Content Service Platform for Providing User-Centric Content in Smart Environments

Smart environments, such as smart cities and streets, contain various heterogeneous devices and content that provide information to users and interact with each other. In a smart environment, appropriate content should be provided based on the situations of users. Additionally, when a user is in motion, it is necessary to provide content in a seamless manner without interruption. A method for systematically controlling the delivery of such content is required. Therefore, we propose a content service platform to meet the needs discussed above. The content service platform supports the delivery of content and events between different devices, as well as the control of content. Context-aware technology can also be applied to support customized content. In this paper, we present an architectural model, a contextual reasoning process, and case study on applying content service platform to a smart street environment. The proposed content service platform applied as a base model to support the provision of user-specific content in smart environments.

Visual and audio perception study on drone aircraft and similar sounds in an Urban Air Mobility setting

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a novel aerospace concept involving drones and Personal Air Vehicles (PAVs) operating in a densely populated urban environment. Most of such vehicles will be electric-powered and rotor-based, creating a distinct sound in the proposed setting of a city. Public acceptability, partially due to noise impact, is a valid concern for the introduction of UAM. To evaluate human perception and noise annoyance of these vehicles, a study is set up that comprises audio-only and combined audio-visual stimuli of hovering and fly-over events using a Virtual Reality experiment. For both types of stimuli, two ambient environments, recorded with synchronized spherical video and ambisonics audio, are provided as background: a louder urban street environment, and a quieter urban street environment. In addition to the drone sounds, more familiar sounds are also evaluated, namely a helicopter and a lawnmower sound, with and without a visualisation. Test subjects are asked about their noise sensitivity according to a shortened Weinstein scale, and their attitude towards drones using a separate questionnaire at the end of the experiment. [Note from authors: The laboratory study is ongoing and the first results are being analysed. The final results are expected well before the paper deadline. This abstract will be complemented with the main results and conclusions.]

Subjective and Objective Measures of Streetscape Perceptions: Relationships with Property Value in Shanghai

The relationship between the street environment and the health, education, mobility, and criminal behaviors of its citizens has long been investigated by economists, sociologists and urban planners. Home buyers were found to pay a premium for better street appearance. Prior studies considering streetscapes mainly focus on objective measures such as the number of nearby trees, the tree canopy area, or the view index of physical features such as greenery, sky or building. However, subjective perceptions may have complex or subtle relationships to physical features, individual physical features or simply summing them up do not capture people’s comprehensive perception. In contrast, this study proposed a new approach for the urban-scale application to quantify both subjectively and objectively measured streetscape scores for six important perception qualities, namely Greenness, Walkability, Safety, Imageability, Enclosure, and Complexity. Built on prior quantitative studies in urban design quality and emerging applications in deep learning and open source street view imagery for urban perceptions, we integrated existing frameworks to (1) effectively collect and evaluate both subjectively and objectively- measured perceptions; (2) investigate the coherence and divergence in ML-predicted subjective scores and formula-derived objective scores; and (3) compare their effects in affecting house prices taking Shanghai as a case study using a large-scale dataset on home transactions. The results implied: first, the percentage increase in sales price attributable to street scores is significant for both subjective and objective measurements. In general subjective scores explained more variance over structural attributes and objective scores in hedonic price model. Particularly, objective Greenness, subjective Safety and Imageability scores positively affected house prices. Second, for Greenness and Imageability scores, the subjective and objective measures exhibited opposite signs in affecting house prices, which implied that there might be mechanisms related to the psychological, social-demographical characteristics of street users that have not been fully incorporated by objective measures that taking view indices or recombination of them. In addition, certain objective measure might outperform subjective counterpart when the connotation of the perception is self-evident and not complicated, for example the Greenness. For those concepts were not familiar to the average person, subjective framework exhibits better performance. This is the first study comprehensively expanding hedonic price method with both subjectively and objectively measured streetscape qualities. It suggested that city authorities could levy a street environment tax to compensate the public budget invested in street environment where developers secured benefits from a price premium. This study enriches our understanding of the economic values of the subjective and objective measures street qualities. It sheds light on promising future study areas where the coherence and divergence of the two measurements should be further stressed.

The Relationship Between Self-Compassion, Childhood Maltreatment and Attachment Orientation In High-Risk Adolescents

The purpose of the current study was to explore whether selfcompassion predicted psychological distress over and above childhood maltreatment and attachment orientation in high-risk youths. Fifty-one youths (31 males, 20 females) aged 17 to 24, recruited from a community non-profit organization in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, were administered validated measures of childhood maltreatment, attachment orientation, self-compassion, and psychological distress. Results indicated that self-compassion was inversely associated with childhood maltreatment, attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and psychological distress. However, results did not support the hypothesis that self-compassion was a significant predictor of psychological distress over and above attachment anxiety and childhood maltreatment in high-risk youths. Our results indicated that self-compassion is not well developed in street-involved youths and may be a vital intervention target to heal negative internalized views of the self, while maintaining vigilance to threats inherent in the street environment.

Review of Empirical Studies on Relationship between Street Environment and Crime

Creating a safe street environment is the primary goal for urban planners and urban designers. However, the existing research findings on the relationship between street environment and criminal behavior are various and contradictory, which brings confusion to the practice of urban planning and design. This article reviews literature on crime prevention through street environmental design on three spatial levels—street networks, paths, and nodes. This article also explores the causes of diversity and contradiction in the existing conclusions. Finally, limitations of the existing research, directions of optimization, and further studies in this field are put forward.