The impact of haptic augmentation on middle school students’ conceptions of the animal cell

Of the five sensory channels—sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch, it is only our sense of touch that enables us to modify and manipulate the world around us. This article reports the preliminary findings of a systematic study investigating the efficacy of adding haptic feedback to a desktop virtual reality program for use in middle school science instruction. Current technology allows for the simulation of tactile and kinesthetic sensations via sophisticated haptic devices and a computer interface. This research, conducted with 80 middle school students, examined the cognitive and affective impact of this technology on students’ understandings of the structure and function of an animal cell. The results of this work offer valuable insights into the theoretical and practical considerations involved in the development and implementation of haptically augmented virtual reality instructional programs.     

Evaluation function of drinking ease from aluminum beverage bottles relative to optimum bottle opening diameter and beverage type

In recent years, aluminum beverage bottles having screw tops with opening diameters of 28 and 38 mm have been launched in the Japanese market in keeping with the modern-day drinking habits of consumers. Although Japanese consumers are familiar with such bottles, a majority of them feel that the 28 mm opening is too small and the 38 mm opening is too large. Therefore, we felt the need to develop a method for evaluating consumer feelings when they drink a beverage directly from the bottle opening. For this purpose, we propose an evaluation function of drinking ease that calculates the optimum opening diameter of the bottle. From results of our previous study, we know that there exists an ideal volume of beverage flowing into the mouth, at which consumers feel most comfortable while drinking directly from bottles. Therefore, we define the evaluation function of drinking ease in terms of the difference between the actual volume of fluid in the mouth and the expected ideal volume. If this difference is small, consumers probably feel comfortable while drinking the beverage. We consider a design variable, i.e., the opening diameter, and two state variables, i.e., the volume of beverage remaining in the bottle and the height of consumers, and construct the response surface of the evaluation function by using radial basis function networks. In addition, for investigating the influence of beverage type on the evaluation function, we select green tea and a carbonated beverage (Coke) as test beverages. Results of optimization of the proposed function show that when the opening diameters are 35.4 mm and 34.4 mm in the case of green tea and Coke, respectively, the actual volume of fluid in the mouth is closest to the ideal volume and the participants feel most comfortable. These results are in agreement with results of our previous study that an opening diameter of 33 mm is optimum for young Japanese adults. Thus, we confirm that the proposed function is accurate; it can be used to design bottle openings to suit consumers of various age groups and types of beverages.     

基于虚拟企业的UDDI访问控制研究

UDDI作为Web服务的核心技术之一,用于商业实体之间彼此发现和共享信息,从而成为保证企业间实施动态电子商务的核心支撑体系。但是UDDI现有的访问控制策略在商务实际应用中并不完全适用,因此有必要引入新的访问控制机制。针对虚拟企业的应用需求,指出了现有UDDI访问控制技术的不足,提出基于角色的访问控制方式,设计了更加安全的虚拟企业UDDI访问控制机制,并且采用基于XML的XCAML规范,使得访问控制体系易于维护和配置。     

Handling of Virtual Contact in Immersive Virtual Environments: Beyond Visuals

This paper addresses the issue of improving the perception of contact that users make with purely virtual objects in virtual environments. Because these objects have no physical component, the user's perceptual understanding of the material properties of the object, and of the nature of the contact, is hindered, often limited solely to visual feedback. Many techniques for providing haptic feedback to compensate for the lack of touch in virtual environments have been proposed. These systems have increased our understanding of the nature of how humans perceive contact. However, providing effective, general-purpose haptic feedback solutions has proven elusive. We propose a more-holistic approach, incorporating feedback to several modalities in concert. This paper describes a prototype system we have developed for delivering vibrotactile feedback to the user. The system provides a low-cost, distributed, portable solution for incorporating vibrotactile feedback into various types of systems. We discuss different parameters that can be manipulated to provide different sensations, propose ways in which this feedback can be combined with feedback of other modalities to create a better understanding of virtual contact, and describe possible applications.     

An overview of recommender systems in the healthy food domain

Recently, food recommender systems have received increasing attention due to their relevance for healthy living. Most existing studies on the food domain focus on recommendations that suggest proper food items for individual users on the basis of considering their preferences or health problems. These systems also provide functionalities to keep track of nutritional consumption as well as to persuade users to change their eating behavior in positive ways. Also, group recommendation functionalities are very useful in the food domain, especially when a group of users wants to have a dinner together at home or have a birthday party in a restaurant. Such scenarios create many challenges for food recommender systems since the preferences of all group members have to be taken into account in an adequate fashion. In this paper, we present an overview of recommendation techniques for individuals and groups in the healthy food domain. In addition, we analyze the existing state-of-the-art in food recommender systems and discuss research challenges related to the development of future food recommendation technologies.     

HLA技术在虚拟样机开发中的应用

虚拟样机系统目前还没有一个统一、规范、标准的体系平台,导致系统在后续扩展时较困难,而且在开发系统时开发人员亦不能将全部精力放在专业领域的仿真程序设计上.而目前广泛应用于军事领域的分布式仿真系统的HLA技术,具有清晰的逻辑层次、良好的扩展性、高效的数据传输速率等诸多优点.正基于此,该文首次将HLA技术框架引入机械系统虚拟样机系统设计中,主要讨论了符合HLA标准的分布式机械仿真系统的系统结构和仿真节点的设计方法,从而解决了机械系统虚拟样机扩展性差等问题.     

