Journal articles on the topic 'Threats from computer games'

In lectures, of course, students definitely need a computer, whether it's to make assignments or to play games. Therefore, in using computers, students must maintain computer security from threats that can damage a system on a computer. The purpose of the study was to determine student behavior in maintaining computer security from existing threats. The results of the study were taken from a sample of students in the PTIK Department at UNIMA. The results of this study indicate that 91.3% of respondents stated that their computer system had an error and 8.7% of respondents stated that their computer system had never had an error.

Background. Games are increasingly used to collect scientific data. Some suggest that game features like high cognitive load may limit the inferences we can draw from such data, yet no systematic overview exists of potential validity threats of game-based methods. Aim. We present a narrative survey of documented and potential threats to validity in using games for quantitative data collection. Method. We combined an unsystematic bottom-up literature review with a systematic top-down application of standard validity threat typologies to games to arrive at a systematisation of game-characteristic validity threats. Results. We identify three game characteristics that potentially impact validity: Games are complex systems, impeding the predictable control and isolation of treatments. They are rich in unwanted variance and diversity. And their social framing can differ from and interact with the framing of research studies or non-game situations they are supposed to represent. The diversity of gamers and their differences to general populations bring further complications. Discussion and Conclusions. The wealth of potential validity threats in game-based research is met by a dearth of systematic methodological studies, leading us to outline several future research directions.

The history of combat is primarily the history of radically changing fields of perception. In other words, war consists not so much of scoring territorial, economic or other material victories but of appropriating the immateriality of perceptual field. The function of the eye has become the function of the weapons (Virilio, 1989; 2009). To understand information age warfare we have to understand the concept of representation as a part of our process of violence. The idea of information warfare or an information operation is based on the process where the physical target is no longer destroyed with the kinetic systems, but the process where the non-kinetic systems, like information, scan the symbols-semiotics networks. We like to consume safety different kind of fears. The feeling of the safety fear based on the virtual boundaries, which are set in the movement from “principle” to “practice, in other words in the actualization of the cyber-form. The power of fear is not a form. It is not abstract. It is the movement of form into the content outside of which it is a void of potential function, of the abstract into the particular it cannot be or do without. (see Massumi 1993, 20-21) Today, particularly the advanced mobile technology, the Internet and the entertainment industry immensely exploit the experiences from different wars and conflicts for example as ideas of computer games. In return the military industrial complex represents its own language for example in the concept of information operations with the help of applications particularly rising from the entertainment industry. The roles of Hector and Achilles, the teachings of Jomini and Clausewitz have an effect in the background of games and gaming. Opposite to Clauseiwitz’s thinking, Jomini took the view that the amount of force deployed should be kept to the minimum in order to lower casualties and that war was a science, not an art. The most central genres in gaming are ”strategy”, ”adventure”, ”shooter”, ”sports”, ”simulation”, ”music”, ”role playing” and ”puzzle”. All of these are related to warfare one way or another. Another interesting fact is that in the 1950’s the first computer games were mathematic strategy based games that that had been developed in universities (Czosseck, 2009; Peltoniemi, 2009).

Sedentary behaviors are increasingly common, exerting a heavy financial burden on society and becoming a risk factor for chronic diseases and mor-tality. Taiwan has one of the highest obesity prevalence rates among Asian countries. This cross-sectional study investigated the correlation of socio-demographic characteristics and PE enrollment with the time spent on vari-ous sedentary behaviors. The valid responses of 1,195 Taiwanese university students on a survey were analyzed. They were recruited between May and June 2019 using cluster sampling. The survey inquired into demographic characteristics and the self-reported time spent on various sedentary behav-iors. Descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, a t test, and effect size analysis were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that univer-sity students in Taiwan were sedentary for an average of 474 minutes per day, with use of social media being the most prevalent sedentary activity at 123 minutes per day. The severely overweight group was most sedentary, and female students and students that were not enrolled in a PE class tended to spend more time on video games and social media.

ABSTRACT Employees' use of online social networking (OSN) is dramatically increasing the risk exposure of companies. This study extends previous information security policy compliance research to include factors influencing employees to play OSN games on company-owned computers. An online factorial survey method experiment collected data from a sample of white-collar workers for testing hypotheses based upon accountability and boundary theories. The likelihood to play OSN games is tested with and without a policy related to this behavior. Results indicate that the presence of a social networking policy, logging awareness, and monitoring practices reduced participants' likelihood of playing OSN games on company-owned computers. After splitting the sample on the presence/absence of an OSN policy, results show that in the presence of a policy, monitoring practices and age significantly reduced the participants' likelihood of playing. In the absence of a policy, logging and monitoring reduced the likelihood of playing.

<strong>Abstract</strong> We live in an information society in which the Internet has become an indispensable medium for work, study, information, and contact. Computer games are an important component of the computerized world; they are an essential part of the lives of millions of young people, including children. Computer entertainment increasingly eliminates other forms of spending free time from everyday life. Access to a computer, the Internet, and, computer games cause younger and younger children to show interest in this form of entertainment [1]. Often in these games, the values of art that is there are forgotten an attractive educational &ldquo;instrument&rdquo; that goes beyond the framework of traditional pedagogical institutions. It shapes human attitudes, is a means of teaching, enriches knowledge resources, and develops cognitive mechanisms. Art makes a person sensitive, noble, and capable of heroic deeds. It connects people regardless of national, racial, and even political affiliation. Art shows not only the diversity of life and the unity of truth, humanistic content, but also shows that which has been called &ldquo;the destiny of man&rdquo;, shows his problems of life, often from the perspective of ourselves. A technique without art is like a broken bell in a church that drowns out the aesthetics of the soul and the cantata of human existence.

Today, practically everyone has access to the internet and owns some type of digital gadgets, such as a smartphone, laptop, tablet, etc. We live in a digital world where internet use is widespread. Nowadays, a growing number of children have access to the internet via portable electronic devices such as tablets, laptops, and gaming consoles. Online social networks (OSN) have become increasingly popular and are now widely used along with the rise of the internet. A large percentage of children worldwide have profiles on at least one online social networking site. Children register on these platforms so they can communicate with their peers, make new friends, share their interests and hobbies in the hopes of meeting someone who has similar ones, play games, and more. But in addition to the benefits and enjoyment that kids derive from social networks, there are also risks and dangers that specifically target children on OSN platforms. Online harassment, online predators, sexual solicitation, cyberbullying, and cyber grooming are all threats that target children on OSNs. This paper aims to bring awareness to parents and children about the potential dangers present on online social networking platforms and offers guidelines on how to better protect children in the social networking environment.

Today's technological developments make children vulnerable to the threats of the virtual world. In recent years, it is noteworthy that there have been reports in the media that violent digital games have led children to crime. For this reason, the study aims to examine the cases that have occurred in the last year by addressing the issue of digital games dragging children to crime and suicide. In the study, first of all, keywords were determined by literature review. Accordingly, the word groups "digital game", "computer game", "game addiction" and "juvenile pushed to crime " were determined. With the determined keywords, "Google News" was filtered through the search engine between 01.05.2023 – 01.05.2024 and the news was scanned. A total of 368 news reports were examined and 3 cases were identified. The first case was when a 12-year-old boy committed the crime of intentional knife killing of another 13-year-old boy as a result of a task given from a computer game. The second case involved a 12-year-old boy committing suicide with a firearm on the grounds that he was not allowed by his family to play a violent video game called ‘PUBG’. The third case is a 14-year-old boy who committed suicide with a firearm after playing a game called ‘Blue Whale’. The analysis of the cases were transferred to a table. According to the data of the TURKSTAT in 2021, 54.3% of children in the 6-15 age group who stated that they play digital games regularly stated that they play war games. In the literature, there are almost no legal studies on digital games leading children to suicide and crime. Although there is no official data, findings from literature and news reports suggest that possible associations between violent digital games and children's violent behavior towards themselves and their peers should be investigated.

