Towards a comprehensive framework to analyse edutainment applications

By following action research principles this study develops a comprehensive framework that enables more systematical data collection on the design and impact of edutainment applications, in particular serious games and gamification, from learning and learner’s points of view. Schell’s original game design framework including aesthetics, story, mechanics and technology dimensions was enhanced with pedagogy and player dimensions. Moreover, these abstract dimensions were decomposed into individual functional elements on the basis of prior findings in literature. The enhanced framework was tested with four serious games. The framework helped to gain deeper insight in design choices being made and reveals subtle differences between game designs. There is, however, room for improvement. Some elements seem to be partly overlapping; others do not seem to differentiate much across different games. More research is needed to fine-tune and operationalize the framework elements

Designing Business Models for Mobile Payment Services

Designing business models for mobile services is a complex undertaking because it requires multiple actors to balance different requirements and interests such that a ‘win-win’ situation is created. A business model can be seen as a blueprint of four interrelated components: service offering, technical architecture, and organizational and financial arrangements. Although little attention has been paid to how these different components are related to one another, this knowledge is needed to enhance our understanding of what constitutes a viable business model. In this paper the connections between two of these components, namely service offering and organizational arrangements, are explored by analyzing the business models of three recent mobile payment initiatives. The cases reveal that similar value elements can be realized in different ways and that, depending on the target group, dominant actors can be bypassed in the value network

A study of silicon thin films produced by electron beam induced decomposition

The formation of silicon by the electron beam dissociation of absorbed tetramethylsilane has been investigated. The growth rate of the thin films of silicon was studied as a function of the vapor pressure of the reactive gas, the temperature of the substrate onto which the gas was absorbed and the current density of the electron beam

Customer and Network Value of Mobile Services: Balancing Requirements and Strategic Interests

Designing business models for mobile services is a complex undertaking. A business model can be seen as a blueprint of four interrelated components: service offering, technical architecture, and organizational and financial arrangements. Little attention has been paid to how these different components are related to one another. Multiple actors have to balance different design requirements, strategic interests, and business logics to create a win–win situation, in which each actor has incentives to cooperate. Knowledge on the interrelation between and within the four components is needed to enhance our understanding of what constitutes a viable business model. In this paper, the connections between these components are explored by analyzing the critical design issues in business models for mobile services (e.g., targeting, branding, and customer retention in the service domain; security, quality of service and system integration in the technology domain; network governance in the organization domain; and revenue sharing in the finance domain). A causal framework is developed linking these critical design issues to expected customer value and expected network value, and hence to business model viability

Balancing Requirements For Customer Value Of Mobile Services

Designing business models for mobile services is a complex undertaking because it requires multiple actors to balance different design requirements. A business model can be seen as a blueprint of four interrelated components or domains: service, technology, organization and finance domain. Little attention has been paid to how these different domains are related to each other. This knowledge is needed to enhance our understanding of what constitutes a viable business model. In this paper the connections between two of these domains, namely service and technology domain, are explored by analysing critical design issues in business models for mobile services, i.e. targeting, creating value, branding and customer retention in the service domain, and security, quality of service, management of service profiles, system integration and accessibility in the technology domain. A causal framework is developed, which link these critical design issues to expected customer value and business model viability.

Hubble Space Telescope Planetary Camera Images of NGC 1316

We present HST Planetary Camera V and I~band images of the central region of the peculiar giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1316. The inner profile is well fit by a nonisothermal core model with a core radius of 0.41" +/- 0.02" (34 pc). At an assumed distance of 16.9 Mpc, the deprojected luminosity density reaches \sim 2.0 \times 10^3 L_{\sun} pc$^{-3}$. Outside the inner two or three arcseconds, a constant mass-to-light ratio of $\sim 2.2 \pm 0.2$ is found to fit the observed line width measurements. The line width measurements of the center indicate the existence of either a central dark object of mass 2 \times 10^9 M_{\sun}, an increase in the stellar mass-to-light ratio by at least a factor of two for the inner few arcseconds, or perhaps increasing radial orbit anisotropy towards the center. The mass-to-light ratio run in the center of NGC 1316 resembles that of many other giant ellipticals, some of which are known from other evidence to harbor central massive dark objects (MDO's). We also examine twenty globular clusters associated with NGC 1316 and report their brightnesses, colors, and limits on tidal radii. The brightest cluster has a luminosity of 9.9 \times 10^6 L_{\sun} ($M_V = -12.7$), and the faintest detectable cluster has a luminosity of 2.4 \times 10^5 L_{\sun} ($M_V = -8.6$). The globular clusters are just barely resolved, but their core radii are too small to be measured. The tidal radii in this region appear to be $\le$ 35 pc. Although this galaxy seems to have undergone a substantial merger in the recent past, young globular clusters are not detected.Comment: 21 pages, latex, postscript figures available at ftp://delphi.umd.edu/pub/outgoing/eshaya/fornax