Real-time person re-identification for interactive environments

The work presented in this thesis was motivated by a vision of the future in which intelligent environments in public spaces such as galleries and museums, deliver useful and personalised services to people via natural interaction, that is, without the need for people to provide explicit instructions via tangible interfaces. Delivering the right services to the right people requires a means of biometrically identifying individuals and then re-identifying them as they move freely through the environment. Delivering the service they desire requires sensing their context, for example, sensing their location or proximity to resources. This thesis presents both a context-aware system and a person re-identification method. A tabletop display was designed and prototyped with an infrared person-sensing context function. In experimental evaluation it exhibited tracking performance comparable to other more complex systems. A real-time, viewpoint invariant, person re-identification method is proposed based on a novel set of Viewpoint Invariant Multi-modal (ViMM) feature descriptors collected from depth-sensing cameras. The method uses colour and a combination of anthropometric properties logged as a function of body orientation. A neural network classifier is used to perform re-identification

Signature Verification and Forgery Detection System

This paper presents an innovative approach for signature verification and forgery detection based on fuzzy modeling. The signature images are binarized and resized to a fixed size window and are then thinned. The thinned image is then partitioned into a fixed number of eight sub-images called boxes. This partition is done using the horizontal density approximation approach. Each sub-image is then further resized and again partitioned into twelve further sub-images using the uniform partitioning approach. The features of consideration are normalized vector angle and distance from each box. Each feature extracted from sample signatures gives rise to fuzzy sets. Since the choice of a proper fuzzification function is crucial for verification, we have devised a new fuzzification function with structural parameters, which is able to adapt to the variations in fuzzy sets. This function is employed to develop a complete forgery detection and verification system

Improving Visual Style Classification in Digital Games Using Intercoder Reliability Assessment

The digital gaming community appreciates visual style information in digital games as it facilitates information seeking. Nevertheless, learned scholars have discovered that the digital game visual style classification is inconsistent and easily modified, potentially limiting the information and leading to inaccurate visual terminologies during information discovery. Therefore, this cross-sectional study was performed to assess multiple visual style classification terms and their definitions among Malaysian game developers using the closed card sorting exercise. A total of seven professional game developers participated in an online survey that comprised thirty-five digital game case studies using a card sorting technique. They were asked to classify nineteen visual style classification terms, including psychedelic, text, illusionism, photorealism, televisualism, handicraft, caricature, celshaded, comic book (anime), watercolour, Lego, minimalism, pixel art, silhouette, bright, dark, maplike, colourful, and black and white. The Fleiss’ kappa intercoder reliability assessment was performed to measure the coders’ agreement on visual style classification, followed by the think-aloud protocol descriptive analysis to gather assessment insights into the visual style descriptions. The intercoder reliability test achieved a significantly moderate agreement based on the results. The professional game developers agreed on eighteen visual styles and rejected the bright visual style classification due to its overlapping description with the colourful visual style. The definition of ten visual style classifications was improved from the existing Video Game Metadata Schema (VGMS) description, contributing to the digital game’s coherence and consistency. This improvement will enhance visual style classification information for machine-learning-based recommendation systems for digital game distribution platforms and digital archiving

Prevalence of depression among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and its predictions : a cross sectional study in primary care setting, Malaysia.

Objectives: The prevalence of depression among patients with diabetes mellitus has been reported to be higher than normal population. This study assessed the prevalence of depression among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in east coast Malaysia and its associated factors. Methods: A cross sectional study was done on 103 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attended primary care clinic in Kuantan, Malaysia from July to August 2015. A selfadministered questionnaire using the validated Depression and Anxiety Stress Scales 21 (DASS 21) Malay version was used to assess the level of depression among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The questionnaire also comprised of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patient in order to assess for association. Association were tested using chi square test and logistic regression. Results: Of 103 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, the prevalence of depression was 12.6%. Female gender and recent significant life event were significantly associated with depression (p<0.05). Conclusion: Depression is a common condition associated with diabetes mellitus and it has significant relationship with gender and recent significant life event. Physicians managing patients with diabetes mellitus should therefore take the initiative to screen this condition at any given opportunity especially among female patients and patients with recent significant life event

