MSc in Computing (Universal Design & Assistive Technology)

May 2011′s Alchemist Cafe

2011-04-20T20:43:00.001-07:00

May 2011′s Alchemist Cafe

Michael Gill of Trinity College Dublin will be talking about the unexpected genetic links between Schizophrenia and Autism.

Schizophrenia and Autism are related disorders of brain development with many different causes. Recent genetic studies are showing that schizophrenia and autism are more closely related than might have been considered up to now. Both are disorders that can result from many different rare genetic mutations that disrupt the development of the brain and affect its basic cognitive functions. The implies that there are multiple forms of the disorder that share similar clinical symptoms much the same as intellectual disability has many origins but shares similar clinical characteristics. Surprisingly, some of the mutations seem to be the same in both conditions and are also found in other neurodevelopmental disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and epilepsy but how this might happen is not known. There are important clinical and ethical implications of this work that need to be considered in detail.

Date: Tuesday 10th May 2011
Location: The Mercantile, Dame St, Dublin 2
Time: 7:30pm (sharp)
Admission: Free-All Welcome!
Complimentary finger food will be provided

In association with CPL and Discover Science & Engineering

World Intellectual Property Day

2011-04-19T02:37:00.001-07:00

William Fry solicitors are organising a briefing around World IP Day on the evening of May 4th next and are looking to attract graduates (or soon to be graduates) who have a particular interest in the area of intellectual property. It's ideally suited to people who are developing (or hoping to develop) something innovative as there will be a team of IP lawyers on hand to provide free advice. (I know lawyers and free in the same sentence, where's the catch? But, of course they're looking for potential new clients to work with).

If is interested contact the organisers.
http://www.williamfry.ie/gns/news-events/events/11-01-21/World-Intellectual-Property-Day---Designing-the-Future.aspx

You can mention Frank O'Reilly (a fellow student of yours) as a contact.

DT202 Student Handbook

2011-02-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

The student handbook for the programme is available at
http://www.comp.dit.ie/msc/documents/DT202handbook.pdf

Reminder: Universal Design Class Saturday

2011-02-03T09:20:00.001-08:00

The first Universal Design Class is on Saturday 5th starting @ 9.00 am
in KA-3-010

Universal Design Classes

2011-01-26T07:23:00.001-08:00

Universal Design will be on the following Saturdays
05 February 2011
19 February 2011
05 March 2011
19 March 2011
02 April 2011

Access to Comp website

2010-12-20T04:56:00.001-08:00

There has been a hardware failure on our internal DNS server.
To access the school website you can use its IP address:

http://147.252.224.87/website07/

Similarly to access staff websites you may use the format:

http://147.252.224.87/jbloggs

(example... http://147.252.224.87/bduggan)

Registration for Semester 2 2010/2011

2010-12-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

Good evening.

If you have already selected and paid for the modules you are
taking in semester 2 please ignore this post.

If you haven't then you need to contact registrations as soon as
you can and arrange for the modules you wish to take to be added
to your record and make payment for same.
All payments must be made before the end of January.
You can find the numbers you need at
http://www.dit.ie/cgi-bin/phonesearch.pl?firstname=&surname=&department=registrations&location=kevin+st&phone=&submit=Search

You can access the timetable at
http://www.dit.ie/registration/studentclasstimetables/

Once you have completed your registration can you send me a
short email listing the modules you are registered on in Semester 2.

Many thanks in advance for your assistance with this.

Regards

Deirdre

Presentation on Tackling Exams

2010-12-08T05:48:00.000-08:00

There will be a short 30 min presentation on general
tips on how to tackle your examinations on Wed 15th 2010 @ 18.00
in KA-G-026.

