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Dr Jethro Shell

Job: VC2020 Senior Lecturer

Faculty: Computing, Engineering and Media

School/department: School of Computer Science and Informatics

Research group(s): Centre for Computational Intelligence (CCI)

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, UK

T: 44 (0)116 207 8520

E: jethros@dmu.ac.uk

 

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Personal profile

Whilst working for Panasonic Computer Products (Europe), Dr Shell completed a part time MSc in Information Technology at De Montfort University, finishing his studies in 2008. Following a 10 year career with Panasonic, he left industry to return to academia completing a PhD at De Montfort University. The focus of his PhD was on sparse data environments where the ability to gain labelled data is initially either extremely difficult or impossible. Environments such as extremely remote locations, ad-hoc structures or user groups that are very specific. These environments often also produce uncertain and vague data. To address these issues he constructed a framework that combined a fuzzy logic representation of the data with a transductive transfer learning approach.

Dr Shell has been a Principal Investigator (PI) on a number of internal and externally funded (including Horizon2020) projects that involve the application of Computational Intelligence (CI) and gaming applications.

The research interests of Dr Shell are focussed around the application of Computational Intelligence, specifically fuzzy logic and transfer learning across and within three main areas: gaming, healthcare and HCI.

He is currently a senior lecturer and researcher in Games and Information Systems at De Montfort University

Research group affiliations

Centre for Computational Intelligence (CCI)

De Montfort University Games And interactive MEdia Research (DMU:GAMER)

