Toxic Silence: Towards an Auditory Phenomenology of Polluted Environments

CEOs' perceptions of the environment and the information processing shortcuts (or heuristics) they use to develop these perceptions are important to organizations. We study whether organizational structure, an important channel and filter for the flow of information in organizations, affects CEOs' perception gaps pertaining to the competitive environment. Perception gaps are defined as systematic deviations of subjective perceptions of the competitive environment from conceptions based on objective data. Studying 281 CEOs based in 216 firms, we find that functional structures are associated with wider environmental perception gaps, whereas divisional structures are associated with narrower gaps. To address endogeneity concerns, we control for firms' exposure to varied environments and only sample newly appointed CEOs, who, by definition, inherit predefined organizational structures exogenous to their own choices. Our study advances understanding of senior managers' information processing shortcuts by clarifying how organizational‐level influences (i.e., organizational structure) affect CEOs' (mis)perceptions of the competitive environment.

This paper explores the enlightenment significance of classic ecological literature works to the environmental protection movement. Through literature research and case analysis, three representative ecological literary works, “Silent Spring,” “Dune,” and “Call of the Wild,” were selected for in-depth analysis. The study found that these classic works express profound environmental protection values, reflect environmental problems such as chemical pollution, resource depletion, and wildlife protection, and reflect care for the ecosystem. Among them, “Silent Spring” reveals the harm of pesticides to the biological chain, “Dune” explores the relationship between resource exploitation and ecological protection, and “Call of the Wild” depicts the harmonious coexistence between man and nature. The environmental awareness shown in these works has important enlightenment for the contemporary environmental movement, arousing the public’s environmental awareness and providing reference for environmental protection actions and strategy formulation. The study believes that ecological literature contains rich environmental protection value, is the source of ideas for the environmental protection movement, and has a lasting impact on promoting the environmental protection process.

Anechoic chambers are used for obtaining exact results of small-sized antennas parameters measurements. Such measurements in anechoic chambers are a complex and lengthy process with the usage of costly equipment. The accuracy increasing and measures time reducing are reached by automatization of measuring processes. The paper presents the results of hardware and software system development for antennas measurements on the base of the anechoic chamber of National Aerospace University Kharkiv Aviation Institute, Kharkiv, Ukraine. The anechoic chamber with a volume of 28 m3 via the adjustable diaphragms for reducing the level of wall reflections ensures the anechoic zone with a volume of 1 m3 at the level of -30 dB on the distance of 3 meters from measuring antennas in the frequency range from 8.5 GHz to 12.6 GHz. The object is installed on a remotely controlled rotary support made of an RF transparent material which provides fixation of the object position in space and its uniform rotation in the horizontal plane by 360°. Transceiver, measure equipment, controlling and information processing apparatus are placed outside the camera. The paper considers the structure of measuring complex, features of measurement technique and processing their results, presents an example of the results of measuring the antenna pattern of the small-sized horn antenna of the X-band.

Abstract. This article is written from the perspective of phenomenology. Its potential gain for a critical human geography is discussed in contrast to the paradigmatic frame of basic assumptions in constructivism. The example of atmospheres will illustrate another theoretical conception of space. In phenomenological view there happens not only a reality of things but also a circum-actuality is not spatially extended like a house or another material objective. Atmospheres are vital qualities (Dürckheim) we feel like a cloud in our sense perception in situations of awareness. This implies the necessity to make a difference between a material body (Körper) and a felt body (Leib). This epistemic knowledge will improve our critique of neoliberal societies, tuned by aestheticisation especially in glamour CBDs of postmodern cities. Finally there is a close link to the work of Michel Foucault, topped off in his The Hermeneutics of the Subject. References to the Critical Theory (Frankfurter Schule) are connected.

Since its emergence during the 1970s, scientific research on exercise addiction has been interested primarily in the mental and physical causes and consequences of the behaviour of exercise addicts. This focus can be ascribed to the dominance of psychology and medicine among this field of research. This paper wishes to contribute to these thematic priorities and basic approaches by taking a phenomenological perspective as a basis, thus making the embodied and the personal dimension of exercise addiction the centre of attention. This approach aims towards two goals: First, it shall be pointed out that philosophy, especially phenomenology, can make a profound contribution to research concerning exercise addiction. Second, a phenomenological approach, which has so far remained mostly unknown to international sport philosophy, will be introduced, namely the New Phenomenology founded by German philosopher Hermann Schmitz. For this purpose, the objective of New Phenomenology will be explained as well as its two pivotal terms ‘felt body’ and ‘person’. Based on this, the main features of a neophenomenological analysis of exercise addiction that puts a focus on embodied experience and one’s personal situation will be outlined. Lastly, the analytical potential of New Phenomenology will be elucidated by means of an empirical case analysis.

