Taux : a system for evaluating sound feedback in navigational tasks

This thesis presents the design and development of an evaluation system for generating audio displays that provide feedback to persons performing navigation tasks. It first develops the need for such a system by describing existing wayfinding solutions, investigating new electronic location-based methods that have the potential of changing these solutions and examining research conducted on relevant audio information representation techniques. An evaluation system that supports the manipulation of two basic classes of audio display is then described. Based on prior work on wayfinding with audio display, research questions are developed that investigate the viability of different audio displays. These are used to generate hypotheses and develop an experiment which evaluates four variations of audio display for wayfinding. Questions are also formulated that evaluate a baseline condition that utilizes visual feedback. An experiment which tests these hypotheses on sighted users is then described. Results from the experiment suggest that spatial audio combined with spoken hints is the best approach of the approaches comparing spatial audio. The test experiment results also suggest that muting a varying audio signal when a subject is on course did not improve performance. The system and method are then refined. A second experiment is conducted with improved displays and an improved experiment methodology. After adding blindfolds for sighted subjects and increasing the difficulty of navigation tasks by reducing the arrival radius, similar comparisons were observed. Overall, the two experiments demonstrate the viability of the prototyping tool for testing and refining multiple different audio display combinations for navigational tasks. The detailed contributions of this work and future research opportunities conclude this thesis

Audience-generated traces: audience experience in performance documentation

This thesis explores whether and how audience-generated content produced from and about audiences’ experience and during and as part of a live performance might become part of a theatre and performance work’s archive. It sets out to examine both the challenges as well as the documentational opportunities that this material might afford. The thesis is influenced by Gabriella Giannachi’s articulation of digital technologies as archival interfaces and Sarah Bay-Cheng’s convergence of live performance and documentation. It examines the function of audience-generated content during three case studies and postulates that audiences can be regarded as co-producers of performance documents. To do so, it analyses how Speak Bitterness by Forced Entertainment, Karen by Blast Theory, and Flatland by Extant request that their audiences activate the live performance or augment its experience by using a digital technology, and how by doing so they leave digital traces behind. Building upon this condition the thesis interrogates how the three company casestudies archive these works’ audience-generated traces. In addition, it investigates how digital traces are perceived by institutional theatre and performance collections. Through interviews with the case-study practitioners, the curator of the British Library Sound Archive and the archivists of the National Theatre and Victoria and Albert Museum the thesis reveals a set of technical and organisational challenges involved in this process. Although audience-generated traces are considered valuable marketing and research material they also unsettle established notions and structures of performance documentation and its archive. Rethinking the established notion of the performance document and the form of files through which it conveys knowledge, the thesis returns to Ricoeur’s theory of the trace so as to expand ideas of how performance documentation enables ways of knowing a past performance. It argues that, as direct remnants of the live performance moment originating in the participant, audiencegenerated content offers solutions to ‘presencing’ the audience in documentation and novel ways for revisiting a past performance work from within its unfolding

Gender and work challenges in the informal sector of Uganda : a study of disabled men and women in Mubende and Mityana districts

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-157).Compared to disciplines like gender and health, fewer studies have been done on disabled men and women's participation in the informal sector. This may be explained by the fact that for a long time, few disabled men and women in Uganda engaged or participated openly in income generating activities (IGAs). Many started getting involved in the 1990's and as the available literature shows, those who have done so are very enthusiastic and this has encouraged others. This study focuses on the gender and work challenges disabled men and women encounter in the informal sector of Uganda. The study is based on a review of existing literature and actual fieldwork carried out in the Mubende and Mityana districts of Uganda. It seeks to: (a) explore the types of business activities in which disabled men and women are engaged; (b) explore the nature of work challenges disabled men and women encounter in the informal sector and the nature of strategies they utilize to overcome these challenges; (c) ascertain the benefits that disabled men and women have gained in respect of participation in the informal sector; (d) establish the policies and laws that govern disabled men and women with regard to their work in the informal sector; and (e) establish how resources are allocated by various governmental and nongovernmental Organisations among disabled men and women in Mubende and Mityana districts. The study was carried out in Mubende and Mityana district, the central region of the densely populated disabled men and women. In this study in-depth interviews and focus group methods were used to collect qualitative data. Evidence from the study confirms that disabled men and women were engaged in similar IGAs although a few of them were engaged in different IGAs. The similarity in IGAs was likely to be a result of the limited range of IGAs that disabled men and women could engage in considering the nature of their impairments, limited finances and the limited skills that they had. The visually and hearing impaired men and women were mainly involved in a single IGA in the informal sector and most of the physically disabled men and women were engaged in multiple IGAs. This was linked to visually and hearing impaired men and women lacking or having insufficient capital and skills to engage in multiple IGAs, as compared to physically disabled men and women

