815 research outputs found

    Security, Privacy and Safety Risk Assessment for Virtual Reality Learning Environment Applications

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    Social Virtual Reality based Learning Environments (VRLEs) such as vSocial render instructional content in a three-dimensional immersive computer experience for training youth with learning impediments. There are limited prior works that explored attack vulnerability in VR technology, and hence there is a need for systematic frameworks to quantify risks corresponding to security, privacy, and safety (SPS) threats. The SPS threats can adversely impact the educational user experience and hinder delivery of VRLE content. In this paper, we propose a novel risk assessment framework that utilizes attack trees to calculate a risk score for varied VRLE threats with rate and duration of threats as inputs. We compare the impact of a well-constructed attack tree with an adhoc attack tree to study the trade-offs between overheads in managing attack trees, and the cost of risk mitigation when vulnerabilities are identified. We use a vSocial VRLE testbed in a case study to showcase the effectiveness of our framework and demonstrate how a suitable attack tree formalism can result in a more safer, privacy-preserving and secure VRLE system.Comment: Tp appear in the CCNC 2019 Conferenc

    "Seeing the Faces Is So Important" -- Experiences From Online Team Meetings on Commercial Virtual Reality Platforms

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    During the Covid-19 pandemic, online meetings became common for daily teamwork in the home office. To understand the opportunities and challenges of meeting in virtual reality (VR) compared to video conferences, we conducted the weekly team meetings of our human-computer interaction research lab on five off-the-shelf online meeting platforms over four months. After each of the 12 meetings, we asked the participants (N = 32) to share their experiences, resulting in 200 completed online questionnaires. We evaluated the ratings of the overall meeting experience and conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the quantitative data to compare VR meetings and video calls in terms of meeting involvement and co-presence. In addition, a thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed genuine insights covering five themes: spatial aspects, meeting atmosphere, expression of emotions, meeting productivity, and user needs. We reflect on our findings gained under authentic working conditions, derive lessons learned for running successful team meetings in VR supporting different kinds of meeting formats, and discuss the team's long-term platform choice.Comment: This article has been published at Frontiers in Virtual Reality, Research Topic "Everyday Virtual and Augmented Reality: Methods and Applications, Volume II": https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.94579

    Using AI-Supported Supervision in a University Telemental Health Training Clinic

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    Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have the potential of transforming clinical education and supervision in university-based telemental health training clinics. AI can improve the accuracy of diagnoses, automate routine tasks, and personalize treatment plans, potentially enhancing the accessibility and quality of mental health care. In this paper, we describe why training clinics serve as an optimal setting to adopt innovation and share lessons from the field to inform future integrations of AI in clinical supervision. The lessons include support for case conceptualization, feedback on session quality, and automation of routine tasks such as sending standardized assessments and writing progress notes. However, implementing new technology requires careful consideration of ethical and practical issues such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and transparency. AI-supported supervision can provide valuable support for clinical training, but adequate training and education are necessary for successful integration

    Anonymous Panda: preserving anonymity and expressiveness in online mental health platforms

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    Digital solutions that allow people to seek treatment, such as online psychological interventions and other technology-mediated therapies, have been developed to assist individuals with mental health disorders. Such approaches may raise privacy concerns about the use of people’s data and the safety of their mental health information. This work uses cutting-edge computer graphics technology to develop a novel system capable of increasing anonymity while maintaining expressiveness in computer-mediated mental health interventions. According to our preliminary findings, we were able to customize a realistic avatar using Live Link, Metahumans, and Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) with the same emotional depth as a real person. Furthermore, these findings showed that the virtual avatars’ inability to express themselves through hand motion gave the impression that they were acting in an unnatural way. By including the hand tracking feature using the Leap Motion Controller, we were able to improve our comprehension of the prospective use of ultra-realistic virtual human avatars in video conferencing therapy, i.e., both studies helped us understand how vital facial and body expressions are and how problematic their absence is in communicating with others.Soluções digitais que permitem às pessoas procurar tratamento, tais como terapias psicológicas online e outras terapias com recurso à tecnologia, foram desenvolvidas para ajudar indivíduos com distúrbios de saúde mental. Tais abordagens podem suscitar preocupações sobre a privacidade na utilização dos dados das pessoas e a segurança da informação sobre a sua saúde mental. Este trabalho utiliza tecnologia de ponta em computação gráfica para desenvolver um sistema inovador capaz de aumentar o anonimato, mantendo simultaneamente a expressividade nas inter venções de saúde mental mediadas por computador. Segundo os nossos resultados preliminares, conseguimos personalizar um avatar realista usando Live Link, Metahumans, e Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) com a mesma profundidade emocional que uma pessoa real. Além disso, os resultados mostraram que a incapacidade dos avatares virtuais de se expressarem através do movimento das mãos deu a impressão de que estavam a agir de uma forma pouco natural. Ao incluir a função de rastreio das mãos utilizando o Leap Motion Controller, conseguimos melhorar a nossa compreensão do uso prospetivo de avatares humanos virtuais e ultrarrealistas na terapia de videoconferência, ou seja, os estudos realizados ajudaram-nos a compreender como as expressões faciais e corporais são vitais e como a sua ausência é problemática na comunicação com os outros

