Indexing Serious Games to Meet Adaptive E-Learning System Needs

This chapter aims to strengthen the integration of serious games in the educational field by providing tools to monitor and assist the progress of learners/players. The main idea is to address the integration aspects and the deployment of serious games in adaptive e-learning systems based on the automatic package and the export of serious games as reusable learning objects (LO). This integration will allow SGs to benefit from the tracking and support features offered by the LMS. On the other hand, LMS can supplement their training offer and reach a certain maturity. The approach aims to meet the specific needs of SGs in terms of metadata so that they can be described, indexed, and capitalized. This is a new application profile of the IEEE LOM standard entitled “SGLOM” integrating fields to describe SGs not only in a technical sense but also by examining the pedagogical and playful criteria. The authors also focus on the integration and extraction aspects of SGs in an LMS using the ADL SCORM 2004 data model that defines how content can be packaged as a SCORM PIF (package interchange file).

Colour Printing in the Uttermost Part of the Sea: a Study of the Colour Print Products, Printers, Technology and Markets in New Zealand, 1830-1914

<p>This thesis is an historical study of the development and the relationships between some aspects of colour printing in New Zealand from 1830 to 1914, including the practitioners, the technology and the products, in the context of printing in New Zealand beginning as a largely British inheritance, but within an Australasian setting. A review of the printing history literature has shown that there have been relatively few works in the English language devoted specifically to the history of colour printing. Much of the literature bearing on the topic in relation to British colour printing history deals with specialized aspects such as colour plate books or technical processes. There has been no previous specific scholarly study of New Zealand colour printing history. The research for this aspect of thesis has been in the nature of exploratory work. An historical methodology was employed to approach the gathering and analysis of data from a wide array of sources, both secondary and primary. A theoretical framework suitable to an academic historical study, of which history' of print culture is a part, has been developed using the new model proposed by Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker (1993) as an appropriate foundation framework. This model shows the phases of the 'book cycle', publication, manufacture, distribution, reception and survival, as being central to the whole socio-economic conjuncture. The paradigm developed for the present study is based on the section of the framework relating to the manufacture or production phase, using themes that emerged from the literature to facilitate analysis and explanation of New Zealand patterns and relationships with comparison to British colour printing history. Within this setting more detailed study was made of some of the colour printers. Especially those of the lower North Island, including a case study of the Wanganui firm of A.D. Willis where colour printing was a specialty. A genre study of special numbers from the New Zealand weeklies has also been presented. Rather than attempting to provide a definitive colour printing history the research has provided an interpretive thematic study that has aimed to increase understanding of some aspects of New Zealand colour printing history, and accordingly, responses to research questions have been tentative. It was found that although colour printing practice continued with strong ties to the British craft' from the beginning, new relationships were being forged particularly with the neigbouring Australian colonies whence immigrant printers and lithographers were arriving. After local lithographic colour printing had begun to develop in New Zealand in the eighteen sixties, in the period to 1914 local printers were found to have used colour in diverse ways, especially in the context of jobbing printing, chiefly to produce letterpress and lithographic items. The later New Zealand photomechanical colour methods developed within these styles. By the end of the nineteenth century, New Zealand colour printers were following international trends, and more influence was arriving from America, but such trends were still chiefly coming to New Zealand via Britain and Australia, although in a technical sense, New Zealand was generally in a following position. After the eighteen sixties colour printers were found to have been in business in all the main centres of New Zealand, and in some of the smaller centres. It was apparent that many of the global and technological factors that had driven colour printing were common to both Britain and New Zealand, but that local conditions had also been important. Although print products tailored to local demand and often featuring local images had been produced using a variety of available technologies in each place, limiting factors present in New Zealand, particularly its isolation from the larger markets coupled with a small local population, had dictated that colour was appearing from colonial printers in a more circumscribed way than was the case in Britain. In the main, New Zealand colour printers appear to have responded to marketplace differences by choosing appropriate genre and cutting format costs.</p>

Colour Printing in the Uttermost Part of the Sea: a Study of the Colour Print Products, Printers, Technology and Markets in New Zealand, 1830-1914

