Masked Face Recognition Using Multi-Task Cascaded Convolutional Networks and FaceNet

Face masks have been widely used since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Facial detection and recognition technologies, such as the iPhone's Face ID, heavily rely on seeing the facial features that are now obscured due to wearing a face mask. Currently, the only way to utilize Face ID with a mask on is by having an Apple Watch as well. As such, this paper intends to find initial means of a reliable personal facial recognition system while the user is wearing a face mask without having the need for an Apple Watch. This may also be applicable to other security systems or measures. Through the use of Multi-Task Cascaded Convolutional Networks or MTCNN, a type of neural network which identifies faces and facial landmarks, and FaceNet, a deep neural network utilized for deriving features from a picture of a face, the masked face of the user could be identified and more importantly be recognized. Utilizing MTCNN, detecting the masked faces and automatically cropping them from the raw images are done. The learning phase then takes place wherein the exposed facial features are given emphasis while the masks themselves are excluded as a factor in recognition. Data in the form of images are acquired from taking multiple pictures of a certain individual's face as well as from repositories online for other people's faces. Images used are taken in various settings or modes such as different lighting levels, facial angles, head angles, colors and designs of face masks, and the presence or absence of glasses. The goal is to recognize whether it is the certain individual or not in the image. The training accuracy is 99.966% while the test accuracy is 99.921%. © 2022 IEEE.

Decolonizing Time, Knowledge, and Disability on the Tenure Clock

We consider the tenure clock's enmeshment in the neoliberal academy's settler colonial and ableist modes of organizing labor and valuing knowledge, modes in turn informed by heteropatriarchal spatiotemporal logics. The tenure clock in the settler academy relies on labor performed by those positioned outside of its time—such as those in temporary or semi-temporary positions, staff, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Our motivation in tracing these logics and formulating feminist strategies to undo them stems directly from observing "faculty with disabilities" at our university struggling against the tenure clock;as well as seemingly abled women faculty, faculty of color, and contingent faculty, who have strained against the academic clock and ended up debilitated in the process. We articulate ways in which more collaborative understandings of university culture and knowledge production might serve to challenge the peculiar temporalities produced by the tenure clock. Listening and learning at the intersections of feminist, Indigenous, and disability studies scholarship teaches us to work toward imagining a different approach to tenure, and from there, the way to a different academy.

Automatic Health Monitoring In Health Estate

This paper proposes an automatic system to monitor the health status of the individuals in an estate such as their blood pressure values, their blood glucose value, their blood oxygen value, their heart rate and their respiratory rate. In particular, the system consists of an intelligent watch, a mobile application, a central server and a medical platform. The intelligent watch acquires five photoplethysmograms (PPGs) via different photo sensors with different wavelengths and transmits the PPGs to the mobile via a bluetooth transmitter. The mobile application allows the inputs of the reference values of these health indices of the individuals and displays the estimated values. Also, it sends the PPGs and these reference values to the central server. The central server estimates the health indices. The medical platform consists of a team of medical officers. They monitor the health indices of the individuals and provide the medical advices. This system can detect the occurrence of the sudden decay of the health status of the individuals. Hence, it can reduce the death rate due to the spread of the new diseases such as the COVID19. © 2022 IEEE.

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS: RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FROM A MODELLING APPLICATION IN TWO MEDITERRANEAN CITIES

Activity restrictions implemented to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus imposed a significant effect on the air quality of cities across the world. The initiative of the World Meteorological Organisation/Global Atmospheric Watch for studying effects of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns on air quality has produced two sets of analysis results for cities across the world, based on observational data and modelling, respectively. The modelling study aims to evaluate the modelling tools in a regime involving significant changes of activity, and at the same provide insights on the effect of selectively reduced emissions on the chemistry and composition of urban pollutants. For most of the cities, a reduction on NOx average concentrations between 11% and 70% was calculated for the lockdown period, while PM10 was reduced by 8% up to 35% in a good agreement with measured reductions observed during the 2020 lockdown period compared to the corresponding period of 2019. Taking advantage of an operational Air Quality Modelling System, which is in continuous application in the cities of Thessaloniki and Nicosia, the contribution of sectoral emissions and the role of meteorology over the observed concentration reductions was assessed. The study reveals that in both cities, observed reductions of urban PM2.5, PM10 and NOx concentration patterns can be mainly attributed to the corresponding emissions reductions in the transport and heating sectors, while O3 is strongly affected by titration near the city centre. At the same time, meteorological patterns appear to strongly influence and even mask these effects in terms of daily averages, while the impact of imposed large-scale boundary conditions on the modelling results can also be significant. © British Crown Copyright (2022)

