Serious games for emergency preparedness: Evaluation of an interactive vs. a non-interactive simulation of a terror attack

Emergency preparedness is a relevant emerging application of serious games. A general issue in exploiting such approach concerns the breadth of the population that can be reached by serious games. Indeed, serious games need to be actively played and this can restrict their user population, because there are people who have no experience with video games or do not like them or do not have the proper hardware to play them. Moreover, there are organizational contexts in which a non-interactive presentation is preferred because it can be given in a more convenient and less costly way with simple traditional media, i.e., printed materials, slides or videos. This paper deals with the possibility of generating and using a non-interactive version of the experience provided by serious games. First, we propose a serious game that simulates a mass emergency caused by a terror attack in a train station. To obtain design guidance, we explore psychological models that explain how people are motivated to protect themselves from danger. Then, we generate the non-interactive version of the terror attack simulation and we contrast it with the interactive version. Results of our study show that both versions of the simulation can provide positive outcomes in learning, risk severity perception and self-efficacy, but they differ in how much they affect user’s threat appraisal and emotional response.     

An efficient memory control method for video and image processing in digital TV

High definition (HD) and ultra-high definition (UHD) digital TV require high-resolution images and lots of data transfers between processors and memory devices often become the bottleneck of the system. Video and image signal processing usually require blocks of square or rectangular shaped pixel data for signal processing. It requires frequent precharging and activating new rows, and results in extra latencies for reading and writing pixel data in memory devices. This paper proposes an efficient memory controller for video and image processing to reduce the latencies for reading and writing blocks of pixel data. The controller stores a frame of pixel data by distributing contiguous lines of pixel data to multiple banks in sequence. Its efficiency is enhanced more with an interface protocol such as AMBA AXI in which outstanding transactions are allowed. Memory controllers according to the proposed scheme are designed and the performance and the efficiency are compared with the previous works.     

Interface as Exordium: The Rhetoric of Interactivity

In this article, I outline how the interface of new media functions rhetorically as an exordium to engage users and to dispose them to persuasion. The modular, networked, and interactive nature of new media requires an interface: a central place of interaction for the technological, human, social, and cultural aspects of new media. I propose that the interface functions rhetorically through three modes of interactivity, including multi-directionality, manipulability, and presence. By understanding these modes of interactivity and how they function to create various degrees of interaction and engagement, we can begin to develop the analytic tools needed to increase critical awareness of the interface. A rhetorical understanding of the interface enables us and our students to see that the shape and design of the interface is not natural and inevitable. The design of the interface is a design of human experience and, as such, the interface becomes a locus of power. The modes of interactivity it deploys are capable of enabling empowerment and enacting rhetorical patterns of control.     

Geoic: an interactive terminal-based geochemical data processing system

A series of interactive terminal-based FORTRAN IV programs have been developed for processing and evaluating major and trace element data produced in the analysis of rock samples. The GEOIC system consists of three stages. The first is concerned with the processing of analytical data produced in the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis of fused samples for major elements and pressed powder briquettes for trace elements. In the second stage, the major and trace element results are linked together by a tabulation program which creates an input file for CIPW norm programs. The tabulation program will sort also the analyses into groups according to an 8 character “group identifier” keyword attached to each analysis. Average analyses are calculated also for each group. The tabulation program combines the major, trace and normative data to produce a data base file as well as a tabulated output file for dispatch to a line printer. In the third stage, the data base file serves as the input to interactive programs for graphical and statistical evaluation of the geochemical data. The graphics program allows the user to plot rapidly binary and ternary diagrams for all samples or plotting may be restricted to specified groups or only to the group averages. The statistical program allows the user to calculate various parameters as well as a correlation coefficient matrix for all samples, for selected groups or for only group averages.The group identifier keyword attached by the user to each sample analysis facilitates the division of the suite of samples under study into groups and subgroups. This important feature adds considerable flexibility to the processing and evaluation of data via the tabulation, graphics and statistics programs.The tabulation program will accept also free-format major and trace element data produced by analytical methods other than XRF. The second and third stages of the system may be used, therefore, as a general purpose geochemical data processing and evaluation package.     

