Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is performed in an increasingly younger and athletic population. Regular and competitive golfers are concerned with the likelihood of recovering their preoperative level ...of play. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of primary THA on golfers’ game, with a minimum follow-up of two years.
Questionnaires were sent to the French Golf Federation’s golfing members. Those who were older than 40 years and had undergone a unilateral primary THA provided information on the timing of return to play, pain during golfing, transportation mode, drive length, handicap and weekly playtime, before hip replacement, and postoperatively. In addition, data relating to the surgical procedure were collected.
Surveys were completed by 883 competitive golfers of which 599 were eligible for inclusion. The mean time to return to a complete 18-hole course was 4.73 months (SD 4.15, range: 0.7-36). Participants surveyed at a minimum 2 years after THA played at a higher level than before surgery with a handicap improvement of 1.8 (P < .01) and increased their mean weekly playtime from 8.8 to 9.3 hours (P = .24, NS). Eighty-eight percent reported an increased or no change in drive distance. Hip pain while playing golf decreased after surgery (6.8 to 2.5 on the visual analog scale, P < .001).
This study highlighted that hip arthroplasty allowed regular and competitive golfers to return to the course with better golfing comfort than before surgery and with an objective improvement in driving distance and level of play.
RESUMEN: El presente artículo recoge una propuesta de mejora, desde una mirada co-educativa, de la gestión y planificación actual del horario de patio de un centro educativo de Lleida, para potenciar ...el aprovechamiento educativo del tiempo de recreo. Partiendo de los recursos disponibles en el centro y de la opinión del alumnado, se observa una diferenciación de género en las actividades realizadas durante el horario del patio escolar. El objetivo principal del estudio es promover un proyecto de patio escolar-inclusivo que favorezca la coeducación del alumnado en la etapa de Primaria. La metodología utilizada es de tipo descriptivo, donde se utiliza la encuesta como instrumento de recogida de información, la cual ofrece como resultados que más del 50% de los alumnos encuestados, independientemente del género y del ciclo de Primaria en el que se sitúen, consideran adecuada la distribución de los espacios y las actividades dentro de los patios. Para finalizar, se plantea una propuesta de actividades cuya finali dad es conseguir un recreo más co-educativo.
Video game addiction in young children is relevant, but it is especially important for children with ADHD. In order to obtain more data about the use of video games by Canadian children, and in ...particular by ADHD children, we explored the modalities of use (playtime, addiction score and usage by age) and compared them between ADHD and non-ADHD children. We then examined associations between addiction and ADHD symptoms and explored innovative results about the gender impact. Our study was cross-sectional, multicenter in child psychiatrist departments, exploratory and descriptive. We recruited three groups of children aged 4-12 years: the ADHD Group, the Clinical-Control Group and the Community-Control Group. For each group, the material used consisted of questionnaires completed by one of the parents. Data collection took place from December 2016 to August 2018 in Montreal (
= 280). Our study highlighted a vulnerability in ADHD children: they would exhibit more addictive behaviors with respect to video games (Addiction score: 1.1025 in ADHD Group vs. 0.6802 in Community-Control Group) and prolonged periods of use. We also observed a correlation between the severity of ADHD symptoms and excessive use of video games (
= 0.000). Children with severe ADHD showed significantly higher addiction scores and, in a multiple regression analysis a combination of gender and ADHD explained the excessive use of video games.
This study examined the use of various communicative intentions (CIs) of mothers directed to their children in two contexts: playtime and mealtime at two linguistic stages: preverbal and single-word. ...The study revealed that statements were most prevalent during mealtime, while both statements and directives were prevalent during playtime. Particularly, directives were more frequent during playtime than during mealtime. Moreover, the number of CIs directed to children in the preverbal stage was higher than children in the single-word stage. These findings emphasize the role of context and culture on the mother-child language use in general and CIs in particular.
•Context affects the use of Communication intentions in mother-child interactions.•Directives are more frequent during playtime than during mealtime.•The number of Communication intentions in the preverbal stage is higher than the single-word stage.•Maternal style is consistent across different contexts.
Breaktimes are ubiquitous in English schools. Research suggests they have social value for children, but school staff often have a range of concerns about breaktimes and tend to undervalue them. ...However, there is little understanding about these times, not least because data are not collected about their organisation and characteristics. This paper brings together data from three national surveys undertaken in 1995, 2006 and 2017 of head teachers of primary and secondary schools to provide an understanding of the nature, organisation and staff attitudes towards breaktimes and how they have changed over 25 years. At each survey point, completed questionnaires were received from representative random samples of over 1000 primary and secondary schools. Results showed marked reductions in the average total amount of time for breaks, the virtual abolition of afternoon breaks and a decline in time available for lunchtime breaks. The reductions were largely for behavioural reasons and to increase time for learning. Results also show variations in the length of breaktimes across school types and in relation to socioeconomic disadvantage, and changes to the amount of supervision provided by schools. Attitudes towards breaks varied across primary and secondary phases, and the withholding of breaks was used by schools to address poor pupil behaviour and disengagement. Schools continued to have concerns about the management of behaviour during breaktimes, even when breaks had already been shortened. It is suggested that staff undervalue the potential contribution that breaktimes afford the development and wellbeing of children and young people in school.
