Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur nationer använder nationsmarknadsföring och narrativitet för att förmedla en särskild bild genom att nyttja Eurovision Song Contest som kommunikationsplattform. Undersökningen görs via en semiotisk analys som granskar utvalda visuella delar från tre nationer som agerat värd för evenemanget mellan åren 2009–2018. Resultatet av analysen visar på att nationerna följer olika narrativa spår som lyfter särskilda saker. I diskussionsavsnittet tas två olika hypoteser upp angående värdländernas nationsmarknadsföringar. Den ena är den kulturella hypotesen, alltså att värdlandets kulturella bakgrund präglar nationsmarknadsföringen. Den andra är den strategiska hypotesen som syftar till att värdlandet strategiskt väljer att använda särskilda narrativ utifrån exempelvis sin politiska situation. Diskussionen poängterar dock att andra faktorer kan ha inverkan på nationsmarknadsföringen, såsom huruvida nationen tidigare varit värdland i evenemanget.

Narration, or storytelling, is an important aspect of language. Narrative skills have practical and social importance; for example, children who tell good stories receive attention and approval from their peers. When children accurately recount events surrounding an injury or dispute, vital information is passed to parents and teachers. Additionally, early childhood narrative skills are moderately correlated with reading comprehension in primary grades. Because narration is socially and academically valued, language interventionists often address it. The research literature on narrative intervention has most often included school-aged participants and those with language or learning difficulties. Only a small number of studies have investigated narrative intervention with preschoolers, and the supporting evidence is suggestive rather than conclusive. Outcomes frequently targeted include narrative story grammar (e.g., character, problem, action, consequence) and general language outcomes (e.g., length of story, mean length of communication unit, and total number of words). Results have been generally positive; however, the methodological quality of studies is poor. Therefore, few firm conclusions can be drawn regarding the efficacy of narrative interventions. Because of its potential and popularity, the effect of narrative intervention on a range of populations needs to be examined systematically through high quality research. This study evaluated the effects of a narrative intervention on story retelling and story generation using a multiple baseline design with five target participants. We delivered narrative intervention in a small group arrangement. Materials, activities, and instructor assistance were adjusted systematically within session to facilitate increasingly independent practice of story retells and personal story generations. Results suggest that narrative intervention improved participants' narrative retell and personal generation performance based on Index of Narrative Complexity (INC) scores. All five target participants made substantial gains in narrative retelling, demonstrated improved pre-intervention to post-intervention INC scores for personal generations, and these improvements maintained when assessed following a 2-week break. In addition, we documented growth in general language measures such as number of communication units, mean length of utterance, number of different words, and total number of words.

Technical advancements allow for embodied virtual agents to not only be increasingly human-like, but also to behave and look like particular individuals. As biases towards self-similarity have been found in human-human studies, it is of interest to explore to what extent this applies to virtual characters (VCs). This work set out to extend on previous research that has investigated the effects of facial self-similarity in VCs, and explore it in the context of empathic emotion. For this aim, a method for creating facially similar virtual characters was developed and a user study conducted where 13 participants were told autobiographical stories by a virtual character that either did or did not resemble them facially and/or in gender category. The participants' first impressions and emotional responses were measured. The results showed that even though similarity was not explicitly perceived, a bias might exist towards more positive impressions of self-similar characters, especially in terms of gender category. Regarding the emotional responses, the results did not allow for discovering any difference between conditions but pointed to some interesting differences in comparison to what was hypothesized. The immense ways in which the appearances of virtual characters can be altered provides possibilities to influence the interaction with them. However, although biases might exist on a general level, it is difficult to predict the human responses in individual cases. Virtual characters might make possible a more human-like interaction with technology, however, it might also mean that our reactions to them are influenced by more parameters and our relations to them become even more like those with other humans: complex. / Den tekniska utvecklingen möjliggör numera att virtuella agenter kan göras inte bara människolika, utan även lika specifika individer i hur de beter sig och ser ut. Då tidigare studier påvisat att människor ofta föredrar personer som i någon mån liknar dem själva, är det intressant att utforska i vilken utsträckning detta även gäller virtuella karaktärer. Detta arbete hade som mål att undersöka effekterna av visuella likheter mellan människor och virtuella karaktärer, med fokus på ansikten och genus och i en kontext där empati är betydande. En metod för att konstruera virtuella karaktärer som hade visuella likheter med specifika användare utvecklades, och en användarstudie med 13 deltagare genomfördes. I det konstruerade scenariot berättade en karaktär, som hade likheter med användaren antingen gällande ansiktets utseende och/eller genus, självbiografiska historier. Intrycket av karaktären och den emotionella responsen mättes. Resultaten visade att den visuella likheten inte uppfattades explicit. Dock fanns tendenser som pekar på att likheter framför allt när det gäller sociala kategorier som genus, kan ha en positiv påverkan på hur virtuella karaktärer uppfattas. Det gick inte att upptäcka några skillnader mellan betingelserna gällande den emotionella responsen, men resultaten påvisade intressanta avvikelser från de förväntade reaktionerna. Möjligheterna att designa och anpassa virtuella karaktärer till olika individer och situationer ökar, vilket kan utnyttjas för att försöka påverka hur människor förhåller sig till och interagerar med dem. Det är dock svårt att förutsäga hur människor kommer att reagera och relatera till en virtuell karaktär utifrån generella tendenser, vilket denna studie visar. Virtuella karaktärer kan möjliggöra en mer människolik interaktion med teknik, men det innebär också att många parametrar är inblandade och att relationerna med tekniken blir liksom relationerna mellan människor: komplexa.

