Evolutionary algorithms have been explored to aid creative tasks such as graphic design, e.g. by speeding up the creative process through the generation of innovative visual solutions that designers may get inspired by or may use as a starting point for their work. However, state-of-the-art systems often present shortcomings in controlling the legibility of the text contents present in the generated artefacts. This paper presents an ocr based approach for evaluating the legibility degree of communication artefacts, such as graphic design posters. We experiment with various metrics to compare the detected with the original text of the posters. To test these metrics, the respective results are compared with human evaluations of legibility. Furthermore, posters are evolved using the proposed approach as a fitness metric. Our findings suggest the developed metrics are more closely aligned with human evaluations. Also, the results indicate our approach can be successfully utilised to generate legible posters.

Summary Medium to small petrels that mostly nest in burrows or crevices represent a large fraction of the world’s seabirds, yet their population trends are largely unknown. This lack of knowledge, which has implications for conservation planning, results mostly from methodological difficulties and from the approaches that have been used for their monitoring. Here, we present the surveying scheme created to monitor Cory’s Shearwater Calonectris borealis breeding numbers at their largest known colony, Selvagem Grande (Portugal). We defined 60 circular plots at fixed locations on this 2.45 km 2 island and counted nests with eggs annually at the end of laying. Results show that the population increased at 1.45% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.72–2.01%) per year between 2009 and 2023. We estimate that the current population size is 38,830 pairs (95% quantile CIs = 34,373–43,713). To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first systematic information (using fully repeatable methods and providing CIs for the estimates) on population trends of Cory’s Shearwaters, one of the most abundant seabirds in the warm temperate and subtropical North Atlantic and one of the most studied petrels globally. Monitoring using the approach detailed here requires two days of work (by 2–3 persons) per year. Our results and simulations indicate that this is a powerful methodology, with narrow confidence limits for estimated trends and an ability to detect small population changes over short time spans. We suggest that more monitoring protocols similar to this one (with necessary site-specific adaptations, particularly for potential colony expansion where suitable habitat exists) should be developed and implemented in a range of colonies with crevice and burrowing nesting petrels to improve our knowledge on the population status of a broad fraction of the world’s seabirds.

Graphic Design media continuously evolve in response to technological and social changes. The recent proliferation of moving posters exemplifies this adaptability, as it transposes traditional print poster characteristics into the digital realm by integrating dynamic visuals. In this article, we present a research through design study focused on developing responsive moving posters. This investigation examines how computational design methods, involving the systematic and algorithmic use of computing for design creation, can generate context-aware visuals that respond to environmental data. We aim to understand and analyse the production, communication, and usage possibilities related to these designs while identifying the associated challenges. Our experimentation involved various approaches to creating moving posters that respond to environmental data both reactively and interactively, focusing on different design strategies, responsive techniques, and data acquisition methods. We conducted evaluation experiments to assess their production and usage potential, which included organising a hands-on workshop, urban placements, and evaluation sessions with people. Our findings indicate that responsive approaches can promote user customisation, facilitating more effective and engaging message delivery to the audience. These approaches also enable the creation of moving posters tailored to different environments, audiences, and contexts.

Finding unconventional visual solutions that stand out and draw attention is frequently one of the goals of Graphic Design (GD). However, to save time, graphic designers often adhere to design trends and templates, resulting in creations that frequently lack distinctive qualities. To speed up the creative process, among other techniques, researchers have been using evolutionary algorithms to generate and present novel gd solutions to end-users, so they can save time by working over the generated ideas. Nevertheless, state-of-the-art approaches often converge to a final group of results that look too similar to each other. In this paper, we test the application of niching techniques to generate a set of visually varied gd solutions and present it to end-users. gd posters were evolved as a proof of concept. The results suggest that implementing the tested niching technique in evolutionary systems can be a viable approach to present users with a wider range of ideas, at least for poster design.

Graphic Design (GD) artefacts, like posters on the streets or book covers on store shelves, often compete with each other to be seen, catch attention and communicate effectively. Nevertheless, due to the democratisation of GD and because finding disruptive aesthetics might be time-consuming, graphic designers often follow existing trends, lacking disruptive and catchy visual features. EvoDesigner aims to assist the exploration of distinctive GD aesthetics by employing a genetic algorithm to evolve content within two-dimensional pages. The system takes the form of an extension for Adobe InDesign, so both human designers and the machine can alternately collaborate in the creation process. In this paper, we propose a method to automatically evaluate the generated posters by assessing their dissimilarity to the output of an auto-encoder that was trained with a set of posters posted at typographicposters.com by graphic designers worldwide. The results suggest the viability of the evaluation method to recall large sets of images and therefore be used to compute an image dissimilarity degree. Furthermore, the proposed method could be used for evolving GD posters that can be deemed as new when compared to the training set.

Field of Leaves is an interactive installation that depicts public contracts held in Portugal and their distribution over its five regions and two autonomous regions. The installation presents information about the public contracts available at the online portal of public procurements called Portal Basegov. The installation attempts to advocate the importance and advantages of aesthetics in first-time audience engagement, and how user interaction and hedonic qualities can heighten the user's curiosity and promote more lasting explorations with a visualization.

