Exegesis (MA&D) -- AUT University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (69 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm. + 1 CD-ROM and 1 DVD) in the Archive at the City Campus (T 709.2 LEI)

Maintaining cotton fiber quality is crucial for the survival of the U.S. cotton industry. Previous studies have indicated that spatial variability of fiber quality parameters exists in cotton fields. If site-specific measurement and prediction of quality is possible, then fiber could be segregated during the harvesting process, thus increasing the overall price a producer would receive for his crop. Because of the importance of fiber micronaire to the textile industry, the fact that micronaire exhibits moderate variation in the field, and the fact that it has been shown to be related to optical properties of cotton fibers, micronaire measurement was considered for quality segregation. Two years? cotton and soil data from two fields in Brooksville, Mississippi were used to investigate how much spatial variation in cotton quality factors could be explained by soil parameters. It was found that spatial variability exists in soil and cotton quality parameters, and micronaire (maturity and fineness) was found to have relatively large variability compared to other quality parameters. About 22 to 35% of the variation in micronaire could be explained by soil parameter variability. Site-specific prediction of micronaire based on only soil seems to be not practical according to the results of this study. Another objective was to develop a methodology for measuring important parameters of cotton crop quality in the field. USDA Micronaire Standard Calibration samples were used in infrared spectral measurements in order to relate their micronaire values to near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelength spectra. Near-infrared reflectance measurements in certain wavelengths ranging from 800 to 2500 nm were found to be closely correlated to micronaire values. Mid-infrared transmittance measurements (ratios) in certain wavelengths ranging from 2.5 to 25 µm were also related to micronaire values. The R2 value of the optimal prediction model was 0.92. This model was validated with HVI measurement of cotton samples from Mississippi and Arizona. Optical sensors based on spectral reflectance and transmittance measurements seem to be a reasonable choice for site-specific harvesting. A practical sensor mounted on cotton picker for measuring cotton micronaire appears to be feasible and a draft design was proposed.

Little attention has been given to studying the important nuances and contributions of individual works by the artist Maurizio Cattelan. Since beginning his career as an "art world outsider," the artist has consistently resisted categorization of his work, be it stylistic, nationalistic or ideological. This has made an approach based on examining his social and political context in relation to individual works rather difficult. Instead, the scholarship surrounding his art has most frequently been in the form of a survey, using his earlier conceptual pieces to contextualize later installations and sculptures, an approach that limits a fuller understanding of Cattelan's art. Rather than reading specific works in the context of their individual exhibition history, critics place them in the trajectory of Cattelan's overall practice. Furthermore, much of the existing scholarship has relied on the artist's own discussions of his oeuvre, providing a superficial understanding of both his work and words. Thus, Cattelan has been generally understood and labeled the art-world "joker," and his artwork is seen as a series of "one-liners," limiting the reading of his work. I propose, instead, an in-depth study of specific sculptures, which will lead to a richer understanding of the artist's overall practice within a historical and contextual period. In my opinion, Cattelan's work has been overlooked in relation to notions of site specificity. Through a close reading of Cattelan's most pivotal work, La Nona Ora, I will argue that this artistic paradigm will prove a much more effective lens through which to view his practice. / Art History

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This thesis addresses various aspects related to site-specific propagation prediction using ray tracing techniques. Propagation prediction based on ray tracing techniques requires that all the different physical objects, which affect the propagation of radio waves, be modeled. The first part of the thesis concentrates on modeling the buildings and the terrain for the above-mentioned application. A survey of the various geographic products that are available to model the environment is presented. The different methods used to model the terrain are analyzed and the most suitable method for a ray based application is suggested. A method to model the buildings in an environment from commercially available data is described. A novel method to combine the building information with the terrain information is presented. An in depth discussion of deterministic propagation prediction using ray tracing is presented in the latter half of the thesis. An overview of the various ray based algorithms that exists in the literature are presented and the limitations and the computational complexity of ray based methods are discussed. All ray based algorithms model the receivers as point objects and predict the propagation characteristics at a particular point in space. However, to optimize the design of a wireless broadcast or a point to multi point system such as a Wireless LAN (WLAN) or a cellular system, propagation characteristics at multiple points in space need to be known. The standard ray tracing algorithms can be notoriously time consuming when used to predict the characteristics of multiple receivers. A new, computationally less intensive algorithm to predict the propagation characteristics of multiple receivers is described. This algorithm significantly reduces the computation time by using "grid mode" predictions for broadcast channels. / Master of Science

