Showing items 15281 - 15300 of 17083

A psychometric study of the Emotional Availability Scales: Construct validity and measurement invariance between depressed and nondepressed mother-infant dyads

- Aran, Pavitra, Lewis, Andrew, Watson, Stuart, MacMillan, Kelli, Power, Josephine, Galbally, Megan

  • Authors: Aran, Pavitra , Lewis, Andrew , Watson, Stuart , MacMillan, Kelli , Power, Josephine , Galbally, Megan
  • Date: 2022
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Psychological Assessment Vol. 34, no. 1 (2022), p. 70-81
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  • Description: The Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) are the most widely reported observational assessment measure of parent-child relationships and has been of particular interest in understanding differences between samples of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their offspring. Despite its widespread use, psychometric validation of the factor structure in normative samples and the measurement of invariance within clinical samples has not been published. We evaluated the internal structure (dimensionality, reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity) of the EAS fourth edition using a nondepressed sample of 157 Australian women and their infants aged 6 months, including testing the measurement invariance of the EAS between the same nondepressed sample (n = 157), and a depressed group (n = 185) of mother-infant dyads, using MPlus. Participants were recruited from tertiary hospitals, and depression status was established using a diagnostic measure. Higher-order confirmatory factor analyses on the EAS' six dimensions supported a unidimensional factor solution in our data. Full measurement invariance was not demonstrated due to metric noninvariance of the maternal nonintrusiveness and child responsiveness dimensions. Full scalar invariance supported mean comparisons, and a medium effect of .78SD lower mean emotional availability for the depressed group was found Cohen's d = .63, 95% CI [.41, .85]. While arguments exist for the clinical utility of differentiating between multiple dimensions of emotional availability, the current findings do not support a multidimensional factor structure or full multigroup measurement invariance of the EAS. Similar psychometric investigations of the EAS in clinical and nonclinical samples are needed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional availability in women with bipolar disorder and major depression: A longitudinal pregnancy cohort study

- Aran, Pavitra, Lewis, Andrew, Watson, Stuart, Nguyen, Thinh, Galbally, Megan

  • Authors: Aran, Pavitra , Lewis, Andrew , Watson, Stuart , Nguyen, Thinh , Galbally, Megan
  • Date: 2021
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry Vol. 55, no. 11 (2021), p. 1079-1088
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  • Description: Objective: Poorer mother–infant interaction quality has been identified among women with major depression however, there is a dearth of research examining the impact of bipolar disorder. This study sought to compare mother–infant emotional availability at 6 months postpartum among women with perinatal major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and no disorder (control). Methods: Data were obtained for 127 mother–infant dyads from an Australian pregnancy cohort. The Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-5 was used to diagnose major depressive disorder (n = 60) and bipolar disorder (n = 12) in early pregnancy (less than 20 weeks) and review diagnosis at 6 months postpartum. Prenatal and postnatal depressive symptoms were measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, along with self-report psychotropic medication use. Mother and infant’s interaction quality was measured using the Emotional Availability Scales when infants reached 6 months of age. Multivariate analyses of covariance examining the effects of major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder on maternal emotional availability (sensitivity, structuring, non-intrusiveness, non-hostility) and child emotional availability (responsiveness, involvement) were conducted. Results: After controlling for maternal age and postpartum depressive symptoms, perinatal disorder (major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder) accounted for 17% of the variance in maternal and child emotional availability combined. Compared to women with major depressive disorder and their infants, women with bipolar disorder and their infants displayed lower ratings across all maternal and child emotional availability qualities, with the greatest mean difference seen in non-intrusiveness scores. Conclusions: Findings suggest that perinatal bipolar disorder may be associated with additional risk, beyond major depressive disorder alone, to a mother and her offspring’s emotional availability at 6 months postpartum, particularly in maternal intrusiveness.

