The aim of this thesis was to create two applications for people with learning difficulties. The first, i-CT Framwork, is also an executable application to be used with the target group mentioned above. As an executable application, i-CT Framework operates as a central tool for managing users, applications, and user restrictions. Development of Gesture Translator application presented another aim of the thesis: this application can translate sign language gestures for people with learning difficulties. Both applications are functioning on Android as well as iOS operating systems.

The thesis focuses on creating point cloud and mesh model of chosen intersections and their applications in forensic-engineering praxis. In the first part, we describe a workflow for creating point cloud and mesh model of intersection by digital photogrammetry. In the second part, we applied these at chosen intersections. Which leads us to the comparison of three digital photogrammetric programs which we used to make point clouds and mesh models. At the end of thesis, we use our mesh models in forensic-engineering praxis and we decide about barriers in sign conditions at intersections.

Appropriate digital citizenship skills are considered essential for modern professionals, including signed language interpreters. However, little is known about the experiences and practices of interpreter educators regarding digital citizenship. This exploratory qualitative interview study was conducted to examine the experiences and practices of interpreter educators related to incorporating opportunities for digital citizenship skill-building in their teaching practice. A conceptual framework based on digital citizenship theory guided development of this study. Data were collected from interviews of 6 interpreter educators in bachelor-degree programs in American Sign Language/English interpreting across the United States. Data sets were analyzed through open and axial coding and assessed for themes and patterns. Findings of the study indicated that interpreter educators were aware of elements of digital citizenship but were not knowledgeable about institutional or other policies, that they prioritized the soft skills of digital citizenship, and that they assumed their students acquired the technical skills of digital citizenship elsewhere. Findings may lead to better informed pedagogical decisions about incorporating digital citizenship into instruction, better prepared new professionals, and can contribute to positive social change for practitioners and the consumers they serve.

La reconnaissance de la langue des signes française (LSF) comme une langue à part entière en 2005 a créé un besoin important de développement d’outils informatiques pour rendre l’information accessible au public sourd. Dans cette perspective, cette thèse a pour cadre la modélisation linguistique pour un système de génération de la LSF. Nous présentons dans un premier temps les différentes approches linguistiques ayant pour but la description linguistique des langues des signes (LS). Nous présentons ensuite les travaux effectués en informatique pour les modéliser.Dans un deuxième temps, nous proposons une approche permettant de prendre en compte les caractéristiques linguistiques propres au LS tout en respectant les contraintes d’un processus de formalisation. En étudiant des liens entre des fonctions sémantiques et leurs formes observées dans les corpus LSF, nous avons identifié plusieurs règles de production. Nous présentons finalement le fonctionnement des règles comme étant un système susceptible de modéliser un énoncé entier en LSF. / The recognition of French Sign Language (LSF) as a natural language in 2005 has created an important need for the development of tools to make information accessible to the deaf public. With this prospect, this thesis aims at linguistic modeling for a system of generation of LSF. We first present the different linguistic approaches aimed at describing the sign language (SL). We then present the models proposed in computer science. In a second step, we propose an approach allowing to take into account the linguistic properties of the SL while respecting the constraints of a formalisation process.By studying the links between semantic functions and their observed forms in LSF Corpora, we have identified several production rules. We finally present the rule functioning as a system capable of modeling an entire utterance in LSF.

