Total Engagement: Using Games and Virtual Worlds to Change The Way People Work and Business Complete

The authors show why you must begin building a game strategy now-and offer practical guidelines for : - Selecting game design featues that can address your company’s “pain points” - Using avatars to incrase engagement and productivity - Employing virtual surrencies to help employees set priorities, share resources, and meet goals - Implementing participant-driven communication systems to facilitate team building - Discovering untapped leadership skills by shifting collaboration to gamelike environments - Mitigating possible negative effects of game applications at work Authoritative and provocative, Total Engagement shows how to become a palyer to reckon with as the game revolution transforms the workplace

The New Videomalaise: Effects of Televised Incivility on Political Trust

Does incivility in political discourse have adverse effects on public regard for politics? If so, why? In this study we present a theory suggesting that when viewers are exposed to televised political disagreement, it often violates well-established face-to-face social norms for the polite expression of opposing views. As a result, incivility in public discourse adversely affects trust in government. Drawing on three laboratory experiments, we find that televised presentations of political differences of opinion do not, in and of themselves, harm attitudes toward politics and politicians. However, political trust is adversely affected by levels of incivility in these exchanges. Our findings suggest that the format of much political television effectively promotes viewer interest, but at the expense of political trust

Touching a mechanical body: tactile contact with body parts of a humanoid robot is physiologically arousing

A large literature describes the use of robots’ physical bodies to support communication with people. Touch is a natural channel for physical interaction, yet it is not understood how principles of interpersonal touch might carry over to human-robot interaction. Ten students participated in an interactive anatomy lesson with a small, humanoid robot. Participants either touched or pointed to an anatomical region of the robot in each of 26 trials while their skin conductance response was measured. Touching less accessible regions of the robot (e.g., buttocks and genitals) was more physiologically arousing than touching more accessible regions (e.g., hands and feet). No differences in physiological arousal were found when just pointing to those same anatomical regions. Social robots can elicit tactile responses in human physiology, a result that signals the power of robots, and should caution mechanical and interaction designers about positive and negative effects of human-robot interactions

Adult Education Adrift in a Net: Making Waves or Clutching a Lifering?

The Internet and World Wide Web exemplify values advanced by heroic adult education theorists such as Ivan Illich. They have also triggered a deluge of hyperbole and surfeit of false dichotomies (e.g. online versus face-to-face education). But, in the chorus of critics and advocates, adult educators have been noticeably silent. This symposium is designed to rectify this situation by interrogating Internet and Web learning and education from an adult education perspective

Wearable Tag Clouds: Visualizations to Facilitate New Collaborations

Abstract: We describe the development and pilot testing by university faculty of Wearable Tag Clouds as a CSCL technology. Tag Clouds are 'at-a-glance' information visualizations that, in the wearable form developed here, repurpose social web technologies to support face-to-face interactions. Exploration of collaborative prospects is facilitated by visualizing the substantive emphases of researchers' written works. Pilot test results suggest wearable information visualizations can positively impact face-to-face interactions in collaborative communities

Nephritogenic autoantibodies but absence of nephritis in Il-12p35–deficient mice with pristane-induced lupus