Predicting protein protein interfaces as clusters of optimal docking area points

- Arafat, Yasir, Kamruzzaman, Joarder, Karmakar, Gour, Fernandez-Recio, Juan

  • Authors: Arafat, Yasir , Kamruzzaman, Joarder , Karmakar, Gour , Fernandez-Recio, Juan
  • Date: 2009
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International Journal of data mining and bioinformatics Vol. 3, no. 1 (2009), p. 55-67
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  • Description: Abstract: Desolvation property is used here to predict protein-protein binding sites exploiting the fact that lower-valued 'optimal docking area' ODA (Fernandez-Recio et al., 2005) points form cluster at the interface. The proposed method involves two steps; clustering the ODA points and representing ODA points by average ODA values. On 51 nonredundant proteins, results show the success rate improved considerably. Considering only significant ODA, the previous ODA method has obtained a success rate of 65% with overall success rate of 39%. The proposed method improved the overall success rate to 61%. Further, comparable results were found for X-ray and NMR structures.

Enhanced polyphonic music genre classification using high level features

- Arabi, Arash, Lu, Guojun

  • Authors: Arabi, Arash , Lu, Guojun
  • Date: 2009
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Signal and Image Processing Applications p. 1-6
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  • Description: The task of classifying the genre of polyphonic music signals is traditionally done using only low level features of the signal. In this paper high level features have been applied to improve the task of music genre classification. The use of statistical chord features and chord progression information in conjunction with low level features are proposed in this paper. The chord progression information is manifested in genre probability descriptors calculated using a pattern matching algorithm. Our proposed method provides an improvement of 12.4% in the classification results over a commonly compared technique.

Social capital inequality and subjective wellbeing of older Chinese

- Appau, Samuelson, Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa, Smyth, Russell, Zhang, Quanda

  • Authors: Appau, Samuelson , Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa , Smyth, Russell , Zhang, Quanda
  • Date: 2022
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Social Indicators Research Vol. 160, no. 2-3 (2022), p. 541-563
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  • Description: Using longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies, this study provides insights on comparative wellbeing outcomes for older people who are institutionally segregated into clusters that produce uneven social capital. We present the first study that examines how institutionalized social capital inequality, measured by the social capital gap generated by hukou (household registration) status in China, affects the wellbeing of older people. Our results show that high levels of social capital inequality are associated with lower subjective wellbeing, measured by life satisfaction. This general conclusion is robust to a number of sensitivity checks including alternative ways of measuring subjective wellbeing and inequality. We also find that the negative relationship between social capital inequality and subjective wellbeing is strongest for people with a non-urban hukou living in urban areas. Our findings highlight the need for policies aimed at narrowing the social capital gap and the dismantling of institutional structures that hinder upward social capital mobility. © 2020, Springer Nature B.V.

Regulation of the rabbit's once-daily pattern of nursing : A circadian or hourglass-dependent process?

