High Visibility Research Articles

REMEMBER: 30 YEARS SINCE CONSTANTIN ARSENI PASSED AWAY - THE FONDATOR OF ROMANIAN NEUROSURGERY

Introduction The authors will present one of the great personalities of Romanian neurosurgery, Dr Constantin Arseni, who created it in Bucharest, creating the largest university centre of neurosurgery in Europe at that time. Material After the tragic loss of his mentor Prof. Dr Dumitru Bagdasar in 1946, Dr Constantin Arseni, took over the management of the neurosurgery service at the Central Hospital for Mental, Nervous and Endocrinologic Diseases, the only department of this kind in this country; He was able to have the first Clinic of Neurosurgery from Romania. For his merits, Dr Constantin Arseni, became an Associate Professor in 1952 and University Professor in 1963. His neurosurgical activity was complex, but mainly focused on tumoral pathology, cerebral and spinal, and also on spinal degenerative disease. Under Professor C. Arseni, the Neurosurgical Clinic of Bucharest is transformed in 1975 into the “Prof. Dr D. Bagdasar” Clinical Hospital of Neurosurgery, the largest hospital of Neurosurgery in the Europe, with 550 beds and, subsequently, 650 beds. Also, he developed the departments of neurosurgery in each of the biggest university centres in the country; while being the first President of the Romanian Society of Neurosurgery. Scientific Activity Scientific activity of Prof. Dr Constantin Arseni includes the numerous publications (54 treaties and monographies), together with all his collaborators, encompassing all domains of neurosurgery: Tumoral, Neuropathological, Vascular, Paediatric, Spinal Degenerative Pathology, Central Nervous System Malformations, History, etc. with high international visibility. An editorial board under C. Arseni published, with the substantial contribution of the Bucharest Medical Publishing House of the Clinic, the “Treatise of Neurology” in 8 volumes (1979-1981). Conclusions Professor Constantin Arseni was a dedicated surgeon, he practiced his job asking from those around him as much as he offered - the maximum. He was a schoolmaster and a teacher in the true sense of word. Professor Constantin Arseni, Member of the Romanian Academy, was an exemplary professional, a model of conduct, which will forever remain in our memory, of the neurosurgeons, and of the Romanian neurosurgery, leaving behind a legacy hard to match for those who followed him.

Visibility, Physical Work Environment, and Stress in ICU Nurses

OBJECTIVE Relationships among coworker and patient visibility, reactions to physical work environment, and work stress in ICU nurses are explored. BACKGROUND Millions of dollars are invested annually in the building or remodeling of ICUs, yet there is a gap in understanding relationships between the physical layout of nursing units and work stress. METHODS Using a cross-sectional, correlational, exploratory, predictive design, relationships among variables were studied in a diverse sample of ICU nurses. RESULTS Visibility had a direct effect on work stress (P < 0.01). The ViPES (Visibility, Physical Environment and Stress) model can help explain relationships among study variables. The findings from this study support the notion that high visibility is a job resource and low visibility is a job demand. CONCLUSIONS Design features supporting a sense of connection may be especially important to less experienced ICU nurses. Elements of the built environment that allow nurses to see not only patients, but also their coworkers, may help mitigate work stress.

Evaluating the relationship between visual privacy and work-process interactions in open-plan offices: a space syntax approach

PurposePrevious studies on privacy in offices have primarily focused on the characteristics of generic visibility, examining the entire visible space from each workspace in 360 degrees. Nevertheless, employees in their workspaces investigate the visual targets within their binocular vision at 120 degrees. Therefore, by adopting the affordances perspective, this study aims to examine deeply generic and targeted visibility in open-plan offices and their relationship to interactions.Design/methodology/approachThe study consisted of two phases utilizing space syntax techniques. Initially, work-process interactions of the employees were determined through the survey. The survey data underwent spatial analysis to calculate the number of work-process interactions. Subsequently, DepthMapX software was used for visibility analyses. A new Python script for DepthMapX was developed to analyse the targeted visibility ratio. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between the number of work-process interactions with generic and targeted visibility parameters.FindingsThe findings revealed that a higher number of visible employees within the 120-degree and 360-degree fields of vision corresponded to a lower number of work-process interactions in open-plan offices. Furthermore, the study establishes a direct link between visual privacy and interaction, indicating that increased visibility leads to decreased visual privacy.Originality/valueThe current research concluded that the relationship between visual privacy and interaction in open-plan offices differs from the previous studies, as employees with low visual privacy and high visibility tend to engage in fewer interactions. Overall, this study highlights that increased employee visibility is not directly associated with increased interaction in open-plan offices unless adequate visual privacy is provided.

