The problem and the agencies of character education,

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1939. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Enhanced facial expression using oxygenation absorption of facial skin

Facial skin appearance is affected by physical and physiological state of the skin. The facial expression especially the skin appearances are in constant mutability and dynamically changed as human behave, talk and stress. The color of skin is considered to be one of the key indicators for these symptoms. The skin color resolution is highly determined by the scattering and absorption of light within the skin layers. The concentration of chromophores in melanin and hemoglobin oxygenation in the blood plays a pivotal role. An improvement work on prior model to create a realistic textured three-dimensional (3D) facial model for animation is proposed. This thesis considers both surface and subsurface scattering capable of simulating the interaction of light with the human skin. Furthermore, six parameters are used in this research which are the amount of oxygenation, de-oxygenation, hemoglobin, melanin, oil and blend factor for different types of melanin in the skin to generate a perfect match to specific skin types. The proposed model is associated with Blend Shape Interpolation and Facial Action Coding System to create five basic facial emotional expressions namely anger, happy, neutral, sad and fear. Meanwhile, the correlation between blood oxygenation in changing facial skin color for basic natural emotional expressions are measured using the Pulse Oximetry and 3D skin analyzer. The data from different subjects with male and female under different number of partially extreme facial expressions are fed in the model for simulation. The multi-pole method for layered materials is used to calculate the spectral diffusion profiles of two-layered skin which are further utilized to simulate the subsurface scattering of light within the skin. While the subsurface scattering is further combined with the Torrance-Sparrow Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) model to simulate the interaction of light with an oily layer at the skin surface. The result is validated by an evaluation procedure for measuring the accountability of a facial model via expressions and skin color of proposed model to the real human. The facial expressions evaluation is verified by calculating Euclidean distance between the facial markers of the real human and the avatar. The second assessment validates the skin color of facial expressions for the proposed avatar via the extraction of Histogram Color Features and Color Coherence Vector of each image with the real human and the previous work. The experimental result shows around 5.12 percent improvement compared to previous work. In achieving the realistic facial expression for virtual human based on facial skin color, texture and oxygenation of hemoglobin, the result demonstrates that the proposed model is beneficial to the development of virtual reality and game environment of computer aided graphics animation systems

The JJIE Virtual World Journalism Project: Experimenting with Virtual Worlds as an Emerging Journalism Platform

Although immersive journalism in the virtual world was pioneered by journalist and documentary filmmaker Nonny de la Peña years ago, traditional journalists are just now discovering its potential as an alternative platform to report the news. This study explores the singularities of immersive journalism in virtual worlds using the Marginalized Youth Voices Amplified on Virtual Worlds project, which a journalism professor at a southern public university received a grant to develop. The grant came from an Online News Association Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education, and has been involved in efforts to produce 3D-scenario machinimas (action videos inside virtual worlds) to tell real-life journalism stories of the youth in the juvenile justice system. The project deploys the principles of traditional journalism in the virtual world to re-create the experiences of youth in the Georgia juvenile justice system. As the project\u27s student researcher, I plan to discover what journalism professors, students and professionals can learn from this nine-month experience of using virtual world platforms to tell real-world journalism stories. Using a combination of ethnographic and survey research, this study will undertake a structural analysis of not only the production practices of immersive virtual journalism - such as the reporting and recording of stories in virtual-world scenarios via Open Simulator, an open source multi-platform, multiuser 3D server application - but of the impact of this emerging, evolving form of journalism on audiences, especially media-averse youth audiences. At the conclusion of this experiment, the answers to the following questions will be more clear: Does the immersive, personalized nature of virtual world journalism resonate more with youthful audiences than in traditional journalism? Do college students believe that it provides a richer, more empathetic experience in news consumption? What can traditional journalism learn from immersive virtual world 53 journalism? Can it be the savior of or at least a consequential complement to traditional journalism

