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2018

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The Timing And Composition Of Gestational Weight Gain And The Impact On Neonatal Anthropometry, Kathy Redfern Jan 2018

The Timing And Composition Of Gestational Weight Gain And The Impact On Neonatal Anthropometry, Kathy Redfern

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Background: Numerous maternal factors, such as body mass index (BMI), gestational weight gain (GWG), diet and physical activity (PA) have been shown to impact infant birth weight. In the UK, antenatal care tends to be based on pre-pregnancy BMI and women are not weighed routinely during pregnancy nor are there guidelines for GWG. However, it is widely acknowledged that maternal obesity and GWG in excess of the American Institute of Medicine guidelines are associated with increased risk of foetal macrosomia and recent studies have suggested a role of the timing and composition of GWG beyond that of BMI. The purpose …

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Transitioning From Homelessness Into A Sustained Tenancy: What Enables Successful Tenancy Sustainment? (The Moving On Project), Leonie Boland Jan 2018

Transitioning From Homelessness Into A Sustained Tenancy: What Enables Successful Tenancy Sustainment? (The Moving On Project), Leonie Boland

Other Faculty of Health Theses

For individuals with multiple and complex needs, leaving homelessness is recognised as a dynamic and complex process. Furthermore, despite the provision of supports, tenancies may not be maintained and individuals return to using homelessness services. Tenancy sustainment—the maintenance of a tenancy to avoid a premature end of tenure—is fundamental to the resolution and prevention of homelessness. There is a paucity of research about the occupations of individuals as they establish and maintain tenancies. This thesis aimed to understand the transition process from homelessness, and tenancy sustainment, from an occupational perspective, to inform a potential occupational therapy intervention. Underpinned by the …

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A Behavioural And Cognitive Neuroscience Investigation Of Deceptive Communication, Chun-Wei Hsu Jan 2018

A Behavioural And Cognitive Neuroscience Investigation Of Deceptive Communication, Chun-Wei Hsu

Other Faculty of Health Theses

There is a rich literature on how people tell lies and detect them in others, but the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood. The first aim of this thesis was to elucidate key cognitive and neural processes underlying cued (i.e., instructed) and uncued lies. The second aim, based on recent research suggesting a link between dishonesty and creativity, was to determine whether creative cognition contributes to deceptive communication. In a first behavioural study, performance on generating and detecting lies was measured in a socially interactive setting involving cued and uncued lies. Results of a multiple regression analysis showed that creativity …

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An Investigation Into The Validation Of Pedometers To Detect Foreleg Steps In Horses (Equus Caballus) At Walk And Trot, Elizabeth Jane Francis Jan 2018

An Investigation Into The Validation Of Pedometers To Detect Foreleg Steps In Horses (Equus Caballus) At Walk And Trot, Elizabeth Jane Francis

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Background: Current research, surrounding motor laterality at a population level in horses, indicates that in order to stand with the left forelimb in advance of the other, it is achieved by taking a greater amount of steps with the left foreleg than the right foreleg (McGreevy & Thomson 2006; McGreevy et al. 2007); suggesting that pedometers could effectively estimate asymmetry of forelimb locomotion in grazing horses. This novel method of detecting forelimb preference also reduces the likelihood of operator influence and provides an inexpensive objective measure of vertical movement which has the advantage of scoring large sample sizes, avoids single-day …

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Computational Modelling Of Human Aesthetic Preferences In The Visual Domain: A Brain-Inspired Approach, François Lemarchand Jan 2018

Computational Modelling Of Human Aesthetic Preferences In The Visual Domain: A Brain-Inspired Approach, François Lemarchand

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Following the rise of neuroaesthetics as a research domain, computational aesthetics has also known a regain in popularity over the past decade with many works using novel computer vision and machine learning techniques to evaluate the aesthetic value of visual information. This thesis presents a new approach where low-level features inspired from the human visual system are extracted from images to train a machine learning-based system to classify visual information depending on its aesthetics, regardless of the type of visual media. Extensive tests are developed to highlight strengths and weaknesses of such low-level features while establishing good practices in the …

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The Role Of Lysophosphatidylcholine Acyltransferase-2 (Lpcat-2) In Inflammatory Responses, Hanaa Alrammah Jan 2018

The Role Of Lysophosphatidylcholine Acyltransferase-2 (Lpcat-2) In Inflammatory Responses, Hanaa Alrammah

