Understanding object feature binding through experimentation as a precursor to modelling

In order to explore underlying brain mechanisms and to further understand how and where object feature binding occurs, psychophysical data are analysed and will be modelled using an attractor network. This paper describes psychophysical work and an outline of the proposed model. A rapid serial visual processing paradigm with a post-cue response task was used in three experimental conditions: spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal. Using a ‘staircase’ procedure, stimulus onset asynchrony for each observer for each condition was set in practice trails to achieve ~50% error rates. Results indicate that spatial location information helps bind objects features and temporal location information hinders it. Our expectation is that the proposed neural model will demonstrate a binding mechanism by exhibiting regions of enhanced activity in the location of the target when presented with a partial post-cue. In future work, the model could be lesioned so that neuropsychological phenomena might be exhibited. In such a way, the mechanisms underlying object feature binding might be clarified

An evaluation of Transnet’s engineer in training programme: a systems thinking approach.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2016The South African government is looking towards Transnet to grow the economy through its capital investment programme. In order to achieve this, the company needs to have within its ranks a highly competent workforce who possess the necessary skills. The Engineer in Training programme at Transnet is critical in ensuring that the current and future employees of Transnet are competent and have the necessary skills to perform at a level which is required of them and successfully deliver on projects. This study examines the Engineer in Training Programme at Transnet to determine how the programme is perceived by senior staff, if the programme is achieving its purpose and the ways in which the programme can be improved. The aim of the study was to identify how the graduate programme currently offered by Transnet Group Capital can be improved. This was done by benchmarking the activities and outcomes of the program against the Engineering Council of South Africa’s requirements for a professional engineer. A qualitative approach was adopted for this study. This was conducted in the form of a semi-structured focus group platform using predefined prompts to direct the discussions. The focus group session followed a soft systems methodology (SSM) approach, hence, SSM tools and techniques were employed during the session to gain a clearer understanding of the problem situation. This included the development of rich pictures, root definitions and conceptual models, which were carried out in three consecutive phases during the course of the session. The data was analysed using thematic analysis, with the aid of NVivo 10.0 software. The presented themes were then used to compliment the findings of the SSM tools that were utilised during the data collection phase. The main themes which emerged were Competency, Programme Structure, Responsibility of Mentors and Mentees, Responsibility of Decision Makers, Responsibility of Programme Custodian and Knowledge Sharing. There were a total of 31 change measures suggested. It will obviously not be feasible to implement all of these changes at once. It is therefore recommended that a phased approach is adopted by prioritizing the most critical change requirements as well as the most easily attainable changes first. It is also recommended that a committee be tasked to oversee the change measure implementation and that, within that committee, a dedicated champion is assigned to each theme or category of change. This study has been successful in revealing a deeper understanding of the Engineer in Training programme at Transnet and its deficiencies as well as the means to begin to address the identified problems. This will in turn have a positive effect on the quality of trainees being produced, thereby the quality of work being done by the company and ultimately the economic strength of the country. The study has thus been valid and useful, giving a number of recommendations for the improvement of the programme. Recommendations for further study have also been suggested and it is thought that if these studies are taken further, significant advancement of the programme can be achieved

Effects of Malnutrition –A Social Work Perspective

Malnutrition is a term used to refer to any condition in which the body does not receive enough nutrients for proper function. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malnutrition is the greatest single threat to global public health. The leading causes of death in children under 5 years are pre-term birth complications, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and about 45% of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition. The National Family Health Survey carried out in 2005 to 2006 results- child malnutrition rates in India is disproportionately high. Poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life can also lead to stunted growth, which is irreversible and associated with impaired cognitive ability and reduced school and work performance. Some of the major causes for malnutrition in India are Economic inequality, poor sanitation and mother’s lack of proper knowledge in feeding children. The present scenario of globalization in the area of economic growth, health and nutrition indicates that the country is undergoing rapid socioeconomic, demographic, nutritional and health transitions. Unfortunately under-nutrition continues to be persistently high in India and remains a challenge. Some of the major short term adverse effects of malnutrition are recurring illness, weakness, delayed physical and mental development, irritability, poor appetite, low weight for age, etc. and the Long-term adverse effects are stunting or short height for age, poor learning ability, poor performance at school and poor general health. All of which reflect in poor working capacity, resulting in low income. Stunting in girls can have effects on child bearing; resulting in low birth weight babies. The aim of the study is to explain the effects of malnutrition through secondary sources. The role of social worker to combat the malnutrition will be described in detail in full length paper. Keywords: Nutrition, effects, health, child, Malnutritio

Meta-data to enhance case-based prediction.

