Cloud gaming has emerged as a popular solution to meet the increasing hardware de-mands of modern video games, allowing players with dated or non-sufficient hardwareto access high-quality gaming experiences. However, the growing reliance on cloud ser-vices has led to heightened concerns regarding user privacy and the risk of fingerprintingattacks. In this paper, we investigate the effects of varying send rates on cloud gamingQoS and QoE metrics when applying a fixed-rate fingerprinting defense, BuFLO. Findingsshow that lower send rates impact both client-side and host-side applied defense differ-ently. Based on the results, specific send rates are suggested for maintaining a stable cloudgaming experience. The research offers insights into the trade-offs between security andperformance in cloud gaming and provides recommendations for mitigating fingerprintingattacks. Future work may investigate alternative defenses, device types, and connectionmethods.

<p>    </p> <p>Lam, Luchcha. M.S., Purdue University, May 2023. Believe in the Sound You See: The Effects of Body Type and Voice Pitch on the Perceived Audio-Visual Correspondence and Believability of Virtual Characters. Major Professor: Nicoletta Adamo. </p> <p>We examined the effects of body type and voice pitch of virtual characters’ on perceived audio-visual correspondence and believability. For our within-group study, we developed nine experimental conditions using a 3 (body type: ectomorph vs. mesomorph vs. endo- morph body types) × 3 (voice pitch: low vs. medium vs. high fundamental frequency [F0]). We found significant main effects from voice pitch and significant interaction effects between a character’s body type and voice pitch on both the level of perceived audio-visual correspondence and believability of female and male characters. For female characters, we also observed an additional significant main effect from body type and a significant interac- tion effect between the participant’s biological sex and the character’s voice pitch on both perceived audio-visual correspondence and believability. Moreover, the results show that perceived believability is highly correlated to perceived audio-visual correspondence. Our findings have important practical implications in applications where the character is meant to be an emotional or informational guide that requires some level of believability, as the findings suggest that it is possible to enhance the believability of the characters by generating appropriate voices through pitch manipulation of existing voices. </p>

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world faced lockdown and quarantine restrictions that encouraged or forced people to stay home. Along with the rest of the world, Brazil faced many difficulties during this period and it became one of the countries that lost more lives due to the Coronavirus infection worldwide. This study focuses on showing how people in Brazil coped with the challenges brought by the pandemic. It also focuses on showing if and how participants used media as a coping mechanism. The research was done through qualitative methods with semi-structured interviews with 25 adults who were living in Brazil during the pandemic and the lockdown restrictions. This study shows that participants did use media as a coping mechanism and even though they have encountered negative consequences, they have also faced and mentioned several positive effects during this period. Participants mentioned other coping mechanisms that made a difference for them during the darkest moments in the pandemic like, having interpersonal communication with family and friends, religion, gaming, and others.

This interview study investigates people's experiences and interactions online to give more nuance to the context of modern relationships, and what the perception of digitized relationships could mean. The study investigates digitized relationships in terms of friendship, love, intimacy, and social media. With these in focus, I discuss broadly the interviewees’ experiences of friendship, intimacy, and love within the use of social media and online dating. Firstly, how the use of it can cause difficulties and impact their perception of themselves and at relationships. Secondly, how this in turn creates meaningful and lasting relationships.  In this study, I had two focus groups that I referred to as gamers and socials, the first group included five who identified as men and the second group included four that identified as women. From the age of 23 to 35 and originates from different parts of Europe. After the interview, four themes were developed: The use of digitization and social media, friendship, love relationships and online and offline. / Denna intervjustudie undersöker människors erfarenheter och interaktioner online för att ge nyans till sammanhanget för moderna relationer och vad uppfattningen om digitaliserade relationer kan betyda. Studien undersöker digitaliserade relationer i termer av vänskap, kärlek, intimitet och sociala medier. Med dessa i fokus diskuterar jag brett intervjupersonernas erfarenheter av vänskap, intimitet och kärlek inom användningen av sociala medier och online-dating. För det första hur användningen av det kan orsaka svårigheter och påverka deras uppfattning om sig själva och på relationer. För det andra hur detta i sin tur skapar meningsfulla och varaktiga relationer. I den här studien hade jag två fokusgrupper som jag döpt till spelare och sociala, den första gruppen inkluderade fem som identifierade sig som män och den andra gruppen inkluderade fyra som identifierade sig som kvinnor. Från 23 till 35 års ålder och kommer från olika delar av Europa. Efter intervjun utvecklades fyra teman: Användning av digitalisering och sociala medier, vänskap, kärleksrelationer och online och offline.

Commercial video games have a great potential in battling the ongoing environmental crises. However, literature has so far largely neglected a connection between environmental sustainability and commercial video games. Therefore, this thesis analyses environmental sustainability incorporations in commercial video games by conducting a case study on Horizon Forbidden West (HFW). This case study is executed with help of an originally developed analytical model called Dimensions of Environmentally Sustainable Gameplay. The case study concludes that HFW especially excels in creating a realistic environmentally sustainable game world. Other dimensions of environmentally sustainable gameplay such as environmental objects, agents and events, need more improvement. HFW shows problematic incorporation of video game objects as it is merely based on mastering the environment in the form of resource extraction. The research findings indicate that HFW’s producers have not yet uncovered the medium’s full potential. This thesis encourages further research into environmental sustainability in commercial video games and provides commercial video game producers with the necessary tools to create future games with improved environmental considerations.

