Everyday Environments Research Articles

Human action prediction in collaborative environments based on shared-weight LSTMs with feature dimensionality reduction

As robots are progressing towards being ubiquitous and an indispensable part of our everyday environments, such as home, offices, healthcare, education, and manufacturing shop floors, efficient and safe collaboration and cohabitation become imperative. Given that, such environments could benefit greatly from accurate human action prediction. In addition to being accurate, human action prediction should be computationally efficient, in order to ensure a timely reaction, and capable of dealing with changing environments, since unstructured interaction and collaboration with humans usually do not assume static conditions. In this paper, we propose a model for human action prediction based on motion cues and gaze using shared-weight Long Short-Term Memory networks (LSTMs) and feature dimensionality reduction. LSTMs have proven to be a powerful tool in processing time series data, especially when dealing with long-term dependencies; however, to maximize their performance, LSTM networks should be fed with informative and quality inputs. Given that, in this paper, we furthermore conducted an extensive input feature analysis based on (i) signal correlation and their strength to act as stand-alone predictors, and (ii) a multilayer perceptron inspired by the autoencoder architecture. We validated the proposed model on a publicly available MoGaze11https://humans-to-robots-motion.github.io/mogaze/. dataset for human action prediction, as well as on a smaller dataset recorded in our laboratory. Our model outperformed alternatives, such as recurrent neural networks, a fully connected LSTM network, and the strongest stand-alone signals (baselines), and can run in real-time on a standard laptop CPU. Since eye gaze might not always be available in a real-world scenario, we have implemented and tested a multi-layer perceptron for gaze estimation from more easily obtainable motion cues, such as head orientation and hand position. The estimated gaze signal can be utilized during inference of our LSTM-based model, thus making our action prediction pipeline suitable for real-time practical applications.

‘Mister Speaker! I therefore have no claim’ – Agda Östlund’s Entrance in the Parliamentary Debate in March 1922 in a Historical and Rhetorical Perspective

In March 1922 the Social Democrat Agda Östlund (1870–1942) speaks as the first female member of Swedish Parliament in the Second Chamber due to her own proposal for the state to take responsibility for arranging suitable work for tuberculosis patients when they leave the sanatorium, so that they can complete their convalescence. It may seem that democracy was once and for all established when women were finally included in the Parliament. But that was not the case. The question is how Agda Östlund acts in a formative historical stage after the first democratic election, how she finds a speaking position and how her speech can be understood in relation to the negotiation of the meaning of women’s civil and democratic rights.
 This article includes a contextualisation and a text analysis where I go into how the text relates to a rhetorical situation. I see Agda Östlund’s utterances as rhetorical in accordance with the theoretical perspectives established by Lloyd F. Bitzer where the key concepts are rhetorical situation, problem, restrictions and audience. Agda Östlund uses the mother role as a rhetorical strategy, connects the issue of tuberculosis to the home and everyday environment and nursing, which are traditionally female spheres, and highlights class injustice in the possibility of completing convalescence after sanitation. The mother role and the factual and low-key argumentation have two purposes in this speech – partly to adapt to the Parliament order, and partly to present the actual issue. The rhetorical strategy is about using the mother role as a persona to make the class perspective a matter of care, nursing and compassion.
 Östlund’s entry into the Parliament debate can be described as a rhetorically fragile situation because she speaks for the very substance of her own motion while at the same time following the committee’s line, in which she herself is a part, and demands a rejection of it.

