Digital Commons Network^™

Computational Thinking And Coding Subject In Primary Schools: Methodological Approach Based On Alternative Cooperative And Individual Learning Cycles, Elena Vlahu-Gjorgievska, Maja Videnovik, Vladimir Trajkovik

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Many countries have included or consider to include computational thinking in their educational curricula. This creates the need for a carefully planned educational approach involving different stakeholders as policymakers, educators and students. These stakeholders are the main carriers of the educational reforms thus their perspectives create various challenges and risks. In this paper, we propose a pedagogical approach of teaching coding through games and gamification of the learning process. The flipped classroom is used in order to address the shortcomings in teacher training and deliver learning outcomes in student-centred, fun and engaging way. Proposed solution includes a spiral curriculum implemented …

Changes In Gait And Plantar Foot Loading Upon Using Vibrotactile Wearable Biofeedback System In Patients With Stroke, Christina Ma, Yong-Ping Zheng, Winson Lee

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background: Patients with stroke walk with excessive foot inversion at the affected side, which may disturb their balance and gait. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effects of instant biofeedback of plantar force at the medial and lateral forefoot regions on gait and plantar foot loading in patients with stroke. Methods: A total of eight patients with hemiplegic stroke, who had flexible rearfoot varus deformity at the affected side, participated in this study. A vibrotactile biofeedback system was developed and evaluated. It analyzed forces at the medial and lateral forefeet, and instantly provided vibration clues when the plantar force …

Static Force Dependency Of Bone Conduction Transducer As Sensory Feedback For Stump-Socket Based Prosthesis, Raphael Mayer, Alireza Mohammadi, Gursel Alici, Peter Choong, Denny Oetomo

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The dependency of a novel sensory feedback for stump-socket based prosthesis on the static force is presented using a bone conduction transducer as feedback source. The stimulation was induced onto the bony landmarks of the elbow, specifically the Ulna and presented in an interval halving method. The perception threshold in the range of tactile and auditory perception at three different force levels has been tested. The inter subject variability is bigger than the intra subject variation. The small static force variation suggests a similar approach as in bone conduction hearing aids and therefore a static force bigger than 6N should …

Mhealth Applications: A Tool For Behaviour Change In Weight Management, Elena Vlahu-Gjorgievska, Suparna Mulakaparambil Unnikrishnan, Khin Than Win

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Obesity has become a public concern all over the world and weight management is of interest to consumers. Heavy intake of food and lack of exercise are the foremost factors for obese condition. Self-management programs are essential for the prevention and treatment of obesity and weight management. Mobile health (m-Health) applications for weight management can be a useful tool in monitoring behaviour and self-management programs, thus engaging consumers in lifestyle changes to mitigate the risk of obesity. The aim of this review is to identify and compare the features supported in mHealth applications for weight management.

Thermal Comfort For Occupants Of Nursing Homes: A Field Study, Federico Tartarini, Paul Cooper, Richard Fleming

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The primary aim of this research was to assess the quality of the thermal environment of six Australian nursing homes, and to understand and quantify the impacts of the indoor thermal environment on the perceptions and comfort of staff, residents and other occupants. The impact of the thermal environment on perceptions and comfort of building occupants of six nursing homes was determined through: 1) a long-term building evaluation survey (staff members only); and 2) a point-in-time thermal comfort study, involving 322 residents and 187 non-residents. In addition, a combination of spot-measurements and long-term monitoring of indoor air temperatures was used …

Persuasive System Features In Computer-Mediated Lifestyle Modification Interventions For Physical Activity, Khin Than Win, Madeleine R H Roberts, Harri Oinas-Kukkonen

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Objective: Increasing physical activity has been identified as one of the most important factors in lifestyle modification. Previous studies have reported the effectiveness of using the Internet in motivating behavioral modifications of physical activities. The aim of this study is to identify the persuasive system features most frequently used in computer-mediated physical activities in the current literature.

Materials and Methods: In this review, intervention studies were identified through a structured computerized search of PubMed, PsychInfo, and Web of Science. The results of the search were analyzed using the persuasive systems design (PSD) features identified by Oinas-Kukkonen and Harjumaa …

Effect Of Passive Finger Exercises On Grip Strength And The Ability To Perform Activities Of Daily Living For Older People With Dementia: A 12-Week Randomized Controlled Trial, Bingbing Liu, Xueping Chen, Yang Li, Hui Liu, Shasha Guo, Ping Yu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background: Dementia adds burden to society. As it is not curable, physical exercise activities are optimal to improve the physical strength and quality-of-life of people with dementia.

Aim: Design, implementation, and examination of a set of passive finger exercises and their effects on improving grip strength and activities of daily living (ADL) for older people with dementia.

