City green space can promote people’s health and aesthetic satisfaction; however, most extant research focuses on suburban forests and urban parks. Urban landscape forests have important ecological and aesthetic value for urban environments. This study conducted a visual stimulation to examine the impact of four common spatial element combinations in urban landscape forests on teenagers’ recovery potential and preference. The results indicate that urban landscape forests had positive physiological and psychological effects on adolescents, including decreased blood pressure, improved heart rate, reduced anxiety, and improved recovery ability. Diastolic blood pressure relief performance was better among males than females. In addition, a stepwise linear regression analysis was performed to explore the quantitative relationship between spatial elements and recovery and preference values. The results demonstrate that water elements were a significant predictor in the quantitative relationship between spatial elements in landscape forests and restoration and preference values. Terrain, flower, and shrub elements did not have a significant effect on overall restoration and preference values. This study highlights the intervention value of urban landscape forests in promoting the health and well-being of adolescents, with implications for future planning and design of urban landscape forests.

Emotion plays an important role in physical and mental health. Green space is an environment conducive to physical and mental recovery and influences human emotions through visual and auditory stimulation. Both the visual environment and sound environment of a green space are important factors affecting its quality. Most of the previous relevant studies have focused solely on the visual or sound environment of green spaces and its impacts. This study focused on the combination of vegetation density (VD) and integrated sound environment (ISE) based on neural emotional evaluation criteria. VD was used as the visual variable, with three levels: high (H), moderate (M) and low (L). ISE was used as the sound variable, with four levels: low-decibel natural and low-decibel artificial sounds (LL), low-decibel natural and high-decibel artificial sounds (LH), high-decibel natural and low-decibel artificial sounds (HL) and high-decibel natural and high-decibel artificial sounds (HH). These two variables were combined into 12 unique groups. A total of 360 volunteer college students were recruited and randomly assigned to the 12 groups (N = 30). All 12 groups underwent the same 5 min high-pressure learning task (pretest baseline), followed by a 5 min audio-visual recovery (posttest). Six indicators of neural emotion (engagement, excitement, focus, interest, relaxation and stress) were dynamically measured by an Emotiv EPOC X device during the pretest and posttest. Analysis of covariance was used to determine the main and coupled effects of the variables. (1) VD and ISE have significant effects on human neural emotions. In moderate- and high-VD spaces, artificial sound levels may have a positive effect on excitement. (2) A higher VD is more likely to result in excitatory neural emotion expression. (3) Low-VD and high-VD spaces have a higher degree of visual continuity. Both extremely low and extremely high VDs result in a higher expression of stressful emotions than observed for a moderate VD. (4) High-decibel artificial sounds are more likely to attract attention, possibly because artificial sounds are easier to recognize than natural sounds. However, when both the natural and artificial sounds are low, it is difficult to induce higher tones, and the lower the artificial sound decibel level, the easier it is to relax. Additionally, under the influence of an ISE, attention recovery and stress recovery may be negatively correlated. The results show that an appropriate combination of VD and ISE can improve the health benefits of a green space and thus the well-being of visitors.

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Crosslinked castor oil (CO)‐based waterborne polyurethane was synthesized from CO, polycarbonate diol, isophorone diisocyanate, 2,2‐dimethylol propionic acid, and 2‐amino‐2‐(hydroxymethyl)‐1,3‐propanediol (THAM) using pre‐polymer process. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy were utilized to characterize the above‐synthesized polyurethane. The effect of THAM content was studied on particle size, zeta potential, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, tensile tests, and contact angle measurement. Results showed that, with the increase of THAM content, the particle size increases and the thermal stability increases. Furthermore, as the THAM content increased from 0% to 1.5%, tensile strength increased from 9.5 to 16.3 MPa, contact angle increased from 67.8° to 87.4°, and bibulous rate decreased from 13.4% to 6.1%, the elongation at break dropped from 154.8% to 37.9%, respectively. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 134, 45532.

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