Development of Tangible Code Blocks for the Blind and Visually Impaired

The fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) have been growing at an accelerating rate in recent times. Knowing how to program has become one key skill for entering all of these STEM fields. However, many students find programming difficult. The block based programming language, Scratch, was specifically designed to lower hurdles to learning how to program for sighted students. Unfortunately, although very effective and widely used in K12 classrooms, Scratch, similar to other block based languages, is inaccessible to students who are blind and visually impaired (BVI). This thesis is part of a larger project to make the Scratch environment accessible to BVI students. The focus of this thesis is on creating a tangible code block design that: 1) is accessible to BVIs, 2) retains the reduced need to struggle with syntax of Scratch, 3) allows code construction through action, 4) and co-construction with other BVI and sighted students, and 5) can create moderately sized programs at low cost. The first several parts of this thesis consider the design and assessment process for the code blocks, which went through two iterations. The four major components of the first design iteration were: 1) the use of passive blocks, with use of 2) the local edge shape connectivity between blocks defining the program syntax, 3) telescoping tubing to allow nested expressions when valid, and 4) haptically legible commands for both Braille and non-Braille users. The first iteration of the block design was compared to a text based method in building and correcting operator expressions that included both simple and nested expressions of the arithmetic, relational and logical operators. BVI participants produced correct code significantly more when doing the tasks with the code blocks than with the text method. Although the text method was faster, it did not account for any additional time that would be needed to identify and change incorrect code before a program could be run. One weakness of the first iteration was that it was difficult for BVI participants to easily determine connectivity between validly connecting code blocks. The second design iteration considered the effect of embedding different degrees of magnetic attraction within the local shape connection to improve identification of the connectivity. It also considered how to represent some commands that had additional restrictions to those found with most of the other code block types. In particular, we considered the use of different “stopper” designs to prevent numeric literals from being placed in the left slot of a “set” command, which could only accept a variable. Results from a set of studies evaluating the ability of BVI participants to identify the connectivity between blocks found that the magnetic attraction within the connection significantly improved accuracy and ease of use, with the stronger magnetic connections preferred. They also found that a stopper design could be used for “exceptions”, with the longer stopper aligned with the local connection preferred. The final part of the thesis examines the use of the code blocks by the targeted population (BVI students in middle school) in a classroom setting within the context of the entire nonvisual interface. To do this, two day code camps were conducted with BVI middle school students, and recorded on video and audio. Qualitative content analysis was used to verify that the students interacted with the system as intended by the code block design. Results suggest that the students did interact with the code blocks as intended by the design, but minor improvements should be made to increase their ease of use. Participants did appear to have a positive experience with the code blocks and the system overall

Development of a Wearable Mechatronic Elbow Brace for Postoperative Motion Rehabilitation

This thesis describes the development of a wearable mechatronic brace for upper limb rehabilitation that can be used at any stage of motion training after surgical reconstruction of brachial plexus nerves. The results of the mechanical design and the work completed towards finding the best torque transmission system are presented herein. As part of this mechatronic system, a customized control system was designed, tested and modified. The control strategy was improved by replacing a PID controller with a cascade controller. Although the experiments have shown that the proposed device can be successfully used for muscle training, further assessment of the device, with the help of data from the patients with brachial plexus injury (BPI), is required to improve the control strategy. Unique features of this device include the combination of adjustability and modularity, as well as the passive adjustment required to compensate for the carrying angle

