In this chapter we outline an ecological approach to computer games and test out how the theory of ecological psychology can be used for understanding digital games and game-play. Ecological psychology holds that learning is a process of differentiating and not of interpreting or construing. Therefore semiotic/cognitive views on learning and perception with computer games, were the perceptual a...

The GERRI project materializes the Grenelle Environnement’s goals, of which the energy management of a territory is a facet. The aim is to forecast future energy production and consumption, bearing in mind economic and ecological indicators, and using a large number of interactions schemes between the involved parties. The originality of this paper is to present a new approach using the multi-a...

Climate change and species invasions represent key threats to global biodiversity. Subarctic freshwaters are sentinels for understanding both stressors because the effects of climate change are disproportionately strong at high latitudes and invasion of temperate species is prevalent. Here, we summarize the environmental effects of climate change and illustrate the ecological responses of fresh...

Representational views of the mind traditionally face a skeptical challenge on perceptual knowledge: if our experience of the world is mediated by representations built upon perceptual inputs, how can we be certain that our representations are accurate and our perceptual apparatus reliable? J. J. Gibson's ecological approach provides an alternative framework, according to which direct perceptio...

A few recent studies have found evidence showing that social anxiety is associated with diminished positive affect and elevated anger. However, prior work has relied on trait self-report measures of global positive mood or anger. In this preliminary study, we examined how trait social anxiety relates to moment-to-moment positive and angry emotional states as people navigate through their natura...

Through the Blueprints for Violence Prevention Initiative, OJJDP provides information to communities on a broad array of violence prevention and intervention programs that have been proven to be effective. This Bulletin describes the demanding criteria established by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence to designate model Blueprints programs and the activities of the 11 programs ...

■ Abstract Since the late 1980s, language endangerment and death have been discussed as if the phenomena had no connection at all with language birth. More recently the phenomena have been associated almost exclusively with the intense and pervasive economic globalization of same period, a process that some authors have reduced too easily to the McDonaldization phenomenon. Moreover, the relatio...

datum Basis for measurement of position on the Earth’s surface. discrete object view Conceptualization of geographic phenomena as analogous to a tabletop littered with countable, possibly movable objects. ecological fallacy The fallacy of making inferences about individuals from aggregated data. field view Conceptualization of geographic phenomena as a set of functions over geographic space. ge...

We analyzed the statistical distribution of intra-specific local abundances for a set North American breeding bird species. We constructed frequency plots for every species and found that they showed long-tail power-law behavior, truncated at an upper abundance cut-off value. Based on finite size scaling arguments, we investigated whether frequency curves may be considered scaled copies of each...

Understanding the microscopic dispersion and aggregation of nanoparticles at nanoscale media has become an important challenge during the last decades. Nanoscale modeling techniques are the important tools to tackle many of the complex problems faced by engineers and scientists. Making progress in the investigations at nanoscale whether experimentally or computationally has helped understand th...