當好萊塢式的超級英雄在全球影視文化圈刮起炫風之時，日本次文化中亦有一群「娘子軍」，推動了日本動畫、漫畫的發展，諸如《美少女戰士》、《新世紀福音戰士》，至2011年成為日本推動軟實力外交「Cool Japan」的主打動畫—《魔法少女小圓》，都展現了日本動漫市場被名為「戰鬥美少女」的角色（character）和文類（genre）所引領的實態。這些巾幗不讓鬚眉的「美少女」，是動漫畫中的戰鬥主體，卻擁有別於歐美文化中結合力與美的女超人及女戰士的特質，她們同時擁有戰鬥的能動性，在身體表象上又具有纖細瘦弱、容易受傷的受動性，更甚是成為男性觀眾的性慾客體、女性自我實現的投射。如此對「少女」的憧憬與操作慾，實乃根基於日本近代文化的一種特殊現象。 在日本動漫充斥著色情與暴力而為人詬病之時，宮崎駿動畫電影因其所蘊含的藝術價值而和我們認知中的「御宅動畫」產生一線之隔。作品中披荊斬棘、自力更生的女性形象讓人耳目一新，然仔細探究宮崎駿動畫的人物設計和敘事結構卻與上述類型動畫中的戰鬥美少女特質不謀而合，甚至其作品《風之谷》中的娜烏西卡更被譽為是替戰鬥美少女定型的元祖角色。因此，本研究擬梳理少女文化與戰鬥美少女的發展，並以宮崎駿自1984年起至2013年執導的十部長篇動畫電影為研究對象，檢視其作品在角色形塑上是否使用戰鬥美少女模式包裝其理想的「少女意象」，期以理解「少女」之於日本社會有何種意涵與價值。 本研究發現，宮崎駿動畫除了酷愛以「飛行」強調少女的神聖性，其去性化的純潔無垢的少女意象，更符合近代日本對少女所設下的社會框架，而在敘述手法上卻體現了日本文化中普遍具有的過度男性凝視與母性肥大的主題，從而證明戰鬥美少女實非顛覆父權的利器，反而加深了既有的性別刻板印象。 / While Hollywood’s superhero movies are blowing up entertainment industry all over the world, there is a kind of young female character toting weapon in Japanese subculture and promotes the development of Anime and Manga. From Sailor Moon to Neon Genesis Evangelion, also Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which played an important role in Japan’s foreign Policy titled “Cool Japan” in 2011, the Japanese animation industry seems to be led by this kind of character or genre called “Battle Heroine”. These girls are prepubescent and pretty, but not inferior to boys and man. Although they are different from western superwoman and female warrior shaped in Amazons, they still hold the initiative in theirs fights. In the same time, they also maintain the passivity came from their vulnerable bodies and naive personality. Therefore, the battle heroine turns to be an object of desire for male audiences or a projection of self-actualized for female audiences. In fact, such desire to manipulate young girls, who were named “Shōjo” in Japanese, was based on the culture of modern Japan and became a special social phenomenon in recent times. Despite the fact that Japanimation was condemned by public because of teeming with violence and pornography, it is no doubt that director Hayao Miyazaki is appreciated for the artistic value in his awarded animations and makes a fine line between his films and “otaku anime”. The woman images in his animations can be refreshing because of its independence and brave behavior. However, when we have made a careful study of character design and narrative structure in his works, we may found that there is a coincidence between these characters and battle heroines in otaku anime. Furthermore, Nausicaä in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is widely regarded as a stereotype of battle heroine. As a result, the thesis was intended to prioritize the development of Shōjo culture and battle heroine animations, and research whether Miyazaki attempted to shape female characters in battle heroine way to show his ideal Shōjo images or not among ten films directed during 1984 to 2013. Moreover, the meanings of Shōjo to Japanese were also discussed in this thesis. Throughout the research, I have found that Miyazaki tended to use “flying scene” to emphasize the deity of Shōjo characters, and the desexualized Shōjo images are familiar to the gender norms made in modern Japan. On the other side, the narrative approach of Miyazaki’s films revealed the exaggeration of maternal instinct and the redundancy of male gaze which have generally existed in Japanese culture. In my observation, these results proved that battle heroines are created to strengthen gender stereotypes instead of subverting the paternity rights.

