Non-technical Perspective Research Articles

Projection Design for Theatre and Live Performance: Principles of Media Design by Alison C. Dobbins

Reviewed by: Projection Design for Theatre and Live Performance: Principles of Media Design by Alison C. Dobbins Fereshteh Rostampour Projection Design for Theatre and Live Performance: Principles of Media Design. Alison C. Dobbins. New York: Routledge, 2022; pp. 117. Although projection design for theatre has been around since the 1920s, the title "Projection Designer" is the youngest in the theatre design category. Unfortunately, only a few books on projection design are available to theatre students who are interested in specializing in this field. The first projection design book for theatre, Davin Gaddy's Media Design and Technology for Live Entertainment, was published in 2017, followed by Alex Oliszewski, Daniel Fine, and Daniel Roth's Digital Media, Projection Design, and Technology for Theatre in 2018, and Jeromy Hopgood's The Projection Designer's Toolkit in 2021. Alison C. Dobbins's Projection Design for Theatre and Live Performance is written exclusively for projection designers in theatre and is a good addition to this collection. Dobbins's book is a sufficient resource but does not cover content creation in depth, and due to the limited number of books written on projection design for theatre, beginner theatre projection designers may benefit from looking at the books written by video designers. However, students must keep in mind that not all video designers necessarily have a theatre background. Video design is a single entity and gears toward a specific purpose such as marketing, gaming, entertainment, and so forth. Video designers mostly focus on visuals to keep the viewer engaged and often work in isolation, whereas media design for theatre must complement all other aspects of theatrical designs, including set design, lighting design, costume design, and sound design. Therefore, projection designers for theatre must collaborate with other designers as well. In Projection Design for Theatre and Live Performance, Dobbins identifies two main components of the projection design: the design process and effective communication with the production team. These are vital skills that a designer must master to produce successful work in theatre productions. The text is very effective in demonstrating the design process in detail and breaks it down into nine sections: Discovery, Research, Visual Style, Storyboard, Framing, Motion, Animatic, Cueing, and Content. The author also includes various illustrations from actual designs to help the reader better understand the process. This process is like other theatrical design processes, which could make this textbook useful to various theatre design areas. The author, however, falls short in deliberating the challenges of collaboration with the other designers, particularly the lighting designer, who would have the highest impact on the projection designer's work. This textbook could be more effective by offering suggestions on preventing or resolving typical conflicts with the collaborators who may influence the projection designer's work. The phrase "Principles of Media Design" is mentioned throughout this book, but there is not enough of an explanation of what these principles are or why designers should implement them in their work for effective content. The Principles—Balance, Proportion, Rhythm, Focal Point, Unity, Harmony, and Contrast—are concepts used to organize or arrange the structure of design elements, and their application affects the expressive content or the message of the work. The Design Elements are the basic units of a visual image and include Line, Shape, Form, Movement, Color, Tone, Texture, and Scale. To control the effect of the design, designers must understand the elements and principles of design and learn how to use them in their creative process. Dobbins walks the readers through the creative process but omits explanation of the functions of the Design Elements and Principles, which are the vital foundations of content creation. It is important to note that the terms "projection design" or "media design" describe a skillset and design discipline that is predominantly relevant in the performing arts. Those same skills and techniques are equally relevant in other fields of design, such as lighting design, set design, and event design. More information on the Design Elements, Design Principles, and composition would be helpful to those students who never took design classes. Projection Design for Theatre and Live Performance is written from a "non-technical perspective," which makes it accessible to students with no technical...

Risks Identification In Construction Of Jetty Projects: Literature Review

Delays in project development often occur due to various risk factors that have not been identified during project implementation, resulting in increased project delays and unexpected costs. However, each construction project has different risks depending on the type of project and project environmental conditions, so it requires handling different project implementation methods.In a jetty project, risk assessment is carried out from both technical and non-technical perspectives. From a technical point of view, risks are assessed starting from soil conditions, water level, weather, installation methods, design changes, etc. Meanwhile, from a non-technical perspective, the risks arising from the environment, social and social aspects are assessed. economic, legal, and institutional aspects as well as finance and investment.This summary literature review shows that Technical Risk has the greatest impact on jetty projects in the internal and external project category.