- Apel, Sabine, Hudson, Robyn, Coleman, Grahame, Rodel, Heiko, Kennedy, Gerard

  • Authors: Apel, Sabine , Hudson, Robyn , Coleman, Grahame , Rodel, Heiko , Kennedy, Gerard
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Chronobiology International Vol. 37, no. 8 (2020), p. 1151-1162
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  • Description: The European rabbitOryctolagus cuniculushas an unusual pattern of nursing behavior. After giving birth in a nursery burrow (or laboratory nest box), the mother immediately leaves the young and only returns to nurse for a few minutes once approximately every 24 h. It has been assumed this schedule, like a variety of other functions in the rabbit, is under circadian control. This assumption has been largely based on findings from mothers only permitted restricted access to their young once every 24 h. However, in nature and in the laboratory, mothers with free access to young show nursing visits with a periodicity shorter than 24 h, that does not correspond to other behavioral and physiological rhythms entrained to the prevailing 24 h light/dark (LD) cycle. To investigate how this unusual, apparently non-circadian pattern might be regulated, we conducted two experiments using female Dutch-belted rabbits housed individually in cages designed to automatically register feeding activity and nest box visits. In Experiment 1 we recorded the behavior of 17 mothers with free access to their young under five different LD cycles with long photo and short scotoperiods, spanning the limits of entrainment of the rabbit's circadian system. Whereas feeding rhythms were entrained by LD cycles within the rabbit's circadian range of entrainment, nursing visits showed a consistently shorter periodicity regardless of the LD regimen, largely independent of the circadian system. In Experiment 2 we tested further 12 mothers under more conventional LD 16:8 cycles but "trained" by having access to the nest box restricted to 1 h at the same time each day for the first 7 d of nursing. Mothers were then allowed free access either when their young were left in the box (n= 6), or when the litter had been permanently removed (n= 6). Mothers with pups still present returned to nurse them on the following days according to a similarly advancing pattern to the mothers of Experiment 1 despite the previous 7 d of "training" to an experimentally enforced 24 h nursing schedule as commonly used in previous studies of rabbit maternal behavior. Mothers whose pups had been removed entered the box repeatedly several times on the first day of unrestricted access, but on subsequent days did so only rarely, and at times of day apparently unrelated to the previously scheduled access. We conclude that the pattern of the rabbit's once-daily nursing visits has a periodicity largely independent of the circadian system, and that this is reset at each nursing. When nursing fails to occur nest box visits cease abruptly, with mothers making few or no subsequent visits. Together, these findings suggest that the rabbit's once-daily pattern of nursing is regulated by an hourglass-type process with a period less than 24 h that is reset at each nursing, rather than by a circadian oscillator. Such a mechanism might be particularly adaptive for rhythms of short duration that should end abruptly with a sudden change in context such as death or weaning of the young.
  • Description: This work was supported by the Australian Federal Government via a Postgraduate PhD Scholarship for Sabibe Apel [APA SA 1].

EDBase : generating a lexicon base for eating disorders via social media

- Anwar, Tarique, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Matthew, Jarman, Hannah, Abuhassan, Mohammad, Shatte, Adrian, WIRED Team, Sukunesan, Suku

  • Authors: Anwar, Tarique , Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Matthew , Jarman, Hannah , Abuhassan, Mohammad , Shatte, Adrian , WIRED Team , Sukunesan, Suku
  • Date: 2022
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics Vol. 26, no. 12 (2022), p. 6116-6125
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  • Description: Eating disorders (EDs) are characterised by abnormal eating habits and obsessive thought about food, weight, shape, and body image. EDs are experienced by a significant portion of our population. Social media is identified as a possible source of influence for EDs, and there is growing evidence of a large amount of ED-related discussions on the Web via social media platforms, such as Twitter. With this growing trend, automatic content analysis for EDs is becoming increasingly important. To date, there does not exist any comprehensive benchmark ED lexicon to identify ED-related conversations that would, in turn, facilitate these content analysis tasks. In this paper, we propose a novel method for generating a lexicon base for ED language, called EDBase. The method starts with collecting over 3.7 million ED-focused tweets. In order to semantically represent potential ED terminology in a vector space, an ED word embedding model (EDModel) is trained. Then we develop a novel multi-seeded hierarchical density-based algorithm with contrasting corpora for ED lexicon expansion. The EDModel is queried by the proposed lexicon expansion algorithm to expand the seed terms to a comprehensive lexicon base. Our EDBase consists of a (further expandable) list of 3794 high-quality ED terms, quantified by an ED score, and linked to their parent terms. The proposed method significantly outperforms all existing alternative baseline methods and models by over 25% in terms of precision and 1500 in terms of true positives. This research is expected to be impactful in the health data science and healthcare community. © 2021 IEEE.

