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

The objective structured public health examination (OSPHE): work-based learning for a new exam

Introduction: Postgraduate education for all healthcare professionals is shifting from traditional knowledge-based models towards competency-based training and assessment. 1 Norcini’s 2003 paper on work based assessment outline’s George Miller’s pyramid framework for assessing competence (see Figure 1) – with knowledge at the base (‘knows’), competence at the next level (‘knows how’), performance above this (‘shows how’) and action (‘does’) at the top. Action is what actually occurs in day to-day practice, while the lower levels are what are more commonly assessed in an artificial examination environment. 2 The Faculty of Public Health (FPH), the standard-setting body for specialists in public health, has addressed the move towards competency-based training in two ways. The first is the development of a new and more detailed curriculum. This links competencies, training outcomes and their assessment to specific stages in training. The second is the the introduction of the new objective structured public health examination (OSPHE), which will be discussed in this paper. The OSPHE targets the ‘shows how’ level of the pyramid – measuring performance in an examination setting

Quantifying the Return on Investment of After School Programming

Each fiscal year, there is a battle on Capitol Hill as lawmakers wrestle with reconciling political promises to financial reality. This process is completed with the goal of efficiently allocating scarce resources, in this case tax dollars and other government revenue, across the needs of the over 325 million diverse residents of the United States. Some budget items garner almost universal support, such as defense funding, infrastructure and education. While individuals may differ on how much funding each of these causes should receive, almost all agree that they should be funded by the federal government. Other budget items, such as universal healthcare, food stamps and the National Endowment for the Arts are partisan issues, with some believing they are key government services and others believing they are a waste of their hard-earned money. Daily, many households across the country play out this same battle. Families decide a wide range of financial issues: whether they wish to go on a vacation, send their children to private school, buy a bigger home or donate to causes they care about. Individuals also decide how to spend their time. Should they volunteer more, or use their free hours to learn a new skill or take up a new hobby? Even more specifically, families and individuals must decide where to spend their time and money. Though in the private sector companies typically make decisions based on financial metrics, often times government and non-profit programs are either fiercely opposed or supported based solely on anecdotal evidence or moral concepts. The introduction of these opinions in the budget making process may limit both the government’s and individual’s ability to truly allocate resources efficiently and effectively. Lately, an easy target of federal spending cuts has been the Department of Education. Although most agree the government is obligated to fund public education to some extent, the many other programs funded by the Department of Education have come under fire. According to a Washington Post article from March of 2017, one example is the $1.2 billion dollars in federal grants that are the backbone of funding for many of America’s after school programs. These grants, known as 21CCLC grants, enable over 1.6 million children across the country, to access after school programming (Brown). While these cuts did not become reality in the budget passed in late March of 2018, the threat to these programs is real. If the government cuts funding, individuals may take it as a sign that these programs do not work and reduce their own donations of time and money to the cause. The most efficient way for the government and households to reduce bias and effectively allocate resources is likely to borrow a page from the private sector and perform a numbers-based analysis of all potential options. While anecdotal evidence and moral leanings are still an important part of final decision making, beginning the process with a study of Return on Investment (ROI) improves the cost efficiency of budgets. This study will explore the potential calculation and application of ROI to after-school programming with the goal of showing these programs to be a net positive investment for the government, individuals and society at large

Human Rights, Environment and Development: Special Emphasis on Corporate Accountability

human development, human rights

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