<p>This thesis is an historical study of the development and the relationships between some aspects of colour printing in New Zealand from 1830 to 1914, including the practitioners, the technology and the products, in the context of printing in New Zealand beginning as a largely British inheritance, but within an Australasian setting. A review of the printing history literature has shown that there have been relatively few works in the English language devoted specifically to the history of colour printing. Much of the literature bearing on the topic in relation to British colour printing history deals with specialized aspects such as colour plate books or technical processes. There has been no previous specific scholarly study of New Zealand colour printing history. The research for this aspect of thesis has been in the nature of exploratory work. An historical methodology was employed to approach the gathering and analysis of data from a wide array of sources, both secondary and primary. A theoretical framework suitable to an academic historical study, of which history' of print culture is a part, has been developed using the new model proposed by Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker (1993) as an appropriate foundation framework. This model shows the phases of the 'book cycle', publication, manufacture, distribution, reception and survival, as being central to the whole socio-economic conjuncture. The paradigm developed for the present study is based on the section of the framework relating to the manufacture or production phase, using themes that emerged from the literature to facilitate analysis and explanation of New Zealand patterns and relationships with comparison to British colour printing history. Within this setting more detailed study was made of some of the colour printers. Especially those of the lower North Island, including a case study of the Wanganui firm of A.D. Willis where colour printing was a specialty. A genre study of special numbers from the New Zealand weeklies has also been presented. Rather than attempting to provide a definitive colour printing history the research has provided an interpretive thematic study that has aimed to increase understanding of some aspects of New Zealand colour printing history, and accordingly, responses to research questions have been tentative. It was found that although colour printing practice continued with strong ties to the British craft' from the beginning, new relationships were being forged particularly with the neigbouring Australian colonies whence immigrant printers and lithographers were arriving. After local lithographic colour printing had begun to develop in New Zealand in the eighteen sixties, in the period to 1914 local printers were found to have used colour in diverse ways, especially in the context of jobbing printing, chiefly to produce letterpress and lithographic items. The later New Zealand photomechanical colour methods developed within these styles. By the end of the nineteenth century, New Zealand colour printers were following international trends, and more influence was arriving from America, but such trends were still chiefly coming to New Zealand via Britain and Australia, although in a technical sense, New Zealand was generally in a following position. After the eighteen sixties colour printers were found to have been in business in all the main centres of New Zealand, and in some of the smaller centres. It was apparent that many of the global and technological factors that had driven colour printing were common to both Britain and New Zealand, but that local conditions had also been important. Although print products tailored to local demand and often featuring local images had been produced using a variety of available technologies in each place, limiting factors present in New Zealand, particularly its isolation from the larger markets coupled with a small local population, had dictated that colour was appearing from colonial printers in a more circumscribed way than was the case in Britain. In the main, New Zealand colour printers appear to have responded to marketplace differences by choosing appropriate genre and cutting format costs.</p>

The Many Faces of Randomness

While “random” is a familiar word, the many subdisciplines found in mathematics and the sciences treat it differently. This chapter gives an overview of the terrain, looking at what randomness and closely related terms mean when used in a technical sense. As we will see, some are more relevant to the question of providence than others.

Agency and Self Expression: Fan Writing as Life Writing

Fans, fandoms and fan activities have been part of every culture from time immemorial. Homer’s epics, Plato’s work all could be considered in a broad sense as belonging to the larger domain of fan activity or fan ‘art’ as they are termed in modern-day parlance. This paper examines India Forums a digital fan community based in India for audiences and fans of Indian television soaps/serials and attempts to understand how fanfiction and fan activities within this forum act as means of self-expression and enable its fans to develop a sense of agency that is indigenous to the space in itself. This community is predominantly populated by women or ‘gender anonymous’ and function as a space that allows fans to construct their own voices, identities and thereby agency, which is most often restricted to that space alone. The fans though not subaltern, in the technical sense of the term, as they belong to the urban space, have access to a computer and can read, write and speak English although not fluently, are still urban middle-class women who have been spoken for and never spoken themselves; and India Forums enable these unheard voices to be heard. This reading analyses the dynamics of this agential space, the politics of this agency and argues that all fan writing within this space functions as life writing within a hypertextual metaconversational paradigm which is not necessarily reflective of traditional forms of life writing using notions of revisionist Freudian psychoanalysis and paradigms of life writing.

Costs

This chapter addresses the subject of litigation costs, looking at Part XII of the European Rules of Civil Procedure. The seven rules under Part XII are set at general level, due to the impact of national law and the structure of the legal profession in European jurisdictions upon this area of civil procedure in a technical sense. While some jurisdictions have created a system where the court fees almost fully cover the state's expenses for the civil court system, other jurisdictions have opted for a system that is basically free of charge for the parties. A further important difference across European jurisdictions that has a significant impact on litigation costs is the different approaches to fees payable in respect of legal representation in proceedings. Finally, the rules on court organisation are also relevant to litigation costs.

