A deepfake-based study on facial expressiveness and social outcomes.

Artificial intelligence (AI)-generated media is used in entertainment, art, education, and marketing. AI-generated faces or facial expressions using deepfake-based technologies might also contribute to nonverbal behavior studies. As a proof of concept, in this research, we test the replicability of past results regarding the positive effects of facial expressiveness (e.g., gazing, nodding, and smiling) on social outcomes. Because the facial expressions when listening to someone (i.e., nonverbal immediacy) encompass several behaviors that are typically related (i.e., smiling while nodding), the effect of combinations of these behaviors is challenging to study. We thus test the effect of facial expressiveness (gazing, nodding, and smiling vs. none) on first impression judgements in a job interview setting using AI-generated experimental video material. We measure how competent, warm, and favorably independent observers (n = 823) perceive the targets (n = 159) showing AI-generated facial expressions. Our results replicate past research showing that the more targets are facially expressive, the more they are perceived favorably. Apart from supporting evidence of the importance of facial expressiveness for conveying a positive impression, we show the benefits of relying on AI-generated experimental video material for the study of nonverbal behavior.

COVID-19 induced lockdown and decreasing particulate matter (PM10): An empirical investigation of an Asian megacity.

The air quality in the cities of developing countries is deteriorating with the proliferation of anthropogenic activities that add pollutant matters in the lower part of the troposphere. Particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter lower than 10 µm (PM10) is considered one of the direct indicators of air quality in an urban area as it brings health morbidities. The article empirically investigates the role COVID-19 related lockdown has played in bringing down pollution level (PM10) in the megacity of Kolkata. It does so by taking account of PM10 level in three stages - pre, presage and complete-lockdown timelines. The extracted results show a significant declining trend (about 77% vis-a-vis the pre-lockdown period) with 95% of the geographical area under 100 µm/m3 and a strong fit with the station-based records. The feasibility and robustness showed by the remotely sensed data along with other earth observatory information for larger-scale pollution prevalence make its adoption imperative. Simultaneously, it becomes urgent in times of lockdown when the physical mobility of maintenance and research staff to stations is significantly curtailed. The work contributes to study on PM10 by its ability to replicate in examining cities of both the global north and global south.

COVID-19 and urban vulnerability in India.

The global pandemic has an inherently urban character. The UN-Habitat's publication of a Response Plan for mollification of the SARS-CoV-2 based externalities in the cities of the world testifies to that. This article takes the UN-Habitat report as the premise to carry out an empirical investigation in the four major metro cities of India. The report's concern with the urban character of the pandemic has underlined the role of cities in disease transmission. In that wake, the study demarcates factors at the sub-city level that tend to jeopardize the two mandatory precautionary measures during COVID-19 - Social Distancing and Lockdown. It investigates those factors through a Covid Vulnerability Index. The Index devised with the help of Analytic Hierarchy Process demarcates the low, moderate, high, and very high vulnerable city sub-units. Secondly, UN-Habitat's one of the major action areas is evidence-based knowledge creation through mapping and its analysis. In our study, we do it at a granular scale for arriving at a more nuanced understanding. Thus, in harmony with the UN-habitat's we take the urban seriously and identify the gaps that need to be plugged for the pandemic cities of now and of the future.

Harm Reduction From Below: On Sharing and Caring in Drug Use.

This article focuses on how recreational drug users in the Netherlands and in online communities navigate the risks and reduce the harms they associate with psychoactive drug use. To do so, we examined the protective practices they invent, use, and share with their immediate peers and with larger drug experimenting communities online. The labor involved in protective practices and that which ultimately informs harm reduction from below follows three interrelated trajectories: (1) the handling and sharing of drugs to facilitate hassle-free drug use, (2) creating pleasant and friendly spaces that we highlight under the practices of drug use attunements, and (3) the seeking and sharing of information in practices to spread the good high. We focus not only on users' concerns but also on how these concerns shape their approach to drugs, what young people do to navigate uncertainties, and how they reach out to and create different sources of knowledge to minimize adversities and to improve highs. Harm reduction from below, we argue, can best be seen in the practices of sharing around drug use and in the caring for the larger community of drug-using peers.