Student Post-Pandemic Perceptions of Supplemental Instructional Videos

With the structural shift in education due to the pandemic, worldwide educators adapted by a variety of methods, including a change to the course delivery method. Many universities closed and/or moved to wholly online delivery. With the online video formats, either synchronous or asynchronous, faculty were able to create a library of videos which could be later used as a tool. This new collection of videos could be used for asynchronous delivery or online courses, or as supplemental instructional videos. A survey was conducted to determine student perceptions of supplemental instructional videos. Supplemental instructional videos were available pre-pandemic by individual instructors and publishers. Instructors may have offered videos through a Learning Management System (LMS) or a streaming platform. These types of videos vary from general topic overviews to course specific content. Certain types of courses and content have long been identified as appropriate for online delivery, like software-based courses. However, instructors have been slow to adopt online delivery for hands-on laboratory exercises or architectural studios. Because of this post-pandemic paradigm shift, there is an opportunity to identify the associated shift in student perceptions. A survey instrument was developed to assess student perceptions about supplemental instructional videos. All of the students surveyed are enrolled in courses which provide supplemental instructional videos through their LMS. The survey was not limited to perceptions about current courses. Students across engineering, engineering technology, and architecture disciplines were asked about their perceptions of supplemental instructional videos made available through LMS. The LMS collects analytical data about usage, and depending on the LMS, precisely how much and which portions of a video were viewed by students. The survey included demographic questions in addition to questions about experience with online learning and supplemental instructional videos. Students surveyed included all levels of undergraduate students and graduate students from two universities in different states. Students are generally split in their preference for online or face-to-face delivery methods. About two-thirds of the respondents had been exposed to supplemental instructional videos. Similar to completely online courses, respondents identified reasons that supplemental instructional videos were a good resource, which included the lack of time constraints and the ability to watch and re-watch the videos. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Conferences

First he examined the interactions between the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and current economic and social transformations. In light of the session in his honour, Dr George Harlow (American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA) chronicled the history of his career, in which he built collections, organised exhibitions and performed geological fieldwork around the world while researching jade, ruby, etc. Pamir rubies formed at unusually low pressures (minimum of 1–1.2 kbar) and a temperature of approximately 760°C. Wim Vertriest (Gemological Institute of America [GIA], Bangkok, Thailand) and co-authors reviewed the identification of low-temperature heat treatment of gem corundum (i.e. up to about 1200°C, which starts causing damage to rutile ‘silk’ inclusions). In another presentation, Dr Dutrow and co-authors investigated the origin determination of Cu-bearing tourmaline using statistical analyses of LIBS and electron microprobe data.

A Conversation between Lewis "Lew" Aron (1952–2019) and Steven Kuchuck

What follows is an edited transcription of a filmed interview that was originally commissioned by the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP) for their Relational Voices Project. The video is available for viewing by IARPP members. The interview appears here by permission of IARPP. My memory for the details of how we invited Lew is foggy, and quite frankly, I didn't have the heart to go back through my e-mails with him in order to refresh my memory. I do know that I was President-elect of IARPP at the time the idea was conceived by us on the Board's Executive Committee. Past (and now once again, current) President Susi Nebbiosi had started this video archive sometime before the decision to ask Lew. Both to my chagrin and delight, Lew asked if I would be the one to interview him. Like many, I suppose, I don't like watching myself on video and while I'm very happy behind a podium, the same isn't always true in front of a camera. I think that has probably changed to some degree since Covid forced us to get used to being on Zoom and often having our teaching and lectures filmed. But back then, I was anxious about the idea and postponed hiring the camera man and setting the date. Lew didn't seem to be in a rush either. Eventually, we confessed to each other that we had both been avoiding this, each hoping to lose some weight before filming. Alas, the clock was ticking, and the winter holidays with their temptations were upon us. We finally sat down together one week after Lew's 65th birthday, in December 2017. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Psychoanalytic Inquiry is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Sports and Cultural Tourism at Vila Real: WTCR Car Racing Case Study

