Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Classics of world science'
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Price, L. "Serious leisure in the digital world : exploring the information behaviour of fan communities." Thesis, City, University of London, 2017. http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/19090/.
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This research investigates the information behaviour of cult media fan communities on the internet, using three novel methods which have not previously been applied to this domain. Firstly, a review, analysis and synthesis of the literature related to fan information behaviour, both within the disciplines of LIS and fan studies, revealed unique aspects of fan information behaviour, particularly in regards to produsage, copyright, and creativity. The findings from this literature analysis were subsequently investigated further using the Delphi method and tag analysis. A new Delphi variant – the Serious Leisure Delphi – was developed through this research. The Delphi study found that participants expressed the greatest levels of consensus on statements on fan behaviour that were related to information behaviour and information-related issues. Tag analysis was used in a novel way, as a tool to examine information behaviour. This found that fans have developed a highly granular classification system for fanworks, and that on one particular repository a ‘curated folksonomy’ was being used with great success. Fans also use tags for a variety of reasons, including communicating with one another, and writing meta-commentary on their posts. The research found that fans have unique information behaviours related to classification, copyright, entrepreneurship, produsage, mentorship and publishing. In the words of Delphi participants – “being in fandom means being in a knowledge space,” and “fandom is a huge information hub just by existing”. From these findings a model of fan information behaviour has been developed, which could be further tested in future research.
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Ulas, Luke. "Realising cosmopolitanism : the role of a world state." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2013. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/809/.
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The central claim of this work is straightforward: if one endorses cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice, then one ought also to be a world statist. This is not the generally held view. Institutionally, cosmopolitans have tended to endorse – when they have endorsed any particular institutions at all – either modified and enhanced versions of today's domestic state system, or ‘intermediary’ institutional constructs that are conceptualised as sitting apart from both the domestic state system and a world state. I aim to demonstrate that, from a cosmopolitan perspective, these are inferior alternatives, and to make the case for a federal world state. The point of such a project is to confront cosmopolitan moral theory with its radical institutional implications, which its proponents have often ignored or resisted. In making this argument, after underlining conceptual and empirical difficulties for the idea of ‘cosmopolitan law’ without strong central government, I pay extended attention to what has been described as cosmopolitanism’s ‘solidarity problem’, which recognises that there is currently little appetite among the global population for distributing resources or otherwise changing behaviours and practices so as to realise cosmopolitan distributive principles. I consider three approaches to this problem: the possibility of the principled transformation of domestic states; the development of a sense of global community; and an emphasis upon the harnessing of self-interested motivations. In each case I demonstrate the importance of the transcendence of the domestic state system, and global political integration. Thereafter, I directly address various ‘intermediary’ institutional prescriptions, arguing that in many respects they are less clearly distinguishable from a world state than their authors believe, and that where they are distinguishable this represents a disadvantage with respect to the realisation of cosmopolitan ends when compared to a world state. Finally, I consider and reject a range of common critiques of the world state itself, while emphasising that many of these critiques in fact function as critiques of cosmopolitan distributive theory, rendering them unavailable to the cosmopolitan theorists who are my intended audience.
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Bittarello, Maria Beatrice. "The re-creation of ancient classical religions on the World Wide Web : Neopaganism as contemporary mythopoesis." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/226.
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The thesis argues that Neopaganism on the Web is an example of mythopoesis and aims at showing both the novelty and the limits of such mythopoesis. I use the term "mythopoesis" in its original Greek meaning, i.e. "the creation (the making/crafting) of a myth or myths", thus stressing the dynamic way in which the process of creation (of myths, rituals, divinities, identities—all implicitly or explicitly played out, connected, and organised as "stories", which can be told, written or performed, as well as represented as images) unfolds in Neopaganism. Neopagan mythopoesis on the Web is new, original, and structurally different from other previous and contemporary examples of mythopoesis, either religious or not, since it does not refuse, put aside, or implicitly contradict, the rational framework elaborated by Western culture. The research involves exploring the contemporary cultural and historical context that allows for mythopoesis to take place and the technology that allows for it to develop. It analyses the key features of Neopaganism on the Web as they emerge from the mythopoeic recreation of two ancient goddesses (Gaia, and Artemis/Diana) and an ancient ritual (the Eleusinian mysteries). In covering several different fields (from ancient religions, to the Internet, to myth and ritual theory), and in examining a range of heterogeneous materials (from ancient texts, Neopagan hymns and art, to hypertexts), the analysis adopts an interdisciplinary approach.
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Fleming, K. M. A. "Classics and the Second World War : appropriations of antiquity." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.599072.
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This thesis examines the immediate impact of the Second World War on classics and the classical tradition. I begin with a study of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone. Now understood almost by default (at least outside France) as the tragedy of a Résistante, in fact, Antigone was neither embraced by the Resistance as a sister-in-arms, nor was the play received by the German or collaborationist press as an attack on the Nazi occupiers or the Vichy government. It was, however, politically controversial, becoming the focus of intense debate. In this chapter I examine the significance of the critical response to the play. The importance of this Antigone generally reflects the long tradition of European criticism on the Antigone story, but the historical circumstances of the play’s production and its consequent reception reveal much about the dynamics of the appropriation of antiquity in the twentieth century. My second chapter focuses on Dialektik der Aufklärung: Philosophische Fragmente by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. To answer the question of how the Enlightenment project could have failed so miserably to present the kind of barbarity typified by fascism, Horkheimer and Adorno turn to the Odyssey. Here those patterns of dominating reason, which recurrently emerge in the European mind, are first to be found and exposed. No doubt the text uses the Odyssey to construct its theory but, beyond this, I argue that Dialektik also offers a radical and damning critique of (German) Philhellenism. Dialektik der Aufklärung is a text which performs its own complicated role in enlightened thinking. The authors’ reading of the Odyssey, in its elusiveness, reflects this tortured dialectic. My final chapter takes its initial focus from Martin Heidegger’s Brief über den Humanismus. The way in which the politics of the 1930s and 40s are refracted through the philosophy of Heidegger has long been a concern for those interested in the intellectual history of the twentieth century. To some extent Heidegger’s Brief constitutes a reflection on his own political engagement with Nazism, particularly in its confrontation of the accusation that his ontological philosophy was practised at the expense of ethics.
