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Smart Attendance Monitoring System Using Face Recognition for People with Disabilities (PwDs)
No full textThis research presents an innovative and inclusive solution to automate attendance-taking processes in various settings, particularly educational institutions, by introducing a user-friendly GUI-based smart attendance monitoring system utilising facial recognition technology. Addressing the limitations and inefficiencies of traditional methods like RFID cards or manual signing, the proposed system offers an efficient, accurate, and accessible means of registering individuals' attendance, specifically benefiting students with disabilities. Leveraging advanced models like the pre-trained DNN Caffe model for face detection and the Openface model for face recognition, complemented by an SVM classifier and Tkinter for the User Interface (UI), the system achieves an impressive average accuracy of 92% in diverse contextual parameters, including challenging lighting, occlusion, orientation, and background conditions. Notably, the model can recognise side-oriented faces and multiple faces simultaneously, making it robust for real-world environments. This research project contributes to attendance management practices, highlighting the benefits of the developed system while offering potential solutions to overcome its limitations. It serves as a foundation for further research and opens up possibilities for inclusive attendance tracking in diverse contexts beyond education
A splendid time is guaranteed for all: The recreation of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper album on stage
Get PDFThe Beatles "Sgt Peppers" album, released at the height of the 1967 British "Summer Of Love", combined electronic experimentalism with harmonic adventure, creating sounds that evoked an aural representation of the psychedelic experience, becoming signifiers of the counterculture of the era. The Beatles conventional assignment of instruments also diminished in importance, and together with their "studio as instrument" ethos would make stage performance of those songs by the performers on the record impossible. Paradoxically, the 50th anniversary of the album's release in 2017 included a multitude of live presentations of the album, bringing together performers and audiences to share in a musical conceit and recreate something that never actually happened. The recreation on stage of the album by Alain Pire's Lonely Hearts Club Band provided a unique opportunity for collective practice as research to deconstruct available recordings and studio outtakes, as an auto-ethnographic study to examine and reproduce performative aspects of the recording process, with live mixing establishing the final balance. This chapter considers how recreating important sonic features is entwined with notions of authenticity, staging, performance and entertainment, and discusses the value of practical reconstruction and shared tacit knowledge in the understanding of forgotten techniques
Implementation of the Cognitive Daisy (COG-D) for improving care planning and delivery for residents with dementia in care homes: results of a feasibility randomised controlled trial.
Get PDFBackground: Many residents in care homes for older adults live with dementia. Understanding the unique profiles of cognitive impairments for each resident is important for person-centred care, yet information about specific cognitive problems is limited, and knowledge varies. This study explored the feasibility of implementing the Cognitive Daisy (COG-D) intervention, which provide a visual summary in the shape of a 15-petal flower derived from the scores on a neuropsychological assessment battery, in care homes for older adults.
Methods: A parallel-group feasibility cluster randomised controlled trial (cRCT) was conducted over 24 months. Eight care homes were randomised in a 1:1 ratio to either usual care plus the Cognitive Daisy intervention (COG-D) or usual care (control). Care staff were trained on how to use Cognitive Daisies and/or on how to conduct the COG-D assessments with residents. Cognitive Daisies were displayed in residents’ rooms and included in care plans. COG-D assessments were repeated after 6 months. The primary objective was to explore areas of uncertainty for a future large-scale trial including recruitment rates and intervention implementation and adherence. Secondary objectives were to explore signals of effects in candidate outcome measures for residents and staff, obtained at baseline and 6-and 9-month post-randomisation. A process evaluation explored barriers and facilitators to intervention implementation through care-plan audits (to explore recommendations in response to COG-D assessments), interviews and focus groups with staff, residents and relatives.
