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Recent studies showed that real-world items are better remembered in visual working memory (VWM) than visually similar stimuli that are stripped of their semantic meaning. However, the exact nature of this advantage remains unclear. We used meaningful and meaningless stimuli in a location-reproduction VWM task. Employing a mixture-modeling analysis, we examined whether semantic meaning enables more item locations to be remembered, whether it improves the precision of the locations stored in memory, or whether it improves binding between the specific items and their locations. Participants were presented with streams of four (Experiments 1 & 2) or six (Experiment 3) real-world items, or their scrambled, meaningless counterparts. Each item was presented at a unique location, and the task was to reproduce one item's location. Overall, location memory was consistently better for real-world items compared with their scrambled counterparts. Furthermore, the results revealed that participants were less likely to make swap errors for the meaningful items, but there was no effect of conceptual meaning on the guess rate or the precision of the report. In line with previous findings, these results indicate that conceptual meaning enhances VWM for arbitrary stimulus properties such as item location, and this improvement is primarily due to a more efficient identity-location binding rather than an increase in the quantity or quality (precision) of the locations held in memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In adults, spatial location plays a special role in visual object processing. People are more likely to judge two sequentially presented objects as being identical when they appear in the same location compared to in different locations (a phenomenon referred to as Spatial Congruency Bias [SCB]). However, no comparable Identity Congruency Bias (ICB) is found, suggesting an asymmetric location‐identity relationship in object binding. What gives rise to this asymmetric congruency bias? This paper considered two possible hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 suggests that the asymmetric congruency bias results from an inherently special role of location in the visual system. In contrast, Hypothesis 2 suggests that the asymmetric congruency bias is a product of development, reflecting people's experience with the world. To distinguish the two hypotheses, we tested both adults' and 5‐year‐old children's SCB and ICB by Identity Judgment Experiments and Spatial Judgment Experiments, respectively. The study found that adults only exhibited a SCB, but no ICB. However, young children exhibited both SCB and ICB, suggesting a symmetric congruency bias and reciprocal influences between location and identity in early development. The results indicate that the asymmetric location‐identity relationship develops as object identity's influence on location gets pruned away, while location's influence on identity is preserved, possibly due to people's gained experiences with regularities of the world. Research Highlights: Adults exhibit Spatial Congruency Bias—an asymmetric location‐identity relationship with location biasing their judgment of object identities, but not vice versa.Asymmetric congruency bias may result from an inherently special role of location in visual system (Hypothesis 1) or accumulated experiences with the world (Hypothesis 2).To distinguish the two hypotheses, the study investigated the Spatial Congruency Bias and Identity Congruency Bias in both adults and 5‐year‐old children.Unlike adults who exhibited only Spatial Congruency Bias, 5‐year‐old children exhibited both Spatial Congruency Bias and Identity Congruency Bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article explores how consumers' relative spatial location influences their preferences and choices. Drawing on the conceptual metaphor literature, the author proposes that people interpret the abstract concept of risk using a more tangible concept: their location relative to the center or edge of a space. Five main studies (and a pilot) reveal the existence of a metaphorical association between risk and spatial location and show how this association systematically affects consumer risk-taking behavior. Specifically, people positioned closer to the edges (vs. center) of space are disproportionately more likely to seek (vs. avoid) risky choices. This phenomenon is demonstrated across various decision-making scenarios in the laboratory and field, using both physical and virtual manipulations of space. This effect occurs because being located closer to the edges (vs. center) evokes concepts related to risk (vs. safety), making risky (vs. safe) products easier to process and, as a result, more desirable. Moreover, this research sheds light on the effect characteristics and boundary conditions. The author concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for consumers and businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextual cueing leads to improved efficiency in visual search resulting from the extraction of spatial regularities in repeated visual stimuli. Previous research has demonstrated the independent contributions of global configuration and spatial position to contextual cueing. The present study aimed to investigate whether learned spatial configuration or individual locations would elicit fixation patterns resembling those observed in the original displays. We found that search guidance based on either local or global spatial context, by combining distractor locations from two learned displays or rotating displays, kept not only search time facilitation intact, in agreement with previous studies, but also enabled search with less fixations and more direct scan paths to the target. Fixation distribution maps of recombined or rotated displays were more similar to the original displays than randomnewdisplays. However, for rotated displays this was only true when the rotation angle was taken into account. Overall, this shows an astonishingly flexible use of the oculomotor system for search in incompletely repeated displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have