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The purpose of this investigation was to determine if a significant difference exists between oral stereognosis skills of blind and sighted children. The possibility of a relationship between oral stereognosis and articulation was also explored in both the sighted and blind populations. A group of twenty-four blind and a group of twenty four sighted subjects between the ages of seven and twenty were divided into subgroups of those having normal speech and those with defective articulation . There were twelve subjects in each subgroup . A 20-item test of oral stereognosis (NIDR forms) was administered to each subject and error scores taken. Results of the study indicate that no significant difference exists between the oral stereognosis abilities of sighted and blind subjects. A significant difference was found to exlst at the .01 level between oral stereognosis scores of normal speakers and articulatory impaired speakers. This difference was also found to be significant between the blind subgroups but not between the sighted subgroups.

Planning is an essential part of intelligent behavior and a ubiquitous task for both humans and rational agents. One framework for planning in the presence of uncertainty is probabilistic planning, in which actions are described by a probability distribution over their possible outcomes. Probabilistic planning has been applied to different real-world scenarios such as public health, sustainability and robotics; however, the usage of probabilistic planning in practice is limited due to the poor performance of existing planners. In this thesis, we introduce a novel approach to effectively solve probabilistic planning problems by relaxing them into short-sighted problems. A short-sighted problem is a relaxed problem in which the state space of the original problem is pruned and artificial goals are added to heuristically estimate the cost of reaching an original goal from the pruned states. Differently from previously proposed relaxations, short-sighted problems maintain the original structure of actions and no restrictions are imposed in the maximum number of actions that can be executed. Therefore, the solutions for short-sighted problems take into consideration all the probabilistic outcomes of actions and their probabilities. In this thesis, we also study different criteria to generate short-sighted problems, i.e., how to prune the state space, and the relation between the obtained short-sighted models and previously proposed relaxation approaches. We present different planning algorithms that use short-sighted problems in order to solve probabilistic planning problems. These algorithms iteratively generate and execute optimal policies for short-sighted problems until the goal of the original problem is reached. We also formally analyze the introduced algorithms, focusing on their optimality guarantees with respect to the original probabilistic problem. Finally, this thesis contributes a rich empirical comparison between our algorithms and state-of-the-art probabilistic planners.

The aim of this degree thesis is to create a brief summary of cartographic production for visually impaired people, to evaluate selected works and to create an Asthenopia School Atlas draft. Sample sheets showing an asthenopic map of Australia are included in the appendix of the degree thesis. The MicroStation application program was used for the atlas draft creation as well as for the creation of the Australia map sample sheets.

Yes / We describe a method for deriving the linear cortical magnification factor from positional error across the visual field. We compared magnification obtained from this method between normally sighted individuals and amblyopic individuals, who receive atypical visual input during development. The cortical magnification factor was derived for each subject from positional error at 32 locations in the visual field, using an established model of conformal mapping between retinal and cortical coordinates. Magnification of the normally sighted group matched estimates from previous physiological and neuroimaging studies in humans, confirming the validity of the approach. The estimate of magnification for the amblyopic group was significantly lower than the normal group: by 4.4 mm deg 1 at 18 eccentricity, assuming a constant scaling factor for both groups. These estimates, if correct, suggest a role for early visual experience in establishing retinotopic mapping in cortex. We discuss the implications of altered cortical magnification for cortical size, and consider other neural changes that may account for the amblyopic results.

Self-concept scores of 19 visually-impaired adults were compared to those of 19 matched sighted adults using the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale (TSCS). All participants attended the University of North Texas. Scores were examined against the Vocabulary and Information subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R).

Anxiety levels of partially sighted were compared with totally blind people. Using the Anxiety Scale for the Blind, the primary hypothesis tested was that the partially sighted would manifest more anxiety than would the totally blind. The study was designed to ascertain whether the primary hypothesis would hold within the structure of this study, and to obtain information useful in future anxiety studies of the visually handicapped. A residential center for the blind furnished subjects, facilities, and biographical data. The primary hypothesis lacked statistical significance at the .05 level as did comparisons of anxiety levels by age, sex, economic need, and age at onset. The use of a different instrument may be indicated for future studies.

L’instruction des ADV (Aveugles et Déficients visuels) sous-tend leur apprentissage et leur intégration aussi bien scolaire que sociale, et est fondée sur des politiques mises en œuvre dans divers pays. En France et dans d’autres pays, sont conçues au profit des ADV des politiques d’intégration dont celles en milieu ouvert et en milieu spécialisé. Les études de terrain en France et en Tunisie montrent, qu’avec de supports et de matériels spécifiques, les ADV ont pu apprendre les mathématiques en concrétisation de ces politiques d’intégration. / Teaching the BVI (Blind and Visually Impaired) is the foundation of their learning and integration in both school and society, and is based on policies implemented in various countries. In France and in other countries, integration policies, in an open and specialized setting, are formed for the BVI. Field studies in France and in Tunisia show that with specific media and materials, the BVI were able to learn Math, thus concretizing these integration policies.

As we navigate the world, for example when driving a car from our home to the work place, we continuously perceive the 3D structure of our surroundings and intuitively recognise the objects we see. Such capabilities help us in our everyday lives and enable free and accurate movement even in completely unfamiliar places. We largely take these abilities for granted, but for robots, the task of understanding large outdoor scenes remains extremely challenging. In this thesis, I develop novel algorithms for (near) real-time dense 3D reconstruction and semantic segmentation of large-scale outdoor scenes from passive cameras. Motivated by "smart glasses" for partially sighted users, I show how such modeling can be integrated into an interactive augmented reality system which puts the user in the loop and allows her to physically interact with the world to learn personalized semantically segmented dense 3D models. In the next part, I show how sparse but very accurate 3D measurements can be incorporated directly into the dense depth estimation process and propose a probabilistic model for incremental dense scene reconstruction. To relax the assumption of a stereo camera, I address dense 3D reconstruction in its monocular form and show how the local model can be improved by joint optimization over depth and pose. The world around us is not stationary. However, reconstructing dynamically moving and potentially non-rigidly deforming texture-less objects typically require "contour correspondences" for shape-from-silhouettes. Hence, I propose a video segmentation model which encodes a single object instance as a closed curve, maintains correspondences across time and provide very accurate segmentation close to object boundaries. Finally, instead of evaluating the performance in an isolated setup (IoU scores) which does not measure the impact on decision-making, I show how semantic 3D reconstruction can be incorporated into standard Deep Q-learning to improve decision-making of agents navigating complex 3D environments.

A sight disadvantaged person is an individual whose sight impairment influences in a way the performance of daily activities and cannot by sufficiently solved using common optical correction. The typhlopedia / the ofthalmopedia is a special education branch focused of education, trainig and development of sight disadvanced persons. The general awareness on typhlopedia and the right approach towards the sight disadvantaged persons was investigated and the current attitude of the general public towards to sight disadvantaged persons was mapped. Tha inquiry method (data collection technique using questionnaire/ questionnaire method) was used. The research was carried out in a common Czech city (České budějovice). Generally, two hypothesis were postulated. The first hypothesis was defined as the public awareness on typhlopedia and the right approach towards the sight disadvantaged persons being average (to insufficient). The other hypothesis was that the public attitude towards the sight disadvantaged persons is positive. Finally, the both hypothesis were conformed.