Environmental sensitivity index (ESI) maps and data are employed worldwide to prepare contingency planning and responses for oil spills. The ESI approach has been successfully applied for various ...marine and continental shorelines, terrestrial pipelines, and roads. Originally, ESI maps were configured as printed cartographic products. With the incorporation of geographic information systems (GIS), ESI maps gained a digital perspective, allowing static correlations between biological and socioeconomic parameters through various operations and methods. Recently, ESI and simulation approaches have been combined to develop quantitative risk assessments, and artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms support integrated classifications of sensitivity indices. Although challenging, valuations and vulnerability aspects, such as seasonal and multidimensional approaches, should be considered in ESI maps, as well as the integration of monitoring, detection, decision, and response systems. By incorporating dynamic systems into the approach, ESI maps become a social and environmental sensitivity system (SESS). This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the development of the ESI concept and to identify and propose future directions.
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•A robust RSF/AgNW/Ca(II) hydrogel was fabricated through a facile method.•The introduction of microstructures enhanced the pressure sensitivity.•The introduction of Ca(II) ions ...endowed the anti-freezing and anti-drying properties.•The sensor showed dual responsive to pressure and temperature without interference.•The ionotronic skin can detect the percussion wave, tidal wave, and diastolic wave.
Multi-responsive sensing devices have contributed extensively to health monitoring applications. However, the effects of different stimuli often confuse, and thus cause, signal distortion of the sensor response. In addition, many sensing devices cannot work properly at low temperatures. In the present study, a robust regenerated silk fibroin (RSF)-based hydrogel was fabricated with silver nanowires (AgNWs) embedded in the surface. The microstructure of AgNW-embedded RSF surface was introduced using cotton fabric as a template. Afterwards, the hydrogel was immersed in an aqueous calcium chloride solution to introduce Ca(II) ions into the matrix of the RSF hydrogel. Finally, two pieces of the RSF/AgNW/Ca(II) hydrogel were assembled with AgNW layer face-to-face to form a dual-responsive ionotronic skin that was sensitive to pressure and temperature. The pressure-response of the RSF/AgNW/Ca(II) ionotronic skin showed a high sensitivity, short response time, and good durability. In addition, the temperature-response also showed a high sensitivity and good durability from low temperatures (−30°C) to high temperatures (50°C). As a demonstration of its dual responsiveness, 16 pieces of RSF/AgNW/Ca(II) ionotronic skin were combined to make a 4 × 4 array. It demonstrated high sensitivity without interference between the pressure and temperature signals, achieving a significant dual response. A potential application for the simultaneous detection of body temperature and heartbeat was demonstrated by placing the RSF/AgNW/Ca(II) ionotronic skin on the wrist and further indicated the practicality of such an ionotronic skin because it could distinguish between the percussion wave, tidal wave, and diastolic wave in a single waveforms. Therefore, this RSF/AgNW/Ca(II) ionotronic skin that can discriminated between stimuli and work at low temperatures may have great potential in the field of wearable health monitoring equipment.
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•The flavonol-based small-molecule fluorescent probes are reviewed.•ƒÜ The unique photophysical process of flavonol and its advantages in probe design are introduced.•ƒÜ The design ...mechanism of flavonol-based fluorescent probes has been discussed and categorized.•ƒÜ The sensing performances and applications of probes are summarized.
Flavonols, named as 3-hydroxyl-2-phenyl-1-benzopyran-4-one, are important natural botanical functional pigments widely distributing in fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Owing to intramolecular hydrogen bond, the flavonols can undergo the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) process upon irradiation, leading to unique environmental-sensitive dual emissions, which makes flavonol an ideal fluorophore skeleton for probe design. In this paper, we summarized the recent progress of flavonol-based small-molecule fluorescent probes for diverse sensing applications, including detection of anions, cations, reactive biological species, proteins, DNAs, environmental hazards, and microenvironmental factors. This review highlighted the basic characteristics of flavonol probes in the respect of design principles, photophysical processes, sensing mechanism, sensing performances, and biological applications. The present review article aims to offer a comprehensive summary for researchers to inspire new probe design, and push forward the advancement of flavonol-based fluorescent probes.
