ABSTRACT
It is usually hard for unfamiliar partners to rapidly 'break the ice' in the early stage of relationship establishment, which hinders the development of relationship and even affects the team productivity. To solve this problem, we proposed a collaborative serious game for icebreaking by combining immersive virtual reality (VR) with brain-computer interface based on the team flow framework. We designed a multiplayer collaboration task with the theme of fighting COVID-19 and proposed an approach to improve empathy between team members by sharing their real-time mental state in VR;in addition, we propose an EEG-based method for dynamic evaluation and enhancement of group flow experience to achieve better team collaboration. Then, we developed a prototype system and performed a user study. Results show that our method has good ease of use and can significantly reduce the psychological distance among team members. Especially for unfamiliar partners, both functions of mental state sharing and group flow regulation enhancement can significantly reduce the psychological distance. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
With the COVID-19 pandemic, people's real-life interactions diminished, and the game-based metaverse platforms such as Minecraft and Roblox are on the rise. The main users of these platforms are teenagers, they generate content in a virtual environment, which can significantly increase the activity of the platform. However, the experience of User-Generated Content in the metaverse is not very good. So what kind of support do users need to improve the efficiency of generating content in the metaverse? To investigate teenage users' preferences and expectations of it, this paper interviewed 72 teenagers aged 12-22 who are familiar with the metaverse game, and distilled 4 suggestions that can help promote metaverse users to generate content. © 2023 IEEE.
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While technology factors are the main driver of the booming real estate APP platforms with important implications for user behavior pattern during and post-pandemic contexts, there is a lack of adequate research. In response, this study explores the user behavior pattern of real estate APP platforms to promote user mental health by taking the real estate APP platforms users as the participants based on theory of technology readiness and acceptance model. Data collected from offline surveys are analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results reveal the technology readiness index positively affects individuals' perceived usefulness and satisfaction, ultimately positively affects individuals' continuance intention with real estate APP platforms;satisfaction with real estate APP platforms mediated the relationship between technology readiness index, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and individuals' continuance intention with real estate APP platforms. However, the group comparison finds no significant difference in user behavior patterns by gender. The contribution of this study is to reveal the influence mechanisms of digital technology on users' behavioral patterns toward real estate APP platforms, which can help guide the sustainable development of real estate APP platforms and promote user mental health and wellbeing in the post-COVID era.
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Dissolution testing is an integral part of pharmaceutical development, providing drug companies with the analytical ability to determine the efficacy, bioequivalence, and bioavailability of the active drug substance, as well as control quality, stability, and consistency of the final drug product. [...]there is also a shift in focus to more novel and personalized dosage forms that is happening within the bio/pharma industry, requiring modifications to many different areas of drug development and manufacturing, including dissolution testing, Spisak added. Novel formulations can pose challenges when using standard apparatus;nanoparticles, for example, are not necessarily sufficiently separated from the dissolution medium with standard techniques. [...]modification of the instrumentation, such as that found in Agilent's NanoDis system, is required to ensure an accurate prediction of in-vivo performance of the drug product can be made.
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During the health crisis caused by COVID-19, virtual reality (VR) proved to be useful for the tourism industry, allowing this industry to continue working despite the restrictions imposed. However, it remains to be seen if the impact of this sanitary crisis in the tourism industry influenced managers' intention to adopt this technology in the post-pandemic period. To fill this gap, a qualitative methodological approach was adopted, using the MAXQDA20 software and interviews with managers of tourism enterprises. The results show that the willingness to invest in technology, the perception of VR as a business strategy, and the perception of the impact of the pandemic are factors that regulate the intention of companies to adopt VR. In addition, prior experience with VR and the perception of technical support are also important for its adoption. Thus, it was concluded that VR can be a valuable sustainable strategy for tourism companies to address the challenges imposed by the pandemic. However, adopting the technology depends on factors such as financial availability, business strategy, and previous experience with VR. Furthermore, tourism companies must also receive adequate technical support to ensure its correct implementation.
