Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Daniel Andresen / Mobile application development is one of the recent trends in computing Industry. Among several existing platforms for mobile, Android is one of the largest platforms in the world that run in several smart phones and tablets from various manufacturers like Google, Motorola, Samsung, HTC etc. Android number game is a simple game application in android targeting the school children to train their mathematical skills and help them to think. The application presents a graphical user interface with several colored bubble balls moving in random directions each with a number on it. The numbers are generated randomly within a specified range. The application allows the user to burst a moving bubble by touching it. The user’s goal is to burst all the bubbles in the ascending order of numbers on them. The application contains multiple levels and the number of bubbles increase as the levels increase. Also, the complexity of the set of numbers on the bubbles increases with increasing levels. Three lives are given to clear all the levels of the game and scores are computed for every correct shot on the ball. Bonus points are also added for clearing every level. The application maintains the top 10 players with their scores.

Traffic Cop is a game where the player become a traffic police officer trainee and direct the traffic to reduce the car accident rate in MA. The game is a top-down view traffic simulation and the player need to respond to the violations correctly. The game is aimed at new drivers ages from 16-24 and the purpose is to change the drivers' attitude about safe driving. Player will learn what they should stay focused on while driving and what the consequences may be when they choose to violate the traffic signal.

Educational games intend to make learning more enjoyable, but at the potential cost of compromising learning efficiency. Therefore, instead of creating educational games, we create learning environment with game-like elements: the elements of games that are engaging. Our approach is to assess each game-like element in terms of benefits such as enhancing engagement as well as its costs such as sensory or working memory overload, with a goal of maximizing both engagement and learning. We developed different four versions of a math tutor with different degree of being game-like such as adding narrative and visual feedback. Based on a study with 297 students, we found that students reported more satisfaction with more 'game-like' tutor but we were not able to detect any conclusive difference in learning among the different tutors. We collected student data of various types such as their attitude and enjoyment via surveys, performance within tutor via logging, and learning as measured by a pre/post-test. We created a causal model using software TETRAD and contrast the causal modeling approach to the results we achieve with traditional approaches such as correlation matrix and multiple regression. Relative to traditional approaches, we found that causal modeling did a better job at detecting and representing spurious association, and direct and indirect effects within variables. Causal model, augmented with domain knowledge about likely causal relationships, resulted in much more plausible and interpretable model. We propose a framework for blending exploratory results from causal modeling with randomized controlled studies to validate hypotheses.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:22:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Paula Narciso Severo.pdf: 41116757 bytes, checksum: 03aa3830fc6c5a0aceda938219ba0012 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-11 / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo / The customization has been presented in several kinds of games, pleasing players with distinct profiles and showing its potential as a feature that may bring huge inovations to these virtual environments. Realizing that such feature may bring a deeper overlay between the player and its representative character, this paperwork has as purpose, investigate the avatar and its customizable process in order to identify the main elements that act on the avatars' construction and edition in games. For this, theoretical surveys have been made concerning the character in the general narrative and in digital environments, more specifically in the games. Then, we have performed a study of the avatar as the interactor's participation tool in the cyberspace and in the games, followed by an analysis concerning the avatar's customization tool under an aesthetic view and finally, it has been made a description of the games to be analysed, followed by a comparison and interpretation based on the dissertation's content as a whole and some authors that can make interesting contributions to the viewpoint of the avatar's customization in the game. However, we realized that the customization in the games may engage the player beyond the necessity of just accomplish the main goal of the game, creating an extra motivation and increasing the player's involvement not only with the avatar, but with the game as a whole / A personalização tem se apresentado em diversos gêneros dos games, agradando a jogadores de perfis distintos e demonstrando seu potencial como uma característica que pode trazer grandes inovações para estes ambientes virtuais. Percebendo que tal característica pode trazer um maior envolvimento do jogador com sua personagem representativa, este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar o avatar e seu processo customizável a fim de identificar os elementos fundamentais que atuam na construção e edição do avatares nos games. Para isso foram feitos levantamentos teóricos a respeito da personagem na narrativa geral e nos ambientes digitais, mais especificamente nos games; em seguida foi realizado um estudo do avatar como ferramenta de participação do interator no ciberespaço e nos games, seguido de uma análise da ferramenta de customização do avatar sob um olhar estético e por último, foi feita uma descrição dos games a serem analisados seguido de uma comparação e interpretação baseada no conteúdo da dissertação como um todo e em alguns autores que podem trazer contribuições interessantes para o ponto de vista da personalização do avatar no game. Percebemos, contudo, que a personalizaçãoo nos games pode empenhar o jogador para além da necessidade de apenas realizar o objetivo principal no game, constituindo uma motivação a mais e aumentando o envolvimento do jogador não só com o avatar, mas com o game como um todo

