Please read the abstract in the section, 00front, of this document / Dissertation (MA (AAC))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MA (AAC))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

This Master thesis proposes a human-computer interface for individual with limited hand movements that incorporate the use of facial gesture as a means of communication. The system recognizes faces and extracts facial gestures to map them into Morse code that would be translated in English in real time. The system is implemented on a MACBOOK computer using Python software, OpenCV library, and Dlib library. The system is tested by 6 students. Five of the testers were not familiar with Morse code. They performed the experiments in an average of 90 seconds. One of the tester was familiar with Morse code and performed the experiment in 53 seconds. It is concluded that errors occurred due to variations in features of the testers, lighting conditions, and unfamiliarity with the system. Implementing an auto correction and auto prediction system will decrease typing time considerably and make the system more robust.

Please read the abstract in the section, 00front, of this document / Dissertation (MLog)--University of Pretoria, 2001. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / MLog / Unrestricted

The advent of the microcomputer has provided the severely handicapped with the means to create text. Instead of using a keyboard, the disabled typist is able to scan and select linguistic items with an appropriate input switch. The resulting communication rate is, however, prohibitively slow for writing and impractical for conversation. A variety of techniques is used to improve this rate and range from static letter matrices to more sophisticated methods in which words and phrases are anticipated. Although many anticipatory methods claim to be linguistically based, most, if not all, depend solely on letter and word frequency statistics. A series of phonological rules can be used to anticipate the letter structure of most English words. This linguistically based system reflects a degree of "intelligence" not present in other anticipatory writing systems. To evaluate and compare the new system with several existing techniques in practice, a programmable evaluation system has been developed on an IBM-compatible personal computer using the Artificial Intelligence language, LISP. Different communication strategies are transcribed into rulebases which serve as input to the software. The core program then executes the particular system under consideration. Input text can be processed in either manual or simulation mode and an evaluation report is generated when the session ends. The characteristics of efficient communication systems are introduced as a basis for this dissertation, after which the development and application of a linguistic anticipatory writing system is described. The design of the evaluation software is documented and the successful implementation of the various communication systems is discussed.

Mobile computing is becoming increasingly important, due to the rise in the number of portable computers and the desire to have continuous network connectivity to the Internet, irrespective of the physical location of the node. We have also seen a steady growth of the market for wireless communication devices. Such devices can only have the effect of increasing the options for making connections to the global Internet. The Internet infrastructure is built on top of a collection of protocols called the TCP/IP protocol suite. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) are the core protocols in this suite. There are currently two standards: one to support the current IPv4 and one for the upcoming IPv6 [1]. IP requires the location of any node connected to the Internet to be uniquely identified by an assigned IP address. This raises one of the most important issues in mobility because, when a node moves to another physical location, it has to change its IP address. However, the higher-level protocols require the IP address of a node to be fixed for identifying connections. The Mobile Internet Protocol (Mobile IP) is an extension to the Internet Protocol proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that addresses this issue. It enables mobile devices to stay connected to the Internet regardless of their locations, without changing their IP addresses and, therefore, an ongoing IP session will not be interrupted [2, 3, 4]. More precisely, Mobile IP is a standard protocol that builds on the Internet Protocol by making mobility transparent to applications and higher-level protocols like TCP. However, before Mobile IP can be broadly deployed, there are still several technical barriers, such as long handover periods and packet loss that have to be overcome, in addition to other technical obstacles, including handover performance, security issues and routing efficiency [7]. This study presents an investigation into developing new handover mechanisms based on link layer information in Mobile IP and fast handover in Mobile IPv6 environments. The main goal of the developed mechanisms is to improve the overall IP mobility performance by reducing packet loss, minimizing signalling overheads and reducing the handover processing time. These models include the development of a cross-layer handover scheme using link layer information and Mobile Node (MN) location information to improve the performance of the communication system by reducing transmission delay, packet loss and registration signalling overheads. Finally, the new schemes are developed, tested and validated through a set of experiments to demonstrate the relative merits and capabilities of these schemes.

