bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Bond-Slip Behavior of Steel Bar Embedded in Lightweight Concrete Using Sand Coated Polypropylene Coarse Aggregate
Authors: Gandjar Pamudji , Bimasena Heribowo , Yuta Prayoga Adam , Heru Purnomo
Published: August 2018

Plastic waste as coarse aggregates in concrete making is part of efforts to reduce environmental pollution. In one hand the use of plastic as aggregates can provide lighter weight of concrete than those using natural aggregates. Accordingly, a comprehensive experimental study on the concrete-steel bond behavior of structural waste polypropylene (PP) lightweight coarse aggregate concrete (WPPLAC) was carried out using different composition, aggregate gradation, type of bar and size diameter of bar. Pull out tests are conducted for three kind of plain and deformed steel bars having diameter 10, 12 and 16 mm respectively, which are embedded in concrete cubes made by the two mixtures to know local bond-slip relation. Two mixtures of sand coated polypropylene (PP) coarse plastic aggregates, sand as fine aggregates, water and Portland Composite Cement with a water-cement ratio of 0.264 are conducted. The first mixture contains 100% of 25 mm sand coated coarse aggregate while the second mixture contains 70% of 25 mm and 30% of 20 mm sand coated coarse aggregates. Bond strength versus steel displacements results in general show that higher bond strength is found for steel bar having larger diameter while steel displacements approximately follow the scale of bar diameter.
Effect of the Rare Earth Oxide Impurities on the Physical and Thermal Properties of Ce0.9Gd0.1O0.195 (GDC) Composite Electrolyte IT-SOFC
Authors: Raharjo Jarot , Damisih  , Masmui  , Hapsari Ade Utami , Riswoko Asep , Setyadji Mochamad , Suyanti  , Purwani Maria Veronica
Published: August 2018

Observation on the effects of rare earth impurities on the properties of Ce0.9Gd0.1O0.195 (GDC) composite electrolyte has been performed. Indonesia has abundant rare earth elements especially CeO2, which one of the resources is from monazite mineral. In this study, the GDC powders were synthesized via solid state technique. The two types of precursors were prepared and mixed into planetary ballmill, i.e., CeO2 (Sigma Aldrich) with Gd2O3 (Sigma Aldrich) and CeO2 (non-commercial, local product) with Gd2O3 (Sigma Aldrich), namely GDC commercial and GDC non-commercial, respectively. The composite electrolyte powders calcined at temperature of 800°C in the air atmosphere condition. The composite electrolytes were then characterized in terms of its morphology, elemental, phase structure and thermal properties of the powders. The GDC commercial and non-commercial powders both consist of face centered cubic fluorite ceria structure which was confirmed by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). The peaks are matching well with the cerium oxide JCPDS card No: 34-394. There are no peaks detected for the gadolinium oxide. It indicates that the dopant ion is fully substituted into the CeO2 lattice. The elemental analysis was performed using X-ray Fluorescence (XRF). The microstructures were observed under Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The thermal properties characterizations were performed by using Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) from room temperature to 1500°C. Both powders investigated are suitable for electrolyte IT-SOFC based on their physical and thermal characterization. Among the composite electrolytes investigated, the GDC commercial showed the better performance in terms of their physical and thermal properties.
Effect of Sub Zero Treatment on Microstructures, Mechanical Properties, and Dimensional Stability of AISI D2 Cold Work Tool Steel
Authors: Putra Wahyuaji Narottama , Pramaditya Pandega , Pramuka Putra , Mochtar Myrna Ariati
Published: August 2018

AISI D2 tool steel has become important material in the industry, especially for mold and dies maker and also used for cutting tools. Conventional hardening process such as annealing and quenching is normally done for this kind of steel as it needs high hardness and wear resistance properties. To further improve its performance, sub-zero treatment can be performed. Quenching the steel in very low temperature e.g. liquid nitrogen, will help to remove unwanted retained austenite, thus provide better dimensional stability. In this study, AISI D2 tool steel samples were subjected to austenitizing temperature of 1030°C and then quenched using different quenching media i.e. air, oil, and liquid nitrogen. Vickers test result showed that after quenching process, the hardness for those samples were 762 HV, 822 HV, and 735 HV for air, oil, and liquid nitrogen quenched respectively. Microstructure analysis showed that retained austenite volume fraction after quenching process were 7.50%, 3.93%, and 3.18% for air, oil, and liquid nitrogen quenched respectively.
Lipase Biocatalyst Immobilization from Solid State Fermentation of Palm Oil Empty Fruit Bunches, Bagasse, and Palm Oil Sludge with Adsorption-Cross Linking Method in Anion Macroporous Resin
Authors: Hartono Rudi , Hannauli Yessica S. , Maresya Ambar , Sahlan Muhamad , Wijanarko Anondho , Gozan Misri , Meyer Michel , Hermansyah Heri
Published: August 2018

