Visual Attractiveness Research Articles

Integrating recreation into National Forest Inventories – Results from a forest visitor survey in winter and summer

Forest policy and management traditionally rely on physical forest data from National Forest Inventories (NFIs). Nationwide questionnaire surveys on the other hand provide information on the relationship between the human population and the forest, but data on the link to the physical forest is missing. In order to monitor outdoor recreation, both are needed. The aim of the present study is to bridge this gap by conducting a forest visitor survey in the vicinity of NFI sample plots and linking questionnaire data and NFI data in a multilevel model to determine the visual attractiveness of the forest plots in both winter and summer. In addition to traditional NFI measurements, visibility range was determined by terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). The results show that visual attractiveness was mainly determined by the individual characteristics of forest visitors. Although forest plots were generally liked better in summer, major seasonal differences between forest characteristics were limited to a few parameters, and differences in the characteristics of winter and summer visitors were small. Non-seasonal plot-specific variables played a greater role in explaining visual attractiveness than seasonal differences within the forest plots. TLS proved to be a sophisticated and reliable, but time-consuming, method for determining visibility range. We conclude that the resource-intensive on-site survey yielded interesting results, but that intangible factors and confounding effects made it difficult to pinpoint exactly which features determine forest attractiveness. Future monitoring of forest recreation should aim to strengthen the link between physical forest monitoring, as conducted in NFIs, and socio-cultural forest monitoring. To address the question which methods are suitable to link socio-cultural forest monitoring with an National Forest Inventories (NFI), we recomment to use photos from NFI plots in an online questionnaire survey instead of an on-site study. Although many variables were used in both studies, their explanatory value was considerably lower in the on-site survey than in the online survey. Future on-site studies should aim to capture intangible factors and confounding effects by including more qualitative research, for example by employing Go-Along interviews or visitor-employed photography, in order to provide in-depth information on which social factors should be included in future monitoring approaches. Including standardised visualisations of NFI plots in each round of socio-cultural forest monitoring together with a set of NFI variables relevant for recreation and visual attractiveness could form the missing link between NFIs and socio-cultural forest monitoring.

Территориальная идентификация городов на основе нейробрендинга

Neurobranding allows studying biometric indicators and consumer reactions to different brands to analyze visual attention, which makes it possible to open a new page in the study of territorial identification of cities. The purpose of this study is the eye tracking study of the coats of arms symbols of the cities of the Republic of Crimea in order to identify their visual significance and attractiveness, as well as the possibility of using them as brand identifiers of territories. The work is based on the biometric data obtained in the experimental eye tracking study. The object was the consumer perception of the coats of arms of municipalities of the Republic of Crimea in the context of different ethnic groups. The study revealed that the patterns of distribution of visual attention to the symbolic identifiers of the cities are different for the representatives of different ethnic groups inhabiting the Crimea, there are also gender differences in the study of brand identifiers. It is shown that the stronger identification of visual images with the specificity of a place, the more attractive and corresponding to reality the identifier itself is. The population’s knowledge of municipal symbols is not connected with their visual prominence. It is concluded that those identifiers that are poorly perceived, translate it to the represented city. Therefore, the idea of creation in the future on the basis of heraldry appropriate logos by means of borrowing its colors and fonts should be realized very thoughtfully. The consumer prefers simpler forms and meanings, as they are easier to remember, and probably the trend of minimalism will continue in conditions of general digitalization.