•People differ in their sensitivity to environmental influences with some being more and some less sensitive.•Differences in sensitivity can be measured reliably with the short version of the Highly ...Sensitive Person scale (HSP-12)•High scores on the HSP-12 are reflected in a personality profile of high Neuroticism and high Openness.•People scoring high on the HSP-12 are more negatively affected by adversity but also benefit more from positive exposures.
People differ in their response to experiences with some being generally more and some less sensitive. We present an integrated theoretical perspective on Environmental Sensitivity and provide new empirical evidence. Results across three studies (total N = 910) suggest that sensitivity can be measured reliably and validly with the 12-item Highly Sensitive Person scale (HSP-12). People scoring high on the HSP-12 are more sensitive to both adverse and positive experiences. Higher scores on the HSP-12 are reflected in high Neuroticism, particularly anxiety and vulnerability, and high Openness, particularly imagination, artistic interests and emotionality. We conclude that findings confirm the theoretical proposition that people differ in their sensitivity to environmental influences, and propose a number of future directions to advance research.
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•SPS captures sensitivity to environment in a heritable, evolutionary-conserved trait, associated with increased information processing in the brain.•SPS moderates sensitivity to ...environments in a for-better-and-for-worse fashion.•Interaction with negative experiences, increases risk for psychopathology.•Interaction with positive experiences (including interventions), increases positive outcomes.•Objective assessment, mechanistic understanding and evidence-based interventions for high scoring individuals on SPS need to be improved.
Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) is a common, heritable and evolutionarily conserved trait describing inter-individual differences in sensitivity to both negative and positive environments. Despite societal interest in SPS, scientific knowledge is lagging behind. Here, we critically discuss how SPS relates to other theories, how to measure SPS, whether SPS is a continuous vs categorical trait, its relation to other temperament and personality traits, the underlying aetiology and neurobiological mechanisms, and relations to both typical and atypical development, including mental and sensory disorders. Drawing on the diverse expertise of the authors, we set an agenda for future research to stimulate the field. We conclude that SPS increases risk for stress-related problems in response to negative environments, but also provides greater benefit from positive and supportive experiences. The field requires more reliable and objective assessment of SPS, and deeper understanding of its mechanisms to differentiate it from other traits. Future research needs to target prevention of adverse effects associated with SPS, and exploitation of its positive potential to improve well-being and mental health.
Around a third of children perceive and process their environment more deeply and are more impacted by its quality. To obtain a more comprehensive and objective measure of this Environmental ...Sensitivity (ES) in primary school children, we developed a semi-structured, multi-informant interview. Study 1 captures the item development while Study 2 covers the psychometric analysis and initial validation of the interview in a small pilot sample of 61 parents, their 60 children, and nine teachers, recruited from a longitudinal study involving 7–9-year-old second-graders in Swiss primary schools. Method: Interviews were conducted by trained psychologists with expertise in ES. Questionnaire data was collected from parents, children, and teachers. Findings: Parent and child interviews had good internal consistency (α = 0.83, α = 0.79, respectively) and correlated highly with each other (r = 0.535). Parent-interview correlated well with the validated sensitivity questionnaire (r = 0.514). Teacher interviews diverged from parent and child views and may inform about differences in how sensitivity is reflected across contexts. Conclusions: The new Highly Sensitive Child Interview (HSC – I) is a promising tool for a comprehensive and reliable assessment of sensitivity in primary school children and will be of value to educational psychologists following larger-scale validation.
Declarations of Interest: None.
•Highly sensitive children process their environment more deeply.•We present a new multi-informant interview of children's environmental sensitivity.•Parent and child interviews are characterized by good psychometric properties.•Parent and child interviews have a strong agreement between them.•The interview correlates with existing sensitivity measures.
Applying Norm Activation Theory to tourism, this study develops a conceptual model for both tourists and residents starting from their awareness of the negative environmental consequences of tourism, ...addressing ascription of responsibility, environmental sensitivity, place attachment, and environmentally responsible behavior. This research shows that ascription of responsibility mediates the relationship between awareness of negative consequences and that environmentally responsible behavior and environmental sensitivity and place attachment moderate the mediation. Consequently, developing awareness of the consequences of tourism is important to developing strong responsibility ascription and environmentally responsible behavior. The model is split to compare residents and tourists, and systematic differences in the path estimates emerge for the two groups. Furthermore, different types of tourists are compared, revealing that awareness of the negative environmental consequences of tourism and ascription of responsibility are unvaried for new and experienced tourists, but that tourists’ visit length significantly affects both awareness and place attachment.
