Search results for: tabletop game
253 Game of Funds: Efficiency and Policy Implications of the United Kingdom Research Excellence Framework
Authors: Boon Lee
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Research publication is an essential output of universities because it not only promotes university recognition, it also receives government funding. The history of university research culture has been one of ‘publish or perish’ and universities have consistently encouraged their academics and researchers to produce research articles in reputable journals in order to maintain a level of competitiveness. In turn, the United Kingdom (UK) government funding is determined by the number and quality of research publications. This paper aims to investigate on whether more government funding leads to more quality papers. To that end, the paper employs a Network DEA model to evaluate the UK higher education performance over a period. Sources of efficiency are also determined via second stage regression analysis.Keywords: efficiency, higher education, network data envelopment analysis, universities
Procedia PDF Downloads 113252 Brain-Motor Disablement: Using Virtual Reality-Based Therapeutic Simulations
Authors: Vince Macri, Jakub Petioky, Paul Zilber
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Virtual-reality-based technology, i.e. video-game-like simulations (collectively, VRSims) are used in therapy for a variety of medical conditions. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a discussion on criteria for selecting VRSims to augment treatment of survivors of acquired brain injury. Specifically, for treatments to improve or restore brain motor function in upper extremities affected by paresis or paralysis. Six uses of virtual reality are reviewed video games for entertainment, training simulations, unassisted or device-assisted movements of affected or unaffected extremities displayed in virtual environments and virtual anatomical interactivity.Keywords: acquired brain injury, brain-motor function, virtual anatomical interactivity, therapeutic simulations
Procedia PDF Downloads 585251 Assessing Children’s Probabilistic and Creative Thinking in a Non-formal Learning Context
Authors: Ana Breda, Catarina Cruz
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Daily, we face unpredictable events, often attributed to chance, as there is no justification for such an occurrence. Chance, understood as a source of uncertainty, is present in several aspects of human life, such as weather forecasts, dice rolling, and lottery. Surprisingly, humans and some animals can quickly adjust their behavior to handle efficiently doubly stochastic processes (random events with two layers of randomness, like unpredictable weather affecting dice rolling). This adjustment ability suggests that the human brain has built-in mechanisms for perceiving, understanding, and responding to simple probabilities. It also explains why current trends in mathematics education include probability concepts in official curriculum programs, starting from the third year of primary education onwards. In the first years of schooling, children learn to use a certain type of (specific) vocabulary, such as never, always, rarely, perhaps, likely, and unlikely, to help them to perceive and understand the probability of some events. These are keywords of crucial importance for their perception and understanding of probabilities. The development of the probabilistic concepts comes from facts and cause-effect sequences resulting from the subject's actions, as well as the notion of chance and intuitive estimates based on everyday experiences. As part of a junior summer school program, which took place at a Portuguese university, a non-formal learning experiment was carried out with 18 children in the 5th and 6th grades. This experience was designed to be implemented in a dynamic of a serious ice-breaking game, to assess their levels of probabilistic, critical, and creative thinking in understanding impossible, certain, equally probable, likely, and unlikely events, and also to gain insight into how the non-formal learning context influenced their achievements. The criteria used to evaluate probabilistic thinking included the creative ability to conceive events classified in the specified categories, the ability to properly justify the categorization, the ability to critically assess the events classified by other children, and the ability to make predictions based on a given probability. The data analysis employs a qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative-methods approach based on students' written productions, audio recordings, and researchers' field notes. This methodology allowed us to conclude that such an approach is an appropriate and helpful formative assessment tool. The promising results of this initial exploratory study require a future research study with children from these levels of education, from different regions, attending public or private schools, to validate and expand our findings.Keywords: critical and creative thinking, non-formal mathematics learning, probabilistic thinking, serious game
Procedia PDF Downloads 25250 Evaluating the Performance of Offensive Lineman in the National Football League
Authors: Nikhil Byanna, Abdolghani Ebrahimi, Diego Klabjan
