Correspondence of three-dimensional objects

First many thanks go to Prof. Hans du Buf, for his supervision based on his experience, for providing a stimulating and cheerful research environment in his laboratory, for letting me participate in the projects that produced results for papers, thus made me more aware of the state of the art in Computer Vision, especially in the area of 3D recognition. Also for his encouraging support and his way to always nd time for discussions, and last but not the least for the cooking recipes... Many thanks go also to my laboratory fellows, to Jo~ao Rodrigues, who invited me to participate in FCT and QREN projects, Jaime Carvalho Martins and Miguel Farrajota, for discussing scienti c and technical problems, but also almost all problems in the world. To all persons, that worked in, or visited the Vision Laboratory, especially those with whom I have worked with, almost on a daily basis. A special thanks to the Instituto Superior de Engenharia at UAlg and my colleagues at the Department of Electrical Engineering, for allowing me to suspend lectures in order to be present at conferences. To my family, my wife and my kids

Representations of racial minorities in popular movies: A content-analytic synergy of computer vision and network science

In the Hollywood film industry, racial minorities remain underrepresented. Characters from racially underrepresented groups receive less screen time, fewer central story positions, and frequently inherit plotlines, motivations, and actions that are primarily driven by White characters. Currently, there are no clearly defined, standardized, and scalable metrics for taking stock of racial minorities’ cinematographic representation. In this paper, we combine methodological tools from computer vision and network science to develop a content analytic framework for identifying visual and structural racial biases in film productions. We apply our approach on a set of 89 popular, full-length movies, demonstrating that this method provides a scalable examination of racial inclusion in film production and predicts movie performance. We integrate our method into larger theoretical discussions on audiences’ perception of racial minorities and illuminate future research trajectories towards the computational assessment of racial biases in audiovisual narratives

Character Constellations

Fiction has a major social impact, not least because it co-shapes the image that society has of various social groups. Drawing on a collection of 170 contemporary Dutch-language novels, Character Constellations presents a range of data-driven, statistical models to study depictions of characters in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, and other identity categories. Incorporating the tools of network analysis, each chapter highlights an aspect of fictional social networks that affects the representation of social groups: their centrality, their communities, and their conflicts. While reading individual novels in light of emerging statistical patterns, combining the formal methods of social network analysis with the interpretive tools of narratology, this study shows how central societal themes such as (in)equality and emancipation, integration and segregation, and social mobility and class struggle are foregrounded, replicated, or distorted in the Dutch novel. Showcasing what character-based critiques of literary representation gain by integrating data-driven methods into the practice of critical close reading, Character Constellations contributes to societal debates on cultural representation and identity and the role fiction and art have in those debates

The Application of Network Analysis to the Study of Differentially Effective Schools.

This study applied network analysis to the exploration of the structural characteristics of differentially effective elementary schools within the framework of school effectiveness research. The study took place in two parts: a Pilot Study, using archived data, and a Field Study, using data from a stratified sample of differentially effective schools. The Centrality-Cohesiveness Model of School Effectiveness, developed through the Pilot Study, defined a communication structure as a function of the leadership status of the principal (defined by the principal\u27s centrality) and the cohesiveness of the faculty (defined as network density). Quantitative results from both the Pilot Study and the Field Study indicated that there are mean differences in the leadership position of the principal within differentially effective faculty networks. Three of six comparisons were significantly different at the $p\u3c.05$ level on one measure of centrality, one measure of centralization and one measure of density. In addition, sociograms from both studies fit the expected patterns within the defined Centrality - Cohesiveness Model. These results indicate that there are differential characteristics to the patterns of communication in differentially effective schools. Principals in effective schools are more often indicated as leaders than principals in ineffective schools. There was no indication that there are differences in differentially effective networks being more central around one individual. Both classifications of networks appear to be centered the same, but there are significant differences in who is the most central individual. The results of this study support the conclusion that the properties of faculty network that can be observed and illustrated graphically, may not have the statistical or measurement parameters adequately defined as yet. The results of this study support further definitions of effectiveness within a network perspective and the exploration of a set of structural parameters within which effectiveness seems most likely to operate. This study initiated one structural conceptualization of school faculties and the results: (a) provide direction for the refinement of this conceptualization (b) support the hypothesis that differentially effective schools have different structural configurations and (c) indicate that though these differential configurations are observable, they are complex and contextual in nature