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Sepsis is the overwhelming inflammatory response to infection, especially bacterial infection and associated bacterial products. It has major healthcare impacts, affecting an estimated 19-30 million persons/year worldwide with a mortality of 30-70%. Despite intense research, no specific therapy has been established for sepsis and in addition to the high mortality, the associated economic costs are very high. For example, recent data shows that the annual cost of patients with sepsis is more than $20 billion in the USA, and £2.5 billion in the UK. Therefore, novel targets and new therapies for sepsis are required which will have an important impact …

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Global Change Effects On Seagrass Ecosystem, Amrit Kumar Mishra Jan 2018

Global Change Effects On Seagrass Ecosystem, Amrit Kumar Mishra

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere will increase the average pCO2 level in the world oceans, which will have a knock-on effect on the marine ecosystem. Coastal seagrass communities one of the most productive marine ecosystems are predicted to benefit from the increase in CO2 levels, but long-term effects of elevated CO2 on seagrass communities are less understood. Population reconstruction techniques was used to investigate the population dynamics of Cymodocea nodosa meadows, exposed to long term elevated CO2 at volcanic seeps off Greece and Italy. Effect of elevated CO2 was noticed on the growth, morphometry, density, biomass and …

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What’S In A Frame? Cosmopolitan Morality, The Media And Interventionism, Nicola Katy Langdon Jan 2018

What’S In A Frame? Cosmopolitan Morality, The Media And Interventionism, Nicola Katy Langdon

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the media-foreign policy nexus through a specific focus on the moral framing of conflict and interventionism within British media and policy discourses. While morality has been identified as a frequently used frame through which we may understand issues, there has been little extant discussion of the nature of morality embedded within media texts, or how it may shape understanding and policy-making. This research contributes to this void through forwarding cosmopolitan morality framing as a new theoretical framework. Consideration is given to how appeals to a cosmopolitan moral consciousness can resonate and build support for or legitimise particular …

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Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Health And Well-Being: Definitions, Identity And Experience, Sarah Molland Jan 2018

Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Health And Well-Being: Definitions, Identity And Experience, Sarah Molland

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

In this thesis, I explore the meanings and experience of health and well-being in the lives of individuals with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Taking an auto/biographical approach and utilising in-depth qualitative online interviews, I draw on the experience and narratives of seventeen individuals with IBD, including myself. The three main themes addressed are ‘Living with IBD’, ‘Becoming a Patient’, and ‘Coping and Control’. I explore how IBD influences individuals’ experience of personal relationships, and their medical encounters and treatments. I reflect on how and why these factors arise and the effect they may have upon the disease and its management …

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A Continued Musical And Personal Dialogue With The Waves Of Epilepsy., Alan Douglas Miles Jan 2018

A Continued Musical And Personal Dialogue With The Waves Of Epilepsy., Alan Douglas Miles

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

A Continued Musical and Personal Dialogue with the Waves of Epilepsy. In the early hours of the morning several years ago I awoke with paramedics leaning over me. In a state of confusion, my first conscious decision was to enter my music production studio while they attempted to lead me to the ambulance. Music was important to me even in a disorientated post-ictal state (an altered state of consciousness following a seizure). Two weeks later I awoke with paramedics standing over me again. I had started to experience multiple seizures. During the previous weeks, I also experienced numerous incidents of …

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Algorithmic Sovereignty, Denis Roio Jan 2018

Algorithmic Sovereignty, Denis Roio

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis describes a practice based research journey across various projects dealing with the design of algorithms, to highlight the governance implications in design choices made on them. The research provides answers and documents methodologies to address the urgent need for more awareness of decisions made by algorithms about the social and economical context in which we live. Algorithms consitute a foundational basis across different fields of studies: policy making, governance, art and technology. The ability to understand what is inscribed in such algorithms, what are the consequences of their execution and what is the agency left for the living …

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The Impact Of Social Media Usage For Work Purposes On Innovation In Smes: The Role Of Human Capital And Knowledge Sharing, Omar Aydh Alghamdi Jan 2018

The Impact Of Social Media Usage For Work Purposes On Innovation In Smes: The Role Of Human Capital And Knowledge Sharing, Omar Aydh Alghamdi

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

With the advent of the technology era, social media is considered a useful platform that has contributed actively to social interaction and a wealth of knowledge for both individuals and groups. Many organisations have begun to take into consideration the benefits of such platforms. However, there remains very limited understanding as to social media usage for work purposes in the organisational context. This study therefore investigates the debate surrounding whether or not the use of social media for work purposes adds value to firms. This is has been done by examining the impact of social media usage on innovation through …

