Olfaction-enhanced multimedia: Perspectives and challenges

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 Springer VerlagOlfaction—or smell—is one of the last challenges which multimedia and multimodal applications have to conquer. Enhancing such applications with olfactory stimuli has the potential to create a more complex—and richer—user multimedia experience, by heightening the sense of reality and diversifying user interaction modalities. Nonetheless, olfaction-enhanced multimedia still remains a challenging research area. More recently, however, there have been initial signs of olfactory-enhanced applications in multimedia, with olfaction being used towards a variety of goals, including notification alerts, enhancing the sense of reality in immersive applications, and branding, to name but a few. However, as the goal of a multimedia application is to inform and/or entertain users, achieving quality olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications from the users’ perspective is vital to the success and continuity of these applications. Accordingly, in this paper we have focused on investigating the user perceived experience of olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications, with the aim of discovering the quality evaluation factors that are important from a user’s perspective of these applications, and consequently ensure the continued advancement and success of olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications

Using virtual reality in criminological research

Since the pioneering early studies of the 1990s hinted at its promise as a research method, virtual reality (VR) technology has increasingly been used by social scientists. Given recent developments that have greatly enhanced realism, reduced costs, and increased possibilities for application, VR seems well on its way to become an established research tool in the social sciences. However, as with other ethodological innovations, the field of criminology hasbeen slow to catch on. To address this gap, this article explores the potential of VR as a tool for crime research. It provides readers with a brief and non-technical description of VR and its main elements and reviews severalapplications of VR in social scientific research that are potentially relevant for criminologists. By way of illustration, we identify and discuss in more detail different areas in which we think the field of criminology can particularly benefit from VR and offer suggestions for research. Some of the equipment available on the consumer market is also reviewed.In conjunction, the different sections should equip readers interested in applying VR in their own research with a fundamental understanding of what it entails and how it can be applied

The Herbert Virtual Museum

In recent years, virtual reality and augmented reality have emerged as areas of extreme interest as unique methods for visualising and interacting with digital museum artefacts in a different context, for example, as a virtual museum or exhibition, particularly over the Internet. Modern cultural heritage exhibitions have evolved from static to dynamic exhibitions and challenging explorations. This paper presents two different applications developed for the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery that make the user's experience more immersive, engaging, and interactive. The first application utilizes mobile phone devices in order to enrich the visitors experience in the museum, and the second application is a serious game for cultural heritage and in particular for museum environments focusing on the younger visitors

Disability Employment 101

[Excerpt] Employers face workforce challenges daily, and the forecast of labor market shortages is not getting any brighter. The 2005 survey report, Cost and Effectiveness of Accommodations in the Workplace: Preliminary Results of a Nationwide Study, conducted by the Job Accommodation Network (JAN), a service of the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), reveals that workforce development and retention of workers at all skill levels are two of the major issues facing small and large businesses today. Moreover, a 2003 Aspen Institute report projects a critical shortage of workers over the next 20 years, particularly in jobs requiring higher education and training. The report confirms what businesses already know—there are too few qualified workers to meet projected needs

