Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
1,295
result(s) for
"Naturalness"
Sort by:
On the stress potential of videoconferencing: definition and root causes of Zoom fatigue
As a consequence of lockdowns due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the resulting restricted social mobility, several billion people worldwide have recently had to replace physical face-to-face communication with computer-mediated interaction. Notably, the adoption rates of videoconferencing increased significantly in 2020, predominantly because videoconferencing resembles face-to-face interaction. Tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco Webex are used by hundreds of millions of people today. Videoconferencing may bring benefits (e.g., saving of travel costs, preservation of environment). However, prolonged and inappropriate use of videoconferencing may also have an enormous stress potential. A new phenomenon and term emerged, Zoom fatigue, a synonym for videoconference fatigue. This paper develops a definition for Zoom fatigue and presents a conceptual framework that explores the major root causes of videoconferencing fatigue and stress. The development of the framework draws upon media naturalness theory and its underlying theorizing is based on research published across various scientific fields, including the disciplines of both behavioral science and neuroscience. Based on this theoretical foundation, hypotheses are outlined. Moreover, implications for research and practice are discussed.
Journal Article
aturalness and Information See-Saw Mechanism for Neutrinos
The microscopic origin of the de Sitter entropy remains a central puzzle in quantum gravity that is related to the cosmological constant problem. Within the paradigm of H olographic N aturalness, we propose that this entropy is carried by a vast number of light, coherent degrees of freedom—called “hairons”—which emerge as the moduli of gravitational instantons on orbifolds. Starting from the Euclidean de Sitter instanton ( S4 ), we construct a new class of orbifold gravitational instantons, S4/ Z N , where N corresponds to the de Sitter entropy. We demonstrate that the dimension of the moduli space of these instantons scales linearly with N, and we identify these moduli with the hairon fields. A Z N symmetry, derived from Wilson loops in the instanton background, ensures the distinguishability of these modes, leading to the correct entropy count. The hairons acquire a mass of the order of the Hubble scale and exhibit negligible mutual interactions, suggesting that the de Sitter vacuum is a coherent state, or Bose–Einstein condensate, of these fundamental excitations. Then, we present a novel framework which unifies neutrino mass generation with the cosmological constant through gravitational topology and holography. The small neutrino mass scale emerges naturally from first principles, without requiring new physics beyond the Standard Model and Gravity. The gravitational Chern–Simons structure and its anomaly with neutrinos force a topological Higgs mechanism, leading to neutrino condensation via S4/ Z N gravitational instantons. The number of topological degrees of freedom N∼M P 2/ Λ ∼10120 provides both the holographic counting of the de Sitter entropy and a 1/N information see-saw mechanism for neutrino masses. Our framework makes the following predictions: (i) a neutrino superfluid condensation forming Cooper pairs below meV energies, as a viable candidate for cold dark matter; (ii) a possible resolution of the strong CP problem through a QCD composite axion state; (iii) time-varying neutrino masses which track the evolution of dark energy; and (iv) several distinctive signatures in astroparticle physics, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays and high magnetic field experiments.
Journal Article
Matte matters
Matte surfaces, that is, those that are dull or lusterless not glossy and shiny, are a current trend in packaging. But does packaging surface affect what consumers think about the product inside it? We focus on consumers’ perception of packaged food products at the point of sale. Using three experiments, we show that food in matte packaging can be perceived as more natural. Notably, the effect of matte packaging only holds for rather artificial products. When matte packaging increases perceptions of product naturalness, consumers also expect the product to be tastier and are more likely to buy it.
Journal Article
Natural Language Generation and Understanding of Big Code for AI-Assisted Programming: A Review
This paper provides a comprehensive review of the literature concerning the utilization of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, with a particular focus on transformer-based large language models (LLMs) trained using Big Code, within the domain of AI-assisted programming tasks. LLMs, augmented with software naturalness, have played a crucial role in facilitating AI-assisted programming applications, including code generation, code completion, code translation, code refinement, code summarization, defect detection, and clone detection. Notable examples of such applications include the GitHub Copilot powered by OpenAI’s Codex and DeepMind AlphaCode. This paper presents an overview of the major LLMs and their applications in downstream tasks related to AI-assisted programming. Furthermore, it explores the challenges and opportunities associated with incorporating NLP techniques with software naturalness in these applications, with a discussion on extending AI-assisted programming capabilities to Apple’s Xcode for mobile software development. This paper also presents the challenges of and opportunities for incorporating NLP techniques with software naturalness, empowering developers with advanced coding assistance and streamlining the software development process.