demonstrated that spatial location impacts temporal order perception, and that the effect of spatial location on temporal order perception varies across cultures. English and Spanish speakers can perceive left-side stimuli occur earlier than right-side stimuli, while native Hebrew speakers do not express this characteristic. Likewise, only a few studies have investigated the effect of spatial location on temporal order perception in Chinese culture, which would be the main aim of this research. In Experiments 1–3, a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, simultaneity judgment (SJ) task, and TOJ-SJ dual-task were used to test the effect of spatial location on temporal order perception. On the horizontal axis, the effect of spatial location on temporal order perception was observed only in the TOJ task, with Mandarin speakers perceiving left-side stimuli occur earlier than right-side stimuli. On the vertical axis, Mandarin speakers consistently perceived the top-side stimuli occur earlier than the bottom-side stimuli in every task. In Experiment 4, an 'orthogonal' (location-unrelated) TOJ task was used, where the participants were required to judge the color order that appeared. We also observed the effect of spatial location (top or left) on temporal order perception in this experiment. The results indicated that the effects of spatial location on temporal order perception were robust in both horizontal and vertical directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study, focusing on the New Economy, aims to analyze the location of Information Technology (IT) activities in Brazil. Discusses this service sector and its installation in cities and analyzes the presence of companies and employees in Brazil in a comparison on a national scale between the federation units; and between municipalities; while, on a regional scale, it addresses the state of São Paulo. The work uses, above all, the official databases of the Annual List of Social Information (RAIS), linked to the Ministry of Labor and Employment of the federal government, managing to reveal the entire Brazilian territory. The theoretical basis is related to studies of innovation and territory, pointing out that the transformation of the technological base with global contours, from the second half of the 20th century, led to the emergence of a New Economy, which has an emphasis on information, knowledge, learning and innovation. As a result of the study, the presence of IT in Brazilian capitals is presented, especially in the South and Southeast of the country, with the supremacy of São Paulo and its metropolitan region. The study highlights a large concentration of IT activities in large centers, demonstrating the permanence or deepening of territorial inequalities in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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AR assembly instruction is a method that helps users with manual assembly by overlaying virtual information on the real environment. However, users have to manually change the information display form, which fails to adapt to their varying information needs in different stages of the assembly task. This study proposes a user-centered adaptive visualization method for AR manual assembly that can provide the necessary information according to the user's intention in the assembly process. This paper develops a system (UIAVS) through an information hierarchy mechanism and a user intention recognition method based on the user's eye gaze, the spatial location, and current assembly task, which can adaptively adjust the visibility of information, how much information is displayed, and the change of visualization form. UIAVS was tested for the first time in a small engine assembly task. Twenty-four participants were randomly assigned to different task familiarity (novice and expert) and different information visualization response methods for assembly task experiments. The results show that UIAVS has better task performance and cognitive performance as well as user experience than traditional AR assembly instruction method, especially for experts. The research results have certain guiding significance for the design of AR assembly instructions, which extends the application of AR technology in practical complex assembly tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attentional blink can be substantially reduced by delivering a task-irrelevant sound synchronously with the second target (T2) embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, which is further modulated by the semantic congruency between the sound and T2. The present study extended the cross-modal boost during attentional blink and the modulation of audiovisual semantic congruency in the spatial domain by showing that a spatially uninformative, semantically congruent (but not incongruent) sound could even improve the discrimination of spatially unpredictable T2 during attentional blink. T2-locked event-related potential (ERP) data yielded that the early cross-modal P195 difference component (184–234 ms) over the occipital scalp contralateral to the T2 location was larger preceding accurate than inaccurate discriminations of semantically congruent, but not incongruent, audiovisual T2s. Interestingly, the N2pc component (194–244 ms) associated with visual-spatial attentional allocation was enlarged for incongruent audiovisual T2s relative to congruent audiovisual and unisensory visual T2s only when they were accurately discriminated. These ERP findings suggest that the spatially extended cross-modal boost during attentional blink involves an early cross-modal interaction strengthening the perceptual processing of T2, without any sound-induced enhancement of visual-spatial attentional allocation toward T2. In contrast, the absence of an accuracy decrease in response to semantically incongruent audiovisual T2s may originate from the semantic mismatch capturing extra visual-spatial attentional resources toward T2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Española de Sociología is the property of Federacion Espanola de Sociologia 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.)

