Ryhmäidentiteetin mittaaminen verkkoroolipelissä World of Warcraft

The objective of the study was to explore the dimensions of group identity in the guilds of World of Warcraft. Previous research shows that social interaction has an important role in playing games for many players. Social identities are an important aspect of self-concept and since group related cues are more salient than personal clues in computer-mediated communication, the social gaming experience was approached through group identity. In the study a new scale will be developed to measure the group identity in games. Secondary goal is to study how different guild attributes affect the group identity and third goal is to explore the connection between group identity and gaming experience and amount of play. Subjects were 1203 guild members and 106 players not in a guild. The data was gathered by an Internet survey which measured group identity with nine scales, gaming experience with three scales and guild attributes with four scales. Also various background data was gathered. The construct of group identity was analyzed with explorative factor analysis. The typical experiences of group identity was analyzed with cluster analysis and effects of guild attributes with multivariate analysis of covariance. As a result of the study a new scale was developed which measured group identity on six dimensions: self-stereotyping, public and private evaluation, importance, interconnection of self and others and awareness of content. Group identity was experienced strongest in elder middle-sized guilds that had formal rules and that emphasized social interaction. The players with strong group identity had more positive gaming experience and played World of Warcraft more per week than the players who were not in a guild or identified to guild weakly. This result encourages game developers to produce environments that enhance group identity as it seems to increase the enjoyment in games. As a whole this study proposes that group identity in guilds is constructed from the same elements as in traditional groups. If this is truly the case, guild membership may have similar positive effects on individual’s mental well-being as traditional positively evaluated group memberships have.

Keltaista ja kimaltavaa : kodin ja koulun yhteistyöstä koulun ja kodin yhteyteen

Through this study I aim to portray connections between home and school through the patterns of thought and action shared in everyday life in a certain community. My observations are primarily based upon interviews, writings and artwork by people from home (N=32) and school (N=13) contexts. Through the stories told, I depict the characters and characteristic features of the home-school interaction by generations. According to the material, in the school days of the grandparents the focus was on discipline and order. For the parents, the focus had shifted towards knowledge, while for the pupils today, the focus lies on evaluation, through which the upbringing of the child is steered towards favourable outcomes. Teachers and those people at home hold partially different understandings of home-school interaction, both of its manifested forms and potentials. The forms of contact in use today are largely seen as one-sided. Yearning for openness and regularity is shared by both sides, yet understood differently. Common causes for failure are said to lie in plain human difficulties in communication and social interaction, but deeply rooted traditions regarding forms of contact also cast a shadow on the route to successful co-operation. This study started around the idea, that home-school interaction should be steered towards the ex-change of constructive ideas between both the home and school environments. Combining the dif-ferent views gives to something to build upon. To test this idea, I drafted a practice period, which was implemented in a small pre-school environment in the fall of 1997. My focus of interest in this project was on the handling of ordinary life information in the schools. So I combined individual views, patterns of knowledge and understanding of the world into the process of teaching. Works of art and writings by the informants worked as tools for information processing and as practical forms of building home-school interaction. Experiences from the pre-school environ-ment were later on echoed in constructing home-school interaction in five other schools. In both these projects, the teaching in the school was based on stories, thoughts and performances put to-gether by the parents, grandparents and children at home. During these processes, the material used in this study, consisting of artwork, writings and interviews (N=501), was collected. The data shows that information originating from the home environments was both a motivating and interesting addition to the teaching. There even was a sense of pride when assessing the seeds of knowledge from one’s own roots. In most cases and subjects, the homegrown information content was seamlessly connected to the functions of school and the curriculum. This project initiated thought processes between pupils and teachers, adults, children and parents, teachers and parents, and also between generations. It appeared that many of the subjects covered had not been raised before between the various participant groups. I have a special interest here in visual expression and its various contextual meanings. There art material portrays how content matter and characteristic features of the adult and parent contexts reflect in the works of the children. Another clearly noticeable factor in the art material is the impact of time-related traditions and functions on the means of visual expression. Comparing the visual material to the written material reveals variances of meaning and possibilities between these forms of expression. The visual material appears to be related especially to portraying objects, action and usage. Processing through that making of images was noted to bring back memories of concrete structures, details and also emotions. This process offered the child an intensive social connection with the adults. In some cases, with children and adults alike, this project brought forth an ongoing relation to visual expression. During this study I end up changing the concept to ‘home-school collaboration’. This widely used concept guides and outlines the interaction between schools and homes. In order to broaden the field of possibilities, I choose to use the concept ‘school-home interconnection’. This concept forms better grounds for forming varying impressions and practices when building interactive contexts. This concept places the responsibility of bridging the connection-gap in the schools. Through the experiences and innovations of thought gained from these projects, I form a model of pedagogy that embraces the idea of school-home interconnection and builds on the various impres-sions and expressions contained in it. In this model, school makes use of the experiences, thoughts and conceptions from the home environment. Various forms of expression are used to portray and process this information. This joint evaluation and observation evolves thought patterns both in school and at home. Keywords: percieving, visuality, visual culture, art and text, visual expression, art education, growth in interaction, home-school collaboration, school-home interconnection, school-home interaction model.

