Disseny i implementació d’un joc de plataformes basat en la música

L’objectiu del projecte és crear un videojoc de plataformes d’scroll automàtic en 2D basat en la música. Això vol dir que tots els elements de l’escenari i els moviments que haurà de fer el jugador per a passar-se’l estaran íntegrament lligats a la banda sonora de la pantalla. A més, el joc ha de ser compatible per als dispositius Android

Playing to Learn: Business Simulation Games as Leadership Learning Environments

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate if participation in business simulation gaming sessions can make different leadership styles visible and provide students with experiences beneficial for the development of leadership skills. Particularly, the focus is to describe the development of leadership styles when leading virtual teams in computer-­supported collaborative game settings and to identify the outcomes of using computer simulation games as leadership training tools. To answer to the objectives of the study, three empirical experiments were conducted to explore if participation in business simulation gaming sessions (Study I and II), which integrate face-­to-­face and virtual communication (Study III and IV), can make different leadership styles visible and provide students with experiences beneficial for the development of leadership skills. In the first experiment, a group of multicultural graduate business students (N=41) participated in gaming sessions with a computerized business simulation game (Study III). In the second experiment, a group of graduate students (N=9) participated in the training with a ‘real estate’ computer game (Study I and II). In the third experiment, a business simulation gaming session was organized for graduate students group (N=26) and the participants played the simulation game in virtual teams, which were organizationally and geographically dispersed but connected via technology (Study IV). Each team in all experiments had three to four students and students were between 22 and 25 years old. The business computer games used for the empirical experiments presented an enormous number of complex operations in which a team leader needed to make the final decisions involved in leading the team to win the game. These gaming environments were interactive;; participants interacted by solving the given tasks in the game. Thus, strategy and appropriate leadership were needed to be successful. The training was competition-­based and required implementation of leadership skills. The data of these studies consist of observations, participants’ reflective essays written after the gaming sessions, pre-­ and post-­tests questionnaires and participants’ answers to open-­ ended questions. Participants’ interactions and collaboration were observed when they played the computer games. The transcripts of notes from observations and students dialogs were coded in terms of transactional, transformational, heroic and post-­heroic leadership styles. For the data analysis of the transcribed notes from observations, content analysis and discourse analysis was implemented. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was also utilized in the study to measure transformational and transactional leadership styles;; in addition, quantitative (one-­way repeated measures ANOVA) and qualitative data analyses have been performed. The results of this study indicate that in the business simulation gaming environment, certain leadership characteristics emerged spontaneously. Experiences about leadership varied between the teams and were dependent on the role individual students had in their team. These four studies showed that simulation gaming environment has the potential to be used in higher education to exercise the leadership styles relevant in real-­world work contexts. Further, the study indicated that given debriefing sessions, the simulation game context has much potential to benefit learning. The participants who showed interest in leadership roles were given the opportunity of developing leadership skills in practice. The study also provides evidence of unpredictable situations that participants can experience and learn from during the gaming sessions. The study illustrates the complex nature of experiences from the gaming environments and the need for the team leader and role divisions during the gaming sessions. It could be concluded that the experience of simulation game training illustrated the complexity of real life situations and provided participants with the challenges of virtual leadership experiences and the difficulties of using leadership styles in practice. As a result, the study offers playing computer simulation games in small teams as one way to exercise leadership styles in practice.

Tietokonepelien tekoälyn rajat

Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, kuinka hyvä tekoäly tietokonepeliin on mahdollista toteuttaa nykytiedolla ja -tekniikalla. Tekoäly rajattiin tarkoittamaan tekoälyn ohjaamia pelihahmoja. Lisäksi yksinkertaisia tekoälytoteutuksia ei huomioitu. Työ toteutettiin tutustumalla aiheeseen liittyvään kirjallisuuteen sekä kehittäjäyhteisön web-sivustojen tietoon. Hyvän tekoälyn kriteereiksi valikoituivat viihdyttävyys ja uskottavuus. Katsaus suosituimpiin toteuttamistekniikoihin ja tekoälyn mahdollisuuksiin osoitti, että teoriassa hyvinkin edistynyt tekoäly on toteutettavissa. Käytännössä tietokoneen rajalliset resurssit, kehittäjien rajalliset taidot ja pelinkehitysprojektien asettamat vaatimukset näyttävät kuitenkin rajoittavan tekoälyn toteuttamista kaupallisessa tuotteessa.

