No description available.

<p>In Alzheimer association’s clinique practice, there was a need to communicate with people with mild dementia. Videophone is considered as one of the best assistive communication tool for these people since video communication is not only a tool to break an isolation caused by the disease, but also a powerful way to help people demonstrate their ideas and understand what is said in a conversation with pictures, signs and body language. Therefore, an easy-to-use videophone for people with mild dementia is needed.</p><p>The goal of this master thesis is to design a graphical user interface (GUI) of an easy-to-use videophone for people with mild dementia according to their characteristics and difficulties of using everyday technology. User centered design (UCD) was used in the design. To get familiar with the user, literature research was conducted before design.</p><p>Low-fidelity prototype was created. With the help of Karolinska institute’ research group on people with dementia, the prototype was refined twice. Based on the refined low-fidelity prototype, an interactive prototype with navigation, sound and animation effect was created. A usability testing was conducted on older adults with this interactive prototype.</p><p>In addition to the GUI of functions for people with mild dementia, GUI of functions for other care givers was also created and presented in this master thesis.</p>

In Alzheimer association’s clinique practice, there was a need to communicate with people with mild dementia. Videophone is considered as one of the best assistive communication tool for these people since video communication is not only a tool to break an isolation caused by the disease, but also a powerful way to help people demonstrate their ideas and understand what is said in a conversation with pictures, signs and body language. Therefore, an easy-to-use videophone for people with mild dementia is needed. The goal of this master thesis is to design a graphical user interface (GUI) of an easy-to-use videophone for people with mild dementia according to their characteristics and difficulties of using everyday technology. User centered design (UCD) was used in the design. To get familiar with the user, literature research was conducted before design. Low-fidelity prototype was created. With the help of Karolinska institute’ research group on people with dementia, the prototype was refined twice. Based on the refined low-fidelity prototype, an interactive prototype with navigation, sound and animation effect was created. A usability testing was conducted on older adults with this interactive prototype. In addition to the GUI of functions for people with mild dementia, GUI of functions for other care givers was also created and presented in this master thesis.

No description available.

The Swedish Bildtelefoni.net is a service that people who use Swedish Sign Language (SSL) through a video phone can call in order to get in touch with people who speak through a telephone, or vice versa. In relayed calls via the Swedish video relay service (FBT), the interlocutors have different access to the visual arena and the auditive space. They are also physically separated from each other. An interpreter, working in a studio, enables the interaction across the different media, and the interpreter is the only person who has direct contact with both users of the service. FBT has been provided in Sweden since 1996, and is administrated by The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS). The overall aim of the dissertation is to describe, analyse and discuss participants’ interaction and their joint construction of meaning within FBT. The theoretical and methodological frameworks for the dissertation are dialogism and Conversation Analysis (CA). The dissertation is based on twenty-five authentic calls from FBT, recorded during two periods of time: in the years 2009–2010, and in 2013. One stimulated recall is also made with one interpreter, concerning a call from the second collection. The project has been ethically approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Board. The interaction within FBT is dynamic and dependent on different media, modalities, resources, and also related to several conventions specific for the setting. All this influences the interlocutors, their actions as well as the entire activity. This kind of complexity has not previously been studied in the regular service. Analysis of the recordings focuses on the actions and activities of the participants who interact in the FBT, on a moment-to-moment basis. As results of the research, four phenomena are addressed, and presented as papers: I: the organisation of turns; II: the headset as an interactional resource; III: positioning and bimodal mediation with a focus on the interpreter; IV: the co-creation of communicative projects among the interlocutors. A main conclusion of the results is that the interaction is a joint construction of meaning among all of the interlocutors, although, the interpreter has a key function. Further research of interaction within FBT needs to be conducted, since investigations on this institutional interaction are rare despite the fact that this kind of service is widespread all over the world.

