Thesis (DPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Project (Engin.)--George Mason University, 2008. / Vita: p. 94. Project director: Mohan Venigalla. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Engineer Degree. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 13, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 93). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2008. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-100).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2008. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

The essay is an interdisciplinary work linking History of Religion and Archaeology. The work is based on the study of the finds from a unique archaeological Italian Bronze Age site. The evidence in question has been recently excavated on the outskirts of the modern town of Noceto, Parma province, in northern Italy. It is dated to the end of the local Middle Bronze Age, which corresponds roughly to the 14th century BCE, and belongs to the local so called Terramare culture.   The site consist of a large wooden basin, which once stood in a relatively dominant position within a local Bronze Age village. The basin has been always completely filled with water. Thanks to the particular environmental conditions in the pool, organic material of cellulosic nature, such as wood, preserved very well. We therefore have very precise data about the structure itself and about an astonishing number of finds that have been retrieved from the basin. The basin was apparently used for a limited period of time, which has been estimated of a few generations or a maximum of 100 years. It was apparently used as a sort of “offer place” and hundreds of finds have been sunk in its water. Although depositions in wet areas are very common all over Europe and the Mediterranean throughout the Bronze Age, no other built structures such as the Noceto’s basin are known so far. Noceto provides strong indications of religious nature, since no productive activities or every day practices could be detected in connection to it.   With an eye to the debate on the materiality of religion, the aim of the essays is in the first place to investigate and discuss how the religious nature of the place can be understood, when working solely on the results of the religious activities that once have taken place around its margins. Secondly, the aim is also to attempt using the evidence from Noceto to discuss more broadly issues of Bronze Age religion.   The analysis of the material is carried out considering deposition rituals from the point of view of performance and agency theories. It is argued that the finds from the pool acted as indexes of agency and were part of performative event that linked together the people carrying out and/or watching the ritual, the place and the divine expressed by the place.   Considering that the significance of ritual performance has been seen, among other things, in the transformative power that is contextually assigned to rituals, it is believed that the finds from Noceto’s basin likely embodied an attempt to establish or secure positive transformations possibly in people life and in fundamental productive activities such as for instance agriculture. The sacred role of water during the Bronze Age has been addressed by several scholars, but it is generally connected to the ritual “usage” of particular places such as wetlands, caves, rivers and so on. Noceto’s basin provides the possibility for the first time to analyse an attempt to artificially and magnificently bring the sacred into a settlement area and thus possibly create the premises for more controlled or regular/regulated religious activities. / Uppsatsen är ett tvärvetenskapligt arbete som länkar samman religionshistoria och arkeologi. Arbetets fokus ligger på de arkeologiska fynden som grävdes fram från en unik rituell anläggning från Norra Italien. Anläggningen i frågan befinner sig i utkanten av staden Noceto, i Parma-provinsen. Den är daterad till slutet av den lokala mellersta bronsåldern, vilket ungefär motsvarar 1400-talet f. Kr.   Anläggningen är en stor träbassäng, som en gång stod i en relativt dominerande position innanför ett boplatsområde. Bassängen har från början varit helt fyllt med vatten. Tack vare de speciella miljöförhållandena i poolen, organiskt material, såsom trä, har bevarats mycket bra. Vi har därför precisa uppgifter om själva strukturen och om ett förvånande antal fynd som fanns i bassängen. Anläggningen användes tydligen under en begränsad tidsperiod, som uppskattats av några få generationer eller maximalt c:a 100 år. Det arkeologiska materialet från poolen tyder på att det har haft en funktion som offer-plats och att hundratals objekt har sänkts i sitt vatten. Fastän deponeringar i våta områden är vanliga över hela Europa och Medelhavsområde under bronsåldern, liknande byggnader till Nocetos bassängen är än så länge inte kända. Nocetos pool ger starka bevis av religiös karaktär, eftersom tecken på produktiva verksamheter eller vardagsaktiviteter inte kunde upptäckas i den.   Med hänsyn till debatterna om religions materialitet är syftet med uppsatsen i första hand att undersöka och diskutera hur platsens religiösa natur kan förstås, om man bara arbetar med resultaten av de religiösa aktiviteterna som ägde rum kring den under bronsåldern. För det andra är målet också att försöka använda bevis från Noceto för att diskutera mer allmänna frågor kring bronsålderns religion och religiositet.   Materialet har analyserat med utgångspunkt i performance och angecy teorier. Det hävdas att fynd från poolen fungerade som indexes of agency och var ett grundläggande element av de rituella performansen som genomfördes vid bassängen.   Med tanke på att en grundläggande funktion i rituella performansen anses ligga bland annat i den transformativa kraften som tillskrivs ritualer, är förslaget att fynden från Nocetos bassäng uttrycker ett försök att åstadkomma positiva omvandlingar möjligen i människolivet och/eller i grundläggande produktiva aktiviteter såsom till exempel jordbruk. Den heliga rollen av vatten under bronsåldern har tagits upp extensivt. Särskilda platser, som våtmark, grottor, floder, källor och så vidare, har används för att deponera offer. Nocetos bassäng ger möjlighet för första gången att analysera ett försök att skapa en helgedom i ett bosättningsområde och därigenom att även skapa förutsättningar för möjligtvis kontrollerade eller regelbundna religiösa aktiviteter.

