Virtually Handcrafted: An Investigation of Immersive Architectural Design Processes

<p>Architects use media such as drawings and models to test and better understand their designs. These media are frequently scaled for convenience and reduced to two dimensions for clarity; however, in relying on these methods, the direct and visceral experience of inhabiting space is neglected. Phenomenologists such as Juhani Pallasmaa point out that this problem is exacerbated by the picture plane. The flat page or screen acts as an impenetrable window, excluding the viewer from a truly embodied appreciation of the designed spatial qualities. This research investigates the use of virtual reality (VR) as a tool for conceiving architecture without alienating the designer from the user’s perspective. It is suggested that the holistic and subjective approach of immersive media is a necessary complement to the more abstracted and objective views of architectural tradition: plan, section, and elevation. The recent availability of consumer-grade VR allows the testing of this opportunity without many of the technological limitations of research done in the 1990’s. This research aims to describe tendencies of VR design and thus guide the incorporation of immersive technologies into contemporary practice. To study the impact of VR, a real-time engine is used to develop an interactive program which allows the modelling of conceptual designs while immersed within them. Its efficacy is studied with three groups (architecture students, architects, and members of the public) from which quantitative and qualitative data is collected. By identifying the unique benefits of such tools, it is proposed how each group could make good use of the technology and extend the abilities of their existing workflows.</p>

Virtually Handcrafted: An Investigation of Immersive Architectural Design Processes

<p>Architects use media such as drawings and models to test and better understand their designs. These media are frequently scaled for convenience and reduced to two dimensions for clarity; however, in relying on these methods, the direct and visceral experience of inhabiting space is neglected. Phenomenologists such as Juhani Pallasmaa point out that this problem is exacerbated by the picture plane. The flat page or screen acts as an impenetrable window, excluding the viewer from a truly embodied appreciation of the designed spatial qualities. This research investigates the use of virtual reality (VR) as a tool for conceiving architecture without alienating the designer from the user’s perspective. It is suggested that the holistic and subjective approach of immersive media is a necessary complement to the more abstracted and objective views of architectural tradition: plan, section, and elevation. The recent availability of consumer-grade VR allows the testing of this opportunity without many of the technological limitations of research done in the 1990’s. This research aims to describe tendencies of VR design and thus guide the incorporation of immersive technologies into contemporary practice. To study the impact of VR, a real-time engine is used to develop an interactive program which allows the modelling of conceptual designs while immersed within them. Its efficacy is studied with three groups (architecture students, architects, and members of the public) from which quantitative and qualitative data is collected. By identifying the unique benefits of such tools, it is proposed how each group could make good use of the technology and extend the abilities of their existing workflows.</p>

Development of a Family-Community Interactive Program to Prevent Postpartum Depression: A Mixed Method Study Protocol

Background: Postpartum depression has become a serious public health hazard. Family and community support can be effective in alleviating the symptoms of postpartum depression. Currently, there is a lack of research directed at promoting family and community caregiver interactions to avoid postpartum depression. Therefore, this study aimed to construct a family-community interaction program to avoid postpartum depression.Method: This mixed-methods study with the longitudinal design consists of two phases. Phase one :quantitative study. A quantitative analysis method is applied to conduct longitudinal research on the pregnant and parturient women to explore the status quo of indicators of family support, social support, quality of life, and postnatal depression. Phase two: qualitative study to explore the current status of the interaction. In this phase, the subjects will be selected through purposive sampling; In-depth individual interviewing will be used for data collection. Mixed data were used to analyze qualitative and quantitative results and to construct a family-community interaction intervention program.Discussion: The present research is the first study to investigate family-community Interactions. For the purposes of the study, a mixed-methods approach will be used which aims to develop family-community Interactive Program, which can prevent postpartum depression of pregnant and parturient women and clarify the responsibilities of family members and Community caregivers in the prevention of postpartum depression, cultivating the awareness of interaction and collaboration between families and communities, and providing the targeted intervention policy to long-term positive interaction.Trial registration number: ChiCTR2100045901