Enzymes are used to make a production of biomass based process more efficient and more selective. Lipase is a biocatalyst in the breakdown of fat reaction that is widely used in the industry, including the industry in Indonesia. Lipase production can be carried out by bacterial solid state fermentation by using agro-industry waste substrate containing carbon and nitrogen. The developments of various industrial sectors are demanding the use and application of lipase commercially in industrial processes as biocatalysts chosen by its ability to work in a friendly environment and have high specificity. Fermentation of Aspergillus niger are able to produce enzyme lipase that can be done by using solid-state fermentation method. In this study palm oil empty fruit bunches (POEFB), bagasse, and palm oil sludge are used as fermentation substrates and will be treated variations of inducer concentration and fermentation time. The results of solid state fermentation of solid substrates POEFB with inducer concentration of 8% for 7 days showed the highest activity value of 2.2 U/mL and 8.2 U/mL in the form of dry extract lipase. The result of the dry lipase enzyme immobilized so that enzyme was stable in repetitive use with cross linking adsorption method using macroporous resin as a support. Experiments showed that empty fruit bunches of oil palm fermentation substrate could produce lipase enzyme with enzyme loading of 56.6% wt. Enzyme activity test carried out in the synthesis of biodiesel through interesterification reaction mole ratio of reactants palm oil and metal acetate 1:12 at 40°C operating temperature conditions for 50 hours in 4 reaction cycles. Biodiesel synthesis results were analyzed using High Perfomance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) showed biodiesel yield values of 48.6% and the enzyme was able to move up to 68.60% initial yield of 4 cycles of biodiesel synthesis.
Characteristic of LiFe(1-X)VxPO4/C Using Carbon Pyrolyzed from Table Sugar for Lithium Ion Battery Cathode
Authors: Sofyan Nofrijon , Mizan Adlan , Syahrial Anne Zulfia , Subhan Achmad
Published: August 2018

Used of carbon pyrolyzed from table sugar in the synthesis of LiFe(1-x)VxPO4/C for lithium ion battery cathode has been examined. The process was begun by synthesizing LiFePO4through a hydrothermal method with the precursors of LiOH, NH4H2PO4and FeSO4.7H2O. The as-synthesized LiFePO4was then mixed with various H4NO3V concentrations and fixed 3 wt.% of carbon pyrolyzed from table sugar and calcined for 2 hours at 400 °C. The result was ball-milled and was then characterized using a thermal analyzer to determine the transition temperature at which sintering temperature of 700 °C for 4 hours was obtained. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was performed to analyze the crystal structure whereas scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to examine the microstructure and surface morphology. XRD results show that LiFe(1-x)VxPO4/C phase has been formed with an olivine-based structure. SEM results showed an even distribution of LiFe(1-x)VxPO4/C particles. The batteries were prepared from the as-synthesized materials and were tested using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and charge and discharge (CD) tests. The EIS results showed that carbon improved the conductivity. The performance test showed that the addition of vanadium resulted in a capacity of about 51.06 mAh/g with a potential of 3.581 V at charging and 49.42 mAh/g with a potential of 3.319 V at discharging. These results are promising in terms of using table sugar as a cheap carbon source for lithium ion battery cathode development.
Enhancement of Mechanical Properties of Cast Beta-Type Titanium Alloy by Aging Treatment
Authors: Mansjur Zuldesmi , Sumual Hendro Maxwel
Published: August 2018

Beta type Ti-29Nb-13Ta-4.6Zr alloy (TNTZ) is one of the titanium alloys which have gained much attention in dental applications. Dental precision casting is predominant for fabricating dental prostheses. However, there is a possibility for the mechanical properties of its casting to be degraded because of a α case, shrinkages and pores and a dendrite structure. One of the ways to enhance their mechanical properties is heat treatment process. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of aging treatment on mechanical properties and microstructure of TNTZ cast into magnesia based mold in order to improve its mechanical properties. As results, the Vickers hardness of the cast TNTZ after solution treatment is larger than that of the wrought TNTZ. The aging curve of the cast and the wrought TNTZ at an aging temperature of 673 K and 723 K exhibit almost similar pattern. For each aging time, the higher the aging temperature, the smaller the Vickers hardness for both alloys. Microstructures of cast TNTZ at various aging conditions consist of a dendritic structure and the average diameters of their grain size are around 40 μm. The diffraction peaks of precipitation of α and β phase s are detected in under aging (UA), peak aging (PA) and over aging (OA) conditions for both aging temperatures. However, the diffraction peak of ω phase is observed only in OA condition for cast TNTZ at aging temperature of 673 K. The highest tensile strength of the cast TNTZ and the wrought TNTZ at both aging temperatures are in PA condition and the elongation decrease continuously by increasing aging time. The tensile strengths of cast TNTZ in UA, PA and OA conditions at an aging temperature of 723 K are lower and their elongations are higher in comparison with those of 673 K. The high oxygen content seems to contribute to the poor elongation. SEM fractographs of the cast TNTZ at aging temperatures of 673 and 723 K in UA, PA and OA conditions show the brittle morphology with intergranular fracture that increases with increasing of aging time.
The Influence of Nano Filler on Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Polypropylene
Authors: Budiyantoro Cahyo
Published: August 2018

