Predicting and improving the recognition of emotions

The technological world is moving towards more effective and friendly human computer interaction. A key factor of these emerging requirements is the ability of future systems to recognise human emotions, since emotional information is an important part of human-human communication and is therefore expected to be essential in natural and intelligent human-computer interaction. Extensive research has been done on emotion recognition using facial expressions, but all of these methods rely mainly on the results of some classifier based on the apparent expressions. However, the results of classifier may be badly affected by the noise including occlusions, inappropriate lighting conditions, sudden movement of head and body, talking, and other possible problems. In this paper, we propose a system using exponential moving averages and Markov chain to improve the classifier results and somewhat predict the future emotions by taking into account the current as well as previous emotions

Preserve birds in their natural NZ habitat and save their “Wild Musick”.

The Wild Musick framework has been created to support the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Tourism) NZ, Department of Conservation, Ministry of Conservation, and Ministry of Youth Development. It works to encourage the youth, and families in saving birds and conserving the biodiversity of New Zealand avian population. The solution offers the following direct use cases : 1. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Tourism) a. Creation of new walking trails along areas of high bird density. b. Promoting bird watching and bird sounding trips. c. Aligning the tourism season with bird migration and seasonal population variation of birds. d. Promoting bird watching as a sport. e. Family trips encouraged to record bird sounds and feeding them to the Wild Musick web service. 2. Ministry of Conservation (Bio Conservation) a. Pest population has an inverse relationship to the bird population in a geographic area. The Wild Musick framework can assist in decreasing the pest population in an area supporting other programs working in conjunction with saving birds. b. Saving the avian population leads to the maintenance of the ecological balance in the Aotearoa region. c. Identification of unusual birds migration in specific areas. d. Identification of bird songs from bird calls and identifying the breeding season and perhaps preventing human intervention during the season. e. Identifying bird’s behaviour based on their songs/calls. f. Identify the population density of the endangered birds species. 3. Ministry of Youth Development a. Identify the bird sounds in the wild on youth trips. b. Respond to a bird call for help, if we can isolate the bird sound c. Gamify the application and ask the youth (children as well as youth) when they go wit

Knowledge, perceptions and myths regarding infertility among selected adult population in Pakistan: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The reported prevalence of infertility in Pakistan is approximately 22% with 4% primary and 18% secondary infertility. Infertility is not only a medical but also a social problem in our society as cultural customs and perceived religious dictums may equate infertility with failure on a personal, interpersonal, or social level. It is imperative that people have adequate knowledge about infertility so couples can seek timely medical care and misconceptions can be rectified.</p> <p>We aim to assess the knowledge, perception and myths regarding infertility and suggest ways to improve it.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional survey was carried out by interviewing a sample of 447 adults who were accompanying the patients at two tertiary care hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. They were interviewed one-on-one with the help of a pretested questionnaire drafted by the team after a thorough literature review and in consultation with infertility specialists.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The correct knowledge of infertility was found to be limited amongst the participants. Only 25% correctly identified when infertility is pathological and only 46% knew about the fertile period in women's cycle. People are misinformed that use of IUCD (53%) and OCPs (61%) may cause infertility. Beliefs in evil forces and supernatural powers as a cause of infertility are still prevalent especially amongst people with lower level of education. Seeking alternative treatment for infertility remains a popular option for 28% of the participant as a primary preference and 75% as a secondary preference. IVF remains an unfamiliar (78%) and an unacceptable option (55%).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Knowledge about infertility is limited in the population and a lot of misconceptions and myths are prevalent in the society. Alternative medicine is a popular option for seeking infertility treatment. The cultural and religious perspective about assisted reproductive technologies is unclear, which has resulted in its reduced acceptability.</p

