The depictions of women in film noir and neo-noir have long been objects of interest for feminist scholars. In this report, I extend this scholarship to examine Frank Miller's Sin city graphic novel series as a version of neo-noir that is both intimately connected to noir tradition and innovative in its approach, specifically in terms of his representation of women. Miller depicts his female characters in a variety of ways that reflect both the positive and negative imagery of women in classic noir and neo-noir; in doing so, he creates a new and complex vision of women in noir. This report uses three different characterizations of women in film noir--the spider woman, the femme moderne, and the angel--to explore the ways in which Miller's female characters can be understood to simultaneously uphold and challenge these conventions. / text

This study focused on development of a continuous watershed-scale modelling approach capable of evaluating sediment removal performance of vegetative filter strips (VFS). This was done by integrating the single-event hydrologic and sediment transport model AGNPS with the event-based VFS model (VFSMOD) applying the methodology developed by Sebti and Rudra (2010), and also through the development and incorporation of sub-models capable of describing changes in hydrologic conditions between rainfall events into the integrated models. For modeling purposes, the buffer zone is divided to segments called “buffer cells”. The upstream source area corresponding to each buffer cell and the flow-path connecting the area to the stream are identified, and runoff and sediment generated within each area is simulated for each event applying AGNPS. Using VFSMOD, performance analysis of VFS is conducted for each buffer cell. By applying the developed “continuous simulation” sub-models the hydrologic conditions prior to each event were determined.

This study has analyzed the relationship between trauma and otherness in two autobiographical graphic narratives. The study suggests that autobiographical graphic narratives are better equipped to represent the effects, mainly that of otherness, on the self as a result of trauma. In the ten volume manga series Barefoot Gen, Keiji Nakazawa details his childhood survival of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II. As he rebuilds his life, fellow survivals that look like his deceased family members recall his trauma of the bombing. Like we see in Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, Art Spiegelman also uses repetitious imagery and a fragmentary form of comic narration to represent the experience of trauma throughout In the Shadow of No Towers. However, while Nakazawa repeats specific imagery of the atomic bombing throughout Barefoot Gen based on his eyewitness testimony, Spiegelman manipulates imagery of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to reject the notion that only one specific set of images can represent a traumatic event. Thus, by the end of the second section of In the Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman creates a multiplicity of images to reenact the trauma of 9/11. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only.

The main goal of this project is to design the experience of motion along a mixed-use arterial roadway as a work of art. The research component of this project proposes to determine the influences on the experience of traveling along a road, the key components of environmental art, and how these can be combined to enhance the driving experience. This project will focus on the section of McGalliard Road from Morrison Road to Walnut Street, in Muncie, Indiana.McGalliard Road is one of Muncie's most heavily traveled roads. If one examines its length, the unorganized fashion in which the street has developed is readily apparent. Different and often conflicting uses are scattered up and down the road, in a spectrum ranging from rural/ agricultural to residential to commercial. The result is a confusing sequence of buildings and spaces with little or no focus. Thousands of people use roads similar to McGalliard in their everyday life. Generally the experience of driving these roads is mundane, involving countless parking lots, stores, and chain restaurants. By utilizing the principles of environmental art in the redesign of the experience of a mixed-use arterial roadway, the user's experiences can be greatly enhanced and the road can be infused with a new identity and meaning with which peoplecan identify and take pride.The user's experience of a mixed-use arterial roadway is the main issue I plan to examine in this project. When driving on a highway the sense of motion, space, and sequence is dominant. These sensations are most affected by objects passing overhead and near the roadside (Appleyard, 1966). The primary objects in the user's view are signs, telephone poles, and other vehicles, with nearly nothing overhead.Roads are an integral component of a city's fabric, one of its most intensely used public spaces, which provide linkages between different parts of a city (Moughtin, 1992). A successful road is one that captures the attention of its user. Without this, the user's attention can begin to wander and the experience becomes uninteresting. McGalliard Road has little to catch or hold the user's attention. The nearby surroundings consist mainly of signs, large parking lots, or buildings set far back from the street with nothing to focus the driver's attention. In redesigning the experience a user has while traveling along McGalliard Road, it is important to work with these elements in the near roadside environment, utilizing their attributes in the creation of an experiential work of art.Art has the potential to add another layer to the experience of the landscape, instilling it with new meaning. Works of environmental art are bound to their site and take a large part of their content from the relationship they have with the characteristics of their surrounding sites (Beardsley, 1998), thus drawing meaning directly from the surrounding landscape and culture. Ultimately the success of a city depends on the success of its roads. Art can enhance both the experience of a road, city, and the lives of its citizens. Integrating commercialism, art, and the driving experience, the designer can create a unique experience in which the user is an integral component in the design. / Department of Landscape Architecture

