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Universal Credit is a major change in the UK's social security system which will affect around eight million households by replacing six existing means-tested benefits and tax credits with a single benefit, based on income, assets and circumstances, and paid monthly. Much commentary about Universal Credit has supported the principle but raised concerns about delivery. This consensus about the principles and the focus on delivery have resulted in less attention being paid to key policy choices informing the design. This article examines two aspects of the design of Universal Credit: the aim to make Universal Credit as much 'like work' as possible, and the architecture of the means test. The focus here is the gap between the assumptions underlying the design of Universal Credit, on the one hand, and the research evidence about life on a low income, and in low-waged and often insecure employment, on the other. Finally, we discuss the most significant contradiction between the 'transformational' aim for Universal Credit, to help people achieve greater 'independence' from the state, and the realities of deepening and widening control of claimants' lives.

Although the body has been the focus of much contemporary cultural theory, the models that are typically applied neglect the most salient characteristics of embodied existencemovement, affect, and sensationin favor of concepts derived from linguistic theory. In Parables for the Virtual Brian Massumi views the body and media such as television, film, and the Internet, as cultural formations that operate on multiple registers of sensation beyond the reach of the reading techniques founded on the standard rhetorical and semiotic models. - Renewing and assessing William James's radical empiricism and Henri - Bergson's philosophy of perception through the filter of the post-war French philosophy of Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault, Massumi links a cultural logic of variation to questions of movement, affect, and sensation. If such concepts are as fundamental as signs and significations, he argues, then a new set of theoretical issues appear, and with them potential new paths for the wedding of scientific and cultural theory. Replacing the traditional opposition of literal and figural with new distinctions between stasis and motion and between actual and virtual, Parables for the Virtual tackles related theoretical issues by applying them to cultural mediums as diverse as architecture, body art, the digital art of Stelarc, and Ronald Reagan's acting career. The result is an intriguing combination of cultural theory, science, and philosophy that asserts itself in a crystalline and multi-faceted argument. - Parables for the Virtual will interest students and scholars of continental and Anglo-American philosophy, cultural studies, cognitive science, electronic art, digital culture, and chaos theory, as well as those concerned with the "science wars" and the relation between the humanities and the sciences in general.

Proceedings of: 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2010). Sousse, Tunisia, 5-7 July 2010. ; In this paper, we describe a 3D virtual collaborative system designed for the learning of Spanish as a second language. Several initiatives for second language learning in 3D virtual worlds exploiting immersive, interactive and motivating features of these worlds have been carried out successfully during the last years. However, these systems tend to be sometimes too rigid from a pedagogical point of view, requiring the presence of a teacher. We have used the Wonderland development toolkit to deploy a 3D virtual learning environment, which is flexible enough to allow learners to improve their language skills with minimum teacher's help, setting up an instructional sequence in which fostered, motivating, and pre-designed collaboration is the key for self-learning. The environment includes technical issues such as natural text chatting with synthetic characters, textual tagging of virtual objects, automatic reading of texts, and the integration of a 3D mouse in learning sequences in order to exploit the capabilities of 3D virtual worlds. ; This research has been partially supported by the following projects: The Spanish CDTI project "España Virtual" funded by the Ingenio 2010 programme, subcontracted by Deimos Space2. The Spanish project "Learn3: Towards Learing of the Third Kind" (TIN2008-05163/TSI) funded by the Spanish "Plan Nacional de I+D+i" of the Ministry of Research and Innovation. The project "eMadrid: Investigación y desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-learning en la Comunidad de Madrid" (S2009/TIC-1650) funded by the Government of the Region of Madrid. ; Publicado

