A Web apresenta um conteúdo extenso de informações disponibilizado a uma população diversificada de pessoas, as quais podem apresentar as mais diferentes habilidades e exigências. Dessa maneira, garantir a acessibilidade a todo usuário é uma tarefa difícil, mesmo existindo um conjunto extenso de recomendações disponibilizadas pelo World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Assim, são propostas diferentes ferramentas para avaliação de acessibilidade, que contrapõem os artefatos às diretrizes com a finalidade de obter resultados automatizados, produzindo testes e gerando vários dados, como a localização do problema no código e as falhas especificadas. Para facilitar o processamento desses dados, mediante a disponibilização de uma linguagem comum, o W3C desenvolveu a Evaluation and Report Language (EARL). Dados os problemas acerca das dificuldades em se garantir a acessibilidade para os diferentes perfis de usuários e a necessidade da interpretação dos relatórios em EARL, como colaboração para a avaliação manual, indispensável no contexto de testes de acessibilidade, neste trabalho é proposto um apoio por meio de um Ambiente para Análise de Avaliações de Acessibilidade e Usabilidade na Web (A4U). A partir do estudo de caso realizado, pôde-se validar o ambiente A4U desenvolvido, o qual inclui relatórios de avaliações semiautomáticas, para que o desenvolvedor possa interpretá-los e prosseguir com a avaliação manual de acessibilidade e usabilidade. No âmbito do apoio desenvolvido, foram considerados os avanços em acessibilidade, usabilidade, a correlação entre os dois conceitos e a colaboração no desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta denominada AccessibilityUtil1, a qual se destina ser uma fonte de práticas de acessibilidade advindas de experiências de desenvolvedores, mediante colaboração em um ambiente Web, relacionando-as com as diretrizes de acessibilidade do W3C. A presente pesquisa contribuiu para a consolidação das questões de acessibilidade e usabilidade, a partir do desenvolvimento do A4U, que viabiliza a avaliação humana de acessibilidade e usabilidade, e a inserção de resultados de avaliações gerados por ferramentas semiautomáticas, conduzindo o avaliador a produzir melhorias em ambas as frentes / The Web has a large content of information available to a diverse population of people which may have the more different abilities and requirements. Thus, ensure accessibility to all users is a difficult task, even having an extensive set of recommendations provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). So, are proposed different tools for accessibility assessment that contrast the artifacts with guidelines in order to obtain automated results, producing tests and generating various data, such as the location of the problem in the code and the specified faults. To facilitate the processing of such data by providing a common language, the W3C developed the Evaluation and Report Language (EARL). Given the issues about the difficulties of ensuring accessibility to the different profiles of users and the necessity of interpreting the EARL reports, as collaboration for indispensable human review in the context of accessibility testing, this paper proposes a support through an Environment for Analyzing results of Assessments of Accessibility and Usability on the Web (A4U). From the case study conducted, it was possible to validate the A4U environment developed, which includes semiautomatic evaluating results, so that the developer can interpret them and proceed with the manual evaluation of accessibility and usability. Developed in support were considered advancements in accessibility, usability, the correlation between the two concepts and collaboration in the development of a tool called AccessibilityUtil, which is intended to be a source of accessibility practices arising from experiences of developers through collaboration a Web environment relating them to the W3C accessibility guidelines. This research contributed to the consolidation of the issues of accessibility and usability, from the development of A4U, which enables the human evaluation of accessibility and usability, and integration of evaluation results generated by semi-automatic tools, leading the reviewer to produce improvements in both fronts

