Visually impaired people use tactile maps that can be read by the sense of touch or, to a limited extent, with their eyes. This article concerns the methods of assessing tactile maps in terms of ...their information value. In the research, methods used to assess traditional maps have been adopted to assess tactile maps. Tactile elements of two maps - one developed with the use of traditional methods and the second developed with the use of 3D printing - have been compared. Structural measures of information as well as the information efficiency coefficient of each map have been determined to assess whether new cartographic symbols proposed on a multi-level 3D printed map can increase its information value.
This article presents a study that tested the impact of audio description (AD) style on dimensions of presence (spatial presence, ecological validity, engagement, and negative effects) in blind and ...visually impaired audiences. The participants were shown two fragments of a naturalistic drama with two styles of description: ‘standard’ and ‘creative’. While the former followed the principle of objectivity, the latter was an innovative type of AD that included elements of camera work and subjective descriptions of the characters, their actions, and scenes crucial to the plot. The findings show that the emotive AD prompted higher levels of presence for all participants. Overall, the new AD style seemed more natural, especially to participants with recent sight loss. The results suggest that creative scripts may stimulate presence and thus increase the chances of AD users having a more immersive viewing experience.
Search tasks can be challenging for blind or visually impaired people. To determine an object's location and to navigate there, they often rely on the limited sensory capabilities of a white cane, ...search haptically, or ask for help. We introduce MR-Sense, a mixed reality assistant to support search and navigation tasks. The system is designed in a participatory fashion and utilizes sensory data of a standalone mixed reality head-mounted display to perform deep learning-driven object recognition and environment mapping. The user is supported in object search tasks via spatially mapped audio and vibrotactile feedback. We conducted a preliminary user study including ten blind or visually impaired participants and a final user evaluation with thirteen blind or visually impaired participants. The final study reveals that MR-Sense alone cannot replace the cane but provides a valuable addition in terms of usability and task load. We further propose a standardized evaluation setup for replicable studies and highlight relevant potentials and challenges fostering future work towards employing technology in accessibility.
•Obstacle detection system for Visually Impaired Persons’ assistance navigation.•An improved version of the YOLO v5 network.•Mix of two datasets for indoor and outdoor object detection.•A lightweight ...embedded implementation on a Xilinx ZCU 102 board.•High-performance results in terms of detection accuracy and processing speed.
Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) persons encounter safety problems during their navigation. Therefore, assisting BVI must be addressed. Obstacle detection and avoidance in real scenes present very challenging tasks. To handle this challenge, we suggested developing a new obstacle detection system based on an enhanced YOLO v5 neural network. The improved network architecture increased both the network's speed and the detection accuracy. This was achieved by integrating the DenseNet into the YOLO v5 backbone, which impacted the reuse of features and data transfer with additional modifications. Aiming to ensure an embedded implementation of the proposed work on a ZCU 102 board, we applied two compression techniques: channel pruning and quantization. The performance of the suggested system in terms of detection and processing speed showed very encouraging results. In fact, it achieves a detection accuracy of 83.42% and a detection speed of 43 Frame Per Second (FPS).
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In this paper, we develop a smart navigation aid system for blind and visually impaired people (BVIP). The proposed design revolves around a decision support system based on fuzzy logic, a Raspberry ...Pi4 board for real-time processing, a set of high-performance sensors, and a haptic voice interface to guide the user. The control architecture is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS) which takes care of connecting all the different nodes of the system and generates the decision in the form of a voice haptic message. A security assessment system is implemented using sensor data fusion and a fuzzy classifier to determine the human security path. Experimental tests carried out by BVIP in different environments have shown the effectiveness of the developed solution.
Background
People with visual impairments are often faced with challenges in the process of medicines management and use. Mobile device‐based applications can be a potential solution in reducing ...these challenges.
Objectives
This study aimed to analyse the requirements for developing a mobile device‐based medicines management application for people who are blind and visually impaired.
Methods
A questionnaire was designed to examine the requirements for developing a medicines management application for people who were blind and visually impaired. The questionnaire was sent to 2081 people who are blind or visually impaired, and their instructors. Among them, 146 people (125 with visual impairments and 21 instructors) completed the questionnaire. SPSS 23 software was used for statistical analysis.
