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Pattern Recognition Spiking Neural Network for Classification of Chinese Characters
Get PDFThe Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) are biologically more
realistic than other types of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), but they have been much less utilised in applications. When comparing the two types of NNs, the SNNs are considered to be of lower latency, more
hardware-friendly and energy-efficient, and suitable for running on portable devices with weak computing performance. In this paper we aim to use an SNN for the task of classifying Chinese character images, and test its
performance. The network utilises inhibitory synapses for the purpose of using unsupervised learning. The learning algorithm is a derivative of the traditional Spike-timing-dependent Plasticity (STDP) learning rule. The input images are first pre-processed by traditional methods (OpenCV).Different hyperparameters configurations are tested reaching an optimal configuration and a classification accuracy rate of 93%
Characteristics of men who seek help from an Irish domestic abuse helpline: the MENCALLHELP study
Get PDFDomestic violence and abuse (DVA) within relationships is a worldwide problem which has detrimental direct and indirect consequences. Indeed, the negative health effects of DVA have been evidenced both nationally and internationally. It is also increasingly acknowledged that men experience DVA, and the gendered experience of DVA by those who identify as men has been explored in recent studies and reviews. However, there is still little known about how male victims of DVA utilise support services, particularly in countries like Ireland where masculinity stereotypes may be particularly powerful. In the present study, an exploratory statistical analysis of 10 months of retrospective contact data from an DVA support service based in Ireland was conducted, which included 3181 contacts made by 1093 individuals. Of this 2507 contacts were made by 715 men. Analyses provided evidence as to who contacts the service, what kinds of DVA are reported, how these behaviours are reported, and what kinds of outcomes result from this contact. Of the 715 men who made contact, they were most likely to be married, living apart from their partner, between the ages of 35 and 54, with an average of 2.1 children. All types of DVA were reported but psychological abuse was the most common, with 69.5% of the 2507 contacts from male victims containing a report of psychological abuse. Contact was made by telephone in most cases (80%) and information was the most common outcome, being provided on 55.2% of contacts. Results provide important information about the utilisation and characteristics of calls received by an Irish DVA support service, which will inform the enhancement of services provided to vulnerable men and their families
A Grid-Connected Optimal Hybrid PV-BES System Sizing for Malaysian Commercial Buildings
Get PDFIn this article, the optimal sizing of hybrid solar photovoltaic and battery energy storage systems is evaluated with respect to rooftop space and feed-in tariff rates. The battery scheduling is performed using a proposed rule-based energy management strategy. The rules are formulated based on the demand limit, PV export power limit, and state of charge of the battery. Furthermore, optimization modeling with initial choices of parameters and constraints in terms of solar photovoltaic and battery energy storage capabilities is developed to minimize the total net present
cost. The hourly values of solar irradiance, air temperature, electrical loads, and electricity rates
are considered the inputs of the optimization process. The optimization results are achieved using particle swarm optimization and validated through an uncertainty analysis. It is observed that an optimal photovoltaic and battery energy storage system can reduce the cost of electricity by 12.33%,including the sale of 5944.029 kWh of electricity to the grid. Furthermore, energy consumption, peak demand, and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 13.71%, 5.85%, and 62.59%, respectively. A comprehensive analysis between the variable and fixed data for the load, energy from PV, batteries, and the grid, and costs demonstrates that the optimal sizing of photovoltaic and battery energy
storage systems with the best mix of energy from PV, batteries, and the grid provides the optimal
solution for the proposed configuration
Anxiety related distractibility deficits: too much smartphone use is not such a smart call
Get PDFSmartphones can increase productivity and ease accessing information, however the possible negative implications for high smartphone use or problematic smartphone use (PSU) are not fully understood. The current study examined anxiety-linked memory and attention deficits to determine whether PSU moderates these relationships. Cross-sectional data from 506 young adults aged 18–29 years (68% female) were analysed in separate regression models to investigate whether PSU (Mobile Phone Problem Use scale) moderated the relationship between state and trait anxiety (State-Cognitive and Trait-Cognitive subscales of State Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety) and everyday memory and attentional failures (the False Triggering, Forgetfulness and Distractibility subscales of the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire). Our results showed that PSU moderated the combined influence of state and trait anxiety for distractibility, such that those who reported higher PSU and higher trait anxiety reported greater errors of distractibility during higher, but not lower state anxiety. However, our predictions for false triggering and forgetfulness were not supported; the only significant finding was a trend for higher trait anxiety to be related to increased failures of false triggering and forgetfulness. Real-world implications of findings are discussed
Neurogenesis manifestations of solid tumor and tracer imaging studies: a narrative review
Get PDFWith the emergence of the scientific research field of tumor microenvironment, the idea that tumor growth and propagation cannot be separated from the tumor microenvironment has become common. The autonomic nervous system is involved in the whole process of growth and development of the organism, and it is undeniable that the tumor microenvironment is equally regulated by both the autonomic nervous system and the immune system. Our research focused on the cancer-nerve crosstalk process and revealed the regulatory mechanisms between the autonomic nervous system and prostate, gastric, pancreatic ductal and breast cancers, mainly elucidating that (1) the release of neurotransmitters and their receptors by autonomic nerves may be important for solid tumor progression, and (2) in combination with the latest targeted small molecule imaging technology, we summarized
the biological pathways related to neurotransmitters as small molecule tracers to track solid tumor progression.
