The Tiger Vol. 86 Issue 7 1992-10-09

https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/tiger_newspaper/3114/thumbnail.jp

Playful networks: measuring, analysing and understanding the social effects of game design

Games are fundamentally a social activity. The effects of this foundation can be felt at every level - from the social negotiation of rules, through cooperation and collaboration between players during the game, to the effects of relationships and social status on play. Social effects can change the way the game is played, but the mechanics of games can also affect the patterns of social behaviours of the players. The arrangement of game mechanics and interfaces together defines a ``social architecture". This architecture is not limited to directly social mechanics such as trading and messaging - the game design itself has a holistic effect on social activity. This dissertation frames games around these social aspects, and focuses on analysis of the patterns that emerge from these playful interactions. Firstly, a model is defined to understand games based on the social effects of play, and these effects explored based on the varying impact they have on the play experience. Mischief and deviance is also investigated as forces that challenge these social effects in and around games. Based on interaction data gathered from server logs of experimental social games, social network analysis is used as a tool to uncover the macroscopic social architectures formed by each design. This allows the use of quantitative methods to understand the nature of the relationship between game design and the social patterns that emerge around games in play. Key findings confirm that social activity follows a heavy-tailed distribution - a small number of ``hardcore" players are responsible for a disproportionately large number of interactions in the community of the game. Further than this, the connections between active hardcore and the rest of the player base show that without the hardcore users, the community of games as ``small worlds" would collapse, with large numbers of players being separated from the society within a game. The emergence of grouping behaviour is investigated based on the effect of social feedback. Following findings of social psychology in non-game environments, evidence is provided that highlights the effect of socio-contextual feedback on players forming strongly bound tribal groups within games. The communities formed through the play of games can be described in terms of network graphs - webs of interactions flowing around a network of players. Social network analyses of social games show the emergence of patterns of reciprocity, clustering and tribal behaviours among the players. The evidence also shows that the collections of game mechanics, or social architectures, of games have a predictable effect on the wider social patterns of the players. As such, this suggests games can be specifically engineered for social effects based on changes in the patterns of interactions, and issues around mechanical or interface elements can be identified based on anomalies observed in the network graph of player interactions. Together, this dissertation provides a link between the theoretical ideas around social play to the measurable effects of social behaviours of players within games. It proves that game designs, as mechanical systems, have a demonstrable effect on the social patterns of play, and that these patterns can be examined and used to engineer better game designs for the benefit of social experience

Liminal identity in contemporary American television science fiction

This thesis examines the foregrounding of a particular type of liminal human protagonist in contemporary American television Science Fiction. These protagonists, which I have termed the ‘unliving,’ exist in-between the realms of life and death, simultaneously both alive and dead whilst occupying an indistinct middleground. I examine how the liminal nature of these protagonists has been used as a means of exploring various aspects of personal identity during the early years of the twenty-first century. Developing anthropologist Victor Witter Turner’s work, in which he argued for the universal occurrence of liminality in cultural, political, economic and social contexts, I argue that the use of liminal protagonists in American television Science Fiction constitutes a demonstrable trend. Although they are to be found in ever-increasing numbers in (and outside) the genre, their growing presence and significance have yet to be properly discerned, studied and appreciated. I analyse the use of these unliving protagonists in four key texts: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (The Halcyon Company/Warner Bros. Television, 2008-2009), Battlestar Galactica (Universal/Sci-Fi TV, 2004-2009), Caprica (Universal/Sci-Fi TV, 2010-2011) and Dollhouse (Boston Diva Productions/20th Century Fox, 2009-2010). Textual analyses of serial television are often dismissed as outmoded and irrelevant to the study of television. Part of the aim of this thesis is to repudiate this widespread assumption. Therefore, my methodology involves the use of close narrative analysis to interrogate my chosen texts, situating my findings within broader sociocultural contexts. Utilising this methodological approach reveals how these texts engage with contemporary concerns and anxieties regarding illness, religion, trauma, and gender. Ultimately, this thesis presents an intervention within ongoing discourses regarding the relationship between these subjects and personal identity in 21st century America

Corpus-Based Research on Chinese Language and Linguistics

This volume collects papers presenting corpus-based research on Chinese language and linguistics, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. The contributions cover different fields of linguistics, including syntax and pragmatics, semantics, morphology and the lexicon, sociolinguistics, and corpus building. There is now considerable emphasis on the reliability of linguistic data: the studies presented here are all grounded in the tenet that corpora, intended as collections of naturally occurring texts produced by a variety of speakers/writers, provide a more robust, statistically significant foundation for linguistic analysis. The volume explores not only the potential of using corpora as tools allowing access to authentic language material, but also the challenges involved in corpus interrogation, analysis, and building

