Blockchain performance is crucial in research, with sharding emerging as an effective solution for scalability. By dividing the network into smaller shards, sharding facilitates faster transaction processing. However, there is currently a lack of effective simulators for modeling sharding blockchain performance and assessing shard load balancing. In this paper, we introduce ShardingSim, a modular, committee-based sharding blockchain simulator. ShardingSim simulates various sharding configurations and evaluates their performance across diverse network conditions and transaction datasets. We present a use case by modeling and simulating RapidChain with ShardingSim: simulation results show that RapidChain’s performance improves with more shards under historical Bitcoin transaction datasets; however, such enhancement is absent in scenarios with uneven transaction distributions, highlighting the need for additional load balancing methods. Through ShardingSim, we can simulate committee-based sharding blockchain, evaluateits performance, and identify potential load-balancing issues between shards.

Despite the substantial attention paid to the effects of game violence and game addiction, insufficient research has been conducted on other moral risks of gaming behaviour. Drawing upon the General Learning Model and the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model, the current study utilised a survey approach to investigate the effect of online gameplay on emerging adults’ real-life unethical decision-making. The mediation analyses showed no direct effect of gaming intensity on unethical decision-making, but revealed two significant indirect effects: the specific indirect effect through game cheating and the serial indirect effect through game cheating and moral disengagement. Both the indirect effects were contingent upon the moderator of peer cheating. Specifically, the relationship between gaming intensity and unethical decision-making was positively significant at low levels of peer cheating and negatively significant at high levels. In addition to contributing to a broader view of the effects of online gameplay, this study also contributes to the literature on divergent gaming behaviours and online ethics.

Using an online survey approach, this study examines the ethical dimensions and factors operating behind the game cheating behavior. Although the data indicated that young gamers were overall critical of cheating behavior in online games, cheating was found to be a common practice in online gaming community. It is found that gamers tended to dismiss the cheating action as morally insignificant due to peer influence and the play nature of online gaming. With regard to the ethical antecedents of cheating decisions, our results revealed that the personal moral philosophy of idealism had both direct and indirect influence on game cheating intention and behavior (partial mediation), meanwhile, the personal moral philosophy of relativism had only significant indirect influence on game cheating intention (full mediation) and cheating behavior (distal mediation).

This study aims to add to the discussion about the applicability of the classical deindividuation theory and social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) in explaining online behaviours. It explores the effect of anonymity in facilitating social influence of group identity in online game cheating. A nationally representative survey was conducted face to face. Results from the survey administered in Singapore confirm predictions derived from the SIDE and challenge the classical deindividuation theory. Specifically, it was concluded that the frequency of gaming with online strangers (anonymous gaming) significantly predicted the frequency of cheating in online games. The effect of anonymity on game cheating was found to be significantly mediated by the group identification with online gaming communities/groups. Gender differences were found. Male gamers cheated more frequently than female gamers. Female gamers are more likely to cheat as a consequence of group identification than male gamers. Implications and future research are discussed.

Crosstalk is one main problem which leads to false distance measurement and reduces work efficiency of ultrasonic range sensor systems in mobile robots. The reason which results in ultrasonic crosstalk is briefly analyzed. To enhance the SNR (signal noise ratio) and work efficiency, different methods used to avoid ultrasonic crosstalk have been put forward in the past decade. Such representative methods are classified into two categories, which are called heuristic soft-processing strategy and hardware based coding strategy in this paper. The advantage and disadvantage of each method are analyzed. Suggestions and comments on designing non-crosstalk ultrasonic range system are proposed at the end

The authors give exponential-type bounds on the probabilities of detection error under certain conditions. The bounds tend to zero rapidly as the sample size increases. These procedures are referred to as general information criterion (GIC) procedures since each is consistent and, under certain conditions, the rate of convergence of the estimate of the number of signals to the true value is rapid. The authors give bounds on the probability of wrong detection of the GIC procedure when the noise variance is unknown. Upper bounds on the probabilities of detection error are also obtained.>