Andreas Oikonomou

Serious Games and Edutainment Applications

The recent re-emergence of serious games as a branch of video games and as a promising frontier of education has introduced the concept of games designed for a serious purpose other than pure entertainment. To date the major applications of serious games include education and training, engineering, medicine and healthcare, military applications, city planning, production, crisis response, to name just a few. If utilised alongside, or combined with conventional training and educational approaches, serious games could provide a more powerful means of knowledge transfer in almost every application domain. Serious Games and Edutainment Applications offers an insightful introduction to the development and applications of games technologies in educational settings. It includes cutting-edge academic research and industry updates that will inform readers of current and future advances in the area. The book is suitable for both researchers and educators who are interested in using games for educational purposes, as well as game professionals requiring a thorough understanding of issues involved in the application of video games technology into educational settings. It is also applicable to programmers, game artists, and management contemplating or involved in the development of serious games for educational or training purposes.

An investigation of the effects of game difficulty on player enjoyment

Abstract Motivated by the controversial debates on the subject of static difficulty and dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA), we investigate the effects different difficulty settings have on different types of players (i.e. casual or experienced). By doing this, we can help to deduce an important question: what difficulty does the player want? An experiment was conducted with 90 participants, each playing the same experimental game exhibiting either static difficulty or DDA mechanics. The results indicate that players enjoy a game more, if the difficulty provided is reflective of their gaming experience, rather than their actual gaming ability.

Stereoscopic 3D in video games: A review of current design practices and challenges

This research investigates if there is potential for opening up new experiences in games using stereoscopic 3D. For games to work in S-3D they need be designed from the start to make best use of the technology. The research approach adopted was a practical investigation using volunteers to play 2D and S-3D games before answering a questionnaire on the effects of stereoscopic 3D in gameplay. The findings show that games that were designed to work in 2D that were subsequently converted to S-3D do not transfer very well. Overall the study found that games targeted to stereoscopic 3D audiences and devices must be designed from the start with stereoscopic 3D in mind. To ensure S-3D can increase immersion, designers must focus on building in the key elements of immersion that can only be achieved in S-3D.

Breast self examination training through the use of multimedia: a benchmark multimedia development methodology for biomedical applications

This paper discusses the development of a set of specifications for a development methodology for educational multimedia, specifically for the development of a prototype educational multimedia application for Breast Self Examination (BSE) training. In the paper, the need for BSE training is examined and BSE is briefly presented. Our focus, however, is to show how the development of a multimedia authoring methodology could provide an effective solution to BSE and other biomedical training needs. A method for setting the overall specifications for a multimedia development methodology for biomedical applications, in general, and a BSE training multimedia application, in particular, is presented.

Breast self examination training through the use of multimedia: a prototype multimedia application

This paper presents the final version of a prototype multimedia application for training women on performing breast self examination (BSE) in the right way. The application was developed for the purposes of an evaluation study on the effectiveness of three different BSE training media: leaflets, videos and multimedia applications. Since the British National Health Service (NHS) does not offer BSE training at the moment in the form of a multimedia application, a prototype had to be developed and compared against the existing material of leaflets and videos. The paper presents a novel video playback approach, the main differences between the BSE multimedia application and other traditional training approaches already in use by the NHS at the moment, the benefits of using multimedia in biomedical training and education and the final applications structure along with the evaluation criteria for the applications effectiveness and the comparison methodology that will be used to compare its effectiveness against leaflets and videos.

A prototype multimedia application for breast self examination training

This paper discusses the development of a prototype multimedia application for training women to perform Breast Self Examination (BSE) correctly. The paper presents the main differences between the BSE multimedia application and the other, traditional training approaches currently in use by the UK National Health Service (NHS) at the moment. The benefits of using multimedia in biomedical training and education are discussed. An overview of the applications structure and design is presented along with the evaluation criteria for the applications effectiveness.

Innovations in Serious Games for Future Learning

Designing computer games or adopting commercial off-the-shelf games to support learning and teaching has become a promising frontier of education, since games technology is inexpensive, widely available, fun and entertaining for people of all ages, especially for the generation that grow up in constant contact with digital media. As a subset of serious games, computer-based edutainment can be dated back to early 1960s and begins to flourish around 2002. In this chapter, we provide the reader an overview of the book with a perspective of future trends of serious games.

Hand Pressure Detection Among Image Sequence In Breast Self-Examination Multimedia System

The hand pressure applying on breast determines the possibilities of lump detection during breast self-examination. In the paper, a method of estimating hand pressure is presented by means of image entropy among image sequence obtained by a Web camera in breast self-examination based on multimedia system. Firstly, the breast self-examination multimedia system is described in detail. Then according to the statistic character of image entropy, calculating the difference between current and initial image and giving the entropy of the difference, we may obtain the estimation of the hand pressure. The estimated pressure is proved to be accurate through a human-like silicon breast experiment. The dynamic model of the breast is set up, close to Hook rule by means of verifying of the proposed pressure estimation. The algorithm is simple and the calculation is limited in a local region of the images, which is beneficial to real-time realization.

Computer vision-based breast self-examination stroke position and palpation pressure level classification using artificial neural networks and wavelet transforms

This paper focuses on breast self-examination (BSE) stroke position and palpation level classification for the development of a computer vision-based BSE training and guidance system. In this study, image frames are extracted from a BSE video and processed considering the color information, shape, and texture by wavelet transform and first order color moment. The new approach using artificial neural network and wavelet transform can identify BSE stroke positions and palpation levels, i.e. light, medium, and deep, at 97.8 % and 87.5 % accuracy respectively.

IRiS: an interactive reality system for breast self-examination training

This paper presents a novel interactive reality video playback approach developed for biomedical training purposes, and tested on a prototype breast self-examination (BSE) multimedia training application. The system is developed in order to improve on existing video playback approaches as used in multimedia applications by providing control over not only time, as in conventional video playback, but also space. The benefits of interactive reality video playback are presented and the approach is compared with other similar approaches, such as QuickTime and iPIX. The design, development, final implementation, testing and evaluation plan of the IRiS system are presented. The paper also discusses future plans and the use of the system in other biomedical training scenarios.