Publications

Peer-reviewed Publications

Serious Games, Virtual Reality and AI

F. Aqlan, R. Zhao.
Assessment of Collaborative Problem Solving in Engineering Students Through Hands-On Simulations. IEEE Transactions on Education, May, 2021. [Link].
R. Zhao, F. Aqlan, L. J. Elliott, E. Baxter.
Multiplayer Physical and Virtual Reality Games for Team-based Manufacturing Simulation. American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE 2020) Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, virtual (originally Montreal, Canada), June, 2020. [Link]
L. J. Elliott, F. Aqlan, R. Zhao, M. Janney.
Assessment of Metacognitive Skills in Design and Manufacturing. American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE 2020) Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, virtual (originally Montreal, Canada), June, 2020. [Link]
L. J. Elliott, H. C. Lum, F. Aqlan, R. Zhao and C. D. Lasher.
A Study of Metacognitive Problem Solving in Undergraduate Engineering Students. Advances in Human Factors in Training, Education, and Learning Sciences, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 963, p95-102, 2020, Springer. [Link]
R. Zhao, C. R. Shelton, M. D. Hetzel-Riggin, J. LaRiccia, G. Louchart, A. Meanor and H. J. Risser.
Knowledge Assessment: Game for Assessment of Symptoms of Child Physical Abuse. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG), San Luis Obispo, California, USA, August, 2019. [Project Website] [GitHub] [Link] Acceptance Rate: 37%. Best Paper Award Honourable Mention.
R. Zhao, F. Aqlan, L. J. Elliott, H. C. Lum.
Developing a Virtual Reality Game for Manufacturing Education. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG), San Luis Obispo, California, USA, August, 2019. [Link]
F. Aqlan, R. Zhao, H. C. Lum, L. J. Elliott.
Integrating Simulation Games and Virtual Reality to Teach Manufacturing Systems Concepts. American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) 126th Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, Tampa, FL, USA, June, 2019. [Link]
F. Aqlan, H. C. Lum, L. J. Elliott, R. Zhao.
Using Manufacturing Simulations to Evaluate Metacognitive Awareness in Industrial Engineering Students. American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) 126th Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, Tampa, FL, USA, June, 2019. [Link]

Games and AI

N. Desai, R. Zhao and D. Szafron.
Effects of Gender on Perception and Interpretation of Video Game Character Behavior and Emotion. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games (T-CIAIG), 9:4, December, 2017, p333-341. [Link]
R. Zhao and D. Szafron.
Using Cyclic Scheduling to Generate Believable Behavior in Games. Proceedings of the Tenth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-14), Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, October, 2014, p94-101. [Link] Acceptance Rate: 26%.
R. Zhao and D. Szafron.
Virtual Character Behavior Architecture using Cyclic Scheduling. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2014), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, April, 2014. [Link]
K. Schenk, A. Lari, M. Church, E. Graves, J. Duncan, R. Miller, N. Desai, R. Zhao, D. Szafron, M. Carbonaro, J. Schaeffer.
ScriptEase II: Platform Independent Story Creation Using High-Level Patterns. Proceedings of the Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-13), Boston, USA, October, 2013, p170-176. [Video Introduction] [GitHub] [Link]
R. Zhao and D. Szafron.
Generating Believable Virtual Characters Using Behavior Capture and Hidden Markov Models. Advances in Computer Games (ACG 2011), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 7168, p342-353, 2012, Springer. [Link]
A. Sharifi, R. Zhao, and D. Szafron.
Learning Companion Behaviors Using Reinforcement Learning in Games. Proceedings of the Sixth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-10), Stanford, USA, October, 2010, p69-75. [Link] Acceptance Rate: 29%.
R. Gibson, N. Desai, and R. Zhao.
An Automated Technique for Drafting Territories in the Board Game Risk. Proceedings of the Sixth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-10), Stanford, USA, October, 2010, p15-20. [GitHub] [Link] Acceptance Rate: 29%.
R. Zhao and D. Szafron.
Learning Character Behaviors using Agent Modeling in Games. Proceedings of the Fifth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (AIIDE-09), Stanford, USA, October, 2009, p179-185. [Link]

Social Media and AI

L. Xia, R. Zhao, Y. Wu, X. Tong.
Intentional Control of Type I Error over Unconscious Data Distortion: a Neyman-Pearson Approach to Text Classification. Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA). 116:533, 2021, p68-81. Online publication: March, 2020. [Python Repo] [GitHub] [Link]

Interdisciplinary Research

A. Kotsiou, E. Juriasingani, M. Maromonte, J. Marsh, C. R. Shelton, R. Zhao and L. J. Elliott.
Interdisciplinary Approach to a Coping Skills App: A Case Study. The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP). 2021:19.

