A review of vision-based gait recognition methods for human identification

Human identification by gait has created a great deal of interest in computer vision community due to its advantage of inconspicuous recognition at a relatively far distance. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of recent developments on gait recognition approaches. The survey emphasizes on three major issues involved in a general gait recognition system, namely gait image representation, feature dimensionality reduction and gait classification. Also, a review of the available public gait datasets is presented. The concluding discussions outline a number of research challenges and provide promising future directions for the field.

Quality initiative challenges : Australia and Britain

Quality and performance in organisations have been closely associated in the management literature for over a quarter of a century. Many approaches advocated have varying degrees of success but none have entirely stood the test of time. This research reports on the incidence of innovative approaches to Quality in both Australia and Britain, the reasons behind their implementation, the ways in which they were undertaken and the success factors and the pitfalls encountered along the way. One hundred and twenty-nine Australian and one hundred and seventy-five British companies reported on why they did or did not introduce a new Quality initiative within the past five years. It is a comparative analysis which identifies trends, similarities and differences, and future directions of Quality in both countries. The paper concludes by identifying important lessons for senior management needing to make changes in this important aspect of any business.

Putting the Australian Labor Party in international perspective

This paper assesses the Australian Labor Party's current debates over future directions with reference to attempts by the left of centre political parties in other western nations, especially in Western Europe, to deal with the end of the economic "golden age" since the early 1970s and the widespread resurgence of neo-liberal ideologies since the late 1970s. The dominant recent view of such comparisons has been through the ideological lens of the "Third Way". This vision however tends not to see relevant variations between the experiences of social democratic parties in individual Western European nations as they have sought to deal with adverse circumstances since the early 1970s. Nor does the Third Way view sufficiently extend to the widely varying background landscapes: that is, the different levels of historical achievement by left of centre parties in the different nations. Some social democratic parties in European countries are pursuing more progressive political agendas than the British Labour Party under Tony Blair and they are starting from a very different basis of policy achievement and political strength than either the British or Australian labour parties. The nature and extent of these international differences need now to be highlighted from an Australian political perspective in order to better inform the current debate about the range of options for the ALP and the current comparative condition of the Australian party system. As part of this analysis, the relationship between the erosion of the traditional blue-collar support bases of the major left of centre parties in various nations, amid economic restructuring and challenges to traditional immigration patterns, and the rise of support for anti-immigrant policies and parties, need to be carefully examined and evaluated.

Human action recognition based on 3D SIFT and LDA model

How to recognize human action from videos captured by modern cameras efficiently and effectively is a challenge in real applications. Traditional methods which need professional analysts are facing a bottleneck because of their shortcomings. To cope with the disadvantage, methods based on computer vision techniques, without or with only a few human interventions, have been proposed to analyse human actions in videos automatically. This paper provides a method combining the three dimensional Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) detector and the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model for human motion analysis. To represent videos effectively and robustly, we extract the 3D SIFT descriptor around each interest point, which is sampled densely from 3D Space-time video volumes. After obtaining the representation of each video frame, the LDA model is adopted to discover the underlying structure-the categorization of human actions in the collection of videos. Public available standard datasets are used to test our method. The concluding part discusses the research challenges and future directions.

Working collaboratively in a group assignment using a Mediawiki for an architecture and construction management undergraduate unit

This paper describes an architecture and construction management unit which implements Mediawiki in teaching and learning. The main objective of using the Mediawiki is to engage students to work collaboratively online in a group assignment. It also aims to further develop student information technology skills and thus enhance their learning experience. One of the learning objectives of the unit is to develop the ability to communicate the results of student research in construction technology using appropriate digital media from which Mediawiki was chosen. This paper outlines the challenges and issues faced in the implementation of Mediawiki as a collaborative tool in a group assignment of an architecture and construction management unit. It also discusses how academic staff and students were supported through the process of learning to use the Mediawiki. Finally, potential future directions of using Mediawiki in teaching and learning are explored based on students’ comments and feedback.

