OBJECTIVE To describe the circumstances, characteristics, and trends of emergency department (ED) visits for nonfatal, playground-related traumatic brain injury (TBI) among persons aged ≤14 years. METHODS The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program from January 1, 2001, through December 31, 2013, was examined. US Census bridged-race population estimates were used as ...

This paper presents a novel method for interactive playground design, based on traditional children’s play. This method combines the rich interaction possibilities of computer games with the physical and open-ended aspects of traditional children’s games. The method is explored by the development of a prototype interactive playground, which has been implemented and evaluated over two iterations.

BACKGROUND Changes to Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standards for playground equipment prompted the removal of hazardous equipment from 136 elementary schools in Toronto. We conducted a study to determine whether applying these new standards and replacing unsafe playground equipment with safe equipment reduced the number of school playground injuries. METHODS A total of 86 of the 136 s...

We describe a novel transformation of a playground merry-go-round, teeter-totter (also referred to as a seesaw), swings, and climbing structure – from its traditional purpose to a collaborative and interactive musical performance system by equipping key structures with sensors that communicate with a computer. A set of Max/ MSP patches translate the physical gestures of playground play into a v...

Using the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health data, we find a statistically and economically significant effect of neighborhood parks and playgrounds on childhood obesity based on covariate matching estimators. The park/playground effect depends on gender, age, race, household income, neighborhood safety, and other neighborhood amenities. The results suggest that adding a neighborhood par...

Mobile code presents a number of threats to machines that execute it. We introduce an approach for protecting machines and the resources they hold from mobile code, and describe a system based on our approach for protecting host machines from Java 1.1 applets. In our approach, each Java applet downloaded to the protected domain is rerouted to a dedicated machine (or set of machines), the playgr...

The incidence and pattern of injuries to children in public playgrounds presenting to the accident and emergency department were reviewed over two six month summer periods in Cardiff. A total of 178 children (mean age 7.5 years) attended with a playground injury representing 1.1% of all the children attending. One hundred and five children fell from equipment, of which the commonest was the cli...