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While framing the importance of everyday life as a drive for institutional exhibitions, this paper investigates the process of home making in Tehran from 1925 to 2013. The period 1925–1979 marks the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty when modernization was systematically implemented in Iran. This period ended with the Iranian revolution, which laid the foundation for a welfare state, which in spite of great promises declined in essence at the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency in 2013 when the country moved towards privatization while welcoming non‐Western imperialism. Using domestic objects and cultural rituals, the investigation reveals how the domestic realm reflects local and global politics that have shaped the country for the last hundred years. The paper argues that the domestic realm has been a significant everyday context for mediating two grounds simultaneously: On the one hand, it pursues central planning strategies to secure various states' political gains; and, on the other, it serves as a platform for tactics that resist these strategies through spatial and material expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial ability is a well-known predictor of success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The purpose of this study was to investigate and understand the spatial strategies that were used by blind and low-vision (BLV) individuals as they solved problems on the tactile mental cutting test (TMCT), an instrument that was designed to measure the spatial ability of BLV audiences. The TMCT is an accessible adaptation of the older, 1938 version of the mental cutting test (MCT) that has been used extensively in spatial ability research. Additionally, this paper seeks to compare these strategies with existing strategies that have been investigated with sighted populations. The BLV community is underrepresented in engineering and in spatial ability research. By understanding how BLV students understand and solve spatial problems and concepts, educators can develop and enhance educational content that is relevant to this population. By incorporating perspectives from the BLV community and making STEM curricula accessible to this population, more BLV individuals may be encouraged to pursue STEM or engineering career pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While divided cities are characterized by spatially cemented segregation and polarized divisions, the trembling city is organized around transient and transformative borders. We conceptualize this notion of urban space to capture Freetown's war-peace transition in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Ex-combatants settled on the city margins, bringing with them spatial strategies from war-fighting into the city by recreating a system of bases. The Sierra Leone Police (SLP) re-emerged with external support, seeking to compartmentalize and fixate Freetown through a combination of force and negotiation. We use borders and bordering to understand policing as attempts by both ex-combatants and the SLP to border in as well as out; defensively against external interference and offensively to make territorial claims. By extension, it is tensions in these practices between attempts to defend and harden borders, and at the same time, expand and soften them that trigger a tremble. The city tremble was a reminder of the possibility of war that Freetown very easily could return to. It also became a more general and inconspicuous condition of the city as an inhabited space, where multiple and often incompatible and conflictual spatial logics, strategies, and practices of policing clashed, overlapped and co-existed uneasily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During navigation, humans mainly rely on egocentric and allocentric spatial strategies, two different frames of reference working together to build a coherent representation of the environment. Spatial memory deficits during navigation have been repeatedly reported in patients with vestibular disorders. However, little is known about how vestibular disorders can change the use of spatial navigation strategies. Here, we used a new reverse T-maze paradigm in virtual reality to explore whether vestibular loss specifically modifies the use of egocentric or allocentric spatial strategies in patients with unilateral (n = 23) and bilateral (n = 23) vestibular loss compared to healthy volunteers (n = 23) matched for age, sex and education level. Results showed that the odds of selecting and using a specific strategy in the T-maze were significantly reduced in both unilateral and bilateral vestibular loss. An exploratory analysis suggests that only right vestibular loss decreased the odds of adopting a spatial strategy, indicating an asymmetry of vestibular functions. When considering patients who used strategies to navigate, we observed that a bilateral vestibular loss reduced the odds to use an allocentric strategy, whereas a unilateral vestibular loss decreased the odds to use an egocentric strategy. Age was significantly associated with an overall lower chance to adopt a navigation strategy and, more specifically, with a decrease in the odds of using an allocentric strategy. We did not observe any sex difference in the ability to select and use a specific navigation strategy. Findings are discussed in light of previous studies on visuo-spatial abilities and studies of vestibulo-hippocampal interactions in peripheral vestibular disorders. We discuss the potential impact of the history of the disease (chronic stage in patients with a bilateral vestibulopathy vs. subacute stage in patients with a unilateral vestibular loss), of hearing impairment and non-specific attentional deficits in patients with vestibular disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, the majority of European countries imposed lockdowns, whereas Sweden introduced comparatively moderate constraints. The Public Health Agency of Sweden stated that sports and physical activity could continue if conducted 'safely' and recommended outdoor activities. This article aims to identify new spatial practices and strategies developed by organised recreational sport providers (i.e. sport clubs, commercial providers) following the outbreak of the pandemic. Further, it identifies obstacles and opportunities for new spatial solutions, as well as possible long-term (lasting) effects of the strategies imposed. Also, it discusses these obstacles and opportunities in relation to contemporary sport facility challenge. The data draws upon 24 semi-structured interviews with sport coaches and leaders. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using a thematic analysis. The results suggest that most respondents show adaptability by moving their activities outdoors. Generally, for-profit organisations have been more innovative and adaptive. Obstacles for new spatial solutions include localisation, weather, (perceived) need of equipment, leadership, competing interests in public space, and notably the perception of what sport is. Positive examples of spatial adaptability show that there is a potential for sport providers to open up for different spatial solutions and more flexibility in relation to their activities, in order to ease the pressure on formal indoor (and, to some extent, outdoor) sport facilities while amending the perception of sport activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In school mathematics, representations of solid figures and three-dimensional geometric objects generally rely on two-dimensional projective representation modes on students' textbooks. In learning environments, these representation modes create a kind of cognitive filter, which prevents students with low spatial ability to comprehend and envision three-dimensional objects. Studies showed that spatial ability could be improved by means of suitable concrete models and computer created models in learning settings. Thus, fostering students' spatial ability helps to overcome and eliminate negative effects of this cognitive filter. However, some studies suggest that this cognitive filter may even occur while working with computer created objects since computers generally rely on two-dimensional digitizer panels on screen technology. On the other hand, augmented reality interface allows a new way of learning environment which could help to overcome this cognitive filter by providing unique representation modes and opportunities to foster students' spatial ability. In this study, an intervention with an augmented reality interface to foster students' spatial understandings were reported in terms students' invented strategies for spatial concepts. In this sense, eight seventh graders worked on spatial tasks with an augmented reality interface in learning settings. Findings revealed that while proceeding on spatial tasks, students could invent, use and modify spatial strategies. Moreover, students' spatial understanding was fostered as they progressed on tasks with the designed augmented reality interface. This study is a part of an educational design research which was focused on design and development a proper augmented reality tool to foster spatial ability of students. As a result of this study, with the help of combination of augmented reality interface and spatial tasks, teachers will be provided with a new tool to visualize mathematical concepts and students could be supported with this new tool as a new learning material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of electronic commerce generates significant demand for the delivery of personal goods. Crowdsourcing applications have the potential to create more flexible alternatives to existing package-delivery services. However, the success of these applications is strongly related to the strategies of the crowd couriers, which are not well-understood in the current literature. In this paper, we analyzed data from a real-world crowdsourcing application that uses an auction-based mobile app to deliver small packages in urban, suburban, and intra-metropolitan areas. Our analysis reveals the spatial strategies of crowdsourced couriers, which are correlated with delivery pricing and the courier's experience. The couriers with strong relationships with specific customers create ongoing trust relations, which makes deliveries over medium distance routes financially reasonable for those couriers. We discuss how our findings can help to maximize package-delivery markets and crowdsourcing markets in general by supporting the couriers' strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial practice of women in Kampung Kauman is a concrete manifestation of the active agents of spatial production in everyday life, which uses housing to support their economic, social, and cultural activities. This paper aims to expand the idea of women-led domestic territory using the lens of interiority, highlighting women's practices that connect and expand their space in the inner space of the dwelling and beyond. This research was conducted by mapping the everyday practices of women in Kampung Kauman to reveal various spatial settings in space. This paper argues that women's practice can broaden the understanding of interiority related to houses and their neighbourhoods. The findings of this study show that the connection between domestic spaces to the neighbourhood may change depending on the women's activity, the agreement of social and cultural activities alternately in the domestic area, and shifting the domestic area into a commercial area. This spatial arrangement can guide residential areas and urban environments by considering domestic interiority in everyday life.

