Narratives are fundamental to our understanding of the world, and they are pervasive in all activities that involve representing events in time. Narrative analysis has a series of applications in computational journalism, intelligence analysis, and misinformation modeling. In particular, narratives are a key element of the sensemaking process of analysts. In this work, we propose a narrative model and visualization method to aid analysts with this process. In particular, we propose the narrative maps framework—an event-based representation that uses a directed acyclic graph to represent the narrative structure—and a series of empirically defined design guidelines for map construction obtained from a user study. Furthermore, our narrative extraction pipeline is based on maximizing coherence—modeled as a function of surface text similarity and topical similarity—subject to coverage—modeled through topical clusters—and structural constraints through the use of linear programming optimization. For the purposes of our evaluation, we focus on the news narrative domain and showcase the capabilities of our model through several case studies and user evaluations. Moreover, we augment the narrative maps framework with interactive AI techniques—using semantic interaction and explainable AI—to create an interactive narrative model that is capable of learning from user interactions to customize the narrative model based on the user's needs and providing explanations for each core component of the narrative model. Throughout this process, we propose a general framework for interactive AI that can handle similar models to narrative maps—that is, models that mix continuous low-level representations (e.g., dimensionality reduction) with more abstract high-level discrete structures (e.g., graphs). Finally, we evaluate our proposed framework through an insight-based user study. In particular, we perform a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the behavior of users and explore their cognitive strategies, including how they use the explainable AI and semantic interaction capabilities of our system. Our evaluation shows that our proposed interactive AI framework for narrative maps is capable of aiding users in finding more insights from data when compared to the baseline. / Doctor of Philosophy / Narratives are essential to how we understand the world. They help us make sense of events that happen over time. This research focuses on developing a method to assist people, like journalists and analysts, in understanding complex information. To do this, we introduce a new approach called narrative maps. This model allows us to extract and visualize stories from text data. To improve our model, we use interactive artificial intelligence techniques. These techniques allow our model to learn from user feedback and be customized to fit different needs. We also use these methods to explain how the model works, so users can understand it better. We evaluate our approach by studying how users interact with it when doing a task with news stories. We consider how useful the system is in helping users gain insights. Our results show that our method aids users in finding important insights compared to traditional methods.

Making sense of large collections of images is difficult. Dimension reductions (DR) assist by organizing images in a 2D space based on similarities, but provide little support for explaining why images were placed together or apart in the 2D space. Additionally, they do not provide support for modifying and updating the 2D space to explore new relationships and organizations of images. To address these problems, we present an interactive DR method for images that uses visual features extracted by a deep neural network to project the images into 2D space and provides visual explanations of image features that contributed to the 2D location. In addition, it allows people to directly manipulate the 2D projection space to define alternative relationships and explore subsequent projections of the images. With an iterative cycle of semantic interaction and explainable-AI feedback, people can explore complex visual relationships in image data. Our approach to human-AI interaction integrates visual knowledge from both human mental models and pre-trained deep neural models to explore image data. Two usage scenarios are provided to demonstrate that our method is able to capture human feedback and incorporate it into the model. Our visual explanations help bridge the gap between the feature space and the original images to illustrate the knowledge learned by the model, creating a synergy between human and machine that facilitates a more complete analysis experience. / Master of Science / High-dimensional data is everywhere. A spreadsheet with many columns, text documents, images, ... ,etc. Exploring and visualizing high-dimensional data can be challenging. Dimension reduction (DR) techniques can help. High dimensional data can be projected into 3d or 2d space and visualized as a scatter plot.Additionally, DR tool can be interactive to help users better explore data and understand underlying algorithms. Designing such interactive DR tool is challenging for images. To address this problem, this thesis presents a tool that can visualize images to a 2D plot, data points that are considered similar are projected close to each other and vice versa. Users can manipulate images directly on this scatterplot-like visualization based on own knowledge to update the display, saliency maps are provided to reflect model's re-projection reasoning.