This research focused on combining targeted small molecules and imaging techniques to observe sympathetic and parasympathetic processes that promote or inhibit cancer development, providing new potential therapeutic targets
for prostate, gastric, pancreatic ductal and breast cancers. It also provided cutting-edge research evidence for the
development of biological small molecule drugs and targeted tracers in cancer therapy
Working Together to Support Family Caregivers of Older Nigerian Adults with Chronic Illness at Home
Get PDFIn Nigeria, the burden of caring for older adults with chronic illness at home has a significant impact on family members that are the primary caregivers. This calls for support from relevant stakeholders that can help improve caregiver outcomes. Despite having in place an informal social support network that comprises of family, friends, religious and community groups, it is not enough to relieve the burdens of care. Studies suggest collaborative efforts between relevant stakeholders to support family caregivers. This study therefore aims to explore the perception of policy implementers, healthcare professionals, community, and religious leaders on support for family caregivers of cohabiting older adults with chronic illness in Benue, Middle-belt Nigeria. A convenient purposive sampling technique guided the recruitment process and in-depth semi-structured interviews was used to collect data from fourteen respondents in this qualitative study. Findings revealed that family caregivers needed three types of support: (1) create public awareness to recognise the family caregivers’ role; (2) identification of family caregivers’; (3) enhance access to training services that will help improve home care support. As a result: (1) health and wellbeing of family caregivers’ will be promoted; (2) a data base of family caregivers’ will be generated; (3) an organised system will be in place for stakeholders to assist. Therefore, relevant stakeholders such as community leaders, religious leaders, Healthcare professionals and non-governmental organisations with government taking the lead should work towards creating a programme, committee or department that addresses family caregivers’ immediate needs. This requires each stakeholder playing a specific vital role that focuses on an important holistic change to support family caregivers
Empowering the Blind: AI-Assisted Solutions for Visually Impaired People.
No full textPhysical disability has an influence on individuals everywhere. One of these disabilities that significantly affect a large number of individuals is visual loss. Basic mobility problems, including as crossing the street, reading, driving, and socializing, are commonly a problem for blind people. To go around or complete other daily duties, they typically need on particular assistance devices, including walking sticks. There is still more work to be done in the field of blindness treatment, despite ongoing scientific research. In addition, research has suggested solutions to the problems faced by blind individuals, but these solutions need the necessary technology support. The goal of this research project is to employ smart devices to make daily routines simpler for blind persons of all categories. This smart gadget can recognize faces, different objects, and colors by employing artificial intelligence and picture processing. The notification of the visually impaired individual results from the detecting procedure and might take the form of a vibration or sound alarm. This study also includes a tangible survey that includes local residents who are blind or visually handicapped. In order to program and implement the project, Open CV and Python are both used. This project prototype's effort looks into the methods that are employed for object detection. It also shows how this smart gadget can recognize certain physical objects and how it may alert the user when faced with hurdles. By helping blind individuals with the use of smart technology, this research will, overall, be a helpful contribution to the field of healthcare
Understanding the contribution of intellectual disabilities nurses. Paper 1 of 4 -Scoping literature review
Get PDFThe objective of this scoping review was to summarise evidence on the contribution of intellectual disabilities nurses to improve the health and well-being of children, adults and older people with intellectual disability, now and for the future. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (for Scoping Reviews) (PRISMA-ScR) process and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidance was used. We included 54 publications. We identified 154 interventions undertaken by intellectual disability nurses. We categorised the intellectual disability nursing interventions into three themes: effectuating nursing procedures, enhancing impact of services, and enhancing quality of life.
Findings point to high quality research being essential in determining the impact and effectiveness of intellectual disability nursing interventions across the lifespan. We recommend that a searchable online compendium of intellectual disability nurse interventions be established and regularly updated. This will provide opportunities to engage more effectively in evidence-based practice
DFA-SAT: Dynamic Feature Abstraction with Self-Attention-Based 3D Object Detection for Autonomous Driving
Get PDFAutonomous vehicles (AVs) play a crucial role in enhancing urban mobility within the context of a smarter and more connected urban environment. Three-dimensional object detection in AVs is an essential task for comprehending the driving environment to contribute to their safe use in urban environments. Existing 3D LiDAR object detection systems lose many critical point features during the down-sampling process and neglect the crucial interactions between local features, providing insufficient semantic information and leading to subpar detection performance. We propose a dynamic feature abstraction with self-attention (DFA-SAT), which utilizes self-attention to learn semantic features with contextual information by incorporating neighboring data and focusing on vital geometric details. DFA-SAT comprises four modules: object-based down-sampling (OBDS), semantic and contextual feature extraction (SCFE), multi-level feature re-weighting (MLFR), and local and global features aggregation (LGFA). The OBDS module preserves the maximum number of semantic foreground points along with their spatial information. SCFE learns rich semantic and contextual information with respect to spatial dependencies, refining the point features. MLFR decodes all the point features using a channel-wise multi-layered transformer approach. LGFA combines local features with decoding weights for global features using matrix product keys and query embeddings to learn spatial information across each channel. Extensive experiments using the KITTI dataset demonstrate significant improvements over the mainstream methods SECOND and PointPillars, improving the mean average precision (AP) by 6.86% and 6.43%, respectively, on the KITTI test dataset. DFA-SAT yields better and more stable performance for medium and long distances with a limited impact on real-time performance and model parameters, ensuring a transformative shift akin to when automobiles replaced conventional transportation in cities