A Proposed Exploratory Study of Object Detectors to Learn the Influence of Datasets on Model Performance

The quality of the images used to train the models in the field of object detection using deep learning models is critical in determining the model’s quality. However, there are very few methods for exploring these images in datasets to see what aspects in these images have a significant impact on the model’s performance. This could be one of the reasons why the models don’t match human perceptions. There is a need for more study that can suggest unique methodologies to address the topic at hand because the existing literature overlooks this line of thought. As a result, this paper provides a methodology based on exploratory sequential design, which may be used to identify several aspects of images in the dataset that influence model performance.

Exploring the potential of Urban Leftover Spaces

<p>A city’s spatial environment emerges from the ongoing negotiation between the constructed environment, urban processes, and bodily experience. Many spaces do not represent a static notion but are continually challenged and reconstituted, including spaces that appear to be ‘leftover’. The ability to recognise leftover spaces in the urban context is an integral part of the urban redevelopment process, where structured and layered approaches become useful in understanding how to transform these spaces into places. Consequently, leftover spaces in the urban fabric can be seen both as having potential and as threatening. Researchers have pointed out the issues, conditions, and importance of the positive utilisation of leftover spaces. These spaces can be designed, transformed, and integrated into the main urban fabric to achieve environmental and social gains. Creative and flexible design should lead to psychologically healthy places by improving the image of a city from within. However, there is insufficient information available on how to go about designing such spaces. The revitalisation and aesthetic quality of leftover spaces could expand the dynamism of a city through strategic design interventions. This study explores how the visual perception of leftover spaces in Wellington City that influences both personal experiences and their potential usage could be enhanced. The research aims to investigate the potential of different types of urban leftover spaces, which could be used in a more effective way than they are present. The mixed methodology undertaken in this study seeks to inform planning initiatives by knowing what people feel about leftover spaces and their aspects that need improvement. This research, therefore, examines how such leftover spaces are defined and can be redesigned to become part of a built environment. The research thus consists of three studies starting with an initial visual preference study to understand human perceptions that could lead to better design solutions. The second study explored the differences in design preferences among participants coming from different fields of study, forming the main visual preference study. Visual preferences can guide behaviour and the emotional responses of different users in the redesign of such spaces and their essential attributes. Lastly, focus group discussions were held with built and non-built environment participants. To sum up, the results revealed that providing more vegetation is a critical design attribute for such spaces. The study contradicts theories that hold there are differences in the ways built and non-built environment experts perceive the environment.</p>

Sound phantoms: The hidden sonic signatures resident in objects with particular reference to that of the tree

<p>This exegesis informs the ten accompanying audiovisual artworks which express the concept of the sound phantom. The sound phantom is a speculative entity, enjoying persistence, and harboured by all objects. It consists of every sound, real or conceptual, that the object has made or could make, past and future, time-condensed and folded into spatial form. Once this form, or field, is entered by a listener, various sonic representations of the object can be experienced. The object chosen for this paper is that of the tree. There is a possibility that the sound phantom is an ancient idea in both academia and cultural fora, though it has not necessarily enjoyed the scrutiny and artistic response presented here. Given that the actual sound of an object is only part of the sound phantom, the phantom encompasses sonic representation of its other sensual properties (such as visual and textural) as well as conceptual (such as human and non-human perceptions of the object, and its own memories and goals). The sound phantom can be imagined as a zone straddling the boundary of scientific/philosophical understanding and the unknown. There is support from existing academic research for the existence of such a concept, not least in that conceptual and sensory objects enjoy the same status as objects, even if their ‘realness’ is what is in question. This also implies that at some level these objects have experience and even agency, even if it is far from human understanding. Once we accept that different life forms exist on vastly different timescales, it becomes easier to accept the notion that slowly-moving organisms like trees may be able to sense, remember, communicate and make decisions. If we could somehow perceive the object’s ‘sonic self’, that may re-encourage an idea that has been in decline over the last few hundred years: that of inter-entity empathy. At least in practice, it is undeniable that the environment and its non-human inhabitants have been severely disrespected and damaged to a critical point in modern times. If we are able to empathise with other things through art, we might yet rekindle enough action to avert disaster to both the world and ourselves. I have chosen established media to portray the idea of the sound phantom, using 2D projection of biaxial 360º video material as a visual guide to the immersive 7.1-surround sonic material. There are other artists that have approached various aspects of the idea of the sound phantom, if not necessarily the political reasons for doing so. Even though our perception of the sound phantom can only be partial, through this paper and our powers of cognition, we might yet be able to grasp the concept and remember that we are not seperate from the world, but of it, and would do well to realise that through our individual and collective actions. This exegesis and the works are a first a step along that pathway.</p>

