Environment

Digital technology has changed organizations in an irreversible way. Like the movable type printing accelerated the evolution of our history, digitalization is shaping organizations, work environment and processes, creating new challenges leaders have to face. Social science scholars have been trying to understand this multifaceted phenomenon, however, findings have accumulated in a fragmented and dispersed fashion across different disciplines, and do not seem to converge within a clear picture.

BACKGROUND: Coronary inflammation induces dynamic changes in the balance between water and lipid content in perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT), as captured by perivascular Fat Attenuation Index (FAI) in standard coronary CT angiography (CCTA). However, inflammation is not the only process involved in atherogenesis and we hypothesized that additional radiomic signatures of adverse fibrotic and microvascular PVAT remodelling, may further improve cardiac risk prediction. METHODS AND RESULTS: We pre

This paper examines visions of ‘learning’ across humans and machines in a near-future of intensive data analytics. Building upon the concept of ‘learnification’, practices of ‘learning’ in emerging big data-driven environments are discussed in two significant ways: the training of machines, and the nudging of human decisions through digital choice architectures. Firstly, ‘machine learning’ is discussed as an important example of how data-driven technologies are beginning to influence educational

The introduction of the Information and Communication Technologies throughout the last decades has created a trend of providing daily objects with smartness, aiming to make human life more comfortable. The paradigm of Smart Cities arises as a response to the goal of creating the city of the future, where (1) the well-being and rights of their citizens are guaranteed, (2) industry and (3) urban planning is assessed from an environmental and sustainable viewpoint. Smart Cities still face some chal

Blended Learning (BL) creates a ‘rich’ educational environment with multiple technology-enabled communication forms in both face-to-face and online teaching. Students’ characteristics are closely related to the learning effectiveness in the BL environment. Students’ ability to direct themselves in learning and to utilise learning technologies can affect student learning effectiveness. This study examined the impacts of self-directed learning, technology readiness, and learning motivation on the

High basin of Oum Er Rbia River, which is located in Middle Atlas Mountain region, is prone to landslide problems due to the geological features combined with the climate change and human activities. The present work including inventory mapping was conducted to establish landslide susceptibility map using GIS-based spatial multicriteria approach. Eight landslide-related factors, including land cover, lithology, distance to road, distance to fault, distance to drainage network, elevation, aspect

Climate change is an issue which elicits low engagement, even among concerned segments of the public. While research suggests that the presentation of factual information (e.g., scientific consensus) can be persuasive to some audiences, there is also empirical evidence indicating that it may also increase resistance in others. In this research, we investigate whether climate change narratives structured as stories are better than informational narratives at promoting pro-environmental behavior i

The intent of this paper is to provide an introduction into the bourgeoning field of eye tracking in Virtual Reality (VR). VR itself is an emerging technology on the consumer market, which will create many new opportunities in research. It offers a lab environment with high immersion and close alignment with reality. An experiment which is using VR takes place in a highly controlled environment and allows for a more in-depth amount of information to be gathered about the actions of a subject. Te

In daily social interactions, we need to be able to navigate efficiently through our social environment. According to Dennett (1971), explaining and predicting others’ behaviour with reference to mental states (adopting the intentional stance) allows efficient social interaction. Today we also routinely interact with artificial agents: from Apple’s Siri to GPS navigation systems. In the near future, we might start casually interacting with robots. This paper addresses the question of whether ado

Biodiversity hypothesis states that contact with natural environments enriches the human microbiome, promotes immune balance and protects from allergy and inflammatory disorders. We are protected by two nested layers of biodiversity, microbiota of the outer layer (soil, natural waters, plants, animals) and inner layer (gut, skin, airways). The latter inhabits our body and is colonized from the outer layer. Explosion of human populations along with cultural evolution is profoundly changing our en

The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a study that examines whether the CoI dimensions of social, teaching and cognitive presence distinctively exist in e-learning environments. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, I will briefly review recent studies on the dimensions of this framework: social, cognitive, and teaching presence. Second, I discuss the development of the sample of MBA students in online courses over a two-year period at a Midwestern U.S. univers

Park managers call for cost-effective and innovative solutions to handle a wide variety of environmental problems that threaten biodiversity in protected areas. Recently, drones have been called upon to revolutionize conservation and hold great potential to evolve and raise better-informed decisions to assist management. Despite great expectations, the benefits that drones could bring to foster effectiveness remain fundamentally unexplored. To address this gap, we performed a literature review a

Smart cities contain intelligent things which can intelligently automatically and collaboratively enhance life quality, save people's lives, and act a sustainable resource ecosystem. To achieve these advanced collaborative technologies such as drones, robotics, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things (IoT) are required to increase the smartness of smart cities by improving the connectivity, energy efficiency, and quality of services (QoS). Therefore, collaborative drones and IoT play a v

