Everyday Choices Research Articles

Artificial intelligence-based weather prediction framework using neural networks

For humans, weather prediction is vital in making rational everyday choices and avoiding risk. Accurate weather forecasting is regarded as one of the world’s most difficult issues. New weather forecasting, unlike conventional techniques, relies on a mixture of computer simulations, observation (via balloons and satellites), and information of patterns and trends (via local weather analysts and weather stations). Predictions are rendered with fair precision using such techniques. Prediction algorithms based on complicated formulas run the majority of computational models used for prediction. This paper highlights the prediction of weather with the artificial neural networks (ANN) using the latest available smart computing devices. To assess the effectiveness of the model, comparison research is conducted with the other existing models in the same area. The result demonstrates that our approach is better in comparison to other similar research and products. The comparative analysis has been undergone which confirms the superiority of our proposed techniques with an accuracy of 90.4%.

Culture of Poverty and Sustainable Development: Case of Machar Colony in Karachi

This paper analyzes the intrinsic relation between two key indicators of development; sustainability and poverty. It specifically focuses on culture of poverty and sustainable development. Sustainable development envisions a balanced growth of human societies, meeting the current needs without compromising the required natural resources for future generations. The idea of culture of poverty is put forward in social theory, and the idea revolves around ideals of people experiencing poverty and how it may play an important role in preserving their disadvantaged situation, thus maintaining a cycle of poverty across generations. They may be resistant to considering sustainable choices while taking advantage of economic opportunities. So, the question posed is whether the culture of poverty acts as a hindrance or a facilitator for sustainable development. Given that culture forms an intrinsic part of sustainable development principles, this paper reviews the case of a marginalized low-income community in Karachi, exploring the everyday choices they make within the culture of poverty and the interface they have with the larger framework of sustainable development. Case study methodology has been employed, with qualitative interviews, observation and mapping used as research tools. The results of the research reveal a sense of disempowerment that residents of Machar Colony face, leading them to focus on short-term survival rather than long-term sustainable development objectives. The prevalent culture of poverty impedes progress and development, failing to pave the path for sustainable livelihood.

Dietary Phenolic Compounds-Wellbeing and Perspective Applications.

Contemporary living is continuously leading to poor everyday choices resulting in the manifestation of various diseases. The benefits of plant-based nutrition are undeniable and research on the topic is rising. Modern man is now aware of the possibilities that plant nutrition can provide and is seeking ways to benefit from it. Dietary phenolic compounds are among the easily accessible beneficial substances that can exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, antiparasitic, analgesic, anti-diabetic, anti-atherogenic, antiproliferative, as well as cardio-and neuroprotective activities. Several industries are exploring ways to incorporate biologically active substances in their produce. This review is concentrated on presenting current information about the dietary phenolic compounds and their contribution to maintaining good health. Additionally, this content will demonstrate the importance and prosperity of natural compounds for various fields, i.e., food industry, cosmetology, and biotechnology, among others.

Co-designing grounded visualisations of the Food-Water-Energy nexus to enable urban sustainability transformations

In the past few years, the Food-Water-Energy (FWE) Nexus has emerged as a key concept to address the complex relationships and interdependencies between food, water, and energy systems. Cities are an important context for understanding the FWE nexus given their significant footprints and complex socio-ecological systems, but researchers have only recently started to explore an explicit urban perspective on food, water, and energy interrelationships. This paper tackles a particularly significant knowledge gap in this context by introducing an approach to co-design visualisations of the FWE nexus that are understandable and actionable for the various stakeholders involved in urban governance such as citizens, communities, governments, non-governmental and private-sector organisations. Drawing on user-centred design and inspired by the dialogic pedagogy of Paulo Freire, we present and evaluate the co-design process of a FWE nexus visualisation tool for stakeholders engaged with pre-school education in Słupsk, Poland. Our results provide evidence that this co-design process has been effective to developing a new critical consciousness in the participants about how their everyday choices are related to the FWE nexus, enabling them to change perspectives, leading to more sustainable choices. We propose that our co-design process can be used to develop 'grounded visualisations' of the FWE nexus, i.e., visualisations that are grounded in the experiential situations and lived realities of stakeholders, thus offering an effective support for decision-making that could open pathways to sustainability transformations.

‘Biography of the self’: Why Australian women wear 1950s style clothing

This article aims to understand why one cohort of Australian women choose to wear anachronistic clothing, in this case, 1950s inspired and styled clothing, and more so, why they choose to wear this style of clothing as part of their everyday lives. While some wearers of anachronistic clothing, such as civil war re-creators or Jane Austen enthusiasts, dress for particular social events and revert to ‘everyday’ clothing in their daily lives, this research seeks to examine why this cohort of 1950s fashion aficionados maintain this aesthetic in their everyday work and social lives. The research findings are based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 27 Australian women, aged from their 20s to their 60s, living in urban and regional locations. The purpose of the project was to uncover the psychological and sociological reasons for their sartorial everyday choices. In doing so a number of issues emerged notably interpretations of what constituted 1950s styled clothing. In the discussion of the findings, it was found that the reasons for this fashion choice were complex ranging from personal, psychological, sociological, gendered, nostalgic and political reasons for adopting this style.

Gaze differences in configural and elemental evaluation during multi-attribute decision-making.

While many everyday choices are between multi-attribute options, how attribute values are integrated to allow such choices remains unclear. Recent findings suggest a distinction between elemental (attribute-by-attribute) and configural (holistic) evaluation of multi-attribute options, with different neural substrates. Here, we asked if there are behavioral or gaze pattern differences between these putatively distinct modes of multi-attribute decision-making. Thirty-nine healthy men and women learned the monetary values of novel multi-attribute pseudo-objects (fribbles) and then made choices between pairs of these objects while eye movements were tracked. Value was associated with individual attributes in the elemental condition, and with unique combinations of attributes in the configural condition. Choice, reaction time, gaze fixation time on options and individual attributes, and within- and between-option gaze transitions were recorded. There were systematic behavioral differences between elemental and configural conditions. Elemental trials had longer reaction times and more between-option transitions, while configural trials had more within-option transitions. The effect of last fixation on choice was more pronounced in the configural condition. We observed differences in gaze patterns and the influence of last fixation location on choice in multi-attribute value-based choices depending on how value is associated with those attributes. This adds support for the claim that multi-attribute option values may emerge either elementally or holistically, reminiscent of similar distinctions in multi-attribute object recognition. This may be important to consider in neuroeconomics research that involve visually-presented complex objects.

Bound to Share or Not to Care. The Force of Fate, Gods, Luck, Chance and Choice across Cultures

Abstract People across cultures consider everyday choices in the context of perceived various external life-determining forces: such as fate and gods (two teleological forces) and such notions as luck and chance (two non-teleological forces). There is little cross-cultural evidence (except for a belief in gods) showing how people relate these salient notions of life-determining forces to prosociality and a sense of well-being. The current paper provides preliminary cross-cultural data to address this gap. Results indicate that choice is the most important life-determining factor. Regression analyses indicate that choice and belief in gods and fate emerged as significant predictors of prosociality towards strangers. Moreover, luck was a significant predictor of decreased prosociality. A relation between life-determining forces and life satisfaction followed the same pattern: choice, gods, and fate emerged as significant predictors of greater life satisfaction, whereas luck was associated with decreased life satisfaction. The overall pattern of results indicates that participants across different cultures might sense being bounded to share or not to care depending on the perceived intentional agency and meaning in the external forces.

Wellbeing Amid Digital Risks: Implications of Digital Risks, Threats, and Scams on Users’ Wellbeing

This study investigates how users perceive their wellbeing amid the risks associated with digital media use in Norway. According to the literature, some of these risks include digital dependence, online privacy, scams, thefts, information misuse, and harassment. To expand knowledge on how these and other digital risks are construed by users, this study addresses the following research questions: What implications do digital risks have on users’ perceived sense of wellbeing? What are the solutions proposed by users to manage these risks? Methodologically, the inquiry is led through a qualitative approach comprising 17 semi-structured in-depth interviews of university students in Norway. The investigation centers on<strong> </strong>an interpretative phenomenological analysis. This study contributes to the existing literature by empirically evaluating the notion of digital wellbeing in the everyday choices of university students, thereby comprehending their safety concerns and how they manage online risks while exploring solutions to combat the risks of digital usage. The study adds value to the present literature on digital wellbeing by juxtaposing digital risks with the construct of wellbeing in digitalized societies.

Valuing in the Agrifood System: The Case of Fresh Grain Legumes in Denmark

Transitioning towards more sustainable food products, such as plant proteins, requires a change in practice by several actors in the agrifood system. Change of this kind involves everyday choices about what food to produce, sell, prepare, and eat. Inspired by science and technology studies (STS) thinking, we investigate how such choices are influenced by socio-material practices of valuing. We use the case of fresh grain legumes for human consumption to explore how valuing is simultaneously affected by and shapes the agrifood system. Through interviews with 24 actors in the Danish agrifood system, we identify valuing parameters ranging from taste, nitrogen fixation, durability, and nutrition to price. The study reveals differences regarding what and how actors value depending on the actors’ position in the agrifood system and how the fresh grain legumes travel from field to plate. Where values conflict, we observe how some valuing practices have the power to exclude others and thereby prevent specific enactments of the fresh grain legumes. We argue that looking for valuing practices can help us understand how agrifood systems come into being, and that valuing differently can represent active involvement, both academically and practically, in encouraging change in the agrifood system. By using STS-thinking, the study brings novel insights about barriers towards more plant-based diets and contributes to the diversification of theoretical perspectives on sustainable transitions.

Interior Poverty in the Thought of Meister Eckhart as an Inspiration for Contemporary Sustainable Consumption

This article aims at presenting Meister Eckhart’s category of interior poverty as a contemporary proposal for the issue of sustainable consumption. Attempts to appropriate the discourse almost exclusively by means of economic optics seem unfounded in this context. Indeed, the issue of sustainable consumption is multifaceted, hence the idea to look at it from the perspective of the original thought of Meister Eckhart, who remains remarkably contemporary in his views on interior poverty. Renunciation in the form of depriving man of desires above all and not of things themselves remains a challenge to the intemperance and excesses of our everyday choices; moreover, the positioning of duty in being rather than action, in other words, by Meister Eckhart, is closer to our times than we used to think and remains an inspiring factor for contemporary searches for the core of personal interior preparation within a context of intemperate consumption.

Здоровье как результат повседневного выбора: разработка и апробация шкалы мотивации выбора действий в пользу и во вред здоровью

In this paper, health-related behavior is considered not as a single activity, but as a series of everyday, often uncoordinated and polymotivated, choices of actions in favor or against of better health. The aim is to develop and validate a scale of motivation for actions related to health, as people's everyday choices - in favor or against of health. Methods. 119 residents of Moscow and Moscow Region and 64 residents of Baku filled out the scale of motivation for actions in favor and against of health (on a specific example of each of the actions), Satisfaction With Life Scale, Positive and Negative Experience Scale and the Scale of Ways to Care for Health. Results. Sufficient consistency and factorial validity of the scale were demonstrated. In general, when evaluating their motivation for both benefit and harm to health, people rate internal and identified motivation higher, and lower - the search for a new, external and amotivation. When choosing in favor of health, in comparison with the choice to the detriment of it, there are higher indicators of identified, introjected motivation, as well as the search for something new. Intrinsic and identified motivations for choosing actions in favor of health are associated with lower levels of negative emotions and an active lifestyle, and identified motivations are also associated with proactive health monitoring. Powerlessness as a variant of amotivation is associated with a higher level of negative emotions, both when choosing in favor of health, and to the detriment of it. The search for new health is associated with the use of alternative methods of treatment. Conclusions. The action motivation scale can be used to assess internal, identified, introjected, external motivation, amotivation, as well as searching for something new and impotence, both in relation to actions for the benefit and to the detriment of health.

Challenges behind sustainable schools commutes: qualitative approach in the urban environment of XXIst century

Traffic congestion and high motorization rate is an important challenge for present urban areas. Design of people-centered cities that facilitate active transport and reduce number of trips by private cars is much needed approach. Parents of children at schools are particularly heavy car users and contributors to congestion-related problems. Active school commuting (ACS) is also a crucial element of most of the urban transport policies. It has various positive health impacts, but also creates a long term habits of using more sustainable transport modes. This paper focus on the perspective of parents on everyday choices of transport modes used for school commuting in a first-tier city, on the example of Warsaw. It is based on the qualitative approach and provide analysis of existing barriers for different mobility choices, particularly among parents and with reference to the ACS.

ЦИРКУЛЯРНА ЕКОНОМІКА: КОНЦЕПТУАЛЬНІ ОСОБЛИВОСТІ, ПЕРЕШКОДИ ВПРОВАДЖЕННЯ В УКРАЇНІ

The article discusses the factors hindering the development of the circular economy were identified, the systematization of which allowed the author to identify five main groups of such obstacles: sociocultural, legislative, informational, technological and economic. The mentioned obstacles are considered from the point of view of the influence they have on various subjects of such a process: the public sector, the private sector, and society. The expediency of dividing the entire diversity of such factors, within the framework of three different subjects, into three main spheres of manifestation: financial and economic, institutional, and technological spheres is noted. It was concluded that the analysis of such obstacles is important for the development of the circular economy in our country. The transition to a closed-loop economy creates opportunities not only for reformatting the entire logic of value creation, with the motivation of reducing pressure on ecosystems, but a comprehensive shift in favor of longterm sustainability in order to ensure economic, environmental and social benefits. This approach requires the application of progressive innovative solutions at all stages of the product life cycle. The main goal of circular business models is to preserve resources in circulation (cycle) as long as possible, as well as to replace resources that are completely renewable, recycled or biodegradable. Circular business models involve companies in increasing the efficiency of product use and disposal to create new opportunities for resource reuse, product sharing, and optimization of the entire value chain. It has been established that, from the point of view of public administration bodies, the assessment of the significance of such obstacles is necessary both for the formation of resource-efficient state policy and for the identification of levers for increasing interest in the use of secondary resources. For companies that concentrate or process waste, such an assessment will be useful when considering the issue of implementing circular technological cycles. For enterprises that use secondary raw materials and waste in their activities, overcoming barriers is very important for their further development. For consumers who use products from secondary raw materials, this is also very important, because the formation of consumer demand for ecological goods contributes to the formation of an economy that cares for nature, and the everyday choices of millions of consumers significantly affect the environment.

ПРОБЛЕМИ РОЗВИТКУ ЦИРКУЛЯРНОЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ ЯК ФАКТОРУ СТАЛОГО РОЗВИТКУ УКРАЇНИ

The article discusses the factors hindering the development of the circular economy were identified, the systematization of which allowed the author to identify five main groups of such obstacles: socio-cultural, legislative, informational, technological and economic. The mentioned obstacles are considered from the point of view of the influence they have on various subjects of such a process: the public sector, the private sector, and society. The expediency of dividing the entire diversity of such factors, within the framework of three different subjects, into three main spheres of manifestation: financial and economic, institutional, and technological spheres is noted. It was concluded that the analysis of such obstacles is important for the development of the circular economy in our country. The transition to a closed-loop economy creates opportunities not only for reformatting the entire logic of value creation, with the motivation of reducing pressure on ecosystems, but a comprehensive shift in favor of long-term sustainability in order to ensure economic, environmental and social benefits. This approach requires the application of progressive innovative solutions at all stages of the product life cycle. The main goal of circular business models is to preserve resources in circulation (cycle) as long as possible, as well as to replace resources that are completely renewable, recycled or biodegradable. Circular business models involve companies in increasing the efficiency of product use and disposal to create new opportunities for resource reuse, product sharing, and optimization of the entire value chain. It has been established that, from the point of view of public administration bodies, the assessment of the significance of such obstacles is necessary both for the formation of resource-efficient state policy and for the identification of levers for increasing interest in the use of secondary resources. For companies that concentrate or process waste, such an assessment will be useful when considering the issue of implementing circular technological cycles. For enterprises that use secondary raw materials and waste in their activities, overcoming barriers is very important for their further development. For consumers who use products from secondary raw materials, this is also very important, because the formation of consumer demand for ecological goods contributes to the formation of an economy that cares for nature, and the everyday choices of millions of consumers significantly affect the environment.

Living an Abolitionist Life

Abstract: “Living an Abolitionist Life” is at once a testimony to the everyday praxis of abolition feminism and a theoretical framework for understanding the abolitionist impulse characteristic of an anti-carceral Asian American feminist praxis. Using Sara Ahmed’s feminist scholarship as a guide, the author observes various shifts from the individual to the collective, distilling the urgency of abolition feminism into a praxis of everyday choices. The first case study sits with the cultural politics of emotion, reviewing reactions to anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic including discourse surrounding calls for hate crimes legislation and mass appeal through the hashtag #StopAsianHate. Next, the author considers collective care through Ahmed’s notion of “becoming a feminist ear,” foregrounding 18 Million Rising, an Asian American digital-first organization that authored Call on Me, Not the Cops , an intergenerational resistance to policing. The article ends with a discussion on orientation and orientalism, revisiting the case of Yang Song, a Chinese migrant massage worker who fell four stories to her death in Flushing, Queens during a police raid in 2017. Holding on to the liberatory potential of Asian American abolition feminism, the author writes less with the intention to evidence the indisputable worth of Asian American abolition feminism and more to offer a way of noticing everyday gestures of being in political struggle by centering those who live abolitionist lives.

Metaverse: A New Digital Marketing Trend

Modern society is seeing a fast uptick in technology adaptation and incorporation. The development of the internet and other modern devices has made it possible for systems to become further adaptable, diverse, and sophisticated, enabling them to handle the bulk of humanity's duties and burdens. The most successful technological advances in internet adaptation are virtual worlds and augmented reality. But the increased search for technical breakthroughs has made room for the most recent virtual world, called Metaverse. Metaverse has created the presence of the digital space and changed it into the actual world so that we are no longer just dependent on the internet via our screens. Utilizing virtual or augmented reality systems, it enables users to actively involve themselves in the virtual space where they may engage and innovate everyday choices in a time-based setting. The Metaverse has improved its accessories throughout the years. In order to provide customers with a holistic and true experience with the item or commodity they desire to purchase, companies and businesses are making use of automation's special and distinguishing features. Due to the rising competitiveness in the marketing industry, the Metaverse has given businesses and traders the opportunity to investigate technology aspects for more creativity. An introduction to the metaverse and its developments is presented in this paper.

Nurturing relationship-rich practices

Relationships matter - those interactions that connect students with each other, teachers and broader communities for the purpose of learning, being and becoming. Technology plays a key role along with modality, curriculum, pedagogy, feedback and assessment. Tertiary educators capacity to configure all these elements is essential for relationship-rich education. In addition, values come into focus and shape everyday choices that teaching staff make regarding technology and teaching. Kelly and Peter will draw on student voice and partnership literatures, a bit of networked learning scholarship, and their practical teaching experiences to co-facilitate this workshop exploring relationship-rich educational practices. Participants with varying levels of confidence and expertise, differing disciplines, and a range of institutional roles will enrich the workshop experience for all involved. Participants are asked to bring a laptop or smart device to the workshop. The workshop will be open to 50 people attending the conference on-site.