Diccionario Cervantes by Jean Canavaggio

Reviewed by: Diccionario Cervantes by Jean Canavaggio Howard Mancing (bio) Jean Canavaggio. Diccionario Cervantes. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2020. 509 pp. ISBN-13: 978-8415245957. This is a beautiful book. It is also a big book: over 500 pages, measuring 8.5” x 10,” 2” thick, and weighing 4.5 pounds. It is lavishly illustrated; in fact, it is divided equally between text and image, about half the pages devoted to each. The body of the work is followed by a Cuadro genealógico de los Cervantes, a Cronología, and (an incomplete and uneven) list of Obras de referencia (all occupying a total of 12+ pages). The images include reproductions of works of art (paintings, drawings, engravings, etchings, lithographs, posters, tapestries, and more); texts (letters, documents, manuscripts); photographs of persons and places; and various other things (maps, photographs, music scores, movie stills, comics, newspapers). The visual attractiveness of the volume is impressive and, in some ways, the best part of the book is its rich collection of high-quality images, many of them familiar, others not seen before (at least, by me). The 136 double-column entries in the dictionary vary in length from a few lines to ten columns of text. The longest entries (not including images) are for the following topics: Cautiverio, Cine, Esoterismo, Letras hispanoamericanas, Prisiones (the longest single entry in the book), Sevilla, and Valladolid; these entries average 8.5 columns in length. The entries for Cervantes’s works— Comedias, Entremeses, Galatea, Novelas ejemplares, Numancia, Poesías, Persiles y Sigismunda, and Don Quijote, and Viaje del Parnaso—average 6 columns each. There is (as I know from personal experience) no way the author of a dictionary or an encyclopedia can include everything worthy of mention. Even the monumental Gran Enciclopedia Cervantina, currently 12 volumes (A through Sandoval y Rojas, Don Bernardo de) and more than 11,000 words long does not have an entry for everything and everyone. Jean Canavaggio has of necessity made choices about what and whom to include. It would not be fair for a reviewer to concentrate on what he has not done more than on what he has done so well. If the entries in this Diccionario Cervantes seem to give preference to French writers, artists, and scholars, so be it; that is Canavaggio’s choice. But not to point out a few significant omissions and distortions of emphasis or importance would be worse than ignoring them. There are superb entries on dozens of subjects of significance to the life and works of Cervantes in this dictionary: Atribuciones; Brujas y hechiceras; Converso, Origen; Documentos; España; Gitanos; Indias; Judíos; Lepanto; [End Page 208] Moriscos; Negocios; Óperas; Picaresca; Religión; Saavedra; and Traductores del Quijote. These and many other accurate and informative entries illustrate the breadth and subtlety of the author’s presentation. They are, for the most part, a delight to read and can be appreciated by general readers and Cervantes scholars alike. In addition, there are entries for members of Cervantes’s family and for others who play an important role in his life and times: Agi Morato, Felipe II, Don Juan de Austria, Juan López de Hoyos, Antonio de Sigura, Lope de Vega, and others. There are entries for two important literary genres important in the time of Cervantes—Libros de caballerías and Picaresca; Tirante el Blanco has an entry, but not Amadís de Gaula. There are entries for literary theorists and scholars: Américo Castro, Michel Foucault (?), György Lukács, and José Ortega y Gasset. Missing are two of the most important theorists of the novel and Cervantes’s place in it: Friedrich von Schlegel and Mikhail Bakhtin (also missing in the Gran Enciclopedia). The absence of the latter is particularly unfortunate, as no one has featured Cervantes and Don Quixote more centrally or with more original insightfulness. There are 21 entries for writers, mostly novelists, but with an uneven distribution and with some quirky inclusions: 8 English, 4 French, 3 Latin American (included in the Letras hispanoamericanas entry), 2 each Russian, German, and USA, and 1 Spanish. Azorín and Borges (the only Spanish American writer with...

A Proposal: Human Factors Related to the User Acceptance Behavior in Adapting to New Technologies or New User Experience

We are aware of the tremendous growth of new mobile phones released in the market every year. The increase in the users’ needs with respect to the new devices is not to be ignored as well. Each product has so many brands with n-number of models and versions.The way the users choose to buy these products is perplexing. For example,decision made to buy a new mobile or change to new brand or even continuing the same brand is not an easy task. The user acceptance for any new behavior is very complex. This paper explores all the possible human factors connected to either pleasant or unpleasant user experiences. Various researchstudies discovered that loyalty of the users for a particular brand plays an important role for the success of the product. Long- term usage of the product by a user would have a negative impact, as the user is not willing to switch to other brands and this has a positive impact on the companies. User memory, expectations and experiences are closely knit to understand the user acceptance for choosing a product. A positive emotion such as pleasant user experience is significant because users recommend the products to others based on these emotional experiences. Age plays an important role with respect to user experience. Old age users were not enthusiastic in going for a change as they preferred to continue with the same technology. Cultural aspects of users are interesting to know in understanding the product purchases. There was biased information regarding user’s visual attractiveness and long- term usage memory. Certain studies explored UX curve and user burden scale that was used to analyze user experiences. It was interesting to know sensory characteristics formed a base for both pleasant and unpleasant user experiences. This research will help companies of mobile devices in identifying the various factors (both positive and negative) related to user experiences and behavior. Future research will be conducted in the areas of short-term user experience and in areas where illiteracy prevail. This study will help the companies to improve their product better based on customer satisfaction.

