Rate of evolution metrics are sensitive to environmental context

Response to: Neurotoxicity of paraquat and paraquat-induced Parkinson's disease

The current obesogenic environment, that is, the abundance of tasty and high-calorie food, induces snacking. This study examines the influence of habitual (e.g. previous eating behavior and automaticity of habit) and environmental (e.g. availability of food and food outlets) contexts on snacking. This study hypothesizes that personal factors such as the tendency of savoring food and eating restraint moderate the influence of habitual and environmental contexts. The study used 308 respondents recruited based on gender × age (20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, over 60s) segments in an online longitudinal survey and Bayesian models (valid sample size over 18 000) to predict snacking. The first survey measured the variables of habitual and environmental contexts. After 2 weeks, this study measured further snacking and the tendency of savoring food and eating restraint. The results demonstrated that the tendency of savoring food weakened the association between automaticity of habit and further snacking (b = .12, 95% CI = .02 to .24). Although eating restraint strengthened the association between previous snacking and further snacking, it weakened the association of the availability of snack food (b = −1.03, 95% CI = −2.07 to − .03) and fast food outlets with further snacking (b = −1.39, 95% CI = −2.17 to − .52). Consequently, the influence of habitual and environmental contexts on eating behavior can be moderated by the tendency of savoring food and eating restraint. These findings indicate the possibility of intervening in the obesogenic environment by controlling snacking through the tendency of savoring food and eating restraint.

Purpose Manufacturers of smartphone devices are increasingly utilising a diverse range of sensors. This innovation has enabled developers to accurately determine a user’s current context. One area that has been significantly enhanced by the increased use of context in mobile applications is tourism. Traditionally, tour guide applications rely heavily on location and essentially ignore other types of context. This has led to problems of inappropriate suggestions and tourists experiencing information overload. These problems can be mitigated if appropriate personalisation and content filtering is performed. This research proposes an intelligent context-aware recommender system that aims to minimise the highlighted problems. Design/methodology/approach Intelligent reasoning was performed to determine the weight or importance of different types of environmental and temporal context. Environmental context such as the weather outside can have an impact on the suitability of tourist attractions. Temporal context can be the time of day or season; this is particularly important in tourism as it is largely a seasonal activity. Social context such as social media can potentially provide an indication of the “mood” of an attraction. These types of contexts are combined with location data and the context of the user to provide a more effective recommendation to tourists. The evaluation of the system is a user study that utilised both qualitative and quantitative methods, involving 40 participants of differing gender, age group, number of children and marital status. Findings This study revealed that the participants selected the context-based recommendation at a significantly higher level than either location-based recommendation or random recommendation. It was clear from analysing the questionnaire results that location is not the only influencing factor when deciding on a tourist attraction to visit. Research limitations/implications To effectively determine the success of the recommender system, various combinations of contextual conditions were simulated. Simulating contexts provided the ability to randomly assign different contextual conditions to ensure an effective recommendation under all circumstances. This is not a reflection of the “real world”, because in a “real world” field study the majority of the contextual conditions will be similar. For example, if a tourist visited numerous attractions in one day, then it is likely that the weather conditions would be the same for the majority of the day, especially in the summer season. Practical implications Utilising this type of recommender system would allow the tourists to “go their own way” rather than following a prescribed route. By using this system, tourists can co-create their own experience using both social media and mobile technology. This increases the need to retain user preferences and have it available for multiple destinations. The application will be able to learn further through multiple trips, and as a result, the personalisation aspect will be incrementally refined over time. This extensible aspect is increasingly important as personalisation is gradually more effective as more data is collated. Originality/value This paper contributes to the body of knowledge that currently exists regarding the study of utilising contextual conditions in mobile recommender systems. The novelty of the system proposed by this research is the combination of various types of temporal, environmental and personal context data to inform a recommendation in an extensible tourism application. Also, performing sentiment analysis on social media data has not previously been integrated into a tourist recommender system. The evaluation concludes that this research provides clear evidence for the benefits of combining social media data with environmental and temporal context to provide an effective recommendation.

