Design Parameters in Multimodal Games for Rehabilitation

Published under the Liebert "Open Option"Objectives: The repetitive and sometimes mundane nature of conventional rehabilitation therapy provides an ideal opportunity for development of interactive and challenging therapeutic games that have the potential to engage and motivate the players. Certain game design parameters that may encourage patients to actively participate by making the games more enjoyable have been identified. In this article, we describe a formative study in which we designed and evaluated some of these parameters with healthy subjects. Materials and Methods: The ‘‘operant conditioning’’ and ‘‘scoring’’ design parameters were incorporated in a remake of a classic labyrinth game, ‘‘Marble Maze.’’ A group of participants (n = 37) played the game twice: Once in the control condition without both modalities and then with either one of the parameters or with both. Measures of game duration and number of fails in the game were recorded along with survey questionnaires to measure player perceptions of intrinsic motivation on the game. Results: Longer playtimes, higher levels of interest/enjoyment, and effort to play the game were recorded with the introduction of these parameters. Conclusions: This study provides an understanding on how game design parameters can be used to motivate and encourage people to play longer. With these positive results, future aims are to test the parameters with stroke patients, providing much clearer insight as to what influences these parameters have on patients un- dergoing therapy. The ultimate goal is to utilize game design in order to maintain longer therapeutic interaction between a patient and his or her therapy medium.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The range of axial rotation of the glenohumeral joint.

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A scapular coordinate frame for clinical and kinematic analyses.

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Serious Games: Video Game Design Techniques for Academic and Commercial Communication

Serious Games: Video game design techniques for academic and commercial communication, by Christian Bull-Hansen, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway. Traditional academic and commercial communication sources, like schools and television, are losing ground to video games. People of all ages spend increasingly more time engaged in virtual worlds and on the Internet, and are becoming used to actively pursuing the information they want to know more about, while rejecting the old passive communication channels where information is presented, but not requested. The result is a generation in need of new ways of informing. This thesis aims to provide ways for academic and commercial communication to exist in commercially popular video games while retaining the entertainment value of the games. Thus making students learn while gaming, as well as provide means for commercial interests to reach the gamer audience. The thesis provides information and analysis of game culture, player-types, social structures, game design techniques, and how knowledge of this information can be used to create and improve academic and commercial communication in video games. The thesis utilizes a custom made prototype, “The Renaissance Prototype”, designed for the purpose of researching and test the theories presented in this thesis

War museums as agonistic spaces::possibilities, opportunities and constraints

Following the theorisation of museums as agonistic spaces and drawing on a comparative analysis of war museums located in various European countries, this paper argues that these institutions play complex and multi-layered roles beyond their obvious educational function. These not easily reconcilable roles act as major constraints upon the form and content of exhibitions and work against the adoption of an agonistic approach. However, the paper also argues that war museums are especially apt to become sites of political contestation able to engage with agonistic memory and unsettling counter-narratives. This is due in large part to the nature of the subject matter they deal with, as war and conflict lend themselves to being represented in ways that emphasise patriotic consensus but can also highlight dissent, contestation, multiple perspectives and alternative visions of society. Agonistic practices emerge when windows of opportunity open through a combination of top-down and bottom-up agency able to take advantage of particular socio-political circumstances or cultural developments. The paper also discusses a new exhibition on war memory planned for late 2018 in Essen, Germany and conceived as a strategic political intervention, which aims to communicate in an agonistic fashion with its audiences

