Age estimation using disconnectedness features in handwriting

© 2019 IEEE. Real-time applications of handwriting analysis have increased drastically in the fields of forensic and information security because of accurate cues. One of such applications is human age estimation based on handwriting for the purpose of immigrant checking. In this paper, we have proposed a new method for age estimation using handwriting analysis using Hu invariant moments and disconnectedness features. To make the proposed method robust to both ruled and un-ruled documents, we propose to explore intersection point detection in Canny edge images of each input document, which results in text components. For each text component pair, we propose Hu invariant moments for extracting disconnectedness features, which in fact measure multi-shape components based on distance, shape and mutual position analysis of components. Furthermore, iterative k-means clustering is proposed for the classification of different age groups. Experimental results on our dataset and some standard datasets, namely, IAM and KHATT, show that the proposed method is effective and outperforms the state-of-the-art methods

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThe purpose of this constructivist grounded theory study was to identify and examine challenges and strategies used by people with parkinsonism to maintain identity. These concerns were explored within the context of daily life, vital relationships, and familiar roles. The setting was three Midwestern states during historic winter weather conditions (2013-2014). Illness descriptions were obtained through medication logs and two scales: Hoehn and Yahr staging and activities of daily living. Qualitative data consisted of 62 in-depth interviews, photos, videos, fieldnotes, and memos. Twenty-five volunteers (10 female/15 male; ages 40-95) with self-reported Parkinson disease participated. Range of disease duration was 3 months to 30 years. Disease staging: I (n = 0), II (n = 0), III (n = 14), IV (n = 8), and V (n = 3). Stage III participants completed daily living activities at an independence level of 60 to 80%, while stage V participants ranged from 20 to 30%. Twenty-one participants used carbidopa-levodopa. Analytic coding procedures generated the theory of Preserving self. This clinically logical 5-staged theory represents social and psychological processes for maintaining identity while living with a life-limiting illness. The stages and transitions are: (1) Making sense of symptoms describes noticing and taking action prediagnosis. Transition: Finding out the diagnosis was shocking, but time-limited. (2) Turning points confronted abilities with demanding tasks and strong emotions. Transition: Unsettling reminders of losses were perpetual. (3) Dilemmas of identity are the difficulties relinquishing comfortable self-attributes. Transition: Sifting and sorting is a time of grieving, letting go, and considering new self-identities. (4) Reconnecting the self synthesizes former and current identities. Transition: Balancing risks and rewards compares a lost past with possible futures. (5) Envisioning a future demonstrates planning pragmatically with tunnel vision. iv Creative methods were developed for maintaining independence; abilities were frequently overestimated. An interesting finding was the use of self-adjusted carbidopa-levodopa beginning during Sifting and sorting continuing through Reconnecting the self. Medication was used as a social prosthesis to function normally, maintain valued relationships, and roles. People with parkinsonisim desperately seek normalcy. Recommendations include medication instruction to bridge wearing-off effects and sensory integrative activities as a self-reconnecting technique

An investigation of cooperative consciousness-raising as an innovative teaching practice, and of reactions to its introduction into a high school

The language pedagogy literature stresses the importance of the quality of second/foreign language teaching/learning in learners\u27 acquisition, development of communicative competence, or both. The change literature equally emphasizes the importance of the quality of innovation in change audience’s resolution to reconceptualize current practices and espouse the new practice being advocated. Both literatures underline the need to use multiple research strategies in order to depict the product and process of learning and/or shifting experiences. To contribute to the educational literature in these areas, the present research incorporated two different but interrelated studies. Study One utilized both between- and within-method approaches (Denzin, 1978) to investigate the (in)effectiveness of cooperative consciousness-raising, an innovative teaching practice, to affect English as a foreign language learners’ pragmatic competence in the target language as compared to a traditional method of English instruction. This (in)effectiveness was measured by means of researcher-designed two-part English Achievement Test and five-point-Likert type Student and Teacher Attitude Questionnaire instruments. Results of t test analysis of quantitative data obtained from the responses of 28 out of the initial 40 students in the cooperative consciousness-raising group and 27 out of the 40 initial students in the traditional group indicated that the former scored significantly better than the latter in the three American English requestive behavior abilities being assessed. Qualitative data obtained support the quantitative findings. Results of t test analysis obtained from the ratings of 14 Student Questionnaire items by 18 available students in the experimental group and of 15 questionnaire items by their English teacher showed that students* attitudes toward the cooperative consciousness-raising teaching practice, compared to the traditional method of instruction, were significantly more positive. Similarly, statistical analysis results obtained from teacher ratings of 7 Teacher Questionnaire items indicated that the English teacher’s attitude toward the new practice was more positive than toward her traditional teaching method. Qualitative data obtained from rating justifications indicated that these informants’ more favorable attitudes toward the innovative teaching practice were connected to four interrelated categories including cognitive, affective, social, and general. An investigation of school personnel’s reactions to the introduction of the cooperative consciousness-raising teaching practice in Study Two revealed that their resolution to embrace it was not solely informed by its technical effectiveness. The four interconnected major themes that emerged from both outsider and insider perspectives of data analyses and interpretations indicated the critical role played by a complex interplay among their social and personal reality systems in decision making, shifting change process, or both. It was concluded that the cooperative consciousness-raising teaching practice is more technically-sound than the traditional method of instruction. The innovation technical rationale is essential to arouse change audience’s concerns about their teaching practices and help them engage in the innovation adoption. Equally critical is its social soundness in order to better assist individual targets o f change in their personal growth

Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and their Experiences of School Belonging: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Background Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) are considered a vulnerable population of learners. Their complex neurodevelopmental profiles and ‘invisible’ disabilities can present as challenging for educators and may curtail full and meaningful participation in school life. Despite the high numbers of children with FASD believed to be within the British education system, knowledge and understanding amongst UK professionals remains scant. What is more, there exists a dearth of research which has given pupils with FASD a voice to share their school experiences. Methods This qualitative research study explored the lived experiences of school belonging from the perspectives of four children (aged 7-10 years) with a known diagnosis of FASD. Data was collected using remote semi-structured interviews and sought to explore what helps children with FASD to belong in UK mainstream primary schools. Participants were invited to represent their views using drawing and modelling. Discrepancies between their perceived sense of school belonging and preferred sense of school belonging were explored. The data was analysed using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach. Results All four of the children with FASD felt like they belonged in their respective schools and told of factors which facilitated their positive belongingness experiences. These were grouped into four superordinate themes: School Ethos and Sense of Community, Relatedness to Peers, Staff Attributes and Teaching Practices, and Myself as a Learner. The findings provide support for Allen et al’s. (2016) Socio-Ecological Framework of School Belonging. Conclusions It is anticipated that this research will go some way towards raising the profile of FASD amongst frontline educational professionals in the UK. Given children and young people with FASD are vulnerable to disrupted schooling, strengthening their belongingness to school may be one way in which to promote positive and inclusive school experiences and mimimise the risk of secondary disabilities

Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice

Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice introduces instructional strategies linked to the most current research-supported practices in the field of literacy. The book includes chapters related to scientifically-based literacy research, early literacy development, literacy assessment, digital age influences on children’s literature, literacy development in underserved student groups, secondary literacy instructional strategies, literacy and modern language, and critical discourse analysis. Chapters are written by authors with expertise in both college teaching and the delivery of research-supported literacy practices in schools. The book features detailed explanations of a wide variety of literacy strategies that can be implemented by both beginning and expert practitioners. Readers will gain knowledge about topics frequently covered in college literacy courses, along with guided practice for applying this knowledge in their future or current classrooms. The book’s success-oriented framework helps guide educators toward improving their own practices and is designed to foster the literacy development of students of all ages.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/oer-ost/1009/thumbnail.jp

Correspondents theory 1800/2000: philosophical reflections upon epistolary technics and praxis in the analogue and digital

When we talk about things like the 'lost art of letter-writing' or the 'digital communications revolution,' what do we mean? What do we lose and what do we gain as we move towards digital ways of being in the world? Critically engaging with many of the canonical writers in the philosophy of technology (Martin Heidegger, Albert Borgmann, Don Ihde, Bruno Latour, Hubert Dreyfus and Jürgen Habermas, for example), and following what has been termed the 'empirical turn' in that discipline, this thesis answers such questions by means of a philosophical, comparative study of epistolary technics and praxis in the early nineteenth and 21st centuries, making use of Romantic era archival letters and related materials to compare and contrast our own, Internet-enabled experience of communicating over distance. In so doing, it seeks to contribute towards our understanding of the ways in which information and communication technologies influence humanity by taking a long-view of many of the more radical claims (whether optimistic or pessimistic) for the ways in which the Internet effects change in culture, society and self. The thesis is structured thematically, with chapters examining the experience of distance and presence in these two periods, the potential for meaningful engagements by way of communicative media, the technological reconfiguration of social networks, and shifts in the public/private distinction. In its conclusions it is broadly sympathetic to the somewhat pessimistic positions of Heidegger and Borgmann, finding evidence and supplying argument to support the notion that the Internet does in some circumstances serve to diminish our meaningful involvements with the world and each other. It is, however, critical of many of the more extreme arguments for the substantive impact of the Internet, which very often lean too heavily towards naive technological determinism, neglect the social shaping of technology, overemphasise the radical novelty of the Internet, or simply deny or downplay many of its undoubted benefits

