This thesis embodies the results of an investigation of a residence exclusively devoted to those who r blind. Working within the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism, the primary focus of this study was to discover whether relationship existed between the pattern of group organization within the residence and the perception of the attitudes of the sighted towards the blind. Underlying its approach was the assumption that how the residents perceived the attitudes of the sighted was related to how they evaluated themselves. A second focus of this study was to determine the basis and extent of group formation within the residence. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

An iterative solution to the problem of blind image deconvolution is presented whereby a previous image estimate is explicitly used in the new image estimation process. The previous image is pre-filtered using an adaptive, non-parametric stabilizing function that is updated based on a current error estimate. This function is experimentally shown to dramatically benefit the convergence rate for the a priori restoration case. Noise propagation from one iteration to the next is reduced by the use of a second, regularizing operator, resulting in a hybrid iteration technique. Further, error terms are developed that shed new light on the error propagation properties of this method and others by quantifying the extent of noise and regularization error propagation. Optimal non-parametric, frequency adaptive stabilizing and regularization functions are then derived based on this error analysis. / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

In 1943, Vannevar Bush established a federal government program within the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development to develop sensory aids for the blind. From the first, the program was intended to benefit not only veterans but all blind Americans. Over the next forty years, six firms worked to develop reading machines for the blind, with various kinds of federal government support. This dissertation reconstructs the history of that development and innovation effort in order to provide a basis for a broader consideration of technology and social change for persons with disabilities, and to provide recommendations for federal policy in the field of assistive technologies, based on that history, as informed by innovation theory. Between 1943 and 1947, RCA worked under OSRD auspices to develop working prototypes of the A-2 Reader and a unique letter-recognition device. At the same time, Haskins Labs initiated research into the information content of articulated speech which later provided a basis for computer-driven speech synthesizers. This first federal program was terminated at the end of the war, but in 1957, Eugene Murphy of the Veterans Administration revived the program as Congress expanded the scope for federal research. Haskins, Battelle, and Mauch Laboratories worked with the VA in a three-pronged program, but ultimately failed at reading machine innovation. Jim Bliss and John Linvill of Stanford sought but failed to receive VA support. Working with blind students, t.hey ultimately secured funds in 1968, from the newly-established Bureau of Education for the Handicapped. In 1971, they established a firm to produce the Optacon, a reading machine which converts print into a Times Square sign-type tactile output. Over 12,000 Optacons were sold by 1990. In 1975, Raymond Kurzweil sought help from the National Federation of the Blind to develop a synthetic speech reading machine. Kurzweil drew on the knowledge of blind readers, his own expertise at pattern recognition, and a speech synthesizer operating on principles established at Haskins Labs to develop a software-centered reading machine that has sold over 4,000 units. The successful innovators sought knowledge from blind readers early on. They systematically pursued innovation. They stabilized a design through reiterative development drawing on social as well as scientific and engineering know ledge. They understood their practice of technology development in a different way from the linear model implicit in the practices of those developers who failed. The historical cases provide a basis for informing federal innovation policy when considered in the light of emerging innovation theory. Technology developers should seek to incorporate social knowledge in their development practices prior to innovation and the establishment of a market. / Ph. D.

Mathematics instruction and discourse typically involve two modes of communication: speech and graphical presentation. For the communication to remain situated, dynamic synchrony must be maintained between the speech and dynamic focus in the graphics. Sighted students use vision for two purposes: access to graphical material and awareness of embodied behavior. This embodiment awareness keeps communication situated with visual material and speech. Our goal is to assist students who are blind or visually impaired (SBVI) in the access to such instruction/communication. We employ the typical approach of sensory replacement for the missing visual sense. Haptic fingertip reading can replace visual material. We want to make the SBVI aware of the deictic gestures performed by the teacher over the graphic in conjunction with speech. We employ a haptic glove interface to facilitate this embodiment awareness. In this research, we address issues from the conception through the design, implementation, evaluation to the effective and successful use of our Haptic Deictic System (HDS) in inclusive classrooms. / Ph. D.

