An Explorative Study of How Children Perceive Their Play Experience of Digital Games

Digital gaming has become a staple in the play repertoire of most children. Consequently, so has research into its potential impact on childhood development. Within this field of research, one branch has specialized in the exploration of the possible educational potential of digital gaming. This study aims at an investigation of the experiences and meaning-making of children of a middle age with playing in general and digital game playing from a sociocultural and humanistic-existential perspective. Through this perspective, the study attempts an exploration of how children can learn from digital games beyond mere instrumental learning, engaging instead in deeper and less formal learning processes which allow them to mature, to gain new insights and to form new identities. The study takes a mixed method approach. Thirty-two children (mean age 10.5) were asked to fill out questionnaires on their digital gaming habits, and eight children (mean age 10.1) were interviewed in friendship pairs on their play and digital game play experiences. Reflective thematic analysis was used to analyse the interviews. Findings suggest that children experience digital gaming as a digital extension of offline play with many common play characteristics. However, they also point out intricate differences. Children perceive their opportunities for growth and agency in digital games as limited, while restructured social rules result in some children experiencing greater self-efficacy and self-concepts. This study is arguably the first to explore children’s emotions and feelings about offline play in relation to digital game play. Based on the findings, suggestions for the use of digital gaming in a therapeutic context are offered. A comprehensive literature review and a critique of this study are included and further implications are considered

Disconnected Skeleton: Shape at its Absolute Scale

We present a new skeletal representation along with a matching framework to address the deformable shape recognition problem. The disconnectedness arises as a result of excessive regularization that we use to describe a shape at an attainably coarse scale. Our motivation is to rely on the stable properties of the shape instead of inaccurately measured secondary details. The new representation does not suffer from the common instability problems of traditional connected skeletons, and the matching process gives quite successful results on a diverse database of 2D shapes. An important difference of our approach from the conventional use of the skeleton is that we replace the local coordinate frame with a global Euclidean frame supported by additional mechanisms to handle articulations and local boundary deformations. As a result, we can produce descriptions that are sensitive to any combination of changes in scale, position, orientation and articulation, as well as invariant ones.Comment: The work excluding {\S}V and {\S}VI has first appeared in 2005 ICCV: Aslan, C., Tari, S.: An Axis-Based Representation for Recognition. In ICCV(2005) 1339- 1346.; Aslan, C., : Disconnected Skeletons for Shape Recognition. Masters thesis, Department of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University, May 200

Implementing a 3D histogram version of the energy-test in ROOT

Comparing simulation and data histograms is of interest in nuclear and particle physics experiments; however, the leading three-dimensional histogram comparison tool available in ROOT, the 3D Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, exhibits shortcomings. Throughout the following, we present and discuss the implementation of an alternative comparison test for three-dimensional histograms, based on the Energy-Test by Aslan and Zech. The software package can be found at http://www-nuclear.tau.ac.il/ecohen/.This work was supported by the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation, as well as the Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK

Flea beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Alticinae) collected by malaise trap method in Gölcük Natural Park (Isparta, Turkey), with a new record for Turkish fauna

This study is based on Alticinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) material collected by Malaise trapping which is different from other standardized collecting methods. A total of 19 flea beetle species belonging to 6 genera were collected from Gölcük Natural Park, Isparta (Turkey) during 2009. The species are listed in a table together with distributional data in Turkey. Among them, Longitarsus curtus (Allard, 1860) is recorded for the first time in Turkey. L. monticola Kutschera, 1863 and L. curtus are recently separated synonyms and thus all data referring to the distribution of both species are currently important. Hence, the zoogeographical distribution of the new record is reviewed with some remarks; habitus and genitalia are illustrated

Non-parametric comparison of histogrammed two-dimensional data distributions using the Energy Test

When monitoring complex experiments, comparison is often made between regularly acquired histograms of data and reference histograms which represent the ideal state of the equipment. With the larger HEP experiments now ramping up, there is a need for automation of this task since the volume of comparisons could overwhelm human operators. However, the two-dimensional histogram comparison tools available in ROOT have been noted in the past to exhibit shortcomings. We discuss a newer comparison test for two-dimensional histograms, based on the Energy Test of Aslan and Zech, which provides more conclusive discrimination between histograms of data coming from different distributions than methods provided in a recent ROOT release.The Science and Technology Facilities Council, U

Activities of two Major Lichen Compounds, Diffractaic Acid and Usnic Acid against Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say, 1824 (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

Two major lichen compounds (diffractaic and usnic acids), isolated from Usnea longissima Ach. were tested against 4th instar larvae and adults of the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say for 24, 48, 72 and 96 h under laboratory conditions. Durations and mortalities were recorded at various concentrations (1.25, 2.5, 5, and 10 mg. ml-1). Results showed that secondary metabolites of U. longissima had a significant insecticidal potential against larvae and adults of L. decemlineata. Mortality rates after 96 h of treatment, with the highest concentration (10 mg. ml-1) of diffractaic and usnic acids, were 100 and 70% for adults and 100 and 80% for larvae, respectively. No mortality was observed in the control treatment. Bioassay tests with diffractaic and usnic acids revealed that the 96 h median lethal concentration (LC50) values were 1.783 and 4.048 mg. ml-1 for adults and 1.509 and 2.759 mg. ml-1, for larvae of L. decemlineata, respectively. The present results suggest that the lichen secondary metabolites may have a potential action for control of L. decemlineata 4th instar larvae and adults