abstract: This study examines the identity development of young women in the context of an urban high school in the Southwest. All of the participants were academically successful and on-track to graduate from high school, ostensibly ready for “college, career and life.” Life story interviews were co-constructed with the teacher-researcher. These accounts were recorded, transcribed and coded for themes related to identity development. The narrative interviews were treated as historical accounts of identity development and, simultaneously, as performances of identity in the figured world of the urban high school. The interviews reflected the participants’ ability to create a coherent life story modulated to the context of the interview. Generally, they used the interviews as an opportunity to test ideas about their identity, or to perform an ideal self. Several key findings emerged. First, while content and focus of the interviews varied widely, there was a common formulation of success among the participants akin to the traditional “American Dream.” Second, the participants, although sharing key long term goals, had a diverse repertoire of strategies to achieve their goals. Last, schooling, both informal and formal, played different roles in supporting the women during this transition from childhood to adulthood. Results indicate that multiple pathways exist for students to find success in US high schools, and that the “college for all” narrative may limit educators’ ability to support students as they create their own narratives of successful lives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Psychology 2016

Tendo como incipt Junto dum seco, fero e estéril monte, a Canção V de Luís de Camões, presente no corpus mínimo proposto pelo Professor Leodegário de Azevedo Filho é tema deste estudo que se propõe a fazer uma análise literária à luz do Maneirismo, onde se buscam observar as principais características temáticas presentes na mesma. Dessa forma, temas como o desconcerto do mundo, a fugacidade do tempo e da vida e, consequentemente, o pessimismo e a ausência da amada serão relacionados à poesia. Há a preocupação de se atentar para a influência tardo-gótica no Maneirismo e como isso se dá nessa canção, o que faz com que se perceba não haver traços clássicos ou renascentistas na mesma. Faz-se necessário ainda que se analisem as referências geográficas, as construções e os recursos estilísticos utilizados pelo poeta, uma vez que estes são significativos para uma boa compreensão da canção, bem como para um possível questionamento acerca da obra de Camões ser considerada por alguns autores clássica / Taking as incipt "Along a dry, barren hill and fero", the Song Literaria of V Luís de Camões, in this corpus minimum proposed by Professor Leodegário de Azevedo Filho is the theme of this study and it proposes to make a literary review in the light of Mannerism, in order to observe its main features. Thus, issues such as worlds uneasiness, time and lifes fugacidade, the pessimism, lack of love are related to poetry. There is a concern to look for influence in the late Gothic Mannerism and how it gives to this song, which they perceive no classical traces or Renaissance in it. It is also necessary that we analyse the geographical references, the constructions and stylistic resources used by the poet, since these are significant for a good understanding of the song, as well as for possible questioning about the work of Camões be considered by some classical authors

A concepção de novas alternativas educacionais pautadas no uso de recursos tecnológicos, tem acarretado o aumento do número de pesquisas em diferentes domínios de ensino. Tem se destacado nas últimas décadas a abordagem dos Mundos Virtuais, cuja base está calcada na interatividade, visualização de objetos 3D, sensação de imersão e liberdade ao aluno para explorar os recursos didáticos disponibilizados. Desta forma, se considera necessário que o planejamento e condução das atividades propostas pelos professores nos Mundos Virtuais, estejam baseadas em uma abordagem educacional consistente e difundida no meio acadêmico. O Mastery Learning surge neste contexto como uma alternativa instigadora a ser explorada, cujos preceitos estão baseados na realização de atividades de reforço e na avaliação constante do aluno, que buscam resultar na aprendizagem com maestria dos conteúdos abordados. O potencial a ser explorado nestas duas áreas resultou na construção deste trabalho de Tese, que teve como objetivo a proposição de um método de ensino pautado na aprendizagem com o uso dos Mundos Virtuais e preceitos do Mastery Learning. O método proposto engloba a aplicação de atividades presenciais e complementares, com diversas avaliações durante as unidades trabalhadas, cujo reforço foi baseado no uso dos Mundos Virtuais de forma constante durante este período Um Estudo Piloto foi realizado na área de Computação, cujo tópico abordado foi o ensino de Algoritmos e Lógica de Programação, sendo os resultados obtidos considerados positivos, e, utilizados como base para a realização dos testes finais. Desta forma, o processo de experimentação final foi conduzido com três grupos de alunos do sexto ano em uma disciplina de Ciências, no ano letivo de 2016, e, com dois grupos de alunos do sexto ano na mesma disciplina, no início de 2017, sendo todo este processo separado em três fases distintas. Um Mundo Virtual foi construído no OpenSim contendo diversos tipos de