Buildings and public infrastructures are crucial to our societies in that they provide habitations, workplaces, commodities and services indispensible to our daily life. As vital parts of facility management, operations and maintenance (O&M) ensure a facility to continuously function as intended, which take up the longest time in a facility’s life cycle and demand great expense. Therefore, computers and information technology have been actively adopted to automate traditional maintenance methods and processes, making O&M faster and more reliable. Augmented reality (AR) offers a new approach towards human-computer interaction through directly displaying information related to real objects that people are currently perceiving. People’s sensory perceptions are enhanced (augmented) with information of interest naturally without deliberately turning to computers. Hence, AR has been proved to be able to further improve O&M task performance. The research motif of this thesis is user evaluations of AR applications in the context of facility maintenance. The studies look into invisible target designation tasks assisted by developed AR tools in both indoor and outdoor scenarios. The focus is to examine user task performance, which is influenced by both AR system performance and human perceptive, cognitive and motoric factors. Target designation tasks for facility maintenance entail a visualization-interaction dilemma. Two AR systems built upon consumer-level hand-held devices using an off-the-shelf AR software development toolkit are evaluated indoors with two disparate solutions to the dilemma – remote laser pointing and the third person perspective (TPP). In the study with remote laser pointing, the parallax effect associated with AR “X-ray vision” visualization is also an emphasis. A third hand-held AR system developed in this thesis overlays infrared information on façade video, which is evaluated outdoors. Since in an outdoor environment marker-based tracking is less desirable, an infrared/visible image registration method is developed and adopted by the system to align infrared information correctly with the façade in the video. This system relies on the TPP to overcome the aforementioned dilemma.

Cette thèse porte sur l’évolution existentielle du couple et du triangle amoureux dans trois pays (France, Belgique, Italie) de l’Europe des années 1929-1967, le corpus étant : "La femme partagée" de Franz Hellens, "L’Invitée" et "La femme rompue" de Simone de Beauvoir, "Jules et Jim" d’Henri-Pierre Roché et "L’Ennui" d’Alberto Moravia. Ces textes proposent une analyse similaire de la thématique de l’amour, qui se caractérise par la rupture affective et l’expérience de la triangularité. Outre le fait que les relations amoureuses sont toujours riches en contenu en dépit des conditions historiques, économiques et sociales des personnages, à l’intérieur du corpus se regroupent des textes qui ouvrent espace d’accueil au couple provenant de milieux géographiques et culturels différents. L’objet de cette recherche est d’identifier, à travers trois cultures (française, belge, italienne), des modèles existentiels similaires, sous le rapport des relations amoureuses qui brisent les canons et font l’expérience de la déchirure. Notre lecture converge vers l’observation de la façon dont les personnages impliqués dans un enchevêtrement sentimental inextricable gèrent leur situation. À notre avis, c’est le traitement du réseau thématique de la tierceté qui représente le fil conducteur du corpus ; une même vision du parcours amoureux, de l’euphorie à l’échec, est envisagée par les quatre auteurs. Les grandes questions autour desquelles s’articule cette thèse sont donc : la structuration du couple, la relation triangulaire entamée comme tentative de salut et la faillite de cette relation, tout comme du couple. / This thesis deals with the existential evolution of the couple and of the love triangle in three countries (France, Belgium, Italy) of the Europe of 1929-1967, the being the following: "La femme partagée" [One woman, two love affairs] by Franz Hellens, "L’Invitée" [She came to stay] and "La femme rompue" [The woman distroyed] by Simone de Beauvoir, "Jules et Jim" [Jules and Jim] by Henri-Pierre Roché şi "L’Ennui" [The Empty Canvas] by Alberto Moravia. These texts propose a similar analysis of the love theme, which is characterized by the affective separation and the experience of a love triangle. Besides the fact that the love affairs are always complex despite the historical, economical and social conditions of the characters, the corpus contains texts in the middle of which there are couples from different geographical and cultural surroundings.The aim of this research is that of identifying, in the framework of three cultures (French, Belgium, Italian), the similar existential patterns, regarding the love relationships which ignore the cannons and acknowledge the experience of breaking out. Our reading is focused on observing the way in which the characters involved in an inextricable sentimental story deal with their situation. In our opinion, the way in which the thematic network of thirdiness is treated represents the leading thread of the corpus; a similar view of the love story, from euphoria to failure, is presented by the four authors. The great questions around which this thesis is centered are the following: the structure of the couple, the triangular relationship viewed as an attempt of salvation and the failure of both relationship and couple. The ultimate aim of the present study is the thematic approach of binary and triangular relationships. On a whole, our working hypothesis favours the following on a psychological, social and lexical plan the carrying out of the love affairs in the texts that constitute the corpus.

