Search Results (93)

This essay focuses on the Greek adoptees’ search for identity and on the agrafa, or the “unwritten” territories, into which this search penetrates. The Greek adoptees represent an underresearched case study of the postwar intercountry adoption movement (1950–1975). Creating a narrative of the self is key to the adoptees’ identity formation, but their personal narrative is often undermined by stereotypes and denunciations that stunt its development. The research presented here has been guided by questions that interrogate the verdict-making or “sentencing” associated with the adoptees’ identity-shaping process: their sentencing to subjugation by stock opinions, the denouncing of their alternative viewpoints about “rescue” adoptions, and the verdict of their entrapment in feel-good master narratives. This essay also explores broader research questions pertaining to modes of interrogating “historic” adoptions from Greece. It is concerned with the why rather than with the how or the who of the oldest, post-WWII intercountry adoption flows. In what forums and genres (narrative, visual, journalistic, scholarly) are Greek adoption facts and legacies articulated, mediated, and/or materialized? How do memories, both positive and negative, underpin current projects of self-identification and transformation? What are the adoptees’ preferred outlets to speak about embodied experiences, and are those satisfactory? Based on a mixed methods approach, the essay ties these steps in identity growth to the Adoptee Consciousness Model, illustrating the five phases of consciousness that the adoptees may experience throughout their lives. Full article

Background/Objectives: To assess the spatial presence and impact of an immersive virtual reality (VR) walk on symptoms of cybersickness, emotions, and participant engagement, with the aim of providing insights applicable to future therapeutic VR interventions for individuals with limited mobility. Methods: The experiment involved 30 healthy individuals who used VR headsets while seated on chairs to experience a 360° virtual tour of the Venice Canals in Los Angeles. The effect of immersion was evaluated using the Virtual Reality Sickness Questionnaire (VRSQ) to measure cybersickness symptoms, the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-Short Form (I-PANAS-SF) to assess emotions, the Spatial Presence Experience Scale (SPES) to evaluate spatial presence, and the Flow State Scale (FSS) to quantify the flow state. Results: The results indicated that the virtual walk elicited both positive and negative reactions. The increase in eye strain (+0.66), general discomfort (+0.6), and headache (+0.43) was achieved in the VRSQ scale. Despite experiencing nausea and oculomotor symptoms, participants reported a high level of flow (range of scale items from 3.47 to 3.70), suggesting a beneficial impact of immersion on their well-being. Furthermore, the analysis of the I-PANAS-SF results revealed a predominance of positive emotions, indicating a favorable perception of the experience. However, the SPES scores exhibited variability in the perception of spatial presence (mean spatial presence score 3.74, SD 2.06), likely influenced by the characteristics of the visual material used. Conclusions: Overall, the immersive VR walk, despite the potential risk of cybersickness symptoms, as a seated passive exploration still promoted feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment, allowing the participants to actively engage with the virtual environment. These findings suggest that seated VR experiences hold promise as a tool for promoting well-being, but further research is needed to address cybersickness and optimize VR content for therapeutic use in populations with limited mobility. Full article

Loneliness has a direct impact on mental and physical health. This is especially relevant to older adults. In prior studies, socially isolated older adults wanted technology that would help them feel more physically present even across distances, such as telepresence robots. However, how useful this technology can be directly depends on whether people accept it over the long term. In this paper, we describe a case study in which we introduced telepresence robots into homes of older adults for seven months. We investigate how older adults’ progression through acceptance phases ebbed and flowed. We describe primary factors that affected speed of progression through acceptance phases: solving problems with technology, life situations (business vs. routines), and personality. We introduce example personas based on this case study. We also propose changes to the longitudinal technology-acceptance framework to take this more nuanced view into account. These outcomes will help future researchers and practitioners to better understand and influence longitudinal technology acceptance. Full article

In the long-distance thermal air heating process of large space buildings, there are common problems of thermal air trajectory deflection and low energy efficiency caused by thermal buoyancy. This study proposes an induced air supply system that is easy to design for integration; that is, adding a high-velocity ambient temperature induced airflow above the thermal jet, which can instantly and efficiently suppress the buoyancy of the thermal jet and maintain its axial center temperature, thereby achieving good heating performance. This study uses a numerical simulation method to analyze the effect of the induced airflow and compares the flow field characteristics and heating performance of a single thermal jet and an induced air supply system. The results show that the greater the velocity of the induced airflow, the wider the control range of the thermal jet; the induced airflow can reduce the mixing of the thermal jet and the ambient airflow, and effectively suppress the deflection of the thermal jet and increase its axial center temperature; when the target area is close to the air inlet (y/D ≤ 7.5), the single thermal jet air supply can be used, because too small a deflection height will cause more induced airflow to enter the target area, which will worsen the heating effect. The induced air supply system is best for improving the average temperature of the target area at y/D = 15; as the target distance increases, on the premise of ensuring the blowing feeling, it is possible to consider increasing the induced airflow velocity to obtain a higher heating gain. Full article

