Cette étude exploratoire examine comment l’exploration identitaire entre en jeu dans l’utilisation d’un avatar et dans la participation aux activités d’apprentissage collaboratif dans un monde virtuel. Nous inspirant de l’ethnographie virtuelle, nous avons participé à douze activités collaboratives et nous avons ensuite interrogé treize utilisateurs du monde virtuel Second Life qui y collaborent pour apprendre. Les participants ont démontré une volonté ou un désintérêt à collaborer avec les autres utilisateurs dans Second Life non principalement pas selon le sexe, l’ethnicité ou le degré d’anthropomorphisme de leurs avatars comme l’indique la littérature, mais plutôt selon leur niveau d’expertise. Cette étude suggère que le travail identitaire des utilisateurs peut exercer une grande influence sur leurs collaborations et que le travail identitaire est capable d’aider les utilisateurs à renforcer, à repenser et à améliorer leurs identités et pratiques professionnelles sur les plans virtuels et non virtuels.

This thesis considers the relation of similarity and difference in the comparative study of religion, by examining the doctrines of avatara and incarnation. These doctrines are first considered using a comparative approach, summarizing some of the research that has been done in the general area of avatara and incarnation. A more systematic approach follows, examining the understanding of incarnation in the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Sri Aurobindo. The focus is on the differences between these two thinkers, especially in terms of particularity and universality and in terms of the purpose of incarnation. Similarity arises, though, as both Aurobindo and Bonhoeffer move from the presence of God in humanity to a sense of solidarity with humanity. Aurobindos understanding and Bonhoeffers understanding result in the view that the Divine is present in the world. This breaking down of the duality between God and the world heightens the sense of solidarity in each thinkers work, as each one speaks of the presence of Christ or the Divine in the community and in the neighbour. <p>This study demonstrates the interplay between similarity and difference in the comparative study of religion. Beginning with the seemingly similar ideas of avatara and incarnation, it then focuses on the difference between these ideas, returning to similarity as the notion of solidarity is introduced. In the similarity and difference between avatara and incarnation, solidarity itself appears to have a mediating role. It allows for the claim that there is common ground to begin with, and when differences are discovered or brought together, solidarity with the other keeps difference from becoming division.

Video games are currently stigmatized in general culture as a lesser form of entertainment, and much of the current scholarly debate on them is unable to identify those games that also function as works of literature and to perform appropriate critical analysis. This thesis aims to rectify the above through two separate engagements. The first engagement demonstrates that the current scholarly debate over avatars can be redirected into a more productive debate on perspectives: the way in which a player is situated within a game and how this alters how the game story is told. The second engagement is with Espen Aarseths concept of ergodic literature, and thus demonstrate how this unique property of video games allows for the traversal of a video games narrative. These two issues when considered together provide a method for determining whether a video game is attempting to also be literature.

Cette étude exploratoire examine comment l’exploration identitaire entre en jeu dans l’utilisation d’un avatar et dans la participation aux activités d’apprentissage collaboratif dans un monde virtuel. Nous inspirant de l’ethnographie virtuelle, nous avons participé à douze activités collaboratives et nous avons ensuite interrogé treize utilisateurs du monde virtuel Second Life qui y collaborent pour apprendre. Les participants ont démontré une volonté ou un désintérêt à collaborer avec les autres utilisateurs dans Second Life non principalement pas selon le sexe, l’ethnicité ou le degré d’anthropomorphisme de leurs avatars comme l’indique la littérature, mais plutôt selon leur niveau d’expertise. Cette étude suggère que le travail identitaire des utilisateurs peut exercer une grande influence sur leurs collaborations et que le travail identitaire est capable d’aider les utilisateurs à renforcer, à repenser et à améliorer leurs identités et pratiques professionnelles sur les plans virtuels et non virtuels.

This thesis considers the relation of similarity and difference in the comparative study of religion, by examining the doctrines of avatara and incarnation. These doctrines are first considered using a comparative approach, summarizing some of the research that has been done in the general area of avatara and incarnation. A more systematic approach follows, examining the understanding of incarnation in the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Sri Aurobindo. The focus is on the differences between these two thinkers, especially in terms of particularity and universality and in terms of the purpose of incarnation. Similarity arises, though, as both Aurobindo and Bonhoeffer move from the presence of God in humanity to a sense of solidarity with humanity. Aurobindos understanding and Bonhoeffers understanding result in the view that the Divine is present in the world. This breaking down of the duality between God and the world heightens the sense of solidarity in each thinkers work, as each one speaks of the presence of Christ or the Divine in the community and in the neighbour. <p>This study demonstrates the interplay between similarity and difference in the comparative study of religion. Beginning with the seemingly similar ideas of avatara and incarnation, it then focuses on the difference between these ideas, returning to similarity as the notion of solidarity is introduced. In the similarity and difference between avatara and incarnation, solidarity itself appears to have a mediating role. It allows for the claim that there is common ground to begin with, and when differences are discovered or brought together, solidarity with the other keeps difference from becoming division.

