Background and ContextA subject's curriculum is defined by more than just its content, as the way it is taught and assessed also constitutes what a curriculum is. Computer Science was introduced in upper secondary level curriculum in Ireland in 2018.ObjectiveExploring students' experiences can help understand the uptake, engagement and the teaching and learning experiences related to Computer Science.MethodThis research employed a qualitative approach which consisted of one-to-one semi-structured interviews, and other data collection methods that helped gain a deeper understanding of students' experiences.FindingsStudents had positive experiences of the curriculum, its teaching and learning approach and the peer learning. A perceived curriculum incoherence was reported in relation to the assessment and applied learning tasks. A demarcation of practical and theory content was reported.ImplicationsThe study highlights the importance of the wider context in the implementation and enactment of a new subject that challenges prevailing pedagogical and assessment practices.

Computer Science was introduced in the upper secondary curriculum in Ireland in 2018. Initially introduced in 40 pilot schools, it has since expanded and is currently offered in approximately one-third of all schools across the country. Given its recent introduction, it was important to understand the students’ experiences and perceptions of the subject. This study reports on students’ experiences of studying Computer Science in a sample of secondary schools. A qualitative approach was adopted to comprehensively capture students’ insights, including one-to-one semi-structured interviews and other data collection methods that collected student-generated data. The study found that students had positive experiences and perceptions of the subject. Students enjoyed the active and interactive way Computer Science was taught and appreciated the peer learning opportunities that it provided. Students reported developing skills such as creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration through the active learning approach. The project-based learning, afforded by the Applied Learning Tasks, was welcomed by students, although it also presented a number of challenges. Students opposed the prevalent stereotypical views of Computer Science, claiming that the subject was suitable for all, regardless of gender, prior knowledge, or abilities. The subject was considered relevant not only for those pursuing a career in Computer Science but for all students, as it acted as a vehicle to developing an understanding of the technology-rich society and foster valuable 21st century skills.

Background and Context: School principals and school guidance counsellors can be very influential in deciding what subjects are offered on the curriculum, how they are promoted and who they are targeted to. For that reason, exploring their views of Computer Science (CS) as a subject can help unearth potential barriers that may hinder the wider uptake of the subject in schools. Objective: This study aimed to explore school principals and school guidance counsellors' views of CS as a subject at upper second level education in Ireland as part of the launch of a new subject. Method: Using one-to-one semi-structured interviews, the study sought the views of a sample pf 10 school principals and 10 school guidance counsellors from secondary schools in Ireland that had recently introduced the subject of CS on the curriculum. Findings: The study found contradictory views expressed, where the participants emphasised the value of the subject for all students, while at the same time presenting it as more suitable for certain types of students - highlight the tensions between the espoused values and the actual reality of practice.

Objective Virtual reality is increasingly used in healthcare settings. Potentially, it's use in palliative carecould have a positive impact; however, there is limited evidence on the scope, purpose and patient outcomes relating to virtual reality use in this context. The objective of this scoping review is to chart the literature on virtual reality use in palliative care, identifying any evidence relating to biopsychosocial patient outcomes which could support its use in practice. Methods A scoping review of the literature, involving . a systematic search across 10 electronic bibliographic databases in December 2021, . Eligibility criteria were primary research studies, of any research designwithin a 10-year timeframe, which reported on virtual reality use and patient outcomes in palliative care. A total of 993 papers were identified, andcomprehensive screening resulted in 10 papers for inclusion. Results This scoping review identified 10 papers addressing virtual reality in palliative care, published within a three-year timeframe 2019–2021. Research methodologies included mixed methods, quantitative and qualitative. The evidence highlightsvirtual reality use with patients receiving palliative care in a variety of settings, and data around useability, feasibility and acceptability is positive. However, the evidence regarding biopsychosocial patient outcomes linked to virtual reality use is limited. Conclusion Virtual reality is gathering momentum in palliative care and is potentially a helpful intervention; however more research is needed to underpin the evidence base supporting its application, particularly in understanding the impact on biopsychosocial patient outcomes and ascertaining the best approach for measuring intervention effectiveness.

The balance or perceived fairness of Level & Character design within multiplayer games depends on the skill level of the players within the game, skills or abilities that have high contributions but require low skill, feel unfair for less skill players and can become the dominant strategy and playstyle if left unchecked. Player skill influences the viable tactics for different map designs, with some strategies only possible for the best players. Level designers hope to create various maps within the game world that are suited to different strategies, giving players interesting choices when deciding what to do next. This paper proposes using deep learning to measure the connection between player skills and balanced level design. This tool can be added to Unity game engine allowing designers to see the impact of their changes on the level’s design on win-rate probability for different skilled teams. The tool is comprised of a neural network which takes as input the level layout as a stacked 2D one hot encoded array alongside the player parameters, skill rating chosen characters; the neural network output is the win rate probability between 0-1 for team 1. Data for this neural network is generated using learning agents that are learning the game using self-play (Silver et al., 2017) and the level data that is used for training the neural network is generated using procedural content generation (PCG) techniques.

