After the 2008 financial crisis, the cultural and psychological imprint that was left appears to be almost as deep as the one that followed the Great Depression. Its legacy includes new radical politics on both the left and the right, epidemics of opioid abuse, suicides, low birthrates, and widespread resentment that is racial, gendered, and otherwise by those who felt especially left behind. Most importantly it saw the rise and global spread of populism. Given that so many politicians of such different stripes can be populist, some argue the term is useless, but with so-called populists on the left and right experiencing a resurgence in the 21st century, the term is once again in the spotlight. There is a need for research on this increase in populist politics, the consequences for democracy, and what, if anything, should be done about this movement. Analyzing Current and Future Global Trends in Populism discusses the global rise of populism and anti-elitism through a look at the history of the term, an exploration of modern populism, and the important events and figures in the movement. This book will measure the levels of populism across citizens and political actors, explore populism's positive consequences, study the rise of populism in national politics, and discuss the future of populism in the 21st century as a major societal movement. This book is ideally intended for professionals and researchers working in the fields of politics, social science, business, and computer science and management, executives in different types of work communities and environments, practitioners, government officials, policymakers, academicians, students, and anyone else interested in populism, the greatest new political and societal movement of the 21st century.

Currently, Internet and virtual reality communication is essentially audio-visual. The next important breakthrough of the Internet will be the communication and sharing of smell and taste experiences digitally. Audio-visual stimuli are frequency based, and they can be easily digitized and actuated. On the other hand, taste and smell stimuli are based on chemical molecules, therefore, they are not easy to digitize or actuate. To solve this problem, we are required to discover new digital actuation technologies for taste and smell. The authors of this book have experimented on developing digital actuation devices for several years. This book will provide a complete overview of the importance of digitizing taste and smell, prior works, proposed technologies by the authors, other state of the art research, advantages and limitations of the proposed methods, and future applications. We expect digital taste and smell technologies will revolutionize the field of multisensory augmented reality and open up new interaction possibilities in different disciplines such as Human Computer Interaction, Communication, and Augmented and Virtual Reality.

This book discusses the development of the next generation learning spaces with emerging technologies. These spaces result from the combined needs of classroom stakeholders, such as instructors and learners, with classroom elements, such as tools and technologies, pedagogy and content. The book presents discussions and studies on issues, possibilities and implications of these changes for next generation education. Novel ideas, and studies on these all-encompassing, blended roles of technologies in next generation learning spaces are clearly presented. Suggestions on how the benefits they offer can be maximized are also discussed. Engaging learning technologies have remained central in education for assisting instructors to teach and learners to learn, more effectively. However, recent technological growth is creating a system in which previous divides between key classroom concepts and stakeholders are getting progressively blurred. This is giving rise to next generation learning spaces where elements and stakeholders are blended into one. The book addresses the future of learning environments based on these perspectives.

'Entertainment media' are entertainment products and services that rely on digital technology and include traditional media (such as movies, TV, computer animation etc) as well as emerging services for wireless and broadband, electronic toys, video games, edutainment, and location-based entertainment (from PC game rooms to theme parks). Whilst most of the digital entertainment industry is found in the developed countries such as USA, Europe, and Japan, the decreasing costs of computer and programming technologies enables developing countries to really benefit from entertainment media in two ways: as creators and producers of games and entertainment for the global market and as a way to increase creativity and learning among the youth of the developing world. Focusing specifically on initiatives that use entertainment technologies to promote economic development, education, creativity and cultural dissemination, this book explores how current technology and the use of off-the-shelf technologies (such as cheap sensors, Kinect, Arduino and others) can be exploited to achieve more innovative and affordable ways to harness the entertainment power of creating. It poses questions such as 'How can we convert consumers of entertainment into creators of entertainment?' 'How can digital entertainment make a contribution to the emerging world?'. Academic researchers and students in human-computer interaction, entertainment computing, learning technologies will find the content thought-provoking, and companies and professionals in game and entertainment technology, mobile applications, social networking etc. will find this a valuable resource in developing new products and new markets.

Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication takes a blue sky research perspective on the field of interactive media for entertainment computing. Adrian David Cheok argues that entertainment as an end-product is useful for interactive play, however it is also a powerful tool for learning and communication and it is also a key driver for the development of information technology. This book explores the future of entertainment technologies used for communication and describes quantum step research. It will inform and inspire readers to create their own radical inventions and innovations that are not incremental, but which break through ideas and non-obvious solutions. One of the main explorations is the examination of how new forms of computer interaction can lead to radical new forms of technology and art for entertainment computing. Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication is an informative and inspirational text for students and the next generation of researchers. It s main aim is to provide information that will hopefully help change the world and society for the better, through new modes of entertainment and communication. Academics, researchers, engineers, game designers, and interaction designers, will find the content both interesting and valuable. Entertainment is the "engine" to inspire people and drive innovation in interactive digital media design. The pioneer of the field, Prof. Adrian David Cheok, takes you on an exciting tour of the future shaped by the Entertainment Technologies. Hiroshi ISHII, Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Laboratory."

- Teaches machine learning concepts in general - Helps become familiar with deep learning techniques - Helps understand neural networks and deep networks - Explores the major deep network architectures (CNN, RNN, LSTM) - Shows how to choose right deep network for specific problems - Helps readers walk through the fundamentals of fine-tuning deep network architectures

The rise of artificial intelligence and its countless branches have caused many professional industries to rethink their traditional methods of practice and develop new techniques to keep pace with technological advancement. The continued use of intelligent technologies in the professional world has propelled researchers to contemplate future opportunities and challenges that artificial intelligence may withhold. Significant research is a necessity for understanding future trends of artificial intelligence and the preparation of prospective issues. Analyzing Future Applications of AI, Sensors, and Robotics in Society provides emerging research exploring the potential uses and future challenges of intelligent technological advancements and their impact in education, finance, politics, business, healthcare, and engineering. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as neuronal networks, cognitive computing, and e-health, this book is ideally designed for practitioners, researchers, scientists, executives, strategists, policymakers, academicians, government officials, developers, and students seeking current research on future societal uses of intelligent technology.

This book discusses the development of the next generation learning spaces with emerging technologies. These spaces result from the combined needs of classroom stakeholders, such as instructors and learners, with classroom elements, such as tools and technologies, pedagogy and content. The book presents discussions and studies on issues, possibilities and implications of these changes for next generation education. Novel ideas, and studies on these all-encompassing, blended roles of technologies in next generation learning spaces are clearly presented. Suggestions on how the benefits they offer can be maximized are also discussed. Engaging learning technologies have remained central in education for assisting instructors to teach and learners to learn, more effectively. However, recent technological growth is creating a system in which previous divides between key classroom concepts and stakeholders are getting progressively blurred. This is giving rise to next generation learning spaces where elements and stakeholders are blended into one. The book addresses the future of learning environments based on these perspectives.

Currently, Internet and virtual reality communication is essentially audio-visual. The next important breakthrough of the Internet will be the communication and sharing of smell and taste experiences digitally. Audio-visual stimuli are frequency based, and they can be easily digitized and actuated. On the other hand, taste and smell stimuli are based on chemical molecules, therefore, they are not easy to digitize or actuate. To solve this problem, we are required to discover new digital actuation technologies for taste and smell. The authors of this book have experimented on developing digital actuation devices for several years. This book will provide a complete overview of the importance of digitizing taste and smell, prior works, proposed technologies by the authors, other state of the art research, advantages and limitations of the proposed methods, and future applications. We expect digital taste and smell technologies will revolutionize the field of multisensory augmented reality and open up new interaction possibilities in different disciplines such as Human Computer Interaction, Communication, and Augmented and Virtual Reality.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. The 19 papers presented in the 14th issue were organized in topical sections named: 3D modeling and visualization; image; e-learning and games; and miscellaneous.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Love and Sex with Robots, LSR 2017, held in December 2017, in London, UK. The 12 revised papers presented together with 2 keynotes were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 83 submissions. One of the biggest challenges of the Love and Sex with Robots conference is to engage a wider scientific community in the discussions of the multifaceted topic, which has only recently established itself as an academic research topic within, but not limited to, the disciplines of artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, robotics, biomedical science and robot ethics etc.

