A complexidade do fenômeno comunicacional desafia estudiosos do campo na atualidade, principalmente no âmbito dos ambientes sociais. O processo de interação mediada, por exemplo, ganhou grandes proporções na virada do século XXI com o advento das Tecnologias de Informação e de Comunicação (TIC). Os suportes tecnológicos eletrônicos ou computacionais passaram a nortear grande parte do entretenimento e da comunicação. Nesse caminho esta pesquisa analisa novas práticas de comunicação na atualidade e aponta como os jogos eletrônicos, ou também chamados games, vêm se conjugando nos processos de mediação nessas práticas. O trabalho envolve os jogos para computador, mais especificamente os chamados jogos casuais. O objeto de estudo são os tipos de interação social em jogos casuais online e o corpus de análise é o EcoCity, um jogo de simulação com final aberto que funciona nos sites de serviço de rede social. A abordagem da construção de cidades sustentáveis no game traz fatores ambientais à cena. A hipótese é que a socialização em torno desses fatores podem de alguma forma agregar valor nos usos e apropriações que os indivíduos fazem dos jogos casuais durante os processos comunicativos e interativos. / The complexity of the communicational phenomenon challenges scholars of our times, mainly concerning social environments. Mediated interactions, for instance, have gained major proportions at the turn of the XXI century with the creation of the Communication and Information Technology (CIT). The electronic or computational technological supports have guided much of the entertainment and communications. This way this research analyses todays new communication practices of current times and shows how electronic games have been combining with mediation procedures related to these practices. The present work involves computer games, more specifically the ones called casual games. The study exams the kinds of social interaction in online casual games, and the corpus for analysis is the EcoCity, an open-ended simulation game which runs at social network websites. The approach of building sustainable cities in the game brings environmental issues into play. The hypothesis is that socialization around these factors may somehow add value to the uses and appropriation of individuals towards casual games during communicational and interaction processes.

A complexidade do fenômeno comunicacional desafia estudiosos do campo na atualidade, principalmente no âmbito dos ambientes sociais. O processo de interação mediada, por exemplo, ganhou grandes proporções na virada do século XXI com o advento das Tecnologias de Informação e de Comunicação (TIC). Os suportes tecnológicos eletrônicos ou computacionais passaram a nortear grande parte do entretenimento e da comunicação. Nesse caminho esta pesquisa analisa novas práticas de comunicação na atualidade e aponta como os jogos eletrônicos, ou também chamados games, vêm se conjugando nos processos de mediação nessas práticas. O trabalho envolve os jogos para computador, mais especificamente os chamados jogos casuais. O objeto de estudo são os tipos de interação social em jogos casuais online e o corpus de análise é o EcoCity, um jogo de simulação com final aberto que funciona nos sites de serviço de rede social. A abordagem da construção de cidades sustentáveis no game traz fatores ambientais à cena. A hipótese é que a socialização em torno desses fatores podem de alguma forma agregar valor nos usos e apropriações que os indivíduos fazem dos jogos casuais durante os processos comunicativos e interativos. / The complexity of the communicational phenomenon challenges scholars of our times, mainly concerning social environments. Mediated interactions, for instance, have gained major proportions at the turn of the XXI century with the creation of the Communication and Information Technology (CIT). The electronic or computational technological supports have guided much of the entertainment and communications. This way this research analyses todays new communication practices of current times and shows how electronic games have been combining with mediation procedures related to these practices. The present work involves computer games, more specifically the ones called casual games. The study exams the kinds of social interaction in online casual games, and the corpus for analysis is the EcoCity, an open-ended simulation game which runs at social network websites. The approach of building sustainable cities in the game brings environmental issues into play. The hypothesis is that socialization around these factors may somehow add value to the uses and appropriation of individuals towards casual games during communicational and interaction processes.

The problem motivating this study is that database query facilities are not effectively meeting the needs of casual users. A solution to this problem is especially important due to the increasing number of potential casual users. There is considerable controversy revolving around the question of which elements and/or which combination of elements within the casual users' environment are necessary to provide an effective man/machine interface. The purpose of the study is to extend the basic knowledge relating to the effect of using different data models, the effect of cognitive style differences, and the interaction effects of these two independent variables on casual users' performance and confidence in writing database queries. The data models being investigated are the relational, hierarchical, and network models. The cognitive style classifications used are two of the Jungian dimensions, Sensing/Intuition and Thinking/Feeling.

Intertextualitet är begreppet som beskriver hur alla texter är sammankopplade, och om Mieke Bal definierar en text till en sluten samling av språkliga tecken är allt som någonsin skapats sammankopplat. Detta arbete har utförts för att undersöka möjligheterna intertextuella referenser har för att utveckla skrivmetoder för narrativt drivna Casual Games. En undersökning gjordes genom att en kopia av ett etablerat Casual spel fylldes med referenser som sedan spelades av två grupper med respondenter. Deltagarna fick besvara en enkät innan de spelade artefakten och fick delta i en intervju efteråt. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att spelare är fullt kapabla att uppfatta ett brett spektrum av olika former av referenser. Den visade dessutom att spelare med bred kunskap om andra texter har en större tendens att skapa kopplingar mellan två berättelser som delar på ett händelseförlopp. Undersökningen visade dessutom att inga spelare kunde uppfatta en komplett tolkning av två parallella historier. För att svara på hur detta kan uppnås måste mer ingående och långdragen forskning ta plats som kan påverka, många fler, spelare under en längre tid.