Information, products and services can be requested and purchased via the Interactive Video Data Service (IVDS) system developed by The Center for Wireless Telecommunications, Virginia Tech. This system consists of three components - User control, Repeater unit and a Host program. The user requests a service using his/her television remote (User control). A transceiver (User control) located near the television set responds to user requests by extracting information hidden in the commercial's audio, and transmitting information to the repeater unit. The receiver unit decodes received messages and forwards them in capsules to the Host component. Thus the user requests are received by the host system. The repeater unit is a real-time operating system with its in-built hardware and software functions. Application specific software can be written using the existing software drivers and libraries (kernel) to decode and process messages. The Host program monitors and responds to received user messages. This thesis focuses on the repeater unit hardware setup and discusses the application software implementation developed to receive messages from the transceiver box and to retransmit the messages in a different format over the Internet. The software specifications included no incoming message loss, ability to statically hold 10000 user messages, time-stamp and location-stamp (using a GPS receiver) forwarded messages, scheduling messages for retransmission based on message priority, and retransmission using the point-to-point protocol (PPP) using a dial-up modem connection. In order to achieve better performance the existing software kernel was re-written in some sections. This thesis also discusses some of the system limitations from the repeater unit's perspective. / Master of Science

This thesis presents a pedagogical framework for understanding dynamic Parametricism within the new media culture. As indicated by the title, 'Appliance Architecture in the Invisible College: a Pedagogical Text', this paper will serve two purposes. First, appliance architecture will construct the theoretical framework that will provide the context for the four case studies presented within this thesis: an interview with Rob Ley, designer of the Reef Project; the design and development of the Eclipsis Screen for the Solar Decathlon house, Lumenhaus; the development of an architectural robotics design laboratory, Prototyping in Architectural Robotics for Technology-enriched Education (PARTeE); and workshop > no.1, a physical computing workshop held at the College of Architecture + Urban Studies (CAUS). Second, the invisible college will serve as a pedagogical framework for teaching dynamic Parametricism within appliance architecture. The invisible college will explore the emergent design typologies developed through the PARTeE laboratory's first year and will culminate in the application of the teaching methodologies used for the physical computing workshop. The following serves to establish the architectural discourse within which 'Appliance Architecture in the Invisible College' is embedded. In the broadest sense, this discourse is that of kinetic architecture. The word 'kinetic' is used to denote motion, or the act or process of changing position of over time, where time is the unit of measurement or relativity. The 'appliance' is defined as any consumer object or assembly with embedded intelligence; it does not shy away from the modern connotation of objects such as a coffee maker, refrigerator or iPod. The appliance as an assembly, therefore, presents a part-to-whole relationship that is understood through GWF Hegel's organic unity, which states: 'everything that exists stands in correlation, and this correlation is the veritable nature of every existence. The existent thing in this way has no being in its own, but only in something else, just as the whole would not be what it is but for the existence of its parts, so the parts would not be what they are but for the existence of the whole' (Leddy, 1991). It is this part-to-whole relationship which provides an understanding of the emergent typologies which structure the foundation for learning within the invisible college. / Master of Architecture

Yes / Internet and social media have created new opportunities and challenges for marketing practices. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the unanticipated consequences of interactive marketing. The current study focuses on a number of aspects of interactive marketing research such as consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-company communications, consumer brand engagement, impact of social influencers and online buzz, impact of online advertisement, companies adoption and use of new technologies by companies, consumer empowerment by digital technologies, complain handling, impact of mobile advertising, co-creation, and impact of social media marketing. This research provides a valuable synthesis of the relevant literature. The findings of this study could be used as an informative framework for both academics and practitioners.

In Stockholm, an empty station echoes the sounds of passing trains. Built in 1977 but unused since. Imagine this station transformed into a wonderland, where the absence of a surrounding locality becomes an asset. Envision a performance center where the daily rhythm of train arrivals and departures is integrated into performance art. Stepping off the train, visitors enter an interactive realm, breaking the barriers between audience and performer, observer and participant. This transformation aims to challenge the status quo, encouraging visitors to shape their own narratives rather than passively consuming culture. The design consists of three interwoven levels. The platform where one arrives where a curtain system has been designed. Allowing fordifferent temporary rooms to be coordinated following an overall geometry. The upper ground consists of a landscape design where topography curves have been used tocreate different types of scenes. Allowing for multiple interpretations, movements andhappenings in the inbetween. The third level are studios where either the artists can seek refuge, use it as backstage ordevelop their art, or as a room for performances to happen as well where the public is invited.

Neighborhoods are organic entities that are in a state of constant change and are driven by the specific context of the problem being investigated. The subsequent lack of consensus on a universal geographic definition for what constitutes a neighborhood can lead to biased interpretations of relationships between human activities and place. Further, while existing geographical information system software allows users to combine a range of geographic objects to generate regional units of analyses, their design does not explicitly assess how changing patterns, such as populations, impact the data expressed within them. This research develops an exploratory geographical information system framework that allows users to dynamically delineate neighborhoods based on user-specified characteristics. These include socioeconomic and similar measurements of neighborhood classification from information obtained from secondary data sources, including parcel data, land use/land cover information, and attribute data provided by the United States Postal Service. The proposed methodology creates custom geographies from readily available tract data obtained from various federal and state data repositories to produce indices. By allowing the user to dynamically weigh the combinations of variables used to define their neighborhood, this thesis introduces a solution to a common analytical problem in the discipline.

