Name-calling by a child diagnosed with asperger’s syndrome

Rendle-Short, Wilkinson, and Danby show how social interaction is directly relevant to maintaining friendships, mental health and well-being, and supportive peer relations. Using conversation analysis, the chapter focuses on conversational participants’ pursuit of affiliation and intimacy from a language as action perspective. It focuses on the use of derogatory naming practices by a 10-year-old girl diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. The analysis shows how derogatory address terms, part of a wider pattern of behaviour evident in this child’s interaction, result in behaviour that might be thought of as impolite or lacking in restraint. It also illustrates how a single case study can draw attention to the context-specific nature of interaction when working with children with Asperger’s Syndrome. The chapter contributes to our understanding of the difficulty in pinpointing, with precision and with clear evidence, what counts as a ‘social interaction difficulty’ due to the context specific nature of interaction.

Changing the company name : a model for identity change through communication

In an ever evolving business landscape, change is an ever present part of any organisation’s lifecycle. This thesis presents communication as a fundamental element of effective change management. Drawing from the existing change communication literature and two case studies, this thesis examines how organisations utilise strategic change communication to manage identity change. As a result this study presents a conceptual model that outlines a process of change communication strategy and implementation. This model is offered as a step toward connecting important scholarship into a more comprehensive portrait of change communication during identity change than so far has been available.

Histogram matching and global initialization for laser-only SLAM in large unstructured environments

This paper presents an enhanced algorithm for matching laser scan maps using histogram correlations. The histogram representation effectively summarizes a map's salient features such that pairs of maps can be matched efficiently without any prior guess as to their alignment. The histogram matching algorithm has been enhanced in order to work well in outdoor unstructured environments by using entropy metrics, weighted histograms and proper thresholding of quality metrics. Thus our large-scale scan-matching SLAM implementation has a vastly improved ability to close large loops in real-time even when odometry is not available. Our experimental results have demonstrated a successful mapping of the largest area ever mapped to date using only a single laser scanner. We also demonstrate our ability to solve the lost robot problem by localizing a robot to a previously built map without any prior initialization.

Which values?: Matching Schwartz's ten values constructs with the Nine Values for Australian Schooling

This study set out to determine which values are represented in the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools by matching Schwartz's ten values constructs to the Nine Values for Australian Schooling and examining the values orientations of contemporary young people, specifically Grade 8 girls from one State High School in South East Queensland. This was achieved by using the Schwartz Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) as well as thematic analysis. Key findings were that there was a match between the Grade 8 girls values and some of the Nine Values however not others. Also, that not all of Schwartz's values are represented in the Nine Values for Australian Schooling, and certain values could be said to be omitted from the Framework and certain privileged.

Shortest path and vehicle trajectory aided map-matching for low frequency GPS data

Map-matching algorithms that utilise road segment connectivity along with other data (i.e.position, speed and heading) in the process of map-matching are normally suitable for high frequency (1 Hz or higher) positioning data from GPS. While applying such map-matching algorithms to low frequency data (such as data from a fleet of private cars, buses or light duty vehicles or smartphones), the performance of these algorithms reduces to in the region of 70% in terms of correct link identification, especially in urban and sub-urban road networks. This level of performance may be insufficient for some real-time Intelligent Transport System (ITS) applications and services such as estimating link travel time and speed from low frequency GPS data. Therefore, this paper develops a new weight-based shortest path and vehicle trajectory aided map-matching (stMM) algorithm that enhances the map-matching of low frequency positioning data on a road map. The well-known A* search algorithm is employed to derive the shortest path between two points while taking into account both link connectivity and turn restrictions at junctions. In the developed stMM algorithm, two additional weights related to the shortest path and vehicle trajectory are considered: one shortest path-based weight is related to the distance along the shortest path and the distance along the vehicle trajectory, while the other is associated with the heading difference of the vehicle trajectory. The developed stMM algorithm is tested using a series of real-world datasets of varying frequencies (i.e. 1 s, 5 s, 30 s, 60 s sampling intervals). A high-accuracy integrated navigation system (a high-grade inertial navigation system and a carrier-phase GPS receiver) is used to measure the accuracy of the developed algorithm. The results suggest that the algorithm identifies 98.9% of the links correctly for every 30 s GPS data. Omitting the information from the shortest path and vehicle trajectory, the accuracy of the algorithm reduces to about 73% in terms of correct link identification. The algorithm can process on average 50 positioning fixes per second making it suitable for real-time ITS applications and services.

Integrated decoupling and matching network incorporated in the ground plane of a compact monopole array

Compact arrays enable various applications such as antenna beam-forming and multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) schemes on limited-size platforms. The reduced element spacing in compact arrays introduces high levels of mutual coupling which can affect the performance of the adaptive array. This coupling causes a mismatch at the input ports, which disturbs the performance of the individual elements in the array and affects the implementation of beam steering. In this article, a reactive decoupling network for a 3-element monopole array is used to establish port isolation while simultaneously matching input impedance at each port to the system impendence. The integrated decoupling and matching network is incorporated in the ground plane of the monopole array, providing further development scope for beamforming using phase shifters and power splitters in double-layered circuits.

Active fibers: Matching deformable tract templates to diffusion tensor images

Reliable quantitative analysis of white matter connectivity in the brain is an open problem in neuroimaging, with common solutions requiring tools for fiber tracking, tractography segmentation and estimation of intersubject correspondence. This paper proposes a novel, template matching approach to the problem. In the proposed method, a deformable fiber-bundle model is aligned directly with the subject tensor field, skipping the fiber tracking step. Furthermore, the use of a common template eliminates the need for tractography segmentation and defines intersubject shape correspondence. The method is validated using phantom DTI data and applications are presented, including automatic fiber-bundle reconstruction and tract-based morphometry. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Omission of author name in the article by Davidson et al (Arthritis Rheum, July 2013)

This article corrects: Brief Report: High-Throughput Sequencing of IL23R Reveals a Low-Frequency, Nonsynonymous Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism That Is Associated With Ankylosing Spondylitis in a Han Chinese Population Vol. 65, Issue 7, 1747–1752, Article first published online: 2 JUL 2013

A method for matching patients to advanced prostate cancer clinical trials

Objective: To illustrate a new method for simplifying patient recruitment for advanced prostate cancer clinical trials using natural language processing techniques. Background: The identification of eligible participants for clinical trials is a critical factor to increase patient recruitment rates and an important issue for discovery of new treatment interventions. The current practice of identifying eligible participants is highly constrained due to manual processing of disparate sources of unstructured patient data. Informatics-based approaches can simplify the complex task of evaluating patient’s eligibility for clinical trials. We show that an ontology-based approach can address the challenge of matching patients to suitable clinical trials. Methods: The free-text descriptions of clinical trial criteria as well as patient data were analysed. A set of common inclusion and exclusion criteria was identified through consultations with expert clinical trial coordinators. A research prototype was developed using Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) that identified SNOMED CT concepts in the patient data and clinical trial description. The SNOMED CT concepts model the standard clinical terminology that can be used to represent and evaluate patient’s inclusion/exclusion criteria for the clinical trial. Results: Our experimental research prototype describes a semi-automated method for filtering patient records using common clinical trial criteria. Our method simplified the patient recruitment process. The discussion with clinical trial coordinators showed that the efficiency in patient recruitment process measured in terms of information processing time could be improved by 25%. Conclusion: An UIMA-based approach can resolve complexities in patient recruitment for advanced prostate cancer clinical trials.

