Challenges in Developing Applications for Aging Populations

Elderly individuals can greatly benefit from the use of computer applications, which can assist in monitoring health conditions, staying in contact with friends and family, and even learning new things. However, developing accessible applications for an elderly user can be a daunting task for developers. Since the advent of the personal computer, the benefits and challenges of developing applications for older adults have been a hot topic of discussion. In this chapter, the authors discuss the various challenges developers who wish to create applications for the elderly computer user face, including age-related impairments, generational differences in computer use, and the hardware constraints mobile devices pose for application developers. Although these challenges are concerning, each can be overcome after being properly identified

Speech Processing in Computer Vision Applications

Deep learning has been recently proven to be a viable asset in determining features in the field of Speech Analysis. Deep learning methods like Convolutional Neural Networks facilitate the expansion of specific feature information in waveforms, allowing networks to create more feature dense representations of data. Our work attempts to address the problem of re-creating a face given a speaker\u27s voice and speaker identification using deep learning methods. In this work, we first review the fundamental background in speech processing and its related applications. Then we introduce novel deep learning-based methods to speech feature analysis. Finally, we will present our deep learning approaches to speaker identification and speech to face synthesis. The presented method can convert a speaker audio sample to an image of their predicted face. This framework is composed of several chained together networks, each with an essential step in the conversion process. These include Audio embedding, encoding, and face generation networks, respectively. Our experiments show that certain features can map to the face and that with a speaker\u27s voice, DNNs can create their face and that a GUI could be used in conjunction to display a speaker recognition network\u27s data

Benchmarking computer platforms for lattice QCD applications

We define a benchmark suite for lattice QCD and report on benchmark results from several computer platforms. The platforms considered are apeNEXT, CRAY T3E, Hitachi SR8000, IBM p690, PC-Clusters, and QCDOC.Comment: 3 pages, Lattice03, machines and algorithm

The Development of Citizen Oriented Informatics

We define the concept of citizen-oriented computer application. Quality characteristics are set for computer applications developed in the conditions of citizen-oriented computing and outline the development cycle for these applications. It defines the conditions of existence for citizen-oriented applications. Average and long-term strategies are elaborated.Distributed Applications, Metrics, Citizen-Orientation, Strategies

Vibrational transfer functions for complex structures

Evaluation of effects of vibrational multiple frequency forcing functions is discussed. Computer program for developing vibrational transfer functions is described. Possible applications of computer program are enumerated

Which Workers Gain Upon Adopting a Computer?

Using the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey and controlling for individual and establishment fixed effects, we find that within a year of adopting a computer, the average worker earns a 3.6 percent higher wage than a similar worker who did not adopt a computer. Returns are even larger for managers and professionals, highly educated workers, and those with significant prior computer experience. Employees who use computer applications that require high cognitive skills earn the highest returns.Computer Use, Technology, Computer Applications

Computer Applications To Book Catalogs And Library Systems

Librarians must look to the future information needs of a country expanding in population, technology and educational requirements. The "information explosion" is placing an additional strain on existing methods of providing information rapidly and economically. A library seeking to develop a modern information retrieval program has many existing services from which to choose. The problem is to define the program that will best serve the present library users and leave room for flexible action in the future, and then to pick a combination of services that best match these objectives. Documentation Incorporated (Doc Inc) of Bethesda, Maryland, was founded in 1952 by the late Dr. Mortimer Taube, and has been engaged in developing modern information retrieval systems for government and industry. A key concept that is now emerging is the development of mechanized or computerized data banks. This data bank concept is a plan for organizing a single set of data for producing many products. The traditional library card catalog or data bank, long the key to finding materials in the nation's libraries, today is getting competition from book catalogs. Using data bank techniques to keep a library catalog updated, Doc Inc computer systems generate printouts of the catalog which are used to produce bound books for distribution to library users. In effect, the book catalogs are carrying the traditional card catalog, literally, into the homes and offices of users instead of requiring them to trek to the library to find out if the information they want is available. The computer is used to produce several indexes (such as subject, author, and title) in various formats from a single file of data and is particularly effective if the catalog data bank is standardized.published or submitted for publicatio

Applications of system dynamics modelling to computer music

Based on a composer's psycho-acoustic imagination or response to music, system dynamics modelling and simulation tools can be used as a scoring device to map the structural dynamic shape of interest of computer music compositions. The tools can also be used as a generator of compositional ideas reflecting thematic juxtaposition and emotional flux in musical narratives. These techniques allow the modelling of everyday narratives to provide a structural/metaphorical means of music composition based on archetypes that are shared with wider audiences. The methods are outlined using two examples