Academic literature on the topic 'Building Stories'

<p> This study explored communication and ethical investment in social capital to improve quality of life through the lens of time banking, a model of alternative currency. Previous studies of time banking noted a distinct set of characteristics of time banks that contrast with capitalist-based systems while using similar language; these were compared to research of social capital and social networks. Seven participants were interviewed at-length as representatives of the time bank movement. Stories of money framed theoretical constructs in practice on a daily basis and future visioning of the movement. Further analysis using the dialogic ethic of Martin Buber and the theory of the coordinated management of meaning (CMM) of Pearce and Pearce described transformational patterns of communication in time banks. The analysis shed light on the intentions of time banks and the meaning of the terms reciprocity, community and co-construction of reality. Further explorations of transcendent stories of time banking were recommended.</p>

Thesis advisor: William A. Gamson<br>This work presents a longitudinal study of greater than 10 years, of all the major peace-building initiatives with an educational encounter-based approach in Israel and Palestine, during times of relative peace and times of acute violence (1993-2008). Interestingly, my results indicated that when the environment became more tumultuous and hostile, the effectiveness and even survival of these organizations depended to a significant degree on the ability of the organizations to manage the power asymmetry between the two sides and work as equally as possible. Organizations which failed to deal effectively with matters of equality, and the needs and desires of both sides, ended up struggling to maintain commitment, or were doused in conflict that could have been tempered if they strived for more equality. This study, which involved fieldwork, participant observation, and interviews with Palestinian and Israeli peace-builders prior to, during, and post-the 2nd Intifada, is in many ways a natural experiment of peace-building organizations operating in radically different contexts. Involving various fields, this research contributes to the broad fields of conflict resolution, peace studies, and organization studies. It offers critical insight into how organizations adapt in radically changing environments, what is problematic, what are their possibilities, and what allows some to survive while others do not. Practically speaking, this study also has political import as it suggests ways to strengthen and sustain peace-building efforts in different contexts and strengthen peace-building's symbolic, cultural, and political worth and value. In addition, it has significance for building sustainable coalitions across an arena of inequality, asymmetry, and difference<br>Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010<br>Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences<br>Discipline: Sociology

How do we maintain our own authentic voice while still being a productive member of a group? How do we not lose our voice and our meaning to the collective? This thesis is a series of stories that examines one student's experience with the intersection of music, education, technology, and personal life. It is a document of resonance, identifying interdisciplinary events and ideas that amplify each other, helping the student to extract and apply meaning in times of hope and challenge, peace and chaos, and serenity and sorrow, using the Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) approach. The chapters shape the explorations. The first chapter of this thesis expresses the importance of Listening to our own voice. Chapter 2 explores Dissonance, the tension that challenges us to examine what we believe to be true in our own voice. The third chapter examines Empowerment, looking to the head, heart and gut, carried on our breath, to find success by using our own authentic voice. Chapter 4 looks at Liberation, and the steps we take to reclaim our voice when it is being suppressed. Chapter 5 shares the healing power of music, examining its relationship to Memory. The last chapter attempts to pull all of these ideas together by exploring the relationship between personal Identity and Belonging.

We live in a participatory culture, an environment characterized by the proliferation of production and sharing via computer-mediated communication. However, in my department, situated in a faculty of education at a Western Canadian university, there was a documented disconnect between consuming new media and participating in new media. To address this disconnect, following the participatory action research tradition, I initiated a videoblogging collective, which was modeled after NodelOl, a grass-roots endeavor dedicated to community-based new media capacity building. This study examined how individuals experienced participation in this new media collective. Sessions were conducted twice-weekly for a period of six weeks, and I documented my observations and interpretations by journaling. Through interviews, eight group members shared their stories of new media and technology support, experienced both prior to and as a consequence of their participation in the collective. Predominant themes were developed through data condensation and categorization, and formed the basis of a chronological narrative that expressed the findings as a collection of ten stories interleaved with related stories from group members. I used a situated learning perspective to interpret experiences of videoblogging and technology support within our community of practice through the dimensions of mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. With respect to mutual engagement, participants experienced tensions in belonging. Full participants appreciated a closeness among members, but questioned their own roles within the group. Peripheral members experienced a benefit to witnessing the potentials represented in the group's work, but were disappointed by the inaccessibility of group relationships or capacities. With respect to joint enterprise, participants explored their understandings of videoblogging. Video production was experienced as a process critical to understanding video as a form of multiliteracy. Despite promising technological capacities, blogs were experienced as problematic spaces lacking privacy and prone to superficiality. With respect to shared repertoire, participants described how relationships and domain cultivated resources and routines. Participants had experienced group learning of technology skills as challenging, and our repertoire consequently evolved toward formats such as individual help or email. Our group sessions provided needed space for discussion and inspiration, space in which members could listen and share.<br>Education, Faculty of<br>Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of<br>Graduate