Simulation of thermal power plant source contribution to ambient air concentration in Cam Pha City, Quang Ninh province using AERMOD dispersion model

Cam Pha, the home of three major thermal power plants including Cam Pha, Mong Duong I and Mong Duong II, is one of the most important industrial cities in the North of Vietnam. Air pollution due to stacks emission is the biggest problem threatening Cam Pha City's sustainable development. In this study, the AERMOD modeling system was used to evaluate the impact of the stack emission by the thermal power plants on the ambient atmospheric environment. The maximum 1-HR, 24-HR, 99th percentile and annual average concentrations of TSP, SO2 and NO2 were simulated within the 40x40 km domain of 100x100 m grid spacing with the hourly meteorological data taken from 2018 to 2020. Air dispersion simulation is performed on the observed background gas concentration of the everyday environment. Hourly emission data of 10 primary stack sources of 3 factory groups were used as input data. The simulated spatial distribution of gases indicates the strong fluence of the mountainous topography on the dispersion of stack emission. Results also revealed that the maximum short-term stack emission at ground-level concentrations of SO2 and NO2 are much higher than the national standard, thus raising the risk of severe pollution. TSP pollution is less severe than SO2 and NO2 but still at a dangerous level. Since Cam Pha locates by the East Sea with the prevailing wind is heading northeast and east directions. The annual average concentrations of these pollutants indicate that the high terrain areas at the south and northwest of Cam Pha City, which block the flow of the stack emission, are the most affected regions by exhausted gases from industrial stacks.

Deep Learning Based Side Channel Attacks on Lightweight Cryptography (Student Abstract)

Computing devices continue to be increasingly spread out within our everyday environments. Computers are embedded into everyday devices in order to serve the functionality of electronic components or to enable new services in their own right. Existing Substitution-Permutation Network (SPN) ciphers, such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), are not suitable for devices where memory, power consumption or processing power is limited. Lightweight SPN ciphers, such as GIFT-128 provide a solution for running cryptography on low resource devices. The GIFT-128 cryptographic scheme is a building block for GIFT-COFB (Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data), one of the finalists in the ongoing NIST lightweight cryptography standardization process (NISTIR 8369). Determination of an adequate level of security and providing subsequent mechanisms to achieve it, is one of the most pressing problems regarding embedded computing devices. In this paper we present experimental results and comparative study of Deep Learning (DL) based Side Channel Attacks on lightweight GIFT-128. To our knowledge, this is the first study of the security of GIFT-128 against DL-based SCA attacks.

Assessing the ecological validity of soundscape reproduction in different laboratory settings.

The ever-growing body of soundscape research includes studies conducted both in everyday life environments and in laboratory settings. Yet, laboratory settings differ from in-situ and therefore may elicit different perceptions. The present study explores the ecological validity of soundscape reproduction in the laboratory using first-order Ambisonics and of different modes of questionnaire administration. Furthermore, it investigates the influence of the contextual factors of time of day, day of the week, and location on site on soundscape evaluations in situ and in the laboratory, based on the Swedish Soundscape Quality Protocol. We first tested measurement invariance between the computer-based and pen-and-paper administration of the soundscape questionnaire. We then investigated the influence of the above-mentioned contextual factors on soundscape evaluations, as well as the effect of stimuli selection in the laboratory. The analyses confirmed the underlying dimensions of proposed soundscape assessment questionnaires, confirmed metric invariance between computer and pen-and-paper, and revealed significant influences of time, day, and location on soundscape scales. This research represents a critical step in rigorously assessing soundscape evaluations in the laboratory and establishes solid evidence for the use of both in situ and laboratory soundscape studies.

Within moments of becoming—everyday citizenship in nursing homes

Background Humans are occupational beings. Our occupational choices depend on the opportunities available to us, and within nursing homes, institutional rules or structures may limit occupational engagement. An everyday citizenship lens acknowledges the importance of people’s rights as citizens as well as engagement in mundane aspects of the everyday, highlighting diverse expressions of agency. Aims/objectives To show how older residents living with dementia in nursing homes can realize their everyday citizenship. Methods A phenomenologically inspired ethnographic study was conducted in nursing home units in Norway, exploring everyday citizenship through narrative analysis. Results Within everyday environments of care, the narratives of May, Janne and Camilla tell stories of spontaneous initiatives towards contribution and responsibilities, highlighting their continuous occupational natures. Conclusion Becoming can be seen as constitutive of self and identity, through residents’ actions and contributions within the mundane and ordinary of everyday life, as an essential part of everyday citizenship. Significance for practice A citizenship of becoming presupposes that institutional perceptions of activities being offered ought to be broadened towards supporting residents’ natural desires to do and act within the mundane and ordinary of everyday life.