The fundamental source of the reflection make up the theoretical-empirical data referring to a phenomenon, which in the era of technological progress is of particular importance: the phenomenon of screen time. Besides defining the key term screen time refers to all activities done in front of a screen. This includes: using a computer, watching TV, playing video games (Kaneshiro, 2015), the paper provides an overview of research results concerning the opportunities and threats arising from the use of new media, as well as recommendations for education on the need for media literacy among the younger generation (Szkudlarek, 1999; Tanaś, 2010, 2011).

The article aims to reveal and present the essence of English language learning/teaching modernization via the innovative and globally used methods or tools. Innovations cannot be created and used without the existence of the traditional methodology and conventional activities. Positive experience in traditional education can be modified integrating global ideas. There are many alternatives in innovative tools usage; teachers and students are not limited with their own decisions and possibilities provided. Still, an important issue exists regarding positive and negative effects of such innovative and global tools on learners. Do participants of the study process demonstrate clear perception of possible benefits or reject such innovations due to their disadvantages? The survey reveals the current situation, where innovative tools do not exist independently. The usage of computer games, songs, films, social media (social networks, Youtube, the Internet) is not clearly separated from the traditional tools as books, friends, travelling or meeting foreigners. An in-depth overview gives basis for further studies on the application of more innovative tools, such as interactive activities on the Internet, interactive boards/tables, blogs, forums, virtual learning environments, strategies proposed by the scientists as neuroprogramming, language coaching, etc.

The article considers the problem of formation of spiritual needs of preschool children and the influence of modern information technologies on this process in particular. It gives a retrospective analysis of the views of scientists on the problem of the impact of information technology on the spiritual development of preschool children. It reveals the terminological concepts “spiritual education”, “Internet addiction”, “information technology”, “cyber threat”. Psychological regularities and features of spiritual formation of preschool children are described. The article describes the signs of “Internet addiction” of preschool children: elevated state of being on the Internet; impaired memory and attention; irritability from not being allowed to use the computer; constant browsing of various sites; unwillingness to communicate with family and friends for the sake of being on the Internet; sitting at the computer for hours, which leads to sleep and food deprivation. The main aspects of the spiritual qualities of children, which are formed under the influence of information technology, are revealed. It is determined that computer games are cultural forms of childrenʼs spirituality in the process of upbringing and education, along with childrenʼs games. The article reveals the functions of computer games. They are educational (promotes mastering of letters, develops reading skills, elementary mathematical concepts, etc.); educational (forms spiritual values, installs moral and ethical rules of conduct); developmental (aimed at the formation of general mental abilities, memory, thinking, attention); communicative (ensures the development of the dialectic of communication); entertaining (aimed at getting pleasure, enjoyment, getting the desired result). The article finds that the use of computer games in the classroom develops children’s curiosity, stimulates them to achieve their goals, helps children better master the material, identifies gaps in knowledge and eliminates them.&#x0D; Keywords: information technology, Internet, Internet addiction, preschool child, computer games, spiritual education, children’s spirituality, spiritual needs.

Since its conception in 2017, the Global None in Three (Ni3) Research Centre for the Prevention of Gender Based Violence (GBV) has been working to collect real stories about people’s personal experiences of GBV from both victim and perpetrator perspectives. Led by a team of experts from across the globe, these real-life experiences have been used to inform the development of a series of serious, prosocial computer games whose narratives, in-game dialogue and characters are based around this empirical data. This article discusses the translation of these stories into the games’ digital narratives, and explores how their re-telling is fundamental to the success of the games as educational tools for increasing empathy in players and, ultimately, for changing attitudes and behaviours towards GBV. In doing so, it explores the coexistence and fluctuating relationship between digital narratives and the spoken word ‐ whose significance might be seen to book-end the None in Three project as a whole, in its development of the game and in the dissemination of its message about preventing gender-based violence.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on resource allocation and information disclosure policy for defending multiple targets against intentional attacks. The intentional attacks, like terrorism events, probably cause great losses and fatalities. Attackers and defenders usually make decisions based on incomplete information. Adaptive attacking and defending strategies are considered, to study how both sides make more effective decisions according to previous fights.Design/methodology/approachA stochastic game‐theoretic approach is proposed for modeling attacker‐defender conflicts. Attackers and defenders are supposed both to be strategic decision makers and partially aware of adversary's information. Adaptive strategies are compared with different inflexible strategies in a fortification‐patrol problem, where the fortification affects the security vulnerability of targets and the patrol indicates the defensive signal.FindingsThe result shows that the intentional risk would be elevated by adaptive attack strategies. An inflexible defending strategy probably fails when facing uncertainties of adversary. It is shown that the optimal response of defenders is to adjust defending strategies by learning from previous games and assessing behaviors of adversaries to minimize the expected loss.Originality/valueThis paper explores how adaptive strategies affect attacker‐defender conflicts. The key issue is defense allocation and information disclosure policy for mitigation of intentional threats. Attackers and defenders can adjust their strategies by learning from previous fights, and the strategic adjustment of both sides may be asynchronous.

&lt;p class="p1"&gt;National critical infrastructures are vital to the functioning of modern societies and economies. The dependence on these infrastructures is so succinct that their incapacitation or destruction has a debilitating and cascading effect on national security. Critical infrastructure sectors ranging from financial services to power and transportation to communications and health care, all depend on massive information communication technology networks. Cyberspace is composed of numerous interconnected computers, servers and databases that hold critical data and allow critical infrastructures to function. Securing critical data in a cyberspace that holds against growing and evolving cyber threats is an important focus area for most countries across the world. A novel approach is proposed to assess the vulnerabilities of own networks against adversarial attackers, where the adversary’s perception of strengths and vulnerabilities are modelled using game theoretic techniques. The proposed game theoretic framework models the uncertainties of information with the players (attackers and defenders) in terms of their information sets and their behaviour is modelled and assessed using a probability and belief function framework. The attack-defence scenarios are exercised on a virtual cyber warfare test-bed to assess and evaluate vulnerability of cyber systems. Optimal strategies for attack and defence are computed for the players which are validated using simulation experiments on the cyber war-games testbed, the results of which are used for security analyses.&lt;/p&gt;

The designation “gamer” is structurally bound to networked economies of digital play that are rewarded fiscally, socially, and publically, an order of play that is proving difficult to overturn. That girls and women have enjoyed at best marginal positions within video game cultures is by now well recognized, yet at the very same time is too easily dismissed in light of persuasively documented increases in the numbers of women who play. This article traces a large-scale transformation of ludic engagement from participation to spectatorship that parallels the professionalizing and commodifying of traditionally embodied sports, games, and play to demonstrate how new and emerging economies of gameplay, far from opening up the playing field, threaten a further entrenchment of gendered relations.

The relevance of research is dictated by the widespread computerization of the educational process and leisure of adolescents. Emotional, specific stress arising under the influence of EC generates sleep disturbances, rhythmic processes in the body, daily routine and other adverse changes, which, accumulating, become a threat to the health of EC users. It is these factors and their relationship with the level of electronic information load of a teenager that have been the focus of research. A population study of the daily routine, duration and duration categories of individual components of the daily routine and different types of computer activity of 5th grade students in ten regions of the country was conducted. The students were divided into two groups depending on how widely the schools in which they study use computer technology (CT): actively using CT (ACT), and less actively (inactive) using CT (NCT). The following factors were taken into account: equipment of classes and provision of school students with computers and individual EUs, availability of Internet access; characteristics of the effectiveness of the use of information and computer technologies (ICT). Significant differences between the groups under consideration were manifested in all types of computer activity. With a higher confidence, this manifested itself over the weekend. The duration of certain types of computer activities (homework, participation in webinars, games, networking, watching movies, videos, etc.) and the total time of all computer classes per day per 5th grade student were significantly longer in the ACT group. Students from NCT schools spend more time walking on weekends and watching TV, and on school days they have less static (sedentary) load. Studies have shown that the active use of CT in school turns into their active use in an extracurricular setting, and in terms of the duration and frequency of use of EC, a group of ACT school students surpasses a group of children from NCT schools. The differences between the groups (ACT and CNT) manifested themselves in different forms of computer communication, both educational and entertaining.