The smart grid (SG) paradigm is the next technological leap of the conventional electrical grid, contributing to the protection of the physical environment and providing multiple advantages such as increased reliability, better service quality, and the efficient utilization of the existing infrastructure and the renewable energy resources. However, despite the fact that it brings beneficial environmental, economic, and social changes, the existence of such a system possesses important security a

"Awe" is a category of emotion within the spectrum of self-transcendent experiences. Awe has wellness benefits, with feelings of social interconnectivity and increased life satisfaction. However, awe experiences remain rare in our everyday lives, and rarer in lab environments. We posit that Virtual Reality (VR) may help to make self-transcendent and potentially transformative experiences of awe more accessible to individuals. Here, we investigated how interactive VR as a positive technology may

Abstract Data are essential in all areas of geophysics. They are used to better understand and manage systems, either directly or via models. Given the complexity and spatiotemporal variability of geophysical systems (e.g., precipitation), a lack of sufficient data is a perennial problem, which is exacerbated by various drivers, such as climate change and urbanization. In recent years, crowdsourcing has become increasingly prominent as a means of supplementing data obtained from more traditional

Abstract Ever growing population and progressive municipal business demands for constructing new buildings are known as the foremost contributor to greenhouse gasses. Therefore, improvement of energy efficiency of the building sector has become an essential target to reduce the amount of gas emission as well as fossil fuel consumption. One most effective approach to reducing CO2 emission and energy consumption with regards to new buildings is to consider energy efficiency at a very early design

People are known to change their behavior and decisions to conform to others, even for obviously incorrect facts. Because of recent developments in artificial intelligence and robotics, robots are increasingly found in human environments, and there, they form a novel social presence. It is as yet unclear whether and to what extent these social robots are able to exert pressure similar to human peers. This study used the Asch paradigm, which shows how participants conform to others while performi

Behavioural and cognitive processes play important roles in mediating an individual's interactions with its environment. Yet, while there is a vast literature on repeatable individual differences in behaviour, relatively little is known about the repeatability of cognitive performance. To further our understanding of the evolution of cognition, we gathered 44 studies on individual performance of 25 species across six animal classes and used meta-analysis to assess whether cognitive performance i

We need to feed an estimated population in excess of 9 billion by 2050 with diminishing natural resources, whilst ensuring the health of people and the planet. Herein we connect the future global food demand to the role of agricultural and food science in producing and stabilising foods to meet the global food demand. We highlight the challenges to food and agriculture systems in the face of climate change and global megatrends that are shaping the future world. We discuss the opportunities to r

Several tools have been developed to compare the environmental impact of textiles. The most widely used are Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) and MADE-BY Fiber Benchmark. They use data from production to evaluate the environmental impacts of textiles differentiated by fiber type. The use phase is excluded from both tools. This article discusses whether there is evidence that the use of textiles differs systematically between different fiber types and examines the consequences of comparin

BACKGROUND: An open challenge in translational bioinformatics is the analysis of sequenced metagenomes from various environmental samples. Of course, several studies demonstrated the 16S ribosomal RNA could be considered as a barcode for bacteria classification at the genus level, but till now it is hard to identify the correct composition of metagenomic data from RNA-seq short-read data. 16S short-read data are generated using two next generation sequencing technologies, i.e. whole genome shotg

Elderly care at home is a matter of great concern if the elderly live alone, since unforeseen circumstances might occur that affect their well-being. Technologies that assist the elderly in independent living are essential for enhancing care in a cost-effective and reliable manner. Elderly care applications often demand real-time observation of the environment and the resident’s activities using an event-driven system. As an emerging area of research and development, it is necessary to exp

While substantial effort has been invested in making robots more reliable, experience demonstrates that robots operating in unstructured environments are often challenged by frequent failures. Despite this, robots have not yet reached a level of design that allows effective management of faulty or unexpected behavior by untrained users. To understand why this may be the case, an in-depth literature review was done to explore when people perceive and resolve robot failures, how robots communicate

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development covers a wide range of interrelated goals, including poverty eradication and economic growth, social inclusion, environmental sustainability and peace for all people by 2030. Policy decisions to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) need to be informed by policy-relevant evidence co-designed and co-produced with the pertinent stakeholders, taking into consideration local and political contexts. Universities are uniquely placed to lead the cross

BACKGROUND: The emergence of robotics is transforming industries around the world. Robot technologies are evolving exponentially, particularly as they converge with other functionalities such as artificial intelligence to learn from their environment, from each other, and from humans. OBJECTIVE: The goal of the research was to understand the emerging role of robotics in health care and identify existing and likely future challenges to maximize the benefits associated with robotics and related co

