202 research outputs found

    Designing a New Tactile Display Technology and its Disability Interactions

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    People with visual impairments have a strong desire for a refreshable tactile interface that can provide immediate access to full page of Braille and tactile graphics. Regrettably, existing devices come at a considerable expense and remain out of reach for many. The exorbitant costs associated with current tactile displays stem from their intricate design and the multitude of components needed for their construction. This underscores the pressing need for technological innovation that can enhance tactile displays, making them more accessible and available to individuals with visual impairments. This research thesis delves into the development of a novel tactile display technology known as Tacilia. This technology's necessity and prerequisites are informed by in-depth qualitative engagements with students who have visual impairments, alongside a systematic analysis of the prevailing architectures underpinning existing tactile display technologies. The evolution of Tacilia unfolds through iterative processes encompassing conceptualisation, prototyping, and evaluation. With Tacilia, three distinct products and interactive experiences are explored, empowering individuals to manually draw tactile graphics, generate digitally designed media through printing, and display these creations on a dynamic pin array display. This innovation underscores Tacilia's capability to streamline the creation of refreshable tactile displays, rendering them more fitting, usable, and economically viable for people with visual impairments

    Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, XXV, 2023, 2

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    Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics is an open access philosophical journal, being published only in an electronic format. The journal aims at promoting research and reflection, both historically and theoretically, in the field of moral and political philosophy, with no cultural preclusion or adhesion to any cultural current. Contributions should be submitted in one of these languages: Italian, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish. All essays should include an English abstract of max. 200 words. The editorial staff especially welcomes interdisciplinary contributions with special attention to the main trends of the world of practice. The journal has an anonymous double peer review referee system. Three issues per year are expected. The copyright of the published articles remain to the authors. We ask that in any future use of them Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics be quoted as a source. All products on this site are released with a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 IT

    Sport team leadership coaching and captaincy in elite level rugby union football

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    A wide range of literature exists on coaching but it is concerned predominantly with the high school and college levels, is based upon athlete or coach perceptions, or is confined to observations of training or competition. As leaders of sports teams, coaches and captains have rarely been studied at the highest level of national or international sports competition. In the present study, the team leadership roles of the coach and captain in elite rugby union football in New Zealand were examined using participant observation and other qualitative research methods. Elite was defined as New Zealand rugby’s highest internal level of competition: (a) the national provincial championships and (b) international test matches of the national team, the All Blacks. The study explored the roles of the elite rugby coach and captain in vivo in a wide variety of team situations. It was felt that this could provide first-hand information on particular team leader behaviours, on what a coach and captain actually do, and how they are perceived by those around them. The main objective, however, was to use grounded theory techniques to create a model of elite rugby team leadership that might guide developmental programmes on such leadership. The research phases undertaken were those of participant observation with a Provincial Team for five matches, a survey of provincial teams’ coaches and captains on their leadership associated with actual matches, three years’ participant observation with the All Blacks (including observation in eight test match weeks), multiple perspectives on elite team leadership from past rugby test players in New Zealand and overseas, and interviews with national team leaders in sports other than rugby. Participant observation, interviews, questionnaires and document analysis generated data from the research settings. These data were considered in terms of symbolic interactionism and subjected to a grounded theory process. This led to a set of elite rugby team leadership categories and properties which, in turn, generated a comprehensive set of theoretical propositions. The propositions became the basis for a model of elite rugby team leadership. This model was then considered as the basis for a programme to develop elite rugby team leaders. Significant aspects of the research findings which have not featured in previous research literature included the coach’s vision, team culture, centrality of the game plan, match week build-up, the importance of the captain’s playing example, the coach's ability to utilise teaching precepts, the coach’s personal qualities, and the need to develop and evaluate team leaders. The model, and the developmental programme principles emanating from it, are seen as relevant for developing elite level leaders in team sports other than rugby

