Title Affiliations Abstract "A discourse-theoretical analysis of international communication policies and projects and a multi-facetted analysis of the Information and Comminication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) discourse." "Department of Communication Sciences" "First, a discourse-theoretical approach will be developed which will be applied to international communication polices and projects. Second, ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) projects, events and policy initiatives will be tied together in a theoretical framework uniting discourse theory and political theory." "‘What is new about what has always been’: Communication technologies and the meaning-making of Maasai mobilities in Ngorongoro" "Noel B. Salazar" "Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology" "The research question is: how are human mobility practices continuously constructed and (re-)produced, through communication technology, in dialogue with members of a cultural group, and in its reaction to non-members? This anthropological research concerns how the Maasai, a semi-nomadic group in East Africa, relate to mobility. This dissertation examines how technologies of mobility and communication are making and reshaping Maasailand, replacing and enhancing the historical network of codes and rules that made Maasailand an efficient circulatory territory with fast informational exchange.The objectives of this dissertation are to study the interstices between communication, technology and mobility and the imaginaries shaped there and to examine ‘what is new about what always has been’ in regards to communication, technology and mobility. The dissertation de-constructs the discourses shaping a culture that is mobile. I study the concerns, the effects, usage and meaning-making that technologies of mobility and communication technologies have among the Maasai in Ngorongoro. I engage with the disentangling of the patterns, representations and practices creating mobility. Cattle is often described as the fabric of Maasai society, infusing meaning and legitimacy to the traditional forms of movement shaping the land.The usage of communication technologies is examined alongside questions concerning how mobility and intricate social networks have played a decisive role in ‘place-making’ and the shaping of one of the largest areas claimed by a single ethnic group in Africa. I ask: How is a culture of mobility created and (re-)produced through communication? How is a mobile identity forged in relation to the use of technologies of mobility? How does the meaning-making of place and mobility come about and how do imaginaries shape this meaning-making?This project aims to bridge and to enhance the anthropological body of work on mobility studies, communication and technology. The dissertation analyses how technologies of communication and mobility have expanded or restructured the Maasai’s traditional social, cultural, economic and political networks. Fieldwork was conducted continuously online on Facebook from 2012 to late 2015, and in Ngorongoro from March 2013 to October 2013, a participatory-observational approach was taken and was strengthened by interviews and drawn from collections of secondary sources. This dissertation aims to provide readers with a thorough examination of one case study of the Maasai implementation of technologies of mobility and communication; in this work I have set a precedent for a broader understanding and engagement with the interstice between technology, communication and mobility within anthropology. I find that human mobility practices are moored in meaning and place. Practices such as herding cattle are corporeal demonstrations of mobility and as important in manifesting a culture of mobility as imaginaries of a more ‘nomadic’ past are. Mobilities are discursive constructs. Cultural mobilities are shaped by (imaginaries of) history and in relation to and reaction towards non-members of a cultural group. Larger cultural patterns and social organization shape the meaning-making of practices of mobility and technology. Technologies, rather than being disruptive to culture, build upon well-established and historically influenced practices. " "ZAP office in new communication technologies" "Tom Evens" "Department of Communication Sciences" "ZAP office in new communication technologies (Tom Evens)" "The Educational Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Higher Education in Developing Countries" "Adula Bekele Hunde, Katie Goeman" "Information Systems Engineering Research Group (LIRIS) (main work address Brussels), Instructional Psychology and Technology, Electrical Engineering Technology (ESAT), Group T Leuven Campus" "The fast growth of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education has given rise to the expectation that new technologies would significantly influence the quality of education. In spite of significant development of ICT in education, there is a great concern on ICT use in Higher Education (HE). Several researches have done in the past years on the use of ICT in education and associated factors. However, less is known as to the extent to which educators use ICT in their teaching in HE in general and Engineering Education (EE) in particular in the context of developing countries and conditions for effective ICT use in education. This study therefore, aims at examining the educational use of ICT and factors that affect ICT use in HE in developing countries with special reference to (EE). This study has theoretical significance for it will push the existing knowledge horizon regarding educators use of ICT for teaching purpose and associated factors in higher education in developing countries settings. Practically, the identification of conditions for effective use of ICT by educators will provide valuable information to policy-makers, educational leaders and educators in order to improve the educational use of ICT by educators in higher education in developing countries. The study will employ mixed research design and data will be collected from educators, heads of departments, Deans, ICT directors and Academic Vice presidents in three randomly selected Institutes of Technologies using questionnaires and interview. The quantitative and qualitative data will be analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 20) and NVivo 11computer software respectively." "Serious Gaming: science communication about current advertising practices and technologies aimed at young people and the general public" "Veroline Cauberghe" "Department of Communication Sciences" "Advertising aimed at young people is everywhere. It is estimated that as many young people are exposed to 25,000 commercials per year (The Pelsmacker, Geuens & Van den Bergh, 2010). These advertisements can help young people to make informed choices, but young people need to have the capacity and the ability to process these messages critically. The persuasion knowledge model (Friestad & Wright, 1994) indicates that for that advertising literacy is required. Advertising Wisdom refers to the knowledge that individuals with regard to the use advertising techniques and strategies. However, this advertising wisdom is low for many of the new forms of advertising (eg. advergames, product