In the 1960s, Children's Playground was set up for children by many municipalities in 1960s. Amagasaki city also established Children's Playground. Because Amagasaki city had few parks and need a ...safe environment for children to play. This study is to clarify the features of planning policy of Children's Playground in Amagasaki city by classifying it from 1968 to 2007.The following 2 features were clarified. 1)The planning policy changed three times with the change of municipal policy. The first was the active establishment phase from 1968 to 1975, the second was the maintenance phase from 1976 to 2003, and the third was the review phase from 2004 to 2007. 2)The method of setting up the Children's Playground and its location was different depending on whether they were set up by the municipal or private companies.
Playful learning environments (PLEs) have been constructed in schoolyards in Finland with the aim of increasing learning through play in curriculum-based education. In order to better understand and ...inform this development, Hyvönen sets out to ascertain how teachers view and use play in kindergarten and elementary education. Fourteen teachers were interviewed, and the data obtained were analysed using the grounded theory approach. Eight play types were distinguished, with the teacher having the roles of leader, allower, and afforder. Play types were found to be either curriculum-driven, or seen as facilitating friendship or integrating play and learning as a process. 'Playful teaching' was characterised in terms of the roles assumed by teachers and students in different play situations, the design of playful learning processes, the emphasis on developing and using children's creativity, and the importance of fun and enjoyment. Hyvönen concludes that teacher education should develop teachers' pedagogical thinking through the theoretical understanding of play and learning, as well as through discussions and the modelling of play and playful teaching within teacher education programs. Author abstract
Abstract Purpose To study the cost of sustaining a fracture of the extremity caused by playground equipment. These costs include financial, psychological, clinical and others like loss of school ...days. Method This is a prospective study of 226 children seen at the Paediatric Orthopaedic Department for a 1-year period starting June 2005. Once confirmed to have a playground related fracture by the Orthopaedic specialist, three sets of data are collected. First is the clinical data. Second is the playground related data. This is done on site independently by another investigator. Third is the radiological data, which is assessed independently by an Orthopaedic surgeon to ensure consistency. Results Out of the 226 children seen, two-thirds were boys. The average age was 7.5 years. 35.8% were forearm fractures and 28.8% were supracondylar fractures with the rest being mostly fractures in the upper limb. 64.2% were treated with immobilisation only whilst 24.2% required closed manipulation and reduction. 1.2% required admission for treatment of their fractures. The average period of cast immobilisation was 34 days. The average number of consults, including that at the emergency department, was 4 with an average length of follow up of 67.2 days. Based on the above, in our institution, the average cost for outpatient treatment would be about S$680.00 (US$485.71) (US$1.00 = S$1.40; 1/1/2010) per injury. The inpatient cost for non-surgical treatment cost would be S$1000.00 and for surgical stabilisation the average cost would be S$3300.00 (US$2357.14). Conclusion Playgrounds are meant for children to play safely. Yet, there appears to be a significant number of injuries sustained. Whilst these fractures are relatively minor, requiring outpatient treatment, there are costs. Besides the financial costs, there are hidden psychological costs of loss of school days and inability to participate in sports. Finally, as with any injury, there can be long term complications which present further clinical costs. Significance Most studies on playground injuries tend to concentrate on the equipment and very superficially cover the clinical aspects, less so the costs. This paper looks at the clinical aspects in greater depth and emphasises that there are significant costs, beyond financial, when a child sustains a playground injury. The next thing to do is to examine what playgrounds factors significantly contribute to these injuries and remedy them when planning the construction of playgrounds.