Ensuring High Visibility of Passive Markers at Fixed Camera Gain Using Divide and Conquer Method

Ensuring High Visibility of Passive Markers at Fixed Camera Gain Using Divide and Conquer Method

Awareness and Attitudes Towards Open Access Predatory Publications Among the Academic Staff Members of Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka

The scholarly community is now dealing with a serious issue with predatory journals. It might be difficult for authors to identify predatory publications apart from reputable ones. The purpose of this study is to investigate the academic staff members of the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka on awareness of predatory publications and open access. The research methodology used in this study to gauge participants' knowledge of "open access" and "predatory publishing" was a questionnaire survey. Data collection involved the use of a pretested questionnaire. The permanent academic staff members affiliated with the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, university of Jaffna comprised the study's population. A link to an online survey was shared with every one of the faculty's fifty-two academic staff members. The response rate of the study was 67.30 %. MS Excel was used for the data analysis to describe the data in frequencies, percentages and rank orders of responses.Socio demographic details shows that, highest number of respondents are female (57.14%), completed master/MPhil (51.42%), senior lecturer (57.14%) and interested in marketing (28.57%) as their research discipline. Respondents expressed their priority order for the factors considered to select journal to submit manuscript for publications, journal indexing is the highest priority. All the respondents have an idea about the open access publishing system. Respondents are expected to publish in open access journals because of high visibility, increasing citation number, prestigious journals and fast publication process in a frequency order. The result of the survey shows that, 97.15% of the respondents are knowledgeable about predatory publishing. Majority of the respondents are characterized, the predatory journals are, no insufficient peer review process, and Beall’s list of predatory journals used by the high number of respondents to differentiate legitimate journals from predatory journals. More than half of the respondents are satisfied with the services provided by the library to avoid publishing in predatory journals. Responses are summarized for each of the 8 statements about the impact of publishing in predatory journals. Almost all the statements are agreed by the respondents other than the statement of “Articles published in predatory journals are poor in quality”. Highest agreement found for the statement 3 which is “Predatory publications are not considered for any academic reward” in which 14out of 35 were strongly agreed and followed by the statement 2 “many researchers published articles due to lack of awareness about predatory publication” (13 out of 35). Finally respondents are suggested to organize more awareness session on open access publishing and journal selection to avoid predatory publishing.

Is greener always healthier? Examining the nonlinear relationships between urban green spaces and mental health in Wuhan, China

Though much evidence demonstrates the benefits of urban green spaces (UGS) for mental health, it remains uncertain if a greener living environment necessarily leads to better mental health. This study makes up this gap by exploring the potential non-linear effects of UGS provision (availability, accessibility, visibility, quality) and utilization (frequency, duration) on mental health, focusing on their nonlinear patterns and thresholds. Using geospatial and social survey data from Wuhan, China, and controlling for socioeconomic, built, and social environmental factors, we find that: (1) Both UGS provision and utilization have significant nonlinear effects on mental health. (2) Inverted-U-shaped relationships exist between mental health and both UGS availability (measured by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI) and accessibility (distance to nearest park), with peak benefits observed at an NDVI of 0.25 or a distance of 0.24 km. A similar L-shaped relationship is observed for UGS visibility, suggesting that higher visibility does not necessarily translate to improved mental health. The positive health effects of UGS quality exist, yet offer marginal benefits. (3) UGS utilization plays a crucial mediating role, explaining up to 47 % of the relationship between visibility and mental health. This highlights the importance of active engagement with UGS for realizing mental health benefits, supporting the ‘environmental provision→individual behavior→mental health’ pathway. These findings provide urban planners with valuable dosage references for UGS allocation, emphasizing the need to consider both provision and factors promoting utilization to maximize mental health benefits within urban environments.

