Les villes ont eu recours à destechnologies dans plusieurs domaines pouraméliorer la prestation de services publics,répondre aux demandes des citoyens etmesurer la consommation de ressourcesnaturelles. Connues sous le nom de VillesIntelligentes, ces initiatives visent àaméliorer la qualité́ de vie des citoyens etont déjà̀ eu un impact positif sur la manièredont les citoyens interagissent avec lesespaces urbains, les services et les uns avecles autres. D'autre part, les espaces urbainspeuvent être considérés comme une menacepour l'indépendance et l'autonomie despersonnes en situation d'handicap. Nousavons utilisé une approche multiinstrumentspour collecter des donnéesauprès de différentes parties prenantes –personnes en situation de handicap,professionnels travaillant avec despersonnes en situation de handicap, expertsliés à l'accessibilité́ et décideurs politiques,– afin de comprendre les obstaclesrencontrés par les personnes en situation dehandicap. Nous avons d’abord élaboré unedéfinition du terme Ville IntelligenteInclusive, ainsi que nous avons proposé desoutils pour soutenir les praticiens etchercheurs engagés dans le développementde technologies d'assistance numériques :une méthodologie d'implémentation etfonctionnement, un modèle conceptuel etune architecture de système sont proposésdans cette thèse. / Cities have used technologies in anumber of areas to improve the delivery ofpublic services, meet the demands ofcitizens, and measure the consumption ofnatural resources. Known as Smart Cities,these initiatives aim to improve the qualityof life of citizens and have already had apositive impact on how citizens interactwith urban spaces, services and with eachother. On the other hand, urban spaces canbe considered as a threat to theindependence and autonomy of people withdisabilities. We used a multi-instrumentapproach to collect data from differentstakeholders - people with disabilities,professionals working with people withdisabilities, accessibility experts and policymakers - to understand the barriers faced bypeople with disabilities. We first developeda definition of the Smart Inclusive City, aswell as proposed tools to supportpractitioners and researchers engaged in thedevelopment of digital assistivetechnologies: an implementation andoperation methodology, a conceptual model,a business model, and a system architectureare proposed in this thesis.

This thesis aims to explore the perspectives of people with visual impairments about the internet and web accessibility. How the current status of web accessibility is and how people with visual impairments use the internet are important topics in a society that is more and more digitalized. Nine people with visual impairments were asked through semi-structured interviews. The questions covered what they do on the internet, what devices and assistive technologies they use, how web accessibility affects them and how they become digitally literate. This collected data from the interviews and literature, focused on digital disability divide, digital literacy and web accessibility, guided the analysis which was conducted following a qualitative approach. This thesis shows that, while web accessibility allows for many online actions nowadays, much more is required. More focus on the users and their needs related to technical access is needed and digital literacy should be promoted. The study also concludes that technology, digital literacy and web experience are interconnected, which could provide a framework for future research.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing have led to the development of new assistive technologies for people with disabilities. This study builds on these advancements to investigate whether the AI-driven chatbot ChatGPT can assist individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in better comprehending and recalling written text. The study involved two groups of participants, one with ADHD and one without, who completed two reading comprehension tests, one with ChatGPT as a learning aid and the other without. Additionally, interviews were conducted with all participants to supplement the findings. Though our results showed a decrease in comprehension abilities across both groups when having access to ChatGPT, the participants who had used ChatGPT previously, in any form, had an increase in comprehension. The majority of participants were positive towards using ChatGPT in a similar way in the future. However, we believe that providing participants with a proper education on ChatGPT prior to testing, as well as conducting further testing with a larger sample size over a longer period of time, is necessary to provide a more accurate conclusion. / Senaste framstegen inom artificiell intelligens och språkteknologi har lett till utveckling av nya hjälpmedel för personer med funktionshinder. Den här studien bygger på dessa framsteg för att undersöka om den AI-drivna chatbotten ChatGPT kan hjälpa personer med Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) att bättre förstå och minnas skriven text. Studien omfattade två grupper av deltagare, en med ADHD och en utan, som genomförde två läsförståelseprov, ett med ChatGPT som inlärningshjälpmedel och ett utan. Dessutom genomfördes intervjuer med alla deltagare för att komplettera resultaten. Trots att vårt resultat visade en minskning av läsförståelse kunskaper över båda grupperna när de hade tillgång till ChatGPT, de deltagare som hade använt ChatGPT tidigare, i någon form, hade en ökning i läsförståelse. Majoriteten av deltagarna var positiva till att använda ChatGPT på liknande sätt i framtiden. Vi anser dock att ge deltagarna en ordentlig introduktion till ChatGPT före testningen, samt att genomföra ytterligare tester med ett större urval under en längre tidsperiod, är nödvändigt för att ge en mer korrekt för att ge en mer precis slutsats.

