Discovering, preserving and communicating the past. Synergies and divergences between archaeology, restoration and museography to make the legacy from the past accessible to all

The paper aims to investigate the overlapping, collaborative and even contrasting characteristics among the three different disciplines: Archaeology, Restoration and Museography. As archaeologists share the view that the public's "enjoyment" of the archaeological heritage in situ could jeopardize its integrity, paradoxically the surest way to preserve an archaeological site is by backfilling. The only architectural intervention in an archaeological site is to introduce a protective element, but this often distorts its identity: therefore, the possible compromise for a "direct" fruition of an archaeological site is its restoration, although it has been intended in different ways over time. The past must be preserved and protected keeping in mind the centrality of people (to whom the preservation of the past is addressed) too often forgotten or postponed due to other urgencies. It should also be underlined that conveying these often fragile remains to the future depends on their acknowledgement as elements of cultural identity. In recent decades, however, new ways of intervening have emerged, in order to preserve but also to communicate in the best possible way the cultural significant and contents of the archaeological heritage, making them truly “accessible” and dialoguing with the city and with the present. The paper cites some significant case studies to investigate the potential of a real disciplinary contamination between the three above mentioned fields

The Antithesis: Challenging the Current Execution of University Thesis via the Exquisite Capriccio and Grand Tour

This thesis challenges the current set of norms, definitions and execution of present university thesis via a speculative extension and practice of the grand tour and travel journal through a montaging of mediums, experiences, methods, and techniques

Automated Video Game Testing Using Synthetic and Human-Like Agents

In this paper, we present a new methodology that employs tester agents to automate video game testing. We introduce two types of agents -synthetic and human-like- and two distinct approaches to create them. Our agents are derived from Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) agents, but focus on finding defects. The synthetic agent uses test goals generated from game scenarios, and these goals are further modified to examine the effects of unintended game transitions. The human-like agent uses test goals extracted by our proposed multiple greedy-policy inverse reinforcement learning (MGP-IRL) algorithm from tester trajectories. MGPIRL captures multiple policies executed by human testers. These testers' aims are finding defects while interacting with the game to break it, which is considerably different from game playing. We present interaction states to model such interactions. We use our agents to produce test sequences, run the game with these sequences, and check the game for each run with an automated test oracle. We analyze the proposed method in two parts: we compare the success of human-like and synthetic agents in bug finding, and we evaluate the similarity between humanlike agents and human testers. We collected 427 trajectories from human testers using the General Video Game Artificial Intelligence (GVG-AI) framework and created three games with 12 levels that contain 45 bugs. Our experiments reveal that human-like and synthetic agents compete with human testers' bug finding performances. Moreover, we show that MGP-IRL increases the human-likeness of agents while improving the bug finding performance

Ubiquitous Design. Ethnographic glances toward syncretisms, polyphonies, meta-fetishisms

AbstractMy paper will connect ubiquitous subjectivity and ethnographic perspective: a montage of cultural fragments selected from social networks and visual artists, digital communication and urban panoramas. The ethnographic experiences based on material/immaterial fieldwork may offer a decentred methodological perspective in order to face, decipher and invent the contemporary forest of symbols. Anthropology applied to design produces syncretic, ubiquitous, polyphonic transfusions about different cultures, codes, styles. This is the focus for an "undisciplined" design oriented by a multi-sited methodology. Ubiquity revolves around spaces/times relationship through the ethnographic method of field research, expanding syncretic concepts in digital/auratic cultures. My paper faces the concept of ubiquity through web-culture and performative ubiquitous subjects. Ubiquitous design may prepare researchers for the encounter with the stranger, the uncanny, the unknown. Ubiquitous ethnography is experienced every..

Kinetic Environments: Explorations into the Spatial Experience of Transformable Surfaces

This doctoral thesis explores kinetic environments through a narrative of historic definitions cross referenced with analysis of the spatial experiences of transformable surfaces. Research by Rudolph Arnheim and Thomas Thiis-Evensen along with project case studies gives foundation to an argument for investigating the relationship between human perception and kinetic environments. These relationships are understood further through a systematic cataloging and analysis of modeled transformable surfaces, computer generated simulation studies, and prototype proposals for the physical application and testing of kinetic principles. These explorations serve to show that existing definitions of spatial experience are not applicable when considering the potentialities of kinetic surfaces, and thus a refined framework is generated to begin to understand the spatial experience of kinetic environments

In the field:Coase an exemplar in the tradition of Smith, Marshall and Ostrom

This paper argues that Coase provides the primary 20th century exemplar of the grounding of analytical developments in economics in direct fieldwork observation. In particular, his focus on the business enterprise, its internal functions (including decision-making), and its external relations (including contracting) has provided a stimulus for radical developments in microeconomics and in managerial and decision economics in particular. The argument is developed by a stylization of the development of economics, referring to Adam Smith in the 18th century, Alfred Marshall in the 19th century, Ronald Coase in the 20th century, and Elinor Ostrom in the 21st century