materiais didáticos, como vídeos, slides, textos e questões, além do desenvolvimento de simulações interativas e estáticas, sendo acessado pelos alunos na modalidade a distância. Foram aplicadas diversas avaliações em cada uma das fases para averiguar o desempenho de aprendizagem dos estudantes, assim como foram monitoradas as interações dos alunos que utilizaram o Mundo Virtual e aplicados questionários de opinião sobre este processo conduzido. Para a análise dos resultados, foram empregadas técnicas estatísticas não paramétricas (Kruskal-Wallis e Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney), além do uso de Box Plot Os resultados obtidos demonstraram um melhor desempenho nas duas primeiras fases ocorridas em 2016 do grupo que utilizou o Mundo Virtual, com relação ao grupo que optou por não utilizar nenhum ambiente, enquanto em comparação com o ambiente Moodle, os resultados do grupo do Mundo Virtual foram considerados similarmente bons ou até melhores. A terceira fase apresentou resultados novamente considerados similares ou melhores do grupo do Mundo Virtual, com relação ao grupo do Moodle. Foi constatado na análise geral que os participantes que utilizaram o Mundo Virtual tiveram um crescente desempenho, com medianas altas e adequada distribuição das notas, havendo predominância de uma menor amplitude e variabilidade destas. O sistema de monitoramento também operou de forma satisfatória, assim como, os questionários de opinião apresentaram percepções positivas sobre o método aplicado e o uso dos recursos neste ambiente. Desta forma, foi possível concluir que os resultados obtidos com o método foram instigadores e positivos, o que acarretou na validação desta pesquisa e apresentou uma clara contribuição para o meio acadêmico. / The conception of new educational alternatives based on the use of technological resources has led to the exploration of research in different domains of education, among which, the approach of Virtual Worlds has been used concisely in recent decades. Its base is focused on interactivity, visualization of 3D objects, sensation of immersion and freedom to the student to explore the didactic resources made available. In this way, it is considered necessary that the planning and conduction of the activities proposed by the teachers in the Virtual Worlds, are based on a consistent educational approach and diffused in the academic environment. Mastery Learning appears in this context as an instigating alternative to be explored, whose precepts are based on the accomplishment of activities of reinforcement and the constant evaluation of the student, that seek to result in master the contents approached. The potential to be explored in these two areas resulted in the construction of this Thesis, which had the objective of proposing a teaching method based on learning with the use of Virtual Worlds and precepts of Mastery Learning. The proposed method includes the application of face-to-face and complementary activities, with several evaluations during the units worked, whose reinforcement was based on the use of Virtual Worlds in a constant way during this period A Pilot Study was carried out in the Computing area, whose topic was the teaching of Algorithms and Logic of Programming, and the results were considered positive and used as basis for the final tests. In this way, the final experimentation process was conducted with three groups of sixth-year students in a science course in 2016, and with two groups of sixth-year students in the same discipline at the beginning of 2017, with this process separated in three phases. A Virtual World was built in OpenSim containing several types of didactic materials, such as videos, slides, texts and questions, as well as the development of interactive and static simulations, being accessed by students in their homes. Several evaluations were applied in each of the phases to ascertain the student's learning performance, as well as the interactions of the students who used the Virtual World were monitored and opinion questionnaires were applied on this process. For the analysis of the results, non-parametric statistical techniques (Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney) were used, besides the use of Box Plot. Results obtained demonstrated a better performance in the first two phases occurred in 2016 of the group that used the Virtual World, in relation to the group that chose not to use any environment, whereas in comparison to the Moodle environment, the Virtual World group results were considered similarly good or even better The third phase presented results again considered similar or better in the Virtual World group in relation to the Moodle group. It was verified in the general analysis, that the participants who used the Virtual World had a growing performance, with medians high and adequate distribution of the notes, being predominant of a smaller amplitude and variability of these. The monitoring system also operated in a satisfactory way, making it possible to map the learning trajectories and evaluate the students in the Virtual World, as well as the evaluation questionnaires presented positive perceptions about the proposed method and the use of the resources of this environment. Thus, it was possible to conclude that the results obtained with the proposed method were instigating and positive, which resulted in the validation of this research and presented a clear contribution to the academic environment.

