Signal set design for full-diversity low-decoding-complexity differential scaled-unitary STBCs

The problem of designing high rate, full diversity noncoherent space-time block codes (STBCs) with low encoding and decoding complexity is addressed. First, the notion of g-group encodable and g-group decodable linear STBCs is introduced. Then for a known class of rate-1 linear designs, an explicit construction of fully-diverse signal sets that lead to four-group encodable and four-group decodable differential scaled unitary STBCs for any power of two number of antennas is provided. Previous works on differential STBCs either sacrifice decoding complexity for higher rate or sacrifice rate for lower decoding complexity.

Signal set design for full-diversity low-decoding-complexity differential scaled-unitary STBCs

The problem of designing high rate, full diversity noncoherent space-time block codes (STBCs) with low encoding and decoding complexity is addressed. First, the notion of g-group encodable and g-group decodable linear STBCs is introduced. Then for a known class of rate-1 linear designs, an explicit construction of fully-diverse signal sets that lead to four-group encodable and four-group decodable differential scaled unitary STBCs for any power of two number of antennas is provided. Previous works on differential STBCs either sacrifice decoding complexity for higher rate or sacrifice rate for lower decoding complexity.

Scenic Design of James and the Giant Peach

The purpose of this thesis is to provide research, supporting paperwork, production photographs and other materials that document the scenic design process for James and the Giant Peach at Adventure Theatre MTC. This thesis contains the following: concept statement, scenic research images collected to express location, and the emotional/ intellectual/ psychological landscapes for the production, preliminary sketches, photographs of the ¼” scale model, drafting plates and supporting paint elevations to communicate the design, prop list and accompanying research, archival production photographs to document the completed design, and finally periodical reviews of the show.

Panem et circenses : law, law and power in The Hunger Games

Like many cautionary tales, The Hunger Games takes as its major premise an observation about contemporary society, measuring its ballistic arc in order to present graphically its logical conclusions. The Hunger Games gazes back to the panem et circenses of Ancient Rome, staring equally cynically forward, following the trajectory of reality television to its unbearably barbaric end point – a sadistic voyeurism for an effete elite of consumers. At each end of the historical spectrum (and in the present), the prevailing social form is Arendt’s animal laborans. Consumer or consumed, Panem’s population is (with the exception of the inner circle) either deprived of the possibility of, or distracted from, political action. Within the confines of the Games themselves, Law is abandoned or de‐realised: Law – an elided Other in the pseudo‐Hobbesian nightmare that is the Arena. The Games are played out, as were gladiatorial combats and other diversions of the Roman Empire, against a background resonant of Juvenal’s concern for his contemporaries’ attachment to short term gratification at the expense the civic virtues of justice and caring which are (or would be) constitutive of a contemporary form of Arendt’s homo politicus. While the Games are, on their face, ‘reality’ they are (like the realities presented in contemporary reality television) a simulated reality, de‐realised in a Foucauldian set design constructed as a distraction for Capitol, and for the residents of the Districts, a constant reminder of their subservience to Capitol. Yet contemporary Western culture, for which manipulative reality TV is but a symptom of an underlying malaise, is inscribed at least as an incipient Panem, Its public/political space is diminished by the effective slavery of the poor, the pre‐occupation with and distractions of materiality and modern media, and the increasing concentration of power/wealth into a smaller proportion of the population.

Domestic ecologies : gender and domesticity in Harold Pinter's Rooms

Harold Pinter's work opens the walls to the relatively closed rooms of domesticity. The room of the love affair, the unpredictable liaison, the cramped cluttered rooms of poverty and the disaffected. This study uses Pinter's rooms to analyse existing ideologies of gender, territory, power and domesticity. Pinter's rooms are more often than not reflections of familiar domestic spaces. This research investigates Pinter's rooms through a case study of a theatre set for one of his plays and textual analysis of selected works, developing an understanding of how Pinter's characters reflect behaviours within the domestic environment, mimicking while subverting domestic ecologies.

Space within the surface : the patterned surfaces of Florence Broadhurst and Jim Thompson

The Woods Bagot 2007 refurbishment of the Qantas and British Airways Bangkok Business lounge in the Survarnabhumi Airport features wall finishes designed by wallpaper designer, Florence Broadhurst (1899-1977) and Thai Silk trader, Jim Thompson (1906-1967). This distinctive selection, which is proclaimed on the airport’s website, of patterned wall surfaces side by side draws attention to their striking similarities and their defining differences . Thompson and Broadhurst would appear to be worlds apart, but here in the airport their work brings them together. Thompson, the son of a wealthy cotton family in America, worked as an architect before joining the army. He moved to Bangkok to start The Thai Silk Company in 1948. Broadhurst was born on a farm in Mt. Perry, Queensland. She began her career as a performance artist, as part of an Australian troupe in Shanghai, moving onto pursue a career in fashion design, catering to the middle and upper classes in London. Upon her return to Australia, Broadhurst started a print design company in 1959. Both Broadhurst and Thompson pursued multiple careers, lived many lives, and died under mysterious circumstances. Broadhurst was murdered in 1977 at her Sydney print warehouse, which remains an unsolved crime. Thompson disappeared in Malaysia in 1967 and his body has never been found. This chapter investigates the parallels between Thompson and Broadhurst and what lead them to design such popular patterns for wall surfaces towards the end of their careers. While neither designer was a household name, their work is familiar to most, seen in the costume and set design of films, on the walls of restaurants and cafes and even in family homes. The reason for the popularity of their patterns has not previously been analysed. However, this chapter suggests that the patterns are intriguing because they contain something of their designers’ identities. It suggests that the coloured surface provides a way of camouflaging and hiding its subjects’ histories, such that Broadhurst and Thompson, consciously or unconsciously, used the patterned surface as a plane in which their past lives could be buried. The revealing nature of the stark white wall, compared with the forgiveness provided by the pattern in which to hide, is elaborated by painter and advocate for polychromatic architecture, Fernand Léger in his essay, “The Wall, The Architect, The Painter (1965).” Léger writes that, “the modern architect has gone too far in his magnificent attempts to cleanse through emptiness,” and that the resultant white walls of modernity create ‘an impalpability of air, of slick, brilliant new surfaces where nothing can be hidden any longer …even shadows don’t dare to enter’. To counter the exposure produced by the white wall, Thompson and Broadhurst designed patterned surfaces that could harbour their personal histories. Broadhurst and Thompson’s works share a number of commonalities in their design production, even though their work in print design commenced a decade apart. Both designers opted to work more with traditional methods of pattern making. Broadhurst used hand-operated screens, and Thompson outsourced work to local weavers and refrained from operating out of a factory. Despite humble beginnings, Broadhurst and Thompson enjoyed international success with their wall patterns being featured in a number of renowned international hotels in Bahrain, Singapore, Sydney, and London in the 1970s and 1980s. Their patterns were also transferred to fabric for soft furnishings and clothing. Thompson’s patterns were used for costumes in films including the King and I and Ben Hur. Broadhurst’s patterns were also widely used by fashion designers and artists, such as Akira Isogowa‘s costume design for Salome, a 1998 production by the Sydney Dance Company. Most recently her print designs have been used by skin illustrator Emma Hack, in a series of works painting female bodies into Broadhurst’s patterns. Hack’s works camouflage the models’ bodies into the patterned surface, assimilating subject and surface, hinting at there being something living within the patterned wall. More than four decades after Broadhurst’s murder and five decades since Thompson’s disappearance, their print designs persist as more than just a legacy. They are applied as surface finishes with the same fervour as when the designs were first released. This chapter argues that the reason for the ongoing celebration of their work is that there is the impalpable presence of the creator in the patterns. It suggests that the patterns blur the boundary between subject and surface.

Architecture, the body and authority in performance

This is a theoretical investigation seeking to learn more about architecture by looking at architectural practice through another discipline. In this research architecture is investigated by examining its relationship with bodies through performance and theatre set design. This thesis aims to build on existing architectural theory, in which an absence of discourse on the body has been identified, by analysing representations of architecture and the body in performance. The research specifically examines the relationship between the body, architecture and authority in performance through the analysis of several performance works.

Jacob Mestel 1914-1958

Correspondence with individuals: Jacob Ben-Ami, Ossip Dymow, Ovsei Liubomirskii, Kalman Marmor, Nachman Meisel, Melech Ravitch, Dov Sadan, Michael Weichert and Zalman Zylbercweig. Correspondence with organizations: Hebrew Actors' Union, IKUF, YIVO. Manuscripts of plays collected by Mestel as director, including adaptations by Mestel. Mestel's writings: manuscripts of poems, plays, essays, articles, notes, translations. Theater production materials: scripts with Mestel's direction notes, prop and set design notes. Miscellaneous theater materials, including course notes, theater programs. Clippings: Mestel's writings, biographical articles, reviews of performances. Family correspondence and personal papers including papers of Sara Kindman-Mestel. Photographs relating to Yiddish theater in New York, 1930s-1950s.

