What Happens in Your Brain When You Walk Down the Street? Implications of Architectural Proportions, Biophilia, and Fractal Geometry for Urban Science

This article reviews current research in visual urban perception. The temporal sequence of the first few milliseconds of visual stimulus processing sheds light on the historically ambiguous topic of aesthetic experience. Automatic fractal processing triggers initial attraction/avoidance evaluations of an environment’s salubriousness, and its potentially positive or negative impacts upon an individual. As repeated cycles of visual perception occur, the attractiveness of urban form affects the user experience much more than had been previously suspected. These perceptual mechanisms promote walkability and intuitive navigation, and so they support the urban and civic interactions for which we establish communities and cities in the first place. Therefore, the use of multiple fractals needs to reintegrate with biophilic and traditional architecture in urban design for their proven positive effects on health and well-being. Such benefits include striking reductions in observers’ stress and mental fatigue. Due to their costs to individual well-being, urban performance, environmental quality, and climatic adaptation, this paper recommends that nontraditional styles should be hereafter applied judiciously to the built environment.

Can Acropora tenuis larvae attract native Symbiodiniaceae cells by green fluorescence at the initial establishment of symbiosis?

Most corals acquire symbiodiniacean symbionts from the surrounding environment to initiate symbiosis. The cell densities of Symbiodiniaceae in the environment are usually low, and mechanisms may exist by which new coral generations attract suitable endosymbionts. Phototaxis of suitable symbiodiniacean cells toward green fluorescence in corals has been proposed as one such mechanism. In the present study, we observed the phototaxis action wavelength of various strains of Symbiodiniaceae and the fluorescence spectra of aposymbiotic Acropora tenuis larvae at the time of endosymbiont uptake. The phototaxis patterns varied among the Symbiodiniaceae species and “native” endosymbionts—commonly found in Acropora juveniles present in natural environments; that is, Symbiodinium microadriaticum was attracted to blue light rather than to green light. Another native endosymbiont, Durusdinium trenchii, showed no phototaxis specific to any wavelength. Although the larvae exhibited green and broad orange fluorescence under blue-violet excitation light, the maximum green fluorescence peak did not coincide with that of the phototaxis action spectrum of S. microadriaticum. Rather, around the peak wavelength of larval green fluorescence, this native endosymbiont showed slightly negative phototaxis, suggesting that the green fluorescence of A. tenuis larvae may not play a role in the initial attraction of native endosymbionts. Conversely, broad blue larval fluorescence under UV-A excitation covered the maximum phototaxis action wavelength of S. microadriaticum. We also conducted infection tests using native endosymbionts and aposymbiotic larvae under red LED light that does not excite visible larval fluorescence. Almost all larvae failed to acquire S. microadriaticum cells, whereas D. trenchii cells were acquired by larvae even under red illumination. Thus, attraction mechanisms other than visible fluorescence might exist, at least in the case of D. trenchii. Our results suggest that further investigation and discussion, not limited to green fluorescence, would be required to elucidate the initial attraction mechanisms.

What you see is what you want to get: Perceived abilities outperform objective test performance in predicting mate appeal in speed dating

Are intelligent, creative, and emotionally competent people more desirable? Evolution-based theories and cross-cultural studies on the ideal partner suggest that they are, with some differences between the sexes and between short-term (ST) and long-term (LT) relationships. However, research that went beyond hypothetical partners and that used psychometric ability tests instead of relying on subjective ability perceptions is sparse. We aimed to assess whether people’s verbal, numerical, and spatial intelligence, creativity, and intra- and interpersonal emotional competence could predict their ST and LT mate appeal. 87 women and 88 men completed psychometric ability measures and participated in heterosexual speed dating. There, they met up to 14 members of the opposite sex and reported their interest in having an ST and LT relationship with each partner as well as their subjective perceptions of the partner’s abilities. External raters assessed the participants’ physical attractiveness. While perceived abilities could broadly predict mate appeal, only one measured ability – women’s creativity – showed a significant association to mate appeal. Notably, effects of perceived and measured abilities were substantially reduced after controlling for physical attractiveness. These results suggest that the investigated abilities – and particularly intelligence – play a lesser role in initial attraction than proposed in the past.

Intelligence can be detected but is not found attractive in videos and live interactions

Humans’ extraordinary intelligence seems to extend beyond the needs for survival. One theory to explain this surplus intelligence is that it evolved via sexual selection as a fitness indicator to advertise genetic quality to prospective mates. Consistent with this idea, self-reported mate preferences suggest intelligence is valued across cultures. Yet, as the validity of these self-reports has been questioned, it remains unclear whether objectively assessed intelligence is indeed attractive. We analysed data from two studies to test this key premise of the sexual selection theory of intelligence. In Study 1, 88 target men had their intelligence measured and based on short video clips were rated on intelligence, funniness, physical attractiveness and mate appeal by 179 women. In Study 2 (N = 729), participants took part in 2 to 5 speed-dating sessions in which their intelligence was measured and they rated each other’s intelligence, funniness, and mate appeal. Measured intelligence did not predict increased mate appeal in either study, whereas perceived intelligence and funniness did. More intelligent people were perceived as more intelligent, but not as funnier. Results suggest that intelligence is not important for initial attraction, which raises doubts concerning the sexual selection theory of intelligence.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF KENYA TO THE TRANSFORMATION OF KIRINYAGA DISTRICT, 1910-2010

