Testing presence, assessing attitudes: Study of a 3D virtual tour in an "aesthetically challenged" landscape.

This article examines the utility of 3D immersive media for enhancing public attitudes toward rare, open-canopied habitat restoration where the proposed treatments and outcomes may appear risky, unsightly, and at odds with people's sense of place in a forested landscape. We used 360° videos and video game software to build the first desktop-based, virtual tour of fire-dependent Pine Barrens restoration practices in Wisconsin's Northwoods in order to intervene where stakeholders have disapproved of pine barrens through conventional messaging. The study measured changes in attitudes toward clear-cutting, prescribed fire, and pine barrens between participant groups in a 2D- and 3D-media informational intervention including 73 subjects from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Results showed that both media interventions significantly enhanced attitudes across all three target categories, despite increased spatial presence, or immersion, in the 3D format. Against the 2D treatment, the 3D tour significantly enhanced both people's aesthetic sense of pine barrens and their attitudes toward this landscape for those whose initial attitudes were neutral or negative.

Visual Impact of Large and Giant Congenital Naevi: Comparison of Surgical Scars with Naevi Before Surgery.

Surgical attempts to remove large/giant congenital melanocytic naevi (LGCMN) are supported mainly by the theoretical improvement in patients' self-image; however such surgery can result in unaesthetic scarring. We hypothesize that difference in appearance itself has an impact, and hence surgery cannot negate this impact. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore how LGCMN and scarring are perceived by non-affected people. We surveyed the visual impact on 1,015 health and non-health professionals working in a university hospital. Participants were assigned to 1 of 3 surveys, which, based on photographs of children: (i) assessed the visual impact of LGCMN; (ii) the visual impact of scarring; (iii) compared the impact of LGCMN and scarring. Feelings and perceptions evoked by images of children, either with LGCMN or with scarring, were remarkably similar. However, when the images of the same child (with LGCMN or scarring) were shown together, respondents showed significantly increased preference for scarring.

Environmental impacts and risk factors of renewable energy paradigm-a review.

The transition to a low carbon society is dependent on renewable energy-based electrification. Nevertheless, energy programs have resulted in growing societal polarization in several regions. Therefore, around the globe, government and legislative authorities at the local, regional, national, and international levels are highly concerned about the environmental impacts and risk factors that influence the energy paradigm. Thus, to minimize and/or limit the environmental insecurity issues, the world needs swift and effective actions to secure the climate for a better tomorrow. Moreover, there is a dire need to look for new energy alternatives, along with reducing the complete dependence on petro-based energy sources. Keeping this burning issue in mind, herein, an effort has been made to present the potential of several renewable energy sources, including wind-based renewable energy, solar-based renewable energy, hydro-based renewable energy, and biomass-based renewable energy. Following a brief introduction of energy-related problems and opportunities, a comparative overview is given to renewable vs. non-renewable energy sources. Then, several renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, hydro, and biomass, along with the worldwide energy capacity of each energy source are given with suitable examples and statistics. Finally, risk factors, concluding remarks, and future guidelines are discussed towards the end.

Plasticity in the Sensitivity to Light in Aging: Decreased Non-visual Impact of Light on Cognitive Brain Activity in Older Individuals but No Impact of Lens Replacement.

Beyond its essential visual role, light, and particularly blue light, has numerous non-visual effects, including stimulating cognitive functions and alertness. Non-visual effects of light may decrease with aging and contribute to cognitive and sleepiness complaints in aging. However, both the brain and the eye profoundly change in aging. Whether the stimulating effects light on cognitive brain functions varies in aging and how ocular changes may be involved is not established. We compared the impact of blue and orange lights on non-visual cognitive brain activity in younger (23.6 ± 2.5 years), and older individuals with their natural lenses (NL; 66.7 ± 5.1 years) or with intraocular lens (IOL) replacement following cataract surgery (69.6 ± 4.9 years). Analyses reveal that blue light modulates executive brain responses in both young and older individuals. Light effects were, however, stronger in young individuals including in the hippocampus and frontal and cingular cortices. Light effects did not significantly differ between older-IOL and older-NL while regression analyses indicated that differential brain engagement was not underlying age-related differences in light effects. These findings show that, although its impact decreases, light can stimulate cognitive brain activity in aging. Since lens replacement did not affect light impact, the brain seems to adapt to the progressive decrease in retinal light exposure in aging.

Application of electroencephalographic techniques to the study of visual impact of renewable energies.

Much is currently being studied on the negative visual impact associated to the installation of large wind turbines or photovoltaic farms. However, methodologies for quantitatively assessing landscape impact are scarce. In this work we used electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings to investigate the brain activity of 14 human volunteers when looking at the same landscapes with and without wind turbines, solar panels and nuclear power plants. Our results showed no significant differences for landscapes with solar power systems or without them, and the same happened for wind turbines, what was in agreement with their subjective scores. However, there were clear and significant differences when looking at landscapes with and without nuclear power plants. These differences were more pronounced around a time window of 376-407 msec and showed a clear right lateralization for the pictures containing nuclear power plants. Although more studies are still needed, these results suggest that EEG recordings can be a useful procedure for measuring visual impact.

Combined acoustical and visual performance of noise barriers in mitigating the environmental impact of motorways.

This study investigated the overall performance of noise barriers in mitigating environmental impact of motorways, taking into consideration their effects on reducing noise and visual intrusions of moving traffic, but also potentially inducing visual impact themselves. A laboratory experiment was carried out, using computer-visualised video scenes and motorway traffic noise recordings to present experimental scenarios covering two traffic levels, two distances of receiver to road, two types of background landscape, and five barrier conditions including motorway only, motorway with tree belt, motorways with 3 m timber barrier, 5m timber barrier, and 5m transparent barrier. Responses from 30 participants of university students were gathered and perceived barrier performance analysed. The results show that noise barriers were always beneficial in mitigating environmental impact of motorways, or made no significant changes in environmental quality when the impact of motorways was low. Overall, barriers only offered similar mitigation effect as compared to tree belt, but showed some potential to be more advantageous when traffic level went high. 5m timber barrier tended to perform better than the 3m one at the distance of 300 m but not at 100 m possibly due to its negative visual effect when getting closer. The transparent barrier did not perform much differently from the timber barriers but tended to be the least effective in most scenarios. Some low positive correlations were found between aesthetic preference for barriers and environmental impact reduction by the barriers.

Visual impact of sub-Tenon anesthesia during combined phacoemulsification and vitrectomy surgery.

AIM: To investigate the visual impact of sub-Tenon anesthesia during combined phacoemulsification and vitrectomy surgery. METHODS: In this prospective case series, consecutive patients who underwent combined phacoemulsification and pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) under sub-Tenon anesthesia between October 2008 and September 2009 were enrolled. The patients were asked whether they could see the light of the operating microscope or not between various surgical steps with their contralateral eye being covered. RESULTS: A total of 163 eyes of 163 patients were enrolled in this study. After their contralateral eyes were covered, 152 (93.3%) patients said that they could not see any light at least during one of the surgical steps. All eyes recovered to at least light perception on the first postoperative day. The incidence of no light perception during the surgery was not related to demographic factors, including age, gender, or type of ocular diseases. CONCLUSION: The incidence of no light perception during combined phacoemulsification and vitrectomy under sub-Tenon anesthesia was high in our study. Patients should be duly informed about this temporary but potential intraoperative event.