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Montgomery, A. M. J. "Effects of peripheral 5-HT on consummatory behaviours." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.370436.
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Zheng, Yue. "Modelling, tracking and generating human interaction behaviours in video." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2009. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54108/.
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Intelligent virtual characters are becoming increasingly popular in en tertainment, educational and simulation software. A virtual charac ter is the creation or re-creation of a human being in an image, using computer-generated imagery. It must act and react in the environment, drawing on the disciplines of automated reasoning and planning. Creating characters with human-like behaviours that respond interactively to a real person in a video, is still a serious challenge. There are several major reasons for this. First, human motion is very complex, which makes it particularly difficult to simulate. Second, the human form is also not straightforward to design due to the large number of degrees of freedom of the motion. Third, creating novel contextual movements for virtual characters in real time is a new research area.
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Hou, Shaobo. "Learning Behaviours of Articulated Human Motion for Tracking and Synthesis." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.516363.
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Yeboah, Godwin. "Understanding urban cycling behaviours in space and time." Thesis, Northumbria University, 2014. http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/21611/.
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The aim of this research thesis was to understand how the urban built environment interacts with utility cycling behaviours in space and time. Using mixed methods entrenched in the philosophy of pragmatism, the research contributed to an as yet under-developed research evidence-base within the British context by addressing the gap in knowledge relating to: the usability of spacetime and action space theories within visual analytics context in facilitating the knowledge discovery process from spatio-temporal datasets; empirical evidence on perceived and actual movement behaviour of urban utility cyclists; methodological advancement in collecting, refining, analysing and visualising detailed utility cycling behaviours in a British urban environment. Findings suggest that 57.4% of cyclists’ bike trips were found on the cycle network and with 42.6% of cyclists still cycling outside the designated cycle network; it is therefore imperative that policy initiatives aimed towards strategic investment in cycling behavioural research and infrastructure. The findings also showed a higher concentration of cycling uptake around the south-eastern part of Newcastle upon Tyne suggesting this area may need more investment than other areas in Tyne and Wear. Systematic comparison of GPS data and travel diary data suggest 8.4% under reporting of the former. The null hypothesis that urban transport network restrictions do not have any significant influence on movement of commuter cyclists was rejected upon examination and it was found that observed routes tend to be significantly longer than their shortest path counterparts. Profiling activity spaces of utility cyclists utilising different geographies was found to be useful in the examination of cycling behaviours for the purpose of providing visual aid for planners and policy makers to identify areas for improvement and informed investment in support of sustainable transport. Several efforts were being made to enhance data availability to inform policy strategies, and facilitation of feasible solutions for improving the urban cycling infrastructure and encouraging more people to cycle as part of their daily commute, for which this research aimed to contribute by providing evidence on the use of the area’s cycling infrastructure by utility cyclists and spatial variability of cycling in space and time.
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Alzu'Bi, Hamzah. "Analysis of human activities and animal behaviours based on computational intelligence." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2015. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/2037039/.
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The study of behaviour is vital for animal welfare assessment in animal husbandry systems, exploring mechanisms of underlying diverse forms of behaviours and animal physiological and ecological interaction. Understanding animal behaviour is used in a systematic way to unlock and explore underlying functionalities of the brain which is one of the biggest challenges to science. This thesis introduces four novel applications for computational intelligence in human and animal behaviours. The four applications are: horse transport stress prediction system, human activity recognition, fish behaviour tracking and detection, and intelligent interactive fish feeding system. In the first application of human gait recognition, a practical, accurate and novel supervised learning system is proposed to recognize human activities. The proposed system uses single accelerometer device which makes the system practical to use and capable of being integrated with many commercially available devices. This work proposes highly accurate and practical human gait recognition system. In the second application of horse transport, a novel system is proposed to predict horse stress episodes during transport which enables a potential solution of horse stress by interfering at a suitable time. Dynamic nonlinear neural network is trained to predict horse stress time series given travel route and driving style time series. Horse transport is one of the most routinely stressful procedures in equine industry. In the third application of horse transport, a novel system for automatic fish tracking and behaviour recognition system is proposed. Fish are the second most popular experimental model behind mice in pharmaceuticals and biological research. Fish anxious behaviour could confound experiment outcomes. Fish behaviour could also be affected by invasive or non-invasive experiments in addition to other possible causes of distress. The proposed system consists of 3d real-time fish tracking, behaviour quantifying and recognition algorithms. Fish behaviour is estimated through fish swimming patterns. The system showed high accuracy recognition of fish behaviour in experiment where fish were exposed to a variety of external stimuli. In the fourth application of horse transport, an innovative smart fish feeding system is proposed. The fourth application of computational intelligence techniques addresses one of the major challenges in the fastest growing food sector industry worldwide, aquaculture industry. Most conventional fish feeding techniques are inefficient, cause environmental damage and fish losses, raise concerns regarding fish welfare and lead to non-uniform fish growth. Addressing these problems is a necessity for this industry to continue its growth. The novel feeding system is built based on fish behaviour which recognises, and assesses fish behaviours and interacts with fish to optimise the feeding process. Fish showed quick adaptation to this novel low-cost feeding system which proves the feasibly of implementing this system. The proposed system is expected to reduce food competition and environmental impact because of its responsive nature. Through novel applications of computational intelligence, this thesis has provided successful solutions for human and animal behaviour analysis research problems.
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Wong, Sheila S. M. "Energy conservation and human behaviours, the professional faculties building in the University of Calgary." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0008/MQ26774.pdf.
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Sun, Q. "A generic approach to modelling individual behaviours in crowd simulation." Thesis, University of Salford, 2014. http://usir.salford.ac.uk/30771/.
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Crowd simulation has been widely used to simulate crowd dynamics and their behaviours. However, majority of existing studies can only simulate a specific scenario or behaviour. Although recent developments have attempted to integrate different individual behaviours in order to achieve a more realistic simulation result, it is still very complex and those crowd models often require significant modifications. This study is therefore aimed to develop a generic crowd model, which provides the flexibility to configure and represent different scenarios, as well as the ability to demonstrate individual differences on crowd behaviours. The theoretical principle of the proposed crowd model is based on the combination of force-based modelling and agent-based modelling. A unified core mathematical formula, which contains seven key parameters, is developed to represent the generic behaviour effects. In addition, a Behaviour Library is developed to present a set of basic behaviours by using the unified formula and subsequently, more complex behaviours could be formed by combining the basic behaviours. The proposed crowd model is implemented in a simulation environment by using Microsoft XNA framework. A number of well-known crowd behaviours are tested with the crowd model for validation. The proposed crowd model is further validated by simulating real life experiments and comparing its results. This research study presents a novel approach to simulate crowd behaviour at individual level by introducing a generic crowd model that can be configured into specific scenarios. It introduces a theoretical concept, through which different behaviour effects could be quantified by a unified mathematical formula. As a result, crowd modelling and simulation of different scenarios can be significantly simplified. For future work, the proposed crowd model can be tested under complex environment in order to fine-tune its theoretical model and to expand the Behaviour Library.
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Hendricks, Mogammat Sharief. "The tackle in Rugby Union : understanding training and match behaviours to develop better coaching strategies for skill acquisition, performance, and injury prevention." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12628.
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Includes abstract.~Includes bibliographical references.Rugby Union is a popular international team sport characterised by frequent high impact bodily collisions known as the tackle. This aspect of the game exposes players to muscle damage and a high risk of injury. Tackle-related injuries account for up to 61% of all injuries during a rugby match. Furthermore, players’ ability to win the tackle contest has an influence on the outcome of the match. Given the nature and frequency of the tackle situation, tackle contact skills are a prerequisite for participation in rugby union. However, coaching and training drills prescribed to train the tackle to date are largely based on anecdotal evidence. To develop effective tackle training strategies (i.e. technical skills training, physical conditioning, training drills, and equipment) that will produce a successful outcome and reduce the risk of injury for both the ball-carrier and tackler, studying the tackle in real match situations is warranted. Therefore, in accordance with this goal the purpose of this thesis was to; (i) assess the current attitudes and behaviours of players during training and match play, and (ii) study the tackle and defensive strategies in real match situations.
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Wang, Huanhuan. "Development of novel design methodology for product mass customization based on human attributes and cognitive behaviours." Thesis, Brunel University, 2012. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6455.
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The competition in the global market is accelerating rapidly because of less technological gap, matured manufacturing level, and various changing customer needs. Increasingly customers choose products in terms of experience desires, psychological desires and whether the products can reflect their values, in addition to the main product functions. Moreover, there are a large number of small and medium sized manufacturing companies in the developing countries. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and simple mass production cannot generate good value for these manufacture companies, and they have been seeking new opportunities to create higher value for their products/services and satisfy different needs of customers. Mass customization is one of the main business forms in the future, which can best meet the needs of individual customer, especially psychological needs. The key to mass customization is to provide enough modules to meet individual needs with a limited cost increase. The problem has been how to identify the real user needs and individual differences. The purpose of this research is to develop a sound design methodology based upon the current product design theories and practices for future product innovation and sustainable growth of small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises. The research focuses on the user-product cognitive behaviours and the relationship between human attributes and product features. Orthogonal experiment, eye tracking technology and artificial neural network have been successfully applied in this research. The research has developed a user needs hierarchy model and added value hierarchy model, and a robust theoretical basis to predict and evaluate (individual) user needs for product design. The research has further made the following contributions: 1) The relationship between human attributes and product features has been established, which can help designers understand the differences of various customer groups; 2) The different effects of various influence factors on people’s cognition and preference choice based on vision have been analysed and discussed; 3) A new method to identify, cluster, and combine common needs and personalized needs in early design stage for mass customization has been developed; 4) The research results can be reused in the future design of the same or similar kind of products.
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Zhai, Xiaofeng. "The role of human resource practices in enhancing employees' behaviours and organisational learning in Chinese construction organisations." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2010. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/7104.
