10 simple rules to create a serious game, illustrated with examples from structural biology

Serious scientific games are games whose purpose is not only fun. In the field of science, the serious goals include crucial activities for scientists: outreach, teaching and research. The number of serious games is increasing rapidly, in particular citizen science games, games that allow people to produce and/or analyze scientific data. Interestingly, it is possible to build a set of rules providing a guideline to create or improve serious games. We present arguments gathered from our own experience ( Phylo , DocMolecules , HiRE-RNA contest and Pangu) as well as examples from the growing literature on scientific serious games

Gaming when things get tough? Examining how emotion regulation and coping self-efficacy influence gaming during difficult life situations

Research suggests that gaming can play an important role in dealing with life difficulties, but few studies have examined this directly. Building on recent research, the current study set out to develop a measure of gaming in difficult life situations (GDLS) and explored the role of emotion regulation and coping self-efficacy as predictors of this behaviour. A total of 667 gamers completed the online survey. Initial analyses demonstrated validity and reliability of the GDLS scale (α=.92), with players turning to gaming as a distraction from life difficulties, to feel a sense of achievement, to connect with others, and for in-game connection and simulation. Multiple regression analysis showed that younger age, more time spent gaming in general, and lower coping self-efficacy predicted gaming in difficult life situations, but emotion regulation was non-significant. The study presents novel insights and a new measure for future research in this area

The serious games ecosystem: Interdisciplinary and intercontextual praxis

This chapter will situate academia in relation to serious games commercial production and contextual adoption, and vice-versa. As a researcher it is critical to recognize that academic research of serious games does not occur in a vaccum. Direct partnerships between universities and commercial organizations are increasingly common, as well as between research institutes and the contexts that their serious games are deployed in. Commercial production of serious games and their increased adoption in non-commercial contexts will influence academic research through emerging impact pathways and funding opportunities. Adding further complexity is the emergence of commercial organizations that undertake their own research, and research institutes that have inhouse commercial arms. To conclude, we explore how these issues affect the individual researcher, and offer considerations for future academic and industry serious games projects

Seeing Taylor bubble flow dynamic transient with bubble mapping method

The phenomenon of Taylor bubbles is usually created in gas-liquid flows and is commonly found in many chemical and process industries. Therefore, the visualisation and understanding of their flow dynamics is of crucial importance for the industries. Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) is generally used as non-intrusive method for the visualisation of multiphase flows. However, due to its low spatial resolution, the sharp interfaces as well as the small bubbles, are no t able to be seen. A newly established method, called bubble mapping, enables three-dimensional visualisation of gas bubble size and distribution in gas-water flows. Bubble mapping (BM) is based on the transformation of the cross-sectional gas concentration tomograms to air bubbles. This paper specialises on the visualisation of the Taylor bubble and its dynamic transient. Taylor bubble has been generated using the University of Leeds facilities by applying low water superficial velocity and gas. Tomograms containing Taylor bubble and bubble transient are captured with ERT sensors. Based on the conductivity difference between water and gas, the bubble can be visualised. The performance of the bubble mapping method for visualise the size and shape of the Taylor bubble, as well as bubble flow dynamics, were explored, which would provide a potential to examine and reveal the transient dynamics of two phase flow in opaque pipe

Bubble Mapping Method for Transient Taylor Bubble Flows

The phenomenon of Taylor bubbles is usually created in gas-liquid flows and is commonly found in many chemical and process industries. Therefore, the visualisation and understanding of their flow dynamics is of crucial importance for the industries. Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) is generally used as non-intrusive method for the visualisation of multiphase flows. However, due to its low spatial resolution, the sharp interfaces as well as the small bubbles are not able to be seen. A newly established method, called bubble mapping, enables three-dimensional visualisation of gas bubble size and distribution in gas-water flows. Bubble mapping (BM) is based on the transformation of the cross-sectional gas concentration tomograms to air bubbles. This paper specialises on the visualisation of the Taylor bubble and its dynamic transient. Taylor bubble has been generated using the University of Leeds facilities by applying low water superficial velocity and gas. Tomograms containing Taylor bubble and bubble transient are captured with ERT sensors. Based on the conductivity difference between water and gas, the bubble can be visualised. The performance of the bubble mapping method for visualise the size and shape of the Taylor bubble, as well as bubble flow dynamics, were explored, providing this potential to examine and reveal the transient dynamics of two phase flow in an opaque pipe