A survey on latest botnet attack and defense

A botnet is a group of compromised computers, which are remotely controlled by hackers to launch various network attacks, such as DDoS attack and information phishing. Botnet has become a popular and productive tool behind many cyber attacks. Recently, the owners of some botnets, such as storm worm, torpig and conflicker, are employing fluxing techniques to evade detection. Therefore, the understanding of their fluxing tricks is critical to the success of defending from botnet attacks. Motivated by this, we survey the latest botnet attacks and defenses in this paper. We begin with introducing the principles of fast fluxing (FF) and domain fluxing (DF), and explain how these techniques were employed by botnet owners to fly under the radar. Furthermore, we investigate the state-of-art research on fluxing detection. We also compare and evaluate those fluxing detection methods by multiple criteria. Finally, we discuss future directions on fighting against botnet based attacks.

Diverse roles of the Mediator complex in plants

Since its original discovery in yeast, the Mediator complex has been identified in a wide range of organisms across the eukaryotic kingdom. Despite being experimentally purified from a number of fungal and metazoan organisms, it was not until 2007, thirteen years after its initial discovery, that the Mediator complex was successfully isolated from plants. With a number of papers now beginning to emerge on the plant Mediator complex, this review aims to provide an overview of the diverse functions that have been identified for individual plant Mediator subunits. In addition to demonstrating roles in plant development, flowering, hormone signaling and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance; recent findings have revealed novel functions for plant Mediator subunits, including mRNA, miRNA and rRNA processing, as well as controlling DNA and protein stability. These diverse activities have expanded the known functions of the Mediator complex and demonstrate a variety of new insights that have been gained from investigations into the plant Mediator complex. Future directions for research into this multi-functional protein complex will be discussed.

Zero-day malware detection based on supervised learning algorithms of API call signatures

Zero-day or unknown malware are created using code obfuscation techniques that can modify the parent code to produce offspring copies which have the same functionality but with different signatures. Current techniques reported in literature lack the capability of detecting zero-day malware with the required accuracy and efficiency. In this paper, we have proposed and evaluated a novel method of employing several data mining techniques to detect and classify zero-day malware with high levels of accuracy and efficiency based on the frequency of Windows API calls. This paper describes the methodology employed for the collection of large data sets to train the classifiers, and analyses the performance results of the various data mining algorithms adopted for the study using a fully automated tool developed in this research to conduct the various experimental investigations and evaluation. Through the performance results of these algorithms from our experimental analysis, we are able to evaluate and discuss the advantages of one data mining algorithm over the other for accurately detecting zero-day malware successfully. The data mining framework employed in this research learns through analysing the behavior of existing malicious and benign codes in large datasets. We have employed robust classifiers, namely Naïve Bayes (NB) Algorithm, k−Nearest Neighbor (kNN) Algorithm, Sequential Minimal Optimization (SMO) Algorithm with 4 differents kernels (SMO - Normalized PolyKernel, SMO – PolyKernel, SMO – Puk, and SMO- Radial Basis Function (RBF)), Backpropagation Neural Networks Algorithm, and J48 decision tree and have evaluated their performance. Overall, the automated data mining system implemented for this study has achieved high true positive (TP) rate of more than 98.5%, and low false positive (FP) rate of less than 0.025, which has not been achieved in literature so far. This is much higher than the required commercial acceptance level indicating that our novel technique is a major leap forward in detecting zero-day malware. This paper also offers future directions for researchers in exploring different aspects of obfuscations that are affecting the IT world today.

Understanding, developing and maintaining mental toughness in tennis

Eighteen (10 female and 8 male) recently retired top world-ranked Australian professional tennis players responded to a questionnaire that was developed to address future directions by mental toughness researchers. A series of inductive content analyses was conducted to analyze the qualitative data obtained from participants’ responses. These analyses revealed that mental toughness is a most sought-after dynamic attribute that encompasses a range of abilities (e.g., focus, work ethic) to consistently perform well under pressure. Further, mental toughness is thought to be ‘taught’ and/or ‘acquired’ over many years and can be influenced by factors that include injury, changes in a player’s technique and match results. Examples of mentally tough players were cited and reasons given as to their selection as outstanding mentally tough competitors. Sport psychologists, coaches, parents and other mentors were identified as significant members of a support team to guide and equip players to be mentally tough competitors. This study’s value to the tennis community includes practical benefits from gaining a fuller understanding of what is arguably one of the most important psychological skills in achieving excellence and enjoyment in tennis, namely mental toughness.