Peliohjelmoinnin alkeet

Tämä kandidaatintyö tutkii peliohjelmoinnin mahdollisuuksia ohjelmoinnin alkeiden opetuksessa sekä Unity3D-ohjelman toimivuutta 2D-pelinkehityksessä. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli luoda Peliohjelmoinnin alkeet -kurssille kurssirunko sekä todistaa Unity3D-ohjelman toimivuus 2D-pelinkehityksessä kehittämällä esimerkkipeli. Tuotoksena kurssille kehitettiin kuusiosainen kurssirunko, johon myös suunniteltiin täysin aloittelijoille tarkoitettu vapaaehtoinen UnityScriptin alkeet osio. Ohjelmoinnin aloittelijoille suunniteltu kurssi käy läpi Unity3D-ohjelman perusteet sekä tutustuu skriptauksen alkeisiin. Kurssirunko käy 2D-pelinkehitykseen liittyviä konsepteja loogisesti läpi. Työn toisena tavoitteena oli esimerkkipelin kehitys ja Unity3D-ohjelman 2D-pelinkehitystyökalujen testaus. Pelin tekeminen onnistui yli odotusten. Vaikka peli on erittäin yksinkertainen ja lyhyt, se toimii esimerkkipelinä mainiosti. Johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että Unity3D-ohjelman 2D-työkalut ovat toimivia laadukkaiden 2D-pelien kehittämiseen. Tuotoksena laadittu kurssirunko antaa suuntaa kurssien rakentamiseen peliohjelmoinnin aloittelijoille. Pelinkehitys kurssin suorittamisen jälkeen opiskelijalla on mahdollisuudet ja perustaidot jatkaa kehittymistä ja opiskelua tahtomallaan suunnalla.

Histoire formelle du jeu d’aventure sur ordinateur (le cas de l’Amérique du Nord de 1976-1999)

Cette étude s’intéresse à l’évolution formelle du jeu d’aventure de 1976 à 1999. Elle se propose de mieux comprendre les facteurs historiques contribuant à l’apparition du genre, son institution et ses transformations. La recherche est fondée sur l’analyse du discours de la presse spécialisée en jeux d’ordinateur et d’un corpus étendu d’œuvres. L’une des thèses proposées est que l’identité générique du jeu d’aventure est fondée sur une expérience vidéoludique demeurant relativement constante malgré des variations importantes de formes. Cette expérience est assurée par la reproduction des principaux éléments d’une architecture générale de design de jeu inaugurée par Adventure en 1977. Les variations formelles ponctuelles résultent d’une négociation entre la volonté de s’adapter aux changements de contexte de l’écologie du jeu d’ordinateur et la résistance d’une architecture ludique établie. La pertinence d’une histoire d’un genre vidéoludique est justifiée au premier chapitre en fonction de l’état actuel des connaissances sur l’histoire du jeu vidéo et du jeu d’aventure. On y précise également le cadre théorique, la méthodologie et les sources étudiées. Le deuxième chapitre s’intéresse à la genèse d’Adventure de Crowther et Woods (1976; 1977) en fonction des diverses pratiques culturelles dans lesquelles l’œuvre s’inscrit. Cette analyse permet d’en dégager l’architecture ludique. Le troisième chapitre porte sur le « tournant narratif » du jeu d’aventure ayant lieu au début des années 1980. On y décrit différents facteurs historiques poussant le genre vers l’enchâssement d’histoires pré-écrites afin d’en faire un véhicule narratif. Le quatrième chapitre décrit le contexte du « tournant graphique », passage du jeu d’aventure d’une représentation textuelle à un régime visuel, ainsi que ses conséquences expérientielles. Le « tournant ergonomique » décrit au cinquième chapitre traite de l’apparition du modèle « pointer et cliquer » en fonction des avancées des connaissances concernant les interactions humain-machine ainsi que de la maturation du design de jeu comme pratique autonome. Le dernier chapitre relate l’apogée du jeu d’aventure au début de la révolution multimédia sous ses formes de film interactif et « Myst-like » puis du ralentissement – voire de l’arrêt – de son évolution formelle.

