Physical Artifacts Research Articles

Regionalizing the infrastructure turn: a research agenda

ABSTRACT An interdisciplinary ‘infrastructure turn’ has emerged over the past 20 years that disputes the concept of urban infrastructure as a staid or neutral set of physical artefacts. Responding to the increased conceptual, geographical and political importance of infrastructure – and endemic issues of access, expertise and governance that the varied provision of infrastructures can cause – this intervention asserts the significance of applying a regional perspective to the infrastructure turn. This paper forwards a critical research agenda for the study of ‘infrastructural regionalisms’ to interrogate: (1) how we study and produce knowledge about infrastructure; (2) how infrastructure is governed across or constrained by jurisdictional boundaries; (3) who drives the construction of regional infrastructural imaginaries; and (4) how individuals and communities differentially experience regional space through infrastructure. Analysing regions through infrastructure provides a novel perspective on the regional question and consequently offers a framework to understand better the implications of the current infrastructure moment for regional spaces worldwide.

Time Delay Evaluation on the Water-Leaving Irradiance Retrieved from Empirical Models and Satellite Imagery

Temporal delays and spatial randomness between ground-based data and satellite overpass involve important deviations between the empirical model output and real data; these are factors poorly considered in the model calibration. The inorganic matter-generated turbidity in Lake Chapala (Mexico) was taken as a study case to expose the influence of such factors. Ground-based data from this study and historical records were used as references. We take advantage of the at-surface reflectance from Landsat-8, sun-glint corrections, a reduced NIR-band range, and null organic matter incidence in these wavelengths to diminish the physical phenomena-related radiometric artifacts; leaving the spatio-temporal relationships as the principal factor inducing the model uncertainty. Non-linear correlations were assessed to calibrate the best empirical model; none of them presented a strong relationship (<73%), including that based on hourly delays. This last model had the best predictability only for the summer-fall season, explaining 71% of the turbidity variation in 2016, and 59% in 2017, with RMSEs < 24%. The instantaneous turbidity maps depicted the hydrodynamic complexity of the lake, highlighting a strong component of spatial randomness associated with the temporal delays. Reasonably, robust empirical models will be developed if several dates and sampling-sites are synchronized with more satellite overpasses.

Inside-reachable and see-through augmented reality Shell for 3D visualization and tangible interaction

Augmented reality (AR) is considered as one of the most essential technologies for providing 3D information visualization superimposed in the physical object. Thus, AR has been applied to various applications such as entertainment, education, and human-computer interaction. In particular, AR cubes have also been widely used since they can provide multi-perspective and immersive 3D visualization. However, an inherent problem in current AR cubes is that they cannot support practical and tangible interactions with both virtual and physical artifacts. Thus, they can only provide simple manipulations with a limited interaction metaphor. In particular, they cannot support internal accessibility and direct manipulation with virtual and physical objects inside the cube. This paper presents a new and innovative form of an AR cube, called inside-reachable and see-through AR shell. The AR shell can support more intuitive and tangible interaction with AR objects than conventional AR cubes. One of the unique characteristics of the AR shell is that the physical tool is accessible inside the shell. To make the AR shell be inside-reachable, each face of the AR shell may have a physical hole. This fabrication of the AR shell supports not only multi-perspective views but also provides tangible and natural interaction through the physical holes. In addition, faces with holes may prevent the AR camera from tracking AR markers consistently and adequately due to the reduced tracking areas. Thus, the proposed AR shell can be made of some faces without holes and the other faces with holes. An occlusion rendering is used for showing depth cues to visualize occlusions, which makes the faces without holes see-through. Therefore, the user can interact with AR objects inside the shell through physical holes while the user views the inside of the shell through physically occluded faces. We have also extended the proposed approach to run in a mobile HMD. We have performed formal quantitative and quantitative analyses by evaluating task performance and questionnaire. Several implementations will be presented to prove the originality and advantage of the proposed AR shell.

Engaging young people with STEAM: Destinazione Luna

AbstractOn the occasion of celebration of moon landing (2019) we designed a set of educational activities for the youngest, based on the moon. We wanted to talk, play and engage young people reflecting and enjoying different points of view and demystifying the idea of science and scientists in a personal and meaningful journey. After this year of experimentation we also engaged with public schools co-designing and tailoring those activities despite the current sanitarian crisis. We will describe a physical artifact called ‘Lunatario’ and its 3d printable version together with cross-disciplinary educational activities and our tentative documentation. We will also describe how, with the help of a very diverse team, we embedded other media in our moon exploration working in particular with picture books and animation. We believe this is a great way to deeply engage young people with STEAM in a democratic way.