The aim for this thesis is to develop a foundation for a compression system for animated mesh sequences, specifically under dynamic change of mesh geometry and topology. Compression of mesh sequences is of special interest in the game industry and this particular thesis is a part of an ongoing series of projects at EA DICE. One of the primary challenges when creating a mesh compression system is creating a matching bijective subset of the mesh surfaces between two subsequent frames in the animation to guide remeshing of the sequence. This thesis describes a method for producing a bijective set of matching mesh patches between two meshes along with an error metric that captures the quality of the matching in terms of shape similarity and distortion. Theory of mathematical topology and tensor algebra used in methods for high performance scientific digital 3D-image recognition are here adopted to extract similar local features between meshes. Techniques for creating parametrizations of mesh patches are combined with techniques for matching point clouds and deforming mesh geometry under energy minimization in order to produce a matching set of patches. The presented algorithm successfully creates bijective sets of matched patches for subsequent meshes in a sequence as well as measures the error for the matchings. Results show an average matching set size of approximately 25% of the mesh areas over a sequence of meshes. This suggests that the data size of such a sequence could potentially be reduced by 25%.

In modern games and animation there is a constant strive for more realistic motion. Today a lot of games use motion matching and blending with lots of post-processing steps to produce animations, but these methods often require huge amounts of motions clips while still having problems with realistic joint weights. Using machine learning for generating motion is a fairly new technique, and is proving to be a viable option due to the lower cost and potentially more realistic results. Probabilistic models could be suitable candidates for solving a problem such as this as the are able to model a wide variety of motions due to their built-in randomness. This thesis examines a few different models which could be used for generating motion for character when interacting with terrain, such as when walking up an incline. The main models examined in this thesis are the MoGlow model and a CVAE model. Firstly virtual scenes are built in Unity based upon loads of motion capture clips containing movements interacting with the terrain. A character is then inserted into the scene and the animation clips are played. Data is exported consisting of the character’s joint positions and rotations in relation to the surrounding terrain. This data is then used to train the models using supervised learning. Evaluation of this is done by having character go through an obstacles course of varying terrains, generating motion from the different models. After this foot sliding was measured as well as frame-rates. This was also compared to values from that of a selection of motion capture clips. In addition to this a user study is conducted where the users are asked to rate the quality of generated motion in certain video clips. The results show that both the MoGlow and CVAE models produced movement resembling real human movement on uneven terrain, with the MoGlow model’s results being most similar to that of a the motion capture training data. These were also found to be executable at interactive frame-rates, making them suitable for use in video games. / I moderna spel och animationer finns det en konstant strävan efter mer realistisk rörelse. I dagsläget använder många spel teknologier så som rörelsematchning och flera efterprocessering steg för att producera animationer, men ett problem med dessa metoder är att det oftast krävs enorma mängder rörelse klipp för att kunna anpassas till alla möjliga situationer, samtidigt som man ofta tappar lite av vikten i rörelserna. Användet av maskinginlärning för att generera rörelser är en relativt ny utveckling, och ses som en möjlig lösning till dessa problem. Probabilistka modeller är en typ av modeller som kan användas för detta, eftersom att de kan representera en bred variation av rörelser med samma model, på grund av den underligande slumpmässigheten. Det här pappret kommer att undersöka olika probabilistka modeller som kan användas för att generera rörelse när man även tar hansyn till omgivningen, tex när man går i en uppförsbacke. De huvudsakliga modellerna som kommer undersökas är en MoGlow model och en CVAE model. Först så byggs virtuella scener in Unity utifrån en mängd animationsklipp. Därefter stoppas en karaktär in och de här klippen spelas upp. I detta steg är data exporterad som innehåller karaktärens position och benens rotationer i relation till omgivningen. Denna data används sedan för att träna modellerna med väglett lärande. Evaluering är genomförd genom att ha karaktärer gå igenom hinderbanor uppbyggda av varierande terränger, där modeller genererar rörelser för karaktären. Fotglidande och bildhastighet är avmätt och resultatet av metoderna är jämfört med varandra och med utvald data från inspelade träningsdatan. Utöver detta görs även en användarstudie där personer får ge betyg till generarde rörelser utifrån en mängd videoklipp. Resultaten visar att båda MoGlow och CVAE modellen producerar rörelse som liknar realsiska männsklig rörelse vid interaktion mod ojämn terräng. MoGlow modellen visar resultat mest likt den inspelade data. Alla modeller testade går att kör interaktiva bildhastigheter, vilket gör dem lämpliga för använding i dataspel.

