Trends in virtual reality technologies for the learning patient

NextMed convened the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 22 (MMVR 22) conference in 2016. Since 1992, the conference has brought together a diverse group of researchers to share creative solutions for the evolving challenge of integrating virtual reality tools into medical education. Virtual reality (VR) and its enabling technologies utilize hardware and software to simulate environments and encounters where users can interact and learn. The MMVR 22 symposium proceedings contain projects that support a variety of learners: medical students, practitioners, soldiers, and patients. This report will contemplate the trends in virtual reality technologies for patients navigating their medical and healthcare learning. The learning patient seeks more than intervention; they seek prevention. From virtual humans and environments to motion sensors and haptic devices, patients are surrounded by increasingly rich and transformative data-driven tools. Applied data enables VR applications to simulate experience, predict health outcomes, and motivate new behavior. The MMVR 22 presents investigations into the usability of wearable devices, the efficacy of avatar inclusion, and the viability of multi-player gaming. With increasing need for individualized and scalable programming, only committed open source efforts will align instructional designers, technology integrators, trainers, and clinicians. Curriculum and InstructionCurriculum and Instructio

Hybrid Broadcast/Broadband TV Services and Media Synchronization. Demands, Preferences and Expectations of Spanish Consumers

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permissíon from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertisíng or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.[EN] The combination of broadcast and broadband ( hybrid) technologies for delivering TV related media contents is already a reality. It has been motivated by the large amount and diversity of media contents, together with the ubiquity and multiple connectivity capabilities of modern consumption devices. The use of connected TVs and companion devices (e.g., tablets, smartphones etc.) is gaining momentum. It enables personalized and enriched TV media experiences, by also exploiting social communication opportunities. Likewise, the media consumption paradigm is worldwide evolving from passive and isolated consumer experiences toward interactive and group shared experiences between remote consumers. Nevertheless, despite the specification of standards, such as hybrid broadcast broadband TV, and the efforts from operators and content providers in the last years, the adoption of hybrid TV media services in Europe is still not as high as expected. This paper presents the concept and some examples of hybrid TV media services, emphasizing the importance of including a combination of media synchronization solutions, known as hybrid sync, to guarantee a satisfactory level of quality of experience. Additionally, it includes the summary and discussion of the results of a research study focused on more than 1000 Spanish users' habits, preferences, and expectations regarding four representative hybrid TV media services. Many valuable insights and conclusions have been derived. For instance, the current low market adoption of hybrid TV media services, despite their advantages and the high interest of consumers, and that key technological challenges still need to be overcome. The obtained results and impressions foresee the impact (or potential) of such services in the upcoming TV related media consumption landscape. Therefore, devising proper standard-compliant technological solutions (paying special attention to hybrid sync) and equipment should be continued producing appropriate contents, deploying proper hybrid TV media services and applications. As well, it should be convenient to undertake marketing and commercial efforts to boost their deployment. The contributions of this paper can be very valuable to the interested agents to be aware of the remaining challenges, envisage the opportunities, and drive their efforts to maximize the market adoption of such services.This work was supported in part by the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional, in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Its R&D&I Support Program under Project TEC2013-45492-R.Boronat, F.; Montagud, M.; Marfil-Reguero, D.; Luzón, C. (2018). Hybrid Broadcast/Broadband TV Services and Media Synchronization. Demands, Preferences and Expectations of Spanish Consumers. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 64(1):52-69. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2017.2737819S526964

A Semantic-Oriented Architecture of a Functional Module for Personalized and Adaptive Access to the Knowledge in a Multimedia Digital Library

This article presents the principal results of the doctoral thesis “Semantic-oriented Architecture and Models for Personalized and Adaptive Access to the Knowledge in Multimedia Digital Library” by Desislava Ivanova Paneva-Marinova (Institute of Mathematics and Informatics), successfully defended before the Specialised Academic Council for Informatics and Mathematical Modelling on 27 October, 2008.This paper presents dissertation work on semantic-oriented architectures and models for personalized and adaptive access to the knowledge in a multimedia digital library. The work was presented on October 27, 2008 before the Specialized Academic Council in Informatics and Mathematical Modelling at the Higher Attestation Commission. As a result of the work there appeared a functional module providing customized user access to the library content flow. The module used an IEEE PAPI and IMS LIP-oriented ontological user model. The main services provide customized user access, browsing, searching, and grouping of digitised objects and collections, user profile management, tracking the user’s behaviour, etc. The services require and trace out data about the preliminary level of the users’ knowledge in the domain covered by the digital library, their object observation style, cognitive goals and interests, preferences about the objects/collections presentation and grouping, physical limitations, used knowledge delivery channels (Web, mobile phone), etc. Then they transform the available digitised objects into a new personalized form, and finally deliver them to the user. The module uses special usage scenarios/instructions defining a wide range of service actions dependent on the user’s background, events, informal learning situations, knowledge delivery channels, etc.This work was partially supported by Project BG051PO001/07/3.3-02/7 as a part of the grant scheme “Support for the Development of PhD Students, Post-doctoral Students, Postgraduate Students and Young Scientists” under the Operation programme “Human Resources Development” of the European Social Fund and the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science

HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios

[EN] The combination of broadcast and broadband (hybrid) technologies for delivering TV related media contents can bring fascinating opportunities. It is motivated by the large amount and diversity of media contents, together with the ubiquity and multiple connectivity capabilities of modern consumption devices. This paper presents an end-to-end platform for the preparation, delivery, and synchronized consumption of related hybrid (broadcast/broadband) media contents on a single device and/or on multiple close-by devices (i.e., a multi-device scenario). It is compatible with the latest version of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) standard (version 2.0.1). Additionally, it provides adaptive and efficient solutions for key issues not specified in that standard, but that are necessary to successfully deploy hybrid and multidevice media services. Moreover, apart from MPEG-DASH and HTML5, which are the broadband technologies adopted by HbbTV, the platform also provides support for using HTTP Live Streaming and Real-time Transport Protocol and its companion RTP Control Protocol broadband technologies. The presented platform can provide support for many hybrid media services. In this paper, in order to evaluate it, the use case of multi-device and multi-view TV service has been selected. The results of both objective and subjective assessments have been very satisfactory, in terms of performance (stability, smooth playout, delays, and sync accuracy), usability of the platform, usefulness of its functionalities, and the awaken interest in these kinds of platforms.This work was supported in part by the "Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional" and in part by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through R&D&I Support Program under Grant TEC2013-45492-R.Boronat, F.; Marfil-Reguero, D.; Montagud, M.; Pastor Castillo, FJ. (2017). HbbTV-compliant Platform for Hybrid Media Delivery and Synchronization on Single- and Multi-Device Scenarios. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2017.2781124S12

Reviews

Teaching and Learning Materials and the Internet by Ian Forsyth, London: Kogan Page, 1996. ISBN: 0–7494‐ 20596. 181 pages, paperback. £18.99

IDMS solution for hybrid broadcast broadband delivery within the context of HbbTV standard

"© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permissíon from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertisíng or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works."[EN] Inter-destination media synchronization (IDMS) is a key requirement to enable successful networked shared media experiences between remote users. This paper presents an adaptive, accurate and standard-compliant IDMS solution for hybrid broadcast and broadband delivery. Apart from providing multi- and cross-technology support, the presented IDMS solution is able to accomplish synchronization when different formats/versions of the same, or even related, contents are being played out in a shared session. It is also able to independently manage the playout processes of different groups of users. The IDMS solution has been integrated within an end-to-end platform, which is compatible with the hybrid broadcast broadband TV standard. It has been applied to digital video broadcasting-terrestrial technology and tested for a Social TV scenario, by also including an ad-hoc chat tool as an interaction channel. The results of the conducted (objective and subjective) evaluations prove the statisfactory behavior and performance of the IDMS solution and platform as well as in terms of the perceived quality of experience.This work was supported by Generalitat Valenciana, Investigacion competitiva proyectos, through the Research and Development Program "Grants for research groups to be consolidated, AICO/2017," under Grant AICO/2017/059.Marfil-Reguero, D.; Boronat, F.; Montagud, M.; Sapena Piera, A. (2019). IDMS solution for hybrid broadcast broadband delivery within the context of HbbTV standard. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 65(4):645-663. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2018.2878285S64566365

ICT: An Ability for Disabled Students: Indian Context

We all see many people around us who are physically challenged. The first thought came in our mind is that they cannot do anything or they will never grow up in their life. On the other hand, when we talk of Technology, it is continuously exploring new and new things, which make our life much simpler and easy going. Technology, also consider these kinds of individuals and is trying to make their lives easier and simpler so that they can also be treated as a knowledgeable person and to make them stand with the normal man. Technology develops various tools and techniques for better learning and enhancing knowledge through Interactive Communication Techniques (ICT). There are various tools provided with this technique, which help the visually impaired students who want to see their life in a different manner

Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Interacting with Smart Objects 2015

These are the Proceedings of the 4th IUI Workshop on Interacting with Smart Objects. Objects that we use in our everyday life are expanding their restricted interaction capabilities and provide functionalities that go far beyond their original functionality. They feature computing capabilities and are thus able to capture information, process and store it and interact with their environments, turning them into smart objects