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Martinez, Morales Jennifer. "Women and war in Classical Greece." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2015. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/2042479/.
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This thesis examines the lives of women in Classical Greece in the context of war. War is often regarded as the domain of men but actually it is a social phenomenon where everybody is involved. Scholarship has begun to be interested in issues of women and war in Classical Greece, while they are insightful and demonstrate portions of women’s experience, studies to date have not attempted to create a holistic view. In such studies, women are generally depicted as a single homogeneous group, their involvement in war is viewed as limited and exceptional, and they are only seen as the marginal victims of war. This thesis, by contrast, strongly argues for diversity in women’s experiences during war. It demonstrates the centrality of war to women’s lives in Classical Greece, as well as how women’s experience might vary according to (for example) their social and economic circumstances. By analysing both written sources and archaeological material across the Classical period, this thesis intends to produce a broader perspective. By providing the first full-length study on the subject, this thesis, thus, contributes to the disciplines of both gender studies and warfare studies. This thesis begins by investigating the way in which ancient sources outlined wartime boundaries for women. While there were no formal ‘rules of war’, ancient writers nonetheless suggest that there were certain social conventions particular to the treatment of women in Classical Greece at times of war. As chapter 1 shows, perhaps surprisingly, women were not always evacuated from their communities as is commonly thought, they were not supposed to be maltreated, nor killed in Classical Greek warfare. Chapter 2 then examines ancient authors’ positive and negative evaluations on the behaviour of women in war. By analysing the way in which different sources rationalized women’s wartime behaviour, this thesis shows that there existed boundaries for women in war. Having established women’s potential involvement in war, an exploration follows of their contributions to the war effort, both in the city and abroad. Two observations emerge from chapter 3. First, women were heavily involved in crucial wartime activities such as defending the city, distribution of food and missiles, giving military advice, among others. However, they also participated in negative and traitorous wartime behaviour such as facilitating enemy soldiers to escape a city under conflict. Second, their wartime contributions were not perceived to be ‘breaking social norms’ as is commonly maintained in much scholarly discussion. In chapter 4, the analyses of the different social and economic impacts of war on women reveals that war affected them directly through their experience of evacuations and their necessity to find employment due to wartime poverty, but war also affected women in more insidious ways, especially in their family life and relationships. Finally, chapter 5 then analyses the impact of war with special reference to women’s experiences in post-war contexts such as captivity, slavery, and rape and sexual violence. By showing the variety of experiences and how there existed selection processes with regards to women, this chapter demonstrates that not all women were going to experience the same fates after war. The result is the emergence of a rounded picture of the wartime lives of women in Classical Greece.
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Vassileva, Svetla. "The word and conjugacy problems in classes of solvable groups." Thesis, McGill University, 2009. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66827.
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This thesis is a survey of certain algorithmic problems in group theory and their computational complexities. In particular, it consists of a detailed review of the decidability and complexity of the word and conjugacy problems in several classes of solvable groups, followed by two original results. The first result states that the Conjugacy Problem in wreath products which satisfy certain elementary conditions is decidable in polynomial time. It is largely based on work by Jane Matthews, published in 1969. The second result, based on ideas of Remeslennikov and Sokolov (1970), and Myasnikov, Roman'kov, Ushakov and Vershik (2008) gives a uniform polynomial time algorithm to decide the Conjugacy Problem in free solvable groups.Cette thèse est une synthèse de certains problèmes algorithmiques dans la thèoriedes groupes et leur complexité computationnelle. Plus particulièrement, elle présenteune revue détaillée de la décidabilité et de la complexité des problèmes du mot et dela conjugaison dans plusieurs classes de groupes solubles, suivie de deux nouveauxrésultats. Le premier résultat énonce que le problème de la conjugaison dans lesproduits couronne qui satisfont certaines conditions élémentaires est décidable entemps polynomial. Elle part d'une publication de Jane Matthews (1969). Le deuxièmerésultat, basé sur des idées de Remeslennikov et Sokolov (1970) et de Myasnikov, Roman'kov,Ushakov et Vershik (2008), présente un algorithme en temps polynomial uniformepour décider le problème de conjugaison dans les groupes solubles libres.
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Honeycutt, Scott, Karin J. Keith, and Renee Rice Moran. "Connecting Disciplinary Content to Rediscover the Relevance in the Classics." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2017. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/3608.
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This presentation describes English curriculum developed with biology and chemistry teachers that includes hand-on activities used when reading classics like The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, and others. to create metaphors, understand complex ideas, and make connections between disciplinary content. This content is then used to construct argumentative writing.
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Pinegar, Adriana. "Glimpses of World War II in Denmark: Memory and History in Frayn's Copenhagen and Sibbern's Resistance Scrapbook." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2015. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5564.
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The relationship between history and memory is long and complex. While some theorists argue that they are at odds with one another, this thesis explores the necessary relationship between the two. Using Michael Frayn's 1998 play, Copenhagen, and the scrapbook of a Danish police officer and resistance fighter during World War II, the author posits the central role of uncertainty in the negotiation of individual memory and history. The position of the observer or witness to history affects the way the past is remembered and recorded. Individual witnesses, even and perhaps especially where they stray from the accepted historical narrative, testify to something that would otherwise be lost: the nature of the event. The observer therefore plays an important role in interpreting the testimony according to its place in the flow of time.
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Langley, Paul. "World financial orders and world financial centres : an historical international political economy." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/698.
