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Research shows that preschoolers are likely to anthropomorphize not only animals, but also inanimate toy after being exposed to books that personify these objects. Can such an effect also arise through young children's use of touch-screen games? The present study is the first to examine whether playing a touch-screen personified train game affects young children's anthropomorphism of real trains. Seventy-nine 4- and 6-year-old children were randomly assigned to play either a touch-screen game or a board game of Thomas the Tank Engine for 10 min. They completed the Individual Differences in Anthropomorphism Questionnaire-Child Form (IDAQ-CF) (two subscales: Technology/Inanimate Nature, Animate Nature) and an additional four items about the anthropomorphism of real trains, before (T1) and after (T2) the game. Overall results showed that children manifested a small but statistically significant increase in anthropomorphizing of real trains after their exposure to both games, claiming that real trains were like humans. Interestingly, 4-year-old children in the board game group tended to anthropomorphize real trains more than those in the touch-screen group, whereas the reverse was true for the 6-year-old children. The results suggest that touch-screen games may delay the decline of children's anthropomorphism during the cognitive and socio-emotional transition that occurs in children aged 5-7. These findings have implications for future research on how touch-screen games increase children's anthropomorphism of the real world, and more generally, for evaluation of the influence of the growing use of touch-screen games on young children's learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young children are devoting more and more time to playing on handheld touchscreen devices (e.g., iPads). Though thousands of touchscreen apps are claimed to be “educational,” there is a lack of sufficient evidence examining the impact of touchscreens on children’s learning outcomes. In the present study, the two questions we focused on were (a) whether using a touchscreen was helpful in teaching children to tell time, and (b) to what extent young children could transfer what they had learned on the touchscreen to other media. A pre- and post-test design was adopted. After 10 min of exposure to an iPad touchscreen app designed to teach time, three groups of 5- to 6-year-old children (N D 65) were, respectively, tested with an iPad touchscreen, a toy clock or a drawing of a clock on paper. The results revealed that post-test scores in the iPad touchscreen test group were significantly higher than those at pre-test, indicating that the touchscreen itself could provide support for young children’s learning. Similarly, regardless of being tested with a toy clock or paper drawing, children’s post-test performance was also better than pre-test, suggesting that children could transfer what they had learned on an iPad touchscreen to other media. However, comparison among groups showed that children tested with the paper drawing underperformed those tested with the other two media. The theoretical and practical implications of the results, as well as limitations of the present study, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future streamflow uncertainties hinder reservoir real-time operation, but the ensemble prediction technique is effective for reducing the uncertainties. This study aims to combine ensemble hydrological predictions with real-time multiobjective reservoir optimization during flood season. The ensemble prediction-based reservoir optimization system (EPROS) takes advantage of 8 day lead time global numerical weather predictions (NWPs) by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). Thirty-member ensemble streamflows are generated through running the water and energy budget-based distributed hydrological model fed with 30-member perturbed quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) and deterministic NWPs. The QPF perturbation amplitudes are calculated from the QPF intensity and location errors during previous 8 day periods. The reservoir objective function is established to minimize the maximum reservoir water level (reservoir and upstream safety), the downstream flood peak (downstream safety), and the difference between simulated reservoir end water level and target level (water use). The system is evaluated on the Fengman reservoir basin (semiarid), which often suffers from extreme floods in summer and serious droughts in spring. The results show the ensemble QPFs generated by EPROS are comparable to those for JMA by using probability-based measures. The streamflow forecast error is significantly reduced by employing the ensemble prediction approach. The system has demonstrated high efficiency in optimizing reservoir objectives for both normal and critical flood events. Fifty-member ensembles generate a wider streamflow and reservoir release range than 10-member ensembles, but the ensemble mean end water levels and releases are comparable. The system is easy to operate and thereby feasible for practical operations in various reservoir basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]