The emergence of safety and security risks is a huge threat to the implementation of sustainability; therefore, safety and security education allows one to detect the symptoms of emerging crises, helps in the appropriate response to that and helps in a quick return to the path of sustainability after crisis conditions would disappear. The development of the concept of safety and security education in the context of sustainability is very important from both a scientific and practical point of view due to the fact that schools play a key role in society constituting the basic source of education for future generations of citizens, shaping awareness, competence and skills of future generations and thus creating a society that is able to analyse the opportunities and threats arising from the changing economic, social, environmental, technological, political and legal environment. The aim of the paper is to indicate the key factors for improving the security and safety education in the context of sustainability and to prepare the recommendations for preparing the security and safety courses. To complete that objective studies, Computer-Assisted Web Interview either with students or with security and safety experts were used in the study. The survey was conducted among two representative samples of high school students in Poland—one sample 418 high school students from regular high schools, and 100 from solitaire classes. The results from the CAWI were discussed with 20 security and safety experts to indicate the learning methods and tools to improve safety and security education. The main finding from the study was that safety and security education must be improved because respondents saw gaps in their knowledge on several issues in the area of safety and security. Modern training methods should be included in safety education, e.g., e-learning platforms, Serious games, social media, virtual worlds, simulators, integrated systems using e.g., kinect, VR goggles, accessories, mobile technologies.

This article uses a media industries studies perspective to investigate the current state of transmedia production in the United Kingdom. Analyzing the discursive statements of a range of industry participants from both U.K. television and games industries, the authors reveal a series of contradictions and misunderstandings that may be limiting the effectiveness of multi-platform projects. By comparing overlapping discursive patterns around attitudes to risk, measures of success, authorship between the two industries, and repeated concerns over the balance of creative and commercial imperatives, the authors argue that existing hierarchies of power between media industries threaten to derail future convergence.

Guided by inoculation theory and studies that examined serious games as a form of intervention to inoculate individuals against fake news, this study tested the impact on college (n = 84) and junior high and secondary school (n = 30) students of a fake news computer game developed in Singapore. The findings were replicated across both samples: Those who played the game subsequently improved in their self-reported scores on perceiving fake news as a threat, skepticism toward information from social media, and being cautious about believing in information they encounter online. We also found that those who played the game scored higher in detecting fake news than those who did not play the game–consistent with the predicted effects of message inoculation.

Consensus algorithms are the essential components of blockchain systems. They guarantee the blockchain’s fault tolerance and security. The Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm is one of the most widely used consensus algorithms in blockchain systems, using computational puzzles to enable mining pools to compete for block rewards. However, this excessive competition for computational power will bring security threats to blockchain systems. A block withholding (BWH) attack is one of the most critical security threats blockchain systems face. A BWH attack obtains the reward of illegal block extraction by replacing full proof with partial mining proof. However, the current research on the BWH game could be more extensive, considering the problem from the perspective of a static game, and it needs an optimal strategy that dynamically reflects the mining pool for multiple games. Therefore, to solve the above problems, this paper uses the method of the evolutionary game to design a time-varying dynamic game model through the degree of system supervision and punishment. Based on establishing the game model, we use the method of replicating dynamic equations to analyze and find the optimal strategy for mining pool profits under different BWH attacks. The experimental results demonstrate that the mining pools will choose honest mining for the best profit over time under severe punishment and high supervision. On the contrary, if the blockchain system is supervised with a low penalty, the mining pools will eventually choose to launch BWH attacks against each other to obtain the optimal mining reward. These experimental results also prove the validity and correctness of our model and solution.

Abstract The development of commodity flight simulation, in the form of PC game technology, continues to advance at a rapid pace. Indeed, the software industry is now being driven primarily by the requirements of gaming, digital media, and other entertainment applications. This has largely been due to the commoditisation of computer hardware, which is apparent when considering recent trends in central processing unit and graphics processor development. The flight simulation industry has benefited from this trend of hardware commoditisation, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It is, however, yet to fully realise the potential for leveraging commodity-off-the-shelf (COTS) software. In this paper the opportunities presenting themselves for the next 25 years of flight simulation are discussed, as the aviation and games software industry’s requirements converge. A SWOT (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats) analysis of the commodity flight simulation software industry is presented, including flight modelling, scenery generation, multiplayer technology, artificial intelligence, mission planning, and event handling. Issues such as data portability, economics, licensing, intellectual-property, interoperability, developer extensibility, robustness, qualification, and maintainability are addressed. Microsoft Flight Simulator is used as a case study of how commodity flight simulation has been extended to include extensive programmatic access to its core engine. Examples are given on how the base platform of this application can be extended by third-party developers and the power this extensibility model provides to the industry. This paper is presented to highlight particular technology trends in the commodity flight simulation industry, the fidelity that commodity flight simulations can provide, and to provide a high-level overview of the strengths and weaknesses thereof.

Background. The evidence from past research suggests that business simulation games (BSGs) do offer a meaningful educational experience. One characteristic lacking across past research studies is the trait of indecisiveness. Aim. This study sought to explore whether business students would self-report a change in their perceptions of their indecisiveness after participating in a business simulation games (BSG). In addition, whether higher performance simulation decision makers would self-report being less indecisive (i.e. able to make decisions in a timely manner) than lower performance simulation decision makers. Method. Using a pre-test and post-test design with a comparison to an untreated control group, the change in 386 business students’ perceptions of their indecisiveness was assessed using a self-reporting questionnaire. Results. The findings showed a statistically significant reduction in the level of perceived indecisiveness as a result of the simulation experience. The higher performance students reported being less indecisive than lower performance students while both higher performance and lower performance students reported a reduction in perceived indecisiveness. The level of self-reported perceived indecisiveness amongst a control group of 137 business students indicated no significant change. Conclusion. If the combination of practice and positive reinforcement increases the comfort level (reduce feelings of risk and threat) of decision makers then perceived indecisiveness should decrease as a result of simulation participation, which may generalize across situations demanding decisions.

The paper discusses the relationship between the efficient provision and the Nash equilibrium of stock externalities in a dynamic setting. The following proposition has been proved: under certain conditions, the maximal gains of an agent in the economy by deviating from the Pareto optimal provision of stock externalities is less ∊, an arbitrary small positive number, when the time discount rate of the agents are sufficiently close to 0. Namely, under the same conditions, a Pareto efficient path is an ∊-Nash equilibrium where ∊ could be smaller than any predetermined level. The propositions are different from the folk theorems in repeated games because supporting of the ∊-Nash equilibrium does not require the threat of retaliations from other agents. The policy implications of the above results are also discussed here.

The article analyzes the conditions for the protection of intellectual property in the digital society, which is the result of the introduction of global security, and presents a rather innovative problem, not yet well understood in the domestic legal field. It is noted that the Western world has accumulated many problems in the information space, including criminal structures that use huge amounts of intellectual property around the world, from plans to launch new products of certain companies to the primary codes of their computers. We are discovering ways that criminal corporations, terrorist organizations, who use the latest technologies, and do so successfully, are using us, as we are constantly falling behind them with our means of protection and legal protection of intellectual property. Earlier, only digital intellectual property was pirated - music, videos, games and software, but today the digital world is changing. Attention is drawn to the fact that the legal foundations of intellectual property protection in the digital society are a legal perspective on the flip side of technological innovation and the consequences that threaten our interconnected and endlessly vulnerable world. Today, worldwide, there is a problem with technical, information and legal literacy. In a world full of gadgets, algorithms, computers, laptops, REID chips and smartphones, only a small fraction of people have any idea how these objects work. Legal protection of intellectual property is necessary both for the state, for the private sector of business, and for education. The article notes that we need to increase the technical, information and legal literacy of the population, whose goal is to provide citizens with a basic understanding of how technology works, to prevent others from taking advantage of this technological and legal ignorance, and to harm people so that everyone a person has learned to write computer codes and resist technical (technological) crimes