COVID-19 led governments worldwide to enact a variety of containment and closure policies. Substantial attention has been directed toward the idea that these public health measures may have ...unanticipated negative side effects. One proposed effect relates to video games. There is a nascent evidence base suggesting that individuals played video games for longer and in a more disordered manner during lockdowns and school closures specifically. These increases are commonly framed as a potential health concern in relation to disordered gaming. However, the evidence base regarding changes in gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic is based on self-report and, thus, is susceptible to bias. Therefore, it is unclear what the true consequences of lockdowns were for gaming behavior worldwide. The primary objective of this study was to estimate whether any specific lockdown policy led to meaningful increases in the amount of time individuals spent playing video games. Rather than relying on self-report, we used >251 billion hours of raw gameplay telemetry data from 184 separate countries to assess the behavioral correlates of COVID-19–related policy decisions. A multilevel model estimated the impact of varying enforcement levels of 8 containment and closure policies on the amount of time that individual users spent in-game. Similar models estimated the impact of policy on overall playtime and the number of users within a country. No lockdown policy can explain substantial variance in playtime per gamer. School closures were uniquely associated with meaningful increases in total playtime within a country (r sup.2=0.048). However, this was associated with increases in the number of unique individuals playing games (r sup.2=0.057) rather than increases in playtime per gamer (r sup.2<0.001). Previous work using self-report data has suggested that important increases in heavy gaming may occur during pandemics because of containment and closure (“lockdown”) procedures. This study contrasts with the previous evidence base and finds no evidence of such a relationship. It suggests that significant further work is needed before increases in disordered or heavy gaming are considered when planning public health policies for pandemic preparedness.
Physical activity levels among preschoolers in childcare are low and sedentary time high. The Supporting Physical Activity in the Childcare Environment (SPACE) intervention had three components: 1. ...portable play equipment; 2. staff training; and, 3. modified outdoor playtime (i.e., shorter, more frequent periods). This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of the SPACE intervention on preschoolers' physical activity levels and sedentary time during childcare hours (compared to standard care).
Via a single-blind cluster randomized controlled trial, 338 preschoolers (39.86 ± 7.33 months; 52% boys) from 22 centre-based childcare facilities (11 experimental, 11 control) were enrolled. Preschoolers wore an Actical™ accelerometer for 5 days during childcare hours at baseline, post-intervention, and 6- and 12-month follow-up, and were included in the analyses if they had a minimum of two valid days (5 h each day) at baseline and one additional time point. Intervention effectiveness was tested using a linear mixed effects model for each of the four outcome variables (i.e., sedentary time, light physical activity LPA, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity MVPA, and total physical activity TPA). Fixed effects were further evaluated with t-tests, for which degrees of freedom were estimated using a Satterthwaite approximation.
One hundred and ninety-five preschoolers were retained for analyses. The intervention did not significantly impact LPA. MVPA was significantly greater among children in the experimental group when comparing post-intervention to pre-intervention, t(318) = 3.50, p = .0005, but no intervention effects were evident at 6- or 12-month follow-up. TPA was significantly greater for children in the intervention group at post-intervention when compared to pre-intervention, t(321) = 2.70, p = .007, with no intervention effects evident at later time periods. Finally, sedentary time was significantly lower among preschoolers in the experimental group when comparing post-intervention to pre-intervention, t(322) = 2.63, p = .009, with no significant effects at follow-up.
The SPACE intervention was effective at increasing MVPA and TPA among preschoolers, while simultaneously decreasing sedentary time. The ability of the SPACE intervention to target higher intensity activity is promising, as MVPA levels have been documented to be low in centre-based childcare. The changes in physical activity were not sustained long term (6- or 12-month follow-up).
ISRCTN70604107 (October 8, 2014).
Maximizing product use is a central goal of many businesses, which makes retention and monetization two central analytics metrics in games. Player retention may refer to various duration variables ...quantifying product use: total playtime or session playtime are popular research targets, and active playtime is well-suited for subscription games. Such research often has the goal of increasing player retention or conversely decreasing player churn. Survival analysis is a framework of powerful tools well suited for retention type data. This paper contributes new methods to game analytics on how playtime can be measured using survival analysis. These methods include visualizations, metrics, and an AB-test based on the survival curve. All these methods work on censored data and enable computation of confidence intervals. This is especially important in time- and sample-limited data that occurs during game development. Throughout this paper, we illustrate the application of these methods to the development of the Hipster Sheep mobile game.
Ambivalent laughter Nugent, Michael
European journal of humour research,
2022, Volume:
10, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Arguments over the future of school playtime continue back and forth. Opinions range from theinterval period envisaged as a waste of teaching and learning time to sentiments supporting achild’s right ...to free play. Neither view, however, addresses the principal issue. If all laughter isambivalent, which is the issue proposed here, then the central means by which pupilscommunicate on the primary school playground cannot be an indication of their contentmentalone. The double, contradictory nature of ambivalence means that pupils’ laughter can also bean indication of their unhappiness. Playtime’s substantially serious dimension, therefore,invalidates any claims that playtime is simply a frivolous occasion and therefore expendable.Mikhail Bakhtin’s work on the language of relationships and on ambivalent laughter providesthis qualitative study with the fresh insights that can make a positive contribution to the ongoingplaytime debate.
Despite evidence for the importance of playtime for children, the use of the withdrawal of playtime is a sanction that is used throughout schools in the UK. In light of this, there have been recent ...arguments highlighting the need to explore alternatives to this sanction in order to protect opportunities for playtime. This exploratory action research study included an initial focus group and multiple psychological consultations with teachers in a single setting to collaboratively explore and review potential alternatives. Findings include teachers wanting to address behaviours that often result in the withdrawal of playtime, and strategies to address these were co-constructed and implemented. Other findings included contextual barriers to stopping the use of withdrawing playtime, such as curriculum constraints, as well as facilitative aspects to stopping the withdrawal of playtime. Further implications for EP and school practice and research, as well as limitations, are discussed.
PDF