The focus of this thesis is to measure the regularity of case bases used in Case-Based Prediction (CBP) systems and the reliability of their constituent cases prior to the system's deployment to influence user confidence on the delivered solutions. The reliability information, referred to as meta-data, is then used to enhance prediction accuracy. CBP is a strain of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) that differs from the latter only in the solution feature which is a continuous value. Several factors make implementing such systems for prediction domains a challenge. Typically, the problem and solution spaces are unbounded in prediction problems that make it difficult to determine the portions of the domain represented by the case base. In addition, such problem domains often exhibit complex and poorly understood interactions between features and contain noise. As a result, the overall regularity in the case base is distorted which poses a hindrance to delivery of good quality solutions. Hence in this research, techniques have been presented that address the issue of irregularity in case bases with an objective to increase prediction accuracy of solutions. Although, several techniques have been proposed in the CBR literature to deal with irregular case bases, they are inapplicable to CBP problems. As an alternative, this research proposes the generation of relevant case-specific meta-data. The meta-data is made use of in Mantel's randomisation test to objectively measure regularity in the case base. Several novel visualisations using the meta-data have been presented to observe the degree of regularity and help identify suspect unreliable cases whose reuse may very likely yield poor solutions. Further, performances of individual cases are recorded to judge their reliability, which is reflected upon before selecting them for reuse along with their distance from the problem case. The intention is to overlook unreliable cases in favour of relatively distant yet more reliable ones for reuse to enhance prediction accuracy. The proposed techniques have been demonstrated on software engineering data sets where the aim is to predict the duration of a software project on the basis of past completed projects recorded in the case base. Software engineering is a human-centric, volatile and dynamic discipline where many unrecorded factors influence productivity. This degrades the regularity in case bases where cases are disproportionably spread out in the problem and solution spaces resulting in erratic prediction quality. Results from administering the proposed techniques were helpful to gain insight into the three software engineering data sets used in this analysis. The Mantel's test was very effective at measuring overall regularity within a case base, while the visualisations were learnt to be variably valuable depending upon the size of the data set. Most importantly, the proposed case discrimination system, that intended to reuse only reliable similar cases, was successful at increasing prediction accuracy for all three data sets. Thus, the contributions of this research are some novel approaches making use of meta-data to firstly provide the means to assess and visualise irregularities in case bases and cases from prediction domains and secondly, provide a method to identify unreliable cases to avoid their reuse in favour to more reliable cases to enhance overall prediction accuracy

Do Stack Traces Help Developers Fix Bugs?

A widely shared belief in the software engineering community is that stack traces are much sought after by developers to support them in debugging. But limited empirical evidence is available to confirm the value of stack traces to developers. In this paper, we seek to provide such evidence by conducting an empirical study on the usage of stack traces by developers from the ECLIPSE project. Our results provide strong evidence to this effect and also throws light on some of the patterns in bug fixing using stack traces. We expect the findings of our study to further emphasize the importance of adding stack traces to bug reports and that in the future, software vendors will provide more support in their products to help general users make such information available when filing bug reports

A Case Study on Competency of Professional Social Work Students in Social Work Education, Research and Training

Before a decade it was very difficult to get an employment when a student who completed his/her PG in Social Work. But at present there are number of opportunities in the field of Social Work. At present there are a plenty of employer like National Health Mission, Kerala Social Security Mission, Social Justice Department, CSR Departments, School Counseling, Multi-National Companies, Medical and Psychiatric Social Work Departments are ready to give job for Social Work Professionals. From the beginning the employment for minimum for one year. Later it shrinks to 3 months and 6 months. Now and then there were a few employer provides job for minimum one year.  The employer decided to take such a decision because of the level of performance appraisal. Here the employer undergoing an assessment in various aspects depending up on the nature of job. The criteria includes Administration Skills, Skills in Documentation, Task Completion, Publication, communication, decision making, understand the individual difference, problem solving and case management etc. The final result is not fair but has to be disclosed. The major reasons are No Effective Aptitude Test, Students are opting their specialization not based on their personal capacity or personal wish it is based on the interest of facilitator and the demand of market / job opportunities the students are only concentrating to complete their course, The facilitators are guest faculties and not much firm in some of the aspects such as submission of research and Field Work Report, failure in Selection of Training and Placement Agency, No trainers in the Placement Agency, sympathetic approach towards the students etc. To protect the dignity of social work profession, this is the right time to develop the skills of the students. Every institution has to awake and to provide training centered education to the professional social work students. Keywords: Competency, employer, appraisal, Administration, Placement