Deferral of Exams/Personal Circumstances

2010-12-08T05:46:00.001-08:00

Folks

Before you sit your exams you need to make sure you are familiar
with the DIT general assessment regulations (available at http://www.dit.ie/services/academicregistrar/student-assessment-regulations/general/)
and the programme document (available online at http://library.dit.ie search for DT210)

If you cannot attend an exam and know in advance (e.g. work commitments) you
need to do the following:
1. Request a deferral form from the examinations office
2. Complete the deferral form and return with documentary evidence
to support your reason to myself or Damian Gordon

All deferral requests are considered by the head of department and permitted/refused
at their discretion. It is VERY important that you submit some evidence with
your request.

If you are ill in the run up to an exam or on the day of an exam or any circumstances
happen which mean you cannot make the exam or feel you don't do well,
you need to submit a Personal Circumstances Form (available at
http://www.dit.ie/services/academicregistrar/student-assessment-regulations/general/)
and return it to the examinations office.
You must include a Professional Opinion Form with your circumstances.

Where you have submitted a personal circumstances it will be considered when the
examination board meets to consider your result. It will be treated as private and
discussed only with the programme mentor, programme chair, examinations officer
and chair of the examination board.

Deirdre

Semester 1 Exam Numbers + Timetables

2010-12-06T03:34:00.001-08:00

I will be collecting your exam numbers and timetables from
the exams office this afternoon and will try to get them to you
over the next 3 days.

I will call into the various classes today if possible, tomorrow and Wednesday
or arrange for the relevant lecturer to take the letters for the people in
their class.

If your class does not go ahead and the college is open I will be in my office
@ 5.45 tonight Monday (KE-2-001 room 201 on the second floor)

If you can't make it in for class this week don't worry the exams office
will post whatever I haven't distributed by Thursday so you should get
it well in time for the exams start date.

DIT opening times for next 3 days From Dec 2nd

2010-12-02T06:25:00.001-08:00

The following arrangements have been agreed for opening times over the coming days, due to continuing adverse weather and the unpredictability of public transport:

* Thursday 02 December
o All DIT buildings will close at 4 pm this afternoon, and classes will be cancelled

* Friday 03 December
o All DIT buildings will open from 10 am to 4pm
o Classes cancelled BUT scheduled examinations will take place as previously notified

* Saturday 04 December
o All DIT buildings will remain closed
o DIT Open Day has been cancelled, with great regret, and will be rescheduled in early January

We regret the inconvenience caused but these decisions have been taken to avoid further uncertainty.

Please check www.dit.ie for information re opening on Monday Dec 6th

DIT closure Dec 1st

2010-12-01T08:37:00.001-08:00

See message from public affairs

DIT BUILDINGS TO CLOSE FROM 4PM TODAY, WEDNESDAY 01 DECEMBER UNTIL NOON TOMORROW, THURSDAY 02 DECEMBER

Due to the worsening weather conditions and reduced public transport services, DIT will close from 4pm today, Wednesday 01 December, till noon tomorrow, Thursday 02 December. Students and colleagues are requested to check their email and the DIT website for further updates.

We regret this inconvenience and thank you for your cooperation.

Public Affairs Office

Wed Dec 1st 2010 - Problem Solving Class Cancelled

2010-12-01T06:02:00.001-08:00

There will be no problem solving class this evening.
Damian will post homework on his website to be completed
for next week

Exam Timetable + Exam Number for Winter Exams

2010-11-30T07:55:00.001-08:00

Your exam numbers and timetables will be distributed to you next week.
I will be in touch next Monday to let you know mechanism, times and locations.
If anyone can't make it in to receive their number and timetable - these
will be posted out to them

Lab Opening Saturdays

2010-11-25T11:32:00.000-08:00

Access will be provided to the computer labs from
Saturday December 4th.

2010-11-15T06:57:00.000-08:00

Hey,

As the School website is down, I've put up this
week's lecture in GoogleDocs here;

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BwodBolTd7UGNDc0ODkxMzgtZTI2MC00ZTY4LTlkY2UtYWE5MWI5NzM2ZTc4&hl=en

sorry for the inconvience :-(

Damian

Drupal Camp 20th - 21st November 2010

2010-10-27T06:58:00.001-07:00

The next Drupal Ireland event is taking place on Saturday 20th & Sunday 21st November in Trinity College Dublin and will run from 9am to 5pm both days. Registration is free and you can now sign-up for this event at http://www.drupalcampireland.org.