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"There were questions of how to handle tech transfer, factory and site acceptance tests, and regulatory inspections when the world was no longer travelling," he says. Since July, Stracquantanio says, usage of the platform has expanded by a factor of 17, and new site deployments by a factor of ten. The company is now using the remote approach with all major global regulatory agencies. Since Catalent hosts or performs more than 500 audits each year, new technology has allowed Catalent to keep pace, while observing social distancing requirements, Montano adds. Live facility tours are filmed with a 360-degree camera, and 3-D tours with a 3-D mapping camera, says Sandy Immerman, vice president of Information Technology (IT), Pharma Services. [...]this year, Immerman says, Thermo Fisher has hosted multiple regulatory inspections and more than 125 client audits, focusing efforts on current good manufacturing practice (CGMP) activities in work that has involved FDA, the European Medicines Agency, which issued formal guidance on the use of this technology last May (3), the Russian Ministry of Health (MoH), and the Swedish Medical Products Agency.
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Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers have to hesitantly switch to the virtual world of teaching, known as enriched virtual blended learning in which technology, surely plays a significant role in material delivery and discussion. Studies related to blended learning in English language classes, especially in academic writing classes, have been done in many countries, but they are still lacking in the Indonesian setting. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of technology utilization in enriched blended learning to teach academic writing and the students' perspectives towards the use of technology in blended learning. This study involving forty-five students in a university in Jakarta applied both quantitative and qualitative methods. A pre-test and a post-test were assigned before and after the blended learning period to study the effectiveness of blended learning. In addition, surveys and interviews were conducted to investigate the students' perspectives. The results indicated that the use of technology in blended learning effectively helped students develop their academic writing skills despite being a new experience. Furthermore, despite some limitations, this strategy of using technology in teaching-learning was accepted with optimism as they started to get accustomed to it. Hence, the use of technology is promising for the future of learning. © 2023 IEEE.
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Goal. The aim of this paper is to determine the attitudes and opinions of the members of the Pensioners' Club of the city of Osijek after the education was carried out with the aim of training them in information and communication skills. Methodology. The paper presents the results of the research conducted through interviews and focus groups among retirees, the members of the Osijek Retirees' Club. The research examined the attitudes and opinions of 10 pensioners on the topic of education in terms of information and communication technologies during March 2022 using the interview method. After the interviews, the attitudes and opinions of the retirees related to the use of technology were examined in a focus group (1) in which 9 retirees participated (some of whom attended the education, some of whom did not). Finally, a focus group (2) in which 4 retirees participated examined their attitudes and opinions about virtual reality. The respondents wore VR glasses and observed the history of Osijek in the period from 1920 to 2020 by decades. More specifically, they observed how objects, houses, newspapers, furniture and similar things covered in the mentioned period looked. The paper presents the attitudes and opinions of the participants of the workshops, and is a continuation of the previous research, conducted before this training (Jakopec, Selthofer and Hocenski, 2022). Results. The results of the conducted interviews and focus groups indicate that the majority of retirees share the desire for learning and acquiring additional IT knowledge. They own at least one device (mostly a desktop computer or a smartphone) through which they visit social networks, search for necessary information and read the daily news. The respondents who participated in the research believe that they need more similar workshops in order to establish and expand their existing knowledge. After the workshops, the pensioners stated that they are fully aware of the advantages that IT knowledge brings them, and they relate this knowledge to the use of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, when physically going to certain places (for example, to the doctor) was not possible. The results of the second focus group in which 3D reality was observed using VR glasses have shown that the respondents were not previously familiar with the concepts of virtual reality. According to the participants, the workshop lasted too short, they felt disoriented, and the glasses did not impress them too much. They also pointed out that they wore them for too short a time to highlight something as an advantage, they did not remember much of the presented content, but they found it interesting. Most of them stated that they would like to repeat the experience, but with better instructions and extended time of wearing glasses. Limitations. The research sample is limited to a specific subgroup of the retired members of the Club, and is therefore not representative of the entire population of retired people in the city of Osijek and in the Republic of Croatia. Value. The results of the research indicate the attitudes and opinions of people of the third age towards education in the field of information and communication technologies and virtual reality. The results of the research contribute to the implementation of the "Active pension” project. © 2023, Hrvatsko Knjiznicarsko Drustvo. All rights reserved.