The Challenges of E-Learning for Higher Education Lecturers and Learners

The use of E-Learning in the English language learning process is very useful for stakeholders, especially lecturers and learners. But in reality, lecturers and learners often experience difficulties in using it both from a technical and non-technical perspective. This study aims to investigate the challenges faced by EFL lecturers and learners and how they face them. To overcome this problem, this research employed a case study. This study involved 244 learners and 12 lecturers to fill out a questionnaire and five of them were interviewed. To collect questionnaire data, this research used a google form, meanwhile, the researcher carried it out online using the zoom application for interviewing respondents. After collecting the data, the results of the questionnaire were processed using IBM SPSS software and the interview results were described qualitatively. The results showed that lecturer constraints include lack of time to develop E-Learning content, inability to optimally utilize E-Learning features, problems in lecturer-learner interaction, poor internet connection, and lack of learner motivation. Meanwhile, the challenges of learners include the lack of tools to access E-Learning, lack of motivation, technical problems, and barriers to E-Learning features. It can be concluded that lecturers and learners face challenges both technically and non-technically in using E-Learning. The implication of this research is that despite all the challenges faced, lecturers and learners are required to be able to adapt to E-Learning environment in order to facilitate the online learning process.

Online Accounting Learning Problems Analysis During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The purpose of this study was to find out the problems of online learning faced by students and lecturers in the learning process. The Covid-19 Pandemic period has had an impact on learning changes, which usually take place in person or face-to-face, now learning is done only from home through online learning. But on the other hand, the readiness of learning activities at home with online learning has problems from a technical and non-technical perspective. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative with data collection techniques in the form of literature studies, documentation and questionnaires. learning process, students' difficulties in understanding the material being taught so that students are passive and cause the quality of each individual's task is not good and less than optimal.

ANALISIS PENGEMBANGAN KONSERVASI BUDAYA MELALUI WISATA EVENT FESTIVAL CISADANE DI KOTA TANGERANG

Tourism is an industrial sector that is significant in Indonesia. In addition, the diversity of Indonesian culture, making Indonesian tourism has many attractions. This culture can be in the form of art to the customs of everyday life. One of the ways in which the world of tourism preserves culture is by conducting festivals. One of the festivals which is a cultural acculturation is the Cisadane Festival in Tangerang City. The Cisadane Festival was first held in 1993 and is still ongoing today. The Cisadane Festival can even bring in local and foreign tourists. Tangerang is one of the tourism destinations in Banten Province and is ranked as the third largest in the Jabodetabek area after Jakarta. Even Tangerang culture is varied, such as Sundanese, Javanese, Betawi, Arabic and Chinese cultures. The research method uses is descriptive qualitative. Sources of data obtained by observation, interviews, documentation study and triangulation. Data analysis used four stages, namely data collection with the stages of data reduction, data presentation, conclusion and verification and final conclusions. This research discusses ways to develop cultural conservation in the Tangerang area. Based on the results of research and discussion, it shows that the Cisadane Festival Event is able to bring in both foreign and domestic tourists. In addition, this event tourism activity has an impact on the economic value of the Tangerang community, both craftsmen, artists and other business actors. The success or driving factors of the Cisadane Festival include: many contestants, competition participants meet standards, there are no technical problems at the time of the event, participants win or lose can be satisfied, and the Cisadane Festival is included in the Calendar of Events Wonderful Indonesia. Meanwhile, the inhibiting factors are: preparation that is long enough for at least a month in such as preparation of dragon boats for rowing competitions, preparation for sports competitions, stages, music band equipment, sound systems, lighting, jet skis, hover boards, and UKM stands. From a non-technical perspective, it is more due to natural factors such as rain which may

