Comparing hand tracking and controller-based interactions for a virtual reality learning application

Abstract. Pseudo-haptic illusions can simulate haptic sensations using visual stimulus only. Pseudo-haptic feedback methods are valuable methods to simulate haptic feedback for virtual reality users. In this thesis, pseudo-haptic feedback is examined in conjunction with virtual reality training. Virtual reality training in assembly operations is becoming popular and it is important to raise awareness and knowledge on ways to fully gain and use the benefits of virtual reality in industrial use. Hand tracking can free the user from using controllers in virtual reality, but hand tracking can have other setbacks. The differences between controller and hand tracking based interactions are examined in this thesis. An experiment was conducted, where it was observed whether the weight of the controller had an effect on the pseudo-haptic feeling of weight for the user. Simulation of weight was done with a control-delay technique, in which the movement of the real hand is delayed in relation to the head mounted display’s displayed hand. This can create an illusion of weight for a virtual object. Quantitative, as well as coded qualitative data was gathered from the experimental application, and by using questionnaires. The paired data were analyzed using the T-test. A significant difference between the pseudo-haptic weight sensations was not found. However, it was found that the use of hand tracking was seen as more intuitive for the users, and yielded into higher feeling of presence. Controllers however, were seen as more robust, which was the main advantage of them. Suggestions are provided for future research, and limitations that were observed during the experiment are discussed.Käsi- ja ohjainperusteisen interaktion vertailu virtuaalitodellisuutta hyödyntävässä opetussovelluksessa. Tiivistelmä. Pseudohaptiset illuusiot simuloivat tuntoaistimuksia pelkän visuaalisen ärsykkeen perusteella. Pseudohaptiset menetelmät ovat hyödyllisiä tuottamaan haptisia tuntemuksia virtuaalitodellisuuden käyttäjille. Virtuaalitodellisuus on tullut yleiseksi opetusmenetelmäksi linjastolla työskentelevien operaattoreiden koulutustarpeeseen. Siksi on tärkeää ymmärtää ja kehittää menetelmiä jotka parantavat virtuaalitodellisuutta näissä olosuhteissa. Käsiperusteinen interaktio vapauttaa käyttäjän ohjainten käytöstä, mutta sillä on muita haittoja. Käsi- ja ohjainperusteisen interaktion eroja tarkastellaan tässä työssä. Työssä kuvataan koe, jossa seurattiin onko ohjaimen fyysisellä painolla vaikutusta pseudohaptiseen painon tunteeseen. Painon simulointi toteutettiin viivästystekniikalla. Tämä tarkoittaa sitä, että käyttäjän näkemän virtuaalikäden liikehdintää hidastettiin verrattuna käyttäjän omaan käteen. Tämä voi luoda painon tunteen virtuaaliselle esineelle. Koesovelluksen sekä kyselyjen avulla kerättiin sekä kvantitatiivista, että koodattua laadullista dataa. Tulokset analysoitiin T-testillä. Tulosten perusteella ei löydetty merkittävää eroa pseudohaptisen painon tunteen voimakkuuksista. Tulosten perusteella todetaan kuitenkin, että käsiperusteinen interaktio voi olla intuitiivisempi käyttäjälle sekä tuottaa käyttäjälle vahvemman paikkailluusion tunteen. Ohjaimien todetaan tosin olevan vakaampi interaktiomenetelmä; mikä on niiden suurin vahvuus. Lopuksi työssä annetaan ehdotuksia tulevaa tutkimuksia varten sekä keskustellaan nykyisen työn rajoituksista

Pilvipalveluiden käyttö paikantamiseen perustuvissa AR-sovelluksissa

Tiivistelmä. Tutkimus perustui paikantamiseen perustuvan AR-sovelluksen (Augmented Reality, AR) kehittämiseen mobiililaitteelle. Tällaisen sovelluksen toiminta perustuu laitteen sijaintiin sekä sitä ympäröivästä alueesta saatavilla olevan tiedon vertaamiseen toisiinsa. Paikannukseen perustuvan sovelluksen täytyy saada informaatio käyttäjän sijainnista sekä sovelluksen haluaman informaation liittyen käyttäjän sijaintiin. Kerättyään tarvittavan informaation, AR-sovellus osaa näyttää käyttäjälleen ympäriltä kerätyn tiedon lisättynä todellisuutena reaalikuvan päälle. Tutkimuksessa kehitetyn sovelluksen alustana päätettiin käyttää Android-käyttöjärjestelmää, jolle mobiilisovelluksen kehittäminen onnistuu helpoiten sekä tähän työhön sopivimmin. Sovelluksen kehittämiseen käytettiin Android Studio -kehitystyökalua, jonka käyttöön löytyy ohjeita developer.android.com nettisivustolta. Työssä hyödynnettiin pilvipalvelu Google Servicen kategorioittain tarjoamaa informaatiota eri paikoista. Sovelluksessa käytettävä informaatio rajattiin yhteen Google Places-API:n kategoriaan, jossa arvioitiin olevan sopiva määrä kohteita sovelluksen kehittämistä varten. Informaation piirtäminen mobiililaitteen näytölle toteutettiin vertaamalla osuuko laitteen ja kohteen koordinaattien välinen suora linja kamerakuvan rajaamalle sektorille. Tässä työssä onnistuttiin kehittämään AR-sovellus, joka paikantaa laitteen käyttäjää ympäröivät kohteet sekä esittää niiden sijainnin mobiililaitteen näytölle kameran luoman reaalikuvan päälle. Sovelluksen kehitys onnistui Android-alustalle vaivattomasti Googlen tarjoamien palveluiden avulla. Mobiililaitteet sopivat hyvin AR-tyyppisten sovellusten käyttämiseen niiden käytettävyyden ja riittävän tehokkuuden ansiosta.Using cloud services in a location based augmented reality application. Abstract. This research is based on developing a location-based AR-application (Augmented Reality, AR) for mobile devices. This type of application requires information about the device’s location, orientation and it must be aware of its surroundings. A location-based application must get information about the user’s location and necessary information relative to that position. After gathering this data, the AR-app can display the surrounding’s information on top of the real-time camera picture as an augmented reality. Android-operating system was used as a platform for the application. It is an easy development platform and it was appropriate for this study. AndroidStudio was used as the application development environment. It has a full online documentation in the following internet page: developer.android.com. Categorial information about nearby places from Google Services was used in this project. Data used in the application was limited to one of Google Places API category, that was estimated to produce an appropriate amount of results to develop the application. Drawing the information to the mobile device’s screen was accomplished by comparing if the line between the device and the place is on the camera’s current view. This paper includes a successfully developed application that can fetch the nearby places for the user and show their location in the camera’s real-time view. The development of the application for the Android-platform was an ease with the services offered by Google. Mobile devices are suitable for using ARtype applications because of their usability and adequate performance

Muutos psykiatristen avohoitokäyntien toteutuksessa ja johtajien kokemukset etäasiointia estävistä ja edistävistä tekijöistä COVID-19 aikakaudella

Vertaisarvioitu. English abstract.Peer reviewe

Fumarate is an epigenetic modifier that elicits epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.

Mutations of the tricarboxylic acid cycle enzyme fumarate hydratase cause hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer. Fumarate hydratase-deficient renal cancers are highly aggressive and metastasize even when small, leading to a very poor clinical outcome. Fumarate, a small molecule metabolite that accumulates in fumarate hydratase-deficient cells, plays a key role in cell transformation, making it a bona fide oncometabolite. Fumarate has been shown to inhibit α-ketoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases that are involved in DNA and histone demethylation. However, the link between fumarate accumulation, epigenetic changes, and tumorigenesis is unclear. Here we show that loss of fumarate hydratase and the subsequent accumulation of fumarate in mouse and human cells elicits an epithelial-to-mesenchymal-transition (EMT), a phenotypic switch associated with cancer initiation, invasion, and metastasis. We demonstrate that fumarate inhibits Tet-mediated demethylation of a regulatory region of the antimetastatic miRNA cluster mir-200ba429, leading to the expression of EMT-related transcription factors and enhanced migratory properties. These epigenetic and phenotypic changes are recapitulated by the incubation of fumarate hydratase-proficient cells with cell-permeable fumarate. Loss of fumarate hydratase is associated with suppression of miR-200 and the EMT signature in renal cancer and is associated with poor clinical outcome. These results imply that loss of fumarate hydratase and fumarate accumulation contribute to the aggressive features of fumarate hydratase-deficient tumours.This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (UK). S.F. was supported by a Herchel Smith Research Studentship and K.F. by an MRC Career Development Award. E.R.M is supported by the ERC Advanced Researcher award 323004–ONCOTREAT. P.H.M. is supported by Senior Investigator Awards from the Wellcome Trust and NIHR. The Cambridge Human Research Tissue Bank and A.W. are supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature19353

People Interpret Robotic Non-linguistic Utterances Categorically

We present results of an experiment probing whether adults exhibit categorical perception when affectively rating robot-like sounds (Non-linguistic Utterances). The experimental design followed the traditional methodology from the psychology domain for measuring categorical perception: stimulus continua for robot sounds were presented to subjects, who were asked to complete a discrimination and an identification task. In the former subjects were asked to rate whether stimulus pairs were affectively different, while in the latter they were asked to rate single stimuli affectively. The experiment confirms that Non-linguistic Utterances can convey affect and that they are drawn towards prototypical emotions, confirming that people show categorical perception at a level of inferred affective meaning when hearing robot-like sounds. We speculate on how these insights can be used to automatically design and generate affect-laden robot-like utterances

How Psychological Stress Affects Emotional Prosody

We explored how experimentally induced psychological stress affects the production and recognition of vocal emotions. In Study 1a, we demonstrate that sentences spoken by stressed speakers are judged by naive listeners as sounding more stressed than sentences uttered by non-stressed speakers. In Study 1b, negative emotions produced by stressed speakers are generally less well recognized than the same emotions produced by non-stressed speakers. Multiple mediation analyses suggest this poorer recognition of negative stimuli was due to a mismatch between the variation of volume voiced by speakers and the range of volume expected by listeners. Together, this suggests that the stress level of the speaker affects judgments made by the receiver. In Study 2, we demonstrate that participants who were induced with a feeling of stress before carrying out an emotional prosody recognition task performed worse than non-stressed participants. Overall, findings suggest detrimental effects of induced stress on interpersonal sensitivity

Happiness Through Vacationing: Just a Temporary Boost or Long-Term Benefits?

Does vacationing add to our happiness in the long run? This question was addressed in a study of 3,650 Dutch citizens who reported their leisure travel every 3 months during 2 years and rated their happiness at the end of each year. Participants who had been on vacation appeared to be marginally happier, in terms of hedonic level of affect, than those who had not. This difference in Affect balance between vacationers and non-vacationers is probably due to a very minor causal effect of vacationing on hedonic level of affect. Possibly, vacationing is positively reminisced and these memories allow for the prevalence of more positive affect in people's lives. Happiness did not predict vacationing. The effect of holiday trips on vacationers' happiness is mostly short-lived; among vacationers, happiness was unrelated to the number of trips and days spent on vacation. A separate analysis of vacationers, who value vacationing most, yielded the same results. Implications for future research are discussed

The Vascular Impairment of Cognition Classification Consensus Study

Introduction: Numerous diagnostic criteria have tried to tackle the variability in clinical manifestations and problematic diagnosis of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) but none have been universally accepted. These criteria have not been readily comparable, impacting on clinical diagnosis rates and in turn prevalence estimates, research, and treatment. / Methods: The Vascular Impairment of Cognition Classification Consensus Study (VICCCS) involved participants (81% academic researchers) from 27 countries in an online Delphi consensus study. Participants reviewed previously proposed concepts to develop new guidelines. / Results: VICCCS had a mean of 122 (98–153) respondents across the study and a 67% threshold to represent consensus. VICCCS redefined VCI including classification of mild and major forms of VCI and subtypes. It proposes new standardized VCI-associated terminology and future research priorities to address gaps in current knowledge. / Discussion: VICCCS proposes a consensus-based updated conceptualization of VCI intended to facilitate standardization in research

Discrete Emotion Effects on Lexical Decision Response Times

Our knowledge about affective processes, especially concerning effects on cognitive demands like word processing, is increasing steadily. Several studies consistently document valence and arousal effects, and although there is some debate on possible interactions and different notions of valence, broad agreement on a two dimensional model of affective space has been achieved. Alternative models like the discrete emotion theory have received little interest in word recognition research so far. Using backward elimination and multiple regression analyses, we show that five discrete emotions (i.e., happiness, disgust, fear, anger and sadness) explain as much variance as two published dimensional models assuming continuous or categorical valence, with the variables happiness, disgust and fear significantly contributing to this account. Moreover, these effects even persist in an experiment with discrete emotion conditions when the stimuli are controlled for emotional valence and arousal levels. We interpret this result as evidence for discrete emotion effects in visual word recognition that cannot be explained by the two dimensional affective space account