This project examines the images used in the beginning and ending chapters of Isaiah. The purpose of this project is to trace the transformation of specific images from their introduction in Isaiah 1 to their re-interpretation in Isaiah 65-66. While this analysis uses the verbal parallels (shared vocabulary) as a starting point, the present project seeks to move beyond the analysis of verbal parallels. The discovery and analysis of these transformed images forges a deeper connection between the first and last chapters of Isaiah. The three images are as follows: The first image occurs in Isaiah 1:2-4 where YHWH is described as a spurned parent. This image is transformed and reinterpreted in Isaiah 66:13 where YHWH is described as a comforting mother. The second image occurs in Isaiah 1:15 which pictures YHWH as an unresponsive deity. This image is transformed in Isaiah 65:24 where YHWH is presented as an attentive god. The third image occurs in 1:21 where Zion is pictured as a prostitute. This image is transformed in 66:10-11 where Jerusalem is presented as a birthing and nursing mother. On this basis the present project proposes a rhetorical and literary purpose behind the repetition/transformation of images in Isaiah 65-66. These purposes are explored in conjunction with the analysis of each image. In addition, this project identifies effective reading strategies for the book as a whole and contributes to a growing trend that sees Isaiah as a literary unity. / Religion

This investigation used an experimental design to examine how a visual imagery intervention and two levels of challenge would affect the flow experiences and performance of cadets engaged in Army ROTC marksmanship training. I employed MANCOVA analyses, with gender and prior marksmanship training experience as covariates, to assess cadets' (n = 127) marksmanship performance and flow experiences. Findings revealed that the use of visual imagery did not positively enhance flow and improve performance with statistical certainty. The results, however, might be practically significant because they showed that when cadets were faced with a more challenging situation and had engaged in visual imagery exercises, they were more likely to outperform cadets in the same challenge condition who had not engaged in visual imagery exercises. On average, cadets in the high challenge condition who engaged in visual imagery exercises outperformed non-visual imagery cadets in the same condition by over one point on a six-point scale. Additional findings revealed that level of challenge did not affect flow experiences, which is counter to the postulates of flow theory. Level of challenge did, however, negatively impact performance. That is, when cadets were faced with a more challenging situation, they performed more poorly. Prior experience — and by extension skill level — was discovered to better facilitate flow experiences, as opposed to a balance of challenge and skills. Higher levels of prior marksmanship training experience were associated with cadets' potential to enter the flow state. Additionally, males rated flow significantly higher than their female counterparts. Males also significantly outperformed females. Implications for future research investigating how challenge and visual imagery affect flow experiences and performance in the context of Army ROTC marksmanship training are discussed. / Ph. D.

the Ashes and the Portal is an immersive stereoscopic animated short capturing the burned library after a fire disaster at Mzuzu University, Malawi, Africa, and it also witnesses the new design of the library from Virginia Tech architecture students. This animated short recreates the burned library and presents the new library design with photo-real image sequences which can immersively bring the audiences onto the site. The Ashes and the Portal utilizes the Cyclorama system, which is a 32 feet diameter and 16 feet tall cylindrical screen with four projectors that can display visual content. The surrounding panels with rendered footage could provide an immersive experience within this semi-public space. This is a collaboration project between the School of Visual Arts and the School of Architecture + Design, also with technical support from the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. This project explores the potential use of Cyclorama system as a platform for CG works, especially for stereoscopic animation. / Master of Fine Arts / The Ashes and The Portal is a computer generated animation tells a story about burned library at Mzuzu University, Malawi, Africa and a new library design from Virginia Tech architecture students. Audience is required to wear a pair of 3D goggles to view the animation inside a giant curved screen which is surrounding the viewer. The photo-real footage of burned library and new library design can visually bring audiences onto the site and provide an immersive experience. This project is a collaboration project between the School of Visual Arts and the School of Architecture + Design, also with technical support from the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. This is an educational project that explores the potential use of the Cyclorama system as a platform for computer generated media works, especially for stereoscopic animation.