Developing a TRL-oriented roadmap for the adoption of biocomposite materials in the construction industry

The construction industry is a major contributor to environmental pollution. The effect of the construction industry on the environment may be mitigated using eco-friendly construction materials, such as biocomposites. Once developed, biocomposites may offer a viable alternative to the current materials in use. However, biocomposites are lagging in terms of adoption and eventual use in the construction industry. This article provides insights into the steps for biocomposites to become a product that is ready to use by the construction industry in a structural role. The development and the adoption of such a material is tackled with the use of two concepts, i.e., technology readiness level and roadmapping, and explored in a case study on the “liquid wood”. Furthermore, interviews in the construction industry are carried out to identify the industry’s take on biocomposites. A customized roadmap, which underlines a mostly nontechnical perspective concerning this material, has emerged. Additionally, the adoption and diffusion issues that the “liquid wood” may encounter are outlined and complemented with further recommendations.

Low-carbon production of iron and steel: Technology options, economic assessment, and policy

Summary Given increased urgency to transition the global economy to net-zero CO2 emission, governments and industry have increased focus on decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors, including steel making, which contributes roughly 6% of global CO2 emission and 8% of energy-related emission (including power consumption emission). This paper reviews current global iron and steel production and assesses available decarbonization technologies, including hydrogen injection, solid biomass substitution, zero-C electricity substitution, carbon capture and storage (CCS) retrofit, and combinations of these decarbonization approaches. Blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) dominates production (71%) and is particularly stubborn to any decarbonization technology. Direct reduced iron to electric arc furnace (DRI-EAF) production is 5% and growing, it appears to have better decarbonization potential to move toward net-zero. Secondary steel production using mainly steel scrap in electric arc furnace (EAF-scrap) is 24% of global production and has both the lowest energy consumption and is technically simplest to decarbonize through electrification but is limited in market share to recycled steel capacity. Of the options assessed, blue hydrogen, carbon neutral biomass, and CCS appear to have the lowest cost and highest technical maturity. However, no single approach today can deliver deep decarbonization to the iron and steel industry and all approaches lead to substantial production cost increase. No uniform ideal solution exists, and different geographies, infrastructure, and economies will determine the local optimum solution with viability and cost. Policy measures will be required to provide financial incentives for decarbonization and to avoid unwelcome outcomes such as emissions leakage or job loss.

Real-Time Data Utilization Barriers to Improving Production Performance: An In-depth Case Study Linking Lean Management and Industry 4.0 from a Learning Organization Perspective

This study presents empirical evidence for the ongoing discussion about the link between Lean Management (LM) and industry 4.0 (I4.0) by exploring a non-technical perspective on how manufacturers can capitalize on their technological investments. The paper, therefore, studies the link between LM and I4.0 from a learning organization (LO) perspective by examining the implementation, commissioning, and utilization of a real-time operational data gathering system at a Danish building material manufacturer. This six months in-depth case study finds that for the manufacturer to utilize real-time operational data from a LO perspective, several barriers must be addressed: problem solving that is not initiated by operators, operators who do not have second-order problem-solving abilities, operators who perceive the new real-time data technology as coercive, poor learning environments and processes, and a lack of leadership that supports learning. This study can help practitioners understand the importance of balance, the prevalent technocentric focus when implementing new I4.0 technologies with a LO focus. Furthermore, the study provides practitioners with a list of specific barriers from a LO perspective to be mindful of when aiming to combine LM and I4.0 to improve production performance.