Effect of early tranexamic acid administration on mortality, hysterectomy, and other morbidities in women with post-partum haemorrhage (WOMAN): an international, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Post-partum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. Early administration of tranexamic acid reduces deaths due to bleeding in trauma patients. We aimed to assess the effects of early administration of tranexamic acid on death, hysterectomy, and other relevant outcomes in women with post-partum haemorrhage. Methods In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we recruited women aged 16 years and older with a clinical diagnosis of post-partum haemorrhage after a vaginal birth or caesarean section from 193 hospitals in 21 countries. We randomly assigned women to receive either 1 g intravenous tranexamic acid or matching placebo in addition to usual care. If bleeding continued after 30 min, or stopped and restarted within 24 h of the first dose, a second dose of 1 g of tranexamic acid or placebo could be given. Patients were assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight numbered packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Participants, care givers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. We originally planned to enrol 15 000 women with a composite primary endpoint of death from all-causes or hysterectomy within 42 days of giving birth. However, during the trial it became apparent that the decision to conduct a hysterectomy was often made at the same time as randomisation. Although tranexamic acid could influence the risk of death in these cases, it could not affect the risk of hysterectomy. We therefore increased the sample size from 15 000 to 20 000 women in order to estimate the effect of tranexamic acid on the risk of death from post-partum haemorrhage. All analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This trial is registered with ISRCTN76912190 (Dec 8, 2008); ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00872469; and PACTR201007000192283. Findings Between March, 2010, and April, 2016, 20 060 women were enrolled and randomly assigned to receive tranexamic acid (n=10 051) or placebo (n=10 009), of whom 10 036 and 9985, respectively, were included in the analysis. Death due to bleeding was significantly reduced in women given tranexamic acid (155 [1·5%] of 10 036 patients vs 191 [1·9%] of 9985 in the placebo group, risk ratio [RR] 0·81, 95% CI 0·65–1·00; p=0·045), especially in women given treatment within 3 h of giving birth (89 [1·2%] in the tranexamic acid group vs 127 [1·7%] in the placebo group, RR 0·69, 95% CI 0·52–0·91; p=0·008). All other causes of death did not differ significantly by group. Hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (358 [3·6%] patients in the tranexamic acid group vs 351 [3·5%] in the placebo group, RR 1·02, 95% CI 0·88–1·07; p=0·84). The composite primary endpoint of death from all causes or hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (534 [5·3%] deaths or hysterectomies in the tranexamic acid group vs 546 [5·5%] in the placebo group, RR 0·97, 95% CI 0·87-1·09; p=0·65). Adverse events (including thromboembolic events) did not differ significantly in the tranexamic acid versus placebo group. Interpretation Tranexamic acid reduces death due to bleeding in women with post-partum haemorrhage with no adverse effects. When used as a treatment for postpartum haemorrhage, tranexamic acid should be given as soon as possible after bleeding onset. Funding London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Pfizer, UK Department of Health, Wellcome Trust, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised controlled, open-label, platform trial

SummaryBackground Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatoryactions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospitalwith COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients wererandomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once perday by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatmentgroups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment andwere twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants andlocal study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to theoutcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treatpopulation. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936.Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) wereeligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomlyallocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall,561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days(rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days(rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, nosignificant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilationor death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24).Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or otherprespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restrictedto patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication

Computational modelling to track human emotion trajectories through time : a thesis presented to Massey University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science at School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

There has been a lot of research into the field of a ffective computing over the past three decades. In the context of this thesis, aff ective computing is the computing that relates to emotion recognition, representation, and analysis. Much of the past work has focused on the basic emotions. However, most human emotions are not pure examples of one basic emotion, but a mixture of them, known as complex emotions. Emotions are dynamic, they change continuously over time. This thesis focuses on computational modelling to recognise, represent, and analyse continuous spontaneous emotions through time. Emotions are internal, and hence impossible to see directly. However, there are some external presentations of emotions enabling computational tools to be used to identify them. This thesis focuses on the use of facial points as a measure of underlying emotions. The main focus is the development of computational models to track the patterns of facial changes in order to analyse the paths followed by emotions over time. While there has been lots of work on shape models to classify facial expressions into discrete basic emotion categories, they are generally based on the analysis of the full face. However, the research shows that some expressions are better recognized by muscle activity in the upper half of the face, while others use muscles primarily from the lower half of the face. This thesis introduces a joint face model based on shape models of full, upper, and lower parts of the face separately that signi cantly improves the accuracy. The set of shape models gives a degree of match to each basic emotion. Using this information, this thesis addresses the problem of complex emotion recognition by developing a mixture model that combines each basic emotion in an appropriate amount. The proposed model represents emotions in the activation-evaluation space, which is the most widely-used representation of emotions in psychological studies. It represents emotions on the basis of their polarity and similarity to each other. This thesis uses a mixture of von Mises distributions for emotion recognition, which is an approximation to the normal distribution for circular data and is the most common model for describing directional data. The results show that the proposed mixture model ts the data well. Emotions vary continuously with regard to intensity, duration, persistence with time, and other attributes. In addition, their appearance on the face varies, and the transition in facial expressions is based on both the change in emotion and physiological constraints. This thesis examines the trajectories between emotions in activation evaluation space and shows that these trajectories are smooth and follow `common' paths between different emotions. In the past, very few efforts have been made on the analysis of continuous emotion dynamics. The ndings presented in this thesis can be used and extended in several directions to improve the emotion recognition as well as emotion synthesis