Essays in Philosophical Moral Psychology

The dissertation consists of four essays and a comprehensive introduction that discusses the topics, methods, and most prominent theories of philosophical moral psychology. I distinguish three main questions: What are the essential features of moral thinking? What are the psychological conditions of moral responsibility? And finally, what are the consequences of empirical facts about human nature to normative ethics? Each of the three last articles focuses on one of these issues. The first essay and part of the introduction are dedicated to methodological questions, in particular the relationship between empirical (social) psychology and philosophy. I reject recent attempts to understand the nature of morality on the basis of empirical research. One characteristic feature of moral thinking is its practical clout: if we regard an action as morally wrong, we either refrain from doing it even against our desires and interests, or else feel shame or guilt. Moral views seem to have a conceptual connection to motivation and emotions – roughly speaking, we can’t conceive of someone genuinely disapproving an action, but nonetheless doing it without any inner motivational conflict or regret. This conceptual thesis in moral psychology is called (judgment) internalism. It implies, among other things, that psychopaths cannot make moral judgments to the extent that they are incapable of corresponding motivation and emotion, even if they might say largely the words we would expect. Is internalism true? Recently, there has been an explosion of interest in so-called experimental philosophy, which is a methodological view according to which claims about conceptual truths that appeal to our intuitions should be tested by way of surveys presented to ordinary language users. One experimental result is that the majority of people are willing to grant that psychopaths make moral judgments, which challenges internalism. In the first article, ‘The Rise and Fall of Experimental Philosophy’, I argue that these results pose no real threat to internalism, since experimental philosophy is based on a too simple conception of the relationship between language use and concepts. Only the reactions of competent users in pragmatically neutral and otherwise conducive circumstances yield evidence about conceptual truths, and such robust intuitions remain inaccessible to surveys for reasons of principle. The epistemology of folk concepts must still be based on Socratic dialogue and critical reflection, whose character and authority I discuss at the end of the paper. The internal connection between moral judgment and motivation led many metaethicists in the past century to believe along Humean lines that judgment itself consists in a pro-attitude rather than a belief. This expressivist view, as it is called these days, has far-reaching consequences in metaethics. In the second essay I argue that perhaps the most sophisticated form of contemporary expressivism, Allan Gibbard’s norm-expressivism, according to which moral judgments are decisions or contingency plans, is implausible from the perspective of the theory of action. In certain circumstances it is possible to think that something is morally required of one without deciding to do so. Morality is not a matter of the will. Instead, I sketch on the basis of Robert Brandom’s inferentialist semantics a weak form of judgment internalism, according to which the content of moral judgment is determined by a commitment to a particular kind of practical reasoning. The last two essays in the dissertation emphasize the role of mutual recognition in the development and maintenance of responsible and autonomous moral agency. I defend a compatibilist view of autonomy, according to which agents who are unable to recognize right and wrong or act accordingly are not responsible for their actions – it is not fair to praise or blame them, since they lacked the relevant capacity to do otherwise. Conversely, autonomy demands an ability to recognize reasons and act on them. But as a long tradition in German moral philosophy whose best-known contemporary representative is Axel Honneth has it, both being aware of reasons and acting on them requires also the right sort of higher-order attitudes toward the self. Without self-respect and self-confidence we remain at the mercy of external pressures, even if we have the necessary normative competence. These attitudes toward the self, in turn, are formed through mutual recognition – we value ourselves when those who we value value us. Thus, standing in the right sort of relations of recognition is indirectly necessary for autonomy and moral responsibility. Recognition and valuing are concretely manifest in actions and institutions, whose practices make possible participation on an equal footing. Seeing this opens the way for a kind of normative social criticism that is grounded in the value of freedom and automomy, but is not limited to defending negative rights. It thus offers a new way to bridge the gap between liberalism and communitarianism.

