ᒫᒥᑐᓀᔨᐦᒋᑲᓂᐦᑳᐣ ᓂᒦᑭᓯᐢᑕᐦᐃᑫᐏᐣ ᐁᑿ ᓂᒥᑐᓀᔨᐦᒋᑲᐣ / mâmitoneyihcikanihkân nimîkisistahikêwin ekwa nimitonêyihcikan: my reflections of beading with a computer

Four Generations is a digital media installation I coded that computationally generates portraits of my Indigenous lineage using 3D generated beads. Initially exhibited in my Master of Fine Art exhibition at the University of British Columbia in the summer of 2015, this work was then curated for the Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York City from November 2017 through January 2019. The work now resides in the collection of the Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) Indigenous Art Centre. My original intent for Four Generations was to create a dialogue between my nehiyaw (Cree) Métis ancestry, my Indigenous art practice (beadwork), and computational media. However, it has since become a work reviewed by others to explore deeper understandings of digital representations of Indigenous culture, heritage, and identity, and peripherally as an example for critical discussions about language revitalization, Indigenous data sovereignty and computer code studies. This paper reflects on my artwork Four Generations (2015), examining its contributions to Indigenous artistic production and digital translations of Indigenous cultural praxis, including language, medicine, and ceremony, and its impacts on computer programming and computing philosophies. I explore how this work has shaped Indigenous media art through contemplations of public discussions and critiques and express how these discussions have (re)shaped my identity as an Indigenous artist and computer programmer

International Society for Optics and Photonics

Abstract: Despite popular perception, the pixel, the smallest visible element used in digital expression, actually has a history that goes farther back than most of us realize. Although, contemporary generative art has evolved from the coalescence of artistic practices and technology, it is the added innate function of the human brain to form meaningful imagery from a variety of visual stimuli that has provided the primary environment in which the pixel is employed. Though a pixel can be viewed merely as a container for smaller digital elements (for example RGB color values), it is the smallest visible component a viewer interacts with in the digital world. It is the role of the pixels in a collection to provide the viewer with the necessary information required to create a meaningful image. The human brain has an incredible capacity to link, reference, and formulate meaningful structures from visual information even where the stimuli is limited, selective, random or meaningless. This is a phenomenon known as apophenia. Utilizing apophenia as the vehicle for exploration, this paper will trace the trajectory of pixel evolution from Bronze Age Mesopotamia (~1500 BC) through the early 20th century. The purpose of this investigation is to not only establish the greater history of the pixel in image construction, but to provide a greater context for understanding the inherent modes of human perception and how these ideas interact with, inform, and alter our experiences with works of generative art. Example Abstract Despite popular perception, the pixel, the smallest visible element used in digital expression, has a history that goes farther back than most of us realize. While contemporary generative art has evolved from the coalescence of artistic practices and technology, it is the human brain's ability to create comprehensible imagery from a variety of visual stimuli that provides the primary environment in which the pixel is employed. Although a pixel can be considered simply as a container for smaller digital elements, it is the smallest visible component a viewer interacts with in the digital world. The role of pixels in a collection is to provide a viewer with the necessary information required to create a meaningful image. The human brain has an incredible capacity to link, reference, and formulate coherent structures from visual information even in cases where the stimuli are limited, selective, random or meaningless. This phenomenon is known as apophenia. Utilizing apophenia as the vehicle for exploration, this paper will trace the trajectory of pixel evolution from Bronze Age Mesopotamia (~1500 BCE) through the early 20 th century. The purpose behind this investigation is to not only establish the greater history of the pixel in image construction, but also to provide a greater context for understanding the inherent modes of perception and how these ideas interact with, inform, and alter our experiences with works of generative art

Utiliser le Geoweb

Le Geoweb aura d'énormes implications sur l'avenir, les cartes faisant davantage partie de notre quotidie

Using the Geoweb

The Geoweb will have great implications for the future, as maps become a bigger part of our live

Reviving a language

With half of the world's languages likely to die out this century, a Canadian initiative shows how multimedia technology can regenerate interes

Raviver une langue

Alors que la moitié des langues sont appelées à disparaître au cours de ce siècle, une initiative canadienne les remet au goût du jour grâce au multimédi

Memory, placelessness and the Geoweb: exploring the role of locational social-networking in reimagining community