Blind equalization schemes are used to cancel the effects of a channel on the received signal when the transmission of a training sequence in a predefined time slot is not possible. In the absence of a training sequence, blind equalization schemes can also increase the throughput of the overall system. A general problem with blind adaptation techniques is that they have poor convergence properties compared to the traditional techniques using training sequences. Having a multi-modal cost surface, blind adaptation techniques may force the equalizer to converge to a false minimum, depending on the initialization. The most commonly used blind adaptation algorithm is the Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA). It is shown by simulation that a logarithmic error equation can make CMA converge to a global minimum, if a differential encoding scheme is used. The performance of CMA with different error equations is also investigated for different channel conditions. For a time varying channel, the performance of an equalizer not only depends on the convergence behavior but also on the tracking property, which indicates the ability of an equalizer to track changes in the channel. The tracking property of a blind equalizer with CMA has been investigated under different channel conditions. It is also shown that the tracking property of a blind equalizer can be improved by using a recursive linear predictor at the output of the equalizer to predict the amplitude of the equalizer output. The predicted value of the amplitude is then used to adjust the instantaneous gain of the overall system. A recursive linear predictor is designed to predict a colored signal without having a priori knowledge about the correlation function of the input sequence. The performance of the designed predictor is also investigated by predicting the envelope of a flat fading channel under constant mobile velocity and constant acceleration conditions. / Master of Science

This paper describes the implementation of a scanning signal detector and automatic modulation classification system. The classification technique is a completely blind method, with no prior knowledge of the signal's center frequency, bandwidth, or symbol rate. An energy detector forms the initial approximations of the signal parameters. The energy detector used in the wideband sweep is reused to obtain fine estimates of the center frequency and bandwidth of the signal. The subsequent steps reduce the effect of frequency offset and sample timing error, resulting in a constellation of the modulation of interest. The cumulant of the constellation is compared to a set of known ideal cumulant values, forming the classification estimate. The algorithm uses two platforms that together provide high speed parallel processing and flexible run-time operation. High-rate spectral scanning using an energy detector is run in parallel with a variable down sampling path; both are highly pipelined structures, which allows for high data throughput. A pair of processing cores is used to record spectral usage and signal characteristics as well as perform the actual classification. The resulting classification system can accurately identify modulations below 5 dB of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for some cases of the phase shift keying family of modulations but requires a much higher SNR to accurately classify higher-order modulations. These estimates tend toward classifying all signals as binary phase shift keying because of limits of the noise power estimation part of the cumulant normalization process. Other effects due to frequency offset and synchronization timing are discussed. / Master of Science

Architecturally, my thesis project is a new type of design for children who have visual impairments. Most of the children who have visual impairments need more attention to receive a full education. With a proper education they will be able to start living by themselves without any assistance. I decided to design a school which would support the needs of the children and the aspirations of their parents; a place of safety and ambition that would free instructors and inspire the children. Then, I began to seek an architectural site program where I could locate my design. Old town Alexandria is an excellent location for the planned education center. Old town has its own urban context with boundaries like  the Potomac River,  trees, old railroad ways,  a  tunnel,  and other landmarks  like churches,  libraries, museums,  etc.  The children  in  the education  center  have  an  opportunity  to  learn  more  and  show  their  life  skills  easily  in  the  old town.  Also the site selection and location was important due to the history of the town, easy transportation and connections with surroundings, being right next to the Potomac River and minutes away from the Washington DC. / Master of Architecture / As far as I remember, what do we understand by visual impairments? This disability is not just limitations for a few people; actually it is a part of human life which everyone would experience at some point, temporarily or permanently. You might wonder what disabilities have in common with architectural writing, but isn’t architecture for human comfort? And clearly what does architecture & design for the disabled stand for? However, education is important because it’s the base of our life. Disability (student who has autism, physical disability or down syndrome) is one of the problems which exist in all countries of the world. Of course, hundreds of millions of people with special needs don’t have opportunities and resources to fulfill their basic human. Designing an inclusive environment in schools is the best possible option to enroll maximum number of children with disability in education. Therefore, it is an environment where they can receive real attention, the right support, specialist attention as well as excellent education from primary to secondary education, side by side with their classmates.

No / We report on the organization and outcome of the fourth blind test of crystal structure prediction, an international collaborative project organized to evaluate the present state in computational methods of predicting the crystal structures of small organic molecules. There were 14 research groups which took part, using a variety of methods to generate and rank the most likely crystal structures for four target systems: three single-component crystal structures and a 1:1 cocrystal. Participants were challenged to predict the crystal structures of the four systems, given only their molecular diagrams, while the recently determined but as-yet unpublished crystal structures were withheld by an independent referee. Three predictions were allowed for each system. The results demonstrate a dramatic improvement in rates of success over previous blind tests; in total, there were 13 successful predictions and, for each of the four targets, at least two groups correctly predicted the observed crystal structure. The successes include one participating group who correctly predicted all four crystal structures as their first ranked choice, albeit at a considerable computational expense. The results reflect important improvements in modelling methods and suggest that, at least for the small and fairly rigid types of molecules included in this blind test, such calculations can be constructively applied to help understand crystallization and polymorphism of organic molecules.

