The Study of the development of software to make Visual Disabilities understand Compound Names.

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25590293
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Special needs education
• Research Institution: Nihon University Junior College
• Principal Investigator: KAMIJO Haruo 日本大学短期大学部, その他部局等, 准教授 (50123170)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 視覚障害者 / 支援技術 / 入門化学 / 化学における初心者 / 化学構造式認識 / 化合物命名 / コンピュータを利用する学習 / ケモインフォマティックス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Various tactile methods have been employed to enhance the recognition ability of chemical structures by visual disablities. However, it is unknown whether reading aloud the names of chemical compounds would be effective in this regard.
This study aims to establish the essential requirements for the prototype Chemical Literature Extraction and Aloud-reading System that enables visual disabilities to recognize a depicted chemical structure after hearing its name, which complies with the nomenclature adopted by IUPAC. Details of our methods and its execution are presented, in addition to the fundamental requirements for recognizing chemical structures using our system. Experimental results on 450 images comprising both simple and complex chemical structures, show a high recognition rate of 90%.
Thus, we conclude that reading aloud the names of chemical compounds is an effective method enabling students with impaired vision to recognize chemical structures.

Free Research Field

社会科学