Computer graphics is the act of bringing the imagination of creative people to life. It’s something that helps bring out what cannot be sought after in real life and realized through artistic talent and technical skills. For me, computer graphics is a way to tell the stories no one dared to look after and bring to life the characters that help tell these stories in an engaging and uplifting way. This bachelor thesis report is a project seeking the knowledge about the appeal and characterizations of inanimate objects. How to bring the lifeless to life by comparing how the established artists do, and at the end try and recreate my own characters by using the same aspects as they all work towards.

It is commonly accepted that our relation to inanimate objects is different than to biological entities. When movement comes into play, however, this relation can bring about ambiguities and transfigure familiar relationships between the animate and the world of things. This thesis investigates this relationship and the role of movement. The main focus is on humans' perception of movement, in particular how this affects the relationship to technological objects. It is a known phenomenon that humans tend to focus on life and lifelike processes. This propensity affects the creation as well as the observation of things. As social and emotional beings, humans experience a living presence of objects, and tend to not treat them as dead matter. Apparent for example in emotional attachments to devices like the computer, cell phones or robots. We have a long-standing practice of projecting social roles onto our surrounding as a way to relate and interact with things in the world. Differences in these relationships are affected by the appearance as well as movement of things, a phenomenon that is well-established, for instance, in cognitive psychology and gestalt/animation theory, where it has been demonstrated that abstract objects and shapes, when they move, tend to be interpreted less object-like and more as social and animate beings. Equally, in human-robot interaction, studies with real robots illustrate that people tend to 'anthropomorphise,' and attribute life-like properties to these technological objects with certain human or animal characteristics. The affinity towards the living affects not only the experience and observation but also the creation of technologically animated things. For a long time artists and inventors have been trying to mimic nature and develop technology simulating life-like qualities. These creations, as reported in this thesis, manifest for instance through animated creatures, artistic sculptures and artefacts, the creation of artificial systems, and robotics. The aim of this thesis is to learn more about the role of movement for human perception of the animate/inanimate by presenting movement as the common denominator on three levels. First, this thesis contributes to the understanding of the phenomena by bringing together work from various contexts and as such presenting an interdisciplinary approach to the topic. Second, as a result, a novel methodology is presented that provides a relational approach to examine move ment as a determinant of variances in the interpretation of an entity. Based on a feature-space, used to compare peoples' interpretative relationship to entities, the method allows to evaluate how an entity's movement characteristic affect the way thoughts and actions are directed to them. Third, results are obtained from the application of the methodology in an empirical study, assessing peoples' interpretation of a ready-made object, a technologically modified hairbrush moving autonomously. These show that the movement of an everyday object motivates an interpretation closer to humans and animals. The results correspond to the findings mentioned above. However, as the empirical work brings together people and an autonomously acting robotic object, which lacks anthropomorphic/zoomorphic or mechanoid morphology, in a real world scenario, it transfers these findings from cognitive psychology and computer graphic animation to the field of human-robot interaction.

Submitted by Amanda Silva (amanda.osilva2@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-10T13:50:29Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação Poliana Oliveira bb central.pdf: 3400669 bytes, checksum: c4916273bab930aa1f80c9bfa8819918 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-10T13:50:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação Poliana Oliveira bb central.pdf: 3400669 bytes, checksum: c4916273bab930aa1f80c9bfa8819918 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-07 / CNPq / O universo das narrativas digitais multimídia tem se expandido e consolidado tanto dentro como fora das academias. Diversos grupos de autores e pesquisadores têm se reunido com o intuito de fomentar as discussões sobre o fenômeno, bem como de divulgar as obras e pensar estratégias que tornem os projetos de criação economicamente viáveis. Ao mesmo tempo, o aprimoramento dos recursos tecnológicos utilizados na composição destas narrativas faz com que elas adquiram, cada vez mais, feições de jogo, e proporciona uma maior imersividade do leitor na obra. Este trabalho tem por intuito: apresentar um panorama do universo das narrativas digitais, através da exposição dessas novas estratégias de criação e divulgação das obras; e examinar como o elemento “jogo”, que já permeava as composições da literatura experimental impressa tem se incorporado às narrativas digitais com o uso de recursos multimídia.