Large Wood Debris Contributes to Beach Ecosystems but Colombian Beachgoer’s Do Not Recognize It

Large Woody Debris (LWD) accumulation serves essential ecological functions and benefits society’s coastal ecosystems (e.g., beaches). Thus far, the ecosystem services perspective has paid little attention to LWD. Therefore, we aim to contrast social perceptions on LWD and its ecological significance in Puerto Velero beach, Caribbean, Colombia. In consequence, the contribution of LWD to the conformation and creation of Puerto Velero beach was analyzed, as well as how beachgoers perceive the importance of LWD and if they were willing to pay to remove LWD in this beach. To achieve this, a quantitative convergent approach was then proposed using GIS analysis and remote sensing to understand the contributions of LWD to the Puerto Velero beach ecosystem; and in addition, a survey was performed to determine how beachgoers perceived LWD and how they valued the phenomenon. Results indicate that LWD contributed to beach maintenance; nevertheless, most people neglected LWD values because of its lack of visual attractiveness. As such, ecosystem services targets become conflicted because people positively perceived ecosystem services provided by beaches, but they did not assign importance to the beach dynamics they deemed unattractive, regardless of their vast importance.

Liked and Disliked Streetscape Imagery: Relation to Emotional Motivation and Block Distribution From Tourist Bus Visitors

Streetscape is an important factor that forms the image of a city. The visual value and preference in streetscape images need to be measured by examining the interaction between places and visitors in the real environment. The study applied a method to recognize and evaluate urban streetscape from the perspective of tour bus passengers, and proved its effectiveness in streetscape visual attraction research. In this study, a visitor-employed photography (VEP) survey was conducted along 32 blocks on the No. 1 urban tour bus (with an average speed of 28 km/h) in Suzhou, China; the visual attributes and significance of urban streetscapes were recognized through empirical research on tour bus visitors’ on-site experience. The researcher cultivated the emotional motivations and block distribution captured by 30 respondents through analyzing the types of photos the respondents liked and disliked. The results of this study show that, in general, positive streetscape types tend to be of regional landscape, with cultural and readable emotional motivations. Negative streetscape types tend to be of modern architecture and construction sites, with unreadable and unattractive emotional motivations. The block cluster analysis, based on the average frequency/km of positive and negative streetscape photos, shows that the four block unit clusters were perceived by visitors with deviation between the land use image and the planned land use. The bus VEP method revealed that the visual attractiveness and preferences of streetscape were highly context-specific, rather than for performance.

RIHOOP: Robust Invisible Hyperlinks in Offline and Online Photographs.

In the era of multimedia and Internet, the quick response (QR) code helps people obtain information from offline to online quickly. However, the QR code is often limited in many scenarios because of its random and dull appearance. Therefore, this article proposes a novel approach to embed hyperlinks into common images, making the hyperlinks invisible for human eyes but detectable for mobile devices equipped with a camera. Our approach is an end-to-end neural network with an encoder to hide messages and a decoder to extract messages. To maintain the hidden message resilient to cameras, we build a distortion network between the encoder and the decoder to augment the encoded images. The distortion network uses differentiable 3-D rendering operations, which can simulate the distortion introduced by camera imaging in both printing and display scenarios. To maintain the visual attraction of the image with hyperlinks, a loss function conforming to the human visual system (HVS) is used to supervise the training of the encoder. Experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms the previous work on both robustness and quality. Based on the proposed approach, many applications become possible, for example, "image hyperlinks" for advertisement on TV, website, or poster, and "invisible watermark" for copyright protection on digital resources or product packagings.