Yes / The sixth blind test of organic crystal-structure prediction (CSP) methods has been held, with five target systems: a small nearly rigid molecule, a polymorphic former drug candidate, a chloride salt hydrate, a co-crystal, and a bulky exible molecule. This blind test has seen substantial growth in the number of submissions, with the broad range of prediction methods giving a unique insight into the state of the art in the field. Significant progress has been seen in treating flexible molecules, usage of hierarchical approaches to ranking structures, the application of density-functional approximations, and the establishment of new workflows and best practices for performing CSP calculations. All of the targets, apart from a single potentially disordered Z0 = 2 polymorph of the drug candidate, were predicted by at least one submission. Despite many remaining challenges, it is clear that CSP methods are becoming more applicable to a wider range of real systems, including salts, hydrates and larger flexible molecules. The results also highlight the potential for CSP calculations to complement and augment experimental studies of organic solid forms. / EPSRC (grants EP/J01110X/1 and EP/K018132/1) and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC through grant agreements n. 307358 (ERC-stG- 2012-ANGLE) and n. 321156 (ERC-AG-PE5-ROBOT). The Russian Foundation (14-03-01091). GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Vertex. VIDI Research Program 700.10.427, which is financed by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and the European Research Council (ERC-2010-StG, grant agreement n. 259510-KISMOL). Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM). NSF grant number ACI-1053575. University of Buenos Aires and the Argentinian Research Council. Conflex Corp. and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Louisiana Board of Regents Award # LEQSF(2014-17)-RD-A-10 “Toward Crystal Engineering from First Principles”, the NSF award # EPS-1003897 “The Louisiana Alliance for Simulation-Guided Materials Applications (LA-SiGMA)”, and by the Tulane Committee on Research Summer Fellowship. Solar Technologies Go Hybrid initiative of the State of Bavaria, Germany. U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. EPSRC (EP/J003840/1, EP/J014958/1) and [EP/J017639/1]. Leadership Fellowship Grant [EP/K013688/1]. Robinson College, Cambridge, and the Cambridge Philosophical Society for a Henslow Research Fellowship. Army Research Office under Grant W911NF-13-1- 0387 and by the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. Polish National Science Centre Grant No. DEC-2012/05/B/ST4/00086. EPSRC, though grant ESPRC EP/K039229/1, and Eli Lilly. The PhD students support: RKH by a joint UCL Max-Planck Society Magdeburg Impact studentship, REW by a UCL Impact studentship; LI by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre and the M3S Centre for Doctoral Training (EPSRC EP/G036675/1). Army Research Office Grant W911NF-13-1-0387 and by the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Office under contract/grant number W911NF-13-1-0387 (MET and LV) and MRSEC program of the National Science Foundation under Award Number DMR-1420073 (MET and ES). U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Office contract/grant number W911NF-13-1- 0387 and by the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. National Science Foundation (DMR-1231586), the Government of Russian Federation (Grant No. 14.A12.31.0003), the Foreign Talents Introduction and Academic Exchange Program (No. B08040) and the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 14-43-00052, base organization Photochemistry Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Army Research Office Grant W911NF-13-1-0387 and the National Science Foundation Grant CHE-1152899. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft program DFG-SPP 1807. Department of Energy (DOE) Grant Nos. DE-SC0008626. Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy contract No. DEAC02-05CH11231.

Yes / Blind-testing is an important tool that should be used by all analytical fields as an approach for validating method. Several fields do this well outside of archaeological science. It is unfortunate that many applied methods do not have a strong underpinning built on, what should be considered necessary, blind-testing. Historically lithic microwear analysis has been subjected to such testing, the results of which stirred considerable debate. However, putting this aside, it is argued here that the tests have not been adequately exploited. Too much attention has been focused on basic results and the implications of those rather than using the tests as a powerful tool to improve the method. Here the tests are revisited and reviewed in a new light. This approach is used to highlight specific areas of methodological weakness that can be targeted by developmental research. It illustrates the value in having a large dataset of consistently designed blind-tests in method evaluation and suggests that fields such as lithic microwear analysis would greatly benefit from such testing. Opportunity is also taken to discuss recent developments in quantitative methods within lithic functional studies and how such techniques might integrate with current practices.