simulator and prediction of evacuation and intervention routes using multi-agent artificial intelligence algorithms. The results demonstrate the multi-agent algorithm-driven decision system's superiority in response time, resource allocation, and overall crisis mitigation. Furthermore, the research explores the system's scalability and adaptability to different crisis types, illustrating its potential applicability across diverse domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient stadia and circuses were considered by Greeks and Romans to be excellent places for live events. Back in ancient times, many people participated in public entertainment from athletic games, as typical of Greek traditions, to combats between gladiators and wild beasts. Among all of them, the most acclaimed were the horse races conducted with chariots, and this was the main sport of ancient Roman stadia. This paper deals with the digital reconstruction of three stadia belonging to the 2nd century B.C. (i.e., Panathenaic Stadium) and to the 1st century A.D. (i.e., Circus Maximum and Stadium of Domitian). The digital models have been rebuilt based on historical resources and archaeological discoveries to conduct the acoustic simulations and understand the acoustic behavior within these places. After the assessment of the main acoustic parameters, the noise levels from crowds have been predicted in different ways: based on information gathered from historic annals, and the comfort used for modern stadia to predict the ancient conditions with reference to the crowd noise levels measured in modern stadiums. The results indicate that the acoustic response of ancient stadia is very similar to the modern ones, in terms of both reverberation and noise level from crowds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of cities is very fast and is often very difficult for urban development. Pedestrian dynamics in this context are very important when designing a facility in terms of the safety, economics, and level of service to its users. The present study focuses on analysing the effect of density and width of a bottleneck on the behaviour of a crowd under emergency conditions. The inclusion of a buffer space for the dispersion of a crowd through a bottleneck is analysed. A relationship is established between total times, the flow and, a specific flow versus the width of a bottleneck. The formation of a dynamic layer was observed during capacity conditions due to the zipper effect. Among the five types of distributions, a semi-random distribution was the better fit for the headway data observed. It was observed that capacity increases in a stepwise manner as the width of a bottleneck increases, which can be attributed to the formation of dynamic lanes. The distance between these lanes is independent of the width of the bottleneck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple self-experiment allows for the measurement of individual pedestrian movements, aiming to understand the deviations from intended directions seen in heterogeneous human crowds. The method involves pedestrian self-observations using the GPS sensor of a smartphone, providing a unique perspective on individual behavior within a crowd and offering a means to evaluate average pedestrian speed. The study is focused on individual mobility in the context of a heterogeneous crowd rather than the behavior of a crowd composed of similar types of people. With this study, an important contribution to the understanding of interpersonal distances in heterogeneous crowds is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies a new legal stakeholder in the data economy: the data crowd. A data crowd is a collective that: (i) is unorganised, non-deliberate and unable to form an agenda; (ii) relies on productive aggregation that creates an interdependency among participants; and (iii) is subjected to an external authority. Notable examples of crowds include users of a social network, users of a search engine and users of artificial intelligence-based applications. The law currently only protects users in the data economy as individuals, and in certain cases may address broad public concerns. However, it does not recognise the collective interests of the crowd of users and its unique vulnerability to platform power. The article presents and defends the crowd's legal interests in a stable infrastructure for participation. It therefore reveals the need for a new approach to consumers' rights in the data economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The daguerreotypes of the Chartist meeting on Kennington Common in London on 10 April 1848, often considered as the first crowd photographs, are among the most reproduced photos of the Victorian era. But they have not yet yielded all their secrets. This article discusses the old question of the number of people attending the meeting. Re-examining the daguerreotypes in the light of other sources, it additionally addresses issues relating to the depiction of labour. It looks at what the daguerreotypes tell us about the relationship between the Chartist movement and London's working class. It attempts to identify places and objects. Finally, it focuses on the place of individuals in the images of this anonymous, faceless, and voiceless crowd. It suggests the name and identity of a little-studied Chartist figure who may be seen on a photo, the coachman, carpenter and builder Henry Cullingham (1791–1873), and considers what we may derive from that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of facial recognition systems in concerts provides a perfect pretext to semiotically discuss the role of the face in contemporary culture, identifying different strategies and axiologies (systems of values). In his visionary essay Bruits ("noises") from 1977, the French thinker Jacques Attali establishes a close connection between music and power and locates it in the site of the collective unfolding of music: the concert hall. Following this hint, the article reconstructs the current debate on facial recognition systems in the music business, with a particular focus on concerts and festivals. The different positions (of musicians, authorities, and professionals) are outlined (some are openly in favor, others openly against), key moments are identified (Beyoncé's concert in Cardiff, 2017; Jacky Cheung's in Nanchang, 2018; Taylor Swift's at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, 2018; the "banfacialrecognition.com" campaign launched in 2019; the case of Barbara Hart at Brandi Carlile's show at the Madison Square Garden, 2022) and, finally, the issue is framed within the broader debate about the face as an indexical marker of presence, identity, and humanity (the contrast between Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and American sociologist and design theorist Benjamin Bratton is addressed). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free throw shooting percentage has averaged around 75% for nearly five decades. However, free throw percentages significantly increased to 79% during the 2020 spectator-less National Basketball Association season. The current study investigated if the elevated free throw shooting percentage observed during the spectator-less season has returned to the 50-year average now that spectators have returned to National Basketball Association arenas. Moreover, home and away free throw percentages were examined to determine if a potential home-field advantage contributed to this phenomenon. Analyses revealed that the free throw shooting percentage from the spectator-less season was significantly higher than the two spectator-filled seasons preceding and following the spectator-less season. Furthermore, the analyses found no differences in free throw percentages between home and away games. While the free throw shooting percentage increased to 79% during the spectator-less season, the free throw shooting percentage returned to the 50-year average (i.e., ∼75%), following the spectator-less season. Additionally, it does not appear that a perceived home-field advantage influenced the increased free throw performance observed in the spectator-less season. Multiple factors likely contributed to this free throw phenomenon, including the environmental characteristics shaped by the lack of spectators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban centers are getting crowded, public transportation is becoming congested, and mass events are attracting an increasing number of people. Crowd disasters are not rare, and to prevent them the careful planning of pedestrian facilities and collaboration among stakeholders in the organization of events are crucial. When communication and coordination among stakeholders are sufficient, safety can usually be achieved; however, even in such cases, unexpected situations may occur. Automated crowd-control methods are required to address such situations. However, little is known about how crowd behavior can be influenced without direct human intervention. In this study, we investigated the use of environmental stimuli to modify pedestrian behavior (more specifically, route choice) in an educational facility. Colors, lights, signs, and sounds were used to influence route selection. The results show that light and, in part, LED information displays are somehow effective and could be valid candidates to pave the way for automated crowd control systems (especially for night events). The experiment presented here considers low crowd density. However, we believe that this could help encourage the balanced use of space by pedestrians under normal conditions and establish good practices. In turn, this can delay the creation of high densities, which are often the cause of fatalities in crowd disasters, and provide staff with time for intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how László Garaczi's Weszteg portrays isolation and mass formation in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. In the first part of my essay, I investigate the representation of the "quarantine state." I argue that in the novel, technology deepens isolation instead of helping to connect with others. In the next section, I examine how the novel depicts the transformation of our relationship with "live" presence, physical proximity, and mass situations due to the pandemic and increasing technological mediation. As I show, physical contact with others and being in a crowd appear exclusively as inconvenient, frustrating, or threatening experiences in the novel. Thereafter, I analyze the dystopian images of violent, barbaric crowds in the text. I claim that they condense collective fears arising from the pandemic, and the novel sensitively points out the mechanisms of scapegoating in times of crisis. Finally, I argue that the novel also vividly portrays a mass experience that is not connected to physical presence. The "virtual crowd," organized with the facilitation of mass media, is depicted as a multitude of lonely, isolated individuals. I scrutinize the characteristics of this crowd, as well as the role of biopolitical power and mass media--especially aggressive news streams--in organizing the masses and maintaining isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the activities, the behaviour, and the function of the crowd of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Based on contemporary documents, the study shows the characteristics of the mass movements of the 1956 Revolution. The main question is how the crowd, already explored theoretically by social psychology and other sciences, functioned in different settings: what types of gatherings and demonstrations emerged, how the local context and the social composition of the crowd influenced its behaviour, and how this was perceived by bystanders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Austrian political culture is rooted in counter-reformation, in a specific Catholic-baroque theatricality. With its marches, parades, pageants, Dionysian art and populist politics, a very distinctive form of showmanship or staging already characterised the last decades of the Habsburg Monarchy. After 1918, the new republic picked up this thread--with less of the 'Dionysian' at the fore than the more sublime and solemn. From the mid-1920s onwards, all political camps focused on involving masses in their political manifestations, thus the structured amorphous crowds involved participants marching in rank and file and in military attire and unified mass bodies engaged in choreographed movement, forming images (and messages). However, the authors and organisers of such events often seemed to be more impressed by these performances than the audience or even the participants themselves. Although the 'mass' in contemporary phrasing was a 'feeling', an 'experience', or an 'emotion', it still had to be controlled: stadiums and arenas became architectural means of social control, accompanied by a plethora of security and policing measures. But with the advent of new media, the crowd organised itself differently and anew. As a result, both the social democratic, pan-German and Christian-conservative mass festivals in the late 1920s and early 1930s and the staged Austrofascist 'Tributes to the Youth' after 1934 quickly lost their appeal, while their audiovisual reproduction in radio or newsreels had no effect either. Even enormous logistical efforts and bureaucratic pressure could not prevent the mass stagings from becoming outdated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Croatica et Slavica Iadertina is the property of University of Zadar, Department of Croatian & Slavic Studies 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.)