Journal Article
Speak, Read and Prompt: High-Fidelity Text-to-Speech with Minimal Supervision
We introduce SPEAR-TTS, a multi-speaker text-to-speech (TTS) system that can be trained with minimal supervision. By combining two types of discrete speech representations, we cast TTS as a composition of two sequence-to-sequence tasks: from text to high-level semantic tokens (akin to “reading”) and from semantic tokens to low-level acoustic tokens (“speaking”). Decoupling these two tasks enables training of the “speaking” module using abundant audio-only data, and unlocks the highly efficient combination of pretraining and backtranslation to reduce the need for parallel data when training the “reading” component. To control the speaker identity, we adopt example prompting, which allows SPEAR-TTS to generalize to unseen speakers using only a short sample of 3 seconds, without any explicit speaker representation or speaker labels. Our experiments demonstrate that SPEAR-TTS achieves a character error rate that is competitive with state-of-the-art methods using only 15 minutes of parallel data, while matching ground-truth speech in naturalness and acoustic quality.
Journal Article
Functional Connectivity of Naturally Valuable Habitats in the Jeseníky Protected Landscape Area
This paper focuses on evaluating the functional connectivity of naturally valuable habitats within the territory of the Jeseníky Protected Landscape Area (PLA). Analysis of functional connectivity was carried out for individual zones of classified nature preservation. The methodological approach that is applied is based on determining indicators for expressing the degree of the natural character of individual landscape segments (Nd), the distance to naturally valuable habitats (Dn), and a composite index Distance to Nature (D2N). The results for the individual zones and the PLA as a whole are mutually compared and consequently confronted with values for the territory of the entire Czech Republic. All three research questions, i.e. whether naturally valuable habitats prevail in the most valuable area in the first protected zone of the Jeseníky PLA, whether the distance to naturally valuable habitats in the first zone of the Jeseníky PLA is the shortest, and whether the territory of the Jeseníky PLA is better functionally interlinked when compared with the remaining territory of the Czech Republic (CR), were answered positively. The results highlight the need to assess the connectivity of natural habitats in the least protected zones of other PLAs in the Czech Republic and EU, to decide whether planning measures to support the ecological network are necessary.
Journal Article
Where are Europe's last primary forests?
Aim: Primary forests have high conservation value but are rare in Europe due to historic land use. Yet many primary forest patches remain unmapped, and it is unclear to what extent they are effectively protected. Our aim was to (1) compile the most comprehensive European-scale map of currently known primary forests, (2) analyse the spatial determinants characterizing their location and (3) locate areas where so far unmapped primary forests likely occur. Location: Europe. Methods: We aggregated data from a literature review, online questionnaires and 32 datasets of primary forests. We used boosted regression trees to explore which biophysical, socio-economic and forest-related variables explain the current distribution of primary forests. Finally, we predicted and mapped the relative likelihood of primary forest occurrence at a 1-km resolution across Europe. Results: Data on primary forests were frequently incomplete or inconsistent among countries. Known primary forests covered 1.4 Mha in 32 countries (0.7% of Europe's forest area). Most of these forests were protected (89%), but only 46% of them strictly. Primary forests mostly occurred in mountain and boreal areas and were unevenly distributed across countries, biogeographical regions and forest types. Unmapped primary forests likely occur in the least accessible and populated areas, where forests cover a greater share of land, but wood demand historically has been low. Main conclusions: Despite their outstanding conservation value, primary forests are rare and their current distribution is the result of centuries of land use and forest management. The conservation outlook for primary forests is uncertain as many are not strictly protected and most are small and fragmented, making them prone to extinction debt and human disturbance. Predicting where unmapped primary forests likely occur could guide conservation efforts, especially in Eastern Europe where large areas of primary forest still exist but are being lost at an alarming pace.
Journal Article
Preserving the Naturalness of the Kazakh Language as a National Language: An Ecolinguistic Analysis
This study examines efforts to preserve the naturalness and sustainability of the Kazakh language from an ecolinguistic perspective. A systematic review method is employed, analyzing 32 academic publications obtained from designated databases covering the period 2020–2025. The findings indicate that language preservation relies on structural interventions such as national language policies, public prestige, and alphabet reform. Lexical strategies that balance terminology modernization with the preservation of traditional cultural discourse and educational policies that prioritize national identity and standardized norms were also within those structural interventions. The findings reveal that globalization (English) and historical language hierarchies (Russian) have narrowed the language's academic and public functions, and digitalization has presented opportunities and led to normative deviations. Ultimately, the ecological sustainability of the Kazakh language requires a holistic, proactive, and data-driven governance model that integrates policy, education, and digital technology, beyond merely prescriptive or simplistic approaches. This study offers a theoretical synthesis and a practical roadmap for language planners by outlining policy-oriented strategies, education-based interventions, and technology-supported mechanisms for sustaining linguistic naturalness.
Journal Article