Orientador: Sebastião Carlos Leite Gonçalves / Banca: Roberto Gomes Camacho / Banca: Maria Marta Pereira Scherre / Resumo: Considerando que inúmeras pesquisas sociolingüísticas realizadas sobre a concordância verbal (CV, daqui em diante) de terceira pessoa do plural (3PP, daqui em diante) evidenciaram a variabilidade do fenômeno, e, considerando ainda que esse fenômeno é constituído por uma variável binária, presença versus ausência de marcas de plural nos verbos, buscamos neste trabalho investigar, por meio do controle de fatores sociais e lingüísticos, a CV na fala da Região Noroeste do Estado de São Paulo, mais precisamente na Região de São José do Rio Preto, usando, como subsídio principal, a Teoria da Variação Lingüística (WEINREICH, LABOV & HERZOG, 1968; LABOV, 1972). O córpus utilizado para a realização de nossa pesquisa provém do Banco de Dados Iboruna, que, constituído pelo Projeto ALIP (Amostra Lingüística do Interior Paulista), compõe-se de amostras de fala de 152 informantes da região. Para a realização desta pesquisa, foi constituída uma subamostra, composta de 76 entrevistas, estratificadas uniformemente mediante os fatores sociais escolaridade, faixa etária e gênero. Do total de 3.308 ocorrências de 3PP analisadas, 2.314 (70%) apresentaram marcas de plural explícitas nos verbos, evidenciando tratar-se de um caso de variação estável na comunidade investigada, instanciada pela interação entre os seguintes fatores sociais e lingüísticos estatisticamente relevantes: paralelismo formal de nível oracional, escolaridade, paralelismo formal de nível discursivo, saliência fônica, posição do núcleo do SN-sujeito em relação ao verbo, traço semântico do sujeito, idade, gênero e tipo morfológico do sujeito. Palavras-chave: concordância verbal, terceira pessoa do plural, Português brasileiro, variação lingüística. / Abstract: Whereas many sociolinguistics searches conducted on the verbal agreement (VA hereinafter) from the third person plural (3PP, hereinafter) demonstrated the variability of the phenomenon, and, considering that such phenomenon consists of a binary variable, presence versus absence of marks of the plural in the verbs, we sought in this study investigating, through the control of linguistic and social factors, the VA from speech in the Northwest Region of the Sao Paulo State, more precisely in the Region of São Jose do Rio Preto, using as main tool, of the Theory of Linguistics Variation (WEINREICH, LABOV & HERZOG, 1968; LABOV, 1972). The corpus used in the research comes from the Database Iboruna, which was constituted by the Project ALIP - Amostra Lingüística do Interior Paulista (Sample Linguistics of the Interior Paulista), composed of samples of speech of 152 informants from region. To conduct this research, a sub-sample was formed, consisting of 76 interviews, stratified evenly through the social factors: education level, age and gender. A total of 3,308 occurrences of 3PP analyzed, 2,314 (70%) presented marks of plural explicit in the verbs, showing it is a case of variation stable in the community investigated, instantiated by the interaction between the social and linguistic following factors statistically relevant: formal parallelism of a clause level, education level, formal parallelism of a discourse level, phonic salience, position of the head of the subject-NP in relation to the verb, semantic feature of the subject, age, gender and morphologic type of the subject. Keywords: verbal agreement, third person plural, Brazilian Portuguese, language variation. / Mestre

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Esta tese objetiva estudar a mudanÃa no sistema pronominal da lÃngua portuguesa, em suas variantes europeia e brasileira, no que tange à categoria de caso. Para isso, partimos da noÃÃo sociolinguÃstica de que toda mudanÃa à oriunda de um estÃgio anterior de variaÃÃo linguÃstica (WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 2006; LABOV, 1978, 1994, 2001, 2008 e 2010) e investigamos como variantes os pronomes o (a, os, as); ele (ela, eles, elas); lhe(s), alÃm da anÃfora zero na codificaÃÃo do caso acusativo. Como fatores condicionantes dessa mudanÃa, analisamos: o continuum oralidade/escrita; as propriedades semÃnticas do OD; o tipo da forma verbal que o acusativo complementa; a posiÃÃo do pronome; o perÃodo histÃrico; o sexo do informante; o nÃvel de escolaridade; a idade e a localidade. Propomos como tese que a perda da distinÃÃo da categoria caso nos pronomes pessoais em lÃngua portuguesa advÃm da deriva linguÃstica