Objectives: To investigate and quantify fall height, surface depth, and surface impact attenuation as risk factors for arm fracture in children who fall from playground equipment. Design: Unmatched ...case control study. Setting: Five case hospitals and 78 randomly selected control schools. Participants: Children aged less than 13 years in Victoria, Australia who fell from school playground equipment and landed on their arm. Cases sustained an upper limb fracture and controls had minor or no injury. A total of 402 cases and 283 controls were included. Interventions: Children were interviewed in the playground as soon as possible after their fall. Main outcome measures: Falls were recreated on site using two validated impact test devices: a headform (measuring peak G and HIC) and a novel anthropometric arm load dummy. Equipment and fall heights, as well as surface depth and substrate were measured. Results: Arm fracture risk was greatest for critical equipment heights above 1.5 m (OR 2.39, 95% CI 1.49 to 3.84, p<0.01), and critical fall heights above 1.0 m (OR 2.96, 95% CI 1.71 to 5.15, p<0.01). Peak headform deceleration below 100G was protective (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.45 to 0.99, p = 0.04). Compliance with 20 cm surface depth recommendation was poor for both cases and controls. Conclusions: Arm fracture-specific criteria should be considered for future standards. These include surface and height conditions where critical headform deceleration is less than 100G. Consideration should also be given to reducing maximum equipment height to 1.5 m. Improved surface depth compliance and, in particular, guidelines for surface maintenance are required.
An adder-subtractor is a unique circuit in digital circuits that can perform addition or subtraction. The circuit decides to conduct addition or subtraction depending on the control signal. The ...Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) is regarded as the standard procedure for evaluating digital circuit designs. UVM is a collection of SystemVerilog classes and other techniques that makes it simple to build sophisticated, reusable verification environments. When verification processes demand randomization, UVM is the most effective. In this paper, we propose a method UVM which provides more automation than earlier methodologies for verification of adder-subtractor circuits using EDA playground.
More than 200,000 children are injured at playgrounds in the United States each year. Our goal was to introduce a composite measure of playground safety and use this instrument to correlate the ...incidence of supracondylar humerus fractures with playground safety in an ecologic study design.
We used a novel "overall-safety rating," defined as a composite of 3 previously validated instruments (National Program for Playground Safety School score, surface depth compliance, and the use zone compliance) to measure the overall safety of all playgrounds within a region. The regions were rated from most to least safe based on average playground safety as measured by this new method. The incidence of supracondylar fractures was calculated using Hasbro Children's Hospital Emergency Department data and state of Rhode Island Census data from 1998 to 2006. The incidence was then correlated with playground safety as defined by our composite measure.
Compared with the neighborhood deemed the safest, the least safe district had 4.7 times greater odds of supracondylar humerus fracture. Overall composite safety score of the district was linearly correlated with the injury rate observed in the population at risk (R=0.98; P=0.04).
Using our novel composite playground safety score, we found that the incidence of supracondylar humerus fractures was increased in districts with playgrounds with lower scores, suggesting that improvements in playground infrastructure may potentially reduce the incidence of supracondylar humerus fractures, and other injuries, in children.
Level IV.
Old creosote-treated railway ties reused at recreational sites in Korea are potential hazards, due to the presence of harmful substances in creosote, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). ...In such sites, PAHs in ties can be leached or emitted, and human exposure might then occur. In this study, the concentrations of 16 PAHs in soil, air, and tie surfaces in old creosote-treated railway ties reused in recreational sites were investigated, and the potential health risk of the ties was evaluated through two exposure scenarios: a recreational scenario (ingestion of and dermal contact with soil and inhalation of soil particles) and a playground scenario (ingestion after contact and dermal contact with ties). For the recreational scenario, the health risks of PAHs were safe; however, for the playground scenario, the carcinogenic risk of ingestion after contact, and dermal contact with benz(a)anthracene and benzo(a)pyrene on the tie surfaces, exceeded the acceptable risk level (10–⁶). For the carcinogenic risks of ingestion after contact with ties, the probabilities of cancer development were 8 and 5 in one million people for benz(a)anthracene and benzo(a)pyrene, respectively. The carcinogenic risks for dermal contact with ties were 2.4 × 10–⁶ and 1.4 × 10–⁶ for benz(a)anthracene and benzo(a)pyrene, respectively.
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