Risk, Resilience, and Success in College for Students with Vision Disabilities

College students with visual disabilities are less likely to graduate than their sighted counterparts. The purpose of this study was to understand the life experiences of successful college students with visual disabilities. Concepts of risk and resiliency were used as a conceptual framework for understanding how people can have positive outcomes in spite of adversity. Individual, family, school, and community influences were explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with six participants who have vision impairments and were nearing the completion or had recently completed a college degree. Data were analyzed for common themes and meanings using a phenomenological method advanced by Moustakas (1994). Validity threats were minimized through triangulation, member checks, and thick data. Risk and protective factors in the context of family, school, and community for successful college students with visual disabilities were identified. Implications for rehabilitation counselors, college counselors, and special education teachers were discussed. Interventions to move students with visual disabilities toward resiliency and minimize the impact of risk factors that impede success were proposed. Suggestions for future research were offered

Risk, Resilience, and Success in College for Students with Vision Disabilities

College students with visual disabilities are less likely to graduate than their sighted counterparts. The purpose of this study was to understand the life experiences of successful college students with visual disabilities. Concepts of risk and resiliency were used as a conceptual framework for understanding how people can have positive outcomes in spite of adversity. Individual, family, school, and community influences were explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with six participants who have vision impairments and were nearing the completion or had recently completed a college degree. Data were analyzed for common themes and meanings using a phenomenological method advanced by Moustakas (1994). Validity threats were minimized through triangulation, member checks, and thick data. Risk and protective factors in the context of family, school, and community for successful college students with visual disabilities were identified. Implications for rehabilitation counselors, college counselors, and special education teachers were discussed. Interventions to move students with visual disabilities toward resiliency and minimize the impact of risk factors that impede success were proposed. Suggestions for future research were offered

Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual For High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs - Edition 4.1

Ever since it was first published, Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual for High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs has served as a vital resource in the chemistry classroom and laboratory to students with disabilities as well as their parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators. The comprehensive 4th edition was last updated in 2001, so the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Committee on Chemists with Disabilities (CWD) thought it prudent to update such a valuable text at this time. In a changing time of technology, rapid access to information, accessibility tools for individuals with disabilities, and publishing, Edition 4.1 is being published digitally/online as an Open Access text. Having Teaching Chemistry to Students with Disabilities: A Manual for High Schools, Colleges, and Graduate Programs in this format will allow for widespread dissemination and access by maximum numbers of readers at no cost- and will allow the text to remain economically sustainable.https://scholarworks.rit.edu/ritbooks/1001/thumbnail.jp

Integrated low-cost reading device targeting the accessibility to quality education for the visually impaired.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu- Natal, Durban.The movement of society into the Fourth Industrial Revolution introduces a fundamental shift in how Mechatronic devices are implemented in daily life and the workplace. Terms such as ‘efficiency’ and ‘competitive advantage’ bolster the drive to develop technology that sets one company, business or manufacturer apart from the rest. However, is there a possibility that the same technology can be used to unify society by providing equal opportunity within the workplace, academia, and everyday life? This research addresses the position of the South African visually impaired community within Industry 4.0 and how Mechatronic technology can be used to improve current employment statistics and quality of life. The purpose of the research project was to assess the financial and operational viability of a portable text to braille transcription device with focus on the implementation of novel small-scale Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEAs). The device was required to transcribe printed characters into braille in real-time. This allowed visually impaired individuals access to books, journals and newspapers without assistance or the need to wait for the production of a braille-embossed printed copy. In addition, the research included an assessment of the current employment and educational circumstances of the blind and visually impaired community of South Africa as well as an investigation of the ideal approach to address multiple key factors using a single device. The design of the selected device was comprised of three major subsystems; the optical character recognition hardware, the software and electronics required to transcribe the characters into a series of voltage outputs and the actuation system of the tactile display. The synthesis and operating conditions of the dielectric elastomer actuators were experimentally assessed. The tactile display was required to be low cost, small-scale, portable, and robust to present a sustainable solution to the challenges presented by the lack of accessible reading material and high cost of commercially available options. Scaled models of the DEA were synthesised. The subsequent experiments included the comparison of elastomer materials, electrode materials, the effect of pre-strain on DEA performance, the effect of different application methods of carbon electrodes and the performance of inflated DEA membranes. The electronic subsystem was simulated to investigate the reaction time of the device. Design challenges included the requirement of a high voltage power supply to actuate the DEA, the insulation of the synthesised membranes, electrical protection of the micro-controller and the incorporation of optical character recognition programmes. This research aimed to assist in the development of actuators with greater portability and scope for miniaturisation than commercially available pneumatic or piezoelectric alternatives while addressing the challenges faced by the visually impaired community of South Africa

Eyes-Free Vision-Based Scanning of Aligned Barcodes and Information Extraction from Aligned Nutrition Tables

Visually impaired (VI) individuals struggle with grocery shopping and have to rely on either friends, family or grocery store associates for shopping. ShopMobile 2 is a proof-of-concept system that allows VI shoppers to shop independently in a grocery store using only their smartphone. Unlike other assistive shopping systems that use dedicated hardware, this system is a software only solution that relies on fast computer vision algorithms. It consists of three modules - an eyes free barcode scanner, an optical character recognition (OCR) module, and a tele-assistance module. The eyes-free barcode scanner allows VI shoppers to locate and retrieve products by scanning barcodes on shelves and on products. The OCR module allows shoppers to read nutrition facts on products and the tele-assistance module allows them to obtain help from sighted individuals at remote locations. This dissertation discusses, provides implementations of, and presents laboratory and real-world experiments related to all three modules