This book constitutes the refereed conference proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, ACE 2017, held in London, UK, in December 2017. The 59 full papers presented were selected from a total of 229 submissions. ACE is by nature a multi-disciplinary conference, therefore attracting people across a wide spectrum of interests and disciplines including computer science, design, arts, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and marketing. The main goal is to stimulate discussion in the development of new and compelling entertainment computing and interactive art concepts and applications. The chapter 'eSport vs irlSport' is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

This book explores the emerging field of hyperconnectivity looking at technology and systems that allow person-to-person and person-to-machine communication in networked organizations and the social and economic impact of this society. The author begins by presenting literary culture and interaction, focusing on the development of the Poetry Mix-Up platform, before looking at electronic and magnetic user interfaces for multisensory experiences. He then offers insights into the controversial topic of human intimacy with robots, looking at recent developments like the Kissinger device amongst others. The author concludes by exploring the potential social impact of hyperconnectivity and its future applications. Hyperconnectivity is essential reading to anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of this emerging field especially researchers, designers and engineers who are interested in multi-platform communication, digital networks and HCI.

‘Entertainment media’ are entertainment products and services that rely on digital technology and include traditional media (such as movies, TV, computer animation etc) as well as emerging services for wireless and broadband, electronic toys, video games, edutainment, and location-based entertainment (from PC game rooms to theme parks). Whilst most of the digital entertainment industry is found in the developed countries such as USA, Europe, and Japan, the decreasing costs of computer and programming technologies enables developing countries to really benefit from entertainment media in two ways: as creators and producers of games and entertainment for the global market and as a way to increase creativity and learning among the youth of the developing world. Focusing specifically on initiatives that  use entertainment technologies to promote economic development, education, creativity and cultural dissemination, this book explores how current technology and the use of off-the-shelf technologies (such as cheap sensors, Kinect, Arduino and others) can be exploited to achieve more innovative and affordable ways to harness the entertainment power of creating. It poses questions such as ‘How can we convert consumers of entertainment into creators of entertainment?’ ‘How can digital entertainment make a contribution to the emerging world?’. Academic researchers and students in human-computer interaction, entertainment computing, learning technologies will find the content thought-provoking, and companies and professionals in game and entertainment technology, mobile applications, social networking etc. will find this a valuable resource in developing new products and new markets.

Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication takes a blue sky research perspective on the field of interactive media for entertainment computing. Adrian David Cheok argues that entertainment as an end-product is useful for interactive play, however it is also a powerful tool for learning and communication and it is also a key driver for the development of information technology. This book explores the future of entertainment technologies used for communication and describes quantum step research. It will inform and inspire readers to create their own radical inventions and innovations that are not incremental, but which break through ideas and non-obvious solutions. One of the main explorations is the examination of how new forms of computer interaction can lead to radical new forms of technology and art for entertainment computing. Art and Technology of Entertainment Computing and Communication is an informative and inspirational text for students and the next generation of researchers. It's main aim is to provide information that will hopefully help change the world and society for the better, through new modes of entertainment and communication. Academics, researchers, engineers, game designers, and interaction designers, will find the content both interesting and valuable. Entertainment is the "engine" to inspire people and drive innovation in interactive digital media design. The pioneer of the field, Prof. Adrian David Cheok, takes you on an exciting tour of the future shaped by the Entertainment Technologies. Hiroshi ISHII, Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Laboratory.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. This issue contains a special section on serious games with 8 outstanding contributions from the VS-Games 2011 conference; furthermore, there are 13 regular papers. These contributions clearly demonstrate the use of serious games and virtual worlds for edutainment applications and form a basis for further exploration and new ideas.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game- based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. This special issue consists of two parts: the first one features original research papers on interactive digital storytelling in the applied context of edutainment; the second part contains a selection of revised and expanded best papers from the 4th eLearning Baltics (eLBa 2011) conference. The papers on digital storytelling have been split into sections on theory, technology, and case studies; the eLBA 2011 conference papers deal with technology and applications, case studies and mobile applications, and game-based learning and social media.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. This issue contains 10 outstanding contributions from the International Conference on E-Learning and Games, Edutainment 2011, as well as 14 regular papers which were partly selected from national conferences. The topics covered are game engine, using games to teach, identifying player emotion states, assessing the effects of educational games to multi-touch interaction, natural user interface, and virtual reality. Generally, the papers present a large number of examples of edutainment applications, giving more evidence on the high potential and impact of edutainment approaches.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design.

