Social presence in distributed group environments: The role of social identity

This paper argues that to achieve social presence in a distributed environment, it is not necessary to emulate face-to-face conditions of increased cues to the interpersonal. Rather, it is argued, that a sense of belongingness to the group, or perceptual immersion in the group, can be realised through the creation of a shared social identity between group members. From this perspective, social presence is a function of the cognitive representation of the group by group members and not the interpersonal bonds between group members. Furthermore, specific design features and characteristics of the distributed learning environment can be utilised to achieve and maintain this shared group identity. This approach, encapsulated by the SIDE model, is discussed and supported by two case studies of distributed students, each consisting of 10 groups, collaborating for a period of 5 weeks on group projects.     

The role of social presence in establishing loyalty in e-Service environments

Compared to offline shopping, the online shopping experience may be viewed as lacking human warmth and sociability as it is more impersonal, anonymous, automated and generally devoid of face-to-face interactions. Thus, understanding how to create customer loyalty in online environments (e-Loyalty) is a complex process. In this paper a model for e-Loyalty is proposed and used to examine how varied conditions of social presence in a B2C e-Services context influence e-Loyalty and its antecedents of perceived usefulness, trust and enjoyment. This model is examined through an empirical study involving 185 subjects using structural equation modeling techniques. Further analysis is conducted to reveal gender differences concerning hedonic elements in the model on e-Loyalty.     

Knowledge contribution in virtual communities: accounting for multiple dimensions of social presence through social identity

Integrating social presence theory and social identity theory, this study brings system design and social influence aspects together to explain their joint effects on knowledge contribution in virtual communities (VCs). Different from most prior information systems (IS) research that adopts a uni-dimensional approach and restricts social presence to be the subjective nature of media, we developed and empirically tested a model explaining the effects of multi-dimensional social presence on social identification processes and knowledge contribution. An online survey was conducted with four different VCs of interest. The results showed the difference in relative contribution of social presence dimensions on social identity as well as knowledge contribution. Both practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

分布式环境中基于社会网络的资源发现机制

基于社会网络设计了一个无中心的、可生存的、自适应的资源发现方法,使得网络节点相互协作,以发现所需资源。接着,详细地给出了方法的模型、算法。仿真结果表明该方法能够改善发现的性能、很好地适应不同的资源分布和用户请求模式以及能够从动态的网络环境中生存。     

A sense of self: The role of presence in virtual environments

Several factors contribute to an individual’s experiences in computer-based environments. Previous research shows one such factor, the degree to which users feel connected to a virtual environment, influences the actions of individuals within the environment ( and ). Additional factors, such as people’s personality and the personality of their avatar, influence behaviors in virtual environments (McCreery, Krach, Schrader, & Boone, 2012). The current study focused on the role of presence as it affects behavior within the virtual environment. Presence has been defined as the psychological state where virtual experiences feel authentic. However, the degree to which presence acts as a mediating variable in virtual environments is not well understood. The current study employed a combination of survey instruments and direct observation to explore the relationships among personality of self and avatar, presence, and behaviors within a virtual environment. Findings indicated that participant scores in the domain of agreeableness were a significant predictor of agreeable behavior in the virtual environment. However, with the exception of negative effects (e.g., dizziness), presence does not appear to influence behavior. Overall implications for these findings are discussed.     

Small group decision-making in face-to-face and computer-mediated environments: the role of personality

This study investigates the potential influence of personality dimensions on the behaviour and individual processes of small group decision-making in face-to-face and computer-mediated groups. A sample of 90 students was divided into 16 groups, with between four and seven students per group. The groups were randomly assigned to start with one of two different discussion media and one of two different leaderless group discussion problems. Measures of leadership, initiative, judgement, and interpersonal sensitivity were obtained for each subject from two raters working independently using video-tapes of the face-to-face sessions and the logged interactions of the computer-mediated sessions. Further, ‘satisfaction with the process’ and ‘satisfaction with the outcome’ were assessed using a Likert-type scale. Personality was measured using the Myers Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI®). Using correlations and repeated measures ANOVAs across the outcome dimensions and the psychological type scores, the findings of this research suggest that personality plays a minor role in differentiating between the media conditions.     

