Hospital Greenspaces and the Impacts on Wayfinding and Spatial Experience: An Explorative Experiment Through Immersive Virtual Environment (IVE) Techniques

Background: Navigating large hospitals can be very challenging due to the functional complexity as well as the evolving changes and expansions of such facilities. Hospital wayfinding issues could lead to stress, negative mood, and poor healthcare experience among patients, staff, and family members. Objectives: A survey-embedded experiment was conducted using immersive virtual environment (IVE) techniques to explore people’s wayfinding performance and their mood and spatial experience in hospital circulation spaces with or without visible greenspaces. Methods: Seventy-four participants were randomly assigned to either group to complete wayfinding tasks in a timed session. Participants’ wayfinding performances were interpreted using several indicators, including task completion, duration, walking distance, stop, sign-viewing, and route selection. Participants’ mood states and perceived environmental attractiveness and atmosphere were surveyed; their perceived levels of presence in the IVE hospitals were also reported. Results: The results revealed that participants performed better on high complexity wayfinding tasks in the IVE hospital with visible greenspaces, as indicated by less time consumed and shorter walking distance to find the correct destination, less frequent stops and sign viewing, and more efficient route selection. Participants also experienced enhanced mood states and favorable spatial experience and perceived aesthetics in the IVE hospital with visible greenspaces than the same environment without window views. IVE techniques could be an efficient tool to supplement environment-behavior studies with certain conditions noted. Conclusions: Hospital greenspaces located at key decision points could serve as landmarks that positively attract people’s attention, aid wayfinding, and improve their navigational experience.

Genetic Algorithm-Based Trajectory Optimization for Digital Twin Robots

Mobile robots have an important role in material handling in manufacturing and can be used for a variety of automated tasks. The accuracy of the robot’s moving trajectory has become a key issue affecting its work efficiency. This paper presents a method for optimizing the trajectory of the mobile robot based on the digital twin of the robot. The digital twin of the mobile robot is created by Unity, and the trajectory of the mobile robot is trained in the virtual environment and applied to the physical space. The simulation training in the virtual environment provides schemes for the actual movement of the robot. Based on the actual movement data returned by the physical robot, the preset trajectory of the virtual robot is dynamically adjusted, which in turn enables the correction of the movement trajectory of the physical robot. The contribution of this work is the use of genetic algorithms for path planning of robots, which enables trajectory optimization of mobile robots by reducing the error in the movement trajectory of physical robots through the interaction of virtual and real data. It provides a method to map learning in the virtual domain to the physical robot.

A post pandemic roadmap toward remote assessment for neuromuscular disorders: limitations and opportunities

Recent advances in technology and expanding therapeutic opportunities in neuromuscular disorders has resulted in greater interest in and development of remote assessments. Over the past year, the rapid and abrupt COVID-19 shutdowns and stay-at-home orders imposed challenges to routine clinical management and clinical trials. As in-person services were severely limited, clinicians turned to remote assessments through telehealth to allow for continued care. Typically, disease-specific clinical outcome assessments (COAs) for neuromuscular disorders (NMD) are developed over many years through rigorous and iterative processes to fully understand their psychometric properties. While efforts were underway towards developing remote assessments for NMD before the pandemic, few if any were fully developed or validated. These included assessments of strength, respiratory function and patient-reported outcomes, as well as wearable technology and other devices to quantify physical activity and function. Without many choices, clinicians modified COAs for a virtual environment recognizing it was not yet known how they compared to standard in-person administration. Despite being able to quickly adapt to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, these experiences with remote assessments uncovered limitations and opportunities. It became clear that existing COAs required modifications for use in a virtual environment limiting the interpretation of the information gathered. Still, the opportunity for real-world evaluation and reduced patient burden were clear benefits to remote assessment and may provide a more robust understanding and characterization of disease impact in NMD. Hence, we propose a roadmap navigating an informed post-pandemic path toward development and implementation of safe and successful use of remote assessments for patients with NMD.

Gamified Virtual Environment and Interaction Design for Activities of Daily Living Training

Ludic games and gamification processes can extend functional skills in players as they integrate different intelligences and stimulate the cognitive, perceptual, and motor activities. Play can facilitate the work of occupational therapist since provides better cooperation of the patient, besides helping in its development, increasing its behavioral repertoire, mainly in the accomplishment of activities of daily living. This chapter addresses these issues, discussing the design of a gamified virtual environment that helps occupational therapists to develop the potential of children and adolescents with mild, moderate, and severe neuropsychomotor disorder. For that, the authors present an investigation of the use of a gamified virtual environment and interaction devices in the training of activities of daily living. As result, they note that games as assistive technology can encourage the integration of education, rehabilitation, and habilitation of people in situations of vulnerability and social risk, providing access and inclusion through playful and challenging activities.

Virtual Reality in Healthcare

Over the past few years, the rapid development of virtual reality has led to the technology finding its way into the professional sector in addition to the gaming market. It plays a particularly important role in medical applications by providing a virtual environment to enable therapy, rehabilitation, and serving as an educational platform. The chapter provides an overview of the applications of virtual reality in medicine about some of the most important areas. Both scenario development and application validation methods are presented, as well as their impact on the end user. Finally, the technological potential and future development of VR applications used for improving medical service delivery are summarized and briefly discussed.

The Changing Nature of the Mice Sector in South Africa Due to Covid-19

The purpose of the study is to explore the changing nature of MICE tourism in South Africa due to COVID-19. Based on a series of interviews conducted with representatives of the MICE industry in various sectors, including incentive, conference, and meeting, venues, and associations, the study found that while the shift to virtual events was adopted by many, there are substantial costs involved and significant learning required for their successful execution. Further, the study found venues to be among the most affected owing to the restrictions placed on visitor numbers and the need to adapt to the virtual environment. Moreover, virtual events were perceived as temporary plasters, with live to return once restrictions on the industry are lifted. The study concludes that virtual and hybrid events are valuable in the continuity of MICE tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present research is one of the very few studies examining the impact of COVID-19 on MICE events and reveals the subsequent changes, in theory and practice, to MICE tourism.