Connecting People With Disabilities: ICT Opportunities for All

This essay won 1st prize in a nationwide essay competition organized by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2008. Theme of the Year was "Connecting People with Disabilitie: ICT Opportunities for All" The Prize was given by Prime Minister of Pakistan.Disability; Information Communication Technology; ICT; IT; Internet

ACCESSING LIBRARY SERVICES IN INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING: THE EXPERIENCES OF ZIMBABWE OPEN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

This study sought to examine the experiences by students with disabilities in accessing the library at Zimbabwe Open University, Bulawayo Campus.The survey design was used to examine the experiences of students with disabilities in accessing library services at Zimbabwe Open University library.The sample for this study consisted of twenty-five students with disabilities who have access to Zimbabwe Open University library and ten library staff members who are in contact with the students. These participants were used in this study because they have experiences on how students are accessing library facilities at Zimbabwe Open University library. Questionnaires were used in this research in an effort to reach the respondents.The respondents indicated that, the entrance, restrooms, stairs, elevators and special rooms of the library are not easily accessible to students with disabilities. The library needs to have specially trained staff that assists students with special needs. The library should be stocked with modern equipment like computers with JOS connected to the Internet, books in Braille, books on cassette or CD’s, for use by students with visual impairment, and also, closed caption decoder, hard-wired, personal FM system and telecommunication devices for the hearing impairment.   Article visualizations

An Approach for e-inclusion: Bringing illiterates and disabled people into play

In emergent economies, the continued process of digitalizing the ICTs, summed up with some sociocultural particularies and porvety, contributes to cleave the society into two groups: the connected and the increasingly more disconnected or socially excluded. However, efforts to effectively narrow this kind of divide transcends the provision of access to web and other digital networks, mainly if the attention is focused on people with disabilities and lack of literacy. For these social groups, accessibility and intelligibility are the key barriers to e-society. A manner to mitigate then is the objective of an ongoing research project in which we are engaged and that comprises the elaboration and application of a methodology for developing solutions to e-inclusion in Brazil. This paper presents the central aspects of such an appoach, focusing on some activities which go beyond the connectivity provision and may help the most “excludeds” in bridging the divide.En las economías emergentes, el continuo proceso de digitalización de las TICs, en adición a algunas particularidades socioculturales y la pobreza, contribuye a dividir la sociedad en dos grupos: los conectados y los cada vez más desconectados o socialmente excluidos. Sin embargo, esfuerzos para efectivamente estrechar esta división trasciende la provisión de acceso a la web y otras redes digitales, principalmente si la atención está enfocada a personas con discapacidades y analfabetismo. Para estos grupos sociales, la accesibilidad e inteligibilidad son barreras para el ingreso a una sociedad electrónica. Una manera de mitigar este problema es teniendo como objetivo una investigación de avanzada, la cual tenga un compromiso y contacto con la elaboración y aplicación de una metodología para el desarrollo de soluciones y de inclusión electrónica en Brasil. Este trabajo presenta los aspectos centrales de tal aproximación, enfoscándose en algunas actividades que van más allá de la conectividad, provisión y una posibilidad de conectar a los excluidos de éste sistemaIn emergent economies, the continued process of digitalizing the ICTs, summed up with some sociocultural particularies and porvety, contributes to cleave the society into two groups: the connected and the increasingly more disconnected or socially excluded. However, efforts to effectively narrow this kind of divide transcends the provision of access to web and other digital networks, mainly if the attention is focused on people with disabilities and lack of literacy. For these social groups, accessibility and intelligibility are the key barriers to e-society. A manner to mitigate then is the objective of an ongoing research project in which we are engaged and that comprises the elaboration and application of a methodology for developing solutions to e-inclusion in Brazil. This paper presents the central aspects of such an appoach, focusing on some activities which go beyond the connectivity provision and may help the most “excludeds” in bridging the divide

Smart Computing and Sensing Technologies for Animal Welfare: A Systematic Review

Animals play a profoundly important and intricate role in our lives today. Dogs have been human companions for thousands of years, but they now work closely with us to assist the disabled, and in combat and search and rescue situations. Farm animals are a critical part of the global food supply chain, and there is increasing consumer interest in organically fed and humanely raised livestock, and how it impacts our health and environmental footprint. Wild animals are threatened with extinction by human induced factors, and shrinking and compromised habitat. This review sets the goal to systematically survey the existing literature in smart computing and sensing technologies for domestic, farm and wild animal welfare. We use the notion of \emph{animal welfare} in broad terms, to review the technologies for assessing whether animals are healthy, free of pain and suffering, and also positively stimulated in their environment. Also the notion of \emph{smart computing and sensing} is used in broad terms, to refer to computing and sensing systems that are not isolated but interconnected with communication networks, and capable of remote data collection, processing, exchange and analysis. We review smart technologies for domestic animals, indoor and outdoor animal farming, as well as animals in the wild and zoos. The findings of this review are expected to motivate future research and contribute to data, information and communication management as well as policy for animal welfare

Effectiveness of Morse Code as an Alternative Control Method for Powered Wheelchair Navigation

We applied Morse code as an alternative input method for powered wheelchair navigation to improve driving efficiency for individuals with physical disabilities. In lab trials performed by four testers, it demonstrated significant improvement in driving efficiency by reducing the driving time, compared to traditional single switch wheelchair navigation

Intelligent multimedia communication for enhanced medical e-collaboration in back pain treatment

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2004 SAGE PublicationsRemote, multimedia-based, collaboration in back pain treatment is an option which only recently has come to the attention of clinicians and IT providers. The take-up of such applications will inevitably depend on their ability to produce an acceptable level of service over congested and unreliable public networks. However, although the problem of multimedia application-level performance is closely linked to both the user perspective of the experience as well as to the service provided by the underlying network, it is rarely studied from an integrated viewpoint. To alleviate this problem, we propose an intelligent mechanism that integrates user-related requirements with the more technical characterization of quality of service, obtaining a priority order of low-level quality of service parameters, which would ensure that user-centred quality of perception is maintained at an optimum level. We show how our framework is capable of suggesting appropriately tailored transmission protocols, by incorporating user requirements in the remote delivery of e-health solutions