scholarly journals A Gamification-Based Approach on Indoor Wayfinding Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 423
Author(s):  
Dries De Leeuw ◽  
Philippe De Maeyer ◽  
Laure De Cock

Indoor environments can be very complex. Due to the challenges in these environments in combination with the absence of mobile wayfinding aids, a great need exists for innovative research on indoor wayfinding. In this explorative study, a game was developed in Unity to investigate whether the concept of gamification could be used in studies on indoor wayfinding so as to provide useful information regarding the link between wayfinding performance, personal characteristics, and building layout. Results show a significant difference between gamers and non-gamers as the complexity of the player movement has an important impact on the navigation velocity in the game. However, further analysis reveals that the architectural layout also has an impact on the navigation velocity and that wrong turns in the game are influenced by the landmarks at the decision points: navigating at deeper decision points in convex spaces is slower and landmarks of the categories pictograms and infrastructural were more effective in this particular building. Therefore, this explorative study, which provides an approach for the use of gamification in indoor wayfinding research, has shown that serious games could be successfully used as a medium for data acquisition related to indoor wayfinding in a virtual environment.

Author(s):  
A. Makri ◽  
S. Zlatanova ◽  
E. Verbree

This work presents an approach to enhance navigation in indoor environments based on a landmark concept. It has already been proved by empirical research that by using landmarks the wayfinding task can be significantly simplified. Navigation based on landmarks relies on the presence of landmarks at each point along a route where wayfinders might need assistance. The approach presented here is based on the Dutch system for navigation of cyclists. The landmarks that are used in the proposed approach are special signposts containing the necessary directional information in order to guide the wayfinder in the space. The system is quite simple, efficient and satisfactory in providing navigational assistance in indoor space. An important contribution of this research is the generation of an approach to automatically determine the decision points in indoor environments, which makes it possible to apply it to navigational assistance systems in any building. The proposed system is verified by placing numbered landmark-signs in a specific building. Several tests are performed and the results are analysed. The findings of the experiment are very promising, showing that participants reach the destinations without detours.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laure De Cock ◽  
Pepijn Viaene ◽  
Nico Van de Weghe ◽  
Ralph Michels ◽  
Kristien Ooms ◽  
...  

The use of mobile pedestrian wayfinding applications is gaining importance indoors. However, compared to outdoors, much less research has been conducted with respect to the most adequate ways to convey indoor wayfinding information to a user. An explorative study was conducted to compare two pedestrian indoor wayfinding applications, one text-based (SoleWay) and one image-based (Eyedog), in terms of mental effort. To do this, eye tracking data and mental effort ratings were collected from 29 participants during two routes in an indoor environment. The results show that both textual instructions and photographs can enable a navigator to find his/her way while experiencing no or very little cognitive effort or difficulties. However, these instructions must be in line with a user’s expectations of the route, which are based on his/her interpretation of the indoor environment at decision points. In this case, textual instructions offer the advantage that specific information can be explicitly and concisely shared with the user. Furthermore, the study drew attention to potential usability issues of the wayfinding aids (e.g. the incentive to swipe) and, as such, demonstrated the value of eye tracking and mental effort assessments in usability research.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147775092110401
Author(s):  
Mahsa Dadkhah-Tehrani ◽  
Mohsen Adib-Hajbaghery

Background Many studies have investigated the adherence to professional codes of ethics by nurses. However, no study has explicitly examined the relationship between workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics among Iranian nurses. Objective This study aimed to explore the relationships between workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics among a sample of Iranian nurses. Materials and Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 213 nurses who were randomly selected from the different wards of Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Kashan, Iran. Data collection instruments included a personal characteristics questionnaire, the Nursing Ethics Questionnaire, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index. The Chi-square, the Spearman correlation coefficient, the Kruskal–Wallis, and Mann–Whitney U tests were used to analyze the data. Results A majority of nurses were females (77.5%), married (79.3%), and permanently employed (55.4%). The mean of the overall perceived workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics were 76.36 ± 13.64 and 13.98 ± 2.58, that were at high and moderated level, respectively. Spearman correlation test showed no significant correlation between perceived workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics ( r = 0.03, P = 0.6). A significant difference was found between the mean scores of adherence to professional codes of ethics in nurses working in different departments ( P < 0.001). Conclusion Participating nurses perceived high levels of workload but their mean adherence to professional codes of ethics was at a moderate level. The perceived workload was indirectly correlated with adherence to professional codes of ethics.