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Attempts to comprehend contemporary world finance are confronted by a dual problematic: inquiry encounters not only significant change that cannot easily be captured, but also the predominance of neo-classical economics as a mode of knowledge. By taking as its starting point existing research in the field of International Political Economy (IPE) and grounding inquiry in an 'Historical IPE' approach, 'World Financial Orders and World Financial Centres' offers an alternative mode of knowledge of contemporary world finance. An Historical IPE of world finance proceeds by focusing upon the changing organisation of world credit practices since the seventeenth century. World credit practices are organised in the context of the structures of power in successive social orders, that is, world financial orders. Relative stability in world financial orders is reproduced by structures of authority which articulate interdependent relationships between state, civil and market institutions in the organisation of world credit practices. World financial centres (WFCs) are identified as necessary to an understanding of world finance in two main senses. First, WFCs are the key social spaces for world finance, where world credit practices and the material, ideational and institutional forces that frame them become centralised. Second, WFCs are key spaces of authority in world finance, the social loci for the reproduction of world financial orders. It is shown that periods of relative stability in successive world financial orders tend to coincide with the dominance of a single WFC. With the present standing of New York, London and Tokyo as a 'triad' of WFCs, contemporary world finance is characterised by its 'unstable reproduction'.
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Ahmed, Ejaz. "Understanding objects in the visual world." Thesis, University of Maryland, College Park, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3712010.
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One way to understand the visual world is by reasoning about the objects present in it: their type, their location, their similarities, their layout etc. Despite several successes, detailed recognition remains a challenging tasks for current computer vision systems. This dissertation focuses on building systems that improve on the state-of-the-art on several fronts. On one hand, we propose better representations of visual categories that enable more accurate reasoning about their properties. To learn such representations, we employ machine learning methods that leverage the power of big-data. On the other hand, we present solutions to make current frameworks more efficient without losing on performance.
The first part of the dissertation focuses on improvements in efficiency. We first introduce a fast automated mechanism for selecting a diverse set of discriminative filters and show that one can efficiently learn a universal model of filter "goodness" based on properties of the filter itself. As an alternative to the expensive evaluation of filters, which is often the bottleneck in many techniques, our method has the potential of dramatically altering the trade-off between the accuracy of a filter based method and the cost of training. Second, we present a method for linear dimensionality reduction which we call composite discriminant factor analysis (CDF). CDF searches for a discriminative but compact feature subspace in which the classifiers can be trained, leading to an order of magnitude saving in detection time.
In the second part, we focus on the problem of person re-identification, an important component of surveillance systems. We present a deep learning architecture that simultaneously learns features and computes their corresponding similarity metric. Given a pair of images as input, our network outputs a similarity value indicating whether the two input images depict the same person. We propose new layers which capture local relationships among mid-level features, produce a high-level summary of these relationships and spatially integrate them to give a holistic representation.
In the final part, we present a semantic object selection framework that uses natural language input to perform image editing. In the general context of interactive object segmentation, many of the methods that utilize user input (such as mouse clicks and mouse strokes) often require significant user intervention. In this work, we present a system with a far simpler input method: the user only needs to give the name of the desired object. For this problem we present a solution which borrows ideas from image retrieval, segmentation propagation, object localization and convolution neural networks.
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Davies, Christopher Owen Graham. "Is this Sparta? : allegory, analogy, and warfare in the post-9/11 ancient world epic film." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/21575.
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This thesis examines the depiction of warfare in post-9/11 ancient world epics and assesses the extent to which these films engage with contemporary events by means of allegory and analogy. Inspired by scholarship on allegorical and analogous interpretations of 1950s-60s ancient world epics, I explore how the current cycle engages with the American socio-political landscape in the wake of 9/11, with particular emphasis on the War on Terror and ensuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I chart the genre’s evolution in relation to the combat film, and examine how the current cycle of ancient world epics integrates the tropes of other genres into its portrayal of warfare, invasion, occupation and imperialism. Within this context, I explore the recurrent motif of the father-son dynamic, and assess how its use in combat films corresponds to that in ancient world epics. I also discuss how this motif was employed in 1980s Vietnam War films, and what its use in these modern epics suggests about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, I discuss the use of the unreliable narrator to engage with wider debates on the value of historical films compared to written history. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the ancient world epic is a malleable construct with which filmmakers can engage with the present while depicting the past. I build on existing studies of the ancient world in cinema, contributing new understanding of the current cycle’s relationship to its predecessors, to other genres, and to post-9/11 American society. In so doing this thesis contributes to notions of film as art, as industry, and as history, and how they intersect in cinematic depictions of the ancient world.
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Spiller, Simone. "Distance education on the world-wide web." Thesis, McGill University, 1997. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=20871.
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The Internet's growing acceptance as a key medium to educate people is the main focus of this thesis. Although distance education has been a popular learning method since the end of the 19th Century, never before has technology made it so easy to disseminate knowledge by linking different media formats---e.g. text, sound, video. In fact, this huge library accessed by a universal interface, is one of the key contributions that the Internet and the World-Wide Web have brought to the learning process.The main goal of this thesis is to encourage instructors to create and deliver courses using the Internet and, most of all, to show that the process can be simple and effective. In order to support this study, four major Course Management tools are presented and analyzed: Pathway by Solis-Macromedia, LearningSpace by Lotus, WebCT by The University of British Columbia, and Virtual-U by Simon Fraser University.
As a result of this thesis, a Grades Application was developed using the Internet protocol. This application is an uncomplicated, yet effective solution for using the Web to manage, calculate, and view students' marks. With the open architecture of the Web and standard programming languages such as JavaScript and Perl, the system will execute in most computers available in universities around the world.
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Long, David Edward. "EVOLUTION AND THE END OF A WORLD." UKnowledge, 2010. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/102.
