The thesis follows the relation between gender and language use of individuals for whom German is a foreign language. It is based on the hypothesis, that the language of men and women shows some typical characteristics. On the background of the development of feminist or gender linguistics the thesis gives an overview of the different concepts, which are trying to explain the relationship between gender and language. Presented are also specific language characteristic of men and women. Further an important theoretical basis is the theory of social construction of reality. Following the theory the thesis examines how are the individuals being styled into their respective gender roles and what influence this stylization on their language use has. The practical part of the thesis is based on a research conducted by an online-questionnaire. Based on data collected from individuals with German as a foreign language the thesis studies perception of a gender-specific language on one hand, as well as the own language stylization of the respondents into their respective gender roles on the other. The thesis looks for an answer to the question, whether and to what extent the use of a foreign language affects the language construction of an own gender identity. Key words: gender, communicative domain, identity, German...

This thesis presents a real-time automated building progress monitoring solution for indoor environments using a mobile device. Such a system could prompt accurate and timely assessment of work progress that would allow managers to make adjustments and minimise both time and cost overrun when deviations from the schedule occur. Although many researchers have proposed approaches for progress monitoring in outdoor scenes, these cannot perform in real-time and shift into the complex interior environment. Research efforts for indoor environments are not fully automated and lead to errors in more complex scenes. Systems based on mobile devices could potentially enhance the inspection process and reduce the required time by allowing the inspector to acquire progress data by simply walking around the site. The main challenge of these systems is the tracking of the pose of the camera to achieve accurate alignment between the 3D design model and the real-world scene. Methods for estimating the user’s pose rely on a) tags on each target of interest, which require additional time and cost for installation and maintenance; b) pre-selected user locations, which restricts the user to those locations only; or c) GPS on the augmented reality headset, which only applies to outdoor inspections. Additionally, current mobile-based inspection systems do not perform any comparison between the captured as-built and the as-planned data. In this research, different marker-less Augmented Reality (AR) potential methods were implemented and tested for finding the most robust tracking solution. The Microsoft HoloLens was found to be the top performer for tracking the user’s pose and for overall user-experience. Next, a semi-automated method was developed for initially registering the 3D model to the real environment by exploiting information from detected floor and wall surfaces. Results showed that this method reduces the time of the initial registration by 58%. Having the 3D model aligned to the real environment and knowing the pose of the camera at every moment, an automated method was developed that exploits the captured as-built surface mesh data from the mobile device, compares it against the 3D design model and identifies in real-time whether an object has been built according to plan. Different parameters were tested for finding the optimum combination based on the current quality of mesh data. If quality of mesh data changes, then new parameters should be explored. Finally, the proposed solution was tested in real site conditions resulting in 76.6% precision, 100.0% recall, and 83.5% accuracy.

Mixed Reality (MR) is a technique to blend together the real life with virtual reality. Using this technique it is, for instance, possible for experts to assist persons several miles away to perform tasks by talking and  visually aid them. In this thesis the main issue is to see how the delay in such a system for remote assistance eects the users. A controlled test was carried out with 20 test persons of dierent backgrounds. The study shows that it is very likely to be able to use an MR system for remote assistance even if there is a delay between the user and the expert. As long as they both are aware of the problem and are able to take it easy and do not have to move around too much it is still possible to work with delays to up to 4000 ms. Furthermore, the average time of completion for a task did not increase with the added delay. It was linear, i.e. the task is not more difficult toperform when the instructions are delayed.