The goal of this thesis is to advance understanding of the ways in which discourses of reading, literacy and culture were used to reify class stratification in mid-twentieth-century America. This project uses the examples of The Reader’s Digest magazine and Classics Illustrated comic books to assess the adaptation and the ideologies surrounding textual form. It examines the efforts of self-proclaimed cultural elites to identify and denigrate middlebrow reading habits through dismissive critiques of texts and audiences as one moment in an on-going historical process of domination and exclusion. These avenues of exploration will reveal the complexity and variance of class definition in a pluralist democracy which, it turns out, are still very much a part of contemporary culture. [Pages 101 and 102 are missing.) / Le but de cette thèse est de faire progresser la connaissance des manières dont les contexts discursifs de la lecture, de l’alphabétisation et de la culture étaient utilisés en Amérique, au milieu du vingtième siècle, afin de réifier la stratification sociale. Des exemples tels que la revue The Reader ‘s Digest et la bande dessinée Classics Illustrated seront utilisés, dans ce projet, pour illustrer l’adaptation et les idéologies autour de la forme textuelle. Cet ouvrage examine comment ceux qui proclamés par eux-mêmes élites culturelles, ont tenté d’identifier et de dénigrer les habitudes de lecture du lecteur moyen par des critiques dédaigneuses des textes et du public, en un procédé historique persistant de domination et d’exclusion. Ces voies d’exploration révèleront la complexité et la diversité des définitions du concept de classes à l’intérieur d’une démocratie pluraliste, lesquelles, somme toute, cotinuent de faire partie intégrante de la culture contemporaine. [Il manque de pages 101 et 102.]

In the digital era, the comics medium has been transported from print to computer screen, and thus its evolution takes place in digital performances based on full-body interaction technologies. The major implication of this process is that the conventions of comics will be merging with those of performance, film, and animation. In a comics story implemented with full-body interaction technologies, representational space shifts from two to three dimensions. Physical elements can now easily be combined with virtual ones. The participants' contribution to the experience now includes a larger set of kinesthetic choices. Earlier media offer the readers the opportunity to read the story with their eyes, turn pages, and click a mouse. Instead of one or perhaps two readers of print and screen-based comics, a digital performance can be experienced by a group of viewers positioned in space in various ways. By utilizing the tools of computer vision, the projection of a participant can be made the main character of the comics story. Consequently, the comics and animation frame changes when moved to digital performance spaces. The frame becomes embodied, nested, elastic, and dynamic. The first two qualities relate to the physicality of the medium, where performers and viewers are simultaneously present in both the real and fictional spaces. The second two qualities relate to the procedurality of the medium and the potential for computational manipulation within the frame based on changing relationships across space (distance) and time (story).

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2009. / Title from screen (viewed on September 3, 2009). Department of Communication Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): John Parrish-Sprowl. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-83).

<p>An entity capable of assessing its and others action capabilities possess the power to predict how the involved entities may change their world. Through this knowledge and higher level of situation awareness, the assessing entity may choose the actions that have the most suitable effect, resulting in that entity’s desired world state.</p><p>This thesis covers aspects and concepts of an arbitrary planning system and presents a threat analyzer architecture built on the novel planning system Goal-Oriented Action Planning (GOAP). This planning system has been suggested for an application for improved missile route planning and targeting, as well as being applied in contemporary computer games such as F.E.A.R. – First Encounter Assault Recon and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The GOAP architecture realized in this project is utilized by two agents that perform action planning to reach their desired world states. One of the agents employs a modified GOAP planner used as a threat analyzer in order to determine what threat level the adversary agent constitutes. This project does also introduce a conceptual schema of a general planning system that considers orders, doctrine and style; as well as a schema depicting an agent system using a blackboard in conjunction with the OODA-loop.</p>

