Addressing harm in online gaming communities -- the opportunities and challenges for a restorative justice approach

Most platforms implement some form of content moderation to address interpersonal harms such as harassment. Content moderation relies on offender-centered, punitive justice approaches such as bans and content removals. We consider an alternative justice framework, restorative justice, which aids victims to heal, supports offenders to repair the harm, and engages community members to address the harm collectively. To understand the utility of restorative justice in addressing online harm, we interviewed 23 users from Overwatch gaming communities, including moderators, victims, and offenders. We understand how they currently handle harm cases through the lens of restorative justice and identify their attitudes toward implementing restorative justice processes. Our analysis reveals that while online communities have needs for and existing structures to support restorative justice, there are structural, cultural, and resource-related obstacles to implementing this new approach within the existing punitive framework. We discuss the opportunities and challenges for applying restorative justice in online spaces

Machine Learning of Amino Acid Composition Models for Protein Redesign

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2019Proteins from thermophiles can preserve their basic structures and original functions at high temperature. However, most of the mesophilic proteins are vulnerable to such extreme condition due to their different amino acid composition. Improve the thermostability of thermophilic proteins will reduce the cost of from storage and production in industrial process. Nowadays, machine learning becomes a powerful method for data-intensive computation. This work provides a well-tuned network, called Thermalizer, which applies Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to encode the mesophilic proteins to thermostable proteins which is predicted to be able to perform expected function in higher temperature. The toolkit also provides workflow from gene and amino acid sequence preprocessing to encoder and decoder construction, model training and evaluation, and translation window. The project is accessible on GitHub: https://github.com/BeckResearchLab/thermalizer

Design and development of an immersive horror game

With the prosperous growth of internet and cyber world, people trend to look for more entertainments online and it comes to a golden age for the development of horror games. Although horror game itself is still not the mainstream of online gaming, it is introduced to public gradually. From the Silent Hill franchise to the Outlast series, the successfulness of such horror games attracts both good and bad producers into this field. Excellent and innovative works such as Amnesia and Visage are created, while numerous mediocre horror games tend to overuse jump scares that can suppress players’ experience on the game itself. To explore the approaches to build a horror game that provides the players an immersive experience, a few ideas was presented, discussed and assessed in group. In this Thesis, frequently used horror games mechanisms have been studied and an original horror game has been built.Bachelor of Engineering (Information Engineering and Media

Effect of Operating Parameters on the Coalescence and Breakup of Bubbles in a Multiphase Pump Based on a CFD-PBM Coupled Model

When the multiphase pump is running, the internal medium often exists as bubble flow. In order to investigate the bubble occurrence characteristics in the pressurization unit of the multiphase pump more accurately, this paper couples computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with a population balance model (PBM) to investigate the bubble size distribution law of the multiphase pump under different operating conditions, taking into account the bubble coalescence and breakup. The research shows that the mean bubble size in the impeller domain gradually decreases from 1.7013 mm at the inlet to 0.6179 mm at the outlet along the axis direction; the average bubble diameter in the diffuser domain fluctuates around 0.60 mm. The bubbles in the impeller region gradually change from the trend of coalescence to the trend of breakup along the axial and radial directions, and the bubbles in the diffuser tend to be broken by the vortex entrainment. The bubble size development law is influenced by the inlet gas volume fraction (IGVF) and the rotational speed, showing a more obvious rule, where the gas phase aggregation phenomenon enhanced by the increase in IGVF promotes the trend of bubble coalescence and makes the bubble size gradually increase. The increased blade shearing effect with the increase in rotational speed promotes the trend of bubble breakup, which gradually reduces the size of the bubbles. In addition, increasing the bubble coalescence probability is a key factor leading to changes in bubble size; the bubble size development law is not very sensitive to changes in flow, and the bubble size is at its maximum under design conditions. The research results can accurately predict the performance change of the multiphase pump and provide technical guidance for its safe operation and optimal design

