Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Financial Inclusion Gone Wrong: Securities and Cryptoassets Trading for Children

According to studies, money is a major source of anxiety for most Americans. In looking for ways to remedy the source of such anxiety, some believe that increasing children’s financial orientation could help lower their money-related anxiety levels as adults. Identifying this market as a business opportunity—and reassured by research that shows that by age six, children are already veteran consumers of mobile apps—financial technology (fintech), decentralized finance (DeFi), and even traditional financial entities have started offering services and products to children. These services and products include a broad array of financial-related products and services, from enabling children to earn money for doing their chores, to trading stocks and cryptoassets, and even to earning digital assets and currencies while playing video games. The potential of this new market’s clientele is valuable for two reasons. First, having more customers is always a good thing. Second, children will eventually mature into adult customers who presumably will continue using the services and products they like and are familiar with. And, although some legal challenges are associated with children—who are minors—entering financial-based online contracts, this business trend will continue to grow as it becomes socially acceptable to offer financial services to children. Society’s newly adopted paradigms for describing, understanding, and shaping children’s rights, domestic relationships, custodial status, and even digital purchasing power are all supportive of this trend. Moreover, fintech and DeFi apps and games can help teach children about the value of money, the importance of investing, and the risks involved in trading. Yet fintech and DeFi apps and games could also have a disruptive effect on children, both developmentally and behaviorally, similar to that of other consumed digital content. This disruptive effect should be a source of concern to anyone focused on investor and consumer protection, including regulatory agencies like the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which have already expressed concerns over gamification and digital engagement practices. In light of “the financialization of everything,” this Article looks to both legal and ethical reasoning and behavioral economics tools to call for the search for effective financial literacy education for children to be replaced by a search for policies more conducive to good consumer and investor protection outcomes. These policies should guide lawmakers in regulating fintech and DeFi apps and games offered to children in light of the following considerations: (i) the addictiveness of digital gaming; (ii) how gamifying finance makes it feel less serious; (iii) the connection between gamification and gambling; (iv) how children’s financial choices are more susceptible to the influence of outside parties than are those of adults; (v) fintech and DeFi apps and games’ failure to teach children the importance of concepts such as debt, credit, and financial commitments; and (vi) the unrealistic burden on young parents, who are already struggling to constantly supervise their children’s online activities, to monitor their children’s online financial activities in our digital era

Games Are Not Coffee Mugs: Games and the Right of Publicity, 29 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech. L.J. 1 (2012)

Are games more like coffee mugs, posters, and T-shirts, or are they more like books, magazines, and films? For purposes of the right of publicity, the answer matters. The critical question is whether games should be treated as merchandise or as expression. Three classic judicial decisions, decided in 1967, 1970, and 1973, held that the defendants needed permission to use the plaintiffs\u27 names in their board games. These decisions judicially confirmed that games are merchandise, not something equivalent to more traditional media of expression. As merchandise, games are not like books; instead, they are akin to celebrity-embossed coffee mugs. To borrow a British term, games are “mere image carriers.” Although the last of these three judicial decisions disclaimed any intent of offering a “hard and fast rule,” three consecutive losses in three different courts offered a plausible basis for predicting how future courts would respond to similar claims involving games. These three decisions confirmed the “settled order of things”: a license is required to use someone\u27s name or likeness (or identity) in a game. The leading treatise on the right of publicity and the Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition subsequently endorsed the results in these cases. In 2007 the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upset the settled order of things. In C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing v. Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the Eighth Circuit held that the use of professional baseball players\u27 names and statistics in fantasy baseball games is protected by the First Amendment, the right of publicity notwithstanding. Some courts are resisting further erosions of the right of publicity. The issue remains substantially unsettled with multiple courts now considering whether permission is needed to use the identities of athletes in video games. We argue that the rule produced by the three classic cases is an anachronism. The licensing custom created-or at least reinforced by these decisions should carry no weight. These cases were questionable when decided. They are even more so now. The gaming medium has evolved significantly over the past four decades, calling into question the longstanding treatment of games for purposes of the right of publicity. Tedious, uncreative games marketed to children may not evoke much First Amendment sympathy against right of publicity claims, but since the three cases were decided in the late 1960s and early 1970s, several categories of commercial games have become significant, including historical wargames, role-playing games, video games, Eurogames, and other hobby games. Games in these categories do not constitute a few odd counter-examples to the same well-known games seen on retail shelves year after year, but many thousands of counter-examples. And unlike outmoded stereotypes of games, adults play these games too. These games communicate ideas, allowing players to interact with fiction and non-fiction, fantasy and history. Game designer Jane McGonigal thinks games can change the world. Her claim is unlikely to have ever been made about coffee mugs, but one need not go as far as McGonigal to recognize that games are a significant medium of expression. The Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association recognized the expressive similarities of video games to books, plays, and movies. Arguably, Brown moved at least video games out of the merchandise category and into the same category as more traditional media of expression. Games in general, however, are ready to be considered alongside other expressive works. While it is possible for a particular game to be a mere image or identity carrier, games are often much more. For purposes of the right of publicity, games are not like coffee mugs and should not be treated as such