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Construction is complex and comprises a multitude of knowledge-driven activities and business interests from participating organisations with the people involved being subject to different organisational and disciplinary practices. People are fundamental to success because human capabilities in learning, innovating and changing creative directions are vital to long term development of organisations. In the last two decades, researchers have found that human resource (HR) management has positive effects on the organisational performance. However, the processes through which HR management lead to organisational performance are contested. This research proposes a framework to investigate the effects of employees' behaviours and organisational learning on organisational performance and the impacts of HR practices on those effects in the context of Chinese construction enterprises. The research design adopts a multi-method approach, integrating positivism and interpretivism, to understand the complex relationship between HR practices, organisational learning, individual behaviour, and organisational performance. By consulting two experienced academic researchers and industry experts, the pilot study improves the understanding and implementation of the measurement instruments employed. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted in data collection and analysis: 326 valid respondents through questionnaire survey are received, and structural equation modelling is adopted to test individual behaviour and organisational learning as mediating variables of the relationship between HR practices and organisational performance respectively. Middle-level managers in Chinese construction firms are interviewed, and a cognitive map is produced to reveal the possible mediating variables and the cause-effect relationships between organisational learning and individual behaviour. The cause-effect route identified from the cognitive map is tested by structural equation modelling method, i.e., individual in-role behaviour as a mediating variable between organisational learning and performance. In conclusion, from the theoretical perspective, the results reveal the following. (1) Individual in-role behaviour has highly significantly positive effect on organisational performance. Organisational learning has very highly significantly positive effect on organisational performance. Both individual in-role behaviour and organisational learning have mediating effects on the relationship between HR practices and organisational performance. (2) HR practices positively affect individual in-role behaviour indirectly through organisational learning. Individual in-role behaviour mediates the relationship between organisational learning and organisational performance. (3) HR practices also affect organisational performance via the path-way of social capital, individual perceived organisational support, organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and co-worker productivity. For the practical implications, Chinese construction companies should implement the following to improve organisational performance. (1) Recognize the importance of employees' in-role behaviour, and design HR practices to motivate employees to apply their knowledge, skills and abilities in job-related performance, and to retain qualified and experienced staff. (2) View organisational learning as an important component of competitive advantage in the process of organisational development, and motivate and enhance organisational learning by the employment of HR practices and the creation of social capital. (3) Recognize the importance of OCBI (i.e. organisational citizenship behaviour directed toward the benefit of other individuals), and try to elicit employees' OCBI by improving employees' perceived organisational support.
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Doan, Jonathon Edward Bruce, and University of Lethbridge Faculty of Arts and Science. "Movement deficits for Parkinson's disease patients in select functional behaviours : context opposes sequence and consequence." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Arts and Science, 2006, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/11.
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Contextual influence on movement was examined for a selection of everyday activities. Non-medicated and medicated Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and control subjects reached for a drinking glass target from both seated and standing postures, and stepped over a surface-level obstacle while walking on a constrained path. Contextual challenge was increased in the seated reach by filling the glass with water, in the standing reach by increasing the depth of the gap between the target and stationary foot position, and in the obstacle negotiation trials by raising the gait path surface above the floor level. In all cases, behaviour among PD patients was uniquely disrupted by contextual challenge. In addition, benefits of conventional medication therapy for PD patients were limited in challenging contexts. The results suggest an adapted movement control mechanism at work in PD patients, with the neural resources used in this adapted response prone for interference during contextual challenges.xiv, 186 leaves ; 29 cm.
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Lins, De Holanda Coelho Gabriel. "Which values are similar? : introducing new methodologies to map the structure of human values and value-expressive behaviours." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2018. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/117637/.
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This research provides the first direct assessment of human values and value-expressive behaviours based on their conceptual meaning. Chapter 1 provides a brief history of the study of human values and dissects the dominant contemporary theory of values, the Theory of Basic Human Values, proposed by Shalom Schwartz. I also discuss methodological approaches used to assess the structure of human values, and the nature of concepts and categorization. In Chapter 2, seven studies containing data from nine samples in two countries (United Kingdom and Brazil) asked participants to compare the meaning of different values found within Schwartz’s influential quasi-circumplex model of values. Different methods were used across the studies, including direct similarity judgment tasks, pile sorting, and spatial arrangement. The results of these diverse conceptual assessments corresponded to spatial configurations that are broadly convergent with Schwartz’s model, both between and within participants. In Chapter 3, four studies were conducted using British samples, asking participants to make direct comparisons between value-expressive behaviours and different levels of mental representations of values (e.g., value types, higher order values). Some of the methods used in Chapter 2 were also used for these studies. It was an open question whether the structure from Schwartz’s value model would be replicated by the spatial plane composed of value-expressive behaviours. The spatial configurations from these studies broadly converged with Schwartz's structure, and also provided a novel point of view of how values and behaviours are related based on how people interpret them. Finally, in Chapter 4, I discuss the contributions of this research, its implications, limitations, and future directions.
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Mokhtar, Noor Fatmawati. "Pharmacological studies of voltage-gated sodium channel expression in human breast cancer cells : control of metastatic cell behaviours." Thesis, Imperial College London, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/7119.
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The overall aim of this PhD was to improve our understanding, including the clinical potential, of neonatal Nav1.5 (nNav1.5) expression in human metastatic breast cancer. Mainly, the strongly metastatic MDA-MB-231 cells were used throughout the studies. The specific aims were threefold, as follows: 1) To test the effects of several types of voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) blocker on nNav1.5 mRNA and protein expression and metastatic cell behaviours (MCBs); (2) to determine the effects of hypoxia on the drug treatments and MCBs; and (3) to elucidate a possible association of carbonic anhydrase-9 (CA9) and nNav1.5 expression/activity. There are three main Results chapters. Results-1 demonstrates the effects of the drugs on MCBs of MDA-MB-231 cells under normal oxygen level (normoxia). Two classes of blocker were used: a) Local anaesthetics (lidocaine and procaine) and (b) blockers of persistent current (INaP) (ranolazine and riluzole). In addition, a specific VGSC blocker, tetrodotoxin (TTX), was incorporated as a control. At concentrations not affecting the cells‘ viability or proliferative activity, 24 h treatment with all the drugs tested significantly reduced MCBs (lateral motility, transverse migration and Matrigel invasion). Concurrently, the treatments reduced nNav1.5 mRNA and protein levels. TTX had a similar effect. Overall, this chapter showed (i) that MCBs in MDA-MB-231 cells were enhanced by VGSC activity and (ii) that INaP played a significant role in the enhancement. Results-2 shows that viability and proliferative activity of MDA-MB-231 cells were not affected by hypoxia (mostly 2 % oxygen applied for 24 h). However, hypoxia increased the cells‘ invasiveness and this was accompanied by upregulation of HIF-1α (protein), nNav1.5 (mRNA) and CA9 (both mRNA and protein). Treatment for 24 h with INaP blockers; ranolazine and riluzole under hypoxia reduced lateral motility, transverse migration and Matrigel invasion. At concentrations not affecting cell viability and proliferation, the effects of ranolazine and riluzole in suppressing MCBs were generally greater under hypoxia compared to normoxia. It was concluded (i) that hypoxia enhanced VGSC-mediated MCBs and (ii) that the enhancements were likely to be increase in INaP amplitude induced by hypoxia. Results-3 examined a possible functional link between hypoxia (HIF-1α and CA9) and VGSCs. Acetazolamide was used as a general inhibitor of CAs and siRNA was used to silence specifically CA9. Under hypoxia, treatment with acetazolamide for 24 h had no effect on invasion, and treatment with TTX was without effect on CA9 expression. In contrast, silencing CA9 using siRNA (siCA9) reduced CA9 and nNav1.5 expression and Matrigel invasion was also significantly inhibited. It was concluded (i) that CA9 played a role in cellular invasion and (ii) that nNav1.5 was down-stream to CA9 in the control of MCBs. The Thesis is concluded with a General Discussion and Conclusion chapter integrating the findings and highlighting their clinical potential.
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Kock, Elina, and Yamma Sarwari. "How can machine learning help identify cheating behaviours in physical activity-based mobile applications?" Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för teknik och samhälle (TS), 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-20791.
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Den här studien undersöker möjligheten att använda sig utav Human Activity Recognition (HAR) i ett mobilspel, Bamblup, som använder sig utav fysiska rörelser för att upptäcka om en spelare fuskar eller om denne verkligen utför den verkliga aktiviteten. Sensordata från en accelerometer och ett gyroskop i en iPhone 7 användes för att samla data från olika människor som utförde ett antal aktiviteter utav intresse. Aktiviteterna som är utav intresse är hopp, knäböj, stampa och deras fuskmotsvarigheter, fuskhopp, fuskknäböj och fuskstampa. En sekventiell modell skapades med hjälp av det öppna programvarubiblioteket, TensorFlow. Feature Selection gjordes i programmet WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis), för att välja ut attributen som var mest relevanta för klassificeringen. Dessa attribut användes för att träna modellen i TensorFlow, vilken gav en klassificeringsprecision på 66%. Fuskaktiviteterna klassificerades relativt bra, och det gjorde även stampaktiviteten. Hopp och knäböj hade lägst klassificeringsprecision med 21.43% respektive 28.57%. Dessutom testades Random Forest klassificeraren i WEKA på vårt dataset med 10-delad korsvalidering, vilket gav en klassifieringsnoggranhet på 90.47%. Våra resultat tyder på att maskininlärning är en stark kandidat för att hjälpa till att identifiera fuskbeteenden inom fysisk aktivitetsbaserade mobilspel.This study investigates the possibility to use machine learning for Human Activity Recognition (HAR) in Bamblup, a physical activity-based game for smartphones, in order to detect whether a player is cheating or is indeed performing the required activity. Sensor data from an accelerometer and a gyroscope from an iPhone 7 was used to gather data from various people performing a set of activities. The activities of interest are jumping, squatting, stomping, and their cheating counterparts, fake jumping, fake squatting, and fake stomping. A Sequential model was created using the free open-source library TensorFlow. Feature Selection was performed using the program WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis), to select the attributes which provided the most information gain. These attributes were subsequently used to train the model in TensorFlow, which gave a classification accuracy of 66%. The fake activities were classified relatively well, and so was the stomping activity. Jumping and squatting had the lowest accuracy of 21.43% and 28.57% respectively. Additionally, the Random Forest classifier in WEKA was tested on the dataset using 10-fold cross validation, providing a classification accuracy of 90.47%. Our findings imply that machine learning is a strong candidate for aiding in the detection of cheating behaviours in mobile physical activity-based games.
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Morley, Iain Robert MacLean Roffe. "The evolutionary origins and archaeology of music, or, an investigation into the prehistory of human musical capacities and behaviours, using archaeological, anthropological, cognitive and behavioural evidence." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.615705.
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Wasiu, Awotidebe Adedapo. "The effect of a sports-based HIVv prevention programme on HIV risk related behaviours among high school learners." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/4504.