This dissertation examines the role of the spatial in four works of digital interactive literature. These works are Dreamaphage by Jason Nelson (2003), Last Meal Requested by Sachiko Hayashi (2003), Façade by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern (2005) and Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day by M. D. Coverley (2006). The study employs an original analytical method based on close reading and spatial analysis, which combines narrative, design and interaction theories. The resulting critique argues that the spatial components of the digital works define reader interaction and the narratives that result from it. This is one of very few in-depth studies grounded in the close reading of the spatial in digital interactive literature. Over five chapters, the dissertation analyzes the four digital works according to three common areas. Firstly, the prefaces, design and addressivity are present in each. Secondly, each of the works relies on the spatial for both interaction and the meanings that result. Thirdly, the anticipation of responses from a reader is evaluated within the interactive properties of each work. This anticipation is coordinated across the written text, moving and still images, representations of places, characters, audio and navigable spaces. The similar divisions of form, the role of the spatial and the anticipation of responses provide the basic structure for analysis. As a result, the analytical chapters open with an investigation of the prefaces, move on to the design and conclude with how the spaces of the digital works can be addressive or anticipate responses. In each chapter representations of space and representational space are described in relation to the influence they have upon the potentials for reader interaction as spatial practice. This interaction includes interpretation, as well as those elements associated with the ergodic, or the effort that defines the reception of the digital interactive texts. The opening chapter sets out the relevant theory related to space, interaction and narrative in digital literature. Chapter two presents the methodology for close reading the spatial components of the digital texts in relation to their role in interaction and narrative development. Chapter three assesses the prefaces as paratextual thresholds to the digital works and how they set up the spaces for reader engagement. The next chapter takes up the design of the digital works and its part in the formation of space and how this controls interaction. The fifth chapter looks at the addressivity of the spatial and how it contributes to the possibilities for interaction and narrative. The dissertation argues for the dominance of the spatial as a factor within the formation of narrative through interaction in digital literature, with implications across contemporary storytelling and narrative theory.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) constitutes a research field that emerged from several areas of art, creation and computer science. It inquires technologies and possible artefacts that allow ‘highly-interactive’ experiences of digital worlds with compelling stories. However, the situation for story creators approaching ‘highly-interactive’ storytelling is complex. There is a gap between the available technology, which requires programming and prior knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, and established models of storytelling, which are too linear to have the potential to be highly interactive. This thesis reports on research that lays the ground for bridging this gap, leading to novel creation philosophies in future work. A design research process has been pursued, which centred on the suggestion of conceptual models, explaining a) process structures of interdisciplinary development, b) interactive story structures including the user of the interactive story system, and c) the positioning of human authors within semi-automated creative processes. By means of ‘implicit creation’, storytelling and modelling of simulated worlds are reconciled. The conceptual models are informed by exhaustive literature review in established neighbouring disciplines. These are a) creative principles in different storytelling domains, such as screenwriting, video game writing, role playing and improvisational theatre, b) narratological studies of story grammars and structures, and c) principles of designing interactive systems, in the areas of basic HCI design and models, discourse analysis in conversational systems, as well as game- and simulation design. In a case study of artefact building, the initial models have been put into practice, evaluated and extended. These artefacts are a) a conceived authoring tool (‘Scenejo’) for the creation of digital conversational stories, and b) the development of a serious game (‘The Killer Phrase Game’) as an application development. The study demonstrates how starting out from linear storytelling, iterative steps of ‘implicit creation’ can lead to more variability and interactivity in the designed interactive story. In the concrete case, the steps included abstraction of dialogues into conditional actions, and creating a dynamic world model of the conversation. This process and artefact can be used as a model illustrating non-programmer approaches to ‘implicit creation’ in a learning process. Research demonstrates that the field of Interactive Digital Storytelling still has to be further advanced until general creative principles can be fully established, which is a long-term endeavour, dependent upon environmental factors. It also requires further technological developments. The gap is not yet closed, but it can be better explained. The research results build groundwork for education of prospective authors. Concluding the thesis, IDS-specific creative principles have been proposed for evaluation in future work.