Integration of orange peel derived carbon quantum dots with TiO2 for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of brilliant green dye

Brilliant green (BG) dye is a non-biodegradable, highly venomous and coloured pigment. BG dye possesses remarkably high visibility even at small concentration that causes diarrhea and abdominal pain in humans when being ingested. In addition, it is harmful to living organisms and polluting aquatic environments. Hence, eliminating BG dye from contaminated water is an urgent need. In this report, a photocatalyst encompasses hydrothermally prepared titanium dioxide (TiO2) integrated with orange peel derived oxygenated carbon quantum dots (O-CQDs) was developed for effective removal of BG dye. The O-CQDs were prepared using a single step eco-friendly hydrothermal process and an intense green fluorescence was observed upon exposing the O-CQDs to far UV light irradiation (254 nm). The formation of TiO2/O-CQDs nanohybrid was confirmed through UV–Visible spectrophotometer, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses. A random distribution of spherical shaped O-CQDs on the surface of TiO2 was clearly observed in FESEM images. The carboxyl groups present in O-CQDs not only increased interlayer spacing but also led to the attachment of TiO2 effectively. The TiO2/O-CQDs nanohybrid showed 94.70 % efficiency towards photocatalytic degradation of BG dye under UV light irradiation that was ∼20 % higher than the efficiency of pristine TiO2 photocatalyst. The presence of O-CQDs in the TiO2/O-CQDs nanohybrid boosted the photocatalytic degradation efficiency by enhancing UV light absorption and suppressing photo-generated electron–hole recombination. The integration of agricultural waste derived carbon with TiO2 by a facile synthesis method paves a way for large scale synthesis of TiO2/O-CQDs nanohybrid, which is anticipated to broaden its application potential in environmental remediation through photocatalytic degradation of organic compounds.

Do petrol prices affect inflation and inflation expectations? Evidence from New Zealand

Due to their high visibility, petrol prices shape households' inflation expectations. This paper investigates the dynamic effects of petrol price shocks on one- and five-year inflation expectations in New Zealand; effects on headline and core inflation are also analyzed. Estimating partially identified structural vector autoregression models using Bayesian techniques, we show that petrol price shocks had a slightly delayed but persistent effect on one-year inflation expectations, whereas five-year inflation expectations were largely insensitive to these shocks. We also show that headline inflation increased immediately in response to petrol price shocks, while core inflation remained unaffected. Counterfactual analysis reveals that inflation and inflation expectations would have been higher in the absence of petrol price shocks during the second half of 2020. The results underscore the importance of petrol prices in influencing households' short-term inflation expectations, offering valuable insights for policymakers focused on managing the cost of living and inflation expectations in New Zealand.

Lanthanide Atoms Induce Strong Graphene Sheet Distortion When Adsorbed on Stone-Wales Defects.

Local curvature in graphene can enhance its reactivity and catalytic activity and can be induced by the adsorption of certain chemical species. By employing periodic density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we demonstrate that significant local curvature can be systematically observed when lanthanide atoms (the full series from La to Lu) are adsorbed on the Stone-Wales (SW) defect in graphene, contrary to that in defect-free graphene. Despite the typical high coordination numbers of lanthanide species, their hapticity is always η2 (and not η5, η6, or η7), where Ln atoms are adsorbed on the (7,7) junction, forming relatively short Ln···C separations. Contrary to the pristine graphene, the SW region undergoes considerable distortion and results in much stronger Ln bonding. The positive charge acquired by Ln atoms upon adsorption on SW is approximately 1.5 times larger than that on defect-free graphene. The high visibility of electron-rich lanthanide species in scanning tunneling microscopy images provides a means to locate SW defects in graphene samples experimentally.

Transmitting stories of the longest revolution. Notes from Italy

ABSTRACT Building on a digitally mediated autoethnography within a contemporary Italian feminist movement, the paper analyses the transformations of feminist media practices in Italy since the start of the 20th century. If during the 1960s and 1970s Italian feminism reached its higher visibility as one of the largest in Europe, since the 1980s, it continued to operate in submerged ways through the creation of feminist bookshops, publishing companies, women’s archives and centres while engaging with practices, ideologies and texts that were circulating transnationally. Since the early 1990s Italian feminist groups started engaging with digital technologies, creating new virtual spaces of dialogue, an autonomous internet service provider, an alternative search engine, digital literacy programmes and practical laboratories. Over the past two decades, the online space became the privileged sphere for activists to challenge the hegemonic gender discourse, debate topics otherwise suppressed or misrepresented by traditional media and create a record of struggle. Expanding from a conceptualization of feminist activism as a process of transit, in this paper, I analyse how feminist media practices gradually transformed, shaped by historical and contextual specificities.