This study questions if abstract regional planning strategies are fit to respond to changing societal and political conditions. We compare regional planning strategy making in North West England. Findings suggest that abstract strategies are more effective in building than managing transformative discourses. Results show that: (I) transformative discourses need to be built around manageable regional socio-spatial and spatial-economic disparities; (II) policy entrepreneurs should be targeted with equal consideration for power and counterpower; and (III) the regional planning authority should have access to specific funding schemes. It is our ultimate aim to re-energize strategic regional planning debates in England and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multiple reference frames are often available to animals in paradigms extensively used to study spatial learning. • Unaccounted reference frames can manifest as confounding factors, cause spurious associations and invalid inferences. • Directional learning predominates over place learning in widely used paradigms such as the Morris water maze and cross-maze. • We propose a decision-algorithm that serves as an example of how to approach the problem with multiple reference frames. • Hippocampus mediates complex egocentric learning whereas its role in response learning and path integration is controversial. One major challenge in animal research on spatial learning and memory pertains to designing methods to dissociate spatial strategies (allocentric vs. egocentric). This is crucial for understanding the underlying cognitive processes and neural circuits that are recruited in navigational tasks. Taking the egocentric reference frames as a starting point, this review argues that in many extensively used spatial paradigms, multiple spatial reference frames are often available to the animals but remain unaccounted for. We discuss the implications this has for the inferences that can be made and propose a decision-algorithm to construct spatial learning paradigms that can reduce the influence of these confounding variables. Furthermore, with these considerations in mind, we review the role of the hippocampus in egocentric navigation forms, i.e. in response learning, egocentric sequential learning and path integration. This choice is based on the controversy surrounding the role of hippocampus in these spatial paradigms. We discuss the possible methodological confounders that may explain the inconclusive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration generates both challenges and opportunities. The magnitude of flows and effects on local resources are rarely equally distributed, indeed, the demographic size and economic strength of arrival cities or regions consistently affect outcomes. The nature of these challenges and opportunities is, therefore, extremely varied. These elements have already structured a network of places, refugee-cities, integration hubs, and transit points that play different roles in the increasing process of human mobility. The paper discusses the role of planners in dealing with refugee crises starting from the experience of a university workshop. This allows for a plea in favour of a different approach to planning, one that insists on practice, spatial strategies, and implementation. The paper also illustrates a different teaching approach that takes into account the need to integrate different forms of knowledge and disciplinary perspectives.

