Proximity Relations Research Articles

The Influence of Landscape Structure on Wildlife–Vehicle Collisions: Geostatistical Analysis on Hot Spot and Habitat Proximity Relations

Vehicle collisions with animals pose serious issues in countries with well-developed highway networks. Both expanding wildlife populations and the development of urbanised areas reduce the potential contact distance between wildlife species and vehicles. Many recent studies have been conducted to better understand the factors that influence wildlife–vehicle collisions (WVCs) and provide mitigation methods. Most of these studies examined road density, traffic volume, seasonal fluctuations, etc. However, in analysing the distribution of WVC, few studies have considered a spatial and significant distance geostatistical analysis approach that includes how different land-use categories are associated with the distance to WVCs. Our study investigated the spatial distribution of agricultural land, meadows and pastures, forests, built-up areas, rivers, lakes, and ponds, to highlight the most dangerous sections of roadways where WVCs occur. We examined six potential ‘hot spot’ distances (5–10–25–50–100–200 m) to evaluate the role different landscape elements play in the occurrence of WVC. The near analysis tool showed that a distance of 10–25 m to different landscape elements provided the most sensitive results. Hot spots associated with agricultural land, forests, as well as meadows and pastures, peaked on roadways in close proximity (10 m), while hot spots associated with built-up areas, rivers, lakes, and ponds peaked on roadways farther (200 m) from these land-use types. We found that the order of habitat importance in WVC hot spots was agricultural land < forests < meadows and pastures < built-up areas < rivers < lakes and ponds. This methodological approach includes general hot-spot analysis as well as differentiated distance analysis which helps to better reveal the influence of landscape structure on WVCs.

Terreiros Under Attack? Criminal Governance in the Name of God and Armed Dominion Disputes over Control in Rio de Janeiro

In this article we analyze acts of violence inflicted by armed groups on members of Afro-Brazilian religions in the Metropolitan Area of Rio de Janeiro. Based on a media content survey, it was found that in less than 15 years these conflicts ceased to derive from proximity relations and evolved to confrontations over armed hegemony of popular spaces, controlled by drug traffickers and/or militia, who present themselves as members of Pentecostal churches. The criminal governance operated by “traficrentes” and “milicrentes” combines commercial, theological, and doctrinal imperatives with a political project of nation that directly impacts peoples’ ways of life, especially the followers of Afro-Brazilian religions.

On Proximal Relations in Transformation Semigroups Arising from Generalized Shifts

On Proximal Relations in Transformation Semigroups Arising from Generalized Shifts

Scale–Relation Joint Decoupling Network for Remote Sensing Image Semantic Segmentation

As we all know, remote sensing (RS) images contain multi-scale and numerous RS objects, along with massive and complex spatial topological relationships, such as the adjacency, proximity relations of same-scale objects, and inclusion relations of cross-scale objects. However, the existing semantic segmentation methods have never explored the cross-scale relations, which are especially important when comes to the situation that the RS objects cannot be accurately identified, they could be supplemented by the surrounding contents. To address the above concern, we propose a scale-relation joint decoupling network (SRJDN) for the semantic segmentation of RS images by simultaneously considering decoupling scales and decoupling relations to excavate more complete relationships of multi-scale RS objects. The SRJDN is performed by following three steps, namely scale decoupling (SD), relation decoupling (RD), and fine-granularity guided fusion (FGF). The SD module uses dilated convolution with different rates to decouple RS objects into different scale feature groups, from small to large scales. Afterward, the RD considers all the spatial topological relationships and decouples these relationships according to the scale, which is divided into two parts, including same-scale relation extraction (SSRE) and cross-scale relation extraction (CSRE). The SSRE establishes the graph structures at each scale independently to mine the relationships of same-scale RS objects and the CSRE constructs the graph in a unified pattern between cross-scales to explore cross-scale target relationships. Third, the FGF module regards small-scale features as fine-granularity representation and applies its attention map to guide the learning of other scale features, which could mine more reliable and comprehensive saliency information and improve the feature consistency. Numerical experiments conducted on two large-scale fine-resolution RS image datasets empirically demonstrate the robustness of the proposed joint decoupling strategy and the effectiveness of the fine-granularity guided fusion in RS image semantic segmentation tasks.

