Creation Of Tools Research Articles

Empowering Creativity: Enhancing Creative Writing Skills through Pixton in Community Service Initiatives

This community service project investigates the transformative potential of Pixton, a digital comic creation tool, in fostering creative writing skills within a community setting. The initiative seeks to empower individuals through engaging workshops that leverage Pixton as a means to unlock and express creativity. Utilizing a participatory action research approach, the project assesses both the quantitative progress in creative writing proficiency and the qualitative impact on participants' engagement and self-expression. The workshops are designed to provide a supportive space for community members to explore their narrative voices using Pixton, encouraging collaborative storytelling. Through a synthesis of pre and post-assessment data, reflective journals, and participant interviews, the project aims to contribute valuable insights into the role of digital tools in community-based creative initiatives, ultimately fostering a sense of empowerment, expression, and community cohesion.

AI-Driven Digital Storytelling: A Strategy for Creating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Materials

This study aimed to explore the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and digital storytelling in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education among pre-service teachers. Conducted with third-year college students enrolled in a teacher training program, the study focuses on three main objectives: assessing the participants' prior knowledge of AI tools for EFL material creation, examining their attitudes towards the use of AI in language education, and evaluating the impact of collaborative digital storytelling projects on their perspectives towards integrating AI tools in educational settings. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study engaged a convenience sample of 115 pre-service teachers, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative research instruments such as a pre-post-test based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and class discussion. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS, while qualitative insights were derived through QDA Miner to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the participants' experiences and viewpoints. The findings reveal a notable gap in the pre-service teachers' prior knowledge of AI tools designed for educational purposes, indicating a limited exposure to or engagement with such technologies in their training. Despite this low level of familiarity, the study uncovers a predominantly positive attitude towards the adoption and integration of AI tools in language education. This positive disposition suggests an openness among future educators to explore and incorporate innovative technologies that can enhance teaching and learning experiences in EFL contexts. The research highlights how the practical experience of creating collaborative digital storytelling narratives using AI tools can positively influence pre-service teachers' attitudes towards technology integration. This shift in perspective underscores the potential of hands-on, project-based learning experiences to enrich teacher training programs by fostering a more receptive and adaptive mindset towards the use of emerging technologies in educational settings. The study underscores the importance of integrating AI and digital storytelling into teacher education curricula to better prepare pre-service teachers for the evolving demands of the digital age, advocating for a more informed, and innovative approach to EFL material development and teaching strategies.

CNN-based image style transformation--Using VGG19

eural Style Transfer is a widely used approach in the field of computer vision, which aims to generate visual effects by integrating the information contained in one image into another. In this paper, this work presents an implementation of neural style transfer using TensorFlow and the VGG19 model. The proposed method involves loading and preprocessing the content and style images, extracting features from both images using the VGG19 model, and computing Gram matrices to capture the style information. A StyleContentModel class is introduced to encapsulate the style and content extraction process. The optimization process is performed using the Adam optimizer, where gradients are applied to iteratively update the generated image. The number of epochs and steps per epoch can be adjusted to control the optimization process and achieve desired results. Experiments show that we are effective in generating an image that is able to integrate the content of one image into the other. The generated images exhibit visually appealing characteristics and showcase the potential of neural style transfer as a creative tool in image synthesis. Future work may involve exploring different variations of the style transfer algorithm, optimizing hyperparameters, and evaluating the performance on a wider range of image datasets. Additionally, the integration of other deep learning architectures and techniques could further enhance the capabilities of neural style transfer.