Methods: Forty older people with dementia were recruited and randomly allocated into an experimental group and a control group, each with 20 people. The control group received routine nursing care. In addition to this, the experimental group received 25-minutes of …

A Mann-Whitney Type Effect Measure Of Interaction For Factorial Designs, Jan De Neve, Olivier Thas

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

We propose a measure for interaction for factorial designs that is formulated in terms of a probability similar to the effect size of the Mann-Whitney test. It is shown how asymptotic confidence intervals can be obtained for the effect size and how a statistical test can be constructed. We further show how the test is related to the test proposed by Bhapkar and Gore [Sankhya A, 36:261-272 (1974)]. The results of a simulation study indicate that the test has good power properties and illustrate when the asymptotic approximations are adequate. The effect size is demonstrated on an example dataset.

The Impact Of The Mode Of Survey Administration On Estimates Of Daily Smoking For Mobile Phone Only Users, Joseph Hanna, Damien V. Cordery, David G. Steel, Walter R. Davis, Timothy Harrold

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Background: Over the past decade, there have been substantial changes in landline and mobile phone ownership, with a substantial increase in the proportion of mobile-only households. Estimates of daily smoking rates for the mobile phone only (MPO) population have been found to be substantially higher than the rest of the population and telephone surveys that use a dual sampling frame (landline and mobile phones) are now considered best practice. Smoking is seen as an undesirable behaviour; measuring such behaviours using an interviewer may lead to lower estimates when using telephone based surveys compared to self-administered approaches. This study aims to …

Automatic Affect Perception Based On Body Gait And Posture: A Survey, Benjamin Stephens-Fripp, Fazel Naghdy, David Stirling, Golshah Naghdy

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

There has been a growing interest in machine-based recognition of emotions from body gait and its combination with other modalities. In order to highlight the major trends and state of the art in this area, the literature dealing with machine-based human emotion perception through gait and posture is explored. Initially the effectiveness of human intellect and intuition in perceiving emotions in a range of cultures is examined. Subsequently, major studies in machine-based affect recognition are reviewed and their performance is compared. The survey concludes by critically analysing some of the issues raised in affect recognition using gait and posture, and …

Game-Based Interventions And Their Impact On Dementia: A Narrative Review, Jiaying Zheng, Xueping Chen, Ping Yu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Objective: The aim of this review was to examine the efficacy of game-based interventions for people with dementia. Methods: Seven studies that met the inclusion criteria were found in four databases. Their interventions and key findings were analysed and synthesised. Results: Game-based interventions for people with dementia are showing promise for improving cognition, coordination and behavioural and psychological symptoms. The generalisability of the findings is limited by weak methodology and small sample size. Conclusions: Game-based interventions can improve cognition, coordination and behavioural and psychological symptoms for people with dementia. Future research should include methodological improvement and practice guideline development.

A Consumer-Oriented Decision-Making Approach For Selecting The Cloud Storage Service: From Paprika Perspective, Salim Al Isma'ili, Mengxiang Li, Jun Shen, Qiang He

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

In recent years there is a growth in the number of companies that offers cloud storage solutions. From user’s perspectives, it is becoming a challenging task to choose which cloud storage to use and from whom, based on user’s needs. In this context, no framework can evaluate the decision criteria for selection of cloud storage services. This paper proposes a solution to this problem by identifying the cloud storage criteria and introduces the PAPRIKA approach for measuring the criteria of cloud storage based on client’s preference. This work demonstrated the applicability of the framework (decision model) by testing it with …

Breast Cancer Diagnosis In Dce-Mri Using Mixture Ensemble Of Convolutional Neural Networks, Reza Rasti, Mohammad Teshnehlab, Son Lam Phung

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

This work addresses a novel computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system in breast dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI). The CAD system is designed based on a mixture ensemble of convolutional neural networks (ME-CNN) to discriminate between benign and malignant breast tumors. The ME-CNN is a modular and image-based ensemble, which can stochastically partition the high-dimensional image space through simultaneous and competitive learning of its modules. The proposed system was assessed on our database of 112 DCE-MRI studies including solid breast masses, using a wide range of classification measures. The ME-CNN model composed of three CNN experts and one convolutional gating network …

Estimating Cross-Classified Population Counts Of Multidimensional Tables: An Application To Regional Australia To Obtain Pseudo-Census Counts, Thomas F. Suesse, Mohammad-Reza Namazi-Rad, Payam Mokhtarian, Johan Barthelemy

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Estimating population counts for multidimensional tables based on a representative sample subject to known marginal population counts is not only important in survey sampling but is also an integral part of standard methods for simulating area-specific synthetic populations. In this article several estimation methods are reviewed, with particular focus on the iterative proportional fitting procedure and the maximum likelihood method. The performance of these methods is investigated in a simulation study for multidimensional tables, as previous studies are limited to 2 by 2 tables. The data are generated under random sampling but also under misspecification models, for which sample and …

Patients' Acceptance Of Smartphone Health Technology For Chronic Disease Management: A Theoretical Model And Empirical Test, Kaili Dou, Ping Yu, Ning Deng, Fang Liu, Yingping Guan, Zhenye Li, Yumeng Ji, Ningkai Du, Xudong Lu, Huilong Duan

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

No abstract provided.