The Development of Visual and Proprioceptive Control: A Whole- Body Perspective

Both the arms and the legs are crucial for everyday movement. Moreover, natural movement (like walking or dancing) frequently involves all four limbs simultaneously. However, our understanding of lower limb and whole-body sensorimotor control in children is limited because developmental research has traditionally focused on simple, single limb tasks (usually with just the arms). To address this, we investigated how children use visual and proprioceptive cues to perform both arm and leg movements, as well as complex, whole-body tasks. Part 1 – Visual Control In study 1, we showed that 6- to 8-year-olds rely on vision to the same extent as adults for stepping and reaching. However, stepping and reaching had different developmental profiles, with stepping error reducing between 6 and 8 years, whilst reaching error was stable. In study 2, 8-year-olds walked over stepping targets whilst we manipulated how many of the upcoming targets were visible. Children’s foot placement error was higher than adults’. Nonetheless, children showed adultlike planning by slowing down and reducing error when they were unable to see at least 2 steps ahead. Part 2 – Proprioceptive Control In study 3, children attempted to remember and reproduce target arm and leg movements, following active (forward model generated) and passive (no forward model) target movement. Children performed poorly compared to adults and did not benefit from forward models. In study 4, we investigated whether children’s whole-body proprioception and general movement skills could be improved by dance (relative to standard physical education or a non-movement control program). Despite finding no significant effect of dance on proprioception, we identified interesting inter-group differences and changes in sensorimotor skill over time. Whole-body sensorimotor development is protracted and asynchronous. Upper and lower limb control have different developmental profiles and visual control matures before proprioceptive control. In the visual domain, children show sophisticated control strategies even before mature movement execution

The Future of Humanoid Robots

This book provides state of the art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the field of humanoid robotics and its applications. It is expected that humanoids will change the way we interact with machines, and will have the ability to blend perfectly into an environment already designed for humans. The book contains chapters that aim to discover the future abilities of humanoid robots by presenting a variety of integrated research in various scientific and engineering fields, such as locomotion, perception, adaptive behavior, human-robot interaction, neuroscience and machine learning. The book is designed to be accessible and practical, with an emphasis on useful information to those working in the fields of robotics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computational methods and other fields of science directly or indirectly related to the development and usage of future humanoid robots. The editor of the book has extensive R&D experience, patents, and publications in the area of humanoid robotics, and his experience is reflected in editing the content of the book

Intuitions and Experimental Philosophy

This thesis aims to defend the use of intuitions and intuition-based philosophy in light of the recent negative conclusions from the field of experimental philosophy. First, an account of intuitions and intuition-based philosophy will be given that is continuous with four questions from past conceptions of intuitions regarding their features and uses. The four questions are drawn from analyses of intuitions in Kant and in Aristotle (Chapter 2). The questions are concerned with whether intuition is best understood as (1) a special faculty, or a product of some faculty or capacity; (2) an immediate and noncognitive episode, or a more mediate and reflected-upon episode of understanding and competence; (3) a particular judgment only, or a generalizable judgment; (4) only correct in light of an appropriate level of expertise, or with a minimal level of competence. Following this, analogies will be made to the sciences and scientific method (Chapter 3), and to linguistic intuitions (Chapter 4), which will bring the four previous questions into contemporary understanding of intuitions and intuition use in standard philosophical methodology. Chapter 3 will focus more on the third and fourth points, while Chapter 4 will focus more on the first and second points. The science analogy will benefit from a more recent account of philosophical intuitions provided by George Bealer (1998), as well as from considerations of reflective equilibrium’s role in the third point, and a discussion on moral and more general expertise in light of the fourth point. Chapter 4 will then focus on a contemporary account of philosophical intuitions by Jaakko Hintikka (1999), drawing on the analogy with linguistics and providing a negative foil from which to argue against. Chapter 4 will also benefit from discussion on experimental psychology’s insights and confusions in their subject of 'intuitional thinking', which will be contrasted with a more philosophical account of intuitions and reflective thinking drawing from Robert Audi (1996). Both chapters 3 and 4 will end with a recapitulation of the two-part features of each of the four questions from Chapter 2 in light of the contemporary discussions and respective analogies. Chapter 5 will introduce thought experiments as one of the best tools of intuition-based philosophy that makes use of a four-model taxonomy from Roy Sorensen (1992). The tripartite movement of experimental philosophy will be then be introduced, with a review of one of the first papers of the movement: Jonathan Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich’s (2001) 'Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions.' Criticisms and response will follow, based on the preliminary conclusions drawn by the divergences in intuitions across cultural and socio-economic divisions, as well as a criticism of the survey methodology employed by most experimental philosophers. Finally, the expertise defense from the armchairists will be made, in light of question 4 from Chapter 2, that also faces criticisms from the Experimental Restrictivists who attack intuition-based philosophy. With a broadened understanding of the prevalence of intuition in contemporary philosophy as provided in chapters 3 and 4, the attack will be seen as either premature, or as still allowing for progressive philosophical inquiry in the other camps of Experimental Descriptivism and Analysis