Corpo como superfície: fazer-se imagem

Dissertação que pesquisa o desdobramento de espetáculos teatrais em imagens de potencial plástico fecundo na interação entre a cenografia e as artes visuais. Estudos de caso de obras de Robert Wilson que elaboram as questões da tensão entre a ficção e a biografia, além de abordar imagem, corpo, movimento e espacialidade. Desenvolve-se em análise das posturas do espaço quando atravessado por trabalhos que promovem o pensamento acerca da imobilidade e de seu contrário. A reprodutibilidade esteticamente explorada é observada enquanto elemento fundamental na proposta que trata a disponibilidade do corpo justaposta à imagética que este é capaz de produzir. Na análise aparecem alguns materiais - imagens - resultantes de processos artísticos de Robert Wilson bem como de outros artistas como Marina Abramovic e Rineke Djcstra. Estruturado no encadeamento de imagens partícipes de processos de construção e condução de performances artísticas que abrangem as perspectivas da colaboração imagética incorporada ao pensamento criativo que recondiciona o corpo no campo da superficialidade enquanto abrangência poética

Strategic behaviour in choice experiments.

Practitioners of environmental economics sometimes use repeated trinary choice experiment surveys to estimate the value of environmental policies and programs for use in policy evaluation. These surveys have several advantages over simpler forms of non-market valuation: (1) researchers can estimate the marginal value of attributes of the good or service in question, making the results useful for benefits transfer; and (2) because respondents make several choices and choose from choice sets containing three options, efficiency of the willingness to pay estimate is improved over one-shot, binary choice formats. Despite these benefits, such surveys may have incentive properties which cause the resulting value estimates to be biased. This paper presents a theoretical demonstration that subjects often have an incentive to choose the second-best option in a repeated trinary choice survey. The model shows that due to the nature of factorial choice set design, the second-best option in the choice set will often be the status quo option. The paper reports a set of experiments designed to test these theoretical predictions in an induced-value setting. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical predictions, demonstrating that repeated trinary choice experiment surveys can generate biased value estimates under a wide range of conditions.

Cenografia virtual em televisão: relatório de estágio

Relatório de Estágio submetido à Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Teatro - especialização em Design de Cena.

Evolving Distributed Algorithms with Genetic Programming

Distributed systems are one of the most vital components of the economy. The most prominent example is probably the internet, a constituent element of our knowledge society. During the recent years, the number of novel network types has steadily increased. Amongst others, sensor networks, distributed systems composed of tiny computational devices with scarce resources, have emerged. The further development and heterogeneous connection of such systems imposes new requirements on the software development process. Mobile and wireless networks, for instance, have to organize themselves autonomously and must be able to react to changes in the environment and to failing nodes alike. Researching new approaches for the design of distributed algorithms may lead to methods with which these requirements can be met efficiently. In this thesis, one such method is developed, tested, and discussed in respect of its practical utility. Our new design approach for distributed algorithms is based on Genetic Programming, a member of the family of evolutionary algorithms. Evolutionary algorithms are metaheuristic optimization methods which copy principles from natural evolution. They use a population of solution candidates which they try to refine step by step in order to attain optimal values for predefined objective functions. The synthesis of an algorithm with our approach starts with an analysis step in which the wanted global behavior of the distributed system is specified. From this specification, objective functions are derived which steer a Genetic Programming process where the solution candidates are distributed programs. The objective functions rate how close these programs approximate the goal behavior in multiple randomized network simulations. The evolutionary process step by step selects the most promising solution candidates and modifies and combines them with mutation and crossover operators. This way, a description of the global behavior of a distributed system is translated automatically to programs which, if executed locally on the nodes of the system, exhibit this behavior. In our work, we test six different ways for representing distributed programs, comprising adaptations and extensions of well-known Genetic Programming methods (SGP, eSGP, and LGP), one bio-inspired approach (Fraglets), and two new program representations called Rule-based Genetic Programming (RBGP, eRBGP) designed by us. We breed programs in these representations for three well-known example problems in distributed systems: election algorithms, the distributed mutual exclusion at a critical section, and the distributed computation of the greatest common divisor of a set of numbers. Synthesizing distributed programs the evolutionary way does not necessarily lead to the envisaged results. In a detailed analysis, we discuss the problematic features which make this form of Genetic Programming particularly hard. The two Rule-based Genetic Programming approaches have been developed especially in order to mitigate these difficulties. In our experiments, at least one of them (eRBGP) turned out to be a very efficient approach and in most cases, was superior to the other representations.

