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

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

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,

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

A Biomechanical Analysis of Total and Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty Patients during Stair Negotiation Compared to Healthy Controls.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

X - Ray Flares and Their Connection With Prompt Emission in GRBs

We use a wavelet technique to investigate the time variations in the light curves from a sample of GRBs detected by Fermi and Swift. We focus primarily on the behavior of the flaring region of Swift-XRT light curves in order to explore connections between variability time scales and pulse parameters (such as rise and decay times, widths, strengths, and separation distributions) and spectral lags. Tight correlations between some of these temporal features suggest a common origin for the production of X-ray flares and the prompt emission.Comment: 7th Huntsville Gamma-Ray Burst Symposium, GRB 2013: paper 15 in eConf Proceedings C130414