Electricity theft detection using pipeline in machine learning

- Anwar, Mubbashra, Javaid, Nadeem, Khalid, Adia, Imran, Muhammad, Shoaib, Muhammad

  • Authors: Anwar, Mubbashra , Javaid, Nadeem , Khalid, Adia , Imran, Muhammad , Shoaib, Muhammad
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: 16th IEEE International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference, IWCMC 2020, Limassol, Cyprus, 15 to 19 June 2020, 2020 International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, IWCMC 2020 p. 2138-2142
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  • Description: Electricity theft is the primary cause of electrical power loss that significantly affects the revenue loss and the quality of electrical power. Nevertheless, the existing methods for the detection of this criminal behavior of theft are diversified and complicated since the imbalanced nature of the dataset, and high dimensionality of time-series data make it challenging to extract meaningful information. This paper addresses these problems by developing a novel electricity theft detection model, integrating three algorithms in a pipeline. The proposed method first applies the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) for balancing the dataset, secondly integration of kernel function and principal component analysis (KPCA) for the feature extraction from high dimensional time-series data, and support vector machine (SVM) for the classification. Besides, the performance of the proposed pipeline is measured using a comprehensive list of performance metrics. Extensive experiments are performed by using real electricity consumption data, and results show that the proposed method outperforms other methods in terms of theft detection. © 2020 IEEE.

Secure big data ecosystem architecture : challenges and solutions

- Anwar, Memoona, Gill, Asif, Hussain, Farookh, Imran, Muhammad

  • Authors: Anwar, Memoona , Gill, Asif , Hussain, Farookh , Imran, Muhammad
  • Date: 2021
  • Type: Text , Journal article , Review
  • Relation: Eurasip Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking Vol. 2021, no. 1 (2021), p.
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  • Description: Big data ecosystems are complex data-intensive, digital–physical systems. Data-intensive ecosystems offer a number of benefits; however, they present challenges as well. One major challenge is related to the privacy and security. A number of privacy and security models, techniques and algorithms have been proposed over a period of time. The limitation is that these solutions are primarily focused on an individual or on an isolated organizational context. There is a need to study and provide complete end-to-end solutions that ensure security and privacy throughout the data lifecycle across the ecosystem beyond the boundary of an individual system or organizational context. The results of current study provide a review of the existing privacy and security challenges and solutions using the systematic literature review (SLR) approach. Based on the SLR approach, 79 applicable articles were selected and analyzed. The information from these articles was extracted to compile a catalogue of security and privacy challenges in big data ecosystems and to highlight their interdependencies. The results were categorized from theoretical viewpoint using adaptive enterprise architecture and practical viewpoint using DAMA framework as guiding lens. The findings of this research will help to identify the research gaps and draw novel research directions in the context of privacy and security in big data-intensive ecosystems. © 2021, The Author(s).

Contextual action recognition in multi-sensor nighttime video sequences

- Anwaar-Ul, Haq, Gondal, Iqbal, Murshed, Manzur

  • Authors: Anwaar-Ul, Haq , Gondal, Iqbal , Murshed, Manzur
  • Date: 2011
  • Type: Text , Conference paper
  • Relation: Proceedings of the 2011 Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications (DICTA 2011), Noosa 6th-8th Dec, 2011 p. 256-261
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  • Description: Contextual information is important for interpreting human actions especially when actions exhibit interactive relationship with their context. Contextual clues become even more crucial when videos are captured in unfavorable conditions like extreme low light nighttime scenarios. These conditions encourage the use of multi-senor imagery and context enhancement. In this paper, we explore the importance of contextual knowledge for recognizing human actions in multi-sensor nighttime videos. Information fusion is utilized for encapsulating visual information about actions and their context. Space-time action information is contained using 3D fourier transform of fused action silhouette volume. In parallel, SIFT context images are extracted and fused using principal component analysis based feature fusion for each action class. Contextual dissimilarity is penalized by minimizing context SIFT flow energy. The action dataset comprises multi-sensor night vision video data from infra-red and visible spectrum. Experimental results show that fused contextual action information boost action recognition performance as compared to the baseline action recognition approac