Cette thèse se propose de mette en évidence la façon dont Salvatore Quasimodo perçoit le sensible comme un tissu de « signes » qu’il apparente à des messages de l’invisible. Celui-ci les guette dans une quête spirituelle et existentielle générée par son incapacité à habiter harmonieusement le sensible, qu’il tente de combler par un rapport fusionnel à l’invisible : ses premiers poèmes s’apparentent à une solipsiste et onirique sublimation de la souffrance du « je » lyrique dont Dieu est l’interlocuteur unique, dans un dialogue où les mots sont remplacés par les signes. La seconde guerre mondiale introduit un premier changement d’indexation dans le rapport du poète au monde, l’obligeant à une redéfinition de son rapport à l’invisible et, par conséquent, au sensible. Son catholicisme se mue alors en humanisme, manifestation laïque d’une foi qui, elle, ne vacille pas. Au moment où il cesse de croire en Dieu, le poète se met à croire en l’homme. Cet élan enthousiaste est cependant de courte durée : l’homme dont Quasimodo avait rêvé de faire un héros se révèle aussi décevant que Dieu. Le poète se sent alors trahi par l’un comme par l’autre et constate avec amertume la déréliction des signes. Le dernier recueil du Sicilien, Dare e avere, introduit une ultime rupture dans son rapport au monde : celui-ci apparaît soudainement comme réconcilié avec le sensible comme avec l’invisible, dans une plénitude épiphanique. Mais ce qui pourrait à première vue apparaître comme l’accomplissement heureux d’un douloureux parcours initiatique se révèle trompeur : ces derniers recueils sont en réalité une sublimation littéraire de la terreur que ressent le poète à l’approche de la mort. / This thesis aims to show that Salvatore Quasimodo apprehends the physical​​ world as a network of signs he identifies as messages from the invisible world.  He watches out for them in a spiritual and existential quest originating in his inability to live in harmony in the physical world, which he tries to overcome by developing a close relationship with the invisible world. His early poems display the solip​si​​stic sublimation of the sufferings of the poetic voice conversing with God, words being replaced with signs. The Second World War brings about the first major adjustment in the poet's relation to the world, leading him to reconsider his relation to the invisible and, consequently, to the physical world. This is when his Catholic faith turns into a form of humanism, the non-religious expression of an unfaltering faith. As the poet stops believing in God, he starts believing in man. But this fervour does not last, as Quasimodo understands that men are just as cruel as God. The poet Now feeling betrayed by both, the poet acknowledges the dereliction of signs. His last collection, Dare e avere, displays a last alteration in his relation to the world, as he appears to be reconciled with both the physical and the invisible worlds. But what might appear as the happy outcome of a painful initiatory journey proves deceptive : the last collections of poems are actually but a way for the poet to sublimate his growing terror of approaching death.

abstract: Languages, specially gestural and sign languages, are best learned in immersive environments with rich feedback. Computer-Aided Language Learning (CALL) solu- tions for spoken languages have successfully incorporated some feedback mechanisms, but no such solution exists for signed languages. Computer Aided Sign Language Learning (CASLL) is a recent and promising field of research which is made feasible by advances in Computer Vision and Sign Language Recognition(SLR). Leveraging existing SLR systems for feedback based learning is not feasible because their decision processes are not human interpretable and do not facilitate conceptual feedback to learners. Thus, fundamental research is needed towards designing systems that are modular and explainable. The explanations from these systems can then be used to produce feedback to aid in the learning process. In this work, I present novel approaches for the recognition of location, movement and handshape that are components of American Sign Language (ASL) using both wrist-worn sensors as well as webcams. Finally, I present Learn2Sign(L2S), a chat- bot based AI tutor that can provide fine-grained conceptual feedback to learners of ASL using the modular recognition approaches. L2S is designed to provide feedback directly relating to the fundamental concepts of ASL using an explainable AI. I present the system performance results in terms of Precision, Recall and F-1 scores as well as validation results towards the learning outcomes of users. Both retention and execution tests for 26 participants for 14 different ASL words learned using learn2sign is presented. Finally, I also present the results of a post-usage usability survey for all the participants. In this work, I found that learners who received live feedback on their executions improved their execution as well as retention performances. The average increase in execution performance was 28% points and that for retention was 4% points. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Engineering 2020

