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ItemA Colorful Formalization of the Typological Prevalence Hypothesis(The Cognitive Science Society, 2023)Languages vary in the way they categorize semantic domains. Incidentally certain semantic systems appear more often than others across the world. Recent research has shown that the attested variability can be explained as the result of languages being a plurality of optimal solutions to efficiency constraints. However, the question of the prevalence remains open. Assuming that languages are a form of culturally transmitted cognitive technology, the Typological Prevalence Hypothesis proposes that the prevalence of a linguistic system is explained by how cognitively natural it is to learn and use. We aim to formalize and test this hypothesis by proposing an information-theoretic measure of communicative and developmental naturalness applied to color typology. While controlling for phylogenetic relatedness, we find that both communicative and developmental naturalness are important predictors of typological prevalence.
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ItemEnhancing Predictive Modeling in Emergency Departments(SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, 2024)Increasing global Emergency Department (ED) visits, exacerbated by COVID-19, has presented multiple challenges in recent years. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) as comprehensive digital repositories of patient health information offer a pathway to construct prediction systems to address these issues. However, the heterogeneity of EHRs complicates accurate predictions. A notable challenge is the prevalence of high-cardinality nominal features (NFs) in EHRs. Due to their numerous distinct values, these features are often excluded from the analysis, risking information loss, reduced accuracy, and interpretability. This study proposes a framework, integrating a preprocessing technique with target encoding (TE-PrepNet) into machine learning (ML) models to address challenges of NFs from MIMIC-IV-ED. We evaluate performance of TE-PrepNet in two specific ED-based prediction tasks: triage-based hospital admissions and ED reattendance within 72 hours at discharge time. Incorporating three NFs, our approach demonstrates improvements compared to the baseline and outperforms previous research that overlooked NFs. Random forest model with TE-PrepNet in the prediction of hospitalisation achieved an AUROC of 0.8458, compared to the baseline AUROC of 0.7520. For the prediction of ED reattendance within 72 hours, the utilisation of XGBoost yielded an improvement, attaining an AUROC of 0.6975, outperforming the baseline AUROC of 0.6166.
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ItemHigh resolution bio-imaging via inverse design of metasurfaces(SPIE, 2024-03-08)Metasurfaces with angular sensitivity have been shown to provide a platform for developing an ultra-compact phase imaging system. Their performance, however, is often limited to a narrow range of spatial frequencies. Here, we apply inverse design to design and fabricate a metasurface an asymmetric optical transfer function across a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.6. The engineered response of this device enables phase imaging of microscopic transparent objects.
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ItemExamining the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on technology-enabled social interactions(ACM, 2023)This study investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on technology-enabled social interactions using the Social Presence Theory (SPT). Cross-sectional data were collected through an online survey, with participation from 515 Australian adults aged 18 years and above. Bivariate and multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that age group differences significantly predicted satisfaction levels with online interactions, with the 18-40 age group being less satisfied than participants aged 41 and over. In addition, face-to-face interaction was highly preferred over online interactions. Socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, and marital status were significantly associated with the type of interaction individuals reported missing the most when they could not interact face-to-face. Most participants reported missing physical and emotional connection when they could not interact face-to-face. The study adds to the existing knowledge about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on social interactions, providing insights into both practical paraphernalia and implications for further research.
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ItemReevaluating the Land Use Impact of a Li-ion Battery Related Mining Project: A Case Study of Greenbushes Mine(Elsevier BV, 2024)The mining industry plays a pivotal role in the global transition towards clean energy, driven by the escalating demand for critical elements like lithium. However, this growth raises profound environmental concerns, particularly regarding land use, global warming potential, water consumption, acidification, eutrophication, and toxicity. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has historically relied on approximations and theoretical methods, resulting in systematic underestimations of these impacts. This study begins to address part of this discrepancy by leveraging remote sensing technologies to gather empirical evidence. Focusing on the Greenbushes mining site in Australia, a comprehensive investigation was conducted to quantitatively evaluate the direct land use impact from satellite imagery over the life of the project. Comparative analyses were performed against various mid-point Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods. The findings unequivocally reveal a substantial under-reporting of the land use impact, highlighting the critical need for more accurate assessments in the context of mining activities. This research underscores the importance of empirical data in refining our understanding of the environmental footprint associated with mining operations, particularly in the critical context of clean energy transition. The study emphasises the imperative to reevaluate and adjust existing approaches to accurately account for the full scope of environmental impacts associated with mining operations.
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ItemAn exploration of public perceptions of place character in the Pathuriaghata neighborhood of Kolkata, India(AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society), 2023)People living in one location for a considerable period of time often form what has been termed ‘place attachments’ to those locations and their associated features. In historic cities continuously inhabited by generations of people, long-time residents interact with the landscape settings, associating meanings, uses, and values to different landscape features to form person-place bonds, such that these features in the landscape become integral to their own sense of personal identity― Proshanky has termed this as ‘person-place identity’ since it conveys the person’s own aspect of individual identity that gets mediated by the physical environment and the meanings and values associated with particular places and associated features to which they have become attached. In this way certain features in the landscape can serve as perceptual cues that remind residents of where they belong and who they are and can become ingrained as their ‘place-memory’. As early as 1925 it was suggested by Maurice Halbwachs that landscape features in a place are not remembered in isolation, but together as ‘collective memory’ of a landscape setting. Groups of people residing in one place for long periods of time can share similar memories and person-place bonds that give rise to ‘cultural memories’ allowing the ‘concretion of identity’ of a place to occur. This is experienced as the distinctive ‘feel’ or ‘character’ of a place as expressed by its landscape and associated place features, people, history, and ways of life. In the case of any historic city, historical urban patinas collage together conveying place identity through cultural memory that is often of heritage value and an important resource for sustaining good quality of life. Natural and cultural (tangible and intangible) heritages support the livability of residents through providing sustainable local economies, traditional livelihoods, use of local resources in traditional arts and crafts, and environment-friendly methods of construction. According to the ICOMOS Burra Charter 1999 “places of cultural significance enrich people’s lives, often providing a deep and inspirational sense of connection to community and landscape, to the past and to lived experiences”; this charter further suggests that changes to such places should entail “as little as possible so that its cultural significance is retained.”