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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and compulsory social distancing, researchers in educational fields started to investigate alternatives to face-To-face (F2F) training methods with greater focus, such as video conferencing (VC) and virtual reality (VR) applications. This study investigated the differences between VC, VR and F2F training conditions by evaluating the level of body ownership and agency perceived by trainees. An electrical circuit repair task and multiple surveys were used to gather data from 106 participants in the form of four dependent variables: A circuit knowledge test, task completion rate, number of the subtasks completed by failing participants, and test phase duration. The study included two visits by each participant to measure knowledge retention while there were no training and surveys in Visit 2. Results showed significantly higher circuit learning and knowledge retention scores in F2F and VR conditions than in VC. Also, regarding the retention of knowledge, participants had significantly better knowledge retention in Visit 1 than Visit 2. The authors hope the results of this study enable training developers to enhance the learning process in computer mediated communications. © 2023 IEEE.
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Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic and duty hour restrictions have illuminated a role for surgical simulation in trainees that permits meaningful technical experience outside the operating room. There is a need for the implementation of surgical simulation infrastructure adjacent to clinical training with practical considerations for complexity and cost. This systematic review analyzes surgical simulations that train hand surgical techniques and procedures with subjective or objective competency assessment. Method(s): A systematic review was conducted according to PRISMA- P guidelines using the PubMed, Medline, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases. Selected search terms included procedures relevant to the field of hand surgery and various types of simulation training. Data, including skills and techniques taught and assessed, model type, equipment, cost, and emphasis placed in training for each article, were extracted. Result(s): Of 2,519 articles, 40 met inclusion criteria. Models were described as: synthetic benchtop/3D-printed (40.0%), animal (22.5%), cadaveric (20.0%), augmented and virtual reality (AR/ VR;12.5%), and other computer simulation (12.5%). Three models incorporated both a physical benchtop component and an AR/ VR component. The procedures most represented included tendon repair (30.0%), fracture fixation (27.5%), wrist arthroscopy (15.0%), and carpal tunnel release (15.0%). Sixty-five percent of articles emphasized the importance of surgical simulation in a surgeon's training. Conclusion(s): A diversity of surgical simulation models exist for the practice of various aspects of hand surgery. The existing literature demonstrates their utility for increasing expertise with surgical techniques and procedures in a low-risk setting.
ABSTRACT
The word Metaverse has influenced many sectors such as healthcare, education, retail and manufacturing and few more industries are there which will be impacted by 2026 as per the research conducted by Gartner. The word 'Metaverse' especially in education sector came into existence after the COVID-19 epidemic when the humanity were forced to think about the new methodology of educating and teaching. This ecosphere is the combination of technologies which enables multimodal interactions with artificial environment, electronic library and people such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). It is believed that metaverse will improve collaboration, training process will be enhanced and most importantly it will create a happier workplace. This is only the reason that many corporate giants like Nvidia, facebook, apple, epic Games and companies has shifted towards this pedagogical ecosystem. This technology has the potential which enables absolute incorporating user conversation in actual-time and compelling interactivity with digital artifact. In this paper, we are addressing metaverse in education along with a detailed framework of metaverse in education. It includes a comparative study of conventional education, online education and metaverse education based on parameters like place of learning, resources used, teaching methodology, learning experience, learning target and learning assessment. Competency based education, energize student and positive attitude towards learning. The various challenges of the metaverse in educational sector are also debated. This paper will help the researcher's fraternity to get a deeper insight along with a clear perception of this ecosystem in education. © 2023 IEEE.