Delirium is extremely prevalent, yet underdiagnosed, in older patients and is associated with prolonged length of hospital stay and higher mortality rates. Impaired attention is the cardinal deficit in delirium and is a required feature in diagnostic criteria. The verbal months backwards test (MBT) is the most sensitive bedside test of attention, however, hospital staff occasionally have difficulty with its administration and interpretation. We hypothesise that the MBT on an electronic tablet may be easier and more consistent to use for both experienced and unexperienced medical professionals and, if the diagnostic efficacy was similar, aid delirium diagnosis. We aim to investigate the correlation of the verbal MBT with a computerised MBT application. Participants recruited (age > 65, n = 75) were allocated to different cohorts (Dementia and Delirium (DMDL), Dementia (DM), Delirium (DL), No Neurocognitive Disorder (NNCD)) and were administered both the verbal and electronic versions. Correlation between measurements were: overall Spearman’s rho = 0.772 (p < 0.0001); DMDL rho = 0.666 (p < 0.0001); DL rho = 0.778 (p = 0.039); DM rho = 0.378 (p = 0.203); NNCD rho = 0.143 (p = 0.559). Overall, and for the delirious subset, statistically significant agreement was present. Poor inter-test correlation existed in the groups without delirium (DM, NNCD). The MBTc correlates well with the MBTv in patients who are clinically suspected to have delirium but has poor correlation in patients without delirium. Visuospatial cognition and psychomotor deficits in a dementia cohort and mechanical factors (such as tremor, poor fingernail hygiene and visual impairment) in a group with no neurocognitive disorder may limit the utility of the MBTc in a hospitalised older population.

This paper assesses an improved framework for evaluating the performance of economies within online multiplayer games. Games in this medium traditionally require a great deal of testing and analysis to assess the outcomes and affects of player interactions. This process is normally imperfect and time consuming, leading a lot of games developers and publishers to maintain a lot of risk during the development and launch of multi-million dollar projects. The framework and example project presented within this paper uses deep reinforcement learning to simulate economic interactions between learning agents. This is possible by having agents learn from player demonstrations to interact with game systems such as Battling, Collecting Resources and Crafting Weapons which allows them to co-ordinate and cooperate to achieve long-term goals in the game. This paper shows recent breakthroughs in relation to training these agents to the variety of metrics learning agents can generate to help games designers test and polish multiplayer experience, which have proved hard to quantify and measure without extensive play testing. This paper is an extension paper to our publication in ICAART 2021 [21], within this paper includes the following additions:

Feature Location (FL) aims to locate observable functionalities in source code. Considering its key role in software maintenance, a vast array of automated and semi-automated Feature Location Techniques (FLTs) have been proposed. To compare FLTs, an open, standard set of non-subjective, reproducible "compare-to" FLT techniques (baseline techniques) should be used for evaluation. In order to relate the performance of FLTs compared against different baseline techniques, these compare-to techniques should be evaluated against each other. But evaluation across FLTs is confounded by empirical designs that incorporate different FL goals and evaluation criteria. This paper moves towards standardizing FLT comparability by assessing eight baseline techniques in an empirical design that addresses these confounding factors. These baseline techniques are assessed in twelve case studies to rank their performance. Results of the case studies suggest that different baseline techniques perform differently and that VSM-Lucene and LSI-Matlab performed better than other implementations. By presenting the relative performances of baseline techniques this paper facilitates empirical cross-comparison of existing and future FLTs. Finally, the results suggest that the performance of FLTs partially depends on system/benchmark characteristics, in addition to the FLTs themselves.

This paper proposes a new framework to measure the fairness of asymmetric level-design in multiplayer games. This work achieves real time prediction of the degree to which asymmetric levels are balanced using deep learning. The proposed framework provides both cost and time savings, by removing the requirement of numerous designed levels and the need to gather player data samples. This advancement with the field is possible through the combination of deep reinforcement learning (made accessible to developers with Unity’s ML-Agents framework), and Procedural Content Generation (PCG). The result of this merger is the acquisition of accelerated training data, which is established using parallel simulations. This paper showcases the proposed approach on a simple two player top-down -shooter game implemented using MoreMountains: Top Down Engine an extension to Unity 3D a popular game engine. Levels are generated using the same PCG approaches found in ’Nuclear Throne’ a popular cross platform Roguelike published by Vlambeer. This approach is accessible and easy to implement allowing games developers to test human-designed content in real time using the predictions. This research is open source and available on Github: https://github.com/Taikatou/top-down-shooter.