Individuals who suffer from severe motor disabilities face the possibility of the loss of speech. A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) can provide a means for communication through non-muscular control. Current BCI systems use characters that flash from gray to white (GW), making adjacent character difficult to distinguish from the target. The current study implements two types of color stimulus (grey to color [GC] and color intensification [CI]) and I hypotheses that color stimuli will; (1) reduce distraction of nontargets (2) enhance target response (3) reduce eye strain. Online results (n=21) show that GC has increased information transfer rate over CI. Mean amplitude revealed that GC had earlier positive latency than GW and greater negative amplitude than CI, suggesting a faster perceptual process for GC. Offline performance of individual optimal channels revealed significant improvement over online standardized channels. Results suggest the importance of a color stimulus for enhanced response and ease of use.

With aging, the sensory, motor, and central nervous system deficiencies lead to inadequate bicycle postural control in older cyclists. Similarly, variety in riding skills leads to different bicycle postural control strategies. Cycling seems to be an automated task but keeping the bicycle stable at low speed, pedaling, and steering requires continuous physical and cognitive effort, and in long term may lead to fatigue induced by steering and stabilizing the e-bike at low forward speeds especially in older cyclists. E-bikes enables riders to cycle for langer duration and distance by reducing the physical fatigue. There is an increasing societal interest in electric bicycles where in 2021, 26. 73 billion US dollars worldwide have been invested on e-bikes and by 2027 this global market size will increase to 53.53 billion US dollars (Statista). However, with increased numbers of e-bikes, bicycle accidents due to inadequate steering and balance control by older cyclists have increased, which suggests needs for extra safety measures to maintain balance on a bicycle for challenging situation such as facing undesired disturbances or low forward speeds. We developed a prototype steering assist which aims to increase safety and improve the user experience, by reducing the steering effort and enhancing the bicycle postural control (rider-bike balance control). We investigated the potential effectiveness ofthe steering assist technology in real life challenging situations. Our present study should be considered exploratory research to find the potential effectiveness of the steering assist technology in improving the user experience and safety compared to a non-assistive e-bike. The improved bicycle postural control is validated by smaller range, variability, and rate of steering and roll trajectories when the rider is subjected to an unwanted disturbance. Improved bicycle postural control is expected based on the reduced need for compensatory behavior in the presence of assistive technology. Decreased steering effort is expected due to reduced demand for acute steering control in the anticipatory control strategy.