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Philosophiae Doctor - PhDBackground: The Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has become a global public health challenge amid the growing concern of adolescent risky sexual behaviour, influenced by biological and psycho-social factors. There is an increasing demand for adolescent sexual risk reduction interventions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa which remains the hub of HIV epidemic worldwide. Sport-based HIV prevention programme has been identified as one of the interventions, in addition to other approaches to provide young people with appropriate HIV knowledge and skills to either delay or reduce risk-taking behaviour. Despite the potential of sport-based programme for sexual risk reduction, there is limited information on how to adapt it to meet adolescent needs in terms of design, contents, and delivery. This information is necessary to provide sufficiently strong evidence to support widespread implementation of sport-based programme, especially in rural African schools. Therefore, the study aimed to measure the impact of a sport-based HIV prevention intervention in the reduction of HIV related sexual risk behaviour among rural high school learners aged 13-18. Method: The overall study design was a concurrent mixed method, utilizing both the quantitative and qualitative approach. The population for the quantitative and the qualitative studies was made up of two high schools in a predominantly “Coloured” community in Ceres. Two classes each were randomly selected from grades 8-10 in both intervention and control school. The intervention was developed through a process of focus group discussions with the Grassroot Soccer (GRS) staff and it was guided by the Social Cognitive Theory. The intervention was delivered to grade 8-10 learners by GRS peer facilitators using the GRS generation skillz curriculum that consists of 12-week sessions in the intervention school. Quantitative data were analysed with multivariate statistical techniques and qualitative data with thematic analysis approach. Results: The data that assessed the behavioural and protective factors to understand why learners in rural schools engage in risky sexual behaviour showed that about 27.2% of the learners reported being sexually active. Of the sexually active learners, 48.7% reported engaging in sex by 14 years or younger and nearly 42.2% reported multiple sexual partners with significant higher proportion of boys than girls. Nearly 55.2% of the sexually active learners reported irregular condom use and 46.3% did not use a condom at the last sexual encounter. The majority of the learners (87%) did not know their HIV status. Being male (OR = 6.60;95% C I = 1.62 – 26.84) and peer influence (OR = 3.01; 95% CI = 1.97-4.60) were the strongest predictors of reporting sexual intercourse and early sexual activities before the age 15 respectively. Though the knowledge of HIV was low, those with greater knowledge of HIV were more likely to use a condom at last the sexual encounter (OR = 1.22; 95% C I =1.03-1.44). The learners who participated in sport-based intervention were 1.43times likely to report higher self-efficacy to refuse sex compared to the control group (OR = 1.43; 95% C.I =1.07-1.92).The process evaluation indicated that the sport-based intervention was well received among the learners as it gave them free space to freely express themselves. Conclusion: The findings have shown that sport-based intervention can be successfully implemented in school and is a promising approach to reduce risks associated with risky sexual behaviour in learners. However, the quality of the programme delivery was hampered by irregular session‟s schedule and language of instruction. The process suggests for a longer exposure period and because of social-cultural diversity, learners must be provided with the ownership of the programme in schools.
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Richter, Viktor [Verfasser]. "Addressing in Smart Environments. An Investigation of Human Conversational Behaviours Towards Devices and Autonomous Agents in a Smart Environment / Viktor Richter." Bielefeld : Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld, 2020. http://d-nb.info/1211474860/34.
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Cinelli, Michael. "VISUAL INPUTS AND MOTOR OUTPUTS AS INDIVIDUALS WALK THROUGH DYNAMICALLY CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS." Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10012/2803.
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Walking around in dynamically changing environments require the integration of three of our sensory systems: visual, vestibular, and kinesethic. Vision is the only modality of these three sensory systems that provides information at a distance for proactively controlling locomotion (Gibson, 1958). The visual system provides information about self-motion, about body position and body segments relative to one another and the environment, and environmental information at a distance (Patla, 1998). Gibson (1979) developed the idea that everyday behaviour is controlled by perception-action coupling between an action and some specific information picked up from the optic flow that is generated by that action. Such that visual perception guides the action required to navigate safely through an environment and the action in turn alters perception. The objective of my thesis was to determine how well perception and action are coupled when approaching and walking through moving doors with dynamically changing apertures. My first two studies were grouped together and here I found that as the level of threat increased, the parameters of control changed and not the controlling mechanism. The two dominant action control parameters observed were a change in approach velocity and a change in posture (i. e. shoulder rotation). These findings add to previous work done in this area using a similar set-up in virtual reality, where after much practice participants increased success rate by decreasing velocity prior to crossing the doors. In my third study I found that visual fixation patterns and action parameters were similar when the location of the aperture was predictable and when it was not. Previous work from other researchers has shown that vision and a subsequent action are tightly coupled with a latency of about 1second. I have found that vision only tightly couples action when a specific action is required and the threat of a collision increases. My findings also point in the same direction as previous work that has shown that individuals look where they are going. My last study was designed to determine if we go where we are looking. Here I found that action does follow vision but is only loosely correlated. The most important and common finding from all the studies is that at 2 seconds prior to crossing the moving doors (any type of movement) vision seems to have the most profound effect on action. At this time variability in action is significantly lower than at prior times. I believe that my findings will help to understand how individuals use vision to modify actions in order to avoid colliding with other people or other moving objects within the environment. And this knowledge will help elderly individuals to be better able to cope with walking in cluttered environments and avoid contacting other objects.
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Dogimab, Mirriam Adang. "An examination of culture as a protective mechanism against gender based violence: a case study in Mt Bosavi, Papua New Guinea : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy (Development Studies), Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand." Massey University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10179/1064.
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Development literature has not accorded sufficient attention to culture as a positive aspect of development until recently. Hence, in terms of using culture as a protective mechanism against gender-based violence, not much has been investigated or reported, since most studies on gender-based violence have focused more on cultural influences as the cause or effect of violence against women. However, in the case of Papua New Guinea (PNG) culture has always been the focus in regards to genderbased violence, portrayed as the cause of violence against women. Occasionally sources state there are traditional customs or beliefs that protect women from violence, but further explanation is not provided. Hence, this research investigated the question, “How can culture address gender-based violence in contemporary, rural Papua New Guinea?” This study offers an opportunity to view PNG culture as a solution to a problem, instead of as merely a problem to be solved. To investigate how culture can be used positively as a strategy to address genderbased violence, a case study was conducted among the Sulamesi people of Mt Bosavi in the Southern highlands province of PNG. This research was conducted in a rural area because in general Papua New Guineans perceive people living in the villages as the ones living a traditional lifestyle, where established cultural norms and behaviours prevail. Using a qualitative research approach, the research investigated whether there were any traditional protective mechanisms in PNG used to address gender-based violence. This thesis concludes that through the identification of culture-driven protective mechanisms, it can be demonstrated that culture can be used as a strategy to address gender based violence. However, caution must be applied, since not all the protective mechanisms identified are desirable or constructive.
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Rutkowski, Martin. "“Organization is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it’s not all mixed up.” : An investigation of behaviours using digital visual planning." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för informatik och media, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-356105.
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This thesis sets out to investigate and understand behaviours and interactions between individuals while using a large touch screen to plan a holiday trip. By using this approach, the tool digital visual planning by Yolean is indirectly examined. The tool is examined by looking at how it is used and the environment it is used in. The research question in this research paper is “How is interaction between individuals affected by using large touch screens with a digital visual planning tool in a meeting?”. Itis answered by using a mixed method approach containing grounded theory and design research methodology applied to an observation study. The results suggest that a group working for the same goal tend to get a leader without appointing them directly. This leader is also usually the person who stands in front of the rest and dictates what goes where. If problems arise, a shift in leadership occurs naturally and fluently. The digital visual planning tool helped the participants to easier express themselves and to motivate decisions. By using their whole body, they could more easily communicate.Denna uppsats ämnar undersöka beteenden och interaktioner mellan individer i ett mötessammanhang användandes av ett digitalt visualiserings verktyg. Verktyget används på en stor pekskärm och är skapat av Yolean. Verktyget undersöks indirekt genom att utgå från hur verktyget används och miljön runt om verktyget. Forskningsfrågan som besvaras i uppsatsen lyder: ” Hur påverkas interaktion mellan individer genom att använda stora pekskärmar med ett digitalt visuellt planeringsverktyg i ett möte?”. Frågan besvaras genom en observationsstudie som utgår från blandade metodiker från både”grounded theory” (teoribildning genom empiri) samt designforskning. Resultatet tyder på att en grupp som arbetar tillsammans för att uppnå samma mål tenderar att få en ledare utan att specifikt tilldela denne rollen. Uppstår problem tenderar ett skifte av ledarskap ske. Skiftet sker naturligt och då utan verbala tilldelningar. Det visuella planeringsverktyget hjälpte deltagarna att uttrycka sina tankar och funderingar. Deltagarna kunde kommunicera med hela kroppen och att peka på specifika objekt som de ville diskutera. Genom denna frihet kunde de mer noggrant kommunicera sina förslag och tankar till resten av gruppen.
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Galgamuwa, Uditha Nandun. "Estimating crash modification factors for lane-departure countermeasures in Kansas." Diss., Kansas State University, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/38756.
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Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of Civil Engineering
Sunanda Dissanayake
Lane-departure crashes are the most predominant crash type in Kansas which causes very high number of motor vehicle fatalities. Therefore, the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) has implemented several different types of countermeasures to reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities associated with lane-departure crashes. This research was conducted to estimate the safety effectiveness of commonly used lane-departure countermeasures in Kansas on all crashes and lane-departure crashes using Crash Modification Factors (CMFs). Paved shoulders, rumble strips, safety edge treatments and median cable barriers were identified as the commonly used lane-departure countermeasures on both tangent and curved road segments while chevrons and post-mounted delineators were identified as the most commonly used lane-departure countermeasures on curved road segments. This research proposes a state-of-art method of estimating CMFs using cross-sectional data for chevrons and post-mounted delineators. Furthermore, another state-of-art method is proposed in this research to estimate CMFs for safety edge treatments using before-and-after data. Considering the difficulties of finding the exact date of implementation of each countermeasure, both cross-sectional and before-and-after studies were employed to estimate the CMFs. Cross-sectional and case-control methods, which are the two major methods in cross-sectional studies were employed to estimate CMFs for paved shoulders, rumble strips, and median cable barriers. The conventional cross-sectional and case-control methods were modified when estimating CMFs for chevrons and post-mounted delineators by incorporating environmental and human behaviors in addition to geometric and traffic-related explanatory variables. The proposed method is novel and has not been used in the previous cross-sectional models available in the literature. Generalized linear regression models assuming negative binomial error structure were used to develop models for cross-sectional method to estimate CMFs while logistic regression models were used to estimate CMFs using case-control method. Results showed that incorporating environmental and human-related variables into cross-sectional models provide better model fit than in conventional cross-sectional models. To validate the developed models for cross-sectional method, mean of the residuals and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) were used. For the case-control method, Receiver Operational Characteristic (ROC) was used to evaluate the predictive power of models for a binary outcome using classification tables. However, it was seen that the case-control method is not suitable for estimating CMFs for all crashes since the range of the crash frequency is wide in each road segment. A regression-based method of estimating CMFs using before-and-after data was proposed to estimate CMFs for safety edge treatments. This method allows researchers to identify the safety effectiveness of an individual CMFs on road segments where multiple treatments have been applied at the same time. Since this method uses road geometric and traffic-related characteristics in addition to countermeasure information as the explanatory variables, the model itself would be the Safety Performance Function (SPF). Therefore, developing new SPF is not necessary. Finally, the CMFs were estimated using before-and-after Empirical Bayes method to validate the results from the regression-based method. The results of this study can be used as a decision-making tool when implementing lane-departure countermeasures on similar roadways in Kansas. Even though there are readily available CMFs from the national level studies, having more localized CMFs will be beneficial due to differences in traffic-related and geometric characteristics on different roadways.