TEACHERS’ USE OF VERBAL LANGUAGE TO EVOKE VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS IN MULTILINGUAL MATHEMATICS CLASSES

Research into the importance of teachers’ use of verbal language in multilingual classes where teaching and learning is done in a language other than the learners’ first, is crucial. Such research aimed at improving multilingual learners’ access to conceptual understanding of mathematical concepts is becoming increasingly urgent. In this paper, we specifically report on a study that inter alia focused on how three purposively selected South African (Eastern Cape) Grade 11 multilingual mathematics teachers used learners’ first language, through code switching, to evoke visualizations for promoting conceptual understanding during the teaching of geometry and trigonometry. The study found that conceptual understanding was enhanced when teachers spoke in their learners’ first language using mostly everyday familiar words to evoke visualizations of some geometry and trigonometry concepts. Teachers also used isiXhosa terminology, the dominant language of the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa, to describe some mathematical constructs. A number of instances were noted in which teachers used pictorial illustrations from the learners’ environment when words or phrases were not immediately available to them, to promote conceptual teaching of mathematics. However, none of the strategies used were planned for; they were used spontaneously and on an ad hoc basis. We concluded that in multilingual mathematics classes, teachers should choose their verbal language carefully and purposefully to precisely demonstrate and make visible the intended mathematical ideas. Such use of verbal language is particularly important in situations where teachers cannot bring the actual or physical artefact of the mathematical idea to class. The underpinning theory that framed this paper was situated-sociocultural theory.

The effects of physical photostimulable phosphor plate artifacts on the radiologic interpretation of periapical inflammatory disease.

To evaluate how physical photostimulable phosphor (PSP) plate artifacts, such as those created by scratches, phosphor degradation, and surface peeling, affect the radiologic interpretation of periapical inflammatory disease. A novel technique was developed to digitally superimpose 25 real PSP artifact masks over 100 clinical complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) periapical images with known radiologic interpretations. These images were presented to 25 general dentists, who were asked to state their radiologic interpretations, their confidence in their interpretations, and their opinions on whether the plates should be discarded. Statistical analyses were conducted by using random intercept mixed models for repeated measures and χ2 tests of the pooled data. No statistically significant adverse effect on interpretation was seen, even at severe artifact levels. There was a statistically significant decrease in the clinicians' confidence and an increase in discard proportions when interpreting images with severe PSP plate artifacts (P < .05). Although diagnostic efficacy was unaffected, clinicians' confidence decreased and proportionally more clinicians opted to discard sensors when interpreting images with severe artifacts. Future studies on the effects of artifacts on the efficacy of diagnosis of other dental diseases are recommended. Ultimately, these results can guide recommendations for PSP plate quality assurance.

Track 4.j Introduction

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the human, social and economic benefits that experience design can bring to nations and organisations. Experience design is the process of enhancing users’ trust, satisfaction and recognition of a product, service and system by improving the users’ perception of the innovativeness, aesthetics and relevance of the experience provided in the interaction between the users and the product, service and system’s design elements in a particular context. It takes the users’ cognitive and emotional experience as its starting point and focuses on developing products, services and systems that could enable that experience. Experience design elements include information, navigation, engagement, entertainment and personalisation (adapted from Cheung 2016; Cheung 2020). Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube are illustrative of how intrinsic to our daily lives innovative experience designs have become. Tencent has its WeChat platform able to support location-based social plug-ins, allowing users to befriend and chat with nearby strangers through a simple shake of their smartphones. These types of experience systems did not exist in the pre-digital era and are now the focus of creative design. Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao implement technology-enabled forms of electronic payment security, product quality assurance and online dispute resolution to combat user distrust of online purchases. The success of these companies stems from the experience design strategies that they use, in which users are reached and connected through multiple touchpoints and interactions relevant to their sociocultural contexts. Experience design changes the nature and environments of physical artefacts by integrating digital systems and resources with the physical world. It can redefine the functionality, meaning and value of products, services and systems, strategically transforming them into highly integrated ecosystems capable of enhancing the sustainability and humaneness of our social and economic environments while offering industries a competitive edge. The sustainability of the experience ecosystems also relies on involving the users in exchanging value in ways that are mutually beneficial socially, economically and technologically over time. For example, Amazon, eBay and Taobao provide user-friendly interfaces that have enabled their users to create a new wave of small businesses and services on their platforms.

