Sunday, October 25, 2026

Posture-supportive environments enhance how you think and play in esports

University of Tsukuba

Forward-Leaning and Reclined Sitting During Esports Play — image:
An adjustable chair supports forward-leaning (left) and reclined (right) sitting during a soccer video game experiment. Colored motion-capture overlays show body posture. Forward-leaning sitting encouraged more shots and passes early in play, whereas reclined sitting helped preserve cognitive-task accuracy over three hours of gaming.
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Credit: University of Tsukuba

Tsukuba, Japan—Leaning forward was observed to encourage players to take more shots and make more passes in a soccer video game. Meanwhile, reclining helped them maintain accuracy in a cognitive task after three hours of gaming. These contrasting findings highlight the influence of an environment that supports a player's posture on both their gameplay and cognitive performance over time.

The study, published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports, examined 25 young adult male gamers. Using a height-adjustable desk and a chair with adjustable seat and backrest angles, the researchers compared standing with conventional sitting in 10 participants and forward-leaning with reclined sitting in 15 others. In both conditions, each participant played a soccer video game for up to three hours on separate days and in a randomized order.

Standing provided an early boost. Players felt more energized and, after 15 minutes, showed less interference from distracting information in a cognitive task than before play. They also took more attempts and achieved higher accuracy than during conventional seated play. By one hour, however, players experienced greater fatigue and interference from distractions than in the seated condition. From one hour onward, five of the ten participants felt fatigue or leg discomfort, which caused them to stop standing play.

With forward-leaning seating, players gained some of the benefits of standing while remaining seated. Compared with reclining, forward-leaning seating increased players' vitality and encouraged more shots and passes early in play. At one hour, players also displayed less interference from distractions after forward-leaning play than after reclined play, but after three hours, cognitive-task accuracy in the former condition was lower than at the start of play and lower than in the latter condition. No significant decline from baseline was observed with reclining.

The cognitive task measured players' executive function, that is, the ability to select an appropriate response while resisting distracting information. Specifically, participants identified the direction of a central arrow while ignoring surrounding arrows. All testing took place in the same standardized seated posture regardless of players' actual gaming posture.

Forward-leaning seating offered an active alternative to standing, while reclining showed promise for supporting cognitive endurance.

A practical takeaway here involves matching posture to the task and letting it change over time. Moving between more active and more relaxed postures allows players to balance short-term cognitive agility with sustained accuracy. However, research has yet to determine whether switching actually combines these benefits—and when or how often to switch. Beyond esports, this approach highlights adaptable desk and chair configurations that support cognitive performance and health during digital work and study.

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This work was supported by a contract research grant from OKAMURA CORPORATION to T.M.; the Top Runners in Strategy of Transborder Advanced Researches (TRiSTAR) program, conducted as the Strategic Professional Development Program for Young Researchers by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), to T.M.; and Fusion Oriented Research for disruptive Science and Technology (FOREST) of the Japan Science and Technology Agency to T.M. (JPMJFR205M).

Original Paper

Title of original paper:
Posture-Environment Design Promotes Executive Function and Gaming Performance during Esports Play

Journal:
Computers in Human Behavior Reports

DOI:
10.1016/j.chbr.2026.101325

Correspondence

Associate Professor MATSUI, Takashi
Institute of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba

ASADA, Haruyuki
OKAMURA CORPORATION

Stay Local, Serve Global: Sustainable Hospitality and Tourism through Staycations (Part 2)

New book explores sustainable hospitality, staycation tourism and emerging trends in domestic travel

Bentham Science Publishers

Bentham Books announces the release of Stay Local, Serve Global: Sustainable Hospitality and Tourism through Staycations (Part 2), an interdisciplinary edited volume examining the growing significance of staycations and their role in reshaping tourism, hospitality, consumer behaviour and sustainable destination development.

About the Book

Staycations have evolved beyond a pandemic-era alternative to international travel and are increasingly influencing how people experience leisure, hospitality and tourism closer to home. This edited volume brings together researchers and practitioners from India, Nepal, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and the Philippines to examine staycation tourism as an important and lasting shift in consumer behaviour.

The book explores diverse dimensions of staycation tourism, including rural hospitality, eco-tourism, workcation culture and wellness tourism. It also examines the role of smart technology and social media marketing in shaping guest experiences, while addressing important issues such as women's leadership, government policy and sustainable infrastructure.

By combining theoretical perspectives, empirical data and case studies, the volume provides an interdisciplinary understanding of the economic and cultural significance of domestic tourism. It highlights opportunities for destinations, hospitality businesses, policymakers and entrepreneurs to develop more sustainable and locally focused tourism experiences.

