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Books > Computing & IT > Applications of computing > Virtual reality
The book deals with the challenges that arise when virtual worlds
are used for learning and teaching. The ideas and practices
emerging from this field are relevant to all educators, and offers
insights into the development of a pedagogy that is authentic,
inclusive and enjoyable. Each chapter addresses a particular issue
and is illustrated with examples drawn from both research and
practice. These examples cover a wide range of learning scenarios,
both formal and informal, involving teenagers, school pupils,
undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as a variety of
lifelong learners. The issues include the importance of virtual
worlds, the influence of online games and physical-world economics
and politics, the relationship between avatars and learner
identity, the challenges of ensuring child safety and protection,
interaction between real-world and in-world environments and
activities, accessibility and the development of new pedagogues.
The authors are all teachers and learners in virtual worlds; many
have been responsible for designing, programming and maintaining
virtual environments.
Mass spectrometry has proven its applicability to the measurement
of almost any molecule. However, different substances require
special knowledge in the respective field and scientists tend to
focus on their particular task in collaborations and meetings.
Nevertheless, disciplines have become more and more
interdisciplinary and scientists now have to acquire knowledge in
many scientific fields other than our own. Especially mass
spectrometrists, who often find them selves learning about the
history of their sample, be it from a zoologist, clinician,
microbiologist, or biochemist. This was evident with the rise of
proteomics, which reaches across species and research projects,
uniting scientists through the methodology. This book presents
research from around the globe in the fields of biomacromolecules
such as proteins, DNA, and other biopolymers studied with mass
spectrometry.
How does virtuality affect reality? Fourteen experts consider
this question from the perspective of law, architecture, rhetoric,
philosophy, and art. Nearly all of the contributors have been
online since before Netscape and a graphical World Wide Web; thus
they have a thorough understanding of the cultural shifts the
Internet has produced and been affected by, and they have a keen
appreciation for the potential of the medium. Most scholarship on
cyberculture has repeatedly emphasized that our offline selves
determine how we are able to use technology, that real life affects
what we do online. This volume is an attempt to reverse that
discussion, to demonstrate that how we live online affects our
lives offline as well. A virtual public is not an unreal one.
Through interviews with developers, gamers, and journalists
examining the phenomena of bedroom coding, arcade gaming, and
format wars, mapped onto enquiry into the seminal genres of the
time including driving, shooting, and maze chase, Playback: A
Genealogy of 1980s British Videogames examines how 1980s Britain
has become the culture of work in the 21st century and considers
its meaning to contemporary society. This crucial and timely work
fills a lacuna for students and researchers of sociology, media,
and games studies and will be of interest to employees of the
videogames and media industries. Research into videogames have
never been greater, but exploration of their historic drivers is as
elided as the technology is influential, giving rise to a range of
questions. What were the social and economic conditions that gave
rise to a billion dollar industry? What were the motivations of the
early 'bedroom coders'? What are the legacies of the seminal
videogames of the 1980s and how do they inform the current social,
political and cultural landscape? With a focus on the
characteristics of the UK videogame industry in the 1980s, Wade
explores these questions from perspectives of consumption,
production and leisure, outlining the construction of a habitus
unique to this time.
A comprehensive guide to computer assisted exercises
Readers can turn to this indispensable reference guide for
comprehensive and lucid coverage of the operational, technical, and
organizational knowledge needed to harness successful and
constructive computer assisted exercises (CAX) and war games. It is
geared also toward large civilian organizations that are looking to
teach and test their strategies and procedures without the added
cost of manpower. Divided into two clear parts, the book
covers:
Fundamentals and Theory--conflict and warfare; probability and
statistics; simulation; distributed simulation; and experimentation
and analysis
Combat Modeling, Computer Assisted Exercises, and Practice--CAX
architectures; CAX process; combat modeling; CAX support tools;
communications/information system issues, technical risks, and risk
miti-gation; and exercise centers and facilities
Computer Assisted Exercises and Training: A Reference Guide is
indispensable reading for research engineers, computer scientists,
software engineers working with modeling and simulation, homeland
security specialists, staff in simulation training centers,
military strategists and commanders, and many others. It also
serves as a valuable textbook for modeling and simulation courses
at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels.
The purpose of virtual reality is to make possible a sensorimotor
and cognitive activity for a user in a digitally created artificial
world. Recent advances in computer technology have led to a new
generation of VR devices such as VR headsets. Accordingly, virtual
reality poses many new scientific challenges for researchers and
professionals. The aim of this book, a manual meant for both
designers and users of virtual reality, is to present the current
state of knowledge on the use of VR headsets in the most complete
way possible. The book is divided into 13 chapters. The objective
of the first chapter is to give an introduction to VR and clarify
its scope. The next chapter presents a theoretical approach to
virtual reality through our Immersion and Interaction methodology
also known as "3I(2) model''. Then, a chapter about human senses is
necessary to understand the sensorimotor immersion, especially
vision. These chapters are followed by several chapters which
present the different visual interfaces and the VR headsets
currently available on the market. These devices can impart comfort
and health problems due to sensorimotor discrepancies. A chapter is
devoted to these problems, followed by a chapter that gives a
detailed discussion of methods and 32 solutions to dispel, or at
least to decrease, VR sickness. The following three chapters
present different VR applications that use VR headsets (behavioural
sciences, industrial uses and Digital Art) and the final chapter
provides conclusions and discusses future VR challenges.
