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This research explores new methods for practice-based research in fine art (video and multi-media installation) and in curatorial practices, residing in specific readings of Deleuze. The thesis looks into the potential presented by the mirror. Mirrors are symbolic references. Video has the capacity to be a mirror to the world; the exhibition also. Yet the mirror here is not examined as a reflection of the true ‘self’ nor is it invested in concepts of a ‘true’ mirror image of the ‘real’. Instead, the suggestion is made that a mirror pertains to an oxymoron, in which contradictory terms are combined as mirroring is recognised in terms of both “identity” and “difference”. Along these lines, reflection on negation becomes the mode of operation and the mirror maintains the reflective experience, more specifically visual thought, in place. This is why the works made and discussed pursue how the “production of the subject” unfolds representational boundaries. It is suggested that the act of being reflected must engage new ways of thinking about multiplicity of subject-positions; what it means to ‘be’ or ‘become’ and how past experiences are manifest in the present. The analysis has been formed through an examination of the transformative potential in representations for speaking about political realities today. To consider these issues, the thesis brings together a number of inter-related fields of creative practice and situates critical inquiry in methodologies that structure how the ‘subject’ manifests itself on screen. A “philosophy of practice”, linking curatorial activities and artistic works is developed through a series of philosophical reflections; artworks; curatorial activities and dialogues with different artists and theorists. The thesis seen as a whole examines these ‘encounters’ that facilitates a mirror reflection of a world “yet-to-come” through varied means for engagement which are tested in art production and theoretical and curatorial positions.

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Advances in wireless technology will soon provide sufficient capacity for the transmission of compressed video to and from mobile terminals. However, high compression ratios and the use of Variable Length Coding in standards such as H.263 and MPEG-4 make the encoded bitstreams particularly sensitive to errors. This thesis investigates methods for the error robust transmission of MPEG-4 coded video over mobile networks. It examines curent and future mobile networks, and discusses the quality of service that they are expected to offer with respect to mobile multimedia. Also, the MPEG-4 systems and visual layer standards are briefly described. Real-time MPEG-4 encoder and decoder software has been developed and exploited in the work described here. The MPEG-4 software can send MPEG-4 data over TCP or over RTP. All of the standard MPEG•4 error resilience options are implemented in the software. The effectiveness of these options is demonstrated through the results of simulated transmission over a GPRS channel. MPEG•4 is separated into two different streams via exploitation of the data partitioning option. The two streams may then be transmitted over a mobile network using different bearer channels. The most sensitive data stream is sent using a bearer channel with a low bit error rate compared to the less sensitive data stream. This technique is shown to produce quality improvements. A technique for the insertion of user-defined data is outlined. Insertion of user- defined data is achieved while retaining backwards compatibility with existing standard MPEG- 4 decoders. CRC codes are inserted using this scheme, to facilitate more accurate detection of errors. This error detection aids error concealment and results in a gain in decoded video quality after simulated transmission over a GPRS channel. Motion adaptive encoding is employed to increase the error robustness of the encoded bitstream. Video packet size and Intra block refresh rates are altered with first partition size, which is used as a guide to the amount of motion within a scene. 1Tansmlssion of video using RTP is considered. In particular, a mathematical analysis is performed for two different packetisation schemes. One scheme encapsulates one video frame within one RTP packet, while the other scheme encapsulates a single video packet within a single RTP packet.