Educational facilities are an important part of public service facilities. The scientific planning of educational facilities is conducive to the optimal allocation of educational resources and the equalization of educational services. In view of the insufficient supply and uneven spatial distribution of urban educational service facilities, this study adopted an improved two-step optimization method to maximize the equality of school accessibility by optimizing the spatial location and service capacity of urban primary schools. First, the improved p-median model was constructed, and the Teitz–Bart algorithm was used to solve the model to site new primary schools. Second, a quadratic programming method was used to optimize the service capacity of new primary schools. Finally, the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method was used to analyze and evaluate the accessibility of population centers to schools before and after the site selection and service capacity optimization of new schools. The results show that the improved two-step optimization approach can effectively determine the best locations and service capacity of new schools to improve the spatial accessibility of schools and realize the fair distribution of educational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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BackgroundEvidence suggests that geographic location may independently contribute to ovarian cancer survival. We aimed to investigate how the association between residential location and ovarian cancer-specific survival in California varies by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status.MethodsAdditive Cox proportional hazard models were used to predict hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between geographic location throughout California and survival among 29,844 women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer between 1996 and 2014. We conducted permutation tests to determine a global P-value for significance of location. Adjusted analyses considered distance traveled for care, distance to closest high-quality-of-care hospital, and receipt of National Comprehensive Cancer Network guideline care. Models were also stratified by stage, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.ResultsLocation was significant in unadjusted models (P = 0.009 among all stages) but not in adjusted models (P = 0.20). HRs ranged from 0.81 (95% CI: 0.70, 0.93) in Southern Central Valley to 1.41 (95% CI: 1.15, 1.73) in Northern California but were attenuated after adjustment (maximum HR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.27). Better survival was generally observed for patients traveling longer distances for care. Associations between survival and proximity to closest high-quality-of-care hospitals were null except for women of lowest socioeconomic status living furthest away (HR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.03, 1.43).ConclusionsOverall, geographic variations observed in ovarian cancer-specific survival were due to important predictors such as receiving guideline-adherent care. Improving access to expert care and ensuring receipt of guideline-adherent treatment should be priorities in optimizing ovarian cancer survival.

Product packaging can serve as a medium that conveys information and concepts regarding its contents. Previous research showed that a product image (visual object) spatially located at the bottom of the package led consumers to evaluate the product to be visually heavier in comparison to an image located at the top of the package did. The present study investigated this location effect (or the bottom-heavy association) in both visual and haptic domains. I succeeded in replicating the location effect in the evaluation of the visual heaviness of a product (Study 1). A diminished but significant location effect was also demonstrated in the haptically perceived heaviness when participants lifted the product with their hands (Study 2). However, the preceding evaluation of the visual heaviness of the product disrupted (rather reversed) the bottom-heavy association in the subsequent heaviness perception of the lifted product (Study 3). When the product image was shown on the bottom of the package, participants perceived the lifted product to be lighter in comparison to when the product image was shown at the top. These results suggest that the psychological effects of packaging design are elicited not only by visual processing but also by visual-haptic integration and that they have bidirectional effects on the consumer’s processing strategy.

Previous studies have posited that spatial location plays a special role in object recognition. Notably, the "spatial congruency bias (SCB)" is a tendency to report objects as the same identity if they are presented at the same location, compared to different locations. Here we found that even when statistical regularities were manipulated in the opposite direction (objects in the same location were three times more likely to be different identities), subjects still exhibited a robust SCB (more likely to report them as the same identity). We replicated this finding across two preregistered experiments. Only in a third experiment where we explicitly informed subjects of the manipulation did the SCB disappear, though the lack of a significantly reversed bias suggests the ingrained congruency bias was not completely overcome. The inclusion of catch trials where the second object was completely masked further bolsters previous evidence that the congruency bias is perceptual, not simply a guessing strategy. These results reinforce the dominant role of spatial information during object recognition and present the SCB as a strong perceptual phenomenon that is incredibly hard to overcome even in the face of opposing regularities and explicit instruction. Public Significance Statement: This study shows that spatial location exerts a strong influence on judgments of object identity. In the real world, objects in the same location tend to be the same identity, and this spatial congruency biasmay be so ingrained that it subconsciously influences object perception, even in settings where the opposite is actually true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering acid site spatial location of zeolite catalyst harbors tremendous potential to boost catalytic performance but still remains a grand challenge for aromatization reaction. Herein, we successfully manipulate