Understanding the context of a person’s interaction with a place is important to enabling ubiquitous computing applications. The ability for mobile computing to provide information and services that are relevant to a user’s current location—which is central to the vision of ubiquitous computing—requires that the technologies be able to characterize the activities that a person may potentially perform in place, whatever this place may be. To support the user as she goes about her day, this ability to characterize the potential activities for a place must support work on a city scale. In this dissertation, we present a method to process place-specific community-authored content (e.g., Yelp.com reviews) to identify a set of the potential activities (articulated as verb-noun pairs) that a person can perform at a specific place and apply this method for places on a city scale. We validate the method by processing the place-specific reviews authored by community members of Yelp.com and show that the majority of the 40 most common verb-noun pairs are true activities that can be performed at the respective place; achieving an average mean precision of up to 79.3% and recall of up to 55.9%. We applied this method by developing a Web-service (the Activity Service) that automatically processes all the places reviewed for a city and provides structured access to the activity data that can be identified for the respective places. To validate that the place and activity data is useful and useable, we developed and evaluated two applications that are supported by the Activity Service: Opportunities Exist and Vocabulary Wallpaper. In addition to these applications, we conducted a design contest to identify other types of applications that can be supported by the Activity Service. Finally, we discuss limitations of the activity data and the Activity Service, and highlight future considerations.

Understanding the context of a person’s interaction with a place is important to enabling ubiquitous computing applications. The ability for mobile computing to provide information and services that are relevant to a user’s current location—which is central to the vision of ubiquitous computing—requires that the technologies be able to characterize the activities that a person may potentially perform in place, whatever this place may be. To support the user as she goes about her day, this ability to characterize the potential activities for a place must support work on a city scale. In this dissertation, we present a method to process place-specific community-authored content (e.g., Yelp.com reviews) to identify a set of the potential activities (articulated as verb-noun pairs) that a person can perform at a specific place and apply this method for places on a city scale. We validate the method by processing the place-specific reviews authored by community members of Yelp.com and show that the majority of the 40 most common verb-noun pairs are true activities that can be performed at the respective place; achieving an average mean precision of up to 79.3% and recall of up to 55.9%. We applied this method by developing a Web-service (the Activity Service) that automatically processes all the places reviewed for a city and provides structured access to the activity data that can be identified for the respective places. To validate that the place and activity data is useful and useable, we developed and evaluated two applications that are supported by the Activity Service: Opportunities Exist and Vocabulary Wallpaper. In addition to these applications, we conducted a design contest to identify other types of applications that can be supported by the Activity Service. Finally, we discuss limitations of the activity data and the Activity Service, and highlight future considerations.

Historically, urban high school students encounter socioeconomic, educational, and systematic barriers in pursuit of college acceptance and admissions (VanTassel-Baska and Willis, 1987; Freedle, 2003; Dixon-Roman, Everson, and McArdle, 2013). These same hurdles are ever present for these students in their enrollment in SAT test then the SAT scores. Furthermore, urban students with learning and/or language differences are further disadvantaged by compounding variables of socioeconomics, disability, and access to resources. Given the significance of SAT scores in college admission, it is imperative that disadvantaged students from urban communities are provided proper support, guidance and instruction thought non-profit community organization that serve as college access conduits. This research study examine SAT Verbal prep offered through the Upward Bound program. SAT Verbal was offered through two instructional modes: teacher-led lecture or student-authored multimedia instruction. SAT Verbal instruction type was compared with a small sampling of students enrolled in Dual Enrollment to determine which SAT instruction increased scores beyond exposure to college level coursework. Three different groups were used in this pre-posttest design that utilized a combination of unique randomization and non-randomized group placements (n=101). Pre and posttest were analyzed with ANCOVAs to evaluate mean changes across the groups. Results indicate that students participating in high frequency academic vocabulary CAPs experienced a highly statistically signification casual effect of increasing scores on SAT Composite(p<.00) and SAT Verbal scores (p<.00). These results are even more pronounced in student groups with learning or language differences. Diverse students enrolled in multimedia instruction saw their SAT Composite scores increases (ELL=5.34%, IEP=18.12%) and SAT Verbal scores (ELL-3.67%, IEP 12.88%). These results support use of CAPS to address language, learning, access, and socio-economic issues that hinder urban students from high achievement on SAT, and ultimately college admission. / Special Education