Small group decision-making in face-to-face and computer-mediated environments: the role of personality

This study investigates the potential influence of personality dimensions on the behaviour and individual processes of small group decision-making in face-to-face and computer-mediated groups. A sample of 90 students was divided into 16 groups, with between four and seven students per group. The groups were randomly assigned to start with one of two different discussion media and one of two different leaderless group discussion problems. Measures of leadership, initiative, judgement, and interpersonal sensitivity were obtained for each subject from two raters working independently using video-tapes of the face-to-face sessions and the logged interactions of the computer-mediated sessions. Further, 'satisfaction with the process' and 'satisfaction with the outcome' were assessed using a Likert-type scale. Personality was measured using the Myers Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI®). Using correlations and repeated measures ANOVAs across the outcome dimensions and the psychological type scores, the findings of this research suggest that personality plays a minor role in differentiating between the media conditions.     

Defining sociability and social presence in Social TV

Social TV, a new interactive television service, has been rapidly developing. With the conceptual model of sociability, this study empirically investigates the effects of perceived sociability on the motivations and attitudes toward Social TV. A model is created to validate the relationship of perceived sociality to social presence, usability, and intention. Empirical findings show the key influence of sociability on users’ acceptance and intent to continue using Social TV. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of building a theory of sociability and providing practical insights into developing a meaningful sociable TV interface.     

Increasing social presence of social actors in e-learning environments: Effects of dynamic and static emoticons on children

The present research aimed to employ dynamic and static emotions as social cues in e-learning environments for computers to be able to convey social presence and increase children’s motivation with learning. To understand how children of different gender react to the two types of emoticon in e-learning environment, a math problem-solving practice program was designed to test their reactions. The program features two treatments, dynamic emoticons and static emoticons. A 2 × 2 (emoticon style × gender) between-subjects factorial design was adopted for this study. One hundred seventy-three sixth graders participated in this study. Data were collected via questionnaire regarding the perceived social presence and children’s intrinsic motivation, and then analyzed by means of two-way ANOVA. The results show that the children in dynamic-emoticon condition perceived a higher degree of social presence and reported greater intrinsic motivation than those in static-emoticon condition. The feelings of social presence created by the computer itself can mediate children’s intrinsic motivation. Besides, no gender differences in children’s attitudes toward computers were observed. It suggests that the use of dynamic emoticons as social cues incorporating in e-learning environments can enable children to perceive computers on social dimension and lead to increase their motivation with learning.     

Meetings in a distributed group of experts: comparing face-to-face, chat and collaborative virtual environments

This paper focuses on Collaborative Virtual Environments, and their potential to support work meetings for geographically distributed experts. The research question concerns the difference between face-to-face-, chat-, and CVE- meetings with regard to efficiency, communication process, problems with the technology, enjoyment and competence development. A small group of experts were observed during their natural work meetings. Six of the groups scheduled meetings were held three times in a chat environment and three times in a CVE. Results suggests that chat and CVE meetings are experienced as more task oriented than face-to-face meetings, and that avatars support turn taking and are enjoyable.     

Presence in the age of social networks: augmenting mediated environments with feedback on group activity

The present study aimed at increasing behavioral engagement in groups of networked people by providing feedback on the group activity. Each participant logged into an on-line virtual environment for four subsequent treasure-hunting sessions along with other nine players. During the game, all players communicated dyadically through textual chats, and searched for the treasures in the virtual environment. In two conditions, the participants received a visual feedback depicting the communication activity with the group based on social network analysis indices (i.e. ‘centrality’ or ‘reciprocity’). Feedback was not provided in the third condition. The underlying assumption was that if the group activity becomes more visible to the individual user through the feedback, then the behavioral engagement with the group increases. The resulting behavioral engagement was measured with two techniques, one based on the amount of messages exchanged and one based on self-reported measures. The results show that feedback improved the exchange of messages with respect to the control condition and that this effect was only partially captured by self-reported measures.

Meetings in a distributed group of experts: Comparing face-to-face,chat and collaborative virtual environments

This paper focuses on Collaborative Virtual Environments, and their potential to support work meetings for geographically distributed experts. The research question concerns the difference between face-to-face-, chat-, and CVE- meetings with regard to efficiency, communication process, problems with the technology, enjoyment and competence development. A small group of experts were observed during their natural work meetings. Six of the groups scheduled meetings were held three times in a chat environment and three times in a CVE. Results suggests that chat and CVE meetings are experienced as more task oriented than face-to-face meetings, and that avatars support turn taking and are enjoyable.     

Social presence and group attraction: exploring the effects of awareness systems in the home

This paper describes an experimental assessment of affective user benefits that may result from adding peripheral awareness information while remote friends share an activity in a home environment. The experiment has shown that providing awareness information increases the social presence and the group attraction felt by individuals towards remote partners.     