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This dissertation examines college student understanding and attitudes toward biological evolution. In ethnographic work, I followed a cohort of 31 students through their required introductory biology class. In interviews, students discuss their life history with the concept - in school, at home, at church, and in their communities. For some Creationist students, confronting evolution in class has meant confronting existential issues regarding both the basis of science and the basis of faith. For other Creationist students, claims of evolution's theoretical strength are eschewed for its direct challenge to their worldview. For most students, science holds minimal interest against other values in their lives. Faculty and policy makers decry this as poor American science literacy which demands change. This work illustrates the gap between "ideal science literacy", and the everyday practices which result in half of Americans rejecting evolution as sound science.
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Wong, Lawson L. S. (Lawson Lok Sang). "Learning the state of the world : object-based world modeling for mobile-manipulation robots." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/103676.
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Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2016.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 113-120).
Mobile-manipulation robots performing service tasks in human-centric indoor environments have long been a dream for developers of autonomous agents. Tasks such as cooking and cleaning typically involve interaction with the environment, hence robots need to know relevant aspects of their spatial surroundings. However, service robots typically have little prior information about their environment, unlike industrial robots in structured environments. Even if this information was given initially, due to the involvement of other agents (e.g., humans adding/moving/removing objects), uncertainty in the complete state of the world is inevitable over time. Additionally, most information about the world is irrelevant to any particular task at hand. Mobile-manipulation robots therefore need to continuously perform the task of state estimation, using perceptual information to maintain a representation of the state, and its uncertainty, of task-relevant aspects of the world. Because indoor tasks frequently require interacting with objects, objects should be given critical emphasis in spatial representations for service robots. Compared to occupancy grids and feature-based maps that have been used traditionally in navigation and mapping, object-based representations are still in their infancy. By definition, mobile-manipulation robots are capable of moving in and interacting with the world. Hence, at the very least, such robots need to know about the physical occupancy of space and potential targets of interaction (i.e., objects). In this thesis, I propose a representation based on objects, their 'semantic' attributes (task-relevant properties such as type and pose), and their geometric realizations in the physical world.
by Lawson L.S. Wong.
Ph. D.
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Ortega, San Martín Luis. "Popular Science: “The Demon-Haunted World”, Carl Sagan." Revista de Química, 2012. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/100769.
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Zayour, Iyad. "Information retrieval over the World Wide Web." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/mq22023.pdf.
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Mistree, Dinsha (Dinsha Farrokh Allen). "Dependence, independence, and interdependence in world politics." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37196.
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Thesis (S.M. and S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 150-156).
We implement techniques of graph theory to international trade in order to empirically inspect the international system of trade. Examining macro and submacro levels of the international system of trade from 1962-2003, we find the presence of a Scale-Free Network with a Multiscalar Hierarchy. Such structures are resilient to bottom-up economic collapse, but are susceptible to top-down and horizontal economic failures. Our findings are based upon an especially novel approach for examining submacro systems, applying latent community identification analysis to identify trading communities that are not necessarily formalized or institutionalized as trading blocs. Following this analysis, we examine the role of international institutions in the international trade network, specifically considering macro level institutions for stability solutions and examining the effects of joining a trade bloc. We find evidence that supports the intergovernmentalist framework, whereby certain types of trade blocs seem to succeed while others fail, leading to different results in integration and unification.
by Dinsha Mistree.
S.M.and S.B.
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Chiku, Takemi. "Japanese space policy in the changing world." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/12825.
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Xin, Jianfei. "Mao Zedong's world view: From youth to Yanan." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/187043.
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The main thrust of this research is to explore Mao Zedong's world view from his youth to Yanan (1941), a relatively neglected period in academic circles. A thorough examination of Mao's writings, speeches and behaviors is believed the most complete and systematic discussion on the subject. The findings, through the analysis moving from vertical to horizontal, from micro to macro, from concrete to abstract, have bridged the gap in our knowledge. Two interrelated hypotheses are suggested at the outset: (1) Mao had built up a long-time international sense and perspective since he was very young, (2) Mao had shaped his own world view during the defined period at both concrete and abstract levels. They have gained factual and logical validation. A chronological, periodized, and overall outlook portrays Mao as a lively world observer, an enthusiastic commentator, and a bold predictor. Mao's judgments, inferences, and perceptions, whether accurate or erroneous, were the reflection of the connection between the real (objective) world and Mao's mental (subjective) world, either concordant or discrepant. Mao's subjective world was composed of various elements, mainly, nationalist mentality, revolutionary interest and values, historical and cultural heritages, and personal experiences and characteristics. Mao's perceptions of the world as a whole and his images of the major powers, especially Mao's relations with Soviet Union, provide a concrete framework of his world view at empirical basis. A macro analysis of world view-related three groups of concepts (foreign affairs related concepts, famous revolutionary concepts and philosophical concepts) offers abstract principles of Mao's world view at conceptual level. His belief of "understanding the world and changing the world" shows distinctive philosophical ground. Mao's preference of change, struggle, unevenness, and flexibility had particular significance for featuring his world view. Four intellectual sources contributed to Mao's world view, such as: older Chinese traditions, the newly emerged tradition in modern China, western thought and learning, and Marxism-Leninism. Each of them functioned to influence Mao's world view in one way or another. Mao proved to be an eclectic with the label of sinicized Marxism.
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Eguchi, Glenn 1980. "Extending CORE for real world appliances." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/87388.
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Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-36).
by Glenn Eguchi.
M.Eng.
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Shue, David (David Dau Chuen) 1976. "SimHazard : an agent-world exception simulator." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/80122.
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Thesis (S.B. and M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-76).
by David Shue.
S.B.and M.Eng.
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Young, Gregory(Gregory F. ). "Client segmentation under real-world constraints." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122913.
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This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2018
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 67-69).