Nephritogenic autoantibodies but absence of nephritis in Il-12p35–deficient mice with pristane-induced lupus.BackgroundThere is strong evidence that Th1 cytokines are essential for disease in murine models of lupus. Interleukin-12 (IL-12) is essential for Th1 cell differentiation and induces interferon-γ (IFN-γ) production. Paradoxically, it has been suggested that an IL-12 defect drives the pathogenesis of lupus, although its precise role remains unclear. We investigated the role of IL-12 for lupus-like disease induced by pristane. IL-12p35–deficient (-/-) and control (+/+) BALB/c mice were treated with pristane or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS).MethodsProteinuria was measured and renal pathology evaluated 10 months after treatment. Sera were analyzed for autoantibodies and total immunoglobulin levels. Cytokine expression and production was analyzed.ResultsPristane induced nephritogenic autoantibodies and renal immunoglobulin and complement deposition in both IL-12 -/- and +/+ mice. However, proliferative pathology and proteinuria were absent in IL-12-/- mice, whereas pristane induced severe nephritis in one third of the +/+ mice. As expected, cytokine balance was skewed toward a Th2 response in pristane-treated IL-12 -/- mice.ConclusionThese data indicate that renal immune complex deposition can occur in the absence of IL-12p35, but that structural renal damage requires the presence of IL-12p35 or mediators induced by this molecule, such as IFN-γ. In contrast to the abrogation of nephritogenic autoantibodies by the lack of IFN-γ, such antibodies are induced by pristane in IL-12p35–deficient mice. Absence of structural renal disease, despite the presence of nephritogenic autoantibodies in pristane-treated IL-12-/- mice, indicates that antibody deposition alone is not sufficient for the development of lupus nephritis in this model

Communicating Dominance in a Nonanthropomorphic Robot Using Locomotion

Dominance is a key aspect of interpersonal relationships. To what extent do nonverbal indicators related to dominance status translate to a nonanthropomorphic robot? An experiment (N = 25) addressed whether a mobile robot's motion style can influence people's perceptions of its status. Using concepts from improv theater literature, we developed two motion styles across three scenarios (robot makes lateral motions, approaches, and departs) to communicate a robot's dominance status through nonverbal expression. In agreement with the literature, participants described a motion style that was fast, in the foreground, and more animated as higher status than a motion style that was slow, in the periphery, and less animated. Participants used fewer negative emotion words to describe the robot with the purportedly high-status movements versus the purportedly low-status movements, but used more negative emotion words to describe the robot when it made departing motions that occurred in the same style. This result provides evidence that guidelines from improvisational theater for using nonverbal expression to perform interpersonal status can be applied to influence perception of a nonanthropomorphic robot's status, thus suggesting that useful models for more complicated behaviors might similarly be derived from performance literature and theory

Screenomics : a new approach for observing and studying individuals' digital lives

This study describes when and how adolescents engage with their fast-moving and dynamic digital environment as they go about their daily lives. We illustrate a new approach—screenomics—for capturing, visualizing, and analyzing screenomes, the record of individuals’ day-to-day digital experiences. Sample includes over 500,000 smartphone screenshots provided by four Latino/Hispanic youth, age 14 to 15 years, from low-income, racial/ethnic minority neighborhoods. Screenomes collected from smartphones for 1 to 3 months, as sequences of smartphone screenshots obtained every 5 seconds that the device is activated, are analyzed using computational machinery for processing images and text, machine learning algorithms, human labeling, and qualitative inquiry. Adolescents’ digital lives differ substantially across persons, days, hours, and minutes. Screenomes highlight the extent of switching among multiple applications, and how each adolescent is exposed to different content at different times for different durations—with apps, food-related content, and sentiment as illustrative examples. We propose that the screenome provides the fine granularity of data needed to study individuals’ digital lives, for testing existing theories about media use, and for generation of new theory about the interplay between digital media and development

Facts, Interactivity and Videotape : Exploring the Design Space of Data in Interactive Video Storytelling

We live in a society that is increasingly data rich, with an unprecedented amount of information being captured, stored and analysed about our lives and the people we share them with. We explore the relationship between this new data and emergent forms of interactive video storytelling. In particular we ask: i) how can interactive video storytelling techniques be employed to provide accessible, informative and pleasurable ways for people to engage with data; and ii) how can data be used by the creators of interactive video stories to meet expressive goals and support new forms of experience? We present an analysis of 43 interactive videos that use data in a noteworthy fashion. This analysis reveals a design space comprising key techniques for telling engaging interactive video stories with and about data. To conclude, we discuss challenges relating to the production and consumption of such content and make recommendations for future research