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How does one objectively measure the performance of an individual offensive lineman in the NFL? The existing literature proposes various measures that rely on subjective assessments of game film, but has yet to develop an objective methodology to evaluate performance. Using a variety of statistics related to an offensive lineman’s performance, we develop a framework to objectively analyze the overall performance of an individual offensive lineman and determine specific linemen who are overvalued or undervalued relative to their salary. We identify eight players across the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 NFL seasons that are considered to be overvalued or undervalued and corroborate the results with existing metrics that are based on subjective evaluation. To the best of our knowledge, the techniques set forth in this work have not been utilized in previous works to evaluate the performance of NFL players at any position, including offensive linemen.Keywords: offensive lineman, player performance, NFL, machine learning
Procedia PDF Downloads 142249 “We’ve Got to Get This Out of Our Game”: A Reddit Study on the Immediate Reaction to Homophobia in the United Soccer League
Authors: Steffanie Kiourkas
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This study sought to examine fans’ responses to San Diego Loyal player Collin Martin being called a homophobic slur by Phoenix Rising player Junior Flemmings. Fans’ responses were gathered from Reddit comments on a thread posted immediately after the incident. Fans specifically centered their conversations on the homophobic slur, the coaches’ reactions, and the use of homophobia in sports in general. This study identified five themes present in the conversations between soccer fans. The themes generally highlighted critiques of the Phoenix Rising team and head coach, critiques of the use of homophobia in soccer, and support for the San Diego Loyal and hopefulness about the state of society moving forward.Keywords: homophobia, LGBTQ+, United Soccer League, Reddit
Procedia PDF Downloads 86248 From Design, Experience and Play Framework to Common Design Thinking Tools: Using Serious Modern Board Games
Authors: Micael Sousa
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Board games (BGs) are thriving as new designs emerge from the hobby community to greater audiences all around the world. Although digital games are gathering most of the attention in game studies and serious games research fields, the post-digital movement helps to explain why in the world dominated by digital technologies, the analog experiences are still unique and irreplaceable to users, allowing innovation in new hybrid environments. The BG’s new designs are part of these post-digital and hybrid movements because they result from the use of powerful digital tools that enable the production and knowledge sharing about the BGs and their face-to-face unique social experiences. These new BGs, defined as modern by many authors, are providing innovative designs and unique game mechanics that are still not yet fully explored by the main serious games (SG) approaches. Even the most established frameworks settled to address SG, as fun games implemented to achieve predefined goals need more development, especially when considering modern BGs. Despite the many anecdotic perceptions, researchers are only now starting to rediscover BGs and demonstrating their potentials. They are proving that BGs are easy to adapt and to grasp by non-expert players in experimental approaches, with the possibility of easy-going adaptation to players’ profiles and serious objectives even during gameplay. Although there are many design thinking (DT) models and practices, their relations with SG frameworks are also underdeveloped, mostly because this is a new research field, lacking theoretical development and the systematization of the experimental practices. Using BG as case studies promise to help develop these frameworks. Departing from the Design, Experience, and Play (DPE) framework and considering the Common Design Think Tools (CDST), this paper proposes a new experimental framework for the adaptation and development of modern BG design for DT: the Design, Experience, and Play for Think (DPET) experimental framework. This is done through the systematization of the DPE and CDST approaches applied in two case studies, where two different sequences of adapted BG were employed to establish a DT collaborative process. These two sessions occurred with different participants and in different contexts, also using different sequences of games for the same DT approach. The first session took place at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Coimbra in a training session of serious games for project development. The second session took place in the Casa do Impacto through The Great Village Design Jam light. Both sessions had the same duration and were designed to progressively achieve DT goals, using BGs as SGs in a collaborative process. The results from the sessions show that a sequence of BGs, when properly adapted to address the DPET framework, can generate a viable and innovative process of collaborative DT that is productive, fun, and engaging. The DPET proposed framework intents to help establish how new SG solutions could be defined for new goals through flexible DT. Applications in other areas of research and development can also benefit from these findings.Keywords: board games, design thinking, methodology, serious games
Procedia PDF Downloads 110247 Consumer Innovativeness and Shopping Styles: An Empirical Study in Turkey
Authors: Hande Begum Bumin Doyduk, Elif Okan Yolbulan
