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Orthopedically impaired (OI) students face a formidable challenge during the writing process due to their limited or non-existing ability to use their hands to hold a pen or pencil or even to press the keys on a keyboard. While they may have a clear mental picture of what they want to write, the biggest hurdle comes well before having to tackle the basic elements of writing such as grammar, punctuation, syntax, order, coherence, and unity of thought among others. There are many examples of assistive technology that has been deployed to facilitate writing for these students such as: word processors, word prediction software, keyboards and mice modified to be manipulated by feet and even mouth, and speech recognition software (SRS). The use of SRS has gained great popularity mainly due to the leaps in technology that have occurred during the last decade, particularly during the last three to five years. SRS is now capable of delivering speech to write with a verifiable accuracy rate in excess of 90% with as little as 10 hours of training. The current SRS industry recognized leader is Nuance Communications with its iconic Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) which is on version 12.5 at the time of this writing. DNS has practically eliminated the competition on SRS applications. This investigation explored the feasibility of using SRS as a writing tool by OI students to take notes and to complete writing projects. While others have tested the efficacy of SRS in general and of DNS in particular, this exploration is believed to be the first investigation into the use of SRS in the general classroom. One OI and two regular students were observed taking notes in three different classrooms after having received 10 hours of training using the software. Results indicate that all students dictated at a rate at least twice as fast as typing while averaging 90% accuracy rate. While the OI student dictation speed was consistently lower than that of the other students, there was minimal difference in accuracy. The Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scales (PIADS) questionnaire revealed a positive effect of the use of SRS on all three students with the OI student showing a higher index of improvement than the regular students in the areas of competence and self-esteem while all students experienced a closely similar score in the area of adaptability.

Šiuo metu kalbos technologijos vystosi ir tobulėja, daugėja jų taikymo sričių, tačiau nėra plačiai prieinamų lietuvių kalbos atpažinimo ir sintezavimo produktų. Daugelis kalbos technologijų produktų yra pritaikyti anglų kalbai. Šio darbo tikslas – išnagrinėti, kalbos atpažinimo ir kalbos sintezės produktų adaptavimo lietuvių kalbai galimybes. Tuo tikslu atliktas tyrimas su kalbos sintezės programa „ReadPlease 2003“ ir kalbos atpažinimo programa „Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10“. Su programa „ReadPlease 2003“, nustatytas lietuviškų žodžių perskaitymo aiškumas yra vos 35%. Tuos pačius žodžius transkribavus perskaitymo aiškumas gautas 95%. Galima teigti, kad lietuvių kalbos žodžiams užrašyti naudojant anglų kalbos fonetinę rašybą ir pateikus užrašytus žodžius programai „ReadPlease 2003“ perskaityti, žodžių aiškumas tapo 60% didesnis nei užrašius pagal lietuvių kalbos fonetinę rašybą. Su programa „Dragon Naturally Speaking 10“, nustatyta, kad geriausiai yra atpažįstami ilgi žodžiai, mažiausiai - trumpi. Daugiausia klaidų yra daroma ties dviejų balsių a ir i trumpinimu bei ilginimu. Taip pat daugiau klaidų yra daroma žodžiuose su dusliaisiais priebalsiais nei žodžiuose su skardžiaisiais. Apskaičiuotas bendras programos atpažinimo efektyvumas, pagal penkių diktorių diktavimo rezultatus, yra 84,8%. Todėl galima teigti, kad aklai pasikliauti programa diktuojant žodžius negalima, tačiau prižiūrint ir pataisant neteisingai įvestą žodį, ji gali būti naudojama kaip puiki rašymo priemonė... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Currently, the speech technologies develop and improve, increase the number of application areas, but is not widely available in Lithuanian language recognition and speech synthesis programs. Many speech technology products are adapted to the English language. The aim of this work - to examine of possibilities to adapt speech recognition and speech synthesis products for Lithuanian language. To achieve the aim was researching two of the English language programs, „ReadPlease 2003“ and „Dragon Naturally Speaking 10“ the use of Lithuanian language possibilities. The first test of the program „ReadPlease 2003“, established the Lithuanian words perusal clarity is only 35%. The same words were transcriptioned, then clarity of reading became 95%. It can be argued that the Lithuanian words recorded using the phonetic spelling of the English language and presentation of written words for „ReadPlease 2003“ perusal the words of clarity was 60% higher than Lithuanian words recorded using the phonetic spelling of the Lithuanian language. The program „Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10“ was used during the second test. This time was found that the best is to identify long words, at least - short. Most mistakes are made at the two vowels a and i, when its are shortened and extensioned. As well as more errors are made in the words with voiceless consonants than words with voiced consonants. There were calculated a general efficiency of identification of the program, according to the five speakers... [to full text]

This thesis contains four stories of fantasy and science fiction. Four story lengths are represented: the short short ("Dragon Lovers"), the shorter short story ("Homecoming"), the longer short story ("Shadow Mistress"), and the novel ("Sword of Albruch," excerpted here).