Chan, Chun Him = 論競爭環境中出現的協作現象 / 陳俊謙. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-141). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chan, Chun Him = Lun jing zheng huan jing zhong chu xian de xie zuo xian xiang / Chen Junqian. / Title / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.v / Table of Contents --- p.vii / Chapter 1 --- Prologue --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Prisoners' Dilemma and Snowdrift Game --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- Formulation --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- The Prisoners，Dilemma (PD) --- p.8 / Chapter 2.4 --- The Snowdrift Game (SG) --- p.9 / Chapter 2.5 --- Parameterizing Payoffs in PD --- p.10 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- The Temptation Reward Punishment Sucker System (TRPS system) --- p.10 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- "Our Expanded 2-parameter System (r, s system)" --- p.10 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- Our 1-parameter System (r system) --- p.11 / Chapter 2.5.4 --- The Benefit and Cost System (BC system) --- p.11 / Chapter 2.6 --- Parameterizing Payoffs in SG --- p.12 / Chapter 2.6.1 --- A Common 1-parameter System (rh system) --- p.13 / Chapter 2.6.2 --- Our 1-parameter System (r system) --- p.13 / Chapter 3 --- Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma (IPD) --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1 --- Tragedy of One-shot PD Game --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2 --- The First Cooperation --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Repeated PD Game --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Axelrod´ةs Tournament and Strategy “Tit-for-Tat´ح (TFT) --- p.17 / Chapter 3.3 --- The Second Cooperation --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Nowak and Sigmund Evolutionary Experiment --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Stochastic Reactive Strategies (SRSs) and Evolutionary Infinite IPD --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Experimental Setup --- p.20 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Experimental Results --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3.5 --- Conclusion: TFT as a Pivot for Cooperation --- p.22 / Chapter 4 --- Evolutionary IPD with Strategy Lattices --- p.23 / Chapter 4.1 --- Sensitivity to Initial Conditions and Numerical Accuracy in IPD --- p.24 / Chapter 4.2 --- Modifications and Justifications --- p.24 / Chapter 4.3 --- Simulation Results --- p.26 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Strategy Frequencies Xi(t) versus Time --- p.27 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- "Mean Final State in the Whole r, s Space" --- p.32 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Time Evolution of (p) and (q) --- p.38 / Chapter 4.3.4 --- Mean Final State of a Strategy Lattice with Inclined Frequencies --- p.42 / Chapter 4.3.5 --- Conclusion --- p.50 / Chapter 5 --- Egoistic Exploiters Induced Global Generosity in Evolutionary IPD --- p.52 / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.52 / Chapter 5.2 --- Modifications and Justifications --- p.52 / Chapter 5.3 --- "The Three Initial Conditions: Cases TO, T1 and T2" --- p.53 / Chapter 5.4 --- Simulation Results --- p.54 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Distribution of the Final Dominant Strategies --- p.54 / Chapter 5.4.2 --- Case TO (100 Random Strategies) --- p.56 / Chapter 5.4.3 --- Case T1 (99 Random Strategies and a TFT-like Strategy) --- p.58 / Chapter 5.4.4 --- Case