39,487 research outputs found
Promises, Promises
As host of the Olympic Games, China seeks to increase national economic and socialdevelopment and "display to the world a new image of China", and presents the Games as an opportunity to foster democracy, improve human rights and integrate China with the rest of the world. In its Olympic Action Plan promulgated in 2002, China outlined the phases of construction in the run up to the 2008 Games, and the standards to which it would hold itself in the governance and construction of venues, impact on Beijing's environment, increasing social and economic development and providing China's citizenry with greater access to information and technology.The goals and specific commitments that the government has adopted not only have implications for the smooth and successfuloperation of the Olympic Games, but also have the potential to impact on a number of China's international obligations, including its human rights obligations.Despite human rights-related commitments as diverse as transparency and accountability, access to information and freedom of the press, poverty alleviation, an improved standard of living for all people, and compensation for evictions and health issues, the record to date raises serious compliance issues
Pathways to the Future: Community Dialogues on Adaptive Environmental Management Through Scenario Projection in Google Maps
This paper presents research on the potential of interactive media for regional community dialogues on future uncertainties and complexities in coupled human and natural systems. More adaptive perspectives on natural resources management are needed to respond to rapid environmental and social change. Scenarios are a useful tool for participatory explorations of future issues that are high on uncertainties and complexities. We explore how scenarios can bank on the communicatory effectiveness of interactive media to increase their impact. We present a method, the Scenario Communities project, currently in testing phase, that combines strategies from serious gaming, landscape visualization and web 2.0 technology. We also present a number of visual tests that we use to analyse the effects of the scenario communication
Recommended from our members
The antinomies of aggressive atheism
The spate of popular books attacking religion can be seen as a manifestation of the recoil against the idea of multiculturalism. Religious identities are also cultural identities, and no meaningful form of multiculturalism is possible that leaves religion outside the sphere of public recognitiom. This paper argues that 'aggressive atheism' undermines its appeal to reason by refusing to see anything of value in religion. It also risks exacerbating cultural differences at a time when reconciliation is needed. The critique focuses on the contribution of Richard Dawkins and examines a number of tensions within the aggressive atheism of his best-selling book The God Delusion. The second part of the paper introduces an alternative, a framework of reconciliatory dialogues, between atheism and religion and within religious communities, operating not just at a formal or institutional level but also in cultural expressions and in the practices of everyday life
Volunteers and volunteering in leisure : social science perspectives
Leisure has been widely examined within the context of social science theory; however, little work has considered the range of social science disciplines and applied them to specific phenomena located within the leisure field. This paper adopts such an approach to conceptualise and examine volunteers and volunteering in leisure settings. In a disciplinary sense, therefore, the sociological view focuses upon the conceptualisation of volunteering as leisure, the psychological view seeks to understand motivations driving volunteering while the perspective of economists tends to complement these standpoints in terms of why people volunteer and further examines the value of volunteer contributions. Comparative analysis of the perspectives enunciated within these key disciplines provides a picture of the status of research relating to leisure volunteers and volunteering. The purposes of this paper are to identify gaps in current knowledge, drawing out conclusions and their implications for an improved understanding of this area as well as to enhance comprehension of disciplinary contributions to the study of leisure phenomena
Supporting Dialogue and Analysis on Trade-Offs in Climate Adaptation Research With the Maladaptation Game
Background. Serious games are gaining increasing prominence in environmental communication research, but their potential to form an integrated part of participatory research approaches is still strikingly understudied. This is particularly the case for applications of interactive digital formats in research on environmental challenges of high complexity, such as climate adaptation, which is a specifically suitable case as it involves complex interaction between climate systems and society, but where the response also involves trade-offs with potentially negative - maladaptive - outcomes. Intervention. This article presents the Maladaptation Game, which was designed to facilitate dialogue about potential negative outcomes of agricultural climate adaptation. Methods. We conducted test sessions with agricultural stakeholders in Finland and Sweden, and analysed quantitative and qualitative, audio-recorded and transcribed, material for opportunities and challenges related to dialogues, engagement, interactivity and experienced relevance. Results. The qualitative analysis of recorded dialogues shows that the Maladaptation Game has potential to support dialogue by challenging players to negotiate between options with negative outcomes. The gameplay itself presents opportunities in terms of creating engagement with options that provoke disagreement and debates between players, as well as interactivity, that players reflected upon as quick and easy, while challenges were related to the experienced relevance, in particular the options provided in the game, and its general framing. Conclusions. The results indicate a need for complementary approaches to this type of game but also suggest the importance of moderation when the game design is aimed at creating dialogue around a complex environmental challenge such as agricultural climate adaptation.Peer reviewe
Teaching ISO/IEC 12207 software lifecycle processes: a serious game approach
Serious games involve applying game design techniques to tasks of a serious nature. In particular, serious games can be used as informative tools and can be embedded in formal education. Although there are some studies related to the application of serious games for the software development process, there is no serious game that teaches the fundamentals of the ISO/IEC 12207:1995 Systems and software engineering â Software life cycle processes, which is an international standard for software lifecycle processes that aims to be âtheâ standard that defines all the tasks required for developing and maintaining software. âFloorsâ is a serious game that proposes an interactive learning experience to introduce ISO/IEC 12207:1995 by creating different floors of a virtual environment where various processes of the standard are discussed and implemented. Inherently, it follows an iterative process based on interactive technical dialogues in a 3D computer simulated office. The tool is designed to assess the novice engineering practitioners knowledge and provide preliminary training for ISO/IEC 12207:1995 processes. By playing such a game, participants are able to learn about the details of this standard. The present study provides a framework for the exploration of research data obtained from computer engineering students. Results suggest that there is a significant difference between the knowledge gained among the students who have played Floors and those who have only participated in paper-based learning sessions. Our findings indicate that participants who played Floors tend to have greater knowledge of the ISO/IEC 12207:1995 standard, and as a result, we recommend the use of serious games that seem to be superior to traditional paper based approach
- âŚ