Mapping Los Angeles: Spatial Representations of the Margin in Fiction

The geocentric study of literature has often been fixed with canonical western texts. New approaches to spatial literary interpretations, however, invite the incorporation of marginality in the study of fiction, suggesting that the margin is a necessary component of the whole, thus challenging physical and metaphorical notions of centrality. Mapping Los Angeles: Spatial Representations of the Margin in Fiction examines four Los Angeles novels that in different ways establish the social significance of concepts such as place, location, landscape, architecture, environment, home, city, region, territory, and geography. This dissertation argues that a localized understanding of the urban literary model can serve a larger frame of reference for a global interpretation of the non-conformative text. Organized chronologically, Mapping Los Angeles combines the study of geography with historical perspectives. Starting in the modernist period, my project defines some of the crucial elements in reference to the multiethnic urban dimension, such as city structure and space organization in John Fante’s Ask the Dust. In a similar fashion, the second chapter takes into consideration the place occupied by the main character of Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays, reflecting on female perspectives and the balance between the agency of nature and the one of humans, between private and public spaces. The third chapter focuses on Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange and identifies how elements such as technology, change in infrastructure, and international goods transportation reshape the idea of geography and temporality, while the fourth chapter, examining Octavia Butler’s Parable of The Sower, considers how climate change and social instability affect the way the environment is inhabited. A coda examines the value of the geocentric approach in the analysis of non-conformative literature

Verifying the X for design framework capabilities in improving user experience evaluation activities

The literature offers methods and tools for user experience (UX) evaluation. Among them, the irMMs-based method exploits mental models related to specific situations of interaction. The literature also proposes frameworks and models to describe product development activities. One of these, the X for Design framework (XfD), allows modeling different activities and suggests modifications in order to improve them. This research aims at verifying the capabilities of the XfD in improving the irMMs-based method. Once improved thanks to the XfD, the irMMs-based method is adopted together with the original release of it and with the well-known Think Aloud usability evaluation method in evaluating the UX of a CAD software package. The comparison of the results starts demonstrating the capabilities of the XfD in improving UX evaluation activities. The research outcomes can be of interest for researchers who can exploit the XfD suggestions to deepen their knowledge about human cognitive processes and for industrial practitioners who can apply the suggestions proposed by the XfD to their own evaluation activities to make them more effective

Exploiting TRIZ Tools in Interaction Design

Abstract Current market laws ask for new product development methods and tools dealing with both technological and interaction related issues. Starting from this, the research described in this paper aims at finding and exploiting some TRIZ tools in interaction design field of practice. TRIZ theory offers well defined and structured methods and tools, and allows generation of generic guidelines for innovative design of a huge variety of products. Interaction design focuses on studying and developing a correct interaction between users and products, in order to maximize cognitive compatibility. Real goal of this research is developing a new design method where systematic approach to innovation of TRIZ compensates for some lacks of the user centered interaction design process. Starting from similarities and differences between tools currently used in these two domains, the research considers the TRIZ thirty-nine features, the forty inventive principles, and the contradiction matrix. These elements are adapted to the requirements of the interaction design field of practice, obeying to classic usability rules. These new elements contribute to the definition and development of a new design framework named interaction design guidelines - IDGL. The effectiveness of these elements has started to be tested in a case study focused on the interaction design of a new DVD recorder

Influence of Personality on Shape-Based Design Activities

As the literature demonstrates, designers\u2019 personality influences design activities like different ways to represent environments and/or products, technological advances, etc.. Nevertheless, an exhaustive analysis on the influence of personality on design activities involving different representations is missing.This research explores this gap by studying this influence on specific design activities, the shape-based ones (i.e., analysis of specific shapes and highlighting of functions suggested by them). People showing different personalities undergo tests where they carry out design activities exploiting several representations.The results confirm the influence of personality on shape-based design activities and allow highlighting different keys to interpret and exploit these results. Thanks to the results of this study, researchers can increase their knowledge about subjective aspects of design as well as about how these aspects coexist with classic and emerging representations. As well, designers can try tomaximize the effectiveness of their efforts by selecting the best combinations of personality, representations, and characteristics of the expected design results time by time

Le livre espagnol à Florence au xviie siècle : le cas de la bibliothèque de Léopold de Médicis