Field of Leaves is an interactive installation that depicts public contracts held in Portugal and their distribution over its five regions and two autonomous regions. The installation presents information about the public contracts available at the online portal of public procurements called Portal Basegov. The installation attempts to advocate the importance and advantages of aesthetics in first-time audience engagement, and how user interaction and hedonic qualities can heighten the user's curiosity and promote more lasting explorations with a visualization.

Graphic Design (GD) artefacts aim to attract people's attention before any forward objectives. Thus, one of the goals of GD is frequently finding innovative aesthetics that stand out over competing design artefacts (such as other books covers in a store or other posters on the street). However, as GD is increasingly being democratised and broadly shared through social media, designers tend to adopt trendy solutions, lacking disruptive and catchy visual features. EvoDesigner aims to assist the exploration of innovative graphic design solutions by using an automatic evolutionary approach to evolve the design of a number of text, shapes, and image elements inside two-dimensional canvases (pages). To enable the collaboration human-machine, the process has been integrated into Adobe inDesign, so human designers and EvoDesigner may alternately edit and evolve the same design projects, using the same desktop-publishing software. In this paper, an overview of the proposed system is presented along with the experimental setup and results accomplished so far on an evolutionary engine developed. The results suggest the viability of the development made in this first iteration of the system, which aims to reinterpret existing layouts in an unexpected manner.

Image enhancement is an image processing procedure in which the image's original information is refined, for example by highlighting specific features to ease post-processing analyses by a human or machine. This procedure remains challenging since each set of images is often taken under diverse conditions which makes it hard to find an image enhancement solution that fits all conditions. State-of-the-art image enhancement pipelines apply filters that solve specific issues; therefore, it is still hard to generalise these pipelines to all types of problems encountered. We have recently introduced a Genetic Programming approach named ELAINE (EvoLutionAry Image eNhancEment) for evolving image enhancement pipelines based on pre-defined image filters. In this paper, we showcase its potential to create solutions under a real-estate marketing scenario by comparing it with a manual approach and an existing tool for automatic image enhancement. The ELAINE obtained results far exceed those obtained by manual combinations of filters and by the one-click method, in all the metrics explored. We further explore the potential of creating non-photorealistic effects by applying the evolved pipelines to different types of images. The results highlight ELAINE's potential to transform input images into either suitable real-estate images or non-photorealistic renderings, thus transforming contents and possibly enhancing its aesthetic appeal.

Frequently, one of the goals of Graphic Design (gd) is discovering disruptive visual solutions that stand out and attract people’s attention. However, due to the increasing democratisation of gd, graphic designers tend to adopt design trends, leading to designs that many times lack innovative and catchy features. EvoDesigner is an evolutionary extension for Adobe InDesign that aims to aid gd processes by automatically evolving layout and style variations of given InDesign pages. The generated pages might be previously created and post-edited by designers, promoting co-creation. As an extension of the study EvoDesigner: Towards Aiding Creativity in Graphic Design, this article begins with a general introduction of EvoDesigner. Then, we review previous experiments on evolving pages towards the page balance of existing target posters. Furthermore, we present new experiments exploring the benefits of using grid systems to position and scale page items along with a user survey made to gather feedback about the impact of grid systems in the generated pages and showcase examples of artefacts created from the collaboration between designers and the system. The findings indicate that the presented techniques can be used to interpret current layouts in different manners, and suggest that grid systems may be a useful tool for promoting the automatic production of layouts with better organisation when compared to applying no organisational constraints. However, a conducted user survey indicates that, depending on the goals of the designers, more organised layouts might not always be synonymous with better results.

Immersive Colonography allows medical professionals to navigate inside the intricate tubular geometries of subject-specific 3D colon images using Virtual Reality displays. Typically, camera travel is performed via Fly-Through or Fly-Over techniques that enable semi-automatic traveling through a constrained, well-defined path at user-controlled speeds. However, Fly-Through is known to limit the visibility of lesions located behind or inside haustral folds. At the same time, Fly-Over requires splitting the entire colon visualization into two specific halves. In this paper, we study the effect of immersive Fly-Through and Fly-Over techniques on lesion detection and introduce a camera travel technique that maintains a fixed camera orientation throughout the entire medial axis path. While these techniques have been studied in non-VR desktop environments, their performance is not well understood in VR setups. We performed a comparative study to ascertain which camera travel technique is more appropriate for constrained path navigation in Immersive Colonography and validated our conclusions with two radiologists. To this end, we asked 18 participants to navigate inside a 3D colon to find specific marks. Our results suggest that the Fly-Over technique may lead to enhanced lesion detection at the cost of higher task completion times. Nevertheless, the Fly-Through method may offer a more balanced trade-off between speed and effectiveness, whereas the fixed camera orientation technique provided seemingly inferior performance results. Our study further provides design guidelines and informs future work.

