Ambiguous keyboards for AAC

Purpose – “Ambiguous keyboards” and “disambiguation processes” are becoming universally recognised through the popularisation of “predictive text messaging” on mobile phones. As this paper shows, although originating in the AT and AAC fields, these terms and techniques no longer appear to be widely understood or adopted by practitioners or users. The purpose of this paper is to introduce these techniques, discussing the research and theory around them, and to suggest them as AT and AAC strategies to be considered by practitioners and users. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper that describes the use of ambiguous keyboards and disambiguation. The hypothesis of the paper is that ambiguous keyboards and disambiguation processes offer potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of AAC and should thus be considered further in research and practice. Findings – The two broad methods for removing the ambiguity from the output of an ambiguous keyboard are presented. A summary of the literature around the use of disambiguation processes provided and the use of disambiguation processes for AAC discussed. Originality/value – This paper suggests that ambiguity should be adopted as a characteristic of an AAC keyboard as should the method of removing ambiguity – namely either coding or a disambiguation process

Do Management Changes Matter? An Empirical Investigation of REIT Performance

Management’s (board of directors or executive officers) contribution to a firm is difficult to directly observe, although stock return performance can be a source of information. This study addresses this issue by extending the work of McIntosh, Rogers, Sirmans and Liang (1994) by analyzing management changes within REITs from 1984 to 2002. The findings indicate a significant relationship between negative performance and a management change from a period three months prior to the change in management. Logit and probit analysis are used to determine whether negative firm performance (measured by its relationship to market returns) can predict the likelihood of a management change. No predictive ability is found.

Observing Remote Prescription of AT

A lack of widely accepted guidelines/protocols for remote prescription of assistive technology is noted. This paper reports observations from attempts to use web based videoconferencing with embedded tools for the provision of assistive technology to children with complex needs

Isolation and Physicochemical Characterization of Lignin from Chromolaena Odorata and Tithonia Diversifolia

This study dealt with isolation of lignin from soft woods namely; Chromolaena odorata (Siam Weed) and Tithonia diversifolia (Mexican Sunflower) using alkali pretreatment method. The raw samples were characterized by some physico-chemical parameters before extraction. Chromolaena odorata gave higher lignin yield and lesser ash content of 15.12 % and 4.22 % respectively compared to Tithonia diversifolia with 7.40 % and 9.56 % respectively. The isolated lignins were characterized by some physico-chemical parameters and spectroscopy methods like Futran Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Lignin from Chromolaena odorata was found to be more pure than the one from Tithonia diversifolia as evident from the values of ash content (4.22%) and klason lignin (33.65 %) for Chromolaena odorata while ash content (9.56 %) and klason lignin (21.96 %) were obtained from Tithonia diversifolia. The FT-IR spectra of both lignins revealed the presence of syringyl and guaiacyl units.Keywords: Chromolaena odorata, Tithonia diversifolia, Lignin, FT-IR, Physico chemical parameter

Lady Gaga as (dis)simulacrum of monstrosity

Lady Gaga’s celebrity DNA revolves around the notion of monstrosity, an extensively researched concept in postmodern cultural studies. The analysis that is offered in this paper is largely informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of monstrosity, as well as by their approach to the study of sign-systems that was deployed in A Thousand Plateaus. By drawing on biographical and archival visual data, with a focus on the relatively underexplored live show, an elucidation is afforded of what is really monstrous about Lady Gaga. The main argument put forward is that monstrosity as sign seeks to appropriate the horizon of unlimited semiosis as radical alterity and openness to signifying possibilities. In this context it is held that Gaga effectively delimits her unique semioscape; however, any claims to monstrosity are undercut by the inherent limits of a representationalist approach in sufficiently engulfing this concept. Gaga is monstrous for her community insofar as she demands of her fans to project their semiosic horizon onto her as a simulacrum of infinite semiosis. However, this simulacrum may only be evinced in a feigned manner as a (dis)simulacrum. The analysis of imagery from seminal live shows during 2011–2012 shows that Gaga’s presumed monstrosity is more akin to hyperdifferentiation as simultaneous employment of heterogeneous and potentially dissonant inter pares cultural representations. The article concludes with a problematisation of audience effects in the light of Gaga’s adoption of a schematic and post-representationalist strategy in the event of her strategy’s emulation by competitive artists

Biometric evidence that sexual selection has shaped the hominin face.

We consider sex differences in human facial morphology in the context of developmental change. We show that at puberty, the height of the upper face, between the lip and the brow, develops differently in males and females, and that these differences are not explicable in terms of sex differences in body size. We find the same dimorphism in the faces of human ancestors. We propose that the relative shortening in men and lengthening in women of the anterior upper face at puberty is the mechanistic consequence of extreme maxillary rotation during ontogeny. A link between this developmental model and sexual dimorphism is made for the first time, and provides a new set of morphological criteria to sex human crania. This finding has important implications for the role of sexual selection in the evolution of anthropoid faces and for theories of human facial attractiveness

Demand around the clock: Time use and data demand of mobile devices in everyday life

Motivated by mobile devices’ growing demand for connectivity, and concern in HCI with the energy intensity and sustainability of networked services, in this paper we reveal the impact of applications on smartphones and tablets in terms of network demand and time use. Using a detailed mixed methods study with eight participants, we first provide an account of how data demand has meaning and utility in our participants’ social practices, and the timing and relative impacts of these. We then assess the scale of this demand by drawing comparison between our fine-grained observations and a more representative dataset of 398 devices from the Device Analyzer corpus. Our results highlight the significant categories of data demanding practice, and the identification of where changes in app time and duration of use might reduce or shift demand to reduce services’ impacts