Signature Verification And Forgery Detection Including Recognition Of Courtesy Amount In Cheques

Bank cheque processing is an important task in financial institutions and for office automation. Owing tlo the immense difficulties involved in this task, little work has been reported until now. The present study makes a modest attempt towards automatic processing of a bank cheque along with the verification of the signatures extracted from the cheque

Towards automatic recognition of emotion in speech

This paper discusses an approach towards automatic recognition of emotion in speech using computer. First, a design for the emotion recognizer is proposed. LP analysis algorithm has been used for the speech emotion parameter extraction. A total of 22 speech features have been selected to represent each emotion. A database consisting of emotional Malay and English voice samples has been developed for training and recognition purposes. Fuzzy concept has been applied to recognize emotion of the selected voice sample. The result from computer recognition is compared to the human recognition rate to confirm the reliability of the result and also to explore how well people and computer can recognize emotion in speech. It is found that computer recognition of emotion is possible and the average recognition rate of 66% is satisfactory based on the comparison from the human perception. According to the confusion matrix table for both human and computer recognition, it is shown that the way human interprets emotion is different from computer

Off-line signature verification and forgery detection using fuzzy modeling

Automatic signature verification is a well-established and an active area of research with numerous applications such as bank check verification, ATM access, etc. This paper proposes a novel approach to the problem of automatic off-line signature verification and forgery detection. The proposed approach is based on fuzzy modeling that employs the Takagi-Sugeno (TS) model. Signature verification and forgery detection are carried out using angle features extracted from box approach. Each feature corresponds to a fuzzy set. The features are fuzzified by an exponential membership function involved in the TS model, which is modified to include structural parameters. The structural parameters are devised to take account of possible variations due to handwriting styles and to reflect moods. The membership functions constitute weights in the TS model. The optimization of the output of the TS model with respect to the structural parameters yields the solution for the parameters. We have also derived two TS models by considering a rule for each input feature in the first formulation (Multiple rules) and by considering a single rule for all input features in the second formulation. In this work, we have found that TS model with multiple rules is better than TS model with single rule for detecting three types of forgeries; random, skilled and unskilled from a large database of sample signatures in addition to verifying genuine signatures. We have also devised three approaches, viz., an innovative approach and two intuitive approaches using the TS model with multiple rules for improved performance. (C) 2004 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Digital Game Visual Style Classification: Influence of Information Quality Components on the User Satisfaction during Game Searching Activity in the Digital Game Library

The digital gaming community appreciates the visual style classification system to search for information about a game product. However, scholars have discovered that the applied visual style classification system frequently leads to frustration and dissatisfaction among users owing to inaccurate search results. Moreover, there are yet any research studies that accurately measure user satisfaction during game searching activity in the digital game library based on the current visual style classification system. Therefore, this study was performed to investigate the influence of information quality components (Accuracy, Content, Ease of Use, Format, and Timeliness) on User Satisfaction during game searching activity in the digital game library. A cross-sectional study was conducted by distributing self-administered digital questionnaires to 239 game players in Malaysia. The 12-item instrument survey questionnaire, which consists of four main sections, adopted the End-user Computing Satisfaction (EUCS) model to examine the relationships between user satisfaction and information quality components. The results were then analysed using descriptive statistics, preliminary data analysis, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Based on the findings, more than half of the respondents were male (n = 139, 58.2%) with an age range between 19 and 24 years old, and 79.1% (n = 189) have experience in searching digital games based on visual styles. The EUCS model revealed that user satisfaction during game searching activity using the visual style information highly correlated with Content, Accuracy, and Ease of Use. Users were satisfied when they receive accurate, precise, and sufficient information. In addition, a user-friendly and simplified navigation interface improved the searching experience and stimulate users to further their searching activity. In contrast, the Format and Timeliness showed a weak correlation. Providing visual classification and appeal format has less impact on user satisfaction. In addition, the fast speed of information retrieval and up-to-date information showed an insignificant contribution to user satisfaction. Overall, this research demonstrated that information quality components, namely Content, Accuracy, and Ease of Use, influenced User Satisfaction when searching for games based on the visual style. Future studies should explore and evaluate the effectiveness of visual style information systems for digital game distribution platforms in Malaysia