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Listening Patterns. From Music To Perception And Cognition, Massimiliano Viel Jan 2018

Listening Patterns. From Music To Perception And Cognition, Massimiliano Viel

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

The research aims to propose a narrative of the experience of listening and to provide some first examples of its possible application. This is done in three parts. Part One, “Words”, aims to methodologically frame the narrative by discussing the limits and requirements of a theory of listening. After discussing the difficulties of building an objective characterization of the listening experience, the research proposes that any theorization on listening can only express a point of view that is implied by descriptions of listening both in linguistic terms and in the data they involve. The analysis of theories about listening is …

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Imagining Peace And War: Plymouth 1918-1939, Glyn Potter Jan 2018

Imagining Peace And War: Plymouth 1918-1939, Glyn Potter

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

After the trench warfare of the Great War the development of aerial warfare and widespread urbanisation meant that military doctrine in any future conflict would likely bring unprecedented death and destruction to non-combatants. Therefore, war prevention became the most important foreign policy issue in Britain, and after the collapse of the disarmament conference in 1934 and the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), war preparation became the dominant concern for the decision makers and the public. Both were hotly debated at all levels of British public life in the 1920’s and 1930’s. This dissertation uses Plymouth as the case study for an …

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The Other Middle-Earth: Intertextuality And Iconography In Sergei Iukhimov’S Illustrations For The Lord Of The Rings, Joel Merriner Jan 2018

The Other Middle-Earth: Intertextuality And Iconography In Sergei Iukhimov’S Illustrations For The Lord Of The Rings, Joel Merriner

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

J. R. R. Tolkien once remarked in a 1949 letter to George Allen & Unwin that his friends were so impressed by Pauline Baynes’ illustrations for Farmer Giles of Ham that they labelled his text an adjunct to her drawings. This apparently light-hearted anecdote conceals an interesting truth: the relationship between text and image can be problematic and the reading of an illustration depends largely on the culturally acquired “discursive precedents” which an individual viewer brings to the act of looking. This situation may be further complicated when account is taken of any incidences of visual borrowing (motif) within the …

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Post African Futures: Decoloniality And Actional Methodologies In Art And Cultural Practices In African Cultures Of Technology, Tegan Mary Bristow Jan 2018

Post African Futures: Decoloniality And Actional Methodologies In Art And Cultural Practices In African Cultures Of Technology, Tegan Mary Bristow

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis addresses the presence and role of critical aesthetic practices by cultural practitioners and creative technologists in addressing cultures of technology in contemporary African societies. Nairobi and Johannesburg are used as primary case studies through which a closer understanding of these unique cultures of technology are unpacked. The learning established from the findings of the cases is applied to understanding the concerns of cultures of technology within these and other African contexts. In this, attention is placed on latent neo-colonialism found in the relationship between African cultures and the networked global information economy being led by technology practices. This …

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'Our Mission Is Protest': Femen, Toplessness And Female Spectacle, Leah Dungay Jan 2018

'Our Mission Is Protest': Femen, Toplessness And Female Spectacle, Leah Dungay

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the dramaturgical strategies of protest employed by the contemporary Ukrainian protest group, FEMEN. In doing so, it draws from theories of protest as performance, outlined by Richard Schechner (1993) and Baz Kershaw (1999). The all-female group are arguably most well known for their use of the topless female body in protest. As such, this thesis will explore FEMEN’s use of toplessness in relation to Mary Russo’s notions of ‘female spectacle’ (1994), considering the ways in which the group might challenge understandings regarding the appropriate behaviours and appearances for women. This exploration of understandings of the female body …

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Gold Griot: Jean-Michel Basquiat Telling (His) Story In Art, Lucinda Ross Jan 2018

Gold Griot: Jean-Michel Basquiat Telling (His) Story In Art, Lucinda Ross

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Emerging from an early association with street art during the 1980s, the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was largely regarded within the New York avant-garde, as ‘an exotic other,’ a token Black artist in the world of American modern art; a perception which forced him to examine and seek to define his sense of identity within art and within society. Drawing upon what he described as his ‘cultural memory,’ Basquiat deftly mixed together fragments of past and present, creating a unique style of painting, based upon his own experiences of contemporary American life blended with a remembering of an African past. This …

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An Examination Of Students' Entrepreneurial Learning Through Extracurricular Enterprise Activities, Sarah Preedy Jan 2018

An Examination Of Students' Entrepreneurial Learning Through Extracurricular Enterprise Activities, Sarah Preedy