Bytewise Approximate Matching: The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown

Hash functions are established and well-known in digital forensics, where they are commonly used for proving integrity and file identification (i.e., hash all files on a seized device and compare the fingerprints against a reference database). However, with respect to the latter operation, an active adversary can easily overcome this approach because traditional hashes are designed to be sensitive to altering an input; output will significantly change if a single bit is flipped. Therefore, researchers developed approximate matching, which is a rather new, less prominent area but was conceived as a more robust counterpart to traditional hashing. Since the conception of approximate matching, the community has constructed numerous algorithms, extensions, and additional applications for this technology, and are still working on novel concepts to improve the status quo. In this survey article, we conduct a high-level review of the existing literature from a non-technical perspective and summarize the existing body of knowledge in approximate matching, with special focus on bytewise algorithms. Our contribution allows researchers and practitioners to receive an overview of the state of the art of approximate matching so that they may understand the capabilities and challenges of the field. Simply, we present the terminology, use cases, classification, requirements, testing methods, algorithms, applications, and a list of primary and secondary literature.

Bayes Factors, relations to Minimum Description Length, and overlapping model classes

This article presents a non-technical perspective on two prominent methods for analyzing experimental data in order to select among model classes. Each class consists of model instances; each instance predicts a unique distribution of data outcomes. One method is Bayesian Model Selection (BMS), instantiated with the Bayes factor. The other is based on the Minimum Description Length principle (MDL), instantiated by a variant of Normalized Maximum Likelihood (NML): the variant is termed NML* and takes prior probabilities into account. The methods are closely related. The Bayes factor is a ratio of two values: V1 for model class M1, and V2 for M2. Each Vjis the sum over the instances of Mj,of thejoint probabilities (prior times likelihood) for the observed data, normalized by a sum of such sums for all possible data outcomes. NML* is qualitatively similar: The value it assigns to each class is the maximum over the instances in Miof the joint probability for the observed data normalized by a sum of such maxima for all possible data outcomes. The similarity of BMS to NML* is particularly close when model classes do not have instances that overlap, a way of comparing model classes that we advocate generally. These observations and suggestions are illustrated throughout with use of a simple example borrowed from Heck, Wagenmakers, and Morey (2015) in which the instances predict a binomial distribution of number of successes in N trials. The model classes posit the binomial probability of success to lie in various regions of the interval [0,1]. We illustrate the theory and the example not with equations but with tables coupled with simple arithmetic. Using the binomial example we carry out comparisons of BMS and NML* that do and do not involve model classes that overlap, and do and do not have uniform priors. When the classes do not overlap BMS and NML* produce qualitatively similar results.

Visualising the design of conditions for urban social sustainability

With increasing attention in urban design theory paid to conditions conducive to sustainable forms of urban experience, there is emerging emphasis on the non-technical perspective of sustainable urban design. This perspective focuses on design for urban social sustainability. Despite increasing exploration in this area, much of the theoretical conditions remain as text-based descriptions that lack graphic representation. This is due, in part, to contributions from disciplines traditionally not associated with visualisation. In considering the suggestive potential of this perspective for designers, this research seeks to ascertain if it can be represented visually. This article illustrates the beginning of a wider exploration into how to make visual the design of conditions for urban social sustainability. Testing how the non-technical perspective of sustainable urban design could be applied and communicated, this article highlights not only the value of the perspective but also the role of imaging in narrowing the gaps between urban design theory and practice and in the development of performative forms of imaging in the revelation of performative urban conditions.

Cultural and organisational commitment in the context of e-banking

Although information security is critical for organisations to survive, a number of studies continue to report incidents of critical information loss. To this end, there is still an increasing interest to study information security from a non-technical perspective. In doing so, this research focuses on the effect of strong corporate cultures and organisational commitment as important aspects in managing information security through e-banking. That is, manipulating more effectively e-banking security development and management within organisations. Achieving the required level of e-banking security within organisations usually requires more than security awareness and control but also a better understanding of the organisations' culture in which e-banking security measures are developed and tailored to. In effect, organisations may have a clearer insight into how to commit more effectively to such security measures and ultimately, offer more secure e-banking services to their customers.