In order to obtain specific properties in the commercial and engineering applications, PP materials are often combined with additives. Filler is one of solid additive type that made of inorganic materials and is generally distinguished by its influence on the mechanical properties of the resulting mixture with the plastic matrix. Filler dimension less than 100 nm is often categorized as a nanofiller and added to plastics with the range of percentage from 1% up to 10%. Various studies have been conducted to know the influence of filler on mechanical properties, but this study is also conducted to investigate the effect of nanofillers on thermal properties of PP material. Thermal properties are very important to know from the stage of design, processing until the end use final product. Most plastic products are made in soft or liquid condition, the melting temperature (melting temperature, Tm) becomes the basis of the processing parameter adjustment. Investigations done by comparing the thermal properties of commercial copolymer PP material (virgin material and injection molding specimen) and PP materials containing nanofiller (virgin material and injection molding specimen) by using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), while data of mechanical properties was obtained by the tensile test. Both 1st heating and 2nd heating DSC Experiment showed that nanofilled PP need the highest endothermic effect (2.63 W/g and 1.79 W/g), but nanofiller gave no effect on melting temperature to all type of specimens (in the range of 164.3 – 166.3 °C). The elastic modulus of nanofilled PP was around 1486 Mpa, higher than non-filled PP (999 Mpa).
State of Health Estimation of Lithium-Ion Batteries Based on Combination of Gaussian Distribution Data and Least Squares Support Vector Machines Regression
Authors: Susilo Didik Djoko , Widodo Achmad , Prahasto Toni , Nizam Muhammad
Published: August 2018

Lithium-ion batteries play a critical role in the reliability and safety of a system. Battery health monitoring and remaining useful life (RUL) prediction are needed to prevent catastrophic failure of the battery. The aim of this research is to develop a data-driven method to monitor the batteries state of health and predict their RUL by using the battery capacity degradation data. This paper also investigated the effect of prediction starting point to the RUL prediction error. One of the data-driven method drawbacks is the need of a large amount of data to obtain accurate prediction. This paper proposed a method to generate a series of degradation data that follow the Gaussian distribution based on limited battery capacity degradation data. The prognostic model was constructed from the new data using least square support vector machine (LSSVM) regression. The remaining useful life prediction was carried out by extrapolating the model until reach the end of life threshold. The method was applied to three differences lithium-ion batteries capacity data. The results showed that the proposed method has good performance. The method can predict the lithium-ion batteries RUL with a small error, and the optimal RUL starting point was found at the point where the battery has experienced the highest capacity recovery due to the self-recharge phenomenon.
Avatars Are For Real: Virtual Communities and Public Spheres
Authors: Ikegami Eiko , Hut Piet
Published: August 2018

Using the historical example of Tokugawa Japan (1603-1867), we point out how artistic circles provided a “virtual world,” a kind of early modern “second life.” This world gave their participants the opportunity to escape from the vertical, hierarchical, feudal structure through the creation of horizontal public spheres, in loosely coupled networks based on the strength of weak ties. In an often playful way, these aesthetic circles provided alternative forms of sociability to premodern Japanese people. This in turn had a serious impact on the formation of political modernity in Japan. We explore parallels with the virtual world of Second Life. There, too, new public spheres are being carved out, in equally playful and largel apolitical ways, that may yet have profound and unforeseen consequences for society at large. We illustrate our analysis with two novel examples of communicative spheres in Second Life, the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics and a broadly interdisciplinary initiative called Play as Being. In conclusion, we see the need for a theoretical revision of the notion of “public sphere” beyond its conventional usage. As the virtual worlds of Tokugawa, Japan and Second Life illustrate, the strength of weak-tie networks can form the basis for public spheres in a surprisingly large spectrum of times, locations and cultures.
The Social Construction of Virtual Reality and the Stigmatized Identity of the Newbie
Authors: Boostrom, Jr. Robert E.
Published: August 2018

Persistent virtual spaces are becoming available to users, often for free, via internet connections. Due to the immersive character and malleability of these communities, new forms of technology-mediated social interaction are emerging. In this paper, ethnographic research done in Second Life is used to outline (1) how the reality within these virtual worlds is constructed, (2) what role elements of the secondary socialization play in these groups, and (3) the way the stigmatized identity of the neophyte user, the “newbie,” is conceptualized, confronted and addressed by virtual world residents. This research suggests ways of viewing consumer behavior within virtual worlds and further social research directions.
Symbolic and Experiential Consumption of Body in Virtual Worlds: from (Dis)Embodiment to Symembodiment
Authors: Vicdan Handan , Ulusoy Ebru
Published: August 2018