Brukerundersøkelsen ved UB UiT Norges Arktiske Universitet 2016/2017

Med utgangspunkt i Universitetsbibliotekets handlingsplan 2016 der et av de ønskede målene var å kartlegge hvordan våre tjenester blir brukt og mottatt, ble det i perioden 24.11.16-01.02.17 gjennomført en nettbasert brukerundersøkelse der målgruppen var alle Universitetsbibliotekets brukere. I mai 2016 ble det nedsatt en gruppe bestående av Marit Bull Enger (Kultur- og samfunnsfag-biblioteket, leder), Øystein Lund (Result) og Sissel Helene Hansen (Natur- og helsebiblioteket) som hadde i oppdrag å utarbeide og gjennomføre undersøkelsen. I forbindelse med utforming av undersøkelsen var også Frid Aag (Harstadbiblioteket), Unni Trondsen (Narvikbiblioteket) og Ingvild H. Torheim Isaksen (Natur- og helsebiblioteket) involvert. Undersøkelsen ble laget i Questback i både norsk og engelsk versjon (oversatt av Mariann C. Løkse, UB), og åpne svar ble analysert ved hjelp av programvaren NVivo 11 (verktøy for kvalitativ analyse). Statistiske analyser etter sammenslåing av norske og engelsk undersøkelse ble utført av Siri Sollied Madsen, Result, ved hjelp av statistikkprogrammet SPSS. Undersøkelsen ble gjennomført som et nettbasert spørreskjema med i alt 26 spørsmål, derav 4 spørsmål beregnet på Results brukergruppe (ansatte). Result behandler disse svarene i en egen rapport. Spørreundersøkelsen, som ble publisert 24.11.16 og tatt ned 01.02.17, ble rettet til alle bibliotekets brukergrupper ved UiT Norges arktiske universitet

On agonistic memory

Building on Mouffe’s critique of cosmopolitanism, this article argues that a cosmopolitan mode of remembering, far from having superseded the antagonistic mode associated with ‘first modernity’ in the European context, has proved unable to prevent the rise of, and is being increasingly challenged by, new antagonistic collective memories constructed by populist neo-nationalist movements. This article outlines the main defining characteristics of a third ‘agonistic’ mode of remembering, which is both reflexive and dialogic, yet also relies upon politicized representations of past conflicts, acknowledging civic and political passions as well as individual and collective agency. </jats:p

CAS i folkeskolens matematikundervisning med øget læringsudbytte for drenge på mellemtrinnet

Artiklen rapporterer et studie der skal afdække om brug af CAS-værktøjer (Computer AlgebraSystems) i en matematikundervisning hvor rammen er undersøgende, eksperimenterende og procesorienteret,ændrer elevers tilgang til behandling af matematiske problemstillinger på en sådan mådeat det øger elevernes viden, færdigheder og kompetencer. I forløbet medvirkede godt 500 elever fra nikommuner ligeligt fordelt på forsøgs- og kontrolklasser på mellem- og afsluttende klassetrin. Voresundersøgelse viser at drenge på mellemtrinnet havde signifikant udbytte af adgang til et CAS-værktøj

Identification of the South Saami in the Norwegian 1801 Census : Why Is the 1801 Census a Problematic Source?

publishedVersio

Effects of adaptation, chance, and history on the evolution of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium minutum under selection of increased temperature and acidification

The roles of adaptation, chance, and history on evolution of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium minutum Halim, under selective conditions simulating global change, have been addressed. Two toxic strains (AL1V and AL2V), previously acclimated for two years at pH 8.0 and 20◦C, were transferred to selective conditions: pH 7.5 to simulate acidification and 25◦C. Cultures under selective conditions were propagated until growth rate and toxin cell quota achieved an invariantmean value at 720 days (ca. 250 and ca. 180 generations for strains AL1V and AL2V, respectively). Historical contingencies strongly constrained the evolution of growth rate and toxin cell quota, but the forces involved in the evolution were not the same for both traits. Growth rate was 1.5–1.6 times higher than the one measured in ancestral conditions. Genetic adaptation explained two-thirds of total adaptation while one-third was a consequence of physiological adaptation. On the other hand, the evolution of toxin cell quota showed a pattern attributable to neutralmutations because the final varianceswere significantly higher than thosemeasured at the start of the experiment. It has been hypothesized that harmful algal blooms will increase under the future scenario of global change. Although this study might be considered an oversimplification of the reality, it can be hypothesized that toxic blooms will increase but no predictions can be advanced about toxicity.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de excelencia internacional. Andalucia Tech. Financially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation by the grant CGL2008-00652/BOS, and Junta de Andalucía Research Group RNM-115