Orientador: Luis Carlos Paschoarelli / Banca: José Carlos Plácido da Silva / Banca: Paulo Kawauchi / Resumo: A obesidade é uma doença de caráter crônico que se caracteriza pelo acúmulo excessivo de gordura no organismo e acarreta graves problemas de saúde, além de transtornos psicológicos e dificuldade de acesso a muitos produtos e equipamentos. Com um crescimento em proporções epidêmicas, vem sendo considerada um dos maiores problemas de saúde na maioria dos países desenvolvidos, com destaque para a obesidade mórbida. Em 1995, o impacto da obesidade para os custos com saúde nos EUA foi de U$ 99,2 bilhões, com cerca de um terço da população apresentando-se acima do peso. No Brasil, em 1994, a obesidade atingia 11% da população e 40,6% das pessoas estavam com sobrepeso. Além do preconceito e discriminação decorrentes de seu aspecto físico, os obesos enfrentam dificuldades na utilização de produtos e equipamentos, pois são projetados para a faixa média da população. Referente a isto, muitas empresas têm investido no aperfeiçoamento de novas tecnologias, entretanto não há normas sobre as características que os produtos devem ter para se adequarem às necessidades físicas e psicológicas dos usuários obesos. Leis e decretos foram criados em algumas cidades referentes a essa problemática, ma ainda são pouco eficazes, pois, não há meios de projetar interfaces confiáveis, adequadas a esse público considerando a ausência de normas técnicas específicas no país... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Obesity is a chronic disease which is characterized by the extreme accumulation of fat in the organism and causes serious health problems, besides psychological disturbances and restrained access to many products and equipments. Whith a growth in epidemic ratios, it has being considered one of the biggest health problems in the majority of the developed countries, with distinction to morbid obesity. In 1995, the impact of the obesity in the health expenses of the U.S.A. was of U$ 99.2 billion, with about one third of the population overweighted. Recently it has been growing quickly also in developing countries due to, among others factors, the dissemination of occidental habits, as sedentarines and ingestion of foods rich in fat and sugar. In Brazil, in 1994, the obesity reached 11% of the population and 40.6% of the people were overweighted. Besides the prejudice and discrimination deriving from its physical aspect, the obese individuals are facing difficulties in using products and equipment, since they are designed for the population average range. Regarding to this, many companies have invested in the improvement of new tecnologies; however there are not norms about the characteristics the products must have to be adjusted to the physical and psychological necessities of the obese users. Laws aqnd decrees had been created in some cities referring to this problem, but still they are little efficient, because there are not ways to design trustworthy and adequate interfaces to this public since there are not specific technical norms in the country...(Complete abstract, click electronic address below) / Mestre

At least 360 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss that frequently causes difficulties in day-to-day conversations. Hearing aids often fail to offer enough benefits and have low adoption rates. However, people with hearing loss find that speechreading can improve their understanding during conversation. Speechreading (often called lipreading) refers to using visual information about the movements of a speaker's lips, teeth, and tongue to help understand what they are saying. Speechreading is commonly used by people with all severities of hearing loss to understand speech, and people with typical hearing also speechread (albeit subconsciously) to help them understand others. However, speechreading is a skill that takes considerable practice to acquire. Publicly-funded speechreading classes are sometimes provided, and have been shown to improve speechreading acquisition. However, classes are only provided in a handful of countries around the world and students can only practice effectively when attending class. Existing tools have been designed to help improve speechreading acquisition, but are often not effective because they have not been designed within the context of contemporary speechreading lessons or practice. To address this, in this thesis I present a novel speechreading acquisition framework that can be used to design Speechreading Acquisition Tools (SATs) - a new type of technology to improve speechreading acquisition. I interviewed seven speechreading tutors and used thematic analysis to identify and organise the key elements of the framework. I evaluated the framework by using it to: 1) categorise every tutor-identified speechreading teaching technique, 2) critically evaluate existing Conversation Aids and SATs, and 3) design three new SATs. I then conducted a postal survey with 59 speechreading students to understand students' perspectives on speechreading, and how their thoughts could influence future SATs. To further evaluate the framework's effectiveness I then developed and evaluated two new SATs (PhonemeViz and MirrorMirror) designed using the framework. The findings from the evaluation of these two new SATs demonstrates that using the framework can help design effective tools to improve speechreading acquisition.