Innate visual attraction in wood ants is a hardwired behavior seen across different motivational and ecological contexts

Ants are expert navigators combining innate and learnt navigational strategies. Whereas we know that the ants’ feeding state segregates visual–navigational memories in ants navigating along a learnt route, it is an open question if the motivational state also affects the ants’ innate visual preferences. Wood ant foragers show an innate attraction to conspicuous visual cues. These foragers inhabit cluttered woodland habitat and feed on honeydew from aphids on trees. Hence, the attraction to ‘tree-like’ objects might be an ecologically relevant behavior that is tailored to the wood ants’ foraging ecology. Foragers from other ant species with different foraging ecologies show very different innate attractions. We investigated here the innate visual response of wood ant foragers with different motivational states, i.e., unfed or fed, as well as males that show no foraging activity. Our results show that ants from all three groups orient toward a prominent visual cue, i.e., this intrinsic visuomotor response is not context-dependent, but a hardwired behavior seen across different motivational and ecological contexts.

Examining Visual Attention Patterns among Asexual and Heterosexual Individuals

ABSTRACT Asexuality has garnered much attention, and empirical data support its classification as a sexual orientation. Asexuality is defined as a lack of sexual attraction to others, with approximately 1% of the population falling in this category. As theoretical models situate attention as a central component of sexual response, the current study examined attentional processing of erotic stimuli in asexuals and heterosexuals. We hypothesized that heterosexual participants would have initial and controlled visual attention patterns favoring erotic images over non-erotic images. We predicted that asexual participants would have significantly smaller or non-existent differences in attention to erotic versus non-erotic images. Ninety-five adults completed an eye-tracking task viewing erotic and non-erotic images. Eye-tracking data showed no group differences in initial attention to erotic images. For controlled attention, there was a large effect size in the hypothesized direction. Heterosexual participants exhibited more and longer fixations on erotic images, whereas asexuals exhibited a more even distribution of attention across image types. Exploratory analysis of group differences in the association between visual attention and ratings of sexual attractiveness revealed a complex pattern of differences, with some indication of a stronger association between total fixation and sexual attraction for heterosexual participants. These findings suggest that differences in attention to sexual stimuli may represent key underlying differences between asexual and allosexual orientation. Findings also contribute to the larger literature on visual attention and attraction.

Whiplash, Buddy Rich, and Visual Virtuosity in Drum Kit Performance

AbstractThe 2014 film Whiplash depicts successful jazz drumming as an athletic exhibition of speed and endurance, in a manner that reflects its protagonist's idolization of Buddy Rich (1917–87). The crowd-pleasing virtuosity of Rich and Whiplash has drawn critics’ ire, but this article interrogates the ideas of musical authenticity that underpin their complaints, and offers a more productive analysis of the film's drum kit performances and their inspiration, informed by a range of jazz, film, and performance scholarship. Specific attention is drawn to the performances’ visual attractions. Whiplash's fast editing style and shots of exertion – grimacing, sweat, blood – give non-expert viewers a sense of drumming's physical and mental demands, and much the same is true of Rich's exaggerated movements and expressions, whether seen live or (as is commonly the case) amplified by a screen's mediation.

Seeing is believing? Data mining to create a choice-based conjoint approach for restaurant mobile marketing

We propose an online impression-management conceptual model and present a two-step approach to unfold the importance of multiple attributes on a restaurant marketplace mobile app. First, our study uses OpenTable platform data to provide insights into the visual attractiveness of restaurant images. In total, 92,934 images were scraped and further labeled through the Tencent Multi-Label API, which identified six categories of image cues. Second, an exploratory Choice-Based Conjoint (CBC) analysis was performed to assess the importance of attributes at different levels from 746 valid survey responses. Furthermore, we performed Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to categorize the consumers by their choice features in which we identified two groups: “visual-image-cues responsive” and “price-rating-cue responsive.” These categories advance the proposed online impression-management conceptual model and indicate that visual information is the most important attribute in decision making. Our study provides empirically based suggestions to enable practitioners to strengthen their m-commerce marketing strategies.

