Health and Safety Reminders Via Augmented Reality Glasses

With the proliferation of personal electronic devices, the time individuals spend using their devices is an increasing concern. In particular, users may unconsciously spend too much time looking at a screen; their eyes may be too close to a screen, leading to eye strain; their posture may be suboptimal, leading to back or neck strain; etc. This disclosure describes techniques to leverage depth information detected with user permission via one or more sensors to determine when such situations occur and to provide suitable reminders to users, e.g., via augmented reality (AR) glasses

Fusing Multimedia Data Into Dynamic Virtual Environments

In spite of the dramatic growth of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) technology, content creation for immersive and dynamic virtual environments remains a significant challenge. In this dissertation, we present our research in fusing multimedia data, including text, photos, panoramas, and multi-view videos, to create rich and compelling virtual environments. First, we present Social Street View, which renders geo-tagged social media in its natural geo-spatial context provided by 360° panoramas. Our system takes into account visual saliency and uses maximal Poisson-disc placement with spatiotemporal filters to render social multimedia in an immersive setting. We also present a novel GPU-driven pipeline for saliency computation in 360° panoramas using spherical harmonics (SH). Our spherical residual model can be applied to virtual cinematography in 360° videos. We further present Geollery, a mixed-reality platform to render an interactive mirrored world in real time with three-dimensional (3D) buildings, user-generated content, and geo-tagged social media. Our user study has identified several use cases for these systems, including immersive social storytelling, experiencing the culture, and crowd-sourced tourism. We next present Video Fields, a web-based interactive system to create, calibrate, and render dynamic videos overlaid on 3D scenes. Our system renders dynamic entities from multiple videos, using early and deferred texture sampling. Video Fields can be used for immersive surveillance in virtual environments. Furthermore, we present VRSurus and ARCrypt projects to explore the applications of gestures recognition, haptic feedback, and visual cryptography for virtual and augmented reality. Finally, we present our work on Montage4D, a real-time system for seamlessly fusing multi-view video textures with dynamic meshes. We use geodesics on meshes with view-dependent rendering to mitigate spatial occlusion seams while maintaining temporal consistency. Our experiments show significant enhancement in rendering quality, especially for salient regions such as faces. We believe that Social Street View, Geollery, Video Fields, and Montage4D will greatly facilitate several applications such as virtual tourism, immersive telepresence, and remote education

Using the PAH in Teaching Reading to Sustain the Quality of EFL Students' Life

Sustaining the quality of student life in any learning environment should be the priority of all educators. This situation becomes even more challenging when international EFL postgraduate students are expected to function in a learning environment where English is the medium of instruction. This study aimed to enhance their reading skills by implementing a learner-centred instructional framework referred to as the PAH (Pedagogy-Andragogy-Heutagogy) Continuum. This reading programme witnessed a significant increase in students' reading comprehension skills. Students claimed to be more confident and experienced joy and learner satisfaction through a nurturing learning environment that encouraged peeragogy and cybergogy. Keywords: reading skills; postgraduate students; EFL; PAH Continuum   eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7i22.414

EFL Students’ Perspectives and Challenges in Critical Reading Skills for Postgraduate Study

Research reveals that EFL postgraduates from China possess limited academic literacy, especially critical reading skills. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate EFL students’ perspectives and challenges in critical reading skills for postgraduate study. This study was conducted in a private university located in Peninsular Malaysia involving an intact group of 50 first-year postgraduate students from China. Data were collected through questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Quantitative findings revealed that EFL students held above-average perceptions of their ability in critical reading, but interview sessions revealed otherwise, as a majority claimed they struggled in employing critical reading skills

Sustaining Students’ Quality Learning Environment by Reviewing Factors to Graduate-on-Time: A case study

Research reveals that several factors affect the quality of learning environments. Therefore, this study investigated significant factors that affect postgraduate students’ learning environment with regard to graduate on time (GOT). The study was conducted in a private Malaysian university involving 50 PhD students. Data were collected via tests, a questionnaire, and focus-group interviews. The findings revealed that critical reading skills and supervisory factors were significant factors affecting students’ ability to GOT. This implies that universities should integrate early intervention training programs to hone students’ critical literacy skills and provide effective supervisory practices for a sustainable quality postgraduate learning environment. Keywords: postgraduate students; graduate-on-time; quality learning environment; influencing factors eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2023. The Authors. Published for AMER & cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), College of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v8i24.464

Developing PG Students’ Learner Autonomy through the PAH-Continuum: A Case Study

To enhance the current postgraduate educational learning environment, this quasi-experimental case study examined the implementation of the Pedagogy-Andragogy-Heutagogy (PAH) Continuum as an instructional framework for developing basic competencies and learner autonomy among 50 postgraduate students. This is in response to the high attrition rates and students’ failure to graduate on time, afflicting the quality of postgraduate education in Malaysia. Data were collected via pre and post-tests, a questionnaire, and focus-group interviews. The findings revealed significant improvement in the students’ critical reading and research skills, while their learner autonomy level was moderate due to personal and cultural limitations.  Keywords: learner autonomy; PAH Continuum; postgraduate students eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7i21.372

Default Patterning Produces Pan-cortical Glutamatergic and CGE/LGE-like GABAergic Neurons from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Default differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells has been promoted as a model of cortical development. In this study, a developmental transcriptome analysis of default-differentiated hPSNs revealed a gene expression program resembling in vivo CGE/LGE subpallial domains and GABAergic signaling. A combination of bioinformatic, functional, and immunocytochemical analysis further revealed that hPSNs consist of both cortical glutamatergic and CGE-like GABAergic neurons. This study provides a comprehensive characterization of the heterogeneous group of neurons produced by default differentiation and insight into future directed differentiation strategies

ORC Layout: Adaptive GUI Layout with OR-Constraints

We propose a novel approach for constraint-based graphical user interface (GUI) layout based on OR-constraints (ORC) in standard soft/hard linear constraint systems. ORC layout unifies grid layout and flow layout, supporting both their features as well as cases where grid and flow layouts individually fail. We describe ORC design patterns that enable designers to safely create flexible layouts that work across different screen sizes and orientations. We also present the ORC Editor, a GUI editor that enables designers to apply ORC in a safe and effective manner, mixing grid, flow and new ORC layout features as appropriate. We demonstrate that our prototype can adapt layouts to screens with different aspect ratios with only a single layout specification, easing the burden of GUI maintenance. Finally, we show that ORC specifications can be modified interactively and solved efficiently at runtime