Population studies on soil and plant nematodes in relation to the application of soil sterilants

Imperial Users onl

Stochastic Restricted Biased Estimators in misspecified regression model with incomplete prior information

In this article, the analysis of misspecification was extended to the recently introduced stochastic restricted biased estimators when multicollinearity exists among the explanatory variables. The Stochastic Restricted Ridge Estimator (SRRE), Stochastic Restricted Almost Unbiased Ridge Estimator (SRAURE), Stochastic Restricted Liu Estimator (SRLE), Stochastic Restricted Almost Unbiased Liu Estimator (SRAULE), Stochastic Restricted Principal Component Regression Estimator (SRPCR), Stochastic Restricted r-k class estimator (SRrk) and Stochastic Restricted r-d class estimator (SRrd) were examined in the misspecified regression model due to missing relevant explanatory variables when incomplete prior information of the regression coefficients is available. Further, the superiority conditions between estimators and their respective predictors were obtained in the mean square error matrix (MSEM) sense. Finally, a numerical example and a Monte Carlo simulation study were used to illustrate the theoretical findings.Comment: 35 Pages, 6 Figure

Personalised exercise recognition towards improved self-management of musculoskeletal disorders.

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) have been the primary contributor to the global disease burden, with increased years lived with disability. Such chronic conditions require self-management, typically in the form of maintaining an active lifestyle while adhering to prescribed exercises. Today, exercise monitoring in fitness applications wholly relies on user input. Effective digital intervention for self-managing MSD should be capable of monitoring, recognising and assessing performance quality of exercises in real-time. Exercise Recognition (ExRec) is the machine learning problem that investigates the automation of exercise monitoring. Multiple challenges arise when implementing high performing ExRec algorithms for a wide range of exercises performed by people from different demographics. In this thesis, we explore three personalisation challenges. Different sensor combinations can be used to capture exercises, to improve usability and deployability in restricted settings. Accordingly, a recognition algorithm should be adaptable to different sensor combinations. To address this challenge, we investigate the best feature learners for individual sensors, and effective fusion methods that minimise the need for data and very deep architectures. We implement a modular hybrid attention fusion architecture that emphasises significant features and understates noisy features from multiple sensors for each exercise. Persons perform exercises differently when not supervised; they incorporate personal rhythms and nuances. Accordingly, a recognition algorithm should be able to adapt to different persons. To address the personalised recognition challenge, we investigate how to adapt learned models to new, unseen persons. Key to achieving effective personalisation is the ability to personalise with few data instances. Accordingly, we bring together personalisation methods and advances in meta-learning to introduce personalised meta-learning methodology. The resulting personalised meta-learners are learning to adapt to new end-users with only few data instances. It is infeasible to design algorithms to recognise all expected exercises a physiotherapist would prescribe. Accordingly, the ability to integrate new exercises after deployment is another challenge in ExRec. The challenge of adapting to unseen exercises is known as open-ended recognition. We extend the personalised meta-learning methodology to the open-ended domain, such that an end-user can introduce a new exercise to the model with only a few data instances. Finally, we address the lack of publicly available data and collaborate with health science researchers to curate a heterogeneous multi-modal physiotherapy exercise dataset, MEx. We conduct comprehensive evaluations of the proposed methods using MEx to demonstrate that our methods successfully address the three ExRec challenges. We also show that our contributions are not restricted to the domain of ExRec, but are applicable in a wide range of activity recognition tasks by extending the evaluation to other human activity recognition domains

We were Meant to go Down One Road, but Now We Have Rerouted : A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Experience of Aging Out-of-place