The purpose of the survey is to answer the following question: How is the learning process in digital games affected by an informative sound design? The survey analyzes the adaptation of sound design in digital games for optimized learning regarding the digital environment's responses to the actor's interaction. The work investigates actors' decisions in a digital environment and the changes in decision after a change in sound design. The study resulted in a reinforced perception when auditory icons occurred in a non-representative environment, these interactions were recorded and recalled to a greater extent in relation to remaining auditory methods. Analysis of Kolb's learning patterns in a digital environment enhanced by informative sound design was documented in the following steps: observation of interaction, reflection on interaction, implementation of hypothesis on a similar interaction, reflection on differences and similarities of varying results of interaction. / Undersökningens syfte är att besvara följande frågeställning: Hur påverkas inlärningsprocessen i digitala spel med hjälp av en informativ ljuddesign?Undersökningen analyserar anpassning av ljuddesign i digitala spel för en optimerad inlärning gällande den digitala miljöns reaktioner till aktörers interaktion. Arbetet undersöker aktörers beslut i en digital miljö och förändringarna i beslut efter en förändring i ljuddesign.Undersökningen resulterade i en förstärkt uppfattningsförmåga då Auditory Icons uppstod i en icke-representativ miljö, dessa interaktioner registrerades och återkallas i en större omfattning i förhållande till resterande auditiva metoder.Analys av Kolb’s inlärningsmönster i en digital miljö stärkt av informativ ljuddesign dokumenterades i följande steg: observation av interaktion, reflektion över interaktion, implementation av hypotes på en liknande interaktion, reflektion över skillnader och likheter av varierande resultat av interaktion.

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.

The focus of the thesis is on the last supper and how that event is depicted on icons within the Eastern Orthodox Church. Two different methods have been used to study the motive: archive studies and literature studies. The motive in itself is studied from a religious perspective as well as from a gastronomical perspective. The composition of Jesus and his disciples and how they are placed around the table, which ones that have halos are studied from the religious perspective and the different kind of food elements and utensils for a meal are studied from the gastronomical perspective. The theoretical perspective combines parts of Eliade's theory of the religious man and Söderlind's theory of the gastronomical man. During the study of the icons it became clear that the food items and utensils that are depicted are markers of identity.

With the development of the times, games, which is the basis of entertainment medium, has gradually become the tool of learning for human beings and finally promote the development of serious games. As we know that the interactive experience and aesthetic experience of games are all obtained from game icons. As the communication bridge between players and games, the functional game icons in serious games have evolved from single symbols to diversified styles icons.  With the experiment method like semantic differential and similarity computation, this paper has acquired functional icons of high matching quality and recreated them with emotional design. The case study presented in this thesis demonstrated that in a multitude of serious games, functional icons had suffered the problems of lack of interaction and difference, unbalanced unity and high similarity through comparing the cognitive level experiment of different style icons and the preference experiment of different cognitive styles. This case studies the cognition of functional icons and the types of icons preferred by different cognitive styles. In addition, different styles of functional icons have different cognitive effects, while different cognitive styles have different cognitive functions and preferences. In this case, it was found that the cognitive ergonomics of different styles of functional icons differed. For users familiar with the game, the cognitive ergonomics of flat icons were higher than that of anthropomorphic icons. The cognitive ergonomics of icons with low abstraction level was higher than that of icons with high abstraction level. Meanwhile, the cognitive efficacy and preference of different cognitive styles for different styles of functional icons are different and it is more obvious that intuiting cognitive style users prefer anthropomorphic icons. Sequential cognitive style users have higher cognitive efficacy for anthropomorphic icons than flat icons. The global cognitive style users prefer anthropomorphic icons for icons with high abstraction levels. Therefore, the design of functional icons for serious games should consider the difference in users' cognitive styles because cognitive styles can be used as an entry point for the balance between the serious part and the game part of serious games. Personalized icon design can be designed for different cognitive styles users by combining their preferences for icons, so as to increase users' interest in serious games. The symbolic icons can also be used to let players quickly understand the meaning of the game, so as to improve the learning efficiency of serious games for people with different cognitive styles. / <p>Det finns övrigt digitalt material (t.ex. film-, bild- eller ljudfiler) eller modeller/artefakter tillhörande examensarbetet som ska skickas till arkivet. / There are other digital material (eg film, image or audio files) or models/artifacts that belongs to the thesis and need to be archived. </p>