Urban dynamics at regional scales has been increasingly important for economics, policies, and land use planning, and monitoring regional scale urban dynamics has become an urgent need in recent years. This study illustrated the use of time series nighttime light (NTL) data from the United States Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellites Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) to delineate urban boundaries and tracked three key urban changes: land cover change, population growth and GDP growth within Virginia. NTL data from different years were inter-calibrated to be comparable by using linear regression model and Pseudo Invariant Features (PIFs) method. Urban patches were delineated by applying thresholding techniques based on digital number (DN) values extracted from DMSP/OLS imagery. Compounded Night Light Index (CNLI) values were calculated to help estimate GDP, and these processes were applied in a time series from 2000 to 2010. Spatial patterns of DN change and the variation of CNLI indicate that human activities were increasing during the 10 years in Virginia. Accuracy of the results was confirmed using ancillary data sources from the U.S. Census and NLCD imagery. / Master of Science / Urban areas concentrate built environment, population, and economic activities, therefore, generating urban sprawl is a simultaneous result of land-use change, economic growth, population growth and so on. Remote sensing has been used to map urban sprawl within individual cities for a long time, while there has been less research focused on regional scale urban dynamics. However, the regional scale urban dynamics for economics, formulating policies, and land use planning has been increasingly important, and monitoring regional scale urban dynamics has become an urgent need in recent years. Here, we illustrated the use of multi-temporal United States Air Force Satellites data to help monitor urban sprawls by delineating urban patches and we measured a variety of urban changes, such as urban population growth and land cover change within Virginia based on the delineation. For doing so, digital number values, which measures the brightness of satellite imagery, were extracted and other relative index values were calculated based on digital number values, and these processes were applied in a time series from 2000 to 2010. Spatial patterns of digital number values change and the variation of another light index values indicate that human activities were increasing during the 10 years in Virginia.

Yes / According to the theory of predictive processing, understanding in the present involves non-consciously representing the immediate future, based on probabilistic inference shaped by learning from the past. This paper suggests links between this neuroscientific theory and the psychoanalytic concept of reverie–an empathic, containing attentional state–and considers implications for the ways therapists intuit implicit material in their clients. Using findings from a study about therapists’ experiences of this state, we propose that reverie can offer practitioners from diverse theoretical s a means to enter the predictive moment deeply, making use of its subtle contents to connect with clients.

The study of embodied communication requires access to multiple data sources such as multistream video and audio, various derived and meta-data such as gesture, head, posture, facial expression and gaze information. This thesis presents the data collection, annotation, and analysis for multiple participants engaged in planning meetings. In support of the analysis tasks, this thesis presents the multimedia Visualization for Situated Temporal Analysis for Macintosh (MacVisSTA) system. It supports the analysis of multimodal human communication through the use of video, audio, speech transcriptions, and gesture and head orientation data. The system uses a multiple linked representation strategy in which different representations are linked by the current time focus. MacVisSTA supports analysis of the synchronized data at varying timescales for coarse-to-fine observational studies. The hybrid architecture may be extended through plugins. Finally, this effort has resulted in encoding of behavioral and language data, enabling collaborative research and embodying it with the aid of, and interface to, a database management system. / Master of Science

No / This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines from prehistoric (7th–6th millennia BC) Anatolian contexts. These figurines document local, regional and inter-regional communication of identity, use of materials, ideologies and skills. Taking a new approach to understanding the assemblages, this paper suggests four key themes of analysis: materials and materiality; fractured bodies; gender spectrum; and ambiguities and relationships. / The full text is unavailable from the repository due to the publisher's copyright restrictions

