La présente thèse a comme sujet les icônes hagiographiques exécutées du début du XVe à la fin du XVIIe siècle dans l'île de Crète qui était sous domination vénitienne depuis 1210. La prise de Constantinople par les Ottomans en 1453 a privé l'empire byzantin de son centre et la Crète, où plusieurs peintres constantinopolitains se sont réfugiés, a développé, sous leur influence, l'art du chevalet dans des ateliers organisés sur le modèle des ateliers occidentaux. La présente étude inclut 74 icônes de 26 saints. Dans l'introduction, la présentation du sujet est suivie de l'intégration des œuvres dans leur contexte historique et artistique, de la présentation de l'état de la recherche et de J'approche méthodologique. Le texte s'articule en quatre chapitres. Le premier inclut une présentation de la fréquence de l'illustration des saints sur les icônes, de la répartition des œuvres par siècle, de la localisation des peintres connus et des commanditaires d'après des inscriptions dédicatoires. Le deuxième aborde l'évolution de la typologie quant à la disposition du cycle hagiographique du saint par rapport à la représentation centrale, au nombre des compartiments et le rapport avec celui des épisodes illustrés, les modes de délimitation des compartiments et la mise en place des épisodes illustrés. Le troisième chapitre étudie en détail l'évolution de l'iconographie des scènes, de la constitution des cycles et de la diffusion des formules iconographiques, avec comme point de départ les cycles des saints Georges et Nicolas. L'étude de l'évolution iconographique des cycles des toutes les icônes, suivant l'ordre chronologique des œuvres, est abordée dans le quatrième chapitre. / The present thesis is about vita icons executed from the beginning of the 15th to the end of the 17th c. on the island of Crete which was under Venetian rule since 1210. The capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453 deprived the Byzantine empire of its center and Crete, where several Constantinopolitan painters have taken refuge, has developed, under their influence, the art of the icons painting in workshops organized on the mode] of Western workshops. This study includes 74 icons of 26 saints. ln the Introduction, the presentation of the subject is followed by the integration of the works in their historical and artistic context, the presentation of the state of the research and the methodological approach. The text is divided into 4 chapters. The 1st includes a presentation of the frequency of illustration of saints on icons, the distribution of works by century, the location of known painters and sponsors based on dedicatory inscriptions. The 2nd deals with the evolution of the typology as to the disposition of the hagiographic cycle of the saint in relation to the central representation, the number of compartments and the relationship with that of the illustrated episodes, the modes of delimitation of the compartments and the establishment of the illustrated episodes. The 3d chapter studies in detail the evolution of the iconography of the scenes, the constitution of the cycles and the diffusion of the iconographic formulas, with as starting point the cycles of saints Georges and Nicolas. The study of the evolution of the iconography of the cycles of ail the icons, according to the chronological order of the works, is addressed in the 4th chapter.

This thesis investigates the effect of incorporating various information visualisation techniques and non-speech sounds (i.e. auditory icons and earcons) in email browsing. This empirical work consisted of three experimental phases. The first experimental phase aimed at finding out the most usable visualisation techniques for presenting email information. This experiment involved the development of two experimental email visualisation approaches which were called LinearVis and MatrixVis. These approaches visualised email messages based on a dateline together with various types of email information such as the time and the senders. The findings of this experiment were used as a basis for the development of a further email visualisation approach which was called LinearVis II. This novel approach presented email data based on multi-coordinated views. The usability of messages retrieval in this approach was investigated and compared to a typical email client in the second experimental phase. Users were required to retrieve email messages in the two experiments with the provided relevant information such as the subject, status and priority. The third experimental phase aimed at exploring the usability of retrieving email messages by using other type of email data, particularly email threads. This experiment investigated the synergic use of graphical representations with non-speech sounds (Multimodal Metaphors), graphical representations and textual display to present email threads and to communicate contextual information about email threads. The findings of this empirical study demonstrated that there is a high potential for using information visualisation techniques and non-speech sounds (i.e. auditory icons and earcons) to improve the usability of email message retrieval. Furthermore, the thesis concludes with a set of empirically derived guidelines for the use of information visualisation techniques and non-speech sound to improve email browsing.

Information Technology is an essential part of the National Curriculum in the UK, yet despite the growth of IT in schools that this has generated, there is evidence that children are not to be taken into consideration enough when designing aspects of educational software. The functionality available in education software packages tends to be made available through static icons, yet there are problems with their implementation as they can at times cause confusion for the user in terms of the functionality that they are aiming to represent. In order to make icons in educational software more effective, and to meet the needs of children, of the use of animated icons has been suggested. Animating the function of the icon aims to provide a clarification of its meaning and demonstrate its capabilities, as well as explaining to the user the method of use. However, there is little information available on how to support the design of effective animated icons. Focusing on a target age group of 11 to 12 year olds, this thesis argues that some form of support mechanism should be developed for the design of animated icons to ensure that consideration is being given to the types of object that children find useful and accessible. A set of dimensions where guidance on visual aspects of the icon may be useful are developed through analysis of relevant literature and it is highlighted that they do not provide any insight into what types of object may be helpful in designing the animated icons. This thesis then argues that animated icon design can be usefully informed by psychological theories of learning and that using such theories as a base may provide an understanding of how children identify icon functionality. The thesis introduces and critiques Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology theory, Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory and Leontjev’s Activity Theory, identifying aspects of the theories which may be of relevance to the design of animated icons. By investigating the relationships between the dimensions of animated icons and the concepts from the theories of learning, insights are developed into the impact of visual factors on a child’s identification and understanding of icon functionality. The thesis goes on to report a practical study where the sample is a group of 11 to 12 year old children. The practical study consists of three phases. The first phase gathers data related to the children’s familiarity with computers and the types of software packages that they use. The second phase looks at their use and recognition of static icon functionality. The last phase involves using the findings from phases 1 and 2 to create and evaluate a set of animated icons, the development of which is based on the relationships between the concepts from theories of learning and the identified dimensions of animated icons. The analysis of the evidence from the practical study leads to a small set of design principles being proposed that are aimed to provide advice/guidance on how to design animated icons effectively for this target age group, with an emphasis on the types of object that might be used. The principles are underpinned by the concepts from the theories of learning and presented in a manner that aims to be understandable by, and accessible to, designers.

