This paper explores the role of identity in helping international students form social networks at an Australian institution and how these networks contribute to creating a sense of home away. The findings suggest that international students form distinct social networks that are not necessarily solely made up of fellow students from their home countries. Rather, international students form a mixture of social networks that are based on the complex individual identities of each student centred on a variety of common factors, such as: course of study, place of work, neighbourhood, culture, religion and personal interests (hobbies). Hence many students are part of social groups that consist of international students from their specific region and beyond, as well as local (Anglo and non-Anglo) students. These locally based social networks complement existing home-based networks which are maintained virtually through social media to create a home away from home.

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People's engagement with media devices in the domestic sphere varies greatly, as do the decisions they make regarding when, where, and how the devices are utilized. How do we organize our houses for media consumption and/or creation? How do our houses' spatial configurations affect our media consumption and habits? How does time play a role in media engagement? These questions directly relate to design-our homes are both spatially and temporally designed-by us, and for us. The design issues of creating and maintaining a "home" are compounded by the various media devices we usetelephone, TV, stereo, Internet-enabled computer, and so on. We not only "design" how we use these devices, but where and when they are used. In this context, media devices are not passive objects, but rather through our engagement with them, they alter domestic space/time, and may Kate ChurCh Is a leCturer anD researCherIn the lanDsCape arChIteCture prOgram, sChOOl Of arChIteCture anD DesIgn, rOyal melbOurne InstItute Of teChnOlOgy unIversIty (rmIt). her researCh eXplOres nOtIOns Of "tempOrary-ness," DIsturbanCe, anD transItIOn wIthIn urban spaCe. HOME CULTURES KATE CHURCH, JENNY WEIGHT, MARSHA BERRY AND HUGH MACDONALD> ultimately challenge how we understand and define domesticity. Media technology simultaneously constructs new, and interrupts existing, domestic territories. We will explore the reciprocal impact of domestic space/time and media technology, with a view to revealing the ways in which this nexus becomes a question of design.

This work focuses on studying players behaviour in interactive narratives with the aim to simulate their choices. Besides sub-optimal player behaviour due to limited knowledge about the environment, the difference in each player's style and preferences represents a challenge when trying to make an intelligent system mimic their actions. Based on observations from players interactions with an extract from the interactive fiction Anchorhead, we created a player profile to guide the behaviour of a generic player model based on the BDI (Belief-Desire-Intention) model of agency. We evaluated our approach using qualitative and quantitative methods and found that the player profile can improve the performance of the BDI player model. However, we found that players self-assessment did not yield accurate data to populate their player profile under our current approach.

There has been some research on the information behaviour of international students that is related to their academic issues (e.g. coursework and patterns of library use). However, little research has explored other non-academic issues (e.g. access health services and accommodation) of international student everyday life. This paper therefore explores the sources of information that international students rely on for academic and everyday living as well as the patterns students use in accessing these information sources. By analyzing interview data from a series of 7 focus groups, this study shows that international students rely on a wide range of information sources and display different patterns in using these sources depending on the source type, origin and amount as well as the students' education level. Some practical implications to effectively provide information to international students are suggested.  Index Terms-information behaviour, information sources, International students, social media. I. BACKGROUND Nearly all institutions that attract international students provide information on everyday living. However, this information is not well accessed by the students because of the lack of understanding on how international students search, access, use, rely on or share information. Disseminating crucial information to international students has been a challenge (e.g. [1] and [2]). Challenges range from providing relevant information in a timely manner, understanding information sources accessed regularly, and more recently, the use of social media in facilitating information exchange amongst international student communities. At various levels, key service providers and governments have tried to produce information portals specific to international students in the hope that they find these sites useful. Yet, there is very low

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We describe an approach to generating animations of drawings that start as a random collection of strokes and gradually resolve into a recognizable subject. The strokes are represented as tree based genetic programs. An animation is generated by rendering the best individual in a generation as a frame of a movie. The resulting animations have an engaging characteristic in which the target slowly emerges from a random set of strokes. We have generated two qualitatively different kinds of animations, ones that use grey level straight line strokes and ones that use binary Bezier curve stokes. Around 100,000 generations are needed to generate engaging animations. Population sizes of 2 and 4 give the best convergence behaviour. Convergence can be accelerated by using information from the target in drawing a stroke. Our approach provides a large range of creative opportunities for artists. Artists have control over choice of target and the various stroke parameters.

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