HEBE: Highly Engaging eBook Experiences

Despite more and more books are made available in electronic format and technology is increasingly present in children’s everyday life, thus far the potential of the electronic book (eBook) medium has been only partially exploited. With the Highly Engaging eBook Experiences (HEBE) project we studied how to design and evaluate eBooks for children with the goal of making the reading experience more engaging. The project began with an investigation of the many facets that characterize the reading experience of children in order to understand how it could possibly be enhanced by electronic books. In a later stage an intergenerational design team used different techniques of Cooperative Inquiry to explore a range of design ideas. Then, based on those ideas, we developed a prototype of enhanced eBook and elaborated a shortlist of design recommendations that are intended to help designers in creating more engaging eBooks. The research project ended with a stage of evaluation where children’s User Experience with the eBook prototype was assessed. We took inspiration from Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow theory to define a benchmark for evaluating the reading experience. Then, by means of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), we investigated and collected data on the reading experience of two groups of children, one of which read an eBook enhanced following our design recommendations while the other read a basic version of the same eBook. Following a mixed-method approach, with quantitative analysis we verified whether participants who read the enhanced eBook had a better reading experience, while with qualitative analysis we tried to understand why. The results of the evaluation showed that that an eBook designed following our design recommendations may have a positive effect on children’s reading experience by making it more engaging

Artist Growth of a Singer-Songwriter: A Personal Testimonial

This thesis is a study of creativity with attention placed on the personal experience of myself as a songwriter. It contains a personal account of my experiences with relation to music, my chosen artistic medium, in association to concepts discussed. An analysis section of ten songs is included and divided by date created: earlier (2003-2007) and later (2010-2013). I demonstrate the gradual change through time evident in the works I had produced. When in songwriter mode I compose subconsciously without any preconceived compositional goals, other than make what I want and think sounds good. I am limited to my compositional tools of guitar and voice, and am largely influenced by my past encounters with music. All songs are intended to be performed solo. Analysis appears to indicate a clear increase in the complexity of my material over time, with emphasis on differing variables per song, despite not being done consciously

Ability of Audio Feedback in E-books to compensate for haptic attachment to print books

Retinal degenerations encompass a large number of diseases in which the retina and associated retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells progressively degenerate leading to severe visual disorders or blindness. Retinal degenerations can be divided into two groups, a group in which the defect has been linked to a specific gene and a second group that has a complex etiology that includes environmental and genetic influences. The first group encompasses a number of relatively rare diseases with the most prevalent being Retinitis pigmentosa that affects approximately 1 million individuals worldwide. Attempts have been made to correct the defective gene by transfecting the appropriate cells with the wild-type gene and while these attempts have been successful in animal models, human gene therapy for these inherited retinal degenerations has only begun recently and the results are promising. To the second group belong glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR). These retinal degenerations have a genetic component since they occur more often in families with affected probands but they are also linked to environmental factors, specifically elevated intraocular pressure, age and high blood sugar levels respectively. The economic and medical impact of these three diseases can be assessed by the number of individuals affected; AMD affects over 30 million, DR over 40 million and glaucoma over 65 million individuals worldwide. The basic defect in these diseases appears to be the relative lack of a neurogenic environment; the neovascularization that often accompanies these diseases has suggested that a decrease in pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), at least in part, may be responsible for the neurodegeneration since PEDF is not only an effective neurogenic and neuroprotective agent but also a potent inhibitor of neovascularization. In the last few years inhibitors of vascularization, especially antibodies against vascular endothelial cell growth factors (VEGF), have been used to prevent the neovascularization that accompanies AMD and DR resulting in the amelioration of vision in a significant number of patients. In animal models it has been shown that transfection of RPE cells with the gene for PEDF and other growth factors can prevent or slow degeneration. A limited number of studies in humans have also shown that transfection of RPE cells in vivo with the gene for PEDF is effective in preventing degeneration and restore vision. Most of these studies have used virally mediated gene delivery with all its accompanying side effects and have not been widely used. New techniques using non-viral protocols that allow efficient delivery and permanent integration of the transgene into the host cell genome offer novel opportunities for effective treatment of retinal degenerations

JPEG: the quadruple object

The thesis, together with its practice-research works, presents an object-oriented perspective on the JPEG standard. Using the object-oriented philosophy of Graham Harman as a theoretical and also practical starting point, the thesis looks to provide an account of the JPEG digital object and its enfolding within the governmental scopic regime. The thesis looks to move beyond accounts of digital objects and protocols within software studies that position the object in terms of issues of relationality, processuality and potentiality. From an object-oriented point of view, the digital object must be seen as exceeding its relations, as actual, present and holding nothing in reserve. The thesis presents an account of JPEG starting from that position as well as an object-oriented account of JPEG’s position within the distributed, governmental scopic regime via an analysis of Facebook’s Timeline, tagging and Haystack systems. As part of a practice-research project, the author looked to use that perspective within photographic and broader imaging practices as a spur to new work and also as a “laboratory” to explore Harman’s framework. The thesis presents the findings of those “experiments” in the form of a report alongside practice-research eBooks. These works were not designed to be illustrations of the theory, nor works to be “analysed”. Rather, following the lead of Ian Bogost and Mark Amerika, they were designed to be “philosophical works” in the sense of works that “did” philosophy