Methods of studying the interaction between fish viruses with inanimate surfaces were developed and used to explore several variables. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) was used as the model virus. The EPC cell line, which is now known to be from Fathead Minnow, was used to detect the virus through the development of cytopathic effect (CPE); this allowed virus levels to be titrated and expressed as tissue culture infectious dose (TCID50). The labour and tedium of scoring hundreds of wells for CPE was overcome through the use of the fluorescent indicator dye, Alamar Blue, which is reduced by living cells and not by dead cells to yield a fluorescent product that can be measured as relative fluorescence units (RFUs) with a fluorescent microwell plate reader. Microsoft Excel 2007 was used to compare RFU values of wells and to create a scoring template in the computer program that allowed for easy summation of the total number of wells with infectious virus. With this system and as well as with conventional scoring, surface-virus interactions were studied in the following general way. Surfaces were incubated with a solution (L-15 with 2% fetal bovine serum or FBS) of virus, rinsed, and then incubated under various conditions, either wet or dry, before being evaluated for infectious virus. The transfer of viruses through their elution from surfaces is termed elution transfer (ET) and was investigated in two ways: agitated elution and static elution. Agitated elution was done through the repeated action of pipetting up and down on either glass or plastic surfaces with different eluting solutions. The best eluting solution was 2% FBS/L-15 and the worst was tissue culture grade water. Regardless of the eluting solution, no infectious virus could be removed by agitated elution from glass Petri dishes. Static elution was demonstrated through a two-compartment culture system linked by 3.0 m pores. L-15 with 2% FBS eluted VHSV from the surface of the top chamber to infect cells in the bottom chamber and from the surface of the bottom chamber to infect cells in the top chamber. The ability of different objects to carry infectious VHSV to a new culture vessel was investigated in a protocol termed object-associated transfer (OAT). The objects were incubated with VHSV, rinsed, and then incubated wet or dry for various periods before being transferred to EPC cultures. After up to ten days of wet incubation, pieces of glass, fishing line, plastic water bottle, and pop can were able to transfer infectious virus. In contrast, when the same objects were incubated dry, they were able to transfer VHSV after only one day of drying. Fishing hooks kept wet for a day were able to transfer VHSV but dry hooks had no capacity to transfer infectious virus. A third experimental protocol was used to detect infectious viruses on surfaces and involves the surface to cell transfer (SCT) of viruses. For this protocol, EPC cells were plated directly onto plastic or glass surfaces that previously had been exposed to virus, rinsed, and incubated dry or wet at various temperatures for up to 15 days. After 15 days being kept dry at 4 °C, infectious VHSV was still found to be present on both glass and plastic surfaces. At 14 °C and room temperature, the virus was found to survive longer on plastic than on glass, and at 26 °C both surfaces retained infectious VHSV for only one day of being dry. Survival time on plastic surfaces at different temperatures was compared for wet and dry incubation. VHSV kept on plastic surface in a dry state was more susceptible to temperature inactivation, with inactivation of the virus being detected clearly after 1 day 37 °C, 10 days at 26 °C, and 15 days at room temperature.

