17,876 research outputs found
Hybrid Architecture Based Intelligent Diagnosis Assistant for GP
As the first point of contact for patients, General Practitioners (GPs) play a crucial role in the National Health Service (NHS). Anaccurate primary diagnosis from the GP can alleviate the burden on specialists and reduce the time needed to re-confirm the patient’scondition, allowing for more efficient further examinations. However, GPs have broad but less specialized knowledge, which limits theaccuracy of their diagnosis. Therefore, it is imperative to introduce an intelligent system to assist GPs in making decisions. This paperintroduces two data augmentation methods, the Complaint Symptoms Integration Method and Symptom Dot Separating Method, tointegrate essential information into the Integration dataset. Additionally, it proposes a hybrid architecture that fuses the features ofwords from different representation spaces. Experiments demonstrate that, compared to commonly used pre-trained attention-basedmodels, our hybrid architecture delivers the best classification performance for four common neurological diseases on the enhancedIntegration dataset. For example, the classification accuracy of the BERT+CNN hybrid architecture is 0.897, which is a 5.1%improvement over both BERT and CNN with 0.846. Finally, this paper develops an AI diagnosis assistant web application thatleverages the superior performance of this architecture to help GPs complete primary diagnosis efficiently and accurately
Early Career Researchers and their quest in finding space amongst the Professoriate to facilitate research collaboration: A qualitative case study
Background: Using Hofstede’s Power Distance Theory (1980), this article discusses the high power distance perceived by Early Career Researchers (ECRs) within the business school of a UK Higher Education Institution (HEI). The article examines ECR interactions with the Professoriate, and how a high power distance can play a significant part in inhibiting opportunities for developing networks for research collaboration. ECRs often discuss a belief that, early in their research career, there is an unwritten expectation that they will continue to conduct research projects with their supervisory team and professoriate. This is undertaken with an understanding that it will be the senior researcher who will receive the main acknowledgements and benefits of the work produced, even if the ECR has undertaken the majority of the research.
Methods: Following a series of interviews and focus groups with academic staff across a range of roles, disciplines, and levels of experience, data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset, and structured through a framework approach.
Findings: Four themes were identified through the analysis: (1) Benefits of collaborative research between ECRs and the Professoriate; (2) Limitations of collaborative research between ECRs and the Professoriate; (3) Facilitators of collaborative research between ECRs and the Professoriate; and (4) Barriers to collaborative research between ECRs and the Professoriate
Climate change adaptation for biodiversity in protected areas: An overview of actions
Protected Areas (PAs) have been a cornerstone of conservation policy in the past but are generally static and thus might be less useful under climate change as species move away from reserves designated for them. In addition, shifting phenology and habitat alteration due to extreme events could make conditions unviable within PAs for species unable to move. However, several recent papers documented their utility in retaining contracting species, acting as stepping-stones for expanding species of conservation concern and resisting invasion by vagrants. Theoretical studies have suggested a role for both protected area design and management to enable biodiversity to adapt to climate change and implementation of these actions has begun. Here we synthesise case studies of climate change adaptation actions in protected areas from the globally available literature. We found 91 case studies of 114 different actions from 30 countries, mostly within Europe, specifically the UK. Half reported an outcome of actions, however, these were generally either the area restored or protected, or incidental reports of colonisation by desired species, without a description of monitoring before and after action. In addition, 72Â % of actions would have been beneficial to biodiversity without the presence of climate change, so transformative action is lacking. Better monitoring and reporting of outcomes are urgently needed to develop the evidence base on which actions are most effective, to enable more reserve managers to take action. Managers also need encouragement to identify transformative actions, perhaps by the use of scenario planning to aid understanding of future uncertainties
Did you skip leg day? The neural mechanisms of muscle perception for body parts
While the neural mechanisms underpinning the perception of muscularity are poorly understood, recent progress has been made using the psychophysical technique of visual adaptation. Prolonged visual exposure to high (low) muscularity bodies causes subsequently viewed bodies to appear less (more) muscular, revealing a recalibration of the neural populations encoding muscularity. Here, we use visual adaptation to further elucidate the tuning properties of the neural processes underpinning muscle perception for the upper and lower halves of the body. Participants manipulated the apparent muscularity of upper and lower bodies until they appeared ‘normal’, prior to and following exposure to a series of top/bottom halves of bodies that were either high or low in muscularity. In Experiment 1, participants were adapted to isolated own-gender body halves from one of four conditions; increased (muscularity) upper (body half), increased lower, decreased upper, or decreased lower. Despite the presence of muscle aftereffects when the body halves the participants viewed and manipulated were congruent, there was only weak evidence of muscle aftereffect transfer between the upper and lower halves of the body. Aftereffects were significantly weaker when body halves were incongruent, implying minimal overlap in the neural mechanisms encoding muscularity for body half. Experiment 2 examined the generalisability of Experiment 1's findings in a more ecologically valid context using whole-body stimuli, producing a similar pattern of results as Experiment 1, but with no evidence of cross-adaptation. Taken together, the findings are most consistent with muscle-encoding neural populations that are body-half selective. As visual adaptation has been implicated in cases of body size and shape misperception, the present study furthers our current understanding of how these perceptual inaccuracies, particularly those involving muscularity, are developed, maintained, and may potentially be treated