Sjukvårdsrådgivning via telefon har blivit allt vanligare i västvärlden. Tekniska lösningar har utarbetas som underlättar för de döva att själva kontakta sjukvården via telefon. Sjuksköterskor inom primärvården kommunicerar då med de döva via text- eller bildtelefoni. Studiens syfte var att beskriva döva och sjuksköterskors erfarenheter och upplevelser av sjukvårdsrådgivning via telefon. Sex sjuksköterskor och fem döva intervjuades med öppna frågor. Resultatet analyserades med konventionell innehållsanalys. Resultatet visar att för sjuksköterskorna är det mest framträdande upplevelsen av svårigheter att förstå och bli förstådd. För de dövas är det viktigaste att de, trots olika tekniska lösningar, har svårigheter att få kontakt med vårdcentralerna. Båda grupperna är eniga om att språket, den skrivna svenskan, kan vara en svårighet, särskilt för de äldre döva. För att komma förbi hindren och nå målen har båda grupperna utvecklat olika strategier. En gemensam strategi är att då kommunikationen via telefon upplevs som otillräcklig, planeras för ett personligt möte tillsammans med tolk. Svårigheterna att få kontakt gjorde att de döva ibland dröjde med att söka vård. Sjuksköterskorna upplevde att de döva som grupp, ibland var sjukare då de tog kontakt, än patientgruppen i stort. Båda grupperna framförde en oro för vad som kan hända vid allvarliga tillstånd om kontakt och förståelse inte fungerar tillfredställande. Konklusionen indikerar att kontaktvägarna till primärvården måste förbättras för de döva. Möjligheten förden döve och sjuksköterskan att kommunicera på sitt förstaspråk underlättar förståelsen och den möjligheten behöver utvecklas. Vårt resultat bör kunna utgöra ett underlag för förbättringsarbete och fortsatt forskning inom området.

Notre travail de recherche s’intéresse à l’usage des technologies dans les interactions professionnelles, et en particulier dans des centres d’appel. Nos analyses s’appuient sur trois champs disciplinaires que sont l’Ethnométhodologie, l’Analyse Conversationnelle et les Workplace Studies. Notre étude cherche à contribuer à la réflexion sur des interactions médiées par les technologies en milieu professionnel afin de rendre compte des pratiques émergentes des participants et comprendre l’organisation séquentielle complexe des interactions entre conseiller/opérateur et patient/client s’appuyant sur l’utilisation de ressources technologiques. La thèse s’articule en une partie introductive et trois parties analytiques. La première étudie les modifications de cadre participatif en tenant compte du dispositif technologique comme point d’ancrage de l’activité des participants. Nous avons distingué deux configurations: i) soit le dispositif est ajusté par l’opérateur ; ii) soit l’opérateur s’ajuste au dispositif. La modification du cadre participatif peut être initiée de façon verbale ou non verbale, ou par l’un ou l’autre des participants.Dans une seconde partie, nous analysons l’intégration de l’écran comme artefact interactionnel dans l’activité des participants. Nous avons remarqué qu’ils rapportent à l’oral des informations écrites sur un écran, en employant des verbes introductifs du type « il dit que », que nous retrouvons dans les travaux sur le discours rapporté à l’oral. Nous avons voulu montrer le lien entre le cours d’action dans lequel sont engagés les participants et l’émergence de ces discours rapportés où la référence aux messages écrits peut transformer les écrans et les systèmes informatiques en « agents interactionnels ». La troisième partie se focalise sur un type d’appel où un client s’adresse au service pour résoudre un problème, et après vérification par l’opératrice, elle lui notifie un état a-problématique de son compte. Nous avons remarqué que l’activité de diagnostic opérée ici par l’opératrice dépend étroitement des informations du compte client indiquées sur l’écran. Ce sont ces données qui permettent à l’opératrice d’établir le diagnostic et de notifier l’état a-problématique du compte. / Our research focuses on the use of technology in interactions at work, particularly in the context of call centres. Our analyses draw on three theoretical domains: Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and Workplace Studies. Our research seeks to contribute to current investigations on interactions mediated by technology in the workplace to reflect emerging practices of participants and to understand the complex sequential organization of interactions between councillor/operator and patient/user, based on the use of technological resources.The thesis comprises an introduction part and three analytical parts. The first part examines changes in participation framework taking into account the technological device as an anchor for the participant’s activity. For this, we distinguished two different configurations: i) the device is adjusted by the operator, or ii) the operator adjusts the device. The adjustment of the participation framework may be initiated through verbal or multimodal way, or by one or the other participant.In the second part, we analyze the integration of the screen as an interactional artefact in the participant’s activity. We noticed that they report oral information’s displayed on a screen, using introductory verbs such as "he said", which we found in the studies on reported speech in spoken interactions. We wanted to show the link between the course of action in which participants are engaged and the emergence of reported speech when referring to written messages that can transform the screens and the computer systems in “interactional agents”.The third part focuses on one type of call where a user call the service to solve a problem, and after verification by the operator, she notifies a status of his account. We noticed that the diagnosis activity reported by the operator is closely related to the user’s account information shown on the screen. These are data that allow the operator to diagnose and report the non-problematic status of the account.