acid site spatial location inside the ZSM‐5 channels to promote the hexane aromatization via the simple SiO2 coating treatment. Multi‐techniques demonstrated that the medium strong L acid in the channel originated from the Si(Al)OZn structure is mainly retained in the Zn/ZSM‐5‐Si catalyst by covering the acid sites outside the channel. Surprisingly, there is a good linear relationship between BTEX yield and this medium strong L acid content. Based on the reaction kinetics, in situ FT‐IR and theoretical calculations, it is found that the L acid with confinement effect served as the main active site could prominently enhance the cyclization of propene intermediate and the dehydrogenation of cycloalkane due to the strong affinity between the C/H and ZnOx, and control the desorption of BTEX (mainly benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and p‐xylene) by weakening the binding of hydrogen proton to π electrons. Compared with the ordinary Zn/ZSM‐5 catalyst, the yield of BTEX is increased by nearly 10%, and the Zn/ZSM‐5‐Si catalyst exhibits excellent anti coking deactivation ability. This strategy together with mechanistic results may pave the rational design of efficient Zn/ZSM‐5 catalysts for aromatization reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a single-photon-counting lidar based on time coding that can obtain the target's spatial location and measure the distance and azimuth angle in real time without needing a scanning device. Multiple optical fibers were used to introduce laser echo photons into a single-pixel single-photon detector. According to the deviation in the detection time of the echo photons passing through different optical fibers, multiple distances can be obtained simultaneously. Combining the measured distances with the fiber spacing allows the calculation of the distance, azimuth angle, and spatial coordinates of the target. This lidar has the advantages of high photon detection efficiency, short signal acquisition time, and low cost compared to array detectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to strengthen urban rescue capabilities, a new method is proposed to optimize the spatial distribution of fire stations in urban areas. Potential fire risk places are simplified into points of interest (POIs). Based on the Minimize Facilities Method and Maximize Coverage Algorithm, the number and location of fire stations are determined. In addition, the POIs assigned to the stations are also determined. Moreover, the service area of the fire station is identified according to topological convex hull theory. After that, the coverage rate of the POIs and the sensitivity of the accessible area to the driving time are discussed. At last, Zhongyuan District of Zhengzhou City is taken as an example to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results reveal that current fire stations are insufficient for protecting fire safety. It is necessary to construct three new stations, which will significantly enhance firefighting capabilities. Thus, the areas capable of being timely reached by fire forces in 4.3 min reach 108.8 km2, covering more than 50% of the target district. About 94 percent of the area composed of the target district can be reached in 10 min. Good accessibility indicates the proposed method is capable of optimizing the location of the urban fire station. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sound-induced flash illusion (SiFI) is an auditory-dominated effect in which observers will misperceive the number of flashes due to simultaneously presented beeps, which includes fission and fusion illusions. Although several individual differences have been found in SiFI, little is known about the effect of personality traits. In the present study, we presented flashes in near space and beeps in far space (Vnear_Afar) and flashes in far space and beeps in near space (Vfar_Anear) to better approximate the real world. We collected 103 participants' Big Five questionnaire results and their SiFI task performance to investigate the difference in trait level on the SiFI in the performance of accuracy, d′ and c. The results show that all five personality traits had certain effects on the SiFI to different degrees, and different personality traits played different roles in the fission illusion and fusion illusion. The high agreeableness group was more prone to the fission illusion, and the report criteria were less strict. The report criteria of the low neuroticism group were stricter for the fusion illusion. The extraversion, conscientiousness and low openness groups were more prone to the fusion illusion in the Vnear_Afar condition than in the Vfar_Anear condition. The study indicated that personality traits were important but easily overlooked factors in multisensory illusion, which might make a difference between the fission illusion and the fusion illusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problem of insufficient use of human–object interaction (HOI) information and spatial location information in images, we propose a human–object​ interaction detection network based on graph structure and improved cascade pyramid. This network is composed of three branches, namely, graph branch, human–object branch and human pose branch. In graph branch, we propose a Graph-based Interactive Feature Generation Algorithm (GIFGA) to address the inadequate utilization of interaction information. GIFGA constructs an initial dense graph model by taking humans and objects as nodes and their interaction relationships as edges. Then, by traversing each node, the graph model is updated to generate the final interaction features. In human pose branch, we propose an Improved Cascade Pyramid Network (ICPN) to tackle the underutilization of spatial location information. ICPN extracts human pose features and maps both the object bounding boxes and extracted human pose maps onto the global feature map to capture the most discriminative interaction-related region features within the global context. Finally, the features from the three branches are fed into a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) for fusion and then classified for recognition. Experimental results demonstrate that our network achieves mAP of 54.93% and 28.69% on the V-COCO and HICO-DET datasets, respectively. • Integrated Graph-based Framework for Enhanced Detection: We introduce an innovative framework that seamlessly integrates graph structures with an improved cascaded pyramid network. • Efficient