Telepathy in contemporary, conceptual and performance art

This thesis investigates the impact of telepathy and psi on conceptual and performance art from 1968. Emerging from the author’s art practice, the thesis argues telepathy is a key leitmotif and creative concern within much post 60s art, and has become central to the practice of a number of contemporary video, performance and new media artists. This thesis is composed of two interrelated parts: an exhibition of the artwork by the author concerning telepathic processes, and a written project which uses the major themes of the exhibition to frame an historical study of a number of key contemporary artists whom, it is argued, work with telepathy. These artists, Jane and Louise Wilson, Suzanne Treister and Susan Hiller are discussed under the themes of ‘twinning and doubling,’ ‘technological mediums’ and ‘telepathy experiments’. These themes also overlap in the authors artwork, are introduced through an overarching analysis of the work of performance artist Marina Abramoviç and philosopher Jacques Derrida who, it is argued, provide a new model of telepathy as an art practice. In addition, the thesis argues that telepathy is an often suppressed thematic in art which may not appear to directly address it, and uses the work on the Wilsons, Treister and Hiller to re-look at other 20th Century artists and artistic themes in the light of the conclusions it draws on telepathy and art. Walter Benjamin greatly admired the Surrealists, but had virtually no time for their interest in telepathy, hypnosis and psi. Together with positive materialist misappropriations of Adorno’s Thesis Against Occultism, artistic and theoretical work with telepathy and psi has been sidelined from other important themes in art and critical theory, all of which telepathy and psi illuminate, energise and empower. The art of the author and other more recognised and established artists can be seen to work with telepathy in ways that flow into and reinforce the grain of progressive leftist practice and aesthetics. Women’s work with telepathy should be considered as important as women’s work with sexuality. Women, sexuality, Otherness, liminality, spirituality, telepathy, trauma, healing, radical politics, and other taboo areas of patriachal codes, were adandoned by macho participants of fluxus and Conceptual art. The recent conceptual and performance tilt in contemporary art sheds new light on the problem of working within and developing an effective and dynamic lineage of telepathy in post 60s art as well as early modern art movements. Contemporary developments in science, engineering, biology, psychoanalysis, warfare, popular culture and sociology show the wider relevance of discourse on telepathy. There is much at stake for visual art, aesthetics and visuality in representing, celebrating and interrogating the theme of psi and telepathy in current practice and art history. Artist's work with telepathy and psi, although not always explicitly psychological, political or aesthetic, is often very psychologically, politically and aesthetically effective

A Holmes and Doyle Bibliography, Volume 9: All Formats—Combined Alphabetical Listing

This bibliography is a work in progress. It attempts to update Ronald B. De Waal’s comprehensive bibliography, The Universal Sherlock Holmes, but does not claim to be exhaustive in content. New works are continually discovered and added to this bibliography. Readers and researchers are invited to suggest additional content. This volume contains all listings in all formats, arranged alphabetically by author or main entry. In other words, it combines the listings from Volume 1 (Monograph and Serial Titles), Volume 3 (Periodical Articles), and Volume 7 (Audio/Visual Materials) into a comprehensive bibliography. (There may be additional materials included in this list, e.g. duplicate items and items not yet fully edited.) As in the other volumes, coverage of this material begins around 1994, the final year covered by De Waal's bibliography, but may not yet be totally up-to-date (given the ongoing nature of this bibliography). It is hoped that other titles will be added at a later date. At present, this bibliography includes 12,594 items

Plant Phenotyping and Phenomics for Plant Breeding

As a consequence of the global climate change, both the reduction on yield potential and the available surface area of cultivated species will compromise the production of food needed for a constant growing population. There is consensus about the significant gap between world food consumption projected for the coming decades and the expected crop yield-improvements, which are estimated to be insufficient to meet the demand. The complexity of this scenario will challenge breeders to develop cultivars that are better adapted to adverse environmental conditions, therefore incorporating a new set of morpho-physiological and physico-chemical traits; a large number of these traits have been found to be linked to heat and drought tolerance. Currently, the only reasonable way to satisfy all these demands is through acquisition of high-dimensional phenotypic data (high-throughput phenotyping), allowing researchers with a holistic comprehension of plant responses, or ‘Phenomics’. Phenomics is still under development. This Research Topic aims to be a contribution to the progress of methodologies and analysis to help understand the performance of a genotype in a given environment