Major trends in mobility technology research and development: Overview of the results of the NSF-WTEC European study

Mobility technologies, including wheelchairs, prostheses, joint replacements, assistive devices, and therapeutic exercise equipment help millions of people participate in desired life activities. Yet, these technologies are not yet fully transformative because many desired activities cannot be pursued or are difficult to pursue for the millions of individuals with mobility related impairments. This WTEC study, initiated and funded by the National Science Foundation, was designed to gather information on European innovations and trends in technology that might lead to greater mobility for a wider range of people. What might these transformative technologies be and how might they arise? Based on visits to leading mobility technology research labs in western Europe, the WTEC panel identified eight major trends in mobility technology research. This commentary summarizes these trends, which are then described in detail in companion papers appearing in this special issue

What is affective technotouch (and why does it matter)?

This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this recordThis Editors’ Introduction defines the theme of ’affective technotouch’ as referring to multidimensional embodied encounters with technologies which can trigger emotional and affective responses, while also being concerned with social, political, cultural and ethical dimensions of technological touch. With reference to neuroscience and developmental studies, we outline how touch is foundational in human experience. We then discuss contemporary technologies, such as haptic gadgets and care/companion robots, which illustrate the complexities of affective technotouch. Finally, we offer critical outlines of the six contributing articles to this Special Issue on Affective Technotouch.Wellcome Trus

Adaptive Optics: introduction to the feature issue

This Applied Optics feature issue is a companion to the Journal of the Optical Society of America A feature issue on the same topic. The feature highlights the expansion of adaptive optics to different applications as well as its development to routine applications brought about because of significant advances in component technologies

Introduction to the special issue on cross-language algorithms and applications

With the increasingly global nature of our everyday interactions, the need for multilingual technologies to support efficient and efective information access and communication cannot be overemphasized. Computational modeling of language has been the focus of Natural Language Processing, a subdiscipline of Artificial Intelligence. One of the current challenges for this discipline is to design methodologies and algorithms that are cross-language in order to create multilingual technologies rapidly. The goal of this JAIR special issue on Cross-Language Algorithms and Applications (CLAA) is to present leading research in this area, with emphasis on developing unifying themes that could lead to the development of the science of multi- and cross-lingualism. In this introduction, we provide the reader with the motivation for this special issue and summarize the contributions of the papers that have been included. The selected papers cover a broad range of cross-lingual technologies including machine translation, domain and language adaptation for sentiment analysis, cross-language lexical resources, dependency parsing, information retrieval and knowledge representation. We anticipate that this special issue will serve as an invaluable resource for researchers interested in topics of cross-lingual natural language processing.Postprint (published version

Democratic Replay: Enhancing TV Election Debates with Interactive Visualisations

This paper presents an online platform for enhancing televised election debates with interactive visualisations. Election debates are one of the highlights of election campaigns worldwide. They are also often criticised as appearing scripted, rehearsed, detached from much of the electorate, and at times too complex. Democratic Replay enhances videos of election debates with a collection of interactive tools aimed at providing a replay experience centred around citizens' needs. We present the system requirements, design and implementation, and report on an evaluation based on the ITV Leaders' Debate from the 2015 UK General Election campaign

The Ethics of Troubled Images

This special issue of Cultural Studies Review brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholarship to investigate the ethical implications of troubled images