Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Katie (Mary Catherine) Kingery-Page / Landscape architecture lacks evidence-based theory for the communicative effectiveness of graphics used in representing design ideas to stakeholders. For the purpose of this study, communicative effectiveness is operationalized as visual communication that expresses accurately the design in a way that the receiver understands the intentions — programmatic, experiential or otherwise — of the design. People need graphic representation to grasp abstract concepts, and drawings can help one imagine what a place can look like years down the road (Hester 2007). Graphics inform the viewer about essential elements of the design and the broader impact that design has on future experiences (Coe 1981). Knowing how people perceive and understand design graphics is key to communicating effectively to clients and other stakeholders. Graphic communication is complex, and no formula exists for communication in landscape architecture (Kingery-Page and Hahn 2012; Ware 2014). The questions guiding this study are: What graphic representation styles increase the non-designers’ understanding of design proposals? Do degrees of abstraction or realism affect understanding of the design drawing? I identified three research phases to adequately answer the questions: Phase One: Site Design Development — I designed a site plan for the Manhattan Arts Center (MAC), a community arts center in Manhattan, Kansas. Design intentions were carefully outlined based on stakeholder input. Phase Two: Graphics Production — Visual representations of the site design were developed in styles ranging from formal abstract to more realistic, based on review of precedent images in academic and professional architectural publications. Phase Three: Evaluation of Graphics Through Focus Groups— The communicative effectiveness of the representations were tested through three focus groups of stakeholders. Content analysis of the recorded focus group sessions revealed patterns of understanding the graphics. Overall, participants revealed that the more real the abstraction, the less understanding takes place. Formal Abstraction communicates the physical dimensions of the design most effectively, and Formal Abstraction has relatively the same communicative effectiveness regarding experience of place. Quantitative and qualitative data informed the creation of theories and a framework practitioners may use for selecting the most effective graphic communication options appropriate to project and audience. Key Words: Effective visual representation, visual communication, graphic style, Formal Abstraction, Semi-Realistic Abstraction, Realistic Abstraction, drawings, design intent, design ideas, accurate, perception, understanding, stakeholders, non-designer, landscape architecture.

Abstraction is an inductive process through which specific details become united by a general concept. Abstraction incorporates two sub-skills: concept identification which involves recognizing patterns created by an external agent, and concept formation which is more difficult, requiring independent creation of a schema to organize information. Impairments in concept identification and formation are theorized to underlie a variety of practical difficulties of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; e.g., failure to generalize learning in one context to a similar, but new context). However, past research has yielded mixed results, with some finding significant impairment and others finding intact concept identification and formation. Contradictory findings may be due to differences in assessment methodology. We assessed concept identification and formation abilities using the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Sorting task. We hypothesized that (1) we would replicate previous findings of intact concept identification but impaired concept formation in individuals with ASD (Minshew et al., 2002); (2) impairments in concept formation would remain even after accounting for differences in IQ, working memory ability, and test anxiety; and (3) worse impairments would be associated with more severe autism symptoms. The sample consisted of 27 high-functioning (IQ > 80) adolescents with ASD and 27 age- (M 14.8 years) and IQ- (M 102.8) matched typically-developing controls. One-way ANOVAs explored group differences on task performance variables. As hypothesized, our sample demonstrated intact concept identification abilities, F(1, 52) = 2.90, p = 0.095, but impaired concept formation abilities, F(1, 52) = 6.53, p = 0.01. A linear regression analysis revealed that working memory ability and test anxiety were not significant predictors of concept formation abilities. After accounting for IQ in a regression model, our hypothesis was partly borne out in that individuals with ASD continued to show impairment in concept formation, yet at trend-level significance (p = 0.058). Two-tailed Pearson correlations revealed no significant correlations between a measure of autism symptomatology and concept formation or concept identification ability. Our findings add to a growing body of research showing a dissociation between concept identification and concept formation abilities in individuals with ASD. This dissociation existing at trend-level significance after statistically controlling for IQ suggests that it may exist across levels of cognitive functioning in ASD. Our finding that concept formation ability was not significantly associated with a measure autism symptomatology somewhat weakens the theoretical significance of concept formation deficits in ASD.