A Study Of User Perception Of The Quality Of Video Content Rendered Inside A 3-D Virtual Environment, Pedram Pourashraf, Farzad Safaei, Daniel R. Franklin

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

This paper reports on the result of a user study to assess the impact of resolution and frame rate of video on the quality of experience of the users, when the video is rendered inside a 3-D virtual space, and consequently viewed from arbitrary perspectives. A mathematical model for video rate is presented that expresses the total rate as the product of separate functions of spatial and temporal resolutions. Results from the user study are combined with the model to predict the rate parameters which will result in perceptually acceptable quality using the 3-D features of the virtual environment. The …

Something Wonderful In My Back Yard: The Social Impetus For Group Self- Building, Emma Elizabeth Heffernan, Pieter De Wilde

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The housing crisis in the United Kingdom, as Barker (2004) identifies, has become shorthand for a chronic lack of suitable and affordable housing - in both the home ownership and rental sectors - and the undersupply and diminishment of social housing stock (Barker, 2004; Jefferys et al., 2014). What has also become clear is that the mainstream housebuilding sector - speculative housing development - has not risen to the task of ameliorating this crisis. Consequently, there is increasing marginalisation within the housing and land economy, with many people finding that their housing needs cannot be met by the sector. This …

Inference For Social Network Models From Egocentrically-Sampled Data, With Application To Understanding Persistent Racial Disparities In Hiv Prevalence In The Us, Pavel N. Krivitsky, Martina Morris

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Egocentric network sampling observes the network of interest from the point of view of a set of sampled actors, who provide information about themselves and anonymized information on their network neighbors. In survey research, this is often the most practical, and sometimes the only, way to observe certain classes of networks, with the sexual networks that underlie HIV transmission being the archetypal case. Although methods exist for recovering some descriptive network features, there is no rigorous and practical statistical foundation for estimation and inference for network models from such data.We identify a subclass of exponential-family random graph models (ERGMs) amenable …

Opml: A One-Pass Closed-Form Solution For Online Metric Learning, Wenbin Li, Yang Gao, Lei Wang, Luping Zhou, Jing Huo, Yinghuan Shi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

To achieve a low computational cost when performing online metric learning for large-scale data, we present a one-pass closed-form solution namely OPML in this paper. Typically, the proposed OPML first adopts a one-pass triplet construction strategy, which aims to use only a very small number of triplets to approximate the representation ability of whole original triplets obtained by batch-manner methods. Then, OPML employs a closed-form solution to update the metric for new coming samples, which leads to a low space (i.e., O(d)) and time (i.e., O(d 2)) complexity, where d is the feature dimensionality. In addition, an extension of OPML …

Ethics And Brain Implants In The Military [Commentary], Marcus R. Wigan

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Definitions are a key factor when discussing the ethics of brain implants in the military. There is a world of difference between a permanent embedded rewritable chip and an active RFID-managed interface to a nervous system.

Coupling A Thermal Comfort Model With Building Simulation For User Comfort And Energy Efficiency, Katharina Boudier, Massimo Fiorentini, Sabine Hoffmann, Raghuram Kalyanam, Georgios Kokogiannakis

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

This paper describes a methodology for coupling an advanced model of the thermo-regulatory system of the human body that describes its physiological processes, a comfort model that evaluates thermal sensation and comfort, and the ESP-r building simulation software that computes the transient thermal response of a building model. The objective of this study was to utilise the physiology and comfort models to dynamically modify the heating and cooling temperature set points of a zone controller in ESP-r, in accordance with the computed human thermal sensation and achieve realtime thermal comfort management. The comunication between the software is managed by the …

Table Tennis Triples, A New Team Sport - Theory, Equipment, Rules, Strategies And Future Possibilities Of A New Form Of Table Tennis, Guenter Arndt

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Most existing table tennis teams never play each other as a team. "Triples" for the first time allows three-person teams to play "serious" table tennis. The book explains its rationale, equipment and its manufacture, its rules, and its integration into existing table tennis events. It strives to enhance the already popular image of table tennis by adding a "true team sport" to its repertoire, thereby increasing its player, spectator and media appeal. Part 1 establishes the theoretical basis of Triples and provides detailed information on the design and manufacture of its hardware. In analysing its geometrical and physical aspects, it …