An acoustic analysis and comparison between remotely collected and in-person laboratory collected data in vocal imitation of pitch

Restrictions on face-to-face interactions due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in early 2020 have impacted experimental behavioral research. The rapid change from in-person to online data collections has been challenging in many behavioral studies, especially those that require vocal production, and the quality of the remotely collected data needs to be investigated. The current study examines the recording quality and corresponding measures of vocal production accuracy in online and in-person settings using two measurements: harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR) and fundamental frequency, f 0. Participants imitated pitch patterns extracted from recordings of song or speech, either in a laboratory or via an online platform. The results showed that the recordings from the online setting had higher HNR than those from the in-person setting, whereas the pitch imitation accuracy in both settings did not differ. We also report an experiment that simulated differences between the online and in-person settings within participants, focusing on software used, type of microphone, and presence of ambient noise. Pitch accuracy did not differ according to these variables, except ambient noise, whereas HNR again varied across conditions. Based on these results we conclude that measures of pitch accuracy are reliable across these different types of data collection, whereas finer-grained spectral measures like HNR might be affected by various factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Enacting polyvocal scorn in #CovidConspiracy tweets: The orchestration of voices in humorous responses to COVID-19 conspiracy theories.

Despite the abundance of research into conspiracy theories, including multiple studies of Covid-19 conspiracy theories in particular, user reactions to conspiracy theories are an underexplored area of social media discourse. This study aims to fill this gap by examining a dataset of humorous responses to proliferating COVID-19 conspiracy theories based on a corpus of tweets bearing the pejorative hashtag #CovidConspiracy. We report the complex orchestration of heteroglossic discursive voices in these posts to reveal their rhetorical function, oriented towards expressing a negative stance and, in some cases, amounting to ridicule. The discursive effects of this interplay of voices entail imitation, parody, mockery and irony on the micro level, while on the interactional (macro) level, anti-conspiracy tweets jointly enact what we dub "polyvocal scorn". It expresses multiple users' trenchant critique and contempt for conspiracy theories, while the humour of the tweets serves to display the users' wit and superiority over conspiracy theorists.

On losing the "dispensable” sense: TikTok imitation publics and COVID-19 smell loss challenges

The enduring effects of COVID-19 have called into question many of the assumptions upon which media and cultural studies rest, including a fundamental mode of perception: the sense of smell. In dialog with the field of sensory studies, this paper traces digital smell loss (anosmia) communities from pre-pandemic Facebook groups to mid-pandemic TikTok challenges. This article considers digital smell loss communities on TikTok as imitation publics characterized by repetition. Via replicable TikTok challenges, digital smell-loss communities reckoned with the unmooring effects of a seemingly mild symptom. By exploring how formulaic smell-loss challenges generated support and facilitated community-building, this article demands greater attention to a sense often considered ‘disposable'. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Target Attainment in the Production of English Vowels by Polish Students: The Influence of Language Instruction in the Time of Covid-19, Imitation, and Musicality

This pilot experimental study pursues a number of goals. Firstly, it aims to assess the phonetic attainment of selected English vowels among twelve Polish students of English philology after one term of intensive online pronunciation training in pandemic conditions. Secondly, it looks at potential differences between production outcomes in two experimental contexts, that is, reading and imitation. Finally, it seeks to determine if there is any correlation between musicality and target attainment with a view to identifying a broader scope for potential future research questions. For this purpose, recorded samples of read and imitated English words containing vowels in a uniform context /h_d/ were assessed by six raters using a 5-point Likert scale. The results, including those of an online musicality test, were analysed and subjected to statistical testing. The majority of total scores exceed the assumed acceptability benchmark of 50%. The study yielded a number of unexpected results. Firstly, female participants performed significantly better than male ones in the reading experiment, but not in imitation. Secondly, a stronger correlation was found between the reading results and musicality than between imitation results and musicality.

Focus on Fiction

[...]Plato once considered poetry (the fiction of the time) as a pale imitation of reality and a distraction from the search for objective truth (Gulley 1977: 154-169). First author Sagamba Muhira and co-author James Page give voice to a refugee boy fleeing his war-torn homeland in 'Out of Africa'. In 'Sharing Stories: Sentimentality and Sociable Reading as Articulating Concern for Animals', Clare Archer-Lean and Lesley Hawkes consider how thematic book clubs which centralise the lives of animals have the potential to generate more empathetic understandings of nonhuman animals. Using the themed book club as a method of data collection, Archer-Lean and Hawkes show that books do not just reflect the world but provide ways to articulate a reader's previously silenced interior worlds.