Presentations in two tracks: White belt and black belt
The event will include presentations from experienced Drupal developers where people can learn more about Drupal, what it can do and how it can benefit both them, their careers and their organisation. There will be two tracks, so participants of all levels will be catered for.

- White Belt track: For newcomers and beginners.
- Black Belt track: For intermediates and experts.

About Drupal
Drupal is a powerful open source content management system which allows users to easily publish, manage and share a wide variety of content on the internet. There is a great demand for people who know this software and demand is growing. Drupal's many features and add-ons allow it to be used for a variety of website needs; including for marketing, internal communications, informational websites, and for social networking purposes. See http://www.drupal.org

About the Irish Drupal user group
This event is being organised by the Drupal Ireland user group - a volunteer membership group. The group is comprised of developers who use Drupal everyday; who contribute to Drupal core, documentation and maintain popular modules.

Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, this event is being held free of charge. Lunch is also being provided, and while registration is free, we would ask people to register before hand so we can cater accordingly.

More information on the event, including accommodation and car pooling, can be found at http://drupalcampireland.org

Dublin Computational Linguistics Research Seminar

2010-10-27T06:56:00.001-07:00

The second of this year's talks in the Dublin Computational
Linguistics Research Seminar DCLRS series will by given this week by
Dr. Ielka van der Sluis of the Centre for Next Generation Localisation
at Trinity College Dublin.

This year the DCLRS series is being organized by the Artificial
Intelligence Research Centre (AIRC) in DIT, and is generously
supported by the CNGL and the DIT School of Computing.

The talk will take place in KE 308 in Kevin Street @ 16.00. Tea and biscuits
to be provided!

--- Speaker:
Dr. Ielka van der Sluis. Centre for Next Generation Localisation,
Trinity College Dublin.

--- Title:
Cross-Cultural Assessment of Automatically Generated Multimodal
Referring Expressions in a Virtual World.

--- Abstract
This talk presents a cross-cultural evaluation of an algorithm for
generating multimodal referring expressions to be produced by embodied
conversational agents in a virtual world. The algorithm employs a cost
function to implement general principles of
human motor control and cooperativity in dialogues that can be
parametrised so as to vary the precision of the pointing gestures and
the amount of linguistic information included in the referring
expressions. The study evaluated how native speakers of English and
Japanese perceived three different algorithmic outputs for multimodal
referring behaviour. Results show differences between English- and
Japanese-speaking subjects with respect to their preferences for types
of multimodal referring expressions. In the talk these differences are
related to matters of understandability, human-likeness and
culture-specific social practices. Methodological issues arising from
the translation and localisation of the materials used in the study as
well as its background and preparations are also addressed.

This research is supported by the Science Foundation Ireland (Grant
07/CE/I1142) as part of the Centre for Next Generation Localisation
(www.cngl.ie) at Trinity College Dublin.

KEYWORDS: generating referring expressions, multimodality, virtual
worlds, realisation of referring expressions, dialogue, translation,
cross-cultural differences, social practices.

--- Time and Location:
KE308, Kevin Street @ 16.00, Friday 29th of October

Late Registration

2010-10-22T05:27:00.000-07:00

You need to register and pay before Friday October 29th
to avoid a late fee.
If you have had problems with acceptance of an offer please
contact me (deirdre.lawless@dit.ie) asap
http://www.dit.ie/registration/

DIT Security Awareness Week

2010-10-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

Security Awareness week is on next week from 18th to 22nd
Information Security awareness week is open to all students and staff and will provide an overview of why information security matters to all of us and what we need to do to protect ourselves from identity theft and other IT threats. Awareness seminars will take place in venues across DIT and will provide:

Simple tips on how to protect yourself at college and at home
Data protection - the legal implications for a data breach
Information on how staff can get their DIT laptops encrypted
Details on how obsolete DIT laptops can support development work in Malawi through Laptops4africa@dit.ie.