The introduction of new tools in people's workflow has always been promotive of new creative paths. This paper discusses the impact of using computational tools in the performance of creative tasks, especially focusing on graphic design. The study was driven by a grounded theory methodology, applied to a set of semi-structured interviews, made to twelve people working in the areas of graphic design, data science, computer art, music and data visualisation. Among other questions, the results suggest some scenarios in which it is or it is not worth investing in the development of new intelligent creativity-aiding tools.

Being creative in Graphic Design often requires protected experimentation processes. We present an evolutionary engine for generating glyphs, aiding designers to explore during the creative process. The system employs a Genetic Algorithm to evolve svc using both interactive and automatic fitness assignment. We present topological variation operators that promote the exploration of adequate topologies and we compare the performance of topological and conventional operators for generating uppercase "A"s. The results demonstrate that the topological crossover operator performs more efficiently both regarding fitness and phenotypes.

Bird feathers are one of the most widely used animal tissue in mercury biomonitoring, owing to the ease of collection and storage. They are also the principal excretory pathway of mercury in birds. However, limitations in our understanding of the physiology of mercury deposition in feathers has placed doubt on the interpretation of feather mercury concentratoins. Throughout the literature, moult sequence and the depletion of the body mercury pool have been taken to explain patterns such as the decrease in feather mercury from the innermost (P1) to the outermost primary feather (P10) of the wing. However, it has been suggested that this pattern is rather a measurement artefact as a result of the increased feather mass to length ratio along the primaries, resulting in a dilution effect in heavier feathers. Here, we attempt to untangle the causes of variation in feather mercury concentrations by quantifying the mercury concentration as μg of mercury (i) per gram of feather, (ii) per millimetre of feather, and (iii) per day of feather growth in the primary feathers of Bulwer's Petrel Bulweria bulwerii chicks, effectively controlling for some of the axes of variation that may be acting in adults, and monitoring the growth rate of primary feathers in chicks. The mercury concentration in Bulwer's Petrel chicks' primaries increased from the innermost to the outermost primary for all three concentration measures, following the order of feather emergence. These observations confirm that the pattern of mercury concentration across primary feathers is not an artefact of the measure of concentration, but is likely an effect of the order of feather growth, whereby the earlier grown feathers are exposed to higher blood mercury concentrations than are later moulted feathers as a result of blood mercury depletion.

African Journal of EcologyVolume 56, Issue 4 p. 1039-1043 SHORT COMMUNICATION Food diversity of Timneh Parrots (Psittacus timneh) in the Bijagós archipelago, Guinea-Bissau Daniel da Costa Lopes, Corresponding Author Daniel da Costa Lopes daniel.da.costa.lopes1@gmail.com orcid.org/0000-0001-7005-4862 Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA – Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, Portugal Correspondence Daniel da Costa Lopes, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal. Email: daniel.da.costa.lopes1@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this authorRowan O. Martin, Rowan O. Martin World Parrot Trust, Hayle, Cornwall, UK Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, DST/NRF Centre of Excellence, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South AfricaSearch for more papers by this authorBucar Indjai, Bucar Indjai INEP – National Institute for Study and Research, Bissau, Guinea-BissauSearch for more papers by this authorHamilton Monteiro, Hamilton Monteiro Coastal Planning Office, Bissau, Guinea-BissauSearch for more papers by this authorMohamed Henriques, Mohamed Henriques MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA – Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, PortugalSearch for more papers by this authorAissa Regalla, Aissa Regalla IBAP – Institute of Biodiversity and Protected Areas, Bissau, Guinea-BissauSearch for more papers by this authorPaulo Catry, Paulo Catry MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA – Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, PortugalSearch for more papers by this author Daniel da Costa Lopes, Corresponding Author Daniel da Costa Lopes daniel.da.costa.lopes1@gmail.com orcid.org/0000-0001-7005-4862 Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA – Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, Portugal Correspondence Daniel da Costa Lopes, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal. Email: daniel.da.costa.lopes1@gmail.comSearch for more papers by this authorRowan O. Martin, Rowan O. Martin World Parrot Trust, Hayle, Cornwall, UK Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, DST/NRF Centre of Excellence, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South AfricaSearch for more papers by this authorBucar Indjai, Bucar Indjai INEP – National Institute for Study and Research, Bissau, Guinea-BissauSearch for more papers by this authorHamilton Monteiro, Hamilton Monteiro Coastal Planning Office, Bissau, Guinea-BissauSearch for more papers by this authorMohamed Henriques, Mohamed Henriques MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA – Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, PortugalSearch for more papers by this authorAissa Regalla, Aissa Regalla IBAP – Institute of Biodiversity and Protected Areas, Bissau, Guinea-BissauSearch for more papers by this authorPaulo Catry, Paulo Catry MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA – Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, PortugalSearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 August 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.12544Citations: 3Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume56, Issue4Special Issue: Special Section: Camera Trapping in AfricaDecember 2018Pages 1039-1043 RelatedInformation

This project is about the creation of a music festival’s dynamic brand, which reacts to music and customises itself to any person participating in the event.