Theoretical investigation of a novel three-phase alternating current liquid metal vortex magnetohydrodynamic generator

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generators are a class of devices that directly convert mechanical energy of a flowing fluid into electrical energy. However, due to the production of low magnitude voltages at low fluid velocities, they are not very useful for harvesting energy from the everyday environment at a watt scale. This work theoretically investigates a novel three-phase alternating current liquid metal vortex MHD, capable of generating power on a scale of watts and voltages on a scale of volts from a wide range of environmental energy sources. A new theoretical approach is utilized, where the induced fields and the stator fields are calculated independently which makes it easy to analyze different operational modes of the system. Two limiting approximations namely duct flow and disk flow have been analyzed and the effect of the number of poles and of the electromagnetic slip on the generated power and current is studied. The obtained analytical and numerical results are in good agreement and provide a robust foundation for the generator design and experimental characterization. The formulated approach also shows that such MHD devices can be easily scaled for various applications requiring power in a range from mW to W.

‘I can teach you that’: a study of musical interaction as a learning-generating practice in Swedish preschool everyday environments

ABSTRACT In this article, the first part of the research project ‘Musical interaction in preschool’ will be presented and analysed. The purpose of the study was to examine which musical interactive activities are expressed in everyday preschool environments and how these types of interactions can be related to children’s development and learning. Through observations of planned lessons and children’s free play in different milieus, the interactions have been mapped. Using Merleau-Ponty’s lifeworld phenomenology, various interactions reflect embodied education patterns as a part of preschool cultural canonisation. The result shows that the children in the study have a good ability to interact musically but that this resource is less utilised in the planned music teaching. The analyses were based on learning strategies in music with a child-first perspective which links back to lifeworld phenomenological perspectives of meaning.

Environmental mixtures and breast cancer: identifying co-exposure patterns between understudied vs breast cancer-associated chemicals using chemical inventory informatics.

Although evidence linking environmental chemicals to breast cancer is growing, mixtures-based exposure evaluations are lacking. This study aimed to identify environmental chemicals in use inventories that co-occur and share properties with chemicals that have association with breast cancer, highlighting exposure combinations that may alter disease risk. The occurrence of chemicals within chemical use categories was characterized using the Chemical and Products Database. Co-exposure patterns were evaluated for chemicals that have an association with breast cancer (BC), no known association (NBC), and understudied chemicals (UC) identified through query of the Silent Spring Institute's Mammary Carcinogens Review Database and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxicity Reference Database. UCs were ranked based on structure and physicochemical similarities and co-occurrence patterns with BCs within environmentally relevant exposure sources. A total of 6793 chemicals had data available for exposure source occurrence analyses. 50 top-ranking UCs spanning five clusters of co-occurring chemicals were prioritized, based on shared properties with co-occuring BCs, including chemicals used in food production and consumer/personal care products, as well as potential endocrine system modulators. Results highlight important co-exposure conditions that are likely prevalent within our everyday environments that warrant further evaluation for possible breast cancer risk. Most environmental studies on breast cancer have focused on evaluating relationships between individual, well-known chemicals and breast cancer risk. This study set out to expand this research field by identifying understudied chemicals and mixtures that may occur in everyday environments due to their patterns of commercial use. Analyses focused on those that co-occur alongside chemicals associated with breast cancer, based upon in silico chemical database querying and analysis. Particularly in instances when understudied chemicals share physicochemical properties and structural features with carcinogens, these chemical mixtures represent conditions that should be studied in future clinical, epidemiological, and toxicological studies.

