In this art-based study I will examine the construction of identity creating three life size figures utilizing metaphor and symbolism. I recorded and analyzed the process through reflections. The artist/teacher/researcher will provide conclusions based on art production and self-reflection.

This thesis proposes a way in which architecture and the built environment might work to integrate human consciousness and natural process. A theoretical design entitled Landscope is presented as a responsive, sustainable landscape that offers understanding of nature through active observation, interpretation and transformation of the environment. The design proposal is situated at the edge of Hamilton Harbour, Ontario, Canada, adjacent to the existing facilities of the National Water Research Institute. Two extended studies accompany the design proposal. The first, Water, presents a poetic exploration of cosmic, responsive, and connective qualities of water relating to nature and technology. The second study, Connected Fields, focuses on the visionary American engineer Buckminster Fuller and his ‘Geoscope’ project, a geodesic dome designed to act as a monitoring and control centre for global material and resource flows. This section also includes a discussion of general conceptions of the world, focusing on key twentieth-century conceptions of the Biosphere, Gaia, and the Noösphere. Historical theories of environmental perception are discussed including Gestalt psychology and technical systems of observation. Drawing upon this cultural material, the thesis attempts to open boundaries that separate nature and technology, encouraging a complex, mutually dependent relationship between these traditionally separate realms. The general pursuit is a cybernetic and virtual model for environmental and ontological hybridity, involving an evolution of consciousness at both individual and global scales.

This thesis proposes a way in which architecture and the built environment might work to integrate human consciousness and natural process. A theoretical design entitled Landscope is presented as a responsive, sustainable landscape that offers understanding of nature through active observation, interpretation and transformation of the environment. The design proposal is situated at the edge of Hamilton Harbour, Ontario, Canada, adjacent to the existing facilities of the National Water Research Institute. Two extended studies accompany the design proposal. The first, Water, presents a poetic exploration of cosmic, responsive, and connective qualities of water relating to nature and technology. The second study, Connected Fields, focuses on the visionary American engineer Buckminster Fuller and his ‘Geoscope’ project, a geodesic dome designed to act as a monitoring and control centre for global material and resource flows. This section also includes a discussion of general conceptions of the world, focusing on key twentieth-century conceptions of the Biosphere, Gaia, and the Noösphere. Historical theories of environmental perception are discussed including Gestalt psychology and technical systems of observation. Drawing upon this cultural material, the thesis attempts to open boundaries that separate nature and technology, encouraging a complex, mutually dependent relationship between these traditionally separate realms. The general pursuit is a cybernetic and virtual model for environmental and ontological hybridity, involving an evolution of consciousness at both individual and global scales.

No description available.

This thesis proposes some novel approaches for feature reduction and multi-label classification for text datasets. In text processing, the bag-of-words model is commonly used, with each document modeled as a vector in a high dimensional space. This model is often called the vector-space model. Usually, the dimensionality of the document vector is huge. Such high-dimensionality can be a severe obstacle for text processing algorithms. To improve the performance of text processing algorithms, we propose a feature clustering approach to reduce the dimensionality of document vectors. We also propose an efficient algorithm for text classification. Feature clustering is a powerful method to reduce the dimensionality of feature vectors for text classification. We propose a fuzzy similarity-based self-constructing algorithm for feature clustering. The words in the feature vector of a document set are grouped into clusters based on similarity test. Words that are similar to each other are grouped into the same cluster. Each cluster is characterized by a membership function with statistical mean and deviation. When all the words have been fed in, a desired number of clusters are formed automatically. We then have one extracted feature for each cluster. The extracted feature corresponding to a cluster is a weighted combination of the words contained in the cluster. By this algorithm, the derived membership functions match closely with and describe properly the real distribution of the training data. Besides, the user need not specify the number of extracted features in advance, and trial-and-error for determining the appropriate number of extracted features can then be avoided. Experimental results show that our method can run faster and obtain better extracted features than other methods. We also propose a fuzzy similarity clustering scheme for multi-label text categorization in which a document can belong to one or more than one category. Firstly, feature transformation is performed. An input document is transformed to a fuzzy-similarity vector. Next, the relevance degrees of the input document to a collection of clusters are calculated, which are then combined to obtain the relevance degree of the input document to each participating category. Finally, the input document is classified to a certain category if the associated relevance degree exceeds a threshold. In text categorization, the number of the involved terms is usually huge. An automatic classification system may suffer from large memory requirements and poor efficiency. Our scheme can do without these difficulties. Besides, we allow the region a category covers to be a combination of several sub-regions that are not necessarily connected. The effectiveness of our proposed scheme is demonstrated by the results of several experiments.

Šiame darbe surinkta medžiaga apie visas šiuo metu veikiančias Lietuvos teritorijos cerkves – istorijos faktai, pastatų brėžiniai, archyvų dokumentai, iliustracijos, nuotraukos ir kt., atlikta bendro pobūdžio šalies stačiatikių sakralinių statinių architektūrinė ir konstrukcinė analizė, taip pat daug dėmesio skirta istorinei cerkvių plėtrai. Stačiatikių kulto statiniai apžvelgiami ne tik Vilniuje, bet ir visoje Lietuvoje. Trumpai analizuojami ir kitų religijų bažnyčios, kurios tam tikru istorijos laikotarpiu buvo stačiatikių cerkvėmis. / In this work I've collected information about about all the Lithuanian Orthodox Church – history, buildings, drawings, archival documents, images and so on, prepared a general national Orthodox church architectural and design analysis, also paid attention to historical development of churches. The Orthodox sacramental churches are overviewed not only in Vilnius, but in the whole territory of Lithuania. Brief analysis of temples of other religions , which in a certain period of the history were Orthodox churches, is also done.

