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The history of computer-based learning games has a story arc that rises dramatically, and then plummets steeply. In the early days of personal computers, creative minds drawn to the new medium explored a variety of approaches to learning games, ranging from behaviorist drill-and-practice exercises, to open-ended environments suitable for either exploration or construction. Early practitioners were inventing new forms, and even the fundamentally limited drill-and-practice games were infused with a measure of creative energy and humor. The late 1980s and mid 1990s were a heyday for the CDROM edutainment era. However, this era came to a crashing halt as the Internet dawned and the market for edutainment dried up in the late 1990s. Despite the downfall of the edutainment era there is new energy and perspective behind the idea of learning games. While edutainment of the 1990s style has gone, there is a new take on what learning games can be. In this era, we are finding that "making a game out of learning is most certainly not the way to approach the development of learning games. However, finding the fun in that learning" and devising ways to focus on and enhance that fun as a core game dynamic is a good strategy.

This paper describes a comparative study to investigate the efficacy of interactive games, non-interactive media and traditional instructional teaching on mathematics and science learning with high school students (aged 13-14). Utilizing a blended in-game (narrative and puzzle games) and off-game (machinima/animation and teacher) learning approach to assess the efficacy, together with survey of teachers' opinions on the introduction of serious games and blended learning approaches, the results shed some light on the integration / assimilate of serious games into the classroom and curriculum.

Touchscreen interfaces do more than allow users to execute speedy interactions. Three interfaces (touchscreen, mouse-drag, on-screen button) were used in the service of performing an object manipulation task. Results showed that planning time was shortest with touch screens, that touchscreens allowed high action knowledge users to perform the task more efficiently, and that only with touchscreens was the ability to rotate the object the same across all axes of rotation. The concept of closeness is introduced to explain the potential advantages of touchscreen interfaces.

Mobile devices and visual-spatial presentations of information are pervasive, especially for tasks in which the mobile device can be moved to close proximity of the task. This mobility allows the user to offload mental workload by allowing physical transformations of the device. In this study, we compared a fixed mobile device, a non-fixed mobile device, and a fixed desktop display to determine the effects imposed by the mental workload of transforming the frames of reference into alignment. Our results indicate that allowing the user to manipulate the device's position can influence performance by reducing the need for mental transformations.

The main purpose of the present study was to show that a Lagrangrian approach can simultaneously solve the problem of grid generation and the complication of the present method can solve the compressible flow field around arbitrary aerodynamic configurations for both steady and unsteady flows for a wide range of Mach numbers. In principle the method can be easily extended to three-dimensions. Although the present method is solved by an explicit method, implicit method can also be employed.

A complex two-dimensional, unsteady, viscous hypersonic shock wave interaction is numerically simulated by a high-resolution, second-order fully implicit shock-capturing scheme. The physical model consists of a non-stationary oblique shock impinging on the bow shock of a blunt body. Studies indicate that the unsteady flow patterns are slightly different from their steady counterparts. However, for the sample cases investigated the peak surface pressures for the unsteady flows seem to occur at very different impingement locations than for the steady flow cases.

Using Couette flow as an example, it has been shown that analysis of the metric terms of a truncation error equation is an effective method of evaluating the grid quality of a structured mesh. However, there are limitations to analyzing mesh quality in this manner. First, though four grid quality measures are derived, GE 1 to GE 4, for the Navier-Stokes equations, only GE 1 and GE 2 reflect the error characteristics of the numerical solution. This is due to the nature of the laminar Couette flow: all x-derivatives and second order and higher y-derivatives vanish. For problems more complex than the Couette flow case presented here, all grid quality measures may have to be evaluated. Second, the grid quality measures do not predict the magnitude of the solution error caused by poor grid quality. This is due to the fact that the in addition to the metric terms, the solution itself plays a major role in determining the magnitude of the truncation error. Moreover the magnitude of the truncation error does not correspond to the magnitude of the solution error. What can be said, however, is that the grid quality measures do point out areas in the numerical mesh where grid induced errors may occur. In closing, it should be noted that the Couette flow problem used in this paper is perhaps one of the simplest flow problems to analyze. In further research a more complicated flow problem may be desirable. The exercise performed here has revealed that grid quality analysis involve more complex measures than the traditional grid quality values used in the past.

Inwieweit der Patient einer verschriebenen Medikation nachkommt, wird durch eine Reihe von Faktoren beeinflutst. Aus der Behandlung verschiedener akuter and chronischer Erkrankungen des Kindesalters ist bekannt, das Arzt-Patientenverhaltnis, Charakteristika der medikamentosen Behandlung and Eigenschaften des Patienten die Adharenz, im folgenden immer auf die Medikamenteneinnahme bezogen, in unterschiedlicher Weise verandern. Abweichend von der Erwachsenenmedzin werden in der Padiatrie Adharenzbestimmende Faktoren durch das Alter des Kindes and die Vermittlung der Eltern modifiziert. Durch die Anwendung einer Vielzahl von Mefsmethoden fur die Adharenz (z. B. Selbsteinschatzung durch Interview oder Fragebogen, Auswertung uber die Anzahl ausgestellter Rezepte, Einschatzung durch medizinisches Personal, Medikamentenspiegel-messungen) liegen die Angaben zum Grad der Adharenz weft auseinander.

Steady two-dimensional transonic flows of ideal inviscid gases through Laval nozzles are computed by a method based on the numerical methods of Telenin [2], Pirumov [6], and Hopkins and Hill [3]. Both the direct and inverse problems are treated for plane and axisymmetric nozzles. Numerical results are compared to the experimental results of Cuffel et al. [8] and results obtained by other numerical methods, namely series and relaxation solutions.

The originator of the group of theories usually labeled “interpersonal” is Harry Stack Sullivan who stated on many occasions that he considered personality in a vacuum as a meaningless concept and that it can only be studied operationally in an interpersonal context. Other theorists who followed him along this path were Erich Fromm, Erik H. Erikson, and, more recently, Timothy F. Leary (1957). The common element in all the concepts of adjustment by these theorists is an emphasis on the behavioral interaction between persons for two purposes. First, there is the alleviation of anxiety by improving interpersonal communication, and secondly, there is the mutual enhancement of sense of self-esteem by provoking positive feedback from others.

It is regrettable that as clinical psychologists, so many of us acquire consummate skill in detecting the fine points of interpretation of psychological tests, reading between every line in an interview, and splitting every diagnostic hair without having any clear guidelines as to what to do with this information and what the purpose of the evaluation should really be. As scientist-clinicians, we have a nagging curiosity which generates an interest in doing the case study for its own sake, because we hope that it will help us to gain a broader and deeper understanding of any given personality and build up our apperceptive reservoir. However, in looking at the matter somewhat more practically, we see that there are really three parties involved in the clinical case study whose needs must be considered and somewhat met if the whole project is to be worthwhile. These are the examiner, the patient, and the reader of the clinical case study. Each one of these has a stake in the enterprise although each may perceive his interests in a somewhat different manner. In addition to his rational goals, the examiner, for instance, may want to use the clinical case study as a way of communicating a certain impression to the reader: he might like the reader to consider him erudite, sophisticated, agreeable, gregarious, or intellectually stimulating. It may be that the clinical case study will serve as a political instrument, designed to sell a particular point of view to anyone who may come across it. It is possible that interprofessional or intraprofessional relationships which are currently tense will be attacked indirectly through a description of certain kinds of causality and the prediction of certain outcomes on the basis of the case study.