Publications and outputs

  • Developing and delivering in block: Reflections one year in
    dc.title: Developing and delivering in block: Reflections one year in dc.contributor.author: Allman, Zoe; Coupland, Simon; Attwood, Luke; Fahy, Conor; Hasshu, Salim; Khuman, A. S.; Shell, Jethro
  • Designing VR training systems for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
    dc.title: Designing VR training systems for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) dc.contributor.author: Shell, Jethro; Kwan, H. Y.; Lin, L.; Fahy, C.; Pang, S.; Xing, Y.
  • Virtual Reality Research: Design Virtual Education System for Epidemic (COVID-19) Knowledge to Public
    dc.title: Virtual Reality Research: Design Virtual Education System for Epidemic (COVID-19) Knowledge to Public dc.contributor.author: xing, Yongkang; Liang, Zhanti; Fahy, Conor; Shell, Jethro; Guan, Kexin; Liu, Yuxi; Zhang, Qian dc.description.abstract: Advances in information and communication technologies have created a range of new products and services for the well-being of society. Virtual Reality (VR) technology has shown enormous potential in educational, commercial, and medical fields. The recent COVID-19 outbreak highlights a poor global performance in communicating epidemic knowledge to the public. Considering the potential of VR, the research starts from analyzing how to use VR technology to improve public education in COVID-19. The research uses Virtual Storytelling Technology (VST) to promote enthusiasm in user participation. A Plot-based VR education system is proposed in order to provide an immersive, explorative, educational experiences. The system includes three primary modules: the Tutorial Module, the Preparation Module, and the Investigation Module. To remove any potential confusion in the user, the research aims to avoid extremely complicated medical professional content and uses interactive, entertainment methods to improve user participation. In order to evaluate the performance efficiency of the system, we conducted performance evaluations and a user study with 80 participants. Compared with traditional education, the experimental results show that the VR education system can used as an effective educational tool for epidemic (COVID-19) fundamental knowledge. The VR technology can assist government agencies and public organizations to increase public understanding of the spread the epidemic (COVID-19) dc.description: open access article
  • Historical Data Trend Analysis in Extended Reality Education Field
    dc.title: Historical Data Trend Analysis in Extended Reality Education Field dc.contributor.author: Shell, Jethro; Xing, Yongkang; Liang, Zhanti; Fahy, Conor; Guan, Kexin; Liu, Guan dc.description.abstract: The arrival of the digital age brings Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality technologies into our daily life. It provides a brand-new user experience to composite with real environments. Due to the development of related devices in recent years, the highly interactive connections between users and devices have gradually evolved. The paper starts from a literature review to discuss Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality's history and social impact. The review reveals not only the traditional historical review but also contains a data research study. The research focuses on the case study paper, which proposed a bright, interactive future with technology in educational field. We compared the proposed future view and the current development. This paper collected 269 citations from 2005 to 2020 and analyzed them, assessing whether they belonged to technical or theoretical paper. The paper uses the collected data to discuss industrial developing trends and indicates the possible future view based on the data study result.
  • What Do We See: An Investigation Into the Representation of Disability in Video Games
    dc.title: What Do We See: An Investigation Into the Representation of Disability in Video Games dc.contributor.author: Shell, Jethro dc.description.abstract: There has been a large body of research focused on the representation of gender in video games. Disproportionately, there has been very little research in respect to the representation of disability. This research was aimed at examining the representation of disabled characters through a method of content analysis of trailers combined with a survey of video gamers. The overall results showed that disabled characters were under-represented in videogames trailers, and respondents to the survey viewed disabled characters as the least represented group. Both methods of research concluded that the representation of disabled characters was low. Additionally, the characters represented were predominantly secondary, non-playable characters not primary. However, the research found that the defined character type was a mixture of protagonists and antagonists, bucking the standard view of disabled characters in video games.
  • A fast and efficient semantic short text similarity metric
    dc.title: A fast and efficient semantic short text similarity metric dc.contributor.author: Shell, Jethro; Coupland, Simon; Croft, David; Brown, Stephen dc.description.abstract: The semantic comparison of short sections of text is an emerging aspect of Natural Language Processing (NLP). In this paper we present a novel Short Text Semantic Similarity (STSS) method, Lightweight Semantic Similarity (LSS), to address the issues that arise with sparse text representation. The proposed approach captures the semantic information contained when comparing text to process the similarity. The methodology combines semantic term similarities with a vector similarity method used within statistical analysis. A modification of the term vectors using synset similarity values addresses issues that are encountered with sparse text. LSS is shown to be comparable to current semantic similarity approaches, LSA and STASIS, whilst having a lower computational footprint.
  • Healthcare Facility Coverage for Malaria and Sickle Cell Disease Treatment: A Spatial Analysis of Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State
    dc.title: Healthcare Facility Coverage for Malaria and Sickle Cell Disease Treatment: A Spatial Analysis of Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State dc.contributor.author: Olowofoyeku, Olukemi; Shell, Jethro; Goodyer, Eric A.; Deka, Lipika dc.description.abstract: The escalating population growth in Nigeria calls for urgent attention to malaria control and the provision of accessible public health care for treatment of the disease (appropriate malaria treatment and intervention can, in turn, bring a reduction in the sickle cell disease (SCD) crisis). Malaria is a major cause of visits to healthcare facilities, which is amplified by the malaria interaction with SCD. Access to treatment is a basic need of the population in a country; however, in Nigeria, access to health care is generally poor. Healthcare facilities are sparsely distributed and services inadequate to take care of the health needs of the whole population. This article discusses malaria and SCD prevalence in Nigeria and analyses the spatial distribution of primary healthcare facilities in the Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria, using Geographic Information System (GIS). Analysis is based on existing facility locations in relation to 15 and 30 minutes’ walking time in a 1-km and 2-km catchment radius, respectively. The results show primary health center (PHC) facilities’ coverage of 48 percent for 2-km catchment radius and 15 percent for 1-km catchment. Based on this analysis, this article argues that there is a need to increase the number of facilities for treatment that are optimally located to take care of travel distance and expand facility coverage. This will reduce mortality and morbidity rates due to the diseases. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • INNATE: Intelligent Non-invasive Nocturnal epilepsy Assistive TEchnology
    dc.title: INNATE: Intelligent Non-invasive Nocturnal epilepsy Assistive TEchnology dc.contributor.author: Malekmohamadi, Hossein; Shell, Jethro; Coupland, Simon dc.description.abstract: Epilepsy is a neurological disease that affects the brain and is characterised by repeated seizures. Generalised, focal and unknown are three major types of seizures. Each type has several subgroups. For this reason, seizure detection and classification are expensive and erroneous. Other factors can also affect the detection. For example, patients can have a combination of different seizures or start with one type and finish with another. Nocturnal epilepsy can be prominent in many sufferers of this disease. This displays seizures that occur during the sleep cycle. The nature of such seizures makes the gathering of data and the subsequent detection and classification complex and costly. The current standard for seizure detection is the invasive use of electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring. Both medical and research communities have expressed a large interest in the detection and classification of seizures automatically and non-invasively. This project proposes the use of 3D computer vision and pattern recognition techniques to detect seizures non-invasively.
  • Logan's run: Lane optimisation using genetic algorithms based on nsga-ii
    dc.title: Logan's run: Lane optimisation using genetic algorithms based on nsga-ii dc.contributor.author: Witheridge, S.; Passow, Benjamin N.; Shell, Jethro dc.description.abstract: Whilst bus lanes are an important tool to ensure bus time reliability their presence can be detrimental to urban traffic. In this paper a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) has been adopted to study the effect of bus lanes on urban traffic in terms of location and time of operation. Due to the complex nature of this problem traditional search would not be feasible. An artificial arterial route has been modelled from real data to evaluate candidate solutions. The results confirm this methodology for the purpose of studying and identifying bus lane locations and times of operation. Additionally it is shown that bus lanes can exist on an arterial link without exclusively occupying a continuous lane for large periods of time. Furthermore results indicate a use for this methodology over a larger scale and potential near real-time operation.
  • Towards dynamic accessibility through soft gaze gesture recognition
    dc.title: Towards dynamic accessibility through soft gaze gesture recognition dc.contributor.author: Shell, Jethro; Vickers, Stephen; Istance, Howell; Coupland, Simon dc.description.abstract: It is difficult for some sets of users with physical disabilities to operate standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse. Eye gaze technologies and more specifically gaze gestures are emerging to assist such users. There is a high level of inter and intra user variation in the ability to perform gaze gestures due to the high levels of noise with the gaze patterns. In this paper we use a novel fuzzy transfer learning approach in order to construct a fuzzy system for gaze gesture recognition which can be automatically adapted for different users and/or user groups. We show that the fuzzy system is able to recognise gestures across groups of both able bodied (AB) and disabled users through the use of a base of AB data surpassing an expert constructed classifier.

