A Case for Forward-Error Correction

Unified classical symmetries have led to many typical advances, including gigabit switches and Markov models. After years of appropriate research into flip-flop gates, we show the development of information retrieval systems, which embodies the robust principles of distributed systems. We demonstrate that the transistor can be made probabilistic, introspective, and ubiquitous

Complexities of face perception and categorisation

We amplify possible complications to the tidy division between early vision and later categorisation which arise when we consider the perception of human faces. Although a primitive face-detecting system, used for social attention, may indeed be integral to “early vision,” the relationship between this and diverse other uses made of information from faces is far from clear

Contested views of expertise in children's care and permanence proceedings

In this article, we consider different perspectives on who is best able to provide relevant and helpful expertise in public law cases where the long-term care of children is under consideration. Opinions vary and sometimes conflict on the respective importance of legal, child development, and lay understandings. These opinions relate to views on rights, appropriate procedures, decision-making processes, and the effects of decisions on children. Firstly, we summarise literature relevant to the knowledge and skills of three key groups of decision-makers within the Scottish child care system: legal professionals, child care professionals and lay decision-makers, and outline literature about guardiansad litemand their counterparts. We then discuss issues of expertise emerging from a study exploring the reasons for, and impact of, the appointment of safeguarders (who, in Scotland, perform a similar role to guardians). We conclude that there may be an increasing tendency for disagreement and a lack of clarity about who brings the most relevant and helpful expertise to hearings; this may have negative effects for children

Women’s Understanding of the Effects of Domestic Abuse: The Impact on Their Identity, Sense of Self and Resilience. A Grounded Theory Approach

Research on women who have experienced domestic abuse indicates that they feel marginalized; stigma, shame and fear about the response of services stop women from seeking the support they need. The current study aimed to explore the unique perspectives of women who have experienced domestic abuse in order to gain an understanding of their experiences, their perceived identity, sense of self and resilience. Interviews were conducted with eight women who had experienced domestic abuse and transcripts were analysed using grounded theory methodology. Findings indicated that domestic abuse had a significant impact on the women interviewed. In particular, the ongoing relationship the women had with their abusive partner, due to contact with the children, served to perpetuate their identity as an abused woman. The study also found, however, that the women were able to utilise resources that increased their resilience. They were striving for a normal life, prioritising their role as a mother and attempting to reconstruct their own identity through the assumption of new roles

The Appointment of Safeguarders in the Children's Hearings System : Research Report and Action Plan

Safeguarders may be appointed by children’s hearings or courts in cases where it is thought necessary in the interests of the child. Their primary role is to make an independent assessment of what plans and arrangements are in the child’s best interests and to provide a report based on that assessment to assist decision-making. Since the introduction of safeguarders to the hearings system three decades ago, they have made a valued contribution. Some concerns were voiced by a number of local authority professionals to the CELCIS Permanence and Care team (PaCT) in 2013 about safeguarder appointments in relation to the permanence process. These included stated views that, in some cases, involvement of safeguarders may lead to ‘unnecessary delays’ and hamper the timely placement of looked after children with a permanent family. The present study was carried out by the PaCT researcher to explore this further, to assessreasons for the appointment of safeguarders by the hearings and to examine the impact of their involvement on subsequent decisions about recommendations by panel members1 . Whilst the research emanated from concerns about the permanence process, it explored perceptions of strengths and concerns in relation to the appointment and practice of safeguarders more generally. The study took place at a time of significant changes to the way in which safeguarders are recruited, trained, appointed and managed with the introduction of new Regulations and the creation of a national Safeguarders Panel

Enhancing research on the undergraduate psychology curriculum through student-teacher partnership. Reflections from an undergraduate student co-researcher and academic lecturer co-researcher

This article draws on the perspectives of an undergraduate student co-researcher and a psychology lecturer who worked in partnership on a small qualitative research project. The project explored the experiences of undergraduate students on a second-year psychology research methods module at a university in the United Kingdom. Reflecting on our experience of working in partnership on this research we explore the meaning of student-teacher partnership, drawing on theory and literature around student-teacher partnerships in learning and teaching to contextualise our reflections. We reflect on the ethical and practical implications of staff-student partnership in the process and product of the research and explain how the student-teacher partnership enhanced the study design, interpretation of research findings and dissemination of the research. We explore what we perceived the benefits and challenges of the student-teacher dyad to be through reflective accounts of our own experiences during the project. We will explain how working in collaboration helped generate a more rounded perspective of student experience and provided concrete, meaningful practical implications for the curriculum and a reflective aid for future student co-researchers within the school of Psychology. The article will conclude with consideration of the broader implications of our experiences and how what we learned through this process can be applied in other contexts where educators are considering how to involve students in research which is for and about their learning

