Gaming industry, social responsibility and academia

This article briefly looks at some of the ways that academics – and more specifically the International Gaming Research Unit (IGRU) – have been helping the gaming industry and related stakeholders in terms of social responsibility. The IGRU is a team of experienced gaming researchers from across the UK, that work together to undertake high quality research and consultancy aimed at developing effective responsible gaming strategies. Rather than outline every single initiative that we have been involved in, this article briefly overviews one project in a number of different areas including prevention, evaluation, education, research, and sharing best practice. These examples are also chosen to indicate the types of social responsibility activities that gaming companies can engage themselves in

The costs of playing free games on gambling websites

One of the most common ways to entice gamblers to play online is to make them try out games in ‘demo’, ‘practice’ or ‘free play’ mode. At one level, most would argue that playing for points rather than money is little more than innocuous fun. However, is this really the case? Dr. Mark Griffiths and Abby McCormack, of Nottingham Trent University, and Dr Jonathan Parke, of the University of Salford, examine some of the real costs of playing free online games on gambling websites

Damascene Double Gated Transistors and Related Manufacturing Methods

This invention provides the structure and fabrication process of a completely planar, Damascene double gated transistor. The structure has a novel self-aligned, hyper-abrupt retrograde body and a zero-parasitic, endwall gate-body connection. The structure provides for increased density and enables ultra low power to be utilized. The methods also provide for simultaneously making both four-terminal and dynamic threshold MOSFET devices

Experiences of time loss among videogame players: an empirical study

Playing videogames is now a major leisure pursuit, yet research in the area is comparatively sparse. Previous correlational evidence suggests that subjective time loss occurs during playing videogames. This study examined experiences of time loss among a relatively large group of gamers (n = 280). Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through an online survey. Results showed that time loss occurred irrespective of gender, age, or frequency of play, but was associated with particular structural characteristics of games such as their complexity, the presence of multi-levels, missions and/or high scores, multiplayer interactions, and plot. Results also demonstrated that time loss could have both positive and negative outcomes for players. Positive aspects of time loss included helping players to relax and temporarily escape from reality. Negative aspects included the sacrificing of other things in their lives, guilty feelings about wasted time, and social conflict. It is concluded that for many gamers, losing track of time is a positive experience and is one of the main reasons for playing videogames

A New Correlation Between GRB X-Ray Flares And The Prompt Emission

From a sample of GRBs detected by the $Fermi$ and $Swift$ missions, we have extracted the minimum variability time scales for temporal structures in the light curves associated with the prompt emission and X-ray flares. A comparison of this variability time scale with pulse parameters such as rise times,determined via pulse-fitting procedures, and spectral lags, extracted via the cross-correlation function (CCF), indicate a tight correlation between these temporal features for both the X-ray flares and the prompt emission. These correlations suggests a common origin for the production of X-ray flares and the prompt emission in GRBs.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ

Market and Welfare Impacts of COOL on the U.S.-Mexican Tomato Trade

A two-country, comparative static partial equilibrium model is used to simulate the ex ante market and welfare outcomes of U.S. country-of-origin labeling for the U.S.-Mexico fresh tomato trade. In all scenarios where consumers show a relative preference for U.S. tomatoes, Mexican tomato exports decline and U.S. production increases. Mexican trade losses using low- to mid-range consumer preference assumptions are 14% to 32% of the value of Mexican tomato exports to the United States and 1% to 3% of the total value of agricultural produce exports, partially negating the market access gains of NAFTA. Consumer effects are small and sometimes negative. Producer impact is the big effect, with transfer from Mexican to U.S. tomato producers.country-of-origin labeling, food labeling, trade-related food regulations, welfare effects, Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade,

Microbes, mathematics, and models

Microbial model systems have a long history of fruitful use in fields that include evolution and ecology. In order to develop further insight into modelling practice, we examine how the competitive exclusion and coexistence of competing species have been modelled mathematically and materially over the course of a long research history. In particular, we investigate how microbial models of these dynamics interact with mathematical or computational models of the same phenomena. Our cases illuminate the ways in which microbial systems and equations work as models, and what happens when they generate inconsistent findings about shared targets. We reveal an iterative strategy of comparative modelling in different media, and suggest reasons why microbial models have a special degree of epistemic tractability in multimodel inquiry