Reproductive health and burn-out among female physicians: nationwide, representative study from Hungary

BACKGROUND: There is a worldwide rising tendency of women deciding to become physicians; hence, one of the most remarkable fields of investigation is the wellbeing of female doctors. The aim of this study was to describe female physicians' reproductive health in Hungary and to explore the potential correlation between their reproductive disorders and burnout symptoms. Up to our present knowledge, there have not been any studies investigating the correlation between reproductive disorders and burnout of female physicians; therefore, our study represents a unique approach. METHODS: Data in this representative cross-sectional epidemiological study were obtained from online questionnaires completed by 3039 female physicians. Participants in a representative nationwide survey (Hungarostudy, 2013) served as controls (n = 1069). Differences between physicians and the control group were disclosed by chi-square test. Correlations between certain factors of reproductive health and the three dimensions of burnout were detected by Pearson correlations and X2 test. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine the association between burnout and reproductive health. RESULTS: Female physicians were more often characterised by time-to-pregnancy interval longer than one year (18.4% vs. 9.8%), were bearing more high-risk pregnancies (26.3% vs.16.3%), and were more likely to be undergoing infertility therapy (8.5% vs. 3.4%) and experiencing miscarriage (20.8% vs. 14.6%) during their reproductive years, compared with the general female population. With the exception of miscarriages, the difference remained significant in all comparisons with the professional control group. Both high-risk pregnancies and miscarriages of doctors were associated with depersonalisation (p = 0.028 and p = 0.012 respectively) and personal accomplishment (p = 0.016 and p = 0.008 respectively) dimensions of burnout. Results of the multivariate analysis showed that, beside traditional risk factors, depersonalisation acted as an important explanatory factor in case of high-risk pregnancies (OR = 1.086). CONCLUSIONS: There is a circulatory causality between burnout and the development of reproductive disorders. Burnout is an important risk factor for high-risk pregnancies and miscarriages, and it has a negative effect on the outcome of pregnancies. At the same time, women suffering from reproductive disorders are more likely to develop burnout syndrome. Improvement of working conditions and prevention of burnout in female doctors are equally important tasks

The development and application of two-time-scale turbulence models for non-equilibrium flows

The reliable prediction of turbulent non-equilibrium flows is of high academic and industrial interest in several engineering fields. Most turbulent flows are often predicted using single-time-scale Reynolds-Averaged-Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models which assume the flows can be modelled through a single time or length scale which is an admittedly incorrect assumption. Therefore they are not expected to capture the lag in the response of the turbulence in non-equilibrium flows. In attempts to improve prediction of these flows, by taking into consideration some features of the turbulent kinetic energy spectrum, the multiple-time-scale models arose. A number of two-scale models have been proposed, but so far their use has been rather limited.This work thus focusses on the development of two-time-scale approaches. Two two-time-scale linear-eddy-viscosity models, referred to as NT1 and NT2 models, have been developed and the initial stages of the development of two-time-scale non-linear-eddy-viscosity models are also reported. The models' coefficients have been determined through asymptotic analysis of decaying grid turbulence, homogeneous shear flows and the flow in a boundary layer in local equilibrium. Three other important features of these models are that there is consistent partition of the large and the small scales for all above limiting cases, model sensitivity to the partition and production rate ratios and sensitivity of the eddy viscosity sensitive to the mean strain rates.The models developed have been tested through computations of a wide range of flows such as homogeneous shear and normally strained flows, fully developed channel flows, zero-pressure-gradient, adverse-pressure-gradient, favourable-pressure-gradient and oscillatory boundary layer flows, fully developed oscillatory and ramp up pipe flows and steady and pulsated backward-facing-step flows.The proposed NT1 and NT2 two-scale models have been shown to perform well in all test cases, being, among the benchmarked models tested, the models which best performed in the wide range of dimensionless shear values of homogeneous shear flows, the only linear-eddy-viscosity models which predicted well the turbulent kinetic energy in the normally strained cases and the only models which showed satisfactory sensitivity in predicting correctly the reattachment point in the unsteady backward facing step cases with different forcing frequencies. Although the development of the two-time-scale non-linear-eddy-viscosity models is still in progress, the interim versions proposed here have resulted in predictions of the Reynolds normal stresses similar to those of much more complex models in all test cases studied and in predictions of the turbulent kinetic energy in normally strained flows which are better than those of the other models tested in this study.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceCNPq, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, BrazilOverseas Research Student (ORS) Scholarship, School of MACEGBUnited Kingdo

