By and large, contemporary design models do little more than acknowledge the art and science of media development, and instead, place inordinate emphasis on media selection. While many texts on instructional design will discuss, in general terms, the circumstances under which media needs to be developed, their primary focus is on the selection and customization (e.g., repurposing videodiscs} of extant materials that support previously adopted goals, objectives, and instructional strategies. Although contemporary instructional design models do acknowledge computer-assisted instruction in general terms as part of the media selection and development processes, they fail to address specifically the development issues confronted when digital video is selected as an integral component of computer-based applications. Practitioners wishing to develop their own instructional materials (particularly those which incorporate digital video) are provided few specific details for creating those products in the context of a systems approach to instructional development. This study examined the essential design tasks involved in incorporating digital video into computer-based applications. The strategy adopted for this study consisted of the following: 1) The author produced a computer-based application for The Museum of Natural History at Virginia Tech that integrated both digital motion-video sequences and still-image graphics; 2) Each of the development “steps” made by the author was preserved through a set of design notes as well as videotaped records of designer and participant comments; 3) The design notes and videotaped records were subjected to qualitative analyses borrowed from standard ethnographic research procedures; 4) Subsequent considerations for integrating digital video into computer-based applications were abstracted from the analyses and presented as practical guidelines for practitioner-developers pursuing media development. A “traditional” model of instructional design was also modified to reflect state-of-the-art media development strategies. The model illustrates the general procedure of media development and places it in the context of a larger, systems approach to instructional design. The development steps include defining the product, conducting research, brainstorming ideas, generating design solutions, developing the prototype, testing the prototype, and developing the end-product. The model also illustrated (by way of example) the creation of the computer-based application developed for The Virginia Museum of Natural History at Virginia Tech. / Ph. D.

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Douglas K. Benson / Students have opportunity to reach learner autonomy and achieve real world applications utilizing communicative competence, a learner centered environment and comprehensible input, incorporated into a unit for student success. The acquisition of language and culture is facilitated in the classroom environment with low affective filters and comprehensible input combining different learning strategies. The activities in this cultural thematic art unit engage student’s interest and activate his or her background knowledge, making meaningful connections with the unit content and their personal lives. Literature, paintings, grammar and vocabulary enable students to build communicative competence in L2. Language learners collaborate and engage in the target language while simultaneously learning about literature, history and culture and learning how artists and writers represent empathy for others as they process words by various Spanish speakers. Additionally, authentic texts and the use of technology enhance students’ linguistic performance. The unit begins with my teaching philosophy followed by a sequence of activities that allow students to process language while they study the consequences of war on those who are affected by it, and a brief section on potential learning outcomes for those who participate in the activities.

The present study sought to answer the following questions: Is there a correlation between time spent watching rap music videos and and perception of the imagery of women in rap music videos shown? 2) Is there a correlation between the perception of the imagery of women in rap music videos and their attitudes toward women? There were a total of 53 AAFA who participated in the study. The participants completed the Background Questionnaire and Attitude Toward Women Scale for Adolescents (AWSA). They then viewed approximately 10 minutes of rap music videos that portrayed women negatively, and completed the Opinions on Music Videos survey and the General Questions about Rap Music survey. The data were analyzed with two crosstabs matching time spent watching rap music videos per week with feelings about images of women in rap videos shown, and acceptance of images of women in rap videos shown. A t-test was used to compare AWSA scores and acceptance of images of women in rap music videos shown. A one-way ANOVA was used to compare AWSA scores and feelings about women in rap music videos shown. The results of the study suggest that the more time spent watching rap videos, the less likely the participants would accept the negative images of women in these videos as negative and vice versa. No relationship was found between time spent watching rap videos and feelings about the images portrayed. Regardless of the participant's AWSA score, it did not correlate with her perceptions of the images of women in rap music videos shown. Implications for research and practice were then discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The purpose of this study was to test assumptions made about characteristics of nontheatrical film and video works that were thought to contribute to the frequency with which the works were purchased. This study proposed and tested three variables for which relationships to the sales success of nontheatrical film and video works were hypothesized, as well as four variables about which no hypotheses were forwarded. Nineteen film and video distribution organizations contributed unit sales data for the period 1982-1987 on 151 works copyrighted between 1982 and 1984. These data were analyzed for relationships between sales totals and 1) curricular significance of the works' subjects, 2) relevance to general reading interest in the works' subjects, 3) intensity of competition faced by the works, 4) the works' Dewey classifications as compared to the composition of typical K-12 school library book collections, 5) the series or non-series status of the works, 6) the media format(s) in which the works were available for purchase and 7) the sources of the works' production financing. Analyses of correlation and association were performed and no significant relationships were found between sales and curricular significance of the works' subjects, or their relevance to general reading interest. Some evidence was presented to suggest a significant association between the intensity of competition faced by a work and its eventual sales. None of the hypotheses about these variables was supported. However, the four remaining variables were found to be significant, or to approach significance, as correlates or associates of sales success. The best predictor of sales for works intended for the K-12 school market was the work's Dewey Decimal classification. Other important findings included associations between high sales and intense product competition, between high sales and non-series status, between high sales and availability for purchase in 16mm film and between high sales and works that had been financed by the distribution organization.