    Analytical Variations – Eight Critical Essays on Applied Music Theory

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    This book gives a critical account of various methods used in music analysis. In the first chapter, a number of current approaches such as semiotics, musical implications, Schenkerian analysis, and generative theory are demonstrated on Mozart’s K. 331 theme. Five essays deal with important concepts in music analysis: ambiguity, formal proportions, and similarity within and between works. A further chapter provides a discussion of probability, kinship, and influence – decisive criteria when judging musical plagiarism. The last essay, studying a piece by Schubert, sifts the prospects of deciphering a composer’s sexual leanings from his music

    Exploring the Boundaries of Patent Commercialization Models via Litigation

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    This thesis explores direct patent commercialization via patent assertion, particularly patent infringement litigation, a complex nonmarket activity whose successful undertaking requires knowledge, creativity, and financial resources, as well as a colorable infringement case. Despite these complexities, firms have increasingly employed patents as competitive tools via patent assertions, particularly in the United States. This thesis explores the business models that have been created to facilitate the direct monetization of patents. Since secrecy underpins the patent assertion strategies studied, the thesis is based on rich and enhanced secondary data. In particular, a data chaining technique has been developed to assemble relevant but disparate data into a larger coherent data set that is amenable to combination and pairing with other forms of relevant public data. This research has discovered that one particularly successful business model that employs a leveraging strategy, known as the non-practicing entity (“NPE”), has itself spawned at least two other business models, the highly capitalized “patent mass aggregator” and the “patent privateer.” The patent privateer, newly discovered in this research, is particularly interesting because it provides a way for firms to employ patents to attack competitors by forming specialized NPEs in a manner that essentially expands the boundaries of the firm. This research has also examined plaintiff firm management processes during litigations brought under leveraging and proprietary strategies, the two patent litigation strategies in which firms affirmatively initiate infringement litigations. In particular, this research investigates the commercial contexts that drive patent assertion strategies to explore the effective limits of the patent right in a litigation context. The investigation concludes that a variety of robust business models and management processes may be quite successful in extracting value from patents in the US

    Sweden’s Pandemic Experiment

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    This book considers Sweden’s pandemic management which differed so significantly from much of the rest of the world: it provoked intense and wide-reaching interest, curiosity and criticism. Trans-disciplinary Swedish authors from the humanities, life sciences, social sciences, and cultural studiesuse a variety of tools to mine deeper into some of the central elements and dimensions in their country’s pandemic management such as understandings of freedom, the execution of power, denialism, exceptionalism, patriotism, the role of expertise and trust in the national state to give a deeper understanding of Sweden’s decisions, failures, successes, and the lessons to be learned. Aimed at readers with interest in global health and politics it will also be of interest in disciplines such as virology,epidemiology, history, cultural studies, ethics, media studies, medicine and economics. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

    Iwo Jima and the Bonin Islands in U.S.-Japan Relations

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    This book is an attempt to both bridge the gap—and show the similarities—in understanding this issue on both sides, as well as to examine the dynamics of the interplay between the United States and Japan over the destiny of the islands. It is not only a historical study of U.S.-Japan relations and Japanese political and diplomatic history but is also an attempt to contribute to Bonin- and Iwo Jima-related studies

    Southern Accent September 2021 - April 2022

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    Southern Adventist University\u27s newspaper, Southern Accent, for the 2021-2022 academic year.https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/southern_accent/1103/thumbnail.jp

    A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies

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    This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by the University of Leicester. Between 1415, when the Portuguese first used convicts for colonization purposes in the North African enclave of Ceuta, to the 1960s and the dissolution of Stalin’s gulags, global powers including the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, British, Russians, Chinese and Japanese transported millions of convicts to forts, penal settlements and penal colonies all over the world. A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies builds on specific regional archives and literatures to write the first global history of penal transportation. The essays explore the idea of penal transportation as an engine of global change, in which political repression and forced labour combined to produce long-term impacts on economy, society and identity. They investigate the varied and interconnected routes convicts took to penal sites across the world, and the relationship of these convict flows to other forms of punishment, unfree labour, military service and indigenous incarceration. They also explore the lived worlds of convicts, including work, culture, religion and intimacy, and convict experience and agency

    (In)formal perceptions and arguments on tourism governance multifaceted concept

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    A brief exploratory approach to (in)formal perceptions and arguments on tourism governance multifaceted concep
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