Losing women along the path to safe motherhood: why is there such a gap between women's use of antenatal care and skilled birth attendance? A mixed methods study in northern Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Thousands of women and newborns still die preventable deaths from pregnancy and childbirth-related complications in poor settings. Delivery with a skilled birth attendant is a vital intervention for saving lives. Yet many women, particularly where maternal mortality ratios are highest, do not have a skilled birth attendant at delivery. In Uganda, only 58 % of women deliver in a health facility, despite approximately 95 % of women attending antenatal care (ANC). This study aimed to (1) identify key factors underlying the gap between high rates of antenatal care attendance and much lower rates of health-facility delivery; (2) examine the association between advice during antenatal care to deliver at a health facility and actual place of delivery; (3) investigate whether antenatal care services in a post-conflict district of Northern Uganda actively link women to skilled birth attendant services; and (4) make recommendations for policy- and program-relevant implementation research to enhance use of skilled birth attendance services. METHODS: This study was carried out in Gulu District in 2009. Quantitative and qualitative methods used included: structured antenatal care client entry and exit interviews [n = 139]; semi-structured interviews with women in their homes [n = 36], with health workers [n = 10], and with policymakers [n = 10]; and focus group discussions with women [n = 20], men [n = 20], and traditional birth attendants [n = 20]. RESULTS: Seventy-five percent of antenatal care clients currently pregnant reported they received advice during their last pregnancy to deliver in a health facility, and 58 % of these reported having delivered in a health facility. After adjustment for confounding, women who reported they received advice at antenatal care to deliver at a health facility were significantly more likely (aOR = 2.83 [95 % CI: 1.19-6.75], p = 0.02) to report giving birth in a facility. Despite high antenatal care coverage, a number of demand and supply side barriers deter use of skilled birth attendance services. Primary barriers were: fear of being neglected or maltreated by health workers; long distance and other difficulties in access; poverty, and material requirements for delivery; lack of support from husband/partner; health systems deficiencies such as inadequate staffing/training, work environment, and referral systems; and socio-cultural and gender issues such as preferred birthing position and preference for traditional birth attendants. CONCLUSIONS: Initiatives to improve quality of client-provider interaction and respect for women are essential. Financial barriers must be abolished and emergency transport for referrals improved. Simultaneously, supply-side barriers must be addressed, notably ensuring a sufficient number of health workers providing skilled obstetric care in health facilities and creating habitable conditions and enabling environments for them

A comparison of two computer-based face identification systems with human perceptions of faces

The performance of two different computer systems for representing faces was compared with human ratings of similarity and distinctiveness, and human memory performance, on a specific set of face images. The systems compared were a graphmatching system (e.g. Lades et al., 1993) and coding based on Principal Components Analysis (PCA) of image pixels (e.g. Turk & Pentland, 1991). Replicating other work, the PCA-based system produced very much better performance at recognising faces, and higher correlations with human performance with the same images, when the images were initially standardised using a morphing procedure and separate analysis of "shape" and "shape-free" components then combined. Both the graph-matching and (shape + shape-free) PCA systems were equally able to recognise faces shown with changed expressions, both provided reasonable correlations with human ratings and memory data, and there were also correlations between the facial similarities recorded by each of the computer models. However, comparisons with human similarity ratings of faces with and without the hair visible, and prediction of memory performance with and without alteration in face expressions, suggested that the graph-matching system was better at capturing aspects of the appearance of the face, while the PCA-based system seemed better at capturing aspects of the appearance of specific images of faces

Recognition of unfamiliar faces

People are excellent at identifying faces familiar to them, even from very low quality images, but are bad at recognising, or even matching, faces that are unfamiliar. In this review we shall consider some of the factors which affect our abilities to match unfamiliar faces. Major differences in orientation (e.g. inversion) or greyscale information (e.g. negation) affect face processing dramatically, and such effects are informative about the nature of the representations derived from unfamiliar faces, suggesting that these are based on relatively low-level image descriptions. Consistent with this, even relatively minor differences in lighting and viewpoint create problems for human face matching, leading to potentially important problems over the use of images from security video images. The relationships between different parts of the face (its "configuration") are as important to the impression created of an upright face as local features themselves, suggesting further constraints on the representations derived from faces. The review then turns to consider what computer face recognition systems may contribute to understanding both the theory and the practical problems of face identification. Computer systems can be used as an aid to person identification, but also in an attempt to model human perceptual processes. There are many approaches to computer recognition of faces, including ones based on low-level image analysis of whole face images, which have potential as models of human performance. Some systems show significant correlations with human perceptions of the same faces, for example recognising distinctive faces more easily. In some circumstances, some systems may exceed human abilities on unfamiliar faces. Finally, we look to the future of work in this area, that will incorporate motion and three-dimensional shape information

An exploration of the current knowledge on young people who kill: a systematic review

This exploratory systematic review assessed the quality of primary studies on young people who kill and synthesised the findings regarding the characteristics of these offenders. An electronic search yielded 12,717 hits of papers published between 1989 and 2012. Of these, 8,395 duplicates, 3,787 irrelevant hits, and 527 publications not meeting the inclusion criteria of the review were excluded (15 publications were added after searching the grey literature), leaving 23 good quality studies. From these, a further seven were removed due to their small sample size (i.e., n < 30), leaving a total of 16 studies reviewed in detail. A search update was carried out on 2 February 2014 and no further studies meeting the inclusion criteria were found. The results indicate that juvenile homicide offenders are a heterogeneous group and the risk factors for juvenile homicide are cumulative and evolve through life. The findings are mixed, but ten risk factors are identified which appear to be consistent for offenders across the studies reviewed. The limitations of the current review are highlighted and recommendations for future research are outlined, with particular consideration given to improving the quality of the literature in this field