Physical Place Research Articles

Spatial characteristics and influencing factors of Chinese traditional villages in eight provinces the Yellow River flows through

AbstractAlong with global urbanization and the dominant trend toward urban‐based policies, traditional villages are facing imbalanced development and the fate of revitalization or decline. In this study, 1,222 Chinese traditional villages in eight provinces the Yellow River flows through have been selected as the typical physical bearers of Chinese civilization of an investigation into the multi‐scale spatial characteristics, and multiple influencing factors and mechanisms for regional patterns and spatial differentiation. Spatial analysis methods, including nearest neighbor index and kernel density, are applied to figure out the great regional differentiation in the overall pattern and specific distribution characteristics in each province. Physical environment factors and socioeconomic influencing factors are analyzed and compared using geographical detectors. The results show that: (a) The overall spatial distribution of the traditional villages shows great regional differentiation and is characterized by “two cores,” “three distribution modes,” and “four types of the absence” of traditional villages; (b) the spatial distribution of traditional villages in the Yellow River Basin is affected both by natural factors and by socioeconomic factors, with natural factors having the greater impact; and (c) there is no inevitable correlation between the level of economic development and the rise and fall of traditional villages. By analyzing and revealing the external forces and internal motivation and influencing factors of renewal and evolution, and the wisdom and culture behind the physical places, this research can deepen the understanding of traditional villages, enable traditional society to better adapt to contemporary society, and provide reference for rural revitalization and regional development of rural areas and the Yellow River Basin.

Cultural heritage through the lens of COVID-19

This study examines the discourse emerging from cultural heritage content shared online during the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to understand the different affective and cognitive dynamics that are associated with the online sharing of cultural heritage in difficult times. To do so, we analyzed two Instagram hashtags-#ShareOurHeritage and #ShareCulture – that are promoted by UNESCO on a global scale. We applied a comprehensive quantitative method for qualitative data analysis. This method relied on Latent Dirichlet Allocation for topic modeling to generate automated induction of semantic topics and understand the underlying cognitive and affective dimensions of Instagram posts under each topic. Social values— including safety, inclusion, participation, and resilience — positive emotional language, and diverse cultural expressions were the most shared by the investigated hashtag community during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, results showed that users approach the virtual space as a substitute for the loss of their physical place through terms like home, virtual, online, travel tomorrow, and museums from home. Results are discussed in the context of the global digital divide, the social value of heritage to hashtag communities, and the use of Instagram as a longitudinal record of how cultural heritage values change across time.

A new approach to identify dropout learners based on their performance-based behavior

Distance learning environments are increasingly offering more comfort to both learners and teachers, allowing them to carry out their academic tasks remotely, especially in critical times where it is difficult, or even dangerous, to bring these actors together in one physical place. Nevertheless, These same environments are complaining about the massive dropout numbers among their learners. Therefore, designing new intelligent systems capable of reducing these numbers becomes imperative. This paper proposes a new approach capable of identifying and assisting endangered learners experiencing difficulties by monitoring and analyzing their behavior inside the e-learning environment. By building dynamic models to follow the learners’ current situation, the proposed approach could intervene autonomously to save learners identified as struggling. Relying on distributed artificial intelligence instead of humans to closely monitor learners within distance learning environments can be very effective when identifying struggling learners. Furthermore, targeting these learners with early enough and carefully designed interventions can reduce the number of dropouts.

Multi-Criteria Analysis for Business Location Decisions

Choosing the physical place in which to locate a company or make investments is a strategic decision that managers must make when their business activities begin and as they expand. These decisions are key to firms’ survival. This study sought to shed light on this decision problem and assist managers in making these decisions. The first research objective was to examine the different dimensions that decision makers should consider regarding locations. The second objective was to test the efficacy of multi-criteria analysis methods regarding this decision problem. More specifically, this study applied a combination of the preference ranking organization method for enrichment of evaluations and the geometric analysis for interactive aid method, complemented by the analytical hierarchy process. The last objective was to rank major European cities on their suitability as business locations. The results include a preferential ranking of 66 European cities. London is the best positioned in all dimensions, followed by Paris and Barcelona. The findings’ originality comes from the inclusion of dimensions such as climate, security, and technology, which are given little weight in other similar indices, as well as the fresh approach to this decision problem from a business perspective and the combination of methodologies.

