4,183 research outputs found

    Southern Adventist University Undergraduate Catalog 2023-2024

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    Southern Adventist University\u27s undergraduate catalog for the academic year 2023-2024.https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/undergrad_catalog/1123/thumbnail.jp

    Graduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

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    Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

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    This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings

    A Taxonomy of Freehand Grasping Patterns in Virtual Reality

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    Grasping is the most natural and primary interaction paradigm people perform every day, which allows us to pick up and manipulate objects around us such as drinking a cup of coffee or writing with a pen. Grasping has been highly explored in real environments, to understand and structure the way people grasp and interact with objects by presenting categories, models and theories for grasping approach. Due to the complexity of the human hand, classifying grasping knowledge to provide meaningful insights is a challenging task, which led to researchers developing grasp taxonomies to provide guidelines for emerging grasping work (such as in anthropology, robotics and hand surgery) in a systematic way. While this body of work exists for real grasping, the nuances of grasping transfer in virtual environments is unexplored. The emerging development of robust hand tracking sensors for virtual devices now allow the development of grasp models that enable VR to simulate real grasping interactions. However, present work has not yet explored the differences and nuances that are present in virtual grasping compared to real object grasping, which means that virtual systems that create grasping models based on real grasping knowledge, might make assumptions which are yet to be proven true or untrue around the way users intuitively grasp and interact with virtual objects. To address this, this thesis presents the first user elicitation studies to explore grasping patterns directly in VR. The first study presents main similarities and differences between real and virtual object grasping, the second study furthers this by exploring how virtual object shape influences grasping patterns, the third study focuses on visual thermal cues and how this influences grasp metrics, and the fourth study focuses on understanding other object characteristics such as stability and complexity and how they influence grasps in VR. To provide structured insights on grasping interactions in VR, the results are synthesized in the first VR Taxonomy of Grasp Types, developed following current methods for developing grasping and HCI taxonomies and re-iterated to present an updated and more complete taxonomy. Results show that users appear to mimic real grasping behaviour in VR, however they also illustrate that users present issues around object size estimation and generally a lower variability in grasp types is used. The taxonomy shows that only five grasps account for the majority of grasp data in VR, which can be used for computer systems aiming to achieve natural and intuitive interactions at lower computational cost. Further, findings show that virtual object characteristics such as shape, stability and complexity as well as visual cues for temperature influence grasp metrics such as aperture, category, type, location and dimension. These changes in grasping patterns together with virtual object categorisation methods can be used to inform design decisions when developing intuitive interactions and virtual objects and environments and therefore taking a step forward in achieving natural grasping interaction in VR

    Immersive analytics for oncology patient cohorts

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    This thesis proposes a novel interactive immersive analytics tool and methods to interrogate the cancer patient cohort in an immersive virtual environment, namely Virtual Reality to Observe Oncology data Models (VROOM). The overall objective is to develop an immersive analytics platform, which includes a data analytics pipeline from raw gene expression data to immersive visualisation on virtual and augmented reality platforms utilising a game engine. Unity3D has been used to implement the visualisation. Work in this thesis could provide oncologists and clinicians with an interactive visualisation and visual analytics platform that helps them to drive their analysis in treatment efficacy and achieve the goal of evidence-based personalised medicine. The thesis integrates the latest discovery and development in cancer patients’ prognoses, immersive technologies, machine learning, decision support system and interactive visualisation to form an immersive analytics platform of complex genomic data. For this thesis, the experimental paradigm that will be followed is in understanding transcriptomics in cancer samples. This thesis specifically investigates gene expression data to determine the biological similarity revealed by the patient's tumour samples' transcriptomic profiles revealing the active genes in different patients. In summary, the thesis contributes to i) a novel immersive analytics platform for patient cohort data interrogation in similarity space where the similarity space is based on the patient's biological and genomic similarity; ii) an effective immersive environment optimisation design based on the usability study of exocentric and egocentric visualisation, audio and sound design optimisation; iii) an integration of trusted and familiar 2D biomedical visual analytics methods into the immersive environment; iv) novel use of the game theory as the decision-making system engine to help the analytics process, and application of the optimal transport theory in missing data imputation to ensure the preservation of data distribution; and v) case studies to showcase the real-world application of the visualisation and its effectiveness

    Imagineering America: Disney's View of the USA in its Theme Parks

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    One of the largest, and most influential entertainment companies, the Walt Disney Company has effectively created its own 'Disney's America' which is represented through its theme parks by producing an immersive experience for guests in both the past and future. With the influential power of the Disney company, they are able to form and present their own vision of America, through the various attractions and architectural designs which create an immersive experience. What began as simply Walt Disney's visions of America through his fascination with the past and promise of the future, has become corporate controlled, with Disney controlling the perceptions of America through the theme parks through the use and presentation of a Disney history and future within the parks. Through the Disney theme parks, a 'Disney's America' of both the past and future is created. These representations of both American history and the future are typically Disneyfied, representing the Disney vision of both the past and future by altering perceptions of America to fit the typical Disney image of family-friendly fun and happiness. A sense of Disney history is created through Disney's representations of the past which is found within both three lands at The Magic Kingdom: Main Street USA, Frontierland and Liberty Square, and the failed planned Disney history theme park. With the company providing representations and recreations of history which are edited, solely positive and idealised versions, history is altered within this vision of America. The darker, less appealing aspects of American history are typically excluded from this Disney vision to ensure only a positive version of America's past is represented. The vision of the Disney future is presented through Tomorrowland, Walt Disney's original plan for a new community of tomorrow and the Disney theme park, Epcot. These present a future filled with optimism and advancements, working towards creating a better, improved future. There are multiple visions of the Disney future: the fantasy future of Tomorrowland, Walt Disney's personal vision and the vision of the Disney company itself. These are similar in that they represent a future of advancement and optimism with negativity removed, still fitting with the Disney image. The 'Disney's America' is created through the immersive experiences provided throughout the Disney theme parks where guests first-hand experience the Disney vision of the past and future, entering the world of a Disney's America. Disney creates these experiences through the attractions and architectural design of the parks which effectively result in enjoyable, unforgettable guest experiences. Disney has become an integral part of American culture and America has become Disney

    More Than Machines?

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    We know that robots are just machines. Why then do we often talk about them as if they were alive? Laura Voss explores this fascinating phenomenon, providing a rich insight into practices of animacy (and inanimacy) attribution to robot technology: from science-fiction to robotics R&D, from science communication to media discourse, and from the theoretical perspectives of STS to the cognitive sciences. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, and backed by a wealth of empirical material, Voss shows how scientists, engineers, journalists - and everyone else - can face the challenge of robot technology appearing »a little bit alive« with a reflexive and yet pragmatic stance
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