[kdejute]

Yes, the Unicode Braille Patterns you got from Branah.com do look good. I use these sometimes when communicating with sighted colleagues via email. Just remember that Unicode Braille Patterns are hardly accessible at all; screen readers usually do not know what to do with them and so do not mention them at all. Pairing Unicode Braille Patterns with ASCII braille is ⠃⠑⠌⠀⠏⠗⠁⠉⠞⠊⠉⠑ (ASCII [with this thread's braille font applied]: be/ practice).

Oh-so-belatedly, please let me say that I truly admire your analysis of the print sign that is constructed of arrows!

–Kyle

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by kdejute.

[kdejute]

Julia,

Thank you for the question and for sharing a sample.

You are correct that a letter standing alone outside of a grade 1 passage needs a grade 1 symbol indicator so that it cannot be misread as an alphabetic wordsign.

–Kyle

[kdejute]

Susan,

The Nemeth Code tells us to format subdivisions in 3-5 (§191.b.ii). [The "yellow book" Introduction to Braille Mathematics did say in its section 69.b, "It is permissible to place the subdivisions of itemized material side by side across a page if all the subdivisions can be accommodated on one braille line."]

But we are talking about using only UEB (i.e., transcribing in UEB Math/Science), so for formatting questions we should look to BANA's Provisional Guidance for Transcribing Mathematics in UEB and then to Braille Formats 2016. The former does say,

Treat an exercise with subentries as a nested list and the indentation pattern is determined by the complete set, not individually. For example, if two levels: 1-5, 3-5; if three levels: 1-7, 3-7, 5-7, and so forth.

Braille Formats' section 10.4.4 talks about listing all answer choices vertically and being consistent in the method used for vertically listing items that are printed horizontally.

You are right that it is best practice to put each problem on its own braille line, even when they are printed horizontally across a line or lines. As far as we understand, having each problem on its own line makes the material most easily navigable for a braille user.

–Kyle

[kdejute]

Susan,

We (the NBA committee on UEB Technical Material) touched on this kind of situation in the 2020 workshop "Spatial Problems, Rules and Advice," especially on slides 48 and 49. A full recording of that webinar is available from NBA's page on Web-based Learning.

What we suggest is:

When print uses a tiny number to increase the value of a number by a power of ten (e.g., in “borrowing”) place that number on the line above the number whose value it increases, and align digits by place value.

A lack of @: can tell the reader that the number above is meant to combine with and not replace the number below.

A screenshot of a problem transcribed following that advice is attached. In the attached .jpg and .brf are that same problem as well as some of your samples transcribed in what we think is an accurate and practical way.

Does this help?

–Kyle

Attachments:

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[kdejute]

I agree with your thought that a useful transcription of the colon followed by an equal sign is putting these two symbols together without a space and with a dot 5 between them to show they are compounded horizontally.

:=   _% f(x) 3".k x^2 _:

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by kdejute.

[kdejute]

Connie,

I got both ahead of and behind the times.

In the updated Nemeth Code, which is currently neither approved nor published, it will say that since the colon meaning "such that" is still a colon–a mark of punctuation–we should treat it as such and use a punctuation indicator before it (unspaced from the material it follows), and space after it.

The only currently approved and published rule reference we have is example (9) in §27.f [on print page 34] of the 1972 Nemeth Code, which shows a colon that means "such that," and the colon is totally unspaced. I always try to recommend following the currently approved and published rule.

It will be soooo exciting when the updated Nemeth Code is published!

–Kyle

[kdejute]

Fred,

You are correct that electronic addresses in a "UEB with Nemeth" transcription should be transcribed in UEB.

The BANA Guidance for Transcription Using the Nemeth Code within UEB Contexts (Approved April 2018) tells us what belongs in Nemeth Code, and electronic addresses are not mentioned because they should be in UEB.

–Kyle

[kdejute]

For the f: A → 𝒫(A), you might have already found the "function notation" question in this forum, which touches on the seven different mathematical uses for colons. I agree with your assessment that this is giving a name to a map, as defined by WolframMathWorld. As you said, in braille such a colon (for mapping) would be transcribed unspaced, and it would need a punctuation indicator.