Lifting the regionally proximal relation and characterizations of distal extensions

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>We consider a commutative diagram (CD) of flows with discrete phase group <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$ T $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and extensions as follows:</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'><inline-formula id="DCDS-A-1078-0947_2022_5_2103-M5432"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="DCDS-A-1078-0947_2022_5_2103-M5432.jpg"/></inline-formula></p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>By <inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$ {\text{RP}}_{\!\phi} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math id="M3">\begin{document}$ {\text{RP}}_{\!\psi} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> we denote the relativized regionally proximal relations in <inline-formula><tex-math id="M4">\begin{document}$ X $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math id="M5">\begin{document}$ Y $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, respectively. We mainly prove, among other things, the following:</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>1. <inline-formula><tex-math id="M6">\begin{document}$ $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>If <inline-formula><tex-math id="M7">\begin{document}$ X $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is topologically transitive <inline-formula><tex-math id="M8">\begin{document}$ \phi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-distal, then <inline-formula><tex-math id="M9">\begin{document}$ X $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is minimal.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>2. <inline-formula><tex-math id="M10">\begin{document}$ (\pi\times\pi) {\text{RP}}_{\!\phi} = {\text{RP}}_{\!\psi} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>3. If <inline-formula><tex-math id="M11">\begin{document}$ Y $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is locally <inline-formula><tex-math id="M12">\begin{document}$ \psi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-Bronstein, then <inline-formula><tex-math id="M13">\begin{document}$ {\text{RP}}_{\!\psi}\circ {\text{P}}_{\!\psi} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is an equivalence relation, and, <inline-formula><tex-math id="M14">\begin{document}$ \bar{y}\in {\text{RP}}_{\!\psi} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> whenever <inline-formula><tex-math id="M15">\begin{document}$ \bar{y}\in {\text{RP}}_{\!\psi}\circ {\text{RP}}_{\!\psi} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is almost periodic.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>4. If <inline-formula><tex-math id="M16">\begin{document}$ Y_d $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is the maximal distal extension of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M17">\begin{document}$ Z $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> below <inline-formula><tex-math id="M18">\begin{document}$ Y $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math id="M19">\begin{document}$ Z^d $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is the universal minimal distal extension of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M20">\begin{document}$ Z $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, then <inline-formula><tex-math id="M21">\begin{document}$ Y\perp_{Y_d}Z^d $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>5. (a) <inline-formula><tex-math id="M22">\begin{document}$ Y $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is locally <inline-formula><tex-math id="M23">\begin{document}$ \psi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-Bronstein iff <inline-formula><tex-math id="M24">\begin{document}$ F^d<F^\prime A $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> where <inline-formula><tex-math id="M25">\begin{document}$ A,F,F^d $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> are respectively the Ellis groups of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M26">\begin{document}$ Y,Z, Z^d $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>. (b) If <inline-formula><tex-math id="M27">\begin{document}$ Y $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is locally <inline-formula><tex-math id="M28">\begin{document}$ \psi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-Bronstein and <inline-formula><tex-math id="M29">\begin{document}$ K $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> a <inline-formula><tex-math id="M30">\begin{document}$ \tau $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-closed group with <inline-formula><tex-math id="M31">\begin{document}$ F^\prime A<K<F $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>, then there is a unique <inline-formula><tex-math id="M32">\begin{document}$ Y_{\!K} $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> which is <inline-formula><tex-math id="M33">\begin{document}$ \psi_{\!K}^\prime $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-equicontinuous and has the Ellis group <inline-formula><tex-math id="M34">\begin{document}$ K $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>We also prove the above theorems in the case <inline-formula><tex-math id="M35">\begin{document}$ T $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is a semigroup. Moreover, we show the following in minimal semiflows:</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>6. <inline-formula><tex-math id="M36">\begin{document}$ $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula><inline-formula><tex-math id="M37">\begin{document}$ Y $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is <inline-formula><tex-math id="M38">\begin{document}$ \psi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>-distal iff <inline-formula><tex-math id="M39">\begin{document}$ \psi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> has a DE-tower iff there is a least group-like extension <inline-formula><tex-math id="M40">\begin{document}$ X $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> via <inline-formula><tex-math id="M41">\begin{document}$ \phi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> (i.e., <inline-formula><tex-math id="M42">\begin{document}$ \phi^{-1}\phi x = {\text{Aut}}_\phi(T,X)x $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> for all <inline-formula><tex-math id="M43">\begin{document}$ x\in X $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula>).</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>7. <inline-formula><tex-math id="M44">\begin{document}$ \psi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> is group-like iff <inline-formula><tex-math id="M45">\begin{document}$ \psi $\end{document}</tex-math></inline-formula> has a G-tower that consists of group extensions and inverse limits.</p>