Action recognition using spatio-temporal distance classifier correlation filter

- Anwaar-Ul Haq, Gondal, Iqbal, Murshed, Manzur

  • Authors: Anwaar-Ul Haq , Gondal, Iqbal , Murshed, Manzur
  • Date: 2011
  • Type: Text , Conference proceedings
  • Relation: 2011 International Conference on Digital Image Computing Techniques and Applications (DICTA), Noosa, QLD, 6th-8th Dec, 2011
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  • Description: The problem of recognizing human actions is characterized by complex dynamics and strong variations in their executions. Despite this inconvenience, space-time correlations provide valuable clues for their discrimination. Therefore, space-time correlators like emph{Maximum Average Correlation Height} (MACH) filters have successfully been used for action recognition with encouraging results. However, their utility is challenged due to number of factors: (i) these filters are trained only for one class at a time and separate filters are required for each class increasing computational overhead, (ii) these filters simply take average of similar action instances and behave no better than average filters and (iii) misaligned action datasets create problems for these filters as they are not shift-invariant. In this paper, we address these issues by posing action recognition as a multi-class discrimination problem and propose a emph{single} 3D frequency domain filter, named Action ST-DCCF for multiple action classes that mitigates inherent discrepancies of correlation filters. It presents a different interpretation of correlation filters as a method of applying spatio-temporal transformation to the data rather than simply minimizing correlation energy across all possible shifts. Experiments on a variety of action datasets are performed to evaluate our approach. Experimental results are comparable to the existing action recognition approaches.
  • Description: The problem of recognizing human actions is characterized by complex dynamics and strong variations in their executions. Despite this inconvenience, space-time correlations provide valuable clues for their discrimination. Therefore, space-time correlators like \emph{Maximum Average Correlation Height} (MACH) filters have successfully been used for action recognition with encouraging results. However, their utility is challenged due to number of factors: (i) these filters are trained only for one class at a time and separate filters are required for each class increasing computational overhead, (ii) these filters simply take average of similar action instances and behave no better than average filters and (iii) misaligned action datasets create problems for these filters as they are not shift-invariant. In this paper, we address these issues by posing action recognition as a multi-class discrimination problem and propose a \emph{single} 3D frequency domain filter, named Action ST-DCCF for multiple action classes that mitigates inherent discrepancies of correlation filters. It presents a different interpretation of correlation filters as a method of applying spatio-temporal transformation to the data rather than simply minimizing correlation energy across all possible shifts. Experiments on a variety of action datasets are performed to evaluate our approach. Experimental results are comparable to the existing action recognition approaches.

A novel color image fusion QoS measure for multi-sensor night vision applications

- Anwaar, Ul-Haq, Gondal, Iqbal, Murshed, Manzur

  • Authors: Anwaar, Ul-Haq , Gondal, Iqbal , Murshed, Manzur
  • Date: 2010
  • Type: Text , Conference proceedings
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  • Description: Color image fusion of visible and infra-red imagery can play an important role in multi-sensor night vision systems that are an integral part of modern warfare. Image fusion minimizes the amount of required bandwidth by transmitting the fused image rather than multiple sensor images. Color image fusion can be achieved by combining inputs from original colored sensors or by employing pseudo colorization and color transfer to grayscale images. Various quality measures have been proposed for multi-sensor grayscale image fusion techniques; but no appropriate quality measure has been devised for the quality evaluation of multi-sensor color image fusion. In this paper, we propose a novel color image fusion quality measure, Color Fusion Objective Index (CFOI) based on colorfulness, gradient similarity and mutual information techniques. Experimental results show the effectiveness of CFOI to evaluate the color and salient feature extraction introduced by color fusion techniques into the final fused imagery as well as its consistency with subjective evaluation.