Challenging others when posting misinformation: a UK vs. Arab cross-cultural comparison on the perception of negative consequences and injunctive norms
This study investigates the factors influencing the willingness to challenge misinformation on social media across two cultural contexts, the United Kingdom (UK) and Arab countries. A total of 462 participants completed an online survey (250 UK, 212 Arabs). The analysis revealed that three types of negative consequences (relationship cost, negative impact on the person being challenged, futility) and also injunctive norms influence the willingness to challenge misinformation. Cross-cultural comparisons using t-tests showed significant differences between the UK and the Arab countries in all factors except the injunctive norms. Multiple regression analyses identified differences between the UK and Arab participants concerning which of the factors predicted the willingness to challenge misinformation. The findings suggest that participants’ self-reported injunctive norms play a significant role in shaping their willingness to engage in corrective actions across both cultural contexts. Moreover, UK participants’ reporting of how others perceive negative impact on the person being challenged and injunctive norms were significant predictors, while for the Arabs, only the perceived relationship costs emerged as a significant predictor. This study has important implications for policymakers and social media platforms in developing culturally sensitive interventions encouraging users to correct misinformation
Select dietary changes towards sustainability: Impacts on dietary profiles, environmental footprint, and cost.
Healthy sustainable diets have the power to improve dietary intakes and environmental resource use. However, recommendations for improving food choices need to consider the effects of any changes across multiple dimensions of health, environmental sustainability, and dietary cost to promote long-lasting behaviour change. The aim of this study was to identify differences between original diets, and the diets that can be achieved through the implementation of select small dietary changes towards sustainability. Twelve hypothetical sustainable actions were investigated for the potential effects of these actions on dietary markers (protein, saturated fat, sugars, salt, iron, and calcium), environmental footprints (greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater withdrawals, and land use), and dietary cost. Dietary data from 1235 individuals, aged 19-94 years, participating in the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (2017/19) provided the original diet. Dietary changes were implemented as required by each sustainable action, and differences between the original diet and each new diet were investigated. Results revealed benefits to dietary markers and environmental characteristics from eleven sustainable actions (range: F(1,728) = 5.80, p < .001 to F(1,506) = 435.04,p < .001), but effects were stronger for some actions than for others. Greatest benefits for all three outcomes were found for actions which reduced meat consumption and/or replaced meat with pulses or eggs. The remaining sustainable actions tended to be beneficial for improving outcomes individually or to some degree. Our results demonstrate the possible impacts of a number of small sustainable dietary actions for dietary, environmental, and cost outcomes, and provide a hierarchy of actions based on benefit. Findings may facilitate dietary behaviours towards improved health, whilst also offering fruitful contributions towards environmental footprint targets in the UK
The role of inversion and face masks on simultaneous and delayed face matching tasks.
Although it is generally accepted that face recognition relies on holistic processing, it has been suggested that the simultaneous face matching task may depend on a more analytical or featural processing approach. However, empirical evidence supporting this claim is limited. In two experiments, we further explored the role of holistic and featural processing on simultaneous face matching by manipulating holistic processing through inversion and presenting faces with or without face masks. The results from Experiment 1 revealed that both inversion and face masks impaired matching performance. However, while the inversion effect was evident in both full-view and masked faces, the mask effect was only found in upright, but not inverted, faces. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 but, the inversion and mask effects were stronger in delayed face matching than in simultaneous face matching. Our findings suggest that simultaneous face matching relies on holistic processing, but to a smaller extent compared to higher memory-demanding identification tasks
Coastal greening of grey infrastructure: an update on the state-of-the-art
In the marine environment, greening of grey infrastructure (GGI) is a rapidly growing field that attempts to encourage native marine life to colonize marine artificial structures to enhance biodiversity, thereby promoting ecosystem functioning and hence service provision. By
designing multifunctional sea defences, breakwaters, port complexes and off-shore renewable energy installations, these structures can yield myriad environmental benefits, in particular, addressing UN SDG 14: Life below water. Whilst GGI has shown great promise and there is a growing evidence base, there remain many criticisms and knowledge gaps, and some feel that there is scope for GGI to be abused by developers to facilitate harmful development. Given the surge of research in this field in recent years, we have reviewed the literature to provide an update update on the state-of-the-art of the field in relation to the many criticisms and identify remaining knowledge gaps. Despite the rapid and significant advances made in this field, there is currently a lack of science and practice outside of academic sectors in the developed world, and there is a collective need for schemes that encourage intersectoral and trans-sectoral research, knowledge exchange, and capacity building to optimize GGI in the pursuit of contributing to sustainable development
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