Methods of studying the interaction between fish viruses with inanimate surfaces were developed and used to explore several variables. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) was used as the model virus. The EPC cell line, which is now known to be from Fathead Minnow, was used to detect the virus through the development of cytopathic effect (CPE); this allowed virus levels to be titrated and expressed as tissue culture infectious dose (TCID50). The labour and tedium of scoring hundreds of wells for CPE was overcome through the use of the fluorescent indicator dye, Alamar Blue, which is reduced by living cells and not by dead cells to yield a fluorescent product that can be measured as relative fluorescence units (RFUs) with a fluorescent microwell plate reader. Microsoft Excel 2007 was used to compare RFU values of wells and to create a scoring template in the computer program that allowed for easy summation of the total number of wells with infectious virus. With this system and as well as with conventional scoring, surface-virus interactions were studied in the following general way. Surfaces were incubated with a solution (L-15 with 2% fetal bovine serum or FBS) of virus, rinsed, and then incubated under various conditions, either wet or dry, before being evaluated for infectious virus. The transfer of viruses through their elution from surfaces is termed elution transfer (ET) and was investigated in two ways: agitated elution and static elution. Agitated elution was done through the repeated action of pipetting up and down on either glass or plastic surfaces with different eluting solutions. The best eluting solution was 2% FBS/L-15 and the worst was tissue culture grade water. Regardless of the eluting solution, no infectious virus could be removed by agitated elution from glass Petri dishes. Static elution was demonstrated through a two-compartment culture system linked by 3.0 m pores. L-15 with 2% FBS eluted VHSV from the surface of the top chamber to infect cells in the bottom chamber and from the surface of the bottom chamber to infect cells in the top chamber. The ability of different objects to carry infectious VHSV to a new culture vessel was investigated in a protocol termed object-associated transfer (OAT). The objects were incubated with VHSV, rinsed, and then incubated wet or dry for various periods before being transferred to EPC cultures. After up to ten days of wet incubation, pieces of glass, fishing line, plastic water bottle, and pop can were able to transfer infectious virus. In contrast, when the same objects were incubated dry, they were able to transfer VHSV after only one day of drying. Fishing hooks kept wet for a day were able to transfer VHSV but dry hooks had no capacity to transfer infectious virus. A third experimental protocol was used to detect infectious viruses on surfaces and involves the surface to cell transfer (SCT) of viruses. For this protocol, EPC cells were plated directly onto plastic or glass surfaces that previously had been exposed to virus, rinsed, and incubated dry or wet at various temperatures for up to 15 days. After 15 days being kept dry at 4 °C, infectious VHSV was still found to be present on both glass and plastic surfaces. At 14 °C and room temperature, the virus was found to survive longer on plastic than on glass, and at 26 °C both surfaces retained infectious VHSV for only one day of being dry. Survival time on plastic surfaces at different temperatures was compared for wet and dry incubation. VHSV kept on plastic surface in a dry state was more susceptible to temperature inactivation, with inactivation of the virus being detected clearly after 1 day 37 °C, 10 days at 26 °C, and 15 days at room temperature.

This thesis deals with the knowledge testing of the natural history at pupils in 9th classes of primary and lower secondary schools by means of the didactic test which was created by students of Masaryk´s University in Brno (Kokošínská, Slavíčková) in 2009. Output knowledge of natural history was tested with 302 students (156 boys and 146 girls) in South Bohemia region (České Budějovice, Tábor, Soběslav). The comparison of the knowledge of the natural history was carried out at primary school leavers a graduates of lower secondary school cycle. The respondents from secondary school showed better knowledge than pupils of the natural history of the 9th classes of the primary school. The pupils achieve the highest knowledge in the field of human biology, the lowest one in the field of inanimate nature. The results of the thesis were compared with the results of the survey in primary and lower secondary schools in Brno (2009) and Central Bohemia Region (2009, 2011). The results were in all tested regions comparable and a statistically significant difference was not proved.

A subjekt of this diploma thesis is to characterize risks and find suitable insurance portfolio. So an objektive of my thesis is suggestion suitable insurance portfolio for thw town Třešť. Diploma thesis is about risks, their classification, insurance and insurance products for non-profit-making organization. I tis focused on kriteria important for a organization when choosing an appropriate insurance too. It contains brief description of the organization and analysis of risks that can threaten it. Current insurance products are analyzed and optimal insurance coverage suggested.

<p>Thomas Pynchon’s <em>V.</em> is often criticized for its preoccupation with meaninglessness and the  inability to make sense of ‘who’ or ‘what’ <em>V</em>. is about. The failure to make sense of <em>V</em>. is thematized within the novel particularly during the sacred moments or epiphanies which critics describe as ‘bizarre’, ‘disturbing’ or ‘unsettling’. These sacred moments raise issues that cannot be answered by traditional tools. Yet, critics and readers have responded to the novel with readings that reinscribe conventional modes of making sense and show a resistance to the inadequacy of traditional tools. This dissertation examines how Pynchon undermines modernist notions of the sacred moment as “moments of vision” which yield a higher knowledge or revelation. I argue that the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. allude to George Bataille’s notion of waste within a restricted and general economy. The violence of the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. are examined in relation to waste, sacrifice, the erotic, the inanimate, sovereignty and laughter. I conclude that rather than bringing about death, entropy and apocalyptic endings, the epiphanies’ violence and wasteful expenditure reveal the power structures at work in the literary use of the sacred. Paradoxically, the necessary existence of wasteful expenditure increases sense-making and offers the critic/reader the possibility of confronting waste, “the accursed share”.</p>

