Independent developers and large-scale development studios - commonly seen as the Davids and Goliaths of the video game industry - are moving closer together. Powerful software frameworks, traditionally reserved for professional developers and only available through expensive licenses, are becoming free to use for consumers. By sharing their tools instead of keeping them for themselves, companies can utilize the combined talent of whole communities and monetize on that talent through royalties and other indirect fees. This paper describes how the video game industry has developed in recent years to allow for this change in business strategy and examines how the industry can continue to evolve because of this. The result of a Delphi study based on interviews with game developers both inside and outside the industry point toward a future of increased intermingling and sharing of knowledge and resources, characterized by more producer-consumer collaborations and closer relationships between companies and their communities. By adopting free-to-use business models and sharing powerful, proprietary software with their consumers, companies are lowering the point of entry for aspiring developers and thereby dissolving the traditional narrative of “we and them” that has existed between independent developers and established studios in the past. / Oberoende utvecklare och storskaliga utvecklingsstudior - vanligtvis betraktade som tv-spelsindustrins David och Goliath - rör sig allt närmre varandra. Kraftfulla mjukvaruramverk som traditionellt sett varit reserverade för professionella utvecklare och som tidigare endast varit tillgängliga genom kostsamma licenser blir i allt större utsträckning gratis att använda för konsumenter. Genom att dela med sig av sina verktyg istället för att hålla dem för sig själva så kan företag nyttja den kombinerade talangen hos sociala nätverk knutna till sina produkter och generera intäkter genom royalties och andra indirekta avgifter. Denna uppsats beskriver hur tv-spelsindustrins utveckling på senare år har möjliggjort denna affärsstrategiska förändring och hur industrin kan fortsätta att utvecklas som en följd av detta. Resultatet av en Delfistudie baserad på intervjuer med spelutvecklare både inom och utanför industrin pekar mot en framtid av ökat samspel och delande av kunskap och resurser. Detta karaktäriseras av fler samarbeten mellan producenter och konsumenter samt närmre relationer mellan företag och deras konsumentnätverk. Genom att ta till sig affärsmodeller som bygger på gratis-att-använda-principer och att dela med sig av avancerad, äganderättsskyddad mjukvara med sina konsumenter, så sänker företag ingångströskeln för aspirerande spelutvecklare. Därigenom löser företagen upp den traditionella  “vi och dem”-relationen som tidigare existerat mellan oberoende utvecklare och etablerade studior.

This work discusses the change in Indian position in international relations during the Cold War. It is a qualitative case study, which is also dedicated to finding influences that caused the change in the Indian position. Work includes the following sections. The first part describes the theory of international relations relevant to the study of the Indian position within the great power relations. Next part analyzes India's economic development and historical development of India's foreign policy and relations with the most important global actors. The final chapter is a study of global governance institutions and policies of BRICS and its position to the institutions of global governance.

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This paper deals with the main geopolitical aspects of India-Bangladesh relation. It covers the process of creation of the Indo-Bangladesh border, problems originating from its constitution including the Cooch Behar enclaves and efforts of the both countries to resolve these problems by the means of bilateral treaties. It also focuses on illegal migration from Bangladesh to India, analyses its causes and its influence on the security in the North-east India and Indian political scene. Disputes concernig the fresh-water sharing, emerging from Indian dams and irrigation canals, either allready built, or planned. The last part deals with possible connection between one of the aspects of the global warming, sea-level rising, and migration. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This diploma thesis concerns the iconography of early Buddhist art in India, especially in the region of ancient Gandhāra. It follows the development of representation of Buddha and bodhisattva from an aniconic type to establishment of anthropomorphous form during the reign of the Kushaṇas. It outlines the influence of the Hellenistic world on this form and tries to give a summary about the mixture of the symbolic and stylistic patterns as well as their further development in the later Buddhist art.