Deep Learning for Toponym Resolution: Geocoding Based on Pairs of Toponyms

Geocoding aims to assign unambiguous locations (i.e., geographic coordinates) to place names (i.e., toponyms) referenced within documents (e.g., within spreadsheet tables or textual paragraphs). This task comes with multiple challenges, such as dealing with referent ambiguity (multiple places with a same name) or reference database completeness. In this work, we propose a geocoding approach based on modeling pairs of toponyms, which returns latitude-longitude coordinates. One of the input toponyms will be geocoded, and the second one is used as context to reduce ambiguities. The proposed approach is based on a deep neural network that uses Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) units to produce representations from sequences of character n-grams. To train our model, we use toponym co-occurrences collected from different contexts, namely textual (i.e., co-occurrences of toponyms in Wikipedia articles) and geographical (i.e., inclusion and proximity of places based on Geonames data). Experiments based on multiple geographical areas of interest—France, United States, Great-Britain, Nigeria, Argentina and Japan—were conducted. Results show that models trained with co-occurrence data obtained a higher geocoding accuracy, and that proximity relations in combination with co-occurrences can help to obtain a slightly higher accuracy in geographical areas with fewer places in the data sources.

A fuzzy proximity relation approach for outlier detection in the mixed dataset by using rough entropy-based weighted density method

Data mining is an emerging technology where researchers explore innovative ideas in different domains, particularly detecting anomalies. Instances in the dataset which considerably deviate from others by their common patterns are known as anomalies. The state of being ambiguous and not affording certainty of data exists in this world of nature. Rough Set Theory is a proven methodology which deals with ambiguity and uncertainty of data. Research works that have been done until this point were focused on numeric or categorical type, which fails when the attributes are mixed type. By using fuzzy proximity and ordering relations, the numerical data has been converted to categorical data. This article presented an idea for detecting outliers in mixed data where the weighted density values of attributes and objects are calculated. The proposed approach has been compared with existing outlier detection methods by taking the hiring dataset as an example and benchmarked with Harvard dataverse datasets to prove its efficiency and performance.

Stronger Versions of Sensitivity for Minimal Group Actions

We study several stronger versions of sensitivity for minimal group actions, including $n$-sensitivity, thick $n$-sensitivity and blockily thick $n$-sensitivity, and characterize them by the regionally proximal relation.

A Local 3D Voronoi-Based Optimization Method for Sensor Network Deployment in Complex Indoor Environments.

Optimal sensor network deployment in built environments for tracking, surveillance, and monitoring of dynamic phenomena is one of the most challenging issues in sensor network design and applications (e.g., people movement). Most of the current methods for sensor network deployment and optimization are empirical and they often result in important coverage gaps in the monitored areas. To overcome these limitations, several optimization methods have been proposed in the recent years. However, most of these methods oversimplify the environment and do not consider the complexity of 3D architectural nature of the built environments specially for indoor applications (e.g., indoor navigation, evacuation, etc.). In this paper, we propose a novel local optimization algorithm based on a 3D Voronoi diagram, which allows a clear definition of the proximity relations between sensors in 3D indoor environments. This proposed structure is integrated with an IndoorGML model to efficiently manage indoor environment components and their relations as well as the sensors in the network. To evaluate the proposed method, we compared our results with the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) algorithms. The results show that the proposed method achieved 98.86% coverage which is comparable to GA and CMA-ES algorithms, while also being about six times more efficient.

Analysis of the Ratnakuta in the Mongolian Manuscript Kanjur

The Maharatnakuta is a collection of Buddhist texts, the bulk of which belong to the early Mahayana tradition. Its extant versions are included in the Chinese Tripitaka as well as the Tibetan and Mongolian Kanjurs. The collection has been studied to a certain extent with the use of the Chinese and Tibetan sources but almost nothing is known of its Mongolian-language versions. The article aims to provide a preliminary study of the Ratnakuta in the Mongolian manuscript Kanjur compiled in 1628–1629. It examines the structural traits of the collection, the data of the colophons and some textual elements preserved from the Tibetan original/s. The analysis reveals that, possibly, the major part of the Ratnakuta or the whole collection was translated into Mongolian en bloc in 1628–1629. The collection lacks eight sutras and places the final forty-ninth work between texts thirty-five and thirty-six. A number of textual elements preserved from the Tibetan source/s point to the proximity and possible relation of the Mongolian Ratnakuta to the Them spangs ma and Western Tibetan Kanjurs.

Integrating categorical and structural proximity in Disease Ontologies.

