Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-40).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2008. / Description based on contents viewed June 2, 2008; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-58).

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed May 28, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-85)

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2010. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 25-26).

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 23, 2010). Thesis advisors: Dr. X. H. Wang and Dr. Allanus Tsoi. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η αξιοποίηση ενός σοβαρού ηλεκτρονικού παιχνιδιού στη διδακτική πράξη και η διερεύνηση των επιδράσεών του στις επιδόσεις των φοιτητών. Για την αξιολόγηση των παραπάνω σχεδιάστηκε μια online εκπαιδευτική δραστηριότητα, διάρκειας 3 εβδομάδων, σε ειδικά διαμορφωμένο εκπαιδευτικό χώρο, στον εικονικό κόσμο του Second Life. Στην έρευνα συμμετείχαν 222 φοιτητές του Τ.Ε.Ε.Α.Π.Η. Πατρών, που παρακολουθούσαν το υποχρεωτικό μάθημα πρώτου εξαμήνου: ‘Εισαγωγή στις ΤΠΕ’. Αν και όλοι οι φοιτητές συμμετείχαν στις δραστηριότητές, το τελικό δείγμα είναι 174 άτομα, καθώς οι υπόλοιποι δεν ολοκλήρωσαν τη διαδικασία Τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας δείχνουν πως η χρήση του εικονικού περιβάλλοντος Second Life μπορεί να επιφέρει θετικά αποτελέσματα στη μαθησιακή διαδικασία και μπορεί να ανταποκριθεί τόσο στις απαιτήσεις των εκπαιδευτικών, όσο και τον εκπαιδευομένων. Με την ολοκλήρωση και αξιολόγηση της εκπαιδευτικής δραστηριότητας διαπιστώθηκε αύξηση στη μέση επίδοση των συμμετεχόντων και στις δύο θεματικές ενότητες που διερευνήθηκαν. Επιπλέον, η επίδοσή τους δε φαίνεται να επηρεάζεται από εξωτερικούς παράγοντες, όπως η κατεύθυνση που ακολούθησαν στο Λύκειο, η συχνότητα χρήσης ηλεκτρονικού υπολογιστή και διαδικτύου, ή η συχνότητα ενασχόλησης με ηλεκτρονικά παιχνίδια ή παιχνίδια εικονικής πραγματικότητας. / The aim of this study is the exploitation of a serious computer game in the instructive practice and the investigation of its effects on student performance. For this reason an educational space was designed in Second Life, a popular online virtual world. The educational space was active for a period of three weeks and available to 222 students of the University of Patras. The students attended the compulsory first semester course «Introduction to ICT» and had to use the online educational environment in order to perform activities in the frame of a compulsory/ mandatory course project. The final sample size though is 174, which is the number of the students who managed to successfully complete the activity. The results show that the utilization of the virtual environment Second Life can have a positive effect in the learning process and can address both the requirements of teachers and those of learners. After the completion and evaluation of the educational activity an increase was observed in the average performance of participants in the two topics that were investigated. Moreover, their performance does not seem to be influenced by factors such as the specific courses they chose in secondary level education, the frequency of computer and internet use, the level of engagement with computer games or virtual reality games.

Denna studie har undersökt huruvida Inverse Kinematics kan användas tillsammans med spelets miljö för att förbättra en karaktärs animationer och rörelse. Artiklarna som diskuteras i arbetet har använts som inspiration för att skapa artefakterna som använts i undersökningen. En kvantitativ undersökning genomfördes där deltagarna fick spela igenom två demoversioner, en med Inverse Kinematics kombinerat med animationer och en utan. Sedan fick deltagarna svara på en enkät om hur de upplevde spelkaraktärens rörelser. Utifrån svaren i undersökningen kunde slutsatsen dras att skillnaderna i animationerna knappt var märkbara då spelarna fokuserade på andra saker i spelet. Med hjälp av en större mer utförlig undersökning skulle arbetet i framtiden kunna användas inom spelbranschen för att förbättra animationer.

No presente trabalho, é testada e avaliada a aplicação de Redes Neurais Artificiais no combate de trapaças (cheating, em inglês) do tipo speed cheating em jogos online massivos de múltiplos jogadores, também conhecidos como MMOG (Massively Multi- player Online Games). Os MMOG representam um modelo de negócio onde quantias significativas de recursos financeiros estão envolvidas, e crescem a cada dia. Os mode- los para o combate de trapaças, que possam afastar jogadores de jogos ou servidores, estão localizados na camada de rede, à nível de protocolo. Analisando o estado-da-arte, constatou-se que não existem trabalhos explorando a área de Inteligência Artificial para este fim, tornando-se assim relevante o estudo de sua aplicabilidade. As Redes Neurais Artificiais foram escolhidas por terem grande poder de abstração, generalização e plasti- cidade. Através dos resultados obtidos comparando-se duas abordagens de arquiteturas, as redes Perceptron de múltiplas camadas (MLP) e as redes com atraso no tempo focadas (FTLFN), é possível constatar que é viável a utilização das mesmas para este fim, tendo-se alcançado resultados positivos no combate de speed cheating em MMOGs. / In the present work, Artificial Neural Networks are tested and evaluated in order to avoid a specific type of cheating, called Speed Cheating, in massively multi-player online games (MMOG). The MMOG represent a business model where meaningful financial resources amounts are involved, and increase each day. The models to avoid cheating, that could keep off players from games and servers, are localized in the network layer, at the protocol level. Examining the state-of-art, it was observed that research explor- ing the Artificial Intelligence application to this goal becomes relevant. The Artificial Neural Networks were chosen by their significant abstraction, generalization and plas- ticity characteristics. Through the results’s comparison from two different architectures approaches, the multi layer Perceptron network (MLP) and the focused time lagged net- work (FTLFN), it was possible to conclude that their utilization avoiding speed cheating in MMOG is possible, once good results were found in this work.