Optimal configuration of active and backup servers for augmented reality cooperative games

Interactive applications as online games and mobile devices have become more and more popular in recent years. From their combination, new and interesting cooperative services could be generated. For instance, gamers endowed with Augmented Reality (AR) visors connected as wireless nodes in an ad-hoc network, can interact with each other while immersed in the game. To enable this vision, we discuss here a hybrid architecture enabling game play in ad-hoc mode instead of the traditional client-server setting. In our architecture, one of the player nodes also acts as the server of the game, whereas other backup server nodes are ready to become active servers in case of disconnection of the network i.e. due to low energy level of the currently active server. This allows to have a longer gaming session before incurring in disconnections or energy exhaustion. In this context, the server election strategy with the aim of maximizing network lifetime is not so straightforward. To this end, we have hence analyzed this issue through a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model and both numerical and simulation-based analysis shows that the backup servers solution fulfills its design objective

The Playing Session: Enhanced Playability for Mobile Gamers in Massive Metaverses

Internet ubiquity and the success of mobile gaming devices are increasing the interest in wireless access to virtual environments. Mainly due to the mobility factor and wireless medium features, traditional gaming architectures are not enough to guarantee good levels of playability and fairness to mobile gamers. We suggest a new mechanism, called playing session, capable of controlling communications between mobile devices and the game infrastructure. In case of network failures, a mimicking mechanism is in charge of playing, until the communication channel is restored. The goal is to reproduce, with an adequate level of mimesis, the user behavior. According to this approach, it will be possible to enhance the overall playability of Internet games without requiring any modification to the existing communication infrastructure

Gamers in Ganglands : the ecology of gaming and participation amongst a select group of children in Ocean View, Cape Town

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation explores the contextual meanings of digital gaming for a group of children from the resource-constrained township of Ocean View, situated 45km outside of Cape Town. I document the domestication (Silverstone & Haddon, 1996) of mobile phones and PlayStations as technologies for gaming in this context, showing how the children appropriated the games technologies much as other household media are domesticated, in a process of double articulation

Outperforming Game Theoretic Play with Opponent Modeling in Two Player Dominoes

Dominoes is a partially observable extensive form game with probability. The rules are simple; however, complexity and uncertainty of this game make it difficult to apply standard game theoretic methods to solve. This thesis applies strategy prediction opponent modeling to work with game theoretic search algorithms in the game of two player dominoes. This research also applies methods to compute the upper bound potential that predicting a strategy can provide towards specific strategy types. Furthermore, the actual values are computed according to the accuracy of a trained classifier. Empirical results show that there is a potential value gain over a Nash equilibrium player in score for fully and partially observable environments for specific strategy types. The actual value gained is positive for a fully observable environment for score and total wins and ties. Actual value gained over the Nash equilibrium player from the opponent model only exist for score, while the opponent modeler demonstrates a higher potential to win and/or tie in comparison to a pure game theoretic agent

Distributed coordination of flexible devices in power networks

The penetration of new types of devices, such as domestic storage and electric vehicles, offers increasing flexibility on demand side. This will bring both new opportunities and challenges to the operation of power systems. The aim of this thesis is to design novel distributed control strategies for large scale coordination of flexible devices. To this end, flexible devices are modelled as self-interested rational agents that aim at minimizing their individual costs in response to the broadcast price signals. This thesis mainly consists of three parts, considering that the price signals can be designed in different forms, and that flexible devices could operate in different markets (e.g. energy markets, and integrated energy and reserve markets). The first part presents a multi-agent framework for the coordination of large populations of micro-storage devices in energy markets, under the assumption that the electricity price is some monotone increasing function of total power demand. The second part extends the work of the first part through taking into account the topology of power networks: the proposed modelling framework envisages heterogeneous groups of loads that operate at different buses, connected by transmission lines of limited capacity. The locational marginal prices of electricity are used as price signals, which are different in general for each bus and calculated through an optimal power flow problem. In the framework of the third part, it is envisioned that micro-storage devices and electric vehicles participate in an integrated energy-reserve market, and that they can contribute to the provision of reserve by being available to reduce their power consumption. These flexible devices autonomously schedule their operation in response to two kinds of price signals - the locational marginal prices of energy and reserve. Iterative schemes for the coordination of the flexible devices are presented in the three parts. It is proved that the proposed coordination schemes can ensure the convergence to stable market configurations, characterized as aggregative equilibria at which each device cannot further reduce its cost by unilaterally changing its power profile. Distributed implementations of these proposed control strategies are discussed, and their performance is evaluated in simulations on large scale power systems.Open Acces

Constructing Meanings by Designing Worlds: Digital Games as Participatory Platforms for Interest-Driven Learning and Creativity

