Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Optimal Control Based Stiffness Identification Of An Ankle-Foot Orthosis Using A Predictive Walking Model, Manish Sreenivasa, Matthew Millard, Martin Felis, Katja Mombaur, Sebastian I. Wolf Jan 2017

Optimal Control Based Stiffness Identification Of An Ankle-Foot Orthosis Using A Predictive Walking Model, Manish Sreenivasa, Matthew Millard, Martin Felis, Katja Mombaur, Sebastian I. Wolf

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Predicting the movements, ground reaction forces and neuromuscular activity during gait can be a valuable asset to the clinical rehabilitation community, both to understand pathology, as well as to plan effective intervention. In this work we use an optimal control method to generate predictive simulations of pathological gait in the sagittal plane. We construct a patient-specific model corresponding to a 7-year old child with gait abnormalities and identify the optimal spring characteristics of an ankle-foot orthosis that minimizes muscle effort. Our simulations include the computation of foot-ground reaction forces, as well as the neuromuscular dynamics using computationally efficient muscle torque …


Impact Of Southeast Asian Smoke On Aerosol Properties In Southwest China: First Comparison Of Model Simulations With Satellite And Ground Observations, Jun Zhu, Xiangao Xia, Jun Wang, Jinqiang Zhang, Christine Wiedinmyer, Jenny A. Fisher, Christoph A. Keller Jan 2017

Impact Of Southeast Asian Smoke On Aerosol Properties In Southwest China: First Comparison Of Model Simulations With Satellite And Ground Observations, Jun Zhu, Xiangao Xia, Jun Wang, Jinqiang Zhang, Christine Wiedinmyer, Jenny A. Fisher, Christoph A. Keller

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Smoke aerosols have been observed in Southwest China as a result of long-range transport from surrounding areas in March and April. The processes driving this transport and the resultant impact on regional aerosol optical properties are studied here through a combined use of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS)-Chem chemistry transport model in conjunction with satellite and the first-ever ground-based observations in the Southwest China. The potential biomass burning source regions as well as their respective contributions to aerosol loading in Southwest China are quantified. Compared to Sun photometer observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550nm at eight stations …


Healing At Home: Developing A Model For Ambulatory Alcohol "Detox" In An Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service, Jonathan Brett, Angela Dawson, Rowena G. Ivers, Leanne Lawrence, Sarah Barclay, Kate M. Conigrave Jan 2017

Healing At Home: Developing A Model For Ambulatory Alcohol "Detox" In An Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service, Jonathan Brett, Angela Dawson, Rowena G. Ivers, Leanne Lawrence, Sarah Barclay, Kate M. Conigrave

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

Indigenous Peoples who have been colonized typically face a greater burden of injury, disease, and social disruption associated with alcohol use (Kirmayer, Brass, & Tait, 2000). However, they often also encounter many barriers to accessing treatment for alcohol use disorders (Gray, Stearne, Wilson, & Doyle, 2010). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (here described as Aboriginal Australians) experience 3-8 times the prevalence of alcohol-related illness, injury, and death than the general population (Calabria, Doran, Vos, Shakeshaft, & Hall, 2010). But their barriers to treatment access for alcohol dependence include transport difficulties, fear of discrimination, and lack of culturally secure services …


Conceptual Model Of Diabetes Self-Management For Middle-Aged Population Of Rural Area Of Pakistan, Rashid M. Ansari, Hassan Hosseinzadeh, Mark Fort Harris, Nicholas Arnold Zwar Jan 2017

Conceptual Model Of Diabetes Self-Management For Middle-Aged Population Of Rural Area Of Pakistan, Rashid M. Ansari, Hassan Hosseinzadeh, Mark Fort Harris, Nicholas Arnold Zwar

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Background: The high prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Pakistan has been attributed to high-risk factors such as lack of physical activity, unhealthy food and eating habits among the Pakistani population. Aims: The main aim of this study is to explore the factors that may influence diabetes self-management in the middle-aged population of rural area of Pakistan and to present the potential outcomes. Materials and Methods: The study was guided by the results of systematic reviews of self-management of type 2 diabetes and highlighted five factors which are most important to influence the diabetes self-management. Of particular mention are the …


Transformative Travel As A Sustainable Market Niche For Protected Areas: A New Development, Marketing And Conservation Model, Isabelle D. Wolf, Gillian Ainsworth, Jane Crowley Jan 2017

Transformative Travel As A Sustainable Market Niche For Protected Areas: A New Development, Marketing And Conservation Model, Isabelle D. Wolf, Gillian Ainsworth, Jane Crowley

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Many protected areas worldwide are mandated to provide visitor enjoyment and sustainable heritage conservation but face growing challenges and competition. To satisfy modern aspirational markets, parks must design meaningful experiences delivering long-lasting participant benefits that cultivate visitation rates and a conservation constituency. Transformative travel can deliver such benefits through participants' psycho-physiological transformation but market insights critical for experience development in parks are lacking. Our systematic quantitative review of 126 transformative travel articles provides those insights, linking experiential characteristics, participant traits and motivations to experience outcomes according to five transformative travel typologies pertinent to parks: health and wellness, nature-based physical activity, …


Development Of A Dynamic Model For A Hybrid Photovoltaic Thermal Collector - Solar Air Heater With Fins, Wenke Fan, Georgios Kokogiannakis, Zhenjun Ma, Paul Cooper Jan 2017

Development Of A Dynamic Model For A Hybrid Photovoltaic Thermal Collector - Solar Air Heater With Fins, Wenke Fan, Georgios Kokogiannakis, Zhenjun Ma, Paul Cooper