Personal Narrative under Nationalism: Chinese COVID-19 Vaccination Expressions on Douyin.

Scholars are divided over whether narrative/storytelling occupies a central position in health-related behaviour or in the health-related issues discussed on social media platforms. This study explored Chinese COVID-19 vaccination expressions on Douyin, China's biggest short-video sharing social media platform, and found that narration is still the most important tool employed by Chinese users when talking about COVID-19 vaccinations on Douyin, emphasizing nationalism and widespread optimism. Most of the narratives employed by Chinese users come from a first-person perspective. Nationalism, as manifested in the support expressed for national policies, rather than the external platform characteristics of memetics, makes the Chinese users' expressions about COVID-19 vaccinations similar on Douyin. Douyin seems to have become a 'pilgrimage platform' for the Chinese public to express their patriotic sentiment and their trust in the country and the government.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HUMAN INTERVENTIONS AGAINST COVID-19 BASED ON EVOLUTIONARY GAME THEORY

Social distancing strategy (including Six-Foot Rule, wearing masks, and other easy-to-operate measures) and quarantine measures have played a critical role in the early stage of the COVID-19 epidemic. In order to explore the mechanisms of these two human interventions accurately, we develop a coupling epidemiological-behavioral model based on evolutionary game the-ory. Individuals decide whether to take strategy measures based on rational consideration of payoffs. Moreover, authorities also balance the costs and effectiveness of the interventions at the public level. Our simulation shows that social distancing strategy can suppress every single outbreak effectively. In the early stage of an epidemic, the implementation of the quarantine measures determines the scale of the epidemic. Timely and effective quarantine measures can control recurrent outbreaks without social lockdown. Support policy for individual-level intervention or high diagnosis rates are beneficial to control the epidemic but require long-term social lockdown. © 2022, Wilmington Scientific Publisher. All rights reserved.

Russian-Ukrainian War, Innovation, Creative Imitation & Sustainable Development

The Russian-Ukrainian war shows a rapidly (and a long-term, probably) worsening outlook for the world economy, that will change specifically the European sustainable development. In addition to COVID-19's tremendous impact on global economies, the Russian-Ukrainian war is producing a new major economic shock, pushing the biggest global corporations towards an outburst of the basic drivers of global capitalism: Health;Energy;Food;Communication. In the current state of play of market globalisation (Network Globalisation), a company's profit and development objectives are induced to target R&D spending on innovation policies in which the boundaries between imitation and innovation are fluid, and anyway dominated by shortage management policies.

Consumer Perception and Acceptability of Plant-Based Alternatives to Chicken.

The prevalence of plant-based alternatives (PBAs) to meat in the marketplace has been increasing in recent years due to consumer demand. One of these plant-based products has aimed to mimic chicken products, specifically chicken nuggets. However, few sensory studies have been conducted on these products. The objective of this study is to evaluate the sensory properties, acceptability, and consumer perception of these PBAs. Participants (n = 105) were asked to evaluate five PBAs and a control (chicken nugget) using hedonic scales and a check-all-that-apply question. They also answered an open-ended comment question about PBAs. The participants separated the control from the PBAs in terms of their hedonic scores and sensory properties. They separated the PBAs based on their textural properties and if they had off-flavors. Participants disliked PBAs that were associated with an aftertaste, as well as beany, fibrous, and chewy attributes. The participants believed the PBAs currently on the market did not successfully mimic a chicken nugget and that improvement is needed, but they did believe PBAs are environmentally friendly.

A method for generating training data for a protective face mask detection system

Monitoring and evaluation of the safety level of individuals is one of the most important problems of the modern world, which was forced to change due to the emergence of the COVID-19 virus. To increase the safety level of individuals, new information technologies are needed that can stop the spread of infection by minimizing the threat of outbreaks and monitor compliance with recommended measures. These technologies, in particular, include intelligent tracking systems of the presence of protective face masks. For these systems, this article proposes a new method for generating training data that combines data augmentation techniques, such as Mixup and Insert. The proposed method is tested on two datasets, namely, the MAsked FAce dataset and the Real-World Masked Face Recognition Dataset. For these datasets, values of the unweighted average recalls of 98.51% and 98.50% are obtained. In addition, the effectiveness of the proposed method is tested on images with face mask imitation on people's faces, and an automated technique is proposed for reducing type I and II errors. Using the proposed automated technique, it is possible to reduce the number of type II errors from 174 to 32 for the Real-World Masked Face Recognition Dataset, and from 40 to 14 for images with painted protective face masks.

