Seeing the smart city on Twitter: Colour and the affective territories of becoming smart

This paper pays attention to the immense and febrile field of digital image files which picture the smart city as they circulate on the social media platform Twitter. The paper considers tweeted images as an affective field in which flow and colour are especially generative. This luminescent field is territorialised into different, emergent forms of becoming ‘smart’. The paper identifies these territorialisations in two ways: firstly, by using the data visualisation software ImagePlot to create a visualisation of 9030 tweeted images related to smart cities; and secondly, by responding to the affective pushes of the image files thus visualised. It identifies two colours and three ways of affectively becoming smart: participating in smart, learning about smart, and anticipating smart, which are enacted with different distributions of mostly orange and blue images. The paper thus argues that debates about the power relations embedded in the smart city should consider the particular affective enactment of being smart that happens via social media. More generally, the paper concludes that geographers must pay more attention to the diverse and productive vitalities of social media platforms in urban life and that this will require experiment with methods that are responsive to specific digital qualities

Virtual library:a technical implementation for a virtual reality library interface

Abstract. Libraries, as traditional information storages, serve an important role in providing free access to civilization’s knowledge to the public. In the advent of the information society, conventional means of knowledge seeking slowly become obsolete. As technologies advance, libraries shall discover how available inventions could be utilized in enhancing library services and raising public awareness. The offer to discover Virtual Library project was given to the author by the Center for Ubiquitous Computing in the University of Oulu, with the idea originating from Oulu City Library. The goal of the project was to implement an interactive application that would provide a unique experience for library users and show off capabilities of modern virtual technologies. The requirements for it were elicited and refined in a series of participatory design workshops held in Oulu City Library, and as a result, the content of initial web prototype was utilized in the creation of standalone virtual reality application on Unreal Engine 4. The application works with Oculus Rift headset and Oculus Touch motion controllers and lets the user explore the virtual model of Oulu City Library premises as well as some fictional places, added for diverse experience, and experience several activities. Virtual Library was evaluated in a series of testing sessions held in the Oulu City Library with a total of 12 participants, which were primarily the library’s staff members. Overall, the application was positively acclaimed, providing an interesting and unusual library experience, and presenting capabilities of modern virtual reality technologies.Virtuaalikirjasto : tekninen kuvaus virtuaalitodellisuutta hyödyntävälle kirjastopalvelulle. Tiivistelmä. Kirjastoilla on perinteisesti tärkeä rooli tiedon välittäjinä ja tallentajina. Kirjastojen tulee myös mahdollistaa pääsy tiedon ääreen. Siirryttäessä lähemmäksi tietoyhteiskuntaa, perinteiset tavat käsitellä ja havainnoida tietoa ovat jäämässä historiaan. Myös kirjastot kehittyvät ja oppivat kuinka uusia teknologioita on mahdollista hyödyntää tiedon välittämisessä yhteisöille. Virtuaalikirjasto-projekti lähti Oulun kaupungin kirjaston pyynnöstä Oulun yliopiston Jokapaikan tietotekniikan tutkimusryhmälle. Projektin päämääränä oli toteuttaa interaktiivinen sovellus, joka tarjoaisi kirjaston asiakkaille elämyksellistä sisältöä samalla havainnollistaen virtuaalitodellisuuden ja siihen liittyvien teknologioiden mahdollisuuksia. Sovelluksen toteutusta hiottiin Oulun kaupunginkirjastossa sarjalla osallistavan suunnittelun mukaisia työpajoja. Virtuaalitodellisuussovellus toteutettiin Unreal Engine 4 -pelimoottorilla. Se toimii Oculus Rift -virtuaalilaseilla ja Oculus Touch -ohjaimilla. Sovelluksessa on mahdollista kulkea vapaasti virtuaalisessa Oulun kaupunginkirjastossa, sekä tilaan liitetyissä mielikuvituksellisemmissa maailmoissa. Virtuaalikirjasto-sovellus evaluoitiin Oulun kaupunginkirjastossa sarjalla käyttäjätestejä. Testikäyttäjiä oli kaikkiaan 12 ja he olivat pääosin kirjaston työntekijöitä. Sovelluksen vastaanotto oli positiivinen. Käyttäjät totesivat sen havainnollistavan käytettävissä olevan tekniikan mahdollisuuksia samalla tarjoten mielenkiintoisen ja epätavallisen kirjastokokemuksen