Author(s):  
Viviane Aparecida Pereira dos Santos ◽  
◽  
Luciana Ferreira ◽  
Vânia de Fátima Mathias de Souza ◽  
José Luiz Lopes Vieira

Identify the associtation among personal and environmental characteristics on the motor development of children with probable developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The participants were 42 parents, 32 teachers and 42 preschoolers’ (3.4±0.5years). As measurement instruments: The Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2 (MABC2), the Columbia Mental Maturity test (EMMC), the Questionnaire of the Brazilian Association of Research Companies (ABEP), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), the Swanson Nolan and Pelham IV Scale (SNAP-IV), Structured Questionnaire for parents on motor, academic, emotional and behavioral skills and Early Years Movement Skills Checklist were used. For data analysis, the Shapiro Wilk test and Binary Logistic Regression were used, adopting p <0.05. Results shown statistically significant difference for the personal characteristics associated with children with persistence DCD: 1) birth weight, age to sit, cognitive development, language problems and conduct problems; 2) For home characteristics: quality of the home environment and the parents' stable union were taken into account; 3) For day care center, the education of the classroom teacher was considered. In conclusion, children who were born with greater weight, who had higher cognitive development, live with parents in a stable relationship and who have a specialized classroom teacher were less likely to persist in DCD.


2021 ◽  
Vol 923 (1) ◽  
pp. 012066
Author(s):  
Emad Fahad Nafeh Al-Bahli ◽  
Mahmoud Hadis Jassim Al-Jumaili

Abstract The research aimed to determine the impact studied factors represented by (people’s activities, government activities, natural factors) on the deterioration of natural pastures in the Governorate of Al-Muthanna the point of view of agricultural employees in the governorate. The research included all agricultural employees with a preparatory scientific qualification in agriculture and above in the governorate their number is (94) employees. A questionnaire was prepared to collect the data necessary to achieve the objectives of the research. It consisted of two parts. The first part included the factors related to the employees, which are (term of service, academic achievement, participation in extension activities, job position and work location). The second part included a measure to identify the agricultural employees’ the point of view of on the factors affecting the deterioration of natural pastures. It consists of (46) section spread over (3) field covered by the research. The results showed that government activities have the most impact on the deterioration of natural pastures, it was found a statistically significant difference in the respondents’ point of view about the influence of the studied factors according to their personal characteristics. The researchers concluded the necessity of agricultural expansion in pasture lands and industrial investments, as well as the importance of personal factors in assigning employees who can work in the development of natural pastures, and the researchers recommend activating government laws for the protection of natural pastures to prevent abuses (people’s activities, government activities) that contributed greatly to the deterioration of vegetation cover in the research area and taking into account the factors studied in the selection of workers in the development of natural pastures in the research area.


Author(s):  
M. Peter

Documentation of the “as-built” state of building interiors has gained a lot of interest in the recent years. Various data acquisition methods exist, e.g. the extraction from photographed evacuation plans using image processing or, most prominently, indoor mobile laser scanning. Due to clutter or data gaps as well as errors during data acquisition and processing, automatic reconstruction of CAD/BIM-like models from these data sources is not a trivial task. Thus it is often tried to support reconstruction by general rules for the perpendicularity and parallelism which are predominant in man-made structures. Indoor environments of large, public buildings, however, often also follow higher-level rules like symmetry and repetition of e.g. room sizes and corridor widths. In the context of reconstruction of city city elements (e.g. street networks) or building elements (e.g. fac¸ade layouts), formal grammars have been put to use. In this paper, we describe the use of Lindenmayer systems - which originally have been developed for the computer-based modelling of plant growth - to model and reproduce the layout of indoor environments in 2D.