THE MOBILITY TURN IN THE SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCES HAS BROUGHT MOVEMENT BACK INTO FOCUS AS A CRITICAL DIMENSION OF LIFE. PARADOXICALLY, ALTHOUGH IN ABSTRACT TERMS, PEOPLE IN A HOMELESS SITUATION ARE INDEPENDENT FROM FIXED SPATIAL LOCATIONS FOR HOUSING, IN PRACTICE, THEY HAVE GREAT MOVEMENT RESTRICTIONS, AND A DIFFICULTY IN TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE BENEFITS OF LIVING IN CITIES. THIS ARTICLE ANALYSES THE SPATIALITY OF PEOPLE IN A HOMELESS SITUATION IN THE CITY OF PORTO, PORTUGAL. THE RESEARCH STARTED FROM INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM SERVICE PROVIDERS WORKING IN THE FIELD, FROM DETAILED OBSERVATION OF A SET OF STREETS IN THE CITY CENTRE, AND FROM SEVERAL CONVERSATIONS WITH A GROUP OF PEOPLE IN A HOMELESS SITUATION. FIVE MAIN ARGUMENTS ARE POINTED OUT: PEOPLE IN A HOMELESS SITUATION (I) HAVE A STRONG SPATIAL IMMOBILITY; (II) LIVE IN A VERY CONFINED AREA OF THE CITY; (III) HAVE SPECIFIC SPATIAL ROUTINES THAT RIGIDLY GOVERN THEIR DAILY LIVES; (IV) HAVE SPATIAL ROUTINES MAINLY DICTATED BY THE GOVERNING LOGIC OF "SOUP RUNS"; (V) HAVE AN AGENCY, THROUGH WHICH THEY ESTABLISH A MYRIAD OF SOCIAL TIES BASED ON TRUST AND FRIENDSHIP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Task allocation in uncertainty conditions is a key problem for agents attempting to achieve harmony in disaster environments. This paper presents an agent- based simulation to investigate tasks allocation through the consideration of appropriate spatial strategies to deal with uncertainty in urban search and rescue (USAR) operation. The proposed method is presented in five phases: ordering existing tasks, finding coordinating agent, holding an auction, applying allocation strategies, and implementation and observation of environmental uncertainties. The methodology was evaluated in Tehran's District 1 for 6.6, 6.9, and 7.2 magnitude earthquakes. The simulation started by calculating the number of injured individuals, which was 28856, 73195 and 111463 people for each earthquake, respectively. The Simulations were performed for each scenario for a variety of rescuers (1000, 1500, 2000 rescuer). In comparison with contract net protocol (CNP), the standard time of rescue operations in the proposed approach includes at least 13% of improvement and the best percentage of recovery was 21%. Interval uncertainty analysis and the comparison of the proposed strategies showed that an increase in uncertainty leads to an increased rescue time for CNP of 67.7 hours, and for strategies one to four an increased rescue time of 63.4, 63.2, 63.7, and 56.5 hours, respectively. Considering strategies in the task allocation process, especially spatial strategies, resulted in the optimization and increased flexibility of the allocation as well as conditions for fault tolerance and agent-based cooperation stability in USAR simulation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I discuss girls' and non-binary young people's experiences of unwelcome intergenerational encounters in the Helsinki metro underground transport network. I foreground a theoretical conception of the metro as an urban space in which the material is deeply intertwined with the political and as a space with its own racialized, gendered, and age-based hierarchies. Calling on the work of Sara Ahmed, I investigate how girls and non-binary young people make meaning of unwanted emotional encounters in the metro space and how they use and adopt certain material and digital strategies that Helena Saarikoski calls young feminine choreographies, to cope in these situations. This article is based on interviews with girls and non-binary young people who were then between 16 and 17 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teleost fish have been traditionally considered primitive vertebrates compared to mammals and birds in regard to brain complexity and behavioral functions. However, an increasing amount of evidence suggests that teleosts show advanced cognitive capabilities including spatial navigation skills that parallel those of land vertebrates. Teleost fish rely on a multiplicity of sensory cues and can use a variety of spatial strategies for navigation, ranging from relatively simple body-centered orientation responses to allocentric or “external world-centered” navigation, likely based on map-like relational memory representations of the environment. These distinct spatial strategies are based on separate brain mechanisms. For example, a crucial brain center for egocentric orientation in teleost fish is the optic tectum, which can be considered an essential hub in a wider brain network responsible for the generation of egocentrically referenced actions in space. In contrast, other brain centers, such as the dorsolateral telencephalic pallium of teleost fish, considered homologue to the hippocampal pallium of land vertebrates, seem to be crucial for allocentric navigation based on map-like spatial memory. Such hypothetical relational memory representations endow fish’s spatial behavior with considerable navigational flexibility, allowing them, for example, to perform shortcuts and detours.