The purpose of the study described in this paper is to shed more light on disease similarities by analyzing the relationship between categorical proximity of diseases in human-curated ontologies and structural proximity of the related disease module (DM) in the interactome. We propose a methodology (and related algorithms) to automatically induce a hierarchical structure from proximity relations between DMs, and to compare this structure with a human-curated disease taxonomy.Clinical relevance- Disease ontologies are extensively used for diagnostic evaluation and clinical decision support but still reflect the clinical reductionist perspective. We demonstrate that the proposed network-based methodology allows us to analyze commonalities and differences among structural and categorical similarity of human diseases, help refine human disease classification systems, and identify promising network areas where new disease-gene interactions can be discovered.

Is a disease leader attractive? Six tests of whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected follower preferences for attractiveness, health and other traits in political and non-political leaders

Attractive political candidates receive more votes on Election Day compared to their less attractive competitors. One well-cited theoretical account for this attractiveness effect (White et al., 2013) holds that it reflects an adaptive psychological response to disease threats. Voters are predicted to upregulate preferences for attractiveness because it constitutes a cue to health. The global COVID-19 pandemic constitutes an ecologically relevant and realistic setting for further testing this prediction. Here, we report the results from six tests of the prediction based on two large and nationally representative surveys conducted in Denmark (n = 3297) at the outbreak of the pandemic and one year later. Utilizing experimental techniques, validated individual difference measures of perceived disease threat and geographic data on COVID-19 severity, we do not find that disease threats like the COVID-19 pandemic upregulate preferences for attractive and healthy political or non-political leaders. Instead, respondents display heightened preferences for health in socially proximate relations (i.e. colleagues). Moreover, individuals who react aversively to situations involving risks of pathogen transmission (scoring high in Germ Aversion) report higher importance of a wide range of leadership traits, rather than for health and attractiveness in particular. Results are discussed in relation to evolutionary accounts of leadership and followership.

Social innovation networks and agrifood citizenship. The case of Florianópolis Area, Santa Catarina / Brazil

Food production and supply have been affected by several contemporary phenomena. They have stimulated movements for the social construction of alternative markets in urban centres, which reflect the growing interest of consumers in the quality of food and increased the demand for organic and agroecological products. The present article uses the theoretical approach of social innovation to investigate the emergence of trajectories that organize networks and articulate production, supply and purchase of superior biological quality food in the Florianopólis Metropolitan Area and beyond, Southern Brazil which we identify as an agrifood citizenship network. The research was developed through participatory methodologies, using interviews, participant observation and the use of databases. We verified that organizations and networks have been acting interdependently, generating social innovations. We've shown that actors create relations of proximity through markets, which are explained by the network articulation in groups of farmers, social organizations and public institutions. From the rural areas, this social innovation emerges in the form of an agrifood citizenship network, directly related to the trajectory of organizations and network focused on agroecology and short food supply chains.

Family Firms Amidst the Global Financial Crisis: A Territorial Embeddedness Perspective on Downsizing

This study explores the downsizing propensity of family and non-family firms by considering their territorial embeddedness during both periods of economic stability and financial crisis. By drawing on a panel dataset of Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 2002–2015, we show that, all things being equal, family firms have a lower propensity to downsizing than non-family firms. When considering the effect of territorial embeddedness, we found that territorially embedded family firms have an even lower propensity to downsizing than their non-family counterparts. Furthermore, the concern of territorially embedded family firms for their employees’ welfare was particularly pronounced during the years of the global financial crisis. This result is explained by the existence of socially proximate relationships with the firms’ immediate surroundings, based on similarity and a sense of belonging, which push deeply rooted family firms to treat their employees as salient stakeholders during hard times. Overall, our study stresses the importance of local roots in moderating the relationship between family firms and downsizing.

Understanding the Role of Refugees' Entrepreneurship Motives and Challenges in Integration: Evidence From the Food Industry

This study explores the role of refugees' entrepreneurship motives and challenges in their integration into the host country. Based on the food industry, a qualitative research approach was adopted in this study. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with Syrian refugees in two major European cities (i.e., London and Istanbul). The theme coding analysis was performed on the qualitative data, and the analysis processes revealed three main dimensions: entrepreneur integration motives, entrepreneur integration domains, and entrepreneur integration challenges. As a result of the analysis, beyond the previous studies' findings, three interconnected fundamental relations emerged from the main dimensions' sub-categories, which contribute to a better understanding of the role of refugees' entrepreneurship motives and challenges in their integration into the host society: (1) the relation between the market accessing challenge, citizenship desire, and social equality, (2) the relation of cultural proximity and the attitude of host people in building social bridges and, (3) the relation between refugees' mental health problems and resilience in entrepreneurship achievements. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is among the first attempts to reveal the effects of refugees' entrepreneurship motives and challenges in their integration in the context of the food industry.