Author(s):  
F. Tsai ◽  
T.-S. Wu ◽  
I.-C. Lee ◽  
H. Chang ◽  
A. Y. S. Su

This paper presents a data acquisition system consisting of multiple RGB-D sensors and digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. A systematic data processing procedure for integrating these two kinds of devices to generate three-dimensional point clouds of indoor environments is also developed and described. In the developed system, DSLR cameras are used to bridge the Kinects and provide a more accurate ray intersection condition, which takes advantage of the higher resolution and image quality of the DSLR cameras. Structure from Motion (SFM) reconstruction is used to link and merge multiple Kinect point clouds and dense point clouds (from DSLR color images) to generate initial integrated point clouds. Then, bundle adjustment is used to resolve the exterior orientation (EO) of all images. Those exterior orientations are used as the initial values to combine these point clouds at each frame into the same coordinate system using Helmert (seven-parameter) transformation. Experimental results demonstrate that the design of the data acquisition system and the data processing procedure can generate dense and fully colored point clouds of indoor environments successfully even in featureless areas. The accuracy of the generated point clouds were evaluated by comparing the widths and heights of identified objects as well as coordinates of pre-set independent check points against in situ measurements. Based on the generated point clouds, complete and accurate three-dimensional models of indoor environments can be constructed effectively.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Jaccard ◽  
Laurent Suppan ◽  
Félicia Bielser

BACKGROUND Multidisciplinary collaboration is essential to the successful development of serious games, albeit difficult to achieve. The co.LAB serious game design framework was created to support collaboration within serious game multidisciplinary design teams. Its use has not yet been validated in a naturalistic context. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to perform a first assessment of the impact of the co.LAB framework on collaboration within multidisciplinary teams during serious game design and development. METHODS This was a mixed-methods study based on two serious game design projects in which the co.LAB framework was used. The first phase was qualitative and carried out using a general inductive approach. To this end, all members of the first serious game project team who used the co.LAB framework were invited to take part in a focus group session (N=6). Results inferred from qualitative data were then used to define a quantitative instrument (questionnaire) which was designed according to the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys. Members of both project teams (N=11) were then asked to answer the questionnaire. Quantitative results were reported as median [Q1;Q3] and appropriate non-parametric tests used to assess for between group differences. Finally, results gathered through the qualitative and quantitative phases were integrated. RESULTS In both phases, the participation rate was 100%. Verbatim transcripts were classified into 4 high level themes: influence on collaborative dimensions; impact on project course, monitoring and efficiency; qualitative perceptions of the framework; and influence of team composition on the use of the framework. Accordingly, the web-based questionnaire was then developed according to Burhardt's seven dimensions of collaboration. In both projects, the co.LAB framework had a positive impact on most dimensions of collaboration during the multidisciplinary design and development of serious games. When all collaborative dimensions were aggregated, the overall impact of the framework was rated on a scale from "-42" to "+42" (very negative to very positive). The overall score was 23 [20;27], with no significant difference between groups (P=.58). Most respondents also believed that all serious game design teams should include a member possessing a significant expertise in serious game design frameworks to guide the development process. CONCLUSIONS The co.LAB framework has a positive impact on collaboration within serious game development teams. However, expert guidance seems necessary to maximize development efficiency. Whether such guidance can be provided by means of a collaborative web platform remains to be determined.


Author(s):  
Haohua Zhang ◽  
Yixin Zhou

AbstractThe Knee Society Score (KSS) is the most commonly used scale for evaluating postoperative pain and physical function after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). However, this scale requires clinic visiting, which is not quite convenient. Our concept verification study demonstrated a remote automatic system for evaluating knee function after TKA using the KSS. The remote scoring system consists of two modules for data acquisition, an application for patients, a cloud server, and an application for doctors. The kinematic data are collected by the data acquisition modules and transmitted to the patient application via Bluetooth. The data acquisition module contains a motion sensor, a microcontroller unit, a power supply, and a Bluetooth module. The motion sensor consists of an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a geomagnetic sensor, all of which are three-axis instruments. Using the nine-axis data, the three-dimensional (3D) angles are calculated according to the theory of attitude and heading reference system. The KSS score is calculated using a scoring algorithm in the patient application and transmitted to the doctor application through the cloud server. The knee function of 10 patients treated with unilateral TKA was evaluated by both a doctor and the remote scoring system. The consistency in KSS between the doctor and the system was analyzed using the paired t-test. The remote scoring system successfully recorded knee function data and transmitted the scores from the patient application to the doctor application through the cloud server. There was no significant difference in the KSS scores evaluated by the doctor and that by the system (p = 0.326). This remote automatic scoring system provides a reliable and convenient method for evaluating knee function after TKA at home.


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