This study examines the symbolic meanings of the body concept in a virtual world called Second Life (SL). Using audio-visual approach to netnography, we investigate the ways in which consumers are involved in SL, the meanings attached to their avatars, the process of (re)constructing their avatars, and the experiences lived through their avatars. In light of our findings, we draw attention to the conceptualization of body as experience, which brings the enhancement in the perception of body as a means of self-presentation to experiencing the body for the sake of the body. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of symembodiment as a means of articulating the presence of body in SL and reemphasizing the non-resolvable embodiment/disembodiment paradox of the body in the virtual world.
Culture and virtual worlds: The not-quite-new experiences we study
Authors: Bell Mark , Consalvo Mia
Published: August 2018

As a reader of this issue of JVWR, you should have an interest in virtual worlds as well as some experience with a few, even if an exact definition of what constitutes a virtual world or how to differentiate various types of virtual worlds still proves elusive to you. Popular media outlets as well as academics from multiple disciplinary homes have been rumbling about thetopic for some time now, but virtual world spaces that contain millions of people globally are just now becoming a sustained subject of the studious eye of academic research.
Virtual Worlds Round Table
Authors: Yee Nick , Losh Liz , Robbins-Bell Sarah
Published: August 2018

By being an online journal, the JVWR allows for the inclusion of some pieces that might not otherwise fit a standard journal. This was the thought behind bringing together a group of virtual world scholars to discuss a series of questions and share their thoughts. Meeting in Second Life, Nick Yee (PARC), Liz Losh (UC Irvine), and Sarah Robbins-Bell (Ball State University) were gracious enough to share their thoughts on the study of virtual worlds culture.
Canadian Border Simulation at Loyalist College
Authors: Hudson Ken , DeGast-Kennedy Kathryn
Published: August 2018

The aim of this paper is to describe the process and results of a Canadian border simulation run in Second Life for students at Loyalist College. Recent security restrictions at the Canadian border limit access for college students to serve their placement at the actual border, thus eliminating the possibility of first hand experience. Additionally, in class role-plays designed to practice border interview skills were not adequate to instill the interview process. Using Second Life to simulate the border environment and procedures allows students access to a simulated real life environment, and provides them with the sufficient real world practice they require to grasp and retain essential interview skills. The results of this learning experience translated into greater levels of confidence and significantly improved grades.
3D virtual learning in counselor education: Using Second Life in counselor skill development
Authors: Walker Victoria Lynn
Published: August 2018

This article will present the process and the curricular and pedagogical lessons learned from adding a 3D virtual learning environment to an online course in a distance and hybrid education master’s degree program. Based on student surveys, course evaluations, and faculty interviews, the author will summarize attitudes and expectations from the varied stakeholders and offer practical recommendations on the design and delivery of an effective virtual world learning environment in an online course.

The author is involved in developing 3D virtual learning environments and integrating their use in graduate level counseling courses in traditional, blended, and online master’s programs. In the fall of 2007, the author began the process of incorporating the virtual world Second Life into an online counseling skills and techniques course in the Human Services Counseling Program at Regent University. The course objectives consisted of teaching graduate level students expertise such as clinical counseling skills and techniques. One of the critical competencies, the student’s ability to demonstrate the basic counseling skills needed to be an effective counselor including attending, listening, empathy, warmth, and respect, was very difficult to teach and evaluate from a distance. In the past, program instructors have taught online and blended courses with the asynchronous learning environment Blackboard and the synchronous technologies, Skype and Instant Messenger. With the use of new learning environments, such as 3D virtual learning environments, the author hoped to provide the instructors and students with an environment more conducive to developing effective counseling skills. The author implemented the virtual learning environment – a simulated counseling facility and tested the virtual counseling facility’s use as an innovative learning environment for simulation of student counseling sessions. This article will discuss the author’s personal experiences as well as the empirical research collected during this case study. Given the potential for significant growth in the use of virtual learning objects, this article should provide useful information for instructors and administrators considering virtual environments as a means of teaching practical skills at a distance in online programs.
Using Second Life to Teach Operations Management
Authors: Lee Peggy Daniels
Published: August 2018

This paper describes the use of Second Life to enhance the author’s delivery of the core MBA Operations Management course at a major northeastern university. The purpose of the Second Life Project was to help students to attain the learning objectives for the course and to expose them to a Web 2.0 technology. The students wrote brief papers summarizing their research findings and presented their work inside of Second Life. Resident course delivery and in-world student work were augmented with in-world office hours, guest speakers and technical assistance provided by the instructor and the university’s instructional design staff. At the completion of each term, students were asked to complete a questionnaire that asked them whether the Second Life experience helped them to meet each course objective. They were also asked their opinions regarding whether Second Life has a place in the MBA curriculum. My findings indicate that some of the learning goals were met and that although some students were not sure within which course Second Life should be included, the consensus was that virtual worlds are the wave of the future and should be included in the curriculum.
Visualizing Atomic Orbitals Using Second Life
Authors: Lang Andrew Stuart , Kobilnyk David
Published: August 2018