Submitted by Edileide Reis (leyde-landy@hotmail.com) on 2013-04-09T17:08:28Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Lígia 2.pdf: 3381746 bytes, checksum: 253ceaf4171afa46f392ca545a8c304d (MD5) Lígia 1.pdf: 2573838 bytes, checksum: fed74fe15519e90f3d6de6ed52a36cae (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Lêda Costa(lmrcosta@ufba.br) on 2013-04-18T12:36:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Lígia 2.pdf: 3381746 bytes, checksum: 253ceaf4171afa46f392ca545a8c304d (MD5) Lígia 1.pdf: 2573838 bytes, checksum: fed74fe15519e90f3d6de6ed52a36cae (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-04-18T12:36:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Lígia 2.pdf: 3381746 bytes, checksum: 253ceaf4171afa46f392ca545a8c304d (MD5) Lígia 1.pdf: 2573838 bytes, checksum: fed74fe15519e90f3d6de6ed52a36cae (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Esta dissertação detalha as etapas do processo criativo para a concepção de um painel modular de uma Coleção de pinturas figurativas de objetos singulares, constituído por 72 telas de 40 X 40 cm cada, apresentado no Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Paraná, em 2011. As seguintes ações processuais delinearam a pesquisa: uma coleta fotográfica de objetos de escolha pessoal e, ou, pertencentes a diversos indivíduos, nas cidades de Curitiba, no Paraná e de Salvador, na Bahia, acompanhada pelos depoimentos dos participantes, registrados em fichas individuais. A seguir, os objetos fotografados tornaram-se os modelos para as 72 pinturas das „coisas inanimadas‟, em referência ao gênero denominado Natureza Morta. O processo que reuniu objetos / sujeitos / interações/ pesquisadora encontra-se aqui circundado pela poética de Gaston Bachelard, apoiado nos conceitos da semiologia dos objetos a partir de Jean Baudrillard, da crítica do design, em Deyan Sudjic e observa as considerações de Gilles Lipovetsky a respeito das culturas da moda e do consumo. Georges Perec e Walter Benjamin foram buscados para assegurar os respectivos respaldos, literário e conceitual, dos significados de „coleção‟, entre abordagens igualmente verificadas junto a outros autores complementares para, metodologicamente organizar as bases das discussões teóricas relativas aos tensionamentos plásticos propostos. Ao abrir as portas para sair da intimidade de um atelier e percorrer outros territórios e lugares, os objetos encontrados revelaram-se não apenas modelos para pintura, mas matérias mediadoras da persistência do tempo que separa os homens das suas coisas ou que, por alguns breves instantes, os une. / Salvador

Thesis advisor: Richard J. Clifford / The translation of הֶבֶל (hebel) with vanitas has had a profound influence in the history of exegesis of the book of Qoheleth often characterized as the most pessimistic, skeptical, and nihilistic book in the Hebrew Bible, having as author a despondent man. This dissertation provides a corrective to the “vanity”, “meaningless”, “absurd” or negative reading of הֶבֶל in Qoheleth, by arguing that הֶבֶל has a positive value, as it expresses not the absurdity or the meaningless of life, but its fleetingness/transitoriness/brevity, whose meaning is disclosed in the opening and closing poems (1:2-11 and 12:1-8). This dissertation thus argues that the הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים הַכֹּל הָבֶל which introduces and concludes the book of Qoheleth (1:2; 12:8) is an appeal to contemplate the order, the beauty of the cosmos, through the regularity, recurrence, and cyclicality of natural phenomena. It also calls attention to the fleetingness of human experience in the world, which Qoheleth highlights in the opening and closing poems but also by the use of transient markers: יְמֵי־חַיֵּי הֶבְלוֹ ,(7:15) בִּימֵי הֶבְלִי ,(9:9), כָּל־יְמֵי חַיֵּי הֶבְלֶךָ ,(11:8) יְמֵי הַחֹשֶׁךְ (11:8) יְמֵי בְּחוּרוֹת (11:10) הַיַּלְדוּת וְהַשַּׁחֲרוּת הָבֶל (6:12), as well as אַחֲרָיו ,צֵּל and מִסְפַּר. The shortness of life and the limited duration of human achievements do not empty human life of its true meaning and value. Rather, they tell of the very nature of humans and their actions. The hebelness is from God who made things as fleeting, temporary, transient compared to his own eternity. By using the term הֶבֶל, and by introducing and concluding his book with “nature” poems, Qoheleth reminds the readers of their transience in this world with its pressing and tragic problems, as well as comforting them with the fact that evil itself is temporary in its impacts on life. They will pass away. Hence, Qoheleth’s opening and closing statement: הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים הַכֹּל הָבֶל (1:2; 12:8). / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.