S'il est désormais acquis que les communautés d'artistes et plus généralement le système de l'art contemporain jouent un rôle majeur dans le changement urbain, il reste encore plusieurs aspects à éclaircir en ce qui concerne la spécificité de cette contribution. Dans le contexte des quartiers en voie de régénération en particulier, les artistes ont un impact sur le capital symbolique qui se transmet des communautés qui y habitent ou y travaillent, à l'espace ; un processus que l'on pourrait qualifier de « spatialisation du capital symbolique ». Ces hypothèses ont été développées à travers l'exploration d'un ensemble d'éléments artistiques ayant agi dans le processus de régénération urbaine, au sein du cadre spécifique du Berlin des années 1990.Afin de donner des réponses nouvelles à ces questions, il a fallu élargir le champ de l'analyse en associant aux dimensions sociologiques, géographiques, économiques et urbaines la considération des activités artistiques qui appartiennent à la sphère plus proprement esthétique. L'hypothèse étant que les œuvres d'art – qui ne sont pas nécessairement des objets – sont des « configurations signifiantes à partir desquelles il est possible d'exercer un jugement rationnel » parce que dans l'expérience esthétique qu'elles engendrent, se produisent des effets d'ordre « normatif, cognitif et pragmatique ». Le rôle crucial de l'espace urbain dans l'évolution de l'art depuis la fin du XIXe siècle étaye l'hypothèse d'un ensemble d'interactions spécifiques, sur le plan esthétique, entre expression artistique et espace urbain. On ne se réfère pas aux recherches artistiques qui trouvent dans la ville un sujet à représenter, mais à des expériences plus radicales qui ont pu choisir l'urbain comme espace d'intervention, substrat des œuvres et lieu où établir des relations plus directes avec le public et le monde réel. La compréhension de l'émergence d'une approche site-specific dans l'art du XXe siècle peut servir à comprendre les racines symboliques du rôle croissant du système artistique dans le changement urbain. Pour aborder une question intrinsèquement transdisciplinaire nous avons dû avoir recours à des instruments variés et hétérogènes. Ainsi cette recherche s'appuie sur une variété de sources : des fonds d'archives concernant les programmes publics et les initiatives institutionnelles ; des recherches anthropologiques visant à reconstruire des histoires de vie et des expériences racontées par leurs protagonistes ; des sources bibliographiques importantes sur le cadre historique et théorique. Le degré d'indépendance des acteurs artistiques dans la détermination de ces changements démontre une profonde ambivalence qu'on ne peut réduire à des formules synthétiques. Les résultats des actions artistiques peuvent être analysés soit comme une exploitation de la valeur symbolique produite par les acteurs institutionnels de la ville, soit au contraire comme la préservation et le développement d'une alternative urbaine et politique. Par rapport aux exemples observés à Berlin, nous avons essayé de retracer les liens qui unissent ces expériences à des phénomènes antérieurs similaires – et à d'autres encore en évolution dans le présent – cela nous a permis de les considérer ceux-ci comme l'expression d'une tradition constamment renouvelée. En ce sens, les acteurs artistiques dont nous nous sommes occupés peuvent être considérés comme les interprètes de besoins et de désirs latents du corps social et urbain qui reviendraient de façon cyclique et qui pourraient jouer un rôle dans le développement de la ville dans le future aussi. L'analyse approfondie des deux cas d'étude, au-delà de leur intérêt individuel, s'offre comme une exploration à l'intérieur d'un champ dans lequel les études sont encore limitées et souvent très circonscrites. Notre recherche se veut comme la tentative de formuler des concepts, des instruments et des stratégies d'analyse qui pourront par la suite être appliqués à d'autres contextes / The key role played in urban change by artist communities, and more generally the art system has been widely recognized, yet the specific characteristics of this contribution are still to be explored. In the context of regenerating neighborhoods in particular, artist communities are able to produce a symbolic value that is subsequently transferred to the space they inhabit and work into, in a process that we could define as a ‘spatialisation of symbolic value'. Our thesis is focused on a series of artistic elements and events that were able to interact with the urban regeneration process that took place in post-wall Berlin in the 1990s.To fully understand such process, it is necessary to broaden the scope of the analysis in order to associate to sociological, geographical, economic and urban aspects the consideration of those artistic activities that belong to the aesthetic sphere. Our hypothesis being that works of art – which are not necessarily objects – may be regarded as significant configurations whose consideration allows a rational judgment as the aesthetic experience they determine encompasses prescriptive, cognitive and pragmatic effects. The crucial role of urban space in the evolution of art since the end of the XIX century supports the hypothesis of the existence of specific interactions between artistic expressions and the urban environment. We are not referring to those art works that find in the city an object to represent, but to more radical researches that choose the urban dimension as a site of intervention, the foundation of the work of art and the place where a more direct relationship with the public and the real world may be established. The consideration of the ‘site-specific' approach that appeared in the art of the XX century has helped us to understand the symbolic nature of the role increasingly played by the art system in urban change. In order to deal with a question that pertains to urban and cultural geography, urbanism, history as well as art history, we had to rely on a set of heterogeneous tools and sources: archival material concerning public programs and institutional initiatives; anthropological enquiries concerned with ‘life histories' and experiences reconstructed through the direct testimony of their protagonists; extensive bibliographic sources used to analyze the broader context of more specific case studies. As a result of our analysis, the degree of independence of artistic actors in the determination of such changes is marked by deep ambiguity that cannot be reduced to synthetic formulas. At times the symbolic value produced may be subsequently commodified and exploited by the institutional players of the city, in other cases art interventions prove as the expression of an alternative vision for urban development and its politics. In the specific context of Post-wall Berlin, we have tried to explore the relationship that connects specific experiences of the time to similar ones occurring in the past – as well as others currently taking place. This effort has brought us to consider the events of the 1990s as the expression of needs and desires periodically reappearing at the surface of the urban and social body, forces that may still play an important role in the future development of the city. Besides its intrinsic interest, in depth analysis of two case studies appears as a further inquiry in a field where research is still lacking and often focused on specific perspectives. Our contribution is intended as an attempt to develop concepts, tools and analytical strategies that may in the future be applied to other contexts