<strong>Daniluk Aleksandra Eliza, Ratajczak Joanna, Stępień-Słodkowska Marta. </strong><strong>Ograniczmy dzieciom internet = Confine children internet. Journal of Health Sciences. 2014;4(13):33-45. ISSN 1429-9623 / 2300-665X.</strong> <strong>http://journal.rsw.edu.pl/index.php/JHS/article/view/2014%3B4%2811%29%3A33-45</strong> <strong>http://ojs.ukw.edu.pl/index.php/johs/article/view/2014%3B4%2811%29%3A33-45</strong> <strong>https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/works/491455</strong> <strong>DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13134</strong> <strong>http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13134</strong> &nbsp; <strong>The former journal has had 5 points in Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland parametric evaluation. Part B item 1107. (17.12.2013).</strong> &nbsp; <strong>&copy; The Author (s) 2014;</strong> <strong>This article is published with open access at Licensee Open Journal Systems of Radom University in Radom, Poland</strong> <strong>Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.</strong> <strong>This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.</strong> <strong>Conflict of interest: None declared. Received: 10.09.2014. Revised</strong><strong> 15.09.2014. Accepted: 04.11.2014.</strong> &nbsp; <strong>Ograniczmy dzieciom internet</strong> <strong>Confine children internet</strong> &nbsp; <strong>Aleksandra Daniluk, Joanna Ratajczak</strong> <strong>Marta Stępień-Słodkowska </strong> &nbsp; Wydział Kultury Fizycznej i Promocji Zdrowia Uniwersytet Szczeciński Faculty of Physical Education and Health Promotion, The University of Szczecin &nbsp; <strong>Słowa kluczowe</strong>: zagrożenie, komputer, gry, internet, czas ,aktywność fizyczna. <strong>Keywords</strong>: anger, computer games, internet, time, physical activity. &nbsp; <strong>Streszczenie </strong> <strong>Wprowadzenie.</strong> W dzisiejszych czasach ludzie żyją w pośpiechu, dlatego często obdarowują swoje dzieci nowymi grami komputerowymi i elektronicznymi gadżetami, aby wynagrodzić im zbyt małą ilość czasu poświęcanego na wsp&oacute;lne zabawy, spacery czy rozmowy. <strong>Cel badań. </strong>Celem badań było wykazanie związku pomiędzy czasem spędzanym przez dzieci przed komputerem a ich codziennymi zachowaniami. Materiał do badań stanowiły dane uzyskane w 2014 roku od 73 dziewcząt i 59 chłopc&oacute;w - uczni&oacute;w klas IV - VI szkoły podstawowej w Szczecinie. <strong>Materiał i metoda badań.</strong> Metodą zastosowaną w badaniu był sondaż diagnostyczny, technika ankieta. Narzędziem badawczym był kwestionariusz autorstwa własnego. <strong>Wyniki.</strong> Analiza danych wykazała, że tylko 32% dzieci jest pewna, że rodzice interesują się tym, z jakich program&oacute;w komputerowych korzystają dzieci. Osiemnaście procent zaś twierdzi, że nikt z najbliższych nie interesuje się tym co robią w sieci. Więcej niż 4 godziny dziennie przed komputerem spędza 14% dziewczynek i 8% chłopc&oacute;w a prawie 70% badanych posiada konta na portalach społecznościowych. Niestety dzieci chętniej spędzają czas wolny korzystając ze sprzętu elektronicznego niż podejmując aktywność fizyczną. <strong>Wnioski</strong>. Prawidłowo zorganizowany czas przez rodzic&oacute;w/ opiekun&oacute;w przyczyni się do tego, że dzieci będą spędzały mniej czasu przed komputerem. Rodzice muszą zdać sobie sprawę jakie zagrożenie niesie zbyt długie korzystanie z komputera. Jeżeli nie będziemy uświadamiać dzieci od najmłodszych lat, że długie korzystanie z komputera, tabletu czy telefonu mogą przyczynić się do p&oacute;źniejszych problem&oacute;w zdrowotnych oraz spowodować gorsze rezultaty w nauce. &nbsp; <strong>Abstract</strong> <strong>Introduction.</strong> Nowadays people live in a hurry. They often give their children new computer games and electronic gadgets in order to compensate for too little time devoted to playing together, walking or talking. <strong>Purpose of the study.</strong> The aim of the study was to demonstrate the relationship between the time spent by children in front of the computer and their everyday behaviours. <strong>Materials and methods.</strong> The material consisted of data obtained in 2014 from 73 girls and 59 boys - students of classes IV &ndash; VI in the primary school in Szczecin. The method used in the study was a diagnostic poll, technique survey. The research tool was a questionnaire by their own authorship. <strong>Results.</strong> The analysis of the data showed that only 32% of children are sure that parents are interested in computer programs which are used by their children. Eighteen percent of them claim that none of the immediate family is interested in what they do on the network. 14% of girls and 8% of boys spend more than four hours in front of the computer per day and almost 70% of respondents have an account on social networking sites. Unfortunately, children are more eager to spend their free time using electronic equipment than taking physical activity. <strong>Conclusions.</strong> Properly organized time by parents / guardians will contribute to the fact that children will spend less time in front of the computer. Parents need to realize what are the threats of overusing the computer. If we do not educate children from an early age about the proper use of the computer, tablet or phone, it may contribute to later health problems and lead to worse outcomes in learning.

Background: Despite the growing epidemic of problematic Internet use (PIU), little information is available on PIU and related factors in Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 4261 university students among 13 universities throughout the country in 2017. The data collection tool included demographic characteristics, the status of using the Internet, social media, computer games, tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs, suicide ideation and attempt, and unprotected sex. PIU was measured using the 15-item PIU questionnaire. The status of general health was evaluated using the 28-item general health questionnaire (GHQ) questionnaire. The simple and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to measure the crude and adjusted associations between various factors and PIU. Results: Of 4261 university students, 55.9% were female, 13.5% were smokers, 4.9% were drug abusers, 7.9% were alcohol abusers, 7.8% had unprotected sex in the past year, 7.4% had suicidal ideation in the past month, 1.7% had attempted suicide in the past year, and 27.3% suffered from PIU. Only 61.1% had normal health. In contrast, 30.9%, 7.2%, and 0.8% had mild, moderate, and severe general health problems, respectively. There were significant relationships between PIU and age group 20-24 vs. &lt;20 years (odds ratio [OR] = 1.39; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.82), single vs, married (OR = 2.57; 95% CI: 1.85, 3.57), suicidal attempt (OR = 2.77; 95% CI: 1.47, 5.19), using online games (OR = 1.31; 95% CI: 1.07, 1.60), and poor general health (OR = 12.14; 95% CI: 4.53, 32.54). Conclusion: Nearly one-third of medical sciences students suffered from PIU. This unhealthy behavior was associated with poor general health and elevated risk of suicidal behaviors. This health-threatening behavior provides an early warning signal that deserves special attention, otherwise, it may threaten both college students’ health and function.