T2 (98 Random Strategies and both a TFT-like and an AllD-like Strategies) --- p.58 / Chapter 5.4.5 --- Comparing the Three Cases --- p.61 / Chapter 5.4.6 --- Discussion --- p.64 / Chapter 5.5 --- Analytic Manipulations for Small r Region --- p.65 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Values of (pmps) and (qmps) for Case T2 --- p.65 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Values of {pmps) and {qmps) for Case TO and T1 --- p.68 / Chapter 5.6 --- Conclusion --- p.71 / Chapter 6 --- The Basics of Networks --- p.72 / Chapter 6.1 --- Fully-connected Networks and Well-mixed Networks --- p.72 / Chapter 6.2 --- Simple Hypercubic Lattices --- p.73 / Chapter 6.3 --- Barabasi-Albert (BA) Scale-free Growing Networks --- p.74 / Chapter 7 --- Proposing the N-person Snowdrift Game (NSG) --- p.76 / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.76 / Chapter 7.2 --- Limitations of 2-person Games on Networks --- p.76 / Chapter 7.3 --- The Existing N-person Games --- p.77 / Chapter 7.3.1 --- The Public Good Game (PGG) --- p.78 / Chapter 7.3.2 --- The N-person Battle of Sexes Games (NBOS) --- p.78 / Chapter 7.4 --- The NSG Scenario and Payoffs --- p.79 / Chapter 7.5 --- Everyday Examples of NSG --- p.80 / Chapter 7.6 --- Preview of Studies in Evolutionary NSG --- p.82 / Chapter 8 --- Evolutionary NSG in Well-mixed Populations --- p.84 / Chapter 8.1 --- The Method of Replicator Dynamics --- p.84 / Chapter 8.2 --- The Simulation Algorithm --- p.90 / Chapter 8.3 --- The Simulated Equilibrium Contributor Fraction x*(r) --- p.91 / Chapter 8.4 --- Analytic Manipulations on the Algorithm --- p.92 / Chapter 8.4.1 --- Conversion Probabilities and Equilibrium Conditions --- p.92 / Chapter 8.4.2 --- Discussions --- p.94 / Chapter 8.5 --- Analytic Treatments on the Time Evolution of the Contribution Level x(t) --- p.96 / Chapter 8.5.1 --- Discrete Time Equation --- p.97 / Chapter 8.5.2 --- Continuous Approximations --- p.97 / Chapter 8.5.3 --- Analytical Solutions of N=2 and N=S --- p.98 / Chapter 8.6 --- Conclusion --- p.100 / Chapter 9 --- Evolutionary NSG in Simple Hypercubic Lattices --- p.101 / Chapter 9.1 --- Comparison between Well-mixed and Lattice Populations --- p.101 / Chapter 9.2 --- Simulation Parameters --- p.103 / Chapter 9.3 --- Simulation Results for ID Lattices --- p.103 / Chapter 9.4 --- Analytic Theory for ID Lattices by Analyzing on the Local Configurations --- p.105 / Chapter 9.4.1 --- The Absence of Connected Contributors --- p.105 / Chapter 9.4.2 --- Theory for ID k=2 Chain Lattice --- p.106 / Chapter 9.4.3 --- Theory for ID k=4 Chain Lattice --- p.109 / Chapter 9.5 --- Simulation Results for 2D Lattices --- p.112 / Chapter 9.6 --- Analytic Theory for 2D k=4 Square Lattice --- p.115 / Chapter 9.7 --- Simulation Results for 3D Cubic Lattice --- p.120 / Chapter 9.8 --- Conjectures for Approximate Solutions in High-Dimensional Hy- percubic Lattices --- p.120 / Chapter 9.9 --- Extracting the Relation Neff=2k+1 --- p.122 / Chapter 9.10 --- Conclusion --- p.123 / Chapter A --- Evolutionary NSG in Barabasi-Albert Networks --- p.125 / Chapter A.l --- The New Elements in BA Networks --- p.126 / Chapter A.2 --- The Two Implementations - Model A and Model B --- p.126 / Chapter A.3 --- Results in Model A (Varying-N) --- p.127 / Chapter A.4 --- Results in Model B (Fixed-N) --- p.133 / Chapter A.5 --- Conclusion --- p.135 / Chapter B --- Supplementary Equations for Chapter 9 --- p.136 / Chapter B.l --- Equations for ID k=4 Lattice --- p.136 / Chapter B.2 --- Equations for 2D k=4 Lattice --- p.137 / Bibliography --- p.139