复杂产品虚拟样机技术研究

虚拟样机技术尤其是面向多领域支持复杂系统的协同虚拟样机仿真支撑平台的研究已成为研发的热点。通过对Agent技术和WEB服务技术以及虚拟样机仿真系统的长期研究,提出了一种面向多领域的复杂产品虚拟样机仿真支撑平台的实现方案,给出了该仿真支撑平台的基于Agent和WEB服务的系统结构和虚拟样机设计中涉及的机械,电子,控制,软件等领域的智能Agent的统一描述,讨论了虚拟样机仿真支撑系统中Agent间的通信方式并阐明了系统的工作流程和信息集成模式,为虚拟样机的进一步发展和应用奠定了基础。     

Design and evaluation of virtual environments mechanisms to support remote collaboration on complex process diagrams

Many organizational analysis tasks are solved by collaborating teams. In technology-mediated collaborations, enabling relevant visual cues is a core issue with existing technology. We explore whether avatars can provide relevant cues in collaborative virtual environments. To do so, we develop a research prototype for a collaborative virtual environment that utilises avatars to improve workspace awareness in collaborative tasks. We test this solution through two studies, qualitative and quantitative, in which participants have to collaborate to jointly validate and correct a diagrammatic model of operational procedures.Our evaluations provide both positive and negative results about the proposed prototype. Collaboration patterns changed and became significantly easier, but, task performance was only slightly improved. Together, these findings inform both the ongoing development of collaborative 3D virtual environments and the role of technology-mediated collaboration for validating and fixing models of processes.     

Model-as-you-go: An Approach for an Advanced Infrastructure for Scientific Workflows

Most of the existing scientific workflow systems rely on proprietary concepts and workflow languages. We are convinced that the conventional workflow technology that is established in business scenarios for years is also beneficial for scientists and scientific applications. We are therefore working on a scientific workflow system based on business workflow concepts and technologies. The system offers advanced flexibility features to scientists in order to support them in creating workflows in an explorative manner and to increase robustness of scientific applications. We named the approach Model-as-you-go because it enables users to model and execute workflows in an iterative process that eventually results in a complete scientific workflow. In this paper, we present main ingredients of Model-as-you-go, show how existing workflow concepts have to be extended in order to cover the requirements of scientists, discuss the application of the concepts to BPEL, and introduce the current prototype of the system.     

PowerPedia: changing energy usage with the help of a community-based smartphone application

When it comes to conserving electricity, it is crucial for users to know how much energy is consumed by individual appliances. However, the technical feedback provided by existing energy consumption feedback systems in the form of dry numbers and intangible units is not appropriate for most users. To address this shortcoming, we developed PowerPedia, a system that provides behavior-influencing feedback over and above pure consumption values. By integrating a community platform—a Wikipedia for electrical appliances—PowerPedia enables users to identify and compare the consumption of their domestic appliances with that of others. It thus helps users to better understand their electricity consumption and take effective action to save electricity.     

迈思肯条码扫描器QX-830帮助食品工厂提高生产自动化管理

条码技术的应用在食品饮料生产行业的应用,大大提高了工艺运行质量和产品管理效率。本文介绍了迈思肯条码扫描技术在某跨国食品制造公司的应用实例,通过阐述该其技术特点和所显示的优越性,展现了这项新技术在食品饮料生产行业的前景。     

Robot-enabled tangible virtual assembly with coordinated midair object placement

The assembly in Virtual Reality (VR) enables users to fit virtual parts into existing 3D models immersively. However, users cannot physically feel the haptic feedback when connecting the parts with the virtual model. This work presents a robot-enabled tangible interface that dynamically moves a physical structure with a robotic arm to provide physical feedback for holding a handheld proxy in VR. This enables the system to provide force feedback during virtual assembly. The cooperation between the physical support and the handheld proxy produces realistic physical force feedback, providing a tangible experience for various virtual parts in virtual assembly scenarios. We developed a prototype system that allowed the operator to place a virtual part onto other models in VR by placing the proxy onto the matched structure attached to a robotic arm. We conducted a user evaluation to explore user performance and system usability in a virtual assembly task. The results indicated that the robot-enabled tangible support increased the task completion time but significantly improved the system usability and sense of presence with a more realistic haptic experience.     