Avatar facial expression and animation in 3D Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) systems are reconstructed through a complex manipulation of all details that compose it like muscles, bones and wrinkles in 3D space. The need for a fast and easy reconstruction approach has emerged out in the recent years due to its application in various domains; 3D disaster management and military training etc. These details simulation must be as realistic as possible to convey different emotions according to the constantly changing situations in CVE during the runtime. For example, in 3D disaster management, it is important to use dynamic avatar emotions; firefighters should be frightened when dealing with a fire disaster and smiling when treating injures and evacuating habitants. However, the solution of facial animation remains a challenge that restricts the rapid and ease development of facial animation systems. In this work, the author presents extensible game engine architecture to easily produce real-time facial animations using a script atomic action without having to deal with control structures and 3D programing language. The proposed architecture defines various controllers, object behaviors, tactical and graphics rendering, and collision effects to quickly design 3D virtual environment. Firstly, the author gives the concept of atomic expression, and the method to build a parametrized script file according to the atomic expression. Then the author shows the validity of the generated expressions based on the MPEG-4 facial animation framework. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed architecture is tested via a firefighter scenario. The author's approach has the advantages over previous techniques of fitting directly an easy and faster technology with a high degree of programming independence. The author also minimizes the interaction with the game engine during the runtime by injecting dynamically the XML file into the game engine without stopping or restarting the engine.

The main objectives of VIRQUAL are to help educational and training institutions to (a) achieve Virtual Mobility, and (b) guarantee EQF implementation through eLearning. VIRQUAL promotes cooperation and joint work among partner organisations and links with related initiatives. Since summer 2010 the consortium has concentrated in three tasks including the preparation of webinars that will take place in during 2011.Task 1: eLearnig and EQF: a comprehensive analysis of the EQF implementation in Europe compiling 32 country reports on EQF/NQF implementation, at levels 5 to 8 has been collected. Additionally, the situation of e-learning in what concerns legislation and practice in each of the 32 countries was also reported. The analysis of the information pack will allow access to updated information on EQF, recognition of competences and e-learning legislation by country as a consulting instrument.Task 2: Three webinars, each one with one expert invited speaker on the general theme of e-learning and EQF followed by an online discussion with the participants and with the participation in other dissemination events.Task 3: How can we support teachers and curriculum developers defining, writing, or choosing high quality learning outcomes? How can we contribute to a global architecture of learning outcomes/competences? What is a useful classification system for learning 0utcomes/competences? The means to answer these questions is a web-based data base, the ILO repositorywww.learning-outcomes.net. One of the fundaments of its data structure is the classification of learning outcomes according to EQF which distinguishes knowledge, skills and competences.

International audience The idiom of virtual water feeds a prolific literature now shaping the policies of national administrations and international organizations, including donors. This article explores the manner in which Palestinian agriculture and the concept of virtual water shed light on each other's coproduction. It opens the black box of virtual water to identify the underlying hypotheses. It invalidates these hypotheses using empirical research. Integrating structuration theory to an STS approach, it explores the manner the coproduction of an interpretive scheme, virtual water, is linked to the construction of a structure of power. Within the idiom of virtual water, flows exist only through the international trade of commodities while states are endowed with an annually renewed stock of water. We focus on the real flow of water from its emergence from the earth to its evapotranspiration by a cultivated plant. We demonstrate that social and political variables within water governance determine the volumes of virtual water flows far more than climatic or agronomic variables. The idiom of virtual water por- trays Palestinian smallholders as inefficient water users while ignoring the manner they sustain food security and environmental sustainability. It legitimizes export oriented agribusinesses as their mode of production corre- sponds to the coproduction of the idea of efficiency underlying the concept of virtual water. These results allow us to reconsider smallholder agriculture as it exists in the Palestinian territories and what sort of policies can support it.