Individual ambidexterity: a critical capability towards innovativeness in organisations

Innovation activities vary over time as organisations evolve towards more exploitative innovation to extract maximum performance from existing knowledge and operations. This is a natural evolution, where past innovators become the leaders, capital allocators and managers. Well-run and continuous improvement programmes deeply embed organisational preferences, inadvertently raising barriers to explorative innovation which seeks new knowledges and, with it, a divergence from current thinking. The prospect of new discovery induces paradox as it threatens obsolescence. It seeks high variance, in the face of a low variance focus. Enabling an ambidexterity capability will synergise these tensions and gain the benefits of both types of innovation. Synergising both offers long-term sustained innovation and enhanced performance, and so ambidexterity capability is of significant importance. The researcher's objective is to explore how an individual ambidexterity capability is able to improve an organisation's ability to synergise the paradoxical tensions in the innovation process. This thesis has a focus on how organisations may scale their internal ambidexterity capabilities. Individual ambidexterity proposes a reframing of the role of the individual towards taking a far more central role, and one from which the ambidexterity capability is scaled. It promises a richer, more generative capability which breaks beyond the limits and boundaries of the structural or leadership limitations. This thesis heeds a call for more theorising on how individuals experience paradox tensions and provides revelatory ambidexterity insights into real world of work situations. The work of this thesis has been to enter the real world of work through the interviewing of 12 participants from a selected case study on an explorative innovation, in an environment more familiar with exploitative innovation performance. The researcher also interviewed 3 functional experts to gain insights into current individual capability support and enablement. Through this thesis the researcher's findings contribute that the paradox tensions are complex layers of interrelated tensions, that they have severe implications for the individual in their ability to respond, that this ability to respond should be deliberately supported by competency, trait, behavioural and other capability models, but also that leaders play a critical role in creatings a supportive context for the individual to enact ambidexterity and lastly that there is also a need for the right instrumental support for the varying needs in the innovation process. This thesis supports the notion that with a lack of awareness and intentionality for ambidexterity, individuals are left to face complex paradoxical tensions but their response is left to chance or individual intuition. Their individual ambidexterity is a rich source of sustained innovation capability but requires a strategic approach to enable it. It requires the reframing of the role of the leader in shifting to a supportive and enabling role, emancipating the agency of the individual in creating a supportive organisational context, a context which normalises the empowerment of individuals, exploration, divergence and experimentation. It is critical to ensure that personal career risks do not inhibit the exploration or agency of individuals

Neurocomputational Accounts of Choice Variability and Affect during Decision-making

