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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
31

Memory Aids as Collaboration Technology

Wu, Michael 23 February 2011 (has links)
The loss of memory can have a profound and disabling effect on individuals. People who acquire memory impairments are often unable to live independent lives because they cannot remember what they need to do. In many cases, they rely on family members who live with them. When I carried out ethnographic fieldwork to explore this domain, I observed that individuals with amnesia were surrounded by family members who provided extensive memory support (e.g. reminders). I found that such families very worked closely together to accomplish everyday activities, such as coordinating a family outing or planning a doctor’s appointment. However, these activities were often undermined by family members forgetting. This led me to view memory aids as collaboration technology, rather than as tools that only support an individual’s memory. My dissertation explores this idea and how it can lead to more appropriate designs of assistive technology. To design collaborative assistive technology, I involved persons with amnesia and their family members in a process of participatory design. The design team included six individuals with amnesia, two neuropsychologists, and myself. Five family members were also involved in later stages. This team envisioned the design of a shared calendar application, called Family-Link, that I implemented for Palm mobile devices. I evaluated Family-Link by comparing it to the commercially available Palm Calendar in a six-month study with four families. I found that participants had significantly more shared events when using Family-Link than when using Palm Calendar. Qualitative evidence suggests that Family-Link increased all participants’ awareness of other family members’ schedules, provided caregivers with a greater a sense of security by enabling them to track their family member with amnesia, and reduced the amount of effort that caregivers needed to coordinate. Family-Link also fulfilled the individual needs of persons with amnesia by providing an information storage and retrieval mechanism. However, persons with amnesia and caregivers differed in their opinions about which features were useful. Family-Link can be a particularly important tool for families where members are not co-located throughout the day.
32

Design of a Multiple-User Intelligent Feeding Robot for Elderly and Disabled

Pourmohammadali, Homeyra 17 May 2007 (has links)
The number of elderly people around the world is growing rapidly. This has led to an increase in the number of people who are seeking assistance and adequate service either at home or in long-term- care institutions to successfully accomplish their daily activities. Responding to these needs has been a burden to the health care system in terms of labour and associated costs and has motivated research in developing alternative services using new technologies. Various intelligent, and non-intelligent, machines and robots have been developed to meet the needs of elderly and people with upper limb disabilities or dysfunctions in gaining independence in eating, which is one of the most frequent and time-consuming everyday tasks. However, in almost all cases, the proposed systems are designed only for the personal use of one individual and little effort to design a multiple-user feeding robot has been previously made. The feeding requirements of elderly in environments such as senior homes, where many elderly residents dine together at least three times per day, have not been extensively researched before. The aim of this research was to develop a machine to feed multiple elderly people based on their characteristics and feeding needs, as determined through observations at a nursing home. Observations of the elderly during meal times have revealed that almost 40% of the population was totally dependent on nurses or caregivers to be fed. Most of those remaining, suffered from hand tremors, joint pain or lack of hand muscle strength, which made utensil manipulation and coordination very difficult and the eating process both messy and lengthy. In addition, more than 43% of the elderly were very slow in eating because of chewing and swallowing problems and most of the rest were slow in scooping and directing utensils toward their mouths. Consequently, one nurse could only respond to a maximum of two diners simultaneously. In order to manage the needs of all elderly diners, they required the assistance of additional staff members. The limited time allocated for each meal and the daily progression of the seniors’ disabilities also made mealtime very challenging. Based on the caregivers’ opinion, many of the elderly in such environments can benefit from a machine capable of feeding multiple users simultaneously. Since eating is a slow procedure, the idle state of the robot during one user’s chewing and swallowing time can be allotted for feeding another person who is sitting at the same table. The observations and studies have resulted in the design of a food tray, and selection of an appropriate robot and applicable user interface. The proposed system uses a 6-DOF serial articulated robot in the center of a four-seat table along with a specifically designed food tray to feed one to four people. It employs a vision interface for food detection and recognition. Building the dynamic equations of the robotic system and simulation of the system were used to verify its dynamic behaviour before any prototyping and real-time testing.
33

Development of a Concept Wheelchair for the Elderly

Cope, Clinton D. 12 April 2006 (has links)
This thesis describes the research, design, and development of a mid-drive wheelchair for use by the elders living independently, in assisted living facilities, and in nursing homes created by a design team at Georgia Tech's Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA). This wheelchair stands to significantly improve the mobility of elders through better drive wheel placement and design features that could stand to improve their quality of life.
34

Bayesian Optimization and Semiparametric Models with Applications to Assistive Technology