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Extracurricular enterprise activities have steadily increased over the past decade within universities (Rae et al., 2012), as has the domain of entrepreneurial learning research (Wang and Chugh, 2014) yet limited empirical research examines links between the two phenomena. This thesis connects educational theory, entrepreneurial learning theory and entrepreneurial education research to examine the role that extracurricular enterprise activities may have within the entrepreneurial learning processes of students at United Kingdom Higher Education Institutions. Utilising a social constructionist paradigm of enquiry this thesis critically examines perceptions of the value of extracurricular enterprise activities from an educator and student perspective. A semi-structured …

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An Investigation Into The Use Of Artificial Intelligence Techniques For The Analysis And Control Of Instrumental Timbre And Timbral Combinations, Aurélien Antoine Jan 2018

An Investigation Into The Use Of Artificial Intelligence Techniques For The Analysis And Control Of Instrumental Timbre And Timbral Combinations, Aurélien Antoine

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Researchers have investigated harnessing computers as a tool to aid in the composition of music for over 70 years. In major part, such research has focused on creating algorithms to work with pitches and rhythm, which has resulted in a selection of sophisticated systems. Although the musical possibilities of these systems are vast, they are not directly considering another important characteristic of sound. Timbre can be defined as all the sound attributes, except pitch, loudness and duration, which allow us to distinguish and recognize that two sounds are dissimilar. This feature plays an essential role in combining instruments as it …

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‘The Road To Learning’: Re-Evaluating The Mechanics’ Institute Movement, Douglas Robert Watson Jan 2018

‘The Road To Learning’: Re-Evaluating The Mechanics’ Institute Movement, Douglas Robert Watson

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis is a re-evaluation of a movement founded to provide what Samuel Smiles called “the road to learning” for workers in the nineteenth century. Mechanics’ institutes emerged during the 1820s to both criticism and acclaim, becoming part of the physical and intellectual fabric of the age and inspiring a nationwide building programme funded entirely by public subscription. Beginning with a handful of examples in major British cities, they eventually spread across the Anglophone world. They were at the forefront of public engagement with arts, science and technology. This thesis is a history of the mechanics’ institute movement in the …

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The Impact Of Teaching Growth Mindset On Archery Skill Achievement: An Action Research Study, Phillip Thomas Jan 2018

The Impact Of Teaching Growth Mindset On Archery Skill Achievement: An Action Research Study, Phillip Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

Although setbacks and failure are common in school, especially in outdoor adventure physical education classes, the ways in which students handle those setbacks and failure impact their academic achievement and performance. This dissertation describes a problem of practice based on observations of how the researcher’s students handle setbacks and failure in his outdoor adventure education class, specifically how these setbacks and failure affect the students’ archery performance. This study examined how teaching noncognitive skills using the computer program Brainology impacts student skill performance in archery and the students’ perceptions of this impact. This study used a concurrent mixed methods action …

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‘University Must Be Saved’ Genealogy As A Knowledge Approach., Patrizia Moschella Jan 2018

‘University Must Be Saved’ Genealogy As A Knowledge Approach., Patrizia Moschella

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The research offers an elaboration of genealogy as an approach to knowledge from Friedrich Nietzsche's original work on method (1887) processed by Michel Foucault (1971). It provides an interdisciplinary version that integrates theoretical and analytical contributions from the philosophy of knowledge, from exact and social sciences to artistic research. This work also takes into account those who have most explicitly enhanced the potentialities of geneaalogy such as Gilles Deleuze (1962) and, more recently, Carlo Sini (2007) and Giorgio Agamben (2010), but also embraces the reflections of researchers, from the past or present, whom I dare associate with the genealogy approach …

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Une Certain Équivoque? A Study Of Vincent Van Gogh's Ambivalent Engagement With Prostitution, Highlighted By The 1888 Courrier Français Controversy, Fiona B. Saint-Davis Jan 2018

Une Certain Équivoque? A Study Of Vincent Van Gogh's Ambivalent Engagement With Prostitution, Highlighted By The 1888 Courrier Français Controversy, Fiona B. Saint-Davis

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

Discussions of prostitution are commonplace in the history of nineteenth-century French art, but this paper proposes that discourses specific to 1888 concerning the visual representations of prostitution have been insufficiently analysed with regard to Vincent van Gogh's paintings of 1888. Focusing on the artist's responses to brothel sketches sent to him by Émile Bernard in 1888, this paper proposes their overlooked contingency with a censorship controversy that attended the publication of Louis Legrand's full-page lithograph, Prostitution, first published in Le Courrier Français in June 1888. Expanding on my Undergraduate thesis, which addressed Bernard's brothel drawings, this paper focuses on Van …