I will be presenting my work in two parts. The first section is dedicated to recent paintings that comprise my M.F.A. thesis exhibition: Practical Joy. The second section will investigate Practical Joy as an installation. I will raise questions regarding the relationship between my paintings and the exhibition space in order to situate my work into a contemporary discourse.

I take inspiration from ordinary objects and materials. Through photography, I attempt to transcend the familiar to discover complexity within the bits and pieces of my everyday life. Like other artistic representations, a photograph is a singular portrayal, not an actualization of physical reality. My artistic exploration of this involves incorporating elements of abstraction to point to the truth that all photographs are, by nature, an abstraction of our physical reality based on perspective. The resulting images often share a quality of impermanence, counterbalanced by the act of making a photographic document. By evoking this temporal quality of photography and abstracting familiar materials and surfaces, I aim to create a playful tension in my imagery.

My artistic practice creates relationships between the abstract and the personal. I define the abstract in the context of my studio work as a material exploration of color and form. The personal encompasses autobiography in relation to my sense of time and place. In this text, I use my concept of oceanic tides (considered as a temporal and spatial shift between states) to chart my activities as an artist. These activities include making objects that change in character over time, and durational work including performance and video. Interwoven throughout Tides are narrative passages based on my personal experiences, including witnessing the total eclipse of the sun, a purple garden, a coincidence, and the death of a friend.

In this study, I clarify the relationship between Wassily Kandinsky's move towards abstraction in painting and his encounters with the music and theory of Arnold Schoenberg. Prior studies have concentrated on the similarities in their theories, but I examine Kandinsky [sic] idiosyncratic understanding of Schoenbergian concepts and the evolution of his engagement with music theory over the period of 1909 to 1914. I identify dissonance as the aspect of Schoenberg's music and theory that Kandinsky found most relevant to his own developing compositional theory for abstract painting. In music, dissonance is commonly considered to be combinations of tones that sound harsh or discordant. Schoenberg denied the traditional opposition between consonance (conventionally pleasing sounds) and dissonance and advocated, at this stage of his career, for the use of any combination or progression of notes as long as it served the needs of a specific composition. Similarly, Kandinsky described his compositional strategies for abstract painting as the arrangement of colors and forms in the specific context of an individual work, with the "principle of dissonance" as a guide. Kandinsky's "principle of dissonance" was a compositional structure consisting of a multitude of oppositions and contrasts of colors and forms, producing disorienting and conflicting effects, that Kandinsky held in dynamic tension across the whole painting to produce a unifying equilibrium. This "principle of dissonance" was not completely congruent, in its specific compositional procedures, with the meaning and use of dissonance in either the conventional music theory of the period or in Schoenberg's alternate conception of dissonance. However, Schoenberg's arguments for the acceptability of unresolved dissonances and what Kandinsky perceived as an "antilogical" compositional structure bolstered Kandinsky's assertions that these principles could support legitimate compositional strategies for his abstract painting. Finally, I analyze Kandinsky's account of the creation of his 1913 Composition VI and how his description bears the traces of his engagement with Schoenberg. Kandinsky details a structure for Composition VI that, comparable to his understanding of Schoenberg's work, is not immediately obvious, but in which any combination of forms can be juxtaposed to create a unifying whole in the context of the specific work.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Cette thµese est consacree à l'etude d'abstractions d'ensemble de traces adaptees µa l'analyse statique et aux transformations de programmes. Cette etude a ete menee dans le cadre de l'interpretation abstraite. Dans une premiµere partie, nous proposons un cadre general permettant de definir des analyses effectuant un partitionnement des traces. Cela permet en particulier d'utiliser des proprietes definies par l'histoire des executions, pou ecrire des disjonctions de proprietes abstraites utiles lors de l'analyse statique. Ainsi, nous obtenons des analyses plus efficaces, qui sont non seulement plus precises mais aussi plus rapides. La methode a ete implementee et eprouvee dans l'analyseur de code C Astree, et on obtient d'excellents resultats lors de l'analyse d'applications industrielles de grande taille. La seconde partie est consacree au developpement de methodes permettant d'automatiser le diagnostique des alarmes produites par un analyseur tel qu'Astree. En eff en raison de l'incompletude de l'analyseur, une alarme peut, soit reveler une veritable erreur dans le programme, soit provenir d'une imprecision de l'analyse. Nous proposons tout d'abord d'extraire des slices semantiques, c'est à ire des sous-ensembles de traces du programme, satisfaisant certaines conditions ; cette technique permet de mieux caracteriser le contexte d'une alarme et peut aider, soit àprouver l'alarme fausse, soit à montrer un veritable contexte d'erreur. Ensuite, nous definissons des familles d'analyses de dependances adaptees µa la recherche d'origine de comportements anormaux dans un programme, afin d'aider µa un diagnostique plus efficace des raisons d'une alarme. Les resultats lors de l'implementation d'un prototype sont encourageants. Enfin, dans la troisiµeme partie, nous definissons une formalisation generale de la compilation dans le cadre de l'interpretation abstraite et integrons diverses techniques de compilation certifiee dans ce cadre. Tout d'abord, nous proposons une methode fondee sur la traduction d'invariants obtenus lors d'une analyse du code source et sur la verification independante des invariants traduits. Ensuite, nous formalisons la methode de preuve d'equivalence, qui produit une preuve de correction de la compilation, en prouvant l'equivalence du programme compile et du programme source. Enfin, nous comparons ces methodes du point de vue theorique et µa l'aide de resultats experimentaux.