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Naysmith, Scott. "A qualitative study of avian influenza A H5N1 at the human-animal interface : examining constructions of risk and associated behaviours of people who work with poultry in three live bird markets in Indonesia." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3255/.
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This thesis draws on the notion of disease narratives to examine the manner in which people who work with poultry (PWP) in live bird markets (LBMs) construct risks associated with avian influenza A H5N1, as well as how these constructions of risk inform behaviours at the human-animal interface. Focusing on PWP in three live bird markets in Indonesia, this qualitative study employs a constructivist perspective to look at what informs PWP’s constructions of risk about avian influenza in relation to themselves, their animals, their livelihoods, and the political authorities within their communities, and offers insight into the extent to which these constructions of risk underpin their behaviours. Although not strictly designed as a comparative study, this research draws out similarities and differences across the three fieldsites. Findings suggest that PWP assess risk by drawing on experiential knowledge and observations. Respondents across the three sites suggest a theory of species-specific infection in relation to H5N1, which broadly posits that there are certain diseases that infect different types of poultry and certain diseases that infect humans. For most PWP, diseases in birds are not considered contagious, even between different species, and the possibility of zoonosis implausible. The majority of respondents conclude that humans are not susceptible to poultry diseases because their observations and experiences do not support such a conclusion. PWP do, however, indicate that other forms of risk, such as the risk that a disease outbreak or an intervention can threaten their livelihood are plausible and salient. Behaviours of PWP at the human-animal interface reflect their constructions of risk, in that they prioritize economic considerations over any concern for mitigating the risk of disease in poultry or in people. This thesis concludes by outlining policy implications and researchable hypotheses, and in highlighting the benefits as well as the challenges of integrating qualitative, social science research into the interdisciplinary, collaborative study of emerging infectious diseases.
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Buss, Keno. "Behavioural patterns for the analysis of creative behaviour." Thesis, De Montfort University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/4938.
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Analysing human creativity has always been a difficult undertaking. The reason for this is the vagueness of the term creativity itself. Philosophers and Researchers have tried to unveil the secrets behind creativity since centuries. Besides some principles e.g. defined by Finke, Ward, and Smith, there is no holistic understanding about term creativity and there will always be discussions between researchers of different disciplines about how creativity is achieved. Current approaches try to understand creativity through studying the creative artifact or the creative human himself. These approaches have not lead to any promising results. Instead of focussing on creativity itself, it is more promising to look at the creative process of creators. Through this, it is possible to analyse what happened during the creation of an artefact. The aim of the analysis is the identification of certain behaviours within the creative process, which lead to very creative results or in opposite hinder creativity. The gained knowledge is used for the creation of patterns, describing this specific behaviour. The analysis of the creative process is not only interesting for artists, but also for engineers, researchers, students and many others. Important target groups for this approach are schools and universities. Being able to early recognise problems in the learning curve of a student will enable a directed support, in order to improve the student's performance. Until now, the main problem for analysing the creative process of a creator is the lack of information on how an artefact was created. Most creators tend not to make many notes during their creative phase, even if there are famous exemptions like Beethoven who left behind a huge amount of notices and marked changes in his work. Hence, the challenge is the development of a powerful framework, which can cope effectively with the recording and presentation of this creative process, in order to enable detailed analyses. Modern computer technology fosters the recording of the creative process of a person. Much of today's creative work is achieved with computers and powerful software applications. Computer networks and the internet enable new ways of collaboration. The creation of a flexible, collaborative tool-set is the ideal approach for the mapping and analysis of the creative process. A novel approach, based on these ideas, was developed by the members of the Creative Technologies Research Programme at the Software Technology Research Laboratory (STRL). The central aim of the approach is the mapping of the human creativity with so-called creativity maps. A creativity map is basically transition system, which allows to store and represent the creative process as well as to hold each version of the artefact. The developed De Montfort Creativity Assistant (DMCA), is a collaborative, web-enabled state-of-the-art software framework, realising the theoretical concepts. This thesis represents a substantial contribution to the research project. The focus of the presented work lies on the analysis and the support of the creative process. Several novel techniques for the analysis of massive data sets have been developed. The presented techniques enable a domain-independent analysis and support of the creative process. This is huge improvement over previous concepts, which are highly specialised and focus on the creative artefact itself. The presented approach required the development of several novel techniques. The major contributions of the presented research are: - Behavioural Patterns Enable the description of constructs inside the creativity map. These constructs represent the creative behaviour of the creator. - Techniques for a Computer-supported Information Extraction A pattern description language enables the computer-supported information extraction from creativity maps. - Knowledge Repository Knowledge, gained through the analysis processes, is stored centrally and shared with other creators in order to stimulate further growing of knowledge. - Concepts for the Analysis and Support of the Creative Process Novel concepts allow the structured analysis and support of the creative process, regardless of the creator's domain. All developed techniques have been implemented in several tools, which aim to enrich the DMCA with the ability of a computer-supported analysis and support of the creative process.
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Klimanskaitė, Ieva. "Asmens sveikatos priežiūros įstaigų pagrindinių žmogiškųjų išteklių būklės įvertinimas." Master's thesis, Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT), 2013. http://vddb.laba.lt/obj/LT-eLABa-0001:E.02~2013~D_20130612_151429-35059.
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Darbo tikslas: Įvertinti asmens sveikatos priežiūros įstaigų pagrindinių žmogiškųjų išteklių būklę, pagrindžiant jų formavimo politikos pokyčių poreikį.
Uždaviniai: Įvertinti Lietuvos gydytojų demografinę situaciją ir jų pasiskirstymo regioninius netolygumus, ištirti ligoninėse dirbančių gydytojų rizikos profilį susirgti lėtinėmis neinfekcinėmis ligomis, išanalizuoti ligoninėse dirbančių gydytojų dalyvavimo profilaktiniuose sveikatos patikrinimuose mastą.
Tyrimo metodika. Siekiant įvertinti gydytojų demografinę situaciją ir jų regioninį pasiskirstymą, buvo atlikta iš Lietuvos sveikatos informacijos centro, Lietuvos statistikos departamento ir Valstybinės akreditavimo sveikatos priežiūros veiklai tarnybos prie Sveikatos apsaugos ministerijos gautų oficialių duomenų statistinė analizė. Gydytojų sveikatos būklės įvertinimui buvo pasirinkta po vieną ligoninę iš didmiesčio ir rajono (Vilniaus regione – Vilniaus miesto ir Ukmergės miesto ligonė, Kauno regione – Kauno miesto ir Marijampolės ligoninė). Visiems tose ligoninėse dirbantiems gydytojams buvo išdalintos anketos, suskirstytos į šešias dalis: I dalis – asmens duomenys ir darbinė veikla, II – pasitenkinimas darbu, III – klausimai apie sveikatą, IV – klausimai apie profilaktinius sveikatos patikrinimus, V – klausimai apie gyvenseną ir VI – nuomonė apie sveikatos priežiūrą. Dalyvauti tyrime buvo pakviesti visi tyrimo dieną dirbantys gydytojai. Anketinėje apklausoje dalyvavo 281 gydytojas (76 proc.). Sveikatos patikrinime... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]Aim of the study: To evaluate the main human resources’ status in the health care institutions in support of their policy-making need to change. Objectives: To evaluate demographic situation of Lithuanian physicians and regional inequalities in the distribution of physicians; to assess the risk profile of chronic noncommunicable diseases of hospital-employed physicians; to analyse participation of hospital-employed physicians in screening programmes. Material and methods. The official statistical data obtained from Lithuanian Health Information Centre, Lithuanian Department of Statistics and the State Health Care Accreditation Agency under the Ministry of Health were used for evaluation of demographic situation of physicians and their regional distribution. The assessment of health status of physicians was carried out in four randomly selected hospitals from Vilnius and Kaunas regions. Two hospitals were selected from Vilnius and Kaunas cities, one hospital - from Ukmergė municipality and one hospital - from Marijampolė municipality. The questionnaire, which was distributed to physicians, consisted from six parts: I - personal data, and working activities, II - job satisfaction, III – health status, IV - preventive health check-up, V – health behaviours, and VI - opinion of health care. All physicians who were working in the hospital on the day of survey were invited to participate. Questionnaires were filled in by 281 physicians (response rate was 76%), and 242 physicians... [to full text]
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Duranton, Charlotte. "Dog-human behavioural synchronization and affiliation." Thesis, Aix-Marseille, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017AIXM0274.