Robert Adams' definition of a possible world is paradoxical according to Selmer Bringsjord, Patrick Grim and, more recently, Cristopher Menzel. The proofs given by Bringsjord and Grim relied crucially on the Powerset Axiom; Christoper Menzel showed that, while this continued tobe the case, there was still hope for Adams' definition, but Menzel he undustedan old russellian paradox in order to prove that we could obtain the same paradoxical consequences without appealing to any other set theory than the Axiomof Separation. Nevertheless, Menzel's result only showed that there was no actualworld. In this paper we try to generalize Russell's paradox to arbitrary possible worlds without introducing an irreducible modal component in the discussion. / La definición de un mundo posible” de Robert Adams es paradójica, de acuerdo con Selmer Bringsjord, Patrick Grim y Cristopher Menzel. Las pruebas de Bringsjord y Grim utilizaban el axioma del Conjunto Potencia; Cristopher Menzel objetó que, mientras este fuese el caso, todavía existía esperanza para la definición de Adams, pero Menzel desempolvó una vieja paradoja de Russell para demostrar que podíamos obtener las mismas conclusiones sin apelar a otra teoría de conjuntos que el Axioma de Separación. Sin embargo, el resultado de Menzel mostraba solo que no existía el mundo actual. En este trabajo intentamos generalizar la paradoja de Russell a mundos posibles arbitrarios sin necesidad de introducir conceptos modales en la discusión.

abstract: This document builds a model, the Resilience Engine, of how a given sociotechnical innovation contributes to the resilience of its society, where the failure points of that process might be, and what outcomes, resilient or entropic, can be generated by the uptake of a particular innovation. Closed systems, which tend towards stagnation and collapse, are distinguished from open systems, which through ongoing encounters with external novelty, tend towards enduring resilience. Heterotopia, a space bounded from the dominant order in which novelty is generated and defended, is put forth as the locus of innovation for systemic resilience, defined as the capacity to adapt to environmental changes. The generative aspect of the Resilience Engine lies in a dialectic between a heterotopia and the dominant system across a membrane which permits interaction while maintaining the autonomy of the new space. With a model of how innovation, taken up by agents seeking power outside the dominant order, leads to resilience, and of what generates failures of the Resilience Engine as well as successes, the model is tested against cases drawn from two key virtual worlds of the mid-2000s. The cases presented largely validate the model, but generate a crucial surprise. Within those worlds, 2008-2010 saw an abrupt cultural transformation as the dialectic stage of the Resilience Engine's operation generated victories for the dominant order over promising emergent attributes of virtual heterotopia. At least one emergent practice has been assimilated, generating systemic resilience, that of the conference backchannel. A surprise, however, comes from extensive evidence that one element never problematized in thinking about innovation, the discontent agent, was largely absent from virtual worlds. Rather, what users sought was not greater agency but the comfort of submission over the burdens of self-governance. Thus, aside from minor cases, the outcome of the operation of the Resilience Engine within the virtual worlds studied was the colonization of the heterotopic space for the metropolis along with attempts by agents both external and internal to generate maximum order. Pursuant to the Resilience Engine model, this outcome is a recipe for entropic collapse and for preventing new heterotopias from arising under the current dominant means of production. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology 2013

Neste trabalho, construímos novas soluções com simetria esférica ou axial para as equações do campo gravitacional induzido num cenário brana do tipo Randall-Sundrum, onde uma 3-brana com constante cosmológica está imersa num espaço-tempo 5-dimensional conhecido como bulk. Para o caso esfericamente simétrico, com constante cosmológica negativa, obtivemos uma família de soluções numa brana assintoticamente anti-de Sitter, sendo que cada membro desta é diferenciado de outro por uma constante integração C, que fixada proveu-nos soluções de buracos negros ou buracos de minhocas. Com a mesma simetria, geometrias que descrevem buracos de minhoca foram encontradas numa brana assintoticamente de Sitter. Para o caso axialmente simétrico, métricas assintoticamente anti-de Sitter e de Sitter foram construídas no contexto citado. Propriedades óticas, como a rotação do vetor de polarização, foram estudadas, mostrando-nos algumas diferenças entre os mundos brana, tratados como uma teoria de gravitação modificada, e a relatividade geral. / In this work we have constructed new solutions, with axial or spherical symmetry, to the induced gravitational field equations within a Randall-Sundrum type brane world scenario, where a 3-brane with cosmological constant is embedded in a 5-dimensional space-time called bulk. For the spherical case with negative cosmological constant, we have found a family of solutions in an anti-de Sitter brane, where each member of the family is different from another when C is fixed. With a fixed C we have black holes or wormholes. In this same case, with spherical symmetry, we have obtained wormhole solutions in a de Sitter brane. In the same context, for the axially symmetric case, metrics asymptotically anti-de Sitter and de Sitter were built. Optics features, like rotation of polarization vector, have been studied. These features showed some differences between brane worlds, a theory of modified gravity, and the General Relativity.