Causal reconstruction is the task of reading a written causal description of a physical behavior, forming an internal model of the described activity, and demonstrating comprehension through question answering. T his task is difficult because written d escriptions often do not specify exactly how r eferenced events fit together. This article (1) ch aracterizes the causal reconstruction problem, (2) presents a representation called transition space, which portrays events in terms of "transitions,'' or collections of changes expressible in everyday language, and (3) describes a program called PATHFINDER, which uses the transition space representation to perform causal reconstruction on simplified English descriptions of physical activity.

Les paramètres des Algorithmes Evolutionnaires (AEs) ont une forte influence sur leur capacité à produire de bons résultats. Ces paramètres définissent les aspects structuraux et comportementaux de l'AE, comme la définition des composants qui seront inclus (e.g., l'ensemble d'opérateurs à utiliser, le codage, le schéma de sélection) ou la façon dont ces composants seront employés (e.g., le taux d'application des opérateurs). La paramétrisation des AEs a ´et´e longtemps un domaine de spécialistes, et même si de nombreuses études ont abordé le problème de la paramétrisation, il existe un déficit d'approches génériques qui puissent être appliquées à une grande variété d'AEs d'une manière simple. Cette thèse traite le problème de la conception d'un contrôleur générique, qui puisse être inclus dans n'importe quel AE avec un minimum d'efforts. Ceci est accompli en incorporant un composant d'apprentissage adaptatif, qui surveille l'état de la recherche et modifie les valeurs des paramètres. Le contrôleur se focalise sur les objectifs communs à tout EA, i.e., la maximisation de la diversité de la population et de la qualité des individus, afin de maintenir un équilibre convenable entre l'exploration et l'exploitation. Des nombreuses configurations des mécanismes d'apprentissage et d'ajustement ont ´et´e essayées et analysées, en utilisant AEs différents qui résolvent des problèmes combinatoires connus. Les bons résultats obtenus suggèrent que notre objectif de construire un contrôleur générique et facile à utiliser constitue une approche encourageante.