The concept of memory is integral to theorisations of both displacement and placelessness, especially when a sense of place exists only in memory or imagination for members of dispersed communities. Collective memories deployed to restore, re-establish, repatriate territory, and reconnect a people with its original homeland reveal the symbolic significance embedded within place, as well as the value of collective memory as a strategy of resistance and viable political tool. The challenge is to find ways that enable Aboriginal communities to document, share, and reflect on place-based memories and knowledge, and in so doing reestablish identity, culture, and language, which in turn will facilitate the re-appropriation of contested places. Geographic Information Technologies (GITs) are increasingly pervasive in Aboriginal communities in documenting aboriginal knowledge and land use and occupancy information. Many communities use GITs for a range of purposes, including land-use planning, cultural documentation, and territorial claims. The Geoweb is the GIT platform for Web 2.0 digital social networking applications. In its current state, the Geoweb is a tool for spatial representation rather than a platform for spatial analysis as with traditional GIS. Because of the interactive capability and ease of use of Geoweb technologies, they offer great potential for storing, managing, and communicating land-related knowledge to both decision-makers and community members themselves. The Geoweb's ability to compile and mash-up photographs, audio and video through a map interface gives it great potential for presenting place-based memories and knowledge, including toponyms, oral histories, and stories. This presentation reports on two community-based Geoweb projects with Aboriginal groups in Canada, the Metis Nation of British Columbia and the Tlowitsis Nation. It specifically examines the potential for Geoweb technologies to capture, communicate, and comment on community memories in these dispersed communities and discuss how the Geoweb medium alters information flow and the nature of the knowledge being shared.Australian Academy of the Humanities; the ANU College of Arts and Social Science

Rheumatoid arthritis, item response theory, Blom transformation, and mixed models

We studied rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the North American Rheumatoid Arthritis Consortium (NARAC) data (1499 subjects; 757 families). Identical methods were applied for studying RA in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 15 (GAW15) simulated data (with a prior knowledge of the simulation answers). Fifty replications of GAW15 simulated data had 3497 ± 20 subjects in 1500 nuclear families. Two new statistical methods were applied to transform the original phenotypes on these data, the item response theory (IRT) to create a latent variable from nine classifying predictors and a Blom transformation of the anti-CCP (anti-cyclic citrinullated protein) variable. We performed linear mixed-effects (LME) models to study the additive associations of 404 Illumina-genotyped single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on the NARAC data, and of 17,820 SNPs of the GAW15 simulated data. In the GAW15 simulated data, the association with anti-CCP Blom transformation showed a 100% sensitivity for SNP1 located in the major histocompatibility complex gene. In contrast, the association of SNP1 with the IRT latent variable showed only 24% sensitivity. From the simulated data, we conclude that the Blom transformation of the anti-CCP variable produced more reliable results than the latent variable from the qualitative combination of a group of RA risk factors. In the NARAC data, the significant RA-SNPs associations found with both phenotype-transformation methods provided a trend that may point toward dynein and energy control genes. Finer genotyping in the NARAC data would grant more exact evidence for the contributions of chromosome 6 to RA

Insomnia, Psychiatric Disorders and Suicidal Ideation in a National Representative Sample of Active Canadian Forces Members

Background Past research on the association between insomnia and suicidal ideation (SI) has produced mixed findings. The current study explored the relationship between insomnia, SI, and past-year mental health status among a large Canadian Forces (CF) sample. Method Data was obtained from the 2013 Canadian Forces Mental Health Survey (CFMHS), and included a large representative sample of Canadian Regular Forces personnel (N = 6700). A series of univariate logistic regressions were conducted to test individual associations between past-year mental health status, insomnia, and potential confounds and SI. Mental health status included three groups: 0, 1, or two or more probable diagnoses of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder (PD) and alcohol abuse/dependence. Stepwise multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between insomnia and SI with mental health status as a moderator. Results 40.8% of respondents reported experiencing insomnia. Both insomnia and number of mental health conditions incrementally increased the risk of SI. However, past-year mental health status was a significant moderator of this relationship, such that for CF personnel with either no (AOR = 1.61, 1.37–1.89) or only one past-year mental health condition (AOR = 1.39, 1.12–1.73), an incremental increase in insomnia was associated with an increased likelihood of SI. However, in personnel with two or more past-year mental health disorders, insomnia was no longer significantly associated with SI (AOR = 1.04, 0.81–1.33). Conclusions Insomnia significantly increased the odds of SI, but only among individuals with no or one mental health condition. Findings highlight the importance of assessing insomnia among CF members in order to further suicide prevention efforts