The mechanics of landslide mobility with erosion

Erosion can significantly increase the destructive power of a landslide by amplifying its volume, mobility and impact force. The threat posed by an erosive landslide is linked to its mobility. No mechanical condition has yet been presented for when, how and how much energy erosive landslides gain or lose. Here, we pioneer a mechanical model for the energy budget of erosive landslides that controls enhanced or reduced mobility. Inertia is related to an entrainment velocity, is a fundamentally new understanding. This ascertains the true inertia of erosive landslides, making a breakthrough in correctly determining the landslide mobility. Erosion velocity, which regulates the energy budget, determines the enhanced or reduced mobility. Newly developed energy generator offers the first-ever mechanical quantification of erosional energy and a precise description of mobility. This addresses the long-standing question of why many erosive landslides generate higher mobility, while others reduce mobility. We demonstrate that erosion and entrainment are different processes. Landslides gain energy and enhance mobility if the erosion velocity exceeds the entrainment velocity. Energy velocity delineates distinct excess energy regimes. Newly introduced mobility scaling and erosion number deliver the explicit measure of mobility. Presented dynamical equations correctly include erosion induced net momentum production.

Criterion Validity of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test: Prediction of Facial Affect Perception

This study focused on the criterion-related validity of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT). The IPANAT is thought to be a measure of automatic activation of cognitive representations of affects. In this study, it was investigated whether implicit affect scores differentially predict ratings of facial emotions over and above explicit affectivity. Ninety-six young female participants completed the IPANAT, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) as an explicit measure of state and trait affectivity, and a task for the perception of facial emotions. Implicit negative affect predicted the perception of negative but not positive facial emotions, whereas implicit positive affect predicted the perception of positive but not negative facial emotions. The observed double-dissociation in the correlational pattern strongly supports the validity of the IPANAT as a measure of implicit affectivity and is indicative of the orthogonality and thus functional distinctness of the two affect dimensions of the IPANAT. Moreover, such affect-congruent correlations were absent for explicit affect scales, which additionally supports the incremental validity of the IPANAT.

Understanding the Emotional Impact of GIFs on Instagram through Consumer Neuroscience

The ability of GIFs to generate emotionality in social media marketing strategies is analyzed. The aim of this work is to show how neuroscience research techniques can be integrated into the analysis of emotions, improving the results and helping to guide actions in social networks. This research is structured in two phases: an experimental study using automated biometric analysis (facial coding, GSR and eye tracking) and an analysis of declared feelings in the comments of Instagram users. Explicit valence, type of emotion, length of comment and proportion of emojis are extracted. The results indicate that the explicit measure of emotional valence shows a higher and more positive emotional level than the implicit one. This difference is influenced differently by the engagement and the proportion of emojis in the comment. A further step has been taken in the measurement of user emotionality in social media campaigns, including not only content analysis, but also providing new insights thanks to neuromarketing.

Equilibrium measure for a nonlocal dislocation energy with physical confinement

In this paper, we characterize the equilibrium measure for a family of nonlocal and anisotropic energies I α I_{\alpha} that describe the interaction of particles confined in an elliptic subset of the plane. The case α = 0 \alpha=0 corresponds to purely Coulomb interactions, while the case α = 1 \alpha=1 describes interactions of positive edge dislocations in the plane. The anisotropy into the energy is tuned by the parameter 𝛼 and favors the alignment of particles. We show that the equilibrium measure is completely unaffected by the anisotropy and always coincides with the optimal distribution in the case α = 0 \alpha=0 of purely Coulomb interactions, which is given by an explicit measure supported on the boundary of the elliptic confining domain. Our result does not seem to agree with the mechanical conjecture that positive edge dislocations at equilibrium tend to arrange themselves along “wall-like” structures. Moreover, this is one of the very few examples of explicit characterization of the equilibrium measure for nonlocal interaction energies outside the radially symmetric case.

Reduced Jumping to Conclusion Bias after Experimentally Induced Enhancement of Subjective Body Boundaries in Psychosis

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> A disturbed sense of self is frequently discussed as an etiological factor for delusion symptoms in psychosis. Phenomenological approaches to psychopathology posit that lacking the sense that the self is localized within one’s bodily boundaries (disembodiment) is one of the core features of the disturbed self in psychosis. The present study examines this idea by experimentally manipulating the sense of bodily boundaries. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Seventy-three patients with psychosis were randomly assigned to either a 10-min, guided self-massage in the experimental group (EG) to enhance the sense of bodily boundaries or a control group (CG), which massaged a fabric ring. Effects on an implicit measure (jumping to conclusion bias; JTC) and an explicit measure (Brief State Paranoia Checklist; BSPC) of delusion processes were assessed. The JTC measures the tendency to make a decision with little evidence available, and the BSPC explicitly measures the approval of paranoid beliefs. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Patients in the EG showed a lower JTC (<i>M</i> = 4.11 draws before decision) than the CG (<i>M</i> = 2.43; Cohen’s <i>d</i> = 0.64). No significant difference in the BSPC was observed. <b><i>Discussion/Conclusion:</i></b> Our results indicate that enhancing the sense of body boundaries through a self-massage can reduce an implicit bias associated with delusional ideation and correspondingly support the idea that disembodiment might be a relevant factor in the formation of psychotic symptoms.