Contextual Modeling via GIFGA: By modeling human–object interactions (HOI) through a graph structure, we efficiently harness contextual information. • Improved Cascade Pyramid Network (ICPN) for Spatial Awareness: we present the Improved Cascade Pyramid Network (ICPN). ICPN integrates human pose features with object boxes, mapping them onto the global feature map. • Good Generalization and Effectiveness Demonstrated: Through extensive experiments on large-scale public benchmark datasets, we validate that our proposed Human–Object Interaction Detection Algorithm, based on the graph structure and ICPN, exhibits remarkable generalization ability and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioural syndromes theory predicts animals will exhibit sets of correlated risk-taking behaviours, with individuals displaying a constant willingness to take risks across different situations. Because this phenomenon has mostly been investigated under artificial experimental conditions, we aimed to establish whether wild animals spontaneously exhibit correlated risk-taking behaviours. We merged a large data set of spatial positions from 43 wild boar, Sus scrofa , with the spatial distribution of risks, modelling their risk-induced resource selection. Elaborating these data by means of a resource selection analysis (step selection functions) and focusing only on periods when individuals were active represents an innovative approach to the study of spontaneous risk-taking behaviour exhibited across different situations. We sampled wild boar from two populations in southern Europe living in extremely different environmental conditions (mountainous versus Mediterranean area). We used model coefficients and parameters as quantitative measures of four different risk-taking behaviours (human avoidance, site fidelity, selection for covered habitat and mobility), for both the population and the individual level. A risk-taking syndrome was detected within both populations, with wild boar clustering in two groups sharing homogeneous sets of risk-taking behaviours. Contrary to the theoretical expectation which predicted individual use of consistent strategies, we observed a compensation among pairs of risk-taking behaviours, with individuals that could be considered risk avoiders on account of strong site fidelity and human avoidance being risk prone in terms of a low selection for covered habitats and a high mobility. Our results suggest that wild animals may adaptively exhibit strategies trading off different risk-taking behaviours. The similarities of risk-taking strategies in the two monitored populations suggested that the observed syndrome was not shaped by biotic or abiotic factors, but rather unintentionally caused by humans. • Telemetry data allow to study behavioural syndromes of free-ranging animals. • Resource selection modelling successfully described wild boar risk-taking behaviours. • Wild boar exhibited a syndrome which traded-off different risk-taking behaviours. • The spontaneous risk-taking syndrome differed from the theoretical expectation. • Humans were likely the main driver of the observed risk-taking syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems is critical for combating global climate change and achieving regional carbon neutrality, and LUCC is a vital factor influencing the carbon cycle process of terrestrial ecosystems and causing changes in carbon sources/sinks. This study analyzes the drivers of LUCC based on a review of the dynamics of LUCC in Changzhi from 2000 to 2020, analyzes the driving factors of LUCC using the Clue-S model and binary logistic regression analysis model, then simulates land-use patterns under different scenarios in 2030 by the CA-Markov model, and finally analyzes carbon stock changes and spatial distribution characteristics in different periods from the perspective of carbon source/sink interconversion with the help of InVEST model. The results show: (1) in the past two decades, more than 90% of the expansion of artificial surfaces in Changzhi comes from cultivated land. Ecological conservation policies are more decisive in influencing LUCC than natural, social, and transportation accessibility factors. (2) During the 20 years, the total carbon stock increased by 680,989.73 t, with the carbon emission control area accounting for 7.5%, mainly distributed near urban centers and coal mining areas. The carbon sink enhancement area accounts for 5.5% and is mainly concentrated near forest land and ecological and nature reserves. (3) The spatial location of cities influences the density of carbon stock in the adjacent range. Carbon stock density increases within the buffer zone with the distance from urban center, county center, expressways, national highway, settlements, rivers, provincial roads, reservoirs, railways, county highway, and village roads. The rate of carbon stock increase per 100 m is 0.12 t/ha, 0.25 t/ha, 0.17 t/ha, 0.36 t/ha, 0.71 t/ha, 0.33 t/ha, 0.38 t/ha, 0.57 t/ha, 0.23 t/ha, 0.46 t/ha, and 0.48 t/ha respectively. The higher the administrative center and road grades, the lower the carbon density will be instead. (4) In the 2030 CD scenario, compared with the ND scenario, the cultivated land and grassland are effectively protected and the cultivated land area is increased by 445.68 km2, while the expansion of artificial surface is suppressed and the area is reduced by 448.2 km2, which ultimately leads to a reduction in carbon loss of 392,011.85 t. Future ecological management should focus on protecting high-value carbon sink areas and carbon sink enhancement areas and the ecological management and restoration of low-value carbon sink areas and carbon emission control areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a single-photon-counting lidar based on time coding that can obtain the target’s spatial location and measure the distance and azimuth angle in real time without needing a scanning device. Multiple optical fibers were used to introduce laser echo photons into a single-pixel single-photon detector. According to the deviation in the detection time of the echo photons passing through different optical fibers, multiple distances can be obtained simultaneously. Combining the measured distances with the fiber spacing allows the calculation of the distance, azimuth angle, and spatial coordinates of the target. This lidar has the advantages of high photon detection efficiency, short signal acquisition time, and low cost compared to array detectors.