Statistical modelling for facial expression dynamics

PhDOne of the most powerful and fastest means of relaying emotions between humans are facial expressions. The ability to capture, understand and mimic those emotions and their underlying dynamics in the synthetic counterpart is a challenging task because of the complexity of human emotions, different ways of conveying them, non-linearities caused by facial feature and head motion, and the ever critical eye of the viewer. This thesis sets out to address some of the limitations of existing techniques by investigating three components of expression modelling and parameterisation framework: (1) Feature and expression manifold representation, (2) Pose estimation, and (3) Expression dynamics modelling and their parameterisation for the purpose of driving a synthetic head avatar. First, we introduce a hierarchical representation based on the Point Distribution Model (PDM). Holistic representations imply that non-linearities caused by the motion of facial features, and intrafeature correlations are implicitly embedded and hence have to be accounted for in the resulting expression space. Also such representations require large training datasets to account for all possible variations. To address those shortcomings, and to provide a basis for learning more subtle, localised variations, our representation consists of tree-like structure where a holistic root component is decomposed into leaves containing the jaw outline, each of the eye and eyebrows and the mouth. Each of the hierarchical components is modelled according to its intrinsic functionality, rather than the final, holistic expression label. Secondly, we introduce a statistical approach for capturing an underlying low-dimension expression manifold by utilising components of the previously defined hierarchical representation. As Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based approaches cannot reliably capture variations caused by large facial feature changes because of its linear nature, the underlying dynamics manifold for each of the hierarchical components is modelled using a Hierarchical Latent Variable Model (HLVM) approach. Whilst retaining PCA properties, such a model introduces a probability density model which can deal with missing or incomplete data and allows discovery of internal within cluster structures. All of the model parameters and underlying density model are automatically estimated during the training stage. We investigate the usefulness of such a model to larger and unseen datasets. Thirdly, we extend the concept of HLVM model to pose estimation to address the non-linear shape deformations and definition of the plausible pose space caused by large head motion. Since our head rarely stays still, and its movements are intrinsically connected with the way we perceive and understand the expressions, pose information is an integral part of their dynamics. The proposed 3 approach integrates into our existing hierarchical representation model. It is learned using sparse and discreetly sampled training dataset, and generalises to a larger and continuous view-sphere. Finally, we introduce a framework that models and extracts expression dynamics. In existing frameworks, explicit definition of expression intensity and pose information, is often overlooked, although usually implicitly embedded in the underlying representation. We investigate modelling of the expression dynamics based on use of static information only, and focus on its sufficiency for the task at hand. We compare a rule-based method that utilises the existing latent structure and provides a fusion of different components with holistic and Bayesian Network (BN) approaches. An Active Appearance Model (AAM) based tracker is used to extract relevant information from input sequences. Such information is subsequently used to define the parametric structure of the underlying expression dynamics. We demonstrate that such information can be utilised to animate a synthetic head avatar. Submitte

Market Legitimation in Countercultural Market Change

Drawing on concepts of institutional work, legitimacy, and institutional logics, we investigate why countercultural markets experience institutional change and the actions institutional work market actors perform to inform institutional logics and ensure the legitimacy of countercultural markets. Although previous research suggests market changes and disruption, little attention has been paid to markets that originate from different institutional backgrounds, changes in the market experience in relation to its legitimization, and institutional work to attain legitimacy. The case of indie music in South Korea illustrates the evolution of a cultural market from the introduction of its ethos, the crisis caused by legitimacy pressures, and the transformation of the market. Using data gathered through in-depth interviews with indie labels and music consumers in South Korea, and archival sources, our research illuminates the source of market struggle and theorizes approaches that market actors perform to overcome the struggle

Circumstances of justice : a reformulation

In this thesis I explore an alternative formulation of the circumstances of justice. The circumstances of justice are the circumstances that make human cooperation necessary and possible, and because human cooperation is necessary to justice, they make justice both necessary and possible. For constructivists, principles of justice respond to these circumstances. Standard accounts of the circumstances of justice can be found in Hobbes, Hume, and Rawls, and many contemporary theorists rely on these accounts. My dissertation rejects these standard accounts of the circumstances of justice—on the grounds of exclusion and trust—and defends an alternative account. A core idea of my proposed alternative is that the circumstances of justice must be understood in terms of solidarity. A proper understanding of the role of solidarity in an adequate characterization of the circumstances of justice requires a good grasp of the nature of solidarity itself. To that end I offer a novel account of solidarity which I argue improves existing theories of solidarity. In the first part of this project I explain the role and importance of the circumstances of justice. I then offer a full description of solidarity and its normative character. In the second half of the project I offer my new account of the circumstances of justice, including an explanation and examples of how broad the scope of this reformulation is. I conclude the project by applying my new account of the circumstances of justice to the problem of climate change, and ask whether we can now construe the coordination of resources between generations as a problem of justice

