Assistance Paradigm Research Articles

Memutus Mata Rantai Stunting: Transformasi Pendampingan Keluarga Oleh Tim Stunting Kecamatan Kunduran Blora

This research aims to formulate a transformation model for stunting assistance by the Kunduran District Stunting Team, Blora Regency. The study uses qualitative methods with a phenomenological approach through in-depth interviews. The results of the research show that the implementation of the role of companion for stunting families in Kunduran District still faces several obstacles, such as limited competence of companions, less effective counselling methods, barriers to access to health services for stunting families, and early detection and supplementation of at-risk pregnant women. A transformation of the stunting assistance paradigm is needed from the old top-down approach to a dialogical and collaborative model between the assistant and the family. Transformation is required by increasing companions' competence, interactive counselling, an organized referral system, early detection of at-risk pregnant women, and increasing access to nutritional supplementation. With comprehensive transformation, it is hoped that supporting stunted families will be more effective in accelerating the reduction of stunting in Kunduran District and Blora Regency. Regional government support through policies and funding is urgently needed to optimize the transformation of the role of family companions.

Investigating the role of foreign capital inflows and economic freedom in poverty alleviation

Many developing countries are still suffering considerable poverty despite the enormous amounts of international development aid channeled to them. This phenomenon raises the question of what role foreign capital plays in these countries. Our study focused on the role of foreign capital (foreign direct investment and foreign aid) and economic freedom in poverty alleviation in developing and least-developed countries using panel data from 1995 to 2018 for 71 countries. We employed several econometric techniques, such as dynamic ordinary least squares, fully modified ordinary least squares, dynamic fixed effects, and pooled mean group regression methods. Furthermore, we performed the Granger causality test, tested the impulse response function, and conducted variance decomposition analysis. In our long-run estimations, we found that while foreign direct investment could significantly alleviate poverty, it increased poverty in the short run. On the other hand, foreign aid played no significant role in poverty alleviation in either the short or the long run. Moreover, to alleviate poverty, economic growth and economic freedom are essential; our findings consistently demonstrated that they play a crucial role in poverty alleviation. We also found bidirectional causality between poverty alleviation and population growth, while a unidirectional causal linkage was found from poverty alleviation to foreign aid. We conclude that policymakers should develop a new paradigm of developmental assistance, and governments should create an enabling environment for foreign investment to support their growth plan.

POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN DEVELOPING AND UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES. DO FOREIGN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC FREEDOM MATTER?

Our study focuses on the role of foreign capital which includes foreign direct investment, foreign aid, and economic freedom in poverty alleviation in developing and underdeveloped countries by using panel data from 1995 to 2018 for 71 countries. In the pursuit of achieving our objective, we employed several econometric techniques such as dynamic ordinary least square, fully modified ordinary least square, dynamic fixed effect, and pooled mean group regression methods. Furthermore, we performed the Granger causality test, impulse response function, and variance decomposition analysis. In our long-run estimations, we found that foreign direct investment could significantly alleviate poverty but increases poverty in the short run. Instead, foreign aid plays no significant role in poverty alleviation. Moreover, economic growth and economic freedom are essential as our findings consistently exhibited that they play a crucial role in poverty alleviation. We also found bidirectional causality between poverty alleviation and population growth, while a unidirectional causal linkage was found from poverty alleviation to foreign aid. We conclude that policymakers should look at a new paradigm of developmental assistance, and governments should also create an aiding environment for foreign investment to support their growth plan.

Quantifying the performance of an adaptive haptic shared control paradigm for steering a ground-vehicle

This paper quantifies the performance of an adaptive haptic shared control (HSC) paradigm in transferring the control authority between humans and automation when both agents face a conflict. Here, we considered the reverse-intent conflict between the driver and the automation system. We invited 27 participants to drive a simulated vehicle through a course wherein for sixty percent of obstacles, the human driver is instructed to avoid the obstacles in the opposite direction as the automation system was programmed. We employed a model predictive controller to determine the automation’s optimal impedance modulation policy so that the differential torque on the steering wheel is minimized while the obstacle is safely avoided. We compared the performance of the dynamic adaptive HSC with two other adaptive haptic shared control paradigms: assistive HSC and active-safety HSC. The assistive HSC paradigm represents a case where the automation has relatively high confidence in the driver’s actions. On the other hand, the active-safety HSC paradigm represents a case where the automation has relatively low confidence in the driver’s action. In the dynamic adaptive HSC, the automation adaptively assigns different policies to modulate its impedance based on the human’s adopted impedance. When a human’s adopted impedance is high, the automation in the dynamic adaptive HSC paradigms acts more like the assistive paradigm, and when the human’s impedance is low, the automation in the adaptive paradigms acts more like the active-safety paradigm. Here, we used the human grip force as a proxy to estimate the human impedance on the steering wheel. We compared the performance of these three haptic shared control schemes by analyzing five metrics, including obstacle hits and metrics related to driving maneuvers around the obstacles that were avoided. Our statistical analysis indicated that the dynamic adaptive HSC paradigm supports the best overall team performance in resolving a conflict between the driver and automation system while keeping the vehicle safe.