Development of a text reading system on video images

Since the early days of computer science researchers sought to devise a machine which could automatically read text to help people with visual impairments. The problem of extracting and recognising text on document images has been largely resolved, but reading text from images of natural scenes remains a challenge. Scene text can present uneven lighting, complex backgrounds or perspective and lens distortion; it usually appears as short sentences or isolated words and shows a very diverse set of typefaces. However, video sequences of natural scenes provide a temporal redundancy that can be exploited to compensate for some of these deficiencies. Here we present a complete end-to-end, real-time scene text reading system on video images based on perspective aware text tracking. The main contribution of this work is a system that automatically detects, recognises and tracks text in videos of natural scenes in real-time. The focus of our method is on large text found in outdoor environments, such as shop signs, street names and billboards. We introduce novel efficient techniques for text detection, text aggregation and text perspective estimation. Furthermore, we propose using a set of Unscented Kalman Filters (UKF) to maintain each text region¿s identity and to continuously track the homography transformation of the text into a fronto-parallel view, thereby being resilient to erratic camera motion and wide baseline changes in orientation. The orientation of each text line is estimated using a method that relies on the geometry of the characters themselves to estimate a rectifying homography. This is done irrespective of the view of the text over a large range of orientations. We also demonstrate a wearable head-mounted device for text reading that encases a camera for image acquisition and a pair of headphones for synthesized speech output. Our system is designed for continuous and unsupervised operation over long periods of time. It is completely automatic and features quick failure recovery and interactive text reading. It is also highly parallelised in order to maximize the usage of available processing power and to achieve real-time operation. We show comparative results that improve the current state-of-the-art when correcting perspective deformation of scene text. The end-to-end system performance is demonstrated on sequences recorded in outdoor scenarios. Finally, we also release a dataset of text tracking videos along with the annotated ground-truth of text regions

Paved with Good Intentions: Title IX Campus Sexual Assault Proceedings and the Creation of Admissible Victim Statements

This Comment argues that campuses should, in the course of their Title IX proceedings, ensure that anyone who takes a potentially admissible statement from a survivor has received trauma-informed interview training. Trauma-informed interviewing acknowledges the physiological effect of trauma on survivors, the impact that it can have on their ability to recall facts and details, and the limits and possibilities of obtaining information from such witnesses. In addition, campuses should limit the number of individuals who take statements from survivors and record the victim’s statements. These improvements will create statements of higher evidentiary quality. It will also mitigate the emotional harm to survivors, helping to ensure their continued cooperation with prosecutors and law enforcement. To understand the process of investigating Title IX complaints and how the procedures that started on campus can impact a future criminal investigation, experts on both sides of the “ivory tower” were interviewed, including law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and an expert in Title IX jurisprudence. Part I describes the research methodology utilized, the process of finding and interviewing the research subjects selected, and the research subjects’ credentials. Part II reviewsTitle IX disciplinary proceedings and applicable laws. Part III explains a typical interview process, and how it does not account for the trauma inherent in sexual assault or the unique context in which a campus sexual assault occurs. This creates admissible statements of dubious value and quality, which can be used to impeach a victim in a future criminal case. Part IV outlines a new way forward, which allows survivors to participate in the campus disciplinary process while mitigating the harm to both to themselves and to a future criminal prosecution. Here, advances in trauma-informed interviewing, the need to mandate such training for all personnel who conduct a Title IX proceeding on campus, and the necessity of accurately documenting the survivor’s statement, are explored. In addition, recent federal actions that support trauma-informed interview practices as a necessary component of Title IX compliance are described

Adventures in software engineering : plugging HCI & acessibility gaps with open source solutions

There has been a great deal of research undertaken in the field of Human-Computer Interfaces (HCI), input devices, and output modalities in recent years. From touch-based and voice control input mechanisms such as those found on modern smart-devices to the use of touch-free input through video-stream/image analysis (including depth streams and skeletal mapping) and the inclusion of gaze tracking, head tracking, virtual reality and beyond - the availability and variety of these I/O (Input/Output) mechanisms has increased tremendously and progressed both into our living rooms and into our lives in general. With regard to modern desktop computers and videogame consoles, at present many of these technologies are at a relatively immature stage of development - their use often limited to simple adjuncts to the staple input mechanisms of mouse, keyboard, or joystick / joypad inputs. In effect, we have these new input devices - but we're not quite sure how best to use them yet; that is, where their various strengths and weaknesses lie, and how or if they can be used to conveniently and reliably drive or augment applications in our everyday lives. In addition, much of this technology is provided by proprietary hardware and software, providing limited options for customisation or adaptation to better meet the needs of specific users. Therefore, this project investigated the development of open source software solutions to address various aspects of innovative user I/O in a flexible manner. Towards this end, a number of original software applications have been developed which incorporate functionality aimed at enhancing the current state of the art in these areas and making that software freely available for use by any who may find it beneficial.Doctor of Philosoph

AXMEDIS 2008

The AXMEDIS International Conference series aims to explore all subjects and topics related to cross-media and digital-media content production, processing, management, standards, representation, sharing, protection and rights management, to address the latest developments and future trends of the technologies and their applications, impacts and exploitation. The AXMEDIS events offer venues for exchanging concepts, requirements, prototypes, research ideas, and findings which could contribute to academic research and also benefit business and industrial communities. In the Internet as well as in the digital era, cross-media production and distribution represent key developments and innovations that are fostered by emergent technologies to ensure better value for money while optimising productivity and market coverage