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Turbo Film As Artistic Apparatus And As Manifesto For The Uncertain Future Of Moving Images, Paololuca Barbieri Marchi Jan 2018

Turbo Film As Artistic Apparatus And As Manifesto For The Uncertain Future Of Moving Images, Paololuca Barbieri Marchi

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The following research is a practice-based Ph.D. in filmmaking that proposes to define an unclassified film genre and its specific artistic practice. This practice, at the intersection of experimental films, art-cinema and Youtube user- generated videos, I refer to as “Turbo Films.” Beginning with a critical perspective on video art and experimental film history, as it relates to today’s public approach towards the production of moving images, the concept of “Turbo Films” is proposed as an opportunity to understand new trajectories in the production of image-culture, and as holistic modus operandi for the current cross-media environment. Turbo Films have been …

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The Role Of Virtual Imaging In Building Conservation, Kathrin Schuette Jan 2018

The Role Of Virtual Imaging In Building Conservation, Kathrin Schuette

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

Conservation is the process of managing changes to significant historic buildings and places. This research explores key conservation concepts, identifying internationally agreed conservation principles and their relationship to the developing role of computer-based visualisation in the conservation process. An emphasis is placed upon documentation that plays an important part in conservation and has begun to recognise virtual imaging as a tool for recording, analysing, interpreting and presenting the cultural heritage. This research focuses in particular upon virtual imaging from the perspective of a building conservator. It addresses both the purpose and possibilities of virtual imaging, which are useful in terms …

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The States And Status Of Clay: Material, Metamorphic And Metaphorical Values., Lu La Buzz Jan 2018

The States And Status Of Clay: Material, Metamorphic And Metaphorical Values., Lu La Buzz

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This doctoral project combines a performance-led practice with contextual research in order to demonstrate how arts practice can challenge historical perceptions of clay and enhance its material status. The core knowledge deduced from this research is that embodied performance transforms connectivity between artist and clay and produces a unified incarnation of both elements. Through the use of immersive research methods I gained insights which could not have been predicted - particularly that my experiential performances were a process of ‘clay becoming’ in which I ultimately became the clay. In terms of locality, the practice, comprising eight performance-led works and related …

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Encountering Statues: Object Oriented Ontology And The Figure In A Sculptural Practice, Lisa Osborn Jan 2018

Encountering Statues: Object Oriented Ontology And The Figure In A Sculptural Practice, Lisa Osborn

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This study reappraises the role and value of statues (i.e. the figure as sculpture) in order to determine what happens when we encounter these objects. The consideration and construction of statues in my studio practice has generated specific insights into statues as person-shaped objects and into our encounter with these objects. From the perspective of a practice making statues this study addresses how, through the encounter, statues both stimulate and obscure our perceptions of them as objects. My practitioner’s understanding of statues is articulated and enlarged by developing methods which allowed me to gain an expanded perspective of my practice, …

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Yangtze The Mother River - Photography, Myth And Deep Mapping, Yan Wang Preston Jan 2018

Yangtze The Mother River - Photography, Myth And Deep Mapping, Yan Wang Preston

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

'The Yangtze is China’s Mother River. It is my Mother River.’ This practice-based PhD research was initially motivated by the researcher’s personal search for The Mother River and a critical question in finding her own vision of the river. As the field experiences contradicted the researcher’s expectation of The Mother River, the research methodology changed and led to a new, critical understanding: The Mother River is mythic. This thesis examines the politics and characters of such a myth. It also asks with what research methods and visual strategy can landscape photography interrogate The Mother River myth’s complexities. Between 2010 and …

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The (Not So) Intelligent House: User Perception In An Interactive Architectural Environment, Alexander Ćetković Jan 2018

The (Not So) Intelligent House: User Perception In An Interactive Architectural Environment, Alexander Ćetković

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The architecture of change bears in its name the vision and the hope of an architecture that has evolved from a static deterministic designer-defined disposition, where a user has to adapt to a given setting, to an interactive architecture that adapts to the needs of the user. Yet, built examples show that the reality of intelligent houses is not as open-minded as the theory would have us believe. Often, the flexibility and freedom of choice is, in fact, just a way to control the users. Looking at the evolving user models in modern architectural history, strategies to liberate the user …

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