Reliability and psychometric properties of the Greek translation of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory form Y: Preliminary data

BACKGROUND: The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory form Y is a brief self-rating scale for the assessment of state and trait anxiety. The aim of the current preliminary study was to assess the psychometric properties of its Greek translation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 121 healthy volunteers 27.22 ± 10.61 years old, and 22 depressed patients 29.48 ± 9.28 years old entered the study. In 20 of them the instrument was re-applied 1–2 days later. Translation and Back Translation was made. The clinical diagnosis was reached with the SCAN v.2.0 and the IPDE. The Symptoms Rating Scale for Depression and Anxiety (SRSDA) and the EPQ were applied for cross-validation purposes. The Statistical Analysis included the Pearson Correlation Coefficient and the calculation of Cronbach's alpha. RESULTS: The State score for healthy subjects was 34.30 ± 10.79 and the Trait score was 36.07 ± 10.47. The respected scores for the depressed patients were 56.22 ± 8.86 and 53.83 ± 10.87. Both State and Trait scores followed the normal distribution in control subjects. Cronbach's alpha was 0.93 for the State and 0.92 for the Trait subscale. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient between State and Trait subscales was 0.79. Both subscales correlated fairly with the anxiety subscale of the SRSDA. Test-retest reliability was excellent, with Pearson coefficient being between 0.75 and 0.98 for individual items and equal to 0.96 for State and 0.98 for Trait. CONCLUSION: The current study provided preliminary evidence concerning the reliability and the validity of the Greek translation of the STAI-form Y. Its properties are generally similar to those reported in the international literature, but further research is necessary

Exploring Citizen Psych-Science and the Motivations of Errordiary Volunteers

Although virtual citizen science projects have the potential to engage large networks of people in science research, seeding and maintaining such networks can be difficult. A feature of successful projects is that they have well-motivated volunteers. What makes volunteers motivated rather than apathetic? In this paper we focus on projects that contribute to psychology research, which we term ‘citizen psych-science’. This differs from typical citizen science because volunteers are asked to contribute themselves as data. We describe research studies that we conducted with Errordiary – a citizen psych-science project where volunteers tweet about their everyday experiences of human error. These studies were: (1) an interview study, to explore the motivations of eight Errordiary volunteers; and (2) three focus groups, to explore the potential of attracting new communities to Errordiary. We found that the personal nature of the data can influence participation in positive and negative ways. We suggest several factors that scientists need to consider when encouraging citizen psych-science volunteers to contribute their personal experiences towards research

MOODs: Building massive open online diaries for researchers, teachers and contributors

Internet-based research conducted in partnership with paid crowdworkers and volunteer citizen scientists is an increasingly common method for collecting data from large, diverse populations. We wanted to leverage web-based citizen science to gain insights into phenomena that are part of people's everyday lives. To do this, we developed the concept of a Massive Open Online Diary (MOOD). A MOOD is a tool for capturing, storing and presenting short updates from multiple contributors on a particular topic. These updates are aggregated into public corpora that can be viewed, analysed and shared. MOODs offer a novel method for crowdsourcing diary-like data in a way that provides value for researchers, teachers and contributors. MOODs also come with unique community-building and ethical challenges. We describe the benefits and challenges of MOODs in relation to Errordiary.org, a MOOD we created to aid our exploration of human error