Effect of Operating Parameters on the Coalescence and Breakup of Bubbles in a Multiphase Pump Based on a CFD-PBM Coupled Model

When the multiphase pump is running, the internal medium often exists as bubble flow. In order to investigate the bubble occurrence characteristics in the pressurization unit of the multiphase pump more accurately, this paper couples computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with a population balance model (PBM) to investigate the bubble size distribution law of the multiphase pump under different operating conditions, taking into account the bubble coalescence and breakup. The research shows that the mean bubble size in the impeller domain gradually decreases from 1.7013 mm at the inlet to 0.6179 mm at the outlet along the axis direction; the average bubble diameter in the diffuser domain fluctuates around 0.60 mm. The bubbles in the impeller region gradually change from the trend of coalescence to the trend of breakup along the axial and radial directions, and the bubbles in the diffuser tend to be broken by the vortex entrainment. The bubble size development law is influenced by the inlet gas volume fraction (IGVF) and the rotational speed, showing a more obvious rule, where the gas phase aggregation phenomenon enhanced by the increase in IGVF promotes the trend of bubble coalescence and makes the bubble size gradually increase. The increased blade shearing effect with the increase in rotational speed promotes the trend of bubble breakup, which gradually reduces the size of the bubbles. In addition, increasing the bubble coalescence probability is a key factor leading to changes in bubble size; the bubble size development law is not very sensitive to changes in flow, and the bubble size is at its maximum under design conditions. The research results can accurately predict the performance change of the multiphase pump and provide technical guidance for its safe operation and optimal design

Study on Distribution Law of Gas Phase and Cavitation in the Pressurization Unit of Helical Axial Flow Multiphase Pump

Due to the irregular change of gas void fraction (GVF) in multiphase pumps, the pressure distribution in the pump is often uneven, which leads to the formation of low-pressure area and thus the occurrence of cavitation. In order to study the gas phase and cavitation distribution in the impeller region of a multiphase pump under different cavitation stages and GVF conditions, this study used numerical calculations as the main method and experimental verification as a secondary method to investigate the cavitation phenomenon in the pump under different stages and GVF conditions. The results showed that at different stages, both the volume fraction and the covering area of the gas phase were reduced to a certain extent with the increase in blade height, and the distribution law of the gas phase on the blade changed with the development of the cavitation stage, especially on the blade surface. At different GVFs, cavitation first occurred at the inlet of the blade SS and then extended along the blade streamline from the inlet to outlet, with the volume fraction and distribution of cavitation gradually increasing and then extending to the blade PS. The results showed that the presence of the gas phase inhibited the development of cavitation in the multiphase pump to some extent, and the cavitation performance of the multiphase pump was better in the presence of the gas phase than in pure water conditions. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for improving the cavitation performance of multiphase pumps

Zebrafish prmt7 negatively regulates antiviral responses by suppressing the retinoic acid-inducible gene-I-like receptor signaling

Arginine methylation is a post-translational modification in histone and nonhistone proteins that can affect numerous cellular activities. Protein arginine methyltransferase 7 (Prmt7), a type III arginine methyltransferase, catalyzes the formation of stable monomethylarginines of histones. The role of PRMT7 in virus-induced innate immunity signaling, however, remains largely unknown. We demonstrate that zebrafish prmt7 could be inhibited by spring viremia of carp virus (SVCV) and grass carp reovirus (GCRV) infection. The overexpression of prmt7 suppresses cellular antiviral responses that are partially dependent on the arginine methyltransferase activity of prmt7. Consistently, prmt7-null zebrafish were more resistant to SVCV or GCRV infection, exhibiting enhanced expression of key antiviral genes and fewer necrotic cells in the liver and kidney upon viral infection. Furthermore, we established a zebrafish model to investigate grass carp hemorrhagic disease. Our findings suggest that by suppressing the RIG-I-like receptors signaling, zebrafish prmt7 negatively regulates antiviral responses, indicating the vital role of prmt7 and its arginine methyltransferase activity in innate immunity