This thesis proposes an alternative way of establishing a link between market orientation and electoral success, by focusing on market orientation as a message instead of as a management function. Using interpretive textual analysis the thesis examines the advertising messages of the highest polling political parties for evidence of voter orientation and competitor orientation in the 1999 and 2002 New Zealand general election campaigns. Relating manifest market orientation to a number of statistical indicators of electoral success the thesis looks for plausible associations between the visual manifestation of market orientation in political advertisements and parties' achievement of their party vote goals in the 1999 and 2002 elections. It offers party-focused explanations for electoral outcomes to complement existing voter-centric explanations, and adds another level of scholarly understanding of recent electoral outcomes in New Zealand.While the thesis finds little association between demonstration of competitor orientation in political advertisements and electoral success, it finds a plausible relationship between parties that demonstrated a voter orientation in their political advertisements and goal achievement. The parties that achieved their party vote goals in 1999 and 2002 tended to demonstrate an affinity for their target voter groups by showing images of voters and their environments and images of party leaders interacting with voters. They demonstrated concern for the satisfaction of the needs of existing voters by using words of togetherness and proving they had met their previous promises. They did not change their policy or leadership messages dramatically between campaigns. There was a visual consistency to their television, print and billboard advertising messages which rendered the messages easy to recognise and remember. They were clear about what they were offering in exchange for the party vote and recognised the need to offer something in addition to previous offerings in order to attract new voters.

Despite the prevalence and ubiquity of media in North American culture, educators still show reluctance to embrace media literacy as a necessary literacy. This study examines two media literacy activities using descriptive teacher research, and defining usefulness based on student response and applicability to composition objectives in the English 1101 classroom. Both lessons produce useful findings, with students rating the second activity as more useful than the first activity. This research lends sample assignments and confidence to instructors seeking to employ simple media literacy tactics in the introductory composition classroom.

Children’s beliefs about mathematics involve epistemological beliefs about the subject, its nature and how it works, as well as beliefs about who can and cannot do mathematics. While children’s beliefs about mathematics have been linked to their achievement in mathematics, there is little research that explores beliefs about mathematics in the New Zealand context. A general concern is that students do less well than they could at mathematics; hence many people give up on and disengage from mathematics. This study explores children’s and their teachers’ beliefs about mathematics and is set against a backdrop of prevailing achievement discourses, both in New Zealand and abroad, that define people’s perceived abilities as usually based on ethnicity and gender. It also considers the multiple worlds of the child, the worlds of mathematics beliefs and of doing school mathematics, the child’s relationships with these worlds and with others who inhabit them. The study combines complementary theories and methods to examine espoused and enacted mathematics beliefs by adopting a predominantly sociocultural perspective and including a combination of constructivist and pragmatic theories as well as multiple methods of accessing and analysing beliefs. In order to develop a picture of mathematics beliefs, I collected data from a number of sources: mathematics beliefs questionnaires from 823 children at 17 schools, drawings from 180 children at two focus schools, video recordings of multiple mathematics lessons in two focus classrooms and observations. The following year, I revisited, observed and interviewed nine focus children and their teachers. I applied multiple analysis ‘frames’ to the data: factor analysis, adapted visual frameworks, metaphors and themes. By combining a variety of methods and applying a number of different analysis perspectives, this study exposed a rich and complex landscape of beliefs about mathematics. In particular, the children’s drawings communicated mathematics beliefs by using metaphors such as ‘maths as problem solving’, ‘maths as useful’, ‘maths as life’, and ‘maths as brain burn inducing’. The children and teachers exhibited a range of beliefs about the world of mathematics and who belongs to this world by positioning certain people as good at mathematics, not good at mathematics, or in certain cases, both positions depending on the context. In terms of assigned mathematics identities, both children and teachers refer to the ‘Asian as good at maths’ discourse but do not position Māori and Pasifika as weak; gender was not viewed as important. On the other hand, the children’s responses were influenced by their ethnicities, gender, socioeconomic status and mathematics achievement levels. The implications for primary school mathematics relate to the powerful influence of how mathematics is done, taught and learnt within the dominant context of the Numeracy Projects which governs ability groupings, the dance of the mathematics class, the ascendency of strategy over algorithm, and the notion that there are multiple ways to solve problems. In particular, the implications of inequality inherent in mathematics ability grouping warrants addressing.