O núcleo desta tese é o conjunto da minha produção artística entre os anos de 2004 e 2008, período em que se deu este doutorado. O texto que acompanha as imagens dos trabalhos descreve cronologicamente cada experiência, desde sua elaboração até a execução, como um evento concatenado a experiências anteriores e posteriores, desdobradas no tempo. Esses trabalhos não apenas partem de indagações a respeito do lugar em que estão inseridos, o que poderia identificá-los com a prática do site-specific, mas têm uma vontade de confundir-se com o próprio lugar, têm a intenção de sê-lo. Nesse sentido, talvez o ânimo da obra aqui relatada não venha de um intrincamento com um lugar específico, mas de intrincamento específico com qualquer lugar. A questão oscila entre dois lados no conjunto do trabalho, e mantém-se em suspenso um julgamento conclusivo sobre a dualidade que nomeia esta tese, que a rigor parece não existir: visto de dentro, visto de fora. / The core of this thesis is the ensemble of my artistic production between the years 2004 and 2008, which was the period when I was undertaking my PhD course. The text accompanying the images chronologically describes each experience, from its inception to its execution, as an event connected to previous and subsequent experiences, unfolded in time. These point of departure of these works go beyond issues apropos of the place in which they are inserted and that might have identified them with the practice of site-specific. The works aim at integrating themselves with each place, they aim at being that very place. In this sense, the moving force behind the works here presented may stem not so much from a relationship of entanglement with a specific place, but with a specific relation of entanglement with any place. Within the ensemble of the work, this issue oscillates between two sides and keeps a conclusive judgement about the duality that names this thesis in suspension. Rigorously speaking, this duality may even seem not to exist: viewed from the inside, viewed from the outside.

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / O Riacho Pajeà à um recurso hÃdrico de fundamental importÃncia histÃrica e ambiental para a cidade de Fortaleza que foi aos poucos apagado do espaÃo fÃsico e simbÃlico. Tal riacho foi objeto de monografia de graduaÃÃo desta pesquisadora como conclusÃo do curso em Arquitetura e Urbanismo (2003), a partir de um viÃs de urbanismo ecossistÃmico. ApÃs mais de dez anos desse trabalho, a presente pesquisa à uma retomada daquele corpus de estudo a partir do campo das Artes, pela compreensÃo desse lugar como um campo potente para problematizaÃÃo e atuaÃÃo simbÃlica. Diante do apagamento do riacho e das possibilidades de ampliaÃÃo do espaÃo atuais, colocam-se as questÃes: como apropriar-se das possibilidades de ampliaÃÃo da realidade criadas pelas mÃdias locativas para discutir o apagamento no contexto especÃfico do riacho Pajeà (ou como, pela adiÃÃo de camadas, falar da subtraÃÃo do espaÃo)? Como somar as virtualidades desses dispositivos Ãs virtualidades do espaÃo para construir um Parque ampliado do PajeÃ? Esta dissertaÃÃo tem como objetivo geral investigar as possibilidades de apropriaÃÃo pela arte das chamadas prÃticas Locative media para gerar um espaÃo desviante no contexto especÃfico do riacho Pajeà como espaÃo ampliado, tendo o site-specific como mÃtodo. / The Pajeà creek is a watercourse of fundamental historical and environmental rele-vance in Fortaleza, Brazil, which has been gradually erased from the cityâs physical and symbolic space. The creek was the subject of investigation of this researcherâs degree in Architecture and Urbanism (2003), from the standpoint of ecosystemic ur-banism. More than ten years later, this research is a return to the previous corpus of study, but now with a renewed perspective from the field of the Arts, in the under-standing of the creek as a field of potential for both problematization and symbolic action. In face of the creekâs erasure and its current possibilities of spatial expan-sion, questions emerge: how to take hold of the possibilities of augmented reality, enabled by locative media, in order to discuss the process of erasure in the specific context of the Pajeà creek (or how to talk about space subtraction by adding layers)? How to add the virtualities of devices to the virtualities of space to create an aug-mented park for the Pajeà creek? Using the site-specific method, this Masterâs thesis aims to investigate the possibilities of artistic appropriation of the so-called practices of locative media, in order to generate a deviant space in the specific context of the Pajeà creek as an augmented space.

