Jogos em Dispositivos Móveis: OpenGL ES vs. M3G

Os dispositivos móveis estão cada vez mais presentes no nosso quotidiano e os seus jogos são vistos como um importante serviço, quer por parte dos utilizadores quer por parte das operadoras de rede. Mas são ainda os jogos casuais, como por exemplo o Tetris ou a Snake, que dominam este mercado. No entanto, nos últimos anos têm-se assistido a um maior interesse pelo desenvolvimento de jogos 3D para estes dispositivos

Cyber-Detective: a game for cyber crime prevention

Technologies are increasingly becoming a part of the daily lives of younger generations and with no supervised usage of these technologies, teenagers are exposed to various threats. To raise the awareness of teenagers in ages between 14 and 17 years old, and to provide a methodological tool for educational professionals working with the young and even for enforcement professionals investigating the cyber cases, an educational game about cyber security was designed and prototyped. A detective game was devised, where the player takes the role of a detective to investigate a cyber crime. To solve the case, the player must play several mini-games, where each one explores a specific thematic about cyber security. For example, in the prototype, the situation that the detective needs to solve is a ransomware case. The situations are introduced by a tridimensional animation, which appears as a cutscene introducing the game scene. It is an animation where one can see a teen trying to buy a pair of sneakers online and after downloading an application suggested in the website, his mobile phone is locked. Thus, he decides to search help from the police, where the detective will try to solve the problem. For that, the player has to solve several mini-games about sharing information in social networks, phishing and the importance of creating strong passwords. In these mini-games the player makes decisions and learns based on that, i.e., at the end of each mini-game each decision is explained to the player regardless of the choice being correct or incorrect. This way, the player is always informed of the various situations that can occur based on their behavior/decisions online. The prototype was developed for mobile devices and some preliminary tests were performed with teenagers. The tests showed that the teenagers improved their cyber security knowledge after playing the game. A cyber security educational game can be used as a tool for younger generations because it uses the technologies that are part of their daily lives and can contribute to the growing of their cyber security awareness. In the future, we hope to develop the full game, where other thematic will be included, namely, talking with strangers in social networks, dangers related with the webcam and microphone, online piracy and cyber bullying.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social network measures to match analysis in soccer : a survey

In this study we will present the most common and adequate network measures to analyse graph properties and to inspect the prominence of each player on a soccer team. Both approaches can provide a range of useful information. This kind of analysis will help to identify the prominence of players and also characterize the collective organization and patterns of the teams. General measures and centrality levels will be described and the applications will be discussed. By using social network analysis will be possible to quantify the structure of play and predict some behaviour. Such methodology will add new options to the field of match analysis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Performance analysis tool for network analysis on team sports: a case study of FIFA Soccer World Cup 2014

The study of teammates’ interaction on team sports has been growing in the last few years. Nevertheless, no specific software has been developed so far to do this in a user-friendly manner. Therefore, the aim of this study was to introduce a software called the Performance Analysis Tool that allows the user to quickly record the teammates’ interaction and automatically generate the outputs in adjacency matrices that can then be imported by social network analysis software such as SocNetV. Moreover, it was also the aim of this study to process the data in a real-life scenario, thus the seven matches of the German national soccer team in the FIFA World Cup 2014 were used to test the software and then compute the network metrics. A dataset of 3032 passes between teammates in seven soccer matches was generated with the Performance Analysis Tool software, which permitted a study of the network structure. The analysis of variance of centrality metrics between different tactical positions was made. The two-way multivariate analysis of variance revealed that the strategic position (γ=1.305 ; F = 24.394; p = 0.001; η2p=0.652 ; large effect size) had significant main effects on the centrality measures. No statistical differences were found in the phase of competition (γ=0.003 ; F = 0.097; p = 0.907; η2p=0.003 ; very small effect size). The network approach revealed that the German national soccer team based their attacking process on positional attacks and not in counter-attack, and the midfielders were the prominent players followed by the central defenders. The Performance Analysis Tool software allowed the user to quickly identify the teammates’ interactions and extract the network data for process and analysis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Recomendação de Curvas de Crescimento para Crianças Nascidas Pré-Termo

Em 2013, a Secção de Neonatologia da Sociedade Portuguesa de Pediatria, face à existência de várias curvas de avaliação de crescimento para crianças nascidas pré-termo e à falta de homogeneidade de critérios na sua escolha, nomeou um grupo de peritos que procedeu à revisão crítica das curvas disponíveis e recomenda as que considera mais adequadas para utilização na prática clínica em fases específicas da vida: ao nascimento (Fenton 2013), durante o internamento na unidade de Neonatologia (Fenton 2013 e Ehrenkranz 1999) e a longo prazo (OMS 2006). As decisões foram tomadas com base na classificação sistemática do nível de evidência e do grau de recomendação. A presente recomendação: é válida enquanto não forem publicados os resultados do estudo do consórcio multicêntrico INTERGROWTH-21st, recentemente incumbido da construção de valores de referência, mais próximos do padrão, de crianças nascidas pré-termo; tem o propósito de auxiliar os clínicos na decisão clínica, mas não ser o único instrumento de avaliação do crescimento das crianças nascidas pré-termo; pode não proporcionar elementos suficientes para orientação do crescimento de todas estas crianças

Study of network process in children during cooperation games

While playing, the child progresses in reasoning ability, develops thinking and other skills, creates social relations, understands the environment, develops knowledge and creativity, and satisfies desires (Dallabona& Mendes, 2004). Thus, playing “increases their independence, stimulates their visual and auditory sensibility, values their popular culture, develops motor skills, exercises their imagination, their creativity, socializes, interacts, rebalances, recycles their emotions, their need to know and reinvent, and thus builds their knowledge” (Dallabona& Mendes, 2004, p.4). However, the interaction with a medium that is still unknown requires the child to explore new spaces, new situations, and new contexts, watching for visible behavioral changes, acquiring patterns of communication and interaction with each other (Martins, Clemente,& Mendes, 2015), all of which is essential for the child’s development.The aim of the present study was to analyze the variance between groups of different sizes in different playful games of cooperation. The groups were randomly formed and consisted of groups of 5 (G5) or 10 (G10) members.In the results obtained, it was possible to verify that there are no significant differences in the groups of 5 and 10 children in the values of proximity prestige, whereas in centroid value statistically significant differences were found in the comparison between groups of 5 and those of 10 children, regarding interaction in the cooperation games.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p<0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p<0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Practical Methodology for the Design of Educational Serious Games

Educational serious games are primarily intended to teach about or train on a subject. However, a serious game must also be catchy for the player to want to play it multiple times and thus learn while playing. The design of educational serious games includes game experts and pedagogical experts that must be able to efficiently communicate to produce a product that is both educationally efficient and fun to play. Although there are some design frameworks to help with this communication, they are usually more conceptual and do not distinguish the fun factor from the learning contents well, making communication difficult. In this paper, a new practical methodology is presented to support the design process of this kind of digital games. This methodology is more all-encompassing because it identifies all the main steps that are needed to define the learning mechanisms in an educational serious game, from topic choice to user experience. It also separates the game’s learning contents from other mechanics used to keep the game fun to play. Finally, some practical examples are shown, illustrating the use of this methodology