Snoek, Jasper Roland 14 January 2014 (has links)
Advances in machine learning are having a profound impact on disciplines spanning the sciences. Assistive technology and health informatics are fields for which minor improvements achieved through leveraging more advanced machine learning algorithms can translate to major real world impact. However, successful application of machine learning currently requires broad domain knowledge to determine which model is appropriate for a given task, and model specific expertise to configure a model to a problem of interest. A major motivation for this thesis was: How can we make machine learning more accessible to assistive technology and health informatics researchers? Naturally, a complementary goal is to make machine learning more accessible in general. Specifically, in this thesis we explore how to automate the role of a machine learning expert through automatically adapting models and adjusting parameters to a given task of interest. This thesis consists of a number of contributions towards solving this challenging open problem in machine learning and these are empirically validated on four real-world applications. Through an interesting theoretical link between two seemingly disparate latent variable models, we create a hybrid model that allows one to flexibly interpolate over a parametric unsupervised neural network, a classification neural network and a non-parametric Gaussian process. We demonstrate empirically that this non-parametrically guided autoencoder allows one to learn a latent representation that is more useful for a given task of interest. We establish methods for automatically configuring machine learning model hyperparameters using Bayesian optimization. We develop Bayesian methods for integrating over parameters, explore the use of different priors over functions, and develop methods to run experiments in parallel. We demonstrate empirically that these methods find better hyperparameters on recent benchmark problems spanning machine learning in significantly less experiments than the methods employed by the problems' authors. We further establish methods for incorporating parameter dependent variable cost in the optimization procedure. These methods find better hyperparameters in less cost, such as time, or within bounded cost, such as before a deadline. Additionally, we develop a constrained Bayesian optimization variant and demonstrate its superiority over the standard procedure in the presence of unknown constraints.
35

Identification and Development of Individualized Access Pathways Based on Response Efficiency Theory

Mumford, Leslie 15 December 2011 (has links)
Despite the evident advantages of assistive technologies, many are still abandoned within the first few months of use. The key to changing this may lie in the assessment process, which has been described as the most consequential phase in the provision of assistive technology [14]. The purpose of this research was to create a protocol for the assessment and delivery of individualized access technologies based on the concepts of response efficiency theory. The protocol was applied with three children, ages 12 to 14, who were seeking new access technologies. The results suggest that a protocol based on this theory will result in a technology that is appropriate to the user, and as a result will be less likely to be abandoned and will contribute to goal achievement and potentially improve participation.
36

Bayesian Optimization and Semiparametric Models with Applications to Assistive Technology

Snoek, Jasper Roland 14 January 2014 (has links)
Advances in machine learning are having a profound impact on disciplines spanning the sciences. Assistive technology and health informatics are fields for which minor improvements achieved through leveraging more advanced machine learning algorithms can translate to major real world impact. However, successful application of machine learning currently requires broad domain knowledge to determine which model is appropriate for a given task, and model specific expertise to configure a model to a problem of interest. A major motivation for this thesis was: How can we make machine learning more accessible to assistive technology and health informatics researchers? Naturally, a complementary goal is to make machine learning more accessible in general. Specifically, in this thesis we explore how to automate the role of a machine learning expert through automatically adapting models and adjusting parameters to a given task of interest. This thesis consists of a number of contributions towards solving this challenging open problem in machine learning and these are empirically validated on four real-world applications. Through an interesting theoretical link between two seemingly disparate latent variable models, we create a hybrid model that allows one to flexibly interpolate over a parametric unsupervised neural network, a classification neural network and a non-parametric Gaussian process. We demonstrate empirically that this non-parametrically guided autoencoder allows one to learn a latent representation that is more useful for a given task of interest. We establish methods for automatically configuring machine learning model hyperparameters using Bayesian optimization. We develop Bayesian methods for integrating over parameters, explore the use of different priors over functions, and develop methods to run experiments in parallel. We demonstrate empirically that these methods find better hyperparameters on recent benchmark problems spanning machine learning in significantly less experiments than the methods employed by the problems' authors. We further establish methods for incorporating parameter dependent variable cost in the optimization procedure. These methods find better hyperparameters in less cost, such as time, or within bounded cost, such as before a deadline. Additionally, we develop a constrained Bayesian optimization variant and demonstrate its superiority over the standard procedure in the presence of unknown constraints.
37

Acquiring Assistive Technology for Vision and Hearing Impairments: The Experience of End Users as Consumers in Canada

Hill, Mary E. January 2007 (has links)
This study used survey methodology to investigate the experience of acquiring assistive technology, from learning about products, to purchasing and paying for them, to evaluating how well they perform. It examined both the challenges faced and the factors that may help people acquire products. The participants were 251 adults with vision and hearing impairments, recruited from across Canada. The results revealed that the high cost of products and lack of funding for assistive technology were the main barriers faced by respondents. Intermediaries, such as community organizations and health care providers, were found to be important facilitators of access to assistive technology. Financial support to cover product costs increased respondents’ access to higher cost items. While the majority of respondents were quite or very satisfied with their products, hearing product consumers were less satisfied than vision product consumers, yet were likely to have paid more for their products.
38

Identification and Development of Individualized Access Pathways Based on Response Efficiency Theory

