Exploring approaches to the generation and representation of heritage artefacts in video game contexts

© 2016, © 2016 University of Wollongong. Video games can allow players to explore environments, which are representative of, or contain elements of physical world cultures, for example, allowing a player to explore ancient Egypt in Pharaoh (Impressions Games, 1999, Pharaoh [PC Game]. Sierra Entertainment) or present day Chicago in Watchdogs (Ubisoft Montreal, 2014, [PlayStation 4 game] . Guildford), etc. Game designers need to make design decisions regarding how these environments are going to be represented, including which items are going to be utilized, how they are going to be used in the game, and the level of detail to which they are going to be presented. These decisions can lead to concerns regarding how particular cultures are represented. This article describes research undertaken to investigate the design process with respect to the inclusion of physical world cultures in virtual game environments. Within the study approaches used (including processes and methods) by game designers in the stages of conceptualization, design and delivery are explored. In addition, these are contextualized through an understanding of designer attitudes towards the inclusion of items with cultural meaning and their perspectives on the importance of cultural representation within video games. This involved interviewing eight video game designers from global contexts within the industry, all with the experience of generating cultural items for inclusion in video game contexts. These interviews were structured with a focus on exploring views, experiences, beliefs and motivations of the individuals and of their working teams. Analysis was carried out through the use of a methodological process of analytical induction with the coding of particular variables within each interview transcript, and the transformation of the complete set of codings into a set of conceptual statements. This article relates these conceptual statements to earlier work regarding close readings of particular video games and discusses the relationship between design processes (facilitated through the interviews) and realized game worlds (facilitated through the close readings)

The Aesthetic Uncanny: Staging Dorian Gray

This article discusses my theatrical adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2008). Freud's concept of the uncanny (1919) was treated as a purely aesthetic phenomenon and related to late nineteenth century social and literary preoccupations such as Christianity, the supernatural and glamorous, criminal homosexuality. These considerations led to a conceptual ground plan that allowed for experiments during rehearsal in a form of theatrical shorthand

Exoffender Accounts of Successful Reentry from Prison

Reentry research often focuses on those who have recidivated, with little work addressing the experiences of those who successfully reintegrate into their communities. This study examines individual accounts of successful transitions from prison to community in the months and years postrelease. Interview data point to three metanarratives used to make sense of reentry: as reverence, as reunification, and as reconstruction. In different ways, each narrative centers on connections to important others through faith, family, or community. We discuss the legitimacy of the self-narratives offered, and add to a growing body of work exploring reentry via the lens of the exoffender

Scalable Inference for Markov Processes with Intractable Likelihoods

Bayesian inference for Markov processes has become increasingly relevant in recent years. Problems of this type often have intractable likelihoods and prior knowledge about model rate parameters is often poor. Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques can lead to exact inference in such models but in practice can suffer performance issues including long burn-in periods and poor mixing. On the other hand approximate Bayesian computation techniques can allow rapid exploration of a large parameter space but yield only approximate posterior distributions. Here we consider the combined use of approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) and MCMC techniques for improved computational efficiency while retaining exact inference on parallel hardware

Non-proper helicoid-like limits of closed minimal surfaces in 3-manifolds

We show that there exists a metric with positive scalar curvature on S2xS1 and a sequence of embedded minimal cylinders that converges to a minimal lamination that, in a neighborhood of a strictly stable 2-sphere, is smooth except at two helicoid-like singularities on the 2-sphere. The construction is inspired by a recent example by D. Hoffman and B. White.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, replaced because of corrupted fil

Disentangling the Relationship Between Race and Attitudes Toward the Police: Police Contact, Perceptions of Safety, and Procedural Justice

Recent incidents involving police shootings of unarmed men of color have increased tensions between communities and police departments across the United States. In response, scholars have intensified efforts to understand the factors that shape attitudes toward the police. The current study examines individual and aggregate factors that influence satisfaction with the police. To this end, we address three research questions: (a) are there significant racial/ethnic differences in satisfaction with police; (b) do these differences persist after accounting for experiences with the police, perceptions of safety, and aggregate measures; and (c) can procedural justice help explain racial variation in attitudes toward the police? Study findings highlight the importance of perceptions of safety in explaining racial/ethnic variation in attitudes toward the police

Fast and efficient optical phase conjunction using a degenerate Raman System in rubidium

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (p. 69).by Darren S. Hsiung.M.Eng

Direct processing of structural thermoplastic composites using rapid isothermal stamp forming

A novel rapid isothermal stamp forming process is proposed which enables the rapid manufacture of structural thermoplastic composite laminate parts directly from multilayer hybrid fabrics comprising stitched unidirectional carbon fibre-thermoplastic polymer veil. The process employs rapid-response variothermal tooling, allowing macro-scale (fabric forming/draping) and micro-scale (fibre wetting/laminate consolidation) composite material transformation processes to occur isothermally above the constituent polymer matrix melt temperature (Tm), thus manufacturing a composite component directly from a hybrid dry fabric in a single press cycle in a relatively short overall cycle time. The proposed rapid isothermal stamp forming (RISF) concept is presented, and details of the process are given along with some considerations made throughout the formulation of the process. As a result of the RISF process development work, candidate manufacturing parameters were derived, delivering parts that exhibit acceptable composite laminate microstructure and mechanical performance within a press station cycle time of 330 s