This article discusses the relationship between motivation and genre in the context of academic writing, aiming to further bridge the gap between information-processing (IP) cognitive approaches and socio-cultural or dialogical approaches to understanding cognition. The author takes one significant recent article bridging the gap, Graham's Writers Within Communities (WWC) model, as a starting point and attempts to add concepts from genre as social action and Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory (SDT). The article explores how genre as social action is intimately connected with motivation and how SDT's principles of competence, autonomy, and relatedness align with the phenomenological perspective on genre and motivation. The author suggests that these theories provide a more comprehensive understanding of writing motivation, emphasizing that the perception of genre as social action is a crucial motivator for writers and that self-determination is vital to authentic self-regulation in academic writing. The article illustrates the uses of the additional theories with an interview-based case study of a dissertation writer. It ends by discussing the possible implications of this theoretical research for empirical research on student motivation from both IP cognitive and sociocultural perspectives.

In our time, as the need to expand the output of foodfor the rapidly rising population of the world becomesmore acutely felt, and as development acceleratesthroughout the world, the scope and tasks of appliedecology cannot but increase. Ours is an age in whichecological thinking and methods have more than everbefore to contribute to the progress of mankind: theJournal of Applied Ecology hopes to play a useful partin the common effort.These aspirations represent the closing statement of thevery first Editorial published in the first issue of Journalof Applied Ecology in 1964 (Bunting & Wynne-Edwards1964), and yet are still highly relevant today. It was withconsiderable vision that the British Ecological Society(BES) launched a new journal that not only spannedplant and animal ecology but addressed issues ofrelevance to human well-being.The Journal of Applied Ecology was founded to publishthe results of original research, particularly of a quantita-tive and experimental kind, on ecological subjects that areof economic or social importance. Fifty years ago, appliedecology was widely viewed as the poor relation of themore glamorous fundamental areas of this young science.Scientific research relating to the conservation of biologi-cal diversity was in its infancy, journals such as Conserva-tion Biology were not even on the horizon, while it wouldbe more than a decade before the integration of agricul-ture and the environment became a recognized area ofresearch with the launch of the journal Agriculture, Eco-system and Environment in the 1970s. The Journal ofApplied Ecology had already celebrated a quarter of acentury of publishing the best applied ecological researchwhen the Ecological Society of America launched Ecologi-cal Applications. Few applied journals can compete withthe Journal of Applied Ecology in terms of its heritage andits contribution to establishing applied ecology as animportant discipline in its own right.To celebrate our golden jubilee, we have launched avirtual issue online (http://www.journalofappliedecology.org/view/0/virtualissues/fiftyyearsvirtualissue.html) that re-views some of the key articles we have published over thelast five decades. Much of the focus of the first decadewas on improving the productivity of agricultural ecosys-tems rather than addressing agriculture’s potential impacton species conservation. Nonetheless, the Journal had aglobal outlook from the start, drawing its examples fromecosystems around the world. Surprisingly, given thelaunch of the journal less than 2 years after the publica-tion of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Carson, Darling &Darling 1962), studies describing the impact of agrochemi-cals on wildlife only appeared towards the end of the1960s. These studies did, however, include early classics inthe field. Work published at this time continues to haveimpact today. For example, Newman’s (1966) article, on amethod for estimating the total length of root in a sam-ple, is still heavily cited more than four decades later, with62 citations listed in Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.co.uk/) from January 2011 to November 2012.These recent citing articles include authors estimating car-bon stocks in Amazonia, understanding the effects ofmycorrhiza for coffee in Puerto Rico, and investigating thepotential for biocontrol of tomato root rot in Denmark.During the 1970s, much of what was published reflectedthe need for basic information about the biology of pestspecies that had large economic effects. This was a periodof rapid agricultural expansion and modernization, exem-plified by the so-called ‘green revolution’, and researcherswere acutely concerned with pests that lowered crop pro-ductivity. By the 1980s, while pests of agriculture werestill an important focus, models of their populationdynamics became increasingly more realistic and includedcrop phenology in assessments of the likely damage fromdefoliating insects. Furthermore, the management of agri-

Environmental perception and information processing are two key steps of active safety for vehicle reversing. Single-sensor environmental perception cannot meet the need for vehicle reversing safety due to its low reliability. In this paper, we present a novel multi-sensor environmental perception method using low-rank representation and a particle filter for vehicle reversing safety. The proposed system consists of four main steps, namely multi-sensor environmental perception, information fusion, target recognition and tracking using low-rank representation and a particle filter, and vehicle reversing speed control modules. First of all, the multi-sensor environmental perception module, based on a binocular-camera system and ultrasonic range finders, obtains the distance data for obstacles behind the vehicle when the vehicle is reversing. Secondly, the information fusion algorithm using an adaptive Kalman filter is used to process the data obtained with the multi-sensor environmental perception module, which greatly improves the robustness of the sensors. Then the framework of a particle filter and low-rank representation is used to track the main obstacles. The low-rank representation is used to optimize an objective particle template that has the smallest L-1 norm. Finally, the electronic throttle opening and automatic braking is under control of the proposed vehicle reversing control strategy prior to any potential collisions, making the reversing control safer and more reliable. The final system simulation and practical testing results demonstrate the validity of the proposed multi-sensor environmental perception method using low-rank representation and a particle filter for vehicle reversing safety.

In the final decade of the twentiedi century, ecologists, social scientists and literary critics called our attention to the alarmist rhetoric of recent environmental writing. In his influential study of environmental perception in American culture, The Environmental Imagination (1995), Lawrence Buell argued that global pollution, genetic engineering, and the technologies of nuclear destruction have fostered a new millenarianism. Works such as Rachel Carson’s The Silent Spring (1962), Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968), Jonathan Schell s The Fate of the Earth (1982), and Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature (1989), among many others, imagined the devastating consequences of human actions on the fragile environment and deployed a “rhetoric of apocalypticism” to press the urgency of their common message, that “the fate of the world hinges on the arousal of the imagination to a sense of crisis.”1 While the apocalyptic scenarios of contemporary environmental works vary, almost all of them rest on the fear of scarcity—the spectacle of an imminent shortage of energy, air, water, and food.2 Thus, while revitalized by the threat of nuclear war and environmental degradation, contemporary environmental apocalypticism conjures up a dismal prospect of life lived perilously close to the bone in an atmosphere of fierce competition. This foreboding prospect, of course, issues from an earlier era of apocalyptic thinking, when in 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus presented the sublime specter of scarcity as a simple, but immutable, law of nature.

The stated aim behind this anthology of about 60 pieces is to show that `science writing can be great writing in precisely the same sense that other genres are great.' The pieces range in date from Herodotus in the fifth century BC to a piece from a book written in 1994 by George Smoot, whose work as leader of the NASA Cosmic Background Explorer programme is better known than his name. Unsurprisingly, 70% are from the twentieth century, and with a bias to the latter part of the century. Almost half the pieces are about physics or astronomy with the rest spread more equally between chemistry, biology, geology and psychology, plus a small number characterized as `general.' The authors are predominantly practising scientists, a few are professional writers with a scientific background, and there is a historian and two philosophers. The inclusion of only four items by women is a sad but accurate reflection of gender bias in science. In other respects the selection is less representative. American sources account for more than a third of the items, British sources for almost a third, leaving under a third from the rest of Europe and none from elsewhere or from other cultures. A selection such as this is inevitably subjective and reflects the editor's personal preferences. Any editor would include something from Galileo but Bolles has three excerpts, although no other writer has more than one piece and Newton is included only in an item shared with Hooke. Not all editors would include a piece of their own writing, as Bolles does. The book is arranged in three sections based on aspects of `scientific imagination' but these organizing themes, and also the chapter headings within the sections, may be of more significance to Bolles than to most readers. There is an introduction to the book and a preface to each section. Careless typographical errors in these explanatory pieces (on one page Hooke's name is spelt correctly once and incorrectly twice) do not inspire confidence in them. More usefully, there is a paragraph or two setting the context for each of the selected items, for they are the heart of the book and they speak for themselves. An effort has been made to avoid always using the obvious items, thus the piece by Rachel Carson is not from The Silent Spring but from an earlier work, The Sea Around Us. There is no attempt to give both sides of a dispute, so that one is left wondering whether Noam Chomsky's incisive demolition of B F Skinner's behaviourist psychology ever met with any rebuttal. The book contains a lot of descriptive science, but its value is for the insights it gives into the way science and scientists work, and how this has changed over the years. Galileo and Hooke present their discoveries in dialogues, a form totally alien to modern science. With hindsight we can see the errors, the blind alleys and the failures to recognize good ideas which are nevertheless all part of the progress of science. The writer Robert Duncan's early account of radioactivity includes spurious `actinic' rays and particles travelling faster than light. Alfred Wegener with his theory of continental drift was a prophet ahead of his time. Ernest Rutherford believed that splitting atoms was unlikely to provide a new source of power. Other pieces challenge our complacency. The writer John McPhee's piece poking fun at the proliferation of geological names has a critical edge to it because specialist language excludes the non-specialist. Isaac Asimov reminds us that apparently simple discoveries are always more difficult than they seem, and can be downright dangerous. The book is an interesting and useful contribution to the background of general scientific knowledge needed by anyone, scientist or layman, who aspires to be roundly educated. It is a reassuring book because it shows that not only professional writers but also many of the great names of science can write for the general reader in a manner that bears comparison with other literary genres. Good scientists can be good communicators.