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Innovation is very important for success and competitiveness of countries, as well as business sectors and individuals' firms. In order to have successful and sustainable innovations, the other side of the game, consumers, should be aware of the innovations and appreciate them. In this study, the consumer innovativeness is focused and the relationship between motivated consumer innovativeness and consumer shopping styles is analyzed. Motivated consumer innovativeness scale by (Vandecasteele & Geuens, 2010) and consumer shopping styles scale by (Sproles & Kendall, 1986) is used. Data is analyzed by SPSS 20 program through realibility, factor, and correlation analysis. According to the findings of the study, there are strong positive relationships between hedonic innovativeness and recreational shopping style; social innovativeness and brand consciousness; cognitive innovativeness and price consciousness and functional innovativeness and perfectionistic high-quality conscious shopping styles.Keywords: consumer innovativeness, consumer decision making, shopping styles, innovativeness
Procedia PDF Downloads 429246 Using Machine Learning to Enhance Win Ratio for College Ice Hockey Teams
Authors: Sadixa Sanjel, Ahmed Sadek, Naseef Mansoor, Zelalem Denekew
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Collegiate ice hockey (NCAA) sports analytics is different from the national level hockey (NHL). We apply and compare multiple machine learning models such as Linear Regression, Random Forest, and Neural Networks to predict the win ratio for a team based on their statistics. Data exploration helps determine which statistics are most useful in increasing the win ratio, which would be beneficial to coaches and team managers. We ran experiments to select the best model and chose Random Forest as the best performing. We conclude with how to bridge the gap between the college and national levels of sports analytics and the use of machine learning to enhance team performance despite not having a lot of metrics or budget for automatic tracking.Keywords: NCAA, NHL, sports analytics, random forest, regression, neural networks, game predictions
Procedia PDF Downloads 113245 Operations Research Applications in Audit Planning and Scheduling
Authors: Abdel-Aziz M. Mohamed
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This paper presents a state-of-the-art survey of the operations research models developed for internal audit planning. Two alternative approaches have been followed in the literature for audit planning: (1) identifying the optimal audit frequency; and (2) determining the optimal audit resource allocation. The first approach identifies the elapsed time between two successive audits, which can be presented as the optimal number of audits in a given planning horizon, or the optimal number of transactions after which an audit should be performed. It also includes the optimal audit schedule. The second approach determines the optimal allocation of audit frequency among all auditable units in the firm. In our review, we discuss both the deterministic and probabilistic models developed for audit planning. In addition, game theory models are reviewed to find the optimal auditing strategy based on the interactions between the auditors and the clients.Keywords: operations research applications, audit frequency, audit-staff scheduling, audit planning
Procedia PDF Downloads 815244 Compromised Sexual Territoriality under Reflexive Cosmopolitanism: From Coffee Bean to Gay Bean in South Korea
Authors: Robert Christopher Hamilton
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This research examined the effects of reflexive cosmopolitanism on the competition for sexual territoriality. By adopting Michel De Certeau’s (1984) spatial didactic model, the article maps out the key elements at play and the dynamics explaining how gays gay place in the backdrop of rapid modernization. It found that heterosexual space and heteronormative assumptions helped to create temporal and spatial opportunities that allow for sexual performativity of gay males. Moreover, using data collected from multiple semi-controlled one-on-one interviews over 13 months, this article illustrates how spatial competition culminates in non-zero sum game outcomes and particularly to compromise of sexual territoriality while further demonstrating the need to understand the sexual coping tactics used in cultures with similar backgrounds. The findings enable researchers to better understand how gay men gay space, and how space performatively embodies gay men.Keywords: South Korea, coffee bean, sexual territoriality, reflexive cosmopolitanism
Procedia PDF Downloads 327243 The Next Game Changer: 3-D Printed Musical Instruments
Authors: Leonardo Ko
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In an era marked by rapid technological innovation, the classical instrument industry nonetheless has not seen significant change. Is this a matter of stubborn traditionalism, or do old, conventional instruments really sound better? Because of the widespread use of 3-D printing, it seems feasible to produce modern, 3-D printed instruments that adhere to the basic conventions of standard construction. This study aimed to design and create a practical, effective 3-D printed acoustic violin. A cost-benefit analysis of materials and design is presented in addition to a report on sound tests in which a pool of professional musicians compared the traditional violin to its synthetic counterpart with regard to acoustic properties. With a low-cost yet functional instrument, musicians of all levels would be able to afford instruments with much greater ease; the present study thus hopes to contribute to efforts to increase the accessibility of classical music education.Keywords: acoustic musical instrument, classical musical education, low-cost, 3-D printing
Procedia PDF Downloads 228242 Competitive Advantages of a Firm without Fundamental Technology: A Case Study of Sony, Casio and Nintendo
Authors: Kiyohiro Yamazaki
