Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 57 p. : col. ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-54).

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This study concerns students' ideas about the existence or otherwise of forces in several dynamical situations involving moving objects and objects at rest. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of students' ideas about dynamics. It differs from previous research (a) in covering a wider-range among students and larger variation in taught Physics background. (b) in attempting to tap less verbal forms of evidence and (c) in attempting to avoid 'scientifism' in terms of the way to approach students and in terms of interpreting results. The empirical part of the study involved 338 students from seven different groups. Data was collected from the above sample. using a questionnaire to which responses were simply graphic indications of the directions of expected forces. and. if possible. the giving of names to these forces. in eight situations presented diagrammatically. In addition. data was collected from a sub-sample. by means of computer games using a screen 'object' obeying Newtonian Mechanics. in a frictional and a non-frictional 'environment'. under the control of the subject. Difficulties in interpreting the last kind of data led to the main study being focussed on the results of the questionnaire. Some results from the computer games are however presented. They are mainly concerned with students' performance when playing in a frictional versus non-frictional 'environment'. Results suggest a better students' performance when playing in a frictional 'environment'. Results obtained with the questionnaire concern: (a) differences between situations in patterns of expected directions. among students of the same group and between groups. Generally the results suggest the existence of common patterns among the students of the same group and systematic differences between patterns of groups with an increase in exposure to physics teaching. namely the attribution of new force directions [e.g. vertical and downwards. opposite to motion). despite the persistence of primitive ideas (e.g. a force along the motion); (b) names given to the different kinds of forces in various directions. Results include a difficulty found in naming forces which existed before teaching. They also give information about how scientific terms are assimilated. Interpretations of the results. mainly taken from a theory of Common Sense Reasoning about motions proposed by Ogborn (1985). seem to give them a reasonable explanation. Although requiring further investigation. this gives some support to claim that students' intuitive ideas about dynamics should be regarded [i] as deriving from a rather general and coherent set of ideas, [ii] as less formalized in terms of the scientific world view and [iii] as having their origin mainly in actions on the world.

It has been claimed that action representations can be evoked by the image of a handled object (Tucker & Ellis, 1998). Contrary to this view, it may instead be the location of the object’s handle in visual space that generates a spatial code that in turn interacts with selection of response location. For example, an object with its handle extending into right visual space may bias attention to the right, resulting in a faster right- versus left-sided response (Cho & Proctor, 2010). In the current experiments I present evidence that under certain task conditions, images of objects evoke their corresponding action representations. When subjects engaged in laterality judgments to images of hands presented after or in conjunction with an image of a handled object, motor representations associated with that object were evoked. Although the location of the handle was irrelevant to the task, subjects were faster at responding when the depicted handle location and hand of response were aligned (i.e., right-handed key press to a right-handled frying pan) rather than misaligned. The effect of alignment remained constant across the response time distribution. When subjects made a crossed-hand response, the alignment effect was driven by a correspondence between the location of the object’s handle and the response hand, not the response location. These results contrast with what was found when observers responded to directional arrow cues in place of pictures of hands. With arrow cues, the observed alignment effect appeared to be driven by spatial correspondence between the location of the object’s body and the location of the response button. Moreover, in this case the alignment effect decreased across the response time distribution, in keeping with other cases of spatial compatibility effects (Proctor, Miles, & Baroni, 2011). I conclude that attention to an image of a hand can induce observers to activate motor affordances associated with pictured objects. / Graduate

This thesis deals with conversion of text documents from the format of so called formatting objects (XSL FO) to OpenDocument format (ODF). This conversion can be useful e. g. for distribution, printing or additional modification of a document in a text editor which supports ODF (e. g. OpenOffice). The thesis starts with description of both formats and it mentions basic elements that the formats offer for defining a text document. A comparison of both formats and description of possibilities of converting documents from XSL FO to ODF follows right after. The proved-by-practise and widely available XSLT transformation is chosen for the conversion implementation. It is illustrated on a sample application which enables to launch the conversion from an internet browser, from OpenOffice or from a command line.