Denna uppsats behandlar hur representationen av ett samkönat par, Dorian Pavus och Iron Bull i dataspelet Dragon Age: Inquisition, orsakar stridigheter i spelets fandomgrupp. I uppsatsen analyseras hur medietexten representerar paret samt fansens reception av paret och deras sexualitet. Min studie visar att fansens debatter präglas av konflikter om representationen av queerhet i dataspelet. Flera av debattörernas argument har en prägel av moralpanik. Denna debatt analyseras teoretiskt utifrån representationsteori och queerteori. Slutsatsen är att fansens debatter riskerar att begränsa representationen av sexualitet i dataspel. En begränsning som bidrar till att upprätthålla den heteronormativa matrisen. / <p>vissa bilder är ej inkluderade i nätversionen av uppsatsen på grund av upphovsrättsliga skäl</p>

In 7 scenens I describe differenses between the book and the film Beowuf. I use the scene when he arrrives in the boat, the watchman at the score, Beowulf´s arrive at the hall, a fighting scene, the moster´s mother, Finn the Frisian and the dragon

Stieg Larsson has reached vast audiences with his popular, page-turning crime novels, the Millennium Series. The series tells a story not just for fictional purposes, but to draw attention to what people did not see about the society that Larsson lived in. In 2009, local actors starred in a film adaptation of Larsson’s first novel, which went beyond the Swedish public. In December 2011 an English-language remake based on the same bestseller was released, starring famous Hollywood actors. Considering language can hinder the reach of foreign language movies in international markets and that international and Swedish audiences demands differ, the current research aims to find out how the two movie adaptations diverge in terms of gender representation, production, graphic content, ideological meaning, and cultural representation as they attempt to target their respective audiences. In order to find answers, this thesis adopted a qualitative approach using two different, supporting methods. First a semiotic analysis of a representative scene with a high psychological and graphic impact on the viewer in both movies was conducted. Second, focus group interviews, with International and Swedish audience members, were conducted. The findings suggest that considerable differences exist between the two movies and that audiences have a different pre-conception in the way they perceive the same media product: gender role dynamic has been reversed in the two movies, the American version is more graphic in its display of nudity, and lacks the ideological layer. Furthermore, this study can serve as a basis for future research that could try to statistically represent the way Swedish and international moviegoers draw on the two adaptations.

In order to investigate the effects of C-terminus modification of Dragon Grouper Nervous Necrosis Virus capsid protein on the virus particle formation, we used E. coli expression system to express DGNNV capsid protain with different truncations at C-teminus fused with six or three histidines (His-Tag). These poly-His tagged clones, including ¡µC334-C6H, ¡µC335-C6H, ¡µC336-C6H, ¡µC337-C6H, C3H and C6H (His6 tagged at the C-teminus of wild-type capsid protein)¡Awere expressed and VLPs formation ability were examined. Wild-type and N-terminal recombination (N6H, His6 tagged at the N-teminus of wild-type capsid protein) were also used for comparison. These His-tagged VLPs can be further purified by Ni-NTA agarose, and their thermal stability of mutant VLPs were analyzed by Circular Dichroism. The Western blotting and ELISA assay were utilized to analyzed N-teminus or C-terminus was located at the surface of virus icosahedron. Once the four amino acids at the C-terminus of capsid protein were truncated (¡µC334-C6H), the mutated cpasid protein cannot assemble into VLPs. The same phenomenon was also observed in C6H. The related productions of wild-type, ¡µC335-C6H, ¡µC336-C6H, ¡µC337-C6H, C3H VLPs were about 100%, 56%, 116%, 141%, and 193%, respectively. Using Circular Dichroism to observe the thermal stability of mutant VLPs, the results revealed that the Tm of mutant VLPs were about 3oC lower than wild-type VLPs (61oC). The results of Western blotting and ELISA assay suggest that the C-termius of DGNNV capisid protein was exposed to the surface of virus structure.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Also available in print.

The aim of this study is to analyze whether or not the translation of shōnen manga, a subset of Japanese comics, cannot be done into English while maintaining the complete original intent and meaning of the work in its source language. This was done through a survey asking both native Japanese speakers and non-native Japanese speakers to compare panels from both the Japanese and English versions of the manga Dragon Ball, and through their responses strengthening the hypothesis that the inherent meaning between the two versions did indeed end up feeling different. The main differences cited were based partly on yakuwarigo, so-called "role language", and that there were inherent implications in the Japanese speech patterns that were not accurately conveyed in the English translation, thereby leading to some loss of context between the two versions, making the impressions of the characters differ in some areas. Hence, the results of this study accentuate that some aspects of Dragon Ball will be lost in translation.