Movie as a Tool for Creation and Sustenance of Nigeria’s Positive Image: A Case Study of 93 Days

Image matters whether it concerns a nation or an individual. The image of the Nigerian and the Nigerian nation in the media, both national and international, leaves so much to be desired. Daily, we are bombarded with negative stereotypes and images in the media: of Nigerian armed robbers in Dubai; Yahoo Yahoo and Yahoo plus experiments and; credit card fraudsters in the UK and other European nations. These images do not help in projecting the real potential and the endowments of the nation both in human terms and natural resources. This paper investigates the genuine practise and patterns of Nigerian workers, especially as it is represented in the Nollywood film "93 Days" which is a film that shows Nigeria in a positive light over an incident that was well handled by the Government. This, however, is one of the rare films that showed Nigeria in good light. There are many in Nollywood and even Hollywood that show the country in negative image such as District 9 and Shanty Town. This paper examines how films could be used as tools in creating and sustaining positive images for Nigeria and the Nigerian nation. It will also explore how, through the use of themes and characterisation, films can be used to create positive images for the nation. It will then suggest steps that could be taken to increase the number of Nollywood films that could help in rebranding the nation's image positively. Negative representation in Nollywood harms the country's reputation because there is no telling how far the films go. The theoretical framework for this paper is Jean-Louis Baudry's Apparatus theory. The theory avers that cinema (film) is ideological; its mechanics of representation are ideological because films are created to represent reality. It also adopts a literary method of analysis to answer the question posed on the reality of the effectiveness of the Nigerian sectors. From the analysis, the aplomb nature of the Nigerian health workers is revealed. In a period that is evidently challenging for everybody, especially health workers, outdid themselves and protected the people.

AIIRA: AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture

AbstractAIIRA seeks to transform agriculture by creating a new AI‐driven framework for modeling plants at various agronomically relevant scales. We accomplish this by designing and deploying AI‐driven predictive models that fuse diverse data with siloed domain knowledge. AIIRA's vision, illustrated in Figure 1, consists of four technical thrusts with cross‐cutting education, training, and outreach activities. Our activities are focused on theory, algorithms, and tools for the principled creation of goal‐oriented AI tools deployed at plant and field scales. Our use‐inspired AI developments are tightly integrated with USDA‐relevant challenges in crop improvement and sustainable crop production. Our strong social science focus ensures sustained AI adoption across the ag value chain. Our cyberinfrastructure (CI) efforts ensure cohesive, sustainable, and extensible CI to reproducibly share and manage data assets and analysis workflows to a diverse spectrum of the Ag community. Taken together, this will ensure long‐term payoffs in AI and agriculture. AIIRA has established a new field of Cyber Agricultural Systems at the intersection of plant science, agronomics, and AI. Our signature activities build the workforce for this new field through formal and informal educational activities. Through these activities, AIIRA creates accessible pathways for underrepresented groups, especially Native Americans and women.

Monitoring Baby Incubator Central through Internet of Things (IoT) based on Raspberry Pi Zero W with Personal Computer View

kids born before 37 weeks of pregnancy or weighing less than 2500 grams are considered premature, whereas kids born between 38 and 40 weeks of pregnancy and between 2500 to 4000 grams are considered full-term. Given that their organ systems are still developing within the womb, premature infants find it difficult to adjust to life outside the womb. As a result, special consideration must be made. They include modifying the environment's temperature, humidity, and oxygen needs to reflect those of the mother's womb. These conditions might be replaced with a baby incubator. This tool's creation is intended to make it easier for midwives and other healthcare professionals to keep an eye on many baby incubators. The Internet of Things (IoT) system is used by this instrument to transfer data. Using three ESP32 modules that have been put together to create modules that can collect data and have that data analyzed by a server (central monitoring) Raspberry Pi Zero W. Data will be sent via Internet of Things (IoT) technology, and the website will display the data. Two tests were conducted at 32 degrees Celsius, one at 34 degrees Celsius, and one at 36 degrees Celsius for a total of five tests. This technique was developed using a form of pre-experimental, after-only study. In this configuration, researchers may only see the module reading results; incubator analyzer data are not shown. Error value 3 in monitoring at 32 degrees Celsius has a maximum error of -0.04 percent. The largest error value occurs when the temperature is set to 34 degrees Celsius, when the monitoring error value is -0.016%. Monitoring inaccuracy is at its highest, 0.01%, when the temperature is 36 degrees Celsius. The monitoring 3 error value is most at 32 degrees Celsius (-0.025 percent), followed by 34 degrees Celsius (0.031 percent), and finally 36 degrees Celsius (0.049 percent), as shown by data on noise measurements. The findings demonstrate that each measurement performed by the module still contains mistakes. Medical staff should find it easier to concurrently monitor many infant incubators thanks to this discovery.