secular e um indÃcio que comprova esse fato està na convergÃncia linguÃstica de variantes do portuguÃs distantes geograficamente, mas que partilham fatores cognitivos e culturais (LABOV, 2010) dentro da lusofonia. Trabalhamos com duas amostras, uma escrita e outra oral, contendo textos das dÃcadas de 1970 a 2010 do portuguÃs brasileiro e do portuguÃs europeu, bem como com um teste de percepÃÃo e avaliaÃÃo das variantes aplicado a alunos da Universidade da Madeira. ApÃs descritos, os dados passaram por um tratamento estatÃstico no programa GOLDVARB X e depois foram analisados à luz do Sociofuncionalismo, uma vez que, alÃm da Teoria da VariaÃÃo e MudanÃa LinguÃstica, temos como base os princÃpios funcionalistas da iconicidade e da marcaÃÃo (GIVÃN, 1979b, 1984, 1995, 2002, 2005, 2009 e 2011). A partir do resultado do teste aplicado a 412 informantes do Funchal, pudemos mapear as variantes de prestÃgio e as estigmatizadas no PE-Insular. Por ordem de avaliaÃÃo, em sentido crescente de apreciaÃÃo, as variantes estÃo assim distribuÃdas: ele, lhe, anÃfora zero e clÃtico. Em seguida, partimos para a etapa de anÃlise dos dados de textos escritos e orais no portuguÃs europeu e no portuguÃs brasileiro. Para a variante o, foram selecionados os seguintes grupos de fatores como condicionantes: a) faixa etÃria (56 a 75); b) grau de escolaridade (ensino mÃdio e ensino superior); c) gÃnero textual (notÃcia e editorial); d) perÃodo histÃrico (dÃcadas de 70 e de 2000); e) propriedade semÃntica do objeto direto (+ humano); f) tipo da forma verbal (composta); g) localidade (Lisboa e Funchal) e h) continuum fala x escrita (escrita). Para o pronome ele, cinco fatores foram selecionados, a saber: a) faixa etÃria (36 a 55 e 56 a 75); b) 10 escolaridade (ensino fundamental); c) sexo do informante (feminino); d) localidade (Rio de Janeiro) e e) propriedade semÃntica do OD (+ humano). Para a anÃfora zero, foram selecionados os fatores a) faixa etÃria (18 a 35); b) gÃnero textual (entrevista); c) continuum fala x escrita (fala); d) perÃodo histÃrico (dÃcadas de 80, 90, 2010); e) localidade (Rio de Janeiro); f) traÃo semÃntico do objeto (- humano) e g) tipo da forma verbal (simples). Para o pronome lhe, apenas um fator condicionante foi selecionado, a propriedade semÃntica do objeto (+ humano). ApÃs analisados os dados, observamos microdomÃnios funcionais configurando uma sintaxe da lÃngua portuguesa pÃs-colonial: de um lado, estÃo o clÃtico e a anÃfora zero, as variantes nÃo marcadas, apresentando alta frequÃncia, mas motivaÃÃes opostas; por outro lado, as variantes marcadas cognitivamente e socialmente, ele e lhe, apresentam baixa frequÃncia e comportamento anÃlogo entre si. / This thesis aims to study the change in the pronominal system in Portuguese, in its European and Brazilian variants, regarding the category of case. Thereto, it considers that any change comes from an earlier stage of linguistic variation (Weinreich, Labov, Herzog, 2006; Labov, 1978, 1994, 2001, 2008, 2010) and investigates variants of pronouns o (a, os, as); ele (ela, eles, elas); lhe(s), in addition to zero anaphora. As conditioning factors of this change, it analyzes the oral or written continuum; the semantic properties of the direct object; the kind of verbal form that the accusative complements; the position of the pronoun; the historical period; the sex of the informant; the level of schooling; the age and the location. It proposes that the loss of the distinction of the case category in personal pronouns in Portuguese derives from the secular linguistic drift, and an evidence that proves this fact lies in the linguistic convergence of variants of Portuguese geographically distant but sharing cognitive and cultural factors (Labov, 2010) within Lusophony. It works with two samples, a written one and an oral one, containing texts from the 1970s to 2010 of Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese, as well as a test of perception and evaluation of variants applied to students of the University of Madeira. After being described, the data were subjected to a statistical treatment in the GoldVarb X program and then analyzed in the light of Sociofunctionalism, since, besides the Theory of Variation and Linguistic Change, it is based on the functionalist principles of iconicity and marking (Givon, 1979b, 1984, 1995, 2002, 2005, 2009, 2011). From the result of the test applied to 412 informants from Funchal, it was possible to map prestige variants and those stigmatized in European Portuguese peninsular. By