Increasing awareness of the impact of frailty on elderly people resulted in research focusing on factors that contribute to the development and persistence of frailty including nutrition and physical activity. Most effort so far has been spent on understanding the association between protein intake and the physical domain of frailty. Far less is known for other domains of frailty: Cognition, mood, social health and comorbidity. Therefore, in the present narrative review, we elaborate on the evidence currently known on the association between protein and exercise as well as the broader concept of frailty. Most, but not all, identified studies concluded that low protein intake is associated with a higher prevalence and incidence of physical frailty. Far less is known on the broader concept of frailty. The few studies that do look into this association find a clear beneficial effect of physical activity but no conclusions regarding protein intake can be made yet. Similar, for other important aspects of frailty including mood, cognition, and comorbidity, the number of studies are limited and results are inconclusive. Future studies need to focus on the relation between dietary protein and the broader concept of frailty and should also consider the protein source, amount and timing.
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The implementation of games in architecture and urban planning has a long history since the 1960s and is still a preferential tool to foster public participation and address contemporary spatial-and social-conflicts within the urban fabric. Moreover, in the last decade, we have seen the rise of urban play as a tool for community building, and city-making and Western society is actively focusing on play/playfulness-together with ludic dynamics and mechanics-as an applied methodology to deal with complex challenges, and deeper comprehend emergent situations. In this paper, we aim to initiate a dialogue between game scholars and architects through the use of the PLEX/CIVIC framework. Like many creative professions, we believe that architectural practice may benefit significantly from having more design methodologies at hand, thus improving lateral thinking. We aim at providing new conceptual and operative tools to discuss and reflect on how games facilitate long-Term planning processes and help to solve migration issues, allowing citizens themselves to take their responsibility and contribute to durable solutions.
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Computational thinking (CT) skills are crucial for every modern profession in which large amounts of data are processed. In K-12 curricula, CT skills are often taught in separate programming courses. However, without specific instructions, CT skills are not automatically transferred to other domains in the curriculum when they are developed while learning to program in a separate programming course. In modern professions, CT is often applied in the context of a specific domain. Therefore, learning CT skills in other domains, as opposed to computer science, could be of great value. CT and domain-specific subjects can be combined in different ways. In the CT literature, a distinction can be made among CT applications that substitute, augment, modify or redefine the original subject. On the substitute level, CT replaces exercises but CT is not necessary for reaching the learning outcomes. On the redefining level, CT changes the questions that can be posed within the subject, and learning objectives and assessment are integrated. In this short paper, we present examples of how CT and history, mathematics, biology and language subjects can be combined at all four levels. These examples and the framework on which they are based provide a guideline for design-based research on CT and subject integration.
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Can computers talk like humans? Look like humans? Behave like humans? Project Virtual Humans in the Brabant Economy (VIBE) focuses on developing and testing virtual humans to make this happen. The virtual humans developed by VIBE will be able to communicate with normal people in a natural way, both verbal and non-verbal, and deliver a valuable contribution to the training of healthcare professionals. The agents developed by VIBE can be used in any training simulation in various instances, including virtual, mixed and augmented reality.VIBE agents are designed to also allow customization for other domains to enhance training and education programs even beyond the healthcare domain.Funding:EU EFRO, Province of Noord Brabant, municipalities.
