Virtual Worlds enable new ways of communication, collaboration, and cooperation over the Internet by applying 3D environments and voice over IP technologies. This papers aims at assessing user acceptance of Virtual Worlds by applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Based on literature review, an extended TAM has been constructed. Based on empirical data from an online-survey with 249 par...

A virtual environment supporting communication and cooperation can increase both the effectiveness and the acceptance of multi-user applications. This paper describes the basic concepts as well as a prototypical implementation of such an environment based on a virtual office metaphor. Users, rooms, and documents are modelled in a rather abstract way, providing an intuitive but not necessarily r...

This paper presents a novel method for on-line coordination in multiagent reinforcement learning systems. In this method a reinforcement-learning agent learns to select its action estimating system dynamics in terms of both the natural reward for task achievement and the virtual reward for cooperation. The virtual reward for cooperation is ascertained dynamically by a coordinating agent who est...

The VISPO project studies cooperative information systems in virtual districts to derive possible cooperation patterns and to provide an architectural framework for cooperation. Different organizations cooperate through e-Services, which are available through a Service Oriented Architecture.

this article considers the many developments in technology and practice that are making libraries more connected and interdependent. it looks at new integrated online services and reviews the increasing importance of both formal and informal standards. global centralized web services are discussed. the relationships between information industry companies and libraries are considered. virtual re...

Proportional-derivative (PD) control is often used to coordinate the two copies of the virtual environment in distributed two-users networked haptic cooperation. However, a distributed PD controller designed for force interactions between two users may destabilize the haptic cooperation among multiple users because the effective coordination gain for each local copy of the virtual environment i...

A virtual multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless system using the receiver-side cooperation with the compress-and-forward (CF) protocol, is an alternative to a point-to-point MIMO system, when a single receiver is not equipped with multiple antennas. It is evident that the practicality of CF cooperation will be greatly enhanced if an efficient source coding technique can be used at the ...

This article is a synthesis of current research trends in mobile virtual communities. It classifies Mobile Virtual Communities (MVCs) research into appropriate domains, and categorises the different types of virtual communities with respect to three criteria: the degree of virtualisation, the degree of mobility and the degree of cooperation. It also draws some conclusions on future research dir...