Market segmentation is a very useful tool that can enhance knowledge of a firm's customer base and therefore enable improved customer services and experiences that are more tailored to specific customer needs and preferences. Clustering is a natural and intuitive way to implement such segmentation, and in fact, there are a variety of standard methods by which to perform this. However, real-world considerations complicate its implementation, in particular, the necessity of not clustering in ways that could be considered discriminatory in terms of certain features such as gender or race. One way to mitigate such discriminatory clustering is through constraints that ensure that the clusters are balanced in terms of such features. However, such a clustering is barely, if at all, discussed in current literature. In this thesis, we develop and implement a new version of k-means clustering that is able to achieve comparable performance relative to an unconstrained clustering while at the same time address the constraints imposed by these discriminatory features.
by Gregory Young.
M. Eng.
M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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Wu, Jiajun Ph D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Learning to see the physical world." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128332.
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Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2020Cataloged from PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-303).
Human intelligence is beyond pattern recognition. From a single image, we are able to explain what we see, reconstruct the scene in 3D, predict what's going to happen, and plan our actions accordingly. Artificial intelligence, in particular deep learning, still falls short in some preeminent aspects when compared with human intelligence, despite its phenomenal development in the past decade: they in general tackle specific problems, require large amounts of training data, and easily break when generalizing to new tasks or environments. In this dissertation, we study the problem of physical scene understanding-building versatile, data-efficient, and generalizable machines that learn to see, reason about, and interact with the physical world. The core idea is to exploit the generic, causal structure behind the world, including knowledge from computer graphics, physics, and language, in the form of approximate simulation engines, and to integrate them with deep learning.
Here, learning plays a multifaceted role: models may learn to invert simulation engines for efficient inference; they may also learn to approximate or augment simulation engines for more powerful forward simulation. This dissertation consists of three parts, where we investigate the use of such a hybrid model for perception, dynamics modeling, and cognitive reasoning, respectively. In Part I, we use learning in conjunction with graphics engines to build an object-centered scene representation for object shape, pose, and texture. In Part II, in addition to graphics engines, we pair learning with physics engines to simultaneously infer physical object properties. We also explore learning approximate simulation engines for better flexibility and expressiveness. In Part III, we leverage and extend the models introduced in Parts I and II for concept discovery and cognitive reasoning by looping in a program execution engine.
The enhanced models discover program-like structures in objects and scenes and, in turn, exploit them for downstream tasks such as visual question answering and scene manipulation.
by Jiajun Wu.
Ph. D.
Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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Palatnik, Nataliya. "Kant's Science of the Moral World and Moral Objectivity." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845444.
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Kant’s Science of the Moral World and Moral Objectivity
Abstract
Critics of Kant's moral philosophy often object that it cannot account for moral requirements that are both genuinely objective and contentful. Notwithstanding the long history of this dispute, Kantians have been unable to put these objections to rest. I argue that we can answer these objections and fully understand Kantian moral objectivity only if we consider Kant’s moral philosophy in light of his methodological and architectonic concerns.
My dissertation takes up this task by providing a new account of Kant’s conception of moral theory as a philosophical science: Kant’s moral philosophy, I argue, appropriates the central features of the then revolutionary method of Newtonian natural science for the investigation of practical cognition. Just as Newtonian science begins with a priori (largely mathematical) principles and then gradually "comes down to" particular concrete physics, so too Kantian moral philosophy begins with general a priori moral principles that then gradually translate into a system of particular requirements. The objectivity of the content of our practical thought develops as the background conditions of moral deliberation become progressively more inter-subjectively justifiable. This progress is possible only through co-deliberation and collective action demanded by the duty to make morality fully efficacious in our shared social world, that is, the duty to promote the highest good.
My account highlights the attractiveness of Kant’s conception of the relationship between a priori and empirical aspects of practical thought, between theory and practice, and enables its systematic defense against objections by later German Idealists, particularly by Hegel. I argue that Hegel’s polemic against Kant's account of morality is fundamentally a disagreement about the nature of philosophical science and its method, and adjudicating between their views requires adjudicating the methodological dispute itself. I offer a systematic assessment of the methodological grounds of Hegel’s approach and of his critique of Kant’s moral philosophy. I argue that (1) Hegel’s approach does not, on the whole, present a viable alternative to Kant’s moral theory and (2) Hegel’s challenge can be met, but only by appealing to developmental or genetic aspects of Kant’s conception of moral objectivity grounded in his views on the proper method and form of a philosophical science. I show that these aspects of Kant’s thought, generally overlooked by commentators and Kantian theorists, are indispensable to his moral theory and provide a basis for a fruitful engagement with contemporary issues in moral philosophy, such as questions about the nature and role of imperfect duties.Philosophy
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Clarke, Christopher. "Cross check survey : World Commission on Dams." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/4835.
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Bibliography: pages 71-72.The World Commission on Dams (WCD) has completed a global survey of the performance, impacts and decision-making aspects of 125 large dam projects - th Cross-Check Survey. The primary aim of the Survey was to determine broad patterns and trends indicative of past performance, impacts and decision-making aspects of a selection of large dams that reflect the global population. Consequently, the findings of the Survey provided a link between the broad patterns and trends emerging at a global and regional level and the more in-depth findings provided by the other components of the WCD knowledge base. Thus, the Survey provided an entry point to "cross-check" the collective evidence to the WCD knowledge base - comprised of over 900 topic-related written submission, four regional consultations and workshops, 17 thematic reviews, 11 case studies and three country studies. The Cross-Check Survey sought to inform the WCD knowledge base on large dams in a responsible and consequential way but without any claims for being necessarily complete.
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Wärmedal, Björn. "Explaining kernel space with a real world example." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för datavetenskap, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-58069.
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The basic premis of this report is to explain the relation of kernel space and user space. It will show how the processor and computer memory work together with the operating system to protect operating system routines from misuse by user programs. After reading through this the reader should have an understanding of what kernel space is, how it is protected and how user programs gain access to its contents in a controlled manner. Fuse is used as an example in the conclusion, explaining how that particular application can be used to implement a simple dependency tracking overlay in a filesystem.