We demonstrate the usefulness of Second LifeTM as a platform for enlivening major concepts in chemistry education. These concepts include absorption spectra, selection rules, quantum numbers, and atomic orbital shapes. We have built several exhibits in Second Life which provide 3-dimensional interactivity for each of those areas: an interactive experiment showing the absorption spectrum of hydrogen, an interactive model of selection rules showing allowed and forbidden transitions for each state, a 3-dimensional grid of orbitals showing the constraints on the values of quantum numbers, and a large-scale interactive orbital display allowing the user to choose and rotate to-scale atomic orbitals based on quantum numbers.
Immersive 3D environments and Multilinguality: A Non-Intrusive and Dynamic e-learning-Oriented Scenario based on Textual Information
Authors: Cruz-Lara Samuel , Bellalem Nadia , Bellalem Lotfi , Osswald Tarik
Published: August 2018

Virtual Worlds may become primary tools (with video and text secondary) for learning many aspects of history, for acquiring new skills, for job assessment, and for many of our most cost-effective and productive forms of collaboration (Metaverse Roadmap Repport, 2007).

We propose a non-intrusive and dynamic e-learning-oriented scenario based on textual information. This scenario exemplifies how a standardized framework for textual multilingual support associated to an immersive 3D environment, may considerably change the way people usually deal with multilingual information and with language learning on the Internet.
World of Warcraft: The Viability of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games as Platforms for Modeling and Evaluating Perfect Competition
Authors: Kosminsky Eli
Published: August 2018

The objective of the study was to determine whether the virtual economy of World of Warcraft in fact behaves like a real world economy, whether it is a competitive free market approaching the ideal of perfect competition, and if so, whether it constitutes a suitable platform for further economic research. What makes this research feasible is that World of Warcraft exists on hundreds of servers, each of which is a replica of the same world, but with its own unique player populationvarying in size and experience level. The research makes the following three predictions about how the economy of World of Warcraft would behave if in fact it were perfectly competitive. The predictions are:1) Servers with larger populations will yield greater price stability;2) Servers with a higher concentration of players of a given experience level will yield higher prices for the goods most in demand by that set of players, and;3) Arbitrage exists only to a very minor extent across all server economies.Data was collected detailing the prices at which selected virtual goods were sold in World of Warcraft auction houses, over a period of thirty days. Using statistical methods, the predictions were tested against the data drawn from economic interactions within the game. The research concludes that the virtual economy of the World of Warcraft in most respects behaves like a highly competitive real world market, and in fact approaches the ideal of perfect competition.
Fractal Village Unplugged: Design-Based Research On Computing with Marginalized Youth
Authors: Veeragoudar Harrell Sneha , Abrahamson Dor
Published: August 2018

At an alternative high school serving predominantly at-risk underrepresented students evicted from mainstream education, we designed and implemented Fractal Village, a critical/computational/constructionist-pedagogy (C3) learning environment. Fractal Village, instantiated in the virtual-world "Second Life," constituted an empirical environment to research my emergent model of mathematical/computational agency (m/c) as well as an intervention aiming to foster such agency. Key research objectives were to: (1) study relations amongst cognitive, affective, material, technological, and social factors that would contribute to individual development of m/c agency; and (2) delineate design principles for fostering m/c agency. The student cohort engaged collaboratively in virtual-world imaginative construction activities each manifesting generative themes (Freire, 1968), to which the designers-as-teachers tailored mathematical and computer-science concepts, such that students appropriated the STEM content apropos of tackling their own emergent construction problems. We argue that to build agency, students must develop both skills and dispositions—a spiraling inter-constructive growth and articulate a developing methodology for fostering agency development. We conclude that we can, and must, engage at-risk youth by helping them to build STEM identities, engaging their a priori m/c agency, and customizing skills and dispositions-related classroom discursive supports.
Implications for Virtual Worlds: A Comparative Study of United Kingdom, United States and Australia on Network Readiness, Government Investment and Cyber-security.
Authors: Roth Kate
Published: August 2018

Universities and Colleges are utilizing virtual worlds such as Secondlife in increasing numbers worldwide. Virtual Worlds also contribute to access to knowledge and the economic development of countries. The capacity for continued utilization and development of virtual worlds is influenced by government policy and investment.   The worldwide performance index of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the Network Readiness Index (NRI) of the World Economic Forum. This paper compares and contrasts the performance of the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia since 2006.   This paper then provides a comparison of the UK, US and the Australian government ICT policies and expenditure, as well as each governments approach to cyber-security and Virtual Worlds. The US and the UK have embraced virtual world technologies and Australia has ignored the opportunities presented by Virtual Worlds.
The Neil A. Armstrong Library and Archives: That’s One Small Step for a Virtual World Library, One Giant Leap for Education!
Authors: Bohle Shannon
Published: August 2018

