17 ways to say yes:Toward nuanced tone of voice in AAC and speech technology

People with complex communication needs who use speech-generating devices have very little expressive control over their tone of voice. Despite its importance in human interaction, the issue of tone of voice remains all but absent from AAC research and development however. In this paper, we describe three interdisciplinary projects, past, present and future: The critical design collection Six Speaking Chairs has provoked deeper discussion and inspired a social model of tone of voice; the speculative concept Speech Hedge illustrates challenges and opportunities in designing more expressive user interfaces; the pilot project Tonetable could enable participatory research and seed a research network around tone of voice. We speculate that more radical interactions might expand frontiers of AAC and disrupt speech technology as a whole

Chaos and Quantum Chaos in Cosmological Models

Spatially homogeneous cosmological models reduce to Hamiltonian systems in a low dimensional Minkowskian space moving on the total energy shell $H=0$. Close to the initial singularity some models (those of Bianchi type VIII and IX) can be reduced further, in a certain approximation, to a non-compact triangular billiard on a 2-dimensional space of constant negative curvature with a separately conserved positive kinetic energy. This type of billiard has long been known as a prototype chaotic dynamical system. These facts are reviewed here together with some recent results on the energy level statistics of the quantized billiard and with direct explicit semi-classical solutions of the Hamiltonian cosmological model to which the billiard is an approximation. In the case of Bianchi type IX models the latter solutions correspond to the special boundary conditions of a `no-boundary state' as proposed by Hartle and Hawking and of a `wormhole' state.Comment: 23 pages, Late

Aesthetics for everyday quality:one way to enrich healthcare improvement debates

In this paper we seek to illuminate the importance of aesthetics for healthcare quality and encourage more explicit discussion of aesthetics in healthcare improvement scholarship and practice. We hope to contribute to and help develop the hinterland between arts-based initiatives in healthcare and the ‘normal business’ of healthcare quality improvement. Our broad contention is: (1) That aesthetic considerations should be seen as of universal relevance across quality debates (2) That they never be assumed to have a marginal or even secondary status; and (3) That taking aesthetic considerations seriously calls for explicit discussion of associated uncertainties and dilemmas and a readiness to welcome aesthetics expertise into improvement debates

Picturing aesthetic futures:values and visual tools within shared decision-making

In person-centred healthcare improvement, design thinking is being applied to multidisciplinary healthcare practices. In this paper, we will argue for design methods to operate within, and to support the integration of, everyday healthcare interactions. We draw on two specific public participation studies related to deepening patients' agency in prosthetic services, using visual tools to explore aesthetic decisions, but we suggest these have much broader relevance.<br/

Beyond the Bespoke:Agency and Hands of X

Beyond the Bespoke: Agency and Hands of XANDREW COOK GRAHAM PULLIN Our practice is disability focused, yet embraces culture and fashion as a challenge to narrower definitions of “function. ” Frances Corner writes, “Faster than anything else, what we wear tells the story of who we are — or who we want to be. It is the most immediate form of self-expression” (2014) . We believe that wearers or users of disability objects should have agency, allowing the opportunity to take control of the stories that these objects tell about who they are. We can also borrow a useful framework from fashion to help explore different approaches to design for one. Although the terms “bespoke” and “made-to-measure” are often used interchangeably, they are two fundamentally different models of service. A bespoke garment is entirely designed and made from scratch in consultation with the customer. Made-to-measure involves a standardized pattern and manufacturing...<br/