This book summarises research findings relating to virtual reality
implementation for pain assessment and treatment, reviewing the
literature in pediatric and adult pain care for acute and chronic
conditions across several pain populations. The authors provide
detailed information about the effect mechanisms of virtual reality
for Parkinson's disease, and the virtual reality interventions for
rehabilitation of Parkinson's disease in terms of assessment and
treatment. Anxiety disorders, such as specific phobia,
post-traumatic stress disorder, and social anxiety disorder have
garnered the greatest therapeutic attention due to the advantages
that applying exposure therapy techniques in a virtual reality
environment has over many real-life exposure situations. Later, in
order to further improve the intelligence level of a fully
mechanized coal mining face and construct a stable and reliable
monitoring system of hydraulic support, a monitoring method of
hydraulic support in a virtual environment is proposed. In order to
further improve the intelligence level of fully mechanized coal
mining face and construct a stable and reliable monitoring system
of hydraulic support which is of guiding significance to actual
production, a monitoring method of hydraulic support in virtual
environment is proposed. In the concluding study, using
meta-analysis methods and combining the basic elements of teaching
system design, a quantitative analysis of 60 quasi-experimental or
experimental virtual reality and augmented reality studies is
conducted.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open
Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com
While all media are part of intermedial networks, video games are
often at the nexus of that network. They not only employ
cinematics, embedded books, and in-world television screens for
various purposes, but, in our convergence culture, video games also
play a vital role in allowing players to explore transmedia
storyworlds. At the same time, video games are frequently
thematized and remediated in film, television, and literature.
Indeed, the central role video games assume in intermedial networks
provides testament to their significance in the contemporary media
environment. In this volume, an international group of contributors
discuss not only intermedial phenomena in video games, but also the
intermedial networks surrounding them. Intermedia Games-Games Inter
Media will deepen readers' understanding of the convergence culture
of the early twenty-first century and video games' role in it.
Microsoft Kinect changes the notion of user interface design. It
differs from most other user input controllers as it enables users
to interact with the program without touching the mouse or a
trackpad. It utilizes motion sensing technology and all it needs is
a real-time cameras, tracked skeletons, and gestures. This title
will help you get into the world of Microsoft Kinect programming
with the C/C++ language. The book covers the installation, image
streaming, skeleton and face tracking, multi-touch cursors, and
gesture emulation. Finally, you will end up with a complete
Kinect-based game.
Virtual environments simulate a physical presence in places in the
real world, as well as in imaginary worlds. Most current virtual
reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed
either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic
displays, but some simulations include additional sensory
information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. In this
book, the authors discuss the new developments, applications and
challenges of virtual environments. Topics include measuring brain
activation during spatial navigation in virtual reality; spatial
representation of a multilevel building; user experience in a
virtual art gallery; virtual environments in education; social
networks and virtual environments from an adolescent point of view;
and bringing skin observations to a higher level with 3D immersive
virtual environments.
Computer-Generated Images (CGIs) are widely used and accepted in
the world of entertainment but the use of the very same
visualization techniques in academic research in the Arts and
Humanities remains controversial. The techniques and conceptual
perspectives on heritage visualization are a subject of an ongoing
interdisciplinary debate. By demonstrating scholarly excellence and
best technical practice in this area, this volume is concerned with
the challenge of providing intellectual transparency and
accountability in visualization-based historical research.
Addressing a range of cognitive and technological challenges, the
authors make a strong case for a wider recognition of
three-dimensional visualization as a constructive, intellectual
process and valid methodology for historical research and its
communication. Intellectual transparency of visualization-based
research, the pervading theme of this volume, is addressed from
different perspectives reflecting the theory and practice of
respective disciplines. The contributors - archaeologists, cultural
historians, computer scientists and ICT practitioners - emphasize
the importance of reliable tools, in particular documenting the
process of interpretation of historical material and hypotheses
that arise in the course of research. The discussion of this issue
refers to all aspects of the intellectual content of visualization
and is centred around the concept of 'paradata'. Paradata document
interpretative processes so that a degree of reliability of
visualization outcomes can be understood. The disadvantages of not
providing this kind of intellectual transparency in the
communication of historical content may result in visual products
that only convey a small percentage of the knowledge that they
embody, thus making research findings not susceptible to peer
review and rendering them closed to further discussion. It is
argued, therefore, that paradata should be recorded alongside more
tangible outcomes of research, preferably as an integral part of
virtual models, and sustained beyond the life-span of the
technology that underpins visualization.