Migration of library services has moved increasingly toward 2D web services and social interactivity and 3D virtual reference services. Patron satisfaction with reference services is a key tenant for determining a successful reference interaction. The study examines the roles of user identity, educational learning modalities, institutional sustainability, and credibility in achieving overall user satisfaction in reference social interactions within NASA JPL’s STEM education-focused library and other more generalized libraries within the virtual world Second Life.
dint u say that: Digital Discourse, Digital Natives and Gameplay
Authors: O’Connell Theresa A. , Grantham John , Wong Wyatt , Workman Kevin , Wang Alexander
Published: August 2018

Discourse analysis has the potential of providing insight into gameplay dynamics and team success. However, because of factors such as interrupted sequences, gameplay discourse does not easily lend itself to discourse analysis. Therefore, in addition to traditional methods, new and modified discourse analysis methods were applied to a corpus of 858 discrete gameplay discourse events disclosing discourse characteristics during collaborative problem solving. Four teams of four digital natives each played PanelPuzzle, a limited-time span, goal-oriented game, in a virtual environment. Discourse both reflected and impacted team dynamics. It manifested leadership. To promote team success, gameplay digital discourse tone was serious, showing little evidence of fun although players reported enjoying gameplay. Brevity, ill-formedness and distorted syntax were chief characteristics, but, because it was goal-oriented, it differed markedly from reported social digital discourse. Digital natives used digital discourse effectively to communicate, build community, collaborate and accomplish gameplay tasks. We conclude that gameplay digital discourse constitutes a distinct linguistic register which prioritizes efficiency over well-formedness. We characterize this register in a taxonomy and a meta-taxonomy.
How to approach a many splendoured thing: Proxy Technology Assessment as a methodological praxis to study virtual experience
Authors: Bleumers Lizzy , Naessens Kris , Jacobs An
Published: August 2018

This article introduces Proxy Technology Assessment (PTA) as a methodological approach that can widen the scope of virtual world and game research. Studies of how people experience virtual worlds and games often focus on individual in-world or in-game experiences. However, people do not perceive these worlds and games in isolation. They are embedded within a social context that has strongly intertwined online and offline components. Studying virtual experiences while accounting for these interconnections calls for new methodological approaches. PTA answers this call.Combining several methods, PTA can be used to investigate how new technology may impact and settle within people's everyday life (Pierson et al., 2006). It involves introducing related devices or applications, available today, to users in their natural setting and studying the context-embedded practices they alter or evoke. This allows researchers to detect social and functional requirements to improve the design of new technologies. These requirements, like the practices under investigation, do not stop at the outlines of a magic circle (cf. Huizinga, 1955).We will start this article by contextualizing and defining PTA. Next, we will describe the practical implementation of PTA. Each step of the procedure will be illustrated with examples and supplemented with lessons learned from two interdisciplinary scientific projects, Hi-Masquerade and Teleon, concerned with how people perceive and use virtual worlds and games respectively.
Summative Assessment in Second Life: A Case Study
Authors: Olasoji Remy , Henderson-Begg Stephanie
Published: August 2018

Learning spaces like 3D virtual world environments are recent additions to technological tools believed to have the potential to transform educational processes, especially in flexible / distance education.  The immersiveness of the environment affords opportunities for a sense presence lacking from traditional online learning environments.  Geographically dispersed students are able to learn in an environment similar to their traditional classrooms without forfeiting the ability to learn at own pace and in their own time. Many educational establishments are however still trying to work out how to use these environments effectively for teaching and learning.  Using the environment for assessment adds another level of complication and has been subjected to mixed reviews. Issues relating to matching avatars with ‘real’ students, accessibility and fairness etc., make assessment in Second Life a contentious subject. Many agree however that Second Life offers opportunities for students to enhance their skills in several areas which include scripting, graphics design and 3D object creation.  This article explores a case study which used Second Life for summative assessment with a group of 5 students on MSc Applications of Bioinformatics programme.
Collecting conversations: three approaches to obtaining user-to-user communications data from virtual environments
Authors: Lehdonvirta Mika , Lehdonvirta Vili , Baba Akira
Published: August 2018