Key Highlights

1. Multi-country contributor base spanning India, Nepal, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and the Philippines
2. Staycations as a lasting shift in consumer behaviour
3. Rural hospitality and eco-tourism
4. Workcation culture and wellness tourism
5. Smart technology and social media marketing in guest experiences
6. Women's leadership and tourism development
7. Government policy and sustainable infrastructure
8. Theory, empirical data and practical case studies

Readership

Researchers, academics and postgraduate students in tourism and hospitality, as well as policymakers, destination marketers, hospitality professionals and tourism entrepreneurs.

About the Editors

Dr. Swati Sharma is an Associate Professor at the Amity Institute of Travel & Tourism, Amity University, Noida. She earned her Ph.D. from Kurukshetra University and has qualified for the UGC NET twice. With 18 years of experience in travel and tourism academia and industry, her areas of interest include MICE tourism, destination image and business travel. She has published extensively and has authored and edited books on tourist behaviour, research methodology and ethical aspects of business in tourism.

Gayle McPherson is a Professor of Events and Cultural Policy and Director of the Centre for Culture, Sport and Events at the University of the West of Scotland. She established the Research Centre in 2018, which is recognized for its work in sports events, culture and festivals. She has secured more than £2 million in grants and consultancy funding and has served as an invited expert to national governments and international agencies. She has published 10 books and more than 75 scholarly outputs and has supervised 15 Ph.D. students to successful completion in the fields of culture, events, sport diplomacy and cultural diplomacy.

Dr. Narendra Kumar is an Assistant Professor at the Amity Institute of Travel & Tourism, Amity University, Noida. With 23 years of experience in the travel and tourism industry and academia, his interests include business travel, tourist behaviour and visitor experiences. He is actively involved in mentoring young graduates and supporting tourism and hospitality start-ups. His previous works include books on tourist behaviour, digital marketing and ethical aspects of business in tourism, along with recent works on bleisure tourism.

Anshul Garg is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events at Taylor’s University, Malaysia. He is a food and beverage expert, hospitality trainer and researcher whose interests include self-service technologies, robotics, artificial intelligence, service quality, hospitality education, human resource management and food waste management. He has published in Scopus- and Web of Science-indexed journals and has contributed book chapters for leading publishers. He has also served as a plenary and keynote speaker and as an editorial and international advisory board member.

Ahmed M. Alhussaini Hamad is a Food Hygiene and Control Lecturer at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Benha University, Egypt. He earned his Ph.D. in 2023 and has 12 years of teaching and research experience in food science, safety, technology and quality. He has published more than 25 research papers and contributes to research projects involving food safety, antimicrobial resistance, biofilm control, meat quality and environmental pollution. He has served as a peer reviewer and book editor for leading academic publishers and has extensive professional experience in food safety and quality auditing, consultancy and the development of food safety policies and procedures.

Book Link: https://bit.ly/4z3fmYY

DOI: 10.2174/97988988171141260101
https://doi.org/10.2174/97988988167281260101

DOI

10.2174/97988988167281260101

Creation of cloud-forming aerosols varies across the Arctic

University of Helsinki

Clouds over Icebergs in Nuup Kangerlua — image:
Inside the making of Arctic clouds. Clouds over icebergs in Nuup Kangerlua, Greenland
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Credit: Samuel Chua

Based on aerosol–cloud interaction, the Arctic region is composed of three distinct ‘regimes’, as demonstrated ina study published in the Nature Geoscience journalOpens in a new tab.

Clouds in the Arctic are among the biggest unanswered questions in climate science, with particular uncertainty about how the minute particles found in the air known as aerosols drive cloud formation and how clouds affect the number of aerosols as the region warms.

One key question is the significance of aerosols originating in atmospheric trace gases. As they grow, these particles can turn into cloud condensation nuclei, meaning particles on whose surface water vapour condenses into droplets.

Three Arctic regimes

According to the study, the Arctic is divided into three regimes: the High Arctic, the Maritime Arctic and the Continental Arctic. The High Arctic stands out from the other two because of its permanent ice cover, which affects aerosol formation.

The study estimates that, as the climate becomes warmer, the number of naturally formed aerosols and cloud condensation nuclei is likely to increase in the ice-covered High Arctic. In contrast, a decline is likely in the open waters of the Maritime Arctic.

In the Continental Arctic, the outcome depends less on global warming than on changes in human-generated air pollution in the coming decades.

Nanoparticles are difficult to measure

Although the relevance of aerosols for cloud formation has been known for decades, knowledge on the formation of the particles themselves has accumulated more slowly. The reason is technical: detecting newly formed nanometre-sized particles is difficult. In addition, using measuring equipment in the demanding conditions of the Arctic poses a challenge.

The recently published study is based on data on the size distribution of aerosols collected over more than 20 years. The data were compiled from eight measuring stations and several research expeditions across the Arctic.