Congregational Social Work: An Experiential Sharing

Congregational social work is professional social work practice that takes place in the setting of a congregation. This term was first coined and used by Garland and Yancey in the year 2012. "Congregational Social Work" is defined as those social work services that are offered in and through a religious congregation, whether the employer is the congregation itself or a social service or denominational agency working in collaboration with congregations. In this paper "Congregational Social Work" is defined as those social work services that are offered in and through a religious congregation – a slum church in Chennai with the help and financial aid of the slum people and network with different stake holders. The topic itself is a new area for explosion. Social work collaboration with faith-based establishments, such as churches, has great potential to optimize internal functions and service to the community. Social Work has been practiced through churches as an expression of the love of Jesus Christ for many years. Social welfare programmes have been introduced through church mission agencies. The paper briefly presents about the background of the slum community, about the slum church and the methods applied as part of Congregational social work. Seven dimensions have been presented in this paper 1. Use of Appreciative Enquiry to discover the abilities of the community 2. Creation of Endowment fund for Education with the support of Slum people 3. Micro-Enterprise initiatives to provide job opportunities 4. Educational Initiatives 5. Exposure to Foreign countries for the slum people 6. Advocating and Lobbying for the rights of slum people 7. Shelter home during Natural disaster. This paper is based on personal experience of applying Social work in a congregation based in a slum community and the members belong to the same community. Keywords: Congregational Social Work, Church Social Work

Meta-data to enhance case-based prediction

The focus of this thesis is to measure the regularity of case bases used in Case-Based Prediction (CBP) systems and the reliability of their constituent cases prior to the system's deployment to influence user confidence on the delivered solutions. The reliability information, referred to as meta-data, is then used to enhance prediction accuracy. CBP is a strain of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) that differs from the latter only in the solution feature which is a continuous value. Several factors make implementing such systems for prediction domains a challenge. Typically, the problem and solution spaces are unbounded in prediction problems that make it difficult to determine the portions of the domain represented by the case base. In addition, such problem domains often exhibit complex and poorly understood interactions between features and contain noise. As a result, the overall regularity in the case base is distorted which poses a hindrance to delivery of good quality solutions. Hence in this research, techniques have been presented that address the issue of irregularity in case bases with an objective to increase prediction accuracy of solutions. Although, several techniques have been proposed in the CBR literature to deal with irregular case bases, they are inapplicable to CBP problems. As an alternative, this research proposes the generation of relevant case-specific meta-data. The meta-data is made use of in Mantel's randomisation test to objectively measure regularity in the case base. Several novel visualisations using the meta-data have been presented to observe the degree of regularity and help identify suspect unreliable cases whose reuse may very likely yield poor solutions. Further, performances of individual cases are recorded to judge their reliability, which is reflected upon before selecting them for reuse along with their distance from the problem case. The intention is to overlook unreliable cases in favour of relatively distant yet more reliable ones for reuse to enhance prediction accuracy. The proposed techniques have been demonstrated on software engineering data sets where the aim is to predict the duration of a software project on the basis of past completed projects recorded in the case base. Software engineering is a human-centric, volatile and dynamic discipline where many unrecorded factors influence productivity. This degrades the regularity in case bases where cases are disproportionably spread out in the problem and solution spaces resulting in erratic prediction quality. Results from administering the proposed techniques were helpful to gain insight into the three software engineering data sets used in this analysis. The Mantel's test was very effective at measuring overall regularity within a case base, while the visualisations were learnt to be variably valuable depending upon the size of the data set. Most importantly, the proposed case discrimination system, that intended to reuse only reliable similar cases, was successful at increasing prediction accuracy for all three data sets. Thus, the contributions of this research are some novel approaches making use of meta-data to firstly provide the means to assess and visualise irregularities in case bases and cases from prediction domains and secondly, provide a method to identify unreliable cases to avoid their reuse in favour to more reliable cases to enhance overall prediction accuracy.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo