The purpose of the study was to determine the efficacy of touch sensitive computer screens in focusing attention on a specific academic task. Forty nondelayed and forty delayed kindergarteners were compared as to their rates of task completion and performances on traditional computer keyboards versus touch sensitive screens. Two eight cell repeated measures experimental designs were used to compare the selective attention process of the nondelayed and delayed pupils. The two dependent variables manipulated in the study were two types of computer input device and the two developmental levels of the subjects. The dependent variable consisted of the number of previously unlearned French number words mastered through four performance measures involving speed, computer recall, noncomputer recall and noncomputer recognition.FINDINGSAs analyzed by a three factor MANOVA, a significant difference in the rate of task completion was shown in favor of the touch screens for all subjects in touching the sequential letters of the alphabet. Although there appeared to be no significant differences in noncomputer recall and recognition post tests, a four factor MANOVA verified significant differences in the subjects' computer recall post tests.CONCLUSIONSThe data supports the conclusion that the use of the touch sensitive screen facilitates the focus of attention (selective attention) on specific academic tasks and thus increases the rate of learning and degree of integration of new information. The degree of compatibility between the learner and the computer input device is greater with touch screens than with traditional keyboards for both nondelayed and delayed kindergarteners.The speed of completing the sequential touching of the alphabet letters was significantly faster for the touch screen than the traditional keyboard input. For mastery of information learned, the analyzed findings suggest a higher degree of recall for information learned through the touch screen intervention over the same instructional tasks with keyboard input.As the result of this key study, it is suggested future research investigations will expand the use of computers beyond educational drill, repetition, and games. Future investigations into the relationships between cognitive processing and the individualization of CAI could involve various age ranges, exceptionalities, and developmental comparisons. / Department of Special Education

No description available.

La visión de aprendizaje de las lenguas en Suecia es de un enfoque funcional y comunicativo en el cual se hace relevante incluir más pragmática en la enseñanza. Los planes de estudio de las lenguas modernas manifiestan la necesidad de obtener una competencia comunicativa y por ello esta monografía estudia el input de los marcadores discursivos conversacionales (MDC) en los diálogos en los libros de enseñanza para ver si los alumnos pueden desarrollar una competencia comunicativa en el caso de los MDC. El método para investigar el input de los MDC es una comparación entre los usos de estos descritos por la Real Academia Española y sus usos en los libros de enseñanza. Los resultados del estudio revelan que no presentan todos los marcadores definidos como MDC en los libros de enseñanza, sin embargo, muestran marcadores de cada categoría y, además, las funciones fundamentales de los que presentan. Además, los diálogos en los libros presentan marcadores de cada categoría que significa que los libros dan un input adecuado de los MDC para que los alumnos puedan desarrollar una competencia comunicativa. / The idea that language is a medium to communicate has been widely established in Sweden and this view of language requires more pragmatics in the classrooms where the students should acquire a communicative competence. Therefore, this study investigates the input and usage of conversational discourse markers in the dialogues in L2 Spanish textbooks in order to see if the students can develop a communicative competence regarding these discourse markers. The method to investigate the functions of the discourse markers represented in the textbooks is to compare the usage to the descriptions published by the Royal Academy of the Spanish language. The results of the study reveal the books show the fundamental usage of the markers that are brought up and in some cases the books even manifest the majority of their functions. Also, the books bring up functions from each of the four categories of conversational discourse markers which mean that the books give the students an adequate input for them to develop their communicative competence.

This thesis introduces an efficient and robust approach for 3D reconstruction of complete head models with consistent parameterization and personalized shapes from several possible inputs. The system input consists of Cyberware laser-scanned data where we perform scanning task as well as publically available face data where (i) facial expression may or may not exist and (ii) only partial information of head may exist, for instance only front face part without back part of the head. Our method starts with a surface reconstruction approach to either transfer point clouds to a mesh structure or to fill missing points on a triangular mesh. Then, it is followed by a registration process which unifies the representation of all meshes. Afterward, a photo-cloning method is used to extract an adequate set of features in a semi-automatic way on snapshots taken from front and left views of provided range data. We modify Radial Basis Functions (RBFs) deformation so that it would be based on not only distance, but also regional information. Using feature point sets and modified RBFs deformation, a generic mesh can be manipulated in a way that closed eyes and mouth movements like separating upper lip and lower lip can be properly handled. In other word, such mesh modification method makes construction of various facial expressions possible. Moreover, new functions are added where a generic model can be manipulated based on feature point sets to consequently recover missing parts such as ears, back of the head and neck in the input face. After feature-based deformation using modified radial basis functions, a fine mesh modification method based on model points follows to extract the fine details from the available range data. Then, some post refinement procedures employing RBFs deformation and averaging neighboring points are carried out to make the surface of reconstructed 3D head smoother and uniform. Due to existence of flaws and defects on the mesh surface such as flipped triangles, self-intersections or degenerate faces, an automatic repairing approach is leveraged to clean up the entire surface of the mesh. The experiments which are performed on various models show that our method is robust and efficient in terms of accurate full head reconstruction from input data and execution time, respectively. In our method, it is also aimed to use minimum user interaction as much as possible.

