FICS Scholarly Articles

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https://repository.upou.edu.ph/handle/20.500.13073/8
Faculty and staff research papers from the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies.

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    False prophets: exploring hybrid board/video games
    (Association for Computing Machinery, 2002) Mandryk, Regan L. ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Inkpen, Kori M.
    In order to develop technology that promotes social interaction rather than isolation, we are exploring the space between board games and video games. We created a hybrid game that leverages the advantages of both physical and digital media. A custom sensor interface promotes physical interaction around the shared public display while the un-oriented tabletop display encourages players to focus on each other rather than on the interface to the game. The ensuing social interactions define the course that the game takes, while the computer enhances the gaming experience by completing the menial tasks and providing dynamic, exciting environments. Our hybrid board/video game has the potential to enhance natural and enjoyable recreational interaction between friends.
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    Cinemaspace, Cyberspace: Mapping the Philippine Moving Image
    ( 2008-11-20) Trice, Jasmine ; Maranan, Diego S.
    This presentation will consist of two, interrelated parts, reflecting the interests of the participants in integrating the critical and theoretical, on the one hand, and the artistic and material, on the other. Operating under the same rubric and tackling parallel conceptual problems regarding nation, the moving image, and notions of the public, we hope to unravel some distinctions between art and criticism, following the cue of many practitioners and theorists in the Philippines, in order to sketch out possibilities for links between Philippine cinema as a digital mode of production, the usual way in which cinema and new media are linked, as well as examining the use of Philippine online spaces as a digital mode of circulation.
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    Flow: Expressing Movement Quality
    ( 2011-05) Subyen, Pattarawut ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Carlson, Kristin ; Schiphorst, Thecla ; Pasquier, Philippe
    Flow was an improvised dance performance at the User in Flux workshop at the 2011 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Movement qualities are extracted in real time from the performer’s body using EffortDetect. EffortDetect is a real-time machine-learning system that applies Laban Movement Analysis, a rigorous framework for analyzing the human movement, to extract movement qualities from a moving body in the form of Laban Basic Efforts. It produces a dynamic stream of Laban Basic Effort qualities in real time. We extended the use of EffortDetect by designing a visualization system that uses movement quality parameters to generate an abstract visualization for use in dance performance.
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    Biomodd: A Case Study In Combining Online Learning With On-Site New Media Art Practice
    ( 2011-09) Librero, Al Francis D. ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Vermeulen, Angelo
    Biomodd is a new media art project that integrates cross-cultural dialogue, ecology and technology while encouraging innovative collaboration. The project started in 2007 in the United States, and has since spawned multiple versions that have been built both by the people that originally came up with the idea, and by other communities throughout the world. During its run in the Philippines, a team was formed to build an installation that went on display was exhibited in two cities in the Philippines. The UP Open University, in return for its sponsorship, employed the project as a springboard in a course for students to explore and practice new media art. Since Biomodd involved a series of on-site workshops and classroom sessions, the challenge was to find a way to engage students despite their ability to physically attend the workshops. This was addressed through the use of various online applications to accomplish tasks outside the construction of the art installation. Communication was coursed through several avenues, including the university's official learning management system, text messaging, mailing lists, online photo albums, personal blogs and mass media. Through an analysis of the exchanges conducted through these various channels of communication, we show how learners and course facilitators were able to build and sustain a sense of community, as well as connect with external stakeholders who enabled learners to extend their exploration in new media art practice as shaped by their experience of working on Biomodd, thus constituting a highly enriching learning experience.
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    Expressing technological metaphors in dance using structural illusion from embodied motion
    (ACM, 2013-06) Maranan, Diego S. ; Schiphorst, Thecla ; Hwang, Albert ; Hwang, Albert
    We illustrate how technology has influenced creative, embodied practices in urban dance styles by analyzing how technological metaphors underlie conceptual representations of the body, space, and movement in three related styles of urban dance: liquid, digitz, and finger tutting. The creative and technical embodied practices of urban dancers are not well understood in either the ethnographic or creative movement scholarly literature. Following an exploratory netnography of movement practitioners, we claim that unlike most dancers of traditional genres or other urban dance styles, dancers of these three styles frequently employ representations of the body and of space that are geometrical, mathematical, mechanical, or digital. To explain how viewers perceive and understand these metaphors, we extend the perceptual theory of structure from motion in order to apply dance performance reception theory to a model we call 'Structural Illusion from Embodied Motion' (SIEM). Our analysis of performance techniques of these styles suggests that during performance, dancers leverage SIEM to represent two types of 'illusions' to viewers: a) the dancer's body has a reconfigurable structure; and b) the dancer is immersed in a virtual environment that contains invisible, mutable objects and structures that are revealed only through the dancer's movement. The three dance styles exemplify a trend in popular dance in which body, space, and time are understood in the language of technology.
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    Anthropology Of, For, And With Design: A Philippine Perspective
    ( 2014) Cajilig, Pamela G. ; Maranan, Diego S.
    The intersection of the fields of design and anthropology emerges as fertile ground for study as societies increasingly acknowledge the tremendous impact the objects we create for ourselves have on our lives. As anthropologists and ethnographers involved in running our own design research company in the Philippines, negotiating the alignments and contradictions between the two fields of knowledge is an essential component of our everyday research practice. This paper outlines different models of the relationships between design and anthropology as systems of knowledge and practice. We first extend a theoretical framework that distinguishes between anthropology of, anthropology for, and anthropology with design (Gunn and Donovan 2013): we maintain that anthropology with design underlies an approach increasingly used in commercial industries known as "design thinking", and describe the different ways by which knowledge is generated and mobilized in each of these relationships; we further describe how the artifacts of design can be seen to either materialize, shape, or probe culturally-mediated meanings, power relations, and values. We illustrate these concepts through client-commissioned projects that our organization has conducted in the Philippines. We next examine how and when these design-anthropology relationships are realized when working with clients. While anthropology with design will likely create better outcomes for our clients, larger clients must often settle for anthropology for design; we describe how we have negotiated these tensions and present our outcomes from our engagement with them. We end with a call for the development of a local prism through which practitioners in the field of design can further engage in critical reflection of the production of artifacts, particular those created with the intent of addressing social concerns. Specifically, we call for more localized conceptual frameworks of design that can be patterned (for instance) on India's notion of jugaad, and advance an increased engagement for anthropology with design across various sectors of Philippine society.
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    MOOCathon: Crowdsourced Planning and Development of a MOOC Platform
    ( 2014) Manalo, Joyce Mae ; Figueroa, Roberto B ; Maranan, Diego S.
    Massive Open Online Courses or MOOC is a recent phenomenon in distance education in which a course can cater to a very large number of learners. To support the massive nature of MOOC, it needs a platform that is flexible and scalable both in the technological and pedagogical sense. In order to solicit as many ideas as possible for an ideal MOOC platform, crowdsourcing was applied both offline and online. Crowdsourcing utilizes the wisdom of the crowd as opposed to that of a single expert. A design-thinking workshop was conducted to identify the needs and features of the MOOC platform based on the combined experiences and ideas of the participants.  MOOC students, teachers and enthusiasts participated in the said event. The development of the platform was achieved through a hackathon, in which several teams created different prototypes addressing the said needs. The output from the hackathon was evaluated in comparison to the existing University MOOC platform developed by a lone team.