Investigating lebanese primary school teachers’ perceptions of gifted and highly able students

- Antoun, Maya, Kronborg, Leonie, Plunkett, Margaret

  • Authors: Antoun, Maya , Kronborg, Leonie , Plunkett, Margaret
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Gifted and Talented International Vol. 35, no.1 (2020), p. 39-57
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  • Description: This article outlines findings of a study that investigated perceptions of Lebanese primary school teachers in relation to gifted/highly able students. While there are no specific policy or formal school practices for gifted students in Lebanon, education is nonetheless highly regarded. The aim of the study was to determine whether there were cultural differences in the way giftedness in students was perceived and supported by teachers at the primary school level in comparison to Western conceptualizations and provisions. A study utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods underpinned the gathering of data from 281 teachers across three governorates of Lebanon. Of the 281 teachers who completed the survey, 12 also participated in the qualitative component, which involved individual semistructured interviews. Findings suggested a generally positive attitude by teachers but also an acknowledgment of limited awareness of evidence based on Western understandings and practices associated with gifted education. The resultant data provided insights regarding the implementation of effective teacher education and concomitant support to improve identification. © 2020, © 2020 World Council for Gifted and Talented Children.

Gifted education in Lebanon : time to rethink teaching the gifted

- Antoun, Maya, Plunkett, Margaret, Kronborg, Leonie

  • Authors: Antoun, Maya , Plunkett, Margaret , Kronborg, Leonie
  • Date: 2022
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Roeper Review Vol. 44, no. 2 (2022), p. 94-110
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  • Description: Lebanon is a country that places a high value on education, with the culture specifically rewarding effort and achievement. Despite this, no educational policies for gifted students exist in the country. This article outlines findings from a mixed method case study investigating the perceptions of more than 280 Lebanese teachers about educational approaches used to identify and teach highly able/gifted primary school students. Findings acknowledge reservations among teacher participants in relation to offering special services for gifted students. Although the analysis illustrated an overall lack of awareness of practices that have been identified in international research as effective for identifying and providing for gifted students, there was ample evidence of the desire of teacher participants to become more informed about evidence-based practice. This suggests the time is ripe for a revised focus on gifted education in Teacher Education within Lebanon. © 2022 The Roeper Institute.

A roadmap for change : charting the course of gifted educational provision in Lebanon

- Antoun, Maya, Plunkett, Margaret

  • Authors: Antoun, Maya , Plunkett, Margaret
  • Date: 2023
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International Journal of Educational Reform Vol. 32, no. 3 (2023), p. 279-293
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  • Description: This article reviews and further develops understandings gleaned from an investigation of public and private school teachers’ perceptions of talent development and their ability to implement specialized approaches for gifted students in a country without specific educational policies for this population. Through a discussion of findings from a previous study investigating the perceptions and practices of more than 280 Lebanese teachers, new insights to inform future policy are provided into how talent development is perceived and responded to within the Lebanese educational context. These understandings helped inform the development of a culturally appropriate conceptual framework, derived from Gagné's Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (2008). The resultant framework addresses how the broader socio-economic cultural context within Lebanon appears to have influenced teachers’ perceptions and practices and the choices made in terms of gifted provision in classrooms. This framework could assist educational leaders in Lebanon to implement changes that would not only benefit gifted learners but also have potential flow on benefits for the country as a whole. © The Author(s) 2023.

Introduced birds in urban remnant vegetation: Does remnant size really matter?

