Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / This thesis proposes that it is possible to create an adjunct to traditional instructor-led training that will reduce training time and costs and at the same time improve performance using commercial off-theshelf (COTS) software. Motivated by the lessons learned following the attack on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000 in which 17 sailors were killed and 42 were wounded, we created a simulator using readily available software in minimal time with zero funding and tested it against small sample sizes of eventual recipients of the training. The simulator, as part of a blended learning solution, was shown to be as effective as traditional instructor-based learning but was conceived at a fraction of the cost and with a significant reduction in total training time. Both of these factors are increasingly being valued in today's reality of increased operational tempo and reduced resources. / Lieutenant, United States Naval Reserve

This thesis explores how massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), as an exemplary new media form, disrupt practices associated with more conventional media. These intensely social games exploit the interactivity and networks afforded by new media technologies in ways that generate new challenges for the organisation, control and regulation of media. The involvement of players in constituting these games - through their production of game-play, derivative works and strong social networks that drive the profitability of the games - disrupts some of the key foundations that underlie other publication media. MMOGs represent a new and hybrid form of media - part publication and part service. As such they sit within a number of sometimes contradictory organising and regulatory regimes. This thesis examines the negotiations and struggles for control between players, developers and publishers as issues of ownership, governance and access arise out of the new configurations. Using an ethnographic approach to gather information and insights into the practices of players, developers and publishers, this project identifies the characteristics of the distributed production network in this experiential medium. It explores structural components of successful interactive applications and analyses how the advent of player agency and the shift in authorship has meant a shift in control of the text and the relations that surround it. The integration of social networks into the textual environment, and into the business model of the media publishers has meant commerce has become entwined with affect in a new way in this medium. Publishers have moved into the role of both property managers, of the intellectual property associated with the game content, and community managers. Intellectual property management is usually associated with the reproduction and distribution of finished media products, and this sits uneasily with the performative and mutable form of this medium. Service provision consists of maintaining the game world environment, community management, providing access for players to other players and to the content generated both by the developers and the other players. Content in an MMOG is identified in this project as both the 'tangible' assets of code and artwork, rules and text, and the 'intangible' or immaterial assets of affective networks. Players are no longer just consumers of media, or even just active interpreters of media. They are co-producing the media as it is developed. This thesis frames that productiveness as unpaid labour, in an attempt to denaturalise the dominant discourse which casts players as consumers. The regulation of this medium is contentious. Conventional forms of media regulation - such as copyright, or content regulation regimes are inadequate for regulating the hybrid service/publication medium. This thesis explores how the use of contracts as the mechanism which constitutes the formal relations between players, publishers and developers creates challenges to some of the regimes of juridical and political rights held by citizens more generally. This thesis examines the productive practices of players and how the discourses of intellectual property and the discourses of the consumer are mobilised to erase the significance of those productive contributions. It also shows, using a Foucauldian analysis of the power negotiations, that players employ many counter-strategies to circumvent the more formal legal structures of the publishers. The dialogic relationship between players, developers and publishers is shown to mobilise various discursive constructions of the role of each. The outcome of these ongoing negotiations may well shape future interactive applications and the extent to which their innovative capacities will be available for all stakeholders to develop.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:33:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2005-06-30Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:05:33Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 faria_ev_dr_mar.pdf: 853311 bytes, checksum: 4d9cb2263e1ab1996a820e1027f2b57b (MD5) / O presente estudo, realizado sob a forma de pesquisa qualitativa, constitui-se um estudo de caso. Trata-se de investigar o programa especial de formação de professores em exercício nas séries iniciais do Ensino Fundamental, da rede estadual paulista - denominado PEC/Formação Universitária - oferecido pela Secretaria de Estado da Educação de São Paulo, entre junho de 2001 a dezembro de 2002, em parceria com a Universidade de São Paulo - USP, a Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP e Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo - PUC/SP. Esse programa de formação docente, presencial, se valeu do forte apoio das mídias interativas: teleconferências, videoconferências, trabalhos monitorados em ambiente de aprendizagem customizado especialmente ao programa - LearningSpace, dentre outros. Essa investigação teve como pressupostos metodológicos a análise de documentos pertinentes ao programa, a literatura específica sobre formação docente e aquela referente à aplicação de recursos das novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação em programas educativos, e, ainda, pela aplicação de entrevistas semiestruturadas aos participantes - 7 professores alunos e 2 tutores - e observação no ambiente de aprendizagem do PEC, em duas salas instaladas no CEFAM de São José do Rio Preto, contando com 67 participantes. O programa habilitou, em nível superior, 6.680 Professores de Educação Básica - PEB I, da SEE, que lecionavam na rede estadual paulista e portavam apenas a habilitação em nível médio, para a docência no ensino fundamental. Esse programa de formação de professores se insere no contexto das políticas públicas, princípios e diretrizes educacionais da SEE/SP, sustentado nos três eixos norte dessa política: racionalização educacional, mudanças nos padrões de gestão e a melhoria da qualidade de ensino... . / The present study, made under qualitative research, is made up of a study of case. It is about investigating a special program of teachersþ formation in activity at the beginning levels of the pimary education in the state of São Paulo called PEC/University graduation - offered by Secretaria de Estado da Educação de São Paulo from june 2001 to December 2002, along with University of São Paulo - USP, Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP and Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo - PUC/SP. This teacherþs program was worth due to the strong support of the interactive media: teleconferences, video-conferences monitored work in customized learning environment mainly to the program - LearningSpace, among others. This investigation brought as methodological pretext, the analysis of the pertinent documents to the program, specific literature about the teacherþs formation and that according to the application of the new technology resources and communication in educational programs and, in addition, to the semi-structured interviews for the participants - seven teachers students and two tutors - and the examination in the learning environment of PEC, in two installed classrooms at CEFAM in São José do Rio Preto, in a total of 67 participants. The program entered, according to high level degree, 6.680 Basic Education Teachers - PEB I, from SEE who tought in the system of the state of São Paulo and where they could only teach at secondary schools, for the teachers of primary schools. This program of teachersþ formation insert in the public politics, the first principals and the educational line of direction of SEE/SP, supported in the three north axes of this system: the educational rationalization, the changing of the management standart and the teaching quality ... (Complete abstract, click electronic address below)

