Located Lexicon: a project that explores how user generated content describes place

This extended conference paper explores the use and potential of location data in social media contexts. The research involved a series of experiments undertaken to assess the extent to which location information is present in exchanges, directly or indirectly. A prototype application was designed to exploit the insight obtained from the data-gathering experiments. This enabled us to develop a method and toolkit for searching, extracting and visualising mass-generated data for open source use. Ultimately, we were able to generate insights into data quality and ‘scale of query’ for emerging pedagogical research in learning swarms and distributed learners

Towards Video Transformers for Automatic Human Analysis

[eng] With the aim of creating artificial systems capable of mirroring the nuanced understanding and interpretative powers inherent to human cognition, this thesis embarks on an exploration of the intersection between human analysis and Video Transformers. The objective is to harness the potential of Transformers, a promising architectural paradigm, to comprehend the intricacies of human interaction, thus paving the way for the development of empathetic and context-aware intelligent systems. In order to do so, we explore the whole Computer Vision pipeline, from data gathering, to deeply analyzing recent developments, through model design and experimentation. Central to this study is the creation of UDIVA, an expansive multi-modal, multi-view dataset capturing dyadic face-to-face human interactions. Comprising 147 participants across 188 sessions, UDIVA integrates audio-visual recordings, heart-rate measurements, personality assessments, socio- demographic metadata, and conversational transcripts, establishing itself as the largest dataset for dyadic human interaction analysis up to this date. This dataset provides a rich context for probing the capabilities of Transformers within complex environments. In order to validate its utility, as well as to elucidate Transformers' ability to assimilate diverse contextual cues, we focus on addressing the challenge of personality regression within interaction scenarios. We first adapt an existing Video Transformer to handle multiple contextual sources and conduct rigorous experimentation. We empirically observe a progressive enhancement in model performance as more context is added, reinforcing the potential of Transformers to decode intricate human dynamics. Building upon these findings, the Dyadformer emerges as a novel architecture, adept at long-range modeling of dyadic interactions. By jointly modeling both participants in the interaction, as well as embedding multi- modal integration into the model itself, the Dyadformer surpasses the baseline and other concurrent approaches, underscoring Transformers' aptitude in deciphering multifaceted, noisy, and challenging tasks such as the analysis of human personality in interaction. Nonetheless, these experiments unveil the ubiquitous challenges when training Transformers, particularly in managing overfitting due to their demand for extensive datasets. Consequently, we conclude this thesis with a comprehensive investigation into Video Transformers, analyzing topics ranging from architectural designs and training strategies, to input embedding and tokenization, traversing through multi-modality and specific applications. Across these, we highlight trends which optimally harness spatio-temporal representations that handle video redundancy and high dimensionality. A culminating performance comparison is conducted in the realm of video action classification, spotlighting strategies that exhibit superior efficacy, even compared to traditional CNN-based methods.[cat] Aquesta tesi busca crear sistemes artificials que reflecteixin les habilitats de comprensió i interpretació humanes a través de l'ús de Transformers per a vídeo. L'objectiu és utilitzar aquestes arquitectures per comprendre millor la interacció humana i desenvolupar sistemes intel·ligents i conscients de l'entorn. Això implica explorar àmplies àrees de la Visió per Computador, des de la recopilació de dades fins a l'anàlisi de l'estat de l'art i la prova experimental d'aquests models. Una part essencial d'aquest estudi és la creació d'UDIVA, un ampli conjunt de dades multimodal i multivista que enregistra interaccions humanes cara a cara. Amb 147 participants i 188 sessions, UDIVA inclou contingut audiovisual, freqüència cardíaca, perfils de personalitat, dades sociodemogràfiques i transcripcions de les converses. És el conjunt de dades més gran conegut per a l'anàlisi de la interacció humana diàdica i proporciona un context ric per a l'estudi de les capacitats dels Transformers en entorns complexos. Per tal de validar la seva utilitat i les habilitats dels Transformers, ens centrem en la regressió de la personalitat. Inicialment, adaptem un Transformer de vídeo per integrar diverses fonts de context. Mitjançant experiments exhaustius, observem millores progressives en els resultats amb la inclusió de més context, confirmant la capacitat dels Transformers. Motivats per aquests resultats, desenvolupem el Dyadformer, una arquitectura per interaccions diàdiques de llarga duració. Aquesta nova arquitectura considera simultàniament els dos participants en la interacció i incorpora la multimodalitat en un sol model. El Dyadformer supera la nostra proposta inicial i altres treballs similars, destacant la capacitat dels Transformers per abordar tasques complexes. No obstant això, aquestos experiments revelen reptes d'entrenament dels Transformers, com el sobreajustament, per la seva necessitat de grans conjunts de dades. La tesi conclou amb una anàlisi profunda dels Transformers per a vídeo, incloent dissenys arquitectònics, estratègies d'entrenament, preprocessament de vídeos, tokenització i multimodalitat. S'identifiquen tendències per gestionar la redundància i alta dimensionalitat de vídeos i es realitza una comparació de rendiment en la classificació d'accions a vídeo, destacant estratègies d'eficàcia superior als mètodes tradicionals basats en convolucions