People who suffer from body integrity dysphoria (BID) feel a strong need to be disabled. The most common desire is for amputation or paralysis. Objectives: This study aims to gather the opinion of experts on which types of disabilities are included in BID, which therapies are useful and whether those affected should be supported in obtaining a disability. Methods: A questionnaire with 62 items and a flow chart were developed and sent to experts who have published work with regard to BID. Participants: 22 experts from 11 countries, mostly with an academic title and with an average age of 48.5 years, responded. Results: As expected, amputations and paralysis were clearly attributed to BID, other disabilities (toothlessness, incontinence, diabetes) received rather uncertain or negative scores. On average, those affected were not classified as mentally or psychiatrically ill. Neurological misconnection was considered the most likely cause. Experts did not think it was helpful to inform the health system or even the police about the desire to be disabled. Almost all experts supported the surgical solution of amputation by doctors. All participants believed that BID patients are aware of the limitations imposed by the desired disability. Finally, a flow chart is presented for diagnosis and therapy. Conclusions: The experts assume that the surgical solution is currently acceptable if it has been proven that the BID-affected person does not suffer from another mental disorder, there is a high level of suffering due to BID, other therapies have not been of any use and it is clear that the quality of life will actually increase as a result of achieving the disability. Full article

Objectives: The tourism and hospitality industry, well-known as a people-oriented industry, is not immune to the adverse outcomes of workplace bullying. This paper explores the darker side of the tourism and hospitality sector by investigating workplace bullying and its potential impact on shaping employee well-being. Specifically, the study explores how feedback avoidance can mediate the relationship between information flow and employee well-being and how psychological safety can moderate the relationship between information flow and employee well-being in bullying contexts. Methods: Using a quantitative-methods approach, the paper analyzed survey data from 341 employees at five-star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, with structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM program). Results: The findings indicated that the spread of information about workplace bullying promotes the feelings of stress among employees which negatively affects their wellbeing in the workplace. Additionally, feedback avoidance as a mediator was found to foster the harmful impacts of bullying. Conversely, psychological safety as a moderator functioned as a protective element, mitigating the negative influence of workplace bullying on employees’ well-being. Conclusions: This paper enhanced our understanding of the dark side of the hospitality industry, specifically workplace bullying, by highlighting the key role of information dynamics about bullying in the workplace and the role of psychological safety in shaping overall employee well-being. Full article

We introduce ShapeBand, a new shape-changing wristband designed for exploring multisensory and interactive anxiety regulation with soft materials and physiological sensing. Our approach takes a core principle of self-help psychotherapeutic intervention, aiming to help users to recognize anxiety triggers and engage in regulation with attentional distraction. We conducted user-centered design activities to iteratively refine our design requirements and delve into users’ rich experiences, preferences, and feelings. With ShapeBand, we explored bidirectional and dynamic interaction flow in anxiety regulation and subjective factors influencing its use. Our findings suggest that integrating both active and passive modulations can significantly enhance user engagement for effective anxiety intervention. Further, different interactions, characterized by dynamic alterations in bubbles and water flow in the ShapeBand, can provide users with a gamified experience and convey more potent effects. This study provides valuable insights into the future design of tangible anxiety regulation interfaces that can be tailored to subjective feelings and individual needs. Full article

Warhammer 40,000 (40k) is the world’s most popular miniature wargame. The game is played with miniatures (small-scale figures made of hard plastic or other materials), which have usually been painted by each individual player. These player–painters typically spend hours in deep concentration painting the models. Drawing on interviews and journal entries from a six-month participant study of 14 painters, this paper explores whether miniature painters achieve a flow state, whether this creates a greater feeling of mindfulness, and how painting impacts their overall mental health. Results from this study indicate that miniature painting is meditative, meaningful, and positive for the participants’ mental health. Using the definition of flow outlined in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness (1988), flow is a state of pleasure had when an individual concentrates on a specific task. Csikszentmihalyi, from his research on flow, notes that this state of mind involves both immersion and a sense of transcendence, where the individual temporarily loses a sense of self. This sense of loss of self was explored with an increased attention to the feeling of the body, and situated cognition has been further explored to understand how this connects to painting. While flow is regularly applied to videogame studies, less work has been carried out on this flow state during activities like miniature painting. Full article