Need for Cognition and Women’s Implicit Associations: Breaking Stereotypes?

People often associate women more with emotions, or affect in general, compared to men (e.g., Barrett & Bliss-Moreau, 2009); however, it is unknown whether some women will have a stronger association between self and affect or others and cognition than other women. We predicted that higher need for cognition (NFC; Cacioppo et al., 1984), or the enjoyment of cognitive processes, would be associated with stronger self-cognition/others-affect implicit associations. We also predicted that women with stronger self-cognition/others-affect associations would be less likely to endorse STEM stereotypes. We also expected a positive relationship between NFC and explicit self-cognition/others-affect associations. To test these predictions, we conducted a study on Project Implicit investigating the relationship between NFC, affect-cognition associations with the self and others, and endorsement of women in STEM stereotypes (Jackson et al., 2014). We found that higher NFC scores were associated with decreased endorsement of stereotypical affect-cognition implicit associations in women, r(280) = −.14, p = .022, 95% CI [−0.25, −0.02]. There was no significant association between self-affect/others-cognition implicit associations and STEM stereotype endorsement, r(278) = −.05, p = .421, 95% CI [−0.17, 0.07]. Importantly, we found that the relationship between NFC and self-affect/others-cognition associations exists when using both an implicit and explicit measure. NFC may increase the likelihood of women making the counter-stereotypical association of themselves with cognition as opposed to affect. It is important to know who endorses these stereotypes, and future studies should continue to examine the trait NFC, affect-cognition associations, and related interest in STEM.

Risk assessment for wildland fire aerial detection patrol route planning in Ontario, Canada

This study presents a model developed using a risk-based framework that is calibrated by experts, and provides a spatially explicit measure of need for aerial detection daily in Ontario, Canada. This framework accounts for potential fire occurrence, behaviour and impact as well as the likelihood of detection by the public. A three-step assessment process of risk, opportunity and tolerance is employed, and the results represent the risk of not searching a specified area for the detection of wildland fires. Subjective assessment of the relative importance of these factors was elicited from Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry experts to develop an index that captures their behaviour when they plan aerial detection patrol routes. The model is implemented to automatically produce a province-wide, fine-scale risk index map each day. A retrospective analysis found a statistically significant association between points that aerial detection patrols passed over and their aerial detection demand index values: detection patrols were more likely to pass over areas where the index was higher.

Escape Route Index: A Spatially-Explicit Measure of Wildland Firefighter Egress Capacity

For wildland firefighters, the ability to efficiently evacuate the fireline is limited by terrain, vegetation, and fire conditions. The impacts of terrain and vegetation on evacuation time to a safety zone may not be apparent when considering potential control locations either at the time of a wildfire or during pre-suppression planning. To address the need for a spatially-explicit measure of egress capacity, this paper introduces the Escape Route Index (ERI). Ranging from 0 to 1, ERI is a normalized ratio of the distance traveled within a time frame, accounting for impedance by slope and vegetation, to the optimal distance traveled in the absence of these impediments. An ERI approaching 1 indicates that terrain and vegetation conditions should have little impact on firefighter mobility while an ERI approaching 0 is representative of limited cross-country travel mobility. The directional nature of evacuation allows for the computation of four ERI metrics: (1) ERImean (average ERI in all travel directions); (2) ERImin (ERI in direction of lowest egress); (3) ERImax (ERI in direction of highest egress); and (4) ERIazimuth (azimuth of ERImax direction). We demonstrate the implementation of ERI for three different evacuation time frames (10, 20, and 30 min) on the Angeles National Forest in California, USA. A previously published, crowd-sourced relationship between slope and travel rate was used to account for terrain, while vegetation was accounted for by using land cover to adjust travel rates based on factors from the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). Land cover was found to have a stronger impact on ERI values than slope. We also modeled ERI values for several recent wildland firefighter entrapments to assess the degree to which landscape conditions may have contributed to these events, finding that ERI values were generally low from the crews’ evacuation starting points. We conclude that mapping ERI prior to engaging a fire could help inform overall firefighter risk for a given location and aid in identifying locations with greater egress capacity in which to focus wildland fire suppression, thus potentially reducing risk of entrapment. Continued improvements in accuracy of vegetation density mapping and increased availability of light detection and ranging (lidar) will greatly benefit future implementations of ERI.