3,647 research outputs found
Innovative Practices in AT Training for LD (Dyslexic) Students
No full textBetween September and December 2005, we conducted a telephone survey of 455 dyslexic students who had received support under the DSA to identify the equipment supplied, the students’ experiences of using the equipment and their experience of training. In this paper we focus on the training issues raised by the students and, in particular, try to explore the reasons why so many students (53%) failed to take up the offer of training. We identify what consequences this may have and propose some mechanisms for increasing the uptake and, more importantly, the benefits of training. Before we discuss training it is perhaps helpful to highlight some of the key points that emerge from the wider study, identifying the equipment supplied to students and their perception of it; full details can be found in Draffan et al 2006
A survey of the Use of Assistive Technology by Students with Dyslexia in Post-Secondary Education
No full textPurpose. To identify the types and mix of technology (hardware and software) provided to post-secondary students with dyslexia under the UK's Disabled Student Allowance (DSA), and to determine the students' satisfaction with, and use of, the equipment provided and to examine their experiences with training. Method. A telephone survey of 455 students with dyslexia who had received technology under the DSA from one equipment supplier was conducted over in the period September to December 2005. The survey obtained a mixture of quantitative data (responses to binary questions and selections from a five-point rating scale) and qualitative data (participants identifying positive and negative experiences with technology). In addition, the equipment supplier's database was used to determine the technology supplied to each of the participants. Result. Technology provision is variable between students. The majority of students receive a recording device, text-to-speech software and concept mapping tools in addition to a standard computer system. Ninety percent of participants are satisfied or very satisfied with the hardware and the software that they receive. A total of 48.6% of participants received training, with 86.3% of those expressing satisfaction with the training they received. Of those that were offered training but elected not to receive it, the majority did so because they felt confident about their IT skills. Conclusions. Students express satisfaction not only with the computer systems that they receive but also with the special-purpose software provided to support their studies. Significant numbers of students elect not to receive training and may, therefore, not be using their equipment to its best advantage
The synthesis of monodisperse alkanes with long chains
Get PDFThis thesis discusses reasons for the interest in monodisperse long chain alkanes and describes attempts, past and present, to synthesise such molecules. Chapter 1 discusses why the synthesis of such molecules are important and the objectives of this project. Chapter 2 reviews the methods previous groups have devised to prepare pure samples of long chain alkanes. In particular, work carried out by Whiting et al. at Bristol, whose scheme formed the basis of the early work in Durham. Chapter 3 describes the work in Durham and improvements which were made to Whiting's method, allowing the synthesis of longer chain lengths and greater quantities of materials to be achieved. Chapter 4 provides a summary of the practical work carried out by the author. Chapter 5 gives experimental details of the work described in Chapter 4
Microstructure Development during Solidification of Aluminium Alloys
No full textThis Thesis demonstrates studies on microstructure development during the solidification of aluminium alloys. New insights of structure development are presented here. Experimental techniques such as quenching and in-situ High-brilliance X-ray microscopy were utilized to study the microstructure evolution during solidification.Materials Science and EngineeringMechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineerin
Geometric feature distributions for shape representation and recognition.
Get PDFOne of the fundamental problems in computer vision is the identification of objects from
their shape. The research reported in this thesis is directed toward the development of
a scheme for representing the shape of an object which allows it to be recognised both
quickly and robustly across a wide range of viewing conditions.
Given a shape described by a set of primitive elements, eg. straight line segments,
the proposed scheme involves using a histogram to record the distribution of geometric
features, eg. angle and distance, measured between pairs of primitives. This form
of shape representation has a number advantages over previously proposed schemes.
Foremost among these is the fact that it is able to produce local representations of
shape, based on individual line segments. Recognition based on such representation is
robust to the problems arising in cluttered scenes. Representations produced by the
scheme are also invariant to certain object transformations, they degrade gracefully
as the shape is fragmented and are strong enough to support discrimination between
dissimilar objects.
By treating the histogram recording a geometric feature distribution as a feature vector
it is possible to match shapes using techniques from statistical pattern classification.
This has the advantage that optimal matching accuracy can be achieved using processing which is both simple and uniform. The approach is therefore ideally suited to
implementation in dedicated hardware.
A detailed analysis is undertaken of the effect on recognition of changes in the description of a shape caused by fragmentation noise, scene clutter and sensor error. It is
found that the properties of both the representation and matching components of the
system combine to ensure that recognition is, in theory, unaffected by fragmentation
noise, while it is maintained to very high levels of scene clutter. The factors which
determine the effect of sensor error on the performance of the recognition system are
fully analysed.
The ability of the representational scheme to support object recognition is demonstrated in a number of different domains. The recognition of both 2D and 3D objects
from a fixed viewpoint is demonstrated in conditions of severe fragmentation noise,
occlusion and clutter. The scheme is then shown to extend straightforwardly to the
representation of 3D shape. This is exploited to perform recognition and localisation
of 3D objects from an arbitrary viewpoint, based on the matching of 3D scene and
,model shape descriptions. Finally, the use of the scheme within a multiple view-based
approach to 3D object recognition is demonstrated
Do Text-to-Speech Synthesisers Pronounce Correctly? A Preliminary Study
No full textThis paper evaluates 4 commercial text-to-speech synthesisers used by dyslexic people to listen to and proof read text. Two evaluators listened to 704 common English words and determined whether the words were correctly pronounced or not. Where the evaluators agree on incorrect pronunciation, the proportion of correct pronunciations for the four synthesisers is in the range 98.9% to 99.6% of the 704 words. The evaluators also listened to the same synthesisers speaking phrases in which there were 44 pairs of homographs and determined whether each instance of the homograph was correctly spoken or not. The level of correctness for the four synthesisers ranged from 76.3% to 91.3%
Promises under pressure: the modest predictive power of polygenic risk scores
No full textComment on a controversial topic in genomics and a response to: Roberts, E., Flaum, N. & Evans, D.G. Clinical implementation of polygenic risk scores. Eur J Hum Genet (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41431-025-01931-9
Representing Certain Continued Fraction AF Algebras as C*-algebras of Categories of Paths and non-AF Groupoids
No full textabstract: C*-algebras of categories of paths were introduced by Spielberg in 2014 and generalize C*-algebras of higher rank graphs. An approximately finite dimensional (AF) C*-algebra is one which is isomorphic to an inductive limit of finite dimensional C*-algebras. In 2012, D.G. Evans and A. Sims proposed an analogue of a cycle for higher rank graphs and show that the lack of such an object is necessary for the associated C*-algebra to be AF. Here, I give a class of examples of categories of paths whose associated C*-algebras are Morita equivalent to a large number of periodic continued fraction AF algebras, first described by Effros and Shen in 1980. I then provide two examples which show that the analogue of cycles proposed by Evans and Sims is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the C*-algebra of a category of paths to be AF.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Mathematics 202
D.G. Ritchie's ethics
No full textThe British idealists of the late 19th and early 20th century are best known for their contribution to metaphysics, logic, and political philosophy. Yet they also made important contributions to social and public policy, social and moral philosophy and moral education, as shown by this volume.book chapterpublished
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