Dance as a Community of Practice: Exploring Dance Groups in the Kansas City Area through the Lifespan

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on August 4, 2015Dissertation advisor: Shannon JacksonVitaIncludes bibliographic references (pages 485-499)Thesis (Ph.D.)--Department of Sociology and Department of Psychology. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2015This dissertation examines the embodied cultural practice of dance among several groups in the Kansas City area. The dance groups were studied as Communities of Practice (CoP), as outlined in the Lave-Wenger model of CoP. The CoP model uses the complementary concepts of “reified structures” and “peripheral participation” to explain social learning. This dissertation argues that participation in dance activities creates body schema and social bonds that make dance a powerful mechanism for learning and teaching social behaviors. The dance groups studied covered a spectrum of dance genres, including folkloric, popular, hip-hop, ballroom, ballet, and modern dance. Data were collected from participant observation, interviews, archives, cable TV shows, websites, and published materials. Archival documentation included photographic and video materials, as well as survey data available for secondary analysis. Grounded Theory Methodology based on qualitative data was deemed the most appropriate approach. By examining these dance groups, certain social processes were consistently observed, including 1) similarities in dance practice across groups led to similar social practices and processes over the lifespan; 2) differences in dance genre aesthetic structure were associated with different forms of CoP structure and organization; the more structured the aesthetic of the dance genre, the more structured and hierarchical the organization of the dance group; 3) certain factors/attributes of the CoPs contributed to the dance group’s robustness and longevity; and 4) the mediation of time and space with other dancers during dance served as a model of interactions between self and others and developed the skills of collaboration. Overall, this study found the sharing and mediation of time and space during dance shaped individual social interactions into increasingly cooperative and collaborative activities. Also, the aesthetic structure of the dance genre was associated with the dance group's hierarchical social structure.The project -- Literature review -- Methodology -- Historical context -- Theoretical bases of embodied behavior and social interaction -- Analysis of social dance from a meadian perspective -- Results: analysis of data as community practice -- Conclusion and discussion -- Appendix A. Culture through Ballroom Dance Questionnaire Documents -- Appendix B. Informed Permission Statement -- Appendix C. Models and Diagrams -- Appendix D. Historic Dance Photographs -- Appendix E. Photographs Illustrating Taxonom

Design, Deployment, Identity, & Conformity: An Analysis of Children's Online Social Networks

Preadolescents (children aged 7 to 12 years) are participating in online social networks whether we, as a society, like it or not. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, enacted by the United States Congress in 1998, made illegal the collection of online data about children under the age of 13 without express parental consent. As such, most mainstream social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, limit their registration by requiring new users to agree that they are at least 13 years of age, an assertion which is often falsified. Researchers, bound by the same legal requirements regarding online data collection, have resorted to surveys and interviews to understand how and why children interact on social networks. While valuable, these prior works explain only what children say they do online, and not what they actually do on a daily basis. In this work, we describe the design, development, deployment, and analysis of our own online social network for children, KidGab. This work explores common social networking affordances for adults and their suitability for child audiences. It analyzes the participatory behaviors of our users (Girl Scouts from around central Texas) and describes how they shaped KidGab’s continuing growth. This work discusses our quantitative analysis of users’ tendencies and proclivities toward identity exploration leverages graph algorithms and link analysis techniques to understand the sociality of conformity on the network. Finally, this work describes the lessons we learned about children’s social networks and social networking throughout KidGab’s 450 days of active deployment