Blockchain technology provides decentralized consensus and potentially enlarges the contracting space using smart contracts with tamper-proofness and algorithmic executions. Meanwhile, generating decentralized consensus entails distributing information which necessarily alters the informational environment. We analyze how decentralization affects consensus effectiveness, and how the quintessential features of blockchain reshape industrial organization and the landscape of competition. Smart cont

BACKGROUND: Information on the spatial distribution of aboveground biomass (AGB) over large areas is needed for understanding and managing processes involved in the carbon cycle and supporting international policies for climate change mitigation and adaption. Furthermore, these products provide important baseline data for the development of sustainable management strategies to local stakeholders. The use of remote sensing data can provide spatially explicit information of AGB from local to globa

BACKGROUND: Growing concerns about increasing rates of antibiotic resistance call for expanded and comprehensive global monitoring. Advancing methods for monitoring of environmental media (e.g., wastewater, agricultural waste, food, and water) is especially needed for identifying potential resources of novel antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), hot spots for gene exchange, and as pathways for the spread of ARGs and human exposure. Next-generation sequencing now enables direct access and profiling

Greenhouse cultivation has evolved from simple covered rows of open-fields crops to highly sophisticated controlled environment agriculture (CEA) facilities that projected the image of plant factories for urban agriculture. The advances and improvements in CEA have promoted the scientific solutions for the efficient production of plants in populated cities and multi-story buildings. Successful deployment of CEA for urban agriculture requires many components and subsystems, as well as the underst

In a time when conservative politicians challenge the irrefutability of scientific findings such as climate change, it is more important than ever to understand the conflict at the heart of the “religion vs. science” debates unfolding in the public sphere. In this groundbreaking work, John H. Evans reveals that, with a few limited exceptions, even the most conservative religious Americans accept science’s ability to make factual claims about the world. However, many religious people take issue w

Reinforcement learning (RL) enables robots to learn its optimal behavioral strategy in dynamic environments based on feedback. Explicit human feedback during robot RL is advantageous, since an explicit reward function can be easily adapted. However, it is very demanding and tiresome for a human to continuously and explicitly generate feedback. Therefore, the development of implicit approaches is of high relevance. In this paper, we used an error-related potential (ErrP), an event-related activit

The adoption of digital communications, facilitated by Internet technology, has been among the most significant international business developments of the past 25 years. This article investigates the effect of these new technologies and the changing global business environment to understand how relational approaches to international market entry (IME) are changing in light of macro developments. Despite substantial resources in business practice dedicated to combining relational strategies in di

A smarter transport system that caters for social, economic and environmental sustainability is arguably one of the most critical prerequisites for creating pathways to more livable urban futures. This paper aims to provide a state-of-the-art analysis of a selection of mobility initiatives that may dictate the future of urban transportation and make cities smarter. These are mechanisms either recently introduced with encouraging uptake so far and much greater potential to contribute in a shift t

BACKGROUND: Data measuring airborne pollutants, public health and environmental factors are increasingly being stored and merged. These big datasets offer great potential, but also challenge traditional epidemiological methods. This has motivated the exploration of alternative methods to make predictions, find patterns and extract information. To this end, data mining and machine learning algorithms are increasingly being applied to air pollution epidemiology. METHODS: We conducted a systematic

Enriched environments elicit brain plasticity in animals. In humans it is unclear which environment is enriching. Living in a city has been associated with increased amygdala activity in a stress paradigm, and being brought up in a city with increased pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) activity. We set out to identify geographical characteristics that constitute an enriched environment affecting the human brain. We used structural equation modelling on 341 older adults to establish three

Socially assistive robotic platforms are now a realistic option for the long-term care of ageing populations. Elderly users may benefit from many services provided by robots operating in different environments, such as providing assistance inside apartments, serving in shared facilities of buildings or guiding people outdoors. In this paper, we present the experience gained within the EU FP7 ROBOT-ERA project towards the objective of implementing easy-to-use and acceptable service robotic system

The concept of transformation in relation to climate and other global change is increasingly receiving attention. The concept provides important opportunities to help examine how rapid and fundamental change to address contemporary global challenges can be facilitated. This paper contributes to discussions about transformation by providing a social science, arts and humanities perspective to open up discussion and set out a research agenda about what it means to transform and the dimensions, lim

Animals play a profoundly important and intricate role in our lives today. Dogs have been human companions for thousands of years, but now they work to assist the disabled, and in combat and search and rescue situations. Farm animals are a critical part of sustainable agriculture today, and there is increasing consumer interest in humanely raised livestock, and how it impacts our health and environmental footprint. Wild animals are threatened with extinction by human induced factors, and shrinki