Extended Abstracts

F. Aqlan, R. Zhao, H. Yang, S. Ramakrishnan.
A Virtual Learning Factory for Advanced Manufacturing. Proceedings of the 2020 Winter Simulation Conference, virtual, December, 2020. [Extended abstract].
M. Church, E. Graves, J. Duncan, A. Lari, R. Miller, N. Desai, R. Zhao, M. Carbonaro, J. Schaeffer, N. Sturtevant, D. Szafron.
A Demonstration of ScriptEase II. Proceedings of the Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-11), Stanford, USA, October, 2011, p215-216.[Extended abstract]

Non-refereed Papers and Presentations

Magazine Articles

F. Aqlan, L. J. Elliott and R. Zhao. Measuring problem-solving skills with virtual reality. ISE Magazine. Volume 52, Number 2, February, 2020, pages 40-45.

Conference Poster Presentations

C. R. Shelton, H. J. Risser, M. D. Hetzel-Riggin, R. Zhao, A. Morford, T. J. Riley, T. Eichler.
Assessing the child abuse training needs of healthcare professionals: Pilot testing the Computer Simulated Interactive Child Abuse Screening Tool (CSI-CAST). The 52nd Annual Convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), Washington, DC. November, 2018.
Z. Turchansky, E. Hill, K. Schenk, J. Yuen, K. Svidal, D. Cormier, R. Zhao, N. Desai, D. Szafron.
ScriptEase II: Game Independent Script Generation. GRAND Annual Conference, Ottawa, Canada, May, 2014.
K. Schenk, M. Church, R. Miller, A. Lari, J. Duncan, E. Graves, K. Svidal, A. Czeto, R. Zhao, N. Desai, M. Carbonaro, J. Schaeffer, D. Szafron.
ScriptEase II: Platform Independent Story Creation Using Generated Scripts. GRAND Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May, 2013.
A. Lari, N. Desai, R. Zhao, M. Church, R. Miller, J. Schmitt, E. Graves, D. Szafron, J. Schaeffer, M. Carbonaro. M. Nixon, M. Seif El-Nasr, A. Erdeg, D. Mould.
BELIEVE: Believable Characters, Behaviours and Stories in Story-based Games. GRAND Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada, May, 2012.
A. Lari, N. Desai, R. Zhao, R. Miller, M. Church, E. Graves, D. Szafron, J. Schaeffer, M. Carbonaro.
ScriptEase II: Script Generation from High Level Story Patterns for Multiple Game Engines. GRAND Annual Conference, Vancouver, Canada, May, 2011.
R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
Reinforcement Learning with Agent Modeling for Character Behaviours in Games. GRAND Annual Conference, Ottawa, Canada, June, 2010.
A. Sharifi, R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
Learning Companion Behaviours Using Reinforcement Learning in Games. GRAND Annual Conference, Ottawa, Canada, June, 2010.

Conference Oral Presentations

R. Zhao, L. Xia, X. Tong, Y. Wu.
Intentional Control of Type I Error over Unconscious Data Distortion: a Neyman-Pearson Approach to Text Classification. American Statistical Association Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM 2019), Denver, July, 2019.
R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
Behaviour Architecture for Virtual Characters. GRAND's Digital Wave - Technology for Digital Media, SMES, Start-ups, Calgary, Canada, August, 2013.
R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
Two-Layered NPC Behaviour Architecture using Cyclic Scheduling. GRAND Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, May, 2013.
R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
Current Research in Game Development. Catch Canada's Digital Wave - GRAND NCE Workshop, Edmonton, Canada, November, 2012.
R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
NPC Behaviour Architecture Using Behaviour Capture and Hidden Markov Models. GRAND Annual Conference, Montreal, Canada, May, 2012.
R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
Generating Believable Virtual Characters Using Behaviour Capture and Hidden Markov Models. Catch Canada's Digital Wave - GRAND NCE Workshop, Edmonton, Canada, March, 2012.
R. Zhao, D. Szafron.
Generating Believable Characters Using Behaviour Capture. GRAND Annual Conference, Vancouver, Canada, May, 2011.

Dissertation

Tiered Behaviour Architecture for Virtual Characters using Cyclic Scheduling and Behaviour Capture. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Alberta, Canada, March, 2015. [Link]