Brazilian Students and Working Capital: An Analysis of Their Decisions When Using Virtual Market Business Games

This study aims to demonstrate that data from business games can be an important resource for improving efficiency and effectiveness of learning. The proposal presented here was developed from preliminary studies of data from Virtual Market games that pointed the possibility of identifying gaps in learning by analyzing the decisions of students. This proposal helps students to refine their learning processes and equips tutors with strategies for teaching and student assessment. The proposal also complements the group discussion and/or debriefing, which are widely used to enhance learning mediated by games. However, from a management perspective the model has the potential to be erroneous and miss opportunities, which cannot be detected because of the dependence on the characteristics of the individual, such as ability to communicate and work together. To illustrate the proposed technique, data sets from two business games were analyzed with the focus on managing working capital and it was found that students had difficulties managing this task. Similar trends were observed in all categories of students in the study-undergraduate, postgraduate and specialization. This discovery led us to the analysis of data for decisions made in the performance of the games, and it was determined that indicators could be developed that were capable of indentifying inconsistencies in the decisions. It was decided to apply some basic concepts of the finance management, such as management of the operational and non-operational expenditures, as well as production management concepts, such as the use of the production capacity. By analyzing the data from the Virtual Market games using the indicator concept, it was possible to detect the lack of domain knowledge of the students. Therefore, these indicators can be used to analyze the decisions of the players and guide them during the game, increasing their effectiveness and efficiency. As these indicators were developed from specific content, they can also be used to develop teaching materials to support learning. Viewed in this light, the proposal adds new possibilities for using business games in learning. In addition to the intrinsic learning that is achieved through playing the games, they also assist in driving the learning process. This study considers the applications and the methodology used.

Utilizing the CORBA platform in the construction of a highly immersive virtual environment

This article presents the implementation of a distributed system of virtual reality, through the integration of services offered by the CORBA platform (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and by the environment of development of 3D graphic applications in real time, the WorldToolkit, of Sense8. The developed application for the validation of this integration is that of a virtual city, with an emphasis on its traffic ways, vehicles (movable objects) and buildings (immovable objects). In this virtual world, several users can interact, each one controlling his/her own car. Since the modelling of the application took into consideration the criteria and principles of the Transport Engineering, the aim is to use it in the planning, project and construction of traffic ways for vehicles. The system was structured according to the approach client/server utilizing multicast communication among the participating nodes. The chosen implementation for the CORBA was the Iona's ORBIX software. The performance results obtained are presented and discussed in the end.

Virtual instrumentation applied to the implementation of IEEE STD 1459-2000 power definitions

This paper discusses the utilization of Virtual Instrumentation to the implementation and evaluation of different power definitions, so that classical formulations and new definitions can be compared without the necessity of acquiring different power meters or analyzers. Accordingly, the definitions of IEEE Standard 1459-2000 for the measurement of power quantities under distorted and unbalanced situations, have been digitally implemented. Thus, several power and power factor components related to the decomposition of the measured voltage and current signals have been obtained. The proposed PC-based Virtual Instrument uses a high performance acquisition board and isolated sensors and transducers. All digital algorithms and routines have been implemented by means of a graphical development system. Regarding to the implementation of STD 1459, this paper also proposes several different algorithms to the required decompositions of voltage, current and power components. © 2005 IEEE.

Treino prévio reduz o tempo de execução de tarefas visuo-espaciais em ambiente virtual

Objective. To evaluate the influence of previous adaptation to different computational environments in visuo-spacial tasks performance of healthy individuals. Method. Healthy volunteers (n = 30), 15 male, mean age 25.3 ± 3.3 years, were divided in three groups: the first group, considered control, was not adapted to the proposed environments; the second group was adapted to a closed environment (stable and expected), and the third group was adapted to an open environment A (unexpected). The proposed task was to go through two open environments B and C (maze). The dependent variables Time and Error were considered for the analysis. Results. It was observed that during the adaptation phase, in the Time variable, the groups presented a progressive improvement in the performance to each task (p = 0.0036). The group adapted in the A open environment, showed a tendency to be faster in the execution of B and C open environments tasks, than the group adapted in the closed environment (p = 0.068). Conclusion. The study suggests that subjects adapted to visuo-spacial tasks execution involving unknown and no guided situations, present a tendency to a better time performance in these tasks when compared to subjects adapted in fixed and guided situations.

Análise do uso do jogo mercado virtual como mediador do processo de aprendizagem de gestão empresarial

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Proposta de biomodelagem virtual utilizando softwares livres

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A realidade virtual na intervenção motora em crianças com transtorno do desenvolvimento da coordenação

Pós-graduação em Desenvolvimento Humano e Tecnologias - IBRC

O efeito da intervenção com realidade virtual em indivíduos com dificuldades de coordenação motora

Pós-graduação em Desenvolvimento Humano e Tecnologias - IBRC

Planejamento de um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem baseado em interfaces dinâmicas e uma aplicação ao estudo de potência elétrica

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Elétrica - FEIS

Desenvolvimento e aplicação da instrumentação virtual na unidade móvel de ensaios na barra de tração - UMEB

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Energia na Agricultura) - FCA

Procedimentos de jogadores no jogo virtual Colheita Feliz: a virtude e a regra

This study based on moral culture research and the theoretical Piagetian perspective aims to investigate the relation between virtue and rules in the procedures of participants in the Internet game Colheita Feliz (Happy Harvest) – an Orkut application. By means of descriptive qualitative analysis, the behavior of 60 participants in the game was observed during two months. The participants’ performance ranking was analyzed according to the procedures they used. The results showed predominance of the crop stealing procedure in comparison with the crop cultivation procedure and allowed to consider that the action of stealing of the participants was not guided by the universal principles of virtue, honesty or lack of it (moral domain) but by the playing convention for the game (social domain) favoring the stealing procedure, and also by personal domain (choices) and mutual agreement among the subjects participating in the game. The data did not indicate connections between the participants’ actions inside and outside virtual and real fields with regard to stealing, and reinforced the idea that rules are conventionalized in the domain of a group and depend on social interactions by which mutual respect among peers must prevail. The data also shows that morality is not the regulatory actions in the game. The results also showed the importance of carrying out research on procedures used by computer game players since such procedures can demonstrate cognitive, moral, affective and social aspects perceived during playful interaction situations.