This paper explores the phenomenon of lapsing among young Japanese Catholics, highlighting how both local and translocal experiences of Roman Catholicism shape the ebbs and flows of faith for our interlocutors. While global Catholic events such as World Youth Day can reignite faith by fostering a sense of belonging to a larger, global Church, the contrast with the small and socially isolated Catholic community in Japan often precipitates lapsing. This study examines the influence of the New Evangelisation, which promotes active belief and translocal unity, and argues that this movement can both strengthen global Catholic identity and exacerbate feelings of alienation in local, non-Catholic societies. Ultimately, we stress, in the context of Roman Catholicism, that lapsing should not be seen as simply a rupture in faith but as part of a continuous, if turbulent, Catholic identity, mediated by translocal flows of belief and institutional authority. Full article

Flight-by-feel (FBF) is an approach to flight control that uses dispersed sensors on the wings of aircraft to detect flight state. While biological FBF systems, such as the wings of insects, often contain hundreds of strain and flow sensors, artificial systems are highly constrained by size, weight, and power (SWaP) considerations, especially for small aircraft. An optimization approach is needed to determine how many sensors are required and where they should be placed on the wing. Airflow fields can be highly nonlinear, and many local minima exist for sensor placement, meaning conventional optimization techniques are unreliable for this application. The Sparse Sensor Placement Optimization for Prediction (SSPOP) algorithm extracts information from a dense array of flow data using singular value decomposition and linear discriminant analysis, thereby identifying the most information-rich sparse subset of sensor locations. In this research, the SSPOP algorithm is evaluated for the placement of artificial hair sensors on a 3D delta wing model with a 45$°$ sweep angle and a blunt leading edge. The sensor placement solution, or design point (DP), is shown to rank within the top one percent of all possible solutions by root mean square error in angle of attack prediction. This research is the first to evaluate SSPOP on a 3D model and the first to include variable length hairs for variable velocity sensitivity. A comparison of SSPOP against conventional greedy search and gradient-based optimization shows that SSPOP DP ranks nearest to optimal in over 90 percent of models and is far more robust to model variation. The successful application of SSPOP in complex 3D flows paves the way for experimental sensor placement optimization for artificial hair-cell airflow sensors and is a major step toward biomimetic flight-by-feel. Full article

Background: Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTSs) are a common complaint in adult and elderly men with bladder outlet obstruction, and have a considerable impact on their quality of life. Symptoms affect storage, voiding and post micturition stages. Among the latter, a feeling of incomplete emptying is one of the most bothersome for the patients; a condition that in turn contributes to affect urinary urgency, nocturia and frequency. Common recommendations include self-management practices (e.g., control of fluid intake, double-voiding and distraction techniques) to relieve patients’ symptoms, whose effectiveness, however, is under debate. Methods: In this report we describe two pioneering procedures to favor bladder residual content voiding in people complaining of LUTS disorders. The first is based on motor imagery and the second on the use of odors. The beneficial effects of Mental imagery techniques on various tasks (e.g., in the treatment of several pathological conditions or as valid mnemonics aids have a long tradition and have received consistently experimental support. Thus, a patient (a 68-year-old Caucasian man) complaining of LUTS was trained to use a motor imagery technique (building up a visual image comprising the bladder, the detrusor muscle and the urethra, and to imagine the detrusor muscle contracting and the flow of urine expelled) for 90 days and two odors (coffee and a lavender scented cleanser) for 10 days, as a trigger for micturition. He was asked to record—immediately after the first morning micturition—the time interval between the first (free) and the second (cued) micturition. Results: Reported data suggest the efficacy of motor imagery in favoring the bladder residual urine voiding in a few minutes (M = 4.75 min.) compared to the control condition, i.e., the baseline of the patient (M = 79.5 min.), while no differences between the odor-based procedures (M 1st odorant = 70.6 min.; M 2nd odorant = 71.1 min) and the latter were observed. Conclusions: A procedure based on an imagery technique may, therefore, be of general value—as a suggested protocol—and accordingly can be applicable to clinical settings. An olfactory bladder control hypothesis cannot, however, be ruled out and is discussed as a promising future line of research. Full article

