Video game rating system has come under attack considering the recent mass shooting incidents. Many believe that violence shown in the video games is responsible for these shootings and have called for governmental regulation of the video game industry. In the article”” The Video Game Ratings is an effective Regulation”” Patricia Vance argues that video game rating system created by ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) is an appropriate mechanism to promote and regulate the video game industry. The ESRB was created in 1994 by the video game creators to self-regulate the video games industry and avoid federal regulation of the industry. Vance begins building her credibility by stating that millions of parents rely on ESRB ratings to choose games they deem appropriate for their children and family. She continues to build her argument through various facts and statistics and cites many partnerships which help ESRB in determining and promoting the rating system; however, lack of appropriate resources to monitor the development of video games and feeble enforcement weaken her argument.
In her article, Vance sets the stage by describing the various kinds of ratings ESRB uses to rate the games and the parties involves in developing the ratings. Vance continues to explain the various ratings and how each category is arrived at. The ESRB applies six different rating symbols and over 12 different content labels that refer to violence, sex, language, substance, abuse, gambling, humor and other potentially sensitive subject matter. Despite the elaborate rating systems, research shows effectiveness of ratings depend upon the active parental supervision and participation in selecting appropriate content for their children. The parents need to be active, informed and involved. The rating system is relatively powerless as it requires an active supervision over child’s media activity. Thus, her argument that rating system is effective hinges on active parental involvement.
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As the article progresses, Vance continues to explain the process involved in developing the rating system. She explains that the ratings are not based on checking every single video game since such a thorough examination is not practical. The reasons cited for this include – the games received are not fully playable, many games are lengthy and complex, and a detailed review does not necessarily result in greater assurance. The M-rated video games which are meant for mature audience, contain a wide range of unlabeled content and may expose children and adolescents to messages that may negatively influence their perceptions, attitudes and behaviors. This weakens her argument that ESRB is fully capable of guarding against the inappropriate content to the consumer.
A weak ESRB enforcement system diminishes the argument that ESRB is an effective self-regulating body. Though the rating system is excellent, it is clearly a compromise solution to avoid governmental supervision.The ESRB is promoted and funded by the video industry through their associations. It developed a relatively weak punitive system with a maximum fine of $1 million and temporary suspension of product. The penalty is not strong enough to deter future violations. In the incident involving the game Grand Theft Auto sexually explicit content was not disclosed and was locked out in the code. The code was hacked and could be downloaded from the internet. Although, ESRB moved quickly to restrict the fallout, the damage was already done. The incident showed the lack of control in containing the spread of damaging content in the current internet age. The enforcement system lacks the impact of criminal penalties that could be employed under governmental regulations.
Vance uses strong appeals to logos, with many facts and statistics and logical progression of ideas. She points out that in a study conducted in March 2006, “”83% of the parents surveyed were aware of the ESRB ratings and 74% use them regularly when choosing games for their families.”” She further bolsters her argument by pointing out that “”91% of the respondents indicated that they trust ESRB ratings””, and ESRB provides the kind of information they need. As pointed out earlier, parental participation is central to the effectiveness of ESRB rating system. These facts support her claims that ESRB rating system is effective in parent’s decision-making process.
Along with strong appeals to logos, Vance makes appeals to pathos in the middle paragraphs. She recognizes that parents play an important role in making decision about what games their kids are playing an overwhelming majority of the time. The campaign with slogan “”OK to Play?-Check the Ratings”” is meant to make an emotional appeal to parents to trust the ratings created by ESRB. She points out to the campaigns ESRB deploys to “”encourage parents to use components of the system and to determine if the game is appropriate for their family””.
At the end of the article, the author was effective in appeals to ethos. To enhance her creditability, Vance enlists the efforts to actively educate the retailers and sales Assoicates about the rating system. The partnership with national Parent Teachers Association (PTA) provides educational material to parents. These partnerships created with retailers and national PTA and state and local governments strengthens her credibility and helps her argument.
Vance begins her article by describing the ESRB rating system and effectively educating the reader by describing the active measures taken by ESRB to serve the consumers. Since the effectiveness of the ESRB depends primarily on the active participation of parental supervision, the parental education is key element in ESRB’s mission. Throughout the articles she presents facts to support her claims by pointing out the consumer outreach programs and partnerships that ESRB pursues to maintain the effectiveness of ESRB. However, the enforcement system to prevent misuse lacks strong deterrents such criminal penalties and enforcement of the law. The process of developing ratings assigned to games is not ideal and needs to be strengthened.
Fault Tolerance In MANETs: Flooding Vs Checkpointing-Rollback Methods
A survey paper on fault tolerance in mobile ad-hoc networks 1.Abstract Mobile ad-hoc networks are infrastructure less, self-configuring wireless networks. They provide flexibility and scalability which not many other networks can provide. But like in many other networks mobile ad-hoc networks also sufer from a few problems from time to time which may happen due to link failure, failure of nodes or network. In this paper we see two different methods provided, one a flooding approach and the other check pointing and rollback method which guarantee fault tolerance service in mobile ad-hoc networks.