Research Data Management.docx

Contains research data management tools, services, some ideas, and database search option

Development and evaluation of fruit leather from guava and jujube blend

Fruits and vegetables have become as essential basis of human nutrition because they are nutrient rich foods. They contain many nutrients as well as many non-nutrient food ingredients that have role in preventing diseases. Guava (Psidium guajava) is a nutrient rich fruit having high amount of phytonutrients such as carotenoids and lycopene. Due to presence of antioxidants in lycopene it helps in the prevention of prostate cancer. Guava is highly fibre rich fruit and therefore helps diabetic’s patient to control their blood sugar level. Jujube (Ziziphus lotus) is multifunctional, nutritionally important and commercially viable fruit. Fresh fruit decay is a critical challenge in food industry. Jujube has great potential to deteriorate due to its higher water content which resulting in massive production loss of fruit after cultivation. Various techniques have been designed based on the characteristics of fruit in order to construct and utilize an appropriate treatment to make fruits easily assessable most of the year. Food drying is frequently used approach for extending the shelf life of fruits after cultivation through converting them into the multiple products such as edible fruit leather in order to minimize costs and enhance consumer profit.&nbsp

Universal Polymerase Chain Reaction and Antibody Testing Demonstrate Little to No Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in a Rural Community.

BackgroundLimited systematic surveillance for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the early months of the US epidemic curtailed accurate appraisal of transmission intensity. Our objective was to perform case detection of an entire rural community to quantify SARS-CoV-2 transmission using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and antibody testing.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the rural town of Bolinas, California (population 1620), 4 weeks after shelter-in-place orders. Participants were tested between April 20 and 24, 2020. Prevalence by PCR and seroprevalence from 2 forms of antibody testing were performed in parallel (Abbott ARCHITECT immunoglobulin [Ig]G and in-house IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay).ResultsOf 1891 participants, 1312 were confirmed Bolinas residents (&gt;80% community ascertainment). Zero participants were PCR positive. Assuming 80% sensitivity, it would have been unlikely to observe these results (P &lt; .05) if there were &gt;3 active infections in the community. Based on antibody results, estimated prevalence of prior infection was 0.16% (95% credible interval [CrI], 0.02%-0.46%). The positive predictive value (PPV) of a positive result on both tests was 99.11% (95% CrI, 95.75%-99.94%), compared with PPV 44.19%-63.32% (95% CrI, 3.25%-98.64%) if 1 test was utilized.ConclusionsFour weeks after shelter-in-place, SARS-CoV-2 infection in a rural Northern California community was extremely rare. In this low-prevalence setting, use of 2 antibody tests increased seroprevalence estimate precision. This was one of the first community-wide studies to successfully implement synchronous PCR and antibody testing, particularly in a rural setting. Widespread testing remains an underpinning of effective disease control in conjunction with consistent uptake of public health measures

Universal Polymerase Chain Reaction and Antibody Testing Demonstrate Little to No Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in a Rural Community.

BackgroundLimited systematic surveillance for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the early months of the US epidemic curtailed accurate appraisal of transmission intensity. Our objective was to perform case detection of an entire rural community to quantify SARS-CoV-2 transmission using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and antibody testing.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the rural town of Bolinas, California (population 1620), 4 weeks after shelter-in-place orders. Participants were tested between April 20 and 24, 2020. Prevalence by PCR and seroprevalence from 2 forms of antibody testing were performed in parallel (Abbott ARCHITECT immunoglobulin [Ig]G and in-house IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay).ResultsOf 1891 participants, 1312 were confirmed Bolinas residents (&gt;80% community ascertainment). Zero participants were PCR positive. Assuming 80% sensitivity, it would have been unlikely to observe these results (P &lt; .05) if there were &gt;3 active infections in the community. Based on antibody results, estimated prevalence of prior infection was 0.16% (95% credible interval [CrI], 0.02%-0.46%). The positive predictive value (PPV) of a positive result on both tests was 99.11% (95% CrI, 95.75%-99.94%), compared with PPV 44.19%-63.32% (95% CrI, 3.25%-98.64%) if 1 test was utilized.ConclusionsFour weeks after shelter-in-place, SARS-CoV-2 infection in a rural Northern California community was extremely rare. In this low-prevalence setting, use of 2 antibody tests increased seroprevalence estimate precision. This was one of the first community-wide studies to successfully implement synchronous PCR and antibody testing, particularly in a rural setting. Widespread testing remains an underpinning of effective disease control in conjunction with consistent uptake of public health measures