Rethinking Organizational Leader Identity Development: A Social Network and Ethnographic Approach

I propose a nuanced theoretical approach to understanding leader identity development in organizations. Past identity work has ignored or tangentially addressed phases of development that I term `leader identity stagnation' and `leader identity destruction'. Analysis of survey and network data examining West Point cadets' identities and friendship, leadership, and trust networks adds insight into the leader identity development process. Ethnographic research of the institution offers further understanding and helps confirm the new theoretical model of the phases of leader identity development. A concluding chapter examines the application of new social networking technologies and mixed-media interaction to enhance organizational leader identity construction. A gap exists in management literature pertaining to the creation and use of social network technologies for this purpose

Identity As a Construct: Reading Blackness In Eugene O’Neill’sThe Emperor Jones

This paper aims to explore how racialized identities are typified as a modernist construct in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones(1920). To this end, the notion of whiteness is identified as a mediated construct and contextualizedin the proliferation of American minstrel shows. This popular entertainment projected to white audiences the racial means of differentiation from black caricatures and clichés at the time of segregation. The echoes of minstrel showsand modernists’ instrumentalization of 1920s primitivism serve to initially address the characterization of blackness in Brutus Jones’ identity. Assessed through this in-between construction of symbolic borderlands in which the protagonist is both colonizer and colonized, his blackness becomes a metaphorical mask of otherness while his whiteness shapes the colonial performance of material whiteness. Although he envisions the white ideal in his systematic practices in the Caribbean island, his fragmented identity and his hybridity subject him to a primeval racialized past, to primitivism and atavism.Este artículo tiene como objetivo examinar la medida en que las identidades racializadas son tipificadas como un constructo modernista en El Emperador Jones(1920)de Eugene O’Neill. Para tal fin, la noción de blanquitudes identificada como un constructo mediado y contextualizado en la proliferación de los minstrel shows americanos. Esta forma de entretenimiento popular proyectó a las audiencias blancas los medios raciales de diferenciación frente a las caricaturas negras y clichés durante la segregación. Los ecos de los minstrel shows y la instrumentalización modernista del primitivismo de la década de 1920 sirven para inicialmente abordar la caracterización de la negritud en la identidad de Brutus Jones. Evaluado a través de esta construcción intermedia de los márgenes simbólicos en los que el protagonista es tanto, colonizador como colonizado, su negritud se convierte en una máscara metafórica de otredad mientras que su blanquitud moldea la interpretación colonial de la blanquitud material. Aunque él aspira al ideal blanco en sus prácticas sistemáticas en la isla caribeña, su identidad fragmentada e híbrida lo somete a un pasado primigenio y racializado, al primitivismo y atavismo

Mobilizing the Donor Public: Dynamics of Development NGOs' Message Framing

In industrialized, donor societies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in international development are one of the few sources of information through which the public learns about poverty in Third World countries. With limited knowledge and familiarity with the cause, the donor public builds their understanding and opinions through NGOs’ explanations of the problems, potential solutions, and rationales for getting involved. Highlighting development NGOs’ role as discourse makers, this dissertation applies framing theory to present NGOs as strategic framing agents, with the power and the ability to decide what information to present in what manner. I conduct framing analysis to examine dynamics of message framing in print documents that NGOs in Japan use to mobilize the people towards international development. The study finds the tendency of development NGOs in Japan to emphasize actionability of international development, representing global poverty as an issue that can be solved through organizational and individual actions, rather than describing the nature and complexity of the problem. At the organizational level, NGOs’ emphasize their experience, accomplishments, and credibility. At the individual level, NGOs incentivize the audience by emphasizing their ability to contribute to eradicating poverty without much difficulty. NGOs decide to present such message framings through interpretation of external and internal contexts in which they operate, taking into account audience receptivity, organizational characteristics, and ethical soundness. This study makes its primary contribution to the study of development NGOs in three ways. First, by introducing the perspectives of strategic communication and social marketing, I expand the scope of NGOs’ message framing from a focus on how NGOs represent problems and interventions made in developing countries, to a focus on how they motivate the donor public to join the cause. I find that development NGOs in Japan are distancing themselves from their role of describing the complexity of global poverty and international development. Second, by applying framing theory, the study sheds light on decision making processes that take place as NGOs frame communication messages. Third, the study provides an empirical study of development NGOs’ strategic communication practices in Japan, adding a case of underexplored non-Western contexts