Democratizing the Maker Movement: A Case Study of One Public Library System’s Makerspace Program

The maker movement has found a home in public libraries. Field leaders including public libraries in Chicago, Chattanooga, Houston, Louisville, and Toronto have built robust makerspaces, developed maker programming for a diverse range of patrons, connected community experts with library users for the purpose of sharing information, and fostered communities of practice. Characterized by open exploration, intrinsic interest, and creative ideation, the maker movement can be broadly defined as participation in the creative production of physical and digital artifacts in people’s day-to-day lives. The maker movement employs a do-it-yourself orientation toward a range of disciplines, including robotics, woodworking, textiles, and electronics. But the maker ethos also includes a do-it-with-others approach, valuing collaboration, distributed expertise, and open workspaces. To many in the library profession, the values ingrained in the maker movement seem to be shared with the aims and goals of public libraries. However, critiques of the maker movement raise questions about current iterations of makerspaces across settings. This article highlights critiques and responses regarding the “democratic” nature of the maker movement, and in particular, the article analyzes ways librarians involved in a prominent public library maker program discursively construct making and maker programming in relation to the maker movement more generally.

Motives to participate in an online community for professionals

PurposeAlthough the numbers of online community members continue to increase every day, most of the user-generated content in online communities comes from only a small percentage of members who are motivated to participate and contribute. While studies have been conducted on other professional online communities (e.g. teachers, mathematics practitioners, software developers, etc.), the online community for ServiceNow practitioners is not fully understood. Studies of this group could be useful to organizations that seek to understand ServiceNow practitioners’ motives to participate in these communities, fulfill their specific needs, and build and maintain a thriving community of users.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative case study method was used to learn what motivates ServiceNow practitioners to contribute and participate in ServiceNow communities. Data were collected from interviews with the participants, their stories and testimonials and physical artifacts created and used by them. Data analysis was carried out using data triangulation and continuous coding process.FindingsThree primary motives were identified: find answers to questions or issues, learn about ServiceNow products and services, and share knowledge and expertise with others.Research limitations/implicationsAs a single-case research method was used, findings of this study may not be generalized to a larger population.Originality/valueResults should encourage and increase participation by ServiceNow Community's members, create a repository of knowledge and relationships that can improve their value and effectiveness, and help their organizations maintain competitive advantage.

Tangible user interface vocabulary to physically enhance space systems engineering tools

Tangible user interface brings back physical cognitive artifacts empowered with Internet of Things, and it will be a key instrument in Industry 4.0 to control software. Such artifacts are tangible mental representation of the context of a system being built with software tools. One of the challenges on applying tangible user interface to define an appropriated interaction is the lack of a vocabulary to prepare physical artifacts for being manipulated in digital representation. We present a tangible interaction vocabulary to physically enhance software tools, particularly used in space system concept studies. It is a practical application which indicates opportunities for research and challenges for the development of new products.

Institutional Habitus, State identity, and China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

AbstractForeign ministries play a critical role in international relations and are the main interface of diplomacy. Yet, in international relations scholarship, foreign ministries are relatively neglected as an object of scholarly analysis and feature very little around discussions of state's agency and identity. Using China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) as a foil, I suggest that foreign ministries develop dispositions, perceive the social world around them, and react to the world from these orientations. The implication of this, then, are that foreign ministries are contributive to a state's identity and “actorness.” In that way, I develop the concept of institutional habitus to understand China's MOFA and the ways in which this habitus is sustained and performed through MOFA's physical artefacts and its agents. This rendering of habitus responds to sociology's invitation to extend Bourdieu-inspired analysis toward organizations and organizational change and, more broadly, complements existing theorization of state identity by showcasing an important but omitted source of identity: the foreign ministry. I argue that China's MOFA's organizational habitus manifests and preserves itself through three means: first, through the iterative reinscription of institutional memory and invocation of history; second, through displays of fealty; and third, in organizational and personal self-regulation, discipline, and taciturnity.

Inscriptional Intermediality in Livy

Abstract The term monumentum is used in Latin literature to describe a range of monuments across media, including temples, literary works, statues, and inscriptions. This article surveys the variety of monumenta in Livy’s Ab urbe condita, which range from the text itself to victory inscriptions and bronze sculptures meant to commemorate military as well as political achievements. The borders between historiography and physical artefacts are often blurred by Livy through inscriptional intermediality, a phenomenon defined as the mixing of visual and textual media. By outlining how Livy achieves this combination, and demonstrating how the specific ratio of literary, linguistic, and topographical features in his ekphrases generate unique impressions of real-world monuments, this chapter re-reads Livy’s history from the perspective of intermedial theory. This process not only advances our understanding of the Ab urbe condita as a literary work, but also thrusts individual aspects of Livy’s narrative technique – including visuality and unique formulae such as the introductory formula tabula … cum indice hoc posita est (Livy 41.28.8) – into the spotlight.