O núcleo desta tese é o conjunto da minha produção artística entre os anos de 2004 e 2008, período em que se deu este doutorado. O texto que acompanha as imagens dos trabalhos descreve cronologicamente cada experiência, desde sua elaboração até a execução, como um evento concatenado a experiências anteriores e posteriores, desdobradas no tempo. Esses trabalhos não apenas partem de indagações a respeito do lugar em que estão inseridos, o que poderia identificá-los com a prática do site-specific, mas têm uma vontade de confundir-se com o próprio lugar, têm a intenção de sê-lo. Nesse sentido, talvez o ânimo da obra aqui relatada não venha de um intrincamento com um lugar específico, mas de intrincamento específico com qualquer lugar. A questão oscila entre dois lados no conjunto do trabalho, e mantém-se em suspenso um julgamento conclusivo sobre a dualidade que nomeia esta tese, que a rigor parece não existir: visto de dentro, visto de fora. / The core of this thesis is the ensemble of my artistic production between the years 2004 and 2008, which was the period when I was undertaking my PhD course. The text accompanying the images chronologically describes each experience, from its inception to its execution, as an event connected to previous and subsequent experiences, unfolded in time. These point of departure of these works go beyond issues apropos of the place in which they are inserted and that might have identified them with the practice of site-specific. The works aim at integrating themselves with each place, they aim at being that very place. In this sense, the moving force behind the works here presented may stem not so much from a relationship of entanglement with a specific place, but with a specific relation of entanglement with any place. Within the ensemble of the work, this issue oscillates between two sides and keeps a conclusive judgement about the duality that names this thesis in suspension. Rigorously speaking, this duality may even seem not to exist: viewed from the inside, viewed from the outside.

A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo estabelecer uma reflexão a respeito de parte de minha produção poética intitulada À Curta Distância. A fim de discernir critérios para tal análise parti de uma contextualização desta produção em relação às vivências artísticas que marcaram o início deste projeto, para, a seguir, estabelecer uma articulação com obras de outros artistas – tanto de antecedentes históricos como praticantes contemporâneos. O fio condutor desta investigação será dividido em dois vetores; o primeiro consiste na busca por situar o surgimento de propostas que abordam o contexto de apresentação como conteúdo da obra. A partir de uma breve descrição das conexões históricas deste tema será possível discernir como este é articulado em minha produção artística. O segundo vetor desta pesquisa é referente ao estudo da relação entre a fotografia e as artes visuais, extraindo daí argumentos para proceder uma análise do uso contemporâneo deste meio, hoje em dia tão difundido nas exposições ao redor do planeta. A relação entre o espaço físico de exposição e a fotografia se faz presente em meu trabalho por meio da criação de um paralelismo entre realidade e representação. A fotografia apresentada ao público representa o próprio ambiente em que o espectador se encontra quando está diante da imagem. Assim, com a criação deste artifício, estimula-se a passagem de uma atenção dirigida somente às propriedades formais do objeto artístico para uma apreensão fenomenológica do espaço ao qual a imagem se refere. / The present research has as objective to establish a reflection regarding part of my poetical production titled In a Short Distance. In order to discern criteria for such analysis I started off a contextualization of this production in relation to the artistic experiences that had marked the beginning of this project, then, in the sequence, establishing relation with works of other artists - as much of historical antecedents as contemporaries practitioners. The conducting wire of this inquiry will be divided in two vectors; the first one consists of the search for pointing out the sprouting of proposals that approach the presentation context as content of the work of art. From one soon description of the historical connections of this subject will be possible to discern how it is articulated in my artistic production. The second vector of this research is referring to the study of the relation between photograph and the visual arts, extracting from there arguments to proceed an analysis about the contemporary use of this medium, nowadays so spread out in the exhibitions around the world. The relation between the photograph and the physical space of exhibition is present in my work by means of the creation of a parallelism between reality and representation. The photograph presented to the public represents the proper environment where the spectator is when he sees the image. Thus, with the creation of this artifice, is possible to turn an attention only directed to the formal properties of the artistic object into a phenomenological apprehension of the real space.