Search results

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of stereoscopic virtual technology in textile and fashion studies in particular to the area of chemical experiment. The development of a designed virtual platform, called Stereoscopic Chemical Laboratory (SCL), is introduced.

To implement the suggested educational approaches of SCL, a set of teaching and learning materials with emphasis on the application methods was revised from the existing subjects. The architecture of SCL includes building of virtual objects with the Autodesk software Maya and designing of interactivity by using Unity, a game engine system. Prototype version of the SCL has been passed to selected academic colleagues and students for further evaluation and application feedback.

Textile students can conduct laboratory experiments associated with coloration and finishing of textile technologies in a stereoscopic 3D and multisensory laboratory, and hence enhance their learning experience. With the use of SCL, students can learn relevant experiment tools, experimental processes, procedures, and safety and health precautions.

There is very limited educational or training approach in applying stereoscopic virtual reality in teaching activities. In the area of textile experiment, the authors could say it is virtual and does not exist in current research domains.

This paper presents two educational gamified virtual labs and investigates different methods of including gamified elements in virtual labs used for teaching. The purpose of this study is to investigate if immersive gamified virtual labs can be used as effective pedagogical tools by properly incorporating them into higher education curricula to assist low-risk active learning and student engagement.

This research design comprises two gamified virtual labs including nine essential experiments of biology and chemistry integrated into the higher education curriculum of the Foundation of Science at an international University. Students filled in a survey after participating in the lab to shed light on appropriate ways of using gamification approaches in virtual labs.

From the predominant findings of the study, gamified virtual labs increase student involvement thereby enhancing knowledge development with active learning and may be a potentially suitable pedagogical tool for low-risk interactive learning.

Limitations of the study include findings based on gamified virtual labs but not comparing the gamified virtual labs to simple virtual simulations to further investigate the pedagogical approach and understand the student perceptions in a simple virtual simulation and a gamified virtual lab.

The findings of this study will provide evidence that gamified virtual labs integrated into higher education curricula as supplementary tools for laboratory experimentation improve the educational delivery process.

This research highlights an appropriate way of integrating 3D virtual labs into practical curricula while discussing the benefits.

Cooperative knowledge spaces create new potentials for the experimental fields in natural sciences and engineering because they enhance the accessibility of experimental setups through virtual laboratories and remote technology, opening them for collaborative and distributed usage. A concept for extending existing virtual knowledge spaces for the means of the technological disciplines (“ViCToR‐Spaces” ‐ Virtual Cooperation in Teaching and Research for Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Engineering) is presented. The integration of networked virtual laboratories and remote experiments (“NanoLab Approach”), as well as an approach to community‐driven content sharing and content development within virtual knowledge spaces (NanoWiki) are described.

An object‐oriented event‐driven immersive virtual environment is described for the creation of virtual labs (VLs) for simulating physical experiments. Discussion focuses on a number of aspects of the VLs, including interface devices, software objects, and various applications. The VLs interface with output devices, including immersive stereoscopic screen(s) and stereo speakers; and a variety of input devices, including body tracking (head and hands), haptic gloves, wand, joystick, mouse, microphone, and keyboard. The VL incorporates the following types of primitive software objects: interface objects, support objects, geometric entities, and finite elements. Each object encapsulates a set of properties, methods, and events that define its behavior, appearance, and functions. A “container” object allows grouping of several objects. Applications of the VLs include viewing the results of the physical experiment, viewing a computer simulation of the physical experiment, simulation of the experiment’s procedure, computational steering, and remote control of the physical experiment. In addition, the VL can be used as a risk‐free (safe) environment for training. The implementation of virtual structures testing machines, virtual wind tunnels, and a virtual acoustic testing facility is described.

In modern industrial processes, the need of reducing lead time is imperious. This goal is pursued by “Holonic” structures, which are systems based on a network of collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to appraise the possible benefits, in terms of production duration, of such organizations compared to non-holonic arrangements. In addition, this analysis represents virtual teams, which are a significant and strategic attribute of holonic manufacturing systems.

The experiment performed in this paper is a simulation of an automobile assembly process under both a holonic and a non-holonic structure to observe lead times and the distinctive characteristics of each organization. Other targets of this research are to monitor the advantages that either strategy may offer in terms of efficiency and to examine a possible model of how virtual teams can be used in holonic networks.

The findings are unexpected. An initial expectation might lead to the belief that, given the better coordination and communication of holonic networks, lead times would be diminished. This experiment, utilizing virtual teams of university students, indicated otherwise.

It should be noticed, however, that future experiments in real manufacturing assembly processes are recommended to complement the findings of this study.

The management of lead times is indeed a complex task that includes a diversity of variables. Holonic structures should balance several factors that might play a role in lead times and ultimately in the success of a project. An original experiment with the participation of many universities in different countries is presented in this study. The exposure of global characteristics of modern manufacturing structures constitutes the main value of this research.

