Haptic Feedback to Assist Blind People in Indoor Environment Using Vibration Patterns

Feedback is one of the significant factors for the mental mapping of an environment. It is the communication of spatial information to blind people to perceive the surroundings. The assistive smartphone technologies deliver feedback for different activities using several feedback mediums, including voice, sonification and vibration. Researchers 0have proposed various solutions for conveying feedback messages to blind people using these mediums. Voice and sonification feedback are effective solutions to convey information. However, these solutions are not applicable in a noisy environment and may occupy the most important auditory sense. The privacy of a blind user can also be compromised with speech feedback. The vibration feedback could effectively be used as an alternative approach to these mediums. This paper proposes a real-time feedback system specifically designed for blind people to convey information to them based on vibration patterns. The proposed solution has been evaluated through an empirical study by collecting data from 24 blind people through a mixed-mode survey using a questionnaire. Results show the average recognition accuracy for 10 different vibration patterns are 90%, 82%, 75%, 87%, 65%, and 70%.

Mental Map of Hryhoriy Galagan: Territorial and Ethnonational Structuring in Ukrainian Nobleman’s World View (mid-1830s — mid-1860s)

The article examines the spatial structures and related images of ethno-national communities in the world view of Hryhoriy Pavlovych Galagan (1819–1888), a representative of the Ukrainian local nobility and a prominent public figure. The research methodology includes the achievements of modern humanitarian geography, first of all the method of mental mapping, which allows to study the spatial structures in the world view of the individual, taking into account his socio-cultural environment. The research is based on ego-documents — diaries and correspondence from the Galagan family archive. Special attention is paid to toponymes and ethnonymes in these texts. It is shown that the spatial representations of Hryhoriy Galagan were a complex system that developed under the influence of the socio-cultural sphere in which he lived. Thus, humanitarian geography is represented as a discursive practice due to social and political interests. The article deals, in particular, with such spatial constructs as “Little Russia”, “Ukraine”, “Russia”, “Rus”, “Europe”, as well as related communities — “Little Russia people”, “Russian people”, “Europeans”. Galagan’s spatial and ethno-national ideas are shown as a very dynamic system that was constantly changing under the influence of socio-political and ideological movements, such as the Polish uprisings of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864, the rise of Slavophilia and Ukrainophilia. Attention is paid to the importance of travel for the development of the system of spatial and ethno-national structures. In addition, the conditionality of this system with ideas about history is proved. The issues raised in this article will contribute to further in-depth research in cultural anthropology, as well as be useful to historians working in the biographical genre.

The Effectiveness of Xi Jinping’s Metaphorical Discourse in Cross-Cultural Communication

Metaphor is not only a linguistic and rhetorical phenomenon, but also an important cognitive and thinking mode, which plays an important role in the formation of human conceptual system. Conceptual metaphor theory holds that metaphor is the foundation of human conceptual system and the essence of metaphor is the mental mapping from source domain to target domain on the basis of similarities. In recent years, more and more metaphorical expressions can be found in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches, which have attracted wide attention of the researchers. This paper aims at exploring the effectiveness of Xi Jinping’s metaphorical discourse from the perspective of cross-cultural communication. The study shows that the use of metaphor in political discourse helps to bring about novelty, break cultural barriers, enhance cultural identity, so as to enhance cross-cultural understanding and promote the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. Conceptual metaphor provides an effective perspective for the study of political discourse, and also provides a new perspective for constructing China’s communication discourse system to the foreign countries in the world.

Identifikasi Legibilitas pada Koridor Jalan Affandi, Sleman

Masyarakat Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta mengenal Jalan Affandi sebagai kawasan komersial sebagai dampak kawasan pendukung kawasan pendidikan (yang lebih dahulu dibangun) di sekitarnya. Pada saat ini pertumbuhan ekonomi yang cukup pesat pada koridor Jalan Affandi menyebabkan pembangunan area kawasan komersial yang tidak terkendali dan bangkitan aktivitas kawasan pendukungnya yang tidak diselaraskan dengan perancangan karakter visual yang baik sehingga dikhawatirkan akan membingungkan pengamat serta menghilangkan legibilitas pada suatu koridor Jalan Affandi. Studi ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan penjelasan deskriptif naratif. Studi ini meneliti mengenai legibilitas koridor Jalan Affandi menggunakan elemen citra kota Lynch dengan metode wawancana dan mental mapping dengan purposive sampling. Berdasarkan hasil analisis dan dikaji kembali dengan teori, dapat diketahui bahwa legibilitas pada koridor Jalan Affandi belum semuanya jelas dan merata. Elemen yang paling menonjol di Koridor Jalan Affandi adalah district dan Edge dan yang tidak menonjol adalah elemen Nodes.

