Emergence of creativity in learning via social technologies

Creativity is an elusive skill desired by many. Debates on \u27What is Creativity\u27 and how it can best be nurtured and supported had resurgence in the 1950\u27s after Guildford\u27s address to the American Psychology Association about the positive benefits of creativity. Since then creativity has been investigated in many forms and within many disciplines. Of note is that creativity is apparent within four components: the person, the process, the product and the environment. On some level creativity is assessed within one of the four components of creativity: person, process, product or environment. In this study creativity and the environment is under investigation, with a number of factors presented that allow creativity to be supported. This paper explores the role of creativity within the education of tertiary students studying Games Design and Development (within an IT discipline) from an Australian University. Particularly this paper focuses on how social factors, such as purpose built collaborative environments and virtual communities, aid in the creative pursuits of the students. <br /

Exploring creativity support systems for the NE"X"T generation

This paper explores the implementation of a creativity support system for tertiary students studying games design and development at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. The students at the centre of this study are the &lsquo;next&rsquo; generation of learners and are often called the net generation because of their pre-imposed affinity for all things &lsquo;online&rsquo;. The creativity support system for the games students is designed within a &lsquo;whole&rsquo; systems context. Focusing on only one tool to augment a person&rsquo;s creativity does not take into consideration social factors that are pertinent on a person ability to grow their creative behaviours. This study will present a set of factors that each creativity support system should employ to facilitate creative abilities within people, with particular focus on how social activities help to enhance creativity.<br /

The realm of the game geek : supporting creativity in an online community

This paper explores the importance of online communities designed to support the creativity of tertiary students enrolled in Computer Science studies. Online discussion forums provide university students with a supportive and nurturing environment and a community where they can share knowledge and ideas. The authors draw on findings derived from a study of first year Computer Science students enrolled in a Games Design and Development unit. Of particular interest is the ways in which the participants develop and control the environment in order to enhance their own creative expression.<br /

Game geek&#039;s goss: linguistic creativity in young males within an online university forum

In this paper the authors explore the use and adaptation of a language specifically developed for, and by, a community of young people who play computer games. Leet speak or 1337 5p34k, the language used by the participants in this study, incorporates symbols and numbers as substitutes for the letters contained in words. Described by the group as an \u27elite\u27 language or \u27leet speak\u27, the authors\u27 interest was captured by the derisive and ironic use of the language in an online forum for a tertiary first year unit of study. Rather than merely defining its participants within an elite cultural boundary, \u27leet speak\u27 is utilised ironically to unearth \u27wannabees\u27 (those seeking entrance and acceptance into the game world, generally 12 ?16 year olds). Of particular fascination to the authors was that despite the clear self-demarcation of the group from the users of \u27leet speak\u27, and their insistence on its use solely by \u27newbs and wannabees\u27, the group continued to use the language to communicate with each other online. In this research, language defines the cultural group of games technology students in terms of the group\u27s continual subversion of the language\u27s very foundations whilst still using it to communicate. Perhaps most interesting was the group\u27s nonchalant admission that they perceived this to be the function of all languages \u27all languages are created purely for communication so dont [sic] have a cry about ppl been [sic] lazy\u27

Games geeks in context: developing the environment to engage creative expression

This paper explores the importance of purpose built combined technological and social collaborative environments in supporting the development of creativity in a cohort of students not generally associated with creative abilities. A supportive and nurturing environment provides these university students with a community where they can share knowledge and ideas, and subsequently engage in creative activities and behaviours. Such an environment directly impacts on the levels of engagement with which students&iuml;&iquest;&frac12; participate in their learning process. The authors draw on findings derived from a study of first year computer science students enrolled in a games design and development unit at an Australian university. This paper will focus on the ways in which the participants negotiate and regulate the exercise of power and control in the environment in order to enhance their own creative expression.<br /

E-creativity: investigating computer-supported creativity

A fusion of the power of modem information and communication technology with the potential of human creativity provides an important and interesting area for research. In this paper, we outline this general research area that we term ecreativity. In particular, we describe our own focus of interest that we label computer supported creativity and the design of creativity support systems. As this is a largely uncharted territory, further research is of vital importance. We describe our research approach in this area and illustrate this with extracts from a case study of an artist who makes extensive and novel use of information technology in her creation of paintings.<br /

