Delhi University developing mathematical kits for visually impaired kids

To make solving numerical problems less taxing for visually-impaired students, Delhi University is developing specialised 'mathematical kits' which will make it much easier for them to study the subject. The varsity plans to carry out a campaign across the country during which students and teachers will visit various blind schools where it will distribute the kits to the students and conduct workshops to teach them how to use it.

Japanese woman is first recipient of next-generation iPS stem cells for macular degeneration

A Japanese woman in her 70s has become the first person in the world to receive retinal cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). In a two-hour procedure on September 12, 2014, a team of three eye specialists lead by Dr Yasuo Kurimoto of the Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital, Japan, implanted a 1.3 by 3.0 millimetre sheet made of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells into one eye of this patient, who was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Launch of a new alliance for global assessment of diabetic retinopathy

A new project has been launched to assess the awareness, treatment and implications of diabetic retinopathy globally. Results are intended to inform decision-making and policy development around this common and serious complication of diabetes.

Project partners, the International Federation on Ageing (IFA) and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), working in collaboration with the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) will gather evidence on knowledge, policies, standards of care, and supportive services for retinopathy across 40 countries.

Retinopathy is one of the most common complications associated with diabetes and one of the major causes of adult blindness. Up to 11% of adults with diabetes have Diabetic Macular Edema (DME), a specific type of diabetic retinopathy. According to the IDF Diabetes Atlas 6^th edition, there are large variations in the estimates of retinopathy prevalence in people with known diabetes, with estimates ranging from 11 to 45% worldwide in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

The global assessment of retinopathy has two substantive and connected phases:

1. Phase I comprises approximately 120 interviews in eight countries representative of low, middle and high socio-economic status to better understand the level of awareness of: retinopathy as a condition and common complication of diabetes; the access, availability and pathway to retinopathy services; and the existence and content of relevant governmental policy.

2. Phase II is the implementation of a survey in 40 countries, which will be formulated based on the data gathered in Phase I. The survey aims to garner statistically significant evidence intended to assist in the development of effective governmental policy.

The project will culminate in the production of a barometer report and a compendium of resources designed to increase awareness, as well as to inform policy and practice related to diabetic retinopathy and vision loss across countries.

This project is financially supported by Bayer Pharma AG. Bayer is not involved in the analysis of the findings.

Source

The journey continues...

Retina India congratulates Mr Avneesh Singh from New Delhi for his completion of the Executive MBA program from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kozhikode. (Ed: For those not in the know, Kozhikode is situated in the State of Kerala, on the south-west coastal border of India.)

Since Mr Avneesh Singh's MBA journey, as much as others like Mr Pranav Lal from New Delhi, and Mr Vishal Jain, who is currently studying at IIM Lucknow, are inspiring to others, we thought we should share this story with you. Below is Mr Singh's story, in his own words. Enjoy, and get inspired!

---

"Dear all, I will like to share  the journey of the last 13 years, which has many transitional stages, but it has led to a satisfactory life so far.

I always had a passion for mechanical engineering. I could never imagine a life without machines, especially when machines create speed. This keen interest in speed & engineering made me specialize in thermal sciences in my mechanical engineering course.

When I came to know about the progress of my retinal degeneration, this keenness suffered a big blow. It was shocking to know that I will have to give up my ardent desire for speed & machines. Leave aside driving, I will not even be able to walk well with reduced vision.

Many suggested to me to leave the field of engineering, and switch to a safer profession like management or bank officer, but it was an excruciating idea for me. I realized that mechanical engineering was not practical now, but it was very difficult to abandon my passion. Moreover, the alternatives, such as becoming a bank officer, were something that my mind could just not accept.

To go on with my zest for engineering, I finally decided to pursue my career in computers that looked more viable, due to availability of assistive technologies like magnifiers, high contrast mode etc.

It was initially hard to create interest in computer engineering, which I always considered to be inferior to mechanical, because it lacked high speed adventure that is integral part of thermal sciences. But since it was the only practicable path at that time, I pushed through it.

Vision loss was even rapid in last few semesters of my degree. I was able to complete computer engineering but future looked quite uncertain.