With the exponential increase of Internet usage and the embedding of multimedia content on the Web, some of the Internet resources remain inaccessible for people with disabilities. Particularly, people who are deaf or Hard of Hearing (HOH) experience inaccessible Web sites due to a lack of Closed Captioning (CC) for multimedia content on the Web, no sign language equivalents for the content on the Web, and an insufficient evaluation framework for determining if a Web page is accessible to the Hearing Impaired community. Several opportunities for accessing content needed to be rectified in order for the Hearing Impaired community to access the full benefits of the information repository on the Internet. The research contributions of this thesis are to resolve some of the Web accessibility problems being faced by the Hearing Impaired community. These objectives are to create an automated CC for the Web for multimedia content, to embed sign language equivalent for content available on the Web, to create a framework to evaluate Web accessibility for the Hearing Impaired community, and to create a social network for the Deaf community. To demonstrate the feasibility of fulfilling the above listed objectives several prototypes were implemented. These prototypes have been used in real life scenarios in order to have an objective evaluation of the proposed framework. Further, the implemented prototypes have had an impact to both the academic community and to the industry. / by Simone Pasmore. / Signature page unsigned. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Patients who are hospitalized and are without voice would like to participate in their care. This requires clear communication. Speak for Myself™ (SFM) was developed for use at the bedside so that communication may be facilitated between patient and nurse when the patient is voiceless. The objective of this study was to evaluate Speak for Myself™ at the bedside and to measure the outcomes. This was a mixed methods, one group pre-test-post-test, quasi-experimental study. Twenty adult patients in three hospitals in South Florida agreed to use Speak for Myself™ during their acute care hospital stay (M = 8.86 hours). This group of participants (n = 20) ranged from 45 to 91 years old (males = 14; females = 6). Of the participants, 15 (75%) self-identified as European American, 2 (10%) self-identified as Hispanic, 2 (10%) self-identified as African American, and 1 (5%) self-identified as Asian. Ten of the participants (50%) were in respiratory failure. Two (10%) were receiving oxygenation measures related to unspecified complications of their illnesses. Of the remaining eight participants (40%), one each was receiving oxygenation measures due to atrial fibrillation, arteriosclerotic heart disease, cardiogenic shock, endocarditis, neck abscess, renal failure, status post seizure activity, and tongue metastasis. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-12-12T09:27:47Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Sibele Sachie Matsubara.pdf: 1798471 bytes, checksum: 62afad8367e72f6b1509d7d903f6ad31 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-12T09:27:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sibele Sachie Matsubara.pdf: 1798471 bytes, checksum: 62afad8367e72f6b1509d7d903f6ad31 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-11-01 / Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo - PUCSP / This study brings together contributions on the preferences of deaf people in relation to communicative applications. In order to carry out this research, it was important to understand in more depth the community of people who are hearing impaired, who have their own language, Brazilia Sign Language (GESSER, 2009) and have a different identity and culture from hearing people (GOES et al, 2011). Although many actions (including benefits, laws and public policies) take place due to the approach of deafness from the perspective of what is deficient in it – lack o hearing -, this study brings the discussion regarding the socio-anthropological view of deafness, based on the difference and not on the disability (SKLIAR, 1998; 2004). It is worth mentioning the influence of language in this context, shaping the deaf person and his or her choices. This project also carried out a survey which listed and analysed the technologies that assist deaf people’s communication, introducing the applications to be approached in the research done with a group of deaf people. The interviews brought a variety of contributions, among which we highlight: a list of suggestions for improving the applications, the level of satisfaction of the group of respondents with the most used applications and details about what motivates them to use the apps and their main functionalities / Este estudo reúne contribuições sobre as preferências de surdos com relação a aplicativos de comunicação. Para a realização desta pesquisa, foi importante entender com mais profundidade essa comunidade de pessoas que não escutam, possuem uma língua própria: Libras (GESSER, 2009) e uma identidade e cultura distintas dos ouvintes (GOES et al, 2011; NOGUEIRA, 2015). Apesar de muitas ações (incluindo benefícios, leis e políticas públicas) acontecerem em decorrência da abordagem do surdo pela perspectiva do que é deficiente nela, ou seja, a falta de audição, cabe a discussão trazida por este estudo acerca da visão socioantropológica da surdez, pautada na diferença e não na “doença” (SKLIAR, 1998). Cabendo mencionar a influência da língua nesse contexto, moldando a concepção deste sujeito surdo e suas escolhas. Este projeto realizou também um levantamento e análise das tecnologias que assessoram a comunicação do surdo, fazendo uma introdução dos aplicativos a serem abordados na pesquisa realizada com um grupo de surdos. As entrevistas, por sua vez, trouxeram uma variedade de contribuições, dentre elas destacamos: lista de sugestões para aprimoramento dos aplicativos, o nível de satisfação do grupo de entrevistados com o aplicativo mais utilizado, detalhamentos sobre o que motiva os surdos a utilizarem o app e as principais funcionalidades usadas

Darbo analitinėje dalyje išanalizuota įmonės UAB „Mobili garantija“ remonto darbų veikla, analizei atlikti sudaryti detalūs duomenų srautų bei duomenų struktūrų modeliai. Siekiant nustatyti, ar rinkoje egzistuoja galimas problemos sprendimas, atlikta rinkoje siūlomų produktų apžvalgą. Nusprendus kurti naują remonto darbų valdymo informacinę sistemą, apibrėžti kuriamos informacinės sistemos funkciniai ir nefunkciniai reikalavimai, pasirinktos priemonės informacinės sistemos realizavimui. Projektinėje darbo dalyje panaudojimo atvejų modelis detalizuojamas veiklos diagramų schemomis. Remiantis duomenų struktūrų modeliais suprojektuotas duomenų bazės modelis, aprašytos duomenų bazės lentelių struktūros. Remiantis duomenų bazės lentelių struktūra, sudaryti vartotojo sąsajos modeliai. Pateikiamas kuriamos informacinės sistemos navigavimo planas bei langų ir formų aprašymai. Sistemos testavimo ir kokybės įvertinimo dalyje aprašomas sistemos diegimas, sudaromas sistemos įvertinimo planas. Siekiant įvertinti sistemos funkcionalumą atliekamas sistemos testavimas, kurio rezultatai pateikiami lentelėje. Taip pat pateikiami anketinės apklausos apibendrinti duomenys. / The subject of this work is computerization of repairs works management process. During the analysis of UAB "Mobili garantija" repairs management, detailed data flow and the data structure models were created. Available products offering partial solutions to the problem were overviewed and compared. Functional and non-functional requirements for the repairs management information system were defined. In the projecting section of this document, detailed activity diagrams along with a specification of a developed database model are presented. A detailed navigation plan along with specifications of each user form and report concludes this section of the document. The tests of the finished information system revealed full compliance with the specified requirements. System user survey was carried out to make more precise quality evaluations. The survey showed that users were generally satisfied with both performance and functionality of the new system. Pilot implementation of the system showed that it meets the defined requirements and can be safely used by UAB "Mobili garantija" for repairs management.