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Autism, sensory, workshops, diversity, and awareness

A total of 42,500 cases of autism are estimated to exist in Saudi Arabia. Many children displaying signs of autism spectrum disorder are concealed by their parents, resulting in an undiagnosed condition due to parental concealment. Many parents are concerned that their child will be stigmatized if others discover he or she has autism. Saudi Arabian culture does not display any signs of autism. Children who are displaying signs of autism spectrum disorder are often hidden by their parents, leading to undiagnosed cases of autism spectrum disorder. In Saudi Arabia, specifically in Riyadh, you will not find any autistic children or adults. Parents are concerned about the negative social consequences of others learning that their child has autism. They typically hide autistic children in separate rooms even when visiting other people's homes. In a study conducted by the American Psychological Association, 37.7% of families report being embarrassed by their autistic child. Further, 63.9% report experiencing difficulties because of society's treatment of autistic people. According to the study, 31.1% of areas do not have autism centers. A number of parks, schools, and malls are currently being constructed in the Al-Hamra neighborhood in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. This facility will provide neighborhood residents with a safe, supportive, and socially aware environment. It will provide a portion of land near Prince Abdulaziz Bin Mohammed Park. It is crucial to establish a place where neurodivergent people can study, relax, and interact in a social setting. This will break down the stigma associated with neurodivergent people. This will create an open and accepting atmosphere, which will allow neurodivergent people to develop their skills and engage in meaningful activities while feeling safe and secure. This will be beneficial to not only the neurodivergent people but also to the whole community that will benefit from their inclusion.

Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), visually-impaired, disabilities, accessibility, and Engineering, Electronics and Electrical

The goal of the proposed device and software architecture is to apply the functionality of mixed reality (MR) in order to make a virtual environment that is more accessible to the visually-impaired. We propose a glove-based system for MR that will use finger and hand movement tracking along with tactile feedback so that the visually-impaired can interact with and obtain a more detailed sense of virtual objects and potentially even virtual environments. The software architecture makes current MR frameworks more accessible by augmenting the existing software and extensive 3D model libraries with both the interfacing of the glove-based system and the audibly navigable user interface (UI) of a virtual environment we have developed. We implemented a circuit with finger flexion/extension tracking for all 5 fingers of a single hand and variable vibration intensities for the vibromotors on all 5 fingertips of a single hand. The virtual environment can be hosted on a Windows 10 application. The virtual hand and its fingers can be moved with the system's input and the virtual fingertips touching the virtual objects trigger vibration motors (vibromotors) to vibrate while the virtual objects are being touched. A rudimentary implementation of picking up and moving virtual objects inside the virtual environment is also implemented. In addition to the vibromotor responses, text to speech (TTS) is also implemented in the application for when virtual fingertips touch virtual objects and other relevant events in the virtual environment.

Cement-based materials are an important group of structural materials, and the ability of such materials to respond to internal and external changes could provide an added feature which could further enhance their range of application. One area of development that has received increasing attention within the research community is making use of the self-monitoring features of concrete with respect to deformation and damage. Ordinary concrete is, however, a poor conductor of electricity, particularly after cracking and under dry conditions, and attention is therefore directed towards a highly damage-tolerant family of concrete types with superior tensile strain capacities and controllable crack widths, generally known as the Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC). This thesis explores the self-monitoring capabilities of the ECC under mechanical and non-mechanical loading and presents the a.c. electrical properties of ECC over the frequency range 1 Hz-10 MHz. The project was developed on three general fronts, focusing on key factors affecting the electrical properties of ECC: (i) investigation of the influence of cement hydration and temperature; (ii) evaluation of the influence of tensile straining and cracking; and (iii) investigation of the influence of wetting and drying. Laboratory samples of different geometries were fabricated and tested under various curing regimes and test conditions. Results are presented from each of the sub-themes listed above, with measured data presented in a range of formats to provide insights into features that could potentially be exploited for self-monitoring. This includes the Nyquist format, which has been generally used in a.c. electrical property measurements, and the permittivity and conductivity, which were de-embedded from the measured impedance and presented in the frequency domain to elucidate the nature of the conduction and polarization processes. Equivalent circuit models were also developed to simulate the measured response and offer a phenomenological interpretation of the origin of some of the features observed in the electrical response. It was found that, over a curing period of 180 days, the ECC displayed a classic impedance response comprising an electrode spur, a weak intermediate "plateau" region and a single bulk arc. Both conductivity and relative permittivity were found to be frequency dependent due to bulk relaxation processes operating within the composite. It was found that cement hydration has a negligible effect on the relative permittivity at high frequencies (i.e., > 1 MHz), as evidenced by the merging of the relative permittivity at different curing ages when presented in a logarithmic format. Moreover, the knowledge regarding the temperature effects on the electrical properties (through the activation energy approach) will have direct practical significance for removing the effect of natural temperature fluctuations. Tensile straining was shown to result in a detectable change in the impedance response but retained a similar overall profile. When presented in the frequency domain, a downward displacement in relative permittivity at high frequency (i.e., 1 MHz) was evident with increasing tensile strain for ECC with average crack widths in the range 50 μm-65 μm. In the ECC with larger average crack widths (i.e., >100 μm), a downward displacement in relative permittivity profiles together with an enhancement of the relative permittivity within the frequency range (> 10 kHz to ~low MHz) was observed. Overall, it is shown that the relative permittivity at the high-frequency end could be exploited as a potentially useful indicator for strain/damage detection. The electrical properties of ECC display significant increases in the impedance response when the material is subjected to drying. When presented in the frequency domain, an enhancement of the relative permittivity within the frequency range > 1 kHz to ~low MHz was observed. Within the low-frequencies range of ~1Hz to < 1 kHz, the relative permittivity of the un-cracked ECC curves showed a slight decrease, while the cracked-ECC was sensitive to drying. When subjected to wetting, a reduction of the impedance response was observed, and the enhancement of the relative permittivity at high frequencies disappeared, due to the presence of water in the micro-cracks. This thesis demonstrates the use of multi-frequency measurements to characterise the electrical properties of ECC under mechanical and non-mechanical loading.

Architectural design ; Interior design ; Automation and technology in building and construction ; Design practice and methods ; Industrial and product design ; Interaction and experience design ; Acoustics and noise control (excl. architectural acoustics) ; Design Education ; creativity research ; creativity assessment ; charrette ; soundscapes ; coping behaviors ; environs ; sound background theory ; creative task ; design jury

This Thesis investigates personal private sound control via headsets (modified soundscape) to mitigate the perceived deficiencies of inadequate environs. This is achieved by exploring the benefit of using soundscape as a key element used by students in such learning environs. It examines the result of conducting a creative task while exposed to different sound conditions. These results were then assessed according to two aspects of assessments: Self-assessment (by participants) and independent judgments (Design Jury) and the results of those assessments were compared. The result of this research showed a significant difference between the self-assessment and the independent judgment in terms of the most effective sound condition which was associated with increased participants' creativity.