This thesis examines the gender portrayal of gender in relation to children in TV commercials by the brand Kinder. Gender, Advertising and children are three topics that in relation to each other are a highly important study topic. While there currently are many studies on the analysis of the influence of advertising on children, less studies can be found on the influence of advertising showing children. Three commercials from 2012-2018 were chosen that showed human as well as non-human characters and how the commercials portrayed gender in relation to children were analyzed using visual analysis. Specifically, discourse analysis I and semiology helped analyzing the commercials and by the means of three themes, which were revealing to the portrayal of gender in the chosen commercials. Analysis of color, objects and appearance, behavior and relationship showed that characters in the commercial can grow in and out of gender and that different aspects are gender specific to age. Color wasused in the portrayal of girl’s/boy’s rooms, the objects/clothes they encounter and use showedgender specifics, and behavior and relationship also showed characteristics towards gender.

Complex data are being stored daily in databases in an unstructured way. Visualizations techniques can be used to present complex data in a user friendly and understandable way. This thesis presents the implementation of a visualization interactive tool called Eco Donuts. It is part of a set of tools created to visualize complex food data called Ekopanelen. The feature Eco Donuts presents time-dependent food data which are ordered in categories. It gives the opportunity to users to explore their data over time by performing simple interactions. This thesis documents an exploratory study on how this visualization tool can be used to enhance the user experience and provide insights of complex data. The visualization feature was implemented and evaluated with ten participants. The participants were asked to evaluate the visualization tool by accomplishing nine different tasks. The sessions were recorded using a log system as well as video recording. This study shows that the proposed tool can be used to visualize complex information in a user friendly and presentable way.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Ray B. Weisenburger / This research explores the challenges related to the visual image of a city situated in a developing country. Originated as the colonial capital of British India, Kolkata faces new urban challenges in the post colonial world. This report intends to answer questions of imageability of the city as relevant to the Third World countries. Empathizing on the issues of scarcity of land, traffic congestion, accumulation of the urban poor, inadequacies in infrastructure and the organic expansion of fluid city boundaries under the neo-ideological globalization and liberal economic policies – Kolkata faces a host of urban problems. Imageability of the city usually tries to define the positive image of a city. The question here is, should the notions of imageability be confined to cities that inherently have succeeded in maintaining an appealing public image or should it be applied to the potential qualities of visual appropriateness to cities that have historically remained unattractive? This research intends to explore the visual quality of an area surrounding the five point intersection at Shyambazar, Kolkata, India. This study will be based on a number of observations and the different visual analysis techniques applicable in critically analyzing the visual conditions of an urban street pattern of a megacity in India. The main objective of this study is to find an appropriate visual quality for Kolkata, a megacity in the tropics – considering various related factors like – historical significance, demographic trends, geographical and climatological influences, transportation pattern, existing land use, socio-economic structure and inherent or associated urban problems of planning in developing nations.

Bancos de dados relacionais são fontes de dados rigidamente estruturadas, caracterizadas por relacionamentos complexos entre um conjunto de relações (tabelas). Entender tais relacionamentos é um desafio, porque os usuários precisam considerar múltiplas relações, entender restrições de integridade, interpretar vários atributos, e construir consultas SQL para cada tentativa de exploração. Neste cenário, introduz-se uma metodologia em duas etapas; primeiro utiliza-se um grafo organizado como uma estrutura hierárquica para modelar os relacionamentos do banco de dados, e então, propõe-se uma nova técnica de visualização para exploração relacional. Os resultados demonstram que a proposta torna a exploração de bases de dados significativamente simplificada, pois o usuário pode navegar visualmente pelos dados com pouco ou nenhum conhecimento sobre a estrutura subjacente. Além disso, a navegação visual de dados remove a necessidade de consultas SQL, e de toda complexidade que elas requerem. Acredita-se que esta abordagem possa trazer um paradigma inovador no que tange à compreensão de dados relacionais / Relational databases are rigid-structured data sources characterized by complex relationships among a set of relations (tables). Making sense of such relationships is a challenging problem because users must consider multiple relations, understand their ensemble of integrity constraints, interpret dozens of attributes, and draw complex SQL queries for each desired data exploration. In this scenario, we introduce a twofold methodology; we use a hierarchical graph representation to efficiently model the database relationships and, on top of it, we designed a visualization technique for rapidly relational exploration. Our results demonstrate that the exploration of databases is deeply simplified as the user is able to visually browse the data with little or no knowledge about its structure, dismissing the need of complex SQL queries. We believe our findings will bring a novel paradigm in what concerns relational data comprehension.