Loucura ou lucidez? A desmistificação do cineasta-intelectual Glauber Rocha (1959 1979)

Este trabalho parte da análise de entrevistas, artigos e demais textos de autoria de Glauber de Andrade Rocha entre os anos de 1959 e 1979, para entender a trajetória de desenvolvimento do cinema brasileiro e suas relações com a política e economia nacionais. Glauber Rocha, cineasta e um dos principais membros do Cinema Novo brasileiro, se tornou internacionalmente conhecido por sua cinegrafia marcada pela crítica social e por seus fins político-didáticos. Sua atuação como crítico de cinema e sua participação nos debates em torno das políticas públicas de fomento à indústria cinematográfica no Brasil lhe renderiam o título de líder do movimento cinemanovista e o afirmariam, ao longo dos anos sessenta e setenta, como um dos artistas-intelectuais de maior expressão política do país.

A gênese da comunicação gestual e o desenvolvimento sociocognitivo: um estudo longitudinal

Mesmo antes das crianças começarem a falar, elas utilizam gestos, como dar, mostrar e apontar. O início da comunicação gestual pode ser percebido muito cedo na infância humana, mas ainda não está claro como ocorre a progressão deste desenvolvimento. O presente estudo investiga o papel e as características do desenvolvimento gestual no primeiro ano de vida. Um bebê de sexo masculino e sua mãe foram observados longitudinalmente, a cada semana, do nascimento aos 12 meses de idade. A díade foi filmada em casa enquanto realizava atividades de rotina. Nas idades de 9 a 12 meses, uma vez ao mês a mãe foi solicitada a brincar com seu bebê em situação estruturada. Os vídeos foram analisados qualitativa e quantitativamente em termos da percentagem de ocorrência de categorias de gestos comunicativos de ambos os parceiros e de seus comportamentos. Cenários comunicativos foram identificados. O aparecimento de diferentes comportamentos e suas trajetórias de desenvolvimento foram registrados. As possíveis relações com o surgimento posterior de gestos foram discutidas, analisando comportamentos que se tornaram ou não precursores e o modo como eles tenderam a apresentar mudanças com o tempo. Alguns resultados interessantes foram observados: pré-apontar foi identificado desde os primeiros meses e apresentou declínio de ocorrência. Pré-alcançar foi identificado aos 5 meses de idade e declinou no mesmo período em que foi observado o aparecimento do gesto de alcançar, o qual tendeu a aumentar com o tempo. Virar a cabeça enquanto rejeição foi observado aos 4 meses. Conforme o bebê foi se tornando mais velho, ele passou mais tempo engajado com sua mãe e com objetos de forma coordenada. Desde o início do primeiro ano, a mãe exibiu gestos de mostrar objetos e apontar proximal declarativo. Comportamentos de atenção conjunta foram observados e tenderam a aumentar no período de 9 a 12 meses de idade. Gestos proximais e declarativos realizados pelo bebê ocorreram mais precocemente se comparados a gestos imperativos e distais. As transições observadas a partir dos cenários comunicativos não compartilhados rumo aos de natureza simbólica foram identificadas. Percentagens de tempo de cenários comunicativos não-compartilhados e atencionais primários diminuíram enquanto as de cenários atencionais secundários aumentaram, tornando-se predominantes no final do primeiro ano. Neste período, cenários convencionais e simbólicos surgiram, apresentando breve duração. Embora estes resultados não sejam conclusivos, podem contribuir para a compreensão das primeiras modalidades de comunicação mãe-bebê, ajudando a fornecer suportes para a discussão sobre a existência de precursores gestuais precoces.

