Investigating the extent to which children use mobile phone application stores

This paper reports the results of a short survey aimed at examining the extent to which children use mobile phone application stores. Aspects investigated included whether children used application stores on their own or parents’ devices, how children use application stores and whether they think app stores could be improved. The key contribution of this paper is the provision of evidence that children are prolific users of smart phone application stores, children are using both their parents phones and their own phones to access app stores and over half the children who download games do so at a rate of 1-2 per week. The paper also looks at how children choose the games they do on the app store and their view on how easy it is to find their chosen game. Over half the children who download games do so either having played the game before or on the recommendation of a friend. The findings raise issues about the design of app store interfaces / information architectures and whether or not children should be considered in the design of future app store interfaces

Designing for GDPR - Investigating Children’s Understanding of Privacy: A Survey Approach

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) places new obligations on businesses that collect and process data from children. It goes so far as to say that privacy notices should be presented in child-friendly and age appropriate formats. Fulfilling GDPR obligations will require designers to have a better understanding of how children understand privacy issues. This research aims to investigate children’s understanding of privacy online. Thirty-two children from a UK primary school, aged between 8 years and 10 years old completed a survey to gauge their understanding of privacy. Eight different scenarios were presented to the children and they had to decide whether the information should be kept private or not and state the reason why. This work identifies that children do have an understanding of privacy, especially when related to online safety. However, children do not yet understand that their data has an inherent value, have misconceptions about data and what data should be protected. This highlights the challenges for designers of technology used by children to meet the GDPR obligations

Child-Centered Security

Children are spending more time online through the use of digital toys, games and the internet. These activities make children potentially vulnerable to security threats. This position paper puts forward an argument for and against creating a new research discipline in child-centered security, as a fusion of user-centered security and child computer interaction

Sol-gel Characteristics for Corrosion Resistance of Anodised Aluminium

Conventional anodising electrolytes based on sulphuric acid, oxalic acid and phosphoric acid have been used to form nanoporous layers on AA3003-H14 and sealed with silane based sol-gel sealers. It is shown that the sol-gel chemistries have varying levels of pore penetration depending on the synthesis conditions. The extent of sol-gel penetration and pore sealing is analysed by electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. To describe the sealing phenomena observed a sol-gel penetration and sealing rating has been proposed to explain the interactions of the sol-gels with the pores of the anodised layers. The corrosion resistance of the sol-gel sealed anodised aluminium surfaces was evaluated using neutral salt spray testing and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy

The investigation of a recombinant GalNAc binding protein from bacillus thuringiensis as a tool for glycan analysis and detection

Changes in the structures of glycans on the surfaces of eukaryotic cells can be important biomarkers for developmental or disease states. Improved methods are needed for the detection and analysis of alterations in glycan structures. Carbohydrate binding proteins such as lectins have potential for the recognition of changes in glycan structure. Host-pathogen interactions frequently involve the recognition of host carbohydrates by proteins of bacteria or viruses. Many bacterial toxins have evolved to interact with host cell receptors or with a specific tissue due to lectin like properties. The toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis have been shown to have carbohydrate binding abilities, in particular N-Acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) has been shown to inhibit the binding of the toxin Cry1Ac. GalNAc has been shown to be an important marker in many diseases such as breast cancer and colon carcinogenesis. Moreover, changes in GalNAc glycosylation have been identified in many disorders such as cystic fibrosis, neuromuscular disorders and nephropathy. Here we describe the purification of a GalNAc binding protein of bacterial origin that may have potential in the development of diagnostic assays

Regions of the Cry1Ac toxin predicted to be under positive selection are shown to be the carbohydrate binding sites and can be altered in their glycoprotein target specificity

