1,573 research outputs found

    An examination of the verbal behaviour of intergroup discrimination

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    This thesis examined relationships between psychological flexibility, psychological inflexibility, prejudicial attitudes, and dehumanization across three cross-sectional studies with an additional proposed experimental study. Psychological flexibility refers to mindful attention to the present moment, willing acceptance of private experiences, and engaging in behaviours congruent with oneā€™s freely chosen values. Inflexibility, on the other hand, indicates a tendency to suppress unwanted thoughts and emotions, entanglement with oneā€™s thoughts, and rigid behavioural patterns. Study 1 found limited correlations between inflexibility and sexism, racism, homonegativity, and dehumanization. Study 2 demonstrated more consistent positive associations between inflexibility and prejudice. And Study 3 controlled for right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, finding inflexibility predicted hostile sexism and racism beyond these factors. While showing some relationships, particularly with sexism and racism, psychological inflexibility did not consistently correlate with varied prejudices across studies. The proposed randomized controlled trial aims to evaluate an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy intervention to reduce sexism through enhanced psychological flexibility. Overall, findings provide mixed support for the utility of flexibility-based skills in addressing complex societal prejudices. Research should continue examining flexibility integrated with socio-cultural approaches to promote equity

    Sound of Violent Images / Violence of Sound Images: Pulling apart Tom and Jerry

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    Violence permeates Tom and Jerry in the repetitive, physically violent gags and scenes of humiliation and mocking, yet unarguably, there is comedic value in the onscreen violence.The musical scoring of Tom and Jerry in the early William Hanna and Joseph Barbera period of production (pre-1958) by Scott Bradley played a key role in conveying the comedic impact of violent gags due to the close synchronisation of music and sound with visual action and is typified by a form of sound design characteristic of zip crash animation as described by Paul Taberham (2012), in which sound actively participates in the humour and directly influences the viewerā€™s interpretation of the visual action. This research investigates the sound-image relationships in Tom and Jerry through practice, by exploring how processes of decontextualisation and desynchronisation of sound and image elements of violent gags unmask the underlying violent subtext of Tom and Jerryā€™s slapstick comedy. This research addresses an undertheorised area in animation related to the role of sound-image synchronisation and presents new knowledge derived from the novel application of audiovisual analysis of Tom and Jerry source material and the production of audiovisual artworks. The findings of this research are discussed from a pan theoretical perspective drawing on theorisation of film sound and cognitivist approaches to film music. This investigation through practice, supports the notion that intrinsic and covert processes of sound-image synchronisation as theorised by Kevin Donnelly (2014), play a key role in the reading of slapstick violence as comedic. Therefore, this practice-based research can be viewed as a case study that demonstrates the potential of a sampling-based creative practice to enable new readings to emerge from sampled source material. Novel artefacts were created in the form of audiovisual works that embody specific knowledge of factors related to the reconfiguration of sound-image relations and their impact in altering viewersā€™ readings of violence contained within Tom and Jerry. Critically, differences emerged between the artworks in terms of the extent to which they unmasked underlying themes of violence and potential mediating factors are discussed related to the influence of asynchrony on comical framing, the role of the unseen voice, perceived musicality and perceptions of interiority in the audiovisual artworks. The research findings yielded new knowledge regarding a potential gender-based bias in the perception of the human voice in the animated artworks produced. This research also highlights the role of intra-animation dimensions pertaining to the use of the single frame, the use of blank spaces and the relationship of sound-image synchronisation to the notion of the acousmatic imaginary. The PhD includes a portfolio of experimental audiovisual artworks produced during the testing and experimental phases of the research on which the textual dissertation critically reflects

    ARBEx: Attentive Feature Extraction with Reliability Balancing for Robust Facial Expression Learning

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    In this paper, we introduce a framework ARBEx, a novel attentive feature extraction framework driven by Vision Transformer with reliability balancing to cope against poor class distributions, bias, and uncertainty in the facial expression learning (FEL) task. We reinforce several data pre-processing and refinement methods along with a window-based cross-attention ViT to squeeze the best of the data. We also employ learnable anchor points in the embedding space with label distributions and multi-head self-attention mechanism to optimize performance against weak predictions with reliability balancing, which is a strategy that leverages anchor points, attention scores, and confidence values to enhance the resilience of label predictions. To ensure correct label classification and improve the models' discriminative power, we introduce anchor loss, which encourages large margins between anchor points. Additionally, the multi-head self-attention mechanism, which is also trainable, plays an integral role in identifying accurate labels. This approach provides critical elements for improving the reliability of predictions and has a substantial positive effect on final prediction capabilities. Our adaptive model can be integrated with any deep neural network to forestall challenges in various recognition tasks. Our strategy outperforms current state-of-the-art methodologies, according to extensive experiments conducted in a variety of contexts.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures. Code: https://github.com/takihasan/ARBE

    Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5

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    This ļ¬fth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different ļ¬elds of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered. First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modiļ¬ed Proportional Conļ¬‚ict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classiļ¬ers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes. Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identiļ¬cation of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classiļ¬cation. Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classiļ¬cation, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well

    Latent-OFER: Detect, Mask, and Reconstruct with Latent Vectors for Occluded Facial Expression Recognition

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    Most research on facial expression recognition (FER) is conducted in highly controlled environments, but its performance is often unacceptable when applied to real-world situations. This is because when unexpected objects occlude the face, the FER network faces difficulties extracting facial features and accurately predicting facial expressions. Therefore, occluded FER (OFER) is a challenging problem. Previous studies on occlusion-aware FER have typically required fully annotated facial images for training. However, collecting facial images with various occlusions and expression annotations is time-consuming and expensive. Latent-OFER, the proposed method, can detect occlusions, restore occluded parts of the face as if they were unoccluded, and recognize them, improving FER accuracy. This approach involves three steps: First, the vision transformer (ViT)-based occlusion patch detector masks the occluded position by training only latent vectors from the unoccluded patches using the support vector data description algorithm. Second, the hybrid reconstruction network generates the masking position as a complete image using the ViT and convolutional neural network (CNN). Last, the expression-relevant latent vector extractor retrieves and uses expression-related information from all latent vectors by applying a CNN-based class activation map. This mechanism has a significant advantage in preventing performance degradation from occlusion by unseen objects. The experimental results on several databases demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over state-of-the-art methods.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

    Assessment and management of pain/nociception in patients with disorders of consciousness or locked-in syndrome: A narrative review

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    The assessment and management of pain and nociception is very challenging in patients unable to communicate functionally such as patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) or in locked-in syndrome (LIS). In a clinical setting, the detection of signs of pain and nociception by the medical staff is therefore essential for the wellbeing and management of these patients. However, there is still a lot unknown and a lack of clear guidelines regarding the assessment, management and treatment of pain and nociception in these populations. The purpose of this narrative review is to examine the current knowledge regarding this issue by covering different topics such as: the neurophysiology of pain and nociception (in healthy subjects and patients), the source and impact of nociception and pain in DoC and LIS and, finally, the assessment and treatment of pain and nociception in these populations. In this review we will also give possible research directions that could help to improve the management of this specific population of severely brain damaged patients

    ā€œHave patients with chronic skin diseases needs been met?ā€:A thesis on psoriasis and eczema patient care in dermatology service