Building territorial value within local circular economy’s projects: lessons from French scholars’ studies

ABSTRACT This contribution proposes an introduction to the concept of territorial value used by French-speaking researchers to analyse the benefits of circular economy (CE)’s projects. For several years, French-speaking researchers have been highlighting the emergence of a new form of value in the CE’s implementation. This so-called territorial value is associated with the mobilisation of heterogeneous actors (industrial, institutional, associative, etc.) in the CE’s implementation in the territories. It is essentially based on the capture, realisation, and redistribution of positive social externalities. However, this concept of territorial value covers many issues. This contribution addresses the theoretical and empirical issues of territorial value. It discusses its relationship with other concepts and/or forms of value (extended customer value, partnership value, shared value, etc.) which nevertheless remain values oriented towards the company. Then, it shows a relationship between territorial value, the issue of territorial development and, more broadly the ecological transition. The critical analysis reveals that the territorial value is defined around an overcoming of the genealogical approach of the value centred on the company. It refers to the valorisation of territorial resources. Then, it supposes the existence of a collective process relying particularly on the relations of proximity between the territorial actors. Finally, this contribution explores the difficulties in measuring this territorial value, which constitute research opportunities for the international scientific community.

University-Industry Knowledge Transfer: The Case of the Godfathers of Artificial Intelligence

Though university-industry linkages are channels for two-way knowledge sharing, in the case of breakthrough research, it is the path from scientific discovery to commercial application that is of primary interest. The central question is whether knowledge can be codified and disseminated in disembodied form, or if engagement with knowledge creators, either explicit engagement through collaborative relationships or potential engagement made possible by geographic proximity, is required. We consider the case of the godfathers of artificial intelligence (AI), Geoffrey Hinton (University of Toronto), Yoshua Bengio (Université of Montréal) and Yann LeCun (New York University), who collectively won the 2018 Turing Award, the Nobel prize of computing, and examine the factors that affect the ability of private technology developments to absorb and build upon their research. We construct a dataset consisting of the modern AI patent universe and use patent citations to godfather research as an indicator of knowledge transfer, modelling the likelihood that an AI patent will cite godfather research as a function of geographic proximity and social relations. We find strong effects for geographic proximity, where inventors were former co-inventors or co-authors of the godfathers, and for absorptive capacity as a crucial control.

Coordination and consensus: the role of compromisers in Tibetan macaques.

Coordination and consensus in collective behavior have attracted a lot of research interest. Although previous studies have investigated the role of compromisers in group consensus, they provide little insight into why compromisers would allow such social arrangements to persist. In this study, the potential relationship between group movements and conflict management in Tibetan macaques in Anhui province, China, was investigated using hierarchical cluster analyses. Some members with higher social centrality or social rank often formed a front-runner cluster during group movements. They had higher leadership success than individuals outside the front-runner cluster. Other members with lower social centrality or social rank often followed the group movements initiated by the front-runner cluster, and thus formed the compromiser cluster. Compromisers’ proximity relations with front-runners increased with their following scores to front-runners. Compromisers had fewer events of being attacked when they followed group movements initiated by the front-runners. The compromising process made compromisers lose the choice of direction preference, but it could increase their individual safeties. This trade-off suggests that compromisers play a role of decision-maker in coordination and consensus scenarios among social animals.

Boundaries in the Making: Transformations in Erving Goffman’s Total Institution through the Case of a Female Benedictine Monastery

Total institutions have undergone profound changes since Erving Goffman published his seminal work Asylums in 1961. This article explores the persistence and transformation of total institutions under late-modern conditions. Based upon empirical research conducted in a female Benedictine monastery, I analyse changes in the physically bounded structure of a total institution. Specifically, I address the trend towards greater permeability and flexibility of enclosed total spaces. Inspired by Georg Simmel’s spatial insights, I examine how boundaries are historically reshaped through changing relations of distance and proximity to wider society, and how these shifts alter the material expression and configuration of power that originally characterised the monastery’s totality. This article claims the ongoing relevance of Goffman’s conceptualisation to accommodate such modifications and illustrates how, in certain cases, adaptations of total institutions to contemporary conditions can be understood as involving the reconfiguration, rather than the dismantling, of totality.

The Proximal Relation, Regionally Proximal Relation and Banach Proximal Relation for Amenable Group Actions

In this paper, we study the proximal relation, regionally proximal relation and Banach proximal relation of a topological dynamical system for amenable group actions. A useful tool is the support of a topological dynamical system which is used to study the structure of the Banach proximal relation, and we prove that above three relations all coincide on a Banach mean equicontinuous system generated by an amenable group action.