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A purpose of this study is to examine how a firm without fundamental technology is able to gain the competitive advantage. This paper examines three case studies, Sony in the flat display TV industry, Casio in the digital camera industry and Nintendo in the home game machine industry. This paper maintain the firms without fundamental technology construct two advantages, economic advantage and organizational advantage. An economic advantage involves the firm can select either high-tech or cheap devices out of several device makers, and change the alternatives cheaply and quickly. In addition, organizational advantage means that a firm without fundamental technology is not restricted by organizational inertia and cognitive restraints, and exercises the characteristic of strength.Keywords: firm without fundamental technology, economic advantage, organizational advantage, Sony, Casio, Nintendo
Procedia PDF Downloads 287241 Using Learning Apps in the Classroom
Authors: Janet C. Read
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UClan set collaboration with Lingokids to assess the Lingokids learning app's impact on learning outcomes in classrooms in the UK for children with ages ranging from 3 to 5 years. Data gathered during the controlled study with 69 children includes attitudinal data, engagement, and learning scores. Data shows that children enjoyment while learning was higher among those children using the game-based app compared to those children using other traditional methods. It’s worth pointing out that engagement when using the learning app was significantly higher than other traditional methods among older children. According to existing literature, there is a direct correlation between engagement, motivation, and learning. Therefore, this study provides relevant data points to conclude that Lingokids learning app serves its purpose of encouraging learning through playful and interactive content. That being said, we believe that learning outcomes should be assessed with a wider range of methods in further studies. Likewise, it would be beneficial to assess the level of usability and playability of the app in order to evaluate the learning app from other angles.Keywords: learning app, learning outcomes, rapid test activity, Smileyometer, early childhood education, innovative pedagogy
Procedia PDF Downloads 68240 Appraisal of Maintenance Practices in Selected Tourist Attraction in Bauchi State, Nigeria
Authors: Eldah Ephraim Buba, Amina Bata Zoaka, Aishatu Ibrahim
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This study appraised maintenance practices in selected tourist attractions in Bauchi state, Nigeria. Four tourist attractions were used for the research. Checklists were used to assess operations and repairs maintenance practices in the different attractions. The study carried out personal assessment thrice in six months without prior knowledge of the staff in charge for operational maintenance. Records of repairs maintenance from the attractions maintenance unit for a period of ten years were assessed using the checklists. The findings of the study show that operations maintenance was not adequately carried out in the four tourists attractions. Repairs maintenance was carried out in Yankari game reserve and safari, but repairs maintenance was poor in the other three attractions. The study therefore, recommends that adequate maintenance should be practiced in tourist attractions to expand the lifespan of the facilities and also encourage tourist patronage.Keywords: appraisal, maintenance, practices, tourist attraction
Procedia PDF Downloads 298239 Gamification of a Business Intelligence Tool
Authors: Stephen Miller
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The act of applying game mechanics and dynamics (which have been traditionally used in video games) into business applications is being widely trialed in an effort to make conventional business software a bit more participative, fun and engaging. This new trend, named ‘gamification’ has its believers and of course, its critics who still need convincing that the concept is an effective and beneficial business tool worthy of investment. The literature reveals that user engagement of business intelligence (BI) tools is much lower than expected and investors are failing to get a good return on their investment (ROI). So, a software prototype will be designed and developed to add gamification to a BI tool to determine its effect upon the user engagement levels of test participants. The experimental study will be evaluated using the comprehensive User Engagement Scale (UES) to see if there are improvements in areas such as; aesthetics, perceived usability, endurability, novelty, felt involvement and focused attention. The results of this unique study should demonstrate whether or not ‘gamifying’ a BI tool has the potential to increase an individual’s motivation to use BI software more often.Keywords: business intelligence, gamification, human computer interaction, user engagement
Procedia PDF Downloads 583238 Investigating Breakdowns in Human Robot Interaction: A Conversation Analysis Guided Single Case Study of a Human-Robot Communication in a Museum Environment
Authors: B. Arend, P. Sunnen, P. Caire
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In a single case study, we show how a conversation analysis (CA) approach can shed light onto the sequential unfolding of human-robot interaction. Relying on video data, we are able to show that CA allows us to investigate the respective turn-taking systems of humans and a NAO robot in their dialogical dynamics, thus pointing out relevant differences. Our fine grained video analysis points out occurring breakdowns and their overcoming, when humans and a NAO-robot engage in a multimodally uttered multi-party communication during a sports guessing game. Our findings suggest that interdisciplinary work opens up the opportunity to gain new insights into the challenging issues of human robot communication in order to provide resources for developing mechanisms that enable complex human-robot interaction (HRI).Keywords: human robot interaction, conversation analysis, dialogism, breakdown, museum