Police Knowledge Exchange: Full Report 2018

[Executive Summary] This report was commissioned to explore the enablers and barriers to sharing within and between police forces and between police forces and partners, including the public. This was completed from an interdisciplinary review of international literature covering sharing, knowledge exchange, learning and organisational learning. The literature broke down into four main factors; who, why, what and how. An introduction to the literature is presented with ‘Who’ is sharing which considers both personal identity and different institutional issues. The ‘Why’ literature covers issues of cultural and community motivators and barriers. The ‘What’ segment reviews concepts of data, information and knowledge and related legislative issues. Finally, the ‘how’ section spans face to face sharing approaches to technologies that produce both enablers and barriers. A series of 42 in-depth interviews and focus groups were completed and combined with 47 survey responses . The aim of the interviews, focus groups and survey was to show perceptions and beliefs around knowledge sharing from a small sample across policing in order to complement the findings from the literature review. The survey was adapted from a standardised questionnaire (Biggs, 1987). The Biggs questionnaire focused on what motivated students to learn and how they approached their learning. Our adapted survey looked at what motivated police to share, and how they approached sharing. The responses showed a trend, across the police, towards a motivation for sharing to develop a deeper understanding of issues. However, the approaches and the strategies they used to share with others, which were primarily driven by achieving and surface approaches (to get promoted and get the job done). According to Biggs (1987) this could leave them discontented as they never progress to a deeper understanding of issues. Scaffolding sharing within the police through processes that are clearly defined, effective and valued could help to overcome these issues. Within the interviews and focus group findings a similar structured approach to sharing was adopted. Within the ‘who’ section some key aspects around personal relationships, reciprocity and reputation were identified. The ‘why’ the police share was one of the largest discussion points. Not only was there a deep motivation to solve key policing issues there was an approach of reciprocity. Police sharing was deeply motivated to support ‘good practice’ in the prevention and detection of crime. However, a sharing barrier was identified in the parity of value given to different types of knowledge for example between professional judgement and research evidence knowledge. Sharing was achieved when there were reciprocal benefits, in particular with personal networks or face to face sharing which was noted as ‘safe’. Again, this was inhibited by misunderstandings around the ‘risks’ of sharing, frequently attributed to data protection legislation; producing cautious reactions and as an avoidance tactic to save time and effort sharing. However, a divide was noted between technical users and those who avoided any online systems for sharing; often due to poorly designed systems and a lack of confidence in how to use systems. The police culture was identified as being risk-adverse, and competitive due to multiple factors, a lack of supported time to share, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) reviews and promotion criteria. The result was perceived to be a poor cultural ability to learn from mistakes and a likelihood to repeat errors. A set of strategic recommendations are given and include the use of a sharing authorised professional practice for HMIC reviews, sharing networks and training. A further set of operational recommendations are given such as; sharing impact cases for evidence based practice, data sharing officers and evaluating mechanisms for sharing. This full report is supported by the Police Knowledge Exchange Summary Report 2018 which gives an overview of the findings and recommendations

PENGEMBANGAN PROGRAM SIMULASI BERBASIS KOMPUTER DALAM PERKULIAHAN GELOMBANG DAN OPTIKA UNTUK MENINGKATKAN PEMAHAMAN KONSEP CALON GURU FISIKA

This research is aimed to produce computer simulation program and its supporting tools to enhance the concept understanding of physics teacher candidates. This research was a kind of a mixed method research design with experimental embedded. The research found that a) the validity of the mean value of 4.1 Learning Implementation Plan are included in the category of very high levels of validity with reliability 0.98, b) the average value of validity Student Activity Sheet 4.1 are included in the category of very high levels of validity with reliability 0.96, c) the mean value of validity assessment of science process skills 4.2 are included in the category of very high levels of validity with reliability 0.97 d) mean value of 4.2 validity of student teaching materials are included in the category of very high levels of validity reliability of 0.98. Conclusion of this research is supporting the implementation of the learning wave and optics subject with computer simulation program based that was developed to meet the criteria validity and reliability.Penelitian ini bertujuan menghasilkan program simulasi computer dan perangkat pendukungnya untuk meningkatkan pemahaman konsep fisika calon guru.  Penelitian ini merupakan suatu bentuk  mixed method  dengan desain penelitian embedded experimental.  Hasil penelitian ditemukan bahwa a) rerata nilai kevalidan Rencana Pelaksanaan Pembelajaran dan Buku ajar adalah 4,1 yang termasuk dalam kategori tingkat kevalidan sangat tinggi dengan reliabilitas 0,98; b) rerata nilai kevalidan Lembar Kegiatan Mahasiswa 4,1 yang termasuk dalam kategori tingkat kevalidan sangat tinggi dengan reliabilitas 0,96; c) rerata nilai kevalidan tes kemampuan pemahaman konsep fisika 4,2 yang termasuk dalam kategori tingkat kevalidan sangat tinggi dengan reliabilitas 0,97; d) rerata nilai kevalidan bahan ajar mahasiswa 4,2 yang termasuk dalam kategori tingkat kevalidan sangat tinggi dengan reliabilitas 0,98. Kesimpulan yang diperoleh dari penelitian ini adalah perangkat pembelajaran dengan menggunakan program simulasi computer untuk meningkatkan pemahaman konsep Mahasiswa memenuhi kriteria kevalidan dan reliabel.Kata Kunci:  Program simulasi komputer, pemahaman konsep fisika

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented