An ontology-based, multi-modal platform for the inclusion of marginalized rural communities into the knowledge society
- Thinyane, Mamello, Dalvit, Lorenzo, Slay, Hannah, Mapi, Thandeka, Terzoli, Alfredo
- Authors: Thinyane, Mamello , Dalvit, Lorenzo , Slay, Hannah , Mapi, Thandeka , Terzoli, Alfredo
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431218 , vital:72755 , https://doi.org/10.1145/1292491.1292508
- Description: With the information revolution that promises to shape the 21st century, knowledge has become the prime commodity, very much like land, means of production and capital have been at different times in the past. Access to information, made instantly available by the growth of the Internet, determines access to economic resources, social participa-tion and better quality of life. For this reason, the knowledge stored on the Web and the advantages offered by the spread of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are equally important for rich socie-ties to prosper and for poor ones to develop. The only difference is that marginalised communities do not have access to the tools and have little control over the content found in the domain of ICTs. In this paper we describe an intervention to develop the potential of a typical rural community in South Africa through ICTs. This involves providing Inter-net connectivity and deploying a platform to support e-commerce, e-learning, e-government and e-health. The core of the platform is an on-tology-based model designed to integrate and respond to Indigenous Knowledge Systems. This has been achieved by combining a deep understanding of local knowledge and social networks with the use of authoring, communication and ontology-management tools. The prima-ry goal of this new approach is to find a way to make ICT solutions more sensitive to the local context, and therefore more effective. Sec-ondly, we hope to foster a sense of ownership of the project among the community, by capitalising on local knowledge and resources.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Thinyane, Mamello , Dalvit, Lorenzo , Slay, Hannah , Mapi, Thandeka , Terzoli, Alfredo
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431218 , vital:72755 , https://doi.org/10.1145/1292491.1292508
- Description: With the information revolution that promises to shape the 21st century, knowledge has become the prime commodity, very much like land, means of production and capital have been at different times in the past. Access to information, made instantly available by the growth of the Internet, determines access to economic resources, social participa-tion and better quality of life. For this reason, the knowledge stored on the Web and the advantages offered by the spread of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are equally important for rich socie-ties to prosper and for poor ones to develop. The only difference is that marginalised communities do not have access to the tools and have little control over the content found in the domain of ICTs. In this paper we describe an intervention to develop the potential of a typical rural community in South Africa through ICTs. This involves providing Inter-net connectivity and deploying a platform to support e-commerce, e-learning, e-government and e-health. The core of the platform is an on-tology-based model designed to integrate and respond to Indigenous Knowledge Systems. This has been achieved by combining a deep understanding of local knowledge and social networks with the use of authoring, communication and ontology-management tools. The prima-ry goal of this new approach is to find a way to make ICT solutions more sensitive to the local context, and therefore more effective. Sec-ondly, we hope to foster a sense of ownership of the project among the community, by capitalising on local knowledge and resources.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Animated feather coats using field lines
- Authors: Bangay, Shaun D
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433338 , vital:72963 , https://doi.org/10.1145/1294685.1294713
- Description: The tedious task of manually placing feathers on computer animated ob-jects involves aligning feathers, ensuring that they do not insect each other or penetrate the surface, deforming every feather to match the local surface features, and ensuring that the feather coat is consistent when the underly-ing object is animated. We present a technique for generating a feather coat over an object. Feather orientation is specified quickly and easily, feathers are deformed while ensuring collision prevention, and the coat can be ani-mated. We create a vector field in the space surrounding the body object and deform feathers to align with the field lines. The non-intersection proper-ty of the field lines ensures that feather intersections are avoided. We pro-vide a formulation of a suitable vector field and demonstrate that it is capa-ble of producing realistic feather coats. The process can easily be integrated into the work-flow of standard modelling and animation processes. We show examples of feather coat creation on a range of objects, proving that field line based placement of feather coats provides the desired functionality for feather modelling and animation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Bangay, Shaun D
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433338 , vital:72963 , https://doi.org/10.1145/1294685.1294713
- Description: The tedious task of manually placing feathers on computer animated ob-jects involves aligning feathers, ensuring that they do not insect each other or penetrate the surface, deforming every feather to match the local surface features, and ensuring that the feather coat is consistent when the underly-ing object is animated. We present a technique for generating a feather coat over an object. Feather orientation is specified quickly and easily, feathers are deformed while ensuring collision prevention, and the coat can be ani-mated. We create a vector field in the space surrounding the body object and deform feathers to align with the field lines. The non-intersection proper-ty of the field lines ensures that feather intersections are avoided. We pro-vide a formulation of a suitable vector field and demonstrate that it is capa-ble of producing realistic feather coats. The process can easily be integrated into the work-flow of standard modelling and animation processes. We show examples of feather coat creation on a range of objects, proving that field line based placement of feather coats provides the desired functionality for feather modelling and animation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
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