TikTok : angoisse, solitude et exploration adolescente en temps de pandémie

Cet article a comme but d'explorer le contenu de vidéos produites par des jeunes avec l'application TikTok dans le contexte de la pandémie de la Covid qui, depuis mars 2020, a entraîné la mort de millions de personnes à travers le monde. Les pratiques de création sur Tiktok évoluent selon un processus de mimétisme social. Une production tenant lieu de modèle est à la source de centaines d'autres se veulant différentes de l'originale. Nous avons retenu trois productions populaires durant la pandémie pour une étude approfondie. Notre analyse est fondée sur l'approche socioanthropologique qui est un courant contemporain de la sociologie compréhensive. Nos résultats montrent que les jeunes investissent des thèmes initiatiques qui appartiennent au répertoire des grands invariants de la condition humaine comme la solitude, la peur de la mort, l'angoisse face à l'avenir et l'ambivalence identitaire à l'adolescence. Dans cet article, nous clarifions dans les deux premières parties les concepts de rite de passage, d'initiation et de mimétisme social qui constituent notre cadre théorique. Par la suite, dans la troisième partie, nous présentons les critères de choix des productions retenues, l'inscription de notre analyse dans la sociologie compréhensive et la description des productions. Notre analyse des trois productions, qui se trouve dans la quatrième partie, montre notamment que le mimétisme social, à la source des productions de vidéo sur TikTok, offre aux jeunes un espace créatif de construction identitaire et de socialisation avec les pairs. Enfin, TikTok peut être vu comme un lieu adolescent d'expérimentation des grands invariants de la condition humaine.Alternate :This article aims to explore the creative practices of young people using the TikTok app in the context of the Covid pandemic which, since March 2020, has resulted in the deaths of millions of people around the world. Creative practices on Tiktok evolve according to a process of social mimicry. A model production is the source of hundreds of subsequent productions which are all original. We selected three popular productions during the pandemic to analyze them. Our analyze is based on the socio-anthropological approach which is a contemporary trend in comprehensive sociology. Our results highlight several initiatory themes that belong to the repertoire of great anthropological invariants such as loneliness, fear of death, anxiety about the future and identity ambivalence in adolescence. These are all themes which, we will discuss, touch on the tragic dimension of the human condition. In this article, we clarify in the first two parts the concepts of rite of passage, initiation and social mimicry that constitute our theoretical framework. Subsequently, in the third part, we present the criteria for choosing the selected productions, the inclusion of our analysis in comprehensive sociology and the description of the productions. Our analysis of the three productions, which can be found in the fourth part, shows that social mimicry, at the source of the productions on TikTok, offers young people a creative space for identity building and socialization with peers. Finally, TikTok can be seen as an adolescent place of experimentation with the great invariants of the human condition.

Thus spoke the internet: Social media sociologists and the importance of memeing in making meaning

The questionable wisdom of Musk aside, the truth in these words tweeted at 8 a.m. to his 36.6 M followers is undeniable. The power memes can wield is both a tool and a toolbox. They have the potential to both depict and construct, and their value has been underestimated in sociology.A new breed of sociologists has risen, one who does not teach but tweet. They’re capturing, defining, and challenging a world no textbook prepared us for. Memes have become a language that socially constructs, rapidly evolves, responsively maintains, and reflexively challenges within social worlds that have adapted during the pandemic as people went online because they were not allowed to go out. In the chaos of the pandemic, these voices have offered insight, distillation, critique, relief, and, most importantly, meaning. Responding to our fundamental need for sociability, association, and imitation (Simmel and Hughes, 1949), memes have shown us modes of understanding that were relatable and imitative enough to foster a sense of camaraderie and certainty, at times even encouraging critical thinking, while everything else seemed liminal and adrift without a paddle.The purpose of this piece, however, is not to sing the praises of the language of my people. Instead, it aims to enlighten about how rich and powerful this toolbox can be to sociologists in understanding life during COVID. It also hopes to show how memers are stealing your jobs by becoming sociologists themselves. #truthbomb

Financial Contagion in an Age of COVID-19: On Biological, Human, and Algorithmic Mimesis

This article discusses the financial turmoil unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. It argues that the market mayhem in which prices plummeted cannot be fully explained by real-economic factors such as uncertainty about the future global economy. Instead, I suggest analysing the events as a manifestation of financial contagion in which the mimesis of market participants becomes an independent explanatory force. In making this argument, the article returns to late nineteenth-century ideas about mimesis and social contagion as well as discussions about the collective mimesis - constitutive of a mimetic turn - that may result from social avalanches.

