The last one hundred years of American literature have witnessed the development of three elemental movements: naturalism, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, represented by such authors as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser; nihilism, predominant in the 1920's and 1930's, represented best by Ernest Hemmingway; and the post-World War II literature which will be called literature of the quest, represented by such authors as Saul Bellow, William Styron, Philip Roth, John Updike, and others. The first chapter will show briefly the historical development of these three movements in American literature, their distinctive features, and their relationship to American moral and social values. Chapters Two through Four will analyze in detail the three distinctive aspects of this emerging literary form--the literature of the quest. The last chapter will focus on one novel, Letting Go, by Philip Roth, as an example of this literature.

Ända sedan 1960-talet har idén om ett symbiotiskt partnerskap mellan dator och människa presenterats och att detta partnerskap kan ge lösningar bättre än människan ensam kan. Detta symbiotiska partnerskap har spridit sig till processuell generering (PCG) genom angripningssättet “blandade initiativ”, där människa och dator turas om bidra med lösningar. Inom spelutveckling kan viss innehåll skapas bättre av en generator och en annan del av en människa. Denna forskning fokuserar på att tillämpa den “blandade initiativ” metoden för att skapa uppdrag i “dungeon” spel, genom den utvecklade artefakten kan användaren skapa uppdrag i “Evolutionary dungeon designer” (EDD) för att designa nivåer av spelgenren “dungeons”. Artefakten använder en generator för att ge användaren automatisk genererade förslag. Generatorn har utvärderats genom ett “expressive range”-experiment som utvärderade dominansen av de aktioner som fungerar som byggstenar för uppdragen. Utöver experimentet genomfördes en användarstudie för att utvärdera artefaktens användbarhet. Mottagandet av artefakten i användarstudien var positivt. En majoritet av deltagarna upplevde en ökad kreativitet och beskrev artefakten som ett resurseffektivt verktyg för spelutvecklare, som bidrar med snabba lösningar och hjälper till att motverka inspirationsblockeringar. / Ever since the 1960s the idea of a symbiotic partnership between computer and man has been laid out, suggesting a partnership can provide solutions better than man alone can. This symbiotic relationship has been branched out to procedural content generation (PCG), through it’s “mixed initiative” approach, taking turns to provide suggestions. Within game development, some content is better created by a generator, and some by a human. This research focuses on applying the mixed initiative approach in quest creation in dungeon games, through an artefact that lets the user create quests in “Evolutionary dungeon designer” (EDD) to design dungeons in dungeon games. The artefact developed uses a generator to provide the user with automatic generated suggestions. The generator has been evaluated through an expressive range experiment to investigate the dominance of the actions which acts like building blocks for the quests. In addition to the experiment a user study was conducted. The result of the user study was that the experiences relating to the artefact were positive. A majority of the participants experienced increased creativity and described the artefact as a resource efficient tool for game developers, providing fast solutions and helping reduce inspirational blockages.

Au cours de ces dernières années, les services Internet croissent considérablement ce qui crée beaucoup de nouveaux défis dans des scénarios variés. La performance globale du service dépend à son tour de la performance des multiples segments de réseau. Nous étudions deux défis représentatifs de conception dans différents segments : les deux les plus importants se trouvent sur les bords opposés la connectivité de bout en bout des chemins d’Internet, notamment, le réseau d’accès pour l’ utilisateur et le réseau de centre de données du fournisseur de services. / In the recent years, the innovation of new services over Internet is considerably growing at a fast speed, which brings forward lots of new challenges under varied scenarios. The overall service performance depends in turn on the performance of multiple network segments. We investigated two representative design challenges in different segments : the two most important sit at the opposite edges of the end-to-end Internet path, namely, the end-user access network vs. the service provider data center network.