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / O fio da meada desta investigaÃÃo tem seu foco na experiÃncia e luta dos trabalhadores tÃxteis em Fortaleza, com Ãnfase nos operÃrios da fÃbrica Finobrasa, entre os anos 1987 e 1991. O objetivo principal consiste em identificar a natureza dos conflitos entre os trabalhadores e a Companhia, bem como, compreender o contexto, as circunstÃncias e os desdobramentos das lutas especificas, como o direito à sindicalizaÃÃo e o fim do trabalho aos domingos; e de aÃÃes coletivas de resistÃncia aberta, a exemplo da greve de maio de 1988 e a adesÃo à greve geral de 1991. A construÃÃo da histÃria destes trabalhadores se deu a partir de um leque variado de fontes, dentre elas: narrativas de trabalhadores da Finobrasa e sindicalistas, jornais, informativos de organismos patronais; documentos da Finobrasa, documentos do Sindicato dos Trabalhadores TÃxteis de Fortaleza e processos do judiciÃrio trabalhista. O estudo encontra na histÃria social do trabalho sua principal inspiraÃÃo, tanto os estudos de historiadores de oficio, bem como os de antropÃlogos, sociÃlogos e economistas. A anÃlise, à centrada na conjuntura das polÃticas de industrializaÃÃo, que subsidiavam com fundos pÃblicos os empreendimentos fabris no CearÃ, quando a indÃstria tÃxtil cearense teve um crescimento acentuado. Nesta proclamada fase das mais produtivas e competitivas do Brasil, do ponto de vista do capital, o estudo examina as condiÃÃes de vida e trabalho: trabalhadores perdem a audiÃÃo, a tuberculose era âmolÃstia comum‟, as mÃquinas âengoliamâ trabalhadores e mutilavam o corpo operÃrio. Quando reivindicavam direitos, eram demitidos ou ficavam marcados em âlistas negrasâ e criminalizadas suas formas de organizaÃÃo. Foram à luta. Pela garantia e ampliaÃÃo dos direitos sociais e polÃticos; de construÃÃo de um movimento sindical de base, com forte referencial de classe e mais afeito Ãs aÃÃes coletivas, os trabalhadores tÃxteis de Fortaleza construÃram greves, foram à JustiÃa, negociaram diretamente com os patrÃes, fecharam ruas em manifestaÃÃo; fiaram e teceram lutas por melhores condiÃÃes de vida e trabalho. âUm fio da meadaâ encharcado de sensibilidades, conquistas, revezes, lutas, indignaÃÃo, revolta, sonho e esperanÃa à a tessitura deste trabalho. / The aspect of this investigation has your focus in experience and fight of textile workers in Fortaleza, with emphasis on workers factory Finobrasa, between the years 1987 and 1991. The main goal is identify the nature of conflicts between workers and company, moreover, understand the context, circumstances and the developments of specific struggles, as the right to unionize and the end of work on Sundays; collective actions of open resistance, as example of the strike on may of 1988 and accession the general strike on 1991. The Construction of history those workers happened from many sources, including narratives of workers of the Finobrasa and unionists, newspapers, informative from employers organizations, documents of Finobrasa, documents of Textile Workers Union of Fortaleza and processes of the judiciary labor. The main inspirations of the study were founds in social work history, as also in both the studies of historians of metier, besides of anthropologists, sociologists and economists. The analysis were centered at the juncture of the policies of industrialization, that subsidized with public funds the manufacturing enterprises in CearÃ, when the textile factory in Cearà had a strong growth. In this proclaimed phase of the most productive and competitive in Brazil, of the point of the view of capital, the study examines the conditions of life and work: workers lose their hearing, tuberculosis was âcommon diseaseâ, and machines âswallowedâ employees and the mutilated body worker. When claiming rights, they were fired or they stayed marked in âblack listsâ, and criminalized your forms of organization. They went to fight. To guarantee and expand the social and political rights; of construction of a trade union movement of base, with strong reference class and more accustomed to collective actions, the textile workers of Fortaleza built strikes, they were justice, they negotiated directly with employers, they closed streets in manifestation; they spun and wove struggle for better conditions of life and work. âThe thread of the argumentâ is soaked of sensibilities, achievements, failures, struggles, outrage, anger, dream and hope, is the organization of this work.