Alguns dos principais problemas na especificação de requisitos de um sistema estão relacionados com a identificação do que é necessário ser desenvolvido e com o entendimento das regras de negócio da empresa. Dentro deste contexto, este trabalho tem como objetivo propor a utilização de histórias em quadrinhos na metodologia de especificação de requisitos. Propôs-se um método de simulação de cenários por meio da utilização de histórias em quadrinhos, no qual é preciso definir uma linguagem para especificação de requisitos e, na sequência, é possível documentar requisitos utilizando a linguagem definida. Dois experimentos-piloto foram aplicados para Analistas de Sistemas, Engenheiros de Requisitos e Desenvolvedores de duas empresas, com o propósito de levá-los a desenvolver uma história em quadrinhos para mapear um processo de negócio dentro do seu ambiente de trabalho. Esses profissionais responderam a um questionário, analisando as histórias em quadrinhos desenvolvidas. Após análise desses dois experimentos, decidiu-se estabelecer um Guia Norteador para histórias em quadrinhos para auxiliar as pessoas na criação das histórias. Em um terceiro experimento a autora especificou requisitos de um software por meio de uma HQ. A HQ foi criada de acordo com o Guia norteador para criação de HQs e baseada na Gramática estabelecida para a linguagem das HQs. Este experimento foi aplicado para 77 participantes, com o propósito de verificar o entendimento de uma HQ. Um experimento final foi aplicado com alunos do quarto ano do curso de Ciência da Computação, com o objetivo de levá-los a criar uma História em quadrinhos especificando requisitos de um software, essa HQ deveria ser criada baseada na Gramática para HQs e de acordo com o Guia norteador. Os resultados de todos esses experimentos foram avaliados de forma positiva, comprovando, que o uso de histórias em quadrinhos facilita a identificação de detalhes nos processos de especificação de requisitos. / Some of the greatest challenges for Software requirements elicitation are related with the identification of what is needed to be developed and with the understanding of the organization business rules. Within this context, this work aims to propose the use of comics in the methodology of requirements specification. A method of scenario simulation has been proposed through the use of comics, in which a language needs to be defined for requirements specification and, in the sequence, it is possible to document requirements using the defined language. Two pilot experiments were applied to Systems Analysts, Requirements Engineers and Developers of two companies, with the purpose of making them to develop a comic book to map a business process within their work environment. These professionals answered a questionnaire, analyzing the developed comics. After analyzing these two experiments, it was decided to establish a Guide for Comics to help people create stories. In a third experiment the author specified requirements of some software through a HQ. The HQ was created according to the guideline for creation of HQs and based on the Grammar established for the language of the HQs. This experiment was applied to 77 participants, in order to verify the understanding of a HQ. A final experiment was applied with senior students of the Computer Science course, in order to get them to create a comic book by specifying software requirements, this HQ should be created based on the Grammar for Comics and according to the Guide. The results of all these experiments were evaluated in a positive way, proving that the use of comics facilitates the identification of details in the processes of specification of requirements.

Este trabalho procura avaliar o retorno elástico em aços avançados de alta resistência utilizados em processo de dobramento. Para isso, foram usadas chapas de aço bifásico DP 600 e DP 800, ambas revestidas. Foram empregados dois métodos de medição a fim de abordar e avaliar o retorno elástico. O primeiro método abordado foi à conformação de tiras em U e o segundo método foi à realização do ensaio Dobramento Sob Tensão, aos quais possibilitaram a coleta de dados para aplicação em cálculo de coeficiente de atrito no processo de dobramento. Em ambas as avaliações foram utilizadas duas diferentes condições de lubrificação para o processo de dobramento, visando variar a condição de atrito no processo. A primeira foi à aplicação de um lubrificante em forma de pasta, de nome comercial Clarus Desmoldax DCP 35 e a segunda foi à aplicação em forma líquida, denominado Clarus Desmoldax DCP 35X. Para analisar o retorno elástico, foram utilizadas como critério de avaliação as medições de abertura da parede da tira conformada, permitindo desta forma considerar o atrito por intermédio da variação do tipo lubrificante. As análises realizadas nos corpos de prova conformados em formato U evidenciaram um retorno elástico menor para as amostras do aço DP 600, se comparadas com as amostras do aço DP 800. Não existiu relevância na variação dos lubrificantes quanto ao retorno elástico nas amostras de um mesmo tipo de aço. As análises realizadas nos corpos de prova submetidos ao ensaio de dobramento sob tensão, também evidenciaram um retorno elástico menor para as amostras do aço DP 600 se comparadas com as amostras do aço DP 800. Comparando as amostras com base nos dados coletados e aplicados ao cálculo de coeficiente de atrito, percebeu-se que as amostras que tiveram um retorno elástico menor, também possuíam coeficientes de atrito menor, constatando assim que quanto menor o coeficiente de atrito, menor é o retorno elástico. / This piece of work seeks to evaluate the springback effect on advanced high strength steel used in the bending process. For this, biphasic steel plates DP 600 and DP 800, both coated, were used. Two methods of measurement were used to approach and asses the springback effect. The first method approached was the conformation of strips in U and the second method was the preformance of the Bending Under Tension test, which enabled the data collect for the application in calculation of the friction coefficient in the bending process. In both assessments two different lubricant conditions for the bending process were used with the aim of varying the condition of friction in the process. The first one was the application of a paste lubricant, with the brand name Clarus Desmoldax DCP 35 and the second one was the application of a liquid lubricant, called Clarus Desmoldax DCP 35X. To analyze the springback effect the measurements of the opening of the wall of the conformed strip were used, thus allowing to consider the friction through the variation of the type of lubricant. The assessments carried out in the specimens in U shape showed a smaller springback effect for the steel samples DP 600 in comparison with the DP 800 ones. There was no relevance in the range of lubricants as the springback effect in the samples of the same type of steel. The analyzes carried out in the specimens subjected to bending under pressure test also showed a smaller springback effect for the steel samples DP 600 compared with the DP 800 ones. Comparing the samples based on the data collected and applied to the calculation of the friction coefficient, it was noticed that the samples that had a smaller springback effect also had lower friction coefficients, therefore verifying that the lower the friction coefficient is, the lower the springback effect.