BACKGROUND:Efficient detection of delirium and comorbid delirium-dementia is a key diagnostic challenge. Development of new, efficient delirium-focused methods of cognitive assessment is a key challenge for improved detection of neurocognitive disorders in everyday clinical practice. AIM:To compare the accuracy of two novel bedside tests of attention, vigilance and visuospatial function with conventional bedside cognitive tests in identifying delirium in older hospitalized patients. METHODS:180 consecutive elderly medical inpatients (mean age 79.6 ± 7.2; 51% female) referred to a psychiatry for later life consultation-liaison service with delirium, dementia, comorbid delirium-dementia and cognitively intact controls. Participants were assessed cross-sectionally with conventional bedside cognitive tests [WORLD, Months Backward test (MBT), Spatial span, Vigilance A and B, Clock Drawing test and Interlocking Pentagons test] and two novel cognitive tests [Lighthouse test, Letter and Shape Drawing test (LSD)-4]. RESULTS:Neurocognitive diagnoses were delirium (n = 44), dementia (n = 30), comorbid delirium-dementia (n = 60) and no neurocognitive disorder (n = 46). All conventional tests had sensitivity of > 70% for delirium, with best overall accuracy for the Vigilance-B (78.3%), Vigilance-A (77.8%) and MBT (76.7%) tests. The sustained attention component of the Lighthouse test was the most distinguishing of delirium (sensitivity 84.6%; overall accuracy 75.6%). The LSD-4 had sensitivity of 74.0% and overall accuracy 74.4% for delirium identification. Combining tests allowed for enhanced sensitivity (> 90%) and overall accuracy (≥ 75%) with the highest overall accuracy for the combination of MBT-Vigilance A and the combined Vigilance A and B tests (both 78.3%). When analyses were repeated for those with dementia, there were similar findings with the MBT-Vigilance A the most accurate overall combination (80.0%). Combining the Lighthouse-SA with the LSD-4, a fail in either test had sensitivity for delirium of 91.4 with overall accuracy of 74.4%. CONCLUSION:Bedside tests of attention, vigilance and visuospatial ability can help to distinguish neurocognitive disorders, including delirium, from other presentations. The Lighthouse test and the LSD-4 are novel tests with high accuracy for detecting delirium.

There has been a growing body of work emerging about effective professional development (PD) models for CS but less research has been conducted around measuring teachers' noncognitive constructs. It is acknowledged that confidence is an essential element of teacher professional performance. In his work Bandura linked teacher self-efficacy to performance in the classroom. Bandura's self-efficacy theory states that an individual's certainty in his or her own capabilities leads to positive interactions with his or her environments. In this study we share our experiences of measuring teacher confidence levels to teach a CS curriculum. This study shares the learning outcomes teachers have most and least confidence teaching, the tools and technologies teachers have most and least confidence using effectively and how these confidence levels change over a two-year PD programme.

In this paper, we discuss the feasibility of using an automated speech-to-speech pipeline to encode voice samples instead of regular voice codecs, in situations that require high data compression with high packet loss scenarios. To analyse the advantages of using a speech-to-text transcription as a voice encoder and a text-to-speech synthesis as a decoder and compare it against standard a PCM A-law codec, we have measured the error rate of user-transcribed sentences based on the Semantically Unpredictable Sentences (SUS) test. Some of the PCM speech samples were also played in a way to simulate poor network conditions, specifically 5% and 10% packet loss. These were added to compare the performance of the speech-to-text method to standard voice codecs. Additionally, we have evaluated how similar the transcribed messages were to the ground truth by measuring the Levenshtein distance between the sentences and also their Double Metaphone phonetic representations. We conclude it may be feasible to use speech-to-text as a codec, as the results of do not show a significant difference between the synthesised voice and the real voice.

Abstract Trommons is an open-source, web-based platform administered by The Rosetta Foundation. The Rosetta Foundation has worked since 2009 to eradicate the information gap faced by communities under-served by commercial localisation, by making information accessible in the languages of those communities. In recent years we have conducted several studies into crowdsourced volunteer translation from the perspective of the client organisations. In this paper we are reporting on the finding of those studies, which include two survey questionnaires as well as semi-structured interviews with representatives of the non-profit organisations and staff at the Rosetta Foundation. The studies conducted provide insights into the following questions: Do organisations work with volunteers, and why? What reasons would make them not work with volunteers? What expectations do organisations have of volunteers, as well as a platform like Trommons, and are those expectations being met? What are the interactions between organisations and staff at the Rosetta Foundation?

Maintaining consistent VoIP quality is a challenging task, especially where it is carried using a mobile internet connection. With greater than 50% of the world’s mobile user population using older GSM incarnations, this is very much a present technical research challenge. This paper presents an approach to improving mobile VoIP telephony by drastically lowering the bandwidth consumption while maintaining acceptable call quality when compared to competitor solutions. We verify this claim through a quantitative analysis of bandwidth consumption and MOS test of audio quality of 10 different VoIP solutions.

Gamification is the use of game design elements in nongame contexts and has been shown to be effective in motivating behavior change. By seeing game elements as “motivational affordances,” and formalizing the relationship between these elements and motivational affordances, it is the position of this article that gamification can be effectively applied to improve software systems across many different application domains. The research reported here aims to formalize the relationship between game elements and motivation, toward making gamification’s use more systematic. The focus is on the development of a framework linking commonly occurring game elements with the components of a psychological motivational model known as the self-determination theory, coupled with a proposed framework of commonly occurring game elements. The goal is to inform system designers who would like to leverage gamification of the game elements they would need to employ as motivational affordances.

ABSTRACT Background: The early and effective detection of neurocognitive disorders poses a key diagnostic challenge. We examined performance on common cognitive bedside tests according to differing delirium syndromal status and clinical (motor) subtypes in hospitalized elderly medical inpatients. Methods: A battery of nine bedside cognitive tests was performed on elderly medical inpatients with DSM-IV delirium, subsyndromal delirium (SSD), and no delirium (ND). Patients with delirium were compared according to clinical (motor) subtypes. Results: A total of 198 patients (mean age 79.14 ± 8.26) were assessed with full syndromal delirium (FSD: n = 110), SSD ( n = 45), and ND ( n = 43). Delirium status was not associated with differences in terms of gender distribution, age, or overall medication use. Dementia burden increased with greater delirium status. Overall, the ability to meaningfully engage with the tests varied from 59% for the Vigilance B test to 85% for Spatial Span Forward test and was lowest in patients with FSD, where engagement ranged from 32% for the Vigilance B test to 77% for the Spatial Span Forwards test. The ND group was distinguished from SSD group for the Months of the year backwards, Vigilance B, global VSP, Clock Drawing test, and Interlocking Pentagons test. The SSD group was distinguished from the FSD group by Vigilance A, Spatial Span Forward, and Spatial Span Backwards. Regarding differences among motor subtypes in terms of percentage engagement and performance, the No subtype group had higher ratings across all tests. Delirious patients with no subtype had significantly lower scores on the DRS-R98 than for the other three subtype categories. Conclusions: Simple bedside tests of attention, vigilance, and visuospatial ability are useful in distinguishing neurocognitive disorders, including SSD from other presentations.

Playing action video games requires players to develop a cognitive profile that allows them to rapidly monitor and react to fast moving visual and auditory stimuli, and to inhibit erroneous actions. This study investigated whether experience with action videogames is associated with an advantage on standardized cognitive tasks. Specifically, we investigated whether individuals who played action video games demonstrated enhanced cognitive processing speed, task-switching and inhibitive abilities. First person shooter (FPS) and Massive online battle arena (MOBA) experienced video game players (AVGPs) and individuals with little to no videogame experience (NVGPs) performed both a Stroop test and a Trail-Making test (TMT A&B). Results showed that on the Stroop test, AVGPs responded significantly faster than NVGPs but made significantly more errors. Alternatively, on the TMT test AVGPs displayed faster reaction times while error rates did not differ compared to NVGPs. Our findings suggest that while AVGPs may possess enhanced processing speed and task-switching ability, AVGPs adopt a strategy that favours speed over accuracy on a task evaluating cognitive inhibition ability. Our data corroborate and bolster previous findings demonstrating a different cognitive profile for individuals that specifically play action video games.

Understanding the neurological changes that take place as expertise develops is a central topic in both cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Here, we argue that video games, despite previous misconceptions, are an excellent model environment from which one can examine the development of neurocognitive expertise. Of particular relevance we argue is the area of esports, which encompass video/computer games played within the medium of cyberspace competitively and increasingly professionally. The massive scale of participation, controlled environments, structured skill ratings, pervasive social nature, and large repositories of data, together make esports potentially a very fruitful area for scientific research to increase our understanding of a new era of cognitive athletes. This chapter reviews the progress and prospects for esports research with a particular focus on the effects of gaming on neurocognition. We also outline some exciting new avenues and techniques from which we hope to further elucidate the benefits of esports on the brain.