A monument to the player: Preserving a landscape of socio-cultural capital in the transitional MMORPG

This is the pre-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the links below - Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis LtdMassively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) produce dynamic socio-ludic worlds that nurture both culture and gameplay to shape experiences. Despite the persistent nature of these games, however, the virtual spaces that anchor these worlds may not always be able to exist in perpetuity. Encouraging a community to migrate from one space to another is a challenge now facing some game developers. This paper examines the case of Guild Wars® and its “Hall of Monuments”, a feature that bridges the accomplishments of players from the current game to the forthcoming sequel. Two factor analyses describe the perspectives of 105 and 187 self-selected participants. The results reveal four factors affecting attitudes towards the feature, but they do not strongly correlate with existing motivational frameworks, and significant differences were found between different cultures within the game. This informs a discussion about the implications and facilitation of such transitions, investigating themes of capital, value perception and assumptive worlds. It is concluded that the way subcultures produce meaning needs to be considered when attempting to preserve the socio-cultural landscape

The Activity Concentration of \u3csup\u3e210\u3c/sup\u3ePo in Romanian Commercial Cigarettes and the Radiation Exposure Estimation Derived from their Regular Consumption

Due to the relatively high activity concentrations of 210Po that are found in tobacco, cigarette smoking has been found to be the principal pathway of the intake of this radionuclide. The 210Po concentrations in the lung tissues may contribute significantly to an increase in the internal radiation dose and in the number of instances of lung cancer observed among smokers. The study of 210Po in tobacco is required due to its potential for human radiation exposure through ingestion and inhalation. The risk factor caused by 210Po in Romanian commercial cigarettes is not yet evaluated. Ten of the most frequently smoked brands of cigarettes sold in Romania were investigated in this work for this purpose. The activity concentration of 210Po was determined by alpha spectrometry using a PIPS detector after chemical leaching and spontaneous deposition of 210Po on a stainless steel disc from diluted HCl solution. The samples were spiked with 209Po for chemical recovery calculation. The 210Po activity concentrations of the measured types of cigarettes ranged from 4.65 to 10.22 mBq sample−1 and the resulted average concentration of 210Po isotopes is 8.35±0.80 mBq cigarette−1 (the errors form a 2σ interval of confidence). When comparing the results of this study with the activity concentration values reported by other countries it was found that the results of this study are in the lower end of the world range. The estimation of this study shows that cigarette smokers, who are smoking one pack (20 cigarettes) per day, are exposed to an effective dose of 75.51 μSv y−1