Práticas de organizar na indústria criativa: a produção de um espetáculo de teatro musical em São Paulo - SP

Esta tese tem por objetivo compreender as práticas e ações de organizar necessárias à produção/organização de um espetáculo de teatro musical em São Paulo, a fim de explorar como as relações e articulações materialmente heterogêneas o sustentam e permitem suas apresentações. O foco nas práticas está alinhado à preocupação dos Estudos Organizacionais (EO) acerca de como “as organizações acontecem”, e na compreensão dos processos e práticas de organizar do cotidiano organizacional, remetendo ao entendimento das organizações como processos (organising) em constante estado de (re)constituição. O campo das indústrias criativas apresenta ainda lacunas pouco exploradas, referentes aos bens e serviços criativos. Seu foco de estudos está mais voltado para o consumo de tais bens e poucas pesquisas dedicam-se à sua produção e/ou organização. A própria noção de criatividade é entendida apenas como um atributo humano, talento ou habilidade, sem se enfatizar que alguns bens e serviços criativos e culturais apenas são possíveis a partir das relações e ações entre humanos e não-humanos. Na literatura organizacional, o teatro é amplamente estudado como uma metáfora ou como uma ferramenta de intervenção em processos de mudança ou aprendizado, sendo ainda raros estudos dedicados a explorar um espetáculo teatral como forma particular de organização. O teatro musical, inserido nas indústrias criativas, parece se consolidar no Brasil, principalmente pelo aumento de montagens de grandes musicais oriundos da Broadway, NYC, EUA, e sua crescente profissionalização, sobretudo na última década e, especialmente, na cidade de São Paulo, SP. Sua produção difere de outros gêneros teatrais pelo número de profissionais, investimentos e presença da tecnologia evidenciada em seus projetos de som, luz, cenografia e gestão de palco, tornando-o um campo fértil para a exploração sobre como atores se reúnem e formam o espetáculo visível (visto pelo público no palco) e o invisível (oculto nos bastidores). Sobre tal aspecto, a Teoria Ator-Rede (TAR), aqui utilizada como referencial teórico-metodológico, fornece um repertório analítico para a compreensão da organização como efeito de uma rede heterogênea de elementos, com uma estabilidade temporariamente alcançada. Para concretizar meu objetivo de explorar a organização de um musical, realizei uma pesquisa qualitativa, com inspiração etnográfica, na qual permaneci em campo durante dez meses junto a uma companhia cujo espetáculo esteve em cartaz em São Paulo entre os anos de 2013 e 2014. Descrevo, assim, como ocorreram as associações a articulações entre atores humanos e não-humanos, permeadas por esforços no sentido de gerar uma estabilização, um ordenamento, mesmo que precário, o qual é aqui entendido o musical (macro-ator ou rede-de-atores) em si e suas mais de trezentas apresentações durante a temporada, resultantes de ações em contínua (re)constituição. Negociações referentes a aquisições de direitos autorais, aspectos particulares da língua portuguesa, do público brasileiro, dos corpos e vozes do elenco brasileiro, as restrições estruturais do teatro, a produção de documentos, a marcação na sala de ensaios, a união do espetáculo via sistemas de som e imagem, a aquisição de equipamentos específicos e o sistema que permite “chamar o show” durante a apresentação são alguns dos temas que exploro. Com esta pesquisa, busquei assimilar o crescente interesse dos EO em relação organising e algumas das possibilidades oferecidas pela TAR quanto à multiplicidade e heterogeneidade inerentes às práticas organizativas, com o intuito de enriquecer a discussão acerca da organização e produção de bens e serviços criativos, destacando como a organização “espetáculo de teatro musical” é múltipla e materialmente heterogênea, e não apenas uma ideia exclusiva à ação humana ou criatividade como insumo de produção, tal como apregoa a maior parte das descrições referentes às indústrias criativas.