Analysis and visualization of data about the informatics institute’s alumni

Monitoring former students of undergraduate and graduate courses is one of the ways to measure the quality of teaching and research activities developed at the Instituto de Infor mática. This follow-up also allows for devising strategies to motivate students to enter and remain in the course. In particular, there is a worldwide movement for the expansion of women in the STEM careers, where Computing is inserted. Women still count for a low percentage in companies and educational institutions. The present work aims to collect, analyze and visualize data from the alumni of the Instituto de Informática. Data collec tion is done using an existing form on the Instituto de Informática website. Visualizations developed as part of a web application summarize the collected data, not revealing sensi tive data in line with the LGPD, and provide an overview of graduates at various levels, even if incomplete, since the collection depends on the form completion by the alumni themselves.O acompanhamento de egressos dos cursos de graduação e pós-graduação é uma das formas de medir a qualidade do ensino e das atividades de pesquisa desenvolvidas no Instituto de Informática. Esse acompanhamento permite, também, traçar estratégias para motivar estudantes a ingressarem e se manterem no curso. Em particular, existe um movimento mundial para a ampliação de mulheres nas carreiras de Exatas, onde a Computação está inserida. Elas são ainda um percentual muito baixo nas empresas e nas instituições de ensino. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo coletar, analisar e visualizar dados de egressos do Instituto de Informática. A coleta de dados é feita de um formulário exis tente no site do Instituto de Informática. As visualizações desenvolvidas como parte de uma aplicação web sumarizam os dados coletados não revelando dados sensíveis em con sonância com a LGPD e proporcionam uma visão geral dos egressos em vários níveis, mesmo que incompleta em função da coleta depender do preenchimento pelos próprios ex-aluno

How to effectively use interactivity to improve visual analysis and communication in groups of novices or experts

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceConseguir passar um ponto de vista claro através da visualização de dados é um dos principais objetivos das organizações dos dias de hoje. O principal objetivo deste projeto foi perceber qual a melhor maneira de utilizar interatividade em diferentes tipos de indivíduos, especialistas e novatos, e descobrir as principais diferenças entre os dois grupos. Isto foi feito através da criação de um protótipo com diversas visualizações interativas, onde em cada uma delas foram utilizadas diferentes técnicas de visualização e interatividade. Após a sua criação, seguiu-se a validação de cada uma delas, de modo a chegar a conclusões sobre os melhores métodos a utilizar para melhorar a análise e comunicação da informação, para os diferentes grupos de indivíduos. O desenvolvimento do protótipo foi realizado com o software R, mais especificamente o pacote Shiny. O estudo contribuiu com uma metodologia para avaliar as diferenças entre grupos de especialistas e de novatos, relativamente ao protótipo de visualização que foi validado recorrendo a 6 medidas quantitativas e qualitativas. Utilizando um teste ANOVA de fator único foi possível concluir que em relação às medidas quantitativas não foram encontradas diferenças com significância estatística e em relação às medidas qualitativas a única medida que mostrou diferenças com significância estatística entre ambos os grupos foi o nível de interação (engagement). Isto significa que esta é a única métrica possível de melhorar para diminuir as diferenças entre ambos os grupos. Em relação às visualizações ambos os grupos, concordaram que as melhores foram o mapa de calor (heatmap) e o gráfico de barras e as piores visualizações foram o mapa coropleto e o gráfico de barras empilhadas. Houve, no entanto, diferenças entre a forma como os diferentes grupos interagiram com os componentes. Por exemplo, a select box foi uma melhor opção para o grupo de novatos, enquanto que a radio box foi a melhor para o grupo de especialistas. Os tooltips e o slider foram adequados para os dois tipos de indivíduos. Também foi comprovado que o pacote Shiny é uma ferramenta capaz de criar visualizações interativas eficazes para diferentes tipos de indivíduos uma vez que, em média, os participantes obtiveram ótimos resultados utilizando medidas qualitativas ou quantitativas. Os resultados deste estudo, permitirão às organizações a adaptação eficiente das suas visualizações a diferentes tipos de audiência.Getting a clear point of view through data visualization is one of the main goals of todays’ organizations. The main objective of this project was to understand the most efficient way to use interactivity in different groups of individuals, experts and novices, and to discover the main differences between these two groups. This was achieved through the creation of a prototype with several interactive visualizations, where in each of them different visualizations and interaction techniques were used. After the creation of the prototype, the next step was the validation of each one of them to reach conclusions on what are the most effective means to improve visual analysis and communication, in different groups of individuals. The development of the prototype was done using the R software, and most specifically the Shiny package. This study contributed with a methodology to evaluate the differences between experts and novices, using the visualization prototype that was validated with 6 quantitative and qualitative metrics. Using an ANOVA single factor test it was possible to conclude that regarding the quantitative measures no statistically significant differences were found. However, regarding the qualitative measures the only measure that had statistically significant differences between both groups was the engagement measure. This means that this is the only metric where results can be improved in order to close the gap between the group of experts and novices. Regarding the visualizations, both groups agreed that the best visualizations were the heatmap and the bar chart and the worst visualizations were the choropleth map and the stacked bar chart. Nevertheless, there were differences between how the different groups interacted with the components. For example, the select box was a better option for the novice’s group, while the radio box was the best for the expert’s group. The tooltips and the slider are adequate for both types of individuals. It was also proved that the Shiny package is a tool that is capable of creating effective interactive visualizations for different types of individuals, since that on average the participants obtained great results using qualitative or quantitative measures. The results of this study will allow organizations to efficiently adapt their visualizations to different types of audiences