The deterioration of physical spaces and changes in the social environment have led to significant challenges and low life satisfaction among residents in post-industrial neighborhoods. While resident satisfaction is closely linked to the built environment, physical attributes alone do not directly influence human feelings. The perception and processing of urban environments, or city images, play a critical mediating role. Previous studies have often explored the impact of either city image perception or physical space attributes on resident satisfaction separately, lacking an integrated approach. This study addresses this gap by examining the interplay between subjective perceptions and objective environmental attributes. Unlike previous studies that use the whole neighborhood area for human perception, our study uses the actual activity ranges of residents to represent the living environment. Utilizing data from Shenyang, China, and employing image semantic segmentation technology and multiple regression methods, we analyze how subjective city image factors influence resident satisfaction and how objective urban spatial indicators affect these perceptions. We integrate these aspects to rank objective spatial indicators by their impact on resident satisfaction. The results demonstrate that all city image factors significantly and positively influence resident satisfaction, with the overall impression of the area’s appearance having the greatest impact (β = 0.362). Certain objective spatial indicators also significantly affect subjective city image perceptions. For instance, traffic lights are negatively correlated with the perception of greenery (β = −0.079), while grass is positively correlated (β = 0.626). Key factors affecting resident satisfaction include pedestrian flow, traffic flow, open spaces, sky openness, and green space levels. This study provides essential insights for urban planners and policymakers, helping prioritize sustainable updates in post-industrial neighborhoods. By guiding targeted revitalization strategies, this research contributes to improving the quality of life and advancing sustainable urban development. Full article

The study aims to evaluate the demand for forest bathing in northern Italy’s regions, underlining the willingness to pay and the potential tourists’ habits and flows on attending alpine contexts. Several studies have analyzed the psychophysical benefits of forest bathing, and there is a growing interest in assessing its economic value for tourism purposes. The sample’s answers have been analyzed employing a stratified sampling methodology considering three different macro areas (northwest regions, northeast regions, and the Friuli Venezia Giulia region). After analyzing the sample’s attitudes, the research approached the estimation section by calculating the flow as the number of potential forest bathing hikes per year and the willingness to pay through the contingent valuation method. The main results indicate that forest bathing activity in northern Italy has a considerable monetary value, and it is generally compared with positive feelings, particularly concerning well-being and fascination factors. Full article

The design of lighting installations on roads and urban infrastructure has strictly followed the regulatory requirements of each country for a long time. Based on the traffic intensity, the presence of pedestrians and the nature of activities within the area, these regulations have been used to establish the luminance or illuminance levels from or on the pavement, the minimum average uniformity, the maximum glare and the minimum energy efficiency. Accurate values of these static parameters are supposed to ensure safety, security, and efficacy, and have traditionally been considered as the main targets of lighting installations. Therefore, compliance with these regulations indicates whether an installation is legal or not. Although this philosophy is operative, the reality is different due to two main issues. First, the progressive ageing of populations, mainly in North America and Europe, the changing circumstances of traffic flow and modalities and the presence of groves or socioeconomic factors, might have a strong impact on the safety, security and sustainability of cities. Secondly, the current regulations leave out perceived safety and security issues, as well as the well-being of people; that is, how people feel about the city independently of real danger. In this research, the Basic Process of Lighting (BPL) is formulated including, for the first time, the human factors involved when people develop their activities under public lighting. Using this framework, the potential factors influencing human wellbeing and feelings are summarized after being rated by people in a survey distributed among 133 participants. The results highlight a higher perceived impact of social factors compared to physical and visual ones. Full article

Neurofeedback (NF) is a brain–computer interface in which users can learn to modulate their own brain activation while receiving real-time feedback thereof. To increase motivation and adherence to training, virtual reality has recently been used as a feedback modality. In the presented study, we focused on the effects of augmented reality (AR) based visual feedback on subjective user experience, including positive/negative affect, cybersickness, flow experience, and experience with the use of this technology, and compared it with a traditional 2D feedback modality. Also, half of the participants got real feedback and the other half got sham feedback. All participants performed one NF training session, in which they tried to increase their sensorimotor rhythm (SMR, 12–15 Hz) over central brain areas. Forty-four participants received conventional 2D visual feedback (moving bars on a conventional computer screen) about real-time changes in SMR activity, while 45 participants received AR feedback (3D virtual flowers grew out of a real pot). The subjective user experience differed in several points between the groups. Participants from the AR group received a tendentially higher flow score, and the AR sham group perceived a tendentially higher feeling of flow than the 2D sham group. Further, participants from the AR group reported a higher technology usability, experienced a higher feeling of control, and perceived themselves as more successful than those from the 2D group. Psychological factors like this are crucial for NF training motivation and success. In the 2D group, participants reported more concern related to their performance, a tendentially higher technology anxiety, and also more physical discomfort. These results show the potential advantage of the use of AR-based feedback in NF applications over traditional feedback modalities. Full article