Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA)

We describe the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based exclusively in virtual worlds (VWs). The goals of MICA are to explore the utility of the emerging VR and VWs technologies for scientific and scholarly work in general, and to facilitate and accelerate their adoption by the scientific research community. MICA itself is an experiment in academic and scientific practices enabled by the immersive VR technologies. We describe the current and planned activities and research directions of MICA, and offer some thoughts as to what the future developments in this arena may be.Comment: 15 pages, to appear in the refereed proceedings of "Facets of Virtual Environments" (FaVE 2009), eds. F. Lehmann-Grube, J. Sablating, et al., ICST Lecture Notes Ser., Berlin: Springer Verlag (2009); version with full resolution color figures is available at http://www.mica-vw.org/wiki/index.php/Publication

The interaction of lean and building information modeling in construction

Lean construction and Building Information Modeling are quite different initiatives, but both are having profound impacts on the construction industry. A rigorous analysis of the myriad specific interactions between them indicates that a synergy exists which, if properly understood in theoretical terms, can be exploited to improve construction processes beyond the degree to which it might be improved by application of either of these paradigms independently. Using a matrix that juxtaposes BIM functionalities with prescriptive lean construction principles, fifty-six interactions have been identified, all but four of which represent constructive interaction. Although evidence for the majority of these has been found, the matrix is not considered complete, but rather a framework for research to explore the degree of validity of the interactions. Construction executives, managers, designers and developers of IT systems for construction can also benefit from the framework as an aid to recognizing the potential synergies when planning their lean and BIM adoption strategies

THE USE OF VIRTUAL REALITY SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE FOR IT STUDENTS

The paper is focused on the research on virtual reality solutions which could be used to improve educational experience focusing on IT students. Current state of the art in the field of VR use for educational purposes was analysed. Pros and cons for VR implementation in education were considered. As the solution to enhance educational experience was proposed to integrate VR environment with learning management system in order to automate assessment for mass-learning courses. An example of such integration, a system based on Unity engine for VR laboratory environment development, and Moodle for learning management system, was presented. Experimental results obtained during testing of developed system proved possibility of proposed integration approach and possible benefits from its practical implementation for mass learning courses.

Interactivity:the missing link between virtual reality technology and drug discovery pipelines

The potential of virtual reality (VR) to contribute to drug design and development has been recognised for many years. Hardware and software developments now mean that this potential is beginning to be realised, and VR methods are being actively used in this sphere. A recent advance is to use VR not only to visualise and interact with molecular structures, but also to interact with molecular dynamics simulations of 'on the fly' (interactive molecular dynamics in VR, IMD-VR), which is useful not only for flexible docking but also to examine binding processes and conformational changes. iMD-VR has been shown to be useful for creating complexes of ligands bound to target proteins, e.g., recently applied to peptide inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease. In this review, we use the term 'interactive VR' to refer to software where interactivity is an inherent part of the user VR experience e.g., in making structural modifications or interacting with a physically rigorous molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, as opposed to simply using VR controllers to rotate and translate the molecule for enhanced visualisation. Here, we describe these methods and their application to problems relevant to drug discovery, highlighting the possibilities that they offer in this arena. We suggest that the ease of viewing and manipulating molecular structures and dynamics, and the ability to modify structures on the fly (e.g., adding or deleting atoms) makes modern interactive VR a valuable tool to add to the armoury of drug development methods.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure

Collaborative educational environments incorporating mixed reality technologies: a systematic mapping study

In this paper, we report findings from a systematic mapping study, conducted to review the existing literature on collaborative educational environments incorporating mixed reality technologies. There is increasing interest in mixed reality technologies in education, especially with the introduction of new Over Head Mounted Displays (OHMDs), such as HoloLens, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. with the consideration of areas such as education, dynamic technology and complex environments, a research area is identified. We carried out an extensive review of the literature from 2007 to 2017 and conducted an analysis of the works on mixed reality technologies and its subcategories applied to collaborative education environments. Results highlighted the lack of research across the mixed reality spectrum, especially in the augmented virtuality subcategory, as well as technical limitations such as response time in the development of mixed reality technologies for collaborative environments. Furthermore, the difficulty of teaching professionals to replicate mixed reality experiments in real environments, due to the technical skills required, was identified. The main contribution of this article is the discussion of the current works with visualization of the present state of the area, which is aimed to encourage educators to develop mixed reality artefacts and conduct further research to support collaborative educational environments