PORGY: a Visual Analytics Platform for System Modelling and Analysis Based on Graph Rewriting

PORGY is a visual environment for rule-based modelling based on port graphs and port graph rewrite rules whose application is steered by rewriting strategies. The focus of this demonstration is the visual and interactive features offered by PORGY, which facilitate an exploratory approach to model, simu- late and analyse different ways of applying the rules while recording the model evolution, as well as tracking and plotting system parameters

The evolutionary ecology of interactive synchronism: The illusion of the optimal phenotype

In this article, we discuss some ecological-evolutionary strategies that allow synchronization of organisms, resources, and conditions. Survival and reproduction require synchronization of life cycles of organisms with favourable environmental and ecological features and conditions. This interactive synchronization can occur directly, through pairwise or diffuse co-evolution, or indirectly, for example, as a result of actions of ecosystem engineers and facilitator species. Observations of specific interactions, especially those which have coevolved, may give the false impression that evolution results in optimal genotypes or phenotypes. However, some phenotypes may arise under evolutionary constraints, such as simultaneous evolution of multiple traits, lack of a chain of fit transitional forms leading to an optimal phenotype, or by limits inherent in the process of selection, set by the number of selective deaths and by interference between linked variants. Although there are no optimal phenotypes, optimization models applied to particular species may be useful for a better understanding of the nature of adaptations. The evolution of adaptive strategies results in variable life histories. These strategies can minimize adverse impacts on the fitness of extreme or severe environmental conditions on survival and reproduction, and may include reproductive strategies such as semelparity and iteroparity, or morphological, physiological, or behavioural traits such as diapause, seasonal polyphenism, migration, or bet-hedging. However, natural selection cannot indefinitely maintain intra-population variation, and lack of variation can ultimately extinguish populations

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationA broad range of applications capture dynamic data at an unprecedented scale. Independent of the application area, finding intuitive ways to understand the dynamic aspects of these increasingly large data sets remains an interesting and, to some extent, unsolved research problem. Generically, dynamic data sets can be described by some, often hierarchical, notion of feature of interest that exists at each moment in time, and those features evolve across time. Consequently, exploring the evolution of these features is considered to be one natural way of studying these data sets. Usually, this process entails the ability to: 1) define and extract features from each time step in the data set; 2) find their correspondences over time; and 3) analyze their evolution across time. However, due to the large data sizes, visualizing the evolution of features in a comprehensible manner and performing interactive changes are challenging. Furthermore, feature evolution details are often unmanageably large and complex, making it difficult to identify the temporal trends in the underlying data. Additionally, many existing approaches develop these components in a specialized and standalone manner, thus failing to address the general task of understanding feature evolution across time. This dissertation demonstrates that interactive exploration of feature evolution can be achieved in a non-domain-specific manner so that it can be applied across a wide variety of application domains. In particular, a novel generic visualization and analysis environment that couples a multiresolution unified spatiotemporal representation of features with progressive layout and visualization strategies for studying the feature evolution across time is introduced. This flexible framework enables on-the-fly changes to feature definitions, their correspondences, and other arbitrary attributes while providing an interactive view of the resulting feature evolution details. Furthermore, to reduce the visual complexity within the feature evolution details, several subselection-based and localized, per-feature parameter value-based strategies are also enabled. The utility and generality of this framework is demonstrated by using several large-scale dynamic data sets

Multi-Agent-Based Modelling, Simulation and Heterogeneity Analysis of the Management Strategies for Enterprise Carbon Assets

Low carbon competitive patterns based upon low-carbon assets have developed in industries across the world. In the paper, three typical enterprises are used as examples to identify carbon assets from the perspective of enterprise business contexts, and to extract the interactive framework. This paper makes quantitative description of the value contribution principle of each carbon asset module and sets up the simulation strategies for relevant carbon assets. On the basis of these, an Agent-Based Modelling & Simulation (ABMS) system is created and built to simulate and analyse the difference in the evolution of carbon assets. The results demonstrate the emergent properties of enterprise carbon assets. The simulation study also shows remarkable heterogeneity of evolution paths with low-carbon technologies and low-carbon brands, which are the key factors leading to the evolution of other carbon assets and the adjustment of strategies. Finally, recommendations are made to improve the management of enterprises carbon assets

From Clowns to Computers: Performing Theatrical Interactivity and Pervasive Transmedia Fictions

