On Person Authentication by Fusing Visual and Thermal Face Biometrics

Recognition algorithms that use data obtained by imaging faces in the thermal spectrum are promising in achieving invariance to extreme illumination changes that are often present in practice. In this paper we analyze the performance of a recently proposed face recognition algorithm that combines visual and thermal modalities by decision level fusion. We examine (i) the effects of the proposed data preprocessing in each domain, (ii) the contribution to improved recognition of different types of features, (iii) the importance of prescription glasses detection, in the context of both 1-to-N and 1-to-1 matching (recognition vs. verification performance). Finally, we discuss the significance of our results and, in particular, identify a number of limitations of the current state-of-the-art and propose promising directions for future research.

Challenges in managing elderly people with diabetes in primary care settings in Norway

Objective
To explore the experiences and clinical challenges that nurses and nursing assistants face when providing high-quality diabetes-specific management and care for elderly people with diabetes in primary care settings.

Design
Focus-group interviews.

Subjects and setting
Sixteen health care professionals: 12 registered nurses and four nursing assistants from nursing homes (10), district nursing service (5), and a service unit (1) were recruited by municipal managers who had local knowledge and knew the workforce. All the participants were women aged 32–59 years with clinical experience ranging from 1.5 to 38 years.

Results
Content analysis revealed a discrepancy between the level of expertise which the participants described as important to delivering high-quality care and their capacity to deliver such care. The discrepancy was due to lack of availability and access to current information, limited ongoing support, lack of cohesion among health care professionals, and limited confidence and autonomy. Challenges to delivering high-quality care included complex, difficult patient situations and lack of confidence to make decisions founded on evidence-based guidelines.

Conclusion
Participants lacked confidence and autonomy to manage elderly people with diabetes in municipal care settings. Lack of information, support, and professional cohesion made the role challenging.

Gender specific age-related changes in bone density, muscle strength and functional performance in the elderly: a-10 year prospective population-based study

Background: 

Shifting between third and first person points of view in EFL narratives

This article reports on the difference between points of view in narrating a short story. The EFL learners taking part in the control group were required to recount the events from the third person perspective and the subjects in the experimental group from the first person perspective. The methodological frame of the study was based on Koven’s (2002) ‘content analysis’ of codification of various speaker role inhabitances, published in the Journal of Pragmatics. The results demonstrate that the first person narrators’ recall performance and the length of their stories are closer to the original version of the story than those of the other group, which indicates a specific ‘orientation’ towards the sequence of events. This was seen in the patterning of clauses as well as in authorial and interlocutory double voicing speech in the first person narrators, which may be justified by the enhancement of two components essential to literary engagement: namely, ‘aesthetic reading’ and ‘personal response’ as parts of ‘critical focalization’.