Visual Enhancement of Aerial Flight in High Plateau Low Visibility Conditions

A method for automatic detection of airport runways in low visibility, forward and downward looking aerial airport images is proposed. Firstly, the recursive Otsu segmentation method is used to extract the main contour of the airport from the complex background; then the morphological filtering is performed by using the morphology-based open and swell operations, the open operation is used to filter out the isolated noise points and the swell operation is used to connect the segmented airport components into a complete whole; finally, the morphological filtered image is subjected to the region growth to localize the main runway of the airport. Finally, the morphology filtered image is processed to localize the main airport runway by its region growth. It is proved that this method can quickly and accurately detect and localize the main and auxiliary runways of airports in low visibility and forward and downward looking aerial images of airports.

Enterprise environmental performance under China's framework for Central Environmental Protection Inspection: Quasi‐natural experimental evidence

AbstractIn 2016, China launched the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) to address environmental pollution. Using a triple‐difference method with data from China's A‐share listed companies between 2010 and 2019, we find that CEPI significantly improves the environmental performance of firms. The improvements are driven by increased environmental awareness, stricter enforcement and greater investment in environmental protection. Fiscal and environmental decentralization positively reinforce the policy's effectiveness. Regions with high public participation, media attention, and visibility experience greater benefits. This research highlights the importance of combining policy initiatives with active public and media engagement to achieve significant environmental improvements.

Unethical Consumer Behavior Following Artificial Intelligence Agent Encounters: The Differential Effect of AI Agent Roles and its Boundary Conditions

Recent research has shown that consumers tend to behave more unethically when encountering artificial intelligence (AI) agents than with human agents. Nevertheless, few studies have explored the differential impact of AI agents on unethical consumer behavior. From the perspective of the power relationship between AI and consumers, we classify the role of an AI agent as that of a “servant” or “partner.” Across one field study and four scenario-based experiments (offline and online), we reveal that consumers are more likely to engage in unethical behavior when encountering servant AI agents than partner AI agents due to increased anticipatory moral disengagement. We also identify the boundary conditions for the moral disengagement effect of AI agents, finding that this effect is attenuated (a) among consumers with high moral identity, (b) with human-like AI agents, and (c) in the context of high behavioral visibility. This research provides new insight into the AI morality literature and has practical implications for service agencies using AI agents.

How the crisis of trust in experts occurs on social media in China? Multiple-case analysis based on data mining

The importance of experts in the communication of scientific knowledge cannot be ignored, however, the crisis of trust in experts persists and is widening on social media in China. In this study, nine cases related to experts’ communication of scientific knowledge on Chinese social media Weibo during the period of 11 November 2022 to 22 January 2023 were selected based on the principles of high relevance, high discussion, and high visibility, and public comments on key post under the case were clustered and compared through data mining methods to understand what aspects of the public questioned the experts. The study found that the crisis of trust in experts on social media was the result of the combined effect of the experts, the media, and the public. Conflicting knowledge in expert systems, the perceived common-sense character of communicated knowledge, the lack of rigor and data-supported knowledge, the blurring of the boundaries between experts and administration and between experts and capital, and the dominance of instrumental rationality for experts could all affect public trust in experts. The media’s conscious or unconscious artistic processing of knowledge communicated by experts might mislead the public. The irrational emotion and populist tendencies of the public can amplify feelings of distrust towards experts. This study provides a theoretical and factual basis for understanding the mechanisms of the public’s behavior after receiving knowledge communicated by experts and for enhancing the effectiveness of science communication on social media.

Room temperature stimulated long-persistent phosphorescence of polyurethane/SrAl2O4: Eu2+, Dy3+ composite material for textile-based applications

Textile-based SrAl2O4(SAO): Eu2+, Dy3+ composite material offers functional, aesthetic, and safety benefits, making it a valuable innovation with diverse applications in various industries. The susceptibility of textile-based SAO: Eu2+, Dy3+ composite material is degraded with repeated washing, which can diminish its luminescent properties over time. Our major goal was to create a cloth with durable photoluminescent qualities by incorporating waterborne polyurethane (WPU) as a protective coating that could generate light constantly without a light source. Through a systematic approach involving the synthesis of photoluminescent SAO: Eu2+, Dy3+ particles and their integration into a cloth substrate with waterborne polyurethane, a durable cloth with enhanced durability, protection, and adhesion properties are achieved. Cotton fabric and a rotary screen-printing machine were used to apply a thin, translucent layer of glow-in-the-dark pigment to produce the photoluminescence characteristics of the developed cloth revealing efficient light absorption and emission behavior, with emission spectra centered around absorption wavelength between 560 nm and 880 nm, with a 500 nm emission peak, exhibiting of the presence of Eu2+ and Dy3+ activator ions. In addition, to assess the comfort of the treated cotton fabric, a fabroOmeter test was conducted, that provided insights into its overall comfort level. Furthermore, the cloth demonstrates excellent stability and longevity of photoluminescence under various environmental conditions, making it suitable for applications requiring high visibility, safety signage, decorative elements, and apparel wear. This research underscores the potential of polyurethane-enhanced photoluminescent textiles as versatile and sustainable solutions for diverse practical applications.

