researResearch - Télécom Bretagne

h Research
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RESEARCH
Main achievements of the project
1) The A3000 project aims to construct a
pictogram dictionary representing the writing of
words in the French language that are useful in
the construction of actual texts; pictograms
(lexical or grammatical) that represent changes
are understood better if they are animated. This
project brings together the following entities: the
small-to-midsized business R/D/I+, who are
specialists in Implementation and Development in
Computer Science (project leader); Telecom
Bretagne (linguistic expertise); the company
Hippocampe (graphics), located in Brest; the Saint
Maurice hospital; and the halfway house in
Ploudaniel. The project is financially supported by
the French Ministry of Research in the program
entitled "Usage des NTIC" (Uses of NICT). A
second version of the Axelia product, marketed by
RDI+, is currently being evaluated by the Saint
Maurice hospital. We undertook a collaboration
with UBO (University of Western Brittany)
professors involved in the Masters program
"Social Action and Health", concerning uses of the
product by speech-challenged clients and their
"mediators".
2) "Textopicto: from text to pictogram" is intended
for a family wishing to write a normal message or
an e-mail to a person who does not know how to
read and who doesn't have access to voice
synthesis. In order for the recipient to be able to
decipher it, it must first be translated into lexical
pictograms, encapsulated in grammatical
pictograms. A model was tested with examples of
children's letters, through a CRITT-Health
contract. The goal is now to develop this program
with respect to linguistics and the ergonomics of
the interfaces, in order to make it more direct and
more precise in reading the messages: the lexical
pictograms are salient, and grammatical
attributes are a sort of reading key for the
understanding of the semantic role of the words
involved.
PALLIACOM aims to develop a communicator
capable of allowing people who do not have access
to ordinary communicative functions (speech and
gestures making writing possible) to produce text.
PALLIACOM brings together in a single
communicator several writing options
(alphabetical, logographic, or mixed), making
possible the assisted production of text whose
words are controlled by the writer, through virtual
configurable keyboards, set up according to the
gestual, perceptual and cognitive possibilities of
the user.
The scientific challenges concern several
disciplines, which will have to determine how to
produce text when writing is indirect, assisted, or
based on reading characters or logograms
instead of the alphabet.
Spin-offs of the project aim for fundamental
advancements of the subjacent linguistic and
neuropsycholinguistic models, and more
particularly to make available a configurable,
adapted multimodal communicator intended for
users to take into consideration in their life plans.
4) We have begun projects supported by the region
intended to test and validate communicator uses
in the various cases in question. Along this line,
the ACADIAL project, with the IME 3 of Rennes, and
supported by the region of Brittany (ASOSC),
submitted in June of 2008, began in early 2009.
5) A thesis in ethnology (co-directed with the UEB 4 )
on memory, supported by the Médéric Alzheimer
foundation, was begun in October.
3) ANR TECSAN contract: A project proposal was
accepted with the IRIT 2 of Toulouse and the smallto-midsized
business R/D/I+: PALLIACOM (project
leader : Maryvonne Abraham)
2) IRIT : Institut de recherche en informatique de Toulouse (Institute of Computer Science Research of
Toulouse)
3) IME : Institut médico-éducatif (Medical educational institute)
4) UEB : Université européenne de Bretagne (European University of Brittany)
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