Loot box addiction:a study on loot boxes and their relationship to gambling

Abstract. In the year 2019 there has been a notable discussion in the gaming community that has revolved largely around the topic of loot boxes and their connections to gambling and gambling addictions. This has led to many governments taking notice of these issues and having begun to plan on proper actions to take, such a bill by the U.S senate or a report on loot boxes and gambling addiction by the UK parliament. Using methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, we shall delve to these governmental discourses, to the issues with loot boxes and what is being planned to be done about them. Furthermore this essay will look into the part that gaming companies have had to play on these issues, why they favor loot boxes so much and how much responsibility they are willing to take? Suffice to say, the companies have not been seen favorably by neither the public nor the authorities.Loot box riippuvuus : tutkielma loot boxeista ja niiden yhteyksistä uhkapelaamiseen. Tiivistelmä. Vuonna 2019 peliyhteisössä on ollut meneillään huomattava keskustelu, joka pyörii lootilaatkoiden (engl. loot boxes) ja uhkapeliaddiktion välisten yhteyksien ympärillä. Monet maailman valtiot ovat ottaneet nämä ongelmat huomioon, kuten USA, jonka senaatti suunnitellee parhaillaan uutta lakiesitystä, tai Iso-Britannian edustajainhuone, joka muutamia kuukausia sitten julkaisi raportin liittyen näihin aiheisiin. Käyttäen hyödyksemme kriittisen diskurssianalyysin keinoja pureudumme näihin hallitusten dialogeihin, sekä siihen, miksi lootilaatikot ovat niin suuri ongelma, mitä niiden suhteen aiotaan tehdä, mikä ylipäätään on pelifirmojen osuus tässä kaikessa ja miksi ne ovat suosineet lootilaatikoita niin paljon. Tilanne on johtanut sekä valtaapitävien että pelaajien huomattavaan kritiikin määrään pelialan käytäntöjä kohtaan

Revisiting “Recognizing Human Activities User- Independently on Smartphones Based on Accelerometer Data” – What Has Happened Since 2012?

Our article “Recognizing human activities user-independently on smartphones based on accelerometer data” was published in the International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence (IJIMAI) in 2012. In 2018, it was selected as the most outstanding article published in the 10 years of IJIMAI life. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of IJIMAI, in this article we will introduce what has happened in the field of human activity recognition and wearable sensor-based recognition since 2012, and especially, this article concentrates on introducing our work since 2012

Feature Relevance Analysis to Explain Concept Drift -- A Case Study in Human Activity Recognition

This article studies how to detect and explain concept drift. Human activity recognition is used as a case study together with a online batch learning situation where the quality of the labels used in the model updating process starts to decrease. Drift detection is based on identifying a set of features having the largest relevance difference between the drifting model and a model that is known to be accurate and monitoring how the relevance of these features changes over time. As a main result of this article, it is shown that feature relevance analysis cannot only be used to detect the concept drift but also to explain the reason for the drift when a limited number of typical reasons for the concept drift are predefined. To explain the reason for the concept drift, it is studied how these predefined reasons effect to feature relevance. In fact, it is shown that each of these has an unique effect to features relevance and these can be used to explain the reason for concept drift.Comment: Accepted to HASCA 2022 workshop in conjunction with UbiComp/ISWC202

Photoplethysmographic measurements of arterial and aortic pulse waveform characteristics

The photoplethysmographic (PPG) signal is a complex signal, composed of the peripheral pulse synchronized to each heartbeat (the fluctuating component), and modulated by a slow component that varies due to respiration, vasomotor activity and vasoconstrictor waves, ECG and pulse waves from healthy subjects. Decomposition of the PPG pulse waves produces five components: percussion, tidal, dicrotic, repercussion, and retidal waves. Pulse wave decomposition parameters PPG are compared to detect variables for information on person’s arterial elasticity. Nowadays, promising cardiovascular parameters registration method is PPG, which is relatively simple to be applied in eHealth, clinical applications, homecare, drives’ sleepiness, or even endothelial dysfunction. Results show that elasticity information in the form of pulse wave decomposition from PPG waves is easily obtainable and shows clear shortening between percussion wave and tidal wave peak time in PPG waveforms as a function of age. Decomposition analysis is valuable in assessment of the arterial elasticity. In addition, PPG measurement is absolutely non‐invasive and safe. In PPG measurement, the sensors are on the opposite sides of the fingertip to obtain accurate waveforms. A further challenge is the calibration of the PPG measurement systems in order to achieve comparative diagnostic relations, because PPG waveforms in different regions of the body and in different subjects do not allow us to find a universal calibration function for reliable estimations of the clinical data

Visio Oulujoen suistoalueelle

Tiivistelmä. Diplomityö ”Visio Oulujoen suistoalueelle” on yhdyskuntasuunnittelun työ, joka esittelee yhden tulevaisuuden kehityksen vaihtoehdon Oulujoen suiston osa-alueelle, Rommakonselälle. Ensisijaisena tavoitteena on ollut luoda ehyt ja tinkimätön aluesuunnitelma, joka ottaa lähtökohdakseen alueen ominaispiirteet. Suunnittelupainotteisen työn pohjalle on koottu suppea taustatietopaketti alueen historiasta, nykytilanteesta sekä tulevaisuuden ennusteista. Suistoalueella alati läsnä oleva vesi on läpi diplomityön avainasemassa. Suunnitelmaosiossa nostetaan esille aluesuunnitelmaan liittyvät veden roolit kaupunkisuunnittelun välineenä. Työssä esitellään suistoalueen rakentumisen vaiheet ja vaiheittaisuuden periaatteet, suunnitelman eri kokonaisuudet sekä yleispiirteiset kaaviot toiminnoista ja liikenneverkostosta. Työ on tehty Oulun kaupungin palkkaamana ja tarjoamissa tiloissa

Semi-automatic Maintenance of Regression Models: an Application in the Steel Industry

Software applications used in the controlling and planning of production processes commonly make use of predictive statistical models. Changes in the process involve a more or less regular need for updating the prediction models on which the operational software applications are based. The objective of this article is • to provide information which helps to design semiautomatic systems for the maintenance of statistical prediction models and • to describe a proof-of-concept implementation in an industrial application. The system developed processes the production data and provides an easy-to-use interface to construct updated models and introduce them into a software application. The article presents the architecture of the maintenance system, with a description of the algorithms that cause the system’s functionality. The system developed was implemented for keeping up-to-date prediction models which are in everyday use in a steel plate mill in the planning of the mechanical properties of steel products. The conclusion of the results is that the semi-automatic approach proposed is competitive with fully automatic and manual approaches. The benefits include good prediction accuracy and decreased workload of the deployment of updated model versions

Auttaako käyttäytymisterapeuttinen ryhmäterapia aggressiivisesti käyttäytyvää nuorta?

HALO-katsausKouluym­pä­ris­tössä toteu­tetut inter­ventiot näyt­tivät onnis­tuvan tavoit­teissaan pa­remmin kuin lai­tos- tai ­po­lik­lii­niset inter­ventiot, mut­ta ai­neistot ja tu­lokset vaihte­levat