Negotiating Lebanon’s urban boundaries and sectarian space: Syrian refugees in Beirut and Tripoli

ABSTRACT As Syrian refugee numbers in Lebanon have increased, so has the hostility directed towards them, with targeted attacks against informal encampments and public restrictions on Syrian mobility through localized curfews and military checkpoints. The Syrian experience is constrained by both their precarity as refugees and the volatility of Lebanese urban politics. Syrians must navigate the complex terrain of moral and socio-spatial Lebanese boundaries: when to keep silent or remain publicly invisible, how to navigate sectarian street dynamics, and how to respond to heightened public sensibilities. This article, based on six months ethnographic research (2017–2018) among Syrian refugees in Tripoli (Bab al-Tabbaneh) and Beirut (Nab’a) examines how Syrian refugees navigate Lebanese urban spatial realities—adapting and responding to its complex hybrid sovereignties, sectarian atmospheres and everyday security practices. The findings attest to how Syrian refugees seek ‘security within borders’ through practices of rootedness, invisibility and ‘safe space’ boundary marking, while also accepting that crossing boundaries—physical military checkpoints and immaterial social barriers—can result in public confrontations, detention, and violence. Although Syrian refugees attempt to remain apolitical and deliberately disengaged from Lebanese sectarian networks of power, their everyday choices (rent, electricity fees) and physical presence connect them to local political contests and rivalries.

Can a negative religious causal attribution of mental illness affect the phenomenon of public stigma?

ABSTRACT This study assessed, through an exploratory approach, how religion-based negative causal attributions of mental illness may be associated to stigmatising attitudes and behaviours that contribute to public stigma in an Italian convenience sample. All participants (N = 311; average age = 33 years, 38.6% male) completed a set of three questionnaires: Religious Beliefs and Mental Illness Stigma Scale, the Attribution Questionnaire 27 and the Mental Health Knowledge Schedule. The study found support for two specific models. The Responsibility model involved four key predictors: participant age, the influence of religious beliefs in everyday choices, religious beliefs about the connection between morality/sin and mental illness and having participated in seminars about mental illness stigma. The Dangerousness model involved three exogenous variables: participating in mental illness stigma seminars, religious beliefs about morality/sin and mental illness, and participant age. This study allows the identification of variables that seem to activate or attenuate the models of “Personal Responsibility” and “Dangerousness”.

The heart to make the right choice: Vagal (re)activity and recovery predict advantageous decision-making

From simple everyday choices to life-altering decisions, decision-making is a crucial cognitive process in our daily life. Psychophysiological theories of heart-brain interactions involvement in cognition predict that general self-regulation capacities underlie cognitive processes including decision-making. Yet, in the context of decision-making, the somatic maker hypothesis postulates that the adaptability of the current physiological state should be the best predictor of advantageous decision-making. The present study tests compare self-regulation in general (indexed by resting vagal activity) and in a specific decisional context (vagal reactivity and recovery) to explain advantageous decision-making. Young adults (n = 54) completed a decision-making task while wearing a heart rate monitor. Bayesian regressions show that vagal reactivity and recovery combined is the preferred statistical model to explain advantageous decision-making (BF10 = 163.85). Those findings 1) support the somatic marker hypothesis highlighting the key role of in situ self-regulation in decision-making processes and 2) show that the popular and often used index of general self-regulation, resting vagal activity, is not the best predictor of decision-making performance, and perhaps even for other cognitive functions. A next step could be interventional studies to test whether vagal modulation of heart rate underlies decision-making through interventions that influence vagal activity, which could provide relevant clinical leads.