Gamification is being used everywhere; despite its apparent plethora of benefits, the unbalanced use of its main mechanics can end up in catastrophic results for a company or institution. Currently, there is a lack of knowledge of what it is, leading to its unregulated and ad hoc use without any prior planning. This unbalanced use prejudices the achievement of the initial goals and impairs the user's evolution, bringing potential negative reflections. Currently, there are few specifications and modeling languages that allow the creation of a system of rules to serve as the basis for a gamification engine. Consequently, programmers implement gamification in a variety of ways, undermining any attempt at reuse and negatively affecting interoperability. Next-Generation Applications and Implementations of Gamification Systems synthesizes all the trends, best practices, methodologies, languages, and tools that are used to implement gamification. It also discusses how to put gamification in action by linking academic and informatics researchers with professionals who use gamification in their daily work to disseminate and exchange the knowledge, information, and technology provided by the international communities in the area of gamification throughout the 21st century. Covering topics such as applied and cloud gamification, chatbots, deep learning, and certifications and frameworks, this book is ideal for programmers, computer scientists, software engineers, practitioners of technological companies, managers, academicians, researchers, and students.

Each Student Book and ActiveBook have has clearly laid out pages with a range of supportive features to aid learning and teaching: Getting to know your unit sections ensure learners understand the grading criteria and unit requirements. Getting ready for Assessment sections focus on preparation for external assessment with guidance for learners on what to expect. Hints and tips will help them prepare for assessment and sample answers are provided for a range of question types including, short and long answer questions, all with a supporting commentary. Learners can also prepare for internal assessment using this feature. A case study of a learner completing the internal assessment for that unit covering 'How I got started', 'How I brought it all together' and 'What I got from the experience'. Pause Point feature provide opportunities for learners to self-evaluate their learning at regular intervals. Each Pause Point point feature gives learners a Hint or Extend option to either revisit and reinforce the topic or to encourage independent research or study skills. Case Study and Theory into Practice features enable development of problem-solving skills and place the theory into real life situations learners could encounter. Assessment Activity/Practice provide scaffolded assessment practice activities that help prepare learners for assessment. Within each assessment practice activity, a Plan, Do and Review section supports learners' formative assessment by making sure they fully understand what they are being asked to do, what their goals are and how to evaluate the task and consider how they could improve. Dedicated Think Future pages provide case studies from the industry, with a focus on aspects of skills development that can be put into practice in a real work environment and further study.

For courses in Python programming. A clear and student-friendly introduction to the fundamentals of Python In Starting Out with Python, 5th Edition, Tony Gaddis' accessible coverage introduces students to the basics of programming in a high-level language. Python, an easy-to-learn and increasingly popular object-oriented language, allows readers to become comfortable with the fundamentals of programming without the troublesome syntax that can be challenging for novices. With the knowledge acquired using Python, students gain confidence in their skills and learn to recognize the logic behind developing high-quality programs. Starting Out with Python discusses control structures, functions, and lists before classes. As with all Gaddis texts, clear and easy-to-read code listings, concise and practical real-world examples, focused explanations, and an abundance of exercises appear in every chapter. Updates to the 5th Edition include a new chapter on database programming, and new coverage of GUI programming, string processing and formatting, and turtle graphics topics.

Oxford Coding and Robotics Novice Ground Level, in partnership with Resolute Education, comprises a Workbook and Teacher's Guide. The Ground Level Workbook introduces learners to the world of coding and robotics through computational thinking, and how computers and robots "think".

Features

• Fun, interesting, practical activities encourage learner-centred learning and teaching.
• Cut-outs and stickers enhance hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills as well as understanding, creativity and reasoning skills.
• Full-colour illustrations and high-quality photos teach the key knowledge, skills and values, and develop visual literacy.
• A glossary with pictures of selected terms enhances the development of key Coding and Robotics vocabulary.

Throughout the 1990s, artists experimented with game engine technologies to disrupt our habitual relationships to video games. They hacked, glitched, and dismantled popular first-person shooters such as Doom (1993) and Quake (1996) to engage players in new kinds of embodied activity. In Unstable Aesthetics: Game Engines and the Strangeness of Art Modding, Eddie Lohmeyer investigates historical episodes of art modding practices-the alteration of a game system's existing code or hardware to generate abstract spaces-situated around a recent archaeology of the game engine: software for rendering two and three-dimensional gameworlds. The contemporary artists highlighted throughout this book-Cory Arcangel, JODI, Julian Oliver, Krista Hoefle, and Brent Watanabe, among others -- were attracted to the architectures of engines because they allowed them to explore vital relationships among abstraction, technology, and the body. Artists employed a range of modding techniques-hacking the ROM chips on Nintendo cartridges to produce experimental video, deconstructing source code to generate psychedelic glitch patterns, and collaging together surreal gameworlds-to intentionally dissect the engine's operations and unveil illusions of movement within algorithmic spaces. Through key moments in game engine history, Lohmeyer formulates a rich phenomenology of video games by focusing on the liminal spaces of interaction among system and body, or rather the strangeness of art modding.