The usage of children’s books is a fundamental aspect within a preschool environment. Even though the content in such books are childlike, they are always written by adult authors who appropriates a child-perspective. This sparked an interest in creating a children’s book with the cooperation of a group of children and producing a story from a children’s perspective. The overall objective of the project was to improve children's participation in preschool and develop their understanding of democratic principles through the creation of their own story book. By using art based research as the method, creative workshops were carried out where the children created their own story through conversation and artwork. The collected data were in the form of transcriptions of films recorded during the workshops and the artwork done by the group of children which was analyzed using concepts such as democracy, participation, child-perspective and children’s perspective. The steps which involved the creative workshops together with the group of children were further examined by the usage of Roger Hart’s Ladder of Participation.  The results of the project showed a high level of participation by the group of children due to possibilities provided for them to exercise democratic principles such as voting and decision making as a group while creating a story and all its essential contents from their perspective. In regards to the Ladder of Participation, genuin participation of different levels were observed from the group of children during the course of this project. The 2 highest levels of the ladder; where an activity is initiated and carried out by children, were unable to be reached since in practical sense, preschool aged children need adult assistance. The storybook created involved a fantasytale titled Superkatterna (The Supercats) which consists of cats, dinosaurs and unicorns in their rainbow world, conflict between the cats and dinosaurs and how the unicorns help them to resolve their issues. Regarding the composition of the 1st draft of the storybook, had there been a wider time frame for this project, the children could have had the opportunity to be further involved and their level of participation during this step would have been able to become higher than what it was during the project.

Imagine a grocery store that physically helps you to make healthy decisions for you. Your Twinkies, Hoho's, and other processed foods are all available and within sight, but you've got to work for them. In the wake of challenges that Americans face every day, this thesis project is putting a magnifying glass to (hi)stories and the human experience, and promoting change for American suburban and urban grocery stores to be health-fitness machines that we need them to be in order to help those of us on a quest to stay fit and healthy. With the information age pretty much exploding- as we are able to do a search for just about anything on Google, lack of information is not necessarily the problem. While gimmicky short term dieting fads come and go, an architectural model solution can set the foundation and structure to sustain progress. Let's look to the origins of architecture, labyrinths are built of walls, but if we are not careful, we can let them lead us to dead ends. Let's look to the origins of the marketplace, where fresh foods are taken directly from the source. For many of us, the modern American grocery store is the origin of our energy, where we will return again and again. It is our food source. It might be one root of our society's increasing levels of unhealthy weight gain, but also the source of opportunity to challenge the current design of the boxed store. / Master of Architecture