Results
Ninety percent of people with visual impairments and 75% of instructors were willing to assist in application design. Out of 44 data elements, 35 were considered important for designing and creating mobile device‐based medicines management applications. ‘Providing education information about drugs in the form of audio files’ (4.71 ± 0.56), ‘Ability to update software’ (4.71 ± 0.56) and ‘Ability to search for physician’s addresses’ (4.71 ± 0.46) were rated highest, in terms of required ‘Application capabilities’, by the study cohort based on average Likert scale scores (1 = very low, 2 = low, 3 = moderate, 4 = high, 5 = very high).
Conclusion
This study provides a set of data elements that people who are blind and visually impaired, and their instructors, have identified as being important to the development and design of mobile device‐based medicines management applications. Developers can use the identified data elements to help in the design and implementation of their medicines management applications or electronic systems. Applications and electronic systems that incorporate features for people who are blind and visually impaired, have the potential to improve quality of life by enabling independent medicines management and medicines adherence, whilst potentially decreasing medication errors, rate of diseases, frequency of hospitalisations and medicines related deaths.
Highlights: There is a significant positive relationship between social physique anxiety and the symptoms of eating disorder. Girls who have high social physique anxiety are more likely to develop ...dietary behaviors. Overeating eating behavior is seen in those boys who have high social physique anxiety. Abstract Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between social physique anxiety and nutritional behaviors among male and female students of the university. Methods: The research was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population consisted of all students of the University of Tehran in 2020, from which 221 people (females: n=110) and (male: n=111) (mean age: 21.12 ± 2.6 years) were randomly selected and completed the Social Physique Anxiety and Eating Disorders questionnaires. The Social Physique Anxiety Scale was used to collect data and the Garner and Garfinkel 26-item Eating Disorder Questionnaire was used to assess nutritional behaviors. The Pearson correlation test was used to examine the relationship between research variables. Due to the normality of the data based on the K-S test, an independent T-test. Results: The results showed that girls with upper extremity social physique anxiety have an eating disorder (r = 0.20, P≥0.05). On the other hand, boys with upper extremity social physique anxiety showed overeating eating behavior (r = 0.15, P≥0.05). No significant difference was observed in other components. Conclusion: According to the results of the study, girls who have high social physique anxiety are more likely to develop dietary behaviors. However, overeating eating behavior is seen in those boys who have high social physique anxiety.
This paper presents the design of a glasses system for the blind and visually impaired that incorporates various technologies to enhance their daily living experience. The glasses are equipped with a ...speaker and haptic feedback, allowing users to receive audible and tactile notifications about their surroundings. We also implemented image understanding for identifying multiple unique objects, people, and environmental obstacles. Additionally, the glasses can read signs and printed materials via text recognition technology. Finally, the glasses incorporate navigation tools, helping users to find their way in unfamiliar environments. The system has the potential to significantly improve the independence and quality of life of those with visual impairments, as it could be a valuable assistive technology tool for a wide range of applications.
Facilitating navigation in pedestrian environments is critical for enabling people who are blind and visually impaired (BVI) to achieve independent mobility. A deep reinforcement learning (DRL)–based ...assistive guiding robot with ultrawide-bandwidth (UWB) beacons that can navigate through routes with designated waypoints was designed in this study. Typically, a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) framework is used to estimate the robot pose and navigational goal; however, SLAM frameworks are vulnerable in certain dynamic environments. The proposed navigation method is a learning approach based on state-of-the-art DRL and can effectively avoid obstacles. When used with UWB beacons, the proposed strategy is suitable for environments with dynamic pedestrians. We also designed a handle device with an audio interface that enables BVI users to interact with the guiding robot through intuitive feedback. The UWB beacons were installed with an audio interface to obtain environmental information. The on-handle and on-beacon verbal feedback provides points of interests and turn-by-turn information to BVI users. BVI users were recruited in this study to conduct navigation tasks in different scenarios. A route was designed in a simulated ward to represent daily activities. In real-world situations, SLAM-based state estimation might be affected by dynamic obstacles, and the visual-based trail may suffer from occlusions from pedestrians or other obstacles. The proposed system successfully navigated through environments with dynamic pedestrians, in which systems based on existing SLAM algorithms have failed.
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