Lipstick color suggested using hybrid hidden Markov model

In today’s lifestyle, facial makeup plays an important role in enhancing visual attractiveness a nd boosting one’s self-esteem. Makeup is known as the second skin of the women, and that too lipstick is a soul of the makeup. According to a survey, an average urban woman spends almost one year and three months of her life just wearing makeup. This much of the time is due to decision-making and choosing the best makeup style that would fit a particular age, skin complexion, profession, and occasion, requiring high imagination and full art. Many makeup recommendations systems exist, but no solitary system has existed to recommend a lipstick color properly to solve this problem computationally. Therefore, as a tiny step towards helping women save their time in decision-making, the proposed model puts forward an idea of a hybrid recommendation model for lipsticks alone. This proposed methodology uses a hidden Markov model to unleash the possible color of the lipsticks based on the given attributes. The collaborative filtering system catalyzes the process to recommend the best lipstick colors using a hybrid recommendation model.

The Floral Signals of the Inconspicuous Orchid Malaxis monophyllos: How to Lure Small Pollinators in an Abundant Environment.

Simple SummaryMalaxis monophyllos is an ephemeral orchid with very small, greenish flowers, whose pollination system remains vague. Therefore, the authors aimed to identify the flower’s features, including its anatomical micro and ultrastructure as well as scent biochemistry, which are involved in attracting pollinators. In this paper, the authors established the variety of emissions of M. monophyllos volatile compounds, with a high proportion of aldehydes and aliphatic alcohols, listed as chemicals that induce a pronounced reaction in Diptera. Second, the entire M. monophyllos labellum exhibits metabolic and secretory activity, which can be related to both emission of volatiles and visual attractants but also to the nutritional reward for pollinators. All these flower features indicated that its pollination system is dedicated to dipterans, with few signaling modalities corresponding to deceptive species (brood site and food decoy) but also referring to rewarding ones (nutritional secretion, fungus/microbe reward). This research reveals a few new issues in M. monophyllos pollination biology that provides new scientific areas for in-depth insights in the future.Many orchid species have evolved complex floral signals to ensure pollination efficiency. Here, the authors combined analyses of anatomical flower structure with analyses of the volatile composition and flower-visiting insects’ behaviour, as well as characterised features that can attract pollinators of the inconspicuous orchid Malaxis monophyllos. During field observations, the authors found that only small Diptera (e.g., mosquitos, drosophilids, fungus gnats) visit and are interested in the flowers of M. monophyllos, which was reflected in the characterised flower features that combine well with the pollination system, which engages dipterans. Analyses of the M. monophyllos floral scent revealed substantial concentrations of aliphatic compounds, e.g., 1-octen-3-ol and 1-octanol, which condition the mushroom-like scent and a substantial fraction of alkanes, some of which have been previously described as sex mimicry and aggregation pheromones in orchids’ deceptive systems. The labellum anatomical structure exhibits a highly diverse cell cuticle surface and pronounced metabolic and secretory activity of the epidermal and subepidermal cells from all parts of the labellum. Moreover, our study provides evidence for the subsequent decoys of M. monophyllos flowers, including visual signals, such as raphides located on the labellum margin and the rewarding ones connected with lipid secretion limited to the area behind the column. Taking an integrative approach to studying M. monophyllos pollination biology, the authors provide new insight into its previously vague pollination strategies and provide evidence for complex floral signal operation in luring potential pollinators. The synergistic effect of M. monophyllos flowers’ volatile and visual signals, together with additional rewarding for nectar/fungus/microbe-feeding pollinators, requires further detailed investigation that will be invaluable in explaining the evolution of Diptera-specific pollination systems in orchids.

Morphological, anatomical, ultrastructural, and histochemical study of flowers and nectaries of Iris sibirica L.