This investigation presents a case study on the influence of the tourist impact that the car race World Touring Car Cup (WTCR), in the Vila Real International Circuit, has on the city, a place traditionally known for its Cultural Tourism. In fact, after the Troika Crisis, and until the COVID pandemic emerged, Portugal was experiencing a boom in Tourism, particularly on the coast and in cities like Porto, Lisbon, Cascais, or Braga. Aware of this situation, the cities of the countryside start defining strategies to take advantage of this favorable wave for tourism, opting for areas where they would have more diversity offer. Given this, it is proposed Cultural and Sport Tourism as the best options for Vila Real city. Thus, it was decided to understand the connection that sport has with tourism and culture. For this purpose, the case study methodology and quantitative technics were used, for a better understanding of the connection of the concepts, in the perception of the public that traveled to the city to watch the races and the event in general, as well as the public that obligatorily attended the races for living in the city and/or on the circuit route and those audiences who watch the event via online transmission. It is intended, therefore, to understand the dimension of the Cultural and Sports Tourism that is experienced in the city, attending its social, cultural, and economic impacts, and if it has been rising according to the growth of the event and its internationality. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Server-Side Versus Client-Side Synchronization for Watch Together Applications Using CMAF Low Latency

Watch together is an application that was widely deployed during the COVID-19 global health crisis. Early results show a much longer viewing time when the feature is activated. The synchronization between the A/V streamed content, combined with the need to have a low, end-to-end latency compatible with the user interactions through integrated social media apps, is challenging, especially when watch together is deployed on all devices. The legacy approach used by existing watch together applications is to rely on a master user that will drive the other members of the group using an overlay control protocol to make sure that all the players will synchronize their playback. This article proposes a scheme that uses the built-in synchronization provided in Common Media Application Format (CMAF) low latency for both Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), enabling a subsecond time delay between clients in the same geographical location. © 2002 Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Inc.

Contact Tracing: A Cloud Based Architecture for Safe Covid-19 Mapping

In the recent, Corona Virus epidemic (COVID-19) increases day-to-day from one individual to another because of contact transmission and COVID-19 is created by the SARS-CoV-2. Identifying and stopping the spreading of contagious epidemic such as COVID-19 is important to handling diseases. One major part contracted to find and detect their previous connections so as to then carefully dissociate any persons likely to have been affected and accommodate dispersion is to find out or explore more transmissible persons. These previous connections can be traced using smart machine such as smart watches and smart phones, which can frequently find and collect the connections and location of their infected ones through their embedded transmissions and localization methodologies or technologies, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) location-based navigation rule, Wi-Fi, biological connections, and Bluetooth. Contact Tracing is the one of the best technologies in which we use a methodology for stopping and controlling the COVID19. The main point of this review paper on the methodology of these smart technologies and figure the model of contact tracing accuracy on the flow of the COVID-19, working of contact tracing, algorithms and control of the COVID-19. In this paper, we have determined the role of contact tracing in COVID-19, effective impacts of Contact Tracing and designed a COVID-19 epidemic model that we created to evaluate the number of people quarantined and effectiveness of the steps to be taken, through the smart watches and smart phone contact tracing technique used. In this review paper, our result shows that in order to be accurate for the COVID-19 pandemic, the contact tracing technique must be traced speedily, a valuation ratio of the population must apply the smart devices technique, contact tracing application and this technology must be correct. All these rigid needs make smart device-based contact tracing rather inefficient at accommodating the flow of the virus during the COVID-19. However, in this phase smart machine-based contact tracing could be immensely and enormously effective and recognizing a second section, where a segment of the community will have increased immunity. © 2021 IEEE.

Monitoring and Control of COVID Vaccine Storage Temperature Using IoT and Machine Learning

Corona virus (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Till now, vaccination is the most effective way of fighting this pandemic of COVID-19. This paper proposes a system which will monitor and control the temperature of the vaccine storage rooms. Here an Internet of things and Machine Learning system has been developed which will measure the real time temperature of the room and will control the temperature automatically. It will try to keep the temperature in the given region, it will predict the temperature of next twenty minutes with the help of Machine learning algorithm-linear regression, it will watch for an anomaly using Z-score analysis, it will also watch if the temperature crosses upper or lower threshold. If any of the above abnormality is detected, we will get notified online through a message, the system will maintain the temperature and the workers will also get alarmed by a led and a buzzer which will work different for each significant case. © 2022 IEEE. All rights reserved

A novel video recommendation system for algebra: An effectiveness evaluation study

This study presents a novel video recommendation system for an algebra virtual learning environment (VLE) that leverages ideas and methods from engagement measurement, item response theory, and reinforcement learning. Following Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory, but considering low affect and high affect students separately, we developed a system of five categories of video recommendations: 1) Watch new video;2) Review current topic video with a new tutor;3) Review segment of current video with current tutor;4) Review segment of current video with a new tutor;5) Watch next video in curriculum sequence. The category of recommendation was determined by student scores on a quiz and a sensor-free engagement detection model. New video recommendations (i.e., category 1) were selected based on a novel reinforcement learning algorithm that takes input from an item response theory model. The recommendation system was evaluated in a large field experiment, both before and after school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show evidence of effectiveness of the video recommendation algorithm during the period of normal school operations, but the effect disappears after school closures. Implications for teacher orchestration of technology for normal classroom use and periods of school closure are discussed. © 2022 ACM.

Programming an Educational Chatbot to Support Virtual Learning

With the educational hardships presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the connections between teachers and their students as well as club leaders and their members have been compromised. These circumstances prompted the creation of a Discord education management chatbot to serve as an efficient communication assistant to help schools and clubs overcome the barriers of virtual and/or hybrid learning. This chatbot supports diverse features including reminders, stopwatches, polls, and breakout rooms that aim to streamline and enhance the virtual learning experience, but could also appeal to a variety of interests and audiences outside of the classroom. Its features also remain helpful for in-person schooling due to the wide variation of commands. © 2020 IEEE.

Self-training in Sports Agility Drills using Smartphone Sensors

Traditional agility tests often use the stopwatch to measure the time consumption for each training scheme. The stopwatch can be manually controlled by staff coaches, which has more uncertainty. The automatic measurement system can be replaced to reduce human error. However, it is more expensive and should be used under control by technical staff. Moreover, in this pandemic situation, social distancing needs to be applied to prevent the COVID-19 from spreading. In this paper, we propose the method to apply the smartphone sensors for sports training, which can be applied for remote practices and self-training. We demonstrated the popular agility training as a 10-m agility shuttle run drill and described the assumptions of the corresponding ideal acceleration characteristics. After that, the actual training data was illustrated and analyzed for evaluating the trainee's agility. More than twenty volunteers were employed to study the feasibility of self-training. The results show that more than 90% of volunteers can effortlessly use our method. Although the data analysis by themselves is quite difficult for nonexperienced users, the training data can be analyzed by the professional instructor via the online platform. © 2021 IEEE.

Landscape of Wearable Technology in India: A Quarterly Peer Reviewed Multi-Disciplinary International Journal

Wearable technology have emerged in the early 2000. Different devices embedded with sensors and analytical algorithms have been innovated, designed and delivered to consumers as unique value preposition to the niche market segment. But the adoption rate has been sluggish in the initial few years of the launch. In the prevailing turbulence of Covid environment worldwide, consumer attitude towards health and physical activities has undergone a lot of change. Moreover, pollution as a common hazard against health, has made people more concerned with the lifestyle, dietary-concern and physical activities. In addition to these concerns, the wide spread use of Information Communication and Technology, number of new digital products have been introduced in the market world wide. Marketers have explored new avenues to create value in the market of wearables, matching with the requirements of health conscious digizen/ netizen segment. Further, through repositioning the current market offerings, marketers can capture and increase the market share. In wearable segment smart watches, initially, launched by Apple as a lifestyle accessory can be made integral part of a healthy lifestyle. This research is aimed to classify product category falling under wearable and quantify market size and the growth trends. Thus, this paper is an attempt to explore the trend and present a complete landscape of these new digital wearable devices. Further, the deterrent to the future potential of these wearables devices deserve attention of the marketers. This paper is an attempt to explore insight about the adoption rate and related marketer activities.

Gem-A Notices

Gem-A Conference, Graduation and Presentation of Awards In the first week of November 2021, Gem-A hosted two significant events for its Members and Students, signalling a return to some in-person events and the continuation of Gem-A’s annual conference tradition. The conference was followed by the Gem-A Graduation Ceremony and Presentation of Awards on the evening of Monday 8 November, hosted at Church House in London, where participants enjoyed balcony views across Westminster Abbey. Gem-A has long reserved the first weekend in November to host its most anticipated annual events, including the Gem-A Conference, field trips to the Natural History Museum and Tower of London, and its annual Graduation Ceremony and Presentation of Awards. ‘COVID-19 restrictions did force us to make changes in our annual in-person events, but we are reintroducing the Gem-A Conference and Graduation Ceremony in ways that are safe, effective and for the benefit of our Members and Students,’ explained Alan Hart FGA DGA, chief executive officer of Gem-A.