This document summarizes a research effort focused on improving live-to-virtual (L-V) communication systems. The purpose of this work is to address a significant challenge facing the tactical communications training community through the development of the Live-to-Virtual Relay Radio Prediction Algorithm and implementation of the algorithm into an Integrated Live-to-Virtual Communications Server prototype device. The motivation for the work and the challenges of integrating live and virtual communications are presented. Details surrounding the formulation of the prediction algorithm and a description of the prototype system, hardware, and software architectures are shared. Experimental results from discrete event simulation analysis and prototype functionality testing accompany recommendations for future investigation. If the methods and technologies summarized are implemented, an estimated equipment savings of 25%-53% and an estimated cost savings of $150,000.00 - $630,000.00 per site are anticipated. Thus, a solution to a critical tactical communications training problem is presented through the research discussed. ; 2006-12-01 ; Ph.D. ; Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems ; Doctorate ; This record was generated from author submitted information.

There has, since the nineteen nineties, been a rapid increase in the use of the internet for marketing and selling tourist products, and internet-based tourism is now governed by keen competition between the providers/suppliers in the tourist trade. This creates a greater need for appropriate measures which will help providers distinguish themselves from other competitors and win customers for their offer. From a marketing-strategic point of view one approach to this problem is to convey product information in a more efficient and customer-friendly way. The 2D technologies currently used on the internet render such progress difficult, mainly because the immaterial nature of tourist goods creates a considerable difference, preceding a purchase, in the amount of information which are at the supplier's and at the customer's disposal respectively. The informational asymmetry respecting the quality of tourist services leads to a situation where the customer registers uncertainty and may abstain from effecting a purchase altogether, turning instead to other providers and/or products. There is a need to minimize these uncertainties arising from the informational asymmetry between the supplier and the customer by means of appropriate communication political activities. Computer-based three-dimensional representations (Virtual Reality) have been used to transmit complex information and matters in the areas of technology and natural science since the early nineties. In the tourist industry, in contrast to fields such as architecture, medicine and technical construction, the directed deployment of VR remains an exception; no systematic use is made of VR to provide information in the shape of three-dimensional and interactively accessible representations, and the introduction of such representations in a systematic way faces a number of difficulties: there exists a multitude of VR technologies differing in form and function, no criteria are available for classifying the different VR technologies, and little is known about ...

Adopting the Telecommunication Information Networking Architecture (TINA) Service Architecture as the foundation services and network model, this work addresses the federation concept and mechanisms, to enable the handling of same or compatible services, shared sessions and resources, in multiple domains. Apart from analyzing the accurate and efficient formalization of the intended services system functionality, involving multiple stakeholders domains, insight is given on the organizational counterpart aspects. The observations are validated through a case study concerning service provision supporting customer personal mobility across different retailers domain.

Modern warships have become increasingly complex systems, capable of performing a variety of roles, in demanding environments whilst under the presence of a military threat. As the complexity of warships has increased, so too have the systems and processes established to design and manufacture them. Warship designers have become systems engineers charged with delivering integrated products often within programmes constrained by cost, risk, resource and commercial construct. For centuries, if not millennia, models have been an essential component of the warship design process providing a contextual reference for what the finished product may look like and how it may perform. Traditionally, these models have focussed on the physical performance attributes of the warship, its hull-form, its length, beam and displacement, its propulsion system and its likely payload; in unison these models provide an early understanding of key characteristics such as range, speed, complement and sea-keeping. However, with the reduction of ships' companies and the proliferation of increasingly complex software-based control systems, coupled with a backdrop of squeezed defence budgets/development timescales, the call upon models to help manage and de-risk such complexity is becoming prevalent. Across the industrial landscape, model based systems engineering, architectural frameworks and the Systems Modelling Language have become common tools within the systems engineer's arsenal as a means for managing system complexity and mitigating system integration risk. Within the warship design domain, the use of model based systems engineering has been most widely deployed by combat system designers, largely in recognition of the software based nature of these systems. This paper discusses how such approaches are equally applicable to the wider warship design and manufacture process – notably the development of Marine and Platform Systems; it describes the deployment of model based engineering and the Systems Modelling Language to de-risk ...