Creating Through Mind and Emotions

The texts presented in Proportion Harmonies and Identities (PHI) Creating Through Mind and Emotions were compiled to establish a multidisciplinary platform for presenting, interacting, and disseminating research. This platform also aims to foster the awareness and discussion on Creating Through Mind and Emotions, focusing on different visions relevant to Architecture, Arts and Humanities, Design and Social Sciences, and its importance and benefits for the sense of identity, both individual and communal. The idea of Creating Through Mind and Emotions has been a powerful motor for development since the Western Early Modern Age. Its theoretical and practical foundations have become the working tools of scientists, philosophers, and artists, who seek strategies and policies to accelerate the development process in different contexts

"Stones Can Make People Docile": Disciplinary School Spaces and Student Rebellions in Childrens and Young Adult School Stories

School Stories is a subgenre within childrens and young adult literature in which the school environment is the main and most pivotal site of action. Typically, student characters are socialized by their school experience to be responsible future adult citizens who will seamlessly fit within the hegemonic structures of their society. However, there is a stream within the school story subgenre in which the school space is oppressive and attempts to crush students into conformity. While a few studies have been conducted on the school story subgenre, there has yet to be significant attention paid to stories which are critical of institutional educational practices, or any that focus on how the material, physical, and architectural representation of school spaces facilitates students empowering or oppressive experiences. This dissertation attempts to fill this gap by examining school stories that feature oppressive school environments by considering how the spatial properties contribute to the disciplinary structures of school spaces to create student oppression. The present study focuses on stories with oppressive school spaces and questions the ideological structures these stories attempt to break down; the new structures they suggest be put in their place; the desired/imagined futures of institutionalized education these narratives express; and if, or how, implied readers are invited to internalize and enact these changes. To do this, I employ Michel Foucault and Henri Lefebrves theories on disciplinary space, Michel de Certeaus arguments regarding individual resistances to disciplinary spaces, and affect theory to examine characters emotional responses stimulated by the school space. Within school stories that feature oppression, the disciplinary organization of the school space directly influences the interactions of bodies within the space, and it is student characters interactions with one another, and with adults in positions of authority, that elicit constrained and oppressive experiences. Student characters in this study rebel and resist the evasive net of discipline that those in positions of authority employ to order the school space and manipulate the student bodies housed within. Through the resistance of fictional students, these narratives recommend to child and youth readers non-conformist and even revolutionary attitudes that imagine students as the means of achieving changes to their various hegemonic societies

Masks and Caricatures: Prosopopoeia, Ethopoeia, and the Effect of Social Media on Canadian Political Leaders’ Debates

This dissertation examines the recent effect of social media on televised political leaders’ debates through the lens of ethos. It features two case studies from two Canadian federal elections: the 2015 Maclean’s Leaders’ Debate, and the 2019 English-Language Leaders’ Debate. It opens the lens of ethos through the tools of prosopopoeia and ethopoeia, ethotic moves which respectively incorporate ethoi beyond the immediate speaker, and characterize the ethoi of others. With the emergence of participatory digital media, leadership debates are increasingly constrained and shaped to serve social media. I argue that there is an increased pressure on political parties to have their leader adopt a mask, or perform another’s ethos, through prosopopoeia, while also characterizing, or depicting another’s ethos, through ethopoeia. Both moves capitalize on the Aristotelian ethotic qualities of phronesis, arete, and eunoia. I develop this argument by analyzing political parties’ and political leaders’ debate-related social media posts from Canada’s 2015 and Canada’s 2019 federal elections. I examine political parties’ and political leaders’ debate-related posts on three social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, from the 2015 and the 2019 election campaign timeframes. In examining the parties’ and leaders’ top shared Facebook posts, top retweeted Twitter posts, and top liked Instagram posts, I identify six major debate-related themes for 2015, and six major debate-related themes for 2019. Examining the posts within these themes reveals how ethos is refracted in social media, moderately in 2015, and vigorously in 2019, and how the rhetorical moves prosopopoeia and ethopoeia infiltrate the political parties’ and leaders’ social media accounts. A significant finding of this study is political debates are changing because of social media in a way that foregrounds issues of ethos. In 2015, it was more prominent for debate content to move out onto social media, whereas in 2019, debate content is being shaped for social media. In both cases, but more so in 2019, the forces of social media fostered prosopopoeia and ethopoeia. This research contributes to the fields of rhetoric, social media, and political communication by demonstrating how debates, and democracy, are being (re)shaped by social media, and brings precision to the rhetorical figures prosopopoeia and ethopoeia as figures of argumentation. This critical investigation into the effect of social media on political leaders’ debates reveals the rhetorical influence social media has on political parties, political leaders, and ultimately voters

National Women's Studies Association Annual Conference: Feminist Transgressions

Digital program for the National Women's Studies Association 35th Annual Conference, held November 13-16, 2014, in San Juan, Puerto Rico