Descriptive analysis of diseases, non-battle injuries and climate among deployed Swedish military personnel

IntroductionHistorically, diseases and non-battle injuries (DNBI) typically stand for 70%‒95% of all medical events during military missions. There is, however, no comprehensive compilation of medical statistics for Swedish soldiers during...

Promoting active living through behaviour change among low-income communities in El Paso, TX: a community-based campaign

ABSTRACT The lack of physical activity has become one of the major public health concerns in the general population leading to obesity, which has significant consequences on health and the economy. Programs focusing on increasing opportunities for active living are a powerful way to prevent obesity and promote a healthy lifestyle. This project aimed to promote the existing Playa Drain Trail as a safe place for active living among low-income communities in El Paso, TX. A total of 281 adults attended four community events and completed post-event surveys regarding their awareness and the use of Playa Drain Trail. Although two thirds of the attendees indicated they were aware of the trail's existence, most attendees reported not using the trail regularly, primarily due to safety and motivational reasons. This project demonstrated that in less-resourced communities, well-designed and regularly evaluated campaigns with high visibility can be an effective first step in increasing population participation in physical activity.

Visual spatial attention to sexual stimuli

Visual events of high salience are thought to automatically attract visual processing resources to their location. Hence, we should expect that stimuli with sexual content should trigger such a movement of visual resources. However, evidence for such an allocation of visual resources is sparse and rather contradictory. In two studies we tested this hypothesis. Using a dot-probe task, Experiment 1 showed that targets occurring at the location of a briefly presented and uninformative cue (hence engaging “exogenous” attention) with sexual content were responded to more rapidly than those that occurred at the location of the neutral cue - thus confirming that sexual stimuli can attract automatic attention to their location. However, the effect was small and had a low level of reliability. No consistent gender differences were found. In Experiment 2, we examined whether this cueing effect remained even for low-visibility cues. No cueing effects were found, but the task manipulation also abolished the cueing effect for high visibility cues. While the study supports the notion of spatial allocation of visual resources to sexual stimuli, it highlights that this effect is not robust or reliable, and discusses the implications of this.

Lessons learned from naturalistic driving data processing in a secure data enclave: Preliminary discoveries from analyzing dash camera videos

This paper provides preliminary insights on the challenges of processing Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) videos and data, particularly those with Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Insights and lessons learned are presented from a study designed to evaluate the effectiveness of High Visibility Crosswalks (HVCs). Over a one-month period, 15,379 videos were processed in the secure data enclave of Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). As these videos are not available outside of the secure data enclave due to PII restrictions, researchers visiting the secure data enclave for the first time may face several challenges: navigating the software interface; identifying the video views and frames of interest; and identifying and extracting information of interest from the video views, etc. These challenges, the procedures followed to address them, and the process for identifying and classifying distracted driving behaviors are discussed. Lastly, hypothesis tests are conducted to investigate distracted driving behavior, with the results revealing that HVCs have the potential to make drivers more cautious in their proximity. The information presented in this paper is expected to aid researchers who intend to utilize SHRP2 NDS or similar videos for future research, to preemptively plan for the video processing phase.

Frontiers of Biogeography relaunched with Pensoft Publishers

Frontiers of Biogeography, the scientific journal of The International Biogeography Society (TIBS), is now being published in partnership with Pensoft Publishers, who provide a sophisticated review and publication platform, enhancing publication and dissemination of scholarly work for authors. Frontiers of Biogeography has been selected for inclusion in the Web of Science™. The International Biogeography Society is committed to the growth and success of Frontiers of Biogeography as a service to biogeographical science. Frontiers of Biogeography will continue to support low cost, high quality, high visibility, open-access publishing for biogeographers.