Serious interface design for dental health: Wiimote-based tangible interaction for school children

This paper describes a camera-based approach towards creating a tangible interface for serious games. We introduce our game for dental health targeted at school children which implements the Nintendo WiiMote as infrared camera. Paired with a gesture-recognition system, this combination allows us to apply real-world items as input devices. Thereby, the game tries to address different aspects of dental hygiene along with the improvement of children's motor skills. In our focus group test, we found that tangible interfaces offer great potential for educational purposes and can be used to engage kids in a playful learning process by addressing their childlike curiosity and fostering implicit learning

Behavioural finance and immersive games: a pan-European framework for design and evaluation

This paper describes the development of a Design and Evaluation framework that aims to help stakeholders of a inter-disciplinary research project develop a shared understanding of project goals and methods by pooling their knowledge of research approaches and methodologies. The xDelia project (Xcellence in Decision-making through Enhanced Learning in Immersive Applications) www.xdelia.org, is a three-year pan-European project that uses wearable sensors and serious games to investigate how people's behavioural habits and emotional states affect their financial decision making. The project combines research skills and expertise of European partners from different methodological traditions (experimental, economic, field research) who will work together to achieve the project goals. The Design and Evaluation framework will provide a working collaborative model to capitalise on the different approaches, using ongoing participatory evaluation to ensure the development of an integrated set of research questions, optimum use of research instruments and effective collaboration between the different disciplines

Gamification in higher education and stem : a systematic review of literature

In recent years, gamification, the use of game elements in non-game contexts, has drawn the attention of educators due to the possibility of making learning more motivating and engaging; this led to an increase of research in the field. Despite the availability of literature reviews about gamification and its effects, no work to this date has focused exclusively on Higher Education (HE). Next, worldwide there is an increasing demand for skilled Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals that meet the challenges related to scientific and technological innovations of the 21st Century. This lead to the need of strengthening STEM Higher Education. This brings us to the purpose of this work: presenting a systematic literature review of empirical studies about gamification STEM related Higher Education. This review study started from a systematic mapping design of 'Web of Science' articles, with following inclusion criteria: empirical gamification studies set up in HE, published between 2000 and 2016; focusing on undergraduate or graduate students; in the STEM knowledge field, and set up in authentic settings. An initial search resulted in 562 potentially relevant articles. After applying all selection criteria, only 18 studies could be retained. 12 additional articles were included by analyzing references from earlier literature reviews, resulting in 30 studies to be included. Analysis results show how a combination of game elements (e.g. leaderboards, badges, points and other combinations) positively affects students' performance, attendance, goal orientation and attitude towards mostly computer science related subjects. The analysis results also point at a lack of studies in certain STEM areas, a lack of studies that identify the particular game element associated with the positive differential impact on student performance; a lack of validated psychometric measurements, and lack of focus on student variables that could/should be taken into account as mediating/moderating variables clarifying the impact of gamification in the HE focus on STEM learning and teaching

An interface to virtual environments for people who are blind using Wii technology - mental models and navigation

Accessible games, both for serious and for entertainment purposes, would allow inclusion and participation for those with disabilities. Research into the development of accessible games, and accessible virtual environments, is discussed. Research into accessible Virtual Environments has demonstrated great potential for allowing people who are blind to explore new spaces, reducing their reliance on guides, and aiding development of more efficient spatial maps and strategies. Importantly, Lahav and Mioduser (2005, 2008) have demonstrated that, when exploring virtual spaces, people who are blind use more and different strategies than when exploring real physical spaces, and develop relatively accurate spatial representations of them. The present paper describes the design, development and evaluation of a system in which a virtual environment may be explored by people who are blind using Nintendo Wii devices, with auditory and haptic feedback. The nature of the various types of feedback is considered, with the aim of creating an intuitive and usable system. Using Wii technology has many advantages, not least of which are that it is mainstream, readily available and cheap. The potential of the system for exploration and navigation is demonstrated. Results strongly support the possibilities of the system for facilitating and supporting the construction of cognitive maps and spatial strategies. Intelligent support is discussed. Systems such as the present one will facilitate the development of accessible games, and thus enable Universal Design and accessible interactive technology to become more accepted and widespread

MaaSim: A Liveability Simulation for Improving the Quality of Life in Cities

Urbanism is no longer planned on paper thanks to powerful models and 3D simulation platforms. However, current work is not open to the public and lacks an optimisation agent that could help in decision making. This paper describes the creation of an open-source simulation based on an existing Dutch liveability score with a built-in AI module. Features are selected using feature engineering and Random Forests. Then, a modified scoring function is built based on the former liveability classes. The score is predicted using Random Forest for regression and achieved a recall of 0.83 with 10-fold cross-validation. Afterwards, Exploratory Factor Analysis is applied to select the actions present in the model. The resulting indicators are divided into 5 groups, and 12 actions are generated. The performance of four optimisation algorithms is compared, namely NSGA-II, PAES, SPEA2 and eps-MOEA, on three established criteria of quality: cardinality, the spread of the solutions, spacing, and the resulting score and number of turns. Although all four algorithms show different strengths, eps-MOEA is selected to be the most suitable for this problem. Ultimately, the simulation incorporates the model and the selected AI module in a GUI written in the Kivy framework for Python. Tests performed on users show positive responses and encourage further initiatives towards joining technology and public applications.Comment: 16 page

Pre-test session impact on the effectiveness assessment of a fire safety game

In recent years, critiques have been formulated regarding current evaluation methods of DGBL (digital game-based learning) effectiveness, putting the validity of certain results in doubt. An important point of discussion in DGBL effectiveness studies is whether or not a pre-test should be administered, as it can lead to practice effects and pre-test sensitization, threatening internal validity of the results. The present study aims at testing if the administration of a pre-test has a direct influence on post-test scores and/or makes participants more receptive to the intervention. For this purpose, an effectiveness study of a fire safety training in a hospital was conducted using a Solomon four-group design. The experimental groups received a game-based intervention (n= 65) of which 34 participants received a pre-test and 31 did not. The control groups received traditional classroom instruction (n=68), of which 39 participants received a pre-test and 29 did not. A 2x2 ANOVA was used to explore the practice effect and the interaction between the pre-test and the intervention. An interaction effect between pre-test and intervention is detected. More specifically, this interaction takes place in the traditional classroom group, indicating pre-test sensitization. In the traditional classroom context, the pre-test makes the participants more sensitive to the content treated in the intervention while administration of a pre-test does not influence outcomes of the DGBL treatment. When the administration of a pre-test influences the control group's receptivity to the treatment, but not the experimental group, results of an effectiveness study may be biased. This is especially relevant in the DGBL field as often, non-significant differences between DGBL and more traditional methods are reported. Therefore, further research should take this into account and look for possible solutions to solve this discrepancy

The Health and Health Care of People with Intellectual Disabilities

New research studies conducted by Special Olympics found disturbing evidence that individuals with intellectual disabilities face widespread health problems, while physicians, dentists and other health professionals are not receiving adequate training in order to treat them. The research reinforces previous studies that found that despite the widespread belief that individuals with intellectual disabilities receive better health care than the rest of the population, people with intellectual disabilities actually have poorer health, more specialized ealth care needs and greater difficulty accessing health care services and doctors compared to the general public.Research Methodology: Special Olympics recently commissioned two research studies related to the health and health care of individuals with intellectual disabilities