"You Tube and I Find" - personalizing multimedia content access

Recent growth in broadband access and proliferation of small personal devices that capture images and videos has led to explosive growth of multimedia content available everywhereVfrom personal disks to the Web. While digital media capture and upload has become nearly universal with newer device technology, there is still a need for better tools and technologies to search large collections of multimedia data and to find and deliver the right content to a user according to her current needs and preferences. A renewed focus on the subjective dimension in the multimedia lifecycle, fromcreation, distribution, to delivery and consumption, is required to address this need beyond what is feasible today. Integration of the subjective aspects of the media itselfVits affective, perceptual, and physiological potential (both intended and achieved), together with those of the users themselves will allow for personalizing the content access, beyond today’s facility. This integration, transforming the traditional multimedia information retrieval (MIR) indexes to more effectively answer specific user needs, will allow a richer degree of personalization predicated on user intention and mode of interaction, relationship to the producer, content of the media, and their history and lifestyle. In this paper, we identify the challenges in achieving this integration, current approaches to interpreting content creation processes, to user modelling and profiling, and to personalized content selection, and we detail future directions. The structure of the paper is as follows: In Section I, we introduce the problem and present some definitions. In Section II, we present a review of the aspects of personalized content and current approaches for the same. Section III discusses the problem of obtaining metadata that is required for personalized media creation and present eMediate as a case study of an integrated media capture environment. Section IV presents the MAGIC system as a case study of capturing effective descriptive data and putting users first in distributed learning delivery. The aspects of modelling the user are presented as a case study in using user’s personality as a way to personalize summaries in Section V. Finally, Section VI concludes the paper with a discussion on the emerging challenges and the open problems.

The end game in Afghanistan : Pakistan’s critical role

In the lead up to 2014, when the Coalition forces will be leaving Afghanistan, Pakistan will have a crucial role to play, not only in the negotiations but also in its relationship with the Afghan Taliban groups hiding in Pakistan. Indeed, there are historical, ethnic, operational and strategic reasons why Pakistan should have a seat at the negotiating table. Pakistan will want to make sure that its Taliban allies get a fair deal in the final outcome. While this may appear to be a good outcome for Islamabad in the medium term, it may not be good for Pakistan’s long-term stability.

Models of screening

This article describes models for disease screening and how they have developed in recent years. The discussion focuses on screening for cancer, because most of the methodological advances in screening design and evaluation have concerned cancer screening. The first part of the article describes the characteristics of these models and illustrates them with a discussion of a simple screening model. The second part describes the development, strengths, and weaknesses of the two main types of screening model—analytic and simulation models—with a particular focus on microsimulation models. The third part discusses model fitting and validation, and the final part briefly describes models for diseases other than cancer—in particular, models for screening for infectious diseases—and discusses the current state and possible future directions for models of disease screening.

Engaging rural communities in health care through a paramedic expanded scope of practice

Introduction: This article explores how community engagement by paramedics in an expanded scope role contributes to both primary health care and to an overall improved emergency response capacity in rural communities. Understanding how expanded scope paramedics (ESP) can strengthen community healthcare collaborations is an important need in rural areas where low workforce numbers necessitate innovation.

Methods: Four examples of Australian rural ESP roles were studied in Tasmania, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria to gather information on consistent elements that could inform a paramedic expanded scope model. Qualitative data were collected from semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and organisational documents. Thematic analysis within and across cases found community engagement was a key element in the varied roles. This article relies heavily on data from the Victorian and Tasmanian case studies because community engagement was a particularly strong aspect of these cases.

Results: The ESP in the case studies increased interactions between ambulance services and rural communities with an overall benefit to health care through: increasing community response capacity; linking communities more closely to ambulance services; and increasing health promotion and illness prevention work at the community level. Leadership, management and communication skills are important for paramedics to successfully undertake expanded scope roles.

Conclusion: ESP in rural locations can improve health care beyond direct clinical skill by active community engagement that expands the capacity of other community members and strengthens links between services and communities. As health services look to gain maximum efficiency from the health workforce, understanding the intensification of effort that can be gained from practitioner and community coalitions provides important future directions.