We have developed a method for detecting real money traders (RMTers) to support the operators of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). RMTers, who earn currency in the real world by selling properties in the virtual world, tend to form alliances and frequently exchange a huge volume of virtual currency within such a community. The proposed method exploits (i) the trading ne...

An implementation of a design for a game-based virtual learning environment is described, which is then tested using groups of first year students learning C++ programming. The focus of the testing is to determine the viability of a multi-level, multi-player gaming environment as a learning environment, to determine the issues in developing and presenting learning material within the environmen...

Playing Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) is now a popular leisure activity for some people. Players spend significant energy and money on it. In MMORPGs, players can customize their avatars as virtual identities to present themselves in the virtual world. Avatars are important when playing MMORPGs. However, few previous studies focus on the psychological determinates for avatar p...

Members of the Whirly family of proteins are found throughout the plant kingdom and are predicted to share the ability to bind to single-stranded DNA. Arabidopsis and potato Whirly orthologs act as transcription factors that regulate defense gene expression; the Arabidopsis Whirly protein AtWhy1 contributes to both basal and specific defense responses. Analysis of the crystal structure of potat...

According to the Dualistic Model of Passion, two forms of passion can motivate a behavior: harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Across various life activities, studies have found that the two forms of passion show different relationships with affect, linking harmonious passion to positive affect and obsessive passion to negative affect. To investigate if this pattern also holds for online ...

A novel swine-origin pandemic influenza A(H1N1) virus (H1N1pdm, also referred to as S-OIV) was identified as the causative agent of the 21(st) century's first influenza pandemic, but molecular features conferring its ability of human-to-human transmission has not been identified. Here we compared the protein sequences of 2009 H1N1pdm strains with those causing other pandemics and the viruses is...

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) create large virtual communities. Online gaming shows potential not just for entertaining, but also in education. This research investigates the use of commercial MMORPGs to support second language teaching. MMORPGs offer virtual safe spaces in which students can communicate by using their target second language with global players. Usin...

Comparative sequence analysis of IS50 transposase-related protein sequences in conjunction with known structural, biochemical, and genetic data was used to determine domains and residues that play key roles in IS50 transposase function. BLAST and ClustalW analyses have been used to find and analyze six complete protein sequences that are related to the IS50 transposase. The protein sequence ide...

The Internet is increasingly being employed as a means to facilitate the social process of human communities, and in particular a large variety of categories environments and mechanisms (such as Email, forums, blogs, reputation systems, wikis, MMORPG, etc.) are now available to mediate people interaction. In this context, people information (declared or observed) plays an essential role, since ...

Communities get formed almost automatically in multiplayer games, but in some games they seem to be stronger and more active than in others. In order to find out why it is so, We study in this paper what kind of game design makes game community formation and maintenance easier in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG). Three MMORPGs are used as examples: Ultima Online, Anarchy...