Mumford, Leslie 15 December 2011 (has links)
Despite the evident advantages of assistive technologies, many are still abandoned within the first few months of use. The key to changing this may lie in the assessment process, which has been described as the most consequential phase in the provision of assistive technology [14]. The purpose of this research was to create a protocol for the assessment and delivery of individualized access technologies based on the concepts of response efficiency theory. The protocol was applied with three children, ages 12 to 14, who were seeking new access technologies. The results suggest that a protocol based on this theory will result in a technology that is appropriate to the user, and as a result will be less likely to be abandoned and will contribute to goal achievement and potentially improve participation.
39

TEACHER EDUCATORS' TECHNOLOGY DECISIONS AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEY MODEL TECHNOLOGIES FOR INCLUSIVE CLASSROOMS IN TEACHING METHOD COURSES

Kalonde, Gilbert 01 May 2014 (has links)
The purpose of this study was threefold; (1) to identify instructional technologies teacher educators use in teaching methods courses, (2) to identify the factors that influence their decisions for using such technologies in teaching methods courses, and (3) to investigate the extent to which teacher educators address the use of technology in inclusion in teaching methods courses. In this study, thirty teacher educators responded to fourteen Likert Scale questions, seven open-ended questions, listed technologies they use in the methods courses, and 5 of the teacher educators responded to another seven interview questions. The study used a concurrent mixed methods research design and used t-test, analysis of variances and Wilcoxon to analyze quantitative data. For qualitative data, collected through the Open-ended Questionnaire and Technology Inventory Checklist and the semi-structured interview responses were analyzed using open-coding. The results showed that teacher educators do use several technologies. However, the technologies they use are mostly instructional technologies and not inclusive technologies. In addition, the technologies used are more of content management like Desire to Learn and Black Board. Very few pedagogical and content delivery technologies are modeled to pre-service teachers. The study found that, regardless of teacher educators' experience, tenure and non-tenure, they all model technology similarly and not much variety of technology is used. They also minimally model inclusive technologies in the methods courses. The extent teacher educators model technology to pre-service teachers was low. While one third of the participants reported modeling technology for inclusion, the results also showed that two thirds of teacher educators modeled technology minimally. These results concurred with the results from the technology inventory list which showed that very few inclusive technologies are modeled to pre-service teachers in the methods courses. Study also found a non-significant effect on technology use and technologies used due gender, tenure, K-12 teaching experience or technology training. These results have an implication on how teacher educators integrate, use and model technology in the methods courses to pre-service teachers.
40

An exploration into the implementation of monitoring technologies in care homes for people with dementia

Hall, Alex James January 2016 (has links)
Background: An ageing society and rising prevalence in dementia are associated with rising demand for care home places. Monitoring technologies (e.g. bed-exit alarms; wearable location-tracking devices) are appealing because of their potential to enhance safety, increase resident freedom, and reduce staff burden. However, it is unclear how far use of such technologies can deliver potential benefits, and there are ethical challenges from their use. This study explored the implementation of monitoring technologies in care homes for people with dementia, to identify facilitators and barriers to the implementation of these technologies in practice. Methods: An embedded multiple-case study design was employed with 3 dementia-specialist care homes in North-West England. Data collection included 36 semi-structured interviews with staff, relatives and residents, informed by Normalization Process Theory to focus on individual and organisational factors within implementation; 175 hours’ non-participant observation; investigation of care records and technology manufacturer literature; and questionnaires to establish participant attitudes towards technologies. Qualitative data were analysed using Framework Analysis. Findings: 5 overarching themes emerged: (1) Reasons for using technologies; (2) How technologies were implemented; (3) What happened when using technologies; (4) Understanding of technologies; (5) Business and environmental influences. Mitigation of risk seemed to override other potential benefits (e.g. resident freedom) or ethical concerns (e.g. the remote monitoring of residents with impaired cognition), as a reason for use. This emphasis seemed to position monitoring technologies as being understood as fundamentally different to other interventions, and challenged adherence to philosophies of care emphasising resident choice. Some staff, relatives and residents did not seem to be involved in discussion and decision-making regarding technologies, and seemed to lack knowledge about technologies within the homes. Staff training appeared mainly informal, based upon assumptions of simplicity of use, which might not have been sufficient to ensure that staff fully understood the technologies. Staff understanding and awareness of the technologies appeared to be influenced in part by location, both organisationally (i.e. their role) and physically (i.e. within the building). Technical and physical properties of the technologies appeared to work in relation with the physical environments of the homes, which suggested that there may not be an ideal set of physical properties for any particular technology. Some technologies offered a range of functional and information-gathering capabilities, which at times were perceived to be useful complements to practice, but at other times less useful, particularly if they were imbued with a financial cost that was not justifiable from a business perspective. Conclusions: Care homes may need to consider greater involvement of all stakeholders in discussions and decisions regarding the use of monitoring technologies, in order to deepen understandings about the potential benefits and challenges from their use. There is also a need to consider the technical compatibility of technologies with the care home premises, and the financial implications from investing in technologies.

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