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    Designing for Movement: Evaluating Computational Models Using LMA Effort Qualities
    ( 2014-04-29) Maranan, Diego S. ; Alaoui, Sarah Fdili ; Schiphorst, Thecla ; Pasquier, Philippe ; Subyen, Pattarawut ; Bartram, Lyn
    While single-accelerometers are a common consumer embedded sensors, their use in representing movement data as an intelligent resource remains scarce. Accelerometers have been used in movement recognition systems, but rarely to assess expressive qualities of movement. We present a prototype of wearable system for the real-time detection and classification of movement quality using acceleration data. The system applies Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) to recognize Laban Effort qualities from acceleration input using a Machine Learning software that generates classifications in real time. Existing LMA-recognition systems rely on motion capture data and video data, and can only be deployed in controlled settings. Our single-accelerometer system is portable and can be used under a wide range of environmental conditions. We evaluate the performance of the system, present two applications using the system in the digital arts and discuss future directions.
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    Biomodd: Exploring Relationships Between Biological, Electronic, And Social Systems Through New Media Art
    ( 2014-11-17) Maranan, Diego S. ; Librero, Al Francis D.
    Biomodd is a collaborative new media art project that explores the symbiosis between biological, electronic, and social systems. The project started in 2007 in the United States, and has since spawned multiple versions globally. The Philippine team was led by educators from the UP Open University, who organized a course on new media art practice as a springboard for exploring and developing the project. We discuss the imaginative and abstract relationships between biological, eletronic, and social systems that learners articulated over the course of the project. We describe how local, culturally-specific narrative elements were imaginatively integrated into the physical and interactive design of the installation, resulting in a technically complex, visually poetic expression of the relationship between nature, technology, and humans.
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    When Ideas Migrate: A Postcolonial Perspective on Biomodd [LBA2]
    ( 2015-08) Maranan, Diego S. ; Vermeulen, Angelo
    Biomodd is a global series of art installations in which computer technology and ecology converge. Computer networks built from upcycled computer components are provided with living internal ecosystems. In a symbiotic exchange, plants and algae live alongside electronics and use the latter’s waste heat to thrive. Sensors and robotics provide additional interaction possibilities with the organisms. The first version of the project was completed in the US, while the second version was built in the Philippines. Using a postcolonial stance, we reflect on the challenges involved in translating the project from one context to another. We focus on issues related to heat recycling in the tropics; authenticity and hybridity; obsolescence and the convertibility of capital; cultural sampling, remixing, and appropriation; and structures for social organization. We advance Biomodd as a significant contribution to artscience collaborative initiatives in the global South.
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    Speculative Somatics
    (Intellect, 2015-12-01) Maranan, Diego S.
    Based on a presentation at The Undivided Mind conference at Plymouth University, this article sketches out speculative applications of somatics, the first person, phenomenological study of sensation, perception and movement. I first introduce the subject of somatics through an experiential exercise for the reader before summarizing theoretical aspects of somatic study. Drawing from the literature in embodied cognition and from personal recollections of embodied experiences, I propose how somatic approaches could potentially be used in working with immigrant communities, living in outer space, and empathizing with non-human animals.
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    (Not so) Dangerous Liaisons: A Framework for Evaluating Collaborative Research Projects
    (Avant, 2017) Oztop, Pinar ; Loesche, Frank ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Francis, Kathryn ; Tyagi, Vaibhav ; Torre, Ilaria
    With advances in research environments and the accompanying increase in the complexity of research projects, the range of skills required to carry out research calls for an increase in interdisciplinary and collaborative work. CogNovo, a doctoral training program for 25 PhD students, provided a unique opportunity to observe and analyze collaborative processes. We propose a process-oriented framework for understanding research collaborations along two dimensions: interpersonal and project-related. To illustrate the utility of this process-oriented framework, we apply the framework matrix to several collaborations that emerged within the CogNovo program. The framework that we introduce has several advantages over existing metrics. Firstly, we offer a process-oriented—as opposed to product-oriented—evaluation of interdisciplinary and collaborative endeavors. Secondly, we propose a means of assessment that preserves the distinctive profile (or “fingerprint”) of a given collaborative project, thus capturing the uniqueness of each project and its environment.
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    Navigating Cognitive Innovation
    (Avant, 2017) Kristensen, Michael Sonne ; Loesche, Frank ; Maranan, Diego S.
