Virtual Experiment Environment Research Articles

EBPVis: Visual Analytics of Economic Behavior Patterns in a Virtual Experimental Environment

AbstractExperimental economics is an important branch of economics to study human behaviours in a controlled laboratory setting or out in the field. Scientific experiments are conducted in experimental economics to collect what decisions people make in specific circumstances and verify economic theories. As a significant couple of variables in the virtual experimental environment, decisions and outcomes change with the subjective factors of participants and objective circumstances, making it a difficult task to capture human behaviour patterns and establish correlations to verify economic theories. In this paper, we present a visual analytics system, EBPVis, which enables economists to visually explore human behaviour patterns and faithfully verify economic theories, e.g. the vicious cycle of poverty and poverty trap. We utilize a Doc2Vec model to transform the economic behaviours of participants into a vectorized space according to their sequential decisions, where frequent sequences can be easily perceived and extracted to represent human behaviour patterns. To explore the correlation between decisions and outcomes, an Outcome View is designed to display the outcome variables for behaviour patterns. We also provide a Comparison View to support an efficient comparison between multiple behaviour patterns by revealing their differences in terms of decision combinations and time‐varying profits. Moreover, an Individual View is designed to illustrate the outcome accumulation and behaviour patterns of subjects. Case studies, expert feedback and user studies based on a real‐world dataset have demonstrated the effectiveness and practicability of EBPVis in the representation of economic behaviour patterns and certification of economic theories.

Detection and Assessment of Seismic Response of High-Speed Railway Bridges Based on Smartphone Public Participation

The seismic response detection and operational safety assessment of high-speed railway (HSR) bridges play a crucial role in ensuring HSR systems’ operational safety and reliability. Smartphones have introduced intelligent inspection tools for structural health detection, becoming a new tool for intelligent structural inspection. Combining the public and smartphones is the key to public participation in structural health detection. This study utilizes smartphone-based structural seismic response inspection technology to investigate the framework of public participation in earthquake response inspection and assessment. This system comprises the Smart Bridge Brain (SBB), which integrates data from multiple sources and systems, an assigning mechanism for public participation inspection tasks, and smartphone-based HSR bridge structural seismic response inspection technology. At the same time, the Unreal Engine 5.0 software is used to create a mixed-reality virtual simulation experimental environment to validate the feasibility of this framework. The results indicate that the intelligent optimization of task allocation by the SBB successfully assigns detection tasks to each public participant. Public participants can promptly reach predefined damage structure detection targets and rapidly inspect bridge structural seismic response indicators using smartphones. In addition, this paper also conducts a comprehensive evaluation and analysis of the detection of the work efficiency index (WEI) within the system. Furthermore, optimization strategies for the efficient execution of detection tasks are proposed based on WEI variations influenced by different factors. The system framework is expected to enhance cluster-based HSR bridges’ intelligent disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities.

Audiovisual effects of roadside tree plantings on perception of road traffic sounds

This study investigated the psychological influence of the surrounding landscapes related to the plantings along roadside areas on the subjective impressions of road traffic noise. Herein a subjective evaluation scheme incorporating the semantic differential and magnitude estimation methods was adopted. Under the virtual experimental environment, the conditions with only a visual stimulus and with both visual and auditory stimuli were comparatively evaluated. The results revealed significant differences between when only the visual environment was presented and when the auditory environment was also presented. It suggested that a realistic evaluation of the living environment is possible only when both the visual and auditory environments are explored together. Tree plantings located along the road were found to interact with the SPL of the road traffic noise and the urban environment visible through the windows. It indicated that the psychological noise reduction effect of plantings on noise annoyance varies significantly depending on the audiovisual environment.

Ortak ve İşbirliğine Dayalı Eylem Bağlamında İletişim Sistemlerinin Gelişimi

Communication is a focal point in studies of joint action, where collective cognitive activity required (Sebanz and Knoblich, 2006). In this study, a virtual experimental environment was utilized where participants’ communication was restricted to text messaging interface with a limited set of letters and symbols. In eight experimental sessions, similar but different joint action tasks were given; each couple improved their joint action skills and developed their own private communication systems. Analysis shows, in addition to several quantitative parameters, trends of diminishing use ratio of directive speech acts and increasing use ratio of assertive speech acts had been observed which are claimed to be characteristics of development of a mature and effective communication system and cognitive mechanisms of joint action.

Remote Operation of Marine Robotic Systems and Next-Generation Multi-Purpose Control Rooms

Since 2017, NTNU’s Applied Underwater Robotics Laboratory has been developing an infrastructure for remote marine/subsea operations in Trondheim Fjord. The infrastructure, named the OceanLab subsea node, allows remote experimentation for three groups of assets: seabed infrastructure, surface or subsea vehicles/robots, and assets at remote experimentation sites. To achieve this task, a shoreside control room serves as a hub that enables efficient and diverse communication with assets in the field as well as with remote participants/operators. Remote experimentation has become more popular in recent years due to technological developments and convenience, the COVID-19 pandemic, and travel restrictions that were imposed. This situation has shown us that physical presence at the experimentation site is not necessarily the only option. Sharing of the infrastructure among different experts, which are geographically distributed, but participating in a single, local, real-time experiment, increases the level of expertise available and the efficiency of the operations. This paper also elaborates on the development of a virtual experimentation environment that includes simulators and digital twins of various marine vehicles, infrastructures, and the operational marine environment. By leveraging remote and virtual experimentation technologies, users and experts can achieve relevant results in a shorter time frame and at a reduced cost.

Design of AGV Chassis Motion Control System Based on MWorks

With the mature and extensive application of robotics, task-based mobile robots for special environments and high-risk tasks are also gaining more and more attention. To make the task-based mobile robots achieve more precise and difficult work, then, it is particularly important to achieve precise and stable control of the AGV. Therefore, by establishing a mathematical model of AGV and conducting a kinematic analysis, we design a control system that can make AGV achieve stable and accurate motion. The experimental simulation, separated from the traditional foreign simulation software MATLAB, is based on the domestic independently developed virtual simulation experiment environment MWorks. Sysplorer validated the control algorithm and virtual model AGV by digital twinning.

Research on Influencing Factors of Distance Learning Behavior Intention in Virtual Experimental Environment

In distance education, virtual labs conduct a paramount role in the construction and development of practical engineering majors. In turn, the behavioral intention of distance learners’ willingness to use it determines whether virtual labs can be well used and promoted. For the sake of deeply understanding the factors which may exert certain influence on behavioral intention, this paper constructed a model of factors affecting behavioral intention of distance learning in virtual lab environment on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and conducted an empirical investigation study on 425 learners. As conspicuously revealed by the research findings, effort expectation, performance expectation, community influence, concrete experience, abstract conceptualization, active practice, and interactivity of the experimental platform can impose positive effects on learners’ intention to use the virtual experimental platform. Aside from that, both reflective observation and imagination cannot remarkably affect behavioral intention. What’s more, concrete experience has the most noticeable effect on behavioral intention.

The architecture of network virtual experiment environment based on cloud computing

In order to improve the user access success rate, cloud service success rate and experiment resource sharing and retrieval efficiency of network virtual experiment environment, a network virtual experiment environment architecture based on cloud computing was proposed. Through the CVM cloud virtual experiment platform and LIMP Laboratory integrated management platform, the system architecture of network virtual experiment environment is designed. Based on cloud computing, the access control algorithm of network virtual experiment environment is designed, and the resource sharing of network virtual experiment environment is realized by data mining technology. The experimental results show that the architecture proposed in this paper has a high success rate of user access and cloud service, and a good efficiency of experimental resource sharing and retrieval, indicating that the architecture proposed in this paper has a good application effect.

Varying rate adaptive hybrid position–impedance control for robot-assisted ultrasonic examination system

Abstract. Robot ultrasound has great potential for reducing the workload of a sonographer, improving the access to nursing care, producing more accurate imaging, and avoiding direct contact with patients. However, in the process of ultrasonic scanning, the traditional manual control scheme of the ultrasonic machine cannot simultaneously consider the problems of instantaneous contact force overshoot and steady-state force-tracking error, which is very important to improve image quality and ensure patient safety. In this paper, we proposed a varying rate adaptive hybrid position–impedance control strategy, which is used for the ultrasonic robot operator to scan the abdomen transversely. In order to ensure the stability of ultrasonic robot in the position subspace with parameter uncertainty and external interference, an adaptive inverse position controller is designed. In the scanning process of force subspace, a variable adaptive impedance control scheme is carefully designed to avoid force overshoot and keep the accuracy of the force tracking. Different from the classical impedance realization, the dynamic update rate is to update the impedance characteristics through force sensor feedback, reduce overshoot, and keep the stability and accuracy of the robot system during the task. Through the comparative study of different adaptive control schemes, the effectiveness of the proposed variable rate adaptive impedance control strategy was discussed. The proposed control scheme was verified in the virtual robot experimental environment, V-rep. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed variable rate adaptive position impedance hybrid control scheme is more promising and efficient in robot-assisted ultrasound imaging.