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Campbell, Edwina S. "Berlin : look to the world!" Universität Potsdam, 2004. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/texte_eingeschraenkt_welttrends/2010/4659/.
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In the spring 2004 issue of WeltTrends, Professor Gunther Hellmann made a „plea for offensive idealism“ and „against the power political resocialization of German foreign policy“. To a long-time outside observer of that foreign policy, this plea is unsurprising, but depressing. In keeping with Professor Hellmann’s own willingness, „notwendige Differenzierungen [zu] vernachlässigen zugunsten einer bewussten Zuspitzung“ I will comment on the aspects of his argument that strike an American colleague as particularly disturbing.
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Szabo, Bobbie. "Love is a Cunning Weaver: Myths, Sexuality, and the Modern World." Kent State University Honors College / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1493247491671522.
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Bertoni, Daniel Robert. "The Cultivation and Conceptualization of Exotic Plants in the Greek and Roman Worlds." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11448.
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This dissertation is an investigation into how plants provide a way to explore cultural interactions between Greece and Rome and the east. I use India, a region that remained consistently exotic to most Greeks and Romans throughout antiquity, as a test case to examine how eastern plants were received and integrated into Greek and Roman culture. Throughout I use my test case as a focus and as an object of comparison: India is a constant reminder of what was conceptualized as exotic. My methodology is primarily "plants in text," an approach that incorporates both the physical reality of plants for sale at the market as well as the imagined flora that grows at the end of the earth. The results of this inquiry show the value of investigating the cultural importance of plants and the mental constructs that surround them in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.The Classics
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Yang, Elaine 1974. "Design of a World-Wide Simulation Web." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29729.
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Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. 49).
The World-Wide Simulation Web (WWSW) is an emergent distributed simulation environment whose use model parallels that of the World-Wide Web (WWW). The idea was developed from working with two generations of the Distributed Object-Modeling Environment (DOME). A design for the architecture of the WWSW is proposed. The specification for the WWSW was determined by examining a list of desired features, deciding who the system users were and understanding use scenarios. The architecture design covers object model representation, server structure, client application structure, and graphical user interface guidelines. An implementation is complete of the core object model, client and server applications, and user interface concepts. Initial results have been promising since many desired features such as a flat object model representation, multiple model instances support, model solving, and advanced notification have been demonstrated. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to fully realize the complete WWSW vision.
by Elaine Yang.
M.Eng.
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Correa, Andrew (Andrew Thomas). "Drawing on the World: sketch in context." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55128.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-111).
This thesis introduces the idea that combining sketch recognition with contextual data-information about what is being drawn on-can improve the recognition of meaning in sketch and enrich the user interaction experience. I created a language called StepStool that facilitates the description of the relationship between digital ink and contextual data, and wrote the corresponding interpreter that enables my system to distinguish between gestural commands issued to an autonomous forklift. A user study was done to compare the correctness of a sketch interface with and without context on the canvas. This thesis coins the phrase "Drawing on the World" to mean contextual sketch recognition, describes the implementation and methodology behind "Drawing on the World", describes the forklift's interface, and discusses other possible uses for a contextual gesture recognizer. Sample code is provided that describes the specifics of the StepStool engine's implementation and the implementation of the forklift's interface.
by Andrew Correa.
S.M.
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Chu, Yang-hua. "Trust management for the World Wide Web." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/43534.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-[63]).
by Yang-hua Chu.
M.Eng.
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Qu, Jessica F. (Jessica Feng Jia). "Data wrapping on the World Wide Web." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36665.
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Wainman, Ruth. "The faces of British science : narrating lives in science since c.1945." Thesis, University of Kent, 2017. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/61259/.
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This thesis uses archived oral history interviews to trace the identities of scientists in narratives that capture their lived experiences of science. It draws upon fifty-four life history interviews with both men and women scientists from the British Library's 'An Oral History of British Science' (OHBS) archive. The OHBS was first established in 2009 to address the lack of comprehensive oral history archives devoted to documenting the personal experiences and memories of professionals involved in contemporary British science. In this thesis, however, the in-depth nature of these interviews are used to explore scientists' childhoods, careers and eventual retirement. This thesis therefore provides one of the first systematic attempts to draw together the personal accounts of professional scientists from a major public archive dedicated to science. In order to situate the study of scientists' lives, two fields of research are placed under scrutiny - oral history and history of science. In doing so, this thesis traces a longer tension between the 'history from below' approach of oral history and the 'great men' foundations of history of science when the two fields were still in their infancy. The different levels of emphasis that oral historians have placed on exploring issues such as trust, empathy and subjectivity have also been accompanied by a persistent scepticism found in history and associated studies in the sociology of science. Firstly, this thesis draws upon the democratic ethos of oral history in order to reconcile the trust and suspicion surrounding scientists' accounts of their lives. Secondly, the life history methodology of the OHBS interviews, which typically documents a whole person's life, draws attention to the importance of childhood and retirement for establishing scientists' identities as they sought to construct and reconstruct their lives in science. Lastly, it concludes with the implications of adopting an oral history approach to illuminate the contingent nature of scientists' identities.
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Taylor, Aaron E. N. "World without end, historicity and the contemporary science fiction cinema." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape3/PQDD_0034/MQ57688.pdf.
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Taylor, Aaron E. N. (Aaron Edward Nicholas) Carleton University Dissertation Film Studies. "World without end: historicity and the contemporary science fiction cinema." Ottawa, 2000.
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Rosemann, Achim. "Multipolar technoscience : clinical science collaborations in a changing world system." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2014. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/49218/.