Display system software for the integration of an ADAGE 3000 programmable display generator into the solid modeling package C.A.D. software

A software system that integrates an ADAGE 3000 Programmable Display Generator into a C.A.D. software package known as the Solid Modeling Program is described. The Solid Modeling Program (SMP) is an interactive program that is used to model complex solid object through the composition of primitive geomeentities. In addition, SMP provides extensive facilities for model editing and display. The ADAGE 3000 Programmable Display Generator (PDG) is a color, raster scan, programmable display generator with a 32-bit bit-slice, bipolar microprocessor (BPS). The modularity of the system architecture and the width and speed of the system bus allow for additional co-processors in the system. These co-processors combine to provide efficient operations on and rendering of graphics entities. The resulting software system takes advantage of the graphics capabilities of the PDG in the operation of SMP by distributing its processing modules between the host and the PDG. Initially, the target host computer was a PRIME 850, which was later substituted with a VAX-11/785. Two versions of the software system were developed, a phase 1 and a phase 2. In phase 1, the ADAGE 3000 is used as a frame buffer. In phase II, SMP was functionally partitioned and some of its functions were implemented in the ADAGE 3000 by means of ADAGE's SOLID 3000 software package

Transmission adaptative de modèles 3D massifs

Avec les progrès de l'édition de modèles 3D et des techniques de reconstruction 3D, de plus en plus de modèles 3D sont disponibles et leur qualité augmente. De plus, le support de la visualisation 3D sur le web s'est standardisé ces dernières années. Un défi majeur est donc de transmettre des modèles massifs à distance et de permettre aux utilisateurs de visualiser et de naviguer dans ces environnements virtuels. Cette thèse porte sur la transmission et l'interaction de contenus 3D et propose trois contributions majeures. Tout d'abord, nous développons une interface de navigation dans une scène 3D avec des signets -- de petits objets virtuels ajoutés à la scène sur lesquels l'utilisateur peut cliquer pour atteindre facilement un emplacement recommandé. Nous décrivons une étude d'utilisateurs où les participants naviguent dans des scènes 3D avec ou sans signets. Nous montrons que les utilisateurs naviguent (et accomplissent une tâche donnée) plus rapidement en utilisant des signets. Cependant, cette navigation plus rapide a un inconvénient sur les performances de la transmission : un utilisateur qui se déplace plus rapidement dans une scène a besoin de capacités de transmission plus élevées afin de bénéficier de la même qualité de service. Cet inconvénient peut être atténué par le fait que les positions des signets sont connues à l'avance : en ordonnant les faces du modèle 3D en fonction de leur visibilité depuis un signet, on optimise la transmission et donc, on diminue la latence lorsque les utilisateurs cliquent sur les signets. Deuxièmement, nous proposons une adaptation du standard de transmission DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP), très utilisé en vidéo, à la transmission de maillages texturés 3D. Pour ce faire, nous divisons la scène en un arbre k-d où chaque cellule correspond à un adaptation set DASH. Chaque cellule est en outre divisée en segments DASH d'un nombre fixe de faces, regroupant des faces de surfaces comparables. Chaque texture est indexée dans son propre adaptation set à différentes résolutions. Toutes les métadonnées (les cellules de l'arbre k-d, les résolutions des textures, etc.) sont référencées dans un fichier XML utilisé par DASH pour indexer le contenu: le MPD (Media Presentation Description). Ainsi, notre framework hérite de la scalabilité offerte par DASH. Nous proposons ensuite des algorithmes capables d'évaluer l'utilité de chaque segment de données en fonction du point de vue du client, et des politiques de transmission qui décident des segments à télécharger. Enfin, nous étudions la mise en place de la transmission et de la navigation 3D sur les appareils mobiles. Nous intégrons des signets dans notre version 3D de DASH et proposons une version améliorée de notre client DASH qui bénéficie des signets. Une étude sur les utilisateurs montre qu'avec notre politique de chargement adaptée aux signets, les signets sont plus susceptibles d'être cliqués, ce qui améliore à la fois la qualité de service et la qualité d'expérience des utilisateur