Using the web graph to influence application behaviour

The Web's link structure (termed the Web Graph) is a richly connected set of Web pages. Current applications use this graph for indexing and information retrieval purposes. In contrast the relationship between Web Graph and application is reversed by letting the structure of the Web Graph influence the behaviour of an application. Presents a novel Web crawling agent, AlienBot, the output of which is orthogonally coupled to the enemy generation strategy of a computer game. The Web Graph guides AlienBot, causing it to generate a stochastic process. Shows the effectiveness of such unorthodox coupling to both the playability of the game and the heuristics of the Web crawler. In addition, presents the results of the sample of Web pages collected by the crawling process. In particular, shows: how AlienBot was able to identify the power law inherent in the link structure of the Web; that 61.74 per cent of Web pages use some form of scripting technology; that the size of the Web can be estimated at just over 5.2 billion pages; and that less than 7 per cent of Web pages fully comply with some variant of (X)HTML.

Investigação da relação entre conteúdo onírico e aprendizado de uma tarefa cognitiva complexa

Several lines of evidence indicate that sleep is beneficial for learning, but there is no experimental evidence yet that the content of dreams is adaptive, i.e., that dreams help the dreamer to cope with challenges of the following day. Our aim here is to investigate the role of dreams in the acquisition of a complex cognitive task. We investigated electroencephalographic recordings and dream reports of adult subjects exposed to a computer game comprising perceptual, motor, spatial, emotional and higher-level cognitive aspects (Doom). Subjects slept two nights in the sleep laboratory, a completely dark room with a comfortable bed and controlled temperature. Electroencephalographic recordings with 28 channels were continuously performed throughout the experiment to identify episodes of rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. Behaviors were continuously recorded in audio and video with an infrared camera. Dream reports were collected upon forced awakening from late REM sleep, and again in the morning after spontaneous awakening. On day 1, subjects were habituated to the sleep laboratory, no computer game was played, and negative controls for gamerelated dream reports were collected. On day 2, subjects played the computer game before and after sleep. Each game session lasted for an hour, and sleep for 7-9 hours. 9 different measures of performance indicated significant improve overnight. 81% of the subjects experienced intrusion of elements of the game into their dreams, including potentially adaptative strategies (insights). There was a linear correlation between performance and dream intrusion as well as for game improval and quantity of reported dreaming. In the electrophysiological analysis we mapped the subjects brain activities in different stages (SWS 1, REM 1, SWS 2, REM 2, Game 1 and Game 2), and found a modest reverberation in motor areas related to the joystick control during the sleep. When separated by gender, we found a significant difference on female subjects in the channels that indicate motor learning. Analysis of dream reports showed that the amount of gamerelated elements in dreams correlated with performance gains according to an inverted-U function analogous to the Yerkes-Dodson law that governs the relationship between arousal and learning. The results indicate that dreaming is an adaptive behavior

Open and standardized tools for smart transducer networking

IEEE 1451 Standard is intended to address the smart transducer interfacing problematic in network environments. Usually, proprietary hardware and software is a very efficient solution to in planent the IEEE 1451 normative, although can be expensive and inflexible. In contrast, the use of open and standardized tools for implementing the IEEE 1451 normative is proposed in this paper. Tools such as Java and Phyton programming languages, Linux, programmable logic technology, Personal Computer resources and Ethernet architecture were integrated in order to constructa network node based on the IEEE 1451 standards. The node can be applied in systems based on the client-server communication model The evaluation of the employed tools and expermental results are presented. © 2005 IEEE.

Proposal of convergence of e-Learning systems for t-Learning

This article presents considerations about viability on reutilize existing web based e-Learning systems on Interactive Digital TV environment according to Digital TV standard adopted in Brazil. Considering the popularity of Moodle system in academic and corporative area, such system was chosen as a foundation for a survey into its properties to create a specification of an Application Programming Interface (API) for convergence to t-Learning characteristics that demands efforts in interface design area due the fact that computer and TV concepts are totally different. This work aims to present studies concerning user interface design during two stages: survey and detail of functionalities from an e-Learning system and how to adapt them for the Interactive TV regarding usability context and Information Architecture concepts.