The internet of things (IoT) has had a major impact on academic and industrial fields. Applying these technologies to healthcare systems reduces medical costs while enriching the patient-centric approach to medicine, allowing for better overall healthcare proficiency. However, usage of IoT in healthcare is still suffering from significant challenges with respect to the cost and accuracy of medical sensors, non-standard IoT system architectures, assorted wearable devices, the huge volume of generated data, and interoperability issues. Incorporating the Internet of Things in Healthcare Applications and Wearable Devices is an essential publication that examines existing challenges and provides solutions for building smart healthcare systems with the latest IoT-enabled technology and addresses how IoT improves the proficiency of healthcare with respect to wireless sensor networks. While highlighting topics including mobility management, sensor integration, and data analytics, this book is ideally designed for computer scientists, bioinformatics analysts, doctors, nurses, hospital executives, medical students, IT specialists, software developers, computer engineers, industry professionals, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on how these emerging wireless technologies improve efficiency within the healthcare domain.

The idea of this book grew out of a symposium that was held at Stony Brook in September 2012 in celebration of David S.Warren's fundamental contributions to Computer Science and the area of Logic Programming in particular. Logic Programming (LP) is at the nexus of Knowledge Representation, Artificial Intelligence, Mathematical Logic, Databases, and Programming Languages. It is fascinating and intellectually stimulating due to the fundamental interplay among theory, systems, and applications brought about by logic. Logic programs are more declarative in the sense that they strive to be logical specifications of "what" to do rather than "how" to do it, and thus they are high-level and easier to understand and maintain. Yet, without being given an actual algorithm, LP systems implement the logical specifications automatically. Several books cover the basics of LP but focus mostly on the Prolog language with its incomplete control strategy and non-logical features. At the same time, there is generally a lack of accessible yet comprehensive collections of articles covering the key aspects in declarative LP. These aspects include, among others, well-founded vs. stable model semantics for negation, constraints, object-oriented LP, updates, probabilistic LP, and evaluation methods, including top-down vs. bottom-up, and tabling. For systems, the situation is even less satisfactory, lacking accessible literature that can help train the new crop of developers, practitioners, and researchers. There are a few guides onWarren's Abstract Machine (WAM), which underlies most implementations of Prolog, but very little exists on what is needed for constructing a state-of-the-art declarative LP inference engine. Contrast this with the literature on, say, Compilers, where one can first study a book on the general principles and algorithms and then dive in the particulars of a specific compiler. Such resources greatly facilitate the ability to start making meaningful contributions quickly. There is also a dearth of articles about systems that support truly declarative languages, especially those that tie into first-order logic, mathematical programming, and constraint solving. LP helps solve challenging problems in a wide range of application areas, but in-depth analysis of their connection with LP language abstractions and LP implementation methods is lacking. Also, rare are surveys of challenging application areas of LP, such as Bioinformatics, Natural Language Processing, Verification, and Planning. The goal of this book is to help fill in the previously mentioned void in the LP literature. It offers a number of overviews on key aspects of LP that are suitable for researchers and practitioners as well as graduate students. The following chapters in theory, systems, and applications of LP are included.

Wearable continuous monitoring systems are necessary in risky environments such as mining and diving and are especially important in the medical monitoring of patients both in medical facilities and at home. All these applications of monitoring with data transmission functions can be achieved by using wearable antennas. Recently, possibilities of connecting completely independent appliances with textiles have emerged. However, full success will be achieved only when antennas and all related components are entirely converted into 100% textile materials. Design and Optimization of Sensors and Antennas for Wearable Devices provides innovative insights on the development of adaptable materials and textile antennas that can be used in the construction of wearable devices that are biocompatible and offer high conductivity, low cost, simplistic manufacturing, are comfortable for the wearer, and are water/climate safe and condition amicable. The content within this publication examines data transmission, wearable computing, and medical applications. It is designed for engineers, manufacturers, researchers, academicians, and scientists who are interested in the development of wearable technologies.

The proliferation of wireless communications has led to mobile computing, a new era in data communication and processing allowing people to access information anywhere and anytime using lightweight computer devices. Aligned with this phenomenon, a vast number of mobile solutions, systems, and applications have been continuously developed. However, despite the opportunities, there exist constraints, challenges, and complexities in realizing the full potential of mobile computing, requiring research and experimentation. Algorithms, Methods, and Applications in Mobile Computing and Communications is a critical scholarly publication that examines the various aspects of mobile computing and communications from engineering, business, and organizational perspectives. The book details current research involving mobility challenges that hinder service applicability, mobile money transfer services and anomaly detection, and mobile fog environments. As a resource rich in information about mobile devices, wireless broadcast databases, and machine communications, it is an ideal source for computer scientists, IT specialists, service providers, information technology professionals, academicians, and researchers interested in the field of mobile computing.

Sustaining a competitive edge in today's business world requires innovative approaches to product, service, and management systems design and performance. Advances in computing technologies have presented managers with additional challenges as well as further opportunities to enhance their business models. Software Engineering for Enterprise System Agility: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a collection of innovative research that identifies the critical technological and management factors in ensuring the agility of business systems and investigates process improvement and optimization through software development. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as business architecture, cloud computing, and agility patterns, this publication is ideally designed for business managers, business professionals, software developers, academicians, researchers, and upper-level students interested in current research on strategies for improving the flexibility and agility of businesses and their systems.