Procedia PDF Downloads 303237 Idea, Creativity, Design, and Ultimately, Playing with Mathematics
Authors: Yasaman Azarmjoo
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Since ancient times, it has been said that mathematics is the mother of all sciences and the foundation of basic concepts in every field and profession. It would be great if, after learning this subject, we could enable students to create games and activities based on the same mathematical concepts. This article explores the design of various mathematical activities in the form of games, utilizing different mathematical topics such as algebra, equations, binary systems, and one-to-one correspondence. The theoretical significance of this article lies in uncovering alternative approaches to teaching and learning mathematics. By employing creative and interactive methods such as game design, it challenges the traditional perception of mathematics as a difficult and laborious subject. The theoretical significance of this article lies in demonstrating that mathematics can be made more accessible and enjoyable, which can result in heightened interest and engagement in the subject. In general, this article reveals another aspect of mathematics.Keywords: playing with mathematics, algebra and equations, binary systems, one-to-one correspondence
Procedia PDF Downloads 92236 Building a Measure of Sensory Preferences For (Wrestling and Boxing) Players
Authors: Mohamed Nabhan
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The research aims to build a measure of sensory preferences for (wrestling and boxing) players. The researchers used the descriptive approach and a sample of (8) consisting of (40) wrestling players, (40) boxing players with different scales, and they were chosen in a deliberate random way, and the most important results were that there were statistically significant differences between wrestlers and boxers in the sensory preferences of their senses. There is no indication in the sensory preferences for the senses of “sight and hearing” and that the significance is in favor of the wrestlers in the senses of “sight and touch,” and there is a convergence in the sense of hearing. Through the value of the averagesAfter collecting the data and statistical treatments and the results reached by the researcher, it was possible to reach: The following conclusions and recommendations: There are differences between wrestling and boxing players in their sensory preferences, the senses used in learning, due to several reasons, the most important of which may be as follows:- Scales for the player and for each sport separately. The nature of the game, the performance of skills, and dealing with the opponent or competitor.Tools used in performance and training.Keywords: sensory preferences, sensory scale, wrestling players, boxing players
Procedia PDF Downloads 110235 National Strategy for Swedish Wildlife Management
Authors: Maria Hornell, Marcus Ohman
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Nature, and the society it is a part of, is under constant change. The landscape, climate and game populations vary over time, as well as society's priorities and the way it uses the land where wildlife may proliferate. Sweden currently has historically large wildlife populations which are a resource for the benefit and joy of many people. Wildlife may also be seen as a problem as it may cause damage in contradiction to other human interests. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency introduces a new long-term strategy for national wildlife management. The strategy envisions a wildlife management in balance. It focuses on wildlife values in a broad sense including outdoor recreation and tourism as well as conservation of biodiversity. It is fundamental that these values should be open and accessible for the major part of the population. For that to be possible new ways to manage, mitigate and prevent damages and other problems that wildlife causes need to be developed. The strategy describes a roadmap for the development and strengthening of Sweden's wildlife management until 2020. It aims at being applicable for those authorities and stakeholders with interest in wildlife management being a guide for their own strategies, goals, and activities.Keywords: wildlife management, strategy, Sweden, SEPA
Procedia PDF Downloads 216234 Modeling and Simulation of Flow Shop Scheduling Problem through Petri Net Tools
Authors: Joselito Medina Marin, Norberto Hernández Romero, Juan Carlos Seck Tuoh Mora, Erick S. Martinez Gomez
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The Flow Shop Scheduling Problem (FSSP) is a typical problem that is faced by production planning managers in Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). This problem consists in finding the optimal scheduling to carry out a set of jobs, which are processed in a set of machines or shared resources. Moreover, all the jobs are processed in the same machine sequence. As in all the scheduling problems, the makespan can be obtained by drawing the Gantt chart according to the operations order, among other alternatives. On this way, an FMS presenting the FSSP can be modeled by Petri nets (PNs), which are a powerful tool that has been used to model and analyze discrete event systems. Then, the makespan can be obtained by simulating the PN through the token game animation and incidence matrix. In this work, we present an adaptive PN to obtain the makespan of FSSP by applying PN analytical tools.Keywords: flow-shop scheduling problem, makespan, Petri nets, state equation