Get practical tools to successfully develop collaborative online
learning projects! Virtual museums provide an opportunity to spark
learning through online access to multi-sensory information, and
collaboration between sources is needed to efficiently and
effectively catalog and present material. Collaborative Access to
Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls
presents respected authorities exploring the world of virtual
collections, from the identification and selection of objects to be
included to providing online access using common terminology.
Future possibilities and problems are fully detailed, taking into
consideration the need for fixed metadata, descriptive standards,
and negotiated compromise. Solutions to difficult issues are
provided to allow successful development of collaborative virtual
museum projects of all types. A virtual museum can provide users
with direct, easy access to information, photographs, drawings,
sound files, and video clips. However, discipline-based differences
in terminology between collections are as much a challenge as
integrating detailed locally-developed vocabularies with more
general descriptors. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum
Collection Information: Seeing Through the Walls shows how to best
achieve consistent information access by providing studies of
successful collaborative museum projects which resulted in the
creation of catalogs of material from a number of separate
collections. The book helps you to understand the challenges of
dealing with an unknown online user community as well as the
opportunities for presenting information to the virtual museum
visitor that differs from that information available during an
on-site visit. Four case studies are presented in depth and
highlight practical strategies on the development of collaborative
common language for future projects. Extensive references provide
opportunity for further research while tables clearly illustrate
data. Collaborative Access to Virtual Museum Collection
Information: Seeing Through the Walls thoroughly explores:
cataloging and the digital collection at the Experience Music
Project the collaborative cataloging efforts using Dublin Core to
unite local heritage organizations the compromises and negotiations
necessary to build a common catalog for multiple collaborating
organizations the challenges of creating contextual information
that places objects in relationship to their creators and the
circumstances of their use the partnership between museums with
Native American collections and tribally controlled schools the
types of images indexed by museum practitioners indexing procedures
and systems identifying potentially sensitive information for
inclusion or exclusion in online collection databases Collaborative
Access to Virtual Museum Collection Information: Seeing Through the
Walls is cutting-edge information for museum archivists,
librarians, collection curators, and anyone involved in creating
catalogs or providing online access to existing museum collection
information.
Virtual Politics is a critical overview of the new - digital - body
politic, with new technologies framing the discussion of key themes
in social theory. This book shows how these new technologies are
altering the nature of identity and agency, the relation of self to
other, and the structure of community and political representation.
Virtual Culture provides a unique analysis of a previously undocumented aspect of the cybersociety. Until now, the debate about participation in cyberculture has tended to focus on the ways that certain segments of the population are denied access to communications technologies. By contrast, the contributors to this volume scrutinize the way in which under-represented groupsłgay men, women, and special interest groupsłare exploiting the opportunities that the Internet provides for social and political change. Virtual Culture presents contributions from a range of subject disciplines, including communication, sociology, and anthropology in order to reflect on the diverse paradigms currently engaged in the study of electronic communities and networks. It sets out the definitions, boundaries, and approaches to the studies of these topics while demonstrating the theoretical and practical possibilities for cybersociety as an identity-structured space. Virtual Culture will be required reading for all students of communication, media and technology.
An examination of subversive games-games designed for political,
aesthetic, and social critique. For many players, games are
entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain
games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for
entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for
conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play,
artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative
games-games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the
gaming industry-and argues that games designed by artists and
activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a
lively historical context for critical play through
twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design
to subversive art: her examples of "playing house" include Dadaist
puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists' alternative
computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the
way activist concerns-including worldwide poverty and AIDS-can be
incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious
practice-which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game
medium-can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan
offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of
popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and
proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the
reworking of contemporary popular game practices.
A Complete Toolbox of Theories and Techniques The second edition of
a bestseller, Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design,
Implementation, and Applications presents systematic and extensive
coverage of the primary areas of research and development within VE
technology. It brings together a comprehensive set of contributed
articles that address the principles required to define system
requirements and design, build, evaluate, implement, and manage the
effective use of VE applications. The contributors provide critical
insights and principles associated with their given areas of
expertise to provide extensive scope and detail on VE technology
and its applications. What's New in the Second Edition: Updated
glossary of terms to promote common language throughout the
community New chapters on olfactory perception, avatar control,
motion sickness, and display design, as well as a whole host of new
application areas Updated information to reflect the tremendous
progress made over the last decade in applying VE technology to a
growing number of domains This second edition includes nine new, as
well as forty-one updated chapters that reflect the progress made
in basic and applied research related to the creation, application,
and evaluation of virtual environments. Contributions from leading
researchers and practitioners from multidisciplinary domains
provide a wealth of theoretical and practical information,
resulting in a complete toolbox of theories and techniques that you
can rely on to develop more captivating and effective virtual
worlds. The handbook supplies a valuable resource for advancing VE
applications as you take them from the laboratory to the real-world
lives of people everywhere.
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