This thesis presents a framework for a platform that integrates various infrastructural services and facilities in an automated manner to improve and coordinate the processes of medical emergency response system (MERS). It aims to improve the quality of healthcare system infrastructure by improving the quality of service of MERS. Presently the processes of MERS and their coordination are semi-automated, which adds to the complication of service availability and information exchange among participating systems, thereby affecting the MERS' quality of service adversely. An integrated platform for the coordination of MERS processes can help improve its quality of service and ensure better control of data and process flow. The improvements to the MERS service quality can significantly contribute to the improvement of the quality of healthcare infrastructure. The integrated platform framework presented here resolves the problems of data flow and process coordination to achieve the desired goal. / by Nabarum Chakrabarty. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

nÃo hà / A presente pesquisa versa sobre a afetividade no estudo das condiÃÃes de acessibilidade de alunos surdos em ambiente acadÃmico. Esta investigaÃÃo se situa no paradigma emergente da CiÃncia, o que significa dizer que sua pretensÃo à de produzir um saber comprometido com o claro intuito de potencializar transformaÃÃes sociais. As perguntas que deram partida a este estudo foram: O que torna a universidade um ambiente acessÃvel para o aluno surdo? As polÃticas de inclusÃo sÃo suficientes para tornar a universidade acessÃvel? O lugar à uma dimensÃo importante na dialÃtica exclusÃo-inclusÃo das pessoas surdas? Qual a relaÃÃo existente entre a Afetividade e a Acessibilidade? Para responder esses questionamentos, temos como objetivo geral investigar a relaÃÃo Afetividade (por meio da Estima de Lugar; BOMFIM) e Acessibilidade. O mÃtodo utilizado nesta jornada foi o Instrumento Gerador dos Mapas Afetivos (IGMA) e a ObservaÃÃo Participante. Os dados apreendidos da realidade foram analisados por meio da AnÃlise TemÃtica de ConteÃdo de Laurence Bardin em conjunto com as contribuiÃÃes teÃricas de Espinosa, Vygotsky e Sawaia. O IGMA foi aplicado em alunos surdos do campus do Benfica da Universidade Federal do Cearà em um perÃodo de oito (8) meses de convÃvio do pesquisador com a comunidade surda acadÃmica. Ao tÃrmino, concluÃmos que para a promoÃÃo do bem-estar psicossocial dos discentes surdos a demanda de reconhecimento de sua cultura e identidade à tÃo necessÃria quanto a materializaÃÃo das polÃticas assertivas; que o indicador afetivo contraste possibilita que as paixÃes tristes e alegrias passivas na universidade se transformem em afeto-aÃÃo dando mais clareza aos surdos nas escolhas de bons encontros, o que baseado em Sawaia, chamo de Ãtica da acessibilidade. / This research deals with the affectivity in the study of accessibility conditions the deaf students face in academic environment. This research goes towards the emerging paradigm of science, which means that its intention is to produce a knowledge clearly committed to the objective of enhancing social transformation. The questions that started up this study were: What makes the university an accessible environment to the deaf student? Are the inclusion policies sufficient to make the university an accessible place? Is the place an important dimension in the exclusion-inclusion dialectic of deaf people? What is the relationship between Affectivity an Accessibility? To answer these questions, our general objective is to investigate the relation Affection (considering BOMFIMâs Place Esteem) and Accessibility. The method used in this journey was the Affective Maps Generator Instrument (IGMA) and the Participant Observation. The data seized from reality were analyzed using the Thematic Content Analysis of Laurence Bardin in conjunction with the theoretical contributions of Espinosa, Vygotsky and Sawaia. The IGMA was applied on deaf students of Benfica campus from CearÃâs Federal University in a period of eight (8) months in which the researcher kept close contact with the deaf community. At the end, we concluded that, in order to promote psychosocial well-being of deaf students, the recognition demand of their culture and identity is as necessary as the materialization of assertive policies and that the affective indicator contrast enables sad passions and passive joys in university to turn into affection action giving more clarity to the deaf in the choices of good encounters, which is what, based on Sawaia, I call the ethics of accessibility.