This study emerges from the observation of an increasing divide between generations: a lack of a shared ground that carries profound social, cultural, and educational implications. In particular, the broadening differences between academic and “grassroots” approaches to learning and creativity are transforming formal and informal enterprises into seemingly incommunicable realms. This clash between different (and distant) practices, inside and outside of school, is inhibiting the construction of a common language between teachers and students, and, more broadly, between generations, thus hindering the development of any educational discourse. In this study I inquired into an online participatory space in order to advance our understanding on how its participants, driven by their interest for gaming and game design, discursively constructed learning and creativity. In particular, I looked into a community dedicated to designing, sharing, and critiquing digital game levels (i.e. “mini-games”) created with LittleBigPlanet (a digital game and creative tool for the PlayStation 3 game console) and discussed in the “Forum” section of the LittleBigPlanet Central website (www.lbpcentral.com). In this qualitative study I applied a hybrid intertextual methodology based on discourse analysis, studio critique, and design process analysis to analyze discursive texts (threads/posts in the discussion forum), interactive artifacts (user-generated game levels), and constructive practices (deigning, sharing, and critiquing game levels). The findings of this study show that participants socially construct and negotiate learning and creativity by enacting specific discursive functions that entail the use of humor and specialist language and the negotiation of effort and self-appreciation. By engaging in multimodal and intertextual practices in an attentive and competent community, users create a safe social space that fosters reciprocal trust, togetherness, participation, planning, and reflectivity. By furthering our understanding of a situated interest world, this research advances our knowledge on informal participatory spaces in which learning and creativity emerge as intertwined phenomena that develop through social-constructive endeavors that spur from people’s interests and passions

Reanimating cultural heritage through digital technologies

Digital technologies are becoming extremely important for web-based cultural heritage applications. This thesis presents novel digital technology solutions to 'access and interact' with digital heritage objects and collections. These innovative solutions utilize service orientation (web services), workflows, and social networking and Web 2.0 mashup technologies to innovate the creation, interpretation and use of collections dispersed in a global museumscape, where community participation is achieved through social networking. These solutions are embedded in a novel concept called Digital Library Services for Playing with Shared Heritage (DISPLAYS). DISPLAYS is concerned with creating tools and services to implement a digital library system, which allows the heritage community and museum professionals alike to create, interpret and use digital heritage content in visualization and interaction environments using web technologies based on social networking. In particular, this thesis presents a specific implementation of DISPLAYS called the Reanimating Cultural Heritage system, which is modelled on the five main functionalities or services defined in the DISPLAYS architecture, content creation, archival, exposition, presentation and interaction, for handling digital heritage objects. The main focus of this thesis is the design of the Reanimating Cultural Heritage system's social networking functionality that provides an innovative solution for integrating community access and interaction with the Sierra Leone digital heritage repository composed of collections from the British Museum, Glasgow Museums and Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. The novel use of Web 2.0 mashups in this digital heritage repository also allows the seamless integration of these museum collections to be merged with user or community generated content, while preserving the quality of museum collections data. Finally, this thesis tests and evaluates the usability of the Reanimating Cultural Heritage social networking system, in particular the suitability of the digital technology solution deployed. Testing is performed with a user group composed of several users, and the results obtained are presented

Emotion and Stress Recognition Related Sensors and Machine Learning Technologies

This book includes impactful chapters which present scientific concepts, frameworks, architectures and ideas on sensing technologies and machine learning techniques. These are relevant in tackling the following challenges: (i) the field readiness and use of intrusive sensor systems and devices for capturing biosignals, including EEG sensor systems, ECG sensor systems and electrodermal activity sensor systems; (ii) the quality assessment and management of sensor data; (iii) data preprocessing, noise filtering and calibration concepts for biosignals; (iv) the field readiness and use of nonintrusive sensor technologies, including visual sensors, acoustic sensors, vibration sensors and piezoelectric sensors; (v) emotion recognition using mobile phones and smartwatches; (vi) body area sensor networks for emotion and stress studies; (vii) the use of experimental datasets in emotion recognition, including dataset generation principles and concepts, quality insurance and emotion elicitation material and concepts; (viii) machine learning techniques for robust emotion recognition, including graphical models, neural network methods, deep learning methods, statistical learning and multivariate empirical mode decomposition; (ix) subject-independent emotion and stress recognition concepts and systems, including facial expression-based systems, speech-based systems, EEG-based systems, ECG-based systems, electrodermal activity-based systems, multimodal recognition systems and sensor fusion concepts and (x) emotion and stress estimation and forecasting from a nonlinear dynamical system perspective

Proceedings of the Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality International Conference HTHIC 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze, what are the risks and benefits involved in co-creating a cultural brand ecosystem by adopting the perspective of one stakeholder. The longitudinal empirical study follows an owner-manager of a small VillaSpa located in a historic area of summer villas. Interviewing the owner / managergave us an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon as we gathered data on how that single actorconstructing a brand ecosystem viewed value co-creation. We explored the data by reference to priorliterature on value co-creation and brand ecosystems. The results contribute to the research on brandecosystems by discussing a case that is novel in researching the building of a brand ecosystem in the contextof heritage and tourism. The results demonstrate the importance of involving all relevant stakeholders in cocreating a brand ecosystem. The findings should encourage future research on the joint narratives of allrelevant stakeholders. The research also illustrates a perspective on failing in the course of building a brandecosystem.</p