Unsupervised online learning of condition-invariant images for place recognition

This paper presents an online, unsupervised training algorithm enabling vision-based place recognition across a wide range of changing environmental conditions such as those caused by weather, seasons, and day-night cycles. The technique applies principal component analysis to distinguish between aspects of a location’s appearance that are condition-dependent and those that are condition-invariant. Removing the dimensions associated with environmental conditions produces condition-invariant images that can be used by appearance-based place recognition methods. This approach has a unique benefit – it requires training images from only one type of environmental condition, unlike existing data-driven methods that require training images with labelled frame correspondences from two or more environmental conditions. The method is applied to two benchmark variable condition datasets. Performance is equivalent or superior to the current state of the art despite the lesser training requirements, and is demonstrated to generalise to previously unseen locations.

Ineffective cerebral perfusion related to increased intracranial pressure secondary to subarachnoid haemorrhage : An examination of nursing interventions

Considered a condition of the elderly population, stroke will soon be the leading cause of death globally. In Singapore it is the fourth leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease. Subarachnoid haemorrhage, when compared with an embolic stroke, has a more devastating outcome because of the deleterious complications associated with it. Vasospam, re-bleeding and global cerebral ischemia are three of the most prominent complications. Therefore, nursing care and interventions developed to reduce the incidence of complications and optimise neurological function are critical in the acute phase of this condition. Using a casestudy approach this article will discuss and offer a rationale to a number of key nursing interventions based around a nursing care plan designed to reduce the incidence of complications.

Financial Reserves : A Necessary Condition for Not-for-Profit Sustainability?

Should not-for-profit (NFP) organisations hold reserves to hedge uncertainty and protect mission delivery? This chapter outlines the nature and contxt of NFP reserves. many would accept that actors within NFP organisations have a broad accountability to ensure sustinability where an appropriate mission exists, and that sustinability is assisted or ensured through the purposeful accumulation of reserves. This chapter examins current relevant literature on reserves, reviews various approaches to reserves accumulation across jurisdictions and reports what is known about practice. We highlight the tension faced by NFP organisations, balancing mission spending against the need to hedge uncertainty. We investigate the role of reserves, and how an appropriate level is determined to ensure a NFP board's accountability for organisational sustinability. This issue is particularly significant in the period following the global financial crisis, and while practitioner interest is evident, there has been little academic attention paid to the topic of NFP reserves, and 'very few [articles] have even forcused on related topics' (Calabrese, 2011, p. 282).

Development of a new index of balance in adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Purposes: The first objective was to propose a new model representing the balance level of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) using Principal Components Analysis (PCA); and the second objective was to use the results from the PCA recorded by regression method to construct and validate summative scales of the standardized values of the index, which may be useful to facilitate a balance assessment in adults with IDD. Methods: A total of 801 individuals with IDD (509 males) mean 33.1±8.5 years old, were recruited from Special Olympic Games in Spain 2009 to 2012. The participants performed the following tests: the timed-stand test, the single leg stance test with open and closed eyes, the Functional Reach Test, the Expanded Timed-Get-up-and-Go Test. Data was analyzed using principal components analysis (PCA) with Oblimin rotation and Kaiser normalization. We examined the construct validity of our proposed two-factor model underlying balance for adults with IDD. The scores from PCA were recorded by regression method and were standardized. Results: The Component Plot and Rotated Space indicated that a two-factor solution (Dynamic and Static Balance components) was optimal. The PCA with direct Oblimin rotation revealed a satisfactory percentage of total variance explained by the two factors: 51.6 and 21.4%, respectively. The median score standardized for component dynamic and static of the balance index for adults with IDD is shown how references values. Conclusions: Our study may lead to improvements in the understanding and assessment of balance in adults with IDD. First, it confirms that a two-factor model may underlie the balance construct, and second, it provides an index that may be useful for identifying the balance level for adults with IDD.

Incorporation of road safety into road management systems

Road collisions negatively affect the lives of hundreds of Canadians per year. Unfortunately, safety has been typically neglected from management systems. It is common to find that a great deal of effort has been devoted to develop and implement systems capable of achieving and sustaining good levels of condition. It is relatively recent that road safety has become an important objective. Managing a network of roads is not an easy task; it requires long, medium and short term plans to maintain, rehabilitate and upgrade aging assets, reduce and mitigate accident exposure, likelihood and severity. This thesis presents a basis for incorporating road safety into road management systems; two case studies were developed; one limited by available data and another from sufficient information. A long term analysis was used to allocate improvements for condition and safety of roads and bridges, at the network level. It was confirmed that a safety index could be used to obtain a first cut model; meanwhile potential for improvement which is a difference between observed and predicted number of accidents was capable of capturing the degree of safety of individual segments. It was found that the completeness of the system resulted in savings because of the economies obtained from trade-off optimization. It was observed that safety improvements were allocated at the beginning of the analysis in order to reduce the extent of issues, which translated into a systematic reduction of potential for improvement up to a point of near constant levels, which were hypothesized to relate to those unavoidable collisions from human error or vehicle failure.