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This dissertation focuses on the formation and governance of international clinical research collaborations in the field of regenerative stem cell medicine, and analyzes these processes against the background of the current transition to a multipolarizing scientific world system. The empirical point of departure of this study is an ethnographic analysis of the establishment of a trans-continental academia-centered clinical trials infrastructure, between researchers based in China, Hong Kong and the USA. Field research was carried out in mainland China and Hong Kong amongst scientists, clinical researchers, medical entrepreneurs, government regulators and patients, between April 2010 and May 2011. The dissertation contributes to debates on the processes and challenges that surround the global distribution of evidence-based medicine clinical research standards, and the study of science and globalization in the context of the emergence of new scientific, economic and geopolitical center regions in the world, with a particular focus on literature that comments on the scientific ascent of the People's Republic of China. The dissertation reveals that the global diffusion of evidence-based clinical research standards, in regenerative stem cell medicine, is accompanied by the surfacing of vital forms of resistance and the creation of novel transnational spaces of alter-standardization, in which less rigorous, physician-based forms of experimental clinical practice are endorsed, publicized and tried to be legitimized. The dissertation uncovers, furthermore, that the creation of internationally standardized research zones, in the clinical stem cell field, is not necessarily a stable or constant process. The implementation of internationally recognized standards can be highly temporary and depends upon activation in specific situational contexts. Multiple modalities of experimental clinical practices continue to exist side by side to each other. Another line of theorization in this study focuses on the contemporary dynamics of global scientific multipolarization, and explores the empirical and theoretical implications of this trend for international clinical research collaborations. The dissertation argues that a new mode of clinical research partnerships may gradually be emerging. Processes of collective financiering and joint-innovation are giving rise to changing patterns of labour division, decision-making, benefit sharing, profit sharing and revised forms of ownership regarding inventions and research data. Based on a reflective engagement with postcolonial approaches to the study of science and technology, the dissertation concludes that new analytical perspectives are required, through which the empirical transformations and impact associated with the move toward a multipolarizing science system, can be captured in a more nuanced, and comprehensive manner.
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Wu, Di. "What Distinguishes Humans from Artificial Beings in Science Fiction World." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Sektionen för planering och mediedesign, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-2245.
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In my thesis, I explore how advanced robotic technologies affect human society and my particular concern centers on investigating the boundaries between actual humans and artificial beings. Taking Steven Spielberg’s film Artificial Intelligence (2001) and Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) as my primary sources, I illustrate how humans are experiencing dehumanization whereas artificial beings are acting much more like humans by analyzing the main characters and events that depicted in both sources. Further on, based on Nick Haslam’s theory of two main forms of dehumanization (animalistic dehumanization and mechanistic dehumanization), I discuss the interrelationships between social categorization, empathy, alienation and dehumanization by comparing actual humans and artificial beings as counter-parts. According to the descriptions of the strained relationship between these two parties, I argue that the rigid social hierarchies set foundation for dehumanization and the characteristics that define a human being, such as humanity is not a trait that only exits in humans. It can be both gained and lost.
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Kudas, M. "The brand new world in science and engineering – Elon Musk." Thesis, Київський національний університет технологій та дизайну, 2019. https://er.knutd.edu.ua/handle/123456789/14379.
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De, La Rosa Rivera Eugenio. "RBQ: Congestion-adaptive cooperative caching for the World Wide Web." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/298775.
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The topic of this dissertation is the study of coordination strategies between Web caches, with special attention paid to the effects of cross-traffic congestion. Coordination can be in the form of Web caching cooperation or Content Delivery Networks. There are three major contributions made by this dissertation. First, a new coordination scheme, Restricted Broadcast Queries (RBQ), is proposed to address the problems observed in other coordination strategies in the presence of cross-traffic. RBQ's performance is evaluated using analytic and simulation tools, both in the presence and absence of cross-traffic. Secondly, an analytic model is developed that describes the basic behavior of Web cache coordination. Finally, Web cache coordination in the presence of cross-traffic is investigated using trace-driven simulation with the help of real proxy-based traces and synthetic traffic generators. RBQ lowers retrieval times by nearly 50% in the presence of intense cross-traffic congestion (up to 90% reduction in link bandwidth). In the absence of congestion, and for large number of cooperating caches, RBQ yields retrieval latencies 25% lower than other congestion-aware algorithms.
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Alrasheed, Hend. "Delta-Hyperbolicity in Real-World Networks: Algorithmic Analysis and Implications." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1526411510583146.
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Dossa, Zahir (Zahir A. ). "A development strategy for connecting first-world consumers to third-world producers : integrating value chain transparency into E-commerce design." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61158.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-76).
Value chain transparency, such as publishing member biographies and profit distribution, can be a powerful tool in increasing consumer trust and consumer loyalty. This thesis provides a methodology for integrating value chain transparency into Ecommerce site design and makes preliminary findings of the positive influence this strategy has on consumer buying behavior. The design and implementation of integrating value chain information within an E-commerce site is demonstrated through the development of theargantree.com. The Argan Tree is a cooperative of 18 women based in southwestern Morocco who produce argan oil. theargantree.com connects these producers to consumers in the U.S. to sell this oil for its culinary and cosmetic benefits. The implications of this study can transform the cooperative landscape, which is often marked by low wages, a lack of accountability, and difficulty competing in high-end markets. By equipping these organizations with the Internet-based strategies proposed, cooperatives can overcome these challenges and serve as organizations capable of real poverty-alleviation. While the direct application of this thesis is aimed at producer cooperatives of under-privileged populations, the underlying theories and findings can support any retail organization.
by Zahir Dossa.
M.Eng.
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Stancu, Luminita. "World information tool : a geographical approach to resource discovery on the Internet." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=22810.
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The Internet has been conceived as a communication tool to cross geographical boundaries and allow knowledge to be shared among people from all over the world. As a consequence of the expansion of computer networks, the abundance of available information and its variety make the process of resource discovery crucial for many people coming from different backgrounds, who often do not have computer skills.Resource Discovery Services (RDSs) have been developed along with almost every kind of resource, in order to enable access to each specific information pool. Among these services, the most popular are Archie, WAIS, Gopher and WWW, each performing better certain functions rather than others, even though their functionality sometimes overlaps. Inexperienced users are seldom aware of the efficiency of a particular service given a certain task and even less willing to use different tools, each one with its own characteristics.