Cruiser and PhoTable: Exploring Tabletop User Interface Software for Digital Photograph Sharing and Story Capture

Digital photography has not only changed the nature of photography and the photographic process, but also the manner in which we share photographs and tell stories about them. Some traditional methods, such as the family photo album or passing around piles of recently developed snapshots, are lost to us without requiring the digital photos to be printed. The current, purely digital, methods of sharing do not provide the same experience as printed photographs, and they do not provide effective face-to-face social interaction around photographs, as experienced during storytelling. Research has found that people are often dissatisfied with sharing photographs in digital form. The recent emergence of the tabletop interface as a viable multi-user direct-touch interactive large horizontal display has provided the hardware that has the potential to improve our collocated activities such as digital photograph sharing. However, while some software to communicate with various tabletop hardware technologies exists, software aspects of tabletop user interfaces are still at an early stage and require careful consideration in order to provide an effective, multi-user immersive interface that arbitrates the social interaction between users, without the necessary computer-human interaction interfering with the social dialogue. This thesis presents PhoTable, a social interface allowing people to effectively share, and tell stories about, recently taken, unsorted digital photographs around an interactive tabletop. In addition, the computer-arbitrated digital interaction allows PhoTable to capture the stories told, and associate them as audio metadata to the appropriate photographs. By leveraging the tabletop interface and providing a highly usable and natural interaction we can enable users to become immersed in their social interaction, telling stories about their photographs, and allow the computer interaction to occur as a side-effect of the social interaction. Correlating the computer interaction with the corresponding audio allows PhoTable to annotate an automatically created digital photo album with audible stories, which may then be archived. These stories remain useful for future sharing -- both collocated sharing and remote (e.g. via the Internet) -- and also provide a personal memento both of the event depicted in the photograph (e.g. as a reminder) and of the enjoyable photo sharing experience at the tabletop. To provide the necessary software to realise an interface such as PhoTable, this thesis explored the development of Cruiser: an efficient, extensible and reusable software framework for developing tabletop applications. Cruiser contributes a set of programming libraries and the necessary application framework to facilitate the rapid and highly flexible development of new tabletop applications. It uses a plugin architecture that encourages code reuse, stability and easy experimentation, and leverages the dedicated computer graphics hardware and multi-core processors of modern consumer-level systems to provide a responsive and immersive interactive tabletop user interface that is agnostic to the tabletop hardware and operating platform, using efficient, native cross-platform code. Cruiser's flexibility has allowed a variety of novel interactive tabletop applications to be explored by other researchers using the framework, in addition to PhoTable. To evaluate Cruiser and PhoTable, this thesis follows recommended practices for systems evaluation. The design rationale is framed within the above scenario and vision which we explore further, and the resulting design is critically analysed based on user studies, heuristic evaluation and a reflection on how it evolved over time. The effectiveness of Cruiser was evaluated in terms of its ability to realise PhoTable, use of it by others to explore many new tabletop applications, and an analysis of performance and resource usage. Usability, learnability and effectiveness of PhoTable was assessed on three levels: careful usability evaluations of elements of the interface; informal observations of usability when Cruiser was available to the public in several exhibitions and demonstrations; and a final evaluation of PhoTable in use for storytelling, where this had the side effect of creating a digital photo album, consisting of the photographs users interacted with on the table and associated audio annotations which PhoTable automatically extracted from the interaction. We conclude that our approach to design has resulted in an effective framework for creating new tabletop interfaces. The parallel goal of exploring the potential for tabletop interaction as a new way to share digital photographs was realised in PhoTable. It is able to support the envisaged goal of an effective interface for telling stories about one's photos. As a serendipitous side-effect, PhoTable was effective in the automatic capture of the stories about individual photographs for future reminiscence and sharing. This work provides foundations for future work in creating new ways to interact at a tabletop and to the ways to capture personal stories around digital photographs for sharing and long-term preservation