Further details available at
http://www.dit.ie/services/is/staff/itcompliance/infosecweek/

24 September 2010: Tech Update An Interactive & User-Focused Event Highlighting Technologies to Enhance Independence

2010-09-24T03:12:00.001-07:00

24 September 2010,
D4Berkeley Hotel, Ballsbridge, Dublin

This Tech Update event is designed to raise awareness of assistive technology in an interactive and user-focused forum. The event will be of particular interest to individuals with disabilities, their families and supporting professionals . This event has a strong user-focus. The three individuals profiled below will be present on the day and their circumstances and priorities will be discussed and suppliers and attendees invited to propose solutions.

http://www.try-it.ie/d/event/tech-update-24-september-2010

Instalment Option for Part-time Students

2010-09-23T08:30:00.001-07:00

In response to student needs, DIT has approved the following instalment option for PART-TIME students paying programme fees totalling €2,000 or more.

Conditions of the policy are as follows:

A two-phase instalment facility will be available to part-time students registering on a programme before the 31st October, where their tuition fee plus the capitation fee amounts to a fee of €2,000 or more.

· The instalment option is available on request only.

· The closing date for instalment requests is 31st October each year and no request will be considered after that date.

· Any student with a balance outstanding from a previous academic session cannot avail of this instalment option.

This policy comes into effect immediately.

Amount of Instalment

· 50% of the tuition fee and 100% of the capitation fee must be paid on registration.

· The first instalment must be a minimum of €1,750 euro.

· The second instalment must be paid no later than 31st January each year.

If a part-time programme commences at any other time of year (eg in January):

· The first instalment must be paid on registration and the second instalment no later than 30th April.

· Applications for the instalment facility for programmes with a January start will not be considered after 28th February and the same conditions as above applies.

Late payment penalties

If a student defaults on a payment the following late payment penalties apply;

· The first instalment payment must be made in full on registration. If the payment is not made the student will not be registered.

· If a student defaults on the second instalment, a late payment penalty of €180 will apply.

· If a student does not pay the second instalment, plus the late charge of €180, by 28th February they will be removed from the register (coded to PN on banner) and they should not attend classes, submit assessments or sit examinations.

· A re-registration fee of €220 will apply to those part-time students who wish to re-register on the programme and complete the year.

Part-time students wishing to avail of this facility should contact the Registration office in Kevin St for further details(01 402 4687)

CEUD-DIT Joint Workshop on Universal Design

2010-09-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

On October 1st 2010, You are cordially invited to a workshop,
entitled "Universal Design - Towards a New Future", jointly
hosted by the Dublin Institute of Technology and Centre for
Excellence in Universal Design of the National Disability Authority.

The Workshop will take place on Friday October 1st 2010 between 1:30 and 5:00 pm

The venue for the workshop is the Grangegorman Development Authority/DIT offices at Grangegorman Dublin 7.

The Keynote Speaker is Professor Joseph P. Lane who will speak on Innovation in Universal Design

If you wish to attend please e-mail John.Gilligan@dit.ie ASAP.

Also please specify any requirements such as dietary or access
that you may have.

Workshop Programme

Directions to Grangegorman

Problem Solving class in pub

2010-09-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

This week's class for "Problem Solving, Innovation
and Communcation" will be held in conjunction with
Nerdnite, Dublin and will be on at Messrs Maguire,
Burgh Quay, Dublin 2 at the regular time 6:30pm,
22nd September 2010.

Your lecturer, Damian Gordon, will be speaking
on "Hackers in movies"

http://dublin.nerdnite.com/

Class Start + Timetable

2010-09-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Class start on Monday Sept 20th.