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Synchroniser son comportement sur celui d’autrui est adaptatif et essentiel au maintien des interactions et de la cohésion sociale : plus deux individus sont affiliés, plus leurs comportements sont synchronisés, et inversement. Cela est observé au sein de nombreuses espèces, dont l’humain, mais l’existence de ce phénomène au niveau interspécifique n’est que peu documentée.Les travaux de thèse révèlent que les chiens de compagnie, du point de vue productif, synchronisent leurs comportements sur ceux de leur propriétaire lors de déplacements en intérieur ou en extérieur, et également lors d’une rencontre avec une personne inconnue. De plus, les comparaisons du comportement de ces dyades avec ceux des chiens de refuge accompagnés de leur soigneur montrent que la nature du lien affiliatif joue un rôle essentiel dans le degré de synchronisation comportementale. Par contre, ce phénomène n’est que peu modulé par le sexe, l’âge et la race. Enfin, inversement, du point de vue perceptif, le présent travail montre pour la première fois que les chiens de compagnie préfèrent les humains qui synchronisent leur comportement avec le leur.En conclusion, comme entre humains, la synchronisation comportementale joue le rôle de glue sociale entre les chiens et les humains. C’est la première fois qu’une telle capacité est mise en évidence entre une espèce de primate et une espèce de canidé ; cela suggère une convergence évolutive de ce comportement, et l’existence de processus cognitifs s’apparentant à ceux des humains chez le chien. Les implications pratiques et théoriques de ces résultats sont finalement discutées à la lueur des quatre questions de Tinbergen (1963)Non-conscious behavioral synchronization is adaptive, depending on affiliation and participating in fostering social cohesion. It is found within various species, including humans, but little is known about such a phenomenon between species. Due to their close association, dog and human dyads is a good biological model to study interspecific behavioral synchronization.For the first time, behavioral synchronization of dogs with humans was evidenced between highly affiliated partners (i.e. pet dogs and their owners) when freely walking inside or in open outside area, and when facing an unfamiliar person. The effect of affiliation was also investigated: lower affiliated partners (i.e. shelter dogs and their caregiver) exhibited lower degree of synchronization with human compare to highly affiliated partners, similarly than between humans. This is the first time that the effect of affiliation on behavioral synchronization has been evidenced at interspecific level. Almost no effect of age, sex or breed was evidenced. Finally, it was evidenced that pet dogs exhibit increased affiliation towards humans who synchronized their behavior with them. It is the third species in which such an ability is evidenced, and the first time it is found in canids.To conclude, as in humans, behavioral synchronization acts as a social-glue between dogs and humans. It is the first time that such a skill is evidenced between a primate species and a canid species; it suggests a convergent evolution of this behavior, and human-like processes in dogs. Applied implications of such findings, as well as Tinbergen (1963) four’s inquiries for behavioral synchronization are discussed
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Roberts, Michael E. "Human collective behavior." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana Unversity, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3330786.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Depts. of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Cognitive Science, 2008.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 22, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-10, Section: B, page: 6448. Advisers: Robert L. Goldstone; Peter M. Todd.
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Medeiros, André Luís dos Santos. "Tendências na mortalidade por batida de carro em três grandes cidades do Brasil e a Síndrome do macho jovem." Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2012. http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=3853.
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Vários estudos encontraram maiores taxas de mortalidade por batidas no trânsito entre homens do que entre mulheres e entre homens jovens do que entre homens mais velhos. No entanto, há uma lacuna quanto a explicações para essas diferenças. Esse estudo, diferentemente dos antecessores, parte de hipóteses postuladas a priori, sobre como devem variar as taxas de mortalidade por batidas no trânsito, de acordo com sexo e idade. Espera-se encontrar a presença e ausência de certas associações e interações, com base na teoria moderna da seleção sexual aplicada ao estudo do comportamento humano, especificamente, a síndrome do macho jovem. O objetivo do presente estudo é comparar tendências nas taxas de
mortalidade por batida de carro e moto segundo sexo e idade. Trata-se de um estudo ecológico com Estado como unidade geográfica de análise e o ano calendário como unidade temporal de análise. A população do estudo foi composta por homens e mulheres de 18 a 60 anos residentes no Estado do Rio de Janeiro, entre 2004 e 2010, e no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, entre os anos de 2001 e 2010. Os resultados mostraram que o número de mortes por batida de carro e de moto, considerando o número de habilitados para guiar tais veículos, foi maior em
homens do que em mulheres e em indivíduos mais jovens do que mais velhos. Além dessa interessante congruência entre os resultados encontrados e as hipóteses postuladas, descobrimos uma intrigante exceção: no Estado do Rio de Janeiro, a taxa de mortalidade por batida de moto foi consideravelmente maior em mulheres do que em homens. As tendências nas taxas de mortalidade por batida de carro e moto no Estado do Rio de Janeiro vêm apresentando uma queda nos últimos anos. No
Rio Grande do Sul, as taxas de mortalidade por batida de moto também vêm caindo ao longo dos anos, enquanto que as taxas de mortalidade por batida de carro vêm apresentando aumento. Tais resultados levam a concluir que a Síndrome do Macho Jovem parece ser uma potente e promissora teoria para ajudar a postular hipóteses sobre o risco de morte no trânsito.Several studies have found higher rates of mortality in traffic crash among men than among women and among young men than among older men. However, there is a gap concerning explanations for these differences. In this study, unlike predecessors, hypotheses were postulated a priori, on how rates of mortality due to crashes in traffic should vary, according to sex and age. We expected to find the presence and absence of certain associations and interactions, based on the modern theory of sexual selection applied to the study of human behavior, specifically, the "young male syndrome." The aim of this study is to compare trends in mortality rates from car and motorcycle crashes according to sex and age. It is an ecological study with the state as the geographical unit of analysis and the calendar year as the temporal unit of analysis. The study population was composed of 18-60 years old men and women residing in the State of Rio de Janeiro, between 2004 and 2010, and in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, between the years 2001 and 2010. The results have shown that the number of deaths from car and motorcycle crashes considering the number of qualified people to drive such vehicles was higher in men than in women and in younger than older people. In addition to the interesting congruence between the findings and hypotheses postulated, we discovered an intriguing exception: at the state of Rio de Janeiro, the mortality rate from motorcycle crash was considerably higher in women than in men. Trends in mortality rates from car and motorcycle crashes in the state of Rio de Janeiro have shown a decline in recent years. In Rio Grande do Sul, the mortality rates from motorcycle crashes have also been falling over the years, while mortality rates from car crashes have increased. These results lead to conclude that the "Young Male Syndrome" seems to be a powerful and promising theory to help postulating hypotheses about the risk of death in traffic.
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Lawson, Glyn. "Predicting human behaviour in emergencies." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2011. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12027/.
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The outcome of an emergency is largely determined by the behaviour of the people involved. To improve the safety of buildings and to increase the effectiveness of response procedures and training programmes it is often necessary to predict human behaviour in emergency situations. There are several approaches which can be used to make these predictions, but not all had previously been systematically analysed and therefore their appropriateness for any given application was unknown. This thesis describes an analysis of approaches for predicting human behaviour in emergencies. The research focussed on approaches which could be used by human factors professionals to extend the contribution this systems-oriented and user-focussed discipline can make to managing risks and reducing danger. The investigated approaches were evaluated against criteria for judging their quality, including validity, reliability, resources, sensitivity and ethics. In research conducted to test the approaches, fire drills, virtual environments (VEs) and a new talk-through approach, in which participants describe the hypothetical actions they would take in an emergency scenario, demonstrated potential for predicting behaviour in emergency situations. These approaches were subsequently evaluated in a standardised comparison, in which each one was applied to analyse the behaviour demonstrated during an evacuation from a university building. The observed frequencies of behaviour produced by each approach were significantly correlated, as were the sequences of behaviour. All of the approaches demonstrated replicability. The resources required to apply each approach were relatively low, especially for the talk-through approach. Based on the findings from this research, and drawing upon previous work from the scientific literature, guidance was provided for selecting approaches and methods for behavioural prediction in emergency situations. The talk-through approach is suitable for use during the concept phase of a design as it is quick to implement and requires low resources. VEs and simulation tools are more appropriate for design activities when detailed CAD models become available. Fire drills can provide useful measures of human behaviour in evacuation scenarios, but require a physical representation of the building or environment under investigation. Fire drills, VEs and simulation tools can be used to inform emergency response procedures. Predictions from all of the aforementioned approaches can support the development of training programmes. This guidance was previously unavailable to human factors professionals and now serves both to inform design work and support the evaluation of existing evacuation procedures and protocols.
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McMillan, Anne Sinclair. "Human masseter motor unit behaviour." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1989. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30673.
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There is a dearth of knowledge on the functional organization of the anatomically complex human masseter muscle. Limited physiological studies suggest a functional organization which may differ significantly from human limb muscles. The present studies aimed to examine the putative relationship between structure and function in the human masseter muscle as a basis for understanding function and dysfunction in human jaw muscles.
In the first experiment single motor unit (SMU) activity was recorded from pairs of recording sites distributed throughout the masseter muscle. In each case SMU activity at a chosen location was used as a reference to search for synchronized SMU activity at another selected site. The locations of the needle tips were estimated in 3-dimensions (3-D) by means of an optical system, then transferred to 3-D reconstructions derived from Magnetic Resonance images. This approach permitted calculation of the linear distances between verified muscle recording sites. The mean separation of the sites from which synchronous SMU activity could be recorded was 8.8±3.4mm. The putative territories had a preferred orientation in the antero-posterior axis. Motor unit territories were larger than described previously, and appeared to be related to anatomical compartments.
The second experiment involved recording activity from stereotactically mapped masseter SMUs. In each case, the lowest sustainable firing frequency (LSFF) was reached by slow increases and decreases in voluntary firing rate, followed by sustained firing at the lowest possible rate. Pulse-discrimination and digital sampling of consecutive inter-spike intervals (ISIs) were then used to measure LSFF for 2-6 separate occlusal and postural tasks to which each unit contributed. There were significant differences between mean ISIs for the tasks performed by most units, which suggests descending drive to masseter units is highly task-dependent. There were also regional differences in unit task specificities.
In the third paradigm, reflex SMU activity was recorded from units in the masseter muscle and the inferior head of the lateral pterygoid muscle. Bipolar electrodes fixed to the gingiva near the maxillary canine delivered single pulses of 1ms duration at sub-noxious levels of intensity. At constrained firing frequencies (10, 15Hz), pulses were injected sequentially, with increasing delays, after preselected spikes. More profound inhibition occurred in units firing at 10 than 15Hz. There were significant differences in masseter inhibitory responses when the unit task varied. Reflex inhibition in masseter and lateral pterygoid SMUs is highly frequency-dependent, and also task-dependent in masseter units.
The fourth study involved recording activity from SMUs in the masseter muscle. A midline load cell was fixed to the incisor teeth and aligned either perpendicular (P) or 30 degrees anterior (A) to the occlusal plane, without altering jaw position. A rigid spike-triggered averaging (STA) paradigm was used to extract the contribution of individual SMUs to the overall force at load cell orientations P and A. Spikes preceded or followed by an interval of less than 100ms were rejected prior to averaging. At background bite forces from 0.06-8N, the isometric forces apparently developed by individual units varied randomly with load cell orientations, (P range 36.2±19.6mN; A range 38.2±28.4mN). All units could be fired slowly with varying degrees of muscle coactivation, in some instances without contact on the load cell. The use of STA as a method for determining SMU tension in the masseter muscle appears to be task-dependent and in the presence of coactivation may be inappropriate.
