In this thesis, we explore some of the effects of virtual environment displays, specifically the head-mounted display (HMD) and the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), on 3D interaction tasks involving selection and manipulation. The motivation for this thesis comes from the lack of previous work that has studied the effects of differences between the HMD and the CAVE on 3D interaction tasks. We conducted three user studies to determine how the differences between these two displays affect selection and manipulation in a 3D environment. Our first study demonstrates that 3D selection and manipulation tasks can be affected by the display type. Our second user study shows that task performance can suffer when a selection and manipulation technique is migrated to a display for which it is not intended. The third user study we conducted suggests that we can modify a selection and manipulation technique and improve its usability in the display to which it is migrated. We conclude with a set of guidelines to ease the migration of selection and manipulation techniques from the HMD to the CAVE while trying to maintain usability. / Master of Science

The need for an examination of the rise of various journalistic and print forms in The Gentleman's Magazine is evident from the absence of scholarship in this area. One of the most important forms born in The Gentleman's Magazine is the obituary. Beginning as a sparse list of deaths appended to the back of each issue of the magazine, it came to occupy a larger role in the publication within a hundred years of its inception. My study proposes to examine the reasons for this shift, focusing on the rise of the biographical form as it is treated in the works of Samuel Johnson, a prominent contributor to The Gentleman's Magazine, and practiced at the hands of John Nichols, one of the magazine's most prominent editors. My study also seeks to characterize the content of the obituaries by historicizing them in the context of the period and within the confines of the editorial policies of the magazine itself. The magazine's editorial persona, Sylvanus Urbanus, provides general terms whereby the dead may be characterized. Ultimately, my study is interested in examining the representations of the deceased in the obituary form as social markers, that are necessary for understanding how groups and individuals represented society. / Master of Arts

No

No / Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9000-year-old South American mummy. Here we report fossil hairs of probable human origin that exceed that age by about 200,000 years. The hairs have been discovered in a brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea) coprolite from Gladysvale cave in South Africa. The coprolite is part of a hyaena latrine preserved in calcified cave sediment dated between 195,000 and 257,000 years ago. This find supports the hypothesis that hyaenas accumulated some of the early hominin remains found in cave sites, and provides a new source of information on Pleistocene mammals in the Sterkfontein Valley.

The stability of Mammoth Cave’s microclimate has never undergone extensive investigation. The Snowball Dining Room area was chosen to measure the microclimate of the cave and to determine if food preparation, human presence and surface temperature variations alter this microclimate. Three portable weather stations containing a temperature / humidity probe, datalogger and microbarograph were placed in various locations along three passageways leading away from the dining room. Readings were taken 24 hours per day for four months. Plotting temperature readings in graph form show a correlation between temperature of the passageway and distance from the dining room.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg, 2014. / This dissertation provides an analysis of the faunal remains excavated from the BSV and BSS layers from Sibudu Cave, Kwa Zulu-Natal. Based on ceramics, presence of daga floors and glass beads found within the layers the BSV and BSS were classified as dating to the Iron Age period (AD 900-1660) . The met hod of analysis follows Driver (2005). The presence of taxa shows that na tural occupants, non-human predators and human occupants accumulated the faunal material in Sibudu Cave. The taxa identified provide strong indication that at this time the site was predominantly occupied by farmers, who hunted wild ungulates and gathered marine taxa. The occupants may have used the site as a temporary shelter between camps or settlements and coastal sites. There is also some indication that the cave was utilised for religious purposes .

Os paradigmas da criação artística para a CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) ainda estão sendo elaborados pois, no âmbito da Realidade Virtual, é uma tecnologia recente e ainda bastante onerosa, fatores que dificultam sua disseminação. Ainda assim, algumas instituições possuem CAVEs para pesquisas artístico-culturais. Dentre elas, figura o centro de pesquisas Ars Electronica que, em parceria com o artista transmídia Maurice Benayoun, produziu em sua CAVE, cuja visitação é aberta ao público, a premiada obra World Skin. Com o intuito de situar o atual estado da arte das experimentações artísticas em CAVEs, esta obra mereceu análise detalhada de seus processos criativos e metodológicos. Nela, o autor investiga as reações cognitivas dos visitantes e propõe uma nova relação espaçocorporal dentro de um mundo virtual. A potencialidade artística da CAVE é grande e existe interesse dos artistas em explorá-la. As novas pesquisas e avanços tecnológicos apontam perspectivas de um maior acesso a este tipo de ambiente imersivo, consolidando-o como um prolífero suporte artístico. / The paradigms behind artistic creation for CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) are yet to be elaborate, since in the realm of Virtual Reality, this is a recent and expensive technology, which poses barriers to its own spreading. Even so, some institutions do have CAVEs for culture and artistic research. Among them, there\'s the research center Ars Electronica, which, in partnership with transmedia artist Maurice Benayoun, has produced in its CAVE (which is open for public visits), the award-winning work World Skin. With the objective of placing experimental artistic manifestations in CAVEs, this work has been deeply analyzed, concerning its creative processes and methods. The author evaluates the cognitive reactions of the visitors and proposes a new corporal-space relationship in a virtual world. The artistic potential behind a CAVE seems to be huge, and artists are willing to explore it. According to new researches and recent developed technologies, there will be a broader access to this kind of immersive environment, which might become a highly productive platform for artists.

