• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.191-207
• /
• 2021

Up to this day, mobile communications have evolved rapidly over the decades, mainly focusing on speed-up to meet the growing data demands of 2G to 5G. And with the start of the 5G era, efforts are being made to provide such various services to customers, as IoT, V2X, robots, artificial intelligence, augmented virtual reality, and smart cities, which are expected to change the environment of our lives and industries as a whole. In a bid to provide those services, on top of high speed data, reduced latency and reliability are critical for real-time services. Thus, 5G has paved the way for service delivery through maximum speed of 20Gbps, a delay of 1ms, and a connecting device of 106/㎢ In particular, in intelligent traffic control systems and services using various vehicle-based Vehicle to X (V2X), such as traffic control, in addition to high-speed data speed, reduction of delay and reliability for real-time services are very important. 5G communication uses high frequencies of 3.5Ghz and 28Ghz. These high-frequency waves can go with high-speed thanks to their straightness while their short wavelength and small diffraction angle limit their reach to distance and prevent them from penetrating walls, causing restrictions on their use indoors. Therefore, under existing networks it's difficult to overcome these constraints. The underlying centralized SDN also has a limited capability in offering delay-sensitive services because communication with many nodes creates overload in its processing. Basically, SDN, which means a structure that separates signals from the control plane from packets in the data plane, requires control of the delay-related tree structure available in the event of an emergency during autonomous driving. In these scenarios, the network architecture that handles in-vehicle information is a major variable of delay. Since SDNs in general centralized structures are difficult to meet the desired delay level, studies on the optimal size of SDNs for information processing should be conducted. Thus, SDNs need to be separated on a certain scale and construct a new type of network, which can efficiently respond to dynamically changing traffic and provide high-quality, flexible services. Moreover, the structure of these networks is closely related to ultra-low latency, high confidence, and hyper-connectivity and should be based on a new form of split SDN rather than an existing centralized SDN structure, even in the case of the worst condition. And in these SDN structural networks, where automobiles pass through small 5G cells very quickly, the information change cycle, round trip delay (RTD), and the data processing time of SDN are highly correlated with the delay. Of these, RDT is not a significant factor because it has sufficient speed and less than 1 ms of delay, but the information change cycle and data processing time of SDN are factors that greatly affect the delay. Especially, in an emergency of self-driving environment linked to an ITS(Intelligent Traffic System) that requires low latency and high reliability, information should be transmitted and processed very quickly. That is a case in point where delay plays a very sensitive role. In this paper, we study the SDN architecture in emergencies during autonomous driving and conduct analysis through simulation of the correlation with the cell layer in which the vehicle should request relevant information according to the information flow. For simulation: As the Data Rate of 5G is high enough, we can assume the information for neighbor vehicle support to the car without errors. Furthermore, we assumed 5G small cells within 50 ~ 250 m in cell radius, and the maximum speed of the vehicle was considered as a 30km ~ 200 km/hour in order to examine the network architecture to minimize the delay.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.69-98
• /
• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.