Procedia PDF Downloads 296233 Preliminary Proposal to Use Adaptive Computer Games in the Virtual Rehabilitation Therapy
Authors: Mamoun S. Ideis, Zein Salah
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Virtual Rehabilitation (VR) refers to using Virtual Reality’s hardware and simulations as means of exercising tools to rehabilitate patients in need. These patients will undergo their treatment exercises while playing different computer games, which helps achieve greater motivation for patients undergoing their therapeutic exercises. Virtual Rehabilitation systems adopt computer games as part of the treatment therapy. In this paper, we present a preliminary proposal to using adaptive computer games in Virtual Rehabilitation therapy. We also present some tips in designing those adaptive computer games by using different machine learning algorithms in order to create a personalized experience for each patient, which in turn, increases the potential benefits of the treatment that each patient receives. Furthermore, we propose a method of comparing the results of treatment using the adaptive computer games with the results of using static and classical computer games.Keywords: virtual rehabilitation, physiotherapy, adaptive computer games, post-stroke, game design
Procedia PDF Downloads 295232 The Veil of Virtuality: Anonymity and Trust in the Metaverse's New Frontier
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Utilizing a preregistered randomized experiment, this study explores the effects of anonymity and curated identity on trust within the Metaverse. Participants were randomly assigned to different conditions of anonymity and identity curation and engaged in a series of tasks designed to mirror the complexities of trust in real-world social interactions. Trust was measured using the classical trust game, allowing for a nuanced understanding of how these factors interact and influence trust. The findings reveal that higher levels of anonymity negatively impact trust, while identity curation can moderate this effect. Mechanism analysis uncovers how anonymity influences perceived reciprocity and group cohesion, and how curation can moderate these relationships. The results demonstrate a nuanced interaction between anonymity and trust, with variations across different curation levels. These insights provide a multifaceted understanding of trust within virtual environments, contributing valuable knowledge to the design, policy-making, and ethical considerations of the MetaverseKeywords: metaverse, anonymity, curated identity, social behavior, trust
Procedia PDF Downloads 136231 Human Security Providers in Fragile State under Asymmetric War Conditions
Authors: Luna Shamieh
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Various players are part of the game in an asymmetric war, all making efforts to provide human security to their own adherents. Although a fragile state is not able to provide sufficient and comprehensive services, it still provides special services and security to the elite; the insurgents as well provide services and security to their associates. The humanitarian organisations, on the other hand, provide some fundamental elements of human security, but only in the regions, they are able to access when possible (if possible). The counterinsurgents (security forces of the state and intervention forces) operate within a narrow band defined by the vision of the responsibility to protect and the perspective of the resolution of the conflict through combat; hence, the possibility to provide human security is shaken at this end. This article examines how each player provides human security from the perspective of freedom from want in order to secure basic and strategic needs, freedom from fear through providing protection against all kinds of violence, and the freedom to live in dignity. It identifies a vicious cycle caused by the intervention of the different players causing a centrifugal force that may lead to disintegration of the nation under war.Keywords: asymmetric war, counterinsurgency, fragile state, human security, insurgency
Procedia PDF Downloads 332230 Preference Aggregation and Mechanism Design in the Smart Grid
Authors: Zaid Jamal Saeed Almahmoud
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Smart Grid is the vision of the future power system that combines advanced monitoring and communication technologies to provide energy in a smart, efficient, and user-friendly manner. This proposal considers a demand response model in the Smart Grid based on utility maximization. Given a set of consumers with conflicting preferences in terms of consumption and a utility company that aims to minimize the peak demand and match demand to supply, we study the problem of aggregating these preferences while modelling the problem as a game. We also investigate whether an equilibrium can be reached to maximize the social benefit. Based on such equilibrium, we propose a dynamic pricing heuristic that computes the equilibrium and sets the prices accordingly. The developed approach was analysed theoretically and evaluated experimentally using real appliances data. The results show that our proposed approach achieves a substantial reduction in the overall energy consumption.Keywords: heuristics, smart grid, aggregation, mechanism design, equilibrium
Procedia PDF Downloads 110229 Mixing Students: an Educational Experience with Future Industrial Designers and Mechanical Engineers
Authors: J. Lino Alves, L. Lopes