Although normal aging has been related to several cognitive difficulties, other processes have been studied less, such as spatial memory. Our aim was to compare egocentric and allocentric memory in an elderly population using ecological tasks. Twenty-eight cognitively unimpaired participants performed Egocentric and Allocentric Spatial Memory Tasks, as well as Spatial Span from CANTAB, Benton's Judge of Line Orientation test (JoLO), and Montreal Cognitive Assessment test (MoCA). The results revealed that younger participants showed better performance than older participants on both the Egocentric and Allocentric Spatial Memory Tasks, although only the Egocentric test was able to discriminate between younger, middle, and older elderly participants. Learning effect was found in Allocentric Spatial Memory Task in younger and older groups, but not in the middle group. Allocentric and egocentric performance was not related to other visuospatial neuropsychological scores and gender did not influence performance in any task. Egocentric and Allocentric Spatial Memory Tasks may be useful tools in early screening for cognitive decline, as they are able to detect age differences in the cognitive unimpaired elderly population.

This article presents the results of the research of the application on a state level of the program management approach to the territorial development of small business. Studying the main mechanism of the state policy implementation in the sphere of small business on a regional level, the authors have revealed the necessity to take into account the territorial specificity while the government programs of small business development are being formed. The analysis of the national practice of utilizing the program management mechanism in the regional system of the government support of small entrepreneurship was conducted on the example of Omsk region. The results of the analysis have shown the inefficiency of the current support system for small business and have determined the need to create an integrated model of territorial programming, which would not only contribute to the qualitative development of small business, but also provide the functioning efficiency of program management mechanism. As a result, the authors have created the two-level model of the programming of the territorial development of small business, which allows to satisfy purposefully the needs of entrepreneurship taking into account the specificity of the internal and external environment of the region. The first level of the model is methodological one and it is based on the marketing approach (the concepts of place marketing and relationship marketing) to the operation of the program management mechanism. The second level of the model is methodical one. It offers the combination of the flexible methods of management of programming procedure (benchmarking, foresight, crowdsourcing and outsourcing). The given model raises the efficiency of the management decisions of the state structures in the sphere of small business. Therefore, it is interesting for the government authorities, which are responsible for the regional and municipal support programs of small business, as well as for the theorists and practitioners of public administration where the program management mechanism is just developing its methodological form and content. The developed model may become the basis for the methodologies of management of strategic planning system in Russia.

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Planning literature has generally presented strategic planning as an alternative to top-down land-use planning and modernist urban design. Spatial strategies have been depicted as the product of more or less formalised processes of strategic planning, without fully acknowledging the nexus with other forms and scales of planning and large-scale projects. We use the case of Turin (Italy) to observe in practice this theoretical blind spot. Indeed, the city and region of Turin have been an important ground for experimentation in Italian and European planning. Its long-term continuity in politics, its close-knit policy networks and the substantial restructuring of its economic base have been the conditions for developing a strand of comprehensive and strategic plans and large-scale projects that, together, profoundly changed Turin between the early 1990s and the mid-2010s. Turin's experience shows not only that spatial strategies derive from multiple modes of planning, but also that the involved actors may, on the contrary, perceive strategic plans as the main place for developing spatial strategies. The case provides insights regarding the intertwining of spatial strategies with urban design and planning at both urban and metropolitan scales. In order to understand how spatial strategies work and impact the city, one must look beyond strategic planning alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jerusalem, Israel, holds a special place as a holy pilgrimage destination for devotees of Christianity and other religions, although travel to the holy sites of Jerusalem is costly and can be difficult for many. For evangelical Protestants (and especially Pentecostals), the significance of Jerusalem – as the place where Christ the Messiah lived and accomplished his works – can be mobilised and channelled (decentralised) by creating sites which participate in the spiritual ‘power’ of Jesus Christ. Spiritual ‘power’ in this sense is not dependent on recorded miracles or canonisation by a central religious authority, but in the creation of spaces which through various strategies effectively evoke for their Protestant consumers the ‘authenticity’ of Jesus’ Jerusalem, and thus the ‘power’ and ‘reality’ of Christ. This paper examines the spatial strategies and branding of two such sites, the Holy Land Experience (Orland, Florida) and the Holy Land Tour (Eureka Springs, Arkansas). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Spatial abilities are generally hypothesized to differ between men and women, and people with different sexual orientations. According to the cross-sex shift hypothesis, gay men are hypothesized to perform in the direction of heterosexual women and lesbian women in the direction of heterosexual men on cognitive tests. This study investigated sexual orientation differences in spatial navigation and strategy during a virtual Morris water maze task (VMWM). Forty-four heterosexual men, 43 heterosexual women, 39 gay men, and 34 lesbian/bisexual women (aged 18-54 years) navigated a desktop VMWM and completed measures of intelligence, handedness, and childhood gender nonconformity (CGN). We quantified spatial learning (hidden platform trials), probe trial performance, and cued navigation (visible platform trials). Spatial strategies during hidden and probe trials were classified into visual scanning, landmark use, thigmotaxis/circling, and enfilading. In general, heterosexual men scored better than women and gay men on some spatial learning and probe trial measures and used more visual scan strategies. However, some differences disappeared after controlling for age and estimated IQ (e.g., in visual scanning heterosexual men differed from women but not gay men). Heterosexual women did not differ from lesbian/bisexual women. For both sexes, visual scanning predicted probe trial performance. More feminine CGN scores were associated with lower performance among men and greater performance among women on specific spatial learning or probe trial measures. These results provide mixed evidence for the cross-sex shift hypothesis of sexual orientation-related differences in spatial cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background to this article is the debate on cities as post-secular and super-diverse. The authors question that the concept of post-secular cities usefully sums up the complex processes currently characterizing religion in contemporary European cities. They propose that different historical memories are layered upon one another and they demonstrate how religious diversity and cities mutually shape one another. Based on empirical illustrations from research in Potsdam and Turin, the authors argue that cities affect religion by casting religious communities and their forms of sociality within particular spatial regimes and contributing to the territorialization of religious categories. Moreover, they state that religious groups shape cities by leaving durable architectural imprints on them. In particular, the article develops the notion of formations of religious super-diversity, which involves forms of religious belonging and identity that historically emerged through religious dissent and innovation, and shows that urban space is the iconic arena in which religious super-diversity becomes visible through the ways in which religious spatial strategies interact with cities’ spatial regimes. The authors identify three types of spatial strategies – place keeping, making and seeking – each of which expresses and responds to communities’ relationship to urban space in different ways. The typology is meant to serve as a tool to read complex processes taking into consideration both historical paths and contemporary religious formations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the spatial structure of each region and equilibrium amount of urban system represents the physical reflection of social and economical structures of the region, the current Academic models such as Rank-size, Entropy, Herfindahl and ... , despite the simplicity and quantifiable values, do not have sufficient capacity. Because these models ignore the social, economical, administrative and physical indicators, and just focus on the population of cities. The aim of the research is the application of -Hilhorst systemic approach for explaining the regional spatial planning strategy for Guilan region and the research method is systemic analytical method, with documentary data and information , through the application of models as Rank - size, Gini coefficient, the urban Primacy indicator. Case study is Gilan Province as functional planning region. Hilhorst systemic approach analyzes four factors (extent of favorable ecological zones, mineral resources capacity, a regional economic performance, management concentration), then evaluates their reflections on the two spatial components (marginal zone extent, Urban system). Subsequently, the regions will be divided into four categories and based on national position of each region ,the optimal Spatial strategy of the region will be developed. According to the findings, Gilan region has extensive and appropriate ecological zones, lack of mineral resources, the economical, agricultural and tourism performance, Centralized administrative system and first urban primacy index, but the relative extent of marginal area is small. Gilan region was considered as "old agricultural area" the appropriate strategy of the area was determined as “consolidation distributed" or "Fixed spread” and finally the axes and fields of investment were determined.