Conceptions of Privacy in the Digital Era: Perceptions of Slovak Citizens

In the digital era, citizens’ daily lives are taking place both in the physical and digital realms. At the same time, even the most mundane activities are increasingly affected by offline as well as online surveillance. The privacy paradigm suggests that there is a difference between the private and public spheres of life, and that with technological advancement the demarcation lines between these spheres have become blurred. As a consequence, citizens’ conceptions of privacy are becoming more fluid, nuanced, context-dependent, and socially determined. This gives rise to a need to reconceptualize what privacy means and how citizens think about its boundaries. To investigate citizens’ conceptions of privacy, we conducted six focus groups in Slovakia aimed at exploring people’s attitudes toward privacy and encompassing their experiences and rationalizations (including possible alterations) of behavior in a variety of everyday environments. The analysis suggests that privacy is a complex phenomenon that is understood as an interplay between different privacy norms guiding specific contexts and more general approaches to privacy. We identify four privacy environments (a controlled private space, a [voluntarily] shared private space, a transactional public space, and a non-controllable public space) and three privacy approaches (the reservations approach, the trade-off approach, and the death of privacy approach) whose interplay constitutes individuals’ conceptions of privacy. In addition, the acceptance of loss of privacy seems to depend on a perception of legitimacy, control over the mechanisms of surveillance that individuals encounter, and trust toward the data processor.

Between agency and uncertainty – Young women and men constructing citizenship through stories of sexual harassment

AbstractIn this article, we examine young people's narratives on sexual harassment on how it is endured, objected, observed, and negotiated in diverse everyday life environments. The article is based on an analysis of thematic interviews with 36 young people aged 15–19 living in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland. Altogether 23 young women and 13 young men participated in the interviews which were conducted at educational institutions as individual, paired or group interviews. We analyze young people's narratives on sexual harassment as stories of everyday citizenship and, and more precisely, as acts of citizenship. We have also applied the concept of respectability to study how young women and men construct respectable sexual citizenship. We found out that whereas female respectability suggests that young women should be able to protect their sexual integrity effectively, male respectability expects young men to effectively balance between different positions of masculinity. While young people widely condemn sexual harassment and recognize it as discrimination, the gendered ways of constructing respectability, however, maintain the moral double standard by which young women remain the gatekeepers of sexual consent and young men test its boundaries.

Development and Hardware Implementation of IoT-Based Patrol Robot for Remote Gas Leak Inspection

The Internet of Things Robot (IoTR) is an emerging paradigm that brings together robotic systems with the Internet of Things (IoT) that connect sensors and smart objects pervasively embedded in everyday environments. With the recent developments in robotic system applications, it becomes apparent that the mobile robot has great importance in real-world applications such as navigation and surveillance. One of the most important applications of a mobile robot is patrolling and gas leak detection. This paper proposes a real-time IoT Robot (IoTR) that can be used indoors or outdoors for gas leak detection purposes. The proposed mobile robot is equipped with microphones, speakers, the hub of smart sensors that are necessary for patrolling and gas leak detection, a high-resolution IP video camera for live video streaming, Bluetooth for indoor applications and tracking, and GPS/GPRS for outdoor applications and tracking. The experimental testing of the preliminary prototype confirms the design objectives. The robot has been tested for indoor and outdoor modes; the robot can detect gas leakage and provides a live video streaming of the surrounding area, which can be tracked on Google maps. At the same time, the robot can be controlled remotely through a mobile app or website, the robot can move autonomously and avoid obstacles. The proposed work provides a low-cost IoT robot through the use of the available and cheap components and sensors, which featured a high quality at the same time. Our proposed system exhibits promising gas sensing performance in harsh environments, using intelligent gas sensors that have a fast response (>10s), low cost, high sensitivity, long life, robustness, and physical size.