Interactivity and the Invisible: What Counts as Writing in the Age of Web 2.0

This study asks: what counts as writing in a Web 2.0 environment? How do the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0 environments impact our understanding of what writing is in these spaces and how that writing is performed? Results suggest that we, as scholars and teachers, need to pay more attention to, first, the interactivity that is embedded in and afforded by Web 2.0 applications and, second, the processes that are invisible to the composer. Successful compositional engagement with Web 2.0 applications requires an evolving interactive set of practices similar to those practiced by gamers, comics, and electronic literature authors and readers. What we learn about these practices has the potential to transform the way we understand writing and the teaching of writing within and outside of a Web 2.0 ecosystem.     

Interactivity in human–computer interaction: a study of credibility, understanding, and influence

Advancements in computer technology have allowed the development of human-appearing and -behaving virtual agents. This study examined if increased richness and anthropomorphism in interface design lead to computers being more influential during a decision-making task with a human partner. In addition, user experiences of the communication format, communication process, and the task partner were evaluated for their association with various features of virtual agents. Study participants completed the Desert Survival Problem (DSP) and were then randomly assigned to one of five different computer partners or to a human partner (who was a study confederate). Participants discussed each of the items in the DSP with their partners and were then asked to complete the DSP again. Results showed that computers were more influential than human partners but that the latter were rated more positively on social dimensions of communication than the former. Exploratory analysis of user assessments revealed that some features of human–computer interaction (e.g. utility and feeling understood) were associated with increases in anthropomorphic features of the interface. Discussion focuses on the relation between user perceptions, design features, and task outcomes.     

Information processing capacity while wearing personal protective eyewear

It is difficult to overemphasize the function vision plays in information processing, specifically in maintaining postural control. Vision appears to be an immediate, effortless event; suggesting that eyes need only to be open to employ the visual information provided by the environment. This study is focused on investigating the effect of Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulated personal protective eyewear (29 CFR 1910.133) on physiological and cognitive factors associated with information processing capabilities. Twenty-one college students between the ages of 19 and 25 years were randomly tested in each of three eyewear conditions (control, new and artificially aged) on an inclined and horizontal support surface for auditory and visual stimulus reaction time. Data collection trials consisted of 50 randomly selected (25 auditory, 25 visual) stimuli over a 10-min surface-eyewear condition trial. Auditory stimulus reaction time was significantly affected by the surface by eyewear interaction (F_2,40 = 7.4; p < 0.05). Similarly, analysis revealed a significant surface by eyewear interaction in reaction time following the visual stimulus (F_2,40 = 21.7; p < 0.05). The current findings do not trivialize the importance of personal protective eyewear usage in an occupational setting; rather, they suggest the value of future research focused on the effect that personal protective eyewear has on the physiological, cognitive and biomechanical contributions to postural control. These findings suggest that while personal protective eyewear may serve to protect an individual from eye injury, an individual's use of such personal protective eyewear may have deleterious effects on sensory information associated with information processing and postural control.     

Information ecology: open system environment for data, memories, and knowing

An information ecology provides a conceptual framework to consider data, the creation of knowledge, and the flow of information within a multidimensional context. This paper, reporting on a 1 year project to study the heterogeneity of information and its management within the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) community, presents some manifestations of traditionally unreported ‘invisible work’ and associated elements of informal knowledge and unarticulated information. We draw from a range of ethnographic materials to understand ways in which data-information-knowledge are viewed within the community and consider some of the non-linear aspects of data-knowledge-information that relate to the development of a sustained, robust, persistent infrastructure for data collection in environmental science research. Taking data as the unit of study, the notion of long-term research and data holdings leads to consideration of types of memory and of knowledge important for design of cyberinfrastructures. Complexity, ambiguity, and nonlinearity are part of an information ecology and addressed today by exploring multiple types of knowledge, developing information system vocabularies, and recognizing the need for intermediation.     