Haptics are an exciting, ever-expanding field, particularly in relation to video games. Though haptics found their way rather quickly into conventional games through devices like handheld controllers, music and rhythm titles have hardly seen such attention. Little research has been done to examine the effects of haptics on rhythm dance games from a quantitative and qualitative standpoint for the player. StepMania is an open-source dance game which closely mimics the popular title Dance Dance Revolution. This research investigates the effects of haptics on a sample size of fifty individuals. Each completed three songs in the game with varying conditions: the game's visuals only, a haptic device only, or both the haptics and visuals together. The haptic device warned the participant of an incoming step by vibrating two beats in advance in the direction needing to be stepped in. Music was present for all conditions, as it is an implied essential component of the game. Performance, self-reported enjoyment and self-reported difficulty were very similar between conditions involving visuals only and trials involving both the visuals and haptic device. Conditions involving the haptic device only (no visuals) saw a large drop in performance, a large increase in self-reported difficulty, and a very minor decrease in enjoyment. Despite the difference, participants reported enjoying the experience in free-response questions. The results of the study illustrate the potential for haptics to enhance user experience in rhythm dance video games. Additionally, these results indicate the beginnings of an avenue through which such dance games could become more accessible to the blind, who have been unable to participate in such games up to this point.

This thesis describes the process of creating a 3D environment from the initial concept to the final scene. It discusses relevant research into new technology in the field of real-time rendering, including Physically Based Rendering and a synced normals workflow. It examines how the goals of the project changed over time and how the associated challenges were resolved. Conclusions are drawn about what practices were most successful, and how the development process could be improved.

The Story is one of the oldest forms of communication between humans. Various methods have enhanced and updated the Art in a variety of ways since the concept was created. In modern times, a story can exist in multiple mediums because of the variations that humans use today to tell stories. I present an artistic project that will show my development of an original universe, plot, and characters into a storyline introduction for enjoyable purposes. The belief was that these ideas I created could succeed in multiple formats, but I would need to narrow it down and test what I had created. I chose two different mediums, a Written Narrative and a Video Game, as means to tell my story as much as I could within the time frame. By using the opinions of others, I’ll learn if either project can be successful in telling my story and which method offered the best experience with my particular story ideas to share with an individual.

The improvement of water quality in the streams of the Glenelg Hopkins catchment is a priority of the Glenelg Hopkins regional strategy. A major source of water pollution in the region is linked to agricultural activities as high nutrient levels from runoff have the potential to increase the incidence of blue-green algae in the waterways. Land use change, reduced rainfall, more frequent extreme rainfall events and higher temperatures associated with climate change are likely to exacerbate this trend. Water testing data of the Total Phosphorus (TP) levels in the Hopkins River and at other sites within the Hopkins Catchment indicate increasing incidence of TP above the Environment Protection Authority's target levels for extended periods of each year. Earlier research indicated that phosphorus in runoff increases when pasture fertility increases and that fertiliser management practices should be considered as an element of preventative action for reducing nutrient pollution. During our research, a survey was undertaken in the Hopkins River catchment, to determine the current management of phosphorus (P) fertilisers on grazing and mixed enterprise farms, the attitude of farmers to natural resource management and their understanding of nutrient pollution. The survey also gathered information on the way farmers made fertiliser management decisions. If cooperation relating to phosphorus fertiliser application could be facilitated between groups of farmers, it may be possible to reduce nutrient runoff into the Hopkins waterways. Cooperative game theory has successfully been used worldwide in the resolution of environmental problems where there is an economic impact to the decision making process. In this project, the amount of phosphorus applied per hectare was used in a cooperative game theory model assessing the potential for cooperative action on phosphorus management by groups of farmers, based on the trade off between the economic cost of pollution to the region waterways and the economic production benefits to the individual. The outcome of this work was individual optimal strategies for fertiliser application, allowing individual farmers to reduce their impact of agricultural production on the health of the catchment. Involving the farmer groups, while undertaking the project, raised awareness amongst the farming population of the regional nutrient pollution caused by runoff from agricultural land, and enlisted their assistance towards adopting a cooperative approach to the problem. In addition, the results have been mapped using a Geographical Information System (GIS) for visual presentation and to demonstrate the use of this process in natural resource management with the farmer groups.

The Dirty Faces game requires players to perform iterative reasoning in order to arrive at equilibrium play. The game is dominance solvable with a unique equilibrium when it is correctly specified. The particular payoff structure has significant implication on whether the reasoning process leads to equilibrium play. This paper illustrates that the traditional specification - as used by Weber (2001) - leads to multiple equilibria and the game loses its dominance solvability. We modify the payoff structure and restore uniqueness. The resulting game, which is dominance solvable, is implemented in an experiment to test the depth of iterative reasoning in humans. Our data analysis suggests that some deviation from equilibrium play is due to limited depth of iteration. Additionally, we find evidence that the lack of confidence in other players’ iterative abilities also induces deviations from equilibrium play. / Thesis (M.Ec.) -- School of Economics, 2007