Movement control testing of older people in community settings: description of a screening tool and intra-rater reliability

Objective: To determine the intra-rater reliability of a newly developed movement screening tool; the ‘Movement control screen for older people in community settings’. The movement screening tool aims to identify movement control impairments which can potentially influence movement function. Method: Thirty one active female recreational golfers, aged 65-77 years,carried out three movement control tests included in the screening tool. Performance was videorecorded to enable repeated ratings. Each test was evaluated by criteria which were rated as pass or fail and ratings were carried out three weeks apart to examine intra-rater reliability. Reliability was assessed using percentage agreement and Cohen’s Kappa. Results: Percentage agreementfor each test ranged from 93.0-97.3%, with an overall mean agreement of 95.5%. Kappa values for test scores ranged from 0.35-0.90. Percentage agreement for individual criteria ranged from 83.0-100.0%, with kappa values ranging from 0.00-1.00. Discussion: Acceptable intra-rater reliability was established for overall tests scores of the screening tool but certain criteria wereidentified as being less reliable than others. Recommendations are made for refinement of some criteria to improve reliability of the screening tool.<br/

Towards real-time interest point detection and description for mobile and robotic devices

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been successfully adopted by state-of-the-art feature point detection and description networks for the past number of years. The focus of these systems has been predominately on the accuracy of the system, rather than on its efficiency or ability to be implemented in real-time on embedded robotic devices. This paper demonstrates how techniques, developed for other CNN use cases, can be integrated into interest point detection and description systems to compress their network size and reduce the computational complexity; this reduces the barrier to their uptake in computationally challenged environments. This paper documents the integration of these techniques into the popular Reliable Detector and Descriptor (R2D2) network. Along with the integration details, a comprehensive Key Performance Indicator (KPI) framework is developed to test all aspects of the networks. As a result, this paper presents a lightweight variant of the R2D2 network that significantly reduces parameters and computational complexity while crucially maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy. Consequently, this new compressed network is more appropriate for use in real world systems and advances the efforts to implement such CNN based system for mobile devices

The seeds of commerce: a network analysis-based approach to the Romano-British transport system

Communication routes are an important subject in the study of the human past. They allowed interactions between communities and the dispersal of goods and ideas. Their study, therefore, can shed light on the way in which communities inhabited the landscape, related to each other and were affected by macro-regional trends. Many methods, such as archaeomorphological analysis and Least Cost Route modelling (LCR), have been devised and are routinely employed for the reconstruction of ancient routes. Their analysis in terms of communication, trade or historical significance, however, has usually been left unexplored. This is probably due to the connected nature of routes, which form communication networks: these are shaped by interconnected nodes and extend over territories surpassing the regional scale in such a way that even a change in a single node or link can affect the whole network. Consequently, the partial reconstruction of communication networks provided by the aforementioned methods does not usually allow a holistic analysis. In this paper the relatively well understood British Roman road network is employed to explore the analytical possibilities offered by a combination of Social Network Analysis, Spatial Network Analysis and spatial interpolation-based distribution analysis. The British road network has been reconstructed using published data but also a variation of LCR in which cost surfaces are derived from cultural data obtained from large-scale cultural inventories. The distribution of introduced food plants during the Roman period serve as an excellent proxy for the study of trade along the network and its historical consequences. This multi-period archaeobotanical dataset has some evident advantages to other types of material remains: archaeobotanical remains are not reused as, for example, amphorae and, accordingly, they reflect a distribution pattern based on consumption or commerce. Some of them are imported (as they cannot be produced locally) and, consequently, their distribution would be applied through usage of the main routes. The results suggest a continuous inflow of exotics but highlight their changing transport routes, their differential access and the particular weight of certain nodal sites in the development of this commerce with direct impact on urbanisation and the overall economy of Britannia. The Roman road network acted as a major factor in the distribution of sites, their political and economic importance and their permanence or disappearance as global economic trends changed over time

Comparative Advertising Wars: An Historical Analysis of Their Causes and Consequences

This historical study contributes to the extensive literature on comparative advertising by examining the causes and consequences of comparative advertising wars; that is, when one advertiser responds to a direct or implied attack by another advertiser. Primary and secondary sources consist of articles published in historic and contemporary marketing and advertising trade journals, such as Printers’ Ink, Advertising & Selling, and Advertising Age. The findings reveal that well-publicized advertising wars occurred frequently between major U.S. advertisers throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, and that they most often occurred in product and service markets characterized by intense competition. Many, if not most, advertisers’ principal motive for responding to a comparative advertising attack has been emotional rather than rational. The findings also reveal that advertising wars often became increasingly hostile, leading to negative consequences for all combatants, as well as a broad and negative social consequence in the form of potentially misleading advertising.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Competition and Combative Advertising: An Historical Analysis

Fred K. Beard (PhD, University of Oklahoma) is a professor of advertising in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma. His research interests include comparative advertising, advertising humor, and advertising history. His work has appeared in the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Advertising Research, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Business Research, Journalism History, the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, the Journal of Macromarketing, and the Journal of Marketing Communications, among others.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Heart of the city: Roman, medieval and modern London revealed by archaeology at 1 Poultry

This book is about a remarkable archaeological dig on a site which has been at the heart of London for the last 2000 years. In the 1990s, hidden from public view, a team of archaeologists worked in what would become the basement of new offices at 1 Poultry. They uncovered mosaics, timber and stone buildings, and thousands of beautifully preserved coins, pots, and other artefacts. The finds tell the story of London – from Roman frontier town to provincial capital; ruin then revival as medieval Europe's largest city; recovery from fire and plague to become the world's richest metropolis; the Blitz, and the famously disputed demolition of 16 Victorian buildings. Heart of the City tells of the discoveries made and, with specially commissioned reconstructions, brings the past to life for anyone interested in archaeology, history, architecture, or simply in London