Childhood atopic dermatitis : a cross-sectional study of relationships between child and parent factors, atopic dermatitis management, and disease severity

Background: Successful management of atopic dermatitis poses a significant and ongoing challenge to parents of affected children. Despite frequent reports of child behaviour problems and parenting difficulties, there is a paucity of literature examining relationships between child behaviour and parents' confidence and competence with treatment. Objectives: To examine relationships between child, parent, and family variables, parents' self-efficacy for managing atopic dermatitis, self-reported performance of management tasks, observed competence with providing treatment, and atopic dermatitis severity. Design: Cross-sectional study design. Participants A sample of 64 parent-child dyads was recruited from the dermatology clinic of a paediatric tertiary referral hospital in Brisbane, Australia. Methods: Parents completed self-report questionnaires examining child behaviour, parents' adjustment, parenting conflict, parents' relationship satisfaction, and parents' self-efficacy and self-reported performance of key management tasks. Severity of atopic dermatitis was assessed using the Scoring Atopic Dermatitis index. A routine home treatment session was observed, and parents' competence in carrying out the child's treatment assessed. Results: Pearson's and Spearman's correlations identified significant relationships (p< .05) between parents' self-efficacy and disease severity, child behaviour difficulties, parent depression and stress, parenting conflict, and relationship satisfaction. There were also significant relationships between each of these variables and parents' self-reported performance of management tasks. More profound child behaviour difficulties were associated with more severe atopic dermatitis and greater parent stress. Using multiple linear regressions, significant proportions of variation in parents' self-efficacy and self-reported task performance were explained by child behaviour difficulties and parents' formal education. Self-efficacy emerged as a likely mediator for relationships between both child behaviour and parents' education, and self-reported task performance. Direct observation of treatment sessions revealed strong relationships between parents' treatment competence and parents' self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and self-reported task performance. Less competent task performance was also associated with greater parent-reported child behaviour difficulties, parent depression and stress, parenting conflict, and relationship dissatisfaction. Conclusion: This study revealed the importance of child behaviour to parents' confidence and practices in the context of atopic dermatitis management. Children with more severe atopic dermatitis are at risk of presenting with challenging behaviour problems and their parents struggle to manage the condition successfully.

The mechanical and inflammatory low back pain (MIL) index: development and validation

Abstract Background The purpose of this study was the development of a valid and reliable “Mechanical and Inflammatory Low Back Pain Index” (MIL) for assessment of non-specific low back pain (NSLBP). This 7-item tool assists practitioners in determining whether symptoms are predominantly mechanical or inflammatory. Methods Participants (n = 170, 96 females, age = 38 ± 14 years-old) with NSLP were referred to two Spanish physiotherapy clinics and completed the MIL and the following measures: the Roland Morris Questionnaire (RMQ), SF-12 and “Backache Index” (BAI) physical assessment test. For test-retest reliability, 37 consecutive patients were assessed at baseline and three days later during a non-treatment period. Face and content validity, practical characteristics, factor analysis, internal consistency, discriminant validity and convergent validity were assessed from the full sample. Results A total of 27 potential items that had been identified for inclusion were subsequently reduced to 11 by an expert panel. Four items were then removed due to cross-loading under confirmatory factor analysis where a two-factor model yielded a good fit to the data (χ2 = 14.80, df = 13, p = 0.37, CFI = 0.98, and RMSEA = 0.029). The internal consistency was moderate (α = 0.68 for MLBP; 0.72 for ILBP), test-retest reliability high (ICC = 0.91; 95%CI = 0.88-0.93) and discriminant validity good for either MLBP (AUC = 0.74) and ILBP (AUC = 0.92). Convergent validity was demonstrated through similar but weak correlations between the ILBP and both the RMQ and BAI (r = 0.34, p < 0.001) and the MLBP and BAI (r = 0.38, p < 0.001). Conclusions The MIL is a valid and reliable clinical tool for patients with NSLBP that discriminates between mechanical and inflammatory LBP. Keywords: Low back pain; Psychometrics properties; Pain measurement; Screening tool; Inflammatory; Mechanical

Arabic translation, adaptation and modification of the dialysis symptom index for chronic kidney disease stages four and five

Background Symptom burden in chronic kidney disease (CKD) is poorly understood. To date, the majority of research focuses on single symptoms and there is a lack of suitable multidimensional symptom measures. The purpose of this study was to modify, translate, cross-culturally adapt and psychometrically analyse the Dialysis Symptom Index (DSI). Methods The study methods involved four phases: modification, translation, pilot-testing with a bilingual non-CKD sample and then psychometric testing with the target population. Content validity was assessed using an expert panel. Inter-rater agreement, test-retest reliability and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were calculated to demonstrate reliability of the modified DSI. Discriminative and convergent validity were assessed to demonstrate construct validity. Results Content validity index during translation was 0.98. In the pilot study with 25 bilingual students a moderate to perfect agreement (Kappa statistic = 0.60-1.00) was found between English and Arabic versions of the modified DSI. The main study recruited 433 patients CKD with stages 4 and 5. The modified DSI was able to discriminate between non-dialysis and dialysis groups (p < 0.001) and demonstrated convergent validity with domains of the Kidney Disease Quality of Life short form. Excellent test-retest and internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.91) reliability were also demonstrated. Conclusion The Arabic version of the modified DSI demonstrated good psychometric properties, measures the multidimensional nature of symptoms and can be used to assess symptom burden at different stages of CKD. The modified instrument, renamed the CKD Symptom Burden Index (CKD-SBI), should encourage greater clinical and research attention to symptom burden in CKD.

Development of a hybrid pollution index for heavy metals in marine and estuarine sediments

Heavy metal pollution of sediments is a growing concern in most parts of the world, and numerous studies focussed on identifying contaminated sediments by using a range of digestion methods and pollution indices to estimate sediment contamination have been described in the literature. The current work provides a critical review of the more commonly used sediment digestion methods and identifies that weak acid digestion is more likely to provide guidance on elements that are likely to be bioavailable than other traditional methods of digestion. This work also reviews common pollution indices and identifies the Nemerow Pollution Index as the most appropriate method for establishing overall sediment quality. Consequently, a modified Pollution Index that can lead to a more reliable understanding of whole sediment quality is proposed. This modified pollution index is then tested against a number of existing studies and demonstrated to give a reliable and rapid estimate of sediment contamination and quality.