A Case for Identity Hierarchies in Simulating Social Groups

By considering previous empirical studies in group dynamics, modelling designs for pedestrian simulators and psychological and sociological theories of crowd behaviour, we briefly present a hierarchical, identity-based approach to simulating pedestrian social groups

A Framework for Group Modeling in Agent-Based Pedestrian Crowd Simulations

Pedestrian crowd simulation explores crowd behaviors in virtual environments. It is extensively studied in many areas, such as safety and civil engineering, transportation, social science, entertainment industry and so on. As a common phenomenon in pedestrian crowds, grouping can play important roles in crowd behaviors. To achieve more realistic simulations, it is important to support group modeling in crowd behaviors. Nevertheless, group modeling is still an open and challenging problem. The influence of groups on the dynamics of crowd movement has not been incorporated into most existing crowd models because of the complexity nature of social groups. This research develops a framework for group modeling in agent-based pedestrian crowd simulations. The framework includes multiple layers that support a systematic approach for modeling social groups in pedestrian crowd simulations. These layers include a simulation engine layer that provides efficient simulation engines to simulate the crowd model; a behavior-based agent modeling layers that supports developing agent models using the developed BehaviorSim simulation software; a group modeling layer that provides a well-defined way to model inter-group relationships and intra-group connections among pedestrian agents in a crowd; and finally a context modeling layer that allows users to incorporate various social and psychological models into the study of social groups in pedestrian crowd. Each layer utilizes the layer below it to fulfill its functionality, and together these layers provide an integrated framework for supporting group modeling in pedestrian crowd simulations. To our knowledge this work is the first one to focus on a systematic group modeling approach for pedestrian crowd simulations. This systematic modeling approach allows users to create social group simulation models in a well-defined way for studying the effect of social and psychological factors on crowd’s grouping behavior. To demonstrate the capability of the group modeling framework, we developed an application of dynamic grouping for pedestrian crowd simulations

Breakaway: an exhibition to explore civic engagement and the cycling community

In this thesis, I investigated the ties between museums and communities. In my research, I moved beyond old museum methods of exclusivity instead exploring new directions for inclusive museum practice, specifically in the area of exhibition design processes. The design study I undertook in this thesis borrows on several early efforts of community-based exhibit making, but moves beyond them in one significant way: an integrated design process that includes community WITHIN the design. While community organizations and citizens have been involved in conceptualizing exhibits and discussions about content, my interest lies in how communities emerge through linking existing organizations, groups, and others interested in conversations about design and space. And while cycling represents the specific subject matter of the exhibition herein, I assert that the participatory process applies to any community-based project in a museum setting. Significantly, I learned that communities exist outside the physical realm and that individuals come together in unanticipated ways around any exhibit subject. This, perhaps, represents the single greatest finding of my work, all of which began with an idea about my interest to challenge what museums do and who they represent

Living and Learning With New Media: Summary of Findings From the Digital Youth Project

Summarizes findings from a three-year study of how new media have been integrated into youth behaviors and have changed the dynamics of media literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge. Outlines implications for educators, parents, and policy makers

Playful architecture - Constructing sociality

This thesis explores themes of playful architecture, and how activated, adaptable, and dynamic spaces can be created through embracing the inherent instability of social space. The exploration focuses on the social aspects of space and on an architecture that is capable of encouraging connection and interaction, an architecture that can adapt and promote skills development and sharing, and an architecture that provides identity – one that acts as an attractor rather than an object. Social spaces are unpredictable and dynamic in the interactions and the events that it allows for. Spaces are also full of paradoxes - of disjunction between space and event. This means that architecture and space is constantly unstable and on the verge of change. It is these dynamic and chaotic elements that, if held properly, allow for social, creative, and playful spaces and events. The project is situated within an imagined future fabric of District 6 in Cape Town, on a site with existing activities to be plugged into and reinforced. This site also allowed for a testing of how a playful architecture, that is community and socially driven, sits within the developing context of South Africa. The programme revolves around a city living room which is a training centre providing spaces for working, learning, and engaging as well as offering accessible social hubs that act as social filters, allowing users in and around the site to gather, wait and interact

Animated space

This article revisits the canon that imagines urban public space as a site of civic and political formation, based on active subjects. In contrast, the article explores the implications of thinking the urban landscape as sentient in its own right, as a hum of interacting humans and nonhumans that exceeds and performs its occupants. Citing hybrid performances—software in the “smart city,” witchcraft in the streets of Kinshasa, the sermon-filled outdoors in Cairo, and the sensoria of Canton’s opium-trading quarters in the nineteenth century—the article argues that such is the eventfulness of urban public space that the politics of place are always fleeting, hidden, and never reducible to human sociality alone.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://publicculture.dukejournals.org/content/27/2_76/239

Why Youth (heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life

Part of the Volume on Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Social network sites like MySpace and Facebook serve as "networked publics." As with unmediated publics like parks and malls, youth use networked publics to gather, socialize with their peers, and make sense of and help build the culture around them. This article examines American youth engagement in networked publics and considers how properties unique to such mediated environments (e.g., persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences) affect the ways in which youth interact with one another. Ethnographic data is used to analyze how youth recognize these structural properties and find innovative ways of making these systems serve their purposes. Issues like privacy and impression management are explored through the practices of teens and youth participation in social network sites is situated in a historical discussion of youth's freedom and mobility in the United States

Walking through the abstract(ed) city and co-creating urban space.

This paper explores how co-designing urban walkability can be augmented by an innovative hybrid approach, whereby virtual records and visualisations of the walking experience can enhance the awareness, perceptions and immersion of the participant in both real and virtual spaces. From one side of that model, the research explores how people might be intrigued enough to discover the real context, based on their experience informed and enriched by parallel images of the city. On the other side, the study aimed to develop a critical understanding of urban walking through the lens of 3D high-definition LIDAR scanning technology, where visualisation techniques were used to support studies to explore how the rich experience of walking could be captured and represented. The paper presents a theoretical framework to propose how walking could be promoted, and positively influenced by the urban environment, by regarding the city from the abstract perspective of the virtual point cloud. The research has investigated how and whether a place – real and abstracted - could act as a trigger to produce novel ideas and unfold thoughts in a participatory way. The interlinkages between motion and (visual) perception of the environment as an aesthetic experience were critical to informing how digital technology can be utilised as a virtual space within which the richness of real interactions and experiences with urban space can be represented, refined, interacted with and used within a rich(er) process of co-design