Review of innovative immersive technologies for healthcare applications

Immersive technologies, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), can connect people using enhanced data visualizations to better involve stakeholders as integral members of the process. Immersive technologies have started to change the research on multidimensional genomic data analysis for disease diagnostics and treatments. Immersive technologies are highlighted in some research for health and clinical needs, especially for precision medicine innovation. The use of immersive technology for genomic data analysis has recently received attention from the research community. Genomic data analytics research seeks to integrate immersive technologies to build more natural human-computer interactions that allow better perception engagements. Immersive technologies, especially VR, help humans perceive the digital world as real and give learning output with lower performance errors and higher accuracy. However, there are limited reviews about immersive technologies used in healthcare and genomic data analysis with specific digital health applications. This paper contributes a comprehensive review of using immersive technologies for digital health applications, including patient-centric applications, medical domain education, and data analysis, especially genomic data visual analytics. We highlight the evolution of a visual analysis using VR as a case study for how immersive technologies step, can by step, move into the genomic data analysis domain. The discussion and conclusion summarize the current immersive technology applications’ usability, innovation, and future work in the healthcare domain, and digital health data visual analytics

Augmented Reality in Learning Settings: A Systematic Analysis of its Benefits and Avenues for Future Studies

Despite its increasing use in various settings, Augmented Reality (AR) technology is still often considered experimental, partly due to a lack of clear understanding of the benefits of using AR. This study systematically reviews research on the use of AR in learning settings. Our analysis of 93 relevant articles offers 21 benefits related to the learning gains and outcomes of using AR. Our study shows that the positive effects of using AR on learners’ motivation and joy have been well-studied, whereas the effects on independent learning, concentration, spontaneous learning, critical thinking, and practical skills have not yet been examined in detail. Beyond classifying and discussing the benefits of using AR in learning settings, we elaborate avenues for future studies. We specifically point to the importance of conducting long-term studies to determine the value of using AR in learning beyond the initial novelty and exploring the integration of AR with other technologies

3D visualization processes for recreating and studying organismal form

The study of biological form is a vital goal of evolutionary biology and functional morphology. We review an emerging set of methods that allow scientists to create and study accurate 3D models of living organisms and animate those models for biomechanical and fluid dynamic analyses. The methods for creating such models include 3D photogrammetry, laser and CT-scanning, and 3D software. New multi-camera devices can be used to create accurate 3D models of living animals in the wild and captivity. New websites and virtual reality/augmented reality devices now enable the visualization and sharing of these data. We provide examples of these approaches for animals ranging from large whales to lizards and show applications for several areas: Natural history collections; body condition/scaling, bioinspired robotics, computational fluids dynamics (CFD), machine learning, and education. We provide two data sets to demonstrate the efficacy of CFD and machine learning approaches and conclude with a prospectus

Human-Computer Interaction

In this book the reader will find a collection of 31 papers presenting different facets of Human Computer Interaction, the result of research projects and experiments as well as new approaches to design user interfaces. The book is organized according to the following main topics in a sequential order: new interaction paradigms, multimodality, usability studies on several interaction mechanisms, human factors, universal design and development methodologies and tools

Mobile heritage practices. Implications for scholarly research, user experience design, and evaluation methods using mobile apps.

Mobile heritage apps have become one of the most popular means for audience engagement and curation of museum collections and heritage contexts. This raises practical and ethical questions for both researchers and practitioners, such as: what kind of audience engagement can be built using mobile apps? what are the current approaches? how can audience engagement with these experience be evaluated? how can those experiences be made more resilient, and in turn sustainable? In this thesis I explore experience design scholarships together with personal professional insights to analyse digital heritage practices with a view to accelerating thinking about and critique of mobile apps in particular. As a result, the chapters that follow here look at the evolution of digital heritage practices, examining the cultural, societal, and technological contexts in which mobile heritage apps are developed by the creative media industry, the academic institutions, and how these forces are shaping the user experience design methods. Drawing from studies in digital (critical) heritage, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and design thinking, this thesis provides a critical analysis of the development and use of mobile practices for the heritage. Furthermore, through an empirical and embedded approach to research, the thesis also presents auto-ethnographic case studies in order to show evidence that mobile experiences conceptualised by more organic design approaches, can result in more resilient and sustainable heritage practices. By doing so, this thesis encourages a renewed understanding of the pivotal role of these practices in the broader sociocultural, political and environmental changes.AHRC REAC

The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication

Museums today find themselves within a mediatised society, where everyday life is conducted in a data-full and technology-rich context. In fact, museums are themselves mediatised: they present a uniquely media-centred environment, in which communicative media is a constitutive property of their organisation and of the visitor experience. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication explores what it means to take mediated communication as a key concept for museum studies and as a sensitising lens for media-related museum practice on the ground. Including contributions from experts around the world, this original and innovative Handbook shares a nuanced and precise understanding of media, media concepts and media terminology, rehearsing new locations for writing on museum media and giving voice to new subject alignments. As a whole, the volume breaks new ground by reframing mediated museum communication as a resource for an inclusive understanding of current museum developments. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication will appeal to both students and scholars, as well as to practitioners involved in the visioning, design and delivery of mediated communication in the museum. It teaches us not just how to study museums, but how to go about being a museum in today’s world