Submitted by Caroline Falcao (caroline.rfalcao@ufpe.br) on 2017-06-14T18:05:14Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) 2012-dissertacao-AlexandreGomes.pdf: 4473682 bytes, checksum: 672dce5c43faddd68c47409a2d69598c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-14T18:05:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) 2012-dissertacao-AlexandreGomes.pdf: 4473682 bytes, checksum: 672dce5c43faddd68c47409a2d69598c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-26 / Recontar a história regional, a partir de um olhar que subverte a apologia do colonizador como narrativa verdadeira ou oficial, tornou-se um dos imperativos categóricos imprescindíveis aos movimentos e processos contemporâneos de mobilização política de povos indígenas, principalmente no nordeste brasileiro e, especificamente no Ceará, a partir da década de 1980. Torna-se fundamental analisar como movimentos indígenas reinterpretam o passado a partir da construção de sentidos sobre o tempo, "regimes de memória" específicos que associam "ações, narrativas e personagens, prescrevendo-lhes formas de construir significados" (Oliveira, 2011, p. 12). Segundo Johannes Fabian, um regime de memória é "uma arquitetura da memória, (...) que tornaria possível a alguém contar histórias sobre o passado" (Fabian apud Oliveira, 2011, p.12). A partir de análise da seleção, musealização e significação da cultura material, e dos usos e "(...) papel da memória, com suas técnicas e perspectivas específicas" (Oliveira, 1999,, p. 118), realizaremos um estudo classificatório identificando e interpretando categorias nativas e narrativas que organizam socialmente duas importantes diferenças operadas em processos étnicos: memórias e objetos. Investigaremos "(...) o trajeto das composições de sentido", buscando "(...) relacionar posições políticas com operações mnemônicas", (Ramos, 2011, p. 245), unindo os aportes conceituais da História e da Antropologia, mediados por procedimentos e técnicas museográficas utilizadas na observação participante realizada na pesquisa de campo entre o povo indígena Kanindé, na aldeia Fernandes (Aratuba-Ceará). / A new way to tell the regional history, looking from an angle that changes the official narration based on the colonizer's glorification, becomes an essential requirement for the contemporary movements and processes of political mobilization of native populaces, mostly in the brazilian Northeast region and, particularly in Ceará, from the 1980s on. It's necessary to examine how indianist movements reinterpret their experiences, based in their own feeling about the time, specific "memory regimes" that associate "actions, tales and personages, establishing ways to build meanings "(Oliveira 2011, p. 12). According to Johannes Fabian, a memory regime is " a memory architecture (...) that enables someone to tell stories about the former time" (Fabian apud Oliveira, 2011 p.12). Beginning with the analysis of the selection, musealisation and signification of the cultural facts and usages and "(...) memory role, with the respective technics and perspectives" (Oliveira, 1999, p.118), we will carry out a study recognizing and rendering native types and tales that arrange two important differences found in ethnical procedures: memories and objects. We will examine "(...) the route of the sense fittings", looking for "(...) relating political attitudes with mnemonic operations" (Ramos, 2011, p.245), connecting the concepts of History and Anthropology, by means of procedures and museological methods, useful in the partaking survey that occurs in external researches between the indigenous people Kanindé in the village Fernandes (Aratuba-Ceará).

Robotic grasping and manipulation of three-dimensional deformable objects is a complex task that currently does not have robust and flexible solutions. Deformable objects include a wide variety of elastic and inelastic objects that change size and shape during manipulation. The development of adaptable methods for grasping and autonomously controlling the shape of three-dimensional deformable objects will benefit many commercial applications, including shaping parts for assembly in manufacturing, manipulating food for packaging and controlling tissues during robotic surgery. Controlling a deformable object to a desired shape requires first choosing contact points on the object's surface. Next, the robotic hand is positioned in the correct position and orientation to grasp and deform the object. After deformation, the object is assessed to evaluate the quality of the shape control procedure. In many cases, this process is completed without knowing the object's properties or behaviour before deformation. This work proposes and implements the framework for a robotic arm and hand system to control the shape of a previously unseen deformable object autonomously. Significant original contributions are made in developing an original algorithm to plan contact points on a three-dimensional object for grasping and shape control. This research uses a novel object representation to reduce the dimensionality of the deformable object manipulation problem. A path planning algorithm guides the robot arm to the optimal valid grasp pose to deform the object at the determined contact points. Additional contributions include developing a multi-view assessment strategy to determine the quality of the deformation towards the desired shape. The system completes the objectives using depth and colour images captured from a single point of view to locate and identify a previously unseen three-dimensional object within a robotic workspace. After estimating the unknown object's geometry, initial grasp contact points are planned to control the object to the desired shape. The grasp points are used to plan and execute a collision-free trajectory for the robot manipulator to place the robotic hand in the optimal position and orientation to grasp and deform the object. After the deformation is complete, the object is moved to a variety of assessment positions to determine the success of the shape control procedure. The system is validated experimentally on a variety of deformable three-dimensional objects.

This thesis sought to explore the lifeways of second-millennium AD inhabitants of Great Zimbabwe through the analyses of material objects housed in museums. Great Zimbabwe comprises walled stone enclosures and non-walled settlements covering approximately 720ha. A number of data acquisition techniques, such as desktop survey, analyses of museum collections, supplementary field survey and excavations, were employed to collect relevant datasets to address the research questions. The sampling strategy adapted for this research enabled the study of material objects from different components making up Great Zimbabwe. The main conclusions drawn from this study are as follows: (i) Within varying temporal scales, the nature and distribution of local and imported objects are largely similar across the site; (ii) chronologically and typologically speaking, there is evidence that different parts of the site were occupied and abandoned at different times; and (iii) based on the similarities in material objects and associated production debris and infrastructure, it is likely that different components were self-sufficient units. This study has underscored the significance of existing collections in developing new interpretations of Great Zimbabwe's past lifeways, thereby motivating for the need for similar work to understand the hundreds of similar settlements scattered across southern Africa.

Dexterous robotic manipulation of non-rigid objects is a challenging problem but necessary to explore as robots are increasingly interacting with more complex environments in which such objects are frequently present. In particular, common manipulation tasks such as molding clay to a target shape or picking fruits and vegetables for use in the kitchen, require a high-level understanding of the scene and objects. Commonly, the behavior of non-rigid objects is described by a model. Although, well-established modeling techniques are difficult to apply in robotic tasks since objects and their properties are unknown in such unstructured environments. This work proposes a sensing and modeling framework to measure the 3D shape deformation of non-rigid objects. Unlike traditional methods, this framework explores data-driven learning techniques focused on shape representation and deformation dynamics prediction using a graph-based approach. The proposal is validated experimentally, analyzing the performance of the representation model to capture the current state of the non-rigid object shape. In addition, the performance of the prediction model is analyzed in terms of its ability to produce future states of the non-rigid object shape due to the manipulation actions of the robotic system. The results suggest that the representation model is able to produce graphs that closely capture the deformation behavior of the non-rigid object. Whereas, the prediction model produces visually plausible graphs when short-term predictions are required.