A smart vision sensor for detecting risk factors of a toddler's fall in a home environment

This paper presents a smart vision sensor for detecting risk factors of a toddler's fall in an indoor home environment assisting parents' supervision to prevent fall injuries. We identified the risk factors by analyzing real fall injury stories and referring to a related organization's suggestions to prevent falls. In order to detect the risk factors using computer vision, two major image processing methods, clutter detection and toddler tracking, were studied with using only one commercial web-camera. For practical purposes, there is no need for a toddler to wear any sensors or markers. The algorithms for detection have been developed, implemented and tested

Preventing child pedestrian injuries and deaths arising from vehicle-child accidents in domestic driveways: An action research project

This research was a three-fold investigation into the viability of previous recommendations for vehicle-related child driveway accident safety . Firstly, the groups most at risk of these types of accidents were determined in order that they could be specifically considered when reviewing the practicalities of previous recommendations . Secondly, the feasibility of previous recommendations was systematically examined through both an extensive literature review and key and expert informant interviews . Based on these, the likelihood of implementation of previous safety recommendations for the identified high risk groups was ascertained, providing a basis on which to abandon some previous recommendations, remove obstacles to others which would enhance practicability and generate further recommendations that would be tenable for the at-risk groups in particular. The key findings of this research were, foremost, that there is a noticeable lack of specific reference to vehicle-related child driveway accidents in any legislation or safety guidelines, as well as a shortage of official data that deal expressly with this type of accident. Further, it was found that the major obstacles to the implementation of previous recommendations - particularly the environmental ones - were cost, autonomy, and spatial constraints. While several recommendations were abandoned due to factors such as unproven or dubious effectiveness and/or prohibitive cost, it was found that the most viable recommendations were characterised by their relatively low cost for the families involved. These recommendations were typically environmental or educational in nature. Thus, the recommendations in this report include some moderate regulatory changes to facilitate greater uptake of environmental and behaviour-modifying recommendations as well as practical ideas that all need to be part of a cohesive campaign to address the issue of vehicle-related child driveway accidents in New Zealand

2009, UMaine News Press Releases

This is a catalog of press releases put out by the University of Maine Division of Marketing and Communications between January 2, 2009 and December 30, 2009

Retrieval-, Distributed-, and Interleaved Practice in the Classroom:A Systematic Review

Three of the most effective learning strategies identified are retrieval practice, distributed practice, and interleaved practice, also referred to as desirable difficulties. However, it is yet unknown to what extent these three practices foster learning in primary and secondary education classrooms (as opposed to the laboratory and/or tertiary education classrooms, where most research is conducted) and whether these strategies affect different students differently. To address these gaps, we conducted a systematic review. Initial and detailed screening of 869 documents found in a threefold search resulted in a pool of 29 journal articles published from 2006 through June 2020. Seventy-five effect sizes nested in 47 experiments nested in 29 documents were included in the review. Retrieval- and interleaved practice appeared to benefit students’ learning outcomes quite consistently; distributed practice less so. Furthermore, only cognitive Student*Task characteristics (i.e., features of the student’s cognition regarding the task, such as initial success) appeared to be significant moderators. We conclude that future research further conceptualising and operationalising initial effort is required, as is a differentiated approach to implementing desirable difficulties

Designing technology for young children: guidelines grounded in a literature investigation on child development and children's technology

This thesis is about the design of technology for children from five to eight years of age. The majority of available guidelines and principles for design or evaluation of technology support the design of products aimed at adults. The limited guidelines available for design of young children's technology do not focus sufficiently on age-related requirements or they offer high-level advice that is only useful in the planning stages of design. Working from the assumption that knowledge available in the literature provides sufficient information to support this process, my aim with this study was to demonstrate how a dependable and useful set of guidelines for the design of technology for children aged five to eight years could be derived from an existing body of knowledge. Development of the guidelines firstly involved research into the psychological theories of children's development to identify those elements of development and the characteristics of children that may have bearing on children's use of technology. Secondly, the literature on children's development of specific skills such as literacy and mathematics was investigated. The available literature on young children's use of technology was studied next and, finally, the applicability of existing design guidelines and principles for children's products evaluated. Throughout this literature investigation the researcher gathered design-relevant factors that could potentially become design guidelines. Using qualitative data analysis techniques, more than five hundred such data elements were systematically coded, processed, analysed and categorised. The result is three hundred and fifty guidelines organised into a framework of six categories and twenty-six subcategories that integrates the relevant theoretical fields and provides practical support for designers. To demonstrate the credibility and usefulness of the emerging guidelines they were used to do an evaluation and re-design of an existing product aimed at the target group. The thesis reports in detail on the different stages of the research, and systematically takes the reader through the process of deriving guidelines from existing theory and research findings, and integrating them into a useful framework.School of ComputingPhD. (Computer Science