Seeing the City Digitally

This book explores what's happening to ways of seeing urban spaces in the contemporary moment, when so many of the technologies through which cities are visualised are digital. Cities have always been pictured, in many media and for many different purposes. This edited collection explores how that picturing is changing in an era of digital visual culture. Analogue visual technologies like film cameras were understood as creating some sort of a trace of the real city. Digital visual technologies, in contrast, harvest and process digital data to create images that are constantly refreshed, modified and circulated. Each of the chapters in this volume examines a different example of this processual visuality is reconfiguring the spatial and temporal organisation of urban life

Unheard Victims of COVID-19: The Impact of Mask Use on Communication for d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing People

Masks are effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19, but they also impact communication for d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people. This research is a mixed methods approach to analyzing the impact that the widespread use of masks in response to COVID-19 has had on DHH people. Building on the allowance for nuance and paradox presented by Deborah Stone in her book Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making (2012) and holding to the Social Model of Disability, this research involves the qualitative and quantitative analysis of a survey of one-hundred and ninety-eight (198) DHH people, interviews with fourteen (14) DHH people, and analysis of forty-one (41) United States statewide mask mandates, some of which provide exceptions that specifically mention, or may apply due to their ambiguity, to DHH people. Findings in this research suggest that DHH people are extremely diverse in their communication methods used, cultural ideals, and personal identification language related to their deafness. Statewide mask mandates implemented later were more likely to include exceptions related to DHH people and more likely to use terminology that is deemed offensive by many DHH people. Masks had a significant impact on DHH people, and the impact was slightly higher for those who use spoken English as their primary language than for those who use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary language. However, both groups reported an impact on communication due to masks, and this impact had a negative emotional impact on participants including increased feelings of isolation, frustration, and embarrassment. Innovations in clear masks suggest a more accessible future, but there is a need for Accessibility By Default, rather than by request, for an accessible future to be achieved

Seeing the City Digitally

This book explores what's happening to ways of seeing urban spaces in the contemporary moment, when so many of the technologies through which cities are visualised are digital. Cities have always been pictured, in many media and for many different purposes. This edited collection explores how that picturing is changing in an era of digital visual culture. Analogue visual technologies like film cameras were understood as creating some sort of a trace of the real city. Digital visual technologies, in contrast, harvest and process digital data to create images that are constantly refreshed, modified and circulated. Each of the chapters in this volume examines a different example of this processual visuality is reconfiguring the spatial and temporal organisation of urban life

Cognitive aspects of work with digital maps

Digital maps of geographic areas are increasingly common in many types of workplace, in education and in the public domain. Their interactivity and visual features, and the complexity of geographic(al) information systems (GIS) which create, edit and manipulate them, create special cognitive demands on the end-user which are not present in traditional cartographic maps or in most human-computer interaction (HCI). This thesis reviews cross-disciplinary literature regarding cognitive aspects of viewing and interacting with digital maps. Data from an observational study of GIS use, including real-time recordings of normal workplace activities, was analysed using various approaches to examine the interactive and visual aspects of people's work. The implications for cartographic, psychological and HeI aspects of GIS are discussed, in the context of the actual tasks people perform with them (rather than the computationally advanced analyses assumed by most literature). The second phase of the research examined the spatial knowledge attained and used during this interaction. The relevance of specific concepts in cognitive psychology, and of factors that create individual differences in cognition, are discussed in depth, alongside work in environmental and educational psychology, cartography and geography. A controlled experiment examined the degree to which task characteristics induce a different spatial model or reference frame when viewing a digital map. It was shown that even novice users can switch between considering the map as an abstract geometric display or as a geographical representation, without affecting performance. However, tasks forcing subjects to focus entirely on the geometry rather than the geography did affect performance in a surprise post-test photograph identification task. Map users' mental model or reference frame is apparently affected by these task constraints; this has implications for GIS design and practice as well as for understanding spatial cognition The study also considered the role of expertise and other individual difference factors, although conclusions were limited by sample size. Further research issues are highlighted, particularly regarding the knowledge structures and spatial language used in interpreting digital maps

Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010

This volume holds the papers from the 18th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK). This year the conference, hosted at University College London (UCL), from Wednesday 14 to Friday 16 April 2010. The conference covered the areas of core geographic information science research as well as applications domains such as crime and health and technological developments in LBS and the geoweb. UCL’s research mission as a global university is based around a series of Grand Challenges that affect us all, and these were accommodated in GISRUK 2010. The overarching theme this year was “Global Challenges”, with specific focus on the following themes: * Crime and Place * Environmental Change * Intelligent Transport * Public Health and Epidemiology * Simulation and Modelling * London as a global city * The geoweb and neo-geography * Open GIS and Volunteered Geographic Information * Human-Computer Interaction and GIS Traditionally, GISRUK has provided a platform for early career researchers as well as those with a significant track record of achievement in the area. As such, the conference provides a welcome blend of innovative thinking and mature reflection. GISRUK is the premier academic GIS conference in the UK and we are keen to maintain its outstanding record of achievement in developing GIS in the UK and beyond

Remote Collaborative BIM-based Mixed Reality Approach for Supporting Facilities Management Field Tasks

Facilities Management (FM) day-to-day tasks require suitable methods to facilitate work orders and improve performance by better collaboration between the office and the field. Building Information Modeling (BIM) provides opportunities to support collaboration and to improve the efficiency of Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMSs) by sharing building information between different applications/users throughout the lifecycle of the facility. However, manual retrieval of building element information can be challenging and time consuming for field workers during FM operations. Mixed Reality (MR) is a visualization technique that can be used to improve the visual perception of the facility by superimposing 3D virtual objects and textual information on top of the view of real-world building objects. The objectives of this research are: (1) investigating an automated method to capture and record task-related data (e.g., defects) with respect to a georeferenced BIM model and share them directly with the remote office based on the field worker point of view in mobile situations; (2) investigating the potential of using MR, BIM, and sensory data for FM tasks to provide improved visualization and perception that satisfy the needs of the facility manager at the office and the field workers with less visual and mental disturbance; and (3) developing an effective method for interactive visual collaboration to improve FM field tasks. This research discusses the development of a collaborative BIM-based MR approach to support facilities field tasks. The research framework integrates multisource facilities information, BIM models, and hybrid tracking in an MR-based setting to retrieve information based on time (e.g., inspection schedule) and the location of the field worker, visualize inspection and maintenance operations, and support remote collaboration and visual communication between the field worker and the manager at the office. The field worker uses an Augmented Reality (AR) application installed on his/her tablet. The manager at the office uses an Immersive Augmented Virtuality (IAV) application installed on a desktop computer. Based on the field worker location, as well as the inspection or maintenance schedule, the field worker is assigned work orders and instructions from the office. Other sensory data (e.g., infrared thermography) can provide additional layers of information by augmenting the actual view of the field worker and supporting him/her in making effective decisions about existing and potential problems while communicating with the office in an Interactive Virtual Collaboration (IVC) mode. The contributions of this research are (1) developing a MR framework for facilities management which has a field AR module and an office IAV module. These modules can be used independently or combined using remote IVC, (2) developing visualization methods for MR including the virtual hatch and multilayer views to enhance visual depth and context perception, (3) developing methods for AR and IAV modeling including BIM-based data integration and customization suitable for each MR method, and (4) enhancing indoor tracking for AR FM systems by developing a hybrid tracking method. To investigate the applicability of the research method, a prototype system called Collaborative BIM-based Markerless Mixed Reality Facility Management System (CBIM3R-FMS) is developed and tested in a case study. The usability testing and validation show that the proposed methods have high potential to improve FM field tasks

An exploration and development of teaching resources to better include students with visual impairment in science and mathematics classes in South-Western Nigeria: an action research study

The study was concerned with access to science and mathematics curricula by students with visual impairment (SVI) in South-Western Nigeria. The main study adopted an action research approach. Six initial stakeholder ‘search conferences’ were organised to understand the nature and extent of the problem. They revealed evidence of inadequate accessibility to science and mathematics education by SVI due to unavailable resources and personnel. This led to the development of teaching resources and approaches (‘STEM Kit’ and the use of ‘Talking LabQuest’) and the trialling of these approaches in two selected study schools. Data were collected through classroom observation and teacher and student interviews. Findings show that the approaches enabled access of SVI to science and mathematics at a comparable level with their sighted peers, which brought about immersion in, and engagement with learning. With the multisensory teaching resources, SVI and classroom sighted teachers learn and teach with reduced specialist teacher involvement. The intervention positively challenged local views and practice regarding curriculum access and SVI and offers examples for improved provision of relevant resources and training for staff to better support SVI independence and inclusion. This study showcases the uniqueness of action research in empowering all participants to bring about change