Humans exhibit surprising variability in behaviour, often making different choices under identical conditions. While the outcomes of these choices typically lead to explicit rewards that have been shown to influence subsequent affective states, less well understood is how the brain represents rewards that are intrinsically meaningful to an individual. The first part of this thesis examines the contributions of endogenous fluctuations in brain activity to behaviour. Resting-state studies suggest that ongoing endogenous fluctuations in brain activity can influence low-level perceptual and motor processes but it remains unknown whether such fluctuations also influence high-level cognitive processes including decision making. Using a novel application of real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging, I find that low pre-stimulus brain activity lead to increased occurrences of risky choice. Using computational modeling, I show that greater risk taking is explained by enhanced phasic responses to offers in a decision network. These findings demonstrate that endogenous brain activity provides a physiological basis for variability in complex behaviour. I then examine how the neuroanatomy of the brain in the form of tissue microstructure relates to risk preferences by leveraging on in vivo histology using magnetic resonance imaging. The second part of this thesis investigates how experienced events, such as rewards received following choice, are aggregated into affective states. Despite their relevance to ideas like goal-setting and well-being, little is known about the impact of intrinsic rewards on affective states and their representation in the brain. A reinforcement learning task incorporating a skilled performance component that did not influence payment was developed to examine this. Computational modeling revealed that momentary happiness depended on past extrinsic rewards and also intrinsic rewards related to the experience of successful skilled performance. Individuals for whom intrinsic rewards more strongly influence momentary happiness exhibit stronger ventromedial prefrontal cortex responses for successful skilled performance. These findings show that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex represents the subjective value of intrinsic rewards, and that computational models of mood dynamics provide a tool that can be used to measure implicit values of abstract goods and experiences

Autonomous Tennis Ball Collector

Practicing tennis often involves hitting many tennis balls from one side of the court to the other without an opponent to hit the balls back. In training sessions like these, the task of collecting the balls is laborious when performed manually. The objective of this project is to develop a robotic tennis ball collector that can automatically collect the balls from one side of the court so that the player can rest rather than collect the balls manually. This document outlines the process of designing such a robot. Included in this report is background research, prototype, and concept modeling, along with a finalized design, and a complete timeline of our process. We will also detail the manufacturing process and the design verification. In the conclusion we will provide you with recommendations for future projects. Throughout our research, we discovered many similar products, but none met all of the customer’s requirements, thus opening a window for our product. After copious design consideration, we selected the strongest idea that satisfied our customers’ needs and are moving forward with structural modeling and preliminary analysis on it. After the structural prototype revealed issues in the design we went back to work and finalized a design that we felt confident with and still satisfied all the requirements. As seen in this report the final design utilizes structural framing materials to build the robot and allows for ease of attachment for all the electrical components. The final step in the design process was to test the verification prototype to ensure that it met all our specifications. Unfortunately, our design did not pass as many of the tests as we would have liked, and this is detailed in that section. While at the conclusion of this project, we did not complete as much as we hoped, there is a good foundation in place for the project to continue as our sponsor so desires

An examination of factors impacting on talent retention at a financial institution

M.Com. (Business Management)Talent commitment, efficiency and retention issues are emerging as the most important corporate challenges of the present and immediate future, driven by talent loyalty concerns, corporate reorganization efforts and stiff competition for key talent. For most organizations, “surprise” talent departures can be devastating on the execution of business strategy and the achievement of business goals and objectives. This phenomenon is most prevalent now in light of current economic uncertainty and following corporate downsizings when the risk of losing critical talent increases exponentially. Talent retention is one of the greatest challenges confronting many business organizations today. For most organizations talent recruitment and retention is a major concern as the ability to keep talent is crucial for the organization’s performance and future survival. It is recognized that talent turnover, is a critical challenge to most organizations that cost money, effort and energy. This challenge poses major problems to HR professionals in their efforts to formulate talent retention policies. South Africa has for the past few decades seen an influx of foreign investment, ideas and practices, facilitated by the development of the Internet and associated technologies. As with many organizations worldwide including organizations in South Africa, staff retention problems affect organizational productivity and performance. The global war for talent has increased the challenge to most organizations in attempting to address the issue of talent retention in the context of increasing competition in the global marketplace. It is against this background that this research will look into talent retention problems within the socio‐economic context of South Africa and in particular factors impacting on talent retention at Alexander Forbes as an organization. This study brings into focus the extent to which factors impacting on talent retention such as pay and compensation, career development, leadership, working environment and organizational commitment as discussed in the literature review impacts talent retention within Alexander Forbes