Video games and the social effects that they inflict upon society and the individual have been a highly debated subject. While studies have been made in regards to several social issues and their connection to video games, there was little research in regards to physical game gatherings like LAN-parties, as well as larger game gatherings like Dreamhack, and what the social effects of having physical contact with other people are at these gatherings. The goal with this study was to answer the question: “What are the social effects for the individual when participating in physical video game gatherings?”. This was done through a qualitative study by conducting five semi-structured interviews at the physical game gathering called Umeå Game Night that was located in the Umeå cultural center Klossen at Ålidhems Centrum. Four of the participants were male and one female. “Snowball-sampling” was used to gather the participants for the study through Game Night’s Facebook group. However, this sampling was unsuccessful when no participants were gained from it. Instead I had to take direct contact with people at the game gathering. The interviews were all done during the game gathering in their facility and were then transcribed for analysis with two types of methods; an inductive analysis that was backed up by a deductive analysis in the form of Activity Theory using Engeström’s model of Activity Theory. The results of this study showed that physical game gatherings helped to overcome some negative social effects that the participants thought surrounded online game as well as other social problems that they brought up during the interviews, like toxic behaviour, discrimination, and the feeling of not being welcome. There was an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the participants when being at the game gathering. Being able to socialize with other people proved to be the main motivation. However, even though physical game gatherings showed to improve negative social effects surrounding game, the learning process was still difficult to overcome for new players, and participating in these game gathering may even have negative results in keeping the new players interested in wanting to play as well as participate at the physical game gatherings. This was mainly because of the skill disparity between the experienced players, who were the majority at the game gathering, and the new players, who would feel potentially frustrated from seeing the experienced players being much better than themselves. However, the less experienced female participant in the study indicated that this issue may still be overcome, but more research needs to be done to see how big the issue surrounding the learning process when playing games at game gatherings actually is, and if there are ways to solve it.

I argue that by understanding lithic technology as a total social fact, that is, as socially, culturally and politically constituted, it is possible to gain some insight into prehistoric social practice. An archaeological examination of the Nii 'ii site (KdVo-5), a prehistoric hunting stand locality in southwestern Yukon Territory, serves as a case study for this argument. Spatial reconstruction of this site indicates the presence of several social actors engaged in face-to-face interaction. Technological analysis of the lithic assemblage demonstrates that the observed variability in tool forms cannot be explained solely in terms of tool function; instead, it appears that the technical choices made by the occupants of KdVo-5 were socially and culturally mediated. I outline a theory of technological practice, based on practice-oriented social theory, in an attempt to understand the importance of these technical choices in the construction of social relationships at Nii 'ii.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2014. / Early contact between Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers at Holkrans rock shelter (BFK 1), in the Vredefort Dome, North West Province, South Africa, and food producers occurred within the last 500 years. Evidence presented in this study suggests that a more probable time frame was sometime between the early 16th and 17th centuries AD. Holkrans chronology comprises two phases, pre-ceramic and ceramic, with three superimposed components: a lower, pre-contact/ pre-ceramic period; a middle, early contact/ ceramic period; and a terminal period. Use-wear analysis of lithics from the lower and middle components provided the medium through which changes or continuity in cultural and behavioural practices between the pre-contact/ pre-ceramic and early-contact/ ceramic periods were interpreted, with a view to shedding light on the nature and impact of contact on the shelter’s hunter-gatherers with food producers. The results of analysis, supported by additional archaeological evidence, suggest that the Holkrans hunter-gatherers experienced early contact and subsequent interaction with food producers as an ‘extended pioneer phase’. Over time, as food producers subdued land and began to permanently settle in the area, the Holkrans hunter-gatherers appear to have maintained this extended pioneer phase; that is, a primarily hunter-gatherer way of life up to the terminal occupation of the shelter, probably in the early 19th century. iii

Thesis advisor: Gerald M. Easter / Does the emergence of these newly informatics practices by the Chinese state indicate a future abolishment of the Xinfang mechanism? In order to answer these questions and foster an understanding of today’s state information management in China, this thesis first employs the method of historical analysis. The thesis provides an initial effort in English literature to answer how and why societal petitioning was gradually translated into state-dominated action and whether or not informational engagement impacted state autonomy. The thesis then moves on to field work conducted in S Province since 2014 through 2017 that counted approximately 20 weeks altogether. With such first-hand empirical evidence, the thesis develops three main arguments as below: First and foremost, I find that there exist an increasing number of information seekers among petitioners from the background databases of both Governor’s Mailbox and the Provincial Bureau for Letters and Calls’ online complaint system. Such informational needs of today’s Chinese public may be in need of higher attention from policy makers and scholars. Second, the leadership, whether at central or any local level, have sought to establish various apparatuses, and charged them with building information channels and providing an information stream for policy making. the apparatuses hereby develop two strategies to draw more societal actors to their offices and guarantee their informational supplies to above. Such competition eventually results in a champion among all the informatics offices in the arena. Last but not least, apparatus autonomy cannot be equated with individual official autonomy. While an office is assigned with increased autonomy, the very officials’ individual autonomy may fall down to a lesser degree. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 258-275).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 316-324). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Online tasks that involve information gathering, those ranging from academic research to vacation planning, often present challenges to users such as information management, clutter and information overload. Studies have shown that users who return to online tasks after an absence have difficulty remembering why particular websites they had saved were useful. This work presents "Webscraps", an innovative web browser extension for Mozilla Firefox, designed to improve information gathering on the Web. Participants in a 30-person user study, significantly preferred Webscraps over webpage "thumbnails" for information gathering tasks that involved comparing information from different websites and remembering important text. / Dr. Keselj was the external to my supervision.

Urban sprawl with the advent of automobile commuting has led to the loss of a “sense of place” and the decline of informal public gathering in the urban core of Windsor, Nova Scotia. Building an integrated sense of community is the thesis objective. An interactive relationship between the town’s history and landmarks, and elements such as edges, paths, and districts, is established in the physical form of a new downtown civic square located at the intersection of the traditional main street (Gerrish) and Grey Street. The civic square enables new, year-round civic activities including a library, market, art gallery, and skating rink, enhanced by informal gathering spaces. The square revives Windsor’s “sense of place,” providing an anchor of public space and activity for citizens a ten-minute walk from surrounding residential neighbourhoods, and offers the opportunity for informal meetings and the element of surprise within the journeys of daily life.

Research has studied information seeking behaviour and several models have been developed. Those models were further modified following the emergence of the web. At the beginning of the 2000s, research started focusing on the concept of a user task instead of an activity or a simple action. The studies conducted were aimed to categorize the user activities into high level tasks. Investigating the tasks identified is anticipated to assist with developing tools and applications that would help the user to accomplish those tasks. After categorizing the user information seeking activities into high-level tasks, research continued to investigate changes in the frequencies of the tasks identified. Changes in the user behaviour that accompanied the evolution of the web and its applications have been targeted for improving how users interact with tools intended for accomplishing user activities. However, there has been little emphasis on studying the high-level tasks identified in the case of the web. Even though those tasks differ substantially, users have been using the same web browsing model to accomplish most of the activities under each type of task. The research discussed in this dissertation is concerned with studying the task of information gathering which is also known as the informational task. This task was selected due to: 1) its high frequency on the web (between 48% and 61.25% of the overall tasks users perform); 2) its complexity and the ambiguity associated with the kind of activities that comprise the task; 3) the need for using multiple applications for accomplishing the requirements of this type of task; and 4) the necessity for collecting different types of data from different sources for satisfying the task requirements. The current state in research related to information gathering identifies this task based on a simple description of the user activities that distinguishes information gathering from other kinds of tasks. The research discussed in this dissertation: 1) provides a thorough definition of the task, 2) models its underlying subtasks (sets of related activities), and 3) investigates difficulties and issues associated with each subtask. The investigations lead to design recommendations that resulted in building specific features to be examined during information gathering tasks. The research concluded by providing final recommendations based on the findings which resulted from investigating those features.