    This paper revisits the concept of Cognitive Innovation with the aim of helping newcomers appreciate its (intended) demarcating purpose and relevance to the wider literature on cognition and creativity in the humanities, arts, and sciences. Particular emphasis is paid to discussion of the pitfalls of sense-making and the concept’s affordance. The main argument presented is that proponents of the concept face the dilemma of seeking to demonstrate its transdisciplinary nature and applicability vis-a-vis retaining its semantic distinctness. Proceeding from a classification of Cognitive Innovation as a dispositional construct, we discuss how it feeds into existing research approaches and opens up new sensibilities in related areas. The perspectives of temporality, interdisciplinary balancing, technology, and metatheories are proposed as promising areas for future elaboration of the function of Cognitive Innovation.
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    Haplós: Towards Technologies for and Applications of Somaesthetics
    ( 2017) Maranan, Diego S.
    How can vibrotactile stimuli be used to create a technology-mediated somatic learning experience? This question motivates this practice-based research, which explores how the Feldenkrais Method and cognate neuroscience research can be applied to technology design. Supported by somaesthetic philosophy, soma-based design theories, and a critical acknowledgement of the socially-inflected body, the research develops a systematic method grounded in first- and third-person accounts of embodied experience to inform the creation and evaluation of design of Haplós, a wearable, user-customisable, remote-controlled technology that plays methodically composed vibrotactile patterns on the skin in order to facilitate body awareness—the major outcome of this research and a significant contribution to soma-based creative work. The research also contributes to design theory and somatic practice by developing the notion of a somatic learning affordance, which emerged during course of the research and which describes the capacity of a material object to facilitate somatic learning. Two interdisciplinary collaborations involving Haplós contribute to additional fields and disciplines. In partnership with experimental psychologists, Haplós was used in a randomised controlled study that contributes to cognitive psychology by showing that vibrotactile compositions can reduce, with statistical significance, intrusive food-related thoughts. Haplós was also used in Bisensorial, an award-winning, collaboratively developed proof-of-concept of a neuroadaptive vibroacoustic therapeutic device that uses music and vibrotactile stimuli to induce desired mental states. Finally, this research contributes to cognitive science and embodied philosophy by advancing a neuroscientific understanding of vibrotactile somaesthetics, a novel extension of somaesthetic philosophy.
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    Multispecies Roundtable for Climate Impact: A Speculative Proposal
    ( 2017-07-22) Cajilig, Pamela G. ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Sy, Arlene ; Salva, Oliver ; Vermeulen, Angelo
    The Philippines is one of the most typhoon prone countries in world (Bankoff, 2003), and its government has invested significantly in data technology which has proven to be critical in planning for climate impact. However, there is conflict as to how this data ought to be interpreted and used by the technoscientific community on one hand and, on the other, by sectors of society who rely on traditional and embodied knowledge of the natural environment. How do we interpret the information equitably to make decisions that can protect lives, natural and artificial resources, and livelihoods? We take artist Angelo Vermeulen’s notion of a multispecies roundtable for co-creating systems —in which plants, computers, and people are brought together in mutually beneficial ways (Vermeulen, 2016)—and apply it to the context of natural disaster management. Based on our previous experience working in post-disaster reconstruction and design (Cajilig & Salva, 2014), we propose a design concept to integrate ethnoscientific models for weather and climate prediction by indigenous and artisanal groups.
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    Vibrotactile Stimuli for Wellbeing, Communication, and Creativity
    ( 2018-06-05) Maranan, Diego S.
    This whitepaper describes potential applications and future research directions for Haplós, a low-cost body awareness tool that applies programmable, vibrotactile patterns to the skin using small, vibrating motors. Haplós inspired by research and design in clothing and human-computer interaction, in which clothing and wearable artifacts generate novel, embodied, somatic experiences. Haplós was invented with the aim not of replacing or augmenting the human senses, but of enhancing our existing sensory abilities, particularly our ability to sense ourselves. Current and potential applications include: touch-based therapies, bodily creativity, sensorimotor rehabilitation, pain management, addition and depression, improved cognitive functioning, remote communication and presence, virtual and augmented reality applications, and new artistic and entertainment forms.