The cry gene family, is a large family of homologous genes from Bacillus thuringiensis. Studies have examined the structural and functional relationships of the Cry proteins. They have revealed several residues in domains II and III that are important for target recognition and receptor attachment. In 2007 Wu, Jin-Yu et al employed a maximum likelihood method to detect evidence of adaptive evolution in Cry proteins. They identified positively selected residues, which are all located in Domain II or III. Figure 1 shows a protein sequence alignment between domain II and III of Cry1Ac and Cry1Aa. This highlights the areas which are thought to be under positive selection. Cry1Ac and Cry1Aa are structurally very similar and they both bind to a variety of N-aminopeptidases (APN’s) in different insect species. However Cry1Aa has a higher specificity for the cadherin like receptor HevCalP and Cry1Ac binds to N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) on the surface of APN’s. Differences in the binding of the two toxins has been shown in an in-direct toxin-binding assay where GalNAc completely abolished toxin binding of Cry1Ac but had no effect on the binding of Cry1Aa. The binding site has been shown to be located in the third domain of Cry1Ac. Some of these sites correlate with the positively selected residues found by Wu et al 2007 in Cry1Aa. Our aim was to use the comparison of the toxins to analyse the potential to alter the binding specificity of Cry1Ac and its domains. In this work we identified critical amino acid residues for this objective

An Evaluation of Radar Metaphors for Providing Directional Stimuli Using Non-Verbal Sound

We compared four audio-based radar metaphors for providing directional stimuli to users of AR headsets. The metaphors are clock face, compass, white noise, and scale. Each metaphor, or method, signals the movement of a virtual arm in a radar sweep. In a user study, statistically significant differences were observed for accuracy and response time. Beat-based methods (clock face, compass) elicited responses biased to the left of the stimulus location, and non-beat-based methods (white noise, scale) produced responses biased to the right of the stimulus location. The beat methods were more accurate than the non-beat methods. However, the non-beat methods elicited quicker responses. We also discuss how response accuracy varies along the radar sweep between methods. These observations contribute design insights for non-verbal, nonvisual directional prompting

Corrosion Protection Properties of Various Ligand Modified Organic Inorganic Hybrid Coating on AA 2024-T3

The inclusion of zirconium precursors to prepare organosilane solgel coatings improves the corrosion protection performance of the coatings on aluminium and steel. The inherent differences in the hydrolysis rates of the silane and zirconium precursors, various ligands were used to control the hydrolysis by decreasing the number of reactive alkoxide group. Hybrid sols were synthesised using 3-(trimethoxysilyl) propylmethacrylate (MAPTMS) and zirconium n-propoxide chelated with organic ligands including different organic acids, acetyl acetone and 2 2’ bipyridyl. The effects of zirconia inclusion on the properties of the coatings were compared on the aerospace alloy AA 2024-T3. Electrochemical analysis and salt spray exposure characterized the corrosion protective properties. The results indicate that acid chelated systems possess better corrosion protection when compared to the other ligands, due to smaller zirconium nanoparticles being formed. In particular superior performance was displayed by the coatings involving 3,4 diaminobenzoic acid (DABA) due to inherent anticorrosive properties

Investigating Players’ Perceptions of Deceptive Design Practices within a 3D Gameplay Context

Deceptive design practices have been identified and studied in games but, to date, there have been no substantial explorations of deceptive design practices within 3D environments typically found in PC games. These offer a new set of affordances for interacting with the player, and game developers may be able to utilize these in order to shape gameplay experiences. The goal of this work was to explore users’ perceptions of deceptive design present in a popular free-to-play 3D game. A survey was carried out with 259 adult respondents identifying and explaining instances of deceptive design within video clips of gameplay from a popular Roblox game. Thematic analysis of the responses revealed six new categories of deceptive design pattern within a 3D gameplay context: Predatory Monetization, Default to Purchase, UI Misdirection, Emotional Interpersonal Persuasion, Physical Placement, and Narrative Obligation. Through our work we hope to highlight the use of deceptive design both within current 3D games and future 3D gaming environments. This work is particularly important as 3D and VR gaming grow in popularity alongside game publishers increasingly moving towards “freemium” monetization models for income