Salford postgraduate annual research conference (SPARC) 2012 proceedings

These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2012 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC). They reflect the breadth and diversity of research interests showcased at the conference, at which over 130 researchers from Salford, the North West and other UK universities presented their work. 21 papers are collated here from the humanities, arts, social sciences, health, engineering, environment and life sciences, built environment and business

The Living Stream

"Yeats Annual No. 18 is another special issue in this renowned research-level series offering a tribute to the pioneering Yeats scholar, A. Norman Jeffares. Memories of the man are shared by Seamus Heaney, Christopher Rush and Colin Smythe, who compiles a bibliography of Jeffares’s work. Terence Brown, Neil Corcoran, Warwick Gould, Joseph M. Hassett, Phillip L. Marcus, Ann Saddlemyer, Ronald Schuchard, Deirdre Toomey and Helen Vendler offer essays on such topics as Yeats and the Colours of Poetry, Yeats’s Shakespeare, Yeats and Seamus Heaney, Lacrimae Rerum and Tragic Joy, Raftery’s work on Yeats’s Thoor Ballylee, Edmund Dulac’s portrait of Mrs George Yeats, The Tower as an anti-Modernist monument, with close studies of ‘Vacillation’, ‘Her Triumph’, and ‘The Cold Heaven’. Throughout, the essays are inflected with memories of Jeffares and his critical methods. The volume is rounded with further essays on A Vision by Neil Mann and Matthew de Forrest, while reviews of recent editions and studies are provided by Matthew Campbell, Wayne K. Chapman, Sandra Clark, Denis Donoghue, Nicholas Grene, Joseph M. Hassett, and K.P.S. Jochum. Yeats Annual is published by Open Book Publishers in association with the Institute of English Studies, University of London.

CPA\u27s handbook of fraud and commercial crime prevention

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1819/thumbnail.jp

CPA\u27s handbook of fraud and commercial crime prevention

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1820/thumbnail.jp

An investigation into the impact of computer therapy on people with aphasia.

Use of computers by the general population continues to increase and computers are now an integral part of communication, leisure activities and work. The majority of research into use of computers by people with aphasia has focussed narrowly on evaluating effects of computer therapy on specific language impairments. Little is known about the broader impacts of computer use by people with aphasia, in terms of levels of social activity and social participation and little is known of the views of people with aphasia on using computers. The research in this thesis investigates the outcome of computer therapy from the perspective of people living with aphasia. Outcome was evaluated using the framework of the World Health Organisation International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO ICF 2001) to investigate impact not just in terms of impairment but on activity and participation as well. The ICF also provided a framework for investigating contextual factors (environmental and personal) which might effect outcome. The investigation took the form of two complementary but contrasting case series studies: an investigation into the outcome of using computers to target word finding abilities (treatment targeting impairment only); and an investigation into the outcome of training to use voice recognition software as a writing aid (treatment aiming to overcome activity limitations but not targeting impairment itself). Both studies comprised a qualitative investigation of the views of participants on the outcome and process of therapy. Both studies supplemented this qualitative data with complementary quantitative evaluations seeking to quantify key aspects of outcome. Study one findings indicated that all six participants perceived benefits to levels of activity, participation and confidence in addition to benefits to language impairment. Although some of this benefit was attributed to improved language skill, benefits were also attributed to increased confidence associated with acquiring skills. Study two found benefits to levels of activity and participation and confidence for all participants. Benefits were perceived even where there was no measured change to language impairment or quality or quantity of language used. Computer use by people with aphasia can therefore bring much broader benefits than just to language impairment. Benefits include increases in leisure and social activity, social participation and confidence. Previous computer experience is not necessary and benefits can be shown many years post stroke. These broader benefits should be borne in mind when selecting who may be appropriate for computer therapy

Protecting Privacy in Indian Schools: Regulating AI-based Technologies' Design, Development and Deployment

Education is one of the priority areas for the Indian government, where Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are touted to bring digital transformation. Several Indian states have also started deploying facial recognition-enabled CCTV cameras, emotion recognition technologies, fingerprint scanners, and Radio frequency identification tags in their schools to provide personalised recommendations, ensure student security, and predict the drop-out rate of students but also provide 360-degree information of a student. Further, Integrating Aadhaar (digital identity card that works on biometric data) across AI technologies and learning and management systems (LMS) renders schools a ‘panopticon’. Certain technologies or systems like Aadhaar, CCTV cameras, GPS Systems, RFID tags, and learning management systems are used primarily for continuous data collection, storage, and retention purposes. Though they cannot be termed AI technologies per se, they are fundamental for designing and developing AI systems like facial, fingerprint, and emotion recognition technologies. The large amount of student data collected speedily through the former technologies is used to create an algorithm for the latter-stated AI systems. Once algorithms are processed using machine learning (ML) techniques, they learn correlations between multiple datasets predicting each student’s identity, decisions, grades, learning growth, tendency to drop out, and other behavioural characteristics. Such autonomous and repetitive collection, processing, storage, and retention of student data without effective data protection legislation endangers student privacy. The algorithmic predictions by AI technologies are an avatar of the data fed into the system. An AI technology is as good as the person collecting the data, processing it for a relevant and valuable output, and regularly evaluating the inputs going inside an AI model. An AI model can produce inaccurate predictions if the person overlooks any relevant data. However, the state, school administrations and parents’ belief in AI technologies as a panacea to student security and educational development overlooks the context in which ‘data practices’ are conducted. A right to privacy in an AI age is inextricably connected to data practices where data gets ‘cooked’. Thus, data protection legislation operating without understanding and regulating such data practices will remain ineffective in safeguarding privacy. The thesis undergoes interdisciplinary research that enables a better understanding of the interplay of data practices of AI technologies with social practices of an Indian school, which the present Indian data protection legislation overlooks, endangering students’ privacy from designing and developing to deploying stages of an AI model. The thesis recommends the Indian legislature frame better legislation equipped for the AI/ML age and the Indian judiciary on evaluating the legality and reasonability of designing, developing, and deploying such technologies in schools