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

A dynamic model for a hybrid Photovoltaic Thermal Collector-Solar Air Heater (PVT-SAH) with longitudinal fins was developed to enable assessment of the potential of the system to provide high temperature outlet air (60-90 °C) under dynamic boundary conditions. The model description includes the method for discretising the system into a number of control volumes, the energy balance equations for each control volume and the implementation of the numerical solution. Model validation has been successfully undertaken by using empirical verification of model predictions with an experimental facility and by comparing the model outputs with the reference data from the literature. The …


Statistical Shape Model Generation Using Diffeomorphic Surface Registration, Jiaqi Wu, Guangxu Li, Huimin Lu, Hyoung Kim, Philip O. Ogunbona Jan 2017

Statistical Shape Model Generation Using Diffeomorphic Surface Registration, Jiaqi Wu, Guangxu Li, Huimin Lu, Hyoung Kim, Philip O. Ogunbona

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Statistical shape modelling is an efficient and robust method for medical image segmentation in computer-aided diagnosis. The key step in building a statistical shape model is to find corresponding landmarks in each instance of a training set. In this paper, a novel landmark correspondence estimation method that uses edge collapse surface simplification and the sphere registration is proposed. All the landmarks are selected and transformed by spherical conformal mapping from the instances of the training set and the associated correspondence are automatically found on the spheres. We applied our method on 21 cases of 3-D right lung shapes. The results …


Hybrid Model Predictive Control Of A Residential Hvac System With On-Site Thermal Energy Generation And Storage, Massimo Fiorentini, Josh Wall, Zhenjun Ma, Julio H. Braslavsky, Paul Cooper Jan 2017

Hybrid Model Predictive Control Of A Residential Hvac System With On-Site Thermal Energy Generation And Storage, Massimo Fiorentini, Josh Wall, Zhenjun Ma, Julio H. Braslavsky, Paul Cooper

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper describes the development, implementation and experimental investigation of a Hybrid Model Predictive Control (HMPC) strategy to control solar-assisted heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems with on-site thermal energy generation and storage. A comprehensive approach to the thermal energy management of a residential building is presented to optimise the scheduling of the available thermal energy resources to meet a comfort objective. The system has a hybrid nature with both continuous variables and discrete, logic-driven operating modes. The proposed control strategy is organized in two hierarchical levels. At the high-level, an HMPC controller with a 24-h prediction horizon and a …


Model-Based Optimization Of Ground Source Heat Pump Systems, Zhenjun Ma, Lei Xia Jan 2017

Model-Based Optimization Of Ground Source Heat Pump Systems, Zhenjun Ma, Lei Xia

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper presents the development of an optimization strategy for ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems equipped with variable speed pumps in the ground loop system. The optimization problem is formulated using a model-based approach, in which the component models are used to estimate the system performance under various trial settings and an exhaustive search method is used to identify the optimal settings under the search ranges defined. The variable optimized is the outlet water temperature from the ground heat exchangers, which can be used as a set-point to control the operation of the variable speed pumps in the ground …


Aligning Business Strategy With It Strategy From Business Model To Enterprise In Saudi Arabia Public Sector, Abdulaziz Alghazi, Mengxiang Li, Jun Shen, Samuel Fosso Wamba Jan 2017

Aligning Business Strategy With It Strategy From Business Model To Enterprise In Saudi Arabia Public Sector, Abdulaziz Alghazi, Mengxiang Li, Jun Shen, Samuel Fosso Wamba

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Over the last decades researchers seem to have big concerns on the complexity of business-IT alignment with the government organizational strategy goals. The Saudi Arabian (SA) government is one of the world’s governments that has launched the national government strategy for 2030 to all public sectors to enhance performance. This research proposal is aimed at investigating the adoption performance of alignment strategy incorporated by the SA government in order to benefit of IT infrastructure and achieve high performance, quality of service (QoS) and return of investment (ROI). This study will use mixed method design combines both qualitative and quantitative methods …


The Effect Of Imputing Missing Clinical Attribute Values On Training Lung Cancer Survival Prediction Model Performance, Mohamed S. Barakat, Matthew Field, Aditya K. Ghose, David Stirling, Lois C. Holloway, Shalini K. Vinod, Andre Dekker, David Thwaites Jan 2017

The Effect Of Imputing Missing Clinical Attribute Values On Training Lung Cancer Survival Prediction Model Performance, Mohamed S. Barakat, Matthew Field, Aditya K. Ghose, David Stirling, Lois C. Holloway, Shalini K. Vinod, Andre Dekker, David Thwaites

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

According to the estimations of the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research in Cancer, lung cancer is the most common cause of death from cancer worldwide. The last few years have witnessed a rise in the attention given to the use of clinical decision support systems in medicine generally and in cancer in particular. These can predict patients' likelihood of survival based on analysis of and learning from previously treated patients. The datasets that are mined for developing clinical decision support functionality are often incomplete, which adversely impacts the quality of the models developed and the decision …


Motion Optimization And Parameter Identification For A Human And Lower Back Exoskeleton Model, Paul Manns, Manish Sreenivasa, Matthew Millard, Katja Mombaur Jan 2017

Motion Optimization And Parameter Identification For A Human And Lower Back Exoskeleton Model, Paul Manns, Manish Sreenivasa, Matthew Millard, Katja Mombaur

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Designing an exoskeleton to reduce the risk of low-back injury during lifting is challenging. Computational models of the human-robot system coupled with predictive movement simulations can help to simplify this design process. Here, we present a study that models the interaction between a human model actuated by muscles and a lower back exoskeleton. We provide a computational framework for identifying the spring parameters of the exoskeleton using an optimal control approach and forward-dynamics simulations. This is applied to generate dynamically consistent bending and lifting movements in the sagittal plane. Our computations are able to predict motions and forces of the …


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 Jan 2017

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.