A Classification Scheme for Game Input and Output

Computer game industry has experienced exponential growth in recent years. A game is a recreational activity involving one or more players. Game input is information such as data, commands, etc., which is passed to the game system at run time from an external source. Conversely, game outputs are information which are generated by the game system and passed to an external target, but which is not used internally by the game. This paper identifies a new classification scheme for game input and output, which is based on player-s input and output. Using this, relationship table for game input classifier and output classifier is developed.

Experimental Parallel Architecture for Rendering 3D Model into MPEG-4 Format

This paper will present the initial findings of a research into distributed computer rendering. The goal of the research is to create a distributed computer system capable of rendering a 3D model into an MPEG-4 stream. This paper outlines the initial design, software architecture and hardware setup for the system. Distributed computing means designing and implementing programs that run on two or more interconnected computing systems. Distributed computing is often used to speed up the rendering of graphical imaging. Distributed computing systems are used to generate images for movies, games and simulations. A topic of interest is the application of distributed computing to the MPEG-4 standard. During the course of the research, a distributed system will be created that can render a 3D model into an MPEG-4 stream. It is expected that applying distributed computing principals will speed up rendering, thus improving the usefulness and efficiency of the MPEG-4 standard

Analysis on the Game-Playing Tendency of SNGs (Social Network Games) users by Gender

As the Social network game(SNG) is rising dramatically worldwide, an interesting aspect has appeared in the demographic analysis. That is the ratio of the game users by gender. Although the ratio of male and female users in online game was 60:40% previously, the ratio of male and female users in SNG stood at 47:53% which shows that the ratio of female users is higher than that of male users. Here, it should be noted that 35% in those 53% female users are the first-time users of game. This fact suggests that women who were not interested in game previously has taken an interest in SNG. Notwithstanding this issue, there have been little studies on the female users of SNG although there are many studies that analyzed the tendency of female users- online game play. This study conducted the analyzed how the game-playing tendency of SNG gamers was manifested in the game by gender. For that, this study will identify the tendency of SNG users by gender based on the preceding studies that analyzed the online game users by gender. The subject of this study was confined to the farm and urban construction simulation games which were offered based on the mobile application platform. Regarding the methodology of study, the first focus group interview(FGI) was conducted with the male and female users who had played games on Social network service(SNS) until recently. Later, the second one-on-one in-depth interview was conducted to gain an insight into the psychological state of the subjects.

Personalised Mobile Picture Puzzle

Mobile Picture Puzzle is a mobile game application where the player use existing images stored in the mobile phone to create a puzzle to be played. This traditional picture puzzle is not so challenging once the player is familiar with the game. The objective of the developed mobile game application is to have a similar mobile game application that can provide the player with more challenging gaming experience. The developed mobile game application is also a mobile picture puzzle game application to create a puzzle to be played but instead of just using existing images that are stored, the personalised capability allows the player to use the built-in camera phone to capture an image and use the newly captured image to create the puzzle. The development of the mobile game application uses Symbian Operating System (OS), Mobile Media API (Application Programming Interface), Record Management System (RMS) storage and TiledLayer class from Game API.

A Community Compromised Approach to Combinatorial Coalition Problem

Buyer coalition with a combination of items is a group of buyers joining together to purchase a combination of items with a larger discount. The primary aim of existing buyer coalition with a combination of items research is to generate a large total discount. However, the aim is hard to achieve because this research is based on the assumption that each buyer completely knows other buyers- information or at least one buyer knows other buyers- information in a coalition by exchange of information. These assumption contrast with the real world environment where buyers join a coalition with incomplete information, i.e., they concerned only with their expected discounts. Therefore, this paper proposes a new buyer community coalition formation with a combination of items scheme, called the Community Compromised Combinatorial Coalition scheme, under such an environment of incomplete information. In order to generate a larger total discount, after buyers who want to join a coalition propose their minimum required saving, a coalition structure that gives a maximum total retail prices is formed. Then, the total discount division of the coalition is divided among buyers in the coalition depending on their minimum required saving and is a Pareto optimal. In mathematical analysis, we compare concepts of this scheme with concepts of the existing buyer coalition scheme. Our mathematical analysis results show that the total discount of the coalition in this scheme is larger than that in the existing buyer coalition scheme.