For something like {x ∈ ℚ : x² < 2}, I agree with your assessment that the colon here means "such that." So, the expression {x ∈ ℚ : x² < 2} says, "x is an element of the set Q such that x-squared is less than 2." The "Colon and letters in sets of numbers" question in this forum talks about this "such that" role for a colon and recommends transcribing it unspaced (no blank braille cell before or after the colon meaning "such that").

Since we recommend transcribing both the mapping and "such that" colons completely unspaced, it may not be necessary for you to completely understand the difference between the two. For what it is worth, I agree with you that a "such that" colon is likely to be part of an expression within grouping symbols (most often curly braces). I would also suggest that a "such that" colon will have the same variable both before it and after it, like the x in our example expression above.

The print sign := (a colon followed by an equals sign) seems to mean "is defined as" (I first found this definition in a thread on StackExchange). How are you thinking about transcribing the := sign?

Regarding your concern about double-struck letters and the script P, what if you used the Nemeth Code script type form for the P's meaning "power set" and another Nemeth Code type form (italic, bold, or sanserif) for the letters that are double struck?

–Kyle

[kdejute]

Attached is an updated workable transcription. The ELI is not used when a letter precedes a symbol of comparison; technical material displayed to narrative text is formatted in 3-5; line breaks in an expression that spans multiple braille lines occur in places that allow for logical reading of the content and also reduce the number of lines required for the expression.

Attachments:

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[kdejute]

Thanks to our colleagues who are working on the updated TG Guidelines! They say that although transcription of mixed numbers below a number line is not explicitly covered in those guidelines, UEB Math/Science transcription of time labels (e.g., 1:30) is and a3#cj is the recommended transcription for the time 1:30 below a number line. So, it makes perfect sense that b#b/e would be the appropriate transcription for "two and two-fifths."

–Kyle

 

[kdejute]

There *might* be an argument for your second proposed transcription. 7.6.9 of the updated section 7.6 in the Rules of UEB says "When an opening double quotation mark ⠦ is immediately preceded by a grade 1 indicator, it will be read as a question mark."

However, that same transcription  ;(;8./#i) – with two grade 1 symbol indicators within the first three cells of the expression – goes against #5 in BANA's Provisional Guidance on Transcribing Mathematics in UEB, and it just interrupts the flow of the fraction in a way that is unhelpful to the reader.
We believe that ;;(8./#i) is the best transcription of the fraction "question mark over 9." The question mark in the numerator of a fraction is very unlikely to be misread as an opening quotation mark, not least of all because if we did have a quotation mark in that position, we would transcribe the fraction as follows: ;(,7./#i)

So, WE WOULD RECCOMMEND using the first transcription you proposed. ;;(8./#i) A transcriber's note to explain the situation might be in order (e.g., "A question mark is used in the following fraction.").

Thank you for this question!

–Kyle and the whole NBA UEB Tech Material Committee

[kdejute]

Lynette,

I couldn't see your .B2K file, but I think I know what you're proposing, and I think it's really good for clarity and instruction for the student An updated transcription of your item 13 is attached (in two file formats). I think this one is the winner.

–Kyle

Attachments:

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[kdejute]

Taylor,

I'm looking into it. I suspect your second proposed transcription (with no numeric indicator before the whole number but with a numeric indicator before the fractional part of the mixed number) will be the suggested solution.

–Kyle

[kdejute]

Taylor,

I feel the same. ;(;8./#I) is cringey. Also, it goes against #5 in BANA's Provisional Guidance on Transcribing Mathematics in UEB, which says in part:

Unless a math expression can be correctly represented with only a grade 1 symbol indicator in the first three cells or before a single letter standing alone anywhere in the expression, begin the expression with a grade 1 word indicator (or a passage indicator if the expression includes spaces).

I'm passing your question along to the members of NBA's UEB Technical Material Committee for their astute input so we can give you specific feedback.

–Kyle

[kdejute]

Melissa,

I think you're doing an excellent job of capturing the various components of these cards.

–Kyle

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