Programa para gerenciamento de rebanho leiteiro

With the advent of technology, many repetitive processes before now was be simplified with the support of a simple computer. Therefore programming has been developed and new softwares appear every day. For the development of this project was used the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, and with it the program was made in C # Windows Form mode. This work aims to develop a program that can read, send and receive data via the Universal Serial Bus (USB) to the computer, and thereby perform the processing. Thus the milk producer will possess the knowledge of the amount of milk produced by the animal. With the processing of data it is possible to generate graphs of herd production or a specific animal and you can also generate the required report date

A contribuição de modelos utilizando uma abordagem modelo - código

In a world that is increasingly working with software, the need arises for effective approaches that encourage software reuse. The reuse practice must be aligned to a set of practices, procedures and methodologies that create a stable and high quality product. These questions produce new styles and approaches in the software engineering. In this way, this thesis aims to address concepts related to development and model-driven architecture. The model-driven approach provides significant aspects of the automated development, which helps it with produced models built in the specification phase. The definition of terms such as model, architecture and platform makes the focus becomes clearer, because for MDA and MDD is important to split between technical and business issues. Important processes are covered, so you can highlight the artifacts that are built into each stage of model-driven development. The stages of development: CSM, PIM, PSM and ISM, detailing the purpose of each phase in oriented models, making the end of each stage are gradually produced artifacts that may be specialized. The models are handled by different prospects for modeling, abstracting the concepts and building a set of details that portrays a specific scenario. This retraction can be a graphical or textual representation, however, in most cases is chosen a language modeling, for example, UML. In order to provide a practical view, this dissertation shows some tools that improve the construction of models and the code generate that assists in the development, keeping the documentation systemic. Finally, the paper presents a case study that refers to the theoretical aspects discussed throughout the dissertation, therefore it is expected that the architecture and the model-driven development may be able to explain important features to consider in software engineering

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.

Spike-triggered reaction-time EEG as a possible assessment tool for driving ability

The impact of interictal epileptic activity (IEA) on driving is a rarely investigated issue. We analyzed the impact of IEA on reaction time in a pilot study. Reactions to simple visual stimuli (light flash) in the Flash test or complex visual stimuli (obstacle on a road) in a modified car driving computer game, the Steer Clear, were measured during IEA bursts and unremarkable electroencephalography (EEG) periods. Individual epilepsy patients showed slower reaction times (RTs) during generalized IEA compared to RTs during unremarkable EEG periods. RT differences were approximately 300 ms (p < 0.001) in the Flash test and approximately 200 ms (p < 0.001) in the Steer Clear. Prior work suggested that RT differences >100 ms may become clinically relevant. This occurred in 40% of patients in the Flash test and in up to 50% in the Steer Clear. When RT were pooled, mean RT differences were 157 ms in the Flash test (p < 0.0001) and 116 ms in the Steer Clear (p < 0.0001). Generalized IEA of short duration seems to impair brain function, that is, the ability to react. The reaction-time EEG could be used routinely to assess driving ability.

Measuring Spatial Presence: Introducing and Validating the Pictorial Presence SAM

The aim of the present study was to develop a pictorial presence scale using selfassessment- manikins (SAM). The instrument assesses presence sub-dimensions (selflocation and possible actions) as well as presence determinants (attention allocation, spatial situation model, higher cognitive involvement, and suspension of disbelief). To qualitatively validate the scale, think-aloud protocols and interviews (n = 12) were conducted. The results reveal that the SAM items are quickly filled out as well as easily, intuitively, and unambiguously understood. Furthermore, the instrument’s validity and sensitivity was quantitatively examined in a two-factorial design (n = 317). Factors were medium (written story, audio book, video, and computer game) and distraction (non-distraction vs. distraction). Factor analyses reveal that the SAM presence dimensions and determinants closely correspond to those of the MEC Spatial Presence Questionnaire, which was used as a comparison measure. The findings of the qualitative and quantitative validation procedures show that the Pictorial Presence SAM successfully assesses spatial presence. In contrast to the verbal questionnaire data (MEC), the significant distraction effect suggests that the new scale is even more sensitive. This points out that the scale can be a useful alternative to existing verbal presence selfreport measures.

An analog input-output system for the ILLIAC II.

Issued also as thesis, University of Illinois.