As transições demográfica e epidemiológica implicam em importantes desafios para o Brasil, principalmente para os sistemas previdenciário e de saúde, destacando-se o aumento desproporcional das faixas etárias mais elevadas e da prevalência das doenças crônicas, o maior número de indivíduos com alta dependência e mais gastos com saúde. Assim, esta pesquisa teve como objetivo avaliar parâmetros de acessibilidade e de mobilidade que tragam maior desempenho ao edifício hospitalar, tanto nas áreas internas, como no entorno imediato, com enfoque na população idosa, tendo como base as normas e regulamentações brasileiras. Tratou-se de um estudo descritivo e exploratório de abordagem quantitativa, realizado em um hospital filantrópico do município de São Paulo. Para identificar os parâmetros de acessibilidade e de mobilidade do ambiente hospitalar, optou-se por incluir pacientes idosos e profissionais do hospital, totalizando 60 idosos e 42 funcionários entrevistados. O erro amostral utilizado foi de 10% e o nível de confiança, 90%. O instrumento de coleta de dados continha questões sociodemográficas para caracterização do perfil dos participantes e perguntas relacionadas à acessibilidade e à mobilidade do hospital. Os dados foram analisados por meio de estatística descritiva, em frequência, medidas de posição e de dispersão e apresentados em tabelas e gráficos. O estudo foi conduzido de acordo com todas as exigências éticas da Resolução 466/12 do Conselho Nacional de Saúde e todos os participantes assinaram o Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido. Dentre os pacientes entrevistados, 65% eram do sexo masculino, a faixa etária predominante foi de 71 a 80 anos. Já entre os funcionários, 62% eram do sexo feminino, com idade entre 26 e 45 anos. A maioria dos entrevistados idosos possuía ensino superior completo. As taxas do efeito piso e efeito teto mostraram-se positivas, com resultados inferiores a 15. O grau de satisfação dos pacientes e funcionários em relação ao edifício de forma geral foi considerado positivo. O estudo indicou a importância da avaliação das condições de acessibilidade e de mobilidade hospitalar. / The demographic and epidemiological transitions imply significant challenges for Brazil, mainly for social security and health systems, highlighting the disproportionate increase in older age groups and prevalence of chronic diseases, the greatest number of individuals with high dependency and more health spending. Thus, this research aimed to evaluate parameters of accessibility and mobility to bring higher performance to the hospital build, both in internal areas, as in the immediate surroundings, focusing on the elderly people, based on the Brazilian norms and regulations. This was a descriptive and exploratory study with a quantitative approach, in a philanthropic hospital in São Paulo. To identify the parameters of accessibility and mobility of the hospital, it was decided to include elderly patients and hospital staff, totaling 60 elderly patients and 42 employees interviewed. The sampling error was set at 10% and the confidence level of 90%. The data collection instrument contained socio-demographic questions to characterize the profile of the participants and questions related to accessibility and mobility in the hospital. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequency, position and dispersion measurements and presented in tables and graphs. The study was conducted in accordance with all ethical requirements of the Brazilian National Health Council Resolution 466/12 and all participants signed the consent form. Between the patients interviewed, 65% were male, and the predominant age group was 71-80 years. Between the employees, 62% were female, aged between 26 and 45 years. Most elderly people interviewed had completed higher education. Rates floor effect and ceiling effects were positive, with results lower than 15. The patients and staff satisfaction level related to the build in general was considered positive. The study indicated the importance of assessing the hospital conditions of accessibility and mobility.