No description available.

Graduation date: 1982

In the past two decades, wireless communication systems have grown with an unprecedented speed from radio paging and cellular telephony to multimedia platforms offering voice and video streaming . One undesired outcome of this expansion is a heavy utilization of the available frequency spectrum. Particular pressure comes from new multimedia applications, which require larger operational bandwidth for their implementations. Conventional coding, modulation and multiplexing techniques are unable to overcome the problem associated with the limited frequency spectrum, and therefore modern wireless systems are improved through the utilization of the space/angle domain. In order to improve capacity and reliability with the space/angular domain, wireless systems require the use of multiple element antennas (MEA) accompanied by appropriate signal processing algorithms. Typically multiple antennas are used to steer the beams of the line of sight (LOS) signal toward desired users and nulls in the direction of undesired users. However, in the case of indoor environments, the presence of reflections, scattering and refraction caused by the environment, it is better to make use of non-line of sight (NLOS) signal propagation. As these types of MEA antenna systems are a relatively new concept in wireless communications, their potential needs be tested experimentally in real world conditions. To achieve this goal, prototype systems capable to implement various modulation, coding and transmission schemes for MEA are required. This thesis investigates the benefits of MEA systems by building and testing such systems in indoor environments. The project area spans across many disciplines including wireless communications, antennas, embedded systems and RF hardware design, and therefore the thesis begins with essential background information. This concerns some fundamental concepts of a wireless communication channel and its information capacity. These are accompanied by ample considerations of signal propagation and adverse effects of reflection, scattering and diffraction. Also included are the signal modulation and coding. Following this background information, the main topic concerning diversity and multiple-input multiple output system that involves the use of multiple element antennas is introduced. This background material sets the reasons for investigating of two types wireless communication systems that include multiple element antennas: antenna diversity and MIMO. Following the literature review, the thesis reports on investigations that realize the thesis aims. The first part of the undertaken investigations concerns an indoor 2×2 MEA diversity system in which MEAs accompany conventional transceivers. In the experiments, Bluetooth transceivers aimed for a short range operation at 2.45 GHz are used, which are both connected to a 2-element antenna array. The connection is made via a switched beamforming network which involves 4-port hybrid circuits. Two ports of these hybrids are used for connecting antennas, while the one of the remaining two is connected to the Tx or Rx transceiver. By switching between these two input ports of the hybrid, two different radiation patterns can be formed, at both Tx and Rx. One Bluetooth transceiver is stationary while the other is made mobile by employing a purpose built mechanical sub-system covering the precise movement within a circle of 3 m. Both the movement and collection of the data as well as the display of the obtained results are accomplished with the in-house developed software run on a micro-controller and computer. Experimentally, it is shown that the proper Tx and Rx mode for a given position, improves the received signal strength. This leads to improved signal to noise ratio (SNR) and thus the quality of signal transmission. The implementation of this concept only requires a signal quality indicator, and simple feedback between the receiver and the transmitter. In the selected transceivers, "RSSI" was the quality indicator used, and is present in many modern wireless transceivers. Also, any signal quality indicator can be used. Although the experiments were performed with respect to the transmit/receive pattern diversity, they can also be easily extended to other forms of antenna diversity such as polarization or field diversity. The undertaken investigations are original in terms of the full proof of benefits of pattern diversity for indoor wireless systems. The second part of the undertaken investigations focuses on the design, development and testing of a full indoor multiple element antenna system. This demonstrator system includes two main modules: the baseband processor (based on a field programmable gate array) and the RF front end. The FPGA signal processing module is designed around the Altera Stratix II S260 chip, which is commercially available. Suitable hardware design is required to accomplish MIMO signal transmission. The RF front end module performing direct conversion between baseband and 2.45 GHz or 5 GHz radio frequency bands uses the commercially available MAX2829 chip. The interface between FPGA and RF front end is a set of analogue to digital (ADC) and digital to analogue (DAC) converters that operate on signals between the FPGA and the RF transmitter/receiver modules. They are capable of handling 12/14 bit signals at up to 125 MSmp/sec. The data rate chosen in these investigations is 3.125 Mbps. In addition to the MAX2829 IC chip, amplifiers, switches and antennas are included in the RF module. The development of this wireless communication system has been