Reform Exploration of Proteus Virtual Simulation Practice Teaching in Electronic

Introducing virtual simulation technology into practical teaching reform, building a highly simulated virtual experimental environment and experimental objects, and allowing students to carry out experiments and practical training in the virtual environment can effectively promote practical teaching reform and comprehensively improve college students’ innovative spirit and practical ability. This paper discusses the path and feasibility of combining the teaching of electronic information courses with Proteus virtual simulation platform to promote innovation and entrepreneurship education reform from the aspects of strengthening teachers’ team building, improving teaching methods, constructing a new experimental teaching system and resource environment, and innovating practical teaching mode.

Design and Validation of a Virtual Chemical Laboratory—An Example of Natural Science in Elementary Education

In the natural science curriculum, chemistry is a very important domain. However, when conducting chemistry experiments, safety issues need to be taken seriously, and excessive material waste may be caused during the experiment. Based on the 11-year-old student science curriculum, this paper proposed a virtual chemistry laboratory, which was designed by combining a virtual experiment application with physical teaching materials. The virtual experiment application was a virtual experiment laboratory environment created by using selected experimental equipment cards in combination with augmented reality (AR) technology. The physical teaching materials included all virtual equipment required for experiment units. Each piece of equipment had corresponding cards for learners to choose from and utilize in specific experimental operations. It was hoped that students were able to achieve the desired learning effectiveness of experimental teaching while reducing the waste of experimental materials through the virtual experimental environment. This study employed the quasi-experimental and questionnaire survey methods to evaluate both learning effectiveness and learning motivation. Eighty-one students and eight elementary school teachers were surveyed as research subjects. The experimental results revealed that significant differences in learning effectiveness existed between the experimental group and control group, indicating that the application of AR technology to teaching substantively helped enhance students’ learning effectiveness and motivation. In addition, the results of the teacher questionnaire demonstrated that the virtual chemistry laboratory proposed in this study could effectively assist with classroom teaching.

Vibrotactile-Based Operational Guidance System for Space Science Experiments

On-orbit astronauts and scientists on the ground need to cooperate closely, to complete space science experiments efficiently. However, for the increasingly diverse space science experiments, scientists are unable to train astronauts on the ground about the details of each experiment. The traditional interaction of visual and auditory channels is not enough for scientists to directly guide astronauts to experimentalize. An intuitive and transparent interaction interface between scientists and astronauts has to be built to meet the requirements of space science experiments. Therefore, this paper proposed a vibrotactile guidance system for cooperation between scientists and astronauts. We utilized Kinect V2 sensors to track the movements of the participants of space science experiments, process data in the virtual experimental environment developed by Unity 3D, and provide astronauts with different guidance instructions using the wearable vibrotactile device. Compared with other schemes using only visual and auditory channels, our approach provides more direct and more efficient guidance information that astronauts perceive is what they need to perform different tasks. Three virtual space science experiment tasks verified the feasibility of the vibrotactile operational guidance system. Participants were able to complete the experimental task with a short period of training, and the experimental results show that the method has an application prospect.

Blueprint to design virtual experiment environments

Laboratory education plays an indispensable role in university level natural science curricula. To achieve all intended learning outcomes of laboratory education, students should be carefully prepared before they enter the laboratory. This can be done by means of non-traditional labs, and more specifically, virtual experiment environments (VEEs). Although VEEs are increasingly being used in higher education, there is a lack of studies that provide actionable guidelines on how to design such VEEs. The goal of this study was to provide general design requirements, design principles, and a design architecture that can be used as a blueprint to design VEEs. To achieve our goal, we used an educational design research approach to design four VEEs, which have been evaluated in real educational contexts. Besides establishing three general design requirements, Fourteen corresponding design principles