Belém sofreu processo semelhante a diversas cidades brasileiras, com a expulsão de parte da população para áreas de expansão com carência de infra-estrutura viária e, em geral, prejudicadas em termos de acessibilidade. Considerando que este processo atingiu de forma desigual aos diferentes segmentos da população, o objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar como se dá a distribuição de acessibilidade ao transporte para indivíduos de diferentes classes de renda e, a partir daí, analisar estratégias para assegurar a eqüidade na sua distribuição na Região Metropolitana de Belém (RMB). Com este fim, dois índices de acessibilidade foram calculados neste estudo a partir da aplicação de um sistema de informações geográficas para transportes: um do tipo separação espacial média e outro do tipo gravitacional. Os valores de atratividade do índice do tipo gravitacional foram posteriormente alterados de forma a compor dois cenários de localização de pólos de comércio e serviços diferentes do atual. O estudo mostra que os cenários alternativos promoveram uma melhor distribuição da acessibilidade na RMB e que a seleção do melhor deles pode ser feita através de critérios de eqüidade. Além disto, demonstrou-se ainda que, após a seleção do melhor cenário, outros recursos do SIG podem ser utilizados para priorizar, também segundo a ótica da eqüidade, as zonas que ainda carecem de melhorias na acessibilidade aos transportes. / The growth process of Belém, similarly to what happened to other Brazilian cities, was characterized by the location of part of its population in areas with insufficient road infrastructure. As a consequence, these were in general low accessibility areas. Considering that the impacts of the growth process were not evenly distributed to all population groups, the aim of this work is to evaluate the distribution patterns of transportation accessibility to different income groups in the Metropolitan Region of Belém. This is an important step towards the formulation of strategies to reestablish equity in the accessibility distribution. Two indexes have been used to estimate accessibility values in a geographic information system environment: a Mean Separation Index and a Gravity-type Index. The attractiveness values of the Gravity-type Index were subsequently changed to create alternative scenarios in which the location of the retail and service areas was different from the current conditions. The results found in this study showed that: a) the alternative scenarios had a better transportation accessibility distribution than the present one; and b) the selection of the best alternative scenario could be based on equity criteria. Next, once again oriented by an equity criterion, other GIS tools were applied to select the areas in the chosen scenario in which transportation accessibility could be further improved.

This dissertation focuses on the ACCESS Framework which is an open source software framework designed to address four issues with regards to older and novice users with accessibility needs – that they often do not know what support is available within their systems, that they often do not know how to change those settings they know exist, that they often lack the confidence to make the changes they know how to make, and are often unable to physically enable accessibility support.The software discussed in this dissertation serves as a bridge between what users are expected to know and what they actually know by assuming the responsibility for identifying user accessibility requirements and making those changes on the user?s behalf. User interaction with the framework is limited to either expressing approval or disapproval with regards to corrective action. Individual corrections are deployed as plug-ins within this tool.Four studies were conducted during this research. Three of these studies were aimed at evaluating the ACCESS Framework directly with the remaining study being an exploration of a cognitive support tool deployed using the framework. Two of these studies involved participants attempting to perform specific, well-defined tasks on systems that had been configured to the extremes of what was possible with operating system settings. These tasks were attempted with and without the support of the framework. The final study was a focus group in which issues of the framework were discussed by individuals who had been through the experimental trials.The research provided strong evidence that this is an effective mechanism for accessibility configuration when there is a strong match between identified accessibility needs and available operating system support. The system was seen as understandable, useful and appropriate by individuals who had been through the experimental trials. The research provided strong evidence that this is an effective mechanism for accessibility configuration when there is a strong match between identified accessibility needs and available operating system support. The system was seen as understandable, useful and appropriate by participants, with a majority stating that they would be willing to use a similar system on their own machines.