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:56:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adriana Soares Freitas de Souza.pdf: 1665142 bytes, checksum: 305a6c3fa83ebb19631efa0d6aef9ff9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-17 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Children s capacity to attribute mental states such as desires, intentions and beliefs to themselves and to others, named Theory of mind, is essential for successful social relationships. There is evidence that children s stories contribute to the development of the theory of mind. The present intervention research, conducted in a municipal public school in Mogi das Cruzes/SP, aimed to guide elementary school teachers to use some language involving mental terms and verbs during story telling to their students, explaining the characters mental states. The participants were two teachers and 50 students, 27 boys and 23 girls, between five years old and 5 years and 11 months old. Two studies were developed (Study 1 and Study 2) by adopting the same design: a) a pre-test Wellman and Liu s (2004) scale of seven theory of mind tasks was applied to the children; b) intervention two meetings were held in order that the researcher could offer the teachers theoretical guidelines about the theory of mind, and ten practical workshops were carried out, in which the researcher worked on children s stories and taught the teachers how they should tell their students the stories by using some language involving mental terms and/or verbs; c) a post-test the seven theory of mind tasks were reapplied. All story telling developed by the teachers was transcribed and submitted to SPAD-T software. In Study 1, the teachers and their respective groups (25 students each group) were randomly chosen to be the experimental group (GE) and the control group (GC). The GE teacher received theoretical and practical instructions from the researcher in the intervention, whereas the GC teacher did not receive any instructions, she was just asked to tell the stories in her usual way. In Study 2, the teacher (control group of Study 1) received from the researcher the instructions to tell their students the stories. The results of both studies showed that after the intervention, the teachers started to adopt some language that was rich in mental terms, and such languge helped trigger the theory of mind in their students, who had a significantly better performance in the theory of mind tasks after their teachers had received the researcher s instructions. Such results support the hypothesis of a relation between the attribution of mental states and language development. The story telling activity in elementary school turned out to be a resource that favors the development of the theory of mind in children / A capacidade da criança para atribuir estados mentais como desejos, intenções e crenças a si própria e às outras pessoas, denominada teoria da mente, é fundamental para o êxito das relações sociais. Há indícios de que as histórias infantis contribuem com o desenvolvimento da teoria da mente. A presente pesquisa de intervenção, realizada em uma escola da rede pública municipal de ensino da cidade de Mogi das Cruzes/SP, teve por objetivo orientar professoras da Educação Infantil a utilizarem uma linguagem envolvendo termos e verbos mentais durante a contação de histórias para seus alunos, explicando os estados mentais dos personagens. Participaram duas professoras e 50 alunos, sendo 27 meninos e 23 meninas, com idade entre 5 anos e 5 anos e 11 meses. Foram realizados dois estudos (Estudo 1 e Estudo 2) adotando o mesmo delineamento: a) pré-teste foram aplicadas nas crianças as sete tarefas de teoria da mente da escala de Wellman e Liu (2004); b) intervenção foram realizadas 2 sessões nas quais a pesquisadora ofereceu às professoras explicações teóricas sobre a teoria da mente, e dez sessões práticas nas quais trabalhou com histórias infantis e as orientou sobre como deveriam contar histórias aos seus alunos, utilizando uma linguagem envolvendo termos e verbos mentais; c) pós-teste foram reaplicadas as sete tarefas de teoria da mente. Todas as contações de histórias feita pelas professoras foram transcritas e submetidas ao software SPAD-T. No Estudo 1, as professoras e suas respectivas turmas (cada uma com 25 alunos) foram escolhidas aleatoriamente para compor o grupo experimental (GE) e o grupo controle (GC). A professora do GE recebeu as instruções teóricas e práticas da pesquisadora na intervenção; já a professora do GC não recebeu nenhum tipo de orientação, apenas foi instruída a contar as histórias à sua maneira habitual. No Estudo 2, a professora (grupo controle do Estudo 1) passou a receber da pesquisadora as orientações para contar as histórias aos seus alunos. Os resultados dos dois estudos indicaram que após a intervenção, as professoras passaram a adotar uma linguagem enriquecida de termos mentais, e essa linguagem foi favorecedora da manifestação da teoria da mente em seus alunos, os quais tiveram um desempenho significativamente melhor nas tarefas de teoria da mente após as suas professoras terem recebido as orientações da pesquisadora. Esses resultados dão sustentação à hipótese de uma relação entre a atribuição de estados mentais e o desenvolvimento da linguagem. A atividade de contação de histórias nas classes de Educação Infantil mostrou-se como um recurso favorecedor do desenvolvimento da teoria da mente em crianças

Many factors affect resilience, such as personality traits and environmental support. A projective assessment has many advantages to understand a person as a whole. Up to present, there is no projective assessment for resilience. This dissertation was a pilot study to develop a projective method. Sixty-five college students participated in this study. Participants used words to describe their feelings after hearing an open-ended story with a traumatic event; they also completed the story. In this study, the resilience ratio, defined as the ratio of the number of positive responses divided by the number of total responses, reflected the resilience level as well as cognitive and emotional flexibility. How participants completed the story revealed participants' interactions with the adversity. The resilience ratio has a slightly less than medium correlation with the CD-RISC-10 at a .05% level with r = .08. Participants who completed the story positively demonstrated the ability to use their resilient personality traits and social resources. t Tests revealed that resilience ratios, the CD-RISC-10 scores, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scores for participants providing positive endings and for those who providing negative endings were significantly different at a .05% level with Cohen's d values of .69, .65, and .62 respectively. The effect sizes for these three t tests were medium. Both the resilience ratio and how participants completed the story can be used to understand and measure resilience. The projective method presented in this pilot study may be used to develop prevention programs and intervention strategies to help individuals to gain resilience. As individuals become resilient, psychological disorder rate and mental health cost will decrease, and positive social change will result.