This study provides new evidence on factors relevant to the success of crowdfunding campaigns run in Europe between 2015 and 2017 on the most popular crowdfunding platforms in Germany/Austria - Kickstarter.com and Startnext.com. In particular, for this study, a sample of 10,514 campaigns from Germany and Austria for the first time serves as a basis for identifying the determinants of the level of projects' (over-)funding. For crowdfunding projects, an increase in a project's funding goal results in higher funding on both platforms, but this does not guarantee success, i.e. reaching the relevant funding goal. Projects with a higher success probability show lower funding goals, especially if launched on Startnext.com. In contrast, a longer duration negligibly increases the amount raised on Startnext and slightly decreases on Kickstarter. On Startnext, projects from the Art cluster have a higher chance to succeed, while those from the Technology cluster show smaller success probabilities as they regularly get less funding. On Kickstarter, projects from the Art, Technology, or Lifestyle field reach higher financing as compared to the Sustainability area. We show that the uncertainty about market size and project/founder quality leads to diverging over- and underfunding levels across platforms and industry clusters, which is of core importance to interested stakeholder groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article opens a thematic issue of the Journal of Ichthyology, dedicated to Dmitry Viktorovich Radakov, a researcher who made an outstanding contribution to the knowledge of schooling behavior of fish. The article deals with many terms and concepts that are widely used in scientific publications on the schooling behavior of fish, but still do not have a generally accepted definition—crowd, aggregation, shoal, school, flock. Attention is drawn to the difficulties caused by the fact that the use of these terms is most often based not on objective criteria, but on the preferences, views or beliefs of individual researchers. General ideas about the prevalence of schooling behavior in fish of different taxonomy, lifestyle, condition and age; about the importance of the visual structuring of the environment for the manifestation of schooling, about the difficulty of dividing fish into facultative and obligate schooling, about the importance of knowledge about schooling behavior for solving applied problems have been considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the famous scenes of Antony of Padua’s sermon to the fishes and Francis of Assisi’s preaching to the birds, this article shows how the Friar minors’ preaching formed a discursive space that gave voice and representation to new segments of thirteenth-century urban society. From Francis’ experimental initiatives to Anthony of Padua’s and Berthold of Regensburg’s well-planned preaching campaigns, the friars were able to speak to a society undergoing profound transformation and marked by tensions and fears. The crowds gathering to hear the preachers were moved by the perception that what was being stated in an accessible language was actually relevant to their lives. Somehow, as part of this communicative process, the preacher addressed a large crowd and yet each person in the audience – at least at some points – had the impression that he or she was the preacher’s actual addressee, as in a personal conversation. That is to say, they had the feeling that they were real interlocutors, not a shapeless mob.

A simple self-experiment allows for the measurement of individual pedestrian movements, aiming to understand the deviations from intended directions seen in heterogeneous human crowds. The method involves pedestrian self-observations using the GPS sensor of a smartphone, providing a unique perspective on individual behavior within a crowd and offering a means to evaluate average pedestrian speed. The study is focused on individual mobility in the context of a heterogeneous crowd rather than the behavior of a crowd composed of similar types of people. With this study, an important contribution to the understanding of interpersonal distances in heterogeneous crowds is made.