This work is concerned with the presentation of the most common RDSs, followed by the design and implementation of a system called World Information Tool (WIT), able to group existing RDSs and offer to the user the capability of exploiting them in a single, composite tool.
The approach considered by WIT involves only the client side of the RDSs model, without requiring any modifications of the existing servers and protocols. Moreover, the geographical display of the servers permits a better use of the network resources, by attempting to spread the workload among different servers and make users choose nearby servers. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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Roeder, Mark A. "Explaining Presidential Approval: Persona Versus “Real World” Explanations." Cincinnati, Ohio : University of Cincinnati, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=ucin1100811491.
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Herschberg, Mark A. (Mark Allan). "Secure electronic voting over the World Wide Web." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/43497.
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Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-82).
by Mark A. Herschberg.
M.Eng.
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Shen, Yuan Kui. "Automatic record extraction for the World Wide Web." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35609.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-152).
As the amount of information on the World Wide Web grows, there is an increasing demand for software that can automatically process and extract information from web pages. Despite the fact that the underlying data on most web pages is structured, we cannot automatically process these web sites/pages as structured data. We need robust technologies that can automatically understand human-readable formatting and induce the underlying data structures. In this thesis, we are focused on solving a specific facet of this general unsupervised web information extraction problem. Structured data can appear in diverse forms from lists to trees to even semi-structured graphs. However, much of the information on the web appears in a flat format we call "records". In this work, we will describe a system, MURIEL, that uses supervised and unsupervised learning techniques to effectively extract records from webpages.
by Yuan Kui Shen.
S.M.
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Calamia, Joseph Benjamin. "Implanted : technology and connection in the deaf world." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/60841.
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Thesis (S.M. in Science Writing)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 27-30).
In 1984, the FDA approved a medical device called a cochlear implant for adult use in the United States. Unlike assistive hearing technologies that came before it, such as hearing aids, cochlear implants could offer wider access to sound even to the profoundly deaf. Given adult success with the device, the FDA lowered in 1990 the required age for implantation to two years old. The following year the National Association of the Deaf published a position statement on cochlear implants comparing them to "cultural genocide." This thesis explores two parallel stories. Drawing on interviews with implant engineers, surgeons, audiologists, and other specialists, the piece describes how cochlear implants function and how the devices have improved since the 1980s. Equally, the thesis pulls from interviews with bioethicists, deaf and hard of hearing individuals, educators at a signing deaf school, and others in the deaf community to describe the unique attributes and history of deaf culture and the changing and diverse reactions of the deaf community to this medical device.
by Joseph Benjamin Calamia.
S.M.in Science Writing
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Dror, Ron O. (Ron Ofer) 1975. "Surface reflectance recognition and real-world illumination statistics." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16911.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2003.Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-150).
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Humans distinguish materials such as metal, plastic, and paper effortlessly at a glance. Traditional computer vision systems cannot solve this problem at all. Recognizing surface reflectance properties from a single photograph is difficult because the observed image depends heavily on the amount of light incident from every direction. A mirrored sphere, for example, produces a different image in every environment. To make matters worse, two surfaces with different reflectance properties could produce identical images. The mirrored sphere simply reflects its surroundings, so in the right artificial setting, it could mimic the appearance of a matte ping-pong ball. Yet, humans possess an intuitive sense of what materials typically "look like" in the real world. This thesis develops computational algorithms with a similar ability to recognize reflectance properties from photographs under unknown, real-world illumination conditions. Real-world illumination is complex, with light typically incident on a surface from every direction. We find, however, that real-world illumination patterns are not arbitrary. They exhibit highly predictable spatial structure, which we describe largely in the wavelet domain. Although they differ in several respects from the typical photographs, illumination patterns share much of the regularity described in the natural image statistics literature. These properties of real-world illumination lead to predictable image statistics for a surface with given reflectance properties. We construct a system that classifies a surface according to its reflectance from a single photograph under unknown illumination. Our algorithm learns relationships between surface reflectance and certain statistics computed from the observed image.
(cont.) Like the human visual system, we solve the otherwise underconstrained inverse problem of reflectance estimation by taking advantage of the statistical regularity of illumination. For surfaces with homogeneous reflectance properties and known geometry, our system rivals human performance.
by Ron O. Dror.
Ph.D.
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Xue, Tianfan. "Exploiting visual motion to understand our visual world." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/113978.
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Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2017.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 115-126).
Motion is important for understanding our visual world. The human visual system relies heavily on motion perception to recognize the movement of objects, to infer the 3D geometry of a scene, and to perceive the emotions of other people. Modern computer vision systems also use motion signals extracted from video sequences to infer high-level visual concepts, including human activities and abnormal events. Both human and computer visual systems try to perceive changes in the 3D physical world through its 2D projection, either on the image plane or on our retinas. The observed 2D pixel movement is the result of several factors. First, the image sensor might move, inducing egocentric motion, even when the scene is static. Second, the medium between objects and a camera might change and affect how light transmits from the objects to the sensor, like the shimmering in a hot-road mirage. Finally, the objects in a scene might move, either actively, like a person walking along a street, or passively, like a tree branch that is vibrating due to wind. All of these movements reveal information about our visual world. In this dissertation, we will discuss how to infer physical properties of our visual world from observed 2D movement. First, we show how to infer the depth of a scene from egocentric motion and use this to remove undesired visual obstructions. Second, we relate the slight wiggling motion due to refraction to the movement of hot air and infer the location and velocity of the airflow. Last, we illustrate how to infer the physical properties of objects, such as their deformation space or internal structure, from their motion.
by Tianfan Xue.
Ph. D.
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Neveitt, William T. (William Tyler). "Spatial knowledge navigation for the World Wibe Web." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/86611.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-136).
by William T. Neveitt.
Ph.D.