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Medical education, an integral part of the modern health-care system, had faced the thrust of the outbreak for the last couple of years. Although the immediate impacts were trivial and managed with online pedagogical approach, on a long run, it seems to spill serious repercussions on medical students, teaching faculties, and administration. Different countries are handling with the situation depending on their financial conditions, task force, and resource allocation. Hence, momentarily, it is quite impractical to reach a global consensus regarding what is the best for students and communities in long run. Meanwhile, each country needs to formulate its own regime to continue with high standard medical teaching and training. Obviously, it may solicit time span, prioritization, and empathy to restructure the medical education without disfiguring its original fabric. The unprecedented use of online pedagogy (prerecorded lectures, medical simulations, virtual cadavers, and video conferencing) has transformed medical education drastically. Although these newer teaching-training policies assisted us to continue with the ongoing curriculum, medical placement/clerkship just resumed with necessary precautions. The assessment part needs extra care and vigilance, as any change or incorporation of newer methods of assessment may even worsen the present state of affairs for both the assessor and the student.Copyright © 2022 National Journal of Clinical Anatomy.
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Both enterprises and their employees have globally experienced remote work at an unprecedented scale since the outbreak of COVID-19. As the pandemic becomes less of a threat, some companies have called their employees back to a physical office, citing issues related to working remotely, but many employees have refused to return. Thus, working in the metaverse has gained much attention as an alternative that could complement the weaknesses of completely remote work or even offline work. However, we do not know yet what benefits and drawbacks the metaverse has as a legitimate workspace, because there are few real cases of 1) working in the metaverse and 2) working remotely at such an unprecedented scale. Thus, this paper aims to identify real challenges and opportunities the metaverse workspace presents when compared to remote work by conducting semi-structured interviews and participatory workshops with various employees and company stakeholders (e.g., HR managers and CEOs) who have experienced at least two of three work types: working in a physical office, remotely, or in the metaverse. Consequently, we identified 1) advantages and disadvantages of remote work and 2) opportunities and challenges of the metaverse. We further discuss design implications that may overcome the identified challenges of working in the metaverse. © 2023 Owner/Author.
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Social distancing requirements urged by the COVID-19 pandemic along with high transportation cost reduced inperson meetings significantly in recent times. In consequence, many people are seeking for virtual reality (VR) to feel a similar experiences of visiting and enjoying places that are unaccessible. VR has immense success in domains, such as automotive industry, healthcare, tourism, entertainment, sports etc. It is observed that traditional online synchronous and asynchronous class structure is not quite effective in engaging students in class participation and discussion. Therefore, we introduce a novel VRbased class structure that will simulate the classroom environment for students participating a class virtually. We equipped the classroom with several internet of things (IoT) devices that collects information from the classroom, analyze those information, and determine some interesting information to display for the students participating the class virtually. We design a classroom prototype and validate the prototype with simulation. The result of the simulation shows that such a VR-based classroom model is feasible and can introduce in classrooms. © 2023 IEEE.
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With the use of blockchain, Internet of Things, virtual platform/telecommunications network, artificial intelligence and the fourth industrial revolution, the essential demand for digital transition within the health care settings has increased as an outcome of the 2019 coronavirus illness outbreak and the fourth industrial revolution. The evolution of virtual environments with three-dimensional (3D) spaces and avatars, known as metaverse, has slowly gained acceptance in the field of health care. These environments may be especially useful for patient-facing platforms (such as platforms for telemedicine), functional uses (such as meeting management), digital education (such as modeled medical and surgical learning), treatments and diagnoses. This chapter offers the most recent state-of-the-art metaverse services and applications and a growing problem when it comes to using it in the healthcare sector. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Digital technologies that could meet these new challenges and aid manufacturing scale-up and speed to market, such as automated digital data collection and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) remote collaboration tools, were already available and had been adopted by some, but the new demand spurred greater adoption. "There is a cultural aspect to digitalization because it's a significant investment that results in changes to the operational structure of a facility;it is beneficial when the digitalization comes from the top," explains Yvonne Duckworth, automation engineer and Industry 4.0 subject matter expert at the CRB Group, a life sciences engineering and construction company. Machine sensors and process analytical technology (PAT) instruments can communicate directly with data collection systems using the NoT. Efficient development and tech transfer for mRNA vaccine manufacturing The data analysis and clear communication allowed by digital tools has demonstrated its benefits for process development and technical transfer, making time to market faster.