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo analisar a poética do quadrinho experimental, tendo como corpus principal a obra Building Stories, do quadrinista norte-americano Chris Ware. Building Stories é composto por quatorze impressos, de diferentes formatos e tamanhos. Não é apresentada uma ordem de leitura, permitindo ao leitor escolher seu caminho livremente (dentro das 87 bilhões de combinações possíveis). A primeira parte da pesquisa ocupa-se de fazer um recorte diacrônico que contextualize a obra de Ware, mostrando movimentos de ruptura do quadrinho norte-americano, a partir dos underground comix de 1960-70. Dentre as diversas vertentes surgidas do underground, destaca-se o alternativo ao qual pertencem nomes como Art Spiegelman, Richard McGuire e Chris Ware. A consideração das características do quadrinho alternativo permitem mostrar algumas das singularidades da narrativa gráfica experimental e como Ware se coloca em relação a essa produção. Se faz necessário também apresentar o trabalho de Ware, seu percurso como quadrinista e as características de sua criação, exploradas também nas histórias analisadas nesta dissertação. A segunda parte da pesquisa faz um recorte de duas das quatorze histórias contidas em Building Stories, para análise. A seleção visa apresentar a obra de Ware, mostrando narrativas gráficas que apresentam algumas de suas principais características e a poética dessas narrativas. As análises se utilizam (i) da teoria greimasiana sobre o texto, observando o percurso gerativo do sentido; (ii) a teoria dos sistemas semissimbólicos, a partir dos estudos de Jean-Marie Floch e Antonio Vicente Pietroforte sobre o texto sincrético dos quadrinhos e (iii) a teoria zilberbergiana, naquilo que concerne a missividade e o ritmo. Por meio da aplicação desses três modelos teóricos, busca-se fazer uma análise abrangente dos quadrinhos de Ware, mostrando a complexidade de suas narrativas, nas quais a estrutura formal do quadrinho faz uma proposta de leitura alternativa. A terceira parte, por fim, se debruça sobre a estrutura de Building Stories, estabelecendo um paralelo entre as múltiplas combinações possíveis de histórias e o conceito saussuriano de relação sintagmática. A subversão da leitura linear (presente nas narrativas gráficas convencionais) permite que se percorra o quadrinho por diversos caminhos, a partir de diferentes pontos de partida: a identidade dos personagens é construída a cada texto escolhido.<br>This dissertation aims to analyze the poetics of the experimental comic, presents as main corpus the oeuvre Building Stories, by North American comic author Chris Ware. Building Stories consists of fourteen prints, of different shapes and sizes. A reading order is not suggested, allowing the readers to freely choose their own path (within its 87 billion possible combinations). The first part of this research makes a diachronic clipping that contextualizes Wares work, presenting the rupture movements of American comics, starting from the underground comix of the 1960s and 70s. Among the varieties of non-mainstream comics that came after the underground, alternative comics are highlighted, featuring names such as Art Spiegelman, Richard McGuire and Chris Ware. A consideration of the characteristics of alternative comics shows some of the singularities of the experimental graphic narrative and how Wares comics stand in relation to this form of production. It is also necessary to present Wares work, his course as a comics author and the characteristics of his creations, explored also in the stories analyzed in this dissertation. The second part of the research selects two of the fourteen prints in Building Stories, for further analysis. The selection aims to present Wares oeuvre, showing graphic narratives that feature some of its characteristics and their poetic qualities. The analysis makes use of (i) the Greimasian theory of text, following the generative course of meaning; (ii) the theory of semi-symbolic systems, based on the studies of Jean-Marie Floch and Antonio Vicente Pietroforte on the syncretic text of comics and (iii) the Zilberbergian theory, in regards to missivity and rhythm. Through the application of these theoretical models, it is sought to make a comprehensive analysis of Wares comics, showing the formal complexity of his narratives, in which the formal structure of the comic proposes an alternative form of reading. The third part, lastly, focuses on the structure of Building Stories, establishing a parallel between its multiple possible combinations and the Saussurian concept of syntagmatic relation. The subversion of the linear reading (featured in conventional graphic narratives) allows the reader to follow different paths in the comic, from different starting points: the identity of its characters is constructed with each chosen text.

We can leverage data and complex systems science to better understand society and human nature on a population scale through language --- utilizing tools that include sentiment analysis, machine learning, and data visualization. Data-driven science and the sociotechnical systems that we use every day are enabling a transformation from hypothesis-driven, reductionist methodology to complex systems sciences. Namely, the emergence and global adoption of social media has rendered possible the real-time estimation of population-scale sentiment, with profound implications for our understanding of human behavior. Advances in computing power, natural language processing, and digitization of text now make it possible to study a culture's evolution through its texts using a "big data" lens. Given the growing assortment of sentiment measuring instruments, it is imperative to understand which aspects of sentiment dictionaries contribute to both their classification accuracy and their ability to provide richer understanding of texts. Here, we perform detailed, quantitative tests and qualitative assessments of 6 dictionary-based methods applied to 4 different corpora, and briefly examine a further 20 methods. We show that while inappropriate for sentences, dictionary-based methods are generally robust in their classification accuracy for longer texts. Most importantly they can aid understanding of texts with reliable and meaningful word shift graphs if (1) the dictionary covers a sufficiently large enough portion of a given text's lexicon when weighted by word usage frequency; and (2) words are scored on a continuous scale. Our ability to communicate relies in part upon a shared emotional experience, with stories often following distinct emotional trajectories, forming patterns that are meaningful to us. By classifying the emotional arcs for a filtered subset of 4,803 stories from Project Gutenberg's fiction collection, we find a set of six core trajectories which form the building blocks of complex narratives. We strengthen our findings by separately applying optimization, linear decomposition, supervised learning, and unsupervised learning. For each of these six core emotional arcs, we examine the closest characteristic stories in publication today and find that particular emotional arcs enjoy greater success, as measured by downloads. Within stories lie the core values of social behavior, rich with both strategies and proper protocol, which we can begin to study more broadly and systematically as a true reflection of culture. Of profound scientific interest will be the degree to which we can eventually understand the full landscape of human stories, and data driven approaches will play a crucial role. Finally, we utilize web-scale data from Twitter to study the limits of what social data can tell us about public health, mental illness, discourse around the protest movement of #BlackLivesMatter, discourse around climate change, and hidden networks. We conclude with a review of published works in complex systems that separately analyze charitable donations, the happiness of words in 10 languages, 100 years of daily temperature data across the United States, and Australian Rules Football games.

In the last decade, the use of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels as load bearing elements have become a usual solution for buildings and structures with an upward trend internationally. This is because CLT has brilliant physical and mechanical properties and it is also an eco-friendly and renewable material. In addition, the prefabricated nature of the CLT panels in a controlled environment increases the overall building speed, reduces dramatically the erection time, and makes it an even more competitive structural material compared to more traditional ones like concrete and steel. Up until now, timber as a building material has mainly been used for roofs and pergolas in Greece. Concrete and steel have traditionally been the dominant building materials over the years. Timber is not such competitive mainly because there is not enough knowledge of abouttimber buildings. The fact that Greece is not a sawn timber producer affects this trend. Nowadays, the simple and cheap import of sawn timber, as well as the sensitiveness about the environment, are strong factors for introducing timber buildings to Greece. There is already a great demand for timber buildings, and an increase in the requests is expected.CLT panels are used in a wide spectrum of structural applications. They are used as structural components for houses, offices, multi-story buildings, schools, industrial halls, sports halls, and special structures [4]. Another innovative application of CLT is the renovation through vertical expansion with additional floors to existing buildings. This new and promising trend is becoming more and more frequent, especially in developing cities where there is a need for new houses in limited space. The low density of CLT and so the low overall weight of the additional structure, makes the CLT components a robust building solution for vertical renovation since there is usually no need for reinforcement of the foundations of the current building [15]. The aim of this study is to provide the author with the opportunity to deepen his knowledge regarding the special characteristics of CLT as a building material as well as to understand its mechanical properties and the theories which describe them. In addition, this study constitutes the first attempt at modeling and designing a timber structure made with CLT panels. Therefore, the knowledge gained about the special features in CLT modeling is a fundamental task. Finally, since the design of the CLT structure is based on the European design rules for buildings, the engagement with the appropriate Eurocodes, i.e. Eurocode 0, 1 &amp; 5, is another critical task in this study. The structure under consideration is a two-story CLT structure which is a vertical expansion of a current composite (concrete-steel) building. The first additional floor will be used as an office area and the second one as a typical family house. Both additional floors are made of CLT elements and, where is necessary, glulam beams and columns are considered as reinforcement of the CLT panels and as supports, respectively. The design method includes finite element analysis (FEA) which is performed by the commercial structural softwareDLUBAL – RFEM [8]. In this study, the latter software is chosen for the design and the analysis of the structure since it is specialized software for timber structures made of CLT elements.

Plans for construction of the tallest residential timber building has driven the Technical Research Institute of Sweden (SP), Linnaeus University, Växjö and more than ten interested companies to determine an appropriate design for the structure. This thesis presents a part of ongoing research regarding wind-induced vibration control to meet serviceability limit state (SLS) requirements. A parametric study was conducted on a 22-storey timber building with a CLT shear wall system utilizing mass, stiffness and damping as the main parameters in the dynamic domain. Results were assessed according to the Swedish Annex EKS 10 and Eurocode against ISO 10137 and ISO 6897 requirements. Increasing mass, stiffness and/or damping has a favorable impact. Combination scenarios present potential solutions for suppressing wind-induced vibrations as a result of higher efficiency in low-increased levels of mass and damping.