Introduction
MANET’s are a group of autonomous nodes or terminals that communicate with each other. They are connected in such a way that it does not rely on any infrastructure so they are called ad-hoc networks. They maintain connectivity of the network over wireless links. As they are not fixed nodes they move in any direction as per the connection requirements. They make a temporary network and keep changing frequently so their topology is di?¬?cult to predict. They use flooding of data mechanism instead of classical routing.
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Various network devices can be added to this, with each user having a unique network address. All of these devices that are node now in the MANET network act as a router and can receive and forward data to other nodes. As we have previously stated that they are free to move in any direction depending on the network connectivity needs so they are dynamic in nature. The data transmission on MANET’s generally involves multiple nodes so can say it is multi-hop ad-hoc network. Figure 1. Generalized framework of MANET’s There has been many advancements in the field of wireless networks but they face more challenges as well. In MANET’s, the nodes consumer power for communicating with other nodes and for transmitting data.
If the nodes collectively decide the shortest path or fewest nodes to communicate for the successful transmission of data they save a lot of power. The topology network in MANET’s are is called minimum spanning tree graphs. “” The network is said to be k-vertex connected if on removing at most k-1 vertices or nodes even, the network remains connected.”” While choosing the k number of nodes for the graph we choose based on the minimum weight. But sometimes due to many reasons nodes might fail so they cannot be selected based on minimum weight.
In that case we select the nodes based on minimum probability distribution function. The second way of addressing the fault tolerance is by checkpointing and rollback recovery. The authors consider a backbone based mobile ad hoc network which is a type of hierarchical network used for scalability and implementation of e?¬?cient protocols. A BCN ( backbone capable nodes) is used as a virtual backbone by selecting it dynamically. These BCN interconnect neighboring BN (backbone nodes). BCN’s have more powerful radios and are functionally more capable than ordinary nodes.
The BCN’s and other ordinary nodes a?¬?liate with one BN, forming a cluster and BN being its cluster head. The communication uses this backbone nodes and avoids hoping which in turn results in better network performance. If nodes want to communicate with other nodes in the same BN cluster, then routing is straight forward, but if other nodes are in a remote location then the backbone network is used for communication. This mechanism combined with the normal routing protocols provide a fault tolerant communication in mobile ad-hoc networks.In this paper we will see two approaches of to solving these problems, and analyze them to see the advantages and disadvantages for each.
We will see dynamic method with flooding vs hybrid method with distributed clustering approach. Problem formulation: The approach in this method will be by finding nodes for a spanning tree based on some other factors rather than on minimum weighted nodes as any nodes in the network can fail at any point of time due to various reasons. So, we select nodes based on minimum probability distribution function. The minimum spanning tress thus obtained must also be k-connected which means even if at most k-1 vertices are removed, even then the graph must be connected thus preventing the network from failing. We choose based on pdf rather than only minimum weights. We now see the two algorithms that are used in this problem and how they are modified to for a better result.
Performance Analysis
Dijkstra’s and Kruskal’s are the important algorithms we will use for forming a graph and creating a minimum spanning tree. They are modified little to obtain better results. Here is how Dijkstra’s algorithm works. This algorithm is used to find the shortest path from the initial vertex to every other vertex in a mobile graph. The algorithm assumes all the neighboring vertices from the source vertex have a weight of infinite and its weight as 0. Then through iteration it goes to the next vertex from the source which has the lowest weight. Then, from that node it applies the same approach and covers all other vertices in the graph.
It updates the vertices it has covered and weights from the Current vertex to its neighboring vertex. This whole process is basically determined over all the iterations. Kruskal’s algorithm is greedy type algorithm that is used to find out minimum spanning tree for a connected graph. In this algorithm, it already has the weights of all the vertices in a graph and selects one which have minimum weight with its neighbor. Then it repeats this process until all the vertex in the graph are covered. It selects vertex so that it does not form a cycle in the graph.
Failure model Mobile network is constrained because Mobile hosts have limited computational resources in terms of processing and storage capacity. Their bandwidth is also very limited and dynamic. The failure of wireless mobile environment is mainly due to mobile hosts because their batter power is highly limited. Crash recovery model for mobile hosts for both ON and BCN is considered. Suppose a mobile hosts crashes then its transmission and recovery is stopped until it is recovered completely. It is considered that the failure rate of BN is less than failure of ON. In a scenario if BN fails then the BCN converts to a BN to keep the backbone connected. The algorithm that is proposed takes care of failed BN’s effectively.
Check pointing The nodes within the a cluster belong to the same BN’s and can synchronize their checkpointing procedure. A set of checkpoints, one from each node in the cluster forms a consistent local checkpoint for the cluster. If a cluster has failed then it means that one or more nodes in it has failed. Then, from each cluster a set of local checkpoints form a global checkpoint, but they can’t coordinate with each other due to feasibility problems because of dynamic nature of MANETs.
So checkpointing at each cluster is independent of others Message passing among the checkpoints in a cluster may be useless if the sender is involved in zig zag cycles. So to detect the formation of z-cycles involving the receiver should know if the sender is available. The protocol that proposed eliminates any control messages in the checkpoint process and also add the dependency information of MH node to the application message.