Economic Scenario Generators and Solvency II

AbstractThe Solvency II Directive mandates insurance firms to value their assets and liabilities using market consistent valuation. For many types of insurance business Economic Scenario Generators (ESGs) are the only practical way to determine the market consistent value of liabilities. The directive also allows insurance companies to use an internal model to calculate their solvency capital requirement. In particular, this includes use of ESG models. Regardless of whether an insurer chooses to use an internal model, Economic Scenario Generators will be the only practical way of valuing many life insurance contracts. Draft advice published by the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors (CEIOPS) requires that insurance firms who intend to use an internal model to calculate their capital requirements under Solvency II need to comply with a number of tests regardless of whether the model (or data) is produced internally or is externally sourced. In particular the tests include a ‘use test’, mandating the use of the model for important decision making within the insurer. This means that Economic Scenario Generators will need to subject themselves to the governance processes and that senior managers and boards will need to understand what ESG models do and what they don't do. In general, few senior managers are keen practitioners of stochastic calculus, the building blocks of ESG models. The paper therefore seeks to explain Economic Scenario Generator models from a non-technical perspective as far as possible and to give senior management some guidance of the main issues surrounding these models from an ERM/Solvency II perspective.

ITER instrumentation and control—Status and plans

The ITER instrumentation and control (I&C) system is the term encompassing all hardware and software required to operate ITER. It has two levels of hierarchy: the central I&C systems and the plant systems I&C. The central I&C systems comprise CODAC (Control, Data Access and Communication), the central interlock system (CIS) and the central safety systems (CSS). The central I&C systems are “in-fund”, i.e. procured by ITER Organization (IO), while plant systems I&C are “in-kind”, i.e. procured by the seven ITER domestic agencies. This procurement model, together with the current estimate of 161 plant systems I&C, poses a major challenge for the realization and integration of the ITER I&C system. To address this challenge a main strategic focus of the CODAC group, formed in 2008, has been to establish good relations with the domestic agencies. By distributing the required R&D tasks and contracts fairly between the domestic agencies we build collaborations for the future at the same time as technical work proceed. The primary goal of ITER I&C system is to provide a fully integrated and automated control system for ITER. Standardization of plant systems I&C is of primary importance and has been the highest priority task during the last year. The target of associated R&D activities is to survey, benchmark and prototype main stream technologies, in order to choose the best and most widely used technology standards for plant systems I&C. In this paper we elaborate on our approach, both from a technical and a non-technical perspective, explain technology evaluation and decisions and finally present the way forward to ensure ITER I&C system will contribute and be instrumental in making ITER a success.

Convivial software: an end-user perspective on free and open source software

The free and open source software (Foss) movement deserves to be placed in an historico-ethical perspective that emphasizes the end user. Such an emphasis is able to enhance and support the Foss movement by arguing the ways it is heir to a tradition of professional ethical idealism and potentially related to important issues in the history of science, technology, and society relations. The focus on software from an end-user's perspective also leads to the concept of program conviviality. From a non-technical perspective, however, software is simply a new example of technology, and the effort to assure that technology is developed in a socially responsible manner has a significant history. The argument thus begins with observations about the history of technology. This leads to critical reflections on the development of professional engineering ethics, and to a discussion of the alternative technology movement. Finally, it concludes by indicating some criteria to consider when imagining the design of convivial software.

Physics. Crystalline electron pairs.

This is a nontechnical Perspective Commentary on the recent developments in cuprate STM and their ramifications for the theories of the pseudogap state, focusing on the paper by Hanaguri et al. [Nature 430, 1001 (2004)].

The Internet book: everything you need to know about computer networking and how the Internet works

From the Publisher: The Internet Book examines computer networking and the Internet from a nontechnical perspective. It explains how computers communicate, what the Internet is, how the Internet works, and what the Internet can do for you. No background is required because early chapters clearly explain the terminology and concepts. The book focuses on fundamentals - it describes basic Internet capabilities and shows how they apply to a variety of services. When you finish reading, you will know what the Internet is, how it can be used, and why people find it so exciting. In addition, you will understand the origins of the Internet and why it is growing so rapidly. More important, you will understand the potential ways the Internet can change your life.