I used to ask the ophthalmologists I consulted about the rate of degeneration, and the amount of time I had before I loose my useful vision, but all of them gave me hope instead of stating facts. I knew that macula in my left eye was degenerating very rapidly, and right eye would be following the degeneration in the same pattern. So one day, I bluntly asked an ophthalmologist that I know that I am loosing reading capability, and whether it was time for me to start learning Braille and similar skills. He replied with hesitation that I should start some practice of Braille.

This thought of learning Braille was not tolerable for my parents because I could still somehow read, but I was stubborn on this issue and made my way to the AICB- New Delhi, where I started learning all the skills that were now a must for self subsistence.

Accepting blindness was very tough for both me and my parents, but this step became one of the turning stones in my life. It helped me overcome fear of the approaching blindness, preparing me for the worst-case scenario, and actually made me more efficient in performing day-to-day activities.

But at the same time, it also made me realize that rehabilitation centres are overlooking the new generation enabler, the technological advancements that information technology is presenting, and are actually underestimating the potential of visually impaired.

I continued working as freelance programmer and kept on refining my potency in JAWS scripting and using programming platforms with the help of JAWS.

Some months later, I visited NAB Delhi and met Mr. Dipendra Manocha. After getting to know of my engineering & programming skills, he suggested me to start contributing to accessibility related projects. He encouraged me by stating that I am a rare combination who knows the needs (as I myself suffer from vision loss), and also have the capability to develop access technology. I came to know about DAISY books then, while Mr. Manocha also introduced me to the field of accessible digital publishing. Finally, I ended up working with the DAISY Consortium as a software developer.

A couple of years later, I got the responsibility of leading the Obi project – the audio NCX book production tool. The success of Obi was a benchmark in my career that helped me gain the trust of my seniors that resulted in attaining the responsibility of the Obi-Tobi project, formerly known as the Urakawa project. Now, I was not only leading the cutting edge project, but was also involved in research of upcoming technology along with experienced minds from different parts of the world.

Along with the professional development, my academic life also took on a new dimension. After 5 years of experience in technology development, I thought of going for management education because now my ambition of becoming a self dependent engineer was fulfilled and I was leading software development projects.

It was time to look for proper management education and with God’s grace, I got admission in Indian Institute of Management – Kozhikode in year 2008. Now I was again a student, completely dependent on screen readers, and the problems of accessible books rose up again. But there was no effective solution available.

The administration of the institute told me that none of them had any experience of having a visually impaired student. It took some months to get the minimum facilities required for visually impaired. In first 2 terms, I could not even get extra time for giving exam through scribe. But gradually, the guidelines were formed, and most of the things were sorted out as the course progressed. This was a learning experience for the institute also, so such of the problems were, in a way, expected. IIM-K also tried to contact publishers for electronic copies of books for me, but publishers were not able to provide any of them.

I graduated from IIM-Kozhikode in early 2010. But it was not the end of my academics. My vision loss had moulded my fascination for machines into a quest for understanding war strategies, and the study of human mind. So I decided to go further for advanced specialization in strategy.

It was a challenging year, full of excitement, stress & many amazing experiences that tested me and also helped me develop me into a mature person.

On March 17, 2012, I graduated from Indian Institute of Management – Kozhikode in Executive MBA specialized in strategy. It was satisfactory to successfully complete one of the most rigorous management programs in India, but I will say that it is just a milestone.

A long journey still lies ahead. Now, along with project management responsibilities, I am also part of strategy formulation management team of DAISY Consortium.

And the journey continues...

With regards,
Avneesh Singh

App turns tablet into math aid for visually impaired students

From www.physorg.com: Article link here.

For the video, please click here.

Without looking down, Kira runs her index finger across the screen of an Android tablet that she is holding in her lap. For the occasion, she has painted her fingernails bright pink. When her finger touches a line drawn on the screen, the tablet vibrates quietly. Scanning her finger back and forth and feeling the vibration come and go allows her to trace the line's path. When her finger reaches a pink dot, the tablet gives off an electronic tone and she grins delightedly.

Kira is one of two visually impaired high school students who are testing a new Android app, one designed to assist students like her in mastering algebra, geometry, graphing and other subjects that are particularly hard to comprehend without the aid of normal vision.

The app is the brainstorm of Jenna Gorlewicz, a graduate student in the Medical and Electromechanical Design Laboratory (MED Lab) at Vanderbilt University, and her advisor Robert Webster, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, who directs the lab. Given the enthusiastic reaction of Kira, her classmate Quinn and their teacher, her innovation could have a major impact on how science, technology, engineering and math – the critical STEM subjects – are taught to the visually impaired.