As transições demográfica e epidemiológica implicam em importantes desafios para o Brasil, principalmente para os sistemas previdenciário e de saúde, destacando-se o aumento desproporcional das faixas etárias mais elevadas e da prevalência das doenças crônicas, o maior número de indivíduos com alta dependência e mais gastos com saúde. Assim, esta pesquisa teve como objetivo avaliar parâmetros de acessibilidade e de mobilidade que tragam maior desempenho ao edifício hospitalar, tanto nas áreas internas, como no entorno imediato, com enfoque na população idosa, tendo como base as normas e regulamentações brasileiras. Tratou-se de um estudo descritivo e exploratório de abordagem quantitativa, realizado em um hospital filantrópico do município de São Paulo. Para identificar os parâmetros de acessibilidade e de mobilidade do ambiente hospitalar, optou-se por incluir pacientes idosos e profissionais do hospital, totalizando 60 idosos e 42 funcionários entrevistados. O erro amostral utilizado foi de 10% e o nível de confiança, 90%. O instrumento de coleta de dados continha questões sociodemográficas para caracterização do perfil dos participantes e perguntas relacionadas à acessibilidade e à mobilidade do hospital. Os dados foram analisados por meio de estatística descritiva, em frequência, medidas de posição e de dispersão e apresentados em tabelas e gráficos. O estudo foi conduzido de acordo com todas as exigências éticas da Resolução 466/12 do Conselho Nacional de Saúde e todos os participantes assinaram o Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido. Dentre os pacientes entrevistados, 65% eram do sexo masculino, a faixa etária predominante foi de 71 a 80 anos. Já entre os funcionários, 62% eram do sexo feminino, com idade entre 26 e 45 anos. A maioria dos entrevistados idosos possuía ensino superior completo. As taxas do efeito piso e efeito teto mostraram-se positivas, com resultados inferiores a 15. O grau de satisfação dos pacientes e funcionários em relação ao edifício de forma geral foi considerado positivo. O estudo indicou a importância da avaliação das condições de acessibilidade e de mobilidade hospitalar. / The demographic and epidemiological transitions imply significant challenges for Brazil, mainly for social security and health systems, highlighting the disproportionate increase in older age groups and prevalence of chronic diseases, the greatest number of individuals with high dependency and more health spending. Thus, this research aimed to evaluate parameters of accessibility and mobility to bring higher performance to the hospital build, both in internal areas, as in the immediate surroundings, focusing on the elderly people, based on the Brazilian norms and regulations. This was a descriptive and exploratory study with a quantitative approach, in a philanthropic hospital in São Paulo. To identify the parameters of accessibility and mobility of the hospital, it was decided to include elderly patients and hospital staff, totaling 60 elderly patients and 42 employees interviewed. The sampling error was set at 10% and the confidence level of 90%. The data collection instrument contained socio-demographic questions to characterize the profile of the participants and questions related to accessibility and mobility in the hospital. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequency, position and dispersion measurements and presented in tables and graphs. The study was conducted in accordance with all ethical requirements of the Brazilian National Health Council Resolution 466/12 and all participants signed the consent form. Between the patients interviewed, 65% were male, and the predominant age group was 71-80 years. Between the employees, 62% were female, aged between 26 and 45 years. Most elderly people interviewed had completed higher education. Rates floor effect and ceiling effects were positive, with results lower than 15. The patients and staff satisfaction level related to the build in general was considered positive. The study indicated the importance of assessing the hospital conditions of accessibility and mobility.

Haptics are an exciting, ever-expanding field, particularly in relation to video games. Though haptics found their way rather quickly into conventional games through devices like handheld controllers, music and rhythm titles have hardly seen such attention. Little research has been done to examine the effects of haptics on rhythm dance games from a quantitative and qualitative standpoint for the player. StepMania is an open-source dance game which closely mimics the popular title Dance Dance Revolution. This research investigates the effects of haptics on a sample size of fifty individuals. Each completed three songs in the game with varying conditions: the game's visuals only, a haptic device only, or both the haptics and visuals together. The haptic device warned the participant of an incoming step by vibrating two beats in advance in the direction needing to be stepped in. Music was present for all conditions, as it is an implied essential component of the game. Performance, self-reported enjoyment and self-reported difficulty were very similar between conditions involving visuals only and trials involving both the visuals and haptic device. Conditions involving the haptic device only (no visuals) saw a large drop in performance, a large increase in self-reported difficulty, and a very minor decrease in enjoyment. Despite the difference, participants reported enjoying the experience in free-response questions. The results of the study illustrate the potential for haptics to enhance user experience in rhythm dance video games. Additionally, these results indicate the beginnings of an avenue through which such dance games could become more accessible to the blind, who have been unable to participate in such games up to this point.