Month: August 2024

Academic freedom and the unknown: credibility, criticism, and inquiry among the professoriate

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Abstract

In the U.S., military and intelligence personnel, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), scholars, professional organizations, legislators, journalists, and others are requesting study of UFOs, recently renamed Unidentified Aerial/Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) by the U.S. government. Yet disinformation, misidentifications, hoaxes, and entertainment cloud the subject. Combined, these factors pertain to wider debates about the parameters of academic freedom. Here, we asked faculty across 14 disciplines at 144 research universities (N = 1460) to register insights about UAP in the academy via confidential survey. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first national study to examine scholars’ evaluations of academic credibility and possible social or professional repercussions—including concerns for tenure, promotion, and academic freedom—in relation to UAP. Results suggest that faculty concern that conducting UAP-related research would jeopardize their tenure or promotion might exceed colleagues’ actual negativity toward such research on tenure or promotional votes. Only 7.4% of faculty responded that “Yes” they would vote negatively (“No” = 61.92%, “Maybe” = 27.95%), though 52.67% reported some degree of concern for tenure or promotion. Faculty more frequently reported some degree of concern for social rather than professional repercussions. Concern for ridicule totaled 69.04%. Among all faculty, 66.24% reported that their discipline was capable to some degree of evaluating the evidence or significance of UAP. The disciplines of physics (95.82%), philosophy (88.73%), anthropology (87.09%), and engineering (83.15%) most frequently reported capability. Those who most frequently responded “Not at All” capable belonged to economics (59.7%), literature/English (54.46%), nursing (53.33%), and art and design (51.52%). Notably, although physics faculty most frequently responded that their discipline was capable to some degree of evaluation, nearly three in four reported some degree of concern about ridicule. From 250 open-ended responses, we generated 14 themes pertaining to research or teaching. To promote transparency, highlight a range of perspectives, and facilitate debate, for each theme we included at least 3 example quotes. In the context of ongoing developments, we discuss results, which underscore the complexity of beleaguered subjects and render conversations about academic freedom and UAP timely, relevant, and necessary.

3Rs of Sustainable Activism on Social Media: Relatability, Reliability and Redress

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Abstract

The achievement of sustainability goals will take a joint effort and content creators could be one of the actors helping with reaching it. Reliable but relatable communication on sustainable lifestyles on social media could reach many consumers and contribute to changing their behaviour patterns. However, the content creators’ activities need to fit within certain parameters for the benefits to outweigh the costs. This article identifies three important parameters that regulation should safeguard: Relatability, reliability, and redress. A key reason why content creators have managed to establish themselves as influencers is that they are relatable. But content creators may not be able to ensure what they tell their followers is reliable. That in turn raises the question of who should be responsible for providing redress in cases of misstatements. Following the critical analysis of the European legal framework, this article considers the need for further adaptations to the current rules or even the adoption of new rules more strictly regulating sustainable activism on social media.

Toward the attainment of climate-smart PPP infrastructure projects: a critical review and recommendations

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Abstract

Extreme climate change is an existential threat to humanity and infrastructure development. At the same time, the construction and operation of carbon-intense public–private partnership (PPP) infrastructure such as road transport, water, public houses, energy supply and sanitation unleash most of the greenhouse gas emissions that impacts negatively on the climate. Increasingly, there is a heightened interests in the development and financing of climate-smart PPP solutions to promote resilient and sustainable public infrastructures. Therefore, this article aims at identifying the critical solutions to the provision of climate-smart PPP infrastructure projects together with the driving factors and challenges of its implementation in public facilities. The paper utilized a systematic literature review method where data were sourced from prominent academic databases of Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and PubMed. The outcomes of the review demonstrate that the adoption of climate finance, renewable energy, and maintaining resilient infrastructures are prominent solutions to attain low-carbon infrastructure development. Key drivers such as the global call to reduce huge emissions from construction projects and transition to sustainable green construction management account for the shift toward climate-smart PPP projects. The barriers identified include poor and unconcerted practice and policy directions to resolve emission problems in the construction industry. The outcomes of this article provide incentives for the development and management of climate-smart public projects. Researchers can harness the results to investigate and develop adaptation and mitigation strategies for low-carbon PPP projects.

