The Olympic medals ranks, lexicographic ordering and numerical infinities

Several ways used to rank countries with respect to medals won during Olympic Games are discussed. In particular, it is shown that the unofficial rank used by the Olympic Committee is the only rank that does not allow one to use a numerical counter for ranking – this rank uses the lexicographic ordering to rank countries: one gold medal is more precious than any number of silver medals and one silver medal is more precious than any number of bronze medals. How can we quantify what do these words, more precious, mean? Can we introduce a counter that for any possible number of medals would allow us to compute a numerical rank of a country using the number of gold, silver, and bronze medals in such a way that the higher resulting number would put the country in the higher position in the rank? Here we show that it is impossible to solve this problem using the positional numeral system with any finite base. Then we demonstrate that this problem can be easily solved by applying numerical computations with recently developed actual infinite numbers. These computations can be done on a new kind of a computer – the recently patented Infinity Computer. Its working software prototype is described briefly and examples of computations are given. It is shown that the new way of counting can be used in all situations where the lexicographic ordering is required

Superprocesses as models for information dissemination in the Future Internet

Future Internet will be composed by a tremendous number of potentially interconnected people and devices, offering a variety of services, applications and communication opportunities. In particular, short-range wireless communications, which are available on almost all portable devices, will enable the formation of the largest cloud of interconnected, smart computing devices mankind has ever dreamed about: the Proximate Internet. In this paper, we consider superprocesses, more specifically super Brownian motion, as a suitable mathematical model to analyse a basic problem of information dissemination arising in the context of Proximate Internet. The proposed model provides a promising analytical framework to both study theoretical properties related to the information dissemination process and to devise efficient and reliable simulation schemes for very large systems

Assessment in and of serious games: an overview

There is a consensus that serious games have a significant potential as a tool for instruction. However, their effectiveness in terms of learning outcomes is still understudied mainly due to the complexity involved in assessing intangible measures. A systematic approach—based on established principles and guidelines—is necessary to enhance the design of serious games, and many studies lack a rigorous assessment. An important aspect in the evaluation of serious games, like other educational tools, is user performance assessment. This is an important area of exploration because serious games are intended to evaluate the learning progress as well as the outcomes. This also emphasizes the importance of providing appropriate feedback to the player. Moreover, performance assessment enables adaptivity and personalization to meet individual needs in various aspects, such as learning styles, information provision rates, feedback, and so forth. This paper first reviews related literature regarding the educational effectiveness of serious games. It then discusses how to assess the learning impact of serious games and methods for competence and skill assessment. Finally, it suggests two major directions for future research: characterization of the player's activity and better integration of assessment in games

Language processing infrastructure in the XLike project

This paper presents the linguistic analysis tools and its infrastructure developed within the XLike project. The main goal of the implemented tools is to provide a set of functionalities for supporting some of the main objectives of XLike, such as enabling cross-lingual services for publishers, media monitoring or developing new business intelligence applications. The services cover seven major and minor languages: English, German, Spanish, Chinese, Catalan, Slovenian, and Croatian. These analyzers are provided as web services following a lightweight SOA architecture approach, and they are publically callable and are catalogued in META-SHAREPostprint (published version