- Antos, Mark, Fitzsimons, John, Palmer, Grant, White, James

  • Authors: Antos, Mark , Fitzsimons, John , Palmer, Grant , White, James
  • Date: 2006
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Austral Ecology Vol. 31, no. 2 (2006), p. 254-261
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  • Description: Introduced birds are a pervasive and dominant element of urban ecosystems. We examined the richness and relative abundance of introduced bird species in small (1-5 ha) medium (6-15 ha) and large (>15 ha) remnants of native vegetation within an urban matrix. Transects were surveyed during breeding and non-breeding seasons. There was a significant relationship between introduced species richness and remnant size with larger remnants supporting more introduced species. There was no significant difference in relative abundance of introduced species in remnants of different sizes. Introduced species, as a proportion of the relative abundance of the total avifauna (native and introduced species), did not vary significantly between remnants of differing sizes. There were significant differences in the composition of introduced bird species between the different remnant sizes, with large remnants supporting significantly different assemblages than medium and small remnants. Other variables also have substantial effects on the abundance of introduced bird species. The lack of significant differences in abundance between remnant sizes suggests they were all equally susceptible to invasion. No patches in the urban matrix are likely to be unaffected by introduced species. The effective long-term control of introduced bird species is difficult and resources may be better spent managing habitat in a way which renders it less suitable for introduced species (e.g. reducing areas of disturbed ground and weed dominated areas).
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Climate-mediated changes to grassland structure determine habitat suitability for the critically endangered plains-wanderer (pedionomus torquatus)

- Antos, Mark, Schultz, Nick

  • Authors: Antos, Mark , Schultz, Nick
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Emu Vol. 120, no. 1 (2020), p. 2-10
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  • Description: The critically endangered and iconic plains-wanderer (Pedionomus torquatus) is phylogenetically distinct and endemic to south eastern Australia, and is a high conservation priority. Furthermore, it relies on critically-endangered native grasslands for its survival, which vary temporally in structure and hence do not always provide suitable habitat. To manage the remaining native grasslands appropriately, it is essential to understand the temporal and spatial dynamics of plains-wanderer habitat preferences. We monitored plains-wanderers and habitat measurements for nine years to link habitat preferences to specific elements of grassland structure. We also observed habitat selection by plains-wanderers at two spatial scales–sites (paddocks) and at microsites (immediate vicinity of the birds). The plains-wanderer population declined rapidly after a dramatic increase in native grass cover in 2011, and recovery of the population since then has been slow. In 2015/16, plains-wanderers were generally encountered at microsites with higher bare ground and cryptogam cover. However, at the site scale, paddocks with plains-wanderers had similar cover of native grass and bare ground than those without plains-wanderers. The results suggest that observation of highly-localised habitat components alone may mask aspects of the habitat selection occurring at larger spatial scales. Plains-wanderers may require areas of denser perennial grass for nesting and shelter, as well as access to the open areas where they are commonly encountered. We discuss how private land used for commercial grazing may be crucial to plains-wanderer conservation. The results also prompt consideration of how we measure and interpret habitat selection for grassland birds globally. © 2019, © 2019 BirdLife Australia.

A systematic review of Lean in healthcare : a global prospective

- Antony, Jiju, Sunder, Vijaya, Sreedharan, Raja, Chakraborty, Ayon, Gunasekaran, Angappa

  • Authors: Antony, Jiju , Sunder, Vijaya , Sreedharan, Raja , Chakraborty, Ayon , Gunasekaran, Angappa
  • Date: 2019
  • Type: Text , Journal article , Review
  • Relation: International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management Vol. 36, no. 8 (2019), p. 1370-1391
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  • Description: Purpose: Fostered by a rapid spread beyond the manufacturing sector, Lean philosophy for continuous improvement has been widely used in service organizations, primarily in the healthcare sector. However, there is a limited research on the motivating factors, challenges and benefits of implementing Lean in healthcare. Taking this as a valuable opportunity, the purpose of this paper is to present the key motivating factors, limitations or challenges of Lean deployment, benefits of Lean in healthcare and key gaps in the literature as an agenda for future research. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used the secondary data from the literature (peer-reviewed journal articles) published between 2000 and 2016 to understand the state of the art. The systematic review identified 101 articles across 88 journals recognized by the Association of Business Schools ranking guide 2015. Findings: The systematic review helped the authors to identify the evolution, current trends, research gaps and an agenda for future research for Lean in healthcare. A bouquet of motivating factors, challenges/limitations and benefits of Lean in healthcare are presented. Practical implications: The implications of this work include directions for managers and healthcare professionals in healthcare organizations to embark on a focused Lean journey aligned with the strategic objectives. This work could serve as a valuable resource to both practitioners and researchers for learning, investigating and rightly adapting the Lean in the healthcare sector. Originality/value: This study is perhaps one of the comprehensive systematic literature reviews covering an important agenda of Lean in Healthcare. All the text, figures and tables featured here are original work carried by five authors in collaboration (from three countries, namely, India, the USA and the UK). © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Automated segmentation of mouse OCT volumes (ASiMOV): Validation & clinical study of a light damage model