Educational video games – especially for the PC market – do not seem to perform as well commercially as games from other genres. We argue that there is room for independent – ’indie’ – developers to break into the marketplace, by identifying certain niches and innovating on the genre. This would generate commercial value for such actors and knowledge value for the players. Design decisions of high importance made during development of an educational video game demo at the small Swedish company Toleap Consulting AB were analysed in the pursuit of contributing to effective indie development of such games. Three main problems that arose during development were identified, and three design decisions where implemented to combat these respective problems; (1) Interpreted educational game pattern utilising XML, (2) Function-based game views and (3) Community created assets, open source, and no costly dependencies. In our case, the formulated design decisions effectively solved our problems, and we argue that they generalise. If a developer creating a similar game (educational video game) in a similar situation (independent development with limited resources) encounters one or more of these problems, the suggested design decisions may help the developer solve the problems, in turn making more educational video games available on the market, generating the aforementioned commercial and knowledge values.

This thesis focuses on fairytales from exotic countries (and continents), specifically African, American, Australian, Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Inuit. Selected fairytales are introduced, analyzed and compared between each other. This work also focuses on finding similarities between these exotic fairytales and Czech fairytale background. General theoretical information about fairytales can also be found in the first part of this work. One of the goals of this thesis is also to get acquainted with new sources. The empirical part of this work examins the knowledge of sixth grade basic school pupils of international fairytales. Part of this research is also a survey about Czech language teachers from selected schools, focusing specifically on finding out practical use of fairytales during school lessons.

.Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes, which makes the wedding a diverse and unique experience from almost every point of view. The analysis of tehcniques and aesthetic styles, paying special attencion to color and other visual narrative elements, is ides to argue that wedding films should be considered a new genre, as a new and unique way of filmmaikng.

xvi, 436 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This study examined the cultural political economic significance of the physical "brick and mortar" independent record store in the digital era. The research was built upon two critical frameworks -- the political economy of communication and critical cultural studies. The political economy of communication situated the independent record store within the dominant music industry, and was concerned with the corporate structuring and standardization of music culture. The study analyzed the extreme market concentration involving the "big four" major record labels (in terms of vertical and horizontal integration, diversification and product synergy), their interconnectedness to the major corporate music retailers, and the implications for the manufacturing of popular musical artists. The independent record store (to varying degrees) counters these tendencies by offering greater cultural diversity in terms of "independent," local, used and obscure music. However, the independent record store is influenced by the policies and practices of the major label system, distribution channels, big box chain retailers, and on-line commerce. The study examined the dominant industry policies and practices, including buying (centralized versus localized), music as a loss leader, co-op advertising, retail "payola," retail censorship, and the overall range of musical diversity, vis-à-vis the practices and semi-autonomous nature of the independent record store. This project was equally invested in the cultural aspects of the independent record store in terms of communities and scenes. Various subcultures gather and connect with each other at independent record stores, where anti-corporate and counter-hegemonic narratives circulate, and individuals learn about the depths of musical history and culture. This project explored the physical atmosphere and vernacular culture associated with the stores, as well as the cultural significance of vinyl record collecting. However, these cultural attributes are framed in terms of the harvesting of commodification, where the perception of "independence" is rendered problematic in terms of the economic realities associated with the logic of capital. The primary ethnographic field sites for this study included the House of Records in Eugene, Oregon; Music Millennium in Portland, Oregon; and Amoeba Music in San Francisco, California. Numerous specialty independent record stores within these geographic areas were also included in the study. / Committee in charge: Janet Wasko, Chairperson, Journalism and Communication; Carl Bybee, Member, Journalism and Communication; Leslie Steeves, Member, Journalism and Communication; Julianne Newton, Member, Journalism and Communication; Douglas Blandy, Outside Member, Arts and Administration

The thesis aims to describe and evaluate the depiction of Indian Muslims in the series of short stories by Nasira Sharma. The writer is one of the Muslim authors who chose to write in Hindi. In her works, Sharma shares in detail but also in discretion her unique insight into the private matters of Muslim families and their coexistence with the Hindu majority on various levels. Rather than focusing on politics, she inspects the human nature and the difficulties the Muslim communities face. As a minority, they live in more challenging conditions compared to the population of purely Muslim countries. Sharma repeatedly draws attention to the root of many of these difficulties, i.e. the voluntary isolation of Islamic communities and their strict observance of traditions. Key words: Muslims, India, Islam, Nasira Sharma, Hindu literature, short story