Video games are currently stigmatized in general culture as a lesser form of entertainment, and much of the current scholarly debate on them is unable to identify those games that also function as works of literature and to perform appropriate critical analysis. This thesis aims to rectify the above through two separate engagements. The first engagement demonstrates that the current scholarly debate over avatars can be redirected into a more productive debate on perspectives: the way in which a player is situated within a game and how this alters how the game story is told. The second engagement is with Espen Aarseths concept of ergodic literature, and thus demonstrate how this unique property of video games allows for the traversal of a video games narrative. These two issues when considered together provide a method for determining whether a video game is attempting to also be literature.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the mental motivation of using Avatar system. There have already existed lots of researches for the motivation of using the related network system in the past. Based upon the findings of the past researches, this thesis sorted out four main motivations: self-fulfillment, escapism, sociality and entertainment, and discussed the correlation between these four motivations and mentality and behaviour intention. This research is conducted by Questionnaire Survey and found out that the motivations of self-fulfillment and entertainment are combined as a new motivation, and the motivations of escapism and sociality are not significantly correlated with the user¡¦s mentality. From this research, therefore, it is concluded that as long as the development of network, the habit and motivation of using network are evolving as well. Future studies could be discussed more to address this difference of evolving, in order to allow that the network operators have a more accurate grasp of the users¡¦ mentality and provide more effective services.

<p>Future warfare concerns information superiority, i.e. supplying decisionmakers with better information than their opponents. Their decisions will be based on information from various sensors such as radars, UAVs, satellites, or any other object that can supply the decision makers with information. A system like this will make use of a huge amount of data, and the decisionmakers may not be able to handle all information that will be presented to them. Because of this, they might make decisions that are not optimal for the task.</p><p>To enhance tha capability in decision making, the national defence college will create an avatar which will be located in a 3D presentation device, called the Visioscope (tm). If the computer system detects that a person might have made an erroneous decision, the avatar will act and point out the error, i.e. there will be a dialog between the decision makers and the avatar. One important factor when humans communicate with each other is mutual eye gaze. If mutual eye gaze can occur between the users and the avatar, and if the avatar can behave like a human, the communication process will be improved and the users will make less errors.</p><p>This literature study aims to generate some ideas about how existing technology supports mutual eye gaze between the avatar and the users in the ROLF 2010 environment. The study partly concerns how a computer system can control an avatar so that it behaves like a human.</p>

A pressing need exists for effective decision support systems to facilitate the rapid and accurate screening of large volumes of people. Millions of travelers transit through international borders and secure areas on an annual basis. Humans are exceptionally poor at detecting lying and deception and perform, on average, no better than chance. This research study focuses on the development, design and implementation of a Kiosk for Rapid Assessment of Deception (K-RAD) that integrates questioning with response processing and deception detection. An exploratory pilot study (N=68) and a primary study (N=225) were executed.The K-RAD was designed to have a three-dimensional figure, an "Embodied Conversational Agent" (ECA), deliver the questions through speech. This delivery mechanism was chosen because human subjects have been shown in the past to react emotionally to ECAs during conversational interactions, and emotional arousal is one of the cues to deception. Responses were analyzed for deception cues, focusing on kinesic, linguistic, and vocalic characteristics that can be captured for automated processing and which would be unique to this setting.The results show unique subject behaviors. Subjects exhibited minimal movement and had very little tendency to change posture. Some subjects (6%) referred to the ECA as an authority figure, using "sir" when responding. Subjects positioned themselves at varying distances from the ECA, with significant gender differences. Post-experiment surveys indicated a gender difference in overall stress, with female subjects reporting significantly higher levels, independent of the experimental condition.Postural-based logistic regression created significant classification models for the pilot (59.1% classification accuracy) and primary (57.2% & 62.8% classification accuracies) studies. Movement analysis had varying and conflicting results. A robust deception index with a 68.1% classification accuracy was achievable in the pilot study based on high-frequency movement and arm placement. Primary study deception indices were not significant.The results include a comprehensive set of observations and lessons learned regarding kiosk design, deception technologies, detection effectiveness, and future considerations to take into account when creating a next-generation K-RAD system. Many challenges remain, but the concept is functional, promising, and could revolutionize security screening and deception detection in a variety of settings.

Cette étude exploratoire examine comment l’exploration identitaire entre en jeu dans l’utilisation d’un avatar et dans la participation aux activités d’apprentissage collaboratif dans un monde virtuel. Nous inspirant de l’ethnographie virtuelle, nous avons participé à douze activités collaboratives et nous avons ensuite interrogé treize utilisateurs du monde virtuel Second Life qui y collaborent pour apprendre. Les participants ont démontré une volonté ou un désintérêt à collaborer avec les autres utilisateurs dans Second Life non principalement pas selon le sexe, l’ethnicité ou le degré d’anthropomorphisme de leurs avatars comme l’indique la littérature, mais plutôt selon leur niveau d’expertise. Cette étude suggère que le travail identitaire des utilisateurs peut exercer une grande influence sur leurs collaborations et que le travail identitaire est capable d’aider les utilisateurs à renforcer, à repenser et à améliorer leurs identités et pratiques professionnelles sur les plans virtuels et non virtuels.