Trust in technology: interlocking trust concepts for privacy respecting video surveillance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to defend the notion of “trust in technology” against the philosophical view that this concept is misled and unsuitable for ethical evaluation. In contrast, it is shown that “trustworthy technology” addresses a critical societal need in the digital age as it is inclusive of IT-security risks not only from a technical but also from a public layperson perspective. Design/methodology/approach From an interdisciplinary perspective between philosophy andIT-security, the authors discuss a potential instantiation of a “trustworthy information and communication technology (ICT)”: a solution for privacy respecting video surveillance. Here, strong data protection measures address grave concerns such as the threat of bulk biometric tracking of citizens. In a logical argument, however, the authors show that this technical notion of “trust” needs to be complemented by interlocking trust relations to justify public trust. Findings Based on this argument, the authors demonstrate that the philosophical position considering “trust in technology” to denote either “reliability” or “interpersonal trust” is too limited as it fails to address critical aspects of IT-security. In a broader, socio-technical sense, however, it is shown that several distinct accounts of trust – technical, interpersonal and institutional – should meaningfully interlock, to address concerns with ICTs. Originality/value This conceptual study demonstrates the potential of “trust in technology” for a more comprehensive evaluation of ICTs within the context of operation. Furthermore, it adds to the discussion of trust in IT-security by highlighting the layperson’s challenge of judging a technology’s trustworthiness. Vice versa, it contributes to Ethics of Technology by highlighting crucial IT-security needs.

Introduction

The Introduction is in three parts: a discussion of ‘politikos’ by Panos Dimas; an outline of the structure and methods in the Statesman by Susan Sauvé Meyer; and an overview of the volume by Melissa Lane. The first part addresses the meaning of the term ‘politikos’ that serves as the dialogue’s title, and the Eleatic Visitor’s claim that each part of the sprawling conversation is necessary for its dialectical purposes. It is argued that the expert politikos of the present dialogue is the philosopher-king of the Republic. It is contended that there is insufficient evidence for dating the Statesman in relation to the Sophist and Theaetetus, and good reason to be sceptical that Plato planned to write a further dialogue, Philosophos. The second part surveys the structure of the dialogue and the range of methods (dialectic, division, myth, paradeigma) it deploys. It is argued that the recurring task of distinguishing the politikos from rival claimants to that title does not count as a ‘division’ in the technical sense. The third part gives an overview of the arguments in the individual chapters.

Wind Farm Noise—Modulation of the Amplitude

The operation of a wind turbine results in a series of pulses where there is a significant instantaneous increase in the amplitude of the pressure signal, dependent upon the wind speed at the turbine blades. The variations in the amplitude of the sound being emitted can be significant at receiver locations both as an audible and inaudible sound. The modulation of the A-weighted amplitude of the acoustic signature for wind turbines is often referred to as “amplitude modulation”. Criteria have been proposed in the UK to define “excessive amplitude modulation”. In a technical sense, the general descriptor for wind turbine amplitude modulation is incorrect. The correct term for the variation of the A-weighted level is modulation of the amplitude. The rate of the modulation of the dB(A) level occurs at the blade pass frequency, which is in the infrasound region. Turbines can exhibit amplitude modulation in the low frequency region. The differences between amplitude modulation and modulation of the amplitude occurring at an infrasound rate are discussed in the context for an environmental assessment of a wind farm with respect to permit conditions and a simplified method of assessment with respect to the Modulation Index.

A Note on Universal Bilinear Portfolios

This note provides a neat and enjoyable expansion and application of the magnificent Ordentlich-Cover theory of “universal portfolios”. I generalize Cover’s benchmark of the best constant-rebalanced portfolio (or 1-linear trading strategy) in hindsight by considering the best bilinear trading strategy determined in hindsight for the realized sequence of asset prices. A bilinear trading strategy is a mini two-period active strategy whose final capital growth factor is linear separately in each period’s gross return vector for the asset market. I apply Thomas Cover’s ingenious performance-weighted averaging technique to construct a universal bilinear portfolio that is guaranteed (uniformly for all possible market behavior) to compound its money at the same asymptotic rate as the best bilinear trading strategy in hindsight. Thus, the universal bilinear portfolio asymptotically dominates the original (1-linear) universal portfolio in the same technical sense that Cover’s universal portfolios asymptotically dominate all constant-rebalanced portfolios and all buy-and-hold strategies. In fact, like so many Russian dolls, one can get carried away and use these ideas to construct an endless hierarchy of ever more dominant H-linear universal portfolios.