Cyberbullying: Effect of emergency perception on the helping tendencies of bystanders

The effect of the emergency perception of bystanders of cyberbullying victims on helping behaviors is often neglected in research on cyberbullying. In this study, we explored the influence of this cognitive factor on cyber-bystanders’ helping tendencies as well as elucidated possible underlying processes. The results of two studies were reported. In Study 1, 150 undergraduates read a true case of a girl experiencing cyberbullying. The results indicated that when the participants perceived the victim’s situation to be more critical (i.e., higher emergency perception), their helping tendencies were stronger, partly through increased state empathy followed by feelings of responsibility to help. In Study 2, we randomly assigned 300 undergraduates to two groups. The low emergency group read the same cyberbullying case as Study 1, whereas the cyberbullying case read by the high emergency group contained additional emergency information of the victim. The results indicated that the high emergency group expressed stronger helping tendencies than did the low emergency group. This effect was caused by a stronger perception that the victim was in an emergency situation, which not only strengthened the participants’ helping tendencies directly but also indirectly through increasing their state empathy and feelings of responsibility to help.     

Economic effects of regulating the seismic strengthening of older buildings

The marked increase in the awareness of earthquake risk following the Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand offered a unique opportunity to investigate the economic effect of disaster-mitigation regulations on the commercial building stock. A difference-in-differences (DD) framework was used to determine whether earthquake risk has been capitalized into the property prices of buildings constructed prior to 1976, as a response to the national policy requiring assessment and strengthening (or demolition) of the existing earthquake-prone building stock. A negative externality is found in the policy announcement on affected (pre-1970s) office and retail buildings which caused office buildings to suffer a 12.5% stigma discount. However, retail properties were less impacted suffering a 2.3% stigma loss. The value of the commercial building stock has been affected by the policy. These findings provide policy-makers with timely evidence as to the economic effects of New Zealand’s earthquake-prone buildings policy. Facing losses in property value and financial responsibility for retrofitting their assets, building owners will be looking for a workable set of regulatory and non-regulatory incentives to encourage disaster risk management and protect the built environment.     

Rainbow over the Internet: How Internet use curtails homophobia in China

China, despite its rapid economic modernization and the lack of powerful conservative institutions, is not known for embracing diverse sexual orientation. The present study investigates whether and how Internet use, a increasingly important part of contemporary people's daily life, leads to changes in people's attitudes toward homosexuality in China, and relevant policy implications. Analyzing the Chinese General Social Survey data from 2010 to 2015, this paper develops an ordered probit model to quantify the influence of Internet use on homosexuality tolerance, adopts a substitution variable method to conduct the robustness check, and utilizes instrument variables to address the potential endogeneity in the regressions. The results show that Internet use has a significant positive impact on Chinese people's homosexuality tolerance. Further studies have found that the influence of Internet use on homosexuality tolerance is also heterogeneous to different populations. Besides, compared with traditional media, the Internet has a more significant impact on homosexuality tolerance. This paper provides some explanations for the rise in China's homosexuality tolerance from 2010 to 2015, and additional impetus for the international community to push for a liberal Internet policy in China.     

基于视觉颜色感知——光学相似的图像去雾方法

针对雾霾环境影响致使户外获取的图像质量严重下降问题，提出了一种基于视觉颜色感知—光学相似的图像去雾方法。充分利用人眼感知颜色的视觉机理，结合图像的相似性原理，构造了光学相似度函数，建立了新的基于视觉颜色感知—光学相似的图像去雾模型并设计相关算法，进而进行仿真验证。仿真实验结果表明，提出的方法在对有雾图像清晰化处理过程中效果明显，并与现有的图像去雾方法在主观视觉和客观量化方面进行图像去雾效果对比，进一步表明提出的方法在清晰化含雾图像处理中取得了较好的效果。     

一种标准模型下无证书签名方案的安全性分析与改进

无证书签名具有基于身份密码体制和传统公钥密码体制的优点，可解决复杂的公钥证书管理和密钥托管问题.Wu和Jing提出了一种强不可伪造的无证书签名方案，其安全性不依赖于理想的随机预言机.针对该方案的安全性，提出了两类伪造攻击.分析结果表明，该方案无法实现强不可伪造性，并在"malicious-but-passive"的密钥生成中心攻击下也是不安全的.为了提升该方案的安全性，设计了一个改进的无证书签名方案.在标准模型中证明了改进的方案对于适应性选择消息攻击是强不可伪造的，还能抵抗恶意的密钥生成中心攻击.此外，改进的方案具有较低的计算开销和较短的私钥长度，可应用于区块链、车联网、无线体域网等领域.     