To investigate the role of the spatial position of conversing talkers, that is, spatially separated or co-located, in the listener's short-term memory of running speech and listening effort. In two experiments (between-subject), participants underwent a dual-task paradigm, including a listening (primary) task wherein male and female talkers spoke coherent texts. Talkers were either spatially separated or co-located (within-subject). As a secondary task, visually presented tasks were used. Experiment I involved a number-judgement task, and Experiment II entailed switching between number and letter-judgement task. Twenty-four young adults who reported normal hearing and normal or corrected to normal vision participated in each experiment. They were all students from the RWTH Aachen University. In both experiments, similar short-term memory performance of running speech was found independently of talkers being spatially separated or co-located. Performance in the secondary tasks, however, differed between these two talkers' auditory stimuli conditions, indicating that spatially separated talkers imposed reduced listening effort compared to their co-location. The findings indicated that auditory-perceptive information, such as the spatial position of talkers, plays a role in higher-level auditory cognition, that is, short-term memory of running speech, even when listening in quiet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of Shanghai, urban construction has changed the geographical location choices of foreign enterprises. This paper uses spatial econometric methods to analyze the preferences of foreign companies when choosing addresses by considering location factors and aggregation factors. The results show that Shanghai's newly introduced foreign‐funded enterprises are mainly concentrated in six industries, including wholesale and retail, manufacturing, leasing, and commercial services, and the geographic spatial distribution of new foreign enterprises in Shanghai shows "central concentration and peripheral dispersion." There is an obvious inverted U‐shaped pattern in this phenomenon. Among the location factors, distance from the airport is an important factor that affects the location choice of enterprises. In addition, agglomeration factors have different effects on the location models of new enterprises in six industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Airports are important transportation hubs, but their locations searched on open databases are not reliable. Manual verification of these locations is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so that a rapid and automated validation of their spatial location is necessary. In this study, three datasets of global airports were collected and fused into one dataset through coordinate and name matching. The fused dataset contained 46 290 airport (with runway) records. Then, we downloaded the remote sensing images of these airports from Google Earth. To determine whether there were airports in these images, we proposed a process framework. In this framework, we used a two-scale runway detector based on YOLOv3 to initially detect the airport runway, then used a re-classifier based on ResNet-101 to improve the accuracy of the initial detection results and gave a comprehensive result score. The precision of this process framework and the airport recall rate on the test dataset reached 95.4% and 95.6%, respectively. The framework was applied to airport locations around the world. When the threshold of the result score was set to 0.65, 29 259 airport records passed the verification. In addition, we manually verified the application results. The accuracy of the process framework reached 91%, while its speed was 15 times faster than that of the manual verification. The results showed that the entire process framework can quickly and reliably help verify the spatial locations of airports worldwide and provide processing ideas for the validation of the spatial locations of other remote sensing objects.

Spatial location of sugarcane nodes using robots in agricultural conditions is a challenge in modern precision agriculture owing to the complex form of the sugarcane node when wrapped with leaves and the high computational demand. To solve these problems, a new binocular location method based on the improved YOLOv4 was proposed in this paper. First, the YOLOv4 deep learning algorithm was improved by the Channel Pruning Technology in network slimming, so as to ensure the high recognition accuracy of the deep learning algorithm and to facilitate transplantation to embedded chips. Secondly, the SIFT feature points were optimised by the RANSAC algorithm and epipolar constraint, which greatly reduced the mismatching problem caused by the similarity between stem nodes and sugarcane leaves. Finally, by using the optimised matching point to solve the homography transformation matrix, the space location of the sugarcane nodes was for the first time applied to the embedded chip in the complex field environment. The experimental results showed that the improved YOLOv4 algorithm reduced the model size, parameters and FLOPs by about 89.1%, while the average precision (AP) of stem node identification only dropped by 0.1% (from 94.5% to 94.4%). Compared with other deep learning algorithms, the improved YOLOv4 algorithm also has great advantages. Specifically, the improved algorithm was 1.3% and 0.3% higher than SSD and YOLOv3 in average precision (AP). In terms of parameters, FLOPs and model size, the improved YOLOv4 algorithm was only about 1/3 of SSD and 1/10 of YOLOv3. At the same time, the average locational error of the stem node in the Z direction was only 1.88 mm, which totally meets the demand of sugarcane harvesting robots in the next stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present two steps in the process of automatic annotation in archeological images. These steps are feature extraction and feature selection. We focus our research on archeological images which are very much studied in our days. It presents the most important steps in the process of automatic annotation in an image. Feature