The main aim of this contribution is to introduce the potential that modern information technologies open to authors converting a teaching material from a printed to an electronic version. The authors come out of their own experience and propose options that are suitable especially for creation of study materials in mathematics education. Among others the contribution presents the use of flash animations, java scripts and Computer Algebra Systems.

This study is an evaluation of online annotated readers developed for first grade students enrolled in Chinese immersion. The electronic readers were created to provide additional input to immersion students, who had little time in class for Chinese character reinforcement. The students accessed online readers from their homes and took assessments before and after each reader to test for improved character comprehension. In addition, students were divided into treatment and control groups. The treatment group had annotated electronic readers with audio and games. Conversely, the control group did not have annotations but audio was included. Results demonstrate a significant difference between preliminary and post-assessments, suggesting that students comprehended more characters after reading. No significant differences were detected between the control (non-annotated) and treatment (annotated) groups. Additional data collected from parent surveys provide useful demographics about subjects' socio-cultural and language variables as well as highlight parental desires for more support and help-aides. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in relationship to young immersion students learning Chinese is also discussed. Results suggest that online annotated readers can be an important resource for students who have limited instructional time in the classroom and little opportunity to receive help at home.

Nya casinon dyker upp allt oftare och spelberoende är ett återkommande ämne i nyheterna. Trots alla nya onlinecasinon finns det inga studier idag som undersöker hur den visuella aspekten av dessa onlinespel påverkar spelarna. Denna studie undersöker hur visuell återkoppling påverkar individernas spelande och risktagande när de spelar på onlinecasinon. För att studera dessa effekter genomfördes en studie på 45 studenter som delades in i två grupper. Båda grupperna blev ombedda att spela en prototyp av en enarmad bandit skapad för denna studie som heter "Casino Slotmachine". En grupp såg en vanlig grå pop-up ruta med resultat, medan den andra gruppen utsattes för animeringar i form av fallande konfetti när de vann och en mer estetiskt tilltalande popup-box i en ljusgul ton med resultat. Under spelet registrerades deltagarnas satsningar per runda, tid per runda samt antalet klick per runda. Varje deltagare spelade 20 rundor av spelet. Efter spelet svarade deltagarna på en enkät om deras spelupplevelse. Resultaten visar att deltagarna som fick visuell återkoppling tog större risker under sessionen än gruppen som inte fick visuell återkoppling. Visuell återkoppling kan därför vara en underliggande faktor till varför vissa spelare i onlinecasinon tar större risker idag. Undersökningen visar också på att de som fick visuell återkoppling blev mindre stressade av spelet än de som inte gjorde det. Både män och kvinnor påverkades på samma sätt av den visuella återkopplingen. / New casinos appear online constantly, and gambling addiction is a recurring subject in the news. Despite all the new online casinos, there are no studies today that investigate how the visual aspect of these online games affects the players. This study examines how visual feedback affects individuals' gambling and risk-taking when gambling on online casinos. To study these effects, a study was conducted on 45 students who were divided into two groups. Both groups were asked to play a prototype of a slot machine created for this study called "Casino Slotmachine". One group saw a regular gray pop-up box displaying net profit, while the other group was exposed to animations in the form of falling confetti when winning, and a more aesthetically pleasing pop-up box in a light yellow tone displaying net profit. During the game, the participants' bet per round, time per round and the amount of clicks per round was recorded. Each participant played 20 rounds of the game. After playing, the participants responded to a survey about their gaming experience. The results show that the participants who received visual feedback took more risks during the session than the group that did not receive visual feedback. Visual feedback can therefore be an underlying factor to why some players in online casinos are taking greater risks today. The survey also shows that those who received visual feedback became less stressed by the game than those who did not. Both men and women were similarly affected by the visual feedback.