A Educação de Jovens e Adultos nos contextos de escolarização e as possibilidades de práticas educativas emancipatórias

A presente pesquisa discute a importância da Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA) nos contextos de escolarização buscando, a partir dos Estudos do Cotidiano, compreender os significados que lhes são atribuídos e os aspectos que se apresentam como perspectivas de educação emancipatória. Parte do pressuposto de que professores e alunos tecem, nos cotidianos da EJA, saberesfazeres, especialmente em seus currículos, invisibilizados e silenciados, práticas educativas emancipatórias para além das forças reguladoras das normas (OLIVEIRA, 2003). A construção da análise incorpora observações do cotidiano escolar e entrevistas com professores e alunos de EJA do Ensino Médio da Escola de Ensino Fundamental e Médio Sólon de Lucena, situada em Campina Grande/PB. O desenvolvimento da discussão considera o debate sobre o uso do termo emancipação social à luz dos postulados de Paulo Freire e Boaventura Santos. A abordagem sobre a reconfiguração e ampliação das práticas de educação de jovens e adultos ancora-se nas contribuições de Paiva (1997, 2005, 2009), Haddad (2000, 2007), Di Pierro (2005, 2010), Arroyo (2005), Fávero (2004, 2007). Os estudos sobre cultura contemplados produzem interfaces e conexões com o currículo, especialmente os currículos praticados, a partir dos trabalhos de Giroux (2009), Moreira (2002), Candau (2011), Oliveira (2003, 2009, 2010), entre outros. A tese defende que a educação dialógica, problematizada por Freire, e a valorização de experiências diferenciadas propiciadoras de diálogos e conflitos para a superação da monocultura do saber, proposta por Santos, estão presentes, implicitamente, nas práticas dos professores, na medida em que desenvolvem ações de ruptura com a lógica de submissão da educação bancária, privilegiando a ampliação do diálogo, da comunicação e da emancipação social.

Ouvidoria da Educação: a construção de espaços de mediação de conflitos no cotidiano escolar de Nova Iguaçu

O presente estudo busca descrever e analisar a experiência de Ouvidoria da Educação construída na Secretaria Municipal de Educação de Nova Iguaçu durante a gestão iniciada em outubro de 2008 e encerrada em maio de 2010. Nele, é contextualizado o processo de construção da experiência das Ouvidorias no Brasil, as características urbanas, econômicas, políticas e sociais da cidade utilizada como recorte empírico da pesquisa, assim como o Programa Bairro Escola. Esta foi a denominação da política central de desenvolvimento de gestão pública do, então, prefeito Lindberg Farias. O tema se expressa no campo da Educação e o subtema é a Gestão Democrática, apresentando como questão central as condições e os limites de viabilização de um projeto de Ouvidoria na rede pública municipal comprometida com essa referência de gestão. Para efetivação da análise investigativa, a dissertação foi desenvolvida como um caso particular do possível um estudo de caso com a pesquisadora na condição de sujeito/objeto do estudo frente à ação real e utópica de humanização e sustentabilidade do projeto educativo. As interlocuções teóricas adotadas visaram uma abordagem microssociológica com: Pierre Bourdieu na apreensão da prática através do habitus, campo, interesse e espaço social; Foucault, desvelando as relações de poder; Gramsci com a identificação da hegemonia e ideologia; e Boaventura Santos na concepção do contra hegemônico e na fronteira das linhas abissais. A hipótese de trabalho é que a implantação da Ouvidoria da Educação, em um quadro global de um projeto de Educação Integral, tinha como base uma ação inovadora de democracia da gestão e na busca de construir uma governança da polis com um presente e futuro sustentável. Nesse âmbito, a Ouvidoria da Educação atuava como um possível canal de comunicação e instrumento estimulador da mobilização social dos sujeitos-cidadãos da Rede Municipal da Educação da cidade de Nova Iguaçu e disseminador de práticas sustentadas nos Direitos Humanos. Como conclusão, evidencia-se que uma política pública de Educação Integral só se efetiva concretamente no campo educacional quando, substancialmente, se desenvolve uma gestão democrática e propositiva de uma agenda da garantia dos direitos sociais aos diferentes atores escolares, de forma a ressignificar as relações de poder estabelecidas.

Dilatando o corpo da arte: provocações de Um Crime Delicado na literatura e no cinema