Saviour Siblings and the Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology: Harm, Ethics and Law

Advances in the field of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) have been revolutionary. This book focuses on the use of ARTs in the context of families who seek to conceive a matching sibling donor as a source of tissue to treat an existing sick child. Such children have been referred to as ‘saviour siblings’. Considering the legal and regulatory frameworks that impact on the accessibility of this technology in Australia and the UK, the work analyses the ethical and moral issues that arise from the use of the technology for this specific purpose. The author claims the only justification for limiting a family’s reproductive liberty in this context is where the exercise of reproductive decision-making results in harm to others. It is argued that the harm principle is the underlying feature of legislative action in Western democratic society, and as such, this principle provides the grounds upon which a strong and persuasive argument is made for a less-restrictive regulatory approach in the context of ‘saviour siblings’.

CCD: Connected Component Descriptor for Robust Mosaicing of Camera-Captured Document Images

We propose a robust method for mosaicing of document images using features derived from connected components. Each connected component is described using the Angular Radial Tran. form (ART). To ensure geometric consistency during feature matching, the ART coefficients of a connected component are augmented with those of its two nearest neighbors. The proposed method addresses two critical issues often encountered in correspondence matching: (i) The stability of features and (ii) Robustness against false matches due to the multiple instances of characters in a document image. The use of connected components guarantees a stable localization across images. The augmented features ensure a successful correspondence matching even in the presence of multiple similar regions within the page. We illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method on camera captured document images exhibiting large variations in viewpoint, illumination and scale.

Letter to the editor - Name that plant scientifically, please!

The report of Brunfelsia poisoning of dogs in Sydney by Drs Singh, Cowan and Child is very welcome, but it raises one important scientific point that has been further highlighted by the letter from Dr Seavers. Neither in the case report nor in Dr Seavers' letter is the species or cultivar of the plants identified. There are about 40 known Brunfelsia species, a number of which are cultivated in tropical to temperate climate gardens in Australia. It is noteworthy that Dr Seavers speculates about the Brunfelsia plants involved in dog poisonings in Australia, suggesting that 'dwarf' plants may be more poisonous ...

Auditory - Visual Matching in Learning Disabilities : Intervention Studies from Finland and Sweden

The present thesis discusses relevant issues in education: 1) learning disabilities including the role of comorbidity in LDs, and 2) the use of research-based interventions. This thesis consists of a series of four studies (three articles), which deepens the knowledge of the field of special education. Intervention studies (N=242) aimed to examine whether training using a nonverbal auditory-visual matching computer program had a remedial effect in different learning disabilities, such as developmental dyslexia, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Specific Language Impairment (SLI). These studies were conducted in both Finland and Sweden. The intervention’s non-verbal character made an international perspective possible. The results of the intervention studies confirmed, that the auditory-visual matching computer program, called Audilex had positive intervention effects. In Study I of children with developmental dyslexia there were also improvements in reading skills, specifically in reading nonsense words and reading speed. These improvements in tasks, which are thought to rely on phonological processing, suggest that such reading difficulties in dyslexia may stem in part from more basic perceptual difficulties, including those required to manage the visual and auditory components of the decoding task. In Study II the intervention had a positive effect on children with dyslexia; older students with dyslexia and surprisingly, students with ADD also benefited from this intervention. In conclusion, the role of comorbidity was apparent. An intervention effect was evident also in students’ school behavior. Study III showed that children with SLI experience difficulties very similar to those of children with dyslexia in auditory-visual matching. Children with language-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and SLI benefited from the auditory-visual matching intervention. Also comorbidity was evident among these children; in addition to formal diagnoses, comorbidity was explored with an assessment inventory, which was developed for this thesis. Interestingly, an overview of the data of this thesis shows positive intervention effects in all studies despite learning disability, language, gender or age. These findings have been described by a concept inter-modal transpose. Self-evidently these issues need further studies. In learning disabilities the aim in the future will also be to identify individuals at risk rather than by deficit; this aim can be achieved by using research-based interventions, intensified support in general education and inclusive special education. Keywords: learning disabilities, developmental dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, specific language impairment, language-based learning disabilities, comorbidity, auditory-visual matching, research-based interventions, inter-modal transpose