Mapping Imperialist Movement in Postmodern Horror Film Midsommar

ABSTRACT: Ari Aster’s 2019 postmodern horror film Midsommar reflects current cultural preoccupations with globalization and American empire building in the twenty-first century United States. Mapping the film’s ideological attributes (including femininity/masculinity, academic knowledge/folk knowledge, and capitalism/communism—the strict binaries of which set false expectations for all other binaries to hold) onto its physical locations makes clear two prominent ideological spaces: the perverse urban and the idealized pastoral, which appear not only in Midsommar but in many horror films to which this chart can be applied. The horror of the film is driven by the objectified Other’s resistance to the imperial power’s desire to dominate physical place and own ideological space, but is complicated by a suggestion that, in this unique case, the Other is also a nationalist, right-wing power, and the tension between home and foreign reflects that of a new Cold War. The boundaries between spaces and places are disrupted, and our very inquiry into the structure of space is called into question.

The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Kunst- und Museumsbibliotheken (AKMB): a strong alliance of art and museum libraries

AbstractMore than 25 years after the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Kunst- und Museumsbibliotheken (AKMB) was founded – an eternity in the digital age – libraries and museums as institutions of public life are more than ever subject to fundamental transformation.The AKMB has set itself the task of offering its affiliated institutions a platform for knowledge exchange and networking. Questions about standardization in librarianship, technical equipment, formal and subject indexing as well as possibilities of exchange and support in answering these questions are in focus. It is not - in the classic sense of a library - a physical place. Nevertheless, it forms simultaneously the basis and the opportunity for art and museum libraries to orient themselves to a digital future. In this regard, it also deals itself with structural changes and its challenges.

Social Barriers for the Use of Available and Accessible Public Green Spaces

Background: Our living environment impacts on our health and wellbeing. The physical and mental benefits of interaction with nature and the ecosystem are well-established in literature. From a public health perspective, it is thus crucial that people make use of public green spaces (PGSs) in urban areas. Therefore, it is important to understand why they are potentially under-used.Methods: In this research, we identified social barriers that prevent the (full) use of PGSs in the Brussels Capital Region (BCR). We applied a qualitative research methodology. Insights were generated through 51 individual face-to-face in-depth interviews with a group of PGS users diversified in terms of age, gender, migration background, and socioeconomic situation. Questions were open-ended, and the interview guide was semi-structured.Results: Our research identified three social barriers for the use of available and accessible PGSs: (1) perceived dangers due to bad precedents, the presence of socially frightening elements, or a lack of social control, (2) not feeling in place because of the dominance of a specific group of users or because of community perceptions, and (3) not fulfilling one's social needs. These barriers were different in their manifestations (barriers to go—barriers to stay—barriers for integral use) and resulted in a differential degree of PSG-use. We distinguished three different dimensions of the completeness or integrality (understood as full or optimal use) by which PGSs are used; the spatial integrality (using all the different parts of the PGS), the temporal integrality (using PGSs at all moments of the day), and the social integrality of PGS use (without any restriction concerning social interaction).Conclusions: While there are many benefits associated with PGSs, a continuous social evaluation of these physical places might generate social barriers resulting in a decline of their use, a more superficial use, or even in complete avoidance. Both the social context and social needs of individuals result in specific social barriers.

Hermann Cohen and His Idea of the Logic of Pure Knowledge

Hermann Cohen, as it is well known, criticised the Kantian notion of the thing-in-itself. And before him the Kantian thing-in-itself was criticised by Fichte and other German idealists. Probably for this reason, Hermann Cohen is sometimes regarded as a person who said things similar to Fichte. This gives a completely wrong perspective, making it impossible to understand the philosopher's ideas. The basis for his critique of the Kantian thing-in-itself is quite different from the motives, determining the criticism of Kant in the classical German Idealism. Such interpretation does not allow to see close connection of Cohen's theoretical philosophy with revolution in physics which took place at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article explains how Cohen's demand that pure thinking must form its own content is connected with transformations taking place in physics and mathematics, and the peculiarity of Cohen's understanding of idealism is demonstrated: for him, correct idealism must realize that autonomous, free thinking should work seriously with sense data. The closeness of Cohen's ideas to the postpositivist thesis of the theory-ladenness of observation is explained. For Cohen, serious work with sense data is opposite to uncritical acceptance of them as given. The origin of scientific thinking is thinking itself. It responds to the challenge of sensory material by creating its own constructs. Mathematized natural science becomes for Cohen both an example and a confirmation of this thesis. For him, what is real is what is described in the language of mathematical analysis, i.e. continuous processes, in spite of the fact that any data are discrete. It is shown that the source of Cohen's assertions on this issue is in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, namely in the doctrine of the Principles of pure natural science and, more specifically, in the Anticipations of Perception. Cohen's conviction of the constructive character of the theories of mathematized natural science is confirmed in the article by references to the authority of A. Einstein.