It is still controversial whether mental practice – the internal rehearsal of movements to improve later performance – relies on processes engaged during physical motor performance and, if so, which processes these are. This series of experiments investigates this question. It utilizes a framework of ideomotor action planning theories, and tests whether mental practice may specifically draw upon planning- rather than execution-related motor processes, specifically those processes that “bind” intended action features to action plans. Experiments 1 to 4 utilize a classical stimulus response compatibility paradigm. Participants mentally practiced complex rhythms with either feet or hands while using the same or different body parts to respond to unrelated sounds. In contrast to previous work on stimulus response compatibility, we indeed found that responses were impaired – rather than facilitated – for those body parts that were concurrently used in mental practice. This result was found when participants mentally trained to memorize the rhythms (Experiment 1), to merely improve their performance (Experiment 3), when mental practice and execution directly followed one another and when separated by a different task (Experiment 4). These data link mental practice not to execution but planning related motor processes that are involved in binding intended action features to intended action plans. Experiment 5 and 6 then extend these results to imitation learning. Participants were instructed to learn the rhythms by observing somebody else, while again making unrelated responses with their hand and feet. While previous work on stimulus response compatibility focussed on testing automatic imitation processes, here imitation was therefore goal directed. We found, as in the previous experiments, that responses with the same body parts as used in the observed rhythms were impaired, suggesting that goal-directed imitation might rely on the same planning-related motor processes as the mental practice of action (Experiment 5). Importantly, these effects were only found as long as participants observed the actions with VI the purpose of imitating them later (i.e. formed action plans), but not when they merely tried to memorize the rhythms for later recognition (Experiment 6). The previous experiments suggest that mental practice and observation learning draw upon body-part specific planning processes. Ideomotor theories suggest, however, that action plans can be relatively abstract, and represented in terms of higher-level goals (i.e. the sequence of left and right button presses independent of the body part used). Experiment 7 and 8 therefore tested whether rhythms learned through mental practice or observation learning could be transferred to other body parts. As expected, we found a relatively high amount of potential transfer when rhythms were mentally practiced with one body part, and then had to be transferred to another body part (Experiment 7). However, this only held when participants learned the rhythms based on an abstract rhythm description, as in Experiments 1 to 4. If participants learned the same rhythms during action observation, any benefits were only obtained when the rhythms later had to be executed with the same (rather than a different) body part. Together, the present data suggest that mental practice does not rely on execution related-motor processes, and points to an involvement of planning related motor processes instead. We argue that such a planning-based account of mental practice is more compatible with the available evidence from body neuroscientific and behavioral studies, and allows one to resolve several debates. Moreover, it allows one to conceptualize goal-directed imitation in a similar manner as mental practice.

The primary purpose of this study was to compare regular classroom instruction which used Guided Mental Imagery (GMI) to a non-GMI teaching method. This comparison was expected to yield data which would provide insights relating to the potential of GMI as a useful and effective instructional strategy. Quasi-experimental research methods were followed. The experimental design was a modified "post-test only control group design." Two-hundred-four students in naturally occurring in tact classes formed the experimental and control groups. All groups received instruction in identical science/health content. Two parallel post-tests were administered to all students. Post-test "A" was given immediately after instruction to measure learning acquisition. Post-test "B" was given four weeks later to measure retention of learning. Means for test scores were grouped according to treatment and sub-grouped by the variables: IQ, handedness, identified learning disability, and intellectual giftedness. T_ tests for differences between independent means were conducted. Students' acquisition of basic academic content, when instructed with GMI methodology, was found to differ significantly from students' acquisition of the same content with non-GMI instruction. No statistically significant differences based on instructional methodology were found for content retention. The investigator concluded that GMI instruction may increase learning. Although measures of retention did not show significant differences between groups, a review of the mean scores revealed a minimal difference. This was interpreted to indicate equality of retention between the two methods. Recommendations for further investigation were offered. Post-testing of subjects at additional intervals, and increased training of students and teachers in GMI prior to collection of data were suggested.

Margaret Atwood speaks about a now common and yet still predominant question of female identity. Eye images, appearing frequently, correlate with ideas of observation, perception, and reflection as the woman seeks to understand herself. Introductory material examines three female archetypes, five victim positions, and male-female worlds. Eye imagery in early poetry expresses female feelings of frustration and submission to unfair roles and expectations. Imagery in the middle poetry presents causes for male-female manipulations. In later poetry eye imagery underscores the woman's anger and desire to separate into a new self. Concluding this study is an analysis of female options. From denial and anger the poet moves to recognition of choices open to today's woman, offering a possibility of wholeness.