The findings collectively indicate the heterogeneous nature of SMU behaviour in the human masseter muscle which is consistent with internal muscle compartments based on anatomical features and functional behaviour. There thus appear to be both physiological and anatomical substrates for differential motor control of selected regions of the human masseter muscle.Dentistry, Faculty of
Graduate
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Syed, Shazali Syed Tarmizi. "Human behaviour modelling through Human Intelligent Movement Software (HIMs)." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2010. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/6382.
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The concept of sustainable urban environments aims to provide urban facilities including transport interchanges that can accommodate a wide spectrum of the human population irrespective of gender, age or disability. A major objective is to reduce levels of social exclusion which arise from inadequacy in infrastructure that strongly affects certain members of society such as the elderly, disabled and poor. This research focuses on the particular aspect of crowded public spaces where it is envisaged that improvements in crowd flow could be achieved by a proper consideration of all the users of the space but particularly the elderly and disabled. The ultimate objective would be design tools that provide architects with the means to achieve inclusivity in design for the elderly and disabled with relative ease and speed. Therefore, this research has developed a methodology and a computing tool to implement aspects of human walking behaviour in public spaces. Human behaviours have been studied using a large-scale video observation involving over 17,000 subjects. The videos have been analysed to determine a number of different behaviours and their relationship to distinguishing characteristics of the subjects such as age, gender and disability. Algorithms for representing these behaviours have been developed and implemented as a simulation tool (HIMs) within commercially available gaming software. Two case studies, within shopping malls and a bus station, have been carried out to illustrate the feasibility of the work and simple examples of small environmental design changes that significantly affect crowd flow are shown.
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Hollmann, Claudia. "A cognitive human behaviour model for pedestrian behaviour simulation." Thesis, University of Greenwich, 2015. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/13831/.
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Pedestrian behaviour simulation models are being developed with the intention to simulate human behaviour in various environments in both non-emergency and emergency situations. These models are applied with the objective to understand the underlying causes and dynamics of pedestrian behaviour and how the environment or the environment’s intrinsic procedures can be adjusted in order to provide an improvement of human comfort and safety. In order to realistically model pedestrian behaviour in complex environments, the specific human behaviour patterns which govern their behaviour need to be represented. It is thereby of importance to understand the causal chains between the surrounding conditions and the pedestrians’ behaviours: the impact of the environment’s purpose and facilities as well as the pedestrians’ individual goals on the pedestrians’ planning and route choice behaviour; the influence of emergent stimuli on the pedestrians’ plans and environment usage; the influence of the pedestrians’ environment usage under normal usage conditions on the pedestrians’ behaviour in response to a potential alarm event. In this thesis, a framework is developed for modelling advanced individual pedestrian behaviours and especially purpose-driven environment usage. The framework thereby aims to assist building and facility planners in improving a building’s layout in terms of pedestrian experience and walking routes. In this thesis, a comprehensive review on how individual pedestrian behaviour and the pedestrians’ environment usage are realised in current pedestrian behaviour simulation models has been undertaken. In addition, current theories on human decision making, goal-driven behaviour and emotion modelling have been surveyed from the research fields of artificial intelligence, virtual reality simulation, human psychology and human behavioural sciences. From this survey, theories suitable for this thesis’ cause have been identified and combined for the proposed Cognitive Pedestrian Agent Framework (CPAF). The proposed framework contains a sophisticated human decision making model, a multi-faceted individual knowledge representation, a model to realise situational and contextual awareness, and a novel realisation of a human path planning heuristic. The proposed framework has been demonstrated in the simulation of a building usage-cycle use case. Further, it has been outlined how the proposed framework could be used to model experiential alarm response behaviour.
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Ellmore, Timothy Michael. "The Speed of Associative Learning and Retrieval in Humans and Non-Human Primates." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195717.
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The conversion of a memory from an initially fragile state to an enduring representation requires cellular, molecular, and systems-level brain network changes. This reorganization is hypothesized to involve time-dependent neuroanatomical changes that may differentially support some types of remote versus recent memory, and may also influence the latency to decide and complete responses during retrieval. To quantify the timecourse of learning and retrieval after different retention durations, a paradigm is developed to measure in humans and monkeys the retrieval speed of visuomotor associations, which require an intact hippocampus for initial acquisition but not for retrieval after days or weeks. Two components of retrieval speed, a decision time to initiate movement and a velocity-dependent movement completion time to complete a motor response, are shown to change differently relative to a pre-retention baseline. Movement completion times decrease across repetitions within single learning session, and continue to decrease from the level reached at the end of learning following retention. Decision times also decrease within the learning session, but increase on the first post-retention retrieval attempt as a function of retention interval duration. Extensive practice is required for decision times to reach a level below that obtained at the end of learning, and the transition from a long- to short-latency decision depends on the number and spacing of practice trials. The findings are discussed in a framework in which post-retention processing time is influenced by the speed of visual identification, the time to retrieve the associative relationship from long-term memory, and the time to plan and execute a motor response. The creation of sparser, long-lasting visual form representations and strengthened cortico-striatal connections predict behavioral efficiency gains in visual identification and motor responses after learning. Decision times could be fast and automatic following extensive practice when the neural representation may become stored permanently in cortico-cortical and cortico-striatal linkages, or could increase after retention because of several cognitive and neural factors, including interference and frontal inhibition of the hippocampal system to prevent new learning before choice feedback. The experimental results are discussed in the context of the existing literature on memory consolidation.
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Koutentakis, Dimitrios. "Modeling human driving behavior." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129895.
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Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February, 2020Cataloged from student-submitted PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 81-84).
The goal of this thesis paper is to explore models that can predict and anticipate driver behaviors on the road and give probabilities on future actions of neighboring vehicles, while being lightweight enough to be formally verifiable. This thesis starts with looking into related work and doing a short literature review on previous work on driver models. We then talk about the available datasets used to perform such work, different models used (from classic regressions to neural networks) and finally present my approach and my results.
by Dimitrios Koutentakis.
M. Eng.
M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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Rymill, Stephen Julian. "Psychologically-based simulation of human behaviour." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.614295.
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Rando, C. J. "Human behaviour and the temporomandibular joint." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2011. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1322969/.
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Temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD), an umbrella term referring to a group of orofacial pain disorders, including disc displacement and osteoarthritis, affect a significant portion of the general population, with prevalence of temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJ OA) at around 30%. The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is intimately linked to mastication (and as such, diet), with research on animals and modern clinical studies suggesting that disorders of the TMJ may be connected to soft dietary composition and associated with a reduction of the craniofacial complex. Over the past 100,000 years, the size and shape of the human face has undergone marked changes, from large and robust, to relatively small and gracile. Concordantly, human diet has changed profoundly, first in the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture, then again in the shift to the post-industrialised diet, markedly affecting the rate of caries and malocclusions, which have increased, and dental wear, the severity of which has notably decreased. The question remains as to whether these dietary shifts, particularly modernisation, have had an effect on the temporomandibular joint. This work aims to combine archaeological, evolutionary and clinical perspectives to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact changes in human behaviour (primarily those related to diet) have had on the prevalence and distribution of temporomandibular joint disorders, specifically osteoarthritis. Three different skeletal populations (modern Americans, Medieval and post-Medieval Londoners and Prehistoric Native Americans) were examined for the severity of tooth wear, presence of TMJ osteoarthritis, morphology of the TMJ and tooth loss, as well as undergoing a metric and geometric morphometric analysis. The results suggest that differing patterns of subsistence can impact the distribution and frequency of TMJ OA, with rates of OA highest in the contemporary populations, this seeming to contradict previous archaeological theories on TMJ OA, which typically associated high levels of OA with heavy tooth wear and using the teeth as tools. The results of this research also suggest that different methodological approaches need to be used when analyzing TMJ OA, utilising diagnostic techniques that are more clinically relevant, in part due to the unique and complex nature of the TM joint.
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Hayes, Bradley. "Supportive Behaviors for Human-Robot Teaming." Thesis, Yale University, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10160856.
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While robotics has made considerable strides toward more robust and adaptive manipulation, perception, and planning, robots in the near future are unlikely to be as dexterous, competent, and versatile as human workers. Rather than try to create fully autonomous systems that accomplish tasks independently, a more practical approach is to construct robots that work alongside people. This allows human and robot workers to concentrate on the tasks for which they are each best suited, while simultaneously providing the capability to assist each other during tasks that one worker lacks the ability to complete independently in a safe or maximally proficient manner. Human-robot teaming advances have the potential to extend applications of autonomous robots well beyond their current, limited roles in factory automation settings. Much of modern robotics remains inapplicable in many domains where tasks are either too complex, beyond modern hardware limitations, too sensitive for non-human completion, or too flexible for static automation practices. In these situations human-robot teaming can be leveraged to improve the efficiency, quality-of-life, and safety of human partners.
In this thesis, I describe algorithms that can create collaborative robots that call provide assistance when useful, remove dull or undesirable responsibilities when possible, and assist with dangerous tasks when feasible. In doing so, I present a novel method for autonomously constructing hierarchical task networks that factor complex tasks in was that make theism approachable by modern planning and coordination algorithms. In particular, within these complex cooperative tasks I focus on facilitating collaboration between a lead worker and robotic assistant within a shared space, defining and investigating a class of actions I term supportive behaviors: actions that serve to reduce the cognitive or kinematic complexity of tasks for teammates. The majority of contributions within this work center around discovering, learning, and executing these types of behaviors in multi-agent domains with asymmetric authority. I provide an examination of supportive behavior learning and execution from the perspective of task and motion planning, as well as that of learning directly from interactions with humans. These algorithms provide a collaborative robot with the capability to anticipate the needs of a human teammate and proactively offer help as needed or desired. This work enables to creation of robots that provide tools just-in-time, robots that alter workspaces to make more optimal task orderings more obvious and more feasible, and robots that recognize when a user is delayed in a complex task and offer assistance.
Combining these algorithms provides a basis for a robot with both a capacity for rich task comprehension and a theory of mind about its collaborators, enabling methods to allow such a robot to leverage knowledge it acquires to transition between the role of learner, able assistant, and informative instructor during interactions with teammates.
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Miszkiewicz, Justyna J. "Ancient human bone histology and behaviour." Thesis, University of Kent, 2014. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/38319/.