IntroductionPrevious research has shown that podcasts are most frequently consumed using mobile listening devices across a wide variety of environmental, situational, and social contexts. To date, no studies have investigated how an individual's environmental context might influence their attentional engagement in podcast listening experiences. Improving understanding of the contexts in which episodes of listening take place, and how they might affect listener engagement, could be highly valuable to researchers and producers working in the fields of object-based and personalized media.MethodsAn online questionnaire on listening habits and behaviors was distributed to a sample of 264 podcast listeners. An exploratory factor analysis was run to identify factors of environmental context that influence attentional engagement in podcast listening experiences. Five aspects of podcast listening engagement were also defined and measured across the sample.ResultsThe exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors of environmental context labeled as: outdoors, indoors & at home, evenings, soundscape & at work, and exercise. The aspects of podcast listening engagement provided a comprehensive quantitative account of contemporary podcast listening experiences.DiscussionThe results presented support the hypothesis that elements of a listener's environmental context can influence their attentional engagement in podcast listening experiences. The soundscape & at work factor suggests that some listeners actively choose to consume podcasts to mask disturbing stimuli in their surrounding soundscape. Further analysis suggested that the proposed factors of environmental context were positively correlated with the measured aspects of podcast listening engagement. The results are highly pertinent to the fields of podcast studies, mobile listening experiences, and personalized media, and provide a basis for researchers seeking to explore how other forms of listening context might influence attentional engagement.

Human land uses and population growth represent major global threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Understanding how biological communities respond to multiple drivers of human‐induced environmental change is fundamental for conserving ecosystems and remediating degraded habitats. Here, we used a replicated ‘real‐world experiment’ to study the responses of invertebrate communities to wastewater perturbations across a land‐use intensity gradient in 12 Swiss streams. We used different taxonomy and trait‐based community descriptors to establish the most sensitive indicators detecting impacts and to help elucidate potential causal mechanisms of change. First, we predicted that streams in catchments adversely impacted by human land‐uses would be less impaired by wastewater inputs because their invertebrate communities should be dominated by pollution‐tolerant taxa (‘environmental context’). Second, we predicted that the negative effects of wastewater on stream invertebrate communities should be larger in streams that receive proportionally more wastewater (‘magnitude of disturbance’). In support of the ‘environmental context’ hypothesis, we found that change in the Saprobic Index (a trait‐based indicator of tolerance to organic pollution) was associated with upstream community composition; communities in catchments with intensive agricultural land uses (e.g., arable cropping and pasture) were generally more resistant to eutrophication associated with wastewater inputs. We also found support for the ‘magnitude of disturbance’ hypothesis. The SPEAR Index (a trait‐based indicator of sensitivity to pesticides) was more sensitive to the relative input of effluent, suggesting that toxic influences of wastewater scale with dilution. Whilst freshwater pollution continues to be a major environmental problem, our findings highlight that the same anthropogenic pressure (i.e., inputs of wastewater) may induce different ecological responses depending on the environmental context and community metrics used. Thus, remediation strategies aiming to improve stream ecological status (e.g., rehabilitating degraded reaches) need to consider upstream anthropogenic influences and the most appropriate indicators of restoration success.

Driver profiling is the real-time process of detecting driving behaviors and computing a driver's expected risk based on detected behaviors. Predicting risk based solely on the inclusion of detected behaviors may not be accurate because this method of predicting ignores the environmental (e.g., weather conditions, traffic density level) context of detected behaviors. Moreover, coupling detected behaviors with their environmental context can be leveraged towards creating personalized risk profiles for drivers in each driving environment. These profiles can be utilized in various ITS applications including personalized safety-based route planning. In this paper, a novel driver profiling environment-aware framework is presented. In the proposed framework, data processing is distributed over three computational layers to enhance the overall reliability of the system. A risk prediction model is hosted on the edge/fog to determine the driving risk while considering the joint effect of the in-vehicle detected behaviors and their environmental context. Risk values along with a driver's compliance to warnings are both utilized to compute the risk profile on the cloud. Using SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving (ND) dataset, the development of a novel risk prediction model is presented herein with the underlying sub-processes of data preprocessing, error analysis, and model selection. Then we analyze both the performance of the developed risk prediction model and the overall performance of the proposed system. Validation results for the developed model indicate a good compromise between bias and variance. Moreover, the results of the overall risk scoring model reflect its robustness and reliability in assigning accurate risk scores.

AimThis research compared real-time measurements of alcohol consumption with retrospective accounts of alcohol consumption to examine possible discrepancies between, and contextual influences on, the different accounts.MethodBuilding on previous investigations, a specifically designed Smartphone technology was utilized to measure alcohol consumption and contextual influences in de facto real-time. Real-time data (a total of 10,560 data points relating to type and number of drinks and current social / environmental context) were compared with daily and weekly retrospective accounts of alcohol consumption.ResultsParticipants reported consuming more alcoholic drinks during real-time assessment than retrospectively. For daily accounts a higher number of drinks consumed in real-time was related to a higher discrepancy between real-time and retrospective accounts. This effect was found across all drink types but was not shaped by social and environmental contexts. Higher in-vivo alcohol consumption appeared to be related to a higher discrepancy in retrospectively reported weekly consumption for alcohol beverage types other than wine. When including contextual factors into the statistical models, being with two or more friends (as opposed to being alone) decreased the discrepancy between real-time and retrospective reports, whilst being in the pub (relative to being at home) was associated with greater discrepancies.ConclusionsOverall, retrospective accounts may underestimate the amount of actual, real-time alcohol consumed. Increased consumption may also exacerbate differences between real-time and retrospective accounts. Nonetheless, this is not a global effect as environmental and social contexts interact with the type of alcohol consumed and the time frame given for reporting (weekly vs. daily retrospective). A degree of caution therefore appears warranted with regards to the use of retrospective self-report methods of recording alcohol consumption. Whilst real-time sampling is unlikely to be completely error free, it may be better able to account for social and environmental influences on self-reported consumption.

The pattern of generalization following motor learning can provide a probe on the neural mechanisms underlying learning. For example, the breadth of generalization to untrained regions of space after visuomotor adaptation to targets in a restricted region of space has been attributed to the directional tuning properties of neurons in the motor system. Building on this idea, the effect of different types of perturbations on generalization (e.g., rotation vs. visual translation) have been attributed to the selection of differentially tuned populations. Overlooked in this discussion is consideration of how the context of the training environment may constrain generalization. Here, we explore the role of context by having participants learn a visuomotor rotation or a translational shift in two different contexts, one in which the array of targets were presented in a circular arrangement and the other in which they were presented in a rectilinear arrangement. The perturbation and environments were either consistent (e.g., rotation with circular arrangement) or inconsistent (e.g., rotation with rectilinear arrangement). The pattern of generalization across the workspace was much more dependent on the context of the environment than on the perturbation, with broad generalization for the rectilinear arrangement for both types of perturbations. Moreover, the generalization pattern for this context was evident, even when the perturbation was introduced in a gradual manner, precluding the use of an explicit strategy. We describe how current models of generalization might be modified to incorporate these results, building on the idea that context provides a strong bias for how the motor system infers the nature of the visuomotor perturbation and, in turn, how this information influences the pattern of generalization.

We investigated the effect of environmental context on false recognition by using the remember/know procedure. Participants studied word lists, each of which was composed of associates of an unstudied word (critical lure) in one room. Then, they were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. One group moved into a new room (different environmental context) to take a recognition memory test, and the other group took the test in the same room (same environmental context). During the test, participants were asked to provide remember/know judgments about recognized items. A false recognition effect was observed such that the false alarm rate for critical lures was greater compared with distractors and was as high as the hit rate, resulting in no difference in overall discriminability between targets and critical lures. An effect of context-dependent recognition was found as both hit and false alarm rates increased in the same environmental context relative to the different environmental context, without a difference in overall discrimination between the context conditions. Nonetheless, participants used remember responses more often when discriminating targets (rather than critical lures) from distractors, whereas they used familiarity-based responses more often when discriminating critical lures (rather than targets) from distractors in the same environmental context. These results suggest that reinstating environment context plays an important role in false recognition increasing the sense of familiarity.

Murnane and Phelps (1993) recommend word pair presentations in local environmental context (EC) studies to prevent associations being formed between successively presented items and their ECs and a consequent reduction in the EC effect. Two experiments were conducted to assess the veracity of this assumption. In Experiment 1, participants memorised single words or word pairs, or categorised them as natural or man made. Their free recall protocols were examined to assess any associations established between successively presented items. Fewest associations were observed when the item-specific encoding task (i.e., natural or man made categorisation of word referents) was applied to single words. These findings were examined further in Experiment 2, where the influence of encoding instructions and stimulus presentation on local EC dependent recognition memory was examined. Consistent with recognition dual-process signal detection model predictions and findings (e.g., Macken, 2002; Parks & Yonelinas, 2008), recollection sensitivity, but not familiarity sensitivity, was found to be local EC dependent. However, local EC dependent recognition was observed only after item-specific encoding instructions, irrespective of stimulus presentation. These findings and the existing literature suggest that the use of single word presentations and item-specific encoding enhances local EC dependent recognition.