Role-playing games (RPGs) rely on interesting and varied experiences to maintain player attention. These experiences are often provided through quests, which give players tasks that are used to advance stories or events unfolding in the game. Traditional quests in video games require very specific conditions to be met, and for participating members to advance them by carrying out pre-defined actions. These types of quests are generated with perfect knowledge of the game world and are able to force desired behaviors out of the relevant non-player characters (NPCs). This becomes a major issue in massive multiplayer online (MMO) when other players can often disrupt the conditions needed for quests to unfold in a believable and immersive way, leading to the absence of a genuine multiplayer RPG experience. Our proposed solution is to dynamically create quests from real-time information on the unscripted actions of other NPCs and players in a game. This thesis shows that it is possible to create logical quests without global information knowledge, pre-defined story-trees, or prescribed player and NPC behavior. This allows players to become involved in storylines without having to perform any specific actions. Results are shown through a game scenario created from the Panoptyk Engine, a game engine in early development designed to test AI reasoning with information and the removal of the distinction between NPC and human players. We focus on quests issued by the NPC faction leaders of several in-game groups known as factions. Our generated quests are created logically from the pre-defined personality of each NPC leader, their memory of previous events, and information given to them by in-game sources. Long-spanning conflicts are seen to emerge from factions issuing quests against each other; these conflicts can be represented in a coherent narrative. A user study shows that players felt quests were logical, that players were able to recognize quests were based on events happening in the game, and that players experienced follow-up consequences from their actions in quests.

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<p dir="ltr">Virtual Reality (VR) has become a pivotal element in modern society, transforming interactions with digital content and interpersonal communication. As VR integrates into various sectors, understanding its forensic potential is crucial for legal, investigative, and security purposes. This involves examining the digital footprints and artifacts left by immersive technologies. While previous studies in digital forensics have primarily concentrated on traditional computing devices such as smartphones and computers, research on VR, particularly on specific devices like the Oculus Go, Meta Quest, and Meta Quest 2, has been limited. This thesis explores the digital forensics of VR, focusing on the Oculus Go, Meta Quest and Meta Quest 2, using tools like Magnet AXIOM and Wireshark. The research uncovers specific forensic and network-based artifacts from eight social community applications, revealing user personally identifiable information, application usage history, WiFi network details, and multimedia content. These findings have significant implications for legal proceedings and cybercrime investigations, highlighting the role these artifacts can play in influencing the outcome of cases. This research not only deepens our understanding of VR-related digital forensics but also sets the stage for further investigations in this rapidly evolving domain.</p>

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The protagonist Martha in Doris Lessing’s Martha Quest is born to white British settler parents and grows up in a British colony in southern Africa in the 1930s. Although officially the coloniser rather than the colonised, Martha tries to reject this role mentally, verbally, and physically. This essay aims to show that a postcolonial reading of Martha in relation to the colonial context helps in understanding her double consciousness and, more specifically, her inability to find a real or lasting sense of home. Using Homi Bhabha’s concept of unhomeliness, the essay argues that Martha does not truly feel at home anywhere, because the “unhomely” always disturbs the “homely.” Through close reading of the text, it shows how Martha tries to find a sense of home in four areas of her life: her physical home, nature, her body, and her mind. This essay finds that despite Martha’s efforts in moving from her family home to rented accommodation, from the bush to the city, from girlhood to womanhood, and from her individual thoughts to the solidarity of others, she still does not feel at home anywhere. Whenever she starts to feel comfortable in a place or situation, unhomely moments, such as reminders of her nationality, race, or class, always disturb the homely feelings of belonging. Ultimately, Martha cannot escape her unhomeliness. / Huvudpersonen Martha i Doris Lessings Martha Quest är dotter till vita brittiska bosättare och växer upp i en brittisk koloni i södra Afrika på 1930-talet. Trots att hon formellt sett är kolonisatören snarare än den koloniserade, försöker Martha att avvisa denna roll mentalt, verbalt och fysiskt. Denna uppsats syftar till att visa att en postkolonial tolkning av Martha i förhållande till det koloniala sammanhanget bidrar till en förståelse av hennes dubbla medvetande och mer specifikt hennes oförmåga att hitta en verklig, eller bestående, känsla av hemma. Med hjälp av Homi Bhabhas koncept gällande o-hemlikhet argumenterar uppsatsen för att Martha inte känner sig riktigt hemma någonstans, eftersom det ”o-hemlika” alltid stör det ”hemlika.” Genom en noggrann läsning av texten visar den hur Martha försöker hitta känslan av ett hem inom fyra områden av sitt liv: sitt fysiska hem, naturen, sin kropp och sitt sinne. Denna uppsats konstaterar att trots Marthas ansträngningar att flytta från sitt familjehem till ett hyresrum, från land till stad, från ung flicka till kvinna och från sina individuella tankar till solidaritet med andra, känner hon sig fortfarande inte hemma någonstans. När hon börjar känna sig bekväm på ett ställe eller i ett läge, stör o-hemlika ögonblick i form av påminnelser om hennes nationalitet, ras eller klass alltid hennes hemlika känslor av tillhörighet. I slutändan kan Martha inte undgå sin o-hemlikhet.