Generation of Digital Art Composition Using a Multilabel Learning Algorithm

The traditional methods for generating digital art composition have the disadvantage of capturing incomplete geometric information, which leads to obvious defects in the generation results. Therefore, a digital art composition generation method based on the multilabel learning algorithm is proposed in this research. Firstly, a preset series of grids are prepared to generate sampling and fractal pixels on the drawing base. Then, the preset grid construction is constructed by the interactive program of the preset grid library. After the stroke is drawn by the user, the actual motion trajectory of the pen is sampled by the digital panel, and the stroke information in the motion trajectory is obtained by the multilabel learning algorithm. Next, the steps of generating art composition are designed, including generating the skeleton of art composition, generating the geometric network structure of the skeleton, generating the sampling pixel and connecting the fractal pixel, and initializing other attributes of the mesh. Experimental results show that the proposed method has higher sampling rate and geometric information capture rate and has better application performance and prospect.

A Software Tool for Calculating the Uncertainty of Diagnostic Accuracy Measures

Screening and diagnostic tests are applied for the classification of people into diseased and non-diseased populations. Although diagnostic accuracy measures are used to evaluate the correctness of classification in clinical research and practice, there has been limited research on their uncertainty. The objective for this work was to develop a tool for calculating the uncertainty of diagnostic accuracy measures, as diagnostic accuracy is fundamental to clinical decision-making. For this reason, the freely available interactive program Diagnostic Uncertainty has been developed in the Wolfram Language. The program provides six modules with nine submodules for calculating and plotting the standard combined, measurement and sampling uncertainty and the resultant confidence intervals of various diagnostic accuracy measures of screening or diagnostic tests, which measure a normally distributed measurand, applied at a single point in time to samples of non-diseased and diseased populations. This is done for differing sample sizes, mean and standard deviation of the measurand, diagnostic threshold and standard measurement uncertainty of the test. The application of the program is demonstrated with an illustrative example of glucose measurements in samples of diabetic and non-diabetic populations, that shows the calculation of the uncertainty of diagnostic accuracy measures. The presented interactive program is user-friendly and can be used as a flexible educational and research tool in medical decision-making, to calculate and explore the uncertainty of diagnostic accuracy measures.

A software tool for calculating the uncertainty of diagnostic accuracy measures

Background: Screening and diagnostic tests are used to classify people with and without a disease. Although diagnostic accuracy measures are used to evaluate the correctness of a classification in clinical research and practice, there has been limited research on their uncertainty. The objective for this work is to develop a tool for calculating the uncertainty of diagnostic accuracy measures, as diagnostic accuracy is fundamental to clinical decision-making.Results: For this reason, a freely available interactive program has been developed in Wolfram Language. The program provides six modules with nine submodules, for calculating and plotting the standard and expanded uncertainty and the resultant confidence intervals of various diagnostic accuracy measures of screening or diagnostic tests, which measure a normally distributed measurand, applied at a single point in time in non-diseased and diseased populations. This is done for differing population sample sizes, mean and standard deviation of the measurand, diagnostic threshold and standard measurement uncertainty of the test.The application of the program is illustrated with a case study of glucose measurements in diabetic and non-diabetic populations, that demonstrates the calculation of the uncertainty of diagnostic accuracy measures.Conclusion: The presented interactive program is user-friendly and can be used as a flexible educational and research tool in medical decision making, to calculate and explore the uncertainty of diagnostic accuracy measures.

Dialogue, radiation measurements and other collaborative practices by experts and residents in the former evacuation areas of Fukushima: A case study in Yamakiya District, Kawamata Town

This paper describes the involvement of the residents of the Yamakiya district of the Kawamata town, a former evacuation area after the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP), in the on-going research activities of the authors on the behaviour of radioactive caesium in the environment. By relying on dialogue, measuring radiation, and other collaborative practices, this involvement enabled a series of actions to be taken to resolve the challenges related to the recovery after the lifting of the evacuation order that were appreciated by the residents. The paper also discusses the effects of the interactive program led by the Yamakiya School organized by the authors in cooperation with the residents including among others lectures, voluntary works and radiological surveys on local issues. Based on the above, the authors make recommendations on the desirable form of relationship between residents and experts after an event of large-scale environmental pollution including radiological contamination. Through these activities the authors have also gradually changed their research approach.