Artificial intelligence as a tool for creativity

The release of ChatGPT has sparked quite a bit of interest about creativity in the context of artificial intelligence (AI), with theorizing and empirical research asking questions about the nature of creativity (both human and artificially-produced) and the valuing of work produced by humans and artificial means. In this article, we discuss one specific scenario identified in the creativity research community – co-creation, or use of AI as a tool that could augment human creativity. We present emerging research relevant to how AI can be used on a continuum of four levels of creativity, from mini-c/creativity in learning to little-c/everyday creativity to Pro-C/professional creativity and Big-C/eminent creativity. In this discussion, AI is defined broadly, not to include only large language models (e.g., ChatGPT) which might approach general AI, but also other computer programs that perform tasks typically understood as requiring human intelligence. We conclude by considering future directions for research on AI as a tool for creativity across the four c's.

Video Game Development as Public History

Public historians have recently directed significant attention toward video games as a media form for engaging diverse audiences with participatory historical representations and arguments. Yet despite the availability of easy-to-use game creation tools, historians have been slow to adopt game development. I developed a video game, Ab Uno Sanguine, based on my PhD research to assess the practicality of game design as a venue for public history practice. This article reflects on my experiences in historical game development along the ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate) process of game production. This paper connects game studies, historical game studies, and digital public history scholarship to demonstrate how historians can become historian-developers to disseminate their research without a large budget or a professional game design team.

Elements and Principles of Design for Sustainability

Abstract: The main purpose of this analysis is to make aware about the sustainability in elements and principles of design for fashion and footwear so that we could be able to develop the sustainable product, which can play an essential role in protection of the environment and society. The sustainability in elements and principles of design are the prominent tools in development and creation of the eco-friendly and feasible fashion product. In this article I will elaborate The brief discussion on sustainable design with the selection of the eco-friendly materials, energy efficient solutions, implementation of the zero waist process, product life cycle estimation, local sourcing and sustainable Guideline for a designer in terms of reusability of product and recycling, inspiration from natures and copy natural process and system to improve efficiency and reduce waste, user friendly design and minimize negative impact, design thinking should be human centric approach to solve problem and prototyping of sustainable solution, consumers awareness about the products environmental impact, promoting the equitable access, social aspects of sustainability in design, adaptation of the unseen challenges of the environmental conditions, collaboration among the designers, engineers and scientist to develop the innovative sustainable solutions

Fostering English speaking and writing subskills for the Cambridge B2 First through technology-mediated tasks

AbstractRecent studies on technology-mediated task-based learning have shown the impact of task design and modality on English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. However, it is unclear what effect technology-mediated tasks have on learners’ English language skills. This paper presents a classroom-based study that showed how using technology-mediated tasks impacted students’ learning experiences and fostered the development of specific speaking and writing subskills in an EFL secondary education context. Forty-two EFL intermediate learners completed two speaking and two writing tasks from the Cambridge B2 First exam using mobile devices. The participants were divided into a pen-and-paper group (N = 21) and an iPad group (N = 21). Learning outcomes were measured using a pre-test/post-test design with a statistical comparison of ratings across tasks. A qualitative content analysis of lesson observations and student and teacher interviews served as an additional dataset to shed light on learners’ experiences. Descriptive statistics revealed that the iPad group achieved higher scores in pronunciation and accuracy (speaking) and essay organisation features (writing). Tasks involving the active use of the tool for content creation, rehearsing speaking performances, and accessing authentic materials were the most successful among students.

Open-Source Pattern Creation Tool for Medical Extended Reality Image Quality Assessment

Open-Source Pattern Creation Tool for Medical Extended Reality Image Quality Assessment

Advancing policy design through creative engagement with lived experience: the Tomorrow Party

We consider how lived experience might actively inform policy design. Good policy design calls for analysis of problems, how they might be addressed, and likely outcomes. Policy scholars and practitioners have devised methods that bring rigor to policy design through problem framing, assessment of potential interventions, and prediction of outcomes of those interventions. This pursuit of analytical and predictive rigor has often given short shrift to the insights of people whose lives are affected by current challenges and who will be impacted by policy change. Our theory of change is that creative engagement with citizens can generate insights of high value to the process of policy design. We introduce the Tomorrow Party – a design method for generating novel stakeholder insights regarding desirable future states. We then discuss initial findings from a series of pilots. Those findings suggest the Tomorrow Party is a broadly applicable creative tool for advancing policy design.