The 27 papers of this volume deal with virtual humans; graphics rendering and 3D animation; games and 2D animation; and digital media and its applications.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. The 6th volume in this series represents a selection of 7 contributions from DMDCM 2011, the 5th International Conference on Digital Media and Digital Content Management, held in Chongqing, China, in December 2011, as well as 18 contributions from CASA 2011, the 24th International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents, held in Chengdu, China, in May 2011. The topics covered are: pen-based interface, urban heat island simulation, BR-based on-line expo, physically-based tree animation, 3D face texture stitching, chessboard corner extraction, textured-based tracking, motion control, motion capture and retargeting, path planning, physics based animation, image based animation, behavioral animation, artificial life, deformation, facial animation, multi-resolution and multi-scale models, knowledge-based animation, motion synthesis; social agents and avatars, emotion and personality, virtual humans, autonomous actors, AI based animation, social and conversational agents, inter-agent communication, social behavior, gesture generation, crowd simulation; animation compression and transmission, semantics and ontologies for virtual humans and virtual environments, animation analysis and structuring, anthropometric virtual human models, acquisition and reconstruction of animation data, level of details, semantic representation of motion and animation, medical simulation, cultural heritage, interaction for virtual humans, augmented reality and virtual reality, computer games and online virtual worlds.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. The 5th volume in this series represents a selection of 12 contributions from DMDCM 2010, the 5th International Conference on Digital Media and Digital Content Management, held in Chongqing, China, in December 2010, as well as 9 regular papers. The papers cover topics such as human-computer interaction, virtual exhibit, face recognition, character animation etc.; they moreover present a large number of application examples in the area of e-learning, game, animation, multimedia, and virtual reality which gives more broad view on the application of edutainment-related techniques.

E-learning and digital entertainment techniques, tools and systems are becoming popular and can be found in many real-world educational applications in many co- tries. The driving force behind these technologies is the rapidly growing requirements of edutainment, especially from the perspective of the users. This has led to the increasing interest of researchers in this area. The articles in this issue give a rich overview of how edutainment technologies can be creatively used for training and education purposes. The first 12 articles of this issue represent a selection of outstanding contributions from Edutainment 2010, the 5th International Conference on E-learning and Games, held in Changchun, China, in August 2010. The main purpose of this event is to faci- tate the discussion, presentation, and information exchange on the scientific and te- nological developments in the emerging field of digital entertainment techniques and systems for education. These 12 papers concentrated on three aspects: e-learning s- tem and applications, game techniques for learning, and virtual reality techniques for entertainment. They are closely related to the topics of this journal.

With great pleasure we present the second volume of the new journal Trans- tions on Edutainment. This journal, part of the Springer series Lecture Notes in ComputerScience,isdevotedtoresearchanddevelopmentinthe?eldofeduta- ment. Edutainment, also known as educational entertainment or entertainme- education, denotes all forms of entertainment designed to educate as well as to provide fun. This approach is motivated by the increasing demands on indivi- alsforlife-longlearningandtheneedtointegratee?ectivelearningopportunities throughout life. As such, edutainment has attracted increasing interest in the last few years. The ?rst ?ve articles of this issue represent a selection of outstanding cont- butionsfromGDTW2008,the6thInternationalConferenceinGameDesignand Technology held in the UK, in November 2008. The main aims of the workshop are: (1) To provide a forum to discuss state-of-the-art games design and current and future games technology with the specialists. (2) To enable academics and researchersincomputergametechnologyandcomputerentertainmenttopresent their work during the research sessions, and to seek opportunities for collabo- tion with industry and for academic researchpartners. (3) To facilitate relati- ships and collaboration between academics promoting computer games techn- ogy courses, the UK games industry and supporting organizations. These ?ve papers cover mainly the topic of edutainment platforms or methodology: "Co- dinating Heterogeneous Game-Based Learning Approaches in Online Learning Environments," "Networking Middleware and Online-Deployment Mechanisms for Java-Based Games," "A Testbed for P2P Gaming Using Time Warp, How to Steer Characters in Group Games," and "Time-Based Personalized Mobile Game Downloading. " The next six articles represent a selection of outstanding contributions from Cyberworlds 2008 held in Hangzhou, China, in September 2008.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. The 19 papers presented in the 15th issue were organized in the following topical sections: multimedia; simulation; cybersecurity; and e-learning.

This journal subline serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, theories, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods, and tools in all different genres of edutainment, such as game-based learning and serious games, interactive storytelling, virtual learning environments, VR-based education, and related fields. It covers aspects from educational and game theories, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and systems design. The 25 papers presented in the 13th issue were organized in topical sections named: learning games and visualization; virtual reality and applications; 3D graphics technology, multimedia computing, and others.