15,877 research outputs found
AmIE: An Ambient Intelligent Environment for Assisted Living
In the modern world of technology Internet-of-things (IoT) systems strives to
provide an extensive interconnected and automated solutions for almost every
life aspect. This paper proposes an IoT context-aware system to present an
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment; such as an apartment, house, or a
building; to assist blind, visually-impaired, and elderly people. The proposed
system aims at providing an easy-to-utilize voice-controlled system to locate,
navigate and assist users indoors. The main purpose of the system is to provide
indoor positioning, assisted navigation, outside weather information, room
temperature, people availability, phone calls and emergency evacuation when
needed. The system enhances the user's awareness of the surrounding environment
by feeding them with relevant information through a wearable device to assist
them. In addition, the system is voice-controlled in both English and Arabic
languages and the information are displayed as audio messages in both
languages. The system design, implementation, and evaluation consider the
constraints in common types of premises in Kuwait and in challenges, such as
the training needed by the users. This paper presents cost-effective
implementation options by the adoption of a Raspberry Pi microcomputer,
Bluetooth Low Energy devices and an Android smart watch.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
Feeling what you hear: tactile feedback for navigation of audio graphs
Access to digitally stored numerical data is currently very limited for sight impaired people. Graphs and visualizations are often used to analyze relationships between numerical data, but the current methods of accessing them are highly visually mediated. Representing data using audio feedback is a common method of making data more accessible, but methods of navigating and accessing the data are often serial in nature and laborious. Tactile or haptic displays could be used to provide additional feedback to support a point-and-click type interaction for the visually impaired. A requirements capture conducted with sight impaired computer users produced a review of current accessibility technologies, and guidelines were extracted for using tactile feedback to aid navigation. The results of a qualitative evaluation with a prototype interface are also presented. Providing an absolute position input device and tactile feedback allowed the users to explore the graph using tactile and proprioceptive cues in a manner analogous to point-and-click techniques
No man is an island:a critical analysis of the UK’s implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty
The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled was signed on behalf of the European Union on 30 April 2014. On 13 September 2017, the European Union created a Directive (2017/1564) implementing its obligations under the Marrakesh Treaty. This Directive and corresponding Regulations came into force on 12 October 2018, which was the deadline provided to member states in implementing the Directive. On the 11th of September 2018, the United Kingdom made the Copyright and Related Rights (Marrakesh Treaty etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2018. The UK’s Marrakesh Regulations came into force the day before the EU deadline, and the lack of in-depth critical debate around this piece of legislation as well as the EU having initiated legal proceedings against the UK underscores the necessity of this paper. This paper seeks to assess the UK’s Marrakesh Regulations in light of both the EU legislation as well as non-EU international obligations to which the UK will remain bound beyond Brexit. This paper will ask: Can it be said that the UK in implementing the Marrakesh Treaty is fulfilling its obligations owed both to the EU as well as its own citizens?<br/
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Disabilities in the Writing Center
Since writing centers serve communities of teachers and learners, they will inevitably serve people with disabilities. Ever since the 1980s, writing center workers have explored the issue of tutoring students with disabilities, people who may require different learning environments and may have learning needs that interact in complex ways with standard tutoring practices. In order to make accessing this scholarship easier, I have read and analyzed as many of the available articles in the literature as I could find. This article presents summaries in tabular form of both the research methods and tutoring suggestions contained in these sources. I also discuss and analyze these methods and go into detail on those studies that use empirical methods. My goal is not to rank the usefulness of studies based on methods used but simply to point out that studies based on empirical methods may assist tutors and practitioners in achieving Evidence-Based Practice (Babcock and Thonus). Another analysis that emerges from this research are the types of disabilities portrayed in the literature, and I make suggestions based on a comparison with the disabilities actually disclosed by college students.University Writing Cente
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