This dissertation investigates whether transitivity distinctions are manifest in the phonetics of linguistic and paralinguistic manual actions, namely lexical verbs and classifier constructions in American Sign Language (ASL) and gestures produced by hearing non-signers without speech (i.e., pantomime). A positive result would indicate that grammatical features are (a) transparent and (b) may thus arise from non-linguistic sources, here the visual-praxic domain. Given previous literature, we predict that transitivity is transparent in pantomime and classifier constructions, but opaque in lexical verbs. <div><br></div><div>We first collected judgments from hearing non-signers who classed pantomimes, classifier constructions, and ASL lexical verbs as unergative, unaccusative, transitive, or ditransitive. We found that non-signers consistently judged items across all three stimulus types, suggesting that there is transitivity-related information in the signed signal. </div><div><br></div><div>We then asked whether non-signers’ judging ability has its roots in a top-down or bottom-up strategy. A top-down strategy might entail guessing the meaning of the sign or pantomime and then using the guessed meaning to assess/guess its transitivity. A bottom-up strategy entails using one or more meaningful phonetic features available in the formation of the signal to judge an item. We predicted that both strategies would be available in classing pantomimes and classifier constructions, but that transitivity information would only be available top-down in lexical verbs, given that the former are argued to be more imagistic generally than lexical verbs. Further, each strategy makes a different prediction with respect to the internal representation xv of signs and pantomimes. The top-down strategy would suggest signs and pantomimes are unanalyzable wholes, whereas the bottom-up strategy would suggest the same are compositional. </div><div><br></div><div>For the top-down analysis, we correlated lexical iconicity score and a measure of the degree to which non-signers ‘agreed’ on the transitivity of an item. We found that lexical iconicity only weakly predicts non-signer judgments of transitivity, on average explaining 10-20% of the variance for each stimulus class. However, we note that this is the only strategy available for lexical verbs. </div><div><br></div><div>For the bottom-up analysis, we annotate our stimuli for phonetic and phonological features known to be relevant to transitivity and/ or event semantics in sign languages. We then apply a text classification model to try to predict transitivity from these features. As expected, our classifiers achieved stably high accuracy for pantomimes and classifier constructions, but only chance accuracy for lexical verbs. </div><div><br></div><div>Taken together, the top-down and bottom-up analyses were able to predict nonsigner transitivity judgments for the pantomimes and classifier constructions, with the bottom-up analysis providing a stronger, more convincing result. For lexical verbs, only the top-down analysis was relevant and it performed weakly, providing little explanatory power. When interpreting these results, we look to the semantics of the stimuli to explain the observed differences between classes: pantomimes and classifier constructions both encode events of motion and manipulation (by human hands), the transitivity of which may be encoded using a limited set of strategies. By contrast, lexical verbs denote a multitude of event types, with properties of those events (and not necessarily their transitivity) being preferentially encoded compared to the encoding of transitivity. That is, the resolution of transitivity is a much more difficult problem when looking at lexical verbs. </div><div><br></div><div>This dissertation contributes to the growing body of literature that appreciates how linguistic and paralinguistic forms may be both (para)linguistic and iconic at the same time. It further helps disentangle at least two different types of iconicities (lexical vs. structural), which may be selectively active in some signs or constructions xvi but not others. We also argue from our results that pantomimes are not holistic units, but instead combine elements of form and meaning in an analogous way to classifier constructions. Finally, this work also contributes to the discussion of how Language could have evolved in the species from a gesture-first perspective: The ‘understanding’ of others’ object-directed (i.e. transitive) manual actions becomes communicative.</div>

We investigate the solution of large-scale generalized algebraic Bernoulli equations as those arising in control and systems theory in the context of stabilization of linear dynamical systems, coprime factorization of rational matrix-valued functions, and model reduction. The algorithms we propose, based on a generalization of the Newton iteration for the matrix sign function, are easy to parallelize, yielding an efficient numerical tool to solve large-scale problems. Both the accuracy and the parallel performance of our implementations on a cluster of Intel Xeon processors are reported.

Es werden Systeme zur Realisierung einer einheitlichen Authentifizierung von Nutzern im Hinblick auf WWW-Anwendungen an der Technischen Universtät Chemnitz und der damit verbundenen Übermittlung von Nutzerdaten untersucht. Shibboleth wird als ein prinzipiell mögliches System zur Lösung dieser Aufgabe in Form eines Tests näher betrachtet.

We investigate the numerical solution of the stable generalized Lyapunov equation via the sign function method. This approach has already been proposed to solve standard Lyapunov equations in several publications. The extension to the generalized case is straightforward. We consider some modifications and discuss how to solve generalized Lyapunov equations with semidefinite constant term for the Cholesky factor. The basic computational tools of the method are basic linear algebra operations that can be implemented efficiently on modern computer architectures and in particular on parallel computers. Hence, a considerable speed-up as compared to the Bartels-Stewart and Hammarling's methods is to be expected. We compare the algorithms by performing a variety of numerical tests.