Few game studies scholars will regret that the infelicitous ludology vs. narratology debate has been left behind. However, one misconception concerning the nature of literary theory continues to haunt game studies. If Gonzalo Frasca (correctly) observes that "Ludologists Love Stories, Too" (2003), I wish to point out that his conciliatory gesture seriously threatens to distort the concerns of literary theorists in ways that make their reflections on human sense-making indeed seem of very limited use to game studies scholars. If we truly want to know in what respects game studies can profit from literary theory without jeoparidizing the strategies of distinction a still emergent field such as game studies needs to position itself vis-à-vis dominant theoretical paradigms--and which Espen J. Aarseth calls for in his editorial to the first issue of Game Studies (2001)--we need to be aware of two things. First, narratologists make up only a fraction of the literary-theoretical community. And the narratologists most often cited by game studies scholars usually practice a structuralist version of narratology that has come under sustained critical scrutiny since the late 1960s. Second, not all literary scholars are concerned with narrative. Of course, they often study narrative texts such as novels and short stories, but they also study plays, poems, and other non-narrative texts. More importantly, even when they do study narrative texts, literary scholars--be they narratologists or not--are not always interested in the forms and functions of stories.This essay argues that game studies can profit from reflections on issues other than narrative by a literary theorist whose work has been unduly reduced to those concerns. In Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (1997), Aarseth refers to the work of Wolfgang Iser as one influential model of literary communication that does not help explain the specific forms and functions of nonlinear, multicursal computer games. More specifically, Aarseth argues that Iser's notion of Leerstellen (blanks) cannot account for the kinds of openings cybertexts offer their users. Yet the later work of Iser is a much more promising avenue of exploration for ludologists. Iser's The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology (1993) develops what is arguably the most sustained theory of fictionality available today. While honed in the study of literary texts, Iser's theory can tell us much about the cultural work of fiction in a variety of media without leveling the distinctions between different cultural practices. As such, Iser's later work does not provide yet another framework for reading games as stories but challenges games studies scholars to rethink some of their central concepts, in particular 'play,' 'simulation,' and 'immersion.' Moreover, it invites us to ask whether the rhetoric of distinction that much game studies scholarship still employs to stake out its claims has outlived its usefulness, serving less as an effective defense mechanism than as an obstacle to cross-disciplinary fertilization.

The past decade in the US has been one of the most politically polarizing in recent memory. Ordinary Democrats and Republicans fundamentally dislike and distrust each other, even when they agree on policy issues. This increase in hostility towards opposing party supporters, commonly called affective polarization, has important ramifications that threaten democracy. Political science research suggests that at least part of this polarization stems from Democrats' misperceptions about Republicans' political views and vice-versa. Therefore, in this work, drawing on insights from political science and game studies research, we designed an online casual game that combines the relaxed, playful nonpartisan norms of casual games with corrective information about party supporters' political views that are often misperceived. Through an experiment, we found that playing the game significantly reduces negative feelings toward outparty supporters among Democrats, but not Republicans. It was also effective in improving willingness to talk politics with outparty supporters. Further, we identified psychological reactance as a potential mechanism that affects the effectiveness of depolarization interventions. Finally, our analyses suggest that the game versions with political content were rated to be just as fun to play as a game version without any political content suggesting that, contrary to popular belief, people do like to mix politics and play.

The word &ldquo;multimedia&rdquo;, one of the buzzwords of the &lsquo;90s, refers to technology that presents information in more than one medium, including text, graphics, animation, video, music and voice. Multimedia is defined as a tool of integrating the traditional media (text, image) and continuous media (video, audio) and to provide the possibility for a spectrum of new applications, with global communication, social and legal implications (Steinmetz and Klara Nhrstedt, 2001). The term &lsquo;multimedia&rsquo; was used to mean a &ldquo;collection of media emanating from desperate presentation devices&rdquo;, (Banker and Tucker, 1990), such as learning packages, consisting of printed materials, slides, audio tapes, and so on.&nbsp; In the 1990s, the term refers to &ldquo;a class of computer driven interactive communication systems which create, store, transmit and retrieve textual, graphic and auditory networks of information&rdquo; (Gazeski, 1992). Multimedia personal computers are powerful microcomputers that include sound and video capability, run CD-ROM disks, and allow users to play games or perform interactive tasks. The emergence of multimedia is similar to what happened when talkies replaced silent movies. Talkies were distinctly more lifelike and natural.&nbsp; Multimedia does the same for computing technology along with integration of sound, animation, graphics, still images, video, text and music (Fred T. Hofstetter, 1998).Multimedia is an integrated system with different relations and to synchronize among the media. It is a technology of connections and binding different components partially and in isolation from each other (Steinmetz, 1999). Multimedia delivers information in a variety of ways but achieves greatest effectiveness through interaction. The technical and aesthetical integration of information, images and music convey the message with the focus on the single specific purpose. The technology provides a more effective presentation for less expense is an added advantage. In brief, the term multimedia describes the use of different media and technologies to present information from the pool of instructional resources; Multimedia threads an efficient way in presenting information for a courseware unit.&nbsp;

MASTERS OR SLAVES? AI and the Future of Humanity by Jeremy Peckham. London, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 2021. 256 pages. Paperback; $31.99. ISBN: 9781789742398. *Will humans maintain their status as masters of their own creation or will they inevitably become slaves to these creations? Jeremy Peckham's book is another Christian analysis of the progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and a warning to the world of the dangers AI poses for the individual and for society at large. Peckham believes that the unregulated research and development of AI coupled with the laissez-faire usage of AI systems will result in humanity's degradation. *In the first chapter, Peckham captures the reader's attention by presenting a short fictional account of the Jefferson family starting their day in a world saturated with computer technology. This introductory story highlights the new technological reality in which we need to seriously explore AI's influence on humanity. In chapters two and three, Peckham presents a quick historical overview of computer and AI development. Chapter two begins with how computers and AI started as simplistic number-crunching machines that went from "winters" of technological disappointment to rapid progress with massive global impact. With this rapid evolution of AI, a necessary change is needed to determine whether AI can be considered morally neutral. *To address the growing danger and influence AI has on humanity, Peckham builds his argument in chapter four on the foundation that there is something special and unique about humanity. Humans are not only flesh and blood creatures but also bearers of God's given imago Dei ("image of God"). This imago Dei is what separates humans from other nonliving and living things. In addition, as part of the imago Dei, Peckham affirms that humans have true freedom of choice. While Peckham does not provide a comprehensive examination of various philosophical stances regarding free will, he suggests that the ability of human beings to make choices freely is crucial to understanding how they are created in God's image. Beginning with the foundation of human's imago Dei, Peckham develops a Christian critique of AI by examining technology's effect upon this most important aspect of humanity. *Following his chapter on humanity's imago Dei, Peckham's main argument is further developed in chapters five to ten where he identifies six key areas of technology which threaten or have the possibility of threatening the imago Dei. In chapter five, Peckham is concerned that the continued reliance on AI to make decisions based on the premise that AI is unbiased is dangerous. Trusting AI technology in this manner further distances our relationship with other humans and elevates AI "reasoning" to human-like levels. In chapter six, human relationships with chatbots and digital assistants are the focus. Here, Peckham fears that the increasingly human (and often female) personification of digital assistants will lead to a distortion of emotional attachment and even to the illusion that we owe these artifacts ethical treatment. In chapter seven, Peckham considers whether the increased convenience and perceived general safety offered by state-controlled AI is worth the cost of restricting individual freedoms. For Peckham, the cost of individual freedom is too high a price to pay for the convenience which the state or the "Big Tech" companies now wield with substantial power and influence over the individual. *Chapter eight highlights the moral dilemma of whether an autonomous machine (such as a self-driving car) should be held morally responsible for its actions. Peckham believes that moral responsibility must ultimately remain with a human rather than placed on a machine. In chapter nine, Peckham addresses the growing concern that continued AI progress will result in fewer jobs available or in jobs that require higher technological proficiency. To address this growing concern, Peckham briefly explores the possibility of a UBI (universal basic income) and encourages a reexamination of a theology of work. Finally, Peckham's last critique of AI centers on its implementation in video games and virtual reality. Peckham fears that these digital realities present a slippery slope for users who will be unable to differentiate between true reality and digital reality. *In the final two chapters (eleven and twelve), Peckham considers a Christian response to AI progress along with developing a Christian manifesto toward AI research and usage. Rather than utilizing AI technology mindlessly or carelessly, Peckham exhorts the reader to seriously consider the substantial influence AI has upon the individual and how AI development should be regulated moving forward. To properly consider and regulate AI, Peckham argues that a Christian worldview provides the best framework with which to understand humanity and our relationship with technological artifacts. Thus, his brief Christian manifesto serves to introduce how Christians can have a voice in the AI conversation. *Peckham's educational and vocational background in computer technology serves him well in writing this book. He has worked on computer and AI technology in both the government and commercial sectors. With his background in various AI technologies, Peckham understands how AI technology is built, how it functions, and the intentions behind the design. This is a strength of the book since many Christians who discuss AI often lack the requisite training and expertise. *Although Peckham does understand AI technology well, he does not examine the ontological considerations of AI. Peckham looks mostly at the effects of AI technology and then tries to develop a critique of that technology rather than relying on more philosophical arguments. Peckham's critique throughout the chapters would be stronger if he considered an ontology of AI or provided a more detailed explanation of what AI is before presenting his critique. At several points throughout the book, Peckham implores the reader to consider the harmful consequences of AI technology, but he does not look into the deeper fundamental philosophical presuppositions. *In addition, chapter ten, addressing video game AI and virtual reality technology, comes across as outdated, restating many of the traditional Christian arguments against video games. While Peckham does helpfully highlight the new AI technologies used in video games (such as augmented and virtual reality), his criticisms of video games ignore the numerous variations of games as well as the communities built around video games. By presenting a familiar Christian critique, Peckham risks dismissing some of the more-recent developments in the video game industry as well as alienating readers who are active within that community. *Overall, Masters or Slaves? is a welcome addition to the growing Christian literature on AI. In comparison to other recent Christian publications on AI, such as Jason Thacker's The Age of AI or John Lennox's 2084, Peckham's contribution has a stronger technical foundation due to his extensive background in the technology. Peckham expresses moral concerns similar to those of other authors about the development of AI, while covering a large number of areas that AI currently, or will inevitably, affect. Although Peckham could certainly provide even more background on specific AI technologies, his book serves as an excellent introduction to a Christian response to AI. *Reviewed by Eddy Wu, IT Operations Manager and PhD student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC 27587.