This thesis follows the process of transformation of children's idols of film and music industry into adult artists and sex-symbols of contemporary popular culture. It especially focuses on the transformation of child character in adult representatives of pop-culture industry: development, change and building an image of an adult performer in terms of the sociology of childhood and adulthood career shift (change in the nature of work and roles, any rise or decline). The aim of this work is to find any trends in transition from children's heroes / heroines adults representative of contemporary popular culture. The premise is that children's personalities of the entertainment industry are used in the process of growing element of sexuality to reforging the stigma of "child stars". In addition to the sexual themes and monitors the aspect of gender roles and stereotypes depending on the developmental stage.

This master's thesis refers to the use of video as a teaching tool in the subject Didactics of Biology. It comprises two parts, one theoretical and another practical. The theoretical part charts the didactical and practical subjects taught at the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague, and deals with the use of video for the professional development of teachers. For the practical part, 8 lesson observation videos were recorded and placed on a newly created website (www.didaktikabiologievidea.cz). The observation videos were submitted to an analysis based on the 3A method and were used afterwards during the courses on Didactics of Biology. A questionnaire was carried out among the students of the teaching profession to evaluate the benefits of the videos for them. The questionnaire surveyed the motivation for studying Didactics of Biology, as well as the impact that these observation videos had on the performance of the teaching profession and the improvement of the teaching abilities. All above stated goals were accomplished in this work. Key words: lesson observation videos, didactics of biology, 3A, methodology, teaching profession, motivation, teaching abilities