Este trabajo de investigación analiza el fenómeno comunicacional del estilo fotográfico de Emmanuel Lubezki a través de las aplicaciones narrativas y expresivas de la cámara en la película ‘‘El Renacido’’. Cabe mencionar que se analiza el trabajo de Lubezki partiendo de la luz como elemento fundamental de expresividad. De tal modo que se logra tener una presencia de la belleza panorámica a través de los paisajes naturales que modifican las actitudes receptivas y emocionales del espectador. / This research paper analyzes the communicational phenomenon of Emmanuel Lubezki photographic style through the camera’s narrative and expressive applications in the film 'The Reborn''. It is worth mentioning that Lubezki’s work is analyzed from light as a fundamental element of expressiveness. In such a way that it is possible to have a presence of the panoramic beauty through the natural landscapes that modify the receptive and emotional attitudes of the spectator. / Trabajo de investigación

<p>Internet is one of the major achievements of 21 century by human kind. Retailers have moved their business towards a global market through internet. Human computer interaction is getting enhanced in different contexts. Consumers can now access the global markets online for the sake of shopping. Fashion industry is getting tremendous popularity in an online environment. Fashion is transformed into digital fashion where people from all over the world have easy access to the world of fashion and can interact and get hands on every piece of art. They can simply buy any fashion product anywhere in the world. The most important part in this domain is the interaction of the consumer with the media for the sake of spending money for goods having a fashion designer at the back end. So here the interaction needs to be precise and specific, especially when it comes to the sizing phase of the activity called shopping garments online. This paper investigates the current sizing trends offered by online fashion retailers and proposes the preferred state interface in order to discover the facts that enables consumers to finalize perfect size for them. The focus is on female users. The results will lead to understanding of the cause of confusion that consumer faces in selecting right size while shopping garments online.</p>

Internet is one of the major achievements of 21 century by human kind. Retailers have moved their business towards a global market through internet. Human computer interaction is getting enhanced in different contexts. Consumers can now access the global markets online for the sake of shopping. Fashion industry is getting tremendous popularity in an online environment. Fashion is transformed into digital fashion where people from all over the world have easy access to the world of fashion and can interact and get hands on every piece of art. They can simply buy any fashion product anywhere in the world. The most important part in this domain is the interaction of the consumer with the media for the sake of spending money for goods having a fashion designer at the back end. So here the interaction needs to be precise and specific, especially when it comes to the sizing phase of the activity called shopping garments online. This paper investigates the current sizing trends offered by online fashion retailers and proposes the preferred state interface in order to discover the facts that enables consumers to finalize perfect size for them. The focus is on female users. The results will lead to understanding of the cause of confusion that consumer faces in selecting right size while shopping garments online.