Exploring the potential of Urban Leftover Spaces

<p>A city’s spatial environment emerges from the ongoing negotiation between the constructed environment, urban processes, and bodily experience. Many spaces do not represent a static notion but are continually challenged and reconstituted, including spaces that appear to be ‘leftover’. The ability to recognise leftover spaces in the urban context is an integral part of the urban redevelopment process, where structured and layered approaches become useful in understanding how to transform these spaces into places. Consequently, leftover spaces in the urban fabric can be seen both as having potential and as threatening. Researchers have pointed out the issues, conditions, and importance of the positive utilisation of leftover spaces. These spaces can be designed, transformed, and integrated into the main urban fabric to achieve environmental and social gains. Creative and flexible design should lead to psychologically healthy places by improving the image of a city from within. However, there is insufficient information available on how to go about designing such spaces. The revitalisation and aesthetic quality of leftover spaces could expand the dynamism of a city through strategic design interventions. This study explores how the visual perception of leftover spaces in Wellington City that influences both personal experiences and their potential usage could be enhanced. The research aims to investigate the potential of different types of urban leftover spaces, which could be used in a more effective way than they are present. The mixed methodology undertaken in this study seeks to inform planning initiatives by knowing what people feel about leftover spaces and their aspects that need improvement. This research, therefore, examines how such leftover spaces are defined and can be redesigned to become part of a built environment. The research thus consists of three studies starting with an initial visual preference study to understand human perceptions that could lead to better design solutions. The second study explored the differences in design preferences among participants coming from different fields of study, forming the main visual preference study. Visual preferences can guide behaviour and the emotional responses of different users in the redesign of such spaces and their essential attributes. Lastly, focus group discussions were held with built and non-built environment participants. To sum up, the results revealed that providing more vegetation is a critical design attribute for such spaces. The study contradicts theories that hold there are differences in the ways built and non-built environment experts perceive the environment.</p>

Sound phantoms: The hidden sonic signatures resident in objects with particular reference to that of the tree

<p>This exegesis informs the ten accompanying audiovisual artworks which express the concept of the sound phantom. The sound phantom is a speculative entity, enjoying persistence, and harboured by all objects. It consists of every sound, real or conceptual, that the object has made or could make, past and future, time-condensed and folded into spatial form. Once this form, or field, is entered by a listener, various sonic representations of the object can be experienced. The object chosen for this paper is that of the tree. There is a possibility that the sound phantom is an ancient idea in both academia and cultural fora, though it has not necessarily enjoyed the scrutiny and artistic response presented here. Given that the actual sound of an object is only part of the sound phantom, the phantom encompasses sonic representation of its other sensual properties (such as visual and textural) as well as conceptual (such as human and non-human perceptions of the object, and its own memories and goals). The sound phantom can be imagined as a zone straddling the boundary of scientific/philosophical understanding and the unknown. There is support from existing academic research for the existence of such a concept, not least in that conceptual and sensory objects enjoy the same status as objects, even if their ‘realness’ is what is in question. This also implies that at some level these objects have experience and even agency, even if it is far from human understanding. Once we accept that different life forms exist on vastly different timescales, it becomes easier to accept the notion that slowly-moving organisms like trees may be able to sense, remember, communicate and make decisions. If we could somehow perceive the object’s ‘sonic self’, that may re-encourage an idea that has been in decline over the last few hundred years: that of inter-entity empathy. At least in practice, it is undeniable that the environment and its non-human inhabitants have been severely disrespected and damaged to a critical point in modern times. If we are able to empathise with other things through art, we might yet rekindle enough action to avert disaster to both the world and ourselves. I have chosen established media to portray the idea of the sound phantom, using 2D projection of biaxial 360º video material as a visual guide to the immersive 7.1-surround sonic material. There are other artists that have approached various aspects of the idea of the sound phantom, if not necessarily the political reasons for doing so. Even though our perception of the sound phantom can only be partial, through this paper and our powers of cognition, we might yet be able to grasp the concept and remember that we are not seperate from the world, but of it, and would do well to realise that through our individual and collective actions. This exegesis and the works are a first a step along that pathway.</p>