Play and games are among the basic means of expression in intelligent communication, influenced by the relevant cultural environment. Games have found a natural expression in the contemporary computer era in which communications are increasingly mediated by computing technology. The widespread use of e-games results in conceptual and policy vacuums that must be examined and understood. Humans involved in designing, administering, selling, playing etc. computer games encounter new situations in which good and bad, right and wrong, are not defined by the experience of previous generations. This article gives an account of the historical necessity of games, the development of e-games, their pros- and cons, threats and promises, focusing on the ethical awareness and attitudes of game developers.

The purpose of the article is to find out how the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war and today's technological innovations affected the artistic community, the themes and the creative methods of Ukrainian digital art. The authors of the investigation, on the one hand, consider the digital works of Nikita Titov, Albina Yaloza, Kateryna Lisova, Mykhailo Rai, Oksana Chepelyk, Yulia Shibirkina, Zibra AI, ZViT, Beata Kurkul and Maria Sharlai, and others, and on the other hand, they highlight the biggest events related to the demonstration of digital art, in particular, “Artists support Ukraine”, “Meta History: Museum of War”, “Peace Letters to Ukraine”, “Art on the battlefront”, “UBIENNALE”, “Ukrainian wartime poster”, and others. The analysis of the collected material revealed that the vast majority of war posters are works of digital art, which in general has become one of the leading media in the work of Ukrainian artists. On the one hand, this was the result of a number of steps taken by the Ukrainian authorities aimed at liberalizing the cryptocurrency market, and encouraging computer game developers to fundraise with the help of NFT in support of Ukraine, on the other hand, the threat of Russian air attacks prompted representatives of the creative class to transfer a significant part of their activity to online, and see the benefits of digital art, which, compared to most traditional media, requires significantly less effort and resources to create, securely store, sell and display. The use of neural networks as a tool to create digital art has become one of the trends in war-themed art, but no catastrophic changes for visual art and design have been detected yet. A significant historical event after February 24, 2022 was the unprecedented support of Ukraine from the world cultural community, in particular, international developers of computer games, as well as famous artists of contemporary art, including Marina Abramovych, Ron Arad, Banksy, Francesco Vezzoli, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Ivan Messak, Lorenzo Quinn, Luke Tuymans, and others.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to adopt a critical relational dialectics framework to identify and explore gender discursive struggles about social inclusion observed in an online gaming community, in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses a technique called contrapuntal analysis to identify and explore competing discourses in over 200 messages on gender struggles about social inclusion posted in the local community’s gamer discussion board, based on seven threads initiated by women gamer activists. Findings The findings show how four interrelated gender discursive struggles about social inclusion and social exclusion animated the meanings of online gamer relations: dominance vs equality, stereotyping vs diversity, competitiveness vs cooperativeness and privilege vs empowerment. Practical implications Game designers should reinforce more accurate and positive stereotypes to cater for the rapidly growing female gamer segment joining the online gaming market and to develop a less chauvinistic and more diversely representative online gaming community. Enlightened gamers should exercise greater solidarity in fighting for gender equality in online gaming communities. Originality/value The critical relational dialectics analysis adopted in this study offers a promising avenue to understand and critique the discursive struggles that arise when online gamers from the different gender groups relate. The findings highlight the unequal discursive power and privilege of many white male gamers when discussing social inclusion. Advancing our understanding of these discursive struggles creates the possibilities for improving social inclusion in online gaming communities.