A dissertação estuda o romance Um Crime Delicado, de Sérgio SantAnna (1996), ao filme quase homônimo, de Beto Brant (2005), tendo como principal questão a imagem do corpo no contexto sócio-cultural urbano e a sua representação na arte contemporânea. O romance de SantAnna acolhe, na urdidura ficcional, subtemas da maior relevância, tais como o lugar da deficiência física no horizonte de uma cultura hedonista, violência sexual (contra a mulher) e os poderes da crítica de arte (da autojustificação ao desvirtuamento de seus fins). A adaptação fílmica, por sua vez, introduz mudanças na obra de partida que complementam e enriquecem o romance e suas questões. No exercício comparativo, a tradicional discussão sobre as relações interartísticas (calcadas em Lessing), o culto à beleza e respectiva hostilização da feiura, os limites da exacerbação sensorial a partir do uso artístico da nudez provocaram a incorporação de outras obras de arte e de artistas à discussão de conceitos imprescindíveis: o abjeto, o contraditório, a intermidialidade. No primeiro capítulo, circunscrevemos historicamente nosso tema, focalizando a representação do corpo como lugar de multiplicação e relativização de significações; a seguir, apresentamos o painel de contradições que a sociedade excitada do século XX (Christoph Türcke, 2010) projeta sobre a questão corporal; e, para finalizar, propusemos a dilatação teórica do adágio horaciano ut pictura poesis /a poesia é como a pintura ao cinema poético (com suporte teórico de Claus Clüver, 2011, e Wolfgang Moser, 2006). Concluímos sugerindo que as intermidializações propõem novas interpretações aos textos literários, mas podem ser bem mais contundentes como formas de potenciação estética e de crítica social.

小学学习不良儿童对言语交际策略的理解与运用

[Abstract] Verbal communication strategy (VCS) refers to a programmed knowledge applied by individuals to understand and express intentions via language symbols in their realization of communicative objectives according to social conventions. As an important index of social development, verbal communication strategy has provided a new perspective for social skill studies. However, more work has to be done in the investigation of LD children’s VCS developmental pattern and affecting mechanism. Through contextual test, structured interview and role-play, the present study, by adopting integrated measurements of instrumental and interpersonal effectiveness, explored the developmental characteristics of Chinese learning-disabled primary school children across 3-6th grades at both comprehension and application levels. Then, their social perspective-taking performance and verbal retelling competence of each participant were examined, on the basis of which, path analysis was conducted, with social perspective-taking, verbal retelling and verbal communication strategy comprehension as independent variables, to reveal the inner mechanism affecting LD children’s application of verbal communication strategy. Finally, an intervention study was carried out through a combination of polite request strategy understanding lessons and social perspective-taking training dramas. The results indicate that:(1) No significant grade differences were found in LD group for polite request strategy, while significant differences were reported across different grades of non-LD children. For indirect reply strategy, significant grade and gender differences were found among LD children, but the developmental trajectory between the two groups was different. For both polite request and indirect reply strategies, the strategy comprehension level of LD children was significantly lower than those without learning disabilities. (2) No significant grade and gender differences were found in LD group in their application of polite request strategy, while for non-LD children, significant differences were reported across different grades. For indirect reply strategy, both LD and non-LD groups exhibited similar developmental characteristics. Significant group differences only exist in the over-all application level of polite request strategies, not in indirect reply strategies. However, the differences of the latter between the two groups were found at significant level only among the 11-12 year olds. (3) LD children’s perspective-taking and verbal retelling competence were significantly lower than those of non-LD group. For polite request strategy, the influence of social perspective-taking to strategy application was indirect and must be via strategy comprehension, while for indirect reply strategy, strategy comprehension was found to play as a partial mediator between social perspective-taking and strategy application. The influence of verbal retelling to strategy application was indirect on both types of strategies. (4) LD children’s strategy comprehension and social perspective-taking level can be improved, and the improvement of these two competences has significant positive impact on the increase of their strategy application level. Key Words: learning disabilities, verbal communication strategy, social perspective- taking

Experts on e-learning: insights gained from listening to the student voice!

The Student Experience of e-Learning Laboratory (SEEL) project at the University of Greenwich was designed to explore and then implement a number of approaches to investigate learners’ experiences of using technology to support their learning. In this paper members of the SEEL team present initial findings from a University-wide survey of nearly a 1000 students. A selection of 90 ‘cameos’, drawn from the survey data, offer further insights into personal perceptions of e-learning and illustrate the diversity of students experiences. The cameos provide a more coherent picture of individual student experience based on the totality of each person’s responses to the questionnaire. Finally, extracts from follow-up case studies, based on interviews with a small number of students, allow us to ‘hear’ the student voice more clearly. Issues arising from an analysis of the data include student preferences for communication and social networking tools, views on the ‘smartness’ of their tutors’ uses of technology and perceptions of the value of e-learning. A primary finding and the focus of this paper, is that students effectively arrive at their own individualised selection, configuration and use of technologies and software that meets their perceived needs. This ‘personalisation’ does not imply that such configurations are the most efficient, nor does it automatically suggest that effective learning is occurring. SEEL reminds us that learners are individuals, who approach learning both with and without technology in their own distinctive ways. Hearing, understanding and responding to the student voice is fundamental in maximising learning effectiveness. Institutions should consider actively developing the capacity of academic staff to advise students on the usefulness of particular online tools and resources in support of learning and consider the potential benefits of building on what students already use in their everyday lives. Given the widespread perception that students tend to be ‘digital natives’ and academic staff ‘digital immigrants’ (Prensky, 2001), this could represent a considerable cultural challenge.

