[UEB Maths] Chemistry and capitals

Tue Apr 3 15:21:45 EDT 2007

Thanks Stephen.
Janet

-----Original Message-----
From: uebmaths-bounces at nbp.org [mailto:uebmaths-bounces at nbp.org] On
Behalf Of Phippen, Stephen
Sent: Wednesday, 4 April 2007 4:01 a.m.
To: UEB Maths
Subject: RE: [UEB Maths] Chemistry and capitals

To: UEB Maths Group
From: Stephen Phippen
Date: 3 April 2007

Janet,

The wording for the overriding principle for capitalisation of chemistry
was extended to a proposed general principle for UEB (as 8.2 in the
rules document):

8.2. Choose a method that avoids the need for capital indicators or
terminators within natural subunits of an expression (e.g. words,
abbreviations derived from a single word, chemical element symbols,
Roman numerals, etc.).

I quickly noted down a couple of examples we had: COFFEEcake and
COFFEECake, where in the first case word mode and a word mode terminator
can be used; but in the second, you use word mode, then simply insert a
single dot 6 before the C of Cake. I think there was perhaps another
example, though I didn't have time to write it down. But I think Joe
took a photo of it on the board.

In any case we can give examples of the rule as applied chemistry in our
chemistry section.

Then in addition to the above general rule, we said more specifically as
gentle transcription advice for chemistry that using a method in which
each capital letter has its own capital indicator in a chemical formula
will produce a uniform appearance to the braille. (But without insisting
that people actually have to do this - they don't have to do this in UEB
for similar looking expressions in other subjects such as maths or
computing, and transcribers may not know if CO is a word, or a normal
abbreviation, or a chemical formula). Then we will add a note to say
that in some cases there is a clear advantage to using capital passage
mode for a chemical formula, and give an example of a long organic
compound without any lowercase letters which is neatly coded this way.

Regards,
Stephen

-----Original Message-----
From: uebmaths-bounces at nbp.org [mailto:uebmaths-bounces at nbp.org] On
Behalf Of Janet Reynolds
Sent: 01 April 2007 03:45
To: UEB Maths
Subject: [UEB Maths] line mode

Thanks Stephen for reminding us of the argh conflict. I need to add this
to the list for the overarching committee as a requested exception for
the contraction rules around ar and gh.

Stephen, did you manage to find the wording your group put together for
the capitalision advice for Chemistry? I think we thought that might
have applications in a wider setting so we need to pass that to Darleen
too.

An interesting idea too about a possible extended line mode. I had
originally thought that that was what the horizontal line mode indicator
did, but then realized at our meeting that it only set line mode for
that particular horizontal line and not for the rest of the diagram.
Like you I'm unsure whether it is worth setting up a stronger indicator,
because of the fact that so many diagrams you might use this for would
have braille labels. In a lot of cases I expect people would either use
diagram software with graphics mode, or just use braille patterns to
draw shapes as we always have, particularly when back translation is not
an issue. One of my jobs is to draft a section on diagrams, in which I
was thinking I could mention the space saving we talked about around
coordinates on graphs, the thinking behind the horizontal line mode, and
a reassurance that the code does not forbid the creative use of braille
patterns, for example in the representation of number lines for closed
and open intervals. 
Janet

-----Original Message-----
From: uebmaths-bounces at nbp.org [mailto:uebmaths-bounces at nbp.org] On
Behalf Of Phippen, Stephen
Sent: Saturday, 24 March 2007 2:32 a.m.
To: UEB Maths
Subject: RE: [UEB Maths] Back from NZ, and lines

To: UEB Maths Committee
From: Stephen Phippen
Date: 23 March 2007

I thought I would just send this quick message to say that Denise
and myself have eventually arrived back safely in the UK after a
great time in New Zealand. After the meeting finished we managed to
pack in an amazing amount, e.g. whale watching, dolphins, yellow-eyed
and blue penguins, various New Zealand birds on Tiri Tiri I can't
pronounce, Mount Cook, etc, etc. Thanks Janet for your suggestion
to try the walks West of Auckland and the loan of the map: we did in
fact do that (rather than driving further afield), and found some
kauris there. We didn't manage to get over to the Milford Sound area as
it was just a bit too far for the time we had.

As for the meeting, I thought it was very constructive. Thanks again
Janet for organising, and being such a good host generally. I seem to
have gone off with Joe's copy of the BANA Chemistry Code: I will
send this back in the post unless you say otherwise, Joe, but I will
refer to it (or a copy of it) for the chemistry section I am supposed 
to be working on.

One thing I think will be necessary to sort out is the position on
sequences of AR and GH signs, in relation to line drawing. As we
saw in the examples, it is very handy (or perhaps essential) for line 
drawing if the UEB rule was that a word cannot consist of AR 
and GH contractions only (i.e. you have to have one uncontracted), 
so that we can have an AR sign close up to a GH sign when line 
drawing (e.g. at the top of a benzene ring hexagon). Otherwise 
it will probably be hard to do this well. Perhaps this issue can be 
put to the UEB Committee for consideration and a decision. I will 
need this to do the chemistry examples.

As an aside, it occurred to me after our meeting whether there might
be any application for an extended line mode mechanism, a bit like
the extended numeric mode. Once you set the mode with an indicator on
a line at the top of a diagram you could say that you can then draw 
(nearly) freely with braille cells, until you get to the mode 
terminator on a line at the bottom of the diagram. You wouldn't 
need dot 5 dots 25 line mode indicators in this mode. On the other hand
I think you would need a mechanism to drop in labels, etc., so
they aren't read as lines. Anyway, I'm not sure how useful this
would be.

Regards,
Stephen

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