Syftet med detta examensarbete var att undersöka animationer i kemiundervisning på gymnasieskolan. Mer specifikt: att utreda hur animationer för närvarande används i undervisningen, vilken betydelse förkunskaper har på elevens förståelse av animationer och även hur förståelsen påverkas av animationens design. För undersökningen valdes området kemisk bindning. Den första delen, kartläggningen av hur animationer används i kemiundervisningen, utreddes med hjälp av en lärarenkät. Den andra delen, undersökningen av elevers förståelse för animationer utifrån förkunskaper och animationens design, gjordes med hjälp av en elevenkät och en elevintervju. Under elevintervjun fick eleverna ta del av två utvecklade animationer, där den ena illustrerade jonbindning i två dimensioner och den andra i tre dimensioner. Animationerna visades genom att hälften av eleverna började med den ena animationen medan övriga inledde med den andra för att ta reda på om ordningsföljden inverkar på lärandet. För att komplettera dessa två delar utfördes en litteratursammanställning, med inriktning mot lärande, animationer och sambandet mellan de två.Insamlade data analyserades genom en tematisk analys. Resultaten som följde ur analysen var fyra olika teman relaterade till elevers begreppsanvändning. De visade att elever använder begrepp som är relevanta men inte förväntade, eller begrepp som är irrelevanta för det aktuella kemiska området. Vidare visade vissa elever en avsaknad av begrepp för att förklara det kemiska området. Till sist framkom en skillnad mellan elevers uppfattning av animationer i två dimensioner och animationer i tre dimensioner. Vissa begrepp tenderade att endast nämnas i diskussion kring animationen i två dimensioner och föll bort vid tre dimensioner. Utifrån dessa teman kunde olika möjliga strategier för lärare lyftas fram med hjälp av den litteratur som framförts. Dessa strategier sammanfattades sedan i ett vägledande material för kemilärare i gymnasieskolan. Materialet är avsett att vägleda lärare i hur animationer på bästa sätt används i kemiundervisningen med avseende på elevernas förutsättningar.Sammanfattningsvis kunde följande slutsatser dras. Animationer används i gymnasieskolans kemikurser med syfte att illustrera fenomen och processer som inte går att se med blotta ögat. Gällande elevers förståelse för animationer finns det flera påverkande faktorer. Brister i förkunskaper kan leda till att eleven använder irrelevanta begrepp, eller att de relevanta begreppen inte finns i elevens vokabulär. En högre grad av förkunskap kan däremot leda till att eleven använder begrepp som läraren inte förväntat sig i den aktuella undervisningssituationen. Animationens dimensionalitet påverkar elevens förståelse. En tvådimensionell animation visade sig enklare för eleverna att förstå än en tredimensionell animation. Lärarens uppdrag är att ta hänsyn till dessa aspekter för att eleverna ska ha användning för animationerna i sina lärprocesser. / The purpose of this thesis was to investigate animations in chemistry education in Swedish upper secondary school. More specifically, to discern how animations are currently used in education, how prior knowledge affects the students’ understanding of animations and lastly how the understanding is affected by the design of the animation. For this investigation the subject of chemical bonds was chosen. The initial part, mapping the usage of animations in chemistry education, was investigated with a teacher survey. The second part, investigation of students’ understanding based on prior knowledge and the design of the animation, was conducted with a student survey and a student interview. During the student interview, the students were presented with two animations developed by the interviewers, where one depicted ionic bonds in two dimensions while the other depicted the concept in three dimensions. The animations were presented by having half of the students first view one of the animations, while the remaining students started with the other one in order to distinguish if the sequencing affects learning. To complement these two parts, a study of literature was conducted, with direction towards teaching, animations and the connection between the two. Gathered data were analyzed through a thematic analysis. The results that followed from this analysis were four different themes related to students’ usage of concepts. They showed that students use concepts that are relevant but not expected, or concepts that are irrelevant for the current chemical field. Furthermore, students showed a lack of concepts when trying to explain the chemical field. Lastly, a difference was distinguished between students’ perception of animations in two dimensions and animations in three dimensions. Some concepts tended to only appear in relation to the animation in two dimensions. Based on these themes, different strategies for teachers were highlighted with the help from the presented literature. These strategies were summarized in a guiding material for chemistry teachers in the Swedish upper secondary school. The material is intended to guide teachers in how to use animations in chemistry education in an optimal way regarding students’ prerequisites.To sum up, the following conclusions could be drawn. Animations are used in chemistry courses of Swedish upper secondary schools with the purpose of illustrating phenomena and processes that are not visible to the naked eye. Regarding students’ understanding of animations there are several influencing factors. Lack of prior knowledge can lead to the student using irrelevant concepts, or that the relevant concepts are not in the student’s vocabulary. A higher degree of prior knowledge can result in the student utilizing concepts that the teacher did not expect in the current instructional context. The dimensionality of the animation affects the student’s understanding. A two-dimensional animation proved to be easier for the students to understand than a three-dimensional animation. The teacher’s responsibility is to consider these aspects for the students to make use of the animations in their learning processes.