The physical activity loyalty card scheme:Development and application of a novel system for incentivizing behaviour change

In the Public Health White Paper "Healthy Lives, Healthy People" (2010), the UK Government emphasised using incentives and "nudging" to encourage positive, healthy behaviour changes. However, there is little evidence that nudging is effective, in particular for increasing physical activity. We have created a platform to research the effectiveness of health-related behaviour change interventions and incentive schemes. The system consists of an outward-facing website, incorporating tools for incentivizing behaviour change, and a novel physical activity monitoring system. The monitoring system consists of the "Physical Activity Loyalty Card", which contains a passive RFID tag, and a contactless sensor network to detect the cards. This paper describes the application of this novel web-based system to investigate the effectiveness of non-cash incentives to "nudge" adults to undertake more physical activity. © 2012 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

Discursive Control, Non-Domination and Hegelian Recognition Theory: Marrying Pettit’s Account(s) of Freedom with a Pippinian/Brandomian Reading of Hegelian Agency

The aim of this article is to combine Pettit’s account(s) of freedom, both his work on discursive control and on non-domination, with Pippin’s and Brandom’s reinterpretation of Hegelian rational agency and the role of recognition theory within it. The benefits of combining these two theories lie, as the article hopes to show, in three findings: first, re-examining Hegelian agency in the spirit of Brandom and Pippin in combination with Pettit’s views on freedom shows clearly why and in which way a Hegelian account of rational agency can ground an attractive socio-political account of freedom; second, the reconciling of discursive control and non-domination with Hegelian agency shows how the force and scope of recognition become finally tangible, without either falling into the trap of overburdening the concept, or merely reducing it to the idea of simple respect; third, the arguments from this article also highlight the importance of freedom as non-domination and how this notion is, indeed, as Pettit himself claims, an agency-freedom which aims at successfully securing the social, political, economic and even (some) psychological conditions for free and autonomous agency.

Deliberative Perfectionism: Why We Can and Should Talk about the Good

In contemporary political theory, perfectionists believe that the state should promote substantive conceptions of the good through its legislation. Supporters of neutrality, instead, claim that the state should refrain from doing so. In this article I analyse perfectionism in relation to Jürgen Habermas’ theory of discourse and deliberative politics (1996) and critique Habermas’ distinction between ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ discourses (1984, 1990). By relating Habermas’ theory to George Sher’s account of perfectionism (1997), I argue that we can establish the meta-ethical grounds for a model of deliberation encompassing ethical matters (that is, questions concerning the good life) not confined to the limits of specific communities. I conclude by arguing that ethical deliberation is not only feasible but also desirable. Given the fact of ethical pluralism, and in order to show respect towards their fellow citizens, political perfectionists ought to be ready to show how their ethical claims (which they want to see translated into state policy) relate to deeper meta-ethical human goals on which we can ideally find a consensus through deliberation.

Middleware mechanisms for agent mobility in wireless sensor and actuator networks

This paper describes middleware-level support for agent mobility, targeted at hierarchically structured wireless sensor and actuator network applications. Agent mobility enables a dynamic deployment and adaptation of the application on top of the wireless network at runtime, while allowing the middleware to optimize the placement of agents, e.g., to reduce wireless network traffic, transparently to the application programmer. The paper presents the design of the mechanisms and protocols employed to instantiate agents on nodes and to move agents between nodes. It also gives an evaluation of a middleware prototype running on Imote2 nodes that communicate over ZigBee. The results show that our implementation is reasonably efficient and fast enough to support the envisioned functionality on top of a commodity multi-hop wireless technology. Our work is to a large extent platform-neutral, thus it can inform the design of other systems that adopt a hierarchical structuring of mobile components. © 2012 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.