In an age of globalization, the experience of aging in a foreign land is part of the late-life experience of many older adults. However, studies of aging and migration have largely failed to conceptualize the unique resettlement experiences of immigrants entering North America as older adults. This dissertation asked, “What is the experience of aging out-of-place?” Specifically, this research question aimed to understand how late-life immigrants relate to, and connect and engage with places through aging processes, and the essentiality of daily occupations within such engagement. An interpretive paradigm and a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology guided this inquiry. The hermeneutic phenomenological method informed by the work of van Manen (1990, 1997) informed the study processes. A phenomenological interview and a photo-elicitation interview were conducted with ten Sinhalese late-life immigrants who immigrated to Canada within the last 10 years. The essence of the aging out-of-place experience was captured through three essential themes. Late-life immigrants 1.) negotiate new and familiar ways of aging, 2.) mitigate loss through everyday occupation, and 3.) live between two worlds. Wilcock’s Occupational Perspective on Health (2006; 1998a) and the transactional perspective on occupation, informed by Dewey’s theory of transactionlism, were integrated in the discussion of this dissertation. From this work, I posit two key conclusions. First, late-life immigrants renegotiate ways of doing, being, becoming and belonging in the post-migration context. Second, late-life immigrants engage in continual transactions, through integrating elements from their past and present, within everyday occupations and places. By examining the nexus of ageing and immigration, this study addresses acknowledged gaps in literature concerning aging out-of-place from an occupational perspective, and the scarcity of literature examining the experiences of late-life immigrants from such a perspective

Why Do South and Southeast Asians Vote for Female Heads of State?

In the post World War II period only fifty women have been elected heads of state of their respective countries. Of these fifty women, eleven have come from South and Southeast Asia, including the first female head of state, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka2. These eleven women represent the second highest number of elected women presidents and prime ministers in a world region, behind Western Europe. This paper contends that the political cultural variables that influence voters in the South and Southeast Asian region in electing female heads of state include the following: patriarchal perceptions of women, affinity for charismatic leaders, public regard of elite dynasties and public experience of the effects of colonialism

Litigating Labor Rights Across a Demilitarized Zone: The South Korean Constitutional Court as a Forum to Address Labor Violations in North Korea\u27s Kaesong Special Economic Zone

South Korea heralds North Korea’s Kaesong Special Economic Zone as a shining example of inter-Korean cooperation. South Korean corporations at Kaesong combine South Korean expertise with North Korean labor. However, Kaesong operations violate the North Korean workers’ labor rights. This Comment explores the legal mechanisms available in South Korea to hold violative South Korean Kaesong corporations accountable. The South Korean Constitutional Court should entertain a constitutional petition from the North Korean workers. Such petition will compel the South Korean government to recognize the North Korean workers’ rights under the South Korean Constitution and hold violative South Korean corporations at Kaesong accountable through stricter regulations and sanctions. Practical and procedural obstacles hinder Kaesong workers from pursuing relief in the South Korean Constitutional Court. First, the North Korean government bars the workers from leaving North Korea. Second, the South Korean Constitutional Court bars third parties in South Korea from filing a petition on behalf of the workers. Third, the court has no clear jurisdiction over constitutional claims brought by North Korean workers in North Korea. Fourth, the court bars suit under pseudonyms, leaving potential petitioners vulnerable to retaliatory employment action. Given these impediments, the Constitutional Court and the South Korean legislature should look to international developments in procedural law that facilitate transnational rights litigation. The court and legislature should adopt new court procedures that permit foreign petitioners physically absent in the jurisdiction to file in the Constitutional Court. Further, the South Korean government and South Korean shareholders of Kaesong corporations should take measures outside the courts to hold the corporations accountable

Principal Component Preliminary Test Estimator in the Linear Regression Model

A Preliminary Test Estimator is introduced based on Principal Component Regression Estimator defined in the linear regression model when the stochastic restrictions are available in addition to the sample information, and when the explanatory variables are multicollinear. It is further developed as a large sample preliminary test estimator by using Wald (WA), Likelihood Ratio (LR), and Lagrangian Multiplier (LM) tests. Stochastic properties of this estimator based on F test as well as WA, LR, and LM tests are derived, and the performance of the estimator is compared using WA, LR, and LM tests with respect to Mean Square Error Matrix (MSEM). A Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to illustrate the theoretical findings