A TRAINING SIMULATION SYSTEM WITH REALISTIC AUTONOMOUS SHIP CONTROL

In this article we present a computational approach to developing effective training systems for virtual simulation environments. In particular, we focus on a Naval simulation system, used for training of conning officers. The currently existing training solutions require multiple expert personnel to control each vessel in a training scenario, or are cumbersome to use by a single instructor. The inability of current technology to provide an automated mechanism for competitive realistic boat behaviors thus compromises the goal of flexible, anytime, anywhere training. In this article we propose an approach that reduces the time and effort required for training of conning officers, by integrating novel approaches to autonomous control within a simulation environment. Our solution is to develop intelligent, autonomous controllers that drive the behavior of each boat. To increase the system's efficiency we provide a mechanism for creating such controllers, from the demonstration of a navigation expert, using a simple programming interface. In addition, our approach deals with two significant and related challenges: the realism of behavior exhibited by the automated boats and their real-time response to changes in the environment. In this article, we describe the control architecture we developed that enables the real-time response of boats and the repertoire of realistic behaviors we designed for this application. We also present our approach for facilitating the automatic authoring of training scenarios and we demonstrate the capabilities of our system with experimental results.     

Usage of multisensory information in scientific data sensualization

Multisensory scientific data sensualization methods that utilize virtual reality technology permit the use of several human sensations, such as visual, acoustic, and tactile sensation to display numerical data. The purposes of multisensory data sensualization can be classified as follows: (a) representing the relationships between different kinds of data; (b) displaying data utilizing sensory integration; and (c) representing conditions using the compound image. By using multisensory information, computers increase the ability to express data. However, these methods lead us to the question of which sensation should be used to display data most effectively. In this study, a multisensory data sensualization environment was developed in which color, loudness, sound frequency, and air flow pressure could be used to display scientific data. In particular, a wind sensation display prototype using air flow pressure was developed to generate tactile sensation. A basic experiment was conducted on sensory interference when subjects used two kinds of sensations simultaneously. From these results, guidelines for the usage of multisensory information for each purpose is proposed.     

基于游戏引擎的三维虚拟漫游系统实现

三维虚拟环境漫游是虚拟现实技术应用的基本方向之一,具有重要的研究意义与应用价值。基于成熟的游戏引擎技术,提出一个具有较强通用性和可扩展性的三维虚拟漫游系统开发框架,并从3D场景快速构建、3D场景实时绘制、高级视觉特效生成和基于物理的场景模拟等四个方面详细介绍了该框架的关键技术实现。通过对系统原型的测试表明,采用该开发框架所构建的三维虚拟漫游系统可在一般的普通主流PC机上达到较好的性能和表现效果。     

Social Energy: Mining Energy From the Society

The inherent nature of energy, i.e., physicality, sociality and informatization, implies the inevitable and intensive interaction between energy systems and social systems. From this perspective, we define "social energy" as a complex sociotechnical system of energy systems, social systems and the derived artificial virtual systems which characterize the intense intersystem and intra-system interactions. The recent advancement in intelligent technology, including artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, sensing and communication in Internet of Things technologies, and massive high performance computing and extreme-scale data analytics technologies, enables the possibility of substantial advancement in socio-technical system optimization, scheduling, control and management. In this paper, we provide a discussion on the nature of energy, and then propose the concept and intention of social energy systems for electrical power. A general methodology of establishing and investigating social energy is proposed, which is based on the ACP approach, i.e., "artificial systems" (A), "computational experiments" (C) and "parallel execution" (P), and parallel system methodology. A case study on the University of Denver (DU) campus grid is provided and studied to demonstrate the social energy concept. In the concluding remarks, we discuss the technical pathway, in both social and nature sciences, to social energy, and our vision on its future.      

Haptics-based virtual reality periodontal training simulator

This paper focuses upon the research and development of a prototype dental simulator for training of periodontal procedures. By the use of virtual reality and haptics technology, the periodontal simulator allows trainees to learn performing diagnosis and treatment of periodontal diseases by visualizing a three-dimensional virtual human mouth and feeling real tactile sensations while touching the surface of teeth, gingiva, and calculi with virtual dental instruments. Since periodontics requires dentists to depend primarily on tactile sensations to perform diagnostic and surgical procedures, the use of haptics is unquestionably crucial for a realistic periodontal simulator. The haptics-based virtual reality periodontal training simulator has been validated by a experiment conducted by the College of Dentistry at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with faculty members and dental students, which demonstrates the scientific contribution and usefulness of the simulator as a vital part of the curriculum of the Department of Periodontics at UIC.

工业机器人虚拟样机系统的研究

该文提出将虚拟样机技术应用于工业机器人仿真研究过程，研究与开发工业机器人虚拟样机系统，首先说明虚拟样机技术并分析其关键技术，然后说明了工业机器人虚拟样机系统的构成与样机系统在机器人仿具研究中的研究内容，总结该项技术主要解决以下两方面的问题，即机器人仿真研究中的系统集成及为以机器人为主体的生产线虚拟设计，验证环境提供底层的数字化环境。     

Agent-based workflow management systems (WfMSs)

Workflow management systems (WfMSs) based on agent technology can cope with the rapidly evolving business environment better than most other systems as they are more flexible and open. In this paper we describe a possible architecture of such a system by means of our prototype WfMS called JBees. The combination of collaborating agents and the Coloured Petri Net (CPN)-formalism in JBees enables a flexible and adaptive system with the possibility of simulation, analysis, and monitoring of the process execution in order to identify potential inconsistencies and to provide appropriate information to the workflow administrator for the purpose of the process improvement.