[pt] As organizações estão enfrentando um ambiente turbulento que exige mudanças rápidas e paradigmáticas. Para atender a estas demandas, modelos de gestão de pessoas por competências têm sido adotados como resposta à necessidade de um maior envolvimento dos indivíduos e busca de diferenciais competitivos para a organização (Dutra, 2004). Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo analisar a implantação destes modelos de gestão de pessoas com base em competências e os significados sinalizados pelas iniciativas de comunicação desta mudança organizacional, a partir da ótica de diferentes modelos referenciais (Weick, 1999; Klein, 1996; Ford & Ford, 1995; Van de Ven & Poole, 1995; Lewin, 1951). Utilizou-se uma abordagem qualitativa, com múltiplos estudos de caso. Foram selecionadas sete empresas de um setor da economia brasileira escolhido intencionalmente devido à intensidade e complexidade de seu processo de mudança: o setor de telecomunicações. Os dados foram coletados por meio de investigação documental, entrevistas semi-estruturadas e questionários fechados. As conclusões da pesquisa ressaltam a importância da comunicação na instauração do projeto de mudança e apontam para a necessidade de atentar para os significados que são construídos na organização como desdobramento dos processos de divulgação da mudança planejada e das diferentes fases de implantação dos modelos de gestão de pessoas com base em competências. / [en] Today s turbulent business environment demands speedy and paradigmatic changes. To meet these challenges, organizations are adopting competency-based people-management models as a response to the need for greater individual commitment and as an important strategy for gaining a competitive edge (Dutra, 2004). This study analyzes the implementation of such competency-based models and their meaning for organizational change, as signaled by the communication initiatives the companies adopted, from the perspective of different theoretical frameworks (Weick, 1999; Klein, 1996; Ford & Ford, 1995; Van de Ven & Poole, 1995; Lewin, 1951). Using a qualitative approach, multiple case studies were discussed. Seven companies from the telecommunications sector were selected, as representative of a high clock speed industry that in Brazil continuously undergoes intense and complex changes. The research findings are based on information collected from in-depth semi-structured interviews, closed-answer questionnaires and archival data. The findings reinforce the importance of communication efforts for putting a change project into effect. They also highlight the need to unravel the meanings triggered by information strategies used during the different phases of project implementation considering the competency-based HR management programs as examples of planned change.

Primary Angle Closure Glaucoma (PACG) is a worldwide leading cause of irreversible blindness much more prevalent in Asia than in European-derived populations. Patterns of ethnic differences may account for prevalence variation of the disease. Recent papers have reported a predicted rise in European-derived populations. Ocular risks associated with PAC(G) include an axially small, hypermetropic eye with a large lens. Potentially, there are patients in the UK with 'at risk' ocular biometrics predisposing them to PAC(G). Biometric disparities between ethnicities infer morphological variation of PAC(G).The morphology of PAC(G) can be evaluated using ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) and the development of a novel linear probe has enhanced its clinical utility. UBM allows quantitative analysis of the anterior chamber, however, there are inherent difficulties in identifying the landmark scleral spur. Qualitative image analyses are urgently required to assess the morphology of closure. Clinical grading scales (CGS) have been successful in other areas within ophthalmology; their application to PAC(G) is investigated within this thesis. The specific aims of the thesis are to: a) examine biometric differences between Caucasian & Chinese patients with PAC(G); b) describe the development of a series of CGS for PAC(G) and c) validate the CGS.Biometric differences between Chinese and Caucasian sample populations exist. The Caucasian cohort exhibit typical biometric findings associated with PAC(G): significantly smaller eyes, shallower anterior chambers, larger lenses, and a significantly shorter vitreous depth, when compared to Chinese counterparts. Biometric differences lend support to variation of PAC(G) mechanisms between ethnicities. A series of clinical CGS were developed using a 'consensus' based approach. The results: utilize psychometric techniques to evaluate inter-observer error; analyse intra-observer agreement by visualising concordance; target pruning to eliminate inter-observer confusion when constructing the CGS. A new custom-made software was developed to evaluate the performance of the CGS. The results show good intra- and inter- observer repeatability to characterise the morphology of closure. This is the first study describing a comprehensive method to construct and validate CGS in PAC(G). These can be used to evaluate the morphology of closure and in the future assess the fidelity of PAC(G) management.

The entirety of modern academia is founded on some form of historical authentication and interpretation. Historical exploration, in fact, represents the necessary element for the cognitive linking of interdisciplinary learning. At essence academic historiography is first - the product of intrigue - and then its contemporary expression. But though the field of academic history poses the perfect union of science and literary arts, modern instruction has sometimes grappled with finding and striking the optimal balance for effectively teaching historical authentication and its interpretation. Recognition and application of both aspects are essential to the effective demonstration of history as a viable, if not primary choice of high school-aged students for academic career path. The focus of this project relies on the premise that young people find fascination in history as readily as they might music, mathematics, medicine, or any other form of science and art. Using the dramatic Wars of the Roses as a backdrop, Constructing History: Richard III and the Wars of the Roses: A Teaching Unit aims to whet the historical appetite of students, and to instill in them a sense of historical awareness as individuals. Our curriculum provides high school educators with lessons that clearly demonstrate to students the difference between academic historiography and historical narrative while highlighting the imperative for interdisciplinarity. The unit introduces and profiles figures - both likely and unlikely historians - of various academic and public professions from the past and the present. Students will begin to understand the importance of discovering for themselves whether the histories they themselves have either accepted (or rejected) are true. Armed with this knowledge they can then determine how best to reasonably express their conclusions, leading directly to the main focal point of the project wherein students will learn that history is a cultural construct, and that especially now, all of us participate in its construction as both actors and narrators.

No description available.