[ES] En el siguiente trabajo se exponen los resultados obtenidos del análisis paramental realizado en la puerta occidental del castellum de Tamuda (Tetuán, Marruecos), en el desarrollo de la campaña de investigación y puesta en valor correspondiente a 2009. Dichos resultados han permitido establecer un análisis diacrónico sobre la evolución de esta puerta del campamento romano, en el cual se han podido establecer distintas fases constructivas desde los primeros momentos fundacionales hasta el último momento de uso. Ello ha permitido, gracias a los datos obtenidos tanto por medio de sondeos estratigráficos como del estudio arqueoarquitectónico de los paramentos, la reconstrucción virtual del conjunto a lo largo de sus diferentes fases, ofreciendo una imagen visual bastante fidedigna. ; [EN] In the following work the results obtained of the analysis expose paramental realized in the western door of Tamuda's castellum (Tetuán, Morocco), in the development of the campaign investigation(research) and putting in value corresponding to 2009. The above mentioned results have allowed to establish an diachronic analysis on the evolution of this door of the Roman camp, in which they could have established different constructive phases from the first foundations moments up to the last moment of use. It has allowed, thanks to the information obtained so much by means of stratigraphic polls as of the study archeoarchitectura of the paraments, the virtual reconstruction of the set along his(her,your) different phases, offering a visual trustworthy enough image. ; Bermejo Meléndez, J.; Campos Carrasco, JM.; Fernández Sutilo, L.; Gómez Rodríguez, Á.; Bernal Casasola, D.; Ghottes, M. (2011). Anastylosis virtual de la puerta occidental del Castellum de Tamuda (Tetuan, Marruecos). Virtual Archaeology Review. 2(3):145-149. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2011.4670 ; OJS ; 145 ; 149 ; 2 ; 3 ; BERNAL, D., ET ALII (2008): "Reconsiderando la datación del castellum de Tamuda. Actuación Arqueológica de apoyo a la restauración en la puerta ...

Preliminary Material /Paul Jerry , Nancy Tavares-Jones and Sue Gregory -- An Exploratory Study of Jungian Personality Traits in Second Life Residents /Nancy Tavares-Jones -- The ALBO Project: Virtual Working Environments for the Detection of Organizational Well-Being /Eva Venturini , Valeria Faralla and Alessandro Innocenti -- Privacy as Commodity: Willingness to Sell Access to Private Information over the Network in a Virtual Environment /Nili Steinfeld -- Supplementing Self-Access Learning for an English Language Centre through Virtual Platforms /Dean Anthony Fabi Gui and Andrew Northern -- Students' Experiences and Ideas of the Library Services in Second Life /Eeva-Liisa Eskola and Marja Anttonen -- Experiential Learning, Virtual Collaboration and Robots /Michael Vallance and Catherine Naamani -- eLearning Technologies: Solutions to the Challenges Experienced by University Students in a Classroom Environment /Heera Boodhun and Chandani Appadoo -- The Death and Reincarnation of the Reader in Online Communities /Saulius Keturakis and Audronė Daubarienė -- Virtual Learning and Research Methods in Architecture: An Overview of the Last 10 Years at the Department of Information and Communication Technology in Architecture /Pfarr-Harfst Mieke -- Play Hard, Work Harder: A Gameplay Analysis of Goal- Oriented Narrative and Post-Narrative Play in The Sims 2 DS /Heidi Mau and Cheryl L. Nicholas -- Comparison of Students Learning in a Virtual World /Sue Gregory -- Experiential Teaching and Learning as part of a Blended Approach: Classrooms, Blackboard and Second Life Practices /Ridvan Ata -- Breaking down Silos: Exploring the Effects of Graduate Cross-Programme Collaborations within a 3D Immersive World /Barbara B. Howard , John H. Tashner and Robert L. Sanders -- Using Second Life to Train Counsellors: Is Transformative Learning Possible in this Novel Environment? /Tom Edwards -- Guiding Social Research in MMORPGs from a Phenomenological Perspective /Paul T. Scriven -- Storytelling, Rules and Society in Modern MMORPGs /Martin Hennig -- Image Constructions in the Social Web /Inge Wagner -- Virtual Selves, Research Perspectives: Exploring the Role and Implications for Taking the Insider Perspective in Virtual Worlds Research /Simon Evans -- The Syntagmatic Cathedral: Experiential Learning through Flow-Waves of Immersion, Engagements and Reflection in a Multiplatform Paradigm /Lorraine Smith -- The Mechanism of Additional Personal Identification's Appearance in Computer Role Games /Demilhanova Angelina -- Reading 3D Wor(l)ds: Poetic Words for the High Tech Generation /Diogo Marques -- Methods and Ethics in Virtual World Research: The Second Life Experience /Paul Jerry.