The effects of robotic assistance on upper limb spatial muscle synergies in healthy people during planar upper-limb training.

BackgroundRobotic rehabilitation is a commonly adopted technique used to restore motor functionality of neurological patients. However, despite promising results were achieved, the effects of human-robot interaction on human motor control and the recovery mechanisms induced with robot assistance can be further investigated even on healthy subjects before translating to clinical practice. In this study, we adopt a standard paradigm for upper-limb rehabilitation (a planar device with assistive control) with linear and challenging curvilinear trajectories to investigate the effect of the assistance in human-robot interaction in healthy people.MethodsTen healthy subjects were instructed to perform a large set of radial and curvilinear movements in two interaction modes: 1) free movement (subjects hold the robot handle with no assistance) and 2) assisted movement (with a force tunnel assistance paradigm). Kinematics and EMGs from representative upper-limb muscles were recorded to extract phasic muscle synergies. The free and assisted interaction modes were compared assessing the level of assistance, error, and muscle synergy comparison between the two interaction modes.ResultsIt was found that in free movement error magnitude is higher than with assistance, proving that task complexity required assistance also on healthy controls. Moreover, curvilinear tasks require more assistance than standard radial paths and error is higher. Interestingly, while assistance improved task performance, we found only a slight modification of phasic synergies when comparing assisted and free movement.ConclusionsWe found that on healthy people, the effect of assistance was significant on task performance, but limited on muscle synergies. The findings of this study can find applications for assessing human-robot interaction and to design training to maximize motor recovery.

Can assistive technology support social services during Covid-19 emergency? Barriers and opportunities

During the COVID-19 emergency, most domiciliary social services were suspended to avoid the risk of contagion, leaving older people at a greater risk of social isolation. Assistive technology has the potential to support the work of social professionals in promoting social inclusion and assistance of the older people. In this context, this paper aims to investigate the expectations of social operators toward assistive technology before and during the COVID-19 emergency. It also explores how the said emergency could guide us to implement social services in the future, including a discussion on the barriers to the adoption of assistive technologies. A total of 72 social professionals participated in this study comprising of three phases: two online questionnaires and one semi structured interview. In the first two phases, the two online questionnaires were administered before and during the COVID-19 emergency to 62 social professionals. In the third phase, 10 social workers were interviewed to discuss the results of the previous questionnaires to gain an in-depth understanding. The results highlight that the COVID-19 emergency is responsible for an increased perceived need of services involving telepresence, proposing a hybrid paradigm of assistance with both remote and in-presence assistance. Furthermore, the identified barriers to technology adoption are lack of organizational structure and ready-to-use technology. As for the facilitators for the technology adoption, social workers suggested investing in education and training of social professionals to reduce skepticism towards the usefulness of technology. The social professionals involved in this study highlight a generally positive view of technology in supporting their work. Finally, the lessons learned is also presented as a guideline for researchers in this field.

Dynamic Control Authority Arbitration for Resolving a Reverse-Intent Conflict in a Haptic Shared Control Paradigm

This paper quantifies the performance of an adaptive haptic shared control paradigm in transferring the control authority between the predictive human and automation when both agents are facing a conflict. We invited 27 participants to drive a simulated vehicle through a course with ten obstacles. The automation system employed a model-predictive controller to modulate its impedance based on the interaction mode. We compared three modes of the adaptive haptic shared control paradigms named: assistive mode, active safety mode and dynamic mode. In the assistive mode, the automation system weighs the error term between the steering angle and the driver's desired steering command. . In the active-safety mode, the automation system weighs the error term between the steering angle and the automation's desired steering command. In the dynamic mode the automation adaptively assigns different weights to the error terms based on the human's adopted impedance. When the human's adopted impedance is high, the automation in the adaptive paradigms acts more like the assistive paradigm, and when the human's impedance is low, the automation in the adaptive paradigms acts more like the active-safety paradigm. Here, we used the human's grip force as a proxy to estimate the human impedance on the steering wheel. We compared the performance of these three shared control schemes by analyzing two metrics, including obstacle hits and differential torque. Our statistical analysis indicated that the dynamic-mode supports the best overall team performance in resolving a conflict between the driver and automation system while keeping the vehicle safe.