The insufficient pollinator visitation is the most important limitation of fruit and seed production, which is common and ubiquitous in entomophilous angiosperms. The scent and attractive colours with flower guides and such floral rewards as nectar, pollen, and oil are important attractants for insects visiting and pollinating flowers in the family Iridaceae. The aim of this study was to investigate the morphology of flowers and the micromorphology, anatomy, and ultrastructure of floral nectaries in the rare and endangered species Iris sibirica with the use of light, scanning, and transmission electron microscopes and histochemical assays. Osmophores in the form of papillae were located on the adaxial surface of outer tepals and on the abaxial surface of the stylodium channel. The nectaries were located on the inner surface of the perianth tube and were composed of a single-layered epidermis with papillae and several layers of glandular parenchyma with vascular bundles. I. sibirica nectaries represent the presecretory starch-accumulating type, where nectar is released for a short time immediately after flower opening. Nectar was produced throughout the flower lifespan in both male and female stages. It was secreted in the granulocrine mode and released through microchannels in the reticulate cuticle of nectary papillae. Transport of pre-nectar components proceeded via symplastic and apoplastic pathways. The nectary epidermal cells with papillae and glandular parenchyma cells contained total lipids, acidic lipids, and polysaccharides, whereas the epidermal cells with papillae additionally contained neutral lipids and polyphenol compounds. The nectaries and nectar production in I. sibirica flowers share the common location and follow several secretion patterns characteristic for the nectaries in some members of the family Iridaceae and the subfamily Iridoideae. Nevertheless, the mode of nectar release through the cuticle of epidermal papillae has been described in Iridaceae family for the first time. The visual, aromatic, and food attractants characteristic of I. sibirica flowers probably stimulate potential visits by pollinators, but the short nectar secretion period may limit the effectiveness of pollinators and sexual reproductive success.

Visual attraction of the European tarnished plant bug Lygus rugulipennis (Hemiptera: Miridae) to a water trap with LED light in chrysanthemum greenhouses and olfactory attraction to novel compounds in Y‐tube tests

BACKGROUNDThe European tarnished plant bug Lygus rugulipennis Poppius (Hemiptera: Miridae) can cause several types of damage to crops grown in greenhouses and fields, including flower abortion in eggplant, stem and fruit damage in cucumbers, and splits in chrysanthemums. Studies suggest that both male and female L. rugulipennis may be more attracted to traps based on visual attraction than pheromone‐based trap. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a water trap with LED lights and semiochemicals in trapping L. rugulipennis in the laboratory and greenhouse.RESULTSThe results showed that water traps equipped with white LED light caught 20– 30 times more bugs than did the sex pheromone‐based traps in greenhouse experiment. During the week of peak flight, the LED water trap caught a total of 29 males and females, whereas the sex pheromone caught only one male. Among the semiochemicals tested in a Y‐tube, both males and females were attracted to ß‐caryophyllene, but not in the presence of the sex pheromone, whereas both males and females were attracted to pentyl butyrate in the presence of the sex pheromone. The pheromone plus bean plant odor was attractive to the insects, suggesting an interaction between plant odor and pheromone.CONCLUSIONOverall, the findings of the study showed that the water trap with LED light could be an effective method for trapping L. rugulipennis in greenhouses. © 2022 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

Understanding the Navigation Experience: Do Virtual Customer Service Agents Make a Difference?

The purpose of this study is to contribute to understanding website usage and loyalty and specifically whether the navigation experience varies with the presence of a virtual customer service agent (VCSA) on the website. Two online surveys were carried out with a random sample of 1,000 frequent flyers before and after the inclusion of the VCSA in an airline company website. Results are tested using partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modelling and importance–performance map analysis. Results show that perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived usefulness (PU), perceived visual attractiveness, perceived enjoyment and social presence impact website loyalty. In the website without the VCSA, usability variables (PU and PEU) and perceived visual attractiveness are the strongest antecedents of loyalty, while perceived visual attractiveness and social presence are the strongest predictors in the VCSA setting.

A new approach for product evaluation based on integration of EEG and eye-tracking

Exploiting biometric measures, especially neurophysiological data of evaluator for product evaluation is advantageous at avoiding bias and subjectivity in expert scoring process. This paper proposes an approach that integrates electroencephalograph (EEG) and eye-tracking (ET) data in a new way to derive multi-faceted supportive information for product evaluation. Firstly, emotion recognition from EEG signals of evaluator is carried out with a spatial–temporal neural network. Then, based on correlations between emotions and preferential judgement, general customer preference toward product design scheme is inferred from emotions by fuzzy system. Finally, general preference is integrated with ET data at application-level to quantify fine-grained customer preferences toward design modules and visual attractiveness. This approach is verified with a case study which evaluates six designs of frontal area of automotive interior, and valuable supportive information for design decision-making is yielded. Also, comprehensive analysis is conducted and the results verify the effectiveness of proposed approach.

