Blogging for the Sake of the President

Many western researchers have hailed blogs of politicians as new, interactive, and ‘inherently democratic’ tools of political communication. Yet, as this chapter illustrates, blogs can be of comparatively even greater appeal to politicians in semi-authoritarian political contexts: In Russia, 29 out of 83 regional leaders (roughly 35 %) were keeping a weblog in May 2010. This chapter accomplishes a comprehensive content analysis of all governors’ blogs and, subsequently, fleshes out a typology of three characteristic types. In conclusion, it is argued that politicians’ blogs are playing a far greater role in generating legitimacy for the Russian political system than they do in democracies, because the semi-authoritarian Russian system lacks other mechanisms which generate (input) legitimacy in developed democracies, such as highly competitive elections

Efficacy in noise of the Starkey Surflink Mobile 2 technology in directional versus omnidirectional microphone mode with experienced adult hearing aid users

The Starkey SurfLink Mobile 2 is a remote microphone accessory. Starkey claims that by placing the SurfLink’s internal microphone in the directional microphone setting, the participant will hear better in noise over the omnidirectional setting. This study aims to test the thisthe claim about the devic

Using remote vision: The effects of video image frame rate on visual object recognition performance

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.The process of using remote vision was simulated in order to determine the effects of video image frame rate on the performance in visual recognition of stationary environmental hazards in the dynamic video footage of the pedestrian travel environment. The recognition performance was assessed against two different video image frame rate variations: 25 and 2 fps. The assessment included a range of objective and subjective criteria. The obtained results show that the effects of the frame rate variations on the performance are statistically insignificant. This paper belongs to the process of development of a novel system for navigation of visually impaired pedestrians. The navigation system includes a remote vision facility, and the visual recognition of the environmental hazards by the sighted human guide is a basic activity in aiding the visually impaired user of the system in mobility

A Weighted STOI Intelligibility Metric Based On Mutual Information

It is known that the information required for the intelligibility of a speech signal is distributed non-uniformly in time. In this paper we propose WSTOI, a modified version of STOI, a speech intelligibility metric. With WSTOI the contribution of each time-frequency cell is weighted by an estimate of its intelligibility content. This estimate is equal to the mutual information between two hypothetical signals at either end of a simplified model of human communication. Listening tests show that the modification improves the prediction accuracy of STOI at all performance levels on both long and short utterances. An improvement was observed across all tested noise types and suppression algorithms

The listening talker: A review of human and algorithmic context-induced modifications of speech

International audienceSpeech output technology is finding widespread application, including in scenarios where intelligibility might be compromised - at least for some listeners - by adverse conditions. Unlike most current algorithms, talkers continually adapt their speech patterns as a response to the immediate context of spoken communication, where the type of interlocutor and the environment are the dominant situational factors influencing speech production. Observations of talker behaviour can motivate the design of more robust speech output algorithms. Starting with a listener-oriented categorisation of possible goals for speech modification, this review article summarises the extensive set of behavioural findings related to human speech modification, identifies which factors appear to be beneficial, and goes on to examine previous computational attempts to improve intelligibility in noise. The review concludes by tabulating 46 speech modifications, many of which have yet to be perceptually or algorithmically evaluated. Consequently, the review provides a roadmap for future work in improving the robustness of speech output

Sound for Fantasy and Freedom

Sound is an integral part of our everyday lives. Sound tells us about physical events in the environ- ment, and we use our voices to share ideas and emotions through sound. When navigating the world on a day-to-day basis, most of us use a balanced mix of stimuli from our eyes, ears and other senses to get along. We do this totally naturally and without effort. In the design of computer game experiences, traditionally, most attention has been given to vision rather than the balanced mix of stimuli from our eyes, ears and other senses most of us use to navigate the world on a day to day basis. The risk is that this emphasis neglects types of interaction with the game needed to create an immersive experience. This chapter summarizes the relationship between sound properties, GameFlow and immersive experience and discusses two projects in which Interactive Institute, Sonic Studio has balanced perceptual stimuli and game mechanics to inspire and create new game concepts that liberate users and their imagination