Urban growth management has become a common term to circumscribe strategies and tools to regulate urban land use in metropolitan areas. It is particularly used to counteract negative impacts of urban sprawl but also to frame future urban development. We discuss recent challenges of urban growth in 6 European and 2 US American city-regions. The paper compares the urban development focusing on a quantification of drivers and effects of urban growth and a qualitative analysis of the applied urban growth management tools. We build our analysis on findings from the EU-FP6 project PLUREL. The cities have different success in dealing with urban growth pressure - some can accommodate most growth in existing urban areas and densify, others expand or sprawl. Urban growth management is no guarantee to contain urban growth, but the case studies offer some innovative ways how to deal with particular challenges.

This essay aims to be a study of the phenomenology of violence and its staging in a concrete play by the Argentinean writer Griselda Gambaro, Información para extranjeros. Crónica en 20 escenas, which dates from 1973. The essay deals with the analysis of a particular thematic aspect related to the plot. However, our purpose goes beyond this issue. The visual and auditory perception of violence constitutes the nucleus of this drama, which is usually perceived in a diffuse way by readers at first sight. But, in fact, it harbours a unitary and precise sense. We are trying to study this subject in depth on the following pages. And apart from this, we are going to go deep into the digital universe, through a study of the contact points between the spatial strategies used here, and the typical ones in video games.

Urban growth management has become a common term to circumscribe strategies and tools to regulate urban land use in metropolitan areas. It is particularly used to counteract negative impacts of urban sprawl but also to frame future urban development. We discuss recent challenges of urban growth in 6 European and 2 US American city-regions. The paper compares the urban development focusing on a quantification of drivers and effects of urban growth and a qualitative analysis of the applied urban growth management tools. We build our analysis on findings from the EU-FP6 project PLUREL. The cities have different success in dealing with urban growth pressure - some can accommodate most growth in existing urban areas and densify, others expand or sprawl. Urban growth management is no guarantee to contain urban growth, but the case studies offer some innovative ways how to deal with particular challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of housing on cognition and emotional regulation in mice presents a problem for the study of genetic and environmental risk factors for neuropsychiatric disorders: standard laboratory housing may result in low levels of cognitive function or altered levels of anxiety that leave little room for assessment of deleterious effects of experimental manipulations. The use of enriched environment (EE) may allow for the measurement of a wider range of performance in cognitive domains. Cognitive and behavioral effects of EE in male mice have not been widely reproduced, perhaps due to variability in the application of enrichment protocols, and the effects of EE in female mice have not been widely studied. We have developed an EE protocol using common laboratory equipment that, without a running wheel for exercise, results in significant cognitive and behavioral effects relative to standard laboratory housing conditions. We compared male and female wild-type C57BL/6J mice reared from weaning age in an EE to those reared in a standard environment (SE), using common measures of anxiety-like behavior, sensory gating, sociability, and spatial learning and memory. Sex was a significant factor in relevant elevated plus maze (EPM) measures, and bordered on significance in a social interaction (SI) assay. Effects of EE on anxiety-like behavior and sociability were indicative of a general increase in exploratory activity. In male and female mice, EE resulted in reduced prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response, and enhanced spatial learning and use of spatially precise strategies in a Morris water maze task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the construct validity of a 19-item self-report measure on environmental spatial strategies. A large sample ( N > 4000) representative for the population in Germany comprising five age groups from <30 years to 50–80 years was accessed through a survey panel. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the separability of (1) egocentric spatial strategies (including sense of direction) from (2) an allocentric mental map strategy and (3) knowledge of cardinal directions. In addition, the present study investigated the possession and use of navigation aids with a focus on computer-based assistance. Relations between self-reported spatial strategies and use of navigational aids were analyzed. However, results do not suggest a strong relation between the use of navigational aids and self-reported spatial strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TheRefugee Protest Camp Viennastarted in 2012 as a protest against the living conditions found within the biggest reception centre in Austria, and turned into a highly visible protest movement organized by