For Durkheim, individuals' survival and well-being rest on cultural resources and social belonging that must be revived periodically in collective assemblies. Durkheim's concern was to clarify how these assemblies achieve this revitalization. An intensive examination of primitive religions led him to identify successive levels of engagement experienced by participants and to develop explanatory principles relevant to all types of collective gatherings. Durkheim's conception is widely referred to nowadays. However, the question of its empirical status remains open. We extracted from his text his main statements and translated them into research questions. We then examined each question in relation to current theories and findings. In particular, we relied on the plethora of recent cognitive and social-psychology studies that document conditions of reduced self-other differentiation. Abundant data support that each successive moment of collective assemblies contributes to blurring this differentiation. Ample support also exists that because shared emotions are increasingly amplified in collective context, they can fuel high-intensity experiences. Moreover, recent studies of self-transcendent emotions can account for the self-transformative effects described by Durkheim at the climax of collective assemblies. In conclusion, this century-old model is remarkably supported by recent results, mostly collected in experimental settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the eighteenth-century ways of thinking about nature in connection with sociability and retirement by juxtaposing some of the poetry of the period with the discourses concerned with gardens and the aesthetics of garden design. In the writings of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Joseph Addison, William Gilpin, Elizabeth Montagu, and William Shenstone, the interest in the value of retirement as a much-needed respite from polite society is accompanied with some concern about the dangers of inactivity and idleness. Nature is thus supposed to offer an appropriately shaded, harmonious environment that provides spiritual reinvigoration and cultivation of taste, away from the tumult of urban crowds. In the poetry of Thomas Gray and William Blake, in turn, one may notice the evocation of nature as a more disturbing force, which, rather than merely confirming to the taste for harmony, seems to challenge some of the premises of polite culture. Paying attention to aesthetic thought, cultural history and poetic discourse, the article provides some insights into the complexity of the eighteenth-century aesthetics of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines how crowd empowerment and its control inscribe the agency of nonhuman nature in the social movement and the governmental strategy within the context of China–Hong Kong connections. Concerning the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement, it examines how the agency is dispersed among the interactions of human crowds and nonhuman forces in particular environments. Humans look to nature as a source of inspiration for their conduct, even if nature is never one thing. As the notions of nature are mediated by culturally specific prejudices, people only talk about their society's ideas about nature when they talk about "nature" and any appeals to nature are highly ideological. In the first part, the essay discusses the excessive use of tear gas to weaponize the atmosphere functions as a medium and message that articulates a communicative politics connecting the protesters and the larger community for interaffective attunement. The atmospheric change unravels an attunement to possibilities opening to some people who throw themselves to be affected and push a situation into an event. In the second part, the essay analyzes how the collective climbing of Lion Rock, a mountain symbolizing the ethos and values of the Hong Kong community, during the protest movement transcends the physical limitation of the protesters' perception to an expanded view and a higher status beyond human to confront a changing and incommensurable world below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of digital models obtained using the iTero Element 1 intraoral scanner and traditional plaster models for measurements in mild to moderate crowding. Methods: 37 patients who sought treatment at the Qinxing Road Clinic of Kunming Medical University Affiliated Stomatological Hospital were selected. The iTero Element 1 intraoral scanner was used to obtain digital models, while alginate impression was used to obtain traditional plaster models. The differences in digtal measurements and manual measurements of the traditional plaster models of tooth crown width, dental arch width, and coverage were compared. Results: The ICC value of the three repeated measurements for both digital and plaster models were all above 0.9, indicating good repeatability. There were statistically significant differences in the arch width of 14～24 in mild and moderate crowded group, crown width (11, 16, 21, 31, 36, 41, 43, 46) and 22 overjet in mild crowded group, and crown width of (11, 23, 16, 31) and 11, 12 overjet in moderate crowded group. Conclusion: There are some differences between the data from iTero digital models and the manually measured plaster models in cases of mild to moderate crowding. This may be due to misalignment of teeth, leading to measurement errors. However, the differences in measurement data are small and do not affect the clinical application of iTero digital models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Home advantage and referee bias are two sport factors that have been widely studied in the football (i.e., soccer) context. However, the mediating effect of spectators on these factors is not well understood, especially in the Turkish Super League. We examined (a) how variables of home advantage, referee bias, and spectator presence interacted to affect the outcome of past football matches; (b) how these variables have changed over time in the Turkish Super League; (c) and whether home advantage and referee bias differ in matches with spectators and ghost matches (without spectators). We analyzed regular season matches played in the Turkish Super League between the 2014-2015 and 2021-2022 seasons. We found that home teams had a significant advantage over away teams in matches with spectators (p <.001) and in ghost matches (p <.05 and p <.001), with small to medium effect sizes (d =.09 and.34, respectively). Regarding referee bias, away teams received more yellow cards and fewer penalties than home teams in matches with spectators (p <.001; d = −.10), and away teams received fewer yellow cards than home teams in ghost matches (p >.05; d =.05). There was no statistically significant difference between home and away teams on number of red cards in either type of match (p >.05). Thus, our data reveal that home teams have an edge over away teams with and without spectators, but this advantage is reduced during ghost matches (without spectators). We also revealed weak evidence of referee bias in favor of home teams, but only for some variables and only when spectators were present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time crowd control has become an important research topic due to the recent advancement in console game quality and hardware processing capability (Joseph, Et al., 2012) as a part of the developing activities related to entertainment of different user categories with range of different interests. That personalities emerged in a mass gathering are often non-deliberative, letting unpredictable chances for crowd disasters as a result of the act of mass impulse. Computer vision studies related to crowd are observed to resonate with the understanding of the emergent behavior in physics (complex computer systems related to develop computer capabilities of capturing and recognizing number of variables) (Ven, Et al., 2016). However, crowd control from the aspect of interaction design has not been fully explored. Therefore, this paper provides an analytical study for crowds’ behavior in Hajj & Umrah as an extreme case, with an overview of the key procedures of crowd control from the perspectives of interaction design, regarding the huge range of different attributes of crowd such as decentralized, collective motion, emergent behavior. Focusing on the main rituals and needs in both Hajj & Umrah that related to passive interactions between the crowd and the organized context, such as congestion avoidance or providing medical services. Listing in the end the different disciplines needed to work on finding the proper solution to control this crowd, and so the main points that design team has to regard while working to ensure the highest performance of safety and user satisfaction and leave no chance for mistakes, which could be fatal at some points.

This article hermeneutically analyzes the pericope of Mark 3.31-35. This is done from the observation of the existence of its insertion in a sandwich scheme (A-B-A') in Mark 3.20-35, of which the pericope in question forms part A' of the scheme. Brief considerations are outlined on parts A and B, just enough for the full understanding of part A', object of the article. The research was bibliographic, the method used was the hermeneutic and the objective of the article is explanatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sports spectators are one of the factors that affect home advantage. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created unique conditions under which most of the leagues in the world played matches without crowds for over six months. This situation facilitated an analytical comparison of two different periods: before and during the coronavirus pandemic. The current study sought to examine home advantage in the Israeli sport domain in general, and specifically the impact of the absence of a crowd. The study consisted of 4,030 matches played in Israel’s top football and basketball leagues, of which 3,589 took place with crowds from August 2015 to March 2020, while the others were held without spectators from May 2020 to February 2021. Descriptive and analyses of variance procedures indicated a home advantage independent of crowd size, density, geographic region, league level, and type of sport. However, higher-quality teams demonstrated a higher home advantage ratio for the goals conceded. The findings of the study indicate that in the Israeli context, the crowd plays less of a role in home advantage than other potential factors.