No description available.

<p>The main objectives of this work were to investigate Geographical Information Systems techniques for modelling a cross-country trafficability. To accomplished stated tasks, reciprocal relationships between the soil deposits, local hydrology, geology and geomorphology were studied in relation to the study area in South-Eastern Sweden.</p><p>Growing awareness of nowadays users of GIS in general is being concentrated on understanding an importance of soil conditions changed after cross-country trafficability. Therefore, in this thesis, constructing of the Soil Knowledge Database introduced to the genuine geological soil textural classes a new, modified geotechnical division with desirable for off-road ground reasoning measurable factors, like soil permeability, capillarity or Atterberg’s consistency limits.</p><p>Digital Elevation Model, the driving force for landscape studies in the thesis, was carefully examined together with the complementary datasets of the investigated area. Testing of the elevation data was done in association to the hydrological modelling, which resulted with the Wetness Index map. The three distinguishable soil wetness conditions: dry, moist and wet, were obtained, and used consequently for creation of the static ground conditions map, a visible medium of soils susceptibility to for example machine compaction.</p><p>The work resulted with a conceptual scheme for cross-country trafficability modelling, which was put into effect while modeling in GIS. As a final outcome, by combining all processed data together, derivatives were incorporated and draped over the rendered 3D animating scene. A visually aided simulation enabled to concretized theoretical, hypothetical and experimental outcomes into one coherent model of apprised under Multicriterial Evaluation techniques standardized factor maps for ground vehicle maneuverability. Also further steps of research were proposed.</p>

The main objectives of this work were to investigate Geographical Information Systems techniques for modelling a cross-country trafficability. To accomplished stated tasks, reciprocal relationships between the soil deposits, local hydrology, geology and geomorphology were studied in relation to the study area in South-Eastern Sweden. Growing awareness of nowadays users of GIS in general is being concentrated on understanding an importance of soil conditions changed after cross-country trafficability. Therefore, in this thesis, constructing of the Soil Knowledge Database introduced to the genuine geological soil textural classes a new, modified geotechnical division with desirable for off-road ground reasoning measurable factors, like soil permeability, capillarity or Atterberg’s consistency limits. Digital Elevation Model, the driving force for landscape studies in the thesis, was carefully examined together with the complementary datasets of the investigated area. Testing of the elevation data was done in association to the hydrological modelling, which resulted with the Wetness Index map. The three distinguishable soil wetness conditions: dry, moist and wet, were obtained, and used consequently for creation of the static ground conditions map, a visible medium of soils susceptibility to for example machine compaction. The work resulted with a conceptual scheme for cross-country trafficability modelling, which was put into effect while modeling in GIS. As a final outcome, by combining all processed data together, derivatives were incorporated and draped over the rendered 3D animating scene. A visually aided simulation enabled to concretized theoretical, hypothetical and experimental outcomes into one coherent model of apprised under Multicriterial Evaluation techniques standardized factor maps for ground vehicle maneuverability. Also further steps of research were proposed.