On Making Good Games - Using Player Virtue Ethics and Gameplay Design Patterns to Identify Generally Desirable Gameplay Features

This paper uses a framework of player virtues to perform a theoretical exploration of what is required to make a game good. The choice of player virtues is based upon the view that games can be seen as implements, and that these are good if they support an intended use, and the intended use of games is to support people to be good players. A collection of gameplay design patterns, identified through their relation to the virtues, is presented to provide specific starting points for considering design options for this type of good games. 24 patterns are identified supporting the virtues, including RISK/REWARD, DYNAMIC ALLIANCES, GAME MASTERS, and PLAYER DECIDED RESULTS, as are 7 countering three or more virtues, including ANALYSIS PARALYSIS, EARLY ELIMINATION, and GRINDING. The paper concludes by identifying limitations of the approach as well as by showing how it can be applied using other views of what are preferable features in games

On The Foundations of Digital Games

Computers have lead to a revolution in the games we play, and, following this, an interest for computer-based games has been sparked in research communities. However, this easily leads to the perception of a one-way direction of influence between that the field of game research and computer science. This historical investigation points towards a deep and intertwined relationship between research on games and the development of computers, giving a richer picture of both fields. While doing so, an overview of early game research is presented and an argument made that the distinction between digital games and non-digital games may be counter-productive to game research as a whole

Economic evaluation of LIFE methodology

Background: The LIFE project (Lifecycle Information For E-Literature) was carried out during 2004-2006 by a consortium consisting of The British Library and University College London Library Services . The project was joint venture funded by JISC under the programme area Institutional Management Support and Collaboration. The project has received favourable feedback, for instance during a workshop organised at the end of it, and JISC has agreed to fund a second phase during 2007-2008. The consortium has been strengthened by three associate partners (SHERPA-LEAP Consortium, SHERPA-DP and the Medical Research Council). In addition some funds were reserved for the use of an outside economic consultant for an evaluation of the life-cycle models that emerged as the key results from the first phase. The LIFE-2 project consists of five work packages, and this report is part of the first of these. The objective of WP 1 is formulated in the LIFE 2 Project proposal as follows: Validation of the economic modelling and methodology for the Lifecycle and Generic Preservation formulae developed in Phase 1 of the LIFE project, with technical and presentational development of the models. Cloudlake Consulting Oy has been commissioned by the consortium to carry out this validation. The report has been written by Bo-Christer Björk. He is professor of Information Systems Science at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki, Finland. He has been conducting research concerning the scientific publishing process since 2000 and has published several peer reviewed journal articles as well as conference papers on the subject. He is often an invited speaker at international workshops in this area

Delayed Open Access – an overlooked high-impact category of openly available scientific literature

Delayed open access (OA) refers to scholarly articles in subscription journals made available openly on the web directly through the publisher at the expiry of a set embargo period. Though a substantial number of journals have practiced delayed OA since they started publishing e-versions, empirical studies concerning open access have often overlooked this body of literature. This study provides comprehensive quantitative measurements by identifying delayed OA journals, collecting data concerning their publication volumes, embargo lengths, and citation rates. Altogether 492 journals were identified, publishing a combined total of 111 312 articles in 2011. 77,8 % of these articles were made open access within 12 months from publication, with 85,4 % becoming available within 24 months. A journal impact factor analysis revealed that delayed OA journals have on average twice as high average citation rates compared to closed subscription journals, and three times as high as immediate OA journals. Overall the results demonstrate that delayed OA journals constitute an important segment of the openly available scholarly journal literature, both by their sheer article volume as well as by including a substantial proportion of high impact journals.peerReviewe

Understanding the Unoriginal: Indeterminant Originalism and Independent Interpretation of the Alaska Constitution