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Boulay, Bernard. "Human posture recognition for behaviour understanding." Nice, 2007. http://www.theses.fr/2007NICE4000.
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During this thesis, we have proposed a real-time, generic, and operational approach to recognising human posture with one static camera. The approach is fully automatic and independent from the view point of the camera. Human posture recognition from a video sequence is a difficult task. This task is part of the more general problem of video sequence interpretation. The proposed approach takes as input information provided by vision algorithms such as the silhouette of the observed person (a binary image representing the person and the background), or her/his position in the scene. The first contribution is the modeling of a 3D posture avatar. This avatar is composed of a human model (defining the relations between the different body parts), a set of parameters (defining the position of the body parts) and a set of body primitives (defining the visual aspect of the body parts). The second contribution is the proposed hybrid approach to recognise human posture. This approach combines the use of 3D posture avatar and 2D techniques. The 3D avatars are used in the recognition process to acquire a certain independence from the camera view point. The 2D techniques represent the silhouettes of the observed person to provide a real-time processing. The proposed approach is composed of two main parts: the posture detection which recognises the posture of the detected person by using information computed on the studied frame, and the posture temporal filtering which filters the posture by using information about the posture of the person on the previous frames A third contribution is the comparison of different 2D silhouette representations. The comparison is made in terms of computation time and dependence on the silhouette quality. Four representations have been chosen: geometric features, Hu moments, skeletonisation, and the horizontal and vertical projections. A fourth contribution is the characterisation of ambiguous postures. Ambiguities can happen by using only one camera. An ambiguous posture is defined as a posture which has visually similar silhouettes rather an other posture. Synthetic data are generated to evaluate the proposed approach for different point of view. The approach has also been evaluated on real data by proposing a ground truth model adapted to the posture recognition purpose. A fifth contribution has been proposed by applying the results of the recognition to human action detection. A method based on a finite state machine has been proposed to recognise self-action (action where only one person acts). Each state v of the machine is composed of one or several postures. This method has been successfully applied to detect falling and walking actions. The human posture recognition approach gives good results. However, the approach has some limitation. The main limitation, is that we are limited in terms of postures of interest for computation time and discrimination reasons. The second limitation is the computation time of the 3D posture avatar generation. By using information about the movement of the observed person in the scene, the approach is able to treat 5-6 frames by second. Some improvement can be done to solve these limitations. In particular, the set of interest postures can be adapted automatically at each frame by considering the previously recognised postures to decrease the number of 3D posture silhouette to extractDurant cette thèse nous avons proposé une approche temps réel, générique et fonctionnelle pour reconnaître la posture des personnes filmées par une caméra statique. Notre approche est conçue pour être complètement automatique et indépendante du point de vue de la caméra. La reconnaissance de posture à partir de séquence vidéo est un problème difficile. Ce problème s'inscrit dans le champ de recherche plus général de l'interprétation de séquence vidéo. L'approche proposée prend en entrée des informations provenant d'algorithmes de vision telles que la silhouette de la personne observée (une image binaire où une couleur représente la personne et l'autre le fond) ou sa position dans la scène. La première contribution est la modélisation d'un avatar 3D de posture. Un avatar 3D de posture est composé d'un modèle 3D humain (définissant les relations entre les différentes parties du corps), d'un ensemble de paramètre (définissant les positions des différentes parties du corps) et d'un ensemble de primitive (définissant l'aspect visuel des parties du corps). La seconde contribution est la proposition d'une approche hybride combinant l'utilisation de modèles 3D et de techniques 2D. Les avatars 3D de postures sont utilisés dans le processus de reconnaissance pour avoir une certaine indépendance du point de vue de la caméra. Les techniques 2D représentent les silhouettes des personnes détectées pour garder un temps réel de calcul. Cette thèse montre comment les avatars 3D peuvent être utilisés pour obtenir une approche générique et fonctionnelle pour reconnaître les postures. Cette approche est composée de deux parties : la détection de postures qui reconnaît la posture de la personne détectée en utilisant seulement l'information calculée sur l'image considérée, et le filtrage temporel de posture qui reconnaît la posture en utilisant l'information provenant des images précédentes. Une troisième contribution a été faite en comparant différentes représentations 2D des silhouettes au niveau du temps de calcul nécessaire et de leur dépendance à la qualité de la silhouette. Quatre représentations ont été retenues : une représentation combinant différentes valeurs géométriques, les moment de Hu, la skeletonisation et les projections horizontale et verticale. Une quatrième contribution est la caractérisation des cas ambigus. Des ambiguïtés au niveau de la reconnaissance peuvent se produire en utilisant seulement une caméra statique. Une posture ambiguë est définie par plusieurs postures vii qui ont des silhouettes visuellement similaires. Des données de synthèse sont générées pour évaluer l'approche proposée pour différents points de vue. Ainsi, les postures ambiguës sont identifiées en considérant la posture et son orientation. L'approche est aussi évaluée pour des données réelles en proposant un modèle de vérité terrain pour la reconnaissance de posture. Une cinquième contribution a été proposée en appliquant le résultat de notre approche à la reconnaissance d'action. Une méthode utilisant des machines à états finis a ainsi été proposée pour reconnaître des actions faisant intervenir une seule personne. Chaque état de la machine est composé d'une ou plusieurs postures. Cette méthode est appliquée avec succès pour détecter les chutes et la marche. Bien que notre approche donne de très bon taux de reconnaissance, il subsiste quelques limitations. La principale limitation de l'approche est qu'elle est limitée en nombre de postures d'intérêt pour des raisons de temps de calcul et de discrimination entre les postures considérées. La seconde limitation est le temps nécessaire à la génération des silhouettes des avatars 3D de posture. En utilisant l'information sur le déplacement de la personne dans la scène, l'algorithme de reconnaissance de posture traite entre 5 et 6 images par seconde. Des améliorations peuvent être faites pour résoudre ces limitations. En particulier, nous pourrions adapter automatiquement l'ensemble des postures d'intérêt au cas considéré, en utilisant par exemple la posture reconnue précédemment pour restreindre les postures 3D dont nous voulons extraire les silhouettes
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Haggard, Patrick. "The coordination of human prehension." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.239142.
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Nellen, Stefani. "How humans solve scheduling problems analysis of human behavior in the plan-a-day task /." [S.l. : s.n.], 2002. http://www.bsz-bw.de/cgi-bin/xvms.cgi?SWB9918630.
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James, Hannah Victoria Arnison. "Becoming human : the emergence of modern human behaviour within South Asia." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609772.
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Kaczmarek, Haiko. "Human behaviour and energy demand : How behavioural science can be used to reduceenergy demand in the residential sector." Thesis, KTH, Energiteknik, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-174307.
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The threat of human induced climate change is imminent. The reason is an everyincreasing demand for energy and products, producing more and more greenhousegas emissions. Everybody needs to take responsibility now. The estimations are thatwith 2% annual energy savings from residential households 12TWh and 3.3 billionmetric tonnes of CO2 can be saved per year. Greenely, a startup from KIC InnoEnergy,wants to engage residential households to change their energy behaviour athome. They combine a smartphone application with the smart meter infrastructureto reduce households energy demand. Changing behaviour is complicated and researchprior to this thesis revealed that information and economic incentives aloneare not sufficient.A simple and proven technique to change behaviour is Nudging. A gentle pushin the right direction while leaving the freedom of choice. A popular example is aprinted fly in the men’s urinal. It nudges them to aim at the fly. The cleaning costswere reduced by 80% at the Schiphol Airport Amsterdam.Without application usage change is impossible for Greenely. Their main contacttool to households is a smartphone application. The smartphone market is vast andcompetition between applications is strong. Therefore the system outline needs toprecede Nudging for ongoing engagement and long term change. To achieve thatGamification practices are implemented. It is the incorporation of game design intonon-gaming contexts to achieve engagement through motivation and fun.This master thesis is done in cooperation with Greenely and focuses on residentialdemand reduction schemas, Nudging and Gamification. The aim is to improvetheir actual application and create an outline for an improved version that promoteslong term behaviour change. The result incorporates the most suitable features fromthe relevant topics and enables long term change.
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Kalwar, Santosh. "Human behavior on the Internet." Thesis, Lappeenranata University of Technology, 2009. http://www.kalwar.com.np.
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In this thesis, "Human behavior on the Internet", the human anxiety is conceptualized. The following questions have guided the writing of the thesis: How humans behave with the Internet technology? What goes in their mind? What kinds of behaviors are shown while using the Internet? What is the role of the content on the Internet and especially what are the types of anxiety behavior on the Internet? By conceptualization this thesis aims to provide a model for studying whether humans show signs of less or exacerbated anxiety while using the Internet.The empirical part of this thesis was built on new developed model and user study that utilizes that model. For the user study, the target users were divided into two groups based on their skill level. The user study used both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative research was conducted using interviews and observational analysis. The quantitative research was conducted in three iterations by using questionnaires and surveys.These results suggest that the significance of human on using technology would be integral part of such a study. The study also suggests that Internet has lulled humans with the sense of dependency to greater extent. In particular, the results identified seven main areas of human anxiety. These forms of anxiety require further studies to encompass human anxiety in more detail.
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Holroyd, Aaron. "Generating Engagement Behaviors in Human-Robot Interaction." Digital WPI, 2011. https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/etd-theses/328.
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Based on a study of the engagement process between humans, I have developed models for four types of connection events involving gesture and speech: directed gaze, mutual facial gaze, adjacency pairs and backchannels. I have developed and validated a reusable Robot Operating System (ROS) module that supports engagement between a human and a humanoid robot by generating appropriate connection events. The module implements policies for adding gaze and pointing gestures to referring phrases (including deictic and anaphoric references), performing end-of-turn gazes, responding to human-initiated connection events and maintaining engagement. The module also provides an abstract interface for receiving information from a collaboration manager using the Behavior Markup Language (BML) and exchanges information with a previously developed engagement recognition module. This thesis also describes a Behavior Markup Language (BML) realizer that has been developed for use in robotic applications. Instead of the existing fixed-timing algorithms used with virtual agents, this realizer uses an event-driven architecture, based on Petri nets, to ensure each behavior is synchronized in the presence of unpredictable variability in robot motor systems. The implementation is robot independent, open-source and uses the Robot Operating System (ROS).
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Ponsler, Brett. "Recognizing Engagement Behaviors in Human-Robot Interaction." Digital WPI, 2011. https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/etd-theses/109.