The Collins English Dictionary defines “Interaction” as “a mutual or reciprocal action or influence”, and “Interactivity” as “allowing or relating to continuous two-way transfer of information between a user and the central point of a communication system”. This study will analyze the range of pre-existing interactive theatre types, using the model of interaction theorized by Gary Izzo in The Art of Play. This model will be used to categorize and problematize the various strategies developed and deployed through seven years of practical interactive research in the theatre. The sites of this research include five productions I worked on as a director, from 2008-2012, with Toronto-based U.N.I.T. Productions, featuring clown duo Morro and Jasp, and an eight-month long, massive, trans- media fiction project called ZED.TO, created by The Mission Business, a local event design company where I worked in 2012 as both writer and narrative designer. The central research question steering this dissertation is twofold. First, what strategies of interactivity already exist and how has the pre-existing theory of audience interaction behind these strategies evolved through the production and performance of these two projects? Second, in what ways have these strategies been proven effective, in real-time or during online encounters, to encourage an audience to believe, trust, share, play and ultimately participate inside an interactive theatre production? To prove the efficacy of these strategies, observations and opinions of both the public and the press are examined. The answers to these research questions trace the sources, evolution and distribution of these strategies from within the established theatre practice (including improvisation and clown) as well as interactive approaches sourced from game design and social media. This multidisciplinary research helps to define what strategies work towards achieving interactivity in the theatre and how, or when, it is appropriate to utilize it during a theatrical production. In essence, this study examines, through a survey of the history of immersive and interactive theatre, the strategies realized by the Morro and Jasp clown series and ZED.TO and how these projects have contributed to the evolving theory and practice of interactivity in the theatre. Analyzing such strategies will create a sourcebook for those seeking to bring theatre into the digital world as well as understand (and perhaps even undertake) the performance of pervasive interactive narratives in the future

Musical instrument mapping design with Echo State Networks

Echo State Networks (ESNs), a form of recurrent neural network developed in the field of Reservoir Computing, show significant potential for use as a tool in the design of mappings for digital musical instruments. They have, however, seldom been used in this area, so this paper explores their possible applications. This project contributes a new open source library, which was developed to allow ESNs to run in the Pure Data dataflow environment. Several use cases were explored, focusing on addressing current issues in mapping research. ESNs were found to work successfully in scenarios of pattern classification, multiparametric control, explorative mapping and the design of nonlinearities and uncontrol. 'Un-trained' behaviours are proposed, as augmentations to the conventional reservoir system that allow the player to introduce potentially interesting non-linearities and uncontrol into the reservoir. Interactive evolution style controls are proposed as strategies to help design these behaviours, which are otherwise dependent on arbitrary values and coarse global controls. A study on sound classification showed that ESNs could reliably differentiate between two drum sounds, and also generalise to other similar input. Following evaluation of the use cases, heuristics are proposed to aid the use of ESNs in computer music scenarios

The effect of network topology on optimal exploration strategies and the evolution of cooperation in a mobile population

We model a mobile population interacting over an underlying spatial structure using a Markov movement model. Interactions take the form of public goods games, and can feature an arbitrary group size. Individuals choose strategically to remain at their current location or to move to a neighbouring location, depending upon their exploration strategy and the current composition of their group. This builds upon previous work where the underlying structure was a complete graph (i.e. there was effectively no structure). Here, we consider alternative network structures and a wider variety of, mainly larger, populations. Previously, we had found when cooperation could evolve, depending upon the values of a range of population parameters. In our current work, we see that the complete graph considered before promotes stability, with populations of cooperators or defectors being relatively hard to replace. By contrast, the star graph promotes instability, and often neither type of population can resist replacement. We discuss potential reasons for this in terms of network topology

Interactive Tutorials For Upper Level Quantum Mechanics Courses

This thesis explores the ongoing need for interactive tutorials in the upper level undergraduate Quantum Mechanics course. It first summarizes the development and evaluation of tutorials at the introductory physics level by others, and then challenges the belief that upper level students do not need this type of intervention by citing research in student difficulties in learning Quantum Mechanics. Physics Education research shows that there are common student misconceptions that persist even in the upper level undergraduate courses such as Quantum Mechanics. Cognitive research serves as a guide for effective curriculum design. A description of the iterative process for developing and evaluating the tutorials is discussed. The development and evaluation of "The Time Evolution of a Wave Function" Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT) is described in detail. Finally, the success of the QuILT in reducing the common misconceptions about time evolution is discussed

Collaborative participatory research as a learning process: the case of CIP and CARE in Peru

Participatory research (PR) has been analyzed and documented from different points of view, but particularly taking into consideration the benefits that this process generates for farmers. Studies of the benefits of PR for other actors such as field staff, researchers and organizations have been limited, with organizational learning receiving the least attention. This paper analyzes the interaction between the International Potato Center (CIP) and CARE in Peru and makes the case that PR can also contribute to creating a collaborative learning environment that generates important lessons for the individuals and organizations involved. The paper describes the evolution of the collaborative environment of these two institutions for more than a decade. Three interactive learning periods are presented, namely the “information transfer period” (1993 –1996) the “action-learning period” (1997-2002), and the “social learning period” (on-going). Several lessons from each period, as well as changes in institutional contexts and perceptions, are described. The CIP-CARE case shows that research and developmentoriented organizations can interact fruitfully using PR as a mechanism to promote learning, as well as flexibility in interaction and innovativeness, and that a process of osmosis of information occurs between groups that use PR in a specific case to other groups within the organizations, influencing behavior. However, the paper also indicates that institutional learning should be promoted more specifically in order to extract guidelines from the lessons, which can influence the way organizations plan and implement their projects in a constantly changing environment