extraction techniques are applied to get the feature that will be used in classifying and recognizing the images. Also, the selection of characteristics reduces the number of unattractive characteristics. However, we reviewed various images of feature extraction techniques to analyze the archaeological images. Each feature represents one or more feature descriptors in the archeological images. We focus on the descriptor shape of the archaeological objects extraction in the images using contour method-based shape recognition of the monuments. So, the feature selection stage serves to acquire the most interesting characteristics to improve the accuracy of the classification. In the feature selection section, we present a comparative study between feature selection techniques. Then we give our proposal of application of methods of selection of the characteristics of the archaeological images. Finally, we calculate the performance of two steps already mentioned: the extraction of characteristics and the selection of characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In order to strengthen urban rescue capabilities, a new method is proposed to optimize the spatial distribution of fire stations in urban areas. Potential fire risk places are simplified into points of interest (POIs). Based on the Minimize Facilities Method and Maximize Coverage Algorithm, the number and location of fire stations are determined. In addition, the POIs assigned to the stations are also determined. Moreover, the service area of the fire station is identified according to topological convex hull theory. After that, the coverage rate of the POIs and the sensitivity of the accessible area to the driving time are discussed. At last, Zhongyuan District of Zhengzhou City is taken as an example to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results reveal that current fire stations are insufficient for protecting fire safety. It is necessary to construct three new stations, which will significantly enhance firefighting capabilities. Thus, the areas capable of being timely reached by fire forces in 4.3 min reach 108.8 km2, covering more than 50% of the target district. About 94 percent of the area composed of the target district can be reached in 10 min. Good accessibility indicates the proposed method is capable of optimizing the location of the urban fire station.

Identifying and tracking equines are key activities in equine health prevention. France is one of the few European countries with an operational centralized database that records information on equines, owners, and keepers but not on the location and keeping conditions of equines. The objective of our study was to collect information on keeping habits of equines and the relative location of a wide range of equines, owners, and keepers and discuss their implication for surveillance and control of outbreak improvement. A national email survey was conducted among the 1.9% of people registered as owners and 8.2% of people registered as keepers in the French national equine identification database having given their agreement to be contacted by email. It led to the collection of information from 728 owners, 121 keepers, and 2,669 owner–keepers. Most of them housed their equines in a single commune (smallest geographic administrative unit in France) at their home as private individuals. The distance between the communes of residence and of holding was, in most cases (including 79% of owners in the owner survey, 89.5% of the keepers in the keeper survey, and about 94% of the owner–keepers in both surveys), less than 30 km. More than half of the keepers kept a maximum of five equines and the majority with two different uses/destinations together, mostly leisure-retirement, leisure-breeding, leisure-sport, and sport-breeding. The main limitation of the study was that a relatively limited number of people (n = 3518) were reachable due to the low availability of an email address and contact agreement. Nonetheless, the findings provide an overview of how equines are kept by non-professional owners and keepers and complements information usually collected by the French riding institute. Additionally, information collected is very helpful to determine a realistic estimate of the spatial distribution of equines in France. This information is very important for the equine sector, for demographic knowledge and also improvement of surveillance plans and control measures and for the management and monitoring of health events to limit the spread of diseases.

Recent studies have hypothesized that the stereotypical representation of the body may reflect some functional aspects of routine actions that are performed in specific peripersonal domains. For example, the lower and upper limbs tend to 'act' in different peripersonal spaces and perform different functions. The present study aims to directly investigate the relationship between body representation and the spatial context where actions are performed. By means of a modified version of the body image task, we investigated body representation before and after a sorting task training in two groups of participants who were asked to carry out the same task/actions in two different spaces: on a table or on the floor, while sitting on a chair. Findings showed that a significant recalibration of the perceived upper arms' length occurred when participants were asked to perform a motor task on the floor. These results seem to suggest that the modulation of the body representation reflects an increase action capabilities driven by the contribution of motor training, and importantly, the location in which the action occurs. Furthermore, the modulation was not limited to the body part actively involved in the action (the arms), it extended to other upper body parts (the torso) to maintain, we propose, a functionally coherent representation of the upper body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Space & Society / Tér és Társadalom is the property of Centre for Economic & Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences 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.)

Carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems is critical for combating global climate change and achieving regional carbon neutrality, and LUCC is a vital factor influencing the carbon cycle process of terrestrial ecosystems and causing changes in carbon sources/sinks. This study analyzes the drivers of LUCC based on a review of the dynamics of LUCC in Changzhi from 2000 to 2020, analyzes the driving factors of LUCC using the Clue-S model and binary logistic regression analysis model, then simulates land-use patterns under different scenarios in 2030 by the CA-Markov model, and finally analyzes carbon stock changes and spatial distribution characteristics in different periods from the perspective of carbon source/sink interconversion with the help of InVEST model. The results show: (1) in the past two decades, more than 90% of the expansion of artificial surfaces in Changzhi comes from cultivated land. Ecological conservation policies are more decisive in influencing LUCC than natural, social, and transportation accessibility factors. (2) During the 20 years, the total carbon stock increased by 680,989.73 t, with the carbon emission control area accounting for 7.5%, mainly distributed near urban centers and coal mining areas. The carbon sink enhancement area accounts for 5.5% and is mainly concentrated near forest land and ecological and nature reserves. (3) The spatial location of cities influences the density of carbon stock in the adjacent range. Carbon stock density increases within the buffer zone with the distance from urban center, county center, expressways, national highway, settlements, rivers, provincial roads, reservoirs, railways, county highway, and village roads. The rate of carbon stock increase per 100 m is 0.12 t/ha, 0.25 t/ha, 0.17 t/ha, 0.36 t/ha, 0.71 t/ha, 0.33 t/ha, 0.38 t/ha, 0.57 t/ha, 0.23 t/ha, 0.46 t/ha, and 0.48 t/ha respectively. The higher the administrative center and road grades, the lower the carbon density will be instead. (4) In the 2030 CD scenario, compared with the ND scenario, the cultivated land and grassland are effectively protected and the cultivated land area is increased by 445.68 km2, while the expansion of artificial surface is suppressed and the area is reduced by 448.2 km2, which ultimately leads to a reduction in carbon loss of 392,011.85 t. Future ecological management should focus on protecting high-value carbon sink areas and carbon sink enhancement areas and the ecological management and restoration of low-value carbon sink areas and carbon emission control areas.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to achieve a better understanding of the effects of strategic decisions related to the management of knowledge taken by organizations in complex economic systems. These effects are seen in the long term performance of organizations in the system choosing different strategic paths. As knowledge-related processes make intensive use of ICTs, the influence of the degree of development of these technologies is taken into account. Design/methodology: An agent-based simulation model, ImbySim, based in the I-Space conceptual framework, is used to represent the evolution of a group of knowledge-intensive organizations located in a given geographic space. Those organizations engage, among others, in processes of creation and transfer of knowledge assets. Organizations show different levels of performance, which may be related to their knowledge-related strategic choices. The main knowledge-related strategies available for the agents are, on one side, sharing or hoarding knowledge and, on the other side, structuring or de- structuring knowledge. Findings: The results of the simulation suggest that it is not adequate to adopt an 'always sharing' or 'always hoarding' strategy. The hoarding or sharing of knowledge assets need to be applied in a discriminating way depending on the specific asset or the situation of the organization. Also, different levels of development of ICTs favour different strategic choices concerning the adequate structuring of knowledge assets and the degree of knowledge sharing. In general terms, ICT development calls for more sharing and more structuring of knowledge. Practical implications: The hypotheses developed from this research may be very useful, once empirically tested, for strategic planning. Policy makers in charge of complex economic systems and firms and institutions present in them may benefit from the insights obtained and define their strategic moves according to them. Originality/value: From the simulations, a number of empirically testable hypotheses have been extracted. Should these hypotheses get empirically corroborated, they would challenge a certain body of theorising—associated with organizational ecology and organizational demography—thus demonstrating the fruitfulness of the simulation approach to complex knowledge-based problems in the field of strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) first appeared in Wuhan Province, China in late December 2019 and had spread all over the world since January 2020. As the epidemic became serious on a global scale, a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. Covid-19's reaching a global level has become threatening the entire population in the world. While cities are the main sources in the spread of epidemics, they are also the places that offer solutions to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and to improve the health of the population. Nowadays, the delivery of services, which is one of the three main focal points of the urban health approach, has gained importance with Covid-19 in urban areas. In this period, the need for preventive, curative and rehabilitative personal health services has increased and the insufficiency of primary health care services has become to the agenda. This study aims to discuss the provision of health services during the pandemic period by examining the spatial location decisions of health services in Çankaya district of Ankara, determining the spatial standards and accessibility within the legal scope. For this purpose, the location, size and capacity of health service areas in Çankaya district of Ankara were determined by the data obtained from the relevant institutions and organizations for the spatial location selection decisions of the health service areas in Çankaya district of Ankara. In the analysis by using geographic information systems, the levels of the response of the health services' location, compliance with standards and accessibility was questioned in the long-term service need and delivery, taking into account of the spatial spread of Covid-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]