Results: Resident recruitment (n = 115) and staff recruitment (n = 99) in 8 care homes exceeded targets (100 and 50, respectively, in 8–10 care homes). Staff training was perceived positively with high completion rates (77.1% and 83.3% for basic and advanced training, respectively). Completion rates were also high for COG-D assessments (75.5% for assessment 1, and 72.5% of these residents completed assessment 2), and COG-D scores remained stable across the two assessment points. No clear signals of effects were found for candidate outcome measures. Number of recommendations in care plans varied across care homes, and interviews/focus groups highlighted several barriers to staff’s use of the Cognitive Daisies in daily practice
Forensic interviews conducted with autistic adults in Japan: A review of the literature and directions for future research
Get PDFThe interviewing of victims, witnesses and suspects are important in helping resolve criminal investigations. In Japan, developments have recently occurred in the training of the police and their public prosecutors in these key tasks. Whilst literature exists on autism in Japan, studies examining police/public prosecutor interviews with autistic adults conducted in that country (and indeed, any other) remain scant. As elsewhere in the world, identification of those who manifest characteristics prevalent on the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) scale, has been found to be problematical to criminal justice professionals. To help address this deficit in understanding, we provide an overview of the literature concerning contemporary understanding of the challenges facing autistic adults as they attempt to reveal their verbal accounts, as well as suggested techniques when interviewing adults on the ASD scale during criminal investigations, offering lessons learned from research conducted around the world that provide potentially promising solutions for Japan
A multi-channel soft biometrics framework for seamless border crossings
Get PDFAs the number of passengers at border entry points such as airports and rail stations increases, so does the demand for seamless, secure, and fast biometric technologies for verification purposes. Although fingerprints are currently useful biometric technologies, they are intrusive and slow down the end-to-end verification process, increasing the chances of tampering. Emerging as an alternative technology, soft biometrics have proven successful for non-intrusive and rapid verification. Soft biometrics consists of a large set of features from three different modalities of the human body, including the face, body, and essential & auxiliary attachments. This paper proposes a multi-channel soft biometrics framework that leverages soft biometrics technology over traditional biometrics. The framework encapsulates four distinct components: ApparelNet, which verifies essential and auxiliary attachments; A-Net, which measures anthropometric soft biometrics; OneDetect, which predicts global soft biometrics; and RSFS, which develops a set of highly relevant and supportive soft biometrics for verification. The proposed framework addresses several critical limitations of existing biometrics technologies during the verification process at border entry points, such as intrusive behavior, response time, biometric tampering, and privacy issues. The proposed multi-channel soft biometrics framework has been evaluated using several benchmark datasets in the field, such as Front-view Gait (FVG), Pedestrian Attribute Recognition At Far Distance (PETA), and Multimedia and Vision (MMV) Pedestrian. Using heterogeneous datasets enables the testing of each framework component or channel against numerous constrained and unconstrained scenarios. The outcome of the envisioned multi-channel soft biometrics framework is presented based on distinct outcomes from each channel, but it remains focused on determining a single cumulative verification score for verification at border control. In addition, this multi-channel soft biometrics framework has extended applications in several fields, including crowd surveillance, the fashion industry, and e-learning
Evaluation of concordance in estimation of excess mortality due to Covid-19 pandemic
Get PDFBackground: The World Health Organization (WHO) kept track of Covid-19 data at country level on a daily basis during the pandemic that included the number of tests, infected cases, and fatalities. This daily record was susceptible to change depending on the time and place and impacted by underreporting. In addition to reporting cases of excess COVID-19-related deaths, the WHO also provided estimates of excess mortality based on mathematical models.
Objective: To evaluate the WHO reported and model-based estimate of excess deaths in order to determine the degree of agreement and universality.
Methodology: Epidemiological data gathered from nine different countries between April 2020 to December 2021 are used in this study. These countries are India, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, UK, Mexico, USA, Brazil and Peru and each of them recorded more than 1.5 million deaths from Covid-19 during these months. Statistical tools including correlation, linear regression, intra-class correlation, and Bland-Altman plots are used to assess the degree of agreement between reported and model-based estimates of excess deaths.
Results: The WHO derived mathematical model for estimating excess deaths due to Covid-19 was found to be appropriate for only four of the nine chosen countries, namely Italy, UK, USA, and Brazil. The other countries showed proportional biases and significantly high regression coefficients.
Conclusion: The study revealed that, for some of the chosen nations, the mathematical model proposed by the WHO is practical and capable of estimating the number of excess deaths brought on by COVID-19. However, the derived approach cannot be applied globally
Understanding factors influencing residential respite service use by carers of people living with dementia using Andersen’s behavioural model of health services use: a qualitative study
Get PDFObjectives: Residential respite (RR) provides a valuable break for family carers, but little known about its offer, take-up or experiences of carers of people living with dementia. This paper aims to further understandings of factors influencing RR use.Design: RR stakeholder workshop and qualitative interviews.Setting: Stakeholder or living in the community in own home.Participants: RR stakeholders (13); family carers with experience of RR, or had declined it, or were planning to use it for the first time (n = 36).Methods: Stakeholders participated in a workshop to discuss provision, models and funding of RR. Family carer interviews focused on expectations, experiences and outcomes of use of RR. Data were analysed thematically and mapped against Andersen’s model of health service use.Results: Identifying need for RR does not necessarily transpire into use. Planning and ease of booking were crucial for carers, but many felt there was little support with this. Systemic factors concerning funding, planning and booking RR act as barriers to its use.Conclusion: Findings highlight how systemic factors influence RR use. Discussing respite need in routine care planning or reviews may support carers and people living with dementia to consider RR, but system changes are needed to address barriers
The role of human factors in aviation ground operation-related accidents/incidents: a human error analysis approach
Get PDFAviation is a complex socio-technical system with interconnected and interdependent subsystems, such as flight operations, air traffic control, aircraft maintenance and ground operations. However, safety and risk research has not paid, thus far, adequate attention to all subsystems, resulting in possibly undetected or underestimated risks. This study focuses on Ground Operations (GO) as a subsystem and analyses the role of human factors in ground operations related accidents and incidents. 87 accident and incident reports (from 2000 to 2020) were analysed in three stages, using the Human Factors Dirty Dozen (HF DD) Model and the Human Factors Analysis and Classification Scheme (HFACS) as a basis for the third stage, a systematic thematic analysis. The findings indicate that lack of situational awareness and failure to follow prescribed procedures are the main causal and contributing factors in GO-related accidents and incidents. Three operational actions were identified as most critical: aircraft pushback/towing, aircraft arrival and departure, and aircraft weight and balance. An agenda for future research and recommendations for industry corrective action are proposed
Understanding the contribution of intellectual disabilities nurses: Paper 3 of 4 - evaluation
Get PDFThe overall objective of this research was to identify intellectual disability nursing interventions and their impact on the health and healthcare of people with intellectual disability. This is part 3 of a 4-part series. In this paper we report the findings from quantitative questions from an online survey of intellectual disability nurses. The objective of this part of the study was to a evaluate intellectual
disability nurses’ confidence in their understanding of the interventions they undertook. Quantitative data was collected using an online survey questionnaire from a voluntary response and snowball sample of 230 participants from 7 countries. Thematic, descriptive statistical, and inferential
statistical analyses were undertaken. The evaluation data suggest and demonstrate a lack of clarity among intellectual disability nurses of the interventions they can effectively undertake. There appears to be correlations between lack of role clarity and the types of employer organisations and
countries. Further work need to be undertaken by nurse leaders ascertain and address this lack of clarity
Epsilon Futuristic Virtual User Environment
Get PDFVirtual Reality (VR) is an essential technology in
today’s internet world. VR has the capability to provide great insight into a particular subject, display features of a device, or even convey an idea through its exceptionally realistic atmosphere. Epsilon represents an advanced skin measurement device. It was initially built as part of a research project by a team at London South Bank University. Currently, Epsilon has been introduced and applied in several global corporations. The futuristic concept of Epsilon was an essential part of upgrading this medical research tool. However, comprehensive training that involves being physically present on campus is essential for Epsilon and requires significant time and money. Consequently, utilising the Virtual User Environment (VUE) to showcase all
features of the futuristic Epsilon device is an essential step to demonstrating its qualities by providing users with the necessary training. This paper outlines the process of creating a web-based, interactive 3D virtual user environment for the futuristic Epsilon device. The VUE is an interactive 3D guide that will display to all learners all the futuristic features of Epsilon. Furthermore, enhancing the functionality of this device is a crucial element of effectively marketing this research instrument globally