Eileen Chang (1920-1995), a legendary female writer in Chinese literature history, lived in the most turbulent time of contemporary China. Her works are all about love. Her characters are all insignificant people, unrealistically invested with illusory dreams of life, but meanwhile, absorbed by worldly pursuits and pleasures. And her tone is desolate. People worship her, both as a great writer and as a mysterious woman. From 1980s, the fascination with her and her literature overtly announces itself in Chinese language cinema. Several critically acclaimed directors have intended to adapt her aura and charisma through adapting her literature. But, the result of their efforts is not optimistic; the disparity between the films and the novels still has been widely sensed. My thesis focuses on the film adaptations of her novels. I intend to explore this woman?s world through cinema; precisely, through the unexpected gap between her novels and their film versions, in order to explore the reality and moods in her mind that are hard to visualize. The same events, moments and situations presented in both the novels and the films also offer great opportunities for the comparison of two different ways of story-telling.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: R. Lance Holbert, Dept. of Communication. Includes bibliographical references.

In recent years, the rapid development of new head-mounted display technology (HMDs) for gaming provides usage opportunities for the mass market. A kickstarter project initiated by a well-known HMD developer Oculus Rift inspired our study. The main purpose of this study was to find out how a HMD will affect user’s expressed level of enjoyment. The method utilized in this study was a quantitative research method based on a research experiment. The thesis reports on a comparative study, in which the same game is played both with and without a HMD. Based on the analysis of our collected data, the results showed that playing games with a HMD does really give a boost in user’s enjoyment level. This may seem as a reasonable conclusion because the HMDs can provide the user with a more realistic and completely immersive in-game environment. Unfortunately there were some limitations in our study, one of the most crucial one was that the hardware was outdated, which significantly affected the reliability of the test results. For future prospects, it is recommended to use a more modern setup to acquire more reliable results, as well as optimizing the experience for the users.

Reality-genren har kritiserats sedan dess uppkomst. Programmen benämns ofta i massmedia såväl som i vardagligt tal som ”förnedrings-TV” eller ”mobbnings-TV” på grund av dess kontroversiella form. Programmen anklagas för att sudda ut gränsen mellan den privata och offentliga sfären samt att ge tittarna en bild av att det är okej att håna och förnedra andra människor. Genom att låta två fokusgrupper diskutera reality-genren som helhet samt frågor som berör ämnen om klass, etik och identitet syftar denna studie till att undersöka tittarnas attityd till de svenska reality-programmen. De frågeställningar som studien också syftar till att besvara är följande: Hur definierar respondenterna i intervjun reality-TV? Anser respondenterna att det går att urskilja några samhällsklasser i programmen? Anser respondenterna att det finns framträdande stereotyper/mönster i programmen?   För att besvara frågeställningarna har jag använt mig utav två ostrukturerade fokusgrupper som tillkommit genom ett snöbollsurval. Samtalen har sedan transkriberats och inom ramen för användningsmodellen har en analys gjorts.   Det var tydligt att respondenterna någon gång hade reflekterat över förnedringen i reality-programmen. Hur programmens deltagare porträtteras och stereotypifieras var en återkommande diskussion i båda grupperna. Respondenterna ansåg att förnedringen uttrycktes i särskillnaden utav människor och använde sig av begreppen storstad och landsbygd för att förklara denna skillnad; landsbygden fick representera den lägre klassen där lågkulturen konsumeras öppet och storstaden fick representera den högre klassen där kultur väljs efter smak.

Wearable computing systems have been researched and developed for several decades. With the advent of the head-mounted display, augmented and mediated reality systems became an important example of wearable computing. However, due to certain factors such as computational constraints, cost, obtrusiveness, practicality, and social acceptance, mediated reality systems have been leveraged in only very specific application domains and have yet to see mainstream adoption. This dissertation describes the research and development of a real-time mediated reality platform developed for modern mobile devices to provide a more reasonable transition in overcoming the mainstream adoption barrier of mediated reality systems. In particular, an outdoor navigational application that provides contextually-relevant information about a user’s surroundings is developed using the platform as a proof-of-concept for evaluation. In addition, the server infrastructure required to support the application is discussed, as well as the evaluation of a hybrid orientation tracking approach using sensors and computer vision.

Driving is a cognitively complex task, yet the areas of the brain involved in driving are not well understood. This thesis investigates the neural correlates of driving using functional magnetic resonance imaging and driving simulations with custom built driving hardware (steering wheel and foot pedals). The feasibility of driving in fMRI is first investigated, and a methodology is described to minimize head motions. Next, the functional neuroanatomical correlates of driving tasks of varying complexity are explored. Simple tasks such as straight driving activate areas of the brain related to motion, spatial navigation and coordination. Complex tasks are found to recruit additional areas of the brain, including areas of higher cognitive function such as the prefrontal cortex. Developing a better understanding of the areas involved in different driving tasks is an important first step in understanding the neural basis of driving skill and safe driving.

Wearable computing systems have been researched and developed for several decades. With the advent of the head-mounted display, augmented and mediated reality systems became an important example of wearable computing. However, due to certain factors such as computational constraints, cost, obtrusiveness, practicality, and social acceptance, mediated reality systems have been leveraged in only very specific application domains and have yet to see mainstream adoption. This dissertation describes the research and development of a real-time mediated reality platform developed for modern mobile devices to provide a more reasonable transition in overcoming the mainstream adoption barrier of mediated reality systems. In particular, an outdoor navigational application that provides contextually-relevant information about a user’s surroundings is developed using the platform as a proof-of-concept for evaluation. In addition, the server infrastructure required to support the application is discussed, as well as the evaluation of a hybrid orientation tracking approach using sensors and computer vision.

Driving is a cognitively complex task, yet the areas of the brain involved in driving are not well understood. This thesis investigates the neural correlates of driving using functional magnetic resonance imaging and driving simulations with custom built driving hardware (steering wheel and foot pedals). The feasibility of driving in fMRI is first investigated, and a methodology is described to minimize head motions. Next, the functional neuroanatomical correlates of driving tasks of varying complexity are explored. Simple tasks such as straight driving activate areas of the brain related to motion, spatial navigation and coordination. Complex tasks are found to recruit additional areas of the brain, including areas of higher cognitive function such as the prefrontal cortex. Developing a better understanding of the areas involved in different driving tasks is an important first step in understanding the neural basis of driving skill and safe driving.

Mixed Reality is the combination of the real world with a virtual one. In robotics thisopens many opportunities to improve the existing ways of development and testing. Thetools that Mixed Reality gives us, can speed up the development process and increasesafety during the testing stages. They can make prototyping faster and cheaper, and canboost the development and debugging process thanks to visualization and new opportunitiesfor automated testing.In this thesis the steps to build a working prototype demonstrator of a Mixed Realitysystem are covered. From selecting the required components, over integrating them intofunctional subsystems, to building a fully working demonstration system.The demonstrator uses optical tracking to gather information about the real world environment.It incorporates this data into a virtual representation of the world. This allowsthe simulation to let virtual and physical objects interact with each other. The results ofthe simulation are then visualized back into the real world.The presented system has been implemented and successfully tested at the HalmstadUniversity.

Over the last couple of years the field of Augmented Reality has transformed from something mainly seen in academic researchinto several examples of big commercially successful products, and the widespread use of highly capable mobile devices has greatly helped accelerate this trend. The powerful sensors in modern handsets enable designers to bring Augmented Reality implementations to the hands ofthe users.This thesis examines how Augmented Reality can be implemented onmobile platforms, mainly the iPhone 4, and surveys existing implementationsand solutions for developers. It presents a number of design guidelinesfor user interactions in AR on mobile devices that can be used fordesigners as a reference when designing user-centered mobile AR applications.