Innovation Management Software contains complex data with many different variables. This data is usually presented in tabular form or with isolated graphs that visualize a single independent aspect of a dataset. However, displaying this data with interconnected, interactive charts provide much more flexibility and opportunities for working with and understanding the data. Charts that show multiple aspects of the data at once can help in uncovering hidden relationships between different aspects of the data and in finding new insights that might be difficult to see with the traditional way of displaying data. The size and complexity of the available data also invites analyzing it with machine learning techniques. In this thesis it is first explored how machine learning techniques can be used to gain additional insight from the data and then the results of this investigation are used together with the original data in order to build a prototypical dashboard for exploratory visual data analysis. This dashboard is then evaluated by means of ICE-T heuristics and the results and findings are discussed.

For ammonia-water absorption refrigeration technology it is suggested to use bubble type absorbers because the higher contact surface area provides a higher mass transfer rate. Furthermore, dispersion of bubbles in the bulk of liquid phase also exhibits better heat transfer characteristics that facilitate the recovery of dissipated heat of the exothermic absorption.In this context, plate heat exchangers are believed to be an option to be employed as absorber in some applications. Commercial plate heat exchangers have only one inlet and outlet for a working fluid and as a result, gas and liquid should be mixed before supplied to a gap between the two adjacent plates. The consequence is the high risk of bubble mergence to form a bigger bubble and to follow the shortest flow paths in vertical direction so that not all the heat transfer surface can be effectively used. Furthermore this feature makes plate heat exchangers sensitive to the angle of plate relative to the vertical which would be worst when it is laid to its side on a horizontal plane.Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) develops an efficient Bubble Plate Absorber for applications in high-pressure absorption systems and this work tries to investigate design possibility of this Bubble Plate Absorber based on a plate heat exchanger equipped with microchannels between plates.Two sets of seven parallel microchannels same in shape and dimension were tested. The first set had a continuous wall which means fluids could flow independently along the microchannels; whereas, the other set was benefiting from some linkages between channels that fluids could cross from one microchannel to another one. Ammonia vapour was injected via one and two-holed distributors.It was found that microchannels with continuous wall deliver higher concentration and less unabsorbed bubbles at the microchannels outlet. In visual analysis by high-speed camera, changing the vapour distributors from single-hole to double-hole had no significant effect on the bubble distribution quality in lower flowrates; however, double-hole vapour distributor showed better performance in higher vapours flowrates.

This thesis examines how authenticity is articulated and communicated in contemporary forms of branded entertainment. In a digital media landscape, participatory culture and co-creation has become of primary importance, leading to ‘authentic’ and ‘amateurist’ characteristics being strategically implemented in advertisements and professional media content production. At the same time, research on brand communication and authenticity have overlooked the many ways in which brands extend and mediate authenticity, especially in relation to symbolism and visual semiotics. In this thesis, we explore the way symbolic meaning is constructed in We the Bathers, a documentary produced in 2019 by director Phoebe Arnstein in collaboration with Lush, a cosmetic brand known for their vegan-friendly and cruelty-free products. The study was conducted using visual analysis which allows us to approach the study object in a qualitative and exploratory way. We then apply the theoretical frameworks of cultural myths and digital storytelling to analyze the effects and strategies employed in We the Bathers to communicate authenticity through the filmic medium. By extending Bell & Leonard’s framework for evaluating organizational storytelling, which highlights the role of the communicative codes of affinity, authenticity andamateurism, we argue that the overall notion of authenticity in video content produced for digital environments can be determined through either of these lenses. By examining the intention of the sender in terms of genuineness (authenticity), relatability (affinity), and techniques which lends the story a sense of ‘realness’ (amateurism), our findings indicate that authenticity can be viewed as a tool for producing certain media effects as opposed to arising from the mediation of inherent personality traits.