Thesis (M.F.A.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 25 p. : ill. (some col.) Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 23-25).

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In this study I utilize ethnographic research to explore how professionals working within non-profit organizations in the field of aging implement and navigate shifts in old age policy. I consider how these shifts are informed by changes in the political economy as well as the construction of knowledge about older adults through mainstream gerontology and the media. I explore how groups, such as older adults and caregivers, are produced and reproduced through policy, defined both as an exercise of power and the everyday practice of practitioners. This study is based on a combination of methods, including a year of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with members of an elder advocacy organization in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Participant observation took place primarily in the offices of this organization. I attended meetings and events in other locations in Philadelphia, which usually dealt with other non-profit or government groups. Thirteen interviews with staff members at this organization, as well as with individuals in additional organizations in the field of aging, provided insight into the constraints and opportunities created by federal and state aging policy for those that work "on the ground." The interviews explored the goals of these programs, organizational understanding of the target population, and external factors that affect the trajectory of these programs. I argue that, (1) aging is increasingly depoliticized through the concept of "successful aging," which professionals alternately reproduce and resist; (2) this process facilitates the roll-back of social welfare programs, and; (3) that this "aging system" creates constraints and contradictions for those who work within it, which are rooted in the effort to simplify and define population groups or make them "legible," in order to utilize government and private resources. / Anthropology

This study focuses on the ability, or inability, to replicate or compare the design of text-related research from the perspective of the independent or dependent variables employed in such designs. Prior text-related research has used variables that were not clearly described or defined, could not be directly compared from one study or time period to the next, or were applied inappropriately. Measurements of typography-related and substrate-related variables may have absolute or relative values, and confusion can arise if the variables are not clearly identified and defined. The study is an integrative review with mixed methods research design investigating 44 books and two websites (part 1), and 83 journal articles and four theses/dissertations (part 2). The integrative review shows that the sources investigated present neither essential information on typographic and substrate characteristics nor consistent definitions of legibility and readability in order to allow comparable replication from one study to another. Findings are displayed in Chapter 4. Discussion and the related details are presented in Chapter 5. / PHD

Aligning Word2vec word embeddings using a compass in a system of Compass-aligned Distributional Embeddings (CADE) creates stable and accurate temporal word embeddings. This thesis seeks to expand the CADE framework into the area of dynamic topic modeling (DTM), where temporal word2vec embeddings can be used to describe temporally and unsupervised evolving topics. It also seeks to improve upon the CADE framework through a theoretical and experimental exploration of compass parameters, cluster and topic generation techniques, and topic descriptor creation. This method of Temporal Topic Embeddings with a Compass (TTEC) will be compared to other DTM techniques in the ability to create coherent and diverse clusters and will be shown to be competitive compared to traditional and transformer-aided DTM architectures. In addition to a qualitative discussion of results, there will be a political theoretical overview of the nature of this technique and potential use cases, with interviews from political actors of various backgrounds as to how the technique and machine learning as a whole can be used in the organizational setting. / Master of Science / Diachronic word embeddings look at how the context words appear in evolve over time. Dynamic Topic Modeling (DTM) is the ability to computationally discover topics and how they evolve over time. This thesis creates a DTM technique called Temporal Topic Embeddings with a Compass (TTEC) based off diachronic word embeddings, allowing a user to simultaneously look at word and topic evolution over time. There is also an exploration of the use case of TTEC and similar machine learning models within various political organizational settings through interviews.

This study examines the legibility of two typefaces designed for the Swedish license plates. By using quantitative methodologies, the study compares the current typefaces used on license plates, with Motor, a typeface designed by me as part of this project. Through exposure tests focusing on character recognition the study sheds light on some of the challenges with the current typeface used on license plates. The findings indicate that Motor performs better in terms of legibility. However, the study does not demonstrate whether this would translate into improved safety in the traffic environment. Lastly, the study highlights the significance of further research to determine the potential impact of typeface legibility on traffic safety.

In 1975, J.K. Hvistendahl and Mary R. Kahl tested 200 individuals to determine if readers preferred serif type for the body text of stories in newspapers. Subjects read stories set in serif and sans serif type. They were timed and asked for their preference as to which typeface they felt was more legible. The researchers found that test subjects preferred serif type the body text in their newsprint. After comparing the time it took subjects to read stories, researchers found readers needed less time to read stories set in serif type than sans serif.Almost 25 years later, another generation of readers has emerged, and Web pages are commonplace among many newspapers today. Yet nothing has been done to determine if these same findings are true for the World Wide Web. This study set out to do just that.Two hundred subjects were recruited for this study, each one placed into one of four groups: male student, male non-student, female student, and female non-student. Each subject was asked to read two 325-word stories, each on its own World Wide Web page. One story was set in a serif typeface, the other set in a sans serif typeface. Subjects were unobrusively timed with a stopwatch as they read each story. After reading the two stories, they were asked which typeface they felt was more legible, serif or sans serif.Overall, readers showd no statistically significant preference for serif or sans serif type in body text on the World Wide Web. The data was tested with ANOVA while frequencies and were also gathered. Only one statistically significant interaction surfaced which found that male students, who preferred sans serif type, took a statistically significant longer time to read online stories set in serif type. / Department of Journalism

MSc, Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand / The effect of assistive devices on the speed and legibility of a child’s writing is not fully understood in the literature. This study therefore investigated the effects of Stetro pencil grips, soft splints and inclined surfaces on handwriting speed and legibility in order to better guide occupational therapists with regard to handwriting intervention. A writing legibility score sheet was developed to measure the factors of handwriting requiring assessment in this study namely: letter formation, spacing between words, letter spacing between lines, accuracy and general appearance. The study also compared the handwriting speed and legibility of grade two learning disabled learners with grade two mainstream learners. In analysing the results, letter formation and general appearance were the two areas where the learning disabled sample scored significantly worse than the mainstream sample. The various assistive devices were shown to have different impacts on writing speed and the five areas of legibility.

The architectural object is concerned with its image. However, as Yves Alain Bois notes, the flatness of the photograph “denies the real content of the work.” This thesis unpacks the collapse of object and image by exploring the relationship between the path and the object: the path offers an experience not simply a view. In the emerging mega-city of Manila, malls are ever-present entities. Mainly for the upper class, they form an episodic network, where seeing and being seen is as important as shopping. By combining a series of theaters with the Filipino reliance on shopping centers, a new typology is formed: the PERFORMANCE MALL. Adapting Garnier, Scharoun, and the mall, this project establishes space for the few and the many simultaneously. The motion within the theater complex creates a continuous spectacle of performance and circulation. Rather than separation of circulation and performance, they exist in a symbiotic state.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio University, June, 1998. / Title from PDF t.p.