From individual characters to large crowds: augmenting the believability of open-world games through exploring social emotion in pedestrian groups

Crowds of non-player characters improve the game-play experiences of open-world video-games. Grouping is a common phenomenon of crowds and plays an important role in crowd behaviour. Recent crowd simulation research focuses on group modelling in pedestrian crowds and game-designers have argued that the design of non-player characters should capture and exploit the relationship between characters. The concepts of social groups and inter-character relationships are not new in social psychology, and on-going work addresses the social life of emotions and its behavioural consequences on individuals and groups alike. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of current research in social psychology, and to use the findings as a source of inspiration to design a social network of non-player characters, with application to the problem of group modelling in simulated crowds in computer games

The capacity of non-identical adaptive group testing

We consider the group testing problem, in the case where the items are defective independently but with non-constant probability. We introduce and analyse an algorithm to solve this problem by grouping items together appropriately. We give conditions under which the algorithm performs essentially optimally in the sense of information-theoretic capacity. We use concentration of measure results to bound the probability that this algorithm requires many more tests than the expected number. This has applications to the allocation of spectrum to cognitive radios, in the case where a database gives prior information that a particular band will be occupied.Comment: To be presented at Allerton 201

The distributed development of quality courses for a virtual university

Although virtual universities are widely touted as a way of competing globally in a post‐compulsory educational market, systems for implementing them are currently underdeveloped The central thesis in this paper is that in order to ensure the quality of the development and delivery of course materials for a virtual university, a collaborative and iterative approach to authoring is required. In this paper, the development of such a process will be discussed The paper is based on experience with a project whose aims included the provision of Masters‐level courses in supply chain management for learners in full‐time employment in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The materials developed through the project were required to be academically rigorous, vocationally relevant, and situated in the context of the learners. The project relied on distributed development, with authors based at institutions across the UK and in Europe. This paper focuses on the creation and evolution of the development processes adopted by the project, illustrating these with examples of good and bad practice. Based on these, tensions between quality and resourcing are identified, and implications will be drawn for other teams working on the development of online courses

Reap What You Sow: Planting the Seeds of Supervision in Your Master\u27s Students

Nick Abel\u27s handout from the NCACES 2016 conference

How closely do baryons follow dark matter on large scales?

We investigate the large-scale clustering and gravitational interaction of baryons and dark matter (DM) over cosmic time using a set of collisionless N-body simulations. Both components, baryons and DM, are evolved from distinct primordial density and velocity power spectra as predicted by early-universe physics. We first demonstrate that such two-component simulations require an unconventional match between force and mass resolution (i.e. force softening on at least the mean particle separation scale). Otherwise, the growth on any scale is not correctly recovered because of a spurious coupling between the two species at the smallest scales. With these simulations, we then demonstrate how the primordial differences in the clustering of baryons and DM are progressively diminished over time. In particular, we explicitly show how the BAO signature is damped in the spatial distribution of baryons and imprinted in that of DM. This is a rapid process, yet it is still not fully completed at low redshifts. On large scales, the overall shape of the correlation function of baryons and DM differs by 2% at z = 9 and by 0.2% at z = 0. The differences in the amplitude of the BAO peak are approximately a factor of 5 larger: 10% at z = 9 and 1% at z = 0. These discrepancies are, however, smaller than effects expected to be introduced by galaxy formation physics in both the shape of the power spectrum and in the BAO peak, and are thus unlikely to be detected given the precision of the next generation of galaxy surveys. Hence, our results validate the standard practice of modelling the observed galaxy distribution using predictions for the total mass clustering in the Universe.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Replaced with version published in MNRA