A study in the sociology of building with special reference to the architect.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1960.It is apparent from this research that we need to develop a sociology of building in the same way that we are assembling a sociology of medicine, education, religion and of knowledge itself and that in the task of creating a sociology of building we should pay particular attention to the relevance of sociological theory. This dissertation does not claim to set out a sociology of building, but it can be regarded as a preliminary study perhaps useful to that end. An aim in this research has been to concentrate on method, the collection of data, classification and categorisation, thereby attempting to shape an outline which later work may be able to fill in. Value judgments have therefore been used sparingly and only when they can serve some clear and specific purpose

The family snapshot: parental representations of family and children on instagram

This thesis addresses parental identity and the family snapshot in the age of social media, through uses of Instagram. Tracing the socio-historical development of the family snapshot and its visual tropes, the thesis highlights that family photography has never been an endeavour to record a full, accurate record of family life. Instead it represents a complex social artefact embodying understandings regarding socially desirable depictions of parenting, familial harmony and childhood. This work situates these characteristics as representing inherited social knowledge which shape domestic photographic practice. Over 3 phases of work, visual representation of family life on Instagram is investigated. Using qualitative methods, a comparative approach is taken in considering divergence and retention of analogue characteristics. The first phase of work suggests that Instagram sharing has not fundamentally reimagined the family snapshot from its previous format in family photo albums. Images retain the key tropes of positive representation, omission of negative imagery, and depiction of familial harmony that were present in family photo albums. The second phase of work, through an ethnographic study of 20 successful Instagram accounts of mothers, focuses upon family images as part of long-term maternal narrative building. The reported findings present evidence of mothers visually documenting labour in carrying out Hays (1996) ideology of intensive motherhood. However, this is presented as part of highly aesthetically-driven lifestyle imagery. In the third phase of work, the thesis reports a further secondary analysis of the ethnographic data, drawing upon Belk’s (1988) conceptualisation of possessions as pivotal to an extended sense of self. This exploratory work poses that family snapshots contribute significantly towards understandings of contemporary online maternal identity, moving forward sociocultural discourses on family photography and representation. The thesis makes a number of contributions, deepening understanding of the mediating role of digital photography in online maternal self-expression and family representation; developing a deeper understanding of the role of family snapshots as a social artefact; and demonstrating the viability of developing comparative analysis from literature to interrogate snapshot imagery on social media. The thesis work also holds implications for the development of policy around communication strategies for engaging with new mothers, and concludes with discussion of future possibilities for further visual analysis of Instagram communitie

In Search of the DomoNovus: Speculative Designs for the Computationally-Enhanced Domestic Environment

Edited version embargoed until 01.02.2018 Full version: Access restricted permanently due to 3rd party copyright restrictions. Restriction set on 01.02.2017 by SC, Graduate schoolThe home is a physical place that provides isolation, comfort, access to essential needs on a daily basis, and it has a strong impact on a person’s life. Computational and media technologies (digital and electronic objects, devices, protocols, virtual spaces, telematics, interaction, social media, and cyberspace) become an important and vital part of the home ecology, although they have the ability to transform the domestic experience and the understanding of what a personal space is. For this reason, this work investigates the domestication of computational media technology; how objects, systems, and devices become part of the personal and intimate space of the inhabitants. To better understand the taming process, the home is studied and analysed from a range of perspectives (philosophy, sociology, architecture, art, and technology), and a methodological process is proposed for critically exploring the topic with the development of artworks, designs, and computational systems. The methodology of this research, which consists of five points (Context, Media Layers, Invisible Matter, Diffusion, and Symbiosis), suggests a procedure that is fundamental to the development and critical integration of the computationally enhanced home. Accordingly, the home is observed as an ecological system that contains numerous properties (organic, inorganic, hybrid, virtual, augmented), and is viewed on a range of scales (micro, meso and macro). To identify the “choreographies” that are formed between these properties and scales, case studies have been developed to suggest, provoke, and speculate concepts, ideas, and alternative realities of the home. Part of the speculation proposes the concept of DomoNovus (the “New Home”), where technological ubiquity supports the inhabitants’ awareness, perception, and imagination. DomoNovus intends to challenge our understanding of the domestic environment, and demonstrates a range of possibilities, threats, and limitations in relation to the future of home. This thesis, thus, presents methods, experiments, and speculations that intend to inform and inspire, as well as define creative and imaginative dimensions of the computationally-enhanced home, suggesting directions for the further understanding of the domestic life.Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundatio