Collection understanding

Collection understanding shifts the traditional focus of retrieval in large collections from locating specific artifacts to gaining a comprehensive view of the collection. Visualization tools are critical to the process of efficient collection understanding. By presenting simple visual interfaces and intuitive methods of interacting with a collection, users come to understand the essence of the collection by focusing on the artifacts. This thesis discusses a practical approach for enhancing collection understanding in image collections

Computational Media Aesthetics for Media Synthesis

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

The Visual Rhetoric Of Royalty

This thesis examines how three British female royals, Queen Elizabeth II, Diana Princess of Wales, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, use visual rhetoric to gain and maintain power in a world where they are rarely allowed to use their actual voices. The female royals use photographs to convey their messages and gain support from the public. Elizabeth\u27s visual agenda of androgyny allows her to gain the authority that her role of sovereign requires, while Diana used pathos to create a connection with a public to emphasize that she was the people\u27s princess. Following their leads, Catherine is learning to use photographs to convey that she exhibits traits of both women. Utilizing Debbie Abilock\u27s visual information literacy theory as well as desired British characteristics from As Others See Us, select photographs of these three women will be used for the purpose of examining these women\u27s visual rhetoric. As Cara Finnegan points out, photographs serve as rhetorical images when they are created not just to represent a reality, but to persuade the viewers of a particular interpretation of reality. These image vernaculars prompt viewers to engage in an enthymematic mode of reasoning. While all three women use their photographs to convey different messages about who they are and their relationship to the British people, all three have clearly capitalized on the power of visual rhetoric. They understand that such images have the power to create or destroy their popularity

[Compassionate Systems] Seeing-System

As artists, the best we can aim for is that to experience our work is to glimpse a deeper reality one that consists entirely of interconnected processes and dynamic interactions, and in which everything has intrinsic beauty. Web technologies provide the mercurial, non-material medium for the SeeingSystem piece which functions as a prosthetic operational and conceptual system for seeing. Visual perception is the channel and the world is the object in a transformative, meditative practice that is integrated into daily life. It is an ongoing series of perceptual moments in which ordinary things are seen as beautiful. Each successive moment of perception replaces the last in the same way that, at the end of the process, one slide replaces another. SeeingSystem can be viewed in terms of a process oriented systems aesthetic. This leads to an understanding of form that accounts for the fact that objects are not discrete and disconnected, but are shaped by a system of interrelational processes. Understanding form as a balance of forces operating within constraints allows us to see the artist as one who makes choices in terms of which an artwork comes to embody meaning. Through a process of being aware, moment by moment, of the forces that are in operation within the piece, the artist determines its form and meaning. The concept of compassion, defined as the opposite of aggression, is the animating force for positive artistic action. It is the context in which seeing leads to meaningful perception and, in terms of form, it is the primary constraint in relation to which all other forces must balance

Representing and Indexing Archaeological Information

The need to preserve and remember the past is a particular human trait. The richness of our cultural history is approached by a vast array of disciplines, that investigate and manage it. However, their effectiveness can be hindered by several technical issues. One of the concerns of experts in this area is the way the importance of cultural heritage is communicated in order to cultivate interest, curiosity and respect. Another concern is the lack of suitable tools that can handle the dimension and complexity of the collections with which they interact. With the emergence of digital tools and the creation of online repositories for the collections of cultural institutions, it is possible to suggest different solutions to tackle these problems. The proposed solution aims to facilitate access and interaction with cultural information, through the implementation of an application capable of integrating multiple forms of representation of historical artifacts. The application tackles two problems that arise from distinct goals. One is the need to represent, in a single view, collections of related items from different repositories. The other is how to, effectively, communicate the information associated with an artifact and its context. This MSc dissertation is part of a collaborative effort between NOVA LINCS researchers and several archaeological institutions of the Iberian Extremadura, aiming to develop tools that will support research and help sharing the cultural wealth of archaeological sites and artifacts from the region. In this dissertation, the developed application covers a general view of the aforementioned problems, while being flexible to the customization of the representation of cultural data. The solution was evaluated on usability and effectiveness on reaching the proposed goals, during a process that involved target audience users and experts in the area of culture and history, as well as human-computer interaction. The results provided positive conclusions

Raconteur : intelligent assistance for conversational storytelling with media libraries

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-103).People who are not professional storytellers sometimes have difficulty putting together a coherent and engaging story, even when it is about their own experiences. However, consider putting the same person in a conversation with a sympathetic, interested and questioning listener, suddenly the story comes alive. There's something about the situation of being in a conversation that encourages people to stay on topic, make coherent points, and make the story interesting for a listener. Raconteur is a system for conversational storytelling between a storyteller and a viewer. It provides intelligent assistance in illustrating a life story with photos and videos from a personal media library. Raconteur performs natural language processing on a text chat between two users and recommends appropriate media items from the annotated library, each file with one or a few sentences in unrestricted English. A large commonsense knowledge base and a novel commonsense inference technique are used to understand event relations and determine narration similarity using concept vector computation that goes beyond keyword matching or word co-occurrence based techniques. Furthermore, by identifying larger scale story patterns such as problem and resolution or expectation violation, it assists users in continuing the chatted story coherently. A small user study shows that people find Raconteur's suggestions helpful in real-time storytelling and its interaction design engaging to explore stories together.by Pei-Yu (Peggy) Chi.S.M

Research genres and multiliteracies: channelling the audience's gaze in powerpoint presentations

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.PowerPoint-supported presentations have become an important event for creating and sharing scientific knowledge within and across disciplines (LaPorte et al., 2002; Kunkel, 2004; Tardy, 2005; Adams, 2006). Yet little is known about the ways semiotic resources enabled by PowerPoint technology of slide editing and management (e.g. slide dimensions, layout, colour) are combined with conventional resources of "research talks" (Swales, 2005[2004]) and contribute to building presentations that are valued in specific contexts. In order to inform our understanding of how research meanings are multimodally made under the influence of the software, in this thesis I investigate a set of fourteen PowerPoint Research Presentations (PPRPs) from Applied Linguistics. Two planes of cohesion are explored: (1) along the slideshows; and (2) between the slideshows and the performance. Regarding the first plane, the analysis of "periodicity" (Martin and Rose, 2007[2003]) revealed that applied linguists foreground the software's 'modularised logic', construing 'serial expansion' (Martin and Rose (2007[2003]). Others however customise slideshows so as to build 'Design Hierarchies', in which particular slides are assigned higher discursive statuses. These presenters construed a path for their audiences gaze by a configuration of semiotic resources of the display mode - e.g. slide position, background, layout, typography. As for the second plane of cohesion, I propose that slides and performance relate by 'synchronicity'. The tool recontextualizes the system of taxis (Halliday, 2009c; Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) to account for the semantic interdependency between the displayed discourse and the performative discourse at a given point in PPRPs. In each of the cohesive planes, I set out to identify the software resources that play a role in construing cohesive ties, and evaluate both their "functional specialization" (cf. Halliday, 2009e[1975]; Kress, 2008[2003]; Jewitt and Kress, 2008[2003]) and the demands they impose on presenters and on audiences in terms of genre, discipline, software and multimodal literacies. By indicating some of the ways in which the software influences the "process of semiotic production" (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001) of such practice, I intend to move beyond prescriptive (e. g. Costa, 2001; Cyphert, 2004; DuFrene and Lehman, 2004; Grant, 2010) as well as technically-focused (e.g. Downing and Garmon, 2002; Jones, 2003) accounts of PowerPoint. As a conclusion, I suggest that descriptions of the meaning potential in PPRPs and its conditions of access should be incorporated in pedagogies of academic multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996; Kope and Kalantizs, 2000).Apresentações de pesquisa com uso de PowerPoint desempenham um papel importante na criação e negociação de conhecimento científico em diferentes disciplinas (LaPorte et al., 2002; Kunkel, 2004; Tardy, 2005; Adams, 2006). Entretanto, pouco sabemos sobre os modos como os recursos semióticos potencializados pela tecnologia PowerPoint para edição e gerenciamento de slides (e.g. dimensões do slide, arranjo, cor) são combinados com recursos convencionais dos "relatos de pesquisa" (Swales, 2005[2004]) e contribuem para construir apresentações valorizadas em contextos específicos. No intuito de informar nosso entendimento sobre como significados de pesquisa são multimodalmente construídos sob a influência do software, nesta tese, investigo um conjunto de quatorze apresentações de pesquisa em PowerPoint (APPP) em Linguística Aplicada. Dois planos coesivos são explorados: (1) ao longo do texto em slides; e (2) entre os slides e a performance. No tocante ao primeiro plano, a análise da "periodicidade" (Martin e Rose, 2007[2003]) da informação revelou que os linguistas aplicados tendem a aderir à 'lógica modularizada' do software, realizando "expansão em série" (Martin e Rose (2007[2003]) do discurso. Outros, porém, 'personalizam' o texto em slides de modo a construir 'Hieraquias de Desenho', as quais atribuem valor de informação superordinada à determinados slides. Esses apresentadores direcionam o olhar de sua audiência por meio de uma configuração de recursos semióticos particulares do modo de exibição (e.g. sequência, fundo, arranjo, tipografia). Quanto ao segundo plano coesivo, proponho que slides e performance se relacionam por 'sincronicidade'. Essa erramenta recontextualiza o sistema de taxe (Halliday, 2009c; Halliday e Matthiessen, 2004) para explicar a interdependência semântica entre o discurso exibido e o discurso performado em um determinado ponto da APPP. Em cada um dos planos coesivos, busco identificar os recursos do software que desempenham função coesiva e avaliar tanto a sua "especialização funcional" (cf. Halliday, 2009e[1975]; Kress, 2008[2003]; Jewitt e Kress, 2008[2003]) quanto as demandas de letramento que impõem nos apresentadores e na audiência no que tange a gênero, disciplina, software e multimodalidade. Ao apontar alguns dos modos pelos quais o software influencia o "processo de produção semiótica" (Kress e van Leeuwen, 2001) dessa prática, pretendo ir além de orientações prescritivas (e. g. Costa, 2001; Cyphert, 2004; DuFrene e Lehman, 2004; Grant, 2010) e focadas em aspectos técnicos (e.g. Downing and Garmon, 2002; Jones, 2003). Sugiro, por fim, que a descrição dos significados potenciais em APPP e suas condições de acesso sejam incorporadas em pedagogias de multiletramentos acadêmicos (New London Group, 1996; Kope e Kalantizs, 2000)

English-mediated oral presentations in pharmacy:exploring literacy practices among Saudi female undergraduates

Research within English for Academic Purposes (EAP) often focuses on textual analyses of specific linguistic features in written discourse to help develop relevant pedagogic materials (Lillis & Scott, 2008). Because of the decontextualized nature of these investigations (Dressen-Hammouda, 2013), calls have emerged for in-depth investigations that give greater attention to the social practices surrounding learners’ language use. Focusing on oral presentations as a common academic genre for knowledge dissemination, this study employs an ethnographically-oriented case study to examine how eight year-five undergraduates in a Pharmacy College in Saudi Arabia engage with seminar presentations. The study adopts a social view of literacy to explore its complexity in this context (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Pahl & Rowsell, 2006; Street, 1984). It also utilizes a social semiotic understanding of meaning-making to examine the presenters’ communicative choices (Kress, 2010; Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn, & Tsatsarelis, 2001; Leeuwen, 2005; Matusiak, 2013). Data for this investigation includes semi-structured interviews with participants, observations of seminar sessions, informal conversations with teaching and administrative staff and various students in the college, artefacts’ collection and research journal. Emergent themes highlight the complex practices involved in students’ development as professionals in pharmacy and the need to reconsider common EAP understandings of English-language proficiency. While exploring how participants address the demands of English-language use, the analysis highlights how these multilingual learners engage with the full repertoire of their semiotic resources to represent and communicate their knowledge. The study concludes by considering the implications for EAP practice. It points out to the effect that a social account of literacy may hold for teaching students in similar contexts. In addition, it calls for the need to provide a deeper understanding of language learners’ needs which shape their engagement with academic activities