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    The Design Of Clinical Trials And Its Associated Support Systems In Interplanetary Missions – A Thought Experiment And Creative Workshop
    (International Astronautical Federation, 2018-10) Nasser, M ; Perez, N ; Knight, J ; Haines, A ; Young, C ; Griffin, J ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Wright, J ; Halkes, M
    On Earth, the best available evidence to inform decisions on the effectiveness of treatments are randomised controlled trials. Depending on relevance of the question, availability of resources and willingness of individuals, these trials range from a few people to thousands. These trials are usually repeated across the world on different populations which provides further information on the generalisability of the effectiveness of interventions. Only a fraction of individuals on Earth participate in clinical trials to provide the evidence basis for the larger population. In aerospace medicine, the number of astronauts is quite limited so doing large clinical trials is difficult: the evidence in aerospace medicine primarily relies on simulated studies on Earth which may be randomised controlled trials or small case series with astronauts in space. The current discussions on long term missions to Mars and other planetary exploration, raise the question of what is the ideal approach for building an infrastructure to conduct clinical trials for long term interplanetary missions. Long term missions require the continuous commitment and motivation of participants in the clinical trial, therefore patient involvement in the research process is more important. This paper uses a combination of a thought experiment with a creative, simulated and interdisciplinary workshop to build a conceptual framework on how clinical trial research infrastructure can be innovated in an inter-planetary mission. Some key aspects of the framework includes: a) Designing and prioritising interventions to manage the problem (democratic versus management approach) b) Overall design of the research project (applicability of prospective meta-analysis, patient preference trials, N-of-1 trials) c) Allocating participants to groups (stratification not only based on characteristics but also by roles and job specification, using Bayesian randomisation to allocate individuals into groups and patient preferred trials) d) Outcome selection and data collection (identifying biomedical, clinical, patient-related, performance-related outcome, data collection over time and monitoring need for adaptation and change) e) Ethics and Partnerships (ethics and consent issues and how they relate to partnerships and relationships). We will suggest using the same methodology to facilitate more in-depth discussions on certain aspects of a clinical trial or managing a diverse range of health problems e.g. contagions.
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    User group analytics: hypothesis generation and exploratory analysis of user data
    (The International Journal on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB), 2018-10-26) Tehrani, Behrooz Omidvar ; Yahia, Sihem Amer ; Borromeo, Ria Mae
    User data is becoming increasingly available in multiple domains ranging from the social Web to retail store receipts. User data is described by user demographics (e.g. age, gender, occupation) and user actions (e.g. rating a movie, publishing a paper, following a medical treatment). The analysis of user data is appealing to scientists who work on population studies, online marketing, recommendations, and large scale data analysis. User data analysis usually relies on identifying group-level behaviour such as “Asian women who publish regularly in databases.” Group analytics addresses peculiarities of user data such as noise and sparsity to enable insights. In this paper, we introduce a framework for user group analytics by developing several components which cover the life cycle of user groups. We provide two different analytical environments to support ‘hypothesis generation” and “exploratory analysis” on user groups. Experiments on data sets with different characteristics show the usability and efficiency of our group analytics framework.
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    KM4D Casebook: Sectoral and Thematic Knowledge Management at the National, Regional, and Global Levels
    ( 2019) FLOR, ALEXANDER G.
    This volume presents KM4D case studies, where the author was personally engaged from 2000 to 2018, as field examples of how knowledge management has been applied within selected sectors and themes in the international development assistance community. The materials were compiled and made available on the course sites of two online courses offered by the UPOU Faculty of Information and Communication Studies in several installments from 2010 to 2020. The casebook is intended to enable the student to move from abstract conceptualization to empirical application of KM4D.