Uma nova geração de alunos, imersos em tecnologias que envolvem a utilização de mensagens de texto, mídias sociais e games, vem surgindo a cada dia, trazendo um foco diferente, uma mentalidade e um estilo de aprendizagem distinto em relação às gerações que os precederam. Estes alunos sentem-se igualmente confortáveis aprendendo em ambientes virtuais ou reais, pois não conseguem ver a diferença que separa um mundo do outro. A experiência de uso dessas tecnologias imersivas em um ambiente educacional poderia desencadear no aluno um maior engajamento e assim favorecer os processos de aprendizagem? Esta dissertação apresenta a possibilidade de utilização de um simulador social como recurso pedagógico, apresentando o recurso de simulação educativa de um conteúdo da disciplina de Física no contexto de um mundo virtual. Podemos trazer para esta situação de ensino e aprendizagem a possibilidade de reproduzir experiências pessoais, que são certamente mais significativas do que situações em que apenas apresentamos um modelo descritivo demonstrando o fenômeno. Novas possibilidades de interação e colaboração surgem neste modelo de simulação. Para tanto, foi desenvolvido um simulador que contempla um fenômeno físico estudado no primeiro ano do ensino médio, a colisão de dois corpos. A ambientação deste simulador remete o estudante a um parque de diversões, no qual ele interage com uma de suas atrações, o Carro Choque. A simulação aqui proposta busca instigar o aluno a descobrir “o que aconteceria se”. Mais que um simulador finalizado que apenas representa o fenômeno e determina qual a resposta é a correta, este simulador tem por objetivo auxiliar o aluno a observar o fenômeno e melhor compreender os conceitos a ele associados, formular suas próprias hipóteses e conclusões, tendo preferencialmente a presença de um professor que o instigue, crie as situações problema para que este aluno busque identificar as possíveis alternativas. Para validação da pesquisa, utilizou-se o simulador em uma turma de oitava série do ensino fundamental, com o objetivo de observar evidências de aprendizagem e engajamento dos estudantes no simulador proposto. Os seis alunos envolvidos na pesquisa, de cunho qualitativo, passaram por cinco etapas de observação, seguindo metodologia com base construtivista, tendo como principais referenciais os teóricos Piaget e Inhelder e Sinclair. A partir do acompanhamento dos alunos nos experimentos, foi possível observar que este modelo simulado alcançou os objetivos inicialmente propostos. A interatividade e imersão propiciados pelo ambiente virtual proporcionam um maior nível de engajamento aos alunos envolvidos na pesquisa e se mostraram facilitadores dos processos de aprendizagem relacionados aos fenômenos físicos considerados. / A new generation of students, immersed in technologies which evolve with the use of text messages, social media and games, emerges day after day, bringing a different focus, learning mechanisms different from preceding generations. These students feel equally comfortable to learn in virtual or real environments, as they do not see the difference that separates one world from the other. The experience in the use of these immersive technologies in an educational environment could trigger in the student a higher level of engagement and in this way favor learning processes? This Masters dissertation presents an investigation about the use of a social simulator as a pedagogical resource, proposing an educational simulation resource of a topic in Physics, in the context of a virtual world. One may bring for this learning situation the possibility to reproduce personal experiences, which are certainly more significant than other situations in which a descriptive model demonstrating a given phenomenon is used. New possibilities of interaction and collaboration emerge in this simulation model. A simulator has been developed involving a physics phenomenon that is studied in the first year of high school: two-body collision. The setting chosen for the simulator was an amusement park, in which the student interacts with one of its attractions, the bumper car. The simulation proposed here attempts to instigate the student to find out “what would happen if”. More than a closed simulator that only represents the given phenomenon and determines which would be the correct answer, this simulator has as a main goal to help the student to observe the phenomenon and better understand the concepts associated to it, to formulate his/her own hypotheses and conclusions, preferably working with a teacher who can instigate him, who can create problem situations for the student to try to identify possible alternatives. To validate the research, the simulator has been used in a class with the goal of observing students’ learning and engagement evidence. The six students who participated in this qualitative research went through five observation steps, following a constructivist methodology, mainly based on the theorists Piaget, Inhelder and Sinclair. The experiments demonstrated that the simulated model achieved the proposed goals. The interactivity and immersion of the virtual world enabled a higher engagement level of the students participating in the research, and facilitated learning processes related to the physical phenomenon considered.