D.Ed. (Didactics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

A evolução dos dispositivos de armazenamento e das redes de computadores permitiram que os vídeos digitais assumissem um importante papel no desenvolvimento de sistemas de informação multimídia. Com a finalidade de aproveitar todo o potencial dos vídeos digitais no desenvolvimento desses sistemas, técnicas automatizadas eficientes para análise, interpretação e recuperação são necessárias. A recuperação de vídeos baseada em conteúdo (CBVR, do inglês content-based video retrieval) permite o processamento e a análise do conteúdo de vídeos digitais visando à extração de informações relevantes que viabilizem indexação e recuperação. Trabalhos científicos têm proposto a aplicação de CBVR em bases de vídeos médicos a fim de proporcionar diferentes contribuições como diagnóstico auxiliado por computador, suporte à tomada de decisão e disponibilização de bases de vídeos para utilização em treinamento e educação médica. Em geral, características visuais são as principais informações utilizadas no contexto de CBVR aplicada em vídeos médicos. No entanto, muitos diagnósticos são realizados por meio da análise dos sons produzidos em diferentes estruturas e órgãos do corpo humano. Um exemplo é o diagnóstico cardíaco que, além de exames de imagem como ecocardiografia e ressonância magnética, também pode empregar a análise dos sons provenientes do coração por meio da auscultação. O objetivo deste trabalho consistiu em aplicar e avaliar extratores de características de som em conjunto com extratores de características visuais para viabilizar CBVR e, então, inferir se a abordagem resultou em ganhos com relação ao desempenho de recuperação quando comparada à utilização apenas das características visuais. Vídeos médicos constituíram nosso principal interesse, porém o trabalho considerou também vídeos não relacionados à área médica para a validação da abordagem. Justifica-se o objetivo, pois a análise do som, visando a obter descritores relevantes para melhorar os resultados de recuperação, ainda é pouco explorada na literatura científica. Essa afirmação foi evidenciada com a condução de uma revisão sistemática sobre o tema. Dois conjuntos de experimentos foram conduzidos visando a validar a abordagem de CBVR mencionada. O primeiro conjunto de experimentos foi aplicado sobre uma base de vídeos sintetizados para validação da abordagem. Já o segundo, foi aplicado em uma base de vídeos construídos utilizando-se imagens provenientes de exames de ressonância magnética em conjunto com sons provenientes de auscultação do coração. Os resultados foram analisados utilizando-se as métricas de revocação e precisão, bem como o gráfico que as relaciona. Demonstrou-se que a abordagem é promissora por meio da melhora significativa dos resultados de recuperação nos diferentes cenários de combinação entre características visuais e sonoras experimentados / Advance of storage devices and computer networks has contributed to digital videos assume an important role in the development of multimedia information systems. In order to take advantage of the full potential of digital videos in the development of these systems, it is necessary the development of efficient techniques for automated data analysis, interpretation and retrieval. Content-based video retrieval (CBVR) allows processing and analysis of content in digital videos to extract relevant information and enable indexing and retrieval. Scientific studies have proposed the application of CBVR in medical video databases in order to provide different contributions like computer-aided diagnosis, decision-making support or availability of video databases for use in medical training and education. In general, visual characteristics are the main information used in the context of CBVR applied in medical videos. However, many diagnoses are performed by analysing the sounds produced in different structures and organs of the human body. An example is the cardiac diagnosis which, in addition to images generated by echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging, for example, may also employ the analysis of sounds from the heart by means of auscultation. The objective of this work was evaluating combination between audio signal and visual features to enable CBVR and investigating how much this approach can improve retrieval results comparing to using only visual features. Medical videos are the main data of interest in this work, but video segments not related to the medical field were also used to validate the approach. The objectives of this work are justifiable because audio signal analysis, in order to get relevant descriptors to improve retrieval results, is still little explored in the scientific literature. This statement was evidenced by results of a systematic review. Two experiment sets were conducted to validate the CBVR approach described. The first experiment set was applied to a synthetic images database specially built to validate the approach, while the second experiment was applied to a database composed of digital videos created from magnetic resonance imaging and heart sounds from auscultation. Results were analyzed using the recall and precision metrics, as well as the graph which relates these metrics. Results showed that this approach is promising due the significantly improvement obtained in retrieval results to different scenarios of combination between visual and audio signal features

Neste trabalho foi investigado o problema de autoria automatizada de informação multimídia sob a perspectiva da computação ubíqua de modo geral, e da interação do usuário com aplicações de captura e accesso (C&A) de modo particular. O objetivo do projeto foi a definição de operadores sobre interação do usuário em ambientes e em aplicações para permitir a geração automática de documentos multimídia interativos, um dos temas de pesquisa da área de engenharia de documentos. A abordagem da proposta foi a generalização dos operadores Inkteractors, definidos sobre a interação do usuário com aplicações baseadas em tinta eletrônica, considerando a interação do usuário na voz, mensagens de texto, vídeo e lousa. Como resultado foram definido os novos Interactors: operadores de interação sobre informação capturada em aplicações que envolvem interação do usuário com as mídias. Os Interactors foram validados no contexto de engenharia de documentos ao serem utilizados para a geração automática de documentos multimídia interativos, associados a aplicações de C&A para oferecer novas possibilidades de indexar, visualizar e acessar os documentos multimídia / This study investigated the problem of automated authoring of multimedia information from the perspective of ubiquitous computing in general, and the user interaction with applications of capture and acess (C&A) in particular. The project goal was to formalize operators on user interaction environments and applications to enable automatic generation of interactive multimedia documents, one of the themes of the research area of document engineering. The proposed approach is a generalization of the Inkteractors operators, defined on the user interaction with electronic ink-based applications on the users interaction with digital voice, text messaging, video and whiteboard. As a result we defined the new Interactors: interaction operators of captured information in applications that involve user interaction with the media. TheInteractors were validated in the context of document engineering to be used for the automatic generation of interactive multimedia documents, and in C&A aplications to offer new possibilities for indexing, viewing and accessing multimedia documents