Click here to view a full listing of Jethro Shell's publications and outputs.

Research interests/expertise

  • Computational intelligence
  • Computer game AI
  • Fuzzy logic
  • Transfer learning
  • Dynamic content generation
  • Medical applications of CI
  • Human computer interface
  • Sensors
  • Virtual reality

Areas of teaching

  • Game design
  • Mobile games
  • Fuzzy logic
  • Games projects
  • UML
  • Game AI
  • Physics

Qualifications

  • MSc
  • PhD

Courses taught

  • IMAT1606: Game Architecture, Design and Development
  • IMAT2608: Mobile Games
  • IMAT2800: Mechanics and Artificial Intelligence For Simulation
  • IMAT3406: Fuzzy Logic and Knowledge Based Systems
  • IMAT3451: Computing Project

Externally funded research grants information

3D-TuneIn: H2020 project to produce digital games applied to hearing aids to address social inclusion, 01 June 2015 to 31 May 2018, Principal Investigator (Imperial College, University of Nottingham, Vianet, Reactify, University of Malaga)

Internally funded research project information

INNATE: HEIF Project to detect and predict nocturnal seizures using non-invasive techniques, 6 Jan - 01 June 2016, Principal Investigator.

Professional esteem indicators

  • IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, Jan 2014, current, reviewer
  • Sensors, March 2014, current, reviewer
  • IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, Oct 2016, current, reviewer