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ItemExploring residents' definition and use of neighbourhood leftover spaces in Colombo, Sri Lanka(Amps (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society), 2023)Urban leftover spaces are the residual spaces or cracks in cities that form due to rapid urban development. "urban voids" These types of spaces have also been referred to as "lost spaces", "loose spaces", They are typically vacant, neglected, or underutilized spaces within highly urbanized areas and can be permanent or temporary. They are often considered urban spaces awaiting future use. and "informal urban green spaces". These types of spaces have been studied for over five decades, with much of that research aimed at understanding their characteristics and potential uses in urban environments. The specific socio-economic and environmental context in which the spaces occur often influences the results. While these spaces occur at different urban scales and land use zones, their presence at the neighbourhood level has often been overlooked. Furthermore, although interest in these spaces has dramatically increased in recent years, their specific uses and definitions are often unclear due to the various ways they are interpreted and perceived.
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ItemCommunity-perceptions of place-character and associated meanings in the context of a contemporary cultural landscape: the case of the historic neighbourhood of Pathuriaghata in Kolkata, India(AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society), 2023)In 1925, Carl Sauer defined a cultural landscape as the “union of physical and cultural elements of the landscape” wherein “cultures … grow with original vigor out of the lap of a maternal natural landscape, to which each is bound in the whole course of its existence.” In 1992, for the first time, UNESCO considered cultural landscapes as holding Outstanding Universal Values (OUV) based on heritage values and promoted the idea of the necessity of protecting such landscapes. Cultural landscapes are shaped through the interaction between humans and the natural geography of places wherein different features in these settings become associated with human activities, memories, and histories over time, thereby accruing meanings and values. Such human-nature interactions contribute to specific settings' place identities. Place identity represents that part of people’s self-identity is defined by elements within their everyday environment to which they are affiliated. Communities living in a particular cultural landscape for a considerable period often share similar perceptions with others inhabiting the same landscape setting. They form emotional bonds, or place attachments, with key features in the landscape that others can also share in the same environment. As places and their societies evolve, new meanings and values concerning the landscape emerge, adding new features to urban landscapes, often transforming valuable heritage settings to ones of global uniformity devoid of deep meanings. Over time, important features in the landscape develop patinas and coexist as collective memories that convey meanings and values from different periods referred to this as the collective historic urban fabric composing a ‘collage city’, suggesting that places with distinctive identities can transform over time the image of a city, within cultural landscapes. Rowe and Koetter over generations, to attain heritage value for society. thereby defining ‘cultural identities’ Identifying the tangible and intangible cultural and heritage value associated with landscape features can provide clues as to what is most important to be conserved to maintain the distinctive character of the place into the future and, conversely, what might be able to be sacrificed for newer development.
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ItemStrategy Extraction in Single-Agent Games(AAMAS, 2023)The ability to continuously learn and adapt to new situations is one where humans are far superior compared to AI agents. We propose an approach to knowledge transfer using behavioural strategies as a form of transferable knowledge influenced by the human cognitive ability to develop strategies. A strategy is defined as a partial sequence of events – where an event is both the result of an agent’s action and changes in state – to reach some predefined event of interest. This information acts as guidance or a partial solution that an agent can generalise and use to make predictions about how to handle unknown observed phenomena. As a first step toward this goal, we develop a method for extracting strategies from an agent’s existing knowledge that can be applied in multiple contexts. Our method combines observed event frequency information with local sequence alignment techniques to find patterns of significance that form a strategy. We show that our method can identify plausible strategies in three environments: Pacman, Bank Heist and a dungeon-crawling video game. Our evaluation serves as a promising first step toward extracting knowledge for generalisation and, ultimately, transfer learning.
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ItemContinuing Professional Development programmes through the lens of Habermas’ Knowledge-Constitutive Interests: a novel approach to evaluating and (re)designing CPD(AMEE, 2024)Background: Clinician-educators are usually experienced clinicians seeking information and strategies to improve their teaching. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes can address a range of learning requirements for clinician-educators if they can respond to the particular educational and contextual needs of participants. A critical review of a one-day postgraduate course was conducted. It focused on how the course was tailored to the learning needs and interests of participants and drew on the early work of Jürgen Habermas and his Knowledge-Constitutive Interests schema in its analysis. Habermas describes technical, practical and emancipatory interests. For clinician-educator CPD, ‘teaching tips that work’ align with the technical interest, while learning why certain teaching techniques suit specific situations or learners is a practical interest. Understanding the material so attendees can flexibly apply it in their context aligns with the emancipatory interest in autonomy. Summary of Work: Examination of the course through the lens of Habermas' interests was conducted by asking: What type of interest does each session target? How does it do this? How could the teaching method shift from fostering technical or practical knowledge towards meeting the participants' emancipatory interests?