30115 research outputs found
Sort by
Multi-Task Learning with Acoustic Features for Alzheimer's Disease Detection
Get PDFThis study explores the potential of acoustic features extracted from speech recordings for detecting Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD), employing a comprehensive approach that incorporates binary classification (healthy control vs. dementia), multiclass classification (healthy control, mild cognitive impairment, AD), and regression analyses (predicting MMSE scores). Additionally, demographic information of the participants was integrated to enhance the models’ predictive accuracy. Our methodology involved processing each dataset version through a series of machine learning models tailored to each task, starting with a baseline version, followed by hyperparameter optimisation, and finally applying a combination of preprocessing steps (scaling, outlier removal, dimensionality reduction, and skewness correction) to identify the optimal setup for each model.The findings indicate that preprocessing steps significantly improve model performance across all tasks, underscoring the importance of data preparation in machine learning workflows for healthcare applications. Notably, the use of acoustic data alone for AD detection shows promising results, suggesting a pathway toward more generalised approaches that could incorporate recordings in various languages without linguistic dependency. This opens up the possibility for scalable, non-invasive screening tools for AD, leveraging the universal nature of acoustic markers in speech for early detection and monitoring of this condition
Retrogression disguised as ‘Innovation’: The case of the ‘Executive State’ in Greece
Get PDFIt has been argued that the recently established model of the ‘Executive State’ in Greece has the potential to enhance the coordinated and effective action of the administration. The question is: to what end and for whose benefit? From Carl Schmitt’s call for a strong state to save the German economy in 1932 to New Public Management and the new Executive State, there is a thread that connects various theoretical views on the role of the state in dealing with crisis situations. This chapter will discuss elements of innovation in administration in the context of the last decade of socio-political developments in Greece: from the crisis legislation that has been introduced through the form of Memorandums of Understanding, to the legislative innovation of the ‘Executive State’ introduced with Act 4622/2019. These forms of policymaking will be approached in the light of the theoretical work on ‘authoritarian liberalism’. This concept denotes a critical view of the role of modern states in a capitalist economy, which requires a combination of strong central administrations, which are capable of facilitating conditions of profitability for private initiative, and depoliticized processes. Approaching law and administration together with issues of political economy necessitates a focus on the structural function of the administrative state in mediating the contradictions of a capitalist economy. The ‘Executive State’ will therefore be approached as an attempt to institutionalize the model of crisis law-making so as to accommodate the content of law-making, which continues the restriction of political and social rights
An empirical research study on barriers, facilitators, and strategies to promote bystander intervention in intimate image abuse contexts
No full textResearch suggests that support for, and intervention by, people who witness abusive behaviours can reduce the extent and impacts of those behaviours, problematic attitudes, and harms. Research also suggests that promoting bystander intervention when witnessing violence and discrimination may be an effective prevention tool. In this regard, bystanders could play a greater role in preventing intimate image abuse (IIA). This chapter builds on the existing bystander intervention theory and literature base to better understand bystander intervention in relation to IIA. Utilising data from 35 in-person focus groups with 219 participants in four Australian States, this chapter explores barriers and facilitators to bystander intervention in IIA contexts, and how messaging could be improved to promote safe and effective bystander intervention. We found that bystander intervention was affected by perceptions of safety and the potential risks of intervening; gender; perceptions of how the intervention would be perceived by the perpetrator and other bystanders; relationships; the age, physicality, and mental state of the perpetrator; and the presence of others. The chapter concludes by discussing what mechanisms participants identified as potential ways to improve bystander intervention when witnessing IIA
‘I need you to jump out of your seat and go plant more flowers!’ What do primary school children in Lambeth want for their local parks?
Get PDFA blog post about the Parklife project running at a local primary school
Mnemotechnics, Echo and the Discrete Voice
No full textThe chapter reflects on an essay film - "Loving Memory" (available on Vimeo) - that makes a montage with Bernard Stiegler's thinking about the history of relations between anamnesis and hypomnesis, photographs of gravestones made in the image of books, and the recording of Stiegler's own voice in reading for the film, in which the very questions of mnemotechnics in his writings are echoed as a question of, precisely, loving memory
How to do social research with... an exhibition in a university corridor
No full textThis chapter reflects on 10 years of producing a corridor on campus as a passage way of learning and contact zone, for altering and expanding the walls of the academy, through a series of co-curations, which wrap around the academic cycle of learning, rather than pop up and pop off speeded up installations. The chapter takes the reader to the scenes of making
Gender and National Collective Narcissism: Gender Asymmetries and Obstacles to Gender Equality
Get PDFTo elucidate how ingroup identification is implicated in attitudes towards gender equality, it is important to consider that (1) people simultaneously identify with more (a nation) vs. less abstract groups (gender), and (2) gender collective narcissism is the specific aspect of ingroup identification likely to inspire opposite attitudes towards gender equality among men (negative) and women (positive), but (3) national narcissism is likely to align with men’s interests and inspire negative attitudes towards gender equality among men and women. In Study 1, we demonstrate that gender collective narcissism is the same variable among men and women. In Study 2, we show that among women (but not among men) in Poland, gender collective narcissism predicts intentions to engage in normative and non-normative collective action for gender equality. In Study 3, we show that gender collective narcissists among women endorse an egalitarian outlook, whereas gender collective narcissists among men reject it. In contrast, national narcissism predicts refusal to engage in collective action for gender equality and endorsement of an anti-egalitarian outlook among women and among men. Thus, national narcissism and gender collective narcissism among men impair pursuit of gender equality. Gender collective narcissism among women facilitates engagement in collective action for gender equality. Low gender collective narcissism among men and low national narcissism may also facilitate support for gender equality
Music in the eye of the beholder: a pupillometric study on preferred background music, attentional state, and arousal
Get PDFAlthough background music listening during attention-demanding tasks is common, there is little research on how it affects fluctuations in attentional state and how these fluctuations are linked to physiological arousal. The present study built on Kiss and Linnell (2021) - showing a decrease in mind-wandering and increase in task-focus states with background music - to explore the link between attentional state and arousal with and without background music. 39 students between the ages of 19-32 completed a variation of the Psychomotor Vigilance Task in silence and with their self-selected background music (music they would normally listen to during attention-demanding tasks). Objective arousal measures (pretrial pupil diameter and task-evoked pupillary responses) and subjective attentional state measures (mind-wandering, task-focus, and external-distraction states) were collected throughout the task. Results showed a link between attentional state and arousal and indicated that background music increased arousal. Importantly, arousal mediated the effect of music to decrease mind-wandering and increase task-focus attentional states, suggesting that the arousal increase induced by music was behind the changes in attentional states. These findings show, for the first time in the context of background music listening, that there is a link between arousal and attentional state
