Spatial audio in small display screen devices

Our work addresses the problem of (visual) clutter in mobile device interfaces. The solution we propose involves the translation of technique-from the graphical to the audio domain-for expliting space in information representation. This article presents an illustrative example in the form of a spatialisedaudio progress bar. In usability tests, participants performed background monitoring tasks significantly more accurately using this spatialised audio (a compared with a conventional visual) progress bar. Moreover, their performance in a simultaneously running, visually demanding foreground task was significantly improved in the eye-free monitoring condition. These results have important implications for the design of multi-tasking interfaces for mobile devices

Design guidelines for audio presentation of graphs and tables

Audio can be used to make visualisations accessible to blind and visually impaired people. The MultiVis Project has carried out research into suitable methods for presenting graphs and tables to blind people through the use of both speech and non-speech audio. This paper presents guidelines extracted from this research. These guidelines will enable designers to implement visualisation systems for blind and visually impaired users, and will provide a framework for researchers wishing to investigate the audio presentation of more complex visualisations

Exploring computer-generated line graphs through virtual touch

This paper describes the development and evaluation of a haptic interface designed to provide access to line graphs for blind or visually impaired people. Computer-generated line graphs can be felt by users through the sense of touch produced by a PHANToM force feedback device. Experiments have been conducted to test the effectiveness of this interface with both sighted and blind people. The results show that sighted and blind people have achieved about 89.95% and 86.83% correct answers respectively in the experiment

Constructing sonified haptic line graphs for the blind student: first steps

Line graphs stand as an established information visualisation and analysis technique taught at various levels of difficulty according to standard Mathematics curricula. It has been argued that blind individuals cannot use line graphs as a visualisation and analytic tool because they currently primarily exist in the visual medium. The research described in this paper aims at making line graphs accessible to blind students through auditory and haptic media. We describe (1) our design space for representing line graphs, (2) the technology we use to develop our prototypes and (3) the insights from our preliminary work

The histogram of partitioned localized image textures

In the field of machine learning and pattern recognition, texture has been a prominent area of research. Humans are uniquely equipped to distinguish texture; however, computers are more equipped to automate the process. Computers accomplish this by taking images and extracting meaningful features that describe their texture. Some of these features are the Haralick texture features, local binary pattern (LBP), and the local direction pattern (LDP). Using the local directional pattern as an example, we propose a new texture feature called the histogram of partitioned localized image textures (HoPLIT). This feature utilizes a set of filters, not necessarily directional, and generates filter response vectors at every pixel location. These response vectors can be thought of as words in a document, which causes one to think of the bag-of-words model. Using the bag-of-words model, a codebook is created by partitioning a subset of response vectors from the entire data set. The partitions are represented by their mean texture and thus a word in the codebook. The mean textures now represent the keywords within the document, i.e. image. A histogram descriptor for an image is the frequency of pixels that belong to each partition. This feature is applied to a texture classification and segmentation problem as well as object detection. Within each problem domain, the HoPLIT feature is compared to the Haralick texture features, LBP, and LDP. The HoPLIT feature does very well classifying texture as well as segmenting large texture mosaics. HoPLIT also shows a surprising robustness to noise. Object detection proves to be slightly more difficult than texture classification for HoPLIT. However, it continues to outperform LBP and LDP.Field of study: Electrical and computer engineering.|James M. Keller, Ph.D., Thesis Supervisor.Includes bibliographical references (pages 54-58)

A risk management strategy for public-private partnerships : San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1991.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-151).by Peter B. Benson and Lisa C. Flaster.M.S

A toolkit of mechanism and context independent widgets

Most human-computer interfaces are designed to run on a static platform (e.g. a workstation with a monitor) in a static environment (e.g. an office). However, with mobile devices becoming ubiquitous and capable of running applications similar to those found on static devices, it is no longer valid to design static interfaces. This paper describes a user-interface architecture which allows interactors to be flexible about the way they are presented. This flexibility is defined by the different input and output mechanisms used. An interactor may use different mechanisms depending upon their suitability in the current context, user preference and the resources available for presentation using that mechanism

Mini-chromosome maintenance complexes form a filament to remodel DNA structure and topology.

Deregulation of mini-chromosome maintenance (MCM) proteins is associated with genomic instability and cancer. MCM complexes are recruited to replication origins for genome duplication. Paradoxically, MCM proteins are in excess than the number of origins and are associated with chromatin regions away from the origins during G1 and S phases. Here, we report an unusually wide left-handed filament structure for an archaeal MCM, as determined by X-ray and electron microscopy. The crystal structure reveals that an α-helix bundle formed between two neighboring subunits plays a critical role in filament formation. The filament has a remarkably strong electro-positive surface spiraling along the inner filament channel for DNA binding. We show that this MCM filament binding to DNA causes dramatic DNA topology change. This newly identified function of MCM to change DNA topology may imply a wider functional role for MCM in DNA metabolisms beyond helicase function. Finally, using yeast genetics, we show that the inter-subunit interactions, important for MCM filament formation, play a role for cell growth and survival