A major change in direction

The project is a considerable change from the research projects that Gorlewicz pursued during her first two years in the MED Lab. Supported by a fellowship from the National Science Foundation, she worked on improving cochlear implant surgery and miniaturizing endoscopic robotic capsules. But she wasn't completely satisfied: "I'm a real people person," she explained. "So I wanted a project that would let me interact directly with the people it was helping."

"Jenna kept saying that she wanted to work more with people, so we began exploring other possible projects," said Webster. "Fortunately, her fellowship and my NSF CAREER Award gave us enough flexibility to think outside the box and explore a wide variety of thesis topics for her."
One of the ideas they came up with was a study of the effectiveness of haptic technology: technology that takes advantage of a user's sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations or motions to enhance remote control of machines, devices or virtual objects. The lab was experimenting with haptic interfaces to control some of their biomedical robots.

Matching haptics with visually impaired

"When I began reading articles about haptic technology being incorporated into these new touch screen devices, I realized that the people who really need haptics are people with impaired vision because they heavily rely on their sense of touch to 'see' the world around them." Gorlewicz said. "I love math and I love teaching, so I immediately thought of using them for math education, because it has such a strong visual component." After she did some research into the methods that are currently used to teach mathematics to the visually impaired, she became even more enthusiastic about her idea.

When she started the new project 18 months ago, the only off-the-shelf tablet that Gorlewicz could find that included tactile feedback was a $2,500 model produced for industrial and commercial applications. Since then haptic feedback has been added in a number of consumer tablets that sell for as little as $300.

The grad student has programmed these tablets so they vibrate or generate a specific tone when the student's fingertip touches a line, curve or shape displayed on the screen. The devices can generate vibrations with a number of different frequencies and hundreds of different sounds. This allows Gorlewicz to assign different tactile or audio signals to different features. For example, in an exercise that includes an X-Y grid, she can set the horizontal and vertical lines to vibrate at different frequencies and set points to make a certain tone. In this way, it's easier for the students to distinguish between the gridlines and the points on the grid.

"If one of these tablets were networked wirelessly to the teacher's computer, then, when he or she projects a graph or equation on the screen at the front of the class, the same graph would appear on the student's tablet. They could then use their senses of touch and hearing to follow the content the teacher is discussing," Gorlewicz said.

"When Jenna first approached me with the idea, I thought it would be interesting and might be some small help," said Ann Smith, the teacher of the visually impaired who works with Kira and Quinn at Hillsboro High School in Nashville. "The more experience I have with it, the more valuable I think it could be. It makes the work more accessible. The students are really interested and they talk about it even when Jenna isn't here."

Hillsboro High follows the approach of including students with special needs in classes with their sighted peers as much as possible. That means Kira and Quinn attend general education classes. Smith sits with them during their math classes and uses various methods to ensure that they can follow the teacher's presentation. With Quinn, who can read Braille and see large print, this involves duplicating the shapes and figures the teacher is using on a small white board that he can hold close enough to see. In Kira's case Smith must use tactile aids like pins and pipe-cleaners on a bulletin board with raised graphing lines to reproduce complex mathematical shapes that Kira can feel with her fingers.

"Because this takes a certain amount of time, we are always one or two steps behind the teacher," Smith said. "One of these haptic tablets would allow them to keep up much better. If I didn't have to attend class with them, it would also make them feel more independent."

Smith also pointed out that such a tablet can be used by students with widely differing degrees of impairment because it combines visual, tactile and audio capabilities.

Some learning required

According to Kira and Quinn, there is a little bit of a learning curve with the new device. "At first, I didn't think this would help me," Quinn said. "But after I started using it I found that it can be very helpful." According to Kira, "The biggest obstacle was getting the correct mental images. However, once you get the knack, it gets fairly easy."

"It was amazing how quickly they caught on and how good they have become," Gorlewicz said.
According to the graduate student, every time she meets with the students, they come up with new features that they would like her to add. The configuration that they think would be the most useful is a touch-sensitive version of the graphing calculators that are widely used by their sighted classmates.
"It would really help to have something like this because it makes us equal to everyone else," Kira said.

Provided by Vanderbilt University