Leaf beetle herbivory shapes the subsequent flower-visiting insect community and impacts plant reproduction

ABSTRACT Herbivory can induce changes in flower traits influencing the community of flower-visiting insects and ultimately impacting the plant’s reproductive output. Here, we investigated how leaf herbivory on sweet pepper plants, Capsicum annuum L., by Diabrotica speciosa (Germar) adults influences the community of insect floral visitors and alters plant reproduction. In an experimental field, we found that flowers of herbivore-infested plants were less visited by insects than those of uninfested plants. A similar pattern was found for the abundance of the three most common species of floral visitors in the collections, Apis mellifera (Linnaeus), Toxomerus sp.1, and Trigona spinipes (Fabricius). The insect community associated with the flowers of herbivore-infested plants was distinct, less rich, and diverse than that of uninfested plants. Leaf herbivory also impacted flower abundance that likely influenced the visual attraction of insects. The changes in flower-visiting insect community associated with herbivore-infested plants coincided with a reduced number of fruits, which were smaller and contained fewer seeds than those from uninfested plants. Our results suggest that leaf herbivory by D. speciosa results in direct and indirect costs to the plants through modifications in abundance and composition of flower-visiting insect community.

Green Resources for Safety Improvement and Sustainable Landscape Design: The Case of a Dangerous Tehran-Dizin Road Bend

Improving road safety is not only reliant on engineering aspects but also on the surrounding landscape, which plays an indispensable role in drivers’ visual perception. As a part of road landscapes, green areas affect road safety by screening or framing views. While vistas could be highlighted in safe spots in order for road users to enjoy their travel, in dangerous scenic points, visual attractions need to be concealed to lessen visual distractions and the risk of accidents. This study aims at optimizing road safety through sustainable landscape design in one of the dangerous Tehran–Dizin road bends to meet both road safety and environmental requirements. In doing so, cone of vision formulas have been applied to calculate measures of green landscape features so as to hide visual distractions and upgrade safety. To design such a green landscape, green resources and their characteristics have been elaborated, and native species have been suggested in plant composition, which can improve the sense of place, enhance the environment, and create a sustainable landscape. The research shows that a cone of vision could functionally be employed to increase the success of a designed green landscape, especially in situations where two-dimensional approaches are not sufficient.

Virtual Reality (VR) Advertising Communication Design Based on 3D Wireless Active Visual Sensing

With the vigorous development of the advertising industry, advertising in the era of intelligent media fills all aspects of our lives, and more and more intelligent media are applied to the advertising industry. The current three-dimensional advertising and interactive advertising are too fragmented in form, with three-dimensional advertising having a strong sense of three-dimensionality but lacking interactivity and interactive advertising having strong interactivity but lacking visual attraction. How to integrate 3D advertising and interactive advertising in order to make advertising in the future has greater development potential and market, whether in the visual or interactive experience can attract the target consumers becomes very necessary. It is found that VR technology has a wide range of application prospects, and intelligent media advertising mediated by VR technology follows the trend of advertising industry development. This thesis uses VR (virtual reality) technology as a medium to study the integration of 3D advertising and interactive advertising in the smart media era. In the second phase, the development direction of VR as an advertising medium in the era of intelligent media is identified. The research on the integration of 3D animated ads and interactive ads under VR technology is launched, and the research on 3D stereoscopic and interactive design of advertisements in the era of smart media is a reflection and exploration of the future language of advertising design. And through the comparison with traditional advertising, it is concluded that the aesthetic subject of VR advertising is “polycentric,” the aesthetic object. Then, we analyze the theoretical roots of the formation of the aesthetic characteristics of VR advertising from three levels: media technology, communication theory, and audience psychology. Finally, we return to the general environment of visual culture and explore the deconstruction of visual culture by the aesthetic characteristics of VR advertising in three levels: “symbol collapse,” “audience reshaping,” and “immersive communication.”