Remote monitoring of biodynamic activity using electric potential sensors

Previous work in applying the electric potential sensor to the monitoring of body electrophysiological signals has shown that it is now possible to monitor these signals without needing to make any electrical contact with the body. Conventional electrophysiology makes use of electrodes which are placed in direct electrical contact with the skin. The electric potential sensor requires no cutaneous electrical contact, it operates by sensing the displacement current using a capacitive coupling. When high resolution body electrophysiology is required a strong (capacitive) coupling is used to maximise the collected signal. However, in remote applications where there is typically an air-gap between the body and the sensor only a weak coupling can be achieved. In this paper we demonstrate that the electric potential sensor can be successfully used for the remote sensing and monitoring of bioelectric activity. We show examples of heart-rate measurements taken from a seated subject using sensors mounted in the chair. We also show that it is possible to monitor body movements on the opposite side of a wall to the sensor. These sensing techniques have biomedical applications for non-contact monitoring of electrophysiological conditions and can be applied to passive through-the-wall surveillance systems for security applications

Using PLASC Data to Identify Patterns of Commuting to School, Residential Migration and Movement Between Schools in Leeds

New patterns of interaction emerge annually between the places where schoolchildren live and go to school. This paper concentrates on understanding the dynamics of the 'journey to learn'. It explains how PLASC data for Leeds, a city in northern England, can be used to measure daily pupil movements and to investigate school territories, but also to identify pupil movements between schools and between places of usual residence. The longitudinal nature of the data provides the opportunity for checking the authenticity of individual record attributes from one eyar to another and for making adjustments to improve consistency. Consideration is given to how these flows might be modelled in order to support the local authority (Education Leeds) make better decisions when planning the provision of primary and secondary schools across the district in future years

Commuting to School in Leeds : How useful is the PLASC?

Children's daily travel behaviour is dominated by the journey to school. In some cases, this movement takes only a few minutes and involves no means of transport other than foot; in other instances, the journey can be over substantial distances, be extensive in duration and involve some form of public or private transport. The combination of journeys taking place is likely to have a substantial impact on traffic congestion, particularly since the morning peak coincides with that associated with the journey to work. What datasets exist that allow us to measure and understand this behaviour

Using PLASC Data to Identify Patterns of Commuting to School, Residential Migration and Movement Between Schools in Leeds

New patterns of interaction emerge annually between the places where schoolchildren live and go to school. This paper concentrates on understanding the dynamics of the 'journey to learn'. It explains how PLASC data for Leeds, a city in northern England, can be used to measure daily pupil movements and to investigate school territories, but also to identify pupil movements between schools and between places of usual residence. The longitudinal nature of the data provides the opportunity for checking the authenticity of individual record attributes from one eyar to another and for making adjustments to improve consistency. Consideration is given to how these flows might be modelled in order to support the local authority (Education Leeds) make better decisions when planning the provision of primary and secondary schools across the district in future years

Perceptions of physiotherapists towards research: a mixed methods study

OBJECTIVES: To explore the perceptions of physiotherapists towards the use of and participation in research. DESIGN: Concurrent mixed methods research, combining in-depth interviews with three questionnaires (demographics, Edmonton Research Orientation Survey, visual analogue scales for confidence and motivation to participate in research). SETTING: One physiotherapy department in a rehabilitation hospital, consisting of seven specialised areas. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-five subjects {four men and 21 women, mean age 38 [standard deviation (SD) 11] years} who had been registered as a physiotherapist for a mean period of 15 (SD 10) years participated in this study. They were registered with the New Zealand Board of Physiotherapy, held a current practising certificate, and were working as a physiotherapist or physiotherapy/allied health manager at the hospital. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The primary outcome measure was in-depth interviews and the secondary outcome measures were the three questionnaires. RESULTS: Physiotherapists were generally positive towards research, but struggled with the concept of research, the available literature and the time to commit to research. Individual confidence and orientation towards research seemed to influence how these barriers were perceived. CONCLUSION: This study showed that physiotherapists struggle to implement research in their daily practice and become involved in research. Changing physiotherapists' conceptions of research, making it more accessible and providing dedicated research time could facilitate increased involvement in the physiotherapy profession

Busy beaver machines and the observant otter heuristic

The busy beaver problem is to find the maximum number of non-zero characters that can be printed by an n-state Turing machine of a particular type. A critical step in the solution of this problem is to determine whether or not a given n-state Turing machine halts on a blank input. Given the enormous output sizes that can be produced by some small machines, it becomes critical to have appropriate methods for dealing with the exponential behaviour of both terminating and nonterminating machines. In this paper, we investigate a heuristic which can be used to greatly accelerateexecution of this class of machines. This heuristic, which we call the observant otter, is based on the detection of patterns earlier in the execution trace. We describe our implementation of this method and report various experimental results based on it, including showing how it can be used to evaluate all known 'monster' machines, including some whose naive execution would take around 10^36,534 steps

Digital Colleague Connectedness: A Framework for Studying Teachers’ Professional Network Interactions

The coronavirus outbreak will likely highlight both strengths and weaknesses of the pre-corona educational system. Researchers have a responsibility to examine the experiences educators have had during the pandemic; however, there are no education-specific frameworks for researchers to use to examine teachers interacting with digital colleagues for professional purposes. This paper describes the literature used to design the digital colleague connectedness framework. The purpose of the framework is to operationalize terminology used to examine educators interacting in professional exchanges within a virtual network. This framework includes six behaviors in which digital colleagues engage and four roles they may assume that specify their level of connectedness. Suggestions for how the framework might be used in future research are included

Making logic programs reactive

Logic programming languages based on linear logic have been of recent interest, particularly as such languages provide a logical basis for programs which execute within a dynamic environment. Most of these languages are implemented using standard resolution or backward-chaining techniques. However, there are applications for which the use of forward-chaining techniques within a dynamic environment are appropriate, such as genetic algorithms, active databases and agent-based systems, and for which it is difficult or impossible to specify an appropriate goal in advance. In this paper we discuss the foundations for a forward-chaining approach (or in logic programming parlance, a bottom-up approach) to the execution of linear logic programs, which thus provides forward-chaining within a dynamic environment. In this way it is possible not only to execute programs in a forward-chaining manner, but also to combine forward- and backward-chaining execution. We describe and discuss the appropriate inference rules for such a system, the formal results about such rules, the role of search strategies, and applications