My creative project is a system of resource materials designed for parents and expecting parents to promote acceptance of babies with Down syndrome. This project is also a study of information architecture and icon development, and an opportunity to study the universal and emotive qualities of an iconic system.

According to the Webster's unabridged dictionary, a mania is an excessively intense enthusiasm, interest, or desire; a craze. I experience a mania on a daily basis: I take photographs. I trap photographs inside flat, airless fish tanks where time stands still. The creatures captured inside the tanks resurrect every time I see them to remind me of a sound, an odor, a flavor, and, ultimately, a feeling I once experienced and now cherish. This project will attempt to show the energy captured in my photographic archives as a journey through my memories using an experimental interactive method.

As the world becomes smaller through advances in telecommunications, the need for communication between speakers of different languages becomes greater. Concerns about cultural and economic hegemony argue against the use of any natural language, and machine translation is not yet perfected and available to speakers of all languages. With the technological developments of the last decade, such as powerful computers, graphical interfaces, and the World Wide Web, an excellent opportunity has been created for a computer-mediated visual interlingua to meet this need. An iconic language could be designed to take advantage of the technology. People would be able to communicate with an iconic language without the need to draw pictures themselves, since they could choose these pictures from the screen. This dissertation describes VIL, an iconic visual interlingua based on the notion of simplified speech. Similar to pidgins, languages arising from the prolonged contact between people speaking two or more languages, VIL utilizes features that are in the 'greatest common denominator' of features in different languages. This allows its complexity to be significantly reduced; for example, it has no inflection, no number, gender, or tense markers, and no articles. VIL has no linear order. This is possible because it was designed as a visual language, in contrast to written languages which are the result of a transfer to visual modality of spoken language, which evolved in the context of auditory modality where sequencing and ordering is critical. After reviewing previous research on universal languages that are artificial, non-artificial, and visual, VIL is described in detail, including its parts of speech, its grammar, and its organization for verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Throughout the discussion a set of principles is proposed, some of which are relevant to any universal language, others specific to visual or iconic languages. The development of a set of icons is also presented. Finally, the evaluations of the icons, language, and the system itself are described.

No description available.

This dissertation considers the interactions of users who have been diagnosed with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of blindness in adults 65 years and older. The investigation focused on the quantification of behaviors and strategies used by this growing subset of computer users. Participants diagnosed with AMD and age-matched controls without any ocular disease completed a series of visual search, icon selection and manipulation tasks with desktop or handheld PCs. Participants searched, selected and manipulated familiar playing card icons under varied icon set sizes, inter-icon spacing, icon sizes and auditory feedback. A comprehensive account of the interaction was made using a collection of efficiency, accuracy and information processing metrics. While all participants demonstrated a high rate for successful task completion, analyses revealed participants' overall task efficacy to be coupled with features of the interface and also strongly linked with measures of ocular health and personal factors. The outcomes of this study contribute to a growing body of work which informs a framework of performance thresholds for critical graphical user interface interactions based on visual profile, interface features and supplemental non-visual cues, including the following: The impact of auditory feedback on task interaction and information processing for visually impaired versus visually healthy older adults; The observed of use of the mouse pointer or stylus as means to direct attention during visual search and the implications of manual dexterity on visual search; The presence of speed accuracy trade-offs in handheld PC interaction performance for individuals based on their contrast sensitivity and near visual acuity; The shifting impact of increased icon spacing on visual search and movement times, versus its role in the accuracy of icon release; The utility for non-clinically acquired summaries of visual health to effectively predict performance decrements in handheld or desktop interaction; Emergent differences between handheld and desktop interaction and the most influential visual factors informing performance on each; and Empirical evidence that older adults, even with visual impairments can interact with small handheld displays, in spite of the size images.

<p>The purpose of this study is to examine the possible theoretic and (f)actual role(s) of pop-culture icons in peace and evelopment-related global issues, using the qualitative research methods of text- and discourse analysis. Do pop-culture icons have a role to play at all in this field? If so, what is that role? What are these celebrity activists currently saying and doing on the international development scene and what are their analyses like? What are their current and historical functions? There is support in the academic literature suggesting that celebrity activists can possess vast power resources (scope of influence), (soft) power and (charismatic) authority, which in turn enables them to influence the attitudes and values of (especially young, receptive) people. The findings also show that the most successful celebrity activists have a global reach, as well as access to the international arenas of political power (e. g. the G8 and the World Economic Forum). Celebrity activists seem to be able to "sell" messages in a way that the politicians and officials of today cannot. When they speak, people listen. They further employ a two-level outreach, as they connect with political and economical elite groups as well as with the masses of world citizens in a way that politicians and officials, whose influence is more often limited by traditional nation state boundaries, cannot. I argue that the celebrity activists should be seen as a complement to the civil society and the work of NGO's and INGO's, since it is by further enhancing their work and strengthening their agendas that most of them act.Celebrity activists offer an alternative to the political establishment, which is viewed by suspicion by large groups of citizens, and can play a role in empowerment, inspiration, education, information, awareness raising, fundraising, opinion building and lobbying and function as diplomats, spokespersons, ambassadors, entrepreneurs, convenors and heroic voices.</p>

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2008. / Abstract. Description based on microfiche version record. Includes bibliographical references.