Mapping the climate change attitude: careless or care less?

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Abstract

Is it carelessness regarding climate change knowledge or self-interested ignorance? With the consequences of climate change becoming a global issue, socio-psychological analysis becomes imperative to bring a change in attitude. The study maps the relationship between information sources, self-concern and the concern for climate change. The effect of denial as a mediating variable is investigated between information sources, self-concerns, and the perception of climate change. For this investigation, positivism was used. An exploratory descriptive study examined how information sources, self-concerns, denial, age, gender, qualification, and occupation affect climate change perspective. In July and August 2021, Google Forms were used to acquire a non-probability sample of 474 Indians. Convenience, judgement, and snowballing were employed to get the sample size. Smart PLS 3.3.2 (Smart PLS-SEM) employed partial least square–structural equation modelling. PLS-SEM confirmed the model's factors. According to the results denial completely mediates the association between self-concern and climate change perception, but not between information sources and perception of climate change. The research provides evidence that it is the care less attitude towards the environment and especially climate change that is hindering the change in behaviour of individuals. The research gives an interesting insight into the psychology of individuals. This emerging literature is particularly beneficial to understanding the reason behind failed attempts by environmentalists and scientists to bring a change in the behaviour of people. The research provides a crucial base for the direction of future efforts. As the denial of climate change is a defence strategy, the study suggests that awareness programmes should focus on this fact in order to devise approaches to bring about the desired shift in attitude and behaviour. Moreover, because self-concern increases climate change denial, narratives of policy efforts may emphasize the benefits to individuals.

The Intellectual Structure of Sales Ethics Research: A Multi-method Bibliometric Analysis

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Abstract

Using a combination of co-citation and co-word analysis, this paper reviewed the intellectual structure of the sales ethics research domain and its development over time. This multi-method bibliometric analysis included 183 sales ethics articles published between 1990 and 2020. Using co-citation analysis, we identified intellectual clusters within the research domain and explored the evolution of these clusters across three decades. We further leveraged co-word analysis to identify core themes (keywords) and delineated the field’s changing landscape. The evolutionary trends and keyword network disconnections (i.e., structural holes) suggest promising areas for future research. In particular, our analyses identified potentially fruitful opportunities related to topics such as compensation, relationship marketing outcomes, salesperson job attitudes and well-being, training, sales force control, and sales technology.

3D Numerical Modeling for Investigating Structural Controls on Orogenic Gold Mineralization, Sanshandao Gold Belt, Eastern China

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Abstract

Hydrothermal disseminated gold mineralization in the Sanshandao gold belt, Jiaodong Peninsula, China, is closely associated with regional NE–NNE fault zones. To investigate the structural controls on this mineralization, we conducted 3D numerical modeling of coupled heat transport, tectonic deformation, and fluid flow, of which two sets of models, designed simple models and actual models, were involved. The simple models were used to examine how general fault geometries (fault bend length, fault bend angle, and fault dip) influenced dilation (positive volume strain) and fluid flow and further influenced hydrothermal mineralization. In contrast, actual modeling was carried out to further understand the structural controls and mineralization localization in a specific geological condition at Sanshandao. Following this, numerical simulation experiments with variable paleo-stresses on these two models were carried out in FLAC3D platform. The simulation results of the simple models showed that long fault bend lengths, large absolute fault bend angles, and large changes in fault dip were more likely to promote dilation in the fault zone. The dilation zones are related to the small intersection angle of maximum principal stress and fault dip. The simulation results of the actual model illustrate that the gold mineralization distribution at Sanshandao was controlled by the coupling of fault strike–dip bends. Specifically, the discontinuous mineralization in the vertical direction was caused by local fluid focusing due to fault dip changes, particularly where the bend length was long. In addition, the oblique orientation of ore shooting depended on the variable strain orientations relative to the fault, which appeared to be fault strike variations. The results further determined the NNW–SSE-directed compression as the paleo-stress regime at Sanshandao during the ore-forming period. Our data also illustrated the deep fluid flow pathways in the Sanshandao gold belt and the Xinli S–SSE deep and the Sanshandao and Beibuhaiyu E–NE deep areas deserve to be the focus of the next gold exploration.