The aerosol data were paired with satellite observations and analysed using methods developed for the study, making it possible to distinguish differences within the Arctic for the first time.

The researchers point out that the study does not yet provide a definitive answer to how aerosols shape the Arctic climate.

“The question is not just about whether the Arctic will get cloudier. You also have to ask where and how much?” says lead author, Doctoral Researcher Samuel Chua of the University of Helsinki.

The study was headed by researchers from the University of Helsinki’s Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR) in cooperation with several research institutes, including the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

“This study really emphasises the importance of continuous, long-term aerosol records at northern locations, such as the Finnish stations in Värriö and Pallas in Lapland,” says Professor Katrianne Lehtipalo from the University of Helsinki and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

“Only with a solid foundation of observational data can we build and use modern analytical tools, including AI-assisted satellite analyses.”

The article Contrasting aerosol–cloud feedbacks across a warming ArcticOpens in a new tab was published in Nature Geosciences.

Journal

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-026-02114-x

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Contrasting aerosol–cloud feedbacks across a warming Arctic

Personalized public transport: Graz University of Technology develops autonomous mobility service

Public transport without a fixed timetable: an autonomous on-demand shuttle service developed at TU Graz integrates vehicle and infrastructure sensors to enable safe, efficient and sustainable mobility

Graz University of Technology

image:
The autonomous on-demand shuttle bus at a charging stop.
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Credit: Seisys

The transport sector is still responsible for around a third of greenhouse gas emissions. Shifting from private transport – particularly vehicles with internal combustion engines – to electric public transport offers a way to reduce emissions. To this end, researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) have teamed up with Chinese partners to develop an on-demand mobility service available 24/7, which can bridge the gap between the convenience of private cars and the efficiency of public transport. At the heart of the project is a battery-powered, self-driving shuttle bus capable of carrying up to 15 people. Instead of running on fixed routes according to a timetable, it can be requested on an on-demand basis and operate flexibly within a wider route network. A test vehicle is already being used successfully on a test route in real-world traffic conditions in China, and demonstrator vehicles are being planned in Austria.

“Every car journey – especially one in a combustion-engine-powered vehicle – that you don’t have to make helps the environment and the climate,” says project manager Cornelia Lex from the Institute of Automotive Engineering at TU Graz. “Through our project, we aim to make it easier for people to give up their private journeys, as the on-demand shuttle offers them an equally flexible and, moreover, sustainable way of getting to their destination.”

Collaborative perception

Central to the safe autonomous control of vehicles is the so-called collaborative perception. The shuttle is equipped with lidar, radar and camera systems and also communicates via 5G with smart infrastructure, such as cameras positioned on challenging or blind spots along the road. This additional connectivity enables the vehicle to monitor its surroundings – including pedestrians and cyclists – in real time, even if they are not detectable by the shuttle’s on-board sensors. In the event of a network failure, the vehicle is equipped with an independent safety feature that brings it to a controlled stop.

Millions of simulation kilometres

The researchers carried out extensive testing of the vehicles’ safety concept in advance using high-fidelity simulations. To this end, real streetscapes, complete with buildings and infrastructure, were precisely recreated in order to virtually validate the algorithms for extreme and everyday situations. As the validation of autonomous vehicles requires the testing of countless scenarios and the simulation of millions of kilometres of driving, virtual testing is the only practical way to provide the necessary safety evidence. The simulations make it possible to test complex algorithms for safe route planning, object detection and the behaviour of other road users under controlled conditions before they are deployed in real-world traffic.

To ensure the vehicles can be deployed as flexibly as possible, the university research partners in China have developed a dynamic optimisation system for routes and charging processes, with the aim of minimising waiting times for passengers and maximising capacity utilisation. “It is precisely high-capacity utilisation that helps to reduce our carbon footprint,” says Cornelia Lex. “If several people travel to their destination in an electric shuttle rather than each driving alone in their own car, there are significant benefits in terms of air quality and road space.”

In addition to TU Graz, Tongji University, Wenzhou University and Seisys from China were involved in the project. The project was funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG.

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

The movement of the buses is monitored centrally.

Credit

Seisys

From wastewater to fertilizer: Unlocking a hidden potassium resource

Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences

image:
Wastewater as a source of sustainable potassium fertilizers. Graphical overview of a scoping review examining 110 publications on potassium recovery from wastewater. The study evaluates suitable wastewater sources, recovery technologies, and fertilizer products using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) framework, Scopus, and citation-network analysis. Key findings highlight ion exchange, electrodialysis, and potassium struvite precipitation as promising approaches, while revealing that most research remains at the laboratory scale, with a strong focus on solid fertilizers.
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Credit: Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

A research team has mapped how wastewater, so far an overlooked source of potassium fertilizer, offers a potential alternative to conventional potash mining. Potassium is indispensable for crop growth, yet fertilizer production depends heavily on mineral deposits concentrated in a few countries. By examining 110 publications, the researchers identified promising ways to recover this nutrient from human urine, livestock waste, industrial effluents, and municipal treatment streams. Their findings show that no single recovery method suits every source: concentrated wastewater favors solid, multi-nutrient fertilizers, while more dilute streams may be better suited to liquid products. The review offers a practical roadmap for turning nutrient losses into agricultural resources.