Fatty Acids Composition of Elk, Deer, Roe Deer and Wild Boar Meat Hunted in Latvia

A game animals – elk (Alces alces), deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) or wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa) - every autumn and winter period provide an excellent investment, diversification of many consumer meals. In last years consumption and assortiment of game meat products significantly increase. Investigations about biochemical composition of game meat are not very much. The meat of wild animals is more favourable for human health because it has lower saturated fatty acids content, but higher content of protein. Therefore the aim of investigations was to compare biochemical composition of ungulates obtained in Latvia.Investigations were carried out in wild animals different regions of Latvia. In the studied samples protein, intramuscular fat, fatty acids and cholesterol were determined. The biochemical analysis of 54 samples were done. Results of analysis showed that protein content 22.36 – 22.92% of all types of meat samples is not different statistically, significantly lower fat content 1.33 ± 0.88% had elk meat samples and 1.59 ± 0.59% roe deer samples. Content of cholesterol was various 64.41 – 95.07% in the ruminant meat samples of different species. From the dietetic point of view the best composition of fatty acids has meat samples of roe deer.

Markov Game Controller Design Algorithms

Markov games are a generalization of Markov decision process to a multi-agent setting. Two-player zero-sum Markov game framework offers an effective platform for designing robust controllers. This paper presents two novel controller design algorithms that use ideas from game-theory literature to produce reliable controllers that are able to maintain performance in presence of noise and parameter variations. A more widely used approach for controller design is the H∞ optimal control, which suffers from high computational demand and at times, may be infeasible. Our approach generates an optimal control policy for the agent (controller) via a simple Linear Program enabling the controller to learn about the unknown environment. The controller is facing an unknown environment, and in our formulation this environment corresponds to the behavior rules of the noise modeled as the opponent. Proposed controller architectures attempt to improve controller reliability by a gradual mixing of algorithmic approaches drawn from the game theory literature and the Minimax-Q Markov game solution approach, in a reinforcement-learning framework. We test the proposed algorithms on a simulated Inverted Pendulum Swing-up task and compare its performance against standard Q learning.

A Game-Theoretic Approach to Hedonic Housing Prices

A property-s selling price is described as the result of sequential bargaining between a buyer and a seller in an environment of asymmetric information. Hedonic housing prices are estimated based upon 17,333 records of New Zealand residential properties sold during the years 2006 and 2007.

Quantitative Characteristics of Rainbow Trout, Oncorhynchus Mykiss, Neo-Males (XX Genotype) and Super-Males (YY Genotype) Sperm

Rainbow trout homogametic males, (XX or YY sex genotype), can be obtained, respectively, through masculinisation of genetic females or induced androgenesis. Aim of this study was to compare reproductive potential of neo-males (XX) and super-males (YY) with heterogametic males (XY). We measured spermatozoa motility parameters, sperm concentration, osmolality and characterized protein profiles in samples of stripped and testicular sperm obtained from XY and YY males, and testicular sperm of XX males. The motile spermatozoa, as measured by both subjective method and CASA, showed no differences between testicular sperm of XX males and stripped sperm of XY and YY males whereas testicular sperm of XY and YY males had significantly lower sperm motility. Result of protein densitometry showed similarities in protein profile between seminal plasma of XY and YY males and testicular fluids of XX males. Testis of XX males showed specific histological structures of cysts consists hypertrophied Sertoli cells.