I'll be in my office on Tuesday from 18.00
if you want to talk to me about anything.
(KE-2-001 room 201 on the second floor of the main
building)

Click here for the timetable

Deirdre

Provisional Timetables for 2010/2011

2010-08-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Provisional timetables for 2010/2011 available as pdf file

below.

Please Note all timetables are subject to change

until classes start.

Classes will start on Sept 20th

All students will be contacted in advance by the programme

chairperson to arrange for registration records to be created.

DT202.pdf (part-time programme)

Now Accepting Applications for September 2010

2010-06-28T13:57:00.001-07:00

Now Accepting Applications for September 2010

Berlin Brain-Computer Interface

2010-03-03T02:25:00.000-08:00

The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface aims to improve the detection and decoding of brain signals acquired by electroencephalogram (EEG). To this end the research focusses on new sensor technology, improved understand of the brain and the analysis of brain waves using modern machine learning methods.

http://www.bbci.de/

Class Cancelled Tonight (2/11/2009)

2009-11-02T04:55:00.001-08:00

Hi all,

Ger Craddock is unfortunately unable to give class tonight,
so good news, you have no class tonight, yipee !!

Normal service will resume tomorrow (Tuesday 3rd Nov),

Damian

Semester 2 (Jan - May 2009) Timetable

2009-01-31T08:35:00.001-08:00

The Semester 2 timetable is as follows;

Monday 7-10pm -- Universal Design -- Room KE1-002

Tuesday 7-10pm -- Case Studies -- Room KE1-006a
Tuesday 7-10pm -- Research Methods -- Aungier St. 3030

Wednesday 7-10pm -- Foundations of AT -- Room KA3-022

So Tuesday night you can do Case Studies or Research Methods

Interesting Supplement in today's Irish Independent

2008-11-25T04:58:00.000-08:00

25/11/2008, Today's Irish Independent includes a supplement about using the English language. It deals with comprehension, composition, functional writing and the language of the visual image. There is also be a double page guide by novelist Joseph O'Connor specifically about adding that special sparkle to your writing. Well worth a look.

Registration for Examinations 2008/2009

2008-11-03T15:34:00.000-08:00

A separate registration is required for examinations.

You must register before Nov 14th (for both first and second semester exams).

Lecturers will have exam registration forms in class w/s Nov 3rd and w/s Nov 10th.

Access and the City - universally designed communications for ease of visiting and effective living in cities and towns

2008-11-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

"Access and the City - universally designed communications for ease of visiting and effective living in cities and towns"

20 November 2008, Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, Ireland

The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (CEUD) and Dublin City Council are hosting a conference to mark the occasion of the European Observatory's General Assembly. The aim of the European Observatory is to improve the ”accessibility to urban environments and services, and creating new management models and that take into account the characteristics and interests of everyone that live in the municipalities.” The conference will explore themes of:

Universal Urban Navigation
Universal Transport Information
Tourism for all: providing visitors with the information they need

This international conference will show case current best practices from cities, report on latest research findings and provide information on guidance and resources on making information in the urban landscape universally accessible.

For more information: LINK HERE

Universal Smart Card Systems Seminar and Inclusive Design Workshop

2008-11-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, NDA, is holding 2 events as part of Irish Design Week, 2008.

When: 6 November from 9.30am to 4.45pm

Where: Science Gallery, Pearse Street, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2. Science Gallery, TCD, , Pearse Street, Dublin 2, Ireland

To register for these FREE events, please contact Linda at +353 1 608 0456 or info@ceud.ie stating:

which session(s) you wish to attend *(1. Smart Card seminar, 2. Universal Design workshop)
any access or dietary requirements you may have

Lunch will be provided only for participants attending both the morning and afternoon sessions.

Please forward this webpage of the attached flyer to other colleagues/students who may be interested in attending.

From more information: LINK HERE

WELCOME !!!

2008-10-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

This blog is devoted to news, events and updates concerning the MSc in Computing (Assisitve Technology), DT202, taught in the School of Computing, Dublin Institute of Technology.