A utilização de vídeos em laboratórios baseados em redes de computadores (weblabs) para pesquisa de abelhas está sendo conduzida como parte do projeto ViNCES (Virtual Network Center of Ecosystem Services), um consórcio de pesquisa composto pelo LAA (Laboratório de Automação Agrícola da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo) e o Laboratório de Abelhas do Departamento de Ecologia do Instituto de Biociências da Universidade de São Paulo. O ViNCES é um membro do Kyatera, uma rede de computadores acadêmica de alta velocidade que tem como objetivos o desenvolvimento de aplicações e tecnologias para a Internet Avançada. Nesse contexto, o Weblab de abelhas, denominado BBBee, permite a realização de pesquisa e observação à distância da entrada de uma colméias, sendo coletadas e transmitidas informações de condições climáticas, de áudio e vídeo. O áudio e o vídeo da colméia são transmitidos em rede local e pela Internet por meio de streaming em tempo real. Os requisitos de largura de banda para transmissões de vídeo costumam ser elevados, e a qualidade obtida após o processo de compressão convencional, em geral, é baixa, podendo afetar ou dificultar a pesquisa. Além disso, está prevista a transmissão de vídeos de Alta Definição para weblab com o objetivo de melhorar a qualidade da informação, o que irá demandar maior largura de banda. Este trabalho propõe um algoritmo de codificação de vídeo para melhorar a qualidade das imagens transmitidas, ao mesmo tempo em que se reduzem os requisitos de largura de banda de transmissão e armazenagem, por meio da aplicação de técnicas de segmentação e rastreamento de objetos de vídeo. O algoritmo proposto foi implementado e testado utilizando vídeos capturados nas colméias e os resultados das análises em diversas condições são apresentados neste documento. Para avaliar a qualidade resultante do processo, foi utilizada uma métrica objetiva que permite avaliar a qualidade das imagens em relação às imagens de origem. Os resultados das análises proveram informações e direções para melhorias e futuras implementações. / The use of videos in web based laboratories over computer networks, known as weblabs, is being conducted for bee research as part of the ViNCES (Virtual Network Center of Ecosystem Services) project, a research consortium composed by: LAA (Laboratório de Automação Agrícola da Escola Politécnica) and the Laboratório de Abelhas of the Ecology Department of the Biosciences Institute. ViNCES is a member of Kyatera, a high speed academic computer network which aims at developing aplications and technologies for the Advanced Internet. The bee weblab, called BBBee, allows the research and observation of the interior of a beehive, in which are collected climate, audio and video data. Real time audio and video are broadcasted over the Internet and through a local network using streaming format. The bandwidth requirements for video transmission are usually high and the video quality after conventional compression standards is, in general, low and can interfere in the biological research. Also, High-Definition video transmission for weblab is planned to be implemented in order to provide better tools for the researcher, which will demand even higher network bandwidth. On this scenario, this work intends to provide a video codification algorithm to enhance the quality of the transmitted images, at the region of interest, and also reduce the transmission and storage requirements for some situations by using segmentation and tracking techniques for videos. A complete CODEC was implemented and tested with actual video, quality and data rates were measured and evaluated using an objective metric. The results of the analysis provided some indications of directions for future enhancements and implementations.