Loudspeakers were invented over 150 years ago, but the loudspeakers used todayare still based on the same ideas. Traditionally, good sound quality has been obtainedby using expensive materials in the loudspeakers and by allowing themto be big. However, nowadays loudspeakers are wanted in applications such asmobile phones and tablets where size and weight are very limited and there is aconstant desire to decrease production costs. Special small loudspeakers, knownas micro loudspeakers, have been developed for this purpose but due to the severerestrictions in size and manufacturing costs, the sound quality in the microloudspeakers is relatively poor. One problem is that the nonlinearities of thesystem, present in any loudspeaker, become more evident in the case of microloudspeakers and cause noticeable distortion of the sound.This master’s thesis has been performed in cooperation with Opalum (formerlyActiwave), a company specializing in using digital signal processing to improvethe sound in loudspeakers with poor acoustic properties. The objective of thethesis is to investigate ways to increase the sound quality in micro loudspeakersby using nonlinear control. Focus has been on frequencies below the resonancefrequency since the distortion is more noticeable at low frequencies. First, a nonlinearmodel of the micro loudspeaker has been obtained using system identificationstrategies. The model describes the relationship between the voltage overthe voice-coil and the diaphragm displacement. Subsequently, input-output linearisationhas been used to design a controller for the system and the effect onthe distortion has been investigated through experiments. Two different modelstructures have been tested, a physical model based on the Thiele-Small modeland a black-box model with a Hammerstein-Wiener structure. In both cases, thenonlinearities were modelled as polynomials. The controller was then extendedwith an updating algorithm, making it adaptive.The efficiency of the controllers has been proved by experiments, where distortionwas decreased by up to 60 % compared to the case without control. The effectwas largest for low frequencies, around one third of the resonance frequency,but improvements were noted up to about two thirds of the resonance frequency,depending on the loudspeaker unit. The approach using a physical model andthat using a black-box model have shown similar results.Högtalaren uppfanns för över 150 år sedan men de högtalare som används idagbygger till stora delar på samma teknik. Högkvalitativt ljud har traditionellt uppnåttsgenom att ge högtalaren goda akustiska egenskaper genom att tillåta den attvara stor och tillverkad av dyra material. Utmaningen idag ligger i att högtalarefinns inbyggda i exempelvis mobiltelefoner, vilket innebär att de behöver görassmå, lätta och billiga att producera. För att möta dessa krav har kompromisserkrävts vilket gör att dessa små högtalare, kallade mikrohögtalare, har sämre ljudkvalitet.Ett problem är att de olinjäriteter som finns i alla högtalare blir extraframträdande i små högtalare vilket leder till distorsion och övertoner i ljudsignalen.Detta examensarbete är gjort i samarbete med Opalum (tidigare Actiwave), vilketär ett företag som specialiserar sig på att med hjälp av digital signalbehandlingförbättra ljudkvaliteten för högtalare med akustiskt dåliga egenskaper. Syftetmed examensarbetet har varit att minska distorsionen i en mikrohögtalaremed hjälp av olinjär reglering. Fokus har legat på den lägre delen av frekvensbandet,under resonansfrekvensen, eftersom det är där distorsionen är mest märkbar.Först har en olinjär modell av högtalaren tagits fram genom systemidentifiering.Modellen förklarar sambandet mellan spänningen över högtalarens talspole ochmembranets utslag. I ett nästa steg har en regulator designats utifrån modellenoch regulatorns effekt på distorsionen har utvärderats genom experiment. Två olikamodellstrukturer har undersökts, dels en fysikalisk modell baserad på Thiele-Smallmodellen och dels en svartlådemodell med Hammerstein-Wienerstruktur.I båda fallen har olinjäriteterna modellerats som polynom. Regulatorn har sedanutökats med en uppdateringsalgoritm som gör den adaptiv.Experiment har visat att regleringen bidrog till att minska distorsionen med upptill 60 % jämfört med då systemet kördes utan reglering. Effekten har varit störstför låga frekvenser, kring en tredjedel av resonsnsfrekvensen, men förbättringarhar kunnat ses upp till frekvenser kring två tredjedelar av resonansfrekvensen.Både metoden med en fysikalisk modellstruktur och med en svartlådestrukturhar visat likartade resultat

Non-monotonic dependence of projection probabilities as a function of distinguishability

Typically, quantum superpositions, and thus measurement projections of quantum states involving interference, decrease (or increase) monotonically as a function of increased distinguishability. Distinguishability, in turn, can be a consequence of decoherence, for example caused by the (simultaneous) loss of excitation or due to inadequate mode matching (either deliberate or indeliberate). It is known that for some cases of multi-photon interference, non-monotonic decay of projection probabilities occurs, which has so far been attributed to interference between four or more two photons. We show that such a non-monotonic behaviour of projection probabilities is not unnatural, and can also occur for single-photon and even semiclassical states. Thus, while the effect traces its roots from indistinguishability and thus interference, the states for which this can be observed do not need to have particular quantum features.Comment: This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in New Journal of Physics. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from i