Thesis (M.A.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [42]-43).

As interactors we often allude to a sense of presence, of being there, when experiencing interactive artifacts. Digital technologies can create a sense of presence within a synthetic environment, that of being in a technologically mediated space. As a result, ideas of space and place are fundamental to the use of digital media. Related metaphors pervade our language and use of technology; we explore virtual worlds, surf online, and chat in rooms. The field of humanist geography can be used to examine digital media practice across several domains. Exploring the concept of place in relationship to a video game, website, or mixed reality environments question contemporary definitions of presence. As a result, a theoretical foundation for the design of artifacts may create a strong sense of place, and thus enhance our understanding of presence.

Internet has changed People¡¦s life and brought new communication problems. Community website is a platform which combines website¡¦s content and community. This platform had changed users not only to be a message receiver, but also to be a sender, who is more active. This characteristic promises the active audience, one of the basic assumptions in Uses and Gratifications Theory. Otherwise, in previous researches, computer mediated communication lacks of some media cues. But as basic network setting has changed, the conclusion maybe has been changed. In order to understand what are user¡¦s motivations and if there are any differences among different media. This survey conducts 41 questions to evaluate user¡¦s needs and the degree of social presence based on previous studies. As a result, there are 442 valid questionnaires in this study. As for motivations, a factor analysis revealed five motivations to use community websites: communication, information, surveillance, persuasion, and entertainment. Communication is the most important motivation of all. As for social presence, the ranking decreasingly is instant message, real-time video, e-mail, chat room, and forum. These two properties, motivations and social presence, obviously affect user¡¦s using intensity.

As a result of personal computers and broadband Internet connections become very popular, online learning converts asynchronous learning into synchronous learning or blended learning. This implies that synchronous communication becomes an essential part of online learning and learners now are able to see others face-to-face online just like in traditional classrooms. In the past, the major difference between cyber classroom and traditional classroom is that cyber classroom cannot provide face to face interaction. However, a synchronous cyber classroom features real-time and multiple video communication channels can overcome this shortage and even promoted better attention and engagement for learners. Social presence is an indicator to measure the degree of social interaction, determined by the perception of an individual to environments and other individuals. The prior researches have indicated that increasing social presence is helpful to enhancing learning participation and satisfaction in a synchronous cyber classroom. Hence, we argue that promoting social presence in a synchronous cyber classroom would have a positive effect on learners¡¦ learning participation and satisfaction. The aim of this study is to explore the factors affecting social presence in a synchronous cyber classroom. We will apply social learning theory as a basis to verify if social presence does have a positive effect on learning outcome and what factors affect social presence in a synchronous cyber classroom learning environment. Because the perception about social presence is accumulated as time goes by, a questionnaire survey is used in this study. The target population is drawn upon the learners who have had real experiences of participations in learning with synchronous cyber classrooms. The questionnaires were carried out on the Web. The subjects were learners from the National Sun Yan-Sen Cyber University, the K12 digital school and some others from the PTT BBS. The total number of valid questionnaires is 252. The research result indicates that the factors affecting social presence in a synchronous cyber classroom are intimacy, user friendliness, responsiveness, extraversion, and cue richness. Moreover, social presence does have a positive effect on learning participation and satisfaction. The contribution of this study is finding out the factors affecting social presence from the social learning theory perspective. If teachers could pay attention to these factors and try to apply them for enhancing learners¡¦ social presence, learners¡¦ learning outcome is greatly improved in a synchronous cyber classroom environment. This study is concluded by pointing out some suggestions for practice and future research.

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Pavement markings, as a form of traffic control devices, play a crucial role in safely guiding drivers. Restriping pavement markings is an important task in the maintenance of traffic control devices. Every year state agencies spend a lot of money in maintaining pavement markings as the retroreflectivity or durability values of the markings fall below a minimum level. Currently, the most widely adopted method used to determine the presence conditions of pavement markings is by expert observation, a subjective technique that may not provide consistent and convinced results for agencies. Hence, a fast and accurate way to determine the presence conditions of pavement markings can lead to significant cost savings while ensuring driving safety. In this study, a systematic approach that can automatically determine the presence conditions of pavement markings using digital image processing techniques is presented. These techniques are used to correct the geometric deformity, detect colors of pavement markings, segment images, enhance images, detect edge lines of ideal pavement markings, and recognize the features of pavement markings appearing in the photographs. To better implement the aforementioned techniques, a software package has been developed by Graphic User Interface (GUI) as a platform to simultaneously evaluate the presence conditions of single or multiple pavement markings. The developed software package is able to do operations such as open files, calibrate camera calibration, clip, rotation, histogram display, and detection of edge lines of ideal pavement markings. The above system was tested and evaluated with the photograph datasets provided by the NTPEP Mississippi test deck. The empirical results (when compared with the manual method and expert observation) show that the developed system in this study is accurate and reliable. Additionally, the interactivity of the developed software package is satisfactory due to the feedback from ten volunteers. It is also concluded that the developed system, as an important reference, potentially helps agencies make a better decision in the maintenance of pavement markings with more accurate and speedy evaluation of the presence conditions of pavement markings.

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, Vancouver, B.C., 1995. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-99).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1987. / Bibliography: leaves 102-110.

Thesis (M.A.(Teology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Summary in English Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1987. / Bibliography: leaves 102-110.