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    Background: Common chronic skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis usually require long term medical care. They are often associated with psychological and metabolic comorbidities, which can impact on patient quality of life (QOL) and on the self-management of these diseases. Regular assessment of patient needs, comorbidities and feedback is a critical step in the development of decision-analytic models. Currently, no intervention is available to regularly assess such patientsā€™ needs and comorbidities and support their involvement in the decision-making and self-management of their morbidity and comorbidities. The aim of this research is to involve the patients in decision making of their care and to support their self-management by the use of a paper questionnaire (study tool) at each consultation. Objective: To explore the acceptability and potential of a self-developed paper questionnaire that constituted a study tool for addressing the needs, comorbidities, and feedback of patients with psoriasis and eczema and supporting their involvement in decision making and self-management of their chronic conditions. Method: A mixed method study was conducted and included a postal survey on adult male and female patients with psoriasis and eczema, using the study tool, which is a paper questionnaire and contains the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) and seven supplementary open-ended questions to capture patientsā€™ views, feedback, comorbidities, coping status and needs. The survey was followed by semi-structured face-to-face interviews with a sample of the patients who had participated in the survey. The aims of the interviews were two-fold: 1. to gain a deeper understanding of their experience of living with and managing their skin disease; and 2. to gather patient feedback on the service they received as well as their views on using the new study tool or any alternative intervention to address and support their self-management. The final study was a pilot which involved presenting a proposal of an online version of the study tool to a group of healthcare experts asking them to critically review the extent to which the online model responded to patients expressed needs. Results: Of the 114 patients who participated in the postal survey 108 (94.7%) of them expressed physical, metabolic and psychological comorbidities. Stress was identified as the dominant disease-triggering factor in 72 (63%) participants. Thirty-three (28.9%) of participants reported that they could not cope with their chronic illness. Eighteen (15.7%) participants suffered from anxiety, and 12 (10.5%) had depression and suicidal thoughts. Twenty-nine (25%) participants addressed their needs for support at home, and 16 (14%) of them asked for support at work. In the patient feedback section, 21 (18.4%) and 9 (7.8%) participants rated the service they received from their general practitioner (GP) and dermatologist as poor, respectively. In the interviews, all the participants 22 (100%) welcomed the use of the study tool on a regular basis to address their needs, comorbidities and feedback. Nineteen (86.3%) of them suggested that they would prefer using an online version of the tool or patient portal system as a convenient way of remote and interactive communication with the healthcare provider, particularly during the worsening of their skin condition. In the final pilot study, the healthcare experts agreed that the proposed online version of the study tool could be a convenient platform for such patients to support their self-management. They discussed the potential importance of such a tool if it provided them with access to supportive services such as patient information on skin diseases and self-management, access to local mental health service and other relevant psoriasis and eczema patientsā€™ support groups and charities. Conclusion: This novel mixed method research identified knowledge gaps in managing patients with psoriasis and eczema. It provided a new tool that has the potential to regularly engage and assess patientsā€™ unmet needs, comorbidities and feedback. The tool can involve patients in decision-making and offers them the autonomy to disclose heterogeneous needs that may support their self-management. All the interviewees welcomed regular use of the study tool and the majority of them suggested that they would prefer using an online version of the tool if it was available. Future research is needed to assess the impact of the study tool in filling important gaps in patient self-management and in health service improvement

    Promoting Tolerance and Inclusiveness in Indonesian Pluralistic Society

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    This book is the result of research that contains a collection of writings from various authors. This book includes opinions and calls for students in tertiary institutions to behave tolerantly and inclusively from the perspective of religion, ethnicity, race, gender, etc., including calls to be inclusive towards LGBT people, groups with disabilities, and people living with HIV/AIDS

    Frivolous Floodgate Fears

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    When rejecting plaintiff-friendly liability standards, courts often cite a fear of opening the floodgates of litigation. Namely, courts point to either a desire to protect the docket of federal courts or a burden on the executive branch. But there is little empirical evidence exploring whether the adoption of a stricter standard can, in fact, decrease the filing of legal claims in this circumstance. This Article empirically analyzes and theoretically models the effect of adopting arguably stricter liability standards on litigation by investigating the context of one of the Supreme Courtā€™s most recent reliances on this argument when adopting a stricter liability standard for causation in employment discrimination claims. In 2013, the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff proving retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act must prove that their participation in a protected activity was a but-for cause of the adverse employment action they experienced. Rejecting the arguably more plaintiff-friendly motivating-factor standard, the Court stated, ā€œ[L]essening the causation standard could also contribute to the filing of frivolous claims, which would siphon resources from efforts by employer[s], administrative agencies, and courts to combat workplace harassment.ā€ Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338, 358 (2013). And over the past ten years, the Court has overturned the application of motivating-factor causation as applied to at least four different federal antidiscrimination statutes. Contrary to the Supreme Courtā€™s concern that motivating-factor causation encourages frivolous charges, many employment law scholars worry that the heightened but-for standard will deter legitimate claims. This Article empirically explores these concerns, in part using data received from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Specifically, it empirically tests whether the adoption of the but-for causation standard for claims filed under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and by federal courts of appeals under the Americans with Disabilities Act has impacted the filing of discrimination claims and the outcome of those claims in federal court. Consistent with theory detailed in this Article, the empirical analysis provides evidence that the stricter standard may have increased the docket of the federal courts by decreasing settlement within the EEOC and during litigation. The empirical results weigh in on concerns surrounding the adoption of the but-for causation standard and provide evidence that the floodgates argument, when relied on to deter frivolous filings by changing liability standards, in fact, may do just the opposite by decreasing the likelihood of settlement in the short term, without impacting the filing of claims or other case outcomes
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