ВИКОРИСТАННЯ ВОРКШОПУ В ПРОЦЕСІ ВИКЛАДАННЯ МЕДИЧНОЇ ТА БІОЛОГІЧНОЇ ФІЗИКИ СТУДЕНТАМ МЕДИЧНИХ ЗАКЛАДІВ ВИЩОЇ ОСВІТИ

It is relevant to find directions and courses for updating education that will meet the norms of the world community and educational development for a long period. The traditional learning is replaced by interactive learning, which is aimed at increasing the level of cognitive activity of students by improving interaction and communication between students, students and teachers, students in small groups. The article provides a theoretical analysis of the interactive process of teaching medical and biological physics to students of medical and dental faculties of Poltava State Medical University and describes the experience of using a workshop in preparing students for future professional activities. The theoretical bases of introduction of the newest technologies in educational process in establishments of higher education are analyzed. The theoretical foundations of the workshop as an innovative and interactive method of teaching are considered and analyzed. The main stages of the interactive educational event workshop are identified. The role and place of medical and biological physics in the preparation of medical students for future professional activities are clarified. The method of using the workshop method in laboratory-practical classes in medical and biological physics as a way to involve students in an active and productive learning process is presented. It is established that the application of the workshop to the educational process satisfies the requirements of increasing the level of competencies of individual group members due to active group interaction of each participant in the educational process, as well as achieving additional effect in the classroom due to maximum contribution of each group member. The use of interactive methods in preparing students allows to more effectively prepare them for professional activities.   &nbsp

How is the School Library Used? Mapping the Use of an Upper Secondary School Library

To be able to secure an evidence-based development of the library service at a large upper secondary school in Norway, a multi method study was conducted to map the use of the library. 
 Findings show that the library is used a lot by the students from all different branches. The main use is by students working on schoolwork sitting together with others. A stable part of the users prefers to work in the quiet area. Both teachers and students expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the library staff and emphasised the importance of the librarians' presence and availability for the users, both professionally and as responsible adults. Teachers and students alike perceived the library space as an attractive and very important physical place for students to work. A discussion of strengths and challenges of adequate methods for mapping school library use is included. Most research on school libraries concentrate on student achievement and cooperation between librarians and teachers. These are of course essential areas of concern and importance when it comes to discussing the position and function of school libraries. Nevertheless, the use of the libraries has had much less focus yet constitutes an important research area to understand the health of any library and its services. In this article we present results from a study of the use of an upper secondary school library. From 2016 to 2019, several studies were conducted relating to the use of the library at a Norwegian upper secondary school. These studies were a cooperative project between staff at the library and the Oslo Metropolitan University. The school management staff were also involved in choosing the research focus of the study. In this paper, the methods used and some of the findings are presented.

“Driving Down a Road and Not Knowing Where You're At”: Navigating the Loss of Physical and Social Infrastructure After the Camp Fire*

AbstractClimate‐related disasters are becoming increasingly frequent and destructive. These events result in extensive material losses, but also more abstract disruptions, such as those to identity, well‐being, and community. Using transcripts from 24 qualitative interviews with residents of Paradise, California after a wildfire destroyed their town; I consider the changes to residents' physical and social infrastructure. Physical places provide a structure for social life to play out, and their familiarity offers feelings of belonging and security. But, relationships, routines, and personal histories also inscribe meaning and value on these spaces. After disaster, the loss of physical landmarks hinders residents' ability to navigate their community and inhibits social connections that would otherwise offer important supports. At the same time, new meanings become inscribed on existing places, through trauma reminders (which constrain social life) and positive cues from the natural world (which shift meanings from destruction‐ to recovery‐oriented). Because physical places are imbedded in social context, and vice versa, I examine these processes in tandem.