Lived Experience of Health and Wellbeing Among Young People with Early Psychosis in Aotearoa New Zealand

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Abstract

First episode psychosis (FEP) can disrupt a young person’s life and future health. Those with lived experience of FEP can inform effective support. This study investigated how young people with FEP experience good health and wellbeing living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Recent clients of early intervention services (n = 12) shared their stories across varying traditional and creative platforms. Thematic analysis revealed seven themes important for living well with FEP: whanaungatanga (relationships), addressing stigma, finding out who I am with psychosis, getting the basics right, collaborative healthcare, understanding psychosis, and access to resources. The themes informed five supporting processes: whakawhanuangatanga (relationship-building), using holistic approaches, creating space for young people, reframing, and improving access to appropriate resources. These findings deepen our understanding of how we can support young people to live well with FEP. This study highlights the value of creative methods and partnering with lived experience experts to conduct meaningful health research.

This trial was registered at Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) CTRN12622001323718 on 12/10/2022 “retrospectively registered”; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=384775&isReview=true.

Ratings of valence, arousal, happiness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise for 24,000 Dutch words

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Abstract

Emotion is a fundamental aspect of human life and therefore is critically encoded in language. To facilitate research into the encoding of emotion in language and how emotion associations affect language processing, we present a new set of emotion norms for over 24,000 Dutch words. The emotion norms include ratings of two key dimensions of emotion: valence and arousal, as well as ratings on discrete emotion categories: happiness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise. We show that emotional information can predict word processing, such that responses to positive words are facilitated in contrast to neutral and negative words. We also demonstrate how the ratings of emotion are related to personality characteristics. The data are available via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/9htuv/) and serve as a valuable resource for research into emotion as well as in applied settings such as healthcare and digital communication.

Research on water level measurement technology based on the residual length ratio of image characters

Latest Results

Abstract

Aiming at the low efficiency and poor adaptability of traditional water level measurement methods, a water level measurement technology based on the residual length ratio of image characters is proposed in this paper. First, by improving YOLOv5, the lightweight MobilenetV3 is used to replace CSPDarkNet53, and the CBAM attention mechanism is introduced to accurately locate the water gauge and the complete “E” character and obtain the interface area between the residual “E” character and the water. Secondly, by improving U2-Net, the ordinary convolutions of RSU4-RSU7 in the decoding phase are replaced by depth-separable convolutions, and the ECA attention mechanism is introduced to improve the overall inference speed and accuracy to achieve the residual “E” character and the precise segmentation of water bodies. Finally, the water level value is calculated based on the residual length ratio of the characters. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the improved YOLOv5 is 98.12%, the average intersection over union ratio of the improved U2-Net is 86.23%, and the measurement error of water level is less than 1 cm, which meets the requirements of hydrological detection specifications. At the same time, the improved model reduces the number of parameters and computational complexity, which increases the speed of inference.

Research on water level measurement technology based on the residual length ratio of image characters

Latest Results

Abstract

Aiming at the low efficiency and poor adaptability of traditional water level measurement methods, a water level measurement technology based on the residual length ratio of image characters is proposed in this paper. First, by improving YOLOv5, the lightweight MobilenetV3 is used to replace CSPDarkNet53, and the CBAM attention mechanism is introduced to accurately locate the water gauge and the complete “E” character and obtain the interface area between the residual “E” character and the water. Secondly, by improving U2-Net, the ordinary convolutions of RSU4-RSU7 in the decoding phase are replaced by depth-separable convolutions, and the ECA attention mechanism is introduced to improve the overall inference speed and accuracy to achieve the residual “E” character and the precise segmentation of water bodies. Finally, the water level value is calculated based on the residual length ratio of the characters. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the improved YOLOv5 is 98.12%, the average intersection over union ratio of the improved U2-Net is 86.23%, and the measurement error of water level is less than 1 cm, which meets the requirements of hydrological detection specifications. At the same time, the improved model reduces the number of parameters and computational complexity, which increases the speed of inference.