Overweight and obese children have increased risks for multiple preventable diseases and conditions which can impair their physiological health and significantly increases the overall cost of their healthcare. Free mobile applications and technology for weight loss, dietary tracking, and physical activity may be quite useful for monitoring nutritional intake and exercise to facilitate weight loss. If so, nurses are well positioned to recommend such tools as part of their efforts to prevent childhood obesity and help children and parents better manage childhood obesity when it is present. However, there are no guidelines that nurses can use to determine what applications or technologies are most beneficial to children and their parents. The purpose of this project is to develop such guidelines based on a review of the scientific literature published in the last 5 years. Articles regarding healthy-lifestyle promoting mobile applications and technological approaches to health and fitness interventions were identified by searching articles indexed by CINAHL, Psychinfo, Medline, ERIC, IEEE Xplore, and Academic Search Premier. Identified articles were assessed using Melnyk’s hierarchy of evidence and organized into tables so that implications for research and suggestions for practice could be made.

<p>Upon introducing semi- and fully automated vehicles on the road, drivers will be reluctant to focus on the traffic interaction and rely on the vehicles' decision-making. However, encountering pedestrians still poses a significant difficulty for modern automated driving technologies. Considering the high-level complexity in human behavior modeling to solve a real-world problem, deep-learning algorithms trained from naturalistic data have become promising solutions. Nevertheless, although developing such algorithms is achievable based on scene data collection and driver knowledge extraction, evaluation remains challenging due to the potential crash risks and limitations in acquiring ground-truth intention changes. </p> <p><br></p> <p>This study proposes a VR-based testing bed to evaluate real-time pedestrian intention algorithms as VR simulators are recognized for their affordability and adaptability in producing a variety of traffic situations, and it is more reliable to conduct human-factor research in autonomous cars. The pedestrian wears the head-mounted headset or uses the keyboard input and makes decisions in accordance with the circumstances. The simulator has added a credible and robust experience, essential for exhibiting the real-time behavior of the pedestrian. While crossing the road, there exists uncertainty associated with pedestrian intention. Our simulator will anticipate the crossing intention with consideration of the ambiguity of the pedestrian behavior. The case study has been performed over multiple subjects in several crossing conditions based on day-to-day life activities. It can be inferred from the study outcomes that the pedestrian intention can be precisely inferred using this VR-based simulator. However, depending on the speed of the car and the distance between the vehicle and the pedestrian, the accuracy of the prediction can differ considerably in some cases.</p>

"Sitting is the new smoking" and is one of the major causes of human health problems today. Swedes train the most in the world but are also among those who work  mostsedentary. Proper movement while taking 1 minute of active short breaks helps to preventfurther health problems. Cameras can detect body movements and this information can beused to do motion analysis and skeletal estimation. Furthermore, this can be used to create games that can use this detected movement and force the user to be more active whiledoing something fun.This thesis is about designing and implementing two mini-games in Godot for particular body movements using MediaPipe. Game designers for the mini-games use heuristicsfor motion-based control in games presented by Hara and Ovaska. This thesis focuses ondeveloping game control using motion control for the mini-games. The game controls areevaluated by calculating the sensitivity of how well the controls work for the games.

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I denna studie kommer jag gå igenom hur man kan gå till väga för att förmedla personlighet till icke-levande objekt genom 3D-animation. Syftet med studien är att få en bättre förståelse för animation, samt hur man kan få icke-levande objekt att kännas mer levande genom att ge dem personlighet som förmedlas genom 3D-animation. Studien ska ses som ett första steg för de som är intresserade inom animation och vill lära sig mer om hur man kan förmedla personligheter till olika karaktärer genom animation. Sättet som jag har valt att utföra denna undersökning är att gestalta en kortfilm där karaktären man följer är en mjölpåse som försöker överkomma sin rädsla för höjder med hjälp av sin vän som hejar på. Det jag hoppas på att åstadkomma med min undersökning är att uppmuntra personer som är intresserade inom animation, men som inte har någon grund i ämnet, till att ta första steget och börja animera. Det finns mycket till animation och att ha en bättre förståelse för personligheter i animation underlättar. Personligheter i karaktärer är en viktig del inom spelbranschen samt filmbranschen. Utan personligheter blir det svårt för användarna att bli investerade i det man vill försöka förmedla. Resultatet kommer gå djupare in på hur man kan förmedla personlighet genom känslor, samt om en intervju med en animerare för att få inblick i spelbranschen. / In this article, I will go through how to go about conveying personality to non-living objects using 3D-animation. The purpose of the article is to get a better understanding of animation and to make 3D-objects feel alive by giving them a personality conveyed by animation. This article should be seen as a first step for those who are interested in animation and want to learn more about how to convey personalities to different characters through animation. The way I have chosen to go with this study is to make a short film where the character you follow is a flour bag who tries to overcome his fear of heights with the help of his friend who cheers for him. What I hope with my research is to encourage people who are interested in animation, but who have no basis in the subject or do not dare to take the first step, to make their first animation. Personalities in characters are an important part of the gaming industry and the film industry. Without personalities, it will be difficult for users to be invested in what is conveyed. The result will go deeper into how to convey personality through emotions as well about an interview with an animator to get insight in the gaming industry.