Small And Medium Accounting Practitioners: Digital Business Advisory

Contagious pandemic become a major crisis for small business include Small Medium Accounting Practitioners (SMAP), Small Medium Enterprise (SME) and Small Micro Business (SMB), which there were so many business activities cannot be done. Businesses cannot operate normally thus impacting their revenue and this affects their cash flow. The last thing they would need is to hire an accountant especially when accountants would not be able to do their usual tasks like stock take, meetings and document sighting. During pandemic Covid19 that happened in 2019, it becomes more clear that businesses and accountants cannot run away from digitalization. SMAP from now are even more in danger as they are not currently as equipped to do work using digital technologies. Moving forward, SMAP will need to figure out how to work together hand in hand with SME or even with SMB in this digital era. Therefore, SMAP should reposition their business by implement Digital Transformation (DT), use technology, to deliver the better services effectively, efficiently in terms of time, money and effort to SME. SMAP can offer is business advice and this business advisory need to be in the context of digital technology. The question is our SMAP ready to go digital? In fact, due to technology, many of the previous work done physically is obsolete. SMAP have no choice, they have to actually change the way the work in order to continue being relevant. Research has shown that many accounting jobs are ripe for takeover by Smart Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Algorithms (STARA) causing the accounting profession to be at risk of being obsolete. Thus, accountants especially SMAP need to innovate and provide higher value services especially related to business digitalization but SMAP ability to deliver the digital technology enabled services is unclear. This study will survey SMAP knowledge, skills and attitude towards offering digital business advisory and also assess the motivation, opportunity and ability of offering digital business advisory in order to develop a business model for SMAP. This study will be use quantitative method by questionnaire to all SMAP in Malaysia that have not implement digitization and yet not offer the digital business advisory. The data will be analyzed using the SPSS. Although the proposed research will focus only on SMAP, the development of the digitization business advisory model that considers changing the mind set and competencies of the accountants is predicted to benefit other types of organization, such as professional bodies and educational institutions

Digital Game Visual Style Classification: Influence of Information Quality Components on the User Satisfaction during Game Searching Activity in the Digital Game Library

The digital gaming community appreciates the visual style classification system to search for information about a game product. However, scholars have discovered that the applied visual style classification system frequently leads to frustration and dissatisfaction among users owing to inaccurate search results. Moreover, there are yet any research studies that accurately measure user satisfaction during game searching activity in the digital game library based on the current visual style classification system. Therefore, this study was performed to investigate the influence of information quality components (Accuracy, Content, Ease of Use, Format, and Timeliness) on User Satisfaction during game searching activity in the digital game library. A cross-sectional study was conducted by distributing self-administered digital questionnaires to 239 game players in Malaysia. The 12-item instrument survey questionnaire, which consists of four main sections, adopted the End-user Computing Satisfaction (EUCS) model to examine the relationships between user satisfaction and information quality components. The results were then analysed using descriptive statistics, preliminary data analysis, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Based on the findings, more than half of the respondents were male (n = 139, 58.2%) with an age range between 19 and 24 years old, and 79.1% (n = 189) have experience in searching digital games based on visual styles. The EUCS model revealed that user satisfaction during game searching activity using the visual style information highly correlated with Content, Accuracy, and Ease of Use. Users were satisfied when they receive accurate, precise, and sufficient information. In addition, a user-friendly and simplified navigation interface improved the searching experience and stimulate users to further their searching activity. In contrast, the Format and Timeliness showed a weak correlation. Providing visual classification and appeal format has less impact on user satisfaction. In addition, the fast speed of information retrieval and up-to-date information showed an insignificant contribution to user satisfaction. Overall, this research demonstrated that information quality components, namely Content, Accuracy, and Ease of Use, influenced User Satisfaction when searching for games based on the visual style. Future studies should explore and evaluate the effectiveness of visual style information systems for digital game distribution platforms in Malaysia