Inspired by the 2011 Occupy Oakland movement, Juliana Spahr's volume of poetry That Winter the Wolf Came (2015) brings to the forefront major concerns of contemporary politically engaged poetry, in particular the question of whether and how poetry as a literary practice can engender oppositional political action and nurture collective agency. This essay argues that Spahr's volume, in its attentiveness to forms in both their aesthetic and political dimensions, seeks to resist and reconfigure capitalist power structures and prefigure alternative social arrangements. Within Spahr's poetics, the refrain emerges as a crucial formal device, as an ambivalent figure of repetition that performatively creates and disrupts aesthetic and social rhythms. Furthermore, Spahr's poetry engages strategically with the form of the lyric, mobilizing the ostensibly immediate and authentic voice of an autobiographical first-person speaker. Depicted as embodied and entangled, this speaker does not project a transcendent subject, however, but a performative stance that models the individual in its close affective ties with others. Ultimately, That Winter celebrates the figure of the crowd as an agent of disarray: characterized by openness and possibility, the crowd's affective power unsettles the entrenched rhythms of state-sanctioned capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discovery of the eusocial behavior of ants and bees in the 1960s fundamentally rewrote the decades of entomological research, biology, and ultimately human self-understanding. Understanding that these insect species organize themselves into social constellations similar to ours suggests that the sociability of homo sapiens sapiens will also be seen in a different light. But what made the insect world suitable for becoming a specific form of human self-understanding between the second half of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century? My paper is limited to just a few situations when, in the course of my own literary studies, the early intersections of the insect world and human self-understanding flashed before me, drawing the possible contours of a pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abnormal event detection is one of the most challenging tasks in computer vision. Many existing deep anomaly detection models are based on reconstruction errors, where the training phase is performed using only videos of normal events and the model is then capable to estimate frame-level scores for an unknown input. It is assumed that the reconstruction error gap between frames of normal and abnormal scores is high for abnormal events during the testing phase. Yet, this assumption may not always hold due to superior capacity and generalization of deep neural networks. In this paper, we design a generalized framework (rpNet) for proposing a series of deep models by fusing several options of a reconstruction network (rNet) and a prediction network (pNet) to detect anomaly in videos efficiently. In the rNet, either a convolutional autoencoder (ConvAE) or a skip connected ConvAE (AEc) can be used, whereas in the pNet, either a traditional U-Net, a non-local block U-Net, or an attention block U-Net (aUnet) can be applied. The fusion of both rNet and pNet increases the error gap. Our deep models have distinct degree of feature extraction capabilities. One of our models (AEcaUnet) consists of an AEc with our proposed aUnet has capability to confirm better error gap and to extract high quality of features needed for video anomaly detection. Experimental results on UCSD-Ped1, UCSD-Ped2, CUHK-Avenue, ShanghaiTech-Campus, and UMN datasets with rigorous statistical analysis show the effectiveness of our models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Safety & Security Sciences Review / Biztonságtudományi Szemle is the property of Obuda University 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.)

The home advantage and the subconscious referee bias regularly occur in professional sports, particularly in association football. The matches played behind closed doors in spring and summer 2020 highlighted that the crowd support is one of the main factors contributing to both phenomena in domestic leagues. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the same applies also to national teams matches, given the different impact of the other factors determining the home advantage in such matches. To this purpose, the 2018–19 and the 2020–21 editions of the UEFA Nations League – 133 matches each – were analysed, the former played in front of spectators while the latter with no or limited attendance. In particular, we examined a set of indicators of home advantage (match outcome, points, goals scored, ball possession, total shots, shots on goal, corner kicks) and of referee bias (fouls, yellow cards, red cards, penalty kicks, extra time), controlling for the FIFA World Ranking points and the number of time zones crossed. Comparing home and away teams on these parameters within each edition, we observed the occurrence of both phenomena in 2018-19, as well as their absence in 2020-21. Moreover, the comparison between the two editions revealed a significant reduction of both phenomena. The results indicate that spectators have a decisive role in contributing to both the home advantage and the referee bias in national teams matches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban public security incidents are prone to occur. Better understanding of pedestrian abnormal behavior and trajectory in crowded places is conducive to crowd management and safety monitoring. A novel pedestrian abnormal behavior detection model (PABDM) is proposed to identify crowd behavior under abnormal scenarios. This model originated from a multiscale fusion you only look once (YOLO) version 3 (V3) algorithm and was trained using the PASCAL visual object classes (VOC) in combination with an abnormal pedestrian data set (APD), denoted as VOC+APD. Compared with YOLOV3-VOC, single-stage detectors (SSD)-VOC, and SSD-VOC þ APD, the proposed model has notable advantages in prediction accuracy and detection efficiency. The results show that the network loss function of the model tends to be stable after 500 epochs, and its detection accuracy is 6% higher than the average accuracy of the compared models. This proposed model also effectively solves the problem of missing detection caused by edge target, fuzzy target, and small target in abnormal state human detection. The research results are of great significance for real-time crowd monitoring in complex scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Thélème is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid 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.)