Group level influence on blog's design behaviour

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The purpose of this research is twofold. Firstly, this research aims to investigate whether the design preferences of bloggers in selected countries from different cultural backgrounds are influenced by national culture traits. The investigation involves two categories of blogs selected within a country where the bloggers share similar attributes such as language or geographical location. Secondly, simultaneously, this research intends to discover the possibility of the impact of group level influence on design preferences of bloggers who are linked together in a network through bloggers’ linkage or blogrolls. To achieve the said purposes, observations on both the global and local blogs of six selected countries are conducted using the content analysis method. This method allows this research to observe web pages and rate design preferences of bloggers via a coding system, similar to the method used to analyse documents or manuscripts to find common themes or keywords. A total of 612 blogs (306 global and 306 local) are observed for a period of nine months to identify cultural traits on design behaviour based on national culture indicators chosen from prominent literatures. To prevent a systematic error, an independent second observer was appointed and the results obtained are compared using a statistical methodology. In addition, translators were also engaged to verify that the translations are of a correct meaning and comprehension since blogs use various national languages on their web pages. The data were statistically tested using SPSS engaging in statistical analysis of frequency table, Cross-Tabulation and cluster analyses and MANOVA. Results shown that design preferences between both the global and local blogs in each country, has significant differences in most of the design indicators chosen. The findings indicate that the national culture influence on design preferences in linked networks of blogs is weakening indicating another type of influence might be in existence. The results also provide evidence that blogs in linked networks are statistically significant as a cluster or a group by themselves and are independent from one cluster to another. The research, however, studies only six countries from six different cultural dimensions. The inclusion of other countries, similar to or different from the countries under investigation, would be an added advantage. Furthermore, the use of only a single type of global blog provider (blogspot.com) in this research could be extended to other global blog providers such as wordpress.com to give fairer coverage of major and popular global blogs as well as providing a wider generalisation effect of the research findings

Knowledge Solutions: Tools, Methods, and Approaches to Drive Development Forward and Enhance Its Effects

[Excerpt] Today, sustainable competitive advantage derives from strenuous efforts to identify, cultivate, and exploit an organization’s core competencies. This calls for relentless design of strategic architecture, deployment of competence carriers, and commitment to collaborate across silos. Put simply, core competencies are the product of collective learning: their tangible fruits are composite packages of products and services that anticipate and meet demand. Knowledge is what you learn from experience before, during, and after the event. Since it is both a thing and a flow, the best way to manage knowledge is to cater at all times to the environment in which it can be identified, created, stored, shared, and used. Tools, methods, and approaches are needed to enable that. And so, to drive development forward and enhance its effects, the Asian Development Bank has, since 2008, published the Knowledge Solutions series, available at www.adb.org/knowledgesolutions. It aims to build competencies in the areas of strategy development, management techniques, collaboration mechanisms, knowledge sharing and learning, and knowledge capture and storage—all of which are essential to high-performance organizations

Critical engineering pedagogy: curricular peer mentoring as a case study for change in the Canadian neoliberal university

This research explores themes of pedagogy, change, and agency within education systems, by examining the possibility of changing a pedagogical discourse within an undergraduate engineering program through critical pedagogy. Changing that discourse is necessary because engineering, as engineers themselves acknowledge, cannot remain an exclusionary space given its crucial role in shaping our postmodern world. This world is full of tensions: it is defined by a pervasive neoliberalism that values technical knowledge for its commercial utility; however, it also values human rights, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship. If engineering education only focuses on training students to solve technical problems, it risks producing engineering professionals who are unwilling to reflect on, and lack the agency to address, the effects of engineering on individuals, society, and the environment. To address these concerns, this study piloted a peer-based learning program that ran in an undergraduate engineering program at a Canadian university for one semester, returning rich qualitative data on implementing a change process within engineering education. The pilot program was informed by critical pedagogy, and attempted to introduce a specific model of undergraduate peer mentoring, known as curricular peer mentoring, within engineering education to question exclusionary discourses. Therefore, the pilot program primarily acted as a case study into implementing a pedagogical change within engineering education at a program and faculty-level. However, the case study was also used to assess whether introducing curricular peer mentoring within university education generally might produce graduates who are critical thinkers, and able to engage in the academic, professional, and civic discourses within and beyond their chosen fields of study and practice. This is a pressing issue of contemporary university education, for as we enter the ‗Post-Truth Era‖ there is an urgent need to train university graduates to think critically, so they can effectively evaluate social, political, and economic discourses. Finally, as the wider university continues to be impacted by a neoliberal agenda that curtails their agency and shapes their pedagogies, research, and organizational structures, they too must change. The pilot program also provided an exploration of a change process that challenges that neoliberal discourse, while at the same time existing within it