Virtual Reality in transit: how acceptable is VR use on public transport?

When travelling on public transport, passengers use devices such as mobile phones or laptops to pass the time. VR (Virtual Reality) head-mounted displays could provide advantages over these devices by delivering personal and private experiences that help the wearer escape their confined space. This paper presents the key factors that influence VR acceptance on different modes of public transport (from buses to aeroplanes), uncovered through two surveys (N 1 =60, N 2 =108). An initial analysis of responses revealed unique passenger needs and challenges currently preventing wider VR adoption, creating parameters for future research

Reality Anchors: Bringing Cues from Reality to Increase Acceptance of Immersive Technologies in Transit

Immersive technologies allow us to control and customise how we experience reality, but are not widely used in transit due to safety, social acceptability, and comfort barriers. We propose that cues from reality can create reference points in virtuality, which we call Reality Anchors, will reduce these barriers. We used simulated public transportation journeys in a lab setting to explore Reality Anchors using speculative methods in two studies. Our first study (N=20) explored how elements of reality like objects, furniture, and people could be used as anchors, demonstrating that visibility of other passengers and personal belongings could reduce barriers. Our second study (N=19) focused on journey types that emerged from the first study - self-managed vs. externally managed journeys - revealing that self-managed journeys increased the need for anchors. We conclude that Reality Anchors can reduce concerns associated with immersive technology use in transit, especially for self-managed journeys

Analysis and design of randomised clinical trials involving competing risks endpoints

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In randomised clinical trials involving time-to-event outcomes, the failures concerned may be events of an entirely different nature and as such define a classical competing risks framework. In designing and analysing clinical trials involving such endpoints, it is important to account for the competing events, and evaluate how each contributes to the overall failure. An appropriate choice of statistical model is important for adequate determination of sample size.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We describe how competing events may be summarised in such trials using cumulative incidence functions and Gray's test. The statistical modelling of competing events using proportional cause-specific and subdistribution hazard functions, and the corresponding procedures for sample size estimation are outlined. These are illustrated using data from a randomised clinical trial (SQNP01) of patients with advanced (non-metastatic) nasopharyngeal cancer.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this trial, treatment has no effect on the competing event of loco-regional recurrence. Thus the effects of treatment on the hazard of distant metastasis were similar via both the cause-specific (unadjusted <it>csHR </it>= 0.43, 95% CI 0.25 - 0.72) and subdistribution (unadjusted <it>subHR </it>0.43; 95% CI 0.25 - 0.76) hazard analyses, in favour of concurrent chemo-radiotherapy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. Adjusting for nodal status and tumour size did not alter the results. The results of the logrank test (<it>p </it>= 0.002) comparing the cause-specific hazards and the Gray's test (<it>p </it>= 0.003) comparing the cumulative incidences also led to the same conclusion. However, the subdistribution hazard analysis requires many more subjects than the cause-specific hazard analysis to detect the same magnitude of effect.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The cause-specific hazard analysis is appropriate for analysing competing risks outcomes when treatment has no effect on the cause-specific hazard of the competing event. It requires fewer subjects than the subdistribution hazard analysis for a similar effect size. However, if the main and competing events are influenced in opposing directions by an intervention, a subdistribution hazard analysis may be warranted.</p

“Reality Anchors”: Bringing Cues from Reality into VR on Public Transport to Alleviate Safety and Comfort Concerns

Virtual Reality (VR) headsets have the unique capability to create private virtual content anywhere around the user, going beyond the capacities of traditional devices, but are not widely used while travelling, due to safety and comfort concerns. Showing objects from reality - "Reality Anchors" - could help reduce these concerns. We present a user study (N=20) that investigates how the use of real-world cues and different VR environments affect users’ feelings of safety, social acceptability, awareness, presence, escapism and immersion, which are key barriers to VR adoption. Our findings show that knowing where other people are on the bus could significantly reduce concerns associated with VR use in transit, resulting in increased feelings of safety, social acceptability and awareness, but with the concession that the user's immersion may be reduced. The VR environment also affected the level of immersion and the feelings of escapism, with a 360-video environment returning higher scores than a 2D one