近年來GPS導航軟體正蓬勃發展，但市面上的導航軟體大多只能帶領使用者到達旅遊景點，無法更進一步提供旅遊資訊與行程建議。因此，本研究結合行動裝置與「3D擴增實境」（3D Augmented Reality），試圖規劃一套新型的導覽模式。我們以淡水為例，結合當地古蹟景點與歷史典故，使導覽系統能提供豐富的數位內容。在設計的過程中，本研究建構出「新科技敘事模式」，在「故事」、「影音效果」、與「互動機制」之間取得平衡，讓使用者體驗到故事、感官刺激、和旅遊合而為一的導覽經驗。此外，在「3D擴增實境」上，本研究建構了不同精細度的3D模型，並且在行動裝置上測試其效能。結果發現，「局部精化」的新形態建模概念，能夠兼顧美觀與運算效能。最後，本研究針對行動裝置硬體效能的負荷進行了權重測試，並獲得GPU（Render）＞CPU（PR）的結論。 / In the past few years we have witnessed the rapid growth in the sales of GPS related products on the market. Nonetheless, most navigation software solely provides route planning rather than travel information or tour guidance. This research aims to combine mobile devices and 3D augmented reality (AR) to create a novel form of navigational experience. Taking the famous tourist spot Tamsui as an illustration, materials adapted local monuments and historical allusions are re-arranged creatively to provide substantial digital contents with helpful navigation information. During the design process, this research creates different modes of narration, enabling users to undergo a brand new navigation experience through the blending of various media sources, including story, video and interaction. Additionally, this research constructs 3D models of different levels of detail and examines their efficiency on mobile devices. The experimental results indicate that 3D model built with partial fineness provides a balance between artistic fidelity and computational efficiency. Also, the results from the experiment suggest that the loading of the GPU (responsible for rendering the model) is greater than that of the CPU (responsible for pattern recognition).

<p>South Africa is reported to have the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS infections in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result the quality of life of families living with HIV/AIDS is negatively affected. Literature indicates that the majority of affected persons are young children and adolescents whose siblings or parents are infected with HIV/AIDS. Most affected adolescents are reported to have difficult social lives due to their parent&rsquo / s illness, difficult financial situations at home, stigma and discrimination within the society. The study attempts to explore the experiences of adolescents in households where the mother is HIV/AIDS positive. This research project is an exploratory study using a narrative approach within a qualitative methodological design. The study was conducted with 6 Xhosa-speaking adolescent boys (2) and girls (4) aged 12 to 15 years. An open-ended interview schedule was used to prompt participants to tell their stories. Data was collected by means of a voice recorder in order for adolescents to tell their stories. The responses were transcribed verbatim, translated and verified with the participants. The data were analysed by means of narrative analysis. The results indicate that most adolescent participants were coping with the mother being HIV/AIDS positive and maintained hope for their futures. Adolescents were coping due to support from friends and relatives. Some adolescents experienced rejection and discrimination. The biggest challenge in the home was due to socioeconomic status. The study is intended to benefit the community in terms of making recommendations to social workers at NGO&rsquo / s and the government sectors in terms of strengthening the existing support programmes in the community.</p>

Background: Food nourishes us, sustains us, and has the potential to both heal us and make us sick. Among many Indigenous cultures, traditional activities, ceremonies, events and practices often involve or use food, grounding Indigenous peoples within the context of their local, natural surroundings. This suggests that food is important not only for physical health, but also emotional, mental and spiritual health. The relationships that Indigenous peoples have with food can help us to understand the health of individuals, and the communities in which they live. Purpose: The following qualitative study explores how three generations of adults who live in one Labrador Inuit-Metis community experience and understand their relationships to food in a context of global change. Theoretical Orientation: The research is guided by Two-Eyed Seeing. Two-Eyed Seeing acknowledges that there are many different ways of seeing and understanding the world, some of which can be encompassed through a Western eye and some through an Indigenous eye. If we learn to see through both eyes, we can gain a perspective that looks very different than if we only view the world through a single lens. Methods: For the study, twenty-four people from the south-eastern Labrador community of St. Lewis participated in individual and joint story-telling sessions. A group story-telling session also took place where community members could share their stories with one another. During many of the story-telling sessions, participants shared photographs, which helped to illustrate their relationships to food. Findings/Discussion: Historically, the people of St. Lewis relied almost entirely upon their own wherewithal for food, with few, if any, government services available and very little assistance from the market economy. This fostered and upheld an Inuit-Metis culture that promoted sharing, reciprocity and respect for the natural world. Currently, greater access to government services and the market economy has led to the creation of certain policies and programs that undermine or ignore established social and cultural norms in the community. Conclusions: Existing Inuit-Metis knowledge should work alongside non-Indigenous approaches to policy and program development. This would serve to protect and promote the health of both individuals and communities.