Farmers rely on potassium to support plant growth, water regulation, and crop resilience. Today, most agricultural potassium comes from mined potash, whose extraction can generate saline waste and damage freshwater ecosystems. Concentrated global supply also exposes fertilizer markets to geopolitical and economic disruption. Wastewater contains recoverable potassium, but wastewater treatment plants typically prioritize nitrogen and phosphorus, leaving much of this nutrient unused. Previous studies have tested precipitation, membranes, and selective separation, yet their findings remain scattered across different waste streams and experimental conditions. Many experiments use artificial solutions rather than the complex mixtures handled by wastewater treatment plants. Given these challenges, a deeper investigation is needed into which wastewater sources, recovery technologies, and fertilizer products can work together in practice.

Researchers Cora Eichholz and Heidrun Steinmetz from the Department of Resource-Efficient Wastewater Treatment at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau in Germany report (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2026.100777) their findings in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology in a paper accepted on October 8, 2026. Examining 110 publications, the review connects potassium concentrations, recovery processes, product forms, and barriers to practical deployment, showing why wastewater composition should guide fertilizer design rather than treating all nutrient-rich effluents as interchangeable sources.

The researchers followed the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) scoping-review framework, searching Scopus and expanding the evidence base through citation-network analysis. They classified 110 publications by wastewater origin, treatment process, technology maturity, and resulting fertilizer. The evidence revealed a field still dominated by laboratory work: 61 studies reported laboratory-scale experiments, compared with 11 at pilot scale, and approximately 34% relied on synthetic solutions. Among 94 publications examining specific technologies, potassium-struvite precipitation appeared in 40, electrodialysis in 17, and ion exchange in 15.

Wastewater composition emerged as a decisive factor. Source-separated urine contained approximately 900–2,440 milligrams of potassium per liter, while liquid digestate contained approximately 1,494–2,440 milligrams per liter. Their nutrient-rich composition favors solid compound fertilizers such as potassium struvite. By contrast, primary-settled municipal wastewater contained about 25 milligrams per liter, suggesting a possible route to liquid or single-nutrient products after suitable concentration and separation.

Promising results also came with limitations. Across individual studies, reported potassium recovery ranged from 15% to 98% for potassium-struvite precipitation and 13% to 95% for electrodialysis, but these figures were obtained under differing conditions and are not directly comparable. Ammonium and sodium can compete with potassium, while membrane fouling, mineral scaling, energy requirements, and uncertain fertilizer purity complicate real-world deployment.

The authors said the central lesson is to start with the fertilizer farmers need, then work backward to the wastewater source and recovery process. A technology that performs well with a clean laboratory mixture may behave very differently when faced with fluctuating nutrient levels and competing ions in real wastewater, they explained. They also emphasized that recovering potassium is only part of the challenge: the final product must be safe, usable, and consistent enough for agricultural markets. In their assessment, sustained pilot testing and careful product-quality evaluation are essential before wastewater-derived potassium fertilizers can become a dependable option.

The review points toward wastewater treatment plants functioning not only as pollution-control facilities but also as nutrient-recovery hubs. Concentrated side streams could support production of solid, multi-nutrient fertilizers, while selected dilute streams might supply liquid potassium formulations for controlled cultivation systems, including hydroponics. However, the authors stress that practical use depends on reliable contaminant screening, especially for heavy metals and organic micropollutants, and compliance with the European Union Fertilising Products Regulation. Future work should test integrated treatment sequences using actual, variable wastewater, assess equipment performance over extended periods, and apply life-cycle assessment to environmental impacts. These steps could establish whether potassium recovery delivers benefits beyond technical feasibility.

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References

DOI

10.1016/j.ese.2026.100777

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ese.2026.100777

Funding information

This research was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Research and Space (BMFTR) through the SUSKULT project (Funding No. 031B1528I) and supported by the Open Access Publication Fund of RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau.

About Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (ISSN 2666-4984) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes significant views and research across the full spectrum of ecology and environmental sciences, such as climate change, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, environment & health, green catalysis/processing for pollution control, and AI-driven environmental engineering. The latest impact factor of ESE is 14.3, according to the Journal Citation ReportsTM 2024.