Augmented Reality (AR) is a powerful tool for the visualisation of, and interaction with, digital information, and has been successfully deployed in a number of consumer applications. Despite this, AR has had limited success in industrial applications as the combined precision, accuracy, scalability and robustness of the systems are not up to industry standards. With these characteristics in mind, we present a concept Industrial AR (IAR) framework for use in outdoor environments. Within this concept IAR framework, we focus on the improving the precision and accuracy of consumer level devices by focusing on the issue of localisation, utilising LiDAR based point clouds generated as part of normal surveying and engineering workflow. We evaluate key design points to optimise the localisation solution, including the impact of increased field of view on feature matching performance, the filtering of feature matches between real imagery and an observed point cloud, and how pose can be estimated from 2D to 3D point correspondences. The overall accuracy of this localisation algorithm with respect to ground-truth observations is determined, with unfiltered results indicating an on par horizontal accuracy and significantly improved vertical accuracy with best-case consumer GNSS solutions. When additional filtering is applied, results of localisation show a higher accuracy than best-case consumer GNSS.

Children use many cues to differentiate reality from fantasy, including context, testimony from others, and physical evidence in the world around them. However, due to individual differences, some children hold strong reality status biases that interfere with their ability to infer reality status from these cues correctly. This research identified two general cognitive skills, inhibitory control and a metacognitive understanding of certainty, which serve as mechanisms for overcoming biases to infer reality status. In general, children with a high interest in fantastical play and older children with poorer developed inhibitory control skills are more likely to display a reality status bias. Additionally, children with reality status biases are more likely to overcome them to infer reality status correctly when they have a better metacognitive understanding of certainty and better developed inhibitory control. This research informs both the fantasy/reality literature and the scientific reasoning literature in demonstrating how biases can affect children's judgments. / text

Brummett’s ontological view of epistemic rhetoric frames a world in which reality is truly only shaped once it is communicated. This reality creation is uniquely performed within online spaces that are separated from the physical world by means of programming code and internal culture. These spaces are constructed of language and constitute new realities (Chesebro ) which are fundamentally rhetorical. However, the study of these tools lack shared terminology with which to classify and understand their potential as educational spaces. This study explores connections between communication mechanics of multi-user social technologies and their effectiveness as teaching tools. The study focuses on virtual worlds (defined as WAN-based, persistent, multi-user spaces which include avatars), such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, as examples of multi-user social technologies because these tools converge mechanics and communication tools found separately elsewhere. Communication mechanics are operationalized as facets found through the application of Shiyali Ranganathan’s Faceted Classification method. The facets of seventy worlds are first identified. These facets are then used to describe typical uses of the facets through Activity Theory (Engeström) and Genre Ecology Models (Spinuzzi). Finally, a framework is suggested for selecting virtual worlds and the most effective activities within them by ensuring coordination among the strategic, tactical, and operational goals and activities of the tool, the course/instructor, and student. / Incommensurate terms, incommensurate practices -- Background and current state of virtual world technology -- Classification of virtual worlds -- Using activity theory and genre ecology models to connect facets with motivations in virtual world education -- Implications, limitations and further study. / Department of English

Thesis (Ph.D. Computer Science)--University of Waikato, 2007. / Title from PDF cover (viewed December 18, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-284)

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: MacIntyre, Blair; Committee Member: Bolter, Jay; Committee Member: Guzdial, Mark; Committee Member: Mateas, Michael; Committee Member: Mynatt, Elizabeth. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Washington, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [47]-50). Issued also electronically via World Wide Web.

The purpose of this research is the creation of the framework for immersive Virtual Worlds (VW) development and evaluation of factors affecting user’s immersion experience in 3D virtual worlds. Three experiments have been conducted to evaluate different aspects of the immersion experience in virtual reality. The first experiment aimed to explore the influence of communication on users whilst performing certain activities in a virtual world. The second experiment evaluated how the real-world environment affects users in a virtual world. The third experiment examined the aspect of mobility as a main contributor to a user’s distraction. The fourth experiment partly confirmed previous findings and added new factors, affecting immersion experience. The results of all experiments formed a framework, containing factors which users considered as affecting them during their activities in virtual worlds. During the experimentation phase of this research a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. The Grounded Theory (GT) methodology was applied for data analysis in qualitative part. The major contribution of this research is the framework of factors for building immersive 3D virtual environments. Another contribution is the evaluation of factors affecting users in such an environment.