On Inter-referential Awareness in Collaborative Augmented Reality

For successful collaboration to occur, a workspace must support inter-referential awareness - or the ability for one participant to refer to a set of artifacts in the environment, and for that reference to be correctly interpreted by others. While referring to objects in our everyday environment is a straight-forward task, the non-tangible nature of digital artifacts presents us with new interaction challenges. Augmented reality (AR) is inextricably linked to the physical world, and it is natural to believe that the re-integration of physical artifacts into the workspace makes referencing tasks easier; however, we find that these environments combine the referencing challenges from several computing disciplines, which compound across scenarios. This dissertation presents our studies of this form of awareness in collaborative AR environments. It stems from our research in developing mixed reality environments for molecular modeling, where we explored spatial and multi-modal referencing techniques. To encapsulate the myriad of factors found in collaborative AR, we present a generic, theoretical framework and apply it to analyze this domain. Because referencing is a very human-centric activity, we present the results of an exploratory study which examines the behaviors of participants and how they generate references to physical and virtual content in co-located and remote scenarios; we found that participants refer to content using physical and virtual techniques, and that shared video is highly effective in disambiguating references in remote environments. By implementing user feedback from this study, a follow-up study explores how the environment can passively support referencing, where we discovered the role that virtual referencing plays during collaboration. A third study was conducted in order to better understand the effectiveness of giving and interpreting references using a virtual pointer; the results suggest the need for participants to be parallel with the arrow vector (strengthening the argument for shared viewpoints), as well as the importance of shadows in non-stereoscopic environments. Our contributions include a framework for analyzing the domain of inter-referential awareness, the development of novel referencing techniques, the presentation and analysis of our findings from multiple user studies, and a set of guidelines to help designers support this form of awareness

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning using Augmented and Virtual Reality in Museum Education

Recent advancements in the cost, availability, and capability of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices and software are spurring their mass distribution to the public. This fundamental shift in the use of AR and VR predominantly from military and academic research laboratories to the public presents new opportunities and challenges for the design of instructional technology. While studies of AR and VR have been conducted to inform the design of individual instructional products, few studies have focused on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) products in which AR and VR learners work together toward shared learning goals. The museum education industry possesses unique and inherent characteristics that position it as a strong candidate for the development and deployment of CSCL-ARVR products. Tourism locations, such as museums, provide an exemplary environment for advanced learning technology experimentation in which information technology infrastructure and programs of instruction are often already in place and in which many tourists already possess smartphones and or tablets that may be used to mediate location-based educational experiences. The goal was to conduct formative research to develop a tentative instructional design theory that can be used to guide the creation of CSCL-ARVR instructional products. Instructional design theory and software engineering practices were applied to guide the design of a CSCL-ARVR instructional product prototype to support museum education. The prototype, named Co-Tour, was designed and developed to enable remotely-located VR participants to collaborate with AR participants located within a tourism location to jointly navigate the location, examine exhibits and answer questions about exhibits related to a problem-based learning instance. Formative data were collected and analyzed, and the results were used to develop a tentative instructional design theory. Mixed Reality Museum Co-Visit Theory is proposed to inform the design and development of CSCL-ARVR co-visitation experiences for museums. A theoretical framework was developed and was informed by CSCL, game-based learning, social constructivist theory, flow theory, and the construct of camaraderie. Five values supporting the goal were elaborated to guide theory methods production including fostering of collaboration, leveraging of informal learning activities, incorporation of motivational elements, favoring of loose organization, and provision an effective user interface. Future research should focus upon replication towards validation and generalizability of results and upon the broader museum going population

Collaboratories

No abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34569/1/1440360103_ftp.pd

Factors affecting the pathogenicity of Yersinia ruckeri

A group of 42 strains of Yersinia ruckeri were characterized and found to show homogenous biochemical profiles. The optimal conditions for in vitro culture of a representative strain of Y. ruckeri were established. The virulence was increased by passage through fish. A standard method for infection of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) with Y. ruckeri was devised. As a result cultures of Y. ruckeri grown on full strength of BHIA for 5 h at 30°C in static conditions were found to be most suitable for infection by both intraperitoneal injection and immersion. Virulence of stored cultures was maintained for over 1 year at -20 and/or -70° C and virulence was not lost after up to six consecutive subcultures. The effect on mortality of susceptibility of various fish stocks, water temperature and stocking density is described. The size of fish (between 5 and 60 g) had no effect on virulence. The injection and immersion protocols were used as in vivo models for the study of the effects of dietary vitamin E, with both laboratory prepared diets and commercially available diets. Comparative results of haematological and biochemical parameters, histology, mortality patterns, serum antibody levels and bacterial recovery from the four dietary groups of fish are presented. A comparative in vitro and in vivo study of intra and inter strain vanations among representatives of the serogroup 1 of Y. ruckeri was performed. Under the conditions used, some strains were virulent and other avirulent. Results of Western blotting and SDS-PAGE showed the presence of a heat sensitive factor (HSF), present only in the virulent strains of Y. ruckeri. To date this is the first putative virulence factor described for Y. ruckeri. Further work was undertaken in an attempt to characterize the HSF. It appears to be located in the periplasmic space and to have complex lipid and proteinaceous components. HSF is easily degraded, and is immunogenic and confers some protection when injected into rainbow trout. Selective media and detection methods for the HSF, and their potential use in laboratory and field studies are described.The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Weymouth, Englan

3rd EGEE User Forum

We have organized this book in a sequence of chapters, each chapter associated with an application or technical theme introduced by an overview of the contents, and a summary of the main conclusions coming from the Forum for the chapter topic. The first chapter gathers all the plenary session keynote addresses, and following this there is a sequence of chapters covering the application flavoured sessions. These are followed by chapters with the flavour of Computer Science and Grid Technology. The final chapter covers the important number of practical demonstrations and posters exhibited at the Forum. Much of the work presented has a direct link to specific areas of Science, and so we have created a Science Index, presented below. In addition, at the end of this book, we provide a complete list of the institutes and countries involved in the User Forum