User interaction for visual lifelog retrieval in a virtual environment

Efficient retrieval of lifelog information is an ongoing area of research due to the multifaceted nature, and ever increasing size of lifelog datasets. Previous studies have examined lifelog exploration on conventional hardware platforms, but in this paper we describe a novel approach to lifelog retrieval using virtual reality. The focus of this research is to identify what aspects of lifelog retrieval can be effectively translated from a conventional to a virtual environment and if it provides any benefit to the user. The most widely available lifelog datasets for research are primarily image-based and focus on continuous capture from a first-person perspective. These large image corpora are often enhanced by image processing techniques and various other metadata. Despite the rapidly maturing nature of virtual reality as a platform, there has been very little investigation into user interaction within the context of lifelogging. The experiment outlined in this work seeks to evaluate four different virtual reality user interaction approaches to lifelog retrieval. The prototype system used in this experiment also competed at the Lifelog Search Challenge at ACM ICMR 2018 where it ranked first place

Local attitudes toward Apennine brown bears: Insights for conservation issues

Human-carnivore coexistence is a multi-faceted issue that requires an understanding of the diverse attitudes and perspectives of the communities living with large carnivores. To inform initiatives that encourage behaviors in line with conservation goals, we focused on assessing the two components of attitudes (i.e., feelings and beliefs), as well as norms of local communities coexisting with Apennine brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus) for a long time. This bear population is under serious extinction risks due to its persistently small population size, which is currently confined to the long-established protected area of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park (PNALM) and its surrounding region in central Italy. We interviewed 1,611 residents in the PNALM to determine attitudes and values toward bears. We found that support for the bear's legal protection was widespread throughout the area, though beliefs about the benefits of conserving bears varied across geographic administrative districts. Our results showed that residents across our study areas liked bears. At the same time, areas that received more benefits from tourism were more strongly associated with positive feelings toward bears. Such findings provide useful information to improve communication efforts of conservation authorities with local communities

Health-impaired employees' job satisfaction: new evidence from Athens, Greece

By utilizing the 2008 Athens Area Study (AAS) data set, this study investigates four aspects of job satisfaction - total pay, promotion prospects, respect received from one's supervisor, and total job satisfaction - between healthy and heath-impaired employees. Health impaired employees are found to be less satisfied according to all job satisfaction measures even when a large number of productivity features, and job characteristics are controlled for. The outcomes suggest also that women are more satisfied with their jobs than men are, regardless of health status. Moreover, the estimations show that health impaired employees' job satisfaction is affected more than healthy employees' job satisfaction by adverse mental health symptoms (life dissatisfaction). Finally, health impaired employees are found to become more satisfied with their jobs with time after disability onset. The study concludes that health impaired employees may have higher expectations about what they will obtain from their work, and that they may have job satisfaction adjustments

Measuring attitude toward theistic faith : assessing the Astley-Francis Scale among Christian, Muslim and secular youth in England

Empirical research within the social scientific study of religion in general and within the psychology of religion in particular remains very conscious of the complex nature of its subject matter. Empirical research in this field needs to take cognisance of the many forms in which religion is expressed (say, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism) and the many facets within the forms (say, beliefs, behaviours and affiliation). Working in the 1970s, Francis (1978a; 1978b) advanced the view that the attitudinal dimension of religion offered a particularly fruitful basis for coordinating empirical enquiry into the correlates, antecedents and consequences of religiosity across the life span

Young people's attitudes to religious diversity : quantitative approaches from social psychology and empirical theology

This essay discusses the design of the quantitative component of the ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ project, conceived by Professor Robert Jackson within the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, and presents some preliminary findings from the data. The quantitative component followed and built on the qualitative component within a mixed method design. The argument is advanced in seven steps: introducing the major sources of theory on which the quantitative approach builds from the psychology of religion and from empirical theology; locating the empirical traditions of research among young people that have shaped the study; clarifying the notions and levels of measurement employed in the study anticipating the potential for various forms of data analysis; discussing some of the established measures incorporated in the survey; defining the ways in which the sample was structured to reflect the four nations of the UK, and London; illustrating the potential within largely descriptive cross-tabulation forms of analysis; and illustrating the potential within more sophisticated multivariate analytic models

Defining and assessing spiritual health : a comparative study among 13- to 15-year-old pupils attending secular schools, Anglican schools, and private Christian schools in England and Wales

This article argues that the nation's commitment to young people involves proper concern for their physical health, their psychological health, and their spiritual health. In this context the notion of spiritual health is clarified by a critique of John Fisher's model of spiritual health. Fisher developed a relational model of spiritual health, which defines good spiritual health in terms of an individual's relationship to four domains: the personal, the communal, the environmental, and the transcendental. In the present analysis, we make comparisons between pupils educated in three types of schools: publicly funded schools without religious foundation, publicly funded schools with an Anglican foundation, and new independent Christian schools (not publicly funded). Our findings draw attention to significant differences in the levels of spiritual health experienced by pupils within these three types of schools

The state of peer-to-peer network simulators

Networking research often relies on simulation in order to test and evaluate new ideas. An important requirement of this process is that results must be reproducible so that other researchers can replicate, validate and extend existing work. We look at the landscape of simulators for research in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks by conducting a survey of a combined total of over 280 papers from before and after 2007 (the year of the last survey in this area), and comment on the large quantity of research using bespoke, closed-source simulators. We propose a set of criteria that P2P simulators should meet, and poll the P2P research community for their agreement. We aim to drive the community towards performing their experiments on simulators that allow for others to validate their results

“It’s Shocking!": Analysing the Impact and Reactions to the A3: Android Apps Behaviour Analyser

The lack of privacy awareness in smartphone ecosystems prevents users from being able to compare apps in terms of privacy and from making informed privacy decisions. In this paper we analysed smartphone users’ privacy perceptions and concerns based on a novel privacy enhancing tool called Android Apps Behaviour Analyser (A3). The A3 tool enables user to behaviourally analyse the privacy aspects of their installed apps and notifies about potential privacy invasive activities. To examine the capabilities of A3 we designed a user study. We captured and contrasted privacy concern and perception of 52 participants, before and after using our tool. The results showed that A3 enables users to easily detect their smartphone app’s privacy violation activities. Further, we found that there is a significant difference between users’ privacy concern and expectation before and after using A3 and the majority of them were surprised to learn how often their installed apps access personal resources. Overall, we observed that the A3 tool was capable to influence the participants’ attitude towards protecting their privacy

Online distributed leadership: A content analysis of interaction and teacher reflections on computer-supported learning

This study performs a content analysis of the communication that develops in online educational situations. It focuses on two aspects of communication in a context in which we observe instructional leadership: how leadership is seen in the virtual classroom and how teachers view their role. The study attempts to answer the question of how teachers lead this methodological change, that is, instructional leadership at the service of distributed leadership. The study analyses the online interaction and teachers’ reflections on the communication between teachers and students in the process of virtual teaching, specifically in post compulsory secondary education in Spain.Study financed by an R&D project in the area of Education Sciences Management entitled ‘Learning-Focused Leadership and its Impact on Improvement: Practices and Results in Secondary Education’, under the Subprogram for basic, non-oriented research projects. National Plan for R&D, 2010 Competition