    Money & Trust in Digital Society, Bitcoin and Stablecoins in ML enabled Metaverse Telecollaboration

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    We present a state of the art and positioning book, about Digital society tools, namely; Web3, Bitcoin, Metaverse, AI/ML, accessibility, safeguarding and telecollaboration. A high level overview of Web3 technologies leads to a description of blockchain, and the Bitcoin network is specifically selected for detailed examination. Suitable components of the extended Bitcoin ecosystem are described in more depth. Other mechanisms for native digital value transfer are described, with a focus on `money'. Metaverse technology is over-viewed, primarily from the perspective of Bitcoin and extended reality. Bitcoin is selected as the best contender for value transfer in metaverses because of it's free and open source nature, and network effect. Challenges and risks of this approach are identified. A cloud deployable virtual machine based technology stack deployment guide with a focus on cybersecurity best practice can be downloaded from GitHub to experiment with the technologies. This deployable lab is designed to inform development of secure value transaction, for small and medium sized companies

    Mediating presence in virtual design thinking workshops

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    Design teams have been collaborating virtually due to the increasing demands of the globalized industry. The COVID-19 pandemic made virtual collaboration a necessity due to social restrictions imposed globally in 2020 and 2021. Design teams use virtual Design Thinking to collaborate remotely in real-time. The outcomes of Virtual Design Thinking rely on team composition, planning, the structure of activities, time management, and the choice of space and tools. While these factors have been researched in the context of traditional Design Thinking workshops, research on the selection of tools in virtual workshops is scarce due to the sudden increase in popularity and demand. This thesis investigates the experience of participants in virtual Design Thinking workshops with a focus on the collaborative environment and the tools used within. Existing literature and participatory observations revealed that remote teams collaborate primarily in two-dimensional (2D) virtual environments using a combination of virtual whiteboards and video conferencing software. Participants face challenges due to the lack of 'presence.' Presence is an emerging topic in recent literature, especially in the context of immersive virtual environments such as three-dimensional (3D) and Virtual Reality (VR). However, these virtual environments are still in their infancy and require further development for conducting virtual Design Thinking. Qualitative research in the form of participatory observations of four virtual design thinking workshops and in-depth interviews of seven participants revealed the challenges participants face due to the lack of presence. Approaches to mediate presence were explored with the design of a 2D experimental virtual collaborative environment designed to support virtual Design Thinking methods based on the findings. The environment was tested with seven participants. Results indicated an improvement in participants' experience compared to existing virtual collaboration environments and reported the overall experience to be on par with traditional Design Thinking workshops. The outcome of this thesis has vital implications on the choice and future development of virtual collaboration tools in the post-pandemic world

    Virtual exchange: towards digital equity in internationalisation

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    Telerehabilitation Technologies: Accessibility and Usability

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    In the fields of telehealth and telemedicine, phone and/or video technologies are key to the successful provision of services such as remote monitoring and visits. How do these technologies affect service accessibility, effectiveness, quality, and usefulness when applied to rehabilitation services in the field of telerehabilitation? To answer this question, we provide a overview of the complex network of available technologies and discuss how they link to rehabilitation applications, services, and practices as well as to the telerehabilitation end-user.This white paper will first present the numerous professional considerations that shape the use of technology in rehabilitation service and set it somewhat apart from telemedicine. It will then provide an overview of concepts essential to usability analysis; present a summary of various telerehabilitation technologies and their strengths and limitations, and consider how the technologies interface with end users’ clinical needs for service accessibility, effectiveness, quality, and usefulness. The paper will highlight a conceptual framework (including task analyses and usability issues) that underlies a functional match between telerehabilitation technologies, clinical applications, and end-usercapabilities for telerehabilitation purposes. Finally, we will discuss pragmatic issues related to user integration of telerehabilitation technology versus traditional face-to-face approaches.Key Words: Remote, Technology, Usability, Accessibility, Decision Factors, Decision Support

    The Digital Economy: Social Interaction Technologies – an Overview

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    Social interaction technologies (SIT) is a very broad field that encompasses a large list of topics: interactive and networked computing, mobile social services and the Social Web, social software and social media, marketing and advertising, various aspects and uses of blogs and podcasting, corporate value and web-based collaboration, e-government and online democracy, virtual volunteering, different aspects and uses of folksonomies, tagging and the social semantic cloud of tags, blog-based knowledge management systems, systems of online learning, with their ePortfolios, blogs and wikis in education and journalism, legal issues and social interaction technology, dataveillance and online fraud, neogeography, social software usability, social software in libraries and nonprofit organizations, and broadband visual communication technology for enhancing social interaction. The fact is that the daily activities of many businesses are being socialized, as is the case with Yammer (https://www.yammer.com/), the social enterprise social network. The leitmotivs of social software are: create, connect, contribute, and collaborate

    Mutual Shaping of Tele-Healthcare Practice: Exploring Community Perspectives on Telehealth Technologies in Northern and Indigenous Contexts

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    In Canada, northern and Indigenous communities face well documented challenges to accessing healthcare services prompting the urgent need to adopt alternative and innovative solutions to overcome barriers of limited access due to geographic distance, physician shortages, limited resources, and high cost of service delivery. Telehealth – the means of delivering health care services and information across distance – promises to augment services to address some of these barriers and has been increasingly relied upon to bridge healthcare service gaps. Despite the promise of telehealth, notable utilization barriers and structural constraints remain that challenge long-term sustainability. Little is known about how well these technologies work from community telehealth users’ perspectives. Current work in the area has tended to focus on the increased efficiency and cost effectiveness of telehealth in facilitating healthcare services, with less focus on users’ perspectives obscuring the important roles played by users and technologies. In sum, more work needs to be done to present a complete picture of users’ experiences and community needs – a gap this dissertation aims to tackle. In doing so, this research captures a snapshot of community perspectives from four Northern Saskatchewan communities, drawing attention to users’ experiences in relation to the social and technical factors shaping telehealth use. Working in partnership with the communities of Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation, the Northern Villages of Île-à-la-Crosse and Pinehouse Lake, and the Town of La Ronge, and external stakeholders/knowledge users working directly with these communities, this work resulted in valuable insights into the user-technology interface. Emerging from community concerns with accessing healthcare services and education/training, the goal of this project was to better understand strengths and barriers for telehealth use. Methodologically, the personal accounts and lived experiences of telehealth users were explored using qualitative methods grounded in Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and decolonizing methodologies utilizing Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) that is drawn from interpretive-constructivist epistemological frameworks. In-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews/focus groups with 24 telehealth users, field notes and general observations provided the basis for data collection, and NVivo 12 was used to organize, iteratively code and analyze community insights. Thematic analysis and socio-technical mapping explored themes across community contexts and provided understanding of the interrelationship of shared and unique insights whereby community telehealth users’ voices guided interpretations. This dissertation highlights the importance of community collaborations and identifies the strengths and barriers for utilizing telehealth within northern and Indigenous contexts. Using theoretical frameworks drawn from Science and Technology Studies (STS), this dissertation makes the argument that users and technologies play significant roles in shaping tele-healthcare practice – a mutually co-constitutive relationship embedded within larger socio-structural systems that pose varying constraints. Analysis revealed that users and technologies mutually shape tele-healthcare practices and care experiences – i.e. technologies shape patients’ and local/remote providers’ use of the system in enabling/constraining ways and users shape technologies through reconfiguration or “tinkering”. A mutual shaping approach following the relational/performative view of socio-technical agency serves as a pathway for examining socio-cultural factors shaping how technologies are designed, implemented, and used, and alternatively how technologies shape practice and meanings of socio-technical spaces. Further, it is argued that understanding the context in which telehealth technologies are situated and experienced will be increasingly critical as technological systems play greater roles in service delivery
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