The identification of the existence of stilt houses at Musi riverside settlement in Palembang

The existence of Musi River influenced the forming of initial settlement in Palembang. Musi river was the main transportation way. Therefore, past people built their houses along the riverbanks. The stilt structure became the best solution as it was aligned and adaptive to the nature of the Musi River. The excellence of the stilt house is less realized by the modern city development. The emergence of new modern houses is easily found side by side with the stilt houses at riverside settlement. The stilt house as a part of vernacular architecture in Palembang tends to be abandoned. This research aims to investigate the existence of vernacular houses and settlements located on the Musi riverbank. In order to achieve this aim, study elaborate function pattern and the form of living existence. This study used a qualitative approach with two vernacular settlements at Musi riverbank as case study namely 3-4 Ulu and 30 Ilir village. Data were collected from six main sources, namely documentation, archival records, interviews, direct observation, participant observation, and physical artifacts. The result shows that there are two changes of the existence of a vernacular settlement at Musi riverside. Firstly, the existence is decreasing in term of space between houses, orientation to the river. Secondly, the existence is increasing in form of coexistence with the new activities and function accommodated by the river. Findings show that the changes are supported by community activities. The change also determines the elements of settlement and layout.

Jumping pepper and electrons in the shoe: using physical artefacts in a multilingual science class

ABSTRACT This article concerns how teachers can use physical artefacts as mediating means to support emergent bilingual students’ learning in science class. The data consist of non-participant observations in a Swedish 3rd grade (9–10 years old) class working with electricity. All students were bilingual, but in different minority languages and the teacher was monolingual in Swedish. The study focused on four students, all of whom had Turkish as their minority language. The findings show that the teacher used physical artefacts in two different ways. First, the physical artefacts implied that the students experienced the science content by actually seeing it. The students talked about their observations in everyday language, which the teacher then drew on to introduce how the phenomena or process in question could be expressed in scientific language. Second, when students’ proficiency in the language of instruction limited their possibilities to make meaning, using physical artefacts enabled them to experience unfamiliar words as related to the science content and thus learn their meaning. The findings contribute to knowledge concerning how teachers can create learning contexts where physical artefacts are used to mediate scientific meaning.

Strang(er) Places: Collaborative Creativity in Real and Virtual Spaces

In the writing classroom, collaborative learning often takes the form of co-authoring, peer workshops or critique sessions. While useful, what other active learning approaches might be effective, particularly in light of the range of media with which students are increasingly familiar? World-building—creation of an alternative/speculative or futuristic land, world or universe—offers an approach to fiction writing amenable to both creative collaboration and digital modalities. This article examines how a team-based world-building project in an advanced writing course engenders creative-making through active learning and collaboration; builds upon the multi-modalities and genres through which many students already engage with fiction (video, online and/or fantasy role-playing games, horror, speculative and science fiction); and leverages both physical and virtual space as creative collaborative environments. With this approach, students in a seated class team up to create original alternative worlds in an online environment--including production of both digital and physical artifacts--within which their own (individual) stories are set. The result is movement between real and virtual space, as well as between shared creative acts and personal imaginative writing.

Design and development of a spatial mixed reality touring guide to the Egyptian museum

Many public services and entertainment industries utilise Mixed Reality (MR) devices to develop highly immersive and interactive applications. However, recent advancements in MR processing has prompted the tourist and events industry to invest and develop commercial applications. The museum environment provides an accessible platform for MR guidance systems by taking advantage of the ergonomic freedom of spatial holographical Head-mounted Displays (HMD). The application of MR systems in museums can enhance the typical visitor experience by amalgamating historical interactive visualisations simultaneously with related physical artefacts and displays. Current approaches in MR guidance research primarily focus on visitor engagement with specific content. This paper describes the design and development of a novel museum guidance system based on the immersion and presence theory. This approach examines the influence of interactivity, spatial mobility, and perceptual awareness of individuals within MR environments. The developmental framework of a prototype MR tour guide program named MuseumEye incorporates the sociological needs, behavioural patterns, and accessibility of the user. This study aims to create an alternative tour guidance system to enhance customer experience and reduce the number of human tour guides in museums. The data gathering procedure examines the functionality of the MuseumEye application in conjunction with pre-existing pharaonic exhibits in a museum environment. This methodology includes a qualitative questionnaire sampling 102 random visitors to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Results of this research study indicate a high rate of positive responses to the MR tour guide system, and the functionality of AR HMD in a museum environment. This outcome reinforces the suitability of the touring system to increase visitor experience in museums, galleries and cultural heritage sites.