Drawing on the theory of social capital, the initial attraction of Kirinyaga people to the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) mission centres were the schools, hospitals, demonstration gardens and artisan skills that imparted by missionaries. The ACK established Christian communities in Kirinyaga that became centres of early Christian converts and change. The Christian communities constituted “the germ of the missionary spirit.” The ‘new’ Christians would take a great deal of pleasure in spreading the “germ” to many communities in Kirinyaga, ‘infecting’the more susceptible of its members. Each Christian community endeavored to have a church, an elementary school, a hospital and a demonstration garden. This in itself was an extraordinary change. This study has presented evidence of Kirinyaga’s cultural, socio-economic and political homogeneity as fundamental part of traditional life. European settlement in Kenya made oppression and injustice virtually inevitable and mission response to African issues ranged from land and labor to taxation and wages. The Anglican CMS almost exclusively provided such public services as schooling, healthcare and agriculture. This study also discussed regionalization of ACK CCS as a concept of community development focusing on CCSMKE serving the whole community in Kirinyaga, with priority on the most disadvantaged parts of the region, whether or not there are any Anglican congregations in that region. One of the discussions advanced in this study, is that the Anglican Church in Kirinyaga should have concern for Kirinyaga people as the concern of her social gospel. The study articulates a “theology of development” which argues that social gospel that is based on exploitation and oppression of Kirinyaga people cannot be genuine social gospel.

Finding one’s People and One’s Self on Campus

This chapter illustrates the diverse social identities that are developed in racial-ethnic, identity-based campus organizations. Students listed race-ethnicity as the focus of their initial attraction to these organizations. However, they came to embed themselves in these organizations because the organizations also developed other aspects of their identities, such as their professional, political, and academic identities. This chapter also highlights students who explicitly sought to embed themselves in organizations and clubs that were not connected with their racial-ethnic identity. In doing so, this chapter takes a critical look at extracurricular activities in relation to experiences of race-ethnicity at college and examines the role they serve in minority students' self-exploration.

Investigating the Movement Components of Host Preference in a Highly Mobile Insect Herbivore, Nephotettix cincticeps (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae)

Effective insect management strategies require a firm understanding of the factors determining host preference, particularly in highly mobile insect herbivores. Host preference studies commonly employ average or first position as a proxy for preference. Yet few studies have explored host preference in relation to transitory attraction and leaving rates, yet these are both components of host plant selection. We investigated the transitory dynamics of preference by the green rice leafhopper, Nephotettix cincticeps (Uhler) (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) by conducting experiments on groups of females, males, or mixed-sex leafhoppers, and recording their position over time between low-N and normal-N rice plants. Utilizing a log-linear model and variants of a biostatistical model we used these positional data to extract attraction, leaving and tenure rates to better understand the process of host-plant selection. We found a general preference for normal-N over low-N plants at equilibrium. However, between sexes there was variation in the relative significance of attraction or leaving rates on that preference. Female leafhoppers were more attracted to host plants with higher nitrogen content. Male leafhoppers were less discriminate in their initial attraction to hosts but left low-N hosts at a faster rate. Whereas estimated tenure times on both normal- and low-N plants exceeded transmission times for the leafhopper-transmitted rice dwarf virus, longer tenure on normal-N plants likely increases the likelihood of virus acquisition from these plants. Our findings support previous recommendations that growers can mitigate the risks of leafhopper damage and pathogen transmission by optimizing their application of nitrogenous fertilizers.

Presentism

Presentism, as a metaphysical thesis about time, is the view that only what is present exists. The past and future are in some sense to be explained, unreal. Although this appears at first sight to be both an intuitive and a substantial thesis about the world, the first challenge to anyone wishing to espouse it is to show that it is not simply the trivial truth that only what is present exists now. One way of giving content to the presentist thesis is to provide a positive account of how past and future can be constructed from presently existing items, in ways that parallel attempts to construct possible states of affairs from actual states. Some presentists, however, would decline the invitation to provide such a construction, arguing that the flow of time allows one to say quite unproblematically that the past is what once existed, but no longer does so. A further challenge to the presentist is to account for the truth of statements that appear to require the existence of relations between non-contemporaneous items, statements that contain terms such as ‘is earlier than’, ‘is a cause of’, ‘is the larval stage of’, ‘is the remote ancestor of’, etc. Although the initial attraction of presentism is its offer to provide a more systematic statement of our pre-theoretic views, a fully worked-out and consistent presentist theory seems likely to be quite revisionary.