A busca por ambientes de alto desempenho e com baixo custo vem impulsionando as pesquisas relacionadas com aglomerados de computadores. Aliado a este fato está o aumento da necessidade e interesse pelas aplicações de Realidade Virtual. Isso motiva a pesquisa e o desenvolvimento de aglomerados de computadores, bibliotecas de desenvolvimento e de estratégias de desenvolvimento de aplicações de Realidade Virtual. Este trabalho apresenta um ambiente para o desenvolvimento de aplicações de Realidade Virtual baseadas em aglomerados gráficos, que são aglomerados de computadores específicos para a Realidade Virtual. O ambiente desenvolvido é voltado principalmente para a construção de aplicações de multiprojeção, como as executadas em CAVERNAs Digitais. Para testar o ambiente criado, foram desenvolvidas diversas aplicações. Além disso, são mostradas as pesquisas que estão sendo realizadas na área; uma revisão dos problemas relacionados ao uso de aglomerados gráficos; a Glass, que é a biblioteca desenvolvida neste projeto; e estratégias para o desenvolvimento das aplicações. / The search for high performance and low cost environments has stimulated the field of computer clusters. Allied to this fact is the increasing interest and the need for Virtual Reality applications. Together, they motivate the research and the development of computer clusters, libraries and of strategies for the development of Virtual Reality applications. This thesis presents an environment for the development of Virtual Reality applications, based on graphic clusters, which are computer clusters tailored for Virtual Reality. This environment was targeted at multi-projection applications, such as those executed in CAVEs (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment). Several multi-projection applications were developed to test it. Moreover, this thesis presents an overview of the current state of the research in the area; a study of the problems related with the use of graphic clusters; Glass, a software library developed in this project; and strategies for the development of those applications.

A busca por ambientes de alto desempenho e com baixo custo vem impulsionando as pesquisas relacionadas com aglomerados de computadores. Aliado a este fato está o aumento da necessidade e interesse pelas aplicações de Realidade Virtual. Isso motiva a pesquisa e o desenvolvimento de aglomerados de computadores, bibliotecas de desenvolvimento e de estratégias de desenvolvimento de aplicações de Realidade Virtual. Este trabalho apresenta um ambiente para o desenvolvimento de aplicações de Realidade Virtual baseadas em aglomerados gráficos, que são aglomerados de computadores específicos para a Realidade Virtual. O ambiente desenvolvido é voltado principalmente para a construção de aplicações de multiprojeção, como as executadas em CAVERNAs Digitais. Para testar o ambiente criado, foram desenvolvidas diversas aplicações. Além disso, são mostradas as pesquisas que estão sendo realizadas na área; uma revisão dos problemas relacionados ao uso de aglomerados gráficos; a Glass, que é a biblioteca desenvolvida neste projeto; e estratégias para o desenvolvimento das aplicações. / The search for high performance and low cost environments has stimulated the field of computer clusters. Allied to this fact is the increasing interest and the need for Virtual Reality applications. Together, they motivate the research and the development of computer clusters, libraries and of strategies for the development of Virtual Reality applications. This thesis presents an environment for the development of Virtual Reality applications, based on graphic clusters, which are computer clusters tailored for Virtual Reality. This environment was targeted at multi-projection applications, such as those executed in CAVEs (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment). Several multi-projection applications were developed to test it. Moreover, this thesis presents an overview of the current state of the research in the area; a study of the problems related with the use of graphic clusters; Glass, a software library developed in this project; and strategies for the development of those applications.

Understanding the potential for karst aquifer contamination by sediment-sorbed pesticides is important for cave conservation efforts in agricultural landscapes. Flow rate, water quality parameters and suspended sediment concentrations were measured in Logsdon River, a ~10km karst conduit within the Turnhole Spring Groundwater Basin of Mammoth Cave National Park to determine characteristics of storm-period transport of sediment-sorbed atrazine through a conduit-flow karst aquifer. Analysis of two independent precipitation events occurring in the Spring of 2008 from May 2-4 and May 27-29 demonstrated the rapid response of the Logsdon River to precipitation events with detections of atrazine increasing during the initial turbidity peak and decline in spC, indicating that the atrazine arrives with the initial flush of surface waters that enters the conduit. Distinct peaks of atrazine did not coincide with fine grained (silt and clay-sized) sediment peaks and concentrations of atrazine remained elevated on the falling limb of the hydrograph as turbidity declined. In addition, no systematic relation between filtered and unfiltered samples was evident. There was also exceedingly weak correlation between the concentration of atrazine and suspended sediment, suggesting that if atrazine is sorbed to fine sediment particles this sorption involves only the fractions finer than 0.22 μm.