Electronic imaging technologies are faced with the challenge of power consumption when transmitting large amounts of image data from the acquisition imager to the display or processing devices. This is especially a concern for portable applications, and becomes more prominent in increasingly high-resolution, high-frame rate imagers. Therefore, new sampling techniques are needed to minimize transmitted data, while maximizing the conveyed image information. <br /><br /> From this point of view, two approaches have been proposed and implemented in this thesis: <ol> <li> A system-level approach, in which the classical 1D row sampling CMOS imager is modified to a 2D ring sampling pyramidal architecture, using the same standard three transistor (3T) active pixel sensor (APS). </li> <li> A device-level approach, in which the classical orthogonal architecture has been preserved while altering the APS device structure, to design an expandable multiresolution image sensor. </li> </ol> A new scanning scheme has been suggested for the pyramidal image sensor, resulting in an intrascene foveated dynamic range (FDR) similar in profile to that of the human eye. In this scheme, the inner rings of the imager have a higher dynamic range than the outer rings. The pyramidal imager transmits the sampled image through 8 parallel output channels, allowing higher frame rates. The human eye is known to have less sensitivity to oblique contrast. Using this fact on the typical oblique distribution of fixed pattern noise, we demonstrate lower perception of this noise than the orthogonal FPN distribution of classical CMOS imagers. <br /><br /> The multiresolution image sensor principle is based on averaging regions of low interest from frame-sampled image kernels. One pixel is read from each kernel while keeping pixels in the region of interest at their high resolution. This significantly reduces the transferred data and increases the frame rate. Such architecture allows for programmability and expandability of multiresolution imaging applications.

Electronic imaging technologies are faced with the challenge of power consumption when transmitting large amounts of image data from the acquisition imager to the display or processing devices. This is especially a concern for portable applications, and becomes more prominent in increasingly high-resolution, high-frame rate imagers. Therefore, new sampling techniques are needed to minimize transmitted data, while maximizing the conveyed image information. <br /><br /> From this point of view, two approaches have been proposed and implemented in this thesis: <ol> <li> A system-level approach, in which the classical 1D row sampling CMOS imager is modified to a 2D ring sampling pyramidal architecture, using the same standard three transistor (3T) active pixel sensor (APS). </li> <li> A device-level approach, in which the classical orthogonal architecture has been preserved while altering the APS device structure, to design an expandable multiresolution image sensor. </li> </ol> A new scanning scheme has been suggested for the pyramidal image sensor, resulting in an intrascene foveated dynamic range (FDR) similar in profile to that of the human eye. In this scheme, the inner rings of the imager have a higher dynamic range than the outer rings. The pyramidal imager transmits the sampled image through 8 parallel output channels, allowing higher frame rates. The human eye is known to have less sensitivity to oblique contrast. Using this fact on the typical oblique distribution of fixed pattern noise, we demonstrate lower perception of this noise than the orthogonal FPN distribution of classical CMOS imagers. <br /><br /> The multiresolution image sensor principle is based on averaging regions of low interest from frame-sampled image kernels. One pixel is read from each kernel while keeping pixels in the region of interest at their high resolution. This significantly reduces the transferred data and increases the frame rate. Such architecture allows for programmability and expandability of multiresolution imaging applications.