Costs and Impact of Disease in Adults With Sickle Cell Disease: A Pilot Study

We assessed the feasibility to estimate illness burden in adults with SCD, investigated factors associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and estimated societal burden. We recruited 32 participants and collected data on fatigue, HRQoL, and work productivity and activity impairment via patient survey. Health care utilization was abstracted for the 12 months before enrollment using medical chart review. Mean age was 36.7 years; 84.4% of participants had hemoglobin SS or Sβthal0 disease, and 81.3% reported chronic pain (experiencing pain on ≥3 days per week in the past 6 months). Mean EQ-5D-3L visual analogue scale score was 63.4 and the index score was 0.79. The mean fatigue score was 57.9. Higher fatigue score was correlated with lower EQ-5D index score (correlation coefficient r = −0.35; P = .049) and Adult Sickle Cell Quality of Life Measurement Information System (ASCQ-Me) scores, including pain (r = −0.47; P = .006), sleep (r = −0.38; P = .03), and emotion scores (r = −0.79; P \u3c .0001). The number of hospitalizations was negatively correlated with HRQoL (all P \u3c .05). Patients who reported chronic pain had significantly lower mean ASCQ-Me sleep scores (48.3 vs 57.1; P = .04) and EQ-5D index scores (0.72 vs 0.89; P = .002) than those without chronic pain. Mean estimated annual per person costs were $51 779 (median,$36 366) for total costs, $7619 ($0) for indirect costs (estimated from lost earnings of participants), and $44 160 ($31 873) for medical costs. Fatigue, SCD complications, hospitalization, and chronic pain negatively affected HRQoL. This sample experienced a high economic burden, largely from outpatient doctor visits

Field Effectiveness of Pandemic and 2009-2010 Seasonal Vaccines against 2009-2010 A(H1N1) Influenza: Estimations from Surveillance Data in France

BACKGROUND: In this study, we assess how effective pandemic and trivalent 2009-2010 seasonal vaccines were in preventing influenza-like illness (ILI) during the 2009 A(H1N1) pandemic in France. We also compare vaccine effectiveness against ILI versus laboratory-confirmed pandemic A(H1N1) influenza, and assess the possible bias caused by using non-specific endpoints and observational data. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We estimated vaccine effectiveness by using the following formula: VE  =  (PPV-PCV)/(PPV(1-PCV)) × 100%, where PPV is the proportion vaccinated in the population and PCV the proportion of vaccinated influenza cases. People were considered vaccinated three weeks after receiving a dose of vaccine. ILI and pandemic A(H1N1) laboratory-confirmed cases were obtained from two surveillance networks of general practitioners. During the epidemic, 99.7% of influenza isolates were pandemic A(H1N1). Pandemic and seasonal vaccine uptakes in the population were obtained from the National Health Insurance database and by telephonic surveys, respectively. Effectiveness estimates were adjusted by age and week. The presence of residual biases was explored by calculating vaccine effectiveness after the influenza period. The effectiveness of pandemic vaccines in preventing ILI was 52% (95% confidence interval: 30-69) during the pandemic and 33% (4-55) after. It was 86% (56-98) against confirmed influenza. The effectiveness of seasonal vaccines against ILI was 61% (56-66) during the pandemic and 19% (-10-41) after. It was 60% (41-74) against confirmed influenza. CONCLUSIONS: The effectiveness of pandemic vaccines in preventing confirmed pandemic A(H1N1) influenza on the field was high, consistently with published findings. It was significantly lower against ILI. This is unsurprising since not all ILI cases are caused by influenza. Trivalent 2009-2010 seasonal vaccines had a statistically significant effectiveness in preventing ILI and confirmed pandemic influenza, but were not better in preventing confirmed pandemic influenza than in preventing ILI. This lack of difference might be indicative of selection bias

Filovirus RefSeq Entries: Evaluation and Selection of Filovirus Type Variants, Type Sequences, and Names

Sequence determination of complete or coding-complete genomes of viruses is becoming common practice for supporting the work of epidemiologists, ecologists, virologists, and taxonomists. Sequencing duration and costs are rapidly decreasing, sequencing hardware is under modification for use by non-experts, and software is constantly being improved to simplify sequence data management and analysis. Thus, analysis of virus disease outbreaks on the molecular level is now feasible, including characterization of the evolution of individual virus populations in single patients over time. The increasing accumulation of sequencing data creates a management problem for the curators of commonly used sequence databases and an entry retrieval problem for end users. Therefore, utilizing the data to their fullest potential will require setting nomenclature and annotation standards for virus isolates and associated genomic sequences. The National Center for Biotechnology Information’s (NCBI’s) RefSeq is a non-redundant, curated database for reference (or type) nucleotide sequence records that supplies source data to numerous other databases. Building on recently proposed templates for filovirus variant naming [ ()////-], we report consensus decisions from a majority of past and currently active filovirus experts on the eight filovirus type variants and isolates to be represented in RefSeq, their final designations, and their associated sequences