Die öffentliche Schule Quest to learn in New York City ist eine Modell-Schule, die in ihren Lehrmethoden auf spielbasiertes Lernen, Game Design und den Game Design Prozess setzt. In Zusammenarbeit von Erzieherinnen und Erziehern sowie Spielbegriff-Theoretikerinnen und -Theoretikern hat die Schule sukzessive ein Modell für jede Jahrgangstufe entwickelt, sodass nun von der sechsten bis zur zwölften Klasse in einem innovativen Lehr- und Lernansatz gearbeitet wird. Nicole Lohfink im Gespräch mit Rachelle Vallon, die die Entwicklung der Schule beinahe von Anfang an mitgestaltet hat. merz: How do you define playfulness nowadays? Vallon: I think there are different kinds of play. There isn’t just play in the form of a game. When you think about a game, it is usually a structure that has rules, a space, and some sort of organized system. Board or computer games are specific games with specific systems, certain rules. But play can also exist outside of a game. For example, an activity or an exercise has elements of a game. One thing we notice in a game is: The goal is always very clear. Or, students are always getting feedback. For example, when teachers create a lesson they create a narrative, an imaginary story line for the students to follow, especially for the younger students. That gives them a reason; they feel like they should learn the material. So it almost feels like a game: Maybe there are these fantastic creatures that need help building houses, and students need to learn about measurements in order to help these creative creatures to build their houses. In that way, they are not opening an iPad or Laptop to play a game about geometry or measurement. They are in fact engaged in something that is playful and creative through this narrative. Sometimes, we have students create a project of some sort that is hands on and they go through the design process. The design process we like to teach is used to create games but you can also use it to create a project or to find a way to express a different idea. merz: So what do you think is the attraction of playfulness or this kind of playful learning? Vallon: I think the biggest attraction is something that at our school we call ‘need to know’. That is one of the outcomes in the research that was done: Those scientists looked at games and wanted to know, why kids are always exited in games. Why, if they don’t succeed at first, do they always keep trying? Even if they fail twice, four times, six times. But in school, when they don’t succeed in math or writing, they don’t want to go back; they are scared or bored. And the answer is: It’s about those elements of a game! Knowing what the goal is in a game makes them want to go back. They want to complete the game or even be the winner. You always get immediate feedback and you are usually put into some sort of role. If you are playing monopoly you are asked to become a real estate mogul. Those are some of the things they realized kept students engaged and wanting to go back even if they didn’t succeed. Instead of putting students in a classroom and say: Okay, class. Turn to page 25, we are going to learn about algebra or graphs or American history. That might turn them off or make them fearful. When you make them a game-setting and incorporate those elements of having a clear goal, putting them in a role and that creative narrative – it makes it fun and gives them that need to know. Then, instead of just learning about geometry, they learn about geometry because they have to solve that mission. So it is about finding different ways to engage students, which is really building their perseverance. In fact, as a result they start to use the same habits of not wanting to give up in other lessons, not just in games. merz: Regarding this sort of knowledge: “I know what have I done wrong in a game so I come back and know immediately what I have to do differently”. Isn't that also already giving a solution beforehand - like `this is how you have to behave in order to achieve´? Vallon: Well, yes and no. I think in traditional schools sometimes they have one unit and that unit might be two to three months long. Let’s say they are studying literature: They might read one book for a couple of weeks, then they have an assessment test or a writing piece. And maybe that won’t be until a week from now, two weeks from now. But in a game, when you are playing, you are always getting feedback. Every single time you fail or every single time you move on to the next level. And usually, when you think about video games specifically, you need to use the skills that you learned in the previous level, to succeed in the next level. So nothing is done in isolation. Those are the aspects that move into the classrooms. Instead of just relaying, we do give tests along the way, every other day, maybe in the form of a game or an activity. This way you can always check in on every student to see: did they actually understand what I taught today or this week? And it also creates an environment for the students where they are not hesitant or fearful. Testing is a skill in itself that not everyone is good at. So when the assessment is not only a test but in a game or project maybe a student who does not well sitting and writing a test can do well in creating a project. So it is also providing multiple forms for students to show they actually learned what they were supposed to learn. That information will help to figure out how the teacher needs to proceed. merz: What is the most prominent difference between Quest to learn and a classical school? Vallon: The biggest difference is the mode of delivery of the instruction and the curriculum being developed from scratch. Also the narrative, the storyline is very unique, specifically for our school. Parents always ask if their child will be learning the same things as every other student in New York City. The answer is, of course, yes. We have to make sure of it! We have standards that every child has to master by the end of each grade. And when the teachers are creating their curriculum, the main difference from most other schools is, our teachers create their curriculum completely on their own from scratch, first based on the standards to make sure the students are learning what they should be learning. But then they go back and see where it’s useful to put in a game or a game-like activity. But every student has different strengths and weaknesses, every group of students is dissimilar, every year, over and over again. The great thing about creating your own curriculum is that you can change it year by year based on the precise skills. Teachers are completely responsible and have autonomy over their curriculum. Also, it is the most beneficial for incorporating games and game-like activities. merz: But you can’t possibly create a personalized curriculum for each student, so you have to find something that is working for the majority? Vallon: I will use one teacher as an example. Her curriculum is pretty set, she has been using the same story line and some of the same games - she had told me about one activity where the students start to identify positive traits about themselves. After they identify those positive traits they go on to the computer and use a program that creates comics and they create their own Superhero, an animated version of themselves. There are many steps to this larger project. The purpose is to empower themselves and they will then use this superhero to create a comic book about bullying and that way learn how to solve conflicts and that. She usually creates this comic book every year. This past year she said to me: I realized that this particular group of students struggled with the comic books. So she had to modify. Even if it is something as small as the amount of time she gives them to complete the comic book. But those are the little changes. Maybe it is not about changing the curriculum completely, but about the flexibility, to being able to see, day to day, week to week, what is working and what not. And there are also certain other things that we do. For example the homework requirements that the students get over their summer vacation. The teachers will use that to get some information on the student’s abilities, to see if there is anything they might need to change in their curriculum for the school year coming up. Teachers are completely responsible and have autonomy over all their curriculum. merz: Is there any sort of supervision, for example, anything that helps teachers whilst struggling with the adjustment of a curriculum or whilst being creative throughout the year with the same time and energy? Vallon: When the school was created, there was a smaller organization at the education department, called New visions for public schools, that heard about the Institute of Play and their research. Those two organizations created our school. So the philosophy is a really important part and we try to make sure we always maintain those standards. The first part is the hiring as the school is not the right fit for every student and might also not be the right fit for every teacher. We therefore want to make sure that the teachers know what the model is and if they are really interested in creating the curriculum themselves with additional support. And once they come in, we have various types of support. We have mentors to help them during the process of creating their curriculum. We have one teacher who serves as a curriculum developer, so they spend half of their schedule meeting with teachers, checking in on their curriculum, seeing what is working and what is maybe a little too overboard. Creating a good curriculum requires team work, input from other people. And our supervisors also make sure, the curriculums are holding to the game-based learning. merz: But with every great idea, every system, some things work better and others less good. Where do you see areas of improvement? Vallon: One thing we had to learn is how this model translates into the upper, the high school grades. Because in New York we have state examinations that students need to receive their diploma and go to college. And a lot of the high school courses are aligned to prepare them for these examinations. At the beginning, some of our teachers struggled in how to incorporate games and game-like activities under the pressure to make sure the students are prepared for these examinations. And that is definitely still going on, we always have to work on that. The model is the same but looks very different in the upper grades. For example, in the upper grade they have what is called problem set. Instead of helping a group of imaginary creatures build a house they might be working on global warming, hunger, or current issues in the world as those are more appropriate for their age-level. In a high school math class a teacher does a project based on the game-show ‘Shark Tank’ where they have to create their own Food-Trucks and use the math they learned about graphs and equations to create business portfolios. So I, for example, always advice our teachers and educators regarding to incorporate games or game-based learning: think about the audience, the age group of the students, the main learning goal and the most appropriate vehicle to get that accomplished. merz: In what way are there any digital games involved in those vehicles? Vallon: That was one misconception when we first opened the school. A lot of people had this understanding that we were a video-game school. We used to have students, who were interested in our school as they thought they would sit in front of a video game the whole day and magically learn math, science and English. When you look at the data-base of games, I would say, there are some digitally, but 85 percent of all the games we have are analog or paper-based games. Just a couple of games are on the iPad. For example, we use Minecraft a lot in art or math classes. We have one teacher who is very successfully teaching about slopes and incline by having the students create roller coasters on Minecraft. They have to create a video-game-walk through it and explain mathematically all the slopes in their roller coaster. Students participate in a huge design challenge at the end of the first term and the end of the year. Or, the students in sixth grade have to create a Rube-Goldberg-Machine. This way they learn about prototyping, about showing empathy, giving feedback and so forth. But we have a lot of technologies: computers, iPads, video game systems – but our biggest philosophy is their meaning and purpose! merz: Media is still often perceived as dubious. Throughout time, each new development – books in medieval times, video in the 80s and nowadays computer games – has been perceived as a threat and sometimes people frown at the use of it in school. What do you think about that? Vallon: It is a matter of fact that technology exists in today’s society. We like to say that our kids are born with iPads and cellphones in their hands – unlike us. This makes it all more important to teach students the appropriate usage of those devices as we need to look at students holistically. This starts by teaching them how to write a proper e-mail, or when to use or not to use your phone. All those things are thought directly and indirectly at our school. There is a lot of research showing that this is really becoming important to colleges and to employers - looking for individuals who can solve complex problems, who can think outside of the box, who can think critically. Who can work with others. And games and game design does that so well, even if you are not directly teaching it, it happens when you are playing a game that is collaborative and you are in a classroom environment. Not many of our games have a winning element where one person has to win over the other one. A collaborative game is teaching kids: I need to learn how to work with this individual, in order to succeed as a team, to be able to hear this other person’s ideas but I also have ideas that I can contribute. I need to learn time management, to learn organization. merz: Children are also involved in game-design? Vallon: In three ways: The first is direct game-design. We have a class specific to our school, called ‘Sports for the mind’ and it is a media, arts and game design class - probably the class where there is the most direct game play and game-design happening. The younger kids maybe will start at the beginning of the school year with learning how to modify games. We go through game modification, through the play-testing process and how to play test games, how to provide constructive feedback. They go through a game and the kids learn a game usually has a space, has rules etc. Once they learn about that they learn about modification. What will happen if we maybe change one rule. Then they are given the opportunity to do that with something as simple as tic-tac-toe. They are given an assignment to create their own version of tic-tac-toe. Then eventually that will level up a little bit. In some of the other classes the teacher will allow students to design their own games around the curriculum they are learning. With a health teacher, the students were learning about the negative effects of tobacco and alcohol use. And they have to create board-games about it. Then there is using the design process in general: we have a special component of our school, called boss level. Similar to a video game when it is usually the final round where you have to beat the boss and you have to use everything you learned in the game to complete this really tough mission. So with boss-level students participate in a huge design challenge at the end of the first term and the end of the year. The sixth grade students have to create a Rube-Goldberg-Machine. This way the students learn about prototyping, about showing empathy, giving feedback etc. The third way is: occasionally students participate in a focus group and they play-test certain games and provide feedback on how to develop certain games, or improve or modify games that devel

Analysis of complex measures to ensure epidemiological safety during the period of preparation and carrying out the Olympic Games abroad is presented. The main directions of the anti-epidemic work during preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games are suggested based upon available experience. It has been noted that syndromic surveillance, GIS technologies, automated stations for control of atmospheric air and other new technologies ensuring biological safety should be added to traditional epidemiological surveillance of infections.