The Use of ICT and e-Learning in Higher Education in Japan

Japan is known to be a technological powerhouse, being noted for its automobiles, consumer electronics, laptop computers, portable gaming devices, and more recently healing animal robots. Japan is also noted for its popular culture; manga, anime, novels, films, character goods, game programs, cosplay cafes, karaoke and so on. It may be natural for people outside Japan to assume that e-learning in Japan must be well advanced and innovative. In reality, the application of technologies in education in Japan is far behind of other developed countries. Especially in higher education, apathy of students towards their study prevails and teachers continue ignoring such student attitudes. E-learning, which is supposed to revolutionalize the way people learn as it has potentials to enable more student-centered learning, has not been realized in Japan and mostly used to perpetuate the teachercentered teaching in a different format.

Gaming for the Energy Neutral Development: A Case Study of Strijp-S

This paper deals with stakeholders’ decisions within energy neutral urban redevelopment processes. The decisions of these stakeholders during the process will make or break energy neutral ambitions. An extensive form of game theory model gave insight in the behavioral differences of stakeholders regarding energy neutral ambitions and the effects of the changing legislation. The results show that new legislation regarding spatial planning slightly influences the behavior of stakeholders. An active behavior of the municipality will still result in the best outcome. Nevertheless, the municipality becomes more powerful when acting passively and can make the use of planning tools to provide governance towards energy neutral urban redevelopment. Moreover, organizational support, recognizing the necessity for energy neutrality, keeping focused and collaboration among stakeholders are crucial elements to achieve the objective of an energy neutral urban (re)development.

Internet: a New Medium to Promote Traditional Dances in Indonesia

As a multicultural country, Indonesia has many subcultures with unique performing arts. Some of them are well-known to international tourists, such as music ensemble (known as gamelan) in Bali and Java, shadow puppet play (wayang) in Java, and martial arts (known as pencak silat) in Sumatra. Some examples of famous traditional dances in Indonesia are Srimpi from Yogyakarta and Solo, Legong from Bali, and Gong dance from Kalimantan. Performing arts show the identity of a nation. However, they are a complex subject, especially when they are addressed to children. The performing arts, e.g. music, dance theatre, and opera are experiential, experimental, and emotionally charged. Therefore, the right strategy and promotion need to be developed to engage children to appreciate and preserve traditional dances. This study aims to explore and identify possibilities of internet usage as a medium to promote traditional dances, especially to children in Indonesia.

Evaluating Telepresence Experience and Game Players' Intention to Purchase Product Advertised in Advergame

In line with changes of consumers modern lifestyle has call for the advertising strategy to change. This research is to find out how game with telepresence and product experience embedded in the computer game to affect users- intention to purchase. Game content developers are urging to consider of placing product message as part of game design strategy that can influence the game player-s intention to purchase. Experiment was carried out on two hundred and fifty undergraduate students who volunteered to participate in the Internet game playing activities. A factor analysis and correlation analysis was performed on items designed to measure telepresence, attitudes toward telepresence, and game player intention to purchase the product advertise in the game that respondents experienced. The results indicated that telepresence consist of interactive experience and product experience. The study also found that product experience is positively related to the game players- intention to purchase. The significance of product experience implies the usefulness of an interactive advertising in the game playing to attract players- intention to purchase the advertised product placed in the creative game design.

Real-Time 3D City Generation using Shape Grammars with LOD Variations

Creating3D environments, including characters and cities, is a significantly time consuming process due to a large amount of workinvolved in designing and modelling.There have been a number of attempts to automatically generate 3D objects employing shape grammars. However it is still too early to apply the mechanism to real problems such as real-time computer games.The purpose of this research is to introduce a time efficient and cost effective method to automatically generatevarious 3D objects for real-time 3D games. This Shape grammar-based real-time City Generation (RCG) model is a conceptual model for generating 3Denvironments in real-time and can be applied to 3D gamesoranimations. The RCG system can generate even a large cityby applying fundamental principles of shape grammars to building elementsin various levels of detailin real-time.