Transcripts of conversations are a valuable research resource in social sciences and can be used to make inferences about subjects’ behaviour and intentions. Large-scale communications records can be coded and analysed statistically for generalisable results. Virtual environments are a good place to gather communications records, because they exhibit a wide variety of subject behaviours. However, compared to traditional channels such as forums and chat rooms, virtual environments can be more challenging to obtain data from. In this article, we describe three approaches to collecting user-to-user communications data from virtual environments: requesting back-end records from the operator of the environment, recruiting “data donors” among the users, and setting up researchers’ own “listening posts”. The data collection approaches are evaluated empirically in Uncharted Waters Online, a Japanese massively-multiplayer game. Avatar gender ratio is used as a diagnostic variable to compare the representativeness of the resulting data sets. Both data donors and listening posts yielded data with a gender ratio that corresponds to the back-end records, but the back-end gender ratios differed significantly between two different servers. We conclude that all three approaches can be statistically viable: the choice of method depends more on desired sampling scope and on practical factors such as resources and timetable; but when defining a sampling frame, it cannot be assumed that one server is necessarily representative of the whole platform.
Puzzles as a Creative Form of Play in Metaverse
Authors: Tonéis Cristiano Natal
Published: August 2018

The present study invites us for an ontological reflection about the close relationship between the logical-mathematical reasoning developed through the existence and experience in the puzzles into metaverse and creativity or creative thinking. For that reason, we seek to focus on the epistemological character of the puzzles in the metaverse and intrinsic creativity of metaverse as a natural process to be developed and not a privilege of few persons. Encourage creative processes through the digital universe - metaverse - and the use of heuristic construction for problem solving and openness to lateral thinking. Encourage creativity, creative and original thinking, which lead us to a new way of playing, the way of puzzles.
Students’ Attitudes in a Virtual Environment (SecondLife)
Authors: Alrayes Amal , Sutcliffe Alistair
Published: August 2018

The benefits of collaborative work have been widely discussed and supported by educational theories such as constructivism and social learning. This paper investigates the process of collaborative work in a university classroom. It presents the students’ experience and attitudes towards using SecondLife in their learning activities. Questionnaire, interviews and observation methods were used to assess the students’ experience and attitudes. The study results indicate that students had enjoyed the experience of using SecondLife, although some negative attitudes and experience, concerning the system’s usability and familiarity, were reported.
Procedural Modeling for Realistic Virtual Worlds Development
Authors: Brandão Silva Pedro , Coelho António
Published: August 2018

The creation of virtual environments, corresponding to real world settings, constitutes one of the most important, but also most time and resource demanding processes in content development for virtual worlds. By querying real-world data sources, the building process can be automated, reducing the need for human intervention. However, these may present additional management difficulties due to their number, dimension, format or level of detail, therefore requiring specific techniques to operate on them. This paper describes the application of a procedural modeling solution, called PG3D System, on the creation of realistic virtual urban environments and their employ in virtual world applications. This system's implementation in spatial database management systems induces fast data access, large data manipulation features, complex query capabilities and format flexibility, allowing the fast creation of large scale virtual environments, imbued with optimized data structures, compatible with any digital game, custom modeling tool or metaverse platform.
African spirituality in transformation: Fragments and fractures of the shifting sacred
Authors: Steenkamp-Nel Annalie
Published: August 2018

The ‘transformation’ of disciplines and organisations has been increasingly pursued by South African policymakers. Many understand community engagement or development as ‘structural’ or ‘agentive’. For most African citizens, however, transformation’s starting point is the obligation towards the divine and towards others. It will be suggested that spiritual transformation (as an aspect of African spirituality) is more appropriate for the South African setting. The article will offer the overarching foundational spiritual framework of spiritual transformation as a possible object to a future discourse. A literature review will allow the mapping of different transformational stages or movements. The dynamics of the African spiritual-based concept of joy as a bridge to new possibilities will be tracked. The findings will point to the importance of clashing or complementing spiritual experiences, directing Africans towards a new spirituality. It will be indicated how change agents can develop sustainable transformative methodologies for different contexts, relevant to the developmental challenges of communities and organisations. Successful transformation involves nurturing communities from a spiritual perspective, specifically the experience of joy as part of the original African spirituality.
Enhancing learners’ reading habits through reading bags at secondary schools
Authors: Themane Mahlapahlapana , Molotja Tsebe Wilfred
Published: August 2018

The importance of getting children off to a good start in reading cannot be overstated. Successful academic performance at primary and secondary school level is partly dependent on the ability to read. It is believed that good learners are those who are proficient in reading. However, many learners are struggling to read and, therefore, struggle to academically succeed in other subjects. The problem of not being able to read transcends negatively on learners’ academic achievements. This study proposes a strategy towards motivating learners in developing better reading habits through the distribution of reading bags. The mixed-method approach was adopted in conducting this study. Learners’ reading strategies were first identified by administering a survey on reading strategies. About 14 student-educators volunteered in distributing the questionnaires at their respective schools during their teaching practice sessions. The questionnaires were distributed to 155 learners who voluntarily participated in the study. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software for descriptive statistics. The results indicated that most of the learners use global reading strategies, with the least utilising the problem-solving strategies and the support reading strategies. The researchers recommend the usage of reading bags as a strategy to motivate learners to develop good reading habits, which will then lead to the usage of all three strategies, in particular, the problem reading strategies.
Opposing abuse in religious high-demand groups in South Africa: the case study of the “prophet” of Hertzogville
Authors: Pretorius S. P.
Published: August 2018

