The JVWR, Volume 2, No. 5 (2009)
Published: June 14, 2010

The editorial team for this issue includes:
Hanan Gazit, MetaverSense Ltd and H.I.T-Holon Institute of Technology, Israel
D. Linda Garcia, Georgetown University, USA
Garrison LeMasters, Georgetown University, USA
Leonel Morgado, UTAD, Portugal
Cover art for this issue was provided by Paul Driver.
The Metaverse Assembled issue features the best papers from the SLACTIONS 2009 conference, as well as, peer reviewed articles sumbitted directly to the Journal. The metaverse is emerging, through the increasing use of virtual world technologies that act as platforms for end-users to create, develop, and interact, expanding the realm of human cooperation, interaction, and creativity.
SLACTIONS 2009 Selected Papers
Who am I – and if so, where? A Study on Personality in Virtual Realities
Benjamin Gregor Aas, Katharina Meyerbröker, Paul M. G. Emmelkamp
Shuen-git Chow
Second Life Unplugged: A Design for Fostering At-risk Students’ STEM Agency
Sneha Veeragoudar Harrell, Dor Abrahamson
Building Knowledge in the Virtual World – Influence of Real Life Relationships
Ana Loureiro, Teresa Bettencourt
Metaverse: Building Affective Systems and Its Digital Morphologies in Virtual Environments
Donizetti Louro, Tania Fraga, Maurício Pontuschka
Brands and Consumption in Virtual Worlds
Ioanna Nikolaou
A Second Life First Year Experience
Paul Penfold, Peter Duffy
Some Remarks on Ontological-Cognitive Structures in the Metaverse
Luis Carlos Petry
ArchHouseGenerator – A Framework for House Generation
Nuno Rodrigues, Luís Magalhães, João Paulo Moura, Alan Chalmers, Filipe Santos, Leonel Morgado
The Ontological Aspects of Puzzles into Metaverses
Cristiano Natal Tonéis, Luís Carlos Petry
Peer Reviewed Research Papers
The effects of Avatars’ Gender and Appearance on Social Behavior in Online 3D Virtual Worlds
Domna Banakou, Konstantinos Chorianopoulos
Laura Beals, Marina Umaschi Bers
Compounding the Results: The Integration of Virtual Worlds with the Semantic Web
Charles J. Lesko, Yolanda A. Hollingsworth
Staging the New Retail Drama: at a Metaverse near you!
Savvas Papagiannidis, Michael Bourlakis
My Second Life as a Cyber Border Crosser
Carleen D. Sanchez
Louise Jane Phillips
Essays
Adam Schlicht
“Think Pieces”
The Essence of Virtuality: Exploring the Digital Body
Mark Ortwein
Kate Roth
Assembled (Rush to Press Papers)
Tom Boellstorff
Johan Berntsson, Norman Lin, Zoltan Dezso
The Effects of Avatar Appearance in Virtual Worlds
Nicholas Merola, Jorge Peña