Over the past century, the growth in petrochemical manufacturing within Louisiana’s Upper Industrial Corridor brought economic development, but also introduced toxic emissions and environmental exposure risks to residents of the area. For the citizens living in close proximity to multiple facilities there is the added risk of chemical exposure from environmentally hazardous accidents. This study seeks to gain insights into patterns of risk-reducing behaviors of residents in East Baton Rouge Parish so that better educational outreach programs can be developed. This research addresses the following questions: To what extent are residents of Baton Rouge taking steps to reduce environmental exposure risks? What factors may influence adoption of exposure-reducing behavior? For this study, “adaptive behaviors” are: the adoption of a household emergency plan, more frequent checking of daily air quality ratings, and changing plans for outdoor activities on bad air quality days. Interviews with 68 residents were conducted to learn about their environmental knowledge and risk perceptions, and the extent to which they have adopted these three risk-reducing behaviors. Factors that may influence such adaptive behaviors include income, education, and proximity to regulated facilities, length of residence in the community, risk knowledge levels, and membership in local environmental groups, among other factors. The research also explores differences between interviewees living in zip codes with Toxic Release Inventory reporting facilities and those living in zip codes that do not contain the facilities. The statistical analyses indicated that demographics, such as age or education levels, and membership in local environmental groups may not play a major role in implementing these adaptive behaviors. Rather, the analysis indicates that residents who have adopted household environmental emergency plans are more informed and have a higher degree of confidence in their own knowledge of hazards and options to reduce exposure risks. Also they tended to know about and adopt other exposure-reducing behaviors. Information gained through this analysis suggests that exposure-reducing behaviors tend to be linked, and that educational outreach programs may need to focus first on effective ways to simply inform residents of risk levels and exposure-reducing strategies in order to increase their awareness and confidence in their abilities to make themselves safer.

Purpose Autonomous driving depends on the collection, processing and analysis of environmental information and vehicle information. Environmental perception and processing are important prerequisite for the safety of self-driving of vehicles; it involves road boundary detection, vehicle detection, pedestrian detection using sensors such as laser rangefinder, video camera, vehicle borne radar, etc. Design/methodology/approach Subjected to various environmental factors, the data clock information is often out of sync because of different data acquisition frequency, which leads to the difficulty in data fusion. In this study, according to practical requirements, a multi-sensor environmental perception collaborative method was first proposed; then, based on the principle of target priority, large-scale priority, moving target priority and difference priority, a multi-sensor data fusion optimization algorithm based on convolutional neural network was proposed. Findings The average unload scheduling delay of the algorithm for test data before and after optimization under different network transmission rates. It can be seen that with the improvement of network transmission rate and processing capacity, the unload scheduling delay decreased after optimization and the performance of the test results is the closest to the optimal solution indicating the excellent performance of the optimization algorithm and its adaptivity to different environments. Originality/value In this paper, the results showed that the proposed method significantly improved the redundancy and fault tolerance of the system thus ensuring fast and correct decision-making during driving.

Augmented reality (AR) uses digital information to enhance our perception of the real world. Smart glasses (SG) are an example of AR, displaying information within the wearer’s field of view. Although they offer advantages, such as leaving one’s hands free to work, they nevertheless raise questions, particularly in terms of safety, comfort and their effects on health. In this context, an experimental laboratory study involving 80 volunteer participants was carried out to assess their environmental perception when using smart glasses and the effects on their health. The results underline an alteration in environmental perception linked to a reduction in the field of vision, as well as an attentional distraction following the processing of information received via the smart glasses. The perceived effects on health, mainly ocular, have been highlighted. The study enables recommendations to be issued on the use of SG, in order to guarantee the health and safety of users.

The necessity of testing the directional pattern for antenna array of active phased in near and far zones is substantiated. A new technique has been developed for testing the radiation pattern of antenna array of active phased in the far zone at anechoic chamber. A fiber-optic system for transmitting the signal of microwave from anechoic chamber to information processing device has been developed, which allows checking each receiving-transmitting element in antenna array of active phased. The requirements for the optical communication system have been established. The results of studies of the directional diagram and the operation of the receiving and transmitting elements are presented.

Is there an interest for hair analysis in non-intentional pediatric cannabis intoxication?