Designing Accessible Content Creation Support with Blind and Low Vision Creators

Today, digital creative tools are still largely designed without disabled people in mind and thus require retrofitting to achieve basic accessibility. As more creative tools begin to incorporate generative artificial intelligence, I propose a research agenda that centers the design of human-AI co-creation experiences on disabled creators and leverages such technology for accessibility from the start. Specifically, I focus on researching ways that AI-assisted creative tools could be designed to lift the expression ceiling and reduce effort for blind and low vision creators. Starting with a formative mixed-method study that uncovers the blind and low vision community's needs for visual content creation and editing support, this dissertation explores and designs accessible content creation support for three highly desired visual creative tasks: (1) private visual content obfuscation, (2) social media video editing, and (3) aesthetic visual content authoring. Together, I believe this dissertation will contribute actionable insights to lower the barriers to expressive and efficient digital content creation for blind and low vision creators.

The ACT in Health Activism: Teaching Street Theater to College Students

Street theater is historically a form of political performance art used to foster social change and is characterized by unscheduled performances in public spaces, interactive audience participation, and short performances often repeated in the same spot for passersby. Long used as a creative tool within social movements, street skits not only entertain but are used to educate and build awareness on pressing issues. It is an art form for the people, by the people, making theater available for all (“on the streets”) rather than solely for those who can afford it. Street theater also has its uses in public health education and organizing and has been used globally as an effective method of health promotion, especially in rural and low-literacy areas. This paper looks at a street theater project that university students at Clark University in Worcester, MA participated in as part of a “Health Rights: Advocacy and Action” course. Students were tasked with developing a street theater skit that educates on a public health issue and publicly perform the skit on campus. Three skits were produced: (1) “Deadly Derailment”: raised awareness on industry deregulation and the 2023 toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, OH; (2) “Harm Reduction Saves Lives”: addressed humane and non-victim blaming ways to address substance use; and (3) “End the STIgma”: educated on sexual health on a college campus. Teaching street theater as part of public health pedagogy is a creative approach to inspire students to use their voices and link health promotion and activism.

Переклад дієслів, що вводять пряму мову, у британській літературі (на прикладі серії романів Дж. Страуда «Агенція «Локвуд і Ко»)

The peculiarities of the Ukrainian translation of verbs that introduce direct speech in the texts of works of British fiction are clarified in the article. The texts of the Ukrainian translations of Jonathan Stroud’s «Lockwood & Co.» series of novels are analyzed by the author. It was found out that the problem of semantic and stylistic interpretation of direct speech and the selection of verbs that introduce direct speech when translating English works of fiction into Ukrainian is a constantly relevant one and causes active discussions among translation experts, linguists and critics. In particular, there are significant differences in the opinions of scientists regarding the expediency and legality of using lexical substitutions to specify verbs when translating into Ukrainian. While some researchers believe that translators do not sufficiently use the synonymous variety of the Ukrainian language in order to diversify it and emphasize the artistic text, other translation experts and critics are convinced that such translation substitutions are unacceptable changes to the original artistic text and demonstrate an incorrect the translator’s approach to their work. Thus, translation techniques, which some scholars consider to be successful and creative tools that help to align the original text with the norms of Ukrainian stylistics, others consider to be a serious violation and unlawful distortion of the original author’s artistic work. It has been proved that the second approach is typical for researchers from Western countries, which is largely caused by the peculiarities of cultures and, as a result, is reflected in the norms of western European languages.