Modern health worries, as well as environmental annoyance from chemical agents, noise, and electromagnetic exposure are associated with symptom reporting and marked affective-behavioural changes. As ...promotion and protection of health is a primary characteristic of these conditions, it can be expected that they will be related to less risk behaviour (smoking and alcohol consumption) and more health behaviour (physical activity), both cross-sectionally and longitudinally.
Hypotheses were tested in a sample of 2336 individuals participating in T1 and T2 data collection (3 years apart) of the Västerbotten Environmental Health Study, Sweden. Health-related behaviours were assessed using single self-report questions. Smoking was measured on a binary (yes-or-no) scale; frequency of alcohol consumption and physical activity was measured on a 5-point and a 4-point scale, respectively.
Modern health worries showed no cross-sectional association with the three behaviours, whereas annoyance was typically inversely, very weakly, related to smoking and alcohol consumption. Physical activity was significantly positively associated only with chemical annoyance. None of the variables significantly predicted change of behaviours at T2 after controlling for the respective T1 value and demographic variables. Conclusions: Individuals with high levels of modern health worries and annoyance from various environmental agents are not clearly characterized by a healthier lifestyle. Perhaps they focus on the alleviation of their existing symptoms; alternatively, somatic symptom distress decreases their cognitive-affective resources necessary for a long-term life style change.
•Environmental annoyances are related to health concerns and avoidance behaviour.•They show reverse cross-sectional associations with smoking and alcohol consumption.•They are independent from physical activity.•They do not predict risk/health behaviours 3 years later.
In Central Asia, desertification risk is one of the main environmental and socioeconomic issues; thus, monitoring land sensitivity to desertification is an extremely urgent issue. In this study, the ...combination of convergence patterns and desertification risk is advanced from a technical perspective. Furthermore, the environmentally sensitive area index (ESAI) method was first utilized to monitor the risk of desertification in Central Asia. In the study, the spatial and temporal patterns of desertification risk were illustrated from 1992 to 2015 using fourteen indicators, including vegetation, climate, soil and land management quality. The ESAI spatial convergence across administrative subdivisions was explored for three time intervals: 1992–2000, 2000–2008 and 2008–2015. The results indicated that nearly 13.66% of the study area fell into the critical risk of desertification from 1992 to 2008. However, the risk of desertification has improved since 2008, with critical classifications decreasing by 19.70% in 2015. According to the mutation year detection in the ESAI, 25.89% of the pixels with mutation years from 1992 to 2000 were identified, and this value was higher than that during the other time periods. The convergence analysis revealed that the desertification risk for 1992–2000 tended to diverge with a positive convergence coefficient of 0.13 and converge over the 2000–2008 and 2008–2015 time periods with negative convergence coefficients of −0.534 and −0.268, respectively. According to the spatial convergence analysis, we found that the divergence patterns in northern Central Asia from 1992 to 2000 resulted from the effects of the Soviet Union collapse: cropland abandonment in northern Kazakhstan and rangeland abandonment in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and eastern Kazakhstan. In contrast, most areas from 2000 to 2008 experienced increased sensitivity to desertification with the convergence pattern caused by decreased precipitation, especially in northern Central Asia. However, convergence patterns were found in most regions for 2008–2015 with regard to augmented precipitation, which resulted in decreased sensitivity to desertification. Moreover, the low sensitivity areas were more likely to converge under increased precipitation. In this region, the findings of our study suggested that spatial convergence and divergence acted as related predictors of climate change and human activities, respectively. Thus, the ESAI convergence analysis was considered to provide an early warning of potential desertification.
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•Spatial convergence patterns were a relevant predictor of desertification risk.•Divergence patterns from 1992 to 2000 in the northern region resulted from human activities.•Convergence patterns from 2000 to 2015 in most areas were caused by climate change.•Low sensitivity area trends converged under precipitation change.
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