Virtual reality and gamification in marketing higher education: A review and research agenda

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review studies on the use of virtual reality (VR) and gamification to engage students in higher education for marketing issues to identify the research topics, the research gaps and to prepare a future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review is performed based on two search terms applied to Web of Science, resulting in a final pool of 115 articles. A text-mining approach is used to conduct a full-text analysis of papers related to VR and gamification in higher education. The authors also compare the salient characteristics presented in the articles. Findings – From this analysis, five major research topics are found and analysed, namely, teaching methodologies and education, experience and motivation, student engagement, applied theories in VR and gamification. Based on this and following the theory concept characteristics methodology framework, the paper provides directions for future research. Originality/value – There is no comprehensive review exploring the topics, theories, constructs and methods used in prior studies concerning VR and gamification applied to higher education services based on all the articles published in well-regarded academic journals. This review seeks to provide deeper insights, to help scholars contribute to the development of this research field.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Creating memories and engagement in college student through virtual reality

This study intends to extend the understanding of drivers of student engagement in the educational context and analyse mindfulness as a moderator of the different associations in the proposed model. The proposed model regards VR experiences as stimuli, telepresence, pleasantness of the experience and memory as an organism and student engagement as the response. A sample of 136 participants allowed us to test the model. Findings revealed that all hypotheses were supported except H6 linking pleasantness of the experience with student engagement. Only the relationship between pleasantness and memory is higher for mindful students than nonmindful ones. These findings mean that students do not need to feel pleasure about what they are learning to be engaged.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Combining real-time monitoring and knowledge-based analysis in MARVEL

Real-time artificial intelligence is gaining increasing attention for applications in which conventional software methods are unable to meet technology needs. One such application area is the monitoring and analysis of complex systems. MARVEL, a distributed monitoring and analysis tool with multiple expert systems, was developed and successfully applied to the automation of interplanetary spacecraft operations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. MARVEL implementation and verification approaches, the MARVEL architecture, and the specific benefits that were realized by using MARVEL in operations are described

Consanguinity and polygenic diseases: a model for antibody deficiencies

Primary immunodeficiencies represent a heterogeneous group of disorders of the immune system, predisposing to various types of infections. Among them, common variable immunodeficiency is the most common symptomatic antibody deficiency. It includes several different forms characterized by defects in the terminal stage of B lymphocyte differentiation, leading to markedly reduced immunoglobulin serum levels and increased susceptibility to bacterial infections. The clinical phenotype is complex, including autoimmunity, granulomatous inflammation, lymphoproliferative disorders and malignancies. Rare autosomal recessive mutations in a number of single genes have recently been reported. However, the underlying genetic defects remain unknown in the majority of cases. In order to seek new genes responsible for the disease, we studied a consanguineous Italian family through exome sequencing combined with homozygosity mapping. Six missense homozygous variants passed our filtering selection and at least two of them were associated with some aspects of the pathological phenotype. Our data remark the complexity of immune system disorders and emphasize the difficulty to understand the significance of genetic results and their correlation with the disease phenotype

Assessing the Economic Value of a Regional Air Quality Plan

When developing an air quality plan, environmental authorities usually devise a number of individual actions, constituted by the application of both technical (end-of-pipe) and energy efficiency measures. They may range from the incentives to buy less polluting vehicles, to the enforcement of stricter rules on domestic heating. The assessment of the economic effectiveness for the society as a whole of the individual measures and of the overall plan requires a flexible support system able to quickly perform air quality impact evaluations on the specific area. One such system is RIAT+, a software package developed and tested during a series of European research projects, which has been used to evaluate costs and benefits of the Lombardy Region Air Quality Plan (PRIA), constituted by about 90 different actions to be implemented within 2020. The adoption of each measure means a certain change in the emission, which is distributed over the regional territory in different way, depending on the type of measure. A shift of the car fleet to a different EURO class, for instance, means an emission reduction only on the road network, while a reduced use of electricity may imply a lower emission of power plants at specific sites. To evaluate the effects of these emission changes, RIAT+ adopts a surrogate model approach, namely using a neural network calibrated on few results of a full chemical transport model. It is thus possible to rapidly evaluate the improvements in the population exposure and health and the consequent reduction of external costs. The final economic assessment is obtained by comparing the sum of energy savings and external cost reductions with the implementation costs of the corresponding measures

Rethinking Design Standards as Learning Frameworks

Standards align practice across the supply network whilst putting in place basic constraints to ensure quality, safety, compatibility, interoperability, and economy. In the construction industry, design standards are used to verify the adequacy of designs to meet fundamental requirements for safety, serviceability, durability and robustness. There are very few opportunities to prototype; thus design in the construction industry is fundamentally code or standard-driven. In the highly diverse built environment, design standards will never cover all possible situations encountered by designers. Hence, standard writers are expected to select, capture and codify technical knowledge, separate best practice from unsuccessful practice, and share the lessons learnt across the professional community. In this context, standards are representations of a community’s mental model about what ‘good’ looks like, and they serve powerfully to reinforce a particular way of doing things. However, in times of rapid change and increasing complexity, these mental models may no longer be fit for purpose. They need to be re-examined and modified in the light of new challenges and demands. The core argument of this White Paper is that design standards in the construction industry need to be explicitly reconceptualised, re-evaluated and redeveloped as learning frameworks, which encourage users’ adaptability and collaborative learning and improvement, as well as foster creativity and innovation. To support this statement, fundamental notions of contemporary learning theory are presented and key challenges in the way design standards are currently developed and used are discussed. The importance of considering standards from a learning perspective is emphasised by looking at mental models underlying the way design standards are developed and used and recognising the learning power of different users explicitly