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Hi, my name is *** Hamidi and I'm a PhD Candidate in Computer Science working
under the supervision
of Professor Melanie Baljko in the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering
at York University in Toronto.
This presentation is about my recent research projects.
Technology affects every aspect of our life
and its influence is oftentimes inevitable.
An important question is how can technology be used meaningfully.
The general theme of my research is using technology
and specifically digital media and computational systems
for empowerment and inclusion.
I will briefly talk about five different projects that revolve around
this general theme.
The first project, CanSpeak,
is an assistive tool to facilitate communication and computer interaction
for people with severe
motor disabilities
and speech dysarthria.
One of the areas in which technological advances have undeniably helped many
individuals is assistive technology:
the design,
production and deployment of technological solutions
for users for disabilities.
The development of effective
Augmentative an Alternative Communication systems
or AACs
is an important area of assistive technology.
Steven Hawkins, the famous British physicist
is a scientist and theoretician who has used AACs to communicate his brilliant
ideas for years.
We can only imagine what a loss it would have been
if such technology was not available for him.
Software scanning keyboards often form an important part of AACs.
Selectables are organized in rows and columns of elements
which are periodically highlighted.
The user
selects an element by repeatedly selecting the highlighted group
that contains it.
Using this method text can be composed
using one of two physical switches
or other alternative input methods such as puff switches.
For my Master's research project, I devised an Information Theory and Linear
Programming method to analyze and compare
different scanning keyword designs
with each other.
The method, called the Reverse Huffman Algorithm,
views a given scanning keyboard
as a Deterministic Finite Automaton and
extracts the Containment Hierarchy
which is a tree that expresses the relative position of the selectables
from it.
By extracting a representative probability distribution from this tree and
comparing it with other designs by calculating the Jensen-Shannon
divergence between them,
the method provides a way for a priori
design and analysis of scanning keyboards.
After the theoretical research,
I got involved in a hands-on project
that was initiated at the CanAssist research group
at the University of Victoria
and became a collaboration
between CanAssist,
York University
and Participation House,
Markham.
The initial goal of the project
was to develop a small vocabulary speech interface for users
with speech dysarthria, to navigate the Web.
By selecting keywords that were customized for each user to be easy to
pronounce for them,
the CanSpeak interface allows users to compose text or navigate the Web
using their speech.
While developing this project,
I was able to interact with users who shattered many misconceptions I had others many misconceptions i have to
about users needs
and capabilities.
For example,
one of my colleagues, Dan, at CanAssist,
has cerebral palsy and dysarthric speech.
He is also a competent programmer
and an avid user of email
and social networks.
Through my interaction with Dan and other users of the system,
I realized
the importance of taking into account not only the individual user
but their community
and ecology in which they live and work.
This awareness of the community of users,
brought me to my next project:
"Our Digital Tapestry".
This project was motivated by the observation
that perhaps technology can provide people with expressive freedom
and new means of collaboration and expression.
I have many friends who are artists: musicians
poets and filmmakers.
Many of these friends live in the Middle East where access to an international
audience is very difficult if not impossible.
As an artist living in Toronto,
I've had the opportunity to perform live on many occasions
and realize the importance of having an audience.
Regardless of how small
or large an audience is,
its existence
is vital to vibrant
and inspired artistic
activity.
Additionally, being in a large music band,
Sacred Balance, made me aware of the importance of artistic collaboration
and the range of expression and artistic power
it makes available to participants.
These ideas led to the creation of "Our Digital Tapestry", a collaborative
poetry project on the Facebook social network.
The project started with an invitation
to collaborate on a series of short poems that I posted on my Facebook
page.
After the first poem was posted,
the project started to grow
and grow, turning into a multimedia
multilingual collaborative poem.
Over four weeks, nineteen participating poets from five cities across the world,
contributed to the poem
which was written using two languages and three scripts
and incorporated video and images.
By being directly engaged with the participants, I assumed an artist
researcher role
which allowed me to find subtle emotional
psychological and intellectual aspects in the creative process of the project.
Additionally, I used auto-ethnographic methods to report my experience
as a participant
as well
as an investigator in the project.
Several aspects of social networks were identified
that make them useful from creative collaboration
including support for performance,
communication between participants,
support for internationalization
and diversity amongst many others.
As project leader, I realized the importance of creating trust
in intercultural collaborations.
This experience led me to an examination of another collaborative project
that a good friend of mine freelance filmmaker and photographer
Sahand Amiri
was conducting in Haiti.
"Haiti: Children of Heaven's Eyes"
is a documentary film with a strong web-presence
about the aftermath
of the 2010
earthquake
in Haiti.
Sahand works closely with different community projects within Haiti
from ten cities
to private schools and community initiatives.
His aim is to empower Haitian
children
activists and artists
with a voice and presence through digital media and web presence.
To this end,
he has created a companion website for the film
in which he posts
video profiles of Haitian activists and artists
along with their direct contact information.
The key observation during my trip to Haiti was that
what makes Sahand's project possible is a close and trusting relationship
with Human Access Points,
local members of the community with valuable resources
and knowledge
who are interested to help and collaborate with development initiatives.
The idea of collaboration through technology formed the basis of another project,
Synchrum,
a tangible interface for rhythmic collaboration.
When traveling in India and China i became aware
of a fascinating cultural object: The Tibetan Prayer Wheel, tibetan prayer wheel
which consists of a cylindrical chamber mounted on top of a handle
and fastened with a weight.
A prayer is written and placed inside the chamber and it is traditionally believed
that each rotation of the wheel,
corresponds of a recitation of the prayer.
What fascinated me about this object was its physicality and that it added a
performative aspect
to praying.
Engaging the audience of digital performances is sometimes challenging
and I was inspired to develop an object that would facilitate
participation and engagement.
The first prototypes
were created out of existing objects from a most inspiring options problem most inspiring
environment: the home kitchen.
A potato smasher,
a yogurt container,
and a chair wheel
were used.
Working with
Professor Melanie Baljko,
Alexander Moakler,
and Assaf Gadot,
we created Synchrum,
a wireless computational object
that consists of a rotating weight that blocks a light sensor blocks of the licensor
allowing for the monitoring of its rotation patterns
during interaction.
We designed a video installation
entitled "Liberation", in which members of the audience
could release virtual locks connected to a performer
by synchronizing their movements together.
Finally, my PhD research project involves the development of "Rafigh"
(Persian for companion)
a tangible computational toy for speech intervention for children.
Research has shown that early speech intervention can help alleviate
many forms of speech disorders.
A typical intervention setting involves a Speech-Language
Pathologist or SLP,
engaging a child in exercises
and providing them with feedback.
This model is repeated in computer intervention systems
that provide feedback
based on input speech
for children.
However, Automatic Speech Recognition has proven to be inadequate for the analysis of
speech errors
and the feedback from these systems can be erroneous and inconsistent.
Recent years have witnessed the prevalence of tangible interfaces:
a new wave of computational interfaces
that aim to transcend the desktop computing model.
New interaction method involve grasping
moving
and touching smart objects.
I develop a tangible interface that allows children to interact with
living things
and provides them with control i their interaction
using their speech
and touch.
The first prototype engages the child in the care of a living mushroom colony
in the home environment.
The speech used during the interaction is recorded and monitored later by an SLP.
We believe that this "wet interface" will be engaging
motivating
and meaningful to interact with.
Thanks very much for your attention.
Please contact me for any further questions about
these research projects.