The role of presence in the level of anxiety experienced in clinical virtual environments

Recent reviews point towards that Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) can be an effective medium to provide exposure therapy for anxiety disorders. The concept of presence, usually defined as the sense of being inside the virtual environment, has been considered the principal mechanism that leads to the experience of anxiety in clinical virtual environments. The present study sought to examine the relationship between sense of presence and in-session anxiety in a sample of 210 students showing high and low test anxiety when exposed to both clinical and non-stressful virtual environments. This is the largest study conducted to date with the aim of examining the relationship between presence and anxiety in clinical virtual environments, and the first to explore separately the relationship between presence and state-anxiety in phobic and non-phobic participants. The results suggest that presence was not related to anxiety in a non-stressful environment. It was also found that although presence is related to anxiety in both groups of students when exposed to clinical virtual environments, this relationship was clearly stronger for high test anxiety students. This line of research will broaden our understanding of the mechanisms that lead to the efficacy of VRET.     

ViWoSG: A distributed scene graph of ultramassive distributed virtual environments

An ultra-massive distributed virtual environment generally consists of ultra-massive terrain data and a large quantity of objects and their attribute data, such as 2D/3D geometric models, audio/video, images, vectors, characteristics, etc. In this paper, we propose a novel method for constructing distributed scene graphs with high extensibility. Thismethod can support high concurrent interaction of clients and implement various tasks such as editing, querying, accessing and motion controlling. Some application experiments are performed to demonstrate its efficiency and soundness. Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2004CB719403), the National High-Tech Research & Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2006AA01Z334, 2007AA01Z318, 2009AA01Z324), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 60573151, 60703062, 60833007), and the Marine 908-03-01-10 Project     

分布式环境中聚类问题算法研究综述

传统的集中式聚类是对集中存放在单个站点的数据集进行聚类,但不能解决数据分布存储环境下的聚类问题,而分布式聚类算法是从分布存储的数据集中提取分类模式,因此能满足此需求。针对分布式聚类算法进行综述和分析。首先对现有的分布式聚类算法进行了分类,然后对每类算法的基本思想和优缺点进行了比较,最后采用Iris和Wine两个数据集对几种分布式聚类算法从聚类精度和聚类时间两方面进行了比较。     

Social capital expectation and usage of social media: the moderating role of social capital susceptibility

This study aims to identify the motivations of social media users who click ‘like’ to the post of their friends. We posit that this behaviour is not solely based on an instant feeling or reaction to a post, but a more complicated action that involves calculation and expectation of the future social media use. We first apply social capital theories to identify the types of expectations, and then differentiate these expectations based on the communication styles of social media where private and public relationships coexist. From these, we develop a social capital expectation matrix in the context of social media. In the research model, we discuss how these social capital expectations motivate people to use social media, including the moderating effects of social capital susceptibilities, based on expectancy theory of motivation. To validate our model, data collected from 291 social media users are analysed. This result confirms that people click likes to share their interests and display their network to others. Conversely, the relational dimensions of social capital including capital recompense and social inclusion exerted significant interaction effects only when they were considered along with capital susceptibilities.     

Product engagement and identity signaling: The role of likes in social commerce for fashion products

Motivated by a lack of understanding of user engagement with identity-relevant products, we distinguish between two mechanisms by which existing likes affect subsequent engagement: observational learning (OL) by observing the number of existing likes, and social influence (SI) by observing the likes of one’s social connections. Using a novel panel dataset of 930 handbags, we find that, contrary to most OL studies, OL has a negative effect on subsequent likes, and the effect is mitigated by SI. By contrast, OL has a positive effect on clicks, and the effect diminishes as SI increases. We attribute our findings to identity signaling.     

Service replication taxonomy in distributed environments

Abstract Nowadays, most modern distributed environments, including service-oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing, and mobile computing, support replication technologies in order to improve operational characteristics of the services provided. Unfortunately, replication requires additional computational resources and a longer design and deployment process to implement service adequately for a specific situation and to enable service providers to maintain high levels of service with a moderate number of replicas. This paper provides a comprehensive review of replication challenges, types, techniques, and algorithms in distributed environments such as SOA, cloud, and mobile. Moreover, the role of replication in enhancing several QoS attributes, including performance, availability, security, scalability, and reliability, is examined. The author believes that the proposed research will help researchers to easily apply and develop the service replication in distributed system.