Sculpture skills – exploring the combination of traditional craftsmanship and modern technology

This paper explores the combination of traditional sculpture techniques and modern technology. As a cultural heritage, traditional sculpture techniques have profound historical and artistic value, while modern technology has brought new creative tools and expressions to sculpture. Through a comparative analysis of the application of traditional sculpture techniques and modern technology in the field of sculpture, this paper aims to reveal the complementary relationship between the two and explore their future development trends. It also explores the possibility and practical application of the combination of traditional sculpture techniques and modern technology and analyzes the impact of the combination of different materials, processes, and technologies on sculpture creation. Through the analysis of specific cases, the innovation path and development prospects of traditional techniques and modern technology in the field of sculpture are revealed. As an art form with a long history, sculpture has rich forms and techniques in different cultures. With the advancement of science and technology, modern technology has played an increasingly important role in sculpture creation. How to combine traditional crafts with modern technology has become an important topic for the innovation of contemporary sculpture art.

WonderFlow: Narration-Centric Design of Animated Data Videos.

Creating an animated data video with audio narration is a time-consuming and complex task that requires expertise. It involves designing complex animations, turning written scripts into audio narrations, and synchronizing visual changes with the narrations. This paper presents WonderFlow, an interactive authoring tool, that facilitates narration-centric design of animated data videos. WonderFlow allows authors to easily specify semantic links between text and the corresponding chart elements. Then it automatically generates audio narration by leveraging text-to-speech techniques and aligns the narration with an animation. WonderFlow provides a structure-aware animation library designed to ease chart animation creation, enabling authors to apply pre-designed animation effects to common visualization components. Additionally, authors can preview and refine their data videos within the same system, without having to switch between different creation tools. A series of evaluation results confirmed that WonderFlow is easy to use and simplifies the creation of data videos with narration-animation interplay.

Research on AIGC-driven Innovation Path and Smart Creative Workflow Optimization in Design Field

Abstract AIGC has attracted much attention in the application of art and design professional fields and has gradually become an important auxiliary tool for art and design professionals creation. This paper utilizes AIGC as a starting point for design creativity and develops a text-guided image generation model based on AIGC, which employs a semantically consistent generative adversarial network. We compare different model indexes across different datasets to evaluate the image generation effect of the constructed model. Subsequently, we summarize and optimize the intelligent, creative workflow. Based on this workflow and the image generation model, we generate a series of images as an example of a cosmetic package. We then analyze the audience’s acceptance of these intelligently generated images through a questionnaire survey, thereby exploring the impact of AIGC-driven design and innovation. The GAN-SC model outperforms the comparison algorithms in various datasets, achieving an IS value higher than AttnGAN and DFGAN by 17.7% and 2.7%, respectively, and reducing the FID metrics by 29.43% and 19.6%, respectively. The acceptance rate of the AIGC-based design solution surpasses that of the traditional solution by 4.9%, and it excels across all design dimensions, showcasing the effectiveness of AIGC-driven design innovation.

The Nature of Entrepreneurial Training in Selected Agricultural Training Institutions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Zambia

This study explored the nature of entrepreneurial education in the selected Agriculture Training Institutions (ATIs) for the Ministry of Agriculture and Live stocks in Zambia. To do this, the study explored Entrepreneurial Education challenges and opportunities in ATIs, widely acknowledged as a transformative tool for job creation in the country. The argument is that if entrepreneurship education is properly enhanced can provide self-reliance in the Zambia’s agriculture sector to attain sustainable socio-economic growth. The aim of the study was to explore the nature of entrepreneurial education in ATIs curricula; identify challenges, opportunities and ways to promote innovation and job creation through the provision of entrepreneurial education in the selected ATIs in Zambia. The study employed a mixed data collection process through purposive sampling procedures. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically while Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, graphs and tables. The findings show that the current ATI curricula and the National Agricultural Policy (NAP) did not adequately address entrepreneurial education in the agriculture sector because they were loosely developed and were production oriented. The study recommended inter alia that ATIs should create curricula that prioritize creativity, and innovation, utilizing blended interactive and reflective teaching methods to support entrepreneurial education.

Efficient Parallelization of RooFit Computations for Accelerated Higgs Combination Fits

Efficient Parallelization of RooFit Computations for Accelerated Higgs Combination Fits