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Based on analysis of human-human interactions, we have developed an initial model of engagement for human-robot interaction which includes the concept of connection events, consisting of: directed gaze, mutual facial gaze, conversational adjacency pairs, and backchannels. We implemented the model in the open source Robot Operating System and conducted a human-robot interaction experiment to evaluate it.
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Munro-Faure, Amy Louise. "Causes of variation in human cooperative behaviour." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31376.
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This thesis investigates variation in human cooperative behaviour in naturally occurring contexts. I critically assess the prevailing consensus on human cooperation derived from laboratory games (such as the dictator and public goods games), by identifying real life analogues and conducting extensive field observation and experiments. My second chapter investigates the importance of context on social behaviour by taking a commonly used laboratory game, the dictator game, and studying analogous behaviour, giving to mendicants in the street. I conclude that individuals cooperate less in the wild than they do in the laboratory and that monetary pay-offs are important in cooperative decision-making. My third chapter examines how social cues influence peoples' likelihood of giving to mendicants. I conclude that increased group size and crowd density negatively affect donation behaviour. My fourth chapter investigates dog fouling in public parks to understand the causes of variation in cheating in a naturally occurring public goods game. I conclude that despite evidence that a social game is being played, the cues that influences decisions are unclear, and behaviour may depend on local social norms. My fifth chapter investigates social influences on red light jumping by cyclists at pedestrian crossings. I find that the probability of cheating is higher with fewer observers and when other cyclists also cheat.
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Botta, Federico. "Quantifying human behaviour using complex social datasets." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2016. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/88546/.
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Being able to better understand and measure what is happening in the world is of great importance for a range of stakeholders, including policy makers. The recent explosion in the availability of data documenting our collective behaviour offers new opportunities to gain insights into our society. Here, we focus on a series of case studies to demonstrate how new forms of data may be used to help us better understand human behaviour. Data coming from financial transactions taking place in the stock market can help us better understand financial crises. We analyse a dataset comprising the stocks forming the Dow Jones Industrial Average at a second by second resolution. We investigate changes in stock market prices and how they arise at different time scales, showing a transition between power law and exponential decay in the tails of the distribution of logarithmic returns. Accurate and quick estimates of the size of a crowd are crucial for the avoidance of crowd disasters. However, existing approaches rely on human judgement and can be slow and costly. Our findings suggest that data from mobile phone networks and social media platforms may allow us to estimate the size of a crowd. Such data could potentially be accessed in real time, leading to shorter delays than those experienced with previous approaches to crowd size estimation. We also show how communities on a network constructed from our social interactions through smartphones capture the temporal evolution of our behaviour in everyday life. The complex datasets presented here also require complex methodologies to analyse them. Complexity science, and more specifically network science, has witnessed increasing attention within the scientific community in the last two decades. Here, we will present a new technique to analyse a common feature of many real world complex networks, namely community structure. We show how our methodology addresses many of the drawbacks of current techniques, and we also introduce an efficient algorithm which outperforms analogous methods on a set of standard benchmark networks. Our findings suggest that the analysis of large complex social datasets coupled with methodological advances can allow us to gain valuable measurements of human behaviour.
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Palaghias, Niklas. "Opportunistic sensing platforms to interpret human behaviour." Thesis, University of Surrey, 2017. http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/841529/.
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Understanding human behaviour in an automatic but also non-intrusive manner, constitutes an important and emerging area for various fields. This requires collaboration of information technology with humanitarian sciences in order to transfer existing knowl- edge of human behaviour into self-acting tools to eliminate the human error. This work strives to shed some light in the area of Mobile Social Signal Processing by trying to understand if today’s mobile devices, given their advanced sensing and computational capabilities, are able to extract various aspects of human behaviour. Although one of the core aspects of human behaviour are social interactions, current tools do not pro- vide an accurate, reliable and real-time solution for social interaction detection, which constitutes a significant barrier in automatic human behaviour understanding. Towards filling the aforementioned gap in order to enable human behaviour under- standing through mobile devices, particular contributions were made. Firstly, an interpersonal distance estimation technique is developed based upon a non-intrusive opportunistic mechanism that solely relies on sensors and communication capabilities of off-the-shelf smartphones. Secondly, based on user’s interpersonal distance and relative orientation, a pervasive and opportunistic approach based on off-the-shelf smartphones for social interaction detection system is presented. Leveraging information provided by psychology, analytical and error models are proposed to estimate the probability of people having social interactions. Then, to showcase the ability of mobile devices to infer human behaviour, a trust relationship quantification mechanism is developed based on users’ behavioural traits and psychological models. Finally, a prediction and compensation mechanism for the device displacement error that leverages human loco- motion patterns to refine the device orientation is introduced. The above contributions were evaluated through experimentation and hard data collected from real-world environments to prove their accuracy and reliability as well as showing the applicability of the proposed approaches in daily situations. This work showed that mobile devices are able to accurately detect social interactions and further social and trust relationships among people, despite the noise induced in real-world situations. Close collaboration between informatics and social sciences is imperative, to overcome the significant barrier in the development of human behaviour understanding. This work could constitute a fundamental building block, as the computational power and battery autonomy of mobile devices increases, for the development of novel techniques towards understanding human behaviour, by including multiple behavioural traits and enabling the creation of socially-aware information systems.
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Najar, Anis. "Shaping robot behaviour with unlabeled human instructions." Thesis, Paris 6, 2017. http://www.theses.fr/2017PA066152.
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La plupart des systèmes d'apprentissage interactifs actuels s'appuient sur des protocoles prédéfinis qui peuvent être contraignants pour l'utilisateur. Cette thèse aborde le problème de l'interprétation des instructions, afin de relâcher la contrainte de prédéterminer leurs significations. Nous proposons un système permettant à un humain de guider l'apprentissage d'un robot, à travers des instructions non labellisées. Notre approche consiste à ancrer la signification des signaux instructifs dans le processus d'apprentissage de la tâche et à les utiliser simultanément pour guider l'apprentissage. Cette approche offre plus de liberté à l'humain dans le choix des signaux qu'il peut utiliser, et permet de réduire les efforts d'ingénierie en supprimant la nécessité d'encoder la signification de chaque signal instructif.Nous implémentons notre système sous la forme d'une architecture modulaire, appelée TICS, qui permet de combiner différentes sources d'information: une fonction de récompense, du feedback évaluatif et des instructions non labellisées. Cela offre une plus grande souplesse dans l'apprentissage, en permettant à l'utilisateur de choisir entre différents modes d'apprentissage. Nous proposons plusieurs méthodes pour interpréter les instructions, et une nouvelle méthode pour combiner les feedbacks évaluatifs avec une fonction de récompense prédéfinie.Nous évaluons notre système à travers une série d'expériences, réalisées à la fois en simulation et avec de vrais robots. Les résultats expérimentaux démontrent l'efficacité de notre système pour accélérer le processus d'apprentissage et pour réduire le nombre d'interactions avec l'utilisateurMost of current interactive learning systems rely on predefined protocols that constrain the interaction with the user. Relaxing the constraints of interaction protocols can therefore improve the usability of these systems.This thesis tackles the question of interpreting human instructions, in order to relax the constraints about predetermining their meanings. We propose a framework that enables a human teacher to shape a robot behaviour, by interactively providing it with unlabeled instructions. Our approach consists in grounding the meaning of instruction signals in the task learning process, and using them simultaneously for guiding the latter. This approach has a two-fold advantage. First, it provides more freedom to the teacher in choosing his preferred signals. Second, it reduces the required engineering efforts, by removing the necessity to encode the meaning of each instruction signal. We implement our framework as a modular architecture, named TICS, that offers the possibility to combine different information sources: a predefined reward function, evaluative feedback and unlabeled instructions. This allows for more flexibility in the teaching process, by enabling the teacher to switch between different learning modes. Particularly, we propose several methods for interpreting instructions, and a new method for combining evaluative feedback with a predefined reward function. We evaluate our framework through a series of experiments, performed both in simulation and with real robots. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework in accelerating the task learning process, and in reducing the number of required interactions with the teacher
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Waldron, Julie A. "Human behaviour outdoors and the environmental factors." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/52112/.
Full textAbstract:
The study of human behaviour outdoors has been an area of interest examined from different perspectives. Even so, the study of human behaviour in outdoor public spaces still requires further input from the perspective of human factors. This thesis presents a literature review of behaviour in public spaces where the author evaluated the attendance to public squares, the activities performed by users, the time of permanence, the sitting preferences of users and people’s characteristics among other behaviours. Previous studies have reported a relationship between thermal comfort and human behaviour; however, there is a lack of studies approaching the study of human behaviour using observational methods which allows assessing human behaviours such as number of people, number of groups, time of permanence among others, taking into account environmental factors such as: air temperature, globe temperature, mean radiant temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, sun and shadow presence and illuminance. As part of this research, three studies were conducted in the city centre of Nottingham during summer and autumn of 2015 and winter of 2016 in order to collect data of human behaviour and find its relationship with the air and globe temperature, calculated mean radiant temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and illuminance. These studies were conducted using observational methods by creating a coding scheme after conducting video analysis of social and individual behaviours. A methodology was created to incorporate processes that allow gathering data for observational analysis, which was subsequently processed using multiple regression models and survival analyses. The overall analysis led to the identification of the main environmental factors influencing human behaviour across different environmental conditions. The studies and analyses conducted showed that various environmental factors work together to influence the decisions of the users of a public space. Accordingly, the models used to predict human behaviour should include the environmental variables that explain better its variability, based on the environmental data of the place. Moreover, this study showed that individual analysis should be performed on a seasonal basis using the environmental and human behaviour data of each season in addition to the analysis performed to the whole data set. The reason for this is that the seasonal data is better at explaining some human behaviours than the model built with the whole data set collected in various seasons. For instance, the relationship between wind speed and number of people is positive during summer and negative during autumn and winter; however, when the three seasons are analysed together, the relationship is negative, which does not explain accurately the phenomena in summer. Conversely, illuminance was found to be an important factor influencing behaviour across the seasons and also contributed to the prediction of behaviour in the all season’s analysis. Finally, this thesis presents an application of the results by presenting general recommendations of urban design based on the findings of analysing human behaviour in accordance with the thermal environment. The studies conducted during the three seasons presented a cross-internal validation of the multiple regression models. In addition, a final study which consisted of a mock scenario was conducted to perform an external validation of the previous results. A number of conclusions were drawn about the conditions required to perform further external validations, following the parameters identified that may affect the results of the validation.