Preface Environment, Health and AIDS AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Disease The Promotion of Health and Environmental Contexts Environmental Contexts: The General Public Environmental Contexts: Homosexual/Bisexual Males Environmental Contexts: Injection Drug Users Environmental Contexts: Women, Minorities, and Special Needs Groups Environmental Contexts: Putting the Problem into Perspective Appendix: Safer-Sex Guidelines Selected Bibliography Index

Five years after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake that triggered multiple mass movements, landslides continue to pose a threat to the population of Azad Kashmir, especially during heavy monsoon rains. The thousands of landslides that were triggered by the 7.6 magnitude earthquake in 2005 were not just due to a natural phenomenon but largely induced by human activities, namely, road building, grazing, and deforestation. The damage caused by the landslides in the study area (381 km2) is estimated at 3.6 times the annual public works budget of Azad Kashmir for 2005 of US$ 1 million. In addition to human suffering, this cost constitutes a significant economic setback to the region that could have been reduced through improved land use and risk management. This article describes interdisciplinary research conducted 18 months after the earthquake to provide a more systemic approach to understanding risks posed by landslides, including the physical, environmental, and human contexts. The goal of this research is twofold: to present empirical data on the social, geological, and environmental contexts in which widespread landslides occurred following the 2005 earthquake; and, second, to describe straightforward methods that can be used for integrated landslide risk assessments in data-poor environments. The article analyzes limitations of the methodologies and challenges for conducting interdisciplinary research that integrates both social and physical data. This research concludes that reducing landslide risk is ultimately a management issue, based in land use decisions and governance.

Previous research has shown that changes in the scenarios in which something is learned and recalled, respectively, may result in a subpar performance in memory recollection. The current study aimed to evaluate how changes in the visuo-perceptual environmental learning context impact incidental vocabulary learning. To this end, a highly immersive virtual reality setting was created, and participants were required to read eight distinct stories visually presented to them. A novel word was delivered twice in every paragraph and embedded in each story. Stories could be displayed either in a high variability condition, where each paragraph was shown in a new environment context (four different classrooms) or in a low variability condition, where each paragraph was shown in the same context. The findings obtained across four assessment tasks (free recall, recognition, picture matching, and sentence completion) demonstrated that significant visuo-perceptual variability did not bring about any disadvantages in word learning. Thus, perceptual information from a physically diverse environment could provide a variety of instructional and educational beneficial possibilities in the absence of a learning disadvantage.

Functional characterization of regulatory DNA elements in broad genetic contexts is a prerequisite for forward engineering of biological systems. Translation initiation site (TIS) sequences are attractive to use for regulating gene activity and metabolic pathway fluxes because the genetic changes are minimal. However, limited knowledge is available on tuning gene outputs by varying TISs in different genetic and environmental contexts. Here, we created TIS hexamer libraries in baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae directly 5′ end of a reporter gene in various promoter contexts and measured gene activity distributions for each library. Next, selected TIS sequences, resulted in almost 10-fold changes in reporter outputs, were experimentally characterized in various environmental and genetic contexts in both yeast and mammalian cells. From our analyses, we observed strong linear correlations (R2 = 0.75–0.98) between all pairwise combinations of TIS order and gene activity. Finally, our analysis enabled the identification of a TIS with almost 50% stronger output than a commonly used TIS for protein expression in mammalian cells, and selected TISs were also used to tune gene activities in yeast at a metabolic branch point in order to prototype fitness and carotenoid production landscapes. Taken together, the characterized TISs support reliable context-independent forward engineering of translation initiation in eukaryotes.

Many experiments have shown that recognition memory is relatively unaffected by changes in environmental testing context. In the experiment reported in this paper, subjects studied a list of words in the laboratory and were tested by surprise by phone when they were at home. The results showed a significant impairment in recognition, relative to recognition by controls tested in the laboratory. This context effect seems to be related to the difficulty that subjects experienced in mentally reinstating the study context.