Is it possible that playing a video game might help you improve your computational thinking abilities?

In this research, we looked at the cognitive and behavioral effects of playing Penguin Go, a video game that was created to help middle school kids improve their computational thinking (CT) abilities. Apart from the general efficacy of the game, we looked at the effects of a single game feature—constraints on the amount of blocks that may be used in a solution. Students' CT abilities increased dramatically after playing Penguin Go for fewer than two hours, according to the findings, but the extra limits had no meaningful effect on learning. Furthermore, although the game as a whole had no effect on students' views toward computer science, the limitations condition of the game had a detrimental effect on students' attitudes toward computer science. The outcomes of this study, as well as suggested possibilities for future research in the area of employing these sorts of games to build computational thinking abilities, are reviewed.

An automatic approach to constrained quadrilateral mesh generation

Purpose Arbitrary constraints might be included into the problem domain in many engineering applications, which represent specific features such as multi-domain interfaces, cracks with small yield stresses, stiffeners attached on the plate for reinforcement and so on. To imprint these constraints into the final mesh, additional techniques need to be developed to treat these constraints properly. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes an automatic approach to generate quadrilateral meshes for the geometric models with complex feature constraints. Firstly, the region is decomposed into sub-regions by the constraints, and then the quadrilateral mesh is generated in each sub-region that satisfies the constraints. A method that deals with constraint lines and points is presented. A distribution function is proposed to represent the distribution of mesh size over the region by using the Laplace equation. The density lines and points can be specified inside the region and reasonable mesh size distribution can be obtained by solving the Laplace equation. Findings An automatic method to define sub-regions is presented, and the user interaction can be avoided. An algorithm for constructing loops from constraint lines is proposed, which can deal with the randomly distributed constraint lines in a general way. A method is developed to deal with constraint points and quality elements can be generated around constraint points. A function defining the distribution of mesh size is put forward. The examples of constrained quadrilateral mesh generation in actual engineering analysis are presented to show the performance of the approach. Originality/value An automatic approach to constrained quadrilateral mesh generation is presented in this paper. It can generate required quality meshes for special applications with complex internal feature constraints.

A Robust and Efficient System to Detect Human Faces Based on Facial Features

Face detection is considered as a one of the most important issues in the identification and authentication systems which use biometric features. Face detection is not straightforward as long as it has lots of dissimilarity of image appearance. Some challenges are required to be resolved to improve the detection process. These challenges include environmental constraints, device specific constraints and the facial feature constraints. Here in our paper we present a modified method to enrich face detection by using combination of Haar cascade files using skin detection, eye detection and nose detection. Our proposed system has been evaluated using Wild database. The experimental results have shown that the proposed system can achieve accuracy of detection up to 96%. Also, here we compared the proposed system with the other face detection systems and the success rate of the proposed system is better than the considered systems.