Transference to a Social Work Platform 2.0 in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The aim of this research is to identify and analyze the problems that determine the transference to the social work platform 2.0 due to such a global challenge as the COVID-19 coronavirus infection pandemic. The model transformation of the social work in the context of the global life cycle makes adjustments to the large-scale social functioning of a person, changing the value strategies of mass pathogenic behavior. The retrospective approach was carried out in order to characterize the changes paradigms of assistance in their unity and dynamics, contradictions and dynamic possibilities, to substantiate the relevance of the new development of social work. The reasons and clinical features of the transition to the social work platform 2.0 are outlined in the context of transitive processes (uncertainty, variability, multiple diversity), that are exacerbated by the COVID-19

Revised learning based evolutionary assistive paradigm for surrogate selection (LEAPS2v2)

Selecting appropriate surrogate models is crucial. This article upgrades our learning-based surrogate selection paradigm (LEAPS2) to LEAPS2v2. Its key features include: modeling noisy and non-noisy data, avoiding noise-fitting surrogates, powerful data attributes, novel composite metric (Surrogate Quality Score) to assess surrogate accuracy and complexity, and many surrogates and datasets. For any dataset, LEAPS2v2 recommends 3 out of 36 surrogates. A LEAPS2v2 recommendation is successful if it recommends at least one of the top three surrogates based on Surrogate Quality Score. LEAPS2v2 was successful on more than 94% non-noisy and 89% noisy datasets. Moreover, it made successful recommendations on 14/16 real industrial datasets. Strong correlation was observed between a surrogate being a true best and being recommended. Our numerical analysis revealed that the best surrogates for noisy data are different from those for non-noisy datasets. No single surrogate outperforms others for all datasets, highlighting the utility of LEAPS2v2. Publication Status: Submitted to Computers & Chemical Engineering.

Can the African Continental Free Trade Agreement Foster a new Paradigm of Development Assistance within Africa?

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) was signed at Kigali on 21st March 2018. The basic aim of the agreement is to 'deepen economic integration of the African continent by creating a single market with free movement of people, goods and businesses'. This development is intended to replace existing agreements of regional blocs by compressing Africa into a single market. This paper interrogates this development in the context of development assistance challenges and prospects within the continent. The overarching concern is to examine the prospects of a new paradigm in development assistance, especially in the niche areas of technical assistance, transfer of resources and goods within the continent to promote development, and combat poverty and insecurity. Can this agreement further deepen and elevate existing levels of cooperation within Africa and re-position African countries on the threshold of previous articulations in line with the philosophy of cooperation and development as enunciated in the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD)? The findings show that this level of relationship is possible and economically beneficial. The paper recommends a cohesive policy framework that would instigate commitment, enhance productive capacity and create a mutual beneficial platform for all African countries.

UAV assistance paradigm: State-of-the-art in applications and challenges

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are an emerging technology with the potential to be used in industries and various sectors of human life to provide a wide range of applications and services. During the last decade, there has been a growing focus of research in the UAV's assistance paradigm as a fundamental concept resulting in the constant improvement between different kinds of ground networks and the hovering UAVs in the sky. Recently, the wide availability of embedded wireless interfaces in the communicating entities has allowed the deployment of such a paradigm simpler and easiest. Moreover, due to UAVs' controlled mobility and adjustable altitudes, they can be considered as the most appropriate candidate to enhance the performance and overcome the restrictions of ground networks. This comprehensive survey both studies and summarizes the existing UAV-assisted research, such as routing, data gathering, cellular communications, Internet of Things (IoT) networks, and disaster management that supports existing enabling technologies. Descriptions, classifications, and comparative studies related to different UAV-assisted proposals are presented throughout the paper. By pointing out numerous future challenges, it is expected to simulate research in this emerging and hot research area. To the best of our knowledge, there are many survey papers on the topic from a technology perspective. Nevertheless, this survey can be considered as the first attempt at a comprehensive analysis of different types of existing UAV-assisted networks and describes the state-of-the-art in UAV-assisted research.