User Interactions for Augmented Reality Smart Glasses: A Comparative Evaluation of Visual Contexts and Interaction Gestures

Smart glasses for wearable augmented reality (AR) are widely used in various applications, such as training and task assistance. However, as the field of view (FOV) in the current AR smart glasses is narrow, it is difficult to visualize all the information on the AR display. Besides, only simple interactions are supported. This paper presents a comparative and substantial evaluation of user interactions for wearable AR concerning visual contexts and gesture interactions using AR smart glasses. Based on the evaluation, it suggests new guidelines for visual augmentation focused on task assistance. Three different types of visual contexts for wearable AR were implemented and evaluated: stereo rendering and direct augmentation, and non-stereo rendering and indirect augmentation with/without video background. Also, gesture interactions, such as multi-touch interaction and hand gesture-based interaction, were implemented and evaluated. We performed quantitative and qualitative analyses, including performance measurement and questionnaire evaluation. The experimental assessment proves that both FOV and visual registration between virtual and physical artifacts are important, and they can complement each other. Hand gesture-based interaction can be more intuitive and useful. Therefore, by analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the visual context and gesture interaction in wearable AR, this study suggests more effective and user-centric guidance for task assistance.

Literary Narratives as a Tool for the Conservation of Indian Cultural Landscapes

The large majority of conservation and preservation projects tend to examine physical artefacts as ‘primary documents’ to effectively comprehend the multiple layers of a cultural landscape. There is the expectation that this analysis provides better insights into the transformation of these cultural landscapes over chronological time. However, besides built artefacts which undeniably carry history in their form and making, the existence of life events can also contribute towards an understanding of ‘palimpsestic reality’. On these lines, cultures, beliefs, and traditions are encoded within recurrent social practices such as celebrations, festivals and superstitions, thereby creating strands of oral traditions. These oral traditions pervade the histories of place and space, becoming the essence of place and serving as forms of communication of a shared traditional knowledge of art, ideas and cultural materials transferred between successive generations. Song and dialogue – reflecting the content of historical and mythical time – including folklore, poetry, prose, verses, chants and ballads, are central to these transmissions. Deep narratives also allow landscapes to initiate their own creation stories with respect to the transformation and adaptation to the particulars of site location, society, culture and traditional knowledge systems. Through focused ways of examining the historical geographies of traditional Indian landscapes, this paper seeks to understand the diverse ways in which resident populations express their complex relationships with these landscapes, associating with the transformations of these landscapes and reformulating their relationships to society.

Traditional Patterned Brickwork in New Jersey

This article traces the history of the first architecture of refinement in colonial New Jersey: traditional patterned brickwork, the artful ways in which bricklayers used vitrified bricks to decorate the outer walls of the houses they built. These practices had their roots in 16th-century England, where they were employed in fashionable and prestigious architecture, and where they remained the common knowledge of bricklayers a century later during the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666. With the slump in the building trades that resulted from the rebuilding, Quaker bricklayers and brickmakers joined the migration to the Delaware Valley, where they found the greatest abundance of brick clay in West New Jersey. In the century that followed, Burlington County experienced the largest number of patterned brickwork buildings, while Salem County became home to the second largest number, the greatest variety of patterns, and most of the best examples. The best and best-preserved of its early buildings, the Abel and Mary Nicholson house, has been designated a National Historic Landmark for its patterned brickwork. The rise of the Georgian style of architecture reduced the popularity of patterned brickwork after 1750. After the Revolutionary War, the ascendancy of the Federal style was incompatible with patterned brickwork, and that sealed its eventual disappearance. This article combines an understanding of these buildings as physical artifacts while collectively placing them within the larger narrative of New Jersey’s development during the colonial period.

A wearables-based approach to detect and identify momentary engagement in afterschool Makerspace programs

Educational activities and programs associated with the Maker movement, which emphasizes creation of physical and digital artifacts as part of the learning experience, are presumed to be highly engaging for youth. However, there has been limited research examining what features of Maker learning activities are associated with youth engagement. We describe a research approach using wearable electrodermal activity sensors and wearable cameras to obtain data from two afterschool programs at a community Makerspace for adolescent girls (N = 12, 13). Using data obtained from these two sources along with daily survey data, we compare what is revealed from these different data sources. We observe a moderate correlation between electrodermal activity and engagement from survey responses. We also observe that activities emphasizing personal expression elicited engagement from many youth. From the EDA data and first-person video, we also identify 23 moments when groups of participants had several concurrent EDA responses suggesting high levels momentary engagement. Key features associated with those moments were opportunities for peer socialization, interactive instructional discourse, and physical making activities when objects were being assembled and manipulated.