The Crowd Wisdom for Location Privacy of Crowdsensing Photos

The incorporation of the mobile crowd in visual sensing provides a significant opportunity to explore and understand uncharted physical places. We investigate the gains and losses of the involvement of the crowd wisdom on users' location privacy in photo crowdsensing. For the negative effects, we design a novel crowdsensing photo location inference model, regardless of the robust location protection techniques, by jointly exploiting the visual representation, correlation, and geo-annotation capabilities extracted from the crowd. Compared with existing retrieval-based and model-based location inference techniques, our proposal poses more pernicious threats to location privacy by considering the no-reference-photos situations of crowdsensing. We conduct extensive analyses on the model with four photo datasets and crowdsourcing surveys for geo-annotation. The results indicate that being in a crowd of photos will, unfortunately, increase one's risk to be geo-identified, and highlights that the model can yield a considerable high inference accuracy (48%~70%) and serious privacy exposure (over 80% of users get privacy disclosed) with a small portion of geo-annotated samples. In view of the threats, we further propose an adaptive grouping-based signing model that hides a user's track with the camouflage of a crowd of users. Wherein, ring signature is tailored for crowdsensing to provide indistinguishable while valid identities for every user's submission. We theoretically analyze its adjustable privacy protection capability and develop a prototype to evaluate the effectiveness and performance.

Analysis of a Shift in the Business Environment and Post-Covid-19 Consumer Behaviour (A Case Study of Residents in Lagos Nigeria)

With the current global pandemic and the consequent social distancing rule limiting business and market operation, it has propelled a shift in the way businesses and organizations operate from the traditional physical market place to the adoption of information technology for business digitalization. These have also affected the attitudinal aspect of consumers and shoppers, particularly on the prospect of consumers going back to their old habits once the global crisis is over. This study, therefore, examines the conditions for consumer preference of the changing digitalized business environment in the Post-COVID-19 Era and its predictive value in the future. The study adopted a survey research design, using an online questionnaire as a research instrument among residents in Lagos. From the findings of the study, it was revealed that the perceived benefit of business digitalization, combined influence attitudes of consumers behaviour and perceived convenience is the most significant of conditions for the preference of the changing digitalized business environment that affects attitudes of consumers. On the prospect of the digitalized business environment in the post-COVID-19 business environments, the study revealed that a 1 percent change in the conditions for consumer preference of online constructs is likely to have an 8.4 percent effect on consumer’s attitudes. This, therefore, is an indication that a 1 percent change can have a significant effect on consumer’s buying behaviour. Conclusively the study recommended that online retailers should consider improving their technological infrastructure in order to offer more convenience for Customers online shoppers.

The Soliton Solutions for Some Nonlinear Fractional Differential Equations with Beta-Derivative

Nonlinear fractional differential equations have gained a significant place in mathematical physics. Finding the solutions to these equations has emerged as a field of study that has attracted a lot of attention lately. In this work, He’s semi-inverse variation method and the ansatz method have been applied to find the soliton solutions for fractional Korteweg–de Vries equation, fractional equal width equation, and fractional modified equal width equation defined by Atangana’s conformable derivative (beta-derivative). These two methods are effective methods employed to get the soliton solutions of these nonlinear equations. All of the calculations in this work have been obtained using the Maple program and the solutions have been replaced in the equations and their accuracy has been confirmed. In addition, graphics of some of the solutions are also included. The found solutions in this study have the potential to be useful in mathematical physics and engineering.

Abundant exact solutions to the strain wave equation in micro-structured solids

In this study, the strain wave equation in micro-structured solids which take an important place in solid physics is presented for consideration. The generalized exponential rational function method is used for this purpose which is one of the most powerful methods of constructing abundantly distinct, exact solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations. In micro-structured solids, wave propagation is based on the structure of the strain wave equation. As a consequence, we successfully received many different exact solutions, including non-topological solutions, periodic singular solutions, topological solutions, singular solutions, like periodic lump solutions. Furthermore, in order to better understand their physical interpretation, 2D, 3D, and counter plots are graphed for each of the solutions acquired.