<p>Robot grasping is emerging as an active area of research in robotics as the interest in human-robot interaction is gaining worldwide because of diverse industrial settings for sharing tasks and workplaces. It mainly focuses on the quality of generated grasps for object manipulation. However, despite advancements, these methods need to consider the human-robot collaboration settings where robots and humans will have to grasp the same objects concurrently. Therefore, generating robot grasps compatible with human preferences of simultaneously holding an object is necessary to ensure a safe and natural collaboration experience. In this work, we propose a novel, deep neural network-based method called CoGrasp that generates human-aware robot grasps by contextualizing human preference models of object grasping into the robot grasp selection process. We validate our approach against existing state-of-the-art robot grasping methods through simulated and real-robot experiments and user studies. In real robot experiments, our method achieves about 88% success rate in producing stable grasps that allow humans to interact and grasp objects simultaneously in a socially compliant manner. Furthermore, our user study with 10 independent participants indicated our approach enables a safe, natural, and socially aware human-robot objects' co-grasping experience compared to a standard robot grasping technique.</p> <p>To facilitate the grasping process, we also introduce a vision-language model that works as a pre-processing system before the grasping action takes place. In most settings, the robots are equipped with sensors that allow them to capture the scene, on which the vision model is used to do a detection task and objectify the visible contents in the environment. The language model is used to program the robot to make it possible for them to understand and execute the required sequence of tasks. Using the process of object detection, we build a set of object queries from the sensor image and allow the user to provide an input query for a task to be performed. We then perform a similarity score among these queries to localize the object that needs attention, and once identified, we can use a grasping process for the task at hand.</p>

Location-based ads are defined as any ads that are sent by an identified source to consumers' mobile devices when they are around the advertised product/store. Although mobile ad spending is said to have accounted for 68% of all digital ad spending in 2020, knowledge of how businesses can use mobile and location-based technology to reach their customers effectively is limited. Thus, the purpose of this three-essay format dissertation is to review the literature on LBA and identify the gaps in the literature and attempt to address a few of these gaps in the remaining two essays. The second essay tests an integrated model by examining the effects of the various retailer and consumer-controlled factors on two retail performances. In the third essay, we explore how LBA affects different dimensions of consumer-brand engagement. The results and findings provide important implications for retailers and brands to increase their performances.

This study examined teacher characteristics and practices identified as effective through current research for teaching students with complex communication needs. For this population, communication issues are more complex than those typically encountered in other settings. Specifically, the researcher asked: what are the desired characteristics and practices for this population, and are the desired characteristics and practices present in current settings? Working with six teachers in a large urban school district, this study utilized a multiple case study design. Criteria for participation included the teacher as the primary reading/language arts instructor for a student who used an augmentative and alternative communication system (AAC). This study builds on prior research and fills a gap in current research through a focus on the teacher. This study was conducted through three phases: a survey of teacher characteristics, observations of teacher practices, and a semi-structured interview. Four instruments were utilized to ensure validity. Results suggest that teachers for this population require knowledge on language and literacy specific to the non-verbal child. AAC training is critical in regard to programming and navigation. The use of other technology supports which offer auditory, visual, and access options are essential. Strong collaborative teams (school and district) are also important. However, one of the most significant findings documents that success may lie with the teacher's 'choice' to embrace challenges with this population. This issue of 'choice' questions the teacher's willingness (personally or professionally) to accept this commitment. This finding also questions the degree to which teachers are willing to pursue opportunities. Recommendations include the need for: training (teachers and paraprofessionals), pursuit of opportunities for supports, addressing parent issues, a district-based liaison between home and school, and to examine issues which prevent the recommended instructional time (90 minutes of reading instruction plus 45 minutes of supplemental instruction). Conclusions indicated that participants ranged from effective to ineffective. The identification of 'highly qualified' teachers through level of education and amount of experience did not correlate with participants' level of effectiveness. Given the limited research available, this study addresses a need in the field and lays the foundation for future research with this population.

Assistive technology (AT) is defined as any piece of equipment that improves the functional skills of an individual with a disability. AT choices range from low tech (e.g., communication boards made of cardboard and felt, pencil grips) to high tech (e.g., computer applications, screen readers, specialized software or other curriculum aids; Center on Technology and Disability, 2018).

In an interdisciplinary project, creative concepts for care robotics were developed. To explore the design space that these open up, we discussed them along the common differentiation of physical (effective) and social-emotional assistance. Trying to rate concepts on these dimensions frequently raised questions regarding the relation between the social-emotional and the physical, and highlighted gaps and a lack of conceptual clarity. We here present our design concepts, report on our discussion, and summarize our insights; in particular we suggest that the social and the physical dimension of care technologies should always be thought of and designed as interrelated.