This literary study examines the formulation of masculinity in Syrian novels authored by women. The thesis covers the period between 1959 and 2000, corresponding to both the development of the female-authored novel in Syria and the creation of the modern Syrian state. This research engages with studies of masculinity in general and literary masculinity studies in particular. Drawing on the seminal work of Raewyn Connell as well as engaging with studies on masculinity and feminine narratology in Swedish, English and Arabic, the thesis analyses the formulation of literary masculinity through the fictional societies’ ideal masculinity on the one hand, and the female characters’ views and reactions to masculinity on the other. From a general survey of the field, 34 novels undertaking the formulation of gendered relations were identified and chosen for this study. From this selection, five themes emerged, forming the foundation of this thesis’ main chapters. The five themes explore, in turn, how stereotypes are utilised to critique gender roles, ways in which male and female characters collaborate to formulate gender norms, how female characters capitalise on patriarchy in order to enhance their lives, male characters as symbols for social and political change and finally, the difficulties included in the performance of masculinity. Each theme is exemplified through one novel, which is analysed in detail. Throughout the five chapters, the main novel chosen for analysis is put into conversation with other novels with similar themes but from different decades. This allows for an examination of changing ideals of masculinity in addition to the theme itself. The first theme, how stereotypes are utilised to critique gender roles, is studied through a close reading of al-Ẓahr al-‘ārī (The Naked back) by Hanrīyit ‘Abbūdī. The analysis illustrates how the expected normative behaviour of men and women is utilised in order to comment on the formulation of gender roles. The chapter further demonstrates ways in which what is seen as gender specific behaviour can be appropriated by the opposite gender. This is further developed through the examination of female writers taking over the male voice through a first person male narrator. The second theme, ways in which male and female characters collaborate to formulate gender norms, is discussed through a close reading of the novel Khaṭawāt fī al-ḍabāb (Steps in the fog) by Malāḥa al-Khānī. This chapter illustrates the similar expectations that both male and female characters have on their sons and fellow male characters. This includes taking on the role of provider and protector, even in the cases where the female characters are able to look after themselves. The third theme, how female characters capitalise on patriarchy in order to enhance their lives, is elaborated through a close reading of Ayyām ma‘ahu (Days with him) by Kūlīt Khūrī. This theme demonstrates how the female character constructs herself and her world around the idea of a perfect male, whom she thinks will save her. The analysis examines what is seen as ideal traits in a man. It further discusses the change of the female character and how her initial utilisation of patriarchal structure transforms into a critique of the same structure. The fourth theme, male characters as symbols for social and political change, is seen through a close reading of Dimashq yā basmat al-ḥuzn (Damascus, o smile of sadness) by Ulfat al-Idlibī. The chapter connects between changing social ideals and ideal masculinity. Through Bayrūt 75 (Beirut 75) by Ghāda al-Sammān, the fifth theme, the difficulties included in the performance of masculinity, is studied. The problematic masculinity presented is then put in contrast with what appears to be a suggestion that a performance of femininity could be an alternative to unsuccessful masculinity. Whereas the novels differ in their presentation of masculinity and the utilisation of ideal masculinity, they agree on a set of core traits summarised in a hegemonic ideal of masculinity as an ability to provide and protect. The ways in which this should be performed is however closely connected to the female characters’ ideas of emancipation and women’s rights. The female writers’ formulation of masculinity can hence be said to mirror the development of the female characters and their awareness of women’s rights. The thesis hopes that its original contribution to knowledge is the identification and examination of constructed masculinities in Syrian female-authored fiction. Moreover, this thesis studies a body of Syrian fiction previously largely unstudied in Western academia, and in a framework of Swedish, English and Arabic secondary sources.

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Creative Project Abstract: The creative project of this thesis is a script prototype for Underland, a crime drama video game and digital playable story that demonstrates writing and design methods for negotiating narrative and player agency. The story is set in October 2006 and players are investigative psychologists given access to a secure police server and tasked with analysing evidence related to two linked murders that have resulted in the arrest of journalist Silvi Moore. The aim is to uncover what happened and why by analysing Silvi’s flat, calendar of events, emails, texts, photos, voicemail, call log, 999 call, a map of the city of Plymouth and a crime scene. It is a combination of story exploration game and digital epistolary fiction that is structured via an authored fabula and dynamic syuzhet and uses the Internal-Exploratory and Internal-Ontological interactive modes to negotiate narrative and player agency. Its use of this structure and these modes shows how playable stories are uniquely positioned to deliver self-directed and empathetic emotional immersion simultaneously. The story is told in a mixture of enacted, embedded, evoked, environmental and epistolary narrative, the combination of which contributes new knowledge on how writers can use mystery, suspense and dramatic irony in playable stories. The interactive script prototype is accessible at underlandgame.com and is a means to represent how the final game is intended to be experienced by players. Thesis Abstract: This thesis considers writing and design methods for playable stories that negotiate narrative and player agency. By approaching the topic through the lens of creative writing practice, it seeks to fill a gap in the literature related to the execution of interactive and narrative devices as a practitioner. Chapter 1 defines the key terms for understanding the field and surveys the academic and theoretical debate to identify the challenges and opportunities for writers and creators. In this it departs from the dominant vision of the future of digital playable stories as the ‘holodeck,’ a simulated reality players can enter and manipulate and that shapes around them as story protagonists. Building on narratological theory it contributes a new term—the dynamic syuzhet—to express an alternate negotiation of narrative and player agency within current technological realities. Three further terms—the authored fabula, fixed syuzhet and improvised fabula—are also contributed as means to compare and contrast the narrative structures and affordances available to writers of live, digital and live-digital hybrid work. Chapter 2 conducts a qualitative analysis of digital, live and live-digital playable stories, released 2010–2016, and combines this with insights gained from primary interviews with their writers and creators to identify the techniques at work and their implications for narrative and player agency. This analysis contributes new knowledge to writing and design approaches in four interactive modes—Internal-Ontological, Internal-Exploratory, External-Ontological and External-Exploratory—that impact on where players are positioned in the work and how the experiential narrative unfolds. Chapter 3 shows how the knowledge developed through academic research informed the creation of a new playable story, Underland; as well as how the creative practice informed the academic research. Underland provides a means to demonstrate how making players protagonists of the experience, rather than of the story, enables the coupling of self-directed and empathetic emotional immersion in a way uniquely available to digital playable stories. It further shows how this negotiation of narrative and player agency can use a combination of enacted, embedded, evoked, environmental and epistolary narrative to employ dramatic irony in a new way. These findings demonstrate ways playable stories can be written and designed to deliver the ‘traditional’ pleasure of narrative and the ‘newer’ pleasure of player agency without sacrificing either.