Wildlife Affordances of Urban Infrastructure: A Framework to Understand Human-Wildlife Space Use

Landscape affordances, what the environment offers an animal, are inherently species-specific to the extent that each taxon has unique needs and responses to landscape characteristics. Wildlife responses to landscape features range on a continuum from avoidance to attraction and quantifying these habits are the backbone of wildlife movement ecology. In anthropogenically modified landscapes, many taxa do not occupy areas heavily influenced by humans, while some species seem to flourish, such as coyotes (Canis latrans) and pigeons (Columba livia). Sufficient overlap in landscapes designed for human purposes (e.g., freeway underpasses, channelized waterways, and cemeteries) but which are also suitable for wildlife (e.g., by providing sources of food, shelter, and refuge) underlies wildlife persistence in urban areas and is increasingly important in the world's largest metropoles. Studying these overlapping worlds of humans and wildlife in cities provides a rich foundation for broadening human perceptions of cities as ecosystems that exhibit emergent hybridity, whereby certain anthropogenic features of urban landscapes can be used by wildlife even as they maintain their utility for humans. By examining scaling dynamics of the infrastructural signature, the phenomena of urban wildlife movement patterns conforming to the shapes of human infrastructural forms, we hope to expand on prior research in wildlife landscape ecology by stressing the importance of understanding the overlapping worlds of humans and wildlife. Further knowledge of the urban ecological commons is necessary to better design cities where emergent hybridity is leveraged toward the management goals of reducing human wildlife conflict and promoting biodiversity.

Coyote Management Plans and Wildlife Watch: implications for community coaching approach to public outreach in southern California

The majority of residents in southern California live in urban areas. Therefore, working with cities to promote tolerance and coexistence with urban wildlife is crucial to the conservation and management of native species. Human conflicts with coyotes (Canis latrans) illustrate the importance of incorporating the social sciences, particularly knowledge of human behavior, communication, and education, in a coyote management strategy. Here, we review 199 cities across southern California to determine which localities have a coyote management website or a coyote management plan. We also included cities that have collaborated with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in developing a “Wildlife Watch” program model. Wildlife Watch (based on the Neighborhood Watch national crime prevention program) uses conservation-oriented principles to empower local communities, agencies, and residents to remove wildlife attractants and to exclude or deter coyotes from neighborhoods. We examine how cities with coyote management websites and programs differ from cities without, based on U.S. census demographics. Using data from coyote conflict and sighting tools (Coyote Cacher, iNaturalist, and CDFW’s Wildlife Incident Reporting System) we compare coyote reports across cities with different management plans and websites. Finally, based on demographics from the US Census, we examine ways Wildlife Watch, or related programs, can be expanded and improved. An adaptive community-based program, like Wildlife Watch, offers a valuable toolkit to managers for navigating the diverse array of human perceptions, values, and attitudes regarding urban species and human-wildlife conflicts.

Assessment of Human Modification of Landscapes: Human Perceptions vs. Analytical Indices

We assessed how close human perceptions of landscape modification matched a multivariate index based on remotely sensed data of the same locations. Using a Human Footprint (HF) map of the continental U.S. (scaled 0-100), we created three series of aerial images, each with ten images distributed evenly across the 10 deciles of HF score. Using a web-based survey, 290 members of the global public ranked the images in one series based on their perception of the degree of human modification. Respondents also reported age, sex, and country. The degree of correspondence between rankings by respondents and by HF score was high, an average of 1.29 units of difference out of a maximum possible of 5.0. Differences among respondents were not explained by age, sex, or general geographic location. These results suggest that human perception of relative landscape modification conforms closely with the relative ranking made by a multivariate, analytical index.