Replicating Data Objects in Large-scale Distributed Computing Systems using Extended Vickrey Auction

This paper proposes a novel game theoretical technique to address the problem of data object replication in largescale distributed computing systems. The proposed technique draws inspiration from computational economic theory and employs the extended Vickrey auction. Specifically, players in a non-cooperative environment compete for server-side scarce memory space to replicate data objects so as to minimize the total network object transfer cost, while maintaining object concurrency. Optimization of such a cost in turn leads to load balancing, fault-tolerance and reduced user access time. The method is experimentally evaluated against four well-known techniques from the literature: branch and bound, greedy, bin-packing and genetic algorithms. The experimental results reveal that the proposed approach outperforms the four techniques in both the execution time and solution quality.

Reduced Inventories, High Reliability and Short Throughput Times by Using CONWIP Production Planning System

CONWIP (constant work-in-process) as a pull production system have been widely studied by researchers to date. The CONWIP pull production system is an alternative to pure push and pure pull production systems. It lowers and controls inventory levels which make the throughput better, reduces production lead time, delivery reliability and utilization of work. In this article a CONWIP pull production system was simulated. It was simulated push and pull planning system. To compare these systems via a production planning system (PPS) game were adjusted parameters of each production planning system. The main target was to reduce the total WIP and achieve throughput and delivery reliability to minimum values. Data was recorded and evaluated. A future state was made for real production of plastic components and the setup of the two indicators with CONWIP pull production system which can greatly help the company to be more competitive on the market.

Automated Service Scene Detection for Badminton Game Analysis Using CHLAC and MRA

Extracting in-play scenes in sport videos is essential for quantitative analysis and effective video browsing of the sport activities. Game analysis of badminton as of the other racket sports requires detecting the start and end of each rally period in an automated manner. This paper describes an automatic serve scene detection method employing cubic higher-order local auto-correlation (CHLAC) and multiple regression analysis (MRA). CHLAC can extract features of postures and motions of multiple persons without segmenting and tracking each person by virtue of shift-invariance and additivity, and necessitate no prior knowledge. Then, the specific scenes, such as serve, are detected by linear regression (MRA) from the CHLAC features. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, the experiment was conducted on video sequences of five badminton matches captured by a single ceiling camera. The averaged precision and recall rates for the serve scene detection were 95.1% and 96.3%, respectively.

Identity Politics of Former Soviet Koreans: One of the Most Prominent Heritages of the 1988 Seoul Olympics

This paper applies an anthropological approach to illuminate the dynamic cultural geography of Kazakhstani Korean ethnicity focusing on its turning point, the historic “Seoul Olympic Games in 1988." The Korean ethnic group was easily considered as a harmonious and homogeneous community by outsiders, but there existed deep-seated conflicts and hostilities within the ethnic group. The majority-s oppositional dichotomy of superiority and inferiority toward the minority was continuously reorganized and reinforced by difference in experience, memory and sentiment. However, such a chronic exclusive boundary was collapsed following the patriotism ignited by the Olympics held in their mother country. This paper explores the fluidity of subject by formation of the boundary in which constructed cultural differences are continuously essentialized and reproduced, and by dissolution of cultural barrier in certain contexts.

Investigating the Performance of Minimax Search and Aggregate Mahalanobis Distance Function in Evolving an Ayo/Awale Player

In this paper we describe a hybrid technique of Minimax search and aggregate Mahalanobis distance function synthesis to evolve Awale game player. The hybrid technique helps to suggest a move in a short amount of time without looking into endgame database. However, the effectiveness of the technique is heavily dependent on the training dataset of the Awale strategies utilized. The evolved player was tested against Awale shareware program and the result is appealing.

An Idea About How to Teach OO-Programming to Students

Object-oriented programming is a wonderful way to make programming of huge real life tasks much easier than by using procedural languages. In order to teach those ideas to students, it is important to find a good task that shows the advantages of OOprogramming very naturally. This paper gives an example, the game Battleship, which seems to work excellent for teaching the OO ideas (using Java, [1], [2], [3], [4]). A three-step task is presented for how to teach OO-programming using just one example suitable to convey many of the OO ideas. Observations are given at the end and conclusions about how the whole teaching course worked out.