order of evaluation, in an increasing sense of appreciation, the variants are distributed as it follows: ele, lhe, zero anaphora and o(a)(s). After that, it makes the analysis of the data of written and oral texts in European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. For variant o, the following groups of factors were selected as conditioning factors: a) Age group (56 to 75); b) education level (high school and higher education); c) textual genre (news and editorial); d) historical period (decades of 70 and 2000); e) semantic property of the direct object (+human); f) type of verbal form (compound); g) locality (Lisbon and Funchal); and h) continuum speech vs. writing (writing). As for the pronoun ele, five factors were selected, namely: a) age 12 range (36 to 55 and 56 to 75); b) schooling (elementary education); c) gender of the informant (female); d) locality (Rio de Janeiro); and e) semantic property of the direct object (+human). As for zero anaphora, the following factors were selected: a) age range (18 to 35); b) textual genre (interview); c) continuum speech vs. writing (speech); d) historical period (decades of 80, 90, 2010); e) locality (Rio de Janeiro); f) semantic trait of the object (âhuman) and g) type of the verbal form (simple). As for the pronoun lhe, only one conditioning factor was selected, the semantic property of the object (+human). After analyzing the data, functional microdomains were observed, configuring a syntax of the postcolonial Portuguese language: on the one hand, clitic o and zero anaphora, variants not marked, presenting high frequency, but opposite motivations; on the other hand, the variants marked cognitively and socially (ele and lhe) present low frequency and behavior analogous to each other.

Det här arbetet har som mål att undersöka huruvida tillägget av Virtual reality-teknologi i form av en Head mounted display (HMD) har någon påverkan på en spelares känsla av immersion i ett spel som använder sig av ett tredjepersonsperspektiv. För att kunna undersöka detta togs en frågeställning fram. För att undersöka denna frågeställning så utfördes en kombinerad kvantitativ/kvalitativ studie där 16 deltagare indelade i två grupper fick spela en kort prototyp framtagen för studien. Den ena gruppen spelade igenom prototypen med en HMD och den andre spelade utan. Data samlades in genom en enkät samt observationer och en kort intervju. Resultaten från de två grupperna samanställdes efter testerna för att få fram ett medelvärde för gruppens upplevda immersion. Dessa medelvärden jämfördes sedan med varandra. Resultatet av detta tyder på att tillägget av en HMD ökar användarens känsla av immersion om samtliga andra variabler är desamma.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative condition which results in severe motor impairment. Deterioration in multiple domains of cognition is another hallmark of PD. Together, these motor and cognitive impairments impact substantially on language and communication. Co-speech gestures are a form of action and are also part of linguistic processes, yet have rarely been explored in PD. Gestures can provide imagistic depictions of concepts described by speech and contribute to communication in healthy individuals. They rely on visual, spatial, and motor simulations and imagery, which may be impaired in PD. It is therefore of clinical importance to evaluate how co-speech gestures might be impaired to understand the extent of communicative impairment in PD. PD can also provide a useful model to understanding the cognitive basis of co-speech gesture in healthy people. In Chapter 2, participants described isolated actions. Gesture rate did not differ between the two groups, however, the groups differed in terms of the visual perspective they adopted when depicting actions in gesture. Controls preferred a “character viewpoint” or first-person perspective where their hands represented the hands of the actor, whereas PD patients preferred an “observer viewpoint” or third-person perspective, where their hand represented a whole person. This finding was replicated and extended in Chapter 3 where low-motion and high-motion actions were described in a longer narrative task. PD patients produced fewer character viewpoint gestures when describing high-motion action events, suggesting a difficulty in simulating these events from a first-person perspective. In addition, PD patients had difficult depicting “manner” (how an action is performed) features in gesture during high but not low motion. Extending