With large social media platforms coming under increasing pressure to deplatform far-right users, the Alternative Technology movement (Alt-Tech) emerged as a new digital support infrastructure for the far right. We conduct a qualitative analysis of the prominent Alt-Tech platform Gab, a social networking service primarily modelled on Twitter, to assess the far-right virtual community on the platform. We find Gab's technological affordances – including its lack of content moderation, culture of anonymity, microblogging architecture and funding model – have fostered an ideologically eclectic far-right community united by fears of persecution at the hands of 'Big Tech'. We argue that this points to the emergence of a novel techno-social victimology as an axis of far-right virtual community, wherein shared experiences or fears of being deplatformed facilitate a coalescing of assorted far-right tendencies online.

PurposeIn the last decade, bureaucratic organizational hierarchies have been increasingly replaced with flatter organizational forms, bringing together people from different disciplines to form project teams within and between organizations. Distributed project teams often are self‐configuring networks of mobile and "fixed" people, devices, and applications. They are the natural next step in the evolution of distributed computing, after client‐server, web‐based, and peer‐to‐peer computing. Seeks to show that a newly emerging requirement is to facilitate not just mobility of content (i.e. to support a multitude of devices and connectivity modes) to project members, but also mobility of context (i.e. to provide traceable and continuous support of dynamic relationships between people, artifacts, and business processes).Design/methodology/approachThe contribution of this paper is to present the design goals, the architecture, and implementation of a system aiming at supporting internet‐enabled workflow and groupware for project teams, enabling traceable and continuous support of associations (relationships) between people, artifacts, and business processes.FindingsThe findings indicate that building internet‐enabled workflow and groupware systems is valuable for virtual teamwork, since they provide a foundation for context‐aware and process‐aware information systems.Originality/valueThis article outlines some foundations of process‐aware collaborative work. Provides an analysis of current workflow and groupware shortcomings in respect of virtual teamwork, outlines the design goals, architecture and an implementation of a system aiming at supporting virtual teams on the internet.

En el siguiente trabajo se exponen los resultados obtenidos del análisis paramental realizado en la puerta occidental del castellum de Tamuda (Tetuán, Marruecos), en el desarrollo de la campaña de investigación y puesta en valor correspondiente a 2009. Dichos resultados han permitido establecer un análisis diacrónico sobre la evolución de esta puerta del campamento romano, en el cual se han podido establecer distintas fases constructivas desde los primeros momentos fundacionales hasta el último momento de uso. Ello ha permitido, gracias a los datos obtenidos tanto por medio de sondeos estratigráficos como del estudio arqueoarquitectónico de los paramentos, la reconstrucción virtual del conjunto a lo largo de sus diferentes fases, ofreciendo una imagen visual bastante fidedigna. ; In the following work the results obtained of the analysis expose paramental realized in the western door of Tamuda's castellum (Tetuán, Morocco), in the development of the campaign investigation(research) and putting in value corresponding to 2009. The above mentioned results have allowed to establish an diachronic analysis on the evolution of this door of the Roman camp, in which they could have established different constructive phases from the first foundations moments up to the last moment of use. It has allowed, thanks to the information obtained so much by means of stratigraphic polls as of the study archeoarchitectura of the paraments, the virtual reconstruction of the set along his(her,your) different phases, offering a visual trustworthy enough image.