Photomontage in the Present Perfect Continuous

In its first instance as art practice among the historical avant-garde, photomontage was considered indispensable for its claim to intervene in perceptual processes, stimulating a critical mode of apprehension that would redirect the viewer away from conventions of aesthetic experience and towards a lived reception of art with pronounced relevance to the sociopolitical landscape. The effect was understood as structural, that is, activated not so much by direct political content, but by the stark and shocking effects of juxtaposition. By this measure, one challenge to contemporary photomontage is clear: in a postindustrial and postdigital visual landscape dominated by the structural fragmentation of the attention economy, the ‘simultaneity of the radically disparate’ (as Peter Bürger put it) might no longer present as heterodoxy but rather threaten to sink into invisibility. Yet with the migration off-screen of the effects of electronic media, a new urgency around moving photomontage structures into physical, public space is rising in contemporary practices. Shannon Ebner’s multi-part project A Hudson Yard (2014–15) is emblematic of the new ways in which artists are manipulating photomontage as a form of fully sensory experience that gives the medium room to play critically in both virtual and material space. By constructing subtle interruptions of naturalised commercial space, A Hudson Yard activates a détournement of instrumentalised language, using structures of juxtaposition to divert the discursive surfaces of public space away from consumption and towards what could be called a public poesis.     

What’s the middle ground? Institutionalized vs. emerging water-related stakeholder engagement processes

Abstract

In this day and age, it is widely argued that stakeholder engagement in water-related decision-making processes yields many benefits, including legitimacy, acceptance and trust. Key legal frameworks, such as the European Water Framework Directive and the Aarhus Convention, have spurred the emergence of formal forms of stakeholder engagement. On the other hand, many engagement processes are spontaneous and self-organized. This article investigates the strategies used in formal (government-led) and informal (bottom-up) engagement processes in search of a middle ground. To this end, case studies in the Netherlands, the United States, Uganda and Ethiopia are analyzed using the OECD’s stakeholder engagement checklist. We conclude with reflection on the ways forward to make formal and informal stakeholder engagement complementary.     

A comparison of visual ability and its importance awareness between novice and experienced drivers

The visual ability factors of peripheral perception, visual reaction and visual pursuit ability are important for safe driving. Thus, this study explored the influence of driving experience on these visual ability factors. Sixty-five drivers, including novice and experienced drivers, participated in this study. The visual ability levels of the three factors were measured by the Vienna Test System. In addition, driver's awareness of the three factors' importance for safe driving was measured by questionnaire items. Results showed that out of the three factors, drivers' peripheral perception ability was correlated significantly with their driving experience. Experienced drivers had higher peripheral perception ability than that of novice drivers. In addition, compared with novice drivers, experienced drivers believed that peripheral perception was more important whereas visual reaction was less important. It is suggested that higher attention should be paid to peripheral perception in driving training and novice drivers should increase their importance awareness for this factor.     

养老机构公共空间需求及影响因素研究——基于Kano模型分析

运用细分后的Kano模型甄别养老机构中老年人对公共空间需求的优先度排序及其影响因素的主次排序。首先通过规范、文献研究与访谈研究获取南京市养老机构中老年群体公共空间需求要素，并将得到的需求项进行层次归属划分。接着测算SI与DI系数量化各项需求对空间满意度的影响，得出公共空间需求优先度排序。最后利用多元线性回归对需求项的影响因素进行分析，探讨“自我”和“家庭”维度下影响因素的主次排序。得出养老机构公共空间的设计应首先满足老年人医疗保健空间层面的需求且空间需求受老年人“自我”维度下失能等级的影响程度最深。通过对需求重要度的排序，可以得出设计的优先满足策略，提升空间的利用效率及老年群体的满意度，为养老机构公共空间的投入侧重点提供理论依据。