accomplished through a number of design, development and testing stages. Most of the research effort concerned FPGA based signal processing because this part of the system is where the information processing takes place. For the MIMO system, the transmitted signal has to be modulated and coded, with efficient utilization of the multiple element antennas in both these processes. The prerequisite to signal demodulation is signal synchronization. In turn, the decoding requires the knowledge of characteristics of the channels that are formed between transmitting and receiving antennas. For an efficient FPGA hardware design, all the numerical operations must occur in fixed point arithmetic. To accomplish all of these functions, suitable baseband signal processing algorithms were developed as part of the thesis work. First, they were written in MATLAB and then transferred to C++ which is closer to the FPGA implementation. Having confirmed their validity, they were hardware deployed. In the investigated MIMO demonstrator, QPSK modulation and the Alamouti coding scheme were selected for modulating and coding of the transmitted signal. The implementation of the hardware baseband module was validated using a purpose developed channel emulator. This emulator was capable of implementing the channel properties from actual measurements and from theoretical models. The applied theoretical models concern the single and double bounce scattering models, as well as a full EM model and include full EM interactions within array antennas formed by wire dipoles. These models produce random characteristics of the complex channel matrix which describes the channel properties for narrow or wideband case. With this channel emulator, investigations were performed with respect to channel estimation. The training and semi-blind channel estimation methods were tested using the developed emulator. To schedule signal transmission as well as to obtain suitable insight into individual processes, two extra modules were developed as part of the thesis project. These are the scheduler and visualisation modules. The scheduling hardware controls data packets for at the transmitter, and oversees the packets being decoded at the receiver module. For the visualization module, specialized hardware buffers and analysis modules are created for data storage. The signals resulting from the encoding and decoding processes are stored in these buffers, synchronized to each other, which allows for synchronous visualization of the signals. The data from these buffers is streamed to a PC via a 100 Mbit Ethernet connection and a soft-core processor (running uClinux) in the baseband board. Using a web browser on the PC, a graphical interface using scalable vector graphics (SVG) is used for interaction with the embedded web server to display and control what the hardware is sending and receiving. Due to latency, only a quasi-real time display on PC is possible, as 10 ms of time domain data takes 60 ms to display. The FPGA hardware performs real-time continuous data transmission and decoding, and the latency is only in the visualization system. Using the developed baseband system it was shown that the proposed semi-blind channel estimation was advantageous over the classical training approach when the channel properties change during packets transmissions. The developed channel emulator, semi-blind channel estimation algorithm and the visualisation software are the original contributions of this thesis. Having established the proper functioning of the FPGA baseband processor, the remaining investigations concerned the development of the RF transceiver module. This task was accomplished using guidelines offered by the MAX chip manufacturer. The challenge concerned its manufacturing in 4-layer board format. This part of the project required the outsourcing of the PCB manufacturing and component assembly to obtain successful production of the RF front-end board. The RF tests undertaken as part of the project verified the operation of this RF hardware. With the successful development of individual baseband and RF modules, the last part of project concerned the integration of them. Because most of the benefits of the 2×2 MIMO system were demonstrated via the use of a channel emulator, this part of the thesis consisted of the results of a number of experiments. Considerable effort was spent for the full integration of the RF and baseband modules to make them ready for real-time operation. Some of the undertaken tasks were new, as they were not required for experiments using only the baseband system and channel emulator. One of the new challenges concerned proper symbol synchronization. Two novel algorithms were proposed and verified. One of these were based on a simple comparison between "I" and "Q" components of the received signal and the other one involving a correlation of the signal to a known training sequence. The last experiment involved the experimental measurements of signals transmitted over air using the testbed. As the number of interfaces was limited only one transmitting and one receiving antenna was connected to the 2×2 baseband system. However, the Alamouti scheme is able to function when only one of the two antenna is connected, and therefore real-time performance in an indoor environment was successfully tested. The presented designs, algorithms and visualisation form a strong platform for other researchers to continue and expand the work done in this project.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D. - Hydrology and Water Resources)--University of Arizona. / Includes bibliographical references.