- Antony, Bhavna, Kim, Byung-Jin, Lang, Andrew, Carass, Aaron, Prince, Jerry, Zack, Donald

  • Authors: Antony, Bhavna , Kim, Byung-Jin , Lang, Andrew , Carass, Aaron , Prince, Jerry , Zack, Donald
  • Date: 2017
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: PLoS One Vol. 12, no. 8 (2017), p. e0181059-e0181059
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  • Description: The use of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) is becoming commonplace for the in vivo longitudinal study of murine models of ophthalmic disease. Longitudinal studies, however, generate large quantities of data, the manual analysis of which is very challenging due to the time-consuming nature of generating delineations. Thus, it is of importance that automated algorithms be developed to facilitate accurate and timely analysis of these large datasets. Furthermore, as the models target a variety of diseases, the associated structural changes can also be extremely disparate. For instance, in the light damage (LD) model, which is frequently used to study photoreceptor degeneration, the outer retina appears dramatically different from the normal retina. To address these concerns, we have developed a flexible graph-based algorithm for the automated segmentation of mouse OCT volumes (ASiMOV). This approach incorporates a machine-learning component that can be easily trained for different disease models. To validate ASiMOV, the automated results were compared to manual delineations obtained from three raters on healthy and BALB/cJ mice post LD. It was also used to study a longitudinal LD model, where five control and five LD mice were imaged at four timepoints post LD. The total retinal thickness and the outer retina (comprising the outer nuclear layer, and inner and outer segments of the photoreceptors) were unchanged the day after the LD, but subsequently thinned significantly (p < 0.01). The retinal nerve fiber-ganglion cell complex and the inner plexiform layers, however, remained unchanged for the duration of the study.

Longitudinal analysis of mouse SDOCT volumes

- Antony, Bhavna, Carass, Aaron, Lang, Andrew, Kim, Byung-Jin, Zack, Donald, Prince, Jerry

  • Authors: Antony, Bhavna , Carass, Aaron , Lang, Andrew , Kim, Byung-Jin , Zack, Donald , Prince, Jerry
  • Date: 2017
  • Type: Text , Conference proceedings
  • Relation: SPIE Medical Imaging; Orlando, Florida, United States; 2017; in Proceedings Volume 10137, Medical Imaging 2017: Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging; 101371H (2017) Vol. 10137
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  • Description: Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SDOCT), in addition to its routine clinical use in the diagnosis of ocular diseases, has begun to find increasing use in animal studies. Animal models are frequently used to study disease mechanisms as well as to test drug efficacy. In particular, SDOCT provides the ability to study animals longitudinally and non-invasively over long periods of time. However, the lack of anatomical landmarks makes the longitudinal scan acquisition prone to inconsistencies in orientation. Here, we propose a method for the automated registration of mouse SDOCT volumes. The method begins by accurately segmenting the blood vessels and the optic nerve head region in the scans using a pixel classification approach. The segmented vessel maps from follow-up scans were registered using an iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm to the baseline scan to allow for the accurate longitudinal tracking of thickness changes. Eighteen SDOCT volumes from a light damage model study were used to train a random forest utilized in the pixel classification step. The area under the curve (AUC) in a leave-one-out study for the retinal blood vessels and the optic nerve head (ONH) was found to be 0.93 and 0.98, respectively. The complete proposed framework, the retinal vasculature segmentation and the ICP registration, was applied to a secondary set of scans obtained from a light damage model. A qualitative assessment of the registration showed no registration failures.