Emotional stress and information processing ability in the context of accident causation

One of the objectives of human factors engineering is to ensure that the design of a person-machine system does not exceed the information processing capacity of human beings. Great strides have been made in this regard. In other words, individual differences in information processing ability have been accounted for. As such, accidents on tasks possessing a large information processing component must be attributable to other factors. Emotional stress due to nonwork factors was theorized to be one of these factors. Not a single study could be found evaluating the effects of nonwork stress on information processing ability. Therefore, this relationship was the focus of this study. The research question was studied by simulating, using playing cards, industrial tasks requiring varying amounts of information processing. Nonwork stress was measured using parts of a pre-existing questionnaire. A total of 12 individuals were selected to participate in this study. Nonwork stress was found to negatively affect information processing ability, as measured by reaction time. As a consequence, stress due to nonwork factors can be considered an important factor in accident occurrence in complex person–machine systems; one that is, at the very least worthy of further investigation.

Relevance to industry

The findings of this investigations have far-reaching implications with regard to employment practices; particularly those concerned with pre-employment screening and stress management training. These implications are based on the premise that the likelihood of an accident in complex person–machine systems decreases as high risk individuals are identified and trained.     

电子侦察卫星信息获取及处理建模与仿真

电子侦察卫星是空间对地目标侦察的主要力量,可对地面雷达和通信信号进行侦测和定位.文章分析了电子侦察卫星的有效载荷雷达信号接收机侦察性能,利用随机理论、航天动力学原理和模糊匹配方法,建立了三类模型:信息源模型、信息获取模型和信息处理模型,用来进行雷达目标的产生、卫星的星下点、覆盖带计算、点的包含性检验、目标定位和目标类型判断.结合目标特性和电子侦察卫星侦察原理,设计了仿真流程,并对仿真结果进行了分析,针对其被动侦察的特性,给出了基本的对抗策略.     

对Windows应用程序运行中的实时信息进行采集的研究与实现

该文对Windows应用程序运行中的实时信息进行了分析,并给出了利用Win32API进行信息采集的方法。文章结合实际应用的游戏软件进行研究,最终采用内存查询、屏幕信息采集和消息捕获的方法实现了对应用程序运行中的实时信息的采集,并将所获得信息输出,实现了利用下位机控制反馈控制平台的操作。     

A memristor-based architecture combining memory and image processing

Image processing is a type of memory-access-intensive application and is applied in many fields.Logic operations are very simple ones in image processing.During these operations,memory access takes a majority of the total time consumed,which puts a great pressure on memory access speed and bandwidth.However,in traditional von Neumann architecture,memory access is the inherent bottleneck of the system;that is,the speed of memory’s data supply is far lower than the data request of processor.Memristor is considered to be the fourth circuit element after resistor,capacitor and inductor.It has the capacity of both processing and memory,which supplies a new idea for solving the"memory wall"problem.In this paper,memristor is used to build an architecture combining computing and memory,where the memory has the ability to handle some simple image processing operations.This architecture can reduce readings and writings of memory effectively,which saves memory bandwidth thus improving the efficiency of the system.Logic operations of images are considered in this paper to validate the architecture.The experimental results and theoretical analysis indicate that the architecture can reduce memory access effectively.     

Qualitative changes in recall memory during day and night shifts

The effect of time of day on recall of words and drawings was studied in 29 French shiftworkers. Tests were carried out at 18:00, 22:00, 02:00 and 06:00. The task involved memorizing a list of 18 drawings for one half of the group, and 18 words (designating the corresponding figures) for the other half. At each time of day, the lists were presented both with and without an interpolated task. In the interpolated task condition, the first 9 items were followed by an interpolated imagery task and the last 9 by a spelling task, or vice versa. The results indicated an overall effect of time of day on the recall test, especially when memorizing drawings. At 18:00 in both the control and the interference condition, subjects recalled more words and drawings from the beginning of the list. Conversely, at 02:00, subjects recalled more words and drawings from the end of the list. The time spent in the interpolated comparison task varied with the time of day and was longer when memorizing drawings. The same time of day pattern of performance was found for spelling times. The implications upon issues concerning shiftwork and job demands are also discussed.     