Nodes and Streets: Exploring the Pedestrian Mobility Pattern in the Intersection of the Streets in Dhaka City

A viable pedestrian movement has always been a challenging for the urban planners and designers. The modern perception is to create a mobility towards pedestrian environment and at the same time limiting the dependency on vehicular movement. Pedestrians plays an important key role on reshaping nodes and the streets. The mental mapping of a pedestrian guides him to mobilize from one point to another and creates a pattern of an individual. When hundreds of points are created by the pedestrians a new order of network has created and different functions are intervened often to support them. These changes are responsible for the urban fabric to create a certain dimension and a vibrant network of movement. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh is thriving on vehicular dependency movement but majority of the population are still pedestrians and depends only on public transports. Pedestrian population is dramatically increased due to constant migration of labor incentive market, better employment and fast moving lifestyle. But although the pedestrians are responsible for the vibrant environment due to their mobility pattern, a major upheaval also occur for the unplanned and haphazard street functions on nodal points to serve the pedestrians. In this paper, evaluates the causes of pedestrian movement pattern, illustrate the problems and ineffective functions that creates a node. And finally on the basis of analysis, an outcome of urban node principle has been proposed, serving more effective movements and holistic kind of functional urbanism.

Work-Life-Study Balance and Executive Education: Case of India

This article aims to understand the unique phenomenon of the work-life-study interface by studying the lived-in experiences of executive education students qualitatively. It delivers a unique contribution by highlighting the third element of ‘study’ in Work-life balance (WLB), unlike most of the literature, which is skewed towards work-life balance and neglects the ‘study’ aspect. The study used phenomenology as the qualitative research method to explore the work-life-study balance of 25 executive education students working in middle-level positions, employing the purposive sampling technique for the year 2020. The findings reveal positive and negative experiences of work-life balance phenomena among executive education students. The results further provide a real-time sneak peek into an executive education scholar’s life and hence, may be used as a point of reference for mental mapping before opting for executive education courses. The study advocates interventions to support executives wishing to re-skill themselves in mid-careers and manage emotions, stress, and burnout.

Perceptions, expectations, motivations: Evolution of Canadian views on the EU

This article proposes a conceptual model that factors external and internal drivers behind external perceptions in IR and allows to trace their interaction across geographical distances argued by social identity theory (Moles and Rohmer, 1978) and evolution across historical distances defined by historical geography (Braudel, 1989). This article used the case of Canada􀂶s perceptions of the EU to demonstrate the model in action and trace the ‘mental mapping􀂶 (Didelon-Loiseau and Grasland, 2014) of the EU􀂶s images through the perceptions of EU-Canada relation over time. Informed by the tripartite paradigm of the influential factors behind external perceptions of the EU: endogenous, exogenous and global (Tsuruoka, 2006; Chaban and Magdalina, 2014), the article offers a model that goes beyond this logic in an innovative way. It considers a geo-temporal matrix of vantage points that shape perceptions. To demonstrate the model in action, this article reviews existing research on perceptions of the EU in Canada focusing on the key works and their findings in this field over the last decade.

Astrotourism–Exceeding Limits of the Earth and Tourism Definitions?

Emerging forms of alternative or even niche tourism represent a dynamic trend in tourism development. Astrotourism is completely off the beaten path. The aim of this study is to provide a deeper insight into this phenomenon. It strives to reveal motivations, experiences, and perceptions of its participants. It also aspires to propose its complex definition as an activity including both terrestrial astrotourism and space tourism. It is suggested to perceive it not only as a form of alternative and/or niche tourism, but also that of mass and professional tourism. To reach these objectives, the authors analyzed relevant published studies and astrotourism products presented on relevant websites and social media. They elaborated the collected secondary data by mental mapping and the comparative analysis of terrestrial and space tourism products. Moreover, the authors collected primary data through a survey with open-ended questions addressed to persons interested in astrotourism and through semi-structured interviews with terrestrial astrotourism participants and personalities. The results provide insight into both the specifity and variability of astrotourism and their typical products, as well as a discussion of their future trends. They also bring a motivation spectrum for the astrotourism participants and benefits perceived by them.