Virtual environments where users can interact with each other as well as with the environment are today used in many application areas ranging from military simulations to massive multiplayer online games. But no matter the application area, as soon as the number of users reaches a certain threshold, hosting a virtual environment on a single machine can become problematic. Speed and quality of the network connection will limit the number of concurrently connected users in terms of acceptable visual quality and hardware requirements of the server will be strict. With a single point of failure, system reliability could easily be compromised by means of network or host failure. Distribution of the virtual environment therefore seems a reasonable approach in order to address this problem. Hardware and network requirements would not be so critical and it would increase reliability by having no single point of failure. Unfortunately distribution introduces new problems dealing with synchronization of the world state within the distribution network. A possible solution to these problems with the focus on reliability will be presented in this thesis. The solution uses a peer to peer platform that is able to adapt to changes in the network infrastructure as a base for all communication. To improve synchronization efficiency the network will be dynamically divided into multicast groups based on synchronization needs. The solution will be tested for performance with the network fully functioning and in a number of more of less broken states to determine the reliability. The results from the tests conclude that the system is able to perform with what must be seen as acceptable performance levels even in very problematic network environments. The scalability of the system did also meet the expectations but the results would have benefited from more experimentation with larger user populations. / Virtuella världar där användare kan träffas och interagera med både varandra och miljön används idag i inom flera områden så som militära simulatorer och online-spel. Men det spelar ingen roll vad användningsområdet är, när antalet anvädare når en viss gräns blir det problematiskt att hålla den virtuella världen på en maskin. Distribuering kan vara en lösning på detta problem men som i sin tur drar med sig nya problem i form av synkroniseringssvårigheter. En potentiell lösning presenteras i rapporten som använder peer-to-peer-tekniker för att hålla informationen synkroniserad och försöker upprätthålla en hög tillgänlighet under svåra nätverksförhållande. Lösningen har testats och uppvisade låvande resultat inom båda skalbarhet och pålitlighet men skulle behöva fler tester för att ge definitiva resultat.

Information technology is rapidly changing and companies are amending to the inevitable changes. Recently, the traditional Internet has started to evolve into a 3D Internet, thereby challenging companies into becoming more active in virtual worlds in order to keep up with the latest technology. In this thesis, the virtual world environment is highlighted from a v-business perspective to emphasize on potential opportunities and problems businesses face when entering virtual worlds. Moreover, the future outlook for v-business in virtual worlds is discussed, based on interviews with companies that are active in virtual worlds jointly with observed phenomenon identified in the literature study. Since Second Life is one of the largest and most recognized virtual worlds up to present, having a resemblance with the real world, this virtual world has been selected to pose as an example in this thesis. Taking this into consideration, the aim of this research is to answer the following research questions: * What kind of value has v-business added to companies operating in virtual worlds and what kind of impact has it had? * What kind of complexities and restrictions have companies experienced with v-business in virtual worlds, and why have these occurred? * What does the future look like for v-business in virtual worlds considering opportunities and problems related to such a business approach? Consequently, the purpose of this thesis is to examine the future outlook for v-business in virtual worlds, by investigating what opportunities and problems companies face in such a virtual setting, along with their predictions about its future development. Based on these findings an outline of the prospects of v-business will be developed. Given that the area of this particular study is not yet broad in terms of research, the research has been conducted through an inductive approach using a qualitative method. Seven companies have been interviewed for this research and a majority of the company respondents have been interviewed through real-time communication using Skype. The outcome of this research implies that there is great potential for v-business in virtual worlds, hence adding additional value to companies’ positioning on a yet unique environment. A number of possibilities have been identified where communication was identified as a major opportunity. In contrast, there are also current problems where technical restraints and comprehension problems were especially emphasized. However, in spite of some problems, companies report that they are in general very positive about the future outlook for v-business in virtual worlds, which is one of the reasons as to why we conclude that there is definitely a future awaiting for doing business in virtual worlds.