Softwarization of UAV Networks: A Survey of Applications and Future Trends

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become increasingly important in assisting 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) mobile networks. Indeed, UAVs have all the potentials to both satisfy the ever-increasing mobile data demands of such mobile networks and provide ubiquitous connectivity to different kinds of wireless devices. However, the UAV assistance paradigm faces a set of crucial issues and challenges. For example, the network management of current UAV-assisted systems is time consuming, complicated, and carried out manually, thus causing a multitude of interoperability issues. To efficiently address all these issues, Software-Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are two promising technologies to efficiently manage and improve the UAV assistance for the next generation of mobile networks. In the literature, no clear guidelines are describing the different use cases of SDN and NFV in the context of UAV assistance to terrestrial networks, including mobile networks. Motivated by this fact, in this survey, we guide the reader through a comprehensive discussion of the main characteristics of SDN and NFV technologies. Moreover, we provide a thorough analysis of the different classifications, use cases, and challenges related to UAV-assisted systems. We then discuss SDN/NFV-enabled UAV-assisted systems, along with several case studies and issues, such as the involvement of UAVs in cellular communications, monitoring, and routing, to name a few. We furthermore present a set of open research challenges, high-level insights, and future research directions related to UAV-assisted systems.

Las obras arquitectónicas de la beneficencia en Mar del Plata (Argentina) como dispositivos disciplinares (1900-1930). Análisis a través de la perspectiva de Foucault

Este trabajo se enmarca dentro avances de Investigaciones desarrolladas en el “Grupo Patrimonio” de la FAUD-UNMDP, respecto a la Preservación del Patrimonio Arquitectónico del Asistencialismo y del Doctorado de Trabajo Social. Se toman como caso de estudio dos obras arquitectónicas construidos por la Sociedad de Beneficencia en la Argentina, emplazadas en la ciudad de Mar del Plata, tales como el “Solarium” (hoy demolido) y el actual “Instituto Saturnino Unzué” (antiguo asilo de la ciudad, declarado Monumento Nacional) que se construyeron en las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Estos edificios se analizan desde la perspectiva foucaultiana de poder, como “dispositivos disciplinares” implantados dentro de la ciudad, respecto al proceso histórico de construcción del Estado moderno.Por otro lado, es de destacar que estas obras, más allá de sus valores arquitectónicos, poseen un gran “valor testimonial” como documentos históricos en sí mismas, ya que son enclaves espaciales en el que confluyen el pasaje de los diferentes paradigmas de la asistencia social a lo largo de su historia. Para este estudio se tomaron diferentes fuentes documentales y bibliográficas, entre ellas álbumes de la misma Sociedad de Beneficencia, planimetrías y fotos históricas, que permiten ver estas problemáticas plasmadas en la historia de sus muros, sus documentos y reglamentaciones.

Las obras arquitectónicas de la beneficencia en Mar del Plata (Argentina) como dispositivos disciplinares (1900-1930). Análisis a través de la perspectiva de Foucault

<p class="p1">Este trabajo se enmarca dentro avances de Investigaciones desarrolladas en el “Grupo Patrimonio” de la FAUD-UNMDP, respecto a la Preservación del Patrimonio Arquitectónico del Asistencialismo y del Doctorado de Trabajo Social. Se toman como caso de estudio dos obras arquitectónicas construidos por la Sociedad de Beneficencia en la Argentina, emplazadas en la ciudad de Mar del Plata, tales como el “Solarium” (hoy demolido) y el actual “Instituto Saturnino Unzué” (antiguo asilo de la ciudad, declarado Monumento Nacional) que se construyeron en las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Estos edificios se analizan desde la perspectiva foucaultiana de poder, como “dispositivos disciplinares” implantados dentro de la ciudad, respecto al proceso histórico de construcción del Estado moderno.</p><p class="p2">Por otro lado, es de destacar que estas obras, más allá de sus valores arquitectónicos, poseen un gran “valor testimonial” como documentos históricos en sí mismas, ya que son enclaves espaciales en el que confluyen el pasaje de los diferentes paradigmas de la asistencia social a lo largo de su historia. Para este estudio se tomaron diferentes fuentes documentales y bibliográficas, entre ellas álbumes de la misma Sociedad de Beneficencia, planimetrías y fotos históricas, que permiten ver estas problemáticas plasmadas en la historia de sus muros, sus documentos y reglamentaciones.</p>

Image–speech combination for interactive computer assisted transcription of handwritten documents

Handwritten document transcription aims to obtain the contents of a document to provide efficient information access to, among other, digitised historical documents. The increasing number of historical documents published by libraries and archives makes this an important task. In this context, the use of image processing and understanding techniques in conjunction with assistive technologies reduces the time and human effort required for obtaining the final perfect transcription. The assistive transcription system proposes a hypothesis, usually derived from a recognition process of the handwritten text image. Then, the professional transcriber feedback can be used to obtain an improved hypothesis and speed-up the final transcription. In this framework, a speech signal corresponding to the dictation of the handwritten text can be used as an additional source of information. This multimodal approach, that combines the image of the handwritten text with the speech of the dictation of its contents, could make better the hypotheses (initial and improved) offered to the transcriber. In this paper we study the feasibility of a multimodal interactive transcription system for an assistive paradigm known as Computer Assisted Transcription of Text Images. Different techniques are tested for obtaining the multimodal combination in this framework. The use of the proposed multimodal approach reveals a significant reduction of transcription effort with some multimodal combination techniques, allowing for a faster transcription process.