存储器中易失性用户大数据并行处理控制系统

传统的并行处理控制系统在处理存储器中易失性用户大数据时,对CPU的利用率很低,导致处理控制工作精密度差。为了解决此问题,设计了一种新的大数据并行处理控制系统,分别对系统的硬件和软件进行设计,分析了控制系统中各组件的结构关系,重点设计了系统总线、中央处理器;软件部分分为打开文件、更新文件、监测运行、数据连接四步。为了检测系统的可行性,与传统并行处理控制系统进行实验对比,结果显示,设计的并行处理控制系统能够充足的利用系统CPU,精确地处理存储器中易失性用户大数据。该系统具有超强的工作能力,值得推广使用。     

The effects of interactive brand placements in online games on children’s cognitive,affective, and conative brand responses

This study investigated how persuasive messages integrated in an online game affects children’s cognitive, affective, and conative responses to the brand, as well as their attitude toward the game itself. An experiment conducted among 2453 girls between the ages of 11 and 17 demonstrated that confrontation with interactive brand placement in the game resulted in more positive attitudes toward the game, higher top of mind awareness of the brand, more positive brand images, and more favorable behavioral intentions. In addition, consistent with persuasion literature and theories on child development, this study showed that there was a three-way interaction effect between exposure to the brand placement, age, and prior brand use for behavioral intentions. The youngest girls who had no prior experience with the brand were more strongly influenced by the brand placement than the oldest girls who had no prior brand experience.     

主题新闻信息门户系统的设计与实现

介绍了一个将主题追踪技术与信息门户技术相结合，实现个性化服务的主题新闻信息门户系统。系统能够根据用户设定的不同主题新闻策略，动态监测互联网新闻信息源，自动采集相关网站新闻信息，对相关主题进行实时动态追踪。描述了主题新闻信息门户系统的体系结构、主要功能和关键技术，并给出了应用实验结果。     

Efficiency and effectiveness of query processing in cluster-based retrieval

Our research shows that for large databases, without considerable additional storage overhead, cluster-based retrieval (CBR) can compete with the time efficiency and effectiveness of the inverted index-based full search (FS). The proposed CBR method employs a storage structure that blends the cluster membership information into the inverted file posting lists. This approach significantly reduces the cost of similarity calculations for document ranking during query processing and improves efficiency. For example, in terms of in-memory computations, our new approach can reduce query processing time to 39% of FS. The experiments confirm that the approach is scalable and system performance improves with increasing database size. In the experiments, we use the cover coefficient-based clustering methodology (C³M), and the Financial Times database of TREC containing 210 158 documents of size 564 MB defined by 229 748 terms with total of 29 545 234 inverted index elements. This study provides CBR efficiency and effectiveness experiments using the largest corpus in an environment that employs no user interaction or user behavior assumption for clustering.     

The Advanced Video Information System: data structures and query processing

We describe how video data can be organized and structured so as to facilitate efficient querying. We develop a formal model for video data and show how spatial data structures, suitably modified, provide an elegant way of storing such data. We develop algorithms to process various kinds of video queries and show that, in most cases, the complexity of these algorithms is linear. A prototype system, called the Advanced Video Information System (AVIS), based on these concepts, has been designed at the University of Maryland.     

Content or context: Which matters more in information processing on microblogging sites

With a framework based on the heuristic–systematic model of information processing, this study examined the effects of both content and contextual factors on the popularity of microblogging posts. The popularity of posts was operationalized as the re-tweeting times and number of comments received by posts, which are users’ behavioral outcomes after processing information. The data of the study were 10,000 posts randomly drawn from a popular microblogging site in China. Content factors were found to outperform contextual ones in accounting for the variance in post popularity, which suggests that systematic strategy dominates users’ information processing in comparison with heuristic strategy. Our findings implied that re-tweeting and commenting are distinct types of microblogging behaviors. Re-tweeting aims to disseminate information in which the source credibility (e.g., users’ authoritativeness) and posts’ informativeness play important roles, whereas commenting emphasizes social interaction and conversation in which users’ experience and posts’ topics are more important.