As a large volume of digital video data becomes available, along with revolutionary advances in multimedia technologies, demand related to efficiently retrieving and recounting multimedia data has grown. However, the inherent complexity in representing and recognizing multimedia data, especially for large-scale and unconstrained consumer videos, poses significant challenges. In particular, the following challenges are major concerns in the proposed research. One challenge is that consumer-video data (e.g., videos on YouTube) are mostly unstructured; therefore, evidence for a targeted semantic category is often sparsely located across time. To address the issue, a segmental multi-way local feature pooling method by using scene concept analysis is proposed. In particular, the proposed method utilizes scene concepts that are pre-constructed by clustering video segments into categories in an unsupervised manner. Then, a video is represented with multiple feature descriptors with respect to scene concepts. Finally, multiple kernels are constructed from the feature descriptors, and then, are combined into a final kernel that improves the discriminative power for multimedia event detection. Another challenge is that most semantic categories used for multimedia retrieval have inherent within-class diversity that can be dramatic and can raise the question as to whether conventional approaches are still successful and scalable. To consider such huge variability and further improve recounting capabilities, a per-exemplar learning scheme is proposed with a focus on fusing multiple types of heterogeneous features for video retrieval. While the conventional approach for multimedia retrieval involves learning a single classifier per category, the proposed scheme learns multiple detection models, one for each training exemplar. In particular, a local distance function is defined as a linear combination of element distance measured by each features. Then, a weight vector of the local distance function is learned in a discriminative learning method by taking only neighboring samples around an exemplar as training samples. In this way, a retrieval problem is redefined as an association problem, i.e., test samples are retrieved by association-based rules. In addition, the quality of a multimedia-retrieval system is often evaluated by domain-specific performance metrics that serve sophisticated user needs. To address such criteria for evaluating a multimedia-retrieval system, in MFoM learning, novel algorithms were proposed to explicitly optimize two challenging metrics, AP and a weighted sum of the probabilities of false alarms and missed detections at a target error ratio. Most conventional learning schemes attempt to optimize their own learning criteria, as opposed to domain-specific performance measures. By addressing this discrepancy, the proposed learning scheme approximates the given performance measure, which is discrete and makes it difficult to apply conventional optimization schemes, with a continuous and differentiable loss function which can be directly optimized. Then, a GPD algorithm is applied to optimizing this loss function.

The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of videotaping experiences as an instructional aid for participating students in the development of teaching behavior. Criteria for effectiveness were derived from research by Ryans indicating that supportive (Xo), businesslike (Yo), and stimulating (Z0) patterns of action were positive factors, and by Flanders which indicated that indirect teaching behavior was a positive factor.The Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire and the Self-Evaluation of My Teaching Scale (devised by the researcher) were administered at the beginning and end of the six-week period. Mean changes in responses reflecting patterns of indirect teaching, readiness to teach, and Ryans' TCS Patterns Xo, Yo, and Zo were compared.Forty-eight Ball State University students enrolled in Participation classes at the Burris Laboratory School were randomly divided into four groups of twelve each. All of the students received the same or comparable experience in methods of teaching and in the supervision of their classroom participation. Three of the four groups were assigned a series of three microlessons to prepare and teach to a micro class.The Experimental group was given one hour of instruction on Flanders' system of interaction analysis. After each microteaching lesson, instructional feedback was received from a tally of the classroom interaction provided by the researcher and from viewing the videotape replay.A second group was given the same instruction in interaction analysis and feedback from the interaction analysis tally. A third group received no information on interaction analysis and was given feedback from the videotape replay. The fourth group received only the usual experiences of the Participation course with none of the above instructional aids.The resulting data were analyzed using analysis of covariance to adjust post-test mean scores for each group. Analysis of variance was used to compute F-ratios for each variable in the study.No statistically significant differences between the groups were found for any of the variables used. The procedures of videotaping as used and measured in the study did not show a relationship between videotape feedback and increased positive responses on either of the two measurements used.All of the groups showed some gain on items of indirect teaching. This gain may have resulted from the influence of the teachers and supervisors with whom they worked. Although not significant, the direction of the changes suggested that the videotaped groups were slightly more serious and somewhat more inclined to report themselves as ready to teach than the groups not videotaped. Other changes seemed to indicate the possibility that the videotape procedure may have mitigated against the tendency toward increased rigidity typically found in the research of initial teaching experiences. Evaluations at the conclusion of the study showed that student opinions favored the use of the videotape and interaction analysis procedures as feedback.The lack of conclusive results was postulated as being caused by multiple factors. A longer period of time and larger sample population were suggested. The instruments may have been inadequate to measure changes which may have occurred. Individual changes may have been negated in the compilation of mean scores. The individual instructional possibilities of videotaping may not have been completely revealed in this study. Further research of the instructional use of videotape seems to be warranted.

The video game industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the U.S. economy, with violent video games topping the charts among fan favorites. Due to frequent violence and mass shootings that have struck our nation in recent years, the gaming industry has been subject to much blame for endorsing violent acts. While many researches and psychologists have conducted experiments and meta-analytic reviews to test the correlation between violent video games and mass shootings, the debate remains prevalent in the media, to date. This thesis will not aim to prove whether or not violent video games are largely responsible for malicious attacks, but rather analyze why the blame is often adverted specifically to the video game industry in the aftermath of public massacres. This paper will analyze the positive and negative effects of gaming, the social and behavioral tendencies often developed from playing video games, and the current controversies surrounding the industry.