Interview with Andrew Burn: Sonia Livingstone interview with Andrew Burn

To learn about research on children’s digital play cultures, Sonia Livingstone and Kate Cowan spoke to Andrew Burn from UCL as part of our interview series on play in the digital world

Bullying and Belonging: Teachers’ Reports of School Aggression

esearch on bullying has confirmed that social identity processes and group-based emotions are pertinent to children’s responses to bullying. However, such research has been done largely with child participants, has been quantitative in nature, and has often relied on scenarios to portray bullying. The present paper departs from this methodology by examining group processes in qualitative reports of bullying provided by teachers. Fifty-one teachers completed an internet-based survey about a bullying incident at a school where they worked. Thematic analysis of survey responses concerned two core themes in the reports: (a) children ganging up on another child and (b) children sticking together to protect each other. There was evidence that children act in specific ways, in line with social identity processes, in order to support or resist bullying. There was also evidence that teachers understand bullying to be a group phenomenon. The implications of these findings for anti-bullying interventions are discussed

Accuracy and feasibility of an android-based digital assessment tool for post stroke visual disorders - The StrokeVision App

Background: Visual impairment affects up to 70% of stroke survivors. We designed an app (StrokeVision) to facilitate screening for common post stroke visual issues (acuity, visual fields and visual inattention). We sought to describe the test-time, feasibility, acceptability and accuracy of our app based digital visual assessments against a) current methods used for bedside screening, and b) gold standard measures. Methods: Patients were prospectively recruited from acute stroke settings. Index tests were app based assessments of fields and inattention performed by a trained researcher. We compared against usual clinical screening practice of visual fields to confrontation including inattention assessment (simultaneous stimuli). We also compared app to gold standard assessments of formal kinetic perimetry (Goldman or Octopus Visual Field Assessment); and pencil and paper based tests of inattention (Albert’s, Star Cancellation, and Line Bisection). Results of inattention and field tests were adjudicated by a specialist Neuro-Ophthalmologist. All assessors were masked to each other’s results. Participants and assessors graded acceptability using a bespoke scale that ranged from 0 (completely unacceptable) to 10 (perfect acceptability). Results: Of 48 stroke survivors recruited, the complete battery of index and reference tests for fields was successfully completed in 45. Similar acceptability scores were observed for app-based (assessor median score 10 [IQR:9-10]; patient 9 [IQR:8-10]) and traditional bedside testing (assessor 10 [IQR:9-10; patient 10 [IQR:9-10]). Median test time was longer for app-based testing (combined time-to-completion of all digital tests 420 seconds [IQR:390-588]) when compared with conventional bedside testing (70 seconds, [IQR:40-70]) but shorter than gold standard testing (1260 seconds, [IQR:1005-1620]). Compared with gold standard assessments, usual screening practice demonstrated 79% sensitivity and 82% specificity for detection of a stroke-related field defect. This compares with 79% sensitivity and 88% specificity for StrokeVision digital assessment. Conclusion: StrokeVision shows promise as a screening tool for visual complications in the acute phase of stroke. The app is at least as good as usual screening and offers other functionality that may make it attractive for use in acute stroke

Influencing the perceived emotions of music with intent

Music is an immensely powerful affective medium that pervades our everyday life. With ever advancing technology, the reproduction and application of music for emotive and information transfer purposes has never been more prevalent. In this paper we introduce a rule-based engine for influencing the perceived emotions of music. Based on empirical music psychology, we attempt to formalise the relationship between musical elements and their perceived emotion. We examine the modification to structural aspects of music to allow for a graduated transition between perceived emotive states. This engine is intended to provide music reproduction systems with a finer grained control over this affective medium; where perceived musical emotion can be influenced with intent. This intent comes from both an external application and the audience. Using a series of affective computing technologies, an audience’s response metrics and attitudes can be incorporated to model this intent. A generative feedback loop is set up between the external application, the influencing process and the audience’s response to this, which together shape the modification of musical structure. The effectiveness of our rule system for influencing perceived musical emotion was examined in earlier work, with a small test study providing generally encouraging results

Automated code compliance for structural timber design with building information modelling

This work set out to identify and overcome the barriers to specifying structural timber within the UK. In the first instance, a survey of practising structural engineers was conducted, and in combination with a review of the context via available literature, the objectives for the main body of the work were formulated. The solutions identified to address these barriers are in two forms: the first was to create code-compliant calculation tools for timber connections and the second approach presents a system for the automation of structural timber design as part of a Building Information Modelling (BIM) approach. The mathematical process of multi-dimensional data fitting is introduced in order to create automatic code compliance tools in BIM. This process is used to simplify the complex engineering calculations into a single equation that can be implemented into current BIM software engineering packages. BIM-based tools can contribute to addressing some of the challenges faced by structural engineering practitioners with respect to the design and detailing of timber structural systems, given the range of available timber products and enhanced levels of design complexities. From an industry perspective, it is envisaged that the work presented here can support structural engineers who want to incorporate timber in their projects but are finding the level of technical expertise required a significant barrier