placement, viral campaigns). These types of advertising are often integrated into the media content, interactive and therefore very popular, so, certainly inexperienced consumers, as young people struggle to recognize them as such. Due to their low advertising literacy, young people these advertisements are then consequently noncritical process and find unconscious influence instead of possible adverse effects (eg. Increasing materialism, dissatisfaction ...). To counter these negative effects unconscious, this project aims to inform young people about the scientific findings on contemporary advertising strategies, and this through a serious game. This game will be distributed both through schools and social media, surrounded by an effective PR strategy." "Radiation hardened high-speed digital circuits with multi-cell upset mitigation techniques for reliable communication links in nanoscale technologies" "Paul Leroux" "Electronic Circuits and Systems (ECS)" "In this research project, innovative circuit techniques will be developed to enable low power, extremely high-speed radiation hardened digital communication links. Such communication channels are required in complex nuclear facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider, nuclear fusion power plants and high-performance satellites. Generally, digital chips become faster each year with smaller transistors, but they also become more sensitive to high-energy particles coming from nuclear reactions, accelerated beams or cosmic radiation. In the past, such digital systems were protected with triple redundancy. However, due to the shrinking transistor sizes, this is becoming less effective and alternative protection strategies with advanced place methods are required. Radically new digital chip design techniques will be developed to ensure that such digital blocks can be made successfully redundant with advanced algorithms that check whether the geometrical location of millions of digital cells are adequate for surviving the harshest radiation environments. The approach that will be used is based on TCAD simulations (to simulate individual and groups of transistors) and charge sharing between various neighboring cells such that a digital radiationinduced soft-error rate model can be compiled for each multi-million transistor digital netlist. These methods and algorithms will allow to establish radiation hardened digital designs without sacrificing any performance. " "Technologies of the displaced: governance, communication use and media experiences among Syrian refugees in Sanliurfa (South- Eastern Turkey) and Brussels (Belgium)." "Philippe Meers" "Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center (ViDi)" "This project studies the role of media and ICTs in the lives of refugees. These technologies, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops have become key resources for refugees. So far little systematic research has been done on this topic. Refugees are usually studied in terms of discourse and representation, i.e. as ""passive"", ""voiceless"" objects of study. This study, however, will take on an original, on-the-ground, perspective, looking at different stages of the refugee trajectory. Combining different methods (expert interviews, document analysis, personal surveys, observations and in-depth interviews), the study looks at media and communication infrastructures that are provided to refugees, as well as their actual needs, uses and experiences. Attention is also paid to structural constraints, governance issues, and the tension between human rights and securitization. This is connected to broader theoretical debates on cosmopolitanism and identity. Two cases will be studied: adult refugees in a refugee camp in Sanliurfa (South Eastern Turkey) and adult refugees in Brussels (Belgium), each representing different populations and distinct national political contexts, as well as different communication infrastructures. Because of its potential to contribute to the living situations of refugees, the project is supported by crucial partners: the local Sanliurfa camp, UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), Fedasil, and Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen." "Exploratory study of the added value of icon translation technologies for communication by and with non-native speakers in the Vlaamse Rand." "Frank Van Eynde" "Formal and Computational Linguistics (ComForT), Leuven" "In the Vlaamse Rand, Dutch is the official language and the common language. However, communication by and with non-native speakers (immigrants, refugees) who do not have sufficient command of Dutch is often difficult. In collaboration with non-profit organization De Rand, a government-subsidized organization that tries to promote the quality of life for the people of the Vlaamse Rand from a Dutch profiling, we will demonstrate that icon translation technology offers added value for Flemish teachers and service providers and non-native speakers. " "Virtualisation of Information and Communication Technologies at Mzumbe University (VICT@MU Project)." "Egbert De Smet" "Institutional Research Unit" "This project represents a formal research agreement between UA and on the other hand VLIR. UA provides VLIR research results mentioned in the title of the project under the conditions as stipulated in this contract." "Pictographic Communication Technologies for Browsing the Web." "Frank Van Eynde" "Formal and Computational Linguistics (ComForT), Leuven, Faculty of Arts, Antwerp Campus" "In order to improve the accessibility of the Internet for users with reading and writing disabilities, we develop a set of tools that automatically translate Dutch natural language text into pictographs and vice versa for people with an intellectual disability (ID), allowing them to read and write status updates, emails, and chat messages in online environments.For the conversion of texts into pictographs, we start from an existing system (Vandeghinste et al. 2017).  We evaluate the baseline Text-to-Pictograph translation system using automated metrics, manual assessments, and focus groups with real end users, and propose three improvements: We create a spelling correction tool for people with ID, we develop a syntactic simplification tool and a temporality detection module that uses deep syntactic analysis, and we implement a word sense disambiguation tool for improved semantic analysis. The added value of each one of these components is measured by a combination of automated metrics, manual evaluations, and, where possible, user studies.Conversely, the Pictograph-to-Text translation tool provides help in constructing Dutch textual messages by allowing a user to input a series of pictographs, and then translates these messages into natural language text. The challenge in Pictograph-to-Text translation is twofold. The first task involves the development of an accessible interface that allows people with ID to find the pictographs of their choice. The second task concerns the actual development of the Pictograph-to-Text translation engine. We discuss a variety of approaches, including language modelling and (neural) machine translation techniques, toward the generation of rich natural language text from underspecified pictograph input."