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There is an increasing interest for people to meet and interact in virtual online environments, including Gather.Town, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the post-pandemic world. We present a scoping review of 11 empirical studies in Gather.town - a 2D Metaverse using a game-like interface with video-chat in which people can create their own virtual spaces and act as avatars to interact with each other for various purposes. To identify knowledge gaps, we summarized the included articles in terms of their application contexts, research issues, research methods, and key findings. We found that most of them were conducted in educational settings with a focus on students' learning experiences and perceptions. The findings of the reviewed studies generally suggested that the use of Gather.town benefited users' engagement. However, the available evidence was mostly based on short interventions (e.g., one session) and self-reported measures (e.g., surveys and interviews). This review concluded by presenting several research gaps for future research (e.g., studies with a longer duration and using more objective measurements of learning achievement and work results). © 2023 IEEE.
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As virtual reality (VR) is labeled by many as 'an ultimate empathy machine,' immersive VR applications have the potential to assist in empathy training for mental healthcare such as depression [21]. In responding to the increasing numbers of diagnosed depression throughout COVID-19, a first-person VR adventure game called 'Schwer' was designed and prototyped by the authors' research team to provide a social support environment for depression treatment. To continue the study and assess the training effectiveness for an appropriate level of empathy, this current article includes a brief survey on data analytics models and features to accumulate evidence for the next phase of the study, an interactive game-level design for the 'Reconstruction' stage, and a preliminary study with data collection. The preliminary study was conducted with a post-game interview to evaluate the design of the levels and their effectiveness in empathy training. Results showed that the game was rated as immersive by all participants. Feedback on the avatar design indicated that two out of three of the non-player characters (NPCs) have made the intended effect. Participants showed mostly positive opinion towards their experienced empathy and provided feedback on innovative teleport mechanism and game interaction. The findings from the literature review and the results of the preliminary study will be used to further improve the existing system and add the data analytics model training. The long-term research goal is to contribute to the healthcare field by developing a dynamic AI-based biofeedback immersive VR system in assisting depression prevention. © 2023 IEEE.
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Motivated by the unique experience of creating three-dimensional artworks in virtual reality (VR) and the need for teletherapy due to the global pandemic, we conducted this pilot case study to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of using a custom-designed collaborative virtual environment (CVE) to enable remote arts therapy. Three participants (two females and one male) experiencing moderate to high stress as measured by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) joined this study. Each participant had eight 45-minute one-on-one sessions with the therapist for eight consecutive weeks. These eight sessions covered eight art creation themes and were delivered following pre-designed protocols. The CVE was the only medium to facilitate the sessions, during which the therapist and the participants were physically separated into two rooms. The quantitative and qualitative results suggested that the CVE-enabled approach was generally feasible and was welcomed by both the participants and the therapist. However, more evidence of the approach's effectiveness in enhancing the participants' mental wellbeing is needed because the results of the pilot case study were affected by the pandemic. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach and the CVE were investigated from practicality and technological affordance perspectives. Potential improvements to the CVE are also proposed to better facilitate the practice of remote arts therapy in CVE. We encourage future studies to cautiously investigate CVE-enabled remote arts therapy in clinical settings and collect more evidence regarding its effectiveness in addressing clinically diagnosed mental disorders and other complications. Copyright © 2023 Li and Yip.
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Covid-19 has brought about the development of the use of technological applications and initiatives to control the situation. The aim was to effectively monitor and eventually treat patients and facilitate the efforts of medical staff. This paper is the result of research into the possibilities of solving the problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic by applying selected logistics technologies. The paper provides a new perspective on technologies and discusses possibilities for future research. The goal of the study is based on relevant existing research which examines in detail how five selected technologies can help in the fight against the pandemic. It defines the potential practical application of these technologies in the context of threats to public health. The main findings of this paper concern the application of logistics technologies considering these essential factors. The research characterizes the problems associated with using the proposed technologies, such as costs, time, legislative constraints, safety, and ethics. Proposals for the practical application of logistics technologies in solving pandemic-related problems must accept not only the legal framework but also the socio-ethical dilemmas that these technologies present. © 2023 Vladimír Klapita et al.