‘Doomscrolling’ in my backyard: Corrosive online communities and contested wind development in rural Ohio

Wind energy development in the rural U.S. remains locally contentious across geographies and social groups. These development decisions are often debated on social media sites, where individuals seek out information and share ideas related to risks and benefits of development. This research examines content from two anti-wind Facebook Community Pages (FCPs) focused on northwestern Ohio. We apply the corrosive community framework to categorize discourse around the framework's three major themes of health risk, recreancy, and litigation, and observe differences in numbers and types of social media activity before and after development and among local and non-local actors. We describe the role social media plays in mediating public discourse in local siting decisions and acts to situate online networks within physical places. We find the corrosive community framework a useful lens to analyze online-community conflicts around wind energy and categorize discourse around wind energy opposition. As public discourse moves increasingly to social media networks, understanding FCPs as a form of community can provide a framework for organizing and analyzing social conflicts and their local-nonlocal connections.

Mapping Women’s Geography of Fear onto the Entrepreneurial Landscape

In studies of emotion in entrepreneurship, the link between gender and geography and the effects of both on women's decisions about whether or not to engage in business-related activities, are areas relatively unexplored. In response to this identified research gap, we have conducted a study that proposes the concept of the 'geography of fear’ and examines female entrepreneurs’ relationships with, and use of, physical places and spaces needed for business social activities. Previous studies that address the fear of harm in entrepreneurship and the associated gendered norms regarding women’s use of space, are rare. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 female nascent entrepreneurs. Based on participants’ narratives, it is the perception of others tied with gender norms, proneness to vulnerability and coping mechanisms, which in the context of women entrepreneurship contribute to the development of the geography of women entrepreneurs’ fear and to understanding the intersection between emotions, gender and geography in influencing women’s entrepreneurial decisions in their use of space.

Context Collapse: Social Psychology and New Media Perspectives

The communication between individuals has been changed and transformed by the use and popularization of mass media. The use of social media profoundly influences the mechanics of daily life by affecting the informal interactions of individuals, as well as institutional structures and professional routines. With the widespread and increasing use of social media platforms, the effects of these platforms on individuals and society have also formed a vital research ground. The concept of context collapse can be considered one of these effects and refers to the fact that different contexts, which are an essential determinant in face-to-face social relations, collapse in virtual space. Social media platforms are open to anyone and transfer communications in different contexts in physical places into one single space. That fact causes a context collapse. Social media, where different contexts collapse on each other, remove the reference points of individuals by making their self-presentation practices more complex. This study aims to discuss the theoretical foundations of the context collapse and present a multi-disciplinary perspective by addressing social psychology and new media disciplines. For this purpose, first, the importance of context in daily life practices was emphasized within the framework of these disciplines. Afterward, theoretical debates and empirical studies on context collapse have been reviewed. Finally, the relationships between the context collapse and gender roles and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed. Keywords: Context collapse, self, social cognition, social roles, gender, COVID-19

The Millennial Antinostalgic: Yoav in Nadav Lapid’s Synonymes

In contemporary, transnational exilic cinema exile an artist is made in an exilic journey. The 21st century journey departs from entirely opposite premises than those of the ancient journey, namely with the desire to escape one’s birthplace. The aim of the exile has also transformed: from a necessary step to secure one’s livelihood or even life, it has become one of exploration. Rather than the desire to settle elsewhere or to eventually return home, the exile sets on an open-ended, exploratory journey the premise of which is finding oneself. In this, the physical journey has come to resemble the metaphysical one of the artist. The exile departs from a physical place and journeys into a metaphysical space, geography becoming secondary while still being necessary. This journey is best recounted in the film Synonymes (2019) by Israeli director Nadav Lapid, an autobiographical tale that chronicles the director’s own exile from Israel to Paris and captures his journey toward becoming an artist. The paper references two prominently antinostalgic authors: 20th century Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz and Polsih-Jewish writer Henryk Grynberg.

Experts’ View on the Future Outlook on the Materialization, Expectations and Implementation of Digital Twins in Healthcare

Abstract In this paper, we examine how experts in digital transformation of healthcare envision the application of digital twins (DTs). The concept of a DT refers to a digital replica of potential and actual physical assets, processes, people, places, systems and devices that can be used for various purposes including scientific experiments, simulations and prediction of intervention outcomes. DTs are an emerging technological vision and while evocative as a term it holds different promises and connotations for different application areas and may evolve in very different directions. To examine how these directions can develop and impact healthcare, we used the Delphi method to reach a consensus among experts on three different research questions we put forward, namely how experts see the materialization, expectations and implementation of a DT in healthcare. We followed up with a survey with open questions to the experts aiming for a deeper consideration on the top ranked topics from the Delphi study.