the findings of Chapter 2, whilst overall rate of gesture production was not affected, PD patients produced action gestures at a significantly lower rate than controls. Chapter 4 took a different focus by investigating gesture depictions of static spatial (rather than dynamic action) features via a house description task. Gesture rate did not differ, but the groups depicted different types of spatial properties to a different extent. Whilst both groups predominantly gestured about location and relative position information, PD patients gestured more about directions whereas controls gestures more about shape and size information. This suggests that different strategies were being employed by the two groups. Finally, testing young adults’ comprehension of these spatial gestures in Chapter 5 revealed that gestures did not significantly improve comprehension of either PD patients’ or controls’ spoken messages, though there may have been ceiling effects. However, both PD patients and controls were viewed as more competent when their messages were viewed with gestures. The findings suggest a selective action-gesture deficit in PD which complements work demonstrating action-verb impairments in these patients, and supports gesture production theories which hypothesise a role for motor simulations and imagery. Overall gesture rate appears to be largely unaffected. The effects of PD can be felt beyond changes to goal-directed action, in the realms of language and social behaviour, but gestures may be able to improve listeners’ social perceptions of PD patients.

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The prospective student-athletes’ use of an online recruiting platform to seek college scholarships has become a norm. College coaches recruit prospective-student athletes often using tools like global personal contacts, on-site recruiting, and online recruiting platforms. Online recruiting platforms offer several services and vary in price. This study examines female student-athlete golfers’ use of the online recruiting platform to seek scholarships from a global perspective. Previous research suggests that prospective student-athletes prefer online recruiting platforms while college coaches often use other outlets which can lead to miscommunication and lost opportunities. The services, price, and usability of 20 sports online recruiting platforms in the United States were examined to find out what is offered to prospective-student athletes. Interviews of NCAA Division I collegiate coaches were conducted to examine the most common recruiting tools used by the coaches and their opinions of the use of online recruiting platforms.

In this essay, I illustrate how the third-person present tense narrative perspective can be used as stylistic allusion to theatre, by studying Maggie O’Farrell 2020 historical fiction novel Hamnet. Previous studies conclude that present-tense narration has the effect of blurring the lines between narration and experience. However, while a first-person perspective lets the reader enter the consciousness of an experiencing “I”, the third-person perspective, although inhabiting the same spatiotemporal level as the characters, maintains an outside perspective, observing the events as they unfold. Conclusively, as the study will show, third-person present tense narration has the potential to function as stylistic allusion to theatre as it seemingly challenges reader perception, letting the reader into the experiencing level of the story, assuming the role of the observer, thus mimicking the experience of watching a stage performance at a theatre.

A 3 (crisis response strategy) x 3 (medium) factorial design experiment was conducted to determine if information graphics conveyed through online news sources may be more beneficial for organizational reputations during some crisis situations than the use of news videos and text-based news stories. Variables examined include cognitive and affective appraisal, third-person effect, behavioral response and crisis response strategy. Recent research in organizational crisis communications has pointed to the fact that more information is needed regarding how individuals react cognitively and affectively to crisis communications. Current crisis communications literature is also sparse concerning the behavioral aspects of crisis message reception and social media usage. This study addressed these concerns and built on the established framework of Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT).