Analysis of the narrative communication characteristics of virtual reality experiences: meaning-making components of the immersive story

Virtual reality is a technology and media that has evolved dramatically in the last decades. Undoubtedly, the medium has developed its own dynamics and narrative characteristics, due to the possibility of interaction and the ability to allow the viewer/user to focus on different levels of action. In this research, the relevant narrative characteristics in virtual reality are described based on a literature review. Secondly, a sample of online experiences of 360º virtual reality, or cinematic virtual reality (CVR), are analyzed to determine the characters and possibilities of narrative features presented. This analysis can help establish parameters and guidelines for the creation of virtual reality and 360º immersive contents in heterogeneous audiovisual and multimedia fields. The results show both the narrative and aesthetic possibilities of the analyzed videos and their technical and expressive possibilities, in terms of the ability to integrate narrative structures, as well as content in the use of innovative formal resources. In this sense, 360º immersive video becomes an added value of considerable dimensions

Mobile platform-independent solutions for body sensor network interface

Body Sensor Networks (BSN) appeared as an application of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to medicine and biofeedback. Such networks feature smart sensors (biosensors) that capture bio-physiological parameters from people and can offer an easy way for data collection. A new BSN platform called Sensing Health with Intelligence Modularity, Mobility and Experimental Reusability (SHIMMER) presents an excellent opportunity to put the concept into practice, with suitable size and weight, while also supporting wireless communication via Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4 standards. BSNs also need suitable interfaces for data processing, presentation, and storage for latter retrieval, as a result one can use Bluetooth technology to communicate with several more powerful and Graphical User Interface (GUI)-enabled devices such as mobile phones or regular computers. Taking into account that people currently use mobile and smart phones, it offers a good opportunity to propose a suitable mobile system for BSN SHIMMER-based networks. This dissertation proposes a mobile system solution with different versions created to the four major smart phone platforms: Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone, and Android. Taking into account that, currently, iPhone does not support Java, and Java cannot match a native solution in terms of performance in other platforms such as Android or Symbian, a native approach with similar functionality must be followed. Then, four mobile applications were created, evaluated and validated, and they are ready for use

Reactive Metal-Organic Interfaces Studied with Adsorption Calorimetry and Photoelectron Spectroscopy

This doctoral thesis presents investigations on the reactive interactions between Ca and oligomeric organic thin films with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), adsorption microcalorimetry, and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). By combining X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and adsorption microcalorimetry, it is concluded that Ca exhibits a rather different growth behavior on oligomeric organic thin films compared with their polymeric homologs: the diffusion of Ca atoms into the oligomeric organic thin films is generally stronger than into the comparable polymeric thin films, resulting in thicker reaction zones. These effects can be observed in the Ca/α-sexithiophene (Ca/6T) system at room temperature, where a thick reaction zone (ca. 30 nm) with a constant composition of the reacted and unreacted sulfur species is present. This finding is possibly due to steric hindrance effects in the reaction zone. Such hindrance effects are presumably the result of massive backbone structural modifications, which are introduced by ring opening reactions at the thiophene units of 6T, subsequently followed by CaS cluster formation. The initially measured adsorption enthalpy of Ca on 6T (275 kJ/mol) is discussed in the context of previous calculations and measurements on similar systems. In contrast to expectation, the initial value for the measured adsorption enthalpy remains independent of coverage up to 4 monolayers of Ca (1 monolayers corresponding to 7.4×1018 atoms/m2). This indicates a continuous exposure of yet unreacted sulfur to Ca from the gas phase up to this point, resulting in the formation of an extended reaction zone. Based on literature data, one would expect that a closed metallic Ca layer would form on top of the 6T film significantly below the observed threshold of 4 monolayers, quenching the reaction between Ca and 6T at an earlier stage during the Ca deposition. In order to improve the existing adsorption microcalorimeter setup, a reliable and multifunctional data acquisition system is built with the LabVIEW programming environment. To accommodate the pendulum style movement of the calorimeter's chopper for Ca pulse generation, synchronized timing of the desktop data acquisition program and step motor’s internal control program is realized through the calibrated compensations and the employment of pulse pair as the unit experimental step. Possible solutions for the balance between the ease of programming and runtime reliability are proposed together with the ideas for code efficiency improvement. As for the hardware development of the calorimeter, a possible transition from the PVDF film detector to the LiTaO3 single crystalline detector is also proposed, with a prototype detector being designed and manufactured

PhD students´day FMST 2023

The authors gave oral presentations of their work online as part of a Doctoral Students’ Day held on 15 June 2023, and they reflect the challenging work done by the students and their supervisors in the fields of metallurgy, materials engineering and management. There are 82 contributions in total, covering a range of areas – metallurgical technology, thermal engineering and fuels in industry, chemical metallurgy, nanotechnology, materials science and engineering, and industrial systems management. This represents a cross-section of the diverse topics investigated by doctoral students at the faculty, and it will provide a guide for Master’s graduates in these or similar disciplines who are interested in pursuing their scientific careers further, whether they are from the faculty here in Ostrava or engineering faculties elsewhere in the Czech Republic. The quality of the contributions varies: some are of average quality, but many reach a standard comparable with research articles published in established journals focusing on disciplines of materials technology. The diversity of topics, and in some cases the excellence of the contributions, with logical structure and clearly formulated conclusions, reflect the high standard of the doctoral programme at the faculty.Ostrav

The influence of the properties of school uniforms on children with sensory overreactivity

Dissertation (MConsumer Science: Clothing Retail Management)--University of Pretoria, 2021.Many children experience a low threshold towards sensory input and as a result, may experience sensory overreactivity (hypersensitivity) to touch, smell, taste, and intolerance for certain material textures (Cheng & Boggett-Carsjens, 2005; Dunn, 1997; Güçlü, Tanidir, Mukaddes & Ünal, 2007). The nervous system responds with “fight’’ (e.g., tantrums) or ‘flight’’ (e.g., withdrawal) reactions when a child experiences sensory discomfort and irritation (Cheng & Boggett-Carsjens, 2005; Karthikeyan, 2017). Children between the ages of 6-13 years spend approximately five days per week and six to nine hours a day wearing a school uniform which provides a constant sensory input to their body (Dąbrowska, Rotaru, Derler, Spano, Camenzind, Annaheim, Stämpfli, Schmid & Rossi, 2016). The impact of constant discomfort and distraction could be detrimental to a child’s education, social participation, play and activities of daily living. While treatment with an occupational therapist surrounding the effects of Sensory Integration Dysfunction is feasible, it is rather important to address the barriers in the child’s environment that may be the root of the discomfort. It is, therefore, imperative to determine which elements of their school uniforms may cause discomfort and irritation, and subsequently implement measures of adaptation. This study used an exploratory mixed-method to approach this problem. The initial qualitative phase included focus group interviews and, the second quantitative phase consisted of an online self-administered questionnaire. The garment elements explored included three main categories namely textiles (fibre content and fabrication), design (necklines and collars, sleeve and sleeve finishes, waistline finishes, closures, wearing ease, and decorative trimmings) and construction (seam type, seam class and type of labelling). It was important to include both parents of children with sensory overreactivity and qualified occupational therapists in phase 1 and solely parents in phase 2. Due to the explorative nature of the study, convenience sampling, purposive sampling, snowball sampling, and quota sampling was employed in gathering 10 participants for the virtual focus group discussions and 106 respondents for the online questionnaire. The data collected in the qualitative phase (phase 1) was implemented in the development of the measuring instrument used in the quantitative phase (phase 2). Data analysis in phase 1 consisted of content analysis and in phase 2, only descriptive statistics due to the exploratory nature of this study. The findings of this study indicate that school uniforms indeed contribute to sensory overreactivity which may influence children’s quality of life detrimentally. Most influential garment elements include fibre content, rough textures, seam types, collars, long-sleeved garments, embroidery, and labelling. Adaptation guidelines were developed for parents of children with sensory overreactivity, which may also be utilised by occupational therapists. In addition, guidelines for schools, retailers offering school clothing, and manufacturers of school garments were also developed. This study provides a vast contribution to new knowledge which may be used to enhance the lives of children with sensory overreactivity, as well as parents, occupational therapists and teachers who work with children with sensitivities. It may furthermore benefit sensory scientists, researchers in the field of textiles and clothing and consumer scientists.Consumer ScienceMConsumer Science: Clothing Retail ManagementUnrestricte

The influence of the properties of school uniforms on children with sensory overreactivity

Dissertation (MConsumer Science (Clothing Retail Management)--University of Pretoria, 2021.Many children experience a low threshold towards sensory input and as a result, may experience sensory overreactivity (hypersensitivity) to touch, smell, taste, and intolerance for certain material textures (Cheng & Boggett-Carsjens, 2005; Dunn, 1997; Güçlü, Tanidir, Mukaddes & Ünal, 2007). The nervous system responds with “fight’’ (e.g., tantrums) or ‘flight’’ (e.g., withdrawal) reactions when a child experiences sensory discomfort and irritation (Cheng & Boggett-Carsjens, 2005; Karthikeyan, 2017). Children between the ages of 6-13 years spend approximately five days per week and six to nine hours a day wearing a school uniform which provides a constant sensory input to their body (Dąbrowska, Rotaru, Derler, Spano, Camenzind, Annaheim, Stämpfli, Schmid & Rossi, 2016). The impact of constant discomfort and distraction could be detrimental to a child’s education, social participation, play and activities of daily living. While treatment with an occupational therapist surrounding the effects of Sensory Integration Dysfunction is feasible, it is rather important to address the barriers in the child’s environment that may be the root of the discomfort. It is, therefore, imperative to determine which elements of their school uniforms may cause discomfort and irritation, and subsequently implement measures of adaptation. This study used an exploratory mixed-method to approach this problem. The initial qualitative phase included focus group interviews and, the second quantitative phase consisted of an online self-administered questionnaire. The garment elements explored included three main categories namely textiles (fibre content and fabrication), design (necklines and collars, sleeve and sleeve finishes, waistline finishes, closures, wearing ease, and decorative trimmings) and construction (seam type, seam class and type of labelling). It was important to include both parents of children with sensory overreactivity and qualified occupational therapists in phase 1 and solely parents in phase 2. Due to the explorative nature of the study, convenience sampling, purposive sampling, snowball sampling, and quota sampling was employed in gathering 10 participants for the virtual focus group discussions and 106 respondents for the online questionnaire. The data collected in the qualitative phase (phase 1) was implemented in the development of the measuring instrument used in the quantitative phase (phase 2). Data analysis in phase 1 consisted of content analysis and in phase 2, only descriptive statistics due to the exploratory nature of this study. The findings of this study indicate that school uniforms indeed contribute to sensory overreactivity which may influence children’s quality of life detrimentally. Most influential garment elements include fibre content, rough textures, seam types, collars, long-sleeved garments, embroidery, and labelling. Adaptation guidelines were developed for parents of children with sensory overreactivity, which may also be utilised by occupational therapists. In addition, guidelines for schools, retailers offering school clothing, and manufacturers of school garments were also developed. This study provides a vast contribution to new knowledge which may be used to enhance the lives of children with sensory overreactivity, as well as parents, occupational therapists and teachers who work with children with sensitivities. It may furthermore benefit sensory scientists, researchers in the field of textiles and clothing and consumer scientists.National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant number 129842)Consumer ScienceMConsumer Science (Clothing Retail Management)Unrestricte

Constructing Participatory Environments: a Behavioural Model for Design

This thesis proposes the design of cybernetic frameworks that attempt to explore architecture as ecology of interacting systems that move beyond the fixed and finite tendencies of the past towards spatial environments that are adaptive, emotive and behavioural. Environments within this framework are attempts to construct interaction scenarios that enable agency, curiosity and play, forging intimate exchanges that are participatory and evolving over time. Interaction understood as the evolving relationships between things allows a generative and time-based framework to explore space as a model of interfacing that shifts the tendencies of passive occupancy towards an active ecology of interacting agents. The work argued here moves away from known models that reinforce habitual responses within architecture, towards an understanding of adaptive systems that are active agents for communication and exploration. Architecture within the context of this thesis is explored as a medium for spatial interfacing. Design is thus considered as durational, realtime and anticipatory exploring human human, human machine, and machine machine communication. The challenge posed is how designers can construct environments that are shared, enable curiosity, evolve and allow for complex interactions to arise through human and non-human agency. Attention thus is placed on behavioural features that afford conversational rich exchanges between participants and system, participants with other participants and or systems with other systems. This evolving framework demands that design systems have the capacity to participate and enable new forms of communication. Beyond conventional models that are reactive in their definition of interaction, architecture here moves towards features that are life-like, machine learned, and emotively communicated. The thesis demonstrates and articulates concepts of participation and behaviour through authored prototypes and real-time experiments. Behaviour is not relegated to a generative process in the design phase; rather it is time-based and conversational constantly constructing models of and for communication

A WEB-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL TOOLKIT TO SUPPORT SMES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

With small and medium sized-enterprises (SMEs) taking up the majority of the global businesses, it is important they act in an environmentally responsible manner. Environmental management systems (EMS) help companies evaluate and improve their environmental impact but they often require human, financial, and temporary resources that not all SMEs can afford. This research encompasses interviews with representatives of two small enterprises in Germany to provide insights into their understanding, and knowledge of an EMS and how they perceive their responsibility towards the environment. Furthermore, it presents a toolkit created especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. It serves as a simplified version of an EMS based on the ISO 14001 standard and is evaluated by target users and appropriate representatives. Some of the findings are: while open to the idea of improving their environmental impact, SMEs do not always feel it is their responsibility to do so; they seem to lack the means to fully implement an EMS. The developed toolkit is considered useful and usable and recommendations are drawn for its future enhancement

ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF MOBILE PHONES

Battery consumption in mobile applications development is a very important aspect and has to be considered by all the developers in their applications. This study will present an analysis of different relevant concepts and parameters that may have an impact on energy consumption of Windows Phone applications. This operating system was chosen because limited research related thereto has been conducted, even though there are related studies for Android and iOS operating systems. Furthermore, another reason is the increasing number of Windows Phone users. The objective of this research is to categorise the energy consumption parameters (e.g. use of one thread or several threads for the same output). The result for each group of experiments will be analysed and a rule will be derived. The set of derived rules will serve as a guide for developers who intend to develop energy efficient Windows Phone applications. For each experiment, one application is created for each concept and the results are presented in two ways; a table and a chart. The table presents the duration of the experiment, the battery consumed in the experiment, the expected battery lifetime, and the energy consumption, while the charts display the energy distribution based on the main threads: UI thread, application thread, and network thread