asylum seekers and activists. In this paper, I investigate how and to what extent this protest movement, through a form of contentious politics, succeeded in challenging exclusionary policies and improving asylum seekers’ rights and living conditions. By moving from socially and spatially isolated locations into the centre of the city, setting up a protest camp in a park, and by seeking shelter in a church, the protest movement generated different modes of resistance, forms of mobilization and collective action. In exploring the connection between spatial strategies of the protest movement and relational ties within the movement, I contribute to debates within Critical Citizenship Studies. Specifically, I emphasize the relevance of place for creating alliances and networks and for making citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Trade unions are facing a series of challenges around place-based forms of work in industries such as construction, transport and public services. New spatial strategies by employers involving corporate reorganization, increased outsourcing and the use of migrant labour, allied to a deepening of neoliberal governance processes are accelerating a race to the bottom in wages and conditions. Drawing upon the experience of two recent labour disputes in the UK--at Heathrow Airport and Lindsey Oil Refinery--we explore the potential for workers to intervene in such globalizing processes. We highlight both the ability of grassroots workers to mobilize their own spatial networks but also their limitations in an increasingly hostile neoliberal landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three- to five-year-old children were trained to localize a sensor hidden underneath the floor, in the centre of a square-shaped enclosure (1.5 m x 1.5 m). Walking over the sensor caused a pleasant music to be played in the environment, thus engaging children in a playful spatial search. Children easily learned to find the centre of the training environment starting from random positions. After training, children were tested in enclosures of different size and/or shape: a larger square-shaped enclosure (3 m x 3 m), a rectangle-shaped enclosure (1.5 m x 3 m), an equilateral triangle-shaped enclosure (side 3 m) and an isosceles triangle-shaped enclosure (base 1.5 m; sides 3 m). Children searched in the central region of the enclosures, their precision varying as a function of the similarity of the testing enclosure's shape to the shape of the training enclosure. This suggests that a relational spatial strategy was used, and that it depended on the encoding of geometrical shape. This result highlights a distinctive role of the geometric centre of enclosed spaces in place learning in children, as already observed in nonhuman species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the manner in which border status is instrumentalized by the region's inhabitants through claims before the State and the private sector. The analysis is based on theories of territorial systems, human territoriality, and power networks at the margins of the State. The document evaluates case studies of the Southern Cone and concludes that there are four territorial forms of activism in border conditions: 1) strategies aimed at obtaining public services in marginalized borders; 2) instrumentalization of the nationalist imaginary; 3) tactical use of borders, and, finally, 4) citizen management of the nationalist imaginary. Finally, the study questions the criminalization of border status and recognizes the legitimacy of activist networks in border regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Search and serial recall tasks were used in the present study to characterize the factors affecting the ability of humans to keep track of a set of spatial locations while traveling in an immersive virtual reality foraging environment. The first experiment required the exhaustive exploration of a set of locations following a procedure previously used with other primate and non-primate species to assess their sensitivity to the geometric arrangement of foraging sites. The second experiment assessed the dependency of search performance on search organization by requiring the participants to recall specific trajectories throughout the foraging space. In the third experiment, the distance between the foraging sites was manipulated in order to contrast the effects of organization and traveling distance on recall accuracy. The results show that humans benefit from the use of organized search patterns when attempting to monitor their travel though either a clustered 'patchy' space or a matrix of locations. Their ability to recall a series of locations is dependent on whether the order in which they are explored conformed or did not conform to specific organization principles. Moreover, the relationship between search efficiency and search organization is not confounded by effects of traveling distance. These results indicate that in humans, organizational factors may play a large role in their ability to forage efficiently. The extent to which such dependency may pertain to other primates and could be accounted for by visual organization processes is discussed on the basis of previous studies focused on perceptual grouping, search, and serial recall in non-human species. Am. J. Primatol. Am. J. Primatol. 76:436-446, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]