Since the new Constitution came into force, there has been an increase in the number of high-demand religious groups. The more accommodating and tolerant approach towards religions brought about by the Constitution has created a fertile environment for the development of alternative religious groups. In certain cases, unfortunately, this has resulted in the violation of other basic human rights within the confines of these groups. There is very little monitoring of the various religions in South Africa and these violations seem to be on the increase. A need arose to oppose the infringement of human rights in high-demand religious groups. The organisation RIGH (Rights of Individuals Grant Honour To) was established to address this need. This article aims, first, to point out how the exercising of one basic human right, in this particular case the right to freedom of religion as exercised in Hertzogville, led to the violation of other basic human rights. Secondly, it suggests ways of opposing the infringements on other basic human rights by high-demand religious groups.
Interposed Bowel Loop during Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy Placement; Rare and Nightmare
Authors: Shera Irfan Ali , Soni Ram Chandra
Published: August 2018

Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is one of common means of enteral nutrition in day‑to‑day gastroenterology practice. However, PEG is associated with complications such as infection, buried bumper, interposed bowel loops, and colocutaneous fistula. Herein, we present a case of PEG tube placement with interposed bowel loop in the gastric and parietal wall that was managed conservatively.
A novel approach to characterize the variability in mass-Dimension relationships: results from MC3E
Authors: Finlon Joseph A. , McFarquhar Greg M. , Nesbitt Stephen W. , Rauber Robert M. , Morrison Hugh , Wu Wei , Zhang Pengfei
Published: August 2018

Abstract. Mass-dimension (m-D) relationships determining bulk microphysical properties such as total water content (TWC) and radar reflectivity factor (Z) from particle size distributions are used in both numerical models and remote sensing retrievals. The a and b coefficients representing m = aDb relationships, however, can vary significantly depending on meteorological conditions, particle habits, definition of particle maximum dimension, the probes used to obtain the data, techniques used to process the cloud probe data, and other unknown reasons. Thus, considering a range of a,b coefficients may be more applicable for use in numerical models and remote sensing retrievals. Microphysical data collected by two-dimensional optical array probes (OAPs) installed on the University of North Dakota Citation aircraft during the Mid-latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) were used in conjunction with TWC data from a Nevzorov probe and ground-based S-band radar data to determine a and b using a technique that minimizes the chi-square difference between TWC and Z derived from the OAPs and that directly measured by a TWC probe and radar. All a and b within a specified tolerance were regarded as equally plausible solutions. Of the 16 near-constant temperature flight legs analyzed during the 25 April, 20 May, and 23 May 2011 events, the derived surfaces of solutions on the first two days where the aircraft sampled stratiform cloud had a larger range in a and b for lower temperature environments that corresponded to less variability in N(D), TWC, and Z for a flight leg. Because different regions of the storm were sampled on 23 May, differences in the variability of N(D), TWC, and Z influenced the distribution of chi-square values in (a,b) phase space and the specified tolerance in a way that yielded 6.7 times fewer plausible solutions compared to the flight legs on the other dates. These findings show the importance of representing the variability in a,b coefficients for numerical modeling and remote sensing studies rather than assuming fixed values, as well as the need to further explore how these surfaces depend on environmental conditions in ice and mixed phase clouds.
The response of tropical precipitation to Earth's precession: The role of fluxes and vertical stability
Authors: Jalihal Chetankumar , Bosmans Joyce Helena Catharina , Srinivasan Jayaraman , Chakraborty Arindam
Published: August 2018

Abstract. The changes in Earth's precession have an impact on tropical precipitation. These changes have been ascribed to the changes in solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere, but this cannot explain the variations in precipitation over oceans. Using energy and moisture budget equations we have shown that the surface energy fluxes, as well as vertical stability, have to be taken into consideration along with insolation, to explain these changes in precipitation. Energy fluxes explain most of the changes in precipitation, when looking at the mean response over the tropics. However, there are regions like the Arabian sea and Africa where stability change is the main cause of change in precipitation. Hence, insolation cannot be thought of as the sole driver of precipitation on orbital timescales, but surface energy and vertical stability should also be considered when looking at oceans or smaller land regions. The decrease in precipitation over the Bay of Bengal, with higher summer insolation, has been shown to be due to the decrease in surface latent heat fluxes. This is a consequence of the remote response of the atmosphere to the enhanced latent heating to the west of Bay of Bengal. This leads to a decrease in wind speed over the Bay of Bengal and hence reduces the total column energy available for convection.