LEAPS2: Learning based Evolutionary Assistive Paradigm for Surrogate Selection

We propose a learning-based paradigm (LEAPS2) to recommend the best surrogate/ with minimal computational effort using the input-output data of a complex physico-numerical system. Emulating the knowledge pyramid, LEAPS2 uses several attributes to extract system information from the data, correlates them with surrogate performances, stores this attribute-surrogate knowledge in a regression tree ensemble, and uses the ensemble to recommend surrogates for unknown systems. We implement LEAPS2 using data from 66 diverse analytical functions, 18 attributes, and 25 surrogates. By progressively adding data, we demonstrate that LEAPS2 learns to improve computational efficiency and functional accuracy. Besides, the architecture of LEAPS2 enables its evolution via more attributes and surrogates. We employ LEAPS2 to recommend surrogates for estimating the bubble and dew point temperatures of LNG. Interestingly, our assistive tool suggests a different surrogate for each temperature, and hints that DPT may be harder to approximate than BPT.

Doulas como dispositivos para humanização do parto hospitalar: do voluntariado à mercantilização

RESUMO O artigo analisa, a partir da perspectiva das doulas, sua inserção na assistência ao parto em hospital público de João Pessoa. Trata-se de estudo qualitativo, que utilizou a Tenda do Conto, com seis doulas, para a produção de dados, em 2017. A inserção das doulas no hospital não foi resultante de uma mudança de paradigma assistencial, produzindo resistências. Num cenário hostil à sua atuação, as doulas funcionam como gatilho de tensões entre modelos de cuidado divergentes, o que gera sofrimento nas próprias doulas, demandando estratégias de enfrentamento, a saber: afastarem-se do voluntariado; tornarem-se institucionalizadas; ou serem cooptadas pelo mercado do parto humanizado no âmbito privado.

Employment assistance in urban China: A qualitative study from the youth recipients' perspective

According to the Interim Measures for Social Assistance issued in 2014, employment assistance has been officially designated as one of the eight basic programs in social assistance system in China, and its significance is obvious. However, very little is known about the youth recipients' experiences of employment assistance and the extent to which available forms of employment assistance have been helping them to enter labor market. This article uses a qualitative method to examine employment assistance by analyzing the structure and process elements of activation social assistance paradigm from the perspective of youth recipients. It finds that the employment assistance youth recipients have received as of limited importance to help them get out of social assistance and become self-sufficient. That is to say, current employment assistance in urban China may be limited in activating the youth recipients.

Informal economies, conflict recovery and absent aid

This paper addresses the issue of what happens in the aftermath of conflict when humanitarian response is absent, to see how “self-help” recovery can inform development assistance paradigms and practice. We explore livelihoods strategies and community-led recovery processes in the context of conflict in Somaliland, a region that experienced an acutely disruptive conflict and an absence of humanitarian aid, to evaluate the economic recovery that emerged. The conflict is tracked through perceptions and recollections of those who lived through the disaster: the bombing of Hargeisa in 1988 that flattened the city, the declaration of a semi-autonomous nation in 1991, and its subsequent development over the last 25 years. This critical case study aims to inform the humanitarian assistance agenda in relation to livelihoods as a self-help process in post-conflict recovery.

Prediction of user preference over shared-control paradigms for a robotic wheelchair.

The design of intelligent powered wheelchairs has traditionally focused heavily on providing effective and efficient navigation assistance. Significantly less attention has been given to the end-user's preference between different assistance paradigms. It is possible to include these subjective evaluations in the design process, for example by soliciting feedback in post-experiment questionnaires. However, constantly querying the user for feedback during real-world operation is not practical. In this paper, we present a model that correlates objective performance metrics and subjective evaluations of autonomous wheelchair control paradigms. Using off-the-shelf machine learning techniques, we show that it is possible to build a model that can predict the most preferred shared-control method from task execution metrics such as effort, safety, performance and utilization. We further characterize the relative contributions of each of these metrics to the individual choice of most preferred assistance paradigm. Our evaluation includes Spinal Cord Injured (SCI) and uninjured subject groups. The results show that our proposed correlation model enables the continuous tracking of user preference and offers the possibility of autonomy that is customized to each user.