The potential for e-commerce is limited by a trust deficit when traders do not interact in a physical, bricks-and-mortar context. The theory of information richness posits that equivocal interactions, such as ones requiring trust, can be facilitated through communication media that transmit multiple cues interactively. This study aims to examine the potential of information-rich virtual worlds to reduce this trust deficit compared with more traditional Web-based e-tailing environments.

Rather than focusing on stated intentions, the authors adopt an experimental approach to measure behaviour. Participants receive performance-related financial incentives to perform trust games in different information-rich treatments that represent three retail environments: a physical environment representing bricks-and-mortar trade, an electronic environment representing Web-based online retailing and a virtual environment representing virtual world retail.

The authors find that the two dimensions of trust significantly differ between the treatments. In particular, as hypothesised, both trustingness and trustworthiness are higher in the virtual than in the electronic environment. However, contrary to the hypotheses, physical trade is not associated with greater trust than virtual trade.

The authors extend previous research by demonstrating how the information richness of the virtual world interface can promote e-commerce by deepening trust between trading partners. This research also complements existing work that approaches product and service interfaces through the lens of servicescapes.

The findings also contribute towards the development of services marketing practice and the design of e-commerce environments.

Much of the work in this space considers purchase intentions and attitudes around trust, whereas this study looks at actual trust behaviour in the virtual space.

The interruption of on-campus teaching and learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forced universities around the globe to rethink their pedagogical models and adopt innovative strategies and approaches that enabled continuity of learning. Engineering schools and faculties were faced with the challenge of how to continue to engage students with the practical component of coursework, especially in terms of lab work and experimentation, which are mandatory requirements for degree awards.

This study documents how the Faculty of Engineering in a university in Oman engaged students with the practical component of their course during the pandemic by launching the remote DoIt@Home Lab. The DoIt@Home Lab approach included the design and development of video recorded labs, virtual labs, simulation exercises and DoIt@Home experiments which were provided to students as teaching tools and guides to conducting home experiments remotely.

This study presents the DoIt@Home Lab approach introduced to Year 2 Chemistry for engineering students. Students' grades improved by 11% over the previous year when the course was delivered face-to-face. Failure rates dropped by 8% while the number of students earning a 3.25 grade point average (GPA) or higher increased by 18%.

The DoIt@Home Lab for engineering courses could enhance students' learning experience and create an effective remote learning environment. While the DoIt@Home Lab was created to supplement on-campus activity in the event of a temporary disruption, it can also be used to supplement regular face-to-face program delivery.

The paper presents a method for the patterns simulation in the 3D virtual stitching and try-on system.

First, the patterns are designed using the garment CAD software and stored in the DXF format. Second, the regular grid method is employed to mesh the patterns to be quadrangular, and the patterns triangular meshing can be obtained by connecting the diagonal of the quadrangular. Then a mass-spring model is established, and the forces analysis and the explicit Euler integration method are employed to accomplish the patterns simulation. The paper demonstrates the robustness of our simulation through two sets of experiments, including a lady’s dress patterns meshing experiments and the experiments of the virtual stitching of the lady’s dress.

The patterns meshing algorithm can meet the requirements of the internal meshing and the boundary meshing, and it is very important to select an appropriate meshing density. The implementation of the virtual stitching of the lady’s dress proves the effectiveness and usability of the simulation methods.

The lady’s dress used in the experiments is a relatively simple fashion style, with only the front and back pattern. It is very worthy of further research on the effectiveness of the complex structure of clothing.

The paper includes practical implications of the methods of the patterns meshing and the virtual stitching of the simple fashion styles.

The simulation system is developed using VC++ 2015 with the help of the OpenGL functions library, which is proved as a simple, lower computation and robustness for the patterns simulation of the simple garments.

The purpose of this research is to achieve multi-task autonomous driving by adjusting the network architecture of the model. Meanwhile, after achieving multi-task autonomous driving, the authors found that the trained neural network model performs poorly in untrained scenarios. Therefore, the authors proposed to improve the transfer efficiency of the model for new scenarios through transfer learning.

First, the authors achieved multi-task autonomous driving by training a model combining convolutional neural network and different structured long short-term memory (LSTM) layers. Second, the authors achieved fast transfer of neural network models in new scenarios by cross-model transfer learning. Finally, the authors combined data collection and data labeling to improve the efficiency of deep learning. Furthermore, the authors verified that the model has good robustness through light and shadow test.

This research achieved road tracking, real-time acceleration–deceleration, obstacle avoidance and left/right sign recognition. The model proposed by the authors (UniBiCLSTM) outperforms the existing models tested with model cars in terms of autonomous driving performance. Furthermore, the CMTL-UniBiCL-RL model trained by the authors through cross-model transfer learning improves the efficiency of model adaptation to new scenarios. Meanwhile, this research proposed an automatic data annotation method, which can save 1/4 of the time for deep learning.

This research provided novel solutions in the achievement of multi-task autonomous driving and neural network model scenario for transfer learning. The experiment was achieved on a single camera with an embedded chip and a scale model car, which is expected to simplify the hardware for autonomous driving.