James Bond will return: der serielle Charakter der James Bond-Filme

Die James Bond-Filme: seit über 40 Jahren sind sie ein unübersehbarer Bestandteil der Populärkultur. Anfang der 60er Jahre unter völlig anderen historischen, sozialen und nicht zuletzt filmtechnischen Voraussetzungen aus der Taufe gehoben, gelingt es ihnen auch heute noch, ein Massenpublikum für sich zu gewinnen. Inwiefern kann man bei einer so langen Laufzeit überhaupt noch von einer homogenen Serie sprechen? Und was für Gemeinsamkeiten, Unterschiede und auch Weiterentwicklungen von der ursprünglichen Machart sind hier zu beobachten? Dies sind die Grundfragen der vorliegenden Dissertation. Bei der Benennung der seriellen Eigenschaften werden sowohl inhaltliche als auch dramaturgische und filmtechnisch-formale Aspekte betrachtet. Die Figurenkonstellation von Held, Gegenspieler und der weiblichen Hauptfigur, die zwischen den beiden steht und häufig die Seiten wechselt, ist ein Schema das - kaum variiert - schon in den Romanvorlagen Ian Flemings zum Einsatz kam und auch das Rückgrat der Film-Plots bildet. Dennoch ließ dieses Gerüst den mittlerweile fünf verschiedenen Darstellern, die James Bond nacheinander verkörperten, genügend Freiraum für das Ausarbeiten eines eigenen Rollenkonzepts, das auf ihren speziellen Schauspielstil ausgerichtet war. Dadurch erhielt die James Bond-Figur jeweils eine Neuinterpretation, die sich insbesondere in ihrem sozialen Habitus bemerkbar macht, der je nach Darsteller zwischen provokantem Aufsteigertyp und aristokratischem Gentleman changierte. Zum unverwechselbaren Erkennungsmerkmal der Bond-Serie avancierte die so genannte 'gun-barrel'-Sequenz, die in den ersten Sekunden jedes Films abläuft. Auch die sich anschließende Vortitelsequenz, eine auf Spannung oder Action angelegte Szene, die einen Vorgeschmack auf den folgenden Film liefern soll, ist ein Element, das der Machart von Fernsehserien entnommen ist. Neben diesen bewusst eingesetzten Markenzeichen lässt sich auch in der Gestaltungsweise der Filme - in Kameraführung, Schnitt, Musik und Set Design - eine stilistische Kontinuität feststellen, die insbesondere dadurch bedingt ist, dass die Serie seit jeher von den Produzenten ähnlich wie ein Familienunternehmen geführt wurde und - zumindest bis Ende der 80er Jahre - auch die kreativen Köpfe der Filme konsequent im eigenen Team ausgebildet wurden.

Shading Silhouettes of Smaller Ones

I am truly honored to have been given the amazing opportunity to create this original piece, this powerful journey through memory and emotive exploration of the loss of childhood. How do we feel about the loss of our child-self? Could we ever get them back? How long, how deep would one have to dig in the graveyards, the playgrounds of memory, to uncover what was buried there... to un-erase what waserased? shading silhouettes of smaller ones will ultimately encourage a reconnection with the Inner Child hidden inside all of us, as well as an intimate awareness of the adult version of the self by looking back to the smaller ones. The main inspiration for this piece is then of course, Inner Child Work. Most people may not be familiar with this therapeutic exploration of childhood... It wasimportant to me then, to present this concept in an imaginative, theatrical way, as a gift to you - a comprehensive and intensely moving gift. Speaking from experience, working on my Inner Child - my little Bianca - has been the most painful, frightening, yetrewarding and powerful experience within my personal life. Some people spend their entire lives trying to love themselves, to prove themselves, or be accepted. Some are too afraid to look back to where it all began. The characters within this piece will face thatfear... in a regression from the complexities of adulthood to the confusion of adolescence, all the way back to the wonder and bliss of childhood. They will reveal memories, of both joy and pain, love and abandonment, journeying backwards through time - through memory - through a playground - back to the beginning... We will enter a world where a push of a merry-go-round spins us to games of Truth or Dare after a high school dance at 16 - or the slam of a metal fence reminds us of the door Dad slammed in our face at 9 - where the sound of chain links swings us back to scrapping our knee by the sandbox at 5 This piece will attempt to connect everyone, both cast and audience, through a universal understanding and discussion of what it means to grow up, as well as a discovery of WHY we are the way we are - how experiences or relationships from our childhood have shaped our adult lives. We will attempt to challenge your honesty and nerve by inviting you to ask questions of yourselves, your past - to remember what it's like to have the innocence and hope of a child, to engage with and discover your Inner Child, to realize when or why you left them behind, and if you want to this magical part of yourself. It is my hope that you will join us in a collective journey - gather the courage to dig up the little kid you buried so long ago...* The creation, design, choreography, and direction for shading silhouettes of smaller ones mark the culminating experience of a year-long independent study in Theatre.