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It is not new that industrial design projects are a result of cooperative work from different areas of knowledge. However, in the academic teaching of Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering courses, it is not recurrent that those competences are mixed before the professional life arrives. This abstract intends to describe two semester experiences carried out by two professors - a mechanical engineer and an industrial designer - in the last two academic years, for which they created mixed teams of Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering (UPorto University). The two experiences differ in several factors; the main one is related to the challenges of online education, a constraint that affected the second experience. In the first year, even before foreseeing the effects that the pandemic would reconfigure the education system, a partnership with the Education Service of Águas do Porto was established. The purpose of the exercise was the project development of a game that could be an interaction element oriented to potentiate a positive experience and as an educational contribution to the children. In the second year, already foreseeing that the teaching experience would be carried out online, it was decided to design an open briefing, which allowed the groups to choose among three themes: a hand scale game using additive manufacturing; a modular system for ventilated facade using a parametric design basis; or, a modular system for vertical gardens. In methodological terms, besides the weekly follow-up, with the simultaneous support of the two professors, a group self-evaluation was requested; and a form to be filled individually to evaluate other groups. One of the first conclusions is related to the briefing format. Industrial Design students seem comfortable working on an open briefing that allows them to draw the project on a conceptual basis created for that purpose; on the other hand, Mechanical Engineering students were uncomfortable and insecure in the initial phase due to the absence of concrete, closed "order." In other words, it is not recurrent for Mechanical Engineering students that the creative component is stimulated, seemingly leaving them reserved to the technical solution and execution, depriving them of the co-creation phase during the conceptual construction of the project's own brief. Another fact that was registered is related to the leadership positions in the groups, which alternated according to the state of development of the project: design students took the lead during the ideation/concept phase, while mechanical engineering ones took a greater lead during the intermediate development process, namely in the definition of constructive solutions, mass/volume calculations, manufacturing, and material resistance. Designers' competences were again more evident and assumed in the final phase, especially in communication skills, as well as in simulations in the context of use. However, at some moments, it was visible the capacity for quite balanced leadership between engineering and design, in a constant debate centered on the human factor of the project - evidenced in the final solution, in the compromise and balance between technical constraints, functionality, usability, and aesthetics.Keywords: education, industrial design, mechanical engineering, teaching ethodologies
Procedia PDF Downloads 173228 Esports: A Biomechanics and Performance Perspective
Authors: Alex S. Talan
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The introduction of scientific terms for esports can directly affect the quality of the training process. This is a critically important scientific task since esports is a rapidly developing global sport that has only recently begun to receive scientific and methodological consideration. In this report, we evaluate esports from a biomechanical perspective. First, we examine the relationship between physical performance and esports gaming techniques, with consideration toward engineering more effective physical and in-game training methodologies for amateur and professional esports competitors. In addition, we advocate that applying biomechanical research methodologies has the added potential to improve physical performance and endurance in esports athletes. With the budding attention on the esports enterprise globally, scientific research into esports would benefit from standardizing terminologies and methodological approaches that are specifically tailored to assess esports training efficacy to enhance individual and team performance within the esports community.Keywords: cybersport, esports, biomechanics, sports technique, training standards, dental occlusion, sports engineering, sitting pose
Procedia PDF Downloads 86227 Contracting Strategies to Foster Industrial Symbiosis Implementation
Authors: Robin Molinier
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Industrial symbiosis (I.S) deals with the exchange of waste materials, fatal energy and utilities as resources for production. While it brings environmental benefits from resource conservation its economic profitability is one of the main barriers to its implementation. I.S involves several actors with their own objectives and resources so that each actor must be satisfied by ex-ante arrangements to commit toward investments and transactions. Regarding I.S Transaction cost economics helps to identify hybrid forms of governance for transactions governance due to I.S projects specificities induced by the need for customization (asset specificity, non-homogeneity). Thus we propose a framework to analyze the best contractual practices tailored to address I.S specific risks that we identified as threefold (load profiles and quality mismatch, value fluctuations). Schemes from cooperative game theory and contracting management are integrated to analyze value flows between actors. Contractual guidelines are then proposed to address the identified risks and to split the value for a set of I.S archetypes drawn from actual experiences.Keywords: contracts, economics, industrial symbiosis, risks
