Sign Language Recognition

This chapter covers the key aspects of sign-language recognition (SLR), starting with a brief introduction to the motivations and requirements, followed by a précis of sign linguistics and their impact on the field. The types of data available and the relative merits are explored allowing examination of the features which can be extracted. Classifying the manual aspects of sign (similar to gestures) is then discussed from a tracking and non-tracking viewpoint before summarising some of the approaches to the non-manual aspects of sign languages. Methods for combining the sign classification results into full SLR are given showing the progression towards speech recognition techniques and the further adaptations required for the sign specific case. Finally the current frontiers are discussed and the recent research presented. This covers the task of continuous sign recognition, the work towards true signer independence, how to effectively combine the different modalities of sign, making use of the current linguistic research and adapting to larger more noisy data set

The integration of mindfulness training and health coaching: An exploratory study

Coaching has attracted much attention from health professionals interested in collaborative, person-centred approaches to motivating behaviour change. Whilst initial research supports the efficacy of coaching in health contexts, more theoretical and empirical work is needed. Based on recent work demonstrating the important role that mindfulness plays in self-regulation, it was hypothesised that the efficacy of health coaching could be enhanced through the inclusion of Mindfulness Training (MT). To test this, 45 adult were randomly assigned to three health programmes for eight weeks. Using a crossover design, two groups received an alternative delivery of MT and cognitive-behavioural, solution-focused (CB-SF) coaching, whilst the third group participated in a series of health education seminars. Results showed that goal attainment was significantly greater in the facilitative/coaching format than the educative/directive format. No significant differences were found for goal attainment between the two MT/CB-SF conditions suggesting that the delivery sequence had little bearing on outcomes. After reviewing the results, the implications for health professionals are discussed