Proceedings of the 17th Annual International INEBRIA Conference

Proceedings of the 17th Annual International INEBRIA Conference

"Changes in alcohol use during COVID-19 and associations with contextual and individual difference variables: A systematic review and meta-analysis." Correction to Acuff et al. (2022).

Following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) protocol, studies were gathered via PsycINFO, PubMed/MEDLINE, and preprint databases (published April 29, 2021) that examined individual-level changes in consumption during the initial COVID-19 mitigation measures (before October 2020). Next, sample proportion increases and decreases in consumption, in addition to mean change in consumption variables from pre- to during-COVID, were meta-analyzed, and contextual and individual difference variables related to consumption changes during the pandemic were summarized. One hundred and twenty-eight studies provided data from 58 countries (M n = 3,876; Mdn n = 1,092; aggregate sample n = 492,235). The average mean change in alcohol consumption was nonsignificant (Cohen's d = -0.01, p = .68); however, meta-analysis revealed that 23% of participants reported increases in consumption and 23% reported decreases. These changes were moderated by per capita gross domestic product and country. Narrative synthesis revealed multiple predictors of increased drinking, including contextual changes (e.g., children at home, income loss, working remotely), individual difference variables (being female, a young-to-middle aged adult, or Black), and mental health/alcohol-related risk factors (e.g., depression). The identified factors associated with increased alcohol consumption should be considered in planning behavioral health services during future crisis events that abruptly alter everyday environments in ways that increase stress and decrease access to naturally occurring rewards. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Etiquette as a cultural tradition: athlete's etiquette culture

The article reflects the role and significance of etiquette as a cultural phenomenon in the general socio-cultural system of mankind. The main provisions and norms of the athlete's etiquette culture in the field of speech, appearance and behavior in the social and everyday environment are given.

Exploring children’s participation in the framework of early childhood environmental education

ABSTRACT The paper explores the participation experiences that a nursery school gained through its involvement in an environmental education program that focused on the transformation of the school ground. The research took place in a nursery school in Greece, in which 15 preschool children aged 4 years old and their teacher were engaged in participatory action research. The research emphasizes the rights and abilities of young children as equal participants, solution seekers, problem solvers and initiators of action on authentic issues of their everyday environment. The research was based on a combination of action research and participatory planning methods. The findings of the research highlight the ability of young children to express their ideas and practice critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration skills. When the teachers decided to withdraw their authority, the whole nursery school practiced democratic dialogue and action skills. New participation experiences took place for both children and adults.

A Network Approach to Compliance: A Complexity Science Understanding of How Rules Shape Behavior

To understand how compliance develops both in everyday and corporate environments, it is crucial to understand how different mechanisms work together to shape individuals’ (non)compliant behavior. Existing compliance studies typically focus on a subset of theories (i.e., rational choice theories, social theories, legitimacy theories, capacity theories, and opportunity theories) to understand how key variables from one or several of these theories shape individual compliance. The present study provides a first integrated understanding of compliance, rooted in complexity science, in which key elements from these theories are considered simultaneously, and their relations to compliance and each other are explored using network analysis. This approach is developed by analyzing online survey data (N = 562) about compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures. Traditional regression analysis shows that elements from nearly all major compliance theories (except for social theories) are associated with compliance. The network analysis revealed groupings and interconnections of variables that did not track the existing compliance theories and point to a complexity overlooked in existing compliance research. These findings demonstrate a fundamentally different perspective on compliance, which moves away from traditional narrow, non-network approaches. Instead, they showcase a complexity science understanding of compliance, in which compliance is understood as a network of interacting variables derived from different theories that interact with compliance. This points to a new research agenda that is oriented on mapping compliance networks, and testing and modelling how regulatory and management interventions interact with each other and compliance within such networks.

Self-administered Web-Based Tests of Executive Functioning and Perceptual Speed: Measurement Development Study With a Large Probability-Based Survey Panel.