Persistent Threats to Commercial Speech

The current Supreme Court is very protective of speech, including commercial speech. Threats to commercial speech persist nonetheless. This article briefly examines two: the use of commercial speech restrictions as a form of rent-seeking, and compelled commercial speech. Regulation of commercial speech protect is sometimes used to protect established corporate interests from competitors who are less able to bear the costs of regulation, with consequences that extend beyond the economic marketplace. In the case of commercial speech, courts have been unduly deferential to claims of a consumer “right to know” as a basis for mandated labeling and disclosure. Greater protection of commercial speech would be necessary to guard against these threats

Place-based Approach to Regional Policy – Polish, Slovakian and Ukrainian Youth Perspective. Selection of Proceedings

This collection of proceedings is divided into three parts. First one gives examples on the strategic approach to regional development. First chapter, presented by Agnieszka Dembicka-Niemiec is attempt to outline the impact of sustainable development approach to urban policy. It is followed by the contribution of Andrea Miškovičová, who presented some Slovakian experience on the implementation of a creative city strategy. Last work, by Olga Janiszewska and Katarzyna Wiśniewska, is a comparative analysis of development strategies of the city of Lublin and Lubelskie regions, searching for the cohesion between these documents. Second part of the book is the presentation of some specific and practical solutions in the field of urban development policy and regional policy. Here, Edyta Szafranek presents the integrated territorial investments as a tool for implementing the regional policy in the spirit of place based approach. Second chapter of this part provides a Reader with a case study of implementing more and more popular tool of for engaging local communities, which is a participatory budgeting. An example used here by Barbara Skórzak and Piotr Salata-Kochanowski comes from Lodz – a third-largest city in Poland, which is the pioneer of this approach in Central Europe. The last of tools presented here comes from the work of Agnieszka Pietrasik, who presented a model of integrated water resources management in the city of Łódź. It can be concluded that this is a tangible example of the application of sustainable development approach to city ecosystems’ design. Last part of the monograph is devoted to the most universal trends, that can be perceived as a “global framework” for local and regional development policies. Here, a contribution of Iryna Skavronska shows the advantages and disadvantages of using sports mega-events as a tool of regional and urban transformation, while last chapter, prepared by Lesya Kolinets, outlines the impact of global financial crisis: impact on Central and Eastern Europe.Despite over 40 years of European Cohesion Policy experience, it is still evolving to meet the changes of the socio-economical situation. During the recent years, there is more and more common belief that what can decide about the power of the European Union, it is a variability of institutional contexts of regional development. It means that both studies on local and regional aspects of socio-economic development, as well as relevant policy tools in this matter, should consider on larger and larger scale, so called place-based approach to regional policy. The latter refers to the necessity of capturing “territorial” diversity of European space on different scales of policy intervention. Regional scientists gathered in the European Regional Science Association – Polish Section decided to verify, how this modern paradigm of regional policy is perceived by students and young scientists living in Central European countries. For this purpose, a seminar for Polish, Ukrainian and Slovakian participants has been organized. What was particularly interesting in this context, it was both the perception of the advantage of being a member of European community for these countries who joined UE at the beginning of 21st century, and the expectations of young Ukrainians, whose country is nowadays on a serious political crossroad, from the EU. This monograph is a material effect of a reunion of Polish, Slovakian and Ukrainian students and young scientists, for whom the European Regional Science Association – Polish Section created a forum for strengthening cross-border cooperation, exchange of experience and development of skills and competencies in the field of regional policy and regional economy, broadly defined