Comment le livre circulait-il entre l’Espagne, la France et l’Italie à une époque où les moyens de transports habituels étaient la charrette et le bateau ? Quels étaient les risques auxquels le livre était exposé ? Et surtout, quelle était la place occupée par le livre espagnol à l’intérieur des collections ? À travers l’analyse d’une des bibliothèques italiennes les plus renommées du xviie siècle — celle du cardinal Léopold de Médicis (1617-1675) — nous nous proposons d’étudier la présence et la circulation du livre espagnol à Florence au xviie siècle. Pendant cette période, la capitale du Grand-duché de Toscane fut un centre de diffusion de la culture espagnole très actif et tout particulièrement en ce qui concerne l’art dramatique espagnol. Le succès du théâtre espagnol à Florence au Siècle d’or est évident dans la collection de Léopold de Médicis, qui comporte vingt-et-un titres en langue espagnole. Notre analyse montre qu’à travers l’étude des inventaires et des rapports existant entre les collectionneurs et leurs fournisseurs, il est possible de tracer une voie de circulation du livre espagnol à Florence au Siècle d’or, qui met en lumière le rôle central du futur bibliothécaire ducal, Antonio Magliabechi.How books travelled all around Spain, France and Italy in a period when the usual transports were carts and ships? What were the risks for books during these long trips? And above all, what was the place for Spanish books in the collections? Through the analysis of one of the most renowned Italian library of the 17th century—that of the cardinal Leopoldo de Medici (1617–1675)—we suggest to study the presence and the circulation of the Spanish book in Florence during the 17th century. During this period, the city of the Medici family was an active centre for the diffusion of Spanish culture, and above all, for the dramatic one. The success of the Spanish theatre is clear in the Leopoldo de Medici’s collection, where there are twenty-one titles in Spanish. This analysis shows how it is possible to trace a road for the trade of the Spanish book during the 17th century, by the study of inventories and relationships that existed between collectors and their suppliers. In particular we will show how the whole book market in Florence was controlled by only one person, Antonio Magliabechi.In che modo il libro circolava tra la Spagna, la Francia e l’Italia in un’epoca in cui i mezzi di trasporto abituali erano il carretto e la barca? Quali erano i rischi in cui potevano incorrere i libri durante i loro viaggi? E soprattutto, qual era il posto occupato dal libro spagnolo all’interno delle collezioni? Attraverso l’analisi di una delle biblioteche italiane più rinomate del XVII secolo — quella del cardinale Leopoldo de’ Medici (1617-1675) — proponiamo di studiare la presenza e la circolazione del libro spagnolo a Firenze nel XVII secolo. Durante tutto questo periodo, la città dei Medici fu un centro molto attivo per la diffusione della cultura spagnola e, soprattutto, dell’arte drammatica spagnola. Il successo del teatro spagnolo a Firenze durante questo secolo è evidente nella collezione di Leopoldo de Medici, dove contiamo ben ventuno titoli in lingua spagnola. Quest’analisi mostra come attraverso lo studio degli inventari e dei rapporti esistenti tra i collezionisti e i loro fornitori, è possibile tracciare una via di circolazione del libro spagnolo durante il XVII secolo, e che a Firenze passava inevitabilmente tra le mani del futuro bibliotecario ducale, Antonio Magliabechi

Attribute-Preserving Face Dataset Anonymization via Latent Code Optimization

This work addresses the problem of anonymizing the identity of faces in a dataset of images, such that the privacy of those depicted is not violated, while at the same time the dataset is useful for downstream task such as for training machine learning models. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to explicitly address this issue and deal with two major drawbacks of the existing state-of-the-art approaches, namely that they (i) require the costly training of additional, purpose-trained neural networks, and/or (ii) fail to retain the facial attributes of the original images in the anonymized counterparts, the preservation of which is of paramount importance for their use in downstream tasks. We accordingly present a task-agnostic anonymization procedure that directly optimizes the images' latent representation in the latent space of a pretrained GAN. By optimizing the latent codes directly, we ensure both that the identity is of a desired distance away from the original (with an identity obfuscation loss), whilst preserving the facial attributes (using a novel feature-matching loss in FaRL's [48] deep feature space). We demonstrate through a series of both qualitative and quantitative experiments that our method is capable of anonymizing the identity of the images whilst-crucially-better-preserving the facial attributes. We make the code and the pretrained models publicly available at: https://github.com/chi0tzp/FALCO

Prison-Based Dog Training Programs: Standard Protocol

Across the United States, the number of prison-based dog training programs (PDPs) has increased substantially over the past several years. Currently, there are approximately 255 PDPs across 47 states that operate in a variety of correctional settings; however, there is little information available on how to successfully develop and implement a PDP. As a result, the research team from the Institute for Human-Animal Connection (IHAC) has developed a standard protocol to help guide PDP development and implementation. This report identifies common practices of PDPs and incorporates both general and context-specific recommendations that were gathered from interviews with PDP staff, relevant literature, and content experts. In total, 21 interviews with 20 programs were conducted. PDPs were asked about several program features, including policies and procedures, key personnel, funding, materials, physical spaces, supervision and monitoring, safety considerations, animal welfare, handler selection and training, and program benefits. This report highlights the benefits of PDPs to dogs, humans, prisons, local communities, and society as a whole and identifies challenges related to funding, staffing, and operating in a correctional setting. Findings from the protocol point to the importance of planning, staffing, communication, internal support, and training curriculum in successful program implementation

Multi-parametric surface plasmon resonance platform for studying liposome-serum interactions and protein corona formation

When nanocarriers are administered into the blood circulation, a complex biomolecular layer known as the “protein corona” associates with their surface. Although the drivers of corona formation are not known, it is widely accepted that this layer mediates biological interactions of the nanocarrier with its surroundings. Label-free optical methods can be used to study protein corona formation without interfering with its dynamics. We demonstrate the proof-of-concept for a multi-parametric surface plasmon resonance (MP-SPR) technique in monitoring the formation of a protein corona on surface-immobilized liposomes subjected to flowing 100 % human serum. We observed the formation of formulation-dependent “hard” and “soft” coronas with distinct refractive indices, layer thicknesses, and surface mass densities. MP-SPR was also employed to determine the affinity (KD) of a complement system molecule (C3b) with cationic liposomes with and without polyethylene glycol. Tendency to create a thick corona correlated with a higher affinity of opsonin C3b for the surface. The label-free platform provides a fast and robust preclinical tool for tuning nanocarrier surface architecture and composition to control protein corona formation.When nanocarriers are administered into the blood circulation, a complex biomolecular layer known as the "protein corona" associates with their surface. Although the drivers of corona formation are not known, it is widely accepted that this layer mediates biological interactions of the nanocarrier with its surroundings. Label-free optical methods can be used to study protein corona formation without interfering with its dynamics. We demonstrate the proof-ofconcept for a multi-parametric surface plasmon resonance (MP-SPR) technique in monitoring the formation of a protein corona on surface-immobilized liposomes subjected to flowing 100 % human serum. We observed the formation of formulation-dependent "hard" and "soft" coronas with distinct refractive indices, layer thicknesses, and surface mass densities. MP-SPR was also employed to determine the affinity (K-D) of a complement system molecule (C3b) with cationic liposomes with and without polyethylene glycol. Tendency to create a thick corona correlated with a higher affinity of opsonin C3b for the surface. The label-free platform provides a fast and robust preclinical tool for tuning nanocarrier surface architecture and composition to control protein corona formation.Peer reviewe

pH-Controlled Liposomes for Enhanced Cell Penetration in Tumor Environment

An innovative pH-switchable colloidal system that can be exploited for site-selective anticancer drug delivery has been generated by liposome decoration with a new novel synthetic non-peptidic oligo-arginine cell-penetration enhancer (CPE) and a quenching PEGylated counterpart that detaches from the vesicle surface under the acidic conditions of tumors. The CPE module (Arg(4)-DAG) is formed by four arginine units conjugated to a first-generation (G1) 2,2-bis(hydroxymethyl)propionic acid (bis-MPA)/2,2-bis(aminomethyl)propionic acid (bis-AMPA) polyester dendron terminating with 1,2-distearoyl-3-azidopropane for liposome bilayer insertion. The zeta potential of the Arg(4)-DAG-decorated liposomes increased up to +32 mV as the Arg(4)-DAG/lipids molar ratio increased. The Arg(4)-DAG liposome shielding at pH 7.4 was provided by methoxy-PEGS(5 kDa)-polymethacryloyl sulfadimethoxine (mPEG(5) (kDa)-SDM8) with 7.1 apparent pK(a). Zeta potential, surface plasmon resonance and synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering analyses showed that at pH 7.4 mPEG(5) (kDa)-SDM8 associates with polycationic Arg(4)-DAG-decorated liposomes yielding liposomes with neutral zeta potential. At pH 6.5, which mimics the tumor environment, mPEG(5) (kDa)-SDM8 detaches from the liposome surface yielding Arg(4)-DAG exposure. Flow cytometry and confocal microscopy showed a 30-fold higher HeLa cancer cell association of the Arg(4)-DAG-decorated liposomes compared to non-decorated liposomes. At pH 7.4, the mPEG(5) (kDa)-SDM8-coated liposomes undergo low cell association while remarkable cell association occurred at pH 6.5, which allowed for the controlled intracellular delivery of model macromolecules and small molecules loaded in the liposome under tumor conditions.Peer reviewe