Neurophysiological Profile of Antismoking Campaigns

Over the past few decades, antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) have been used by governments to promote healthy behaviours in citizens, for instance, against drinking before the drive and against smoke. Effectiveness of such PSAs has been suggested especially for young persons. By now, PSAs efficacy is still mainly assessed through traditional methods (questionnaires and metrics) and could be performed only after the PSAs broadcasting, leading to waste of economic resources and time in the case of Ineffective PSAs. One possible countermeasure to such ineffective use of PSAs could be promoted by the evaluation of the cerebral reaction to the PSA of particular segments of population (e.g., old, young, and heavy smokers). In addition, it is crucial to gather such cerebral activity in front of PSAs that have been assessed to be effective against smoke (Effective PSAs), comparing results to the cerebral reactions to PSAs that have been certified to be not effective (Ineffective PSAs). &e eventual differences between the cerebral responses toward the two PSA groups will provide crucial information about the possible outcome of new PSAs before to its broadcasting. &is study focused on adult population, by investigating the cerebral reaction to the vision of different PSA images, which have already been shown to be Effective and Ineffective for the promotion of an antismoking behaviour. Results showed how variables as gender and smoking habits can influence the perception of PSA images, and how different communication styles of the antismoking campaigns could facilitate the comprehension of PSA’s message and then enhance the related impac

Mobile Audiovisual Terminal: System Design and Subjective Testing in DECT and UMTS networks

It is anticipated that there will shortly be a requirement for multimedia terminals that operate via mobile communications systems. This paper presents a functional specification for such a terminal operating at 32 kb/s in a digital European cordless telecommunications (DECT) and universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) radio network. A terminal has been built, based on a PC with digital signal processor (DSP) boards for audio and video coding and decoding. Speech coding is by a phonetically driven code-excited linear prediction (CELP) speech coder and video coding by a block-oriented hybrid discrete cosine transform (DCT) coder. Separate channel coding is provided for the audio and video data. The paper describes the techniques used for audio and video coding, channel coding, and synchronization. Methods of subjective testing in a DECT network and in a UMTS network are also described. These consisted of subjective tests of first impressions of the mobile audio–visual terminal (MAVT) quality, interactive tests, and the completion of an exit questionnaire. The test results showed that the quality of the audio was sufficiently good for comprehension and the video was sufficiently good for following and repeating simple mechanical tasks. However, the quality of the MAVT was not good enough for general use where high-quality audio and video was needed, especially when transmission was in a noisy radio environment

Spatial audio in small display screen devices

Our work addresses the problem of (visual) clutter in mobile device interfaces. The solution we propose involves the translation of technique-from the graphical to the audio domain-for expliting space in information representation. This article presents an illustrative example in the form of a spatialisedaudio progress bar. In usability tests, participants performed background monitoring tasks significantly more accurately using this spatialised audio (a compared with a conventional visual) progress bar. Moreover, their performance in a simultaneously running, visually demanding foreground task was significantly improved in the eye-free monitoring condition. These results have important implications for the design of multi-tasking interfaces for mobile devices

The psychology of driving automation: A discussion with Professor Don Norman

Introducing automation into automobiles had inevitable consequences for the driver and driving. Systems that automate longitudinal and lateral vehicle control may reduce the workload of the driver. This raises questions of what the driver is able to do with this 'spare' attentional capacity. Research in our laboratory suggests that there is unlikely to be any spare capacity because the attentional resources are not 'fixed'. Rather, the resources are inextricably linked to task demand. This paper presents some of the arguments for considering the psychological aspects of the driver when designing automation into automobiles. The arguments are presented in a conversation format, based on discussions with Professor Don Norman. Extracts from relevant papers to support the arguments are presented