Street Verge in Transition: A Study of Community Drivers and Local Policy Setting for Urban Greening in Perth, Western Australia

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are regarded as the key policy agenda for national, regional, and local government to combat climate change impacts and promote sustainable development. For example, in Perth and Peel metropolitan area, the capital city of Western Australia, there has been a shift of policy setting from that of a sprawling city to a denser city, while maintaining and promoting its ecosystem services and achieving sustainable city goals. Residential verge gardens have been widely adopted in recent years by communities and local governments in the Perth metropolitan area. This study reviews the motivations and drivers for the uptake of verge gardens in metropolitan suburbs and identifies potential policy responses. The City of Bayswater local government area was surveyed for this research. The study considers a mixed-methods approach, including site auditing and a questionnaire survey for local residents who have transformed their verges. A total of 534 verge gardens were audited on residential lots, and 166 valid questionnaire responses were received from residents. The site-audit of the verge gardens in Bayswater found that native vegetation is the dominant verge garden of choice, followed by the ornamental garden, with food production (plants/vegetables) seeming to be the least popular option. Regarding the motivations and drivers, the study has found that social (e.g., aesthetics, flowers, social interactions, and social mimicry), environmental (e.g., attracting wildlife and birds and environmental practice waterwise garden), and personal (easy maintenance) drivers are the primary motivators for residents to adopt verge gardens. Whilst the on-ground surveys were prior to COVID-19, the article includes how this topic could relate to pandemic-resilient urban spaces. As local governments look towards supporting the sustainable outcome goals, the observations of this study will be helpful for developing local government policy and community programs in the promotion and uptake of verge gardens in Australian cities.

Sustainable Technology in High-Income Economies: The Role of Innovation

The aim of this article is to examine the effects of innovation on the availability of cutting-edge technologies while controlling education, public funds and life expectancy in high-income countries from 2008 to 2018. In this study, Westerlund cointegration, fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares tests were applied. The research results indicate that: (i) there is a cointegrating link between the availability of the latest technologies and innovation, education, public funding and life expectancy;(ii) innovation increases the availability of cutting-edge technologies in high-income economies, whereas education, public funds and life expectancy contribute to sustainable technological availability;(iii) innovation, education, public funding and life expectancy result in the availability of cutting-edge technologies. The results are important in showing why policymakers in high-income economies should foster innovation capacity to sustain technological development.

Epidemic proximity and imitation dynamics drive infodemic waves during the COVID-19 pandemic

An infodemic - an outpouring of information, including misleading and also fake news - is accompanying the current pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. In the absence of valid therapeutic approaches, behavioral responses may seriously affect the social dynamics of contagion, so the infodemic may cause confusion and disorientation in the public, leading to possible individually and socially harmful choices. This new phenomenon requires specific modeling efforts to better understand the complex intertwining of the epidemic and infodemic components of a pandemic crisis, with a view to building an integrative public health approach. We propose three models, from epidemiology to game theory, as potential candidates for the onset of the infodemics and statistically assess their accuracy in reproducing real infodemic waves observed in a data set of 390 million tweets collected worldwide. Our results show that evolutionary game-theory models are the most suitable ones to reproduce the observed infodemic modulations around the onset of the local epidemic wave. Furthermore, we find that the number of confirmed COVID-19 reported cases in each country and worldwide are driving the modeling dynamics with opposite effects. © 2022 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

To isolate or not to isolate: the impact of changing behavior on COVID-19 transmission.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused more than 25 million cases and 800 thousand deaths worldwide to date. In early days of the pandemic, neither vaccines nor therapeutic drugs were available for this novel coronavirus. All measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are thus based on reducing contact between infected and susceptible individuals. Most of these measures such as quarantine and self-isolation require voluntary compliance by the population. However, humans may act in their (perceived) self-interest only. METHODS: We construct a mathematical model of COVID-19 transmission with quarantine and hospitalization coupled with a dynamic game model of adaptive human behavior. Susceptible and infected individuals adopt various behavioral strategies based on perceived prevalence and burden of the disease and sensitivity to isolation measures, and they evolve their strategies using a social learning algorithm (imitation dynamics). RESULTS: This results in complex interplay between the epidemiological model, which affects success of different strategies, and the game-theoretic behavioral model, which in turn affects the spread of the disease. We found that the second wave of the pandemic, which has been observed in the US, can be attributed to rational behavior of susceptible individuals, and that multiple waves of the pandemic are possible if the rate of social learning of infected individuals is sufficiently high. CONCLUSIONS: To reduce the burden of the disease on the society, it is necessary to incentivize such altruistic behavior by infected individuals as voluntary self-isolation.

Recognizing Full-Body Exercise Execution Errors Using the Teslasuit.

Regular physical exercise is essential for overall health; however, it is also crucial to mitigate the probability of injuries due to incorrect exercise executions. Existing health or fitness applications often neglect accurate full-body motion recognition and focus on a single body part. Furthermore, they often detect only specific errors or provide feedback first after the execution. This lack raises the necessity for the automated detection of full-body execution errors in real-time to assist users in correcting motor skills. To address this challenge, we propose a method for movement assessment using a full-body haptic motion capture suit. We train probabilistic movement models using the data of 10 inertial sensors to detect exercise execution errors. Additionally, we provide haptic feedback, employing transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation immediately, as soon as an error occurs, to correct the movements. The results based on a dataset collected from 15 subjects show that our approach can detect severe movement execution errors directly during the workout and provide haptic feedback at respective body locations. These results suggest that a haptic full-body motion capture suit, such as the Teslasuit, is promising for movement assessment and can give appropriate haptic feedback to the users so that they can improve their movements.

What triggers mobile application-based purchase behavior during COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from Vietnam

Purpose Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has shifted purchase behavior and accelerated the diffusion of modern retail channels via mobile application (or m-application). This work aims to frame a mechanism of m-application-based behavioral intentions in the COVID-19 context. Design/methodology/approach The authors designed a web-based survey to retrieve empirical data from 478 Vietnamese users. Quantitative approach and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed to test a research model. Findings Findings reveal that antecedents of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (i.e. performance expectancy and facilitating conditions), external influences (i.e. perceived imitation), m-application-related factors (i.e. additive value and alternative attractiveness) and COVID-19-related factors of Protective Motivation Theory (PMT) (i.e. perceived contraction threat, fear and social distancing) are determinants of use intention. Moreover, COVID-19-related dimensions and use intention have direct and indirect positive influences on purchase intention. Practical implications Practitioners should stay agile and focus greater attention on a mechanism in which consumer adoption and purchase intention are formulated in the pandemic. Originality/value This work narrows the gap by simultaneously identifying the importance of the dimensions from UTAUT and COVID-19-related factors from PMT, especially social distancing, integrated with additive value and alternative attractiveness of m-applications in forming the behavioral intention model in a disease context.

The effect of human vaccination behaviour on strain competition in an infectious disease: An imitation dynamic approach.

Strain competition plays an important role in shaping the dynamics of multiple pathogen outbreaks in a population. Competition may lead to exclusion of some pathogens, while it may influence the invasion of an emerging mutant in the population. However, little emphasis has been given to understand the influence of human vaccination choice on pathogen competition or strain invasion for vaccine-preventable infectious diseases. Coupling game dynamic framework of vaccination choice and compartmental disease transmission model of two strains, we explore invasion and persistence of a mutant in the population despite having a lower reproduction rate than the resident one. We illustrate that higher perceived strain severity and lower perceived vaccine efficacy are necessary conditions for the persistence of a mutant strain. The numerical simulation also extends these invasion and persistence analyses under asymmetric cross-protective immunity of these strains. We show that the dynamics of this cross-immunity model under human vaccination choices is determined by the interplay of parameters defining the cross-immune response function, perceived risk of infection, and vaccine efficacy, and it can exhibit invasion and persistence of mutant strain, even complete exclusion of resident strain in the regime of sufficiently high perceived risk. We conclude by discussing public health implications of the results, that proper risk communication in public about the severity of the disease is an important task to reduce the chance of mutant invasion. Thus, understanding pathogen competitions under social interactions and choices may be an important component for policymakers for strategic decision-making.