Procedia PDF Downloads 207226 Quantifying Individual Performance of Pakistani Cricket Players
Authors: Kasif Khan, Azlan Allahwala, Moiz Ali, Hasan Lodhi, Umer Amjad
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The number of runs scored by batsmen and wickets taken by bowlers serves as a natural way of quantifying the performance of a cricketer. Traditionally the batsmen and bowlers are rated on their batting or bowling average respectively. However, in a game like Cricket, it is not sufficient to evaluate performance on the basis of average. The biasness in selecting batsman and bowler on the basis of their past performance. The objective is to predict the best player and comparing their performance on the basis of venue, opponent, weather, and particular position. On the basis of predictions and analysis, and comparison the best team is selected for next upcoming series of Pakistan. The system is based and will be built to aid analyst in finding best possible team combination of Pakistan for a particular match and by providing them with advisories so that they can select the best possible team combination. This will also help the team management in identifying a perfect batting order and the bowling order for each match.Keywords: data analysis, Pakistan cricket players, quantifying individual performance, cricket
Procedia PDF Downloads 296225 Using Virtual Reality Exergaming to Improve Health of College Students
Authors: Juanita Wallace, Mark Jackson, Bethany Jurs
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Introduction: Exergames, VR games used as a form of exercise, are being used to reduce sedentary lifestyles in a vast number of populations. However, there is a distinct lack of research comparing the physiological response during VR exergaming to that of traditional exercises. The purpose of this study was to create a foundationary investigation establishing changes in physiological responses resulting from VR exergaming in a college aged population. Methods: In this IRB approved study, college aged students were recruited to play a virtual reality exergame (Beat Saber) on the Oculus Quest 2 (Facebook, 2021) in either a control group (CG) or training group (TG). Both groups consisted of subjects who were not habitual users of virtual reality. The CG played VR one time per week for three weeks and the TG played 150 min/week three weeks. Each group played the same nine Beat Saber songs, in a randomized order, during 30 minute sessions. Song difficulty was increased during play based on song performance. Subjects completed a pre- and posttests at which the following was collected: • Beat Saber Game Metrics: song level played, song score, number of beats completed per song and accuracy (beats completed/total beats) • Physiological Data: heart rate (max and avg.), active calories • Demographics Results: A total of 20 subjects completed the study; nine in the CG (3 males, 6 females) and 11 (5 males, 6 females) in the TG. • Beat Saber Song Metrics: The TG improved performance from a normal/hard difficulty to hard/expert. The CG stayed at the normal/hard difficulty. At the pretest there was no difference in game accuracy between groups. However, at the posttest the CG had a higher accuracy. • Physiological Data (Table 1): Average heart rates were similar between the TG and CG at both the pre- and posttest. However, the TG expended more total calories. Discussion: Due to the lack of peer reviewed literature on c exergaming using Beat Saber, the results of this study cannot be directly compared. However, the results of this study can be compared with the previously established trends for traditional exercise. In traditional exercise, an increase in training volume equates to increased efficiency at the activity. The TG should naturally increase in difficulty at a faster rate than the CG because they played 150 hours per week. Heart rate and caloric responses also increase during traditional exercise as load increases (i.e. speed or resistance). The TG reported an increase in total calories due to a higher difficulty of play. The song accuracy decreases in the TG can be explained by the increased difficulty of play. Conclusion: VR exergaming is comparable to traditional exercise for loads within the 50-70% of maximum heart rate. The ability to use VR for health could motivate individuals who do not engage in traditional exercise. In addition, individuals in health professions can and should promote VR exergaming as a viable way to increase physical activity and improve health in their clients/patients.Keywords: virtual reality, exergaming, health, heart rate, wellness
Procedia PDF Downloads 184224 A Phenomenological Study of Sports for the Analysis of Soccer Game: On Embodiment of the Goal Type Ball Games of Team Sports
Authors: K. Kiniwa, S. Kitagawa, M. Kawamoto, H. Uchiyama
Abstract:
This study aims to identify phenomenologically the embodiment of soccer in order to analyze soccer games. In this paper the authors focused on the embodiment of sports and the embodiment of the goal type ball games of team sports. The authors revealed that the embodiment of sports is represented by inverse proportional body. It is possible for this structure (body scheme) of intercorporeality of sports to be compared to the symbolic figure of Uroboros which is a monster connected the tails of two snakes. The embodiment of the goal type ball games of team sports has dependency on situation and complexity. In doing this, it revealed that soccer is sensitive and emotional sports.Keywords: intercorporeality, structure, body scheme, Uroboros, inverse proportional body, dependency on situation, complexity
Procedia PDF Downloads 301