As an object at the boundary between virtual and physical reality, the screen exists both as a displayer and as a thing displayed, thus functioning as a mediator. The screen's virtual imagery produces a sense of immersion in its viewer, yet at the same time the materiality of the screen produces a sense of rejection from the viewer's complete involvement in the virtual world. The experience of the screen is thus an oscillation between these two states of immersion and rejection. Nowadays, as interactivity becomes a central component of the relationship between viewers and many artworks, the viewer experience of the screen is changing. Unlike the screen experience in non-interactive artworks, such as the traditional static screen of painting or the moving screen of video art in the 1970s, interactive media screen experiences can provide viewers with a more immersive, immediate, and therefore, more intense experience. For example, many digital media artworks provide an interactive experience for viewers by capturing their face or body though real-time computer vision techniques. In this situation, as the camera and the monitor in the artwork encapsulate the interactor's body in an instant feedback loop, the interactor becomes a part of the interface mechanism and responds to the artwork as the system leads or even provokes them. This thesis claims that this kind of direct mirroring in interactive screen-based media artworks does not allow the viewer the critical distance or time needed for self-reflection. The thesis examines the previous aesthetics of spatial and temporal perception, such as presentness and instantaneousness, and the notions of passage and of psychological perception such as reflection, reflexiveness and auratic experience, looking at how these aesthetics can be integrated into new media screen experiences. Based on this theoretical research, the thesis claims that interactive screen spaces can act as a site for expression and representation, both through a doubling effect between the physical and virtual worlds, and through manifold spatial and temporal mappings with the screen experience. These claims are further supported through exploration of screen-based media installations created by the author since 2003.

The purpose of this study is to determine which marketing communication methods tour operators in Gauteng, registered with SATSA, utilise. Tour operators aim to enhance tourist experiences. Companies need to be exposed to the marketplace to attract and keep business, thus marketing communication methods used by tourism organisations are examined at length. The results for the study were obtained using a web-based questionnaire. Main findings include the fact that SATSA-registered tour operators frequently use interactive media, direct marketing and advertising. Word of mouth was continually regarded as an important marketing communication method. The larger the company, the more likely it is to use advertising. Interactive media can be used by small and large companies alike. Many marketing communication methods that are used frequently were not deemed to be efficient. One may therefore conclude that SATSA-registered tour operators in Gauteng prefer to use interactive media. / Business Management / M. Comm. (Business Management)

The purpose of this study is to determine which marketing communication methods tour operators in Gauteng, registered with SATSA, utilise. Tour operators aim to enhance tourist experiences. Companies need to be exposed to the marketplace to attract and keep business, thus marketing communication methods used by tourism organisations are examined at length. The results for the study were obtained using a web-based questionnaire. Main findings include the fact that SATSA-registered tour operators frequently use interactive media, direct marketing and advertising. Word of mouth was continually regarded as an important marketing communication method. The larger the company, the more likely it is to use advertising. Interactive media can be used by small and large companies alike. Many marketing communication methods that are used frequently were not deemed to be efficient. One may therefore conclude that SATSA-registered tour operators in Gauteng prefer to use interactive media. / Business Management / M. Comm. (Business Management)

The purpose of this research was to investigate the marketing communication practices of car dealerships, in order to identify what factors are considered in the selection of the marketing communication mix incorporated in the marketing communication strategy. Furthermore, identify and establish an understanding of the marketing communication mix elements used by car dealerships in their marketing communication strategies. A qualitative research approach was followed in this paper. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with marketing personnel of various car dealerships in Gauteng, South Africa. In this paper, a qualitative content analysis was followed, and Atlas.ti version 10 computer software was used to generate themes. The study uncovered that car dealerships use various marketing communication mix elements to achieve their marketing communication objectives, such as creating dealership brand awareness, stimulating sales, and closing sales transactions. The study revealed also uncovered that internet is also used by car dealerships in executing marketing communication strategies. The study revealed the internal and external factors considered in planning and executing marketing communication strategies and campaigns. The study further discovered that these marketing communication elements are not used in isolation, but support each other in conveying marketing messages that lead to the attainment of various marketing communication objectives. The findings revealed that despite the use of radio and print media, social media types are increasingly being used by dealerships to share information with existing customers and potential customers regarding the dealerships‟ products and special offers, although the use of social media platforms varied. The study also discovered that car dealerships experience some challenges in planning and executing marketing communication strategies and campaigns. Recommendations to stakeholders in the motor industry and future research directions are provided. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)