Android Play store och iOS App stores speltopplistor domineras av enkla tidsfördrivsspel, så kallade casualspel, med en klar underrepresentation av svårare hardcoretitlar. Detta kandidatarbete undersöker orsaken bakom detta fenomen med hjälp av en undersökning, där en testgrupp spelar hardcorespelet Fenix box och sedan besvarar frågor. Från undersökningens data har en bättre förståelse om detta fenomen tagits fram. En gestaltande spelproduktion har även genomförts, där hardcore element blev implementerade i ett casualspel. Gestaltningen sätts sedan i relation till undersökningen för en avslutande reflektion.

Fantasy War Game är en spelmotor gjort i PHP med inslag av Java. Själva striden är uppbyggd med objektorienterad programmeringsmetodik. Spelet är ett textbaserat rollspel i high fantasy-miljö. Sidan är ett interaktivt konfliktspel där spelarna kan utveckla sitt gäng, slåss mot monster eller andra spelare.

Since the early eighties researchers have been studying the use of technology that supports collaboration amongst co-workers and group members. This field of computer science became known as Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). With the advent of wireless and mobile Internet communication technologies research in the CSCW field has been focused on providing “access, anytime and anywhere”. The main contribution of this study is to introduce and analyze the technology required to support casually connected collaboration. Firstly, we define casually connected collaboration as having “access, anytime and anywhere” to collaborators and resources without having explicit control or knowledge over the environment and its technical abilities. In order to distinguish between connected, mobile, and casually connected collaboration we introduce a conceptual model of collaboration that extrapolates the term “access, anytime and anywhere”. We then aim to prove the soundness of our model by using it to classify some well known collaboration scenarios. Furthermore, by evaluating the functional and non-functional requirements for a casually connected collaboration solution, we argue that current commercial and CSCW research implementations do not sufficiently meet these demands. We then present Nomad: a Peer-to-Peer framework specifically designed to overcome the challenges encountered in casually connected collaboration. We study the technology requirements and highlight the implementation details that enabled us to successfully conform to the requirements set by casually connected collaboration. Finally, we pave the road for future work by investigating new features introduced into the Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.0, Visual Studio 2010 and language enhancements made to C# version 4.0. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Computer Science / unrestricted

Casual sexual relationships are common forms of modern sexual relationships. Researchers are paying increased attention to these relationship types, but have been remiss in ensuring that the definitions of the relationships under investigation match participants’ conceptualizations. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to determine whether definitions and behavioural scripts for casual sexual relationships can be identified. In Study 1, 23 young adults discussed initiation, maintenance, and termination components of various casual sexual relationships in focus groups and developed consensus definitions for each relationship. Each focus group independently identified four casual sexual relationships: One Night Stand, Booty Call, Fuck Buddies, and Friends with Benefits. These four relationships were the focus of subsequent exploration. Building on the qualitative descriptions created in the focus groups, an online survey was used to determine whether relationship definitions and associated script behaviours could be confirmed in a larger sample (N = 885). In Study 2, a restricted age subsample (i.e., 18-29 years) was used to determine if emerging adults endorsed the proposed definitions. A majority of the sample endorsed the definitions for One Night Stand (96%), Booty Call (93%), Fuck Buddies (83%), and Friends with Benefits (87%). A larger proportion of individuals with sexual intercourse experience endorsed the definitions compared to those without sexual intercourse experience, while previous casual sex experience did not affect definition endorsements. Women demonstrated greater precision in identifying the definitions. In Study 3, the full sample of 885 participants was used to identify the specific script behaviours associated with each relationship. Using behaviourally descriptive items (N = 62) derived from Study 1, participants identified 12 script items for One Night Stand, Booty Call, and Friends with Benefits and 10 script items for Fuck Buddies. Individuals with previous sexual intercourse experience were more adept at identifying the specific behavioural script items, while previous casual sex experience did not affect script endorsements. Again, women were particularly adept at identifying the specific script items. Overall, these findings suggest that specific definitions and respective scripts exist for the One Night Stand, Booty Call, Fuck Buddies, and Friends with Benefits relationships. This knowledge appears broad and may be considered as socio-cultural knowledge of young adults. Numerous implications flow from the understanding that young adults implicitly know what behaviours are associated with these popular forms of casual sexual relationships. Researchers need to ensure they use scientifically sound definitions in order to develop a more sophisticated lexicon of (casual sex) relationships and understand how modern sexual relationships fit within the scope of potential relationship options.

When using Business Intelligence (BI), organizations can improve decision-making bycompiling, understanding and utilizing the data held by the organization. Self-serviceBusiness Intelligence (SSBI) has emerged as a new focus within BI and aims to make BI tools available to business users, and relieve IT-experts involvement of in ad hoc reporting andanalysis. The aim of this research is to examine challenges of casual users being self-reliant when using SSBI tools, and the way they are using them in the data mining process. This wasdone through a qualitative study, interviewing seven individuals from different user groups: casual users, power user and IT-experts. From the results it appears that most casual users are not sufficiently self-reliant in the data mining process using SSBI. The visualization is theprime area for SSBI, which most casual users manage themselves if the data and dashboards are pre-defined for them. SSBI is becoming increasingly more common, which leads to moreand more casual users with increased experience who need to be able to dig out their own data for interpretation and analysis. Yet, without additional knowledge, such as data knowledge or SQL skill, casual users are in need of support when it comes to more complex operations thanad hoc analysis and reporting, still creating a request-response relationship to power users and IT-experts. The major challenges, limiting casual users from being self-reliant, are: not sufficiently user-friendly tools, poor data definition and lack of data knowledge, limited data access, indigent validation of reports and lastly, inadequate education.

This thesis deals with a proposal for processes improvement of the Shared Service Center. In the first part are described teoretical bases which are used for next analysis and proposal. In the analytical part, there is mapped the process in accounting department in account payable domain and identification of problematical parts of process. Based on analysis of outputs, there is proposed the project for implementation and its evaluation.