BackgroundCognitive testing in large population surveys is frequently used to describe cognitive aging and determine the incidence rates, risk factors, and long-term trajectories of the development of cognitive impairment. As these surveys are increasingly administered on internet-based platforms, web-based and self-administered cognitive testing calls for close investigation.ObjectiveWeb-based, self-administered versions of 2 age-sensitive cognitive tests, the Stop and Go Switching Task for executive functioning and the Figure Identification test for perceptual speed, were developed and administered to adult participants in the Understanding America Study. We examined differences in cognitive test scores across internet device types and the extent to which the scores were associated with self-reported distractions in everyday environments in which the participants took the tests. In addition, national norms were provided for the US population.MethodsData were collected from a probability-based internet panel representative of the US adult population—the Understanding America Study. Participants with access to both a keyboard- and mouse-based device and a touch screen–based device were asked to complete the cognitive tests twice in a randomized order across device types, whereas participants with access to only 1 type of device were asked to complete the tests twice on the same device. At the end of each test, the participants answered questions about interruptions and potential distractions that occurred during the test.ResultsOf the 7410 (Stop and Go) and 7216 (Figure Identification) participants who completed the device ownership survey, 6129 (82.71% for Stop and Go) and 6717 (93.08% for Figure Identification) participants completed the first session and correctly responded to at least 70% of the trials. On average, the standardized differences across device types were small, with the absolute value of Cohen d ranging from 0.05 (for the switch score in Stop and Go and the Figure Identification score) to 0.13 (for the nonswitch score in Stop and Go). Poorer cognitive performance was moderately associated with older age (the absolute value of r ranged from 0.32 to 0.61), and this relationship was comparable across device types (the absolute value of Cohen q ranged from 0.01 to 0.17). Approximately 12.72% (779/6123 for Stop and Go) and 12.32% (828/6721 for Figure Identification) of participants were interrupted during the test. Interruptions predicted poorer cognitive performance (P<.01 for all scores). Specific distractions (eg, watching television and listening to music) were inconsistently related to cognitive performance. National norms, calculated as weighted average scores using sampling weights, suggested poorer cognitive performance as age increased.ConclusionsCognitive scores assessed by self-administered web-based tests were sensitive to age differences in cognitive performance and were comparable across the keyboard- and touch screen–based internet devices. Distraction in everyday environments, especially when interrupted during the test, may result in a nontrivial bias in cognitive testing.

Introduction to Topical Issue on mHealth for Brain Injury Rehabilitation.

Introduction to Topical Issue on mHealth for Brain Injury Rehabilitation.

Flexibility in action: Development of locomotion under overhead barriers.

Behavioral flexibility-the ability to tailor motor actions to changing body-environment relations-is critical for functional movement. Navigating the everyday environment requires the ability to generate a wide repertoire of actions, select the appropriate action for the current situation, and implement it quickly and accurately. We used a new, adjustable barrier paradigm to assess flexibility of motor actions in 20 17-month-old (eight girls, 12 boys) and 14 13-month-old (seven girls, eight boys) walking infants and a comparative sample of 14 adults (eight women, six men). Most participants were White, non-Hispanic, and middle class. Participants navigated under barriers normalized to their standing height (overhead, eye, chest, hip, and knee heights). Decreases in barrier height required lower postures for passage. Every participant altered their initial walking posture according to barrier height for every trial, and all but two 13-month-olds found solutions for passage. Compared to infants, adults displayed a wider variety of strategies (squat-walking, half-kneeling, etc.), found more appropriate solutions based on barrier height (ducked at eye height and low crawled at knee height), and implemented their solutions more quickly (within 4 s) and accurately (without bumping their heads against the barrier). Infants frequently crawled even when the barrier height did not warrant a low posture, displayed multiple postural shifts prior to passage and thus took longer to go, and often bumped their heads. Infants' improvements were related to age and walking experience. Thus, development of flexibility likely involves the contributions of multiple domains-motor, perception, and cognition-that facilitate strategy selection and implementation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).