Australia has been a ?lucky country?, using Donald Horne?s term from the 1960s, but without his sense of irony. Yet our world is changing fast. The 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney provided a time for national celebration. However, before the Games it was not widely known that defence and civil authorities had been working quietly to prepare for any terrorist or bioterrorist incident.

This paper is devoted to computer games as a means of educating people. The paper emphasizes that computer games are firmly embedded in the everyday culture of modern society, while they carry a number of threats. However, in addition to the negative aspects, computer games have some positive features that are reasonable to implement within the framework of educational and educational programs. In a sense, a computer game is compared to a book, the content of which a person gets used to and experiences it. Certainly, we recognize that you can't put an equal sign between a computer game and a book, so this comparison is conditional. Thanks to visualization, a computer game can transmit information in a form that is not available to text or speech. It seems that if you do not study computer games in a pedagogical sense, their strengths will remain unclaimed and the whole essence of these games will be reduced to entertainment. English version of the article on pp. 664-670 is available at URL: https://panor.ru/articles/character-building-and-education-in-the-historical-context-of-the-virtual-world-of-computer-games/70041.html

In this work, a team of authors tried to analyze the current state of legal regulation of acts related to suicide under Russian and foreign criminal legislation. For this, historical, comparative legal, comparative and systemic-structural methods were used. The study reflects the evolution of beliefs about suicide. It is noted that the legislation of more than 160 countries contains provisions on liability for criminal involvement in the suicide of another person. More than 38 legal systems do not mention suicide as a criminal institution. Particular attention is paid to five groups of crimes associated with suicide. The first group includes responsibility for attempted suicide, which is punishable in more than 24 countries around the world. The following contains a wide list of acts related to the inducement of suicidal behavior in the form of: driving to suicide or attempted suicide, inducement to commit suicide (incitement) or assistance in committing it (assistance, aiding, advice, consultation). The third group is made up of norms that consider these acts as one of the types of murder or incitement to it. The fourth group contains corpus delicti with responsibility for disseminating information about methods of committing suicide, promoting suicide and public calls for its implementation. The last group contains privileged compounds with responsibility for euthanasia. The article reveals the features of new types of criminal activity carried out by spreading suicidal ideology on the Internet, persuading children and adolescents to commit suicide by negative information impact and drawing them into computer games that pose a threat to life and health. The article reflects the relationship of suicide with cyberbullying, cyber-harassment, as well as with the illegal activities of destructive criminal organizations (sects), extremism and terrorism. The necessity of further improvement of criminal law mechanisms for protecting individuals from criminal encroachments and anti-suicidal measures is substantiated.

Video games have become an important aspect of modern culture, especially with the widespread use of mobile devices. Thus, it is important that video games are accessible to all people, but colorblind players are still affected by the use of colors in game interfaces. Some challenges of developing chromatically accessible games are the limited availability of colorblind test subjects and the importance of identifying and considering accessibility threats even in the early stages of development. Thus, digital simulations emerge as possible tools to increase accessibility and awareness. In this paper, we conducted three empirical studies that seek to verify the relationship between the identification of color accessibility problems by people with typical color vision using simulations and people with color blindness, in the context of mobile games. Results indicate concrete uses in which color blindness simulations give advantages to developers with typical vision in identifying chromatic accessibility issues in their games. Additionally, we discuss different possibilities for incorporating simulation tools, accessibility guidelines, and colorblind user participation into a realistic game design life cycle. We also discuss how the incorporation of simulation tools could be beneficial to foment the discussion of accessibility in game design studios.

Introduction: Unhealthy nutrition results from inappropriate eating behaviours that lead to changes in body weight. Consuming excessive amounts of salt, sugar, carbonated drinks, alcohol combined with physical inactivity causes overweight or obesity. In order to prevent incorrect nutrition, it is necessary to prevent overnutrition and to promote health-promoting behaviours that should be targeted at specific groups of the society. Such initiatives may limit or even exclude the emergence of incorrect nutrition which contributes to an increase in the incidence of lifestyle diseases. Objective: The aim of the article is to present and discuss the forms of spending free time, participation in physical education classes, and dietary habits of third-year secondary school students in the city of Bielsko-Biała (Poland). Materials and methods: An original questionnaire entitled “My health – something I care about” was used for the study. The questionnaire included questions about the diet, forms of spending free time, and participation in physical education classes at school. Results: Based on the questionnaire findings, watching TV is the most common form of spending free time (37% boys and 32% girls). Only 7% of girls and 18% of boys chose participation in sports as a form of spending their free time. 28% of boys and as much as 39% of girls admitted that they did not participate in physical education classes at school. The type of drinks consumed by secondary school pupils was significantly dependent on their gender. Regarding the type of lunch, sweet buns are chosen by 31% of boys and 23% of girls. Fruit is declared as their preferred lunch snack by 28% of the surveyed girls and only 2% of boys. Conclusions and discussion: The study has shown that there are many abnormalities in the diet of adolescents. The widespread belief that a slim figure is an asset nowadays prompts many young people to use various weight loss diets or fasting which, if used excessively, can pose a threat to the developing body systems. Information gathered from the respondents also shows that they do not have sufficient physical activity. Secondary school pupils increasingly choose passive recreation because physical activity does not give them as much satisfaction as, for example, playing computer games.

Abstract This review highlights two intersecting environmental phenomena that have significantly impacted the Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games: infectious disease outbreaks and anthropogenic climate change. Following systematic searches of five databases and the gray literature, 15 studies were identified that addressed infectious disease and climate-related health risks associated with the Summer Games and similar sports mega-events. Over two decades, infectious disease surveillance at the Summer Games has identified low-level threats from vaccine-preventable illnesses and respiratory conditions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and expansion of vector-borne diseases represent emerging and existential challenges for cities that host mass gathering sports competitions due to the absence of effective vaccines. Ongoing threats from heat injury among athletes and spectators have also been identified at international sports events from Asia to North America due to a confluence of rising Summer temperatures, urban heat island effects and venue crowding. Projections for the Tokyo Games and beyond suggest that heat injury risks are reaching a dangerous tipping point, which will necessitate relocation or mitigation with long-format and endurance events. Without systematic change to its format or staging location, the Summer Games have the potential to drive deleterious health outcomes for athletes, spectators and host communities.

&lt;p&gt;In today’s increasingly complex network environment, increasingly severe network attacks, and real-time dynamic changes in offensive and defensive scenarios, network security technology has also evolved from passive security to active security technology, and expanded from analyzing unilateral security elements to comprehensively analyzing overall network security. Aiming at the problem of inaccurate assessment results due to the lack of comprehensive analysis of threat information, protection information and environmental information in existing assessment methods, this paper proposes a defensive random game model. This model analyzes threat propagation and establishes a threat propagation access relationship network, and then establishes a random game model for the game process of threat action and protection strategy implementation to solve the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium. The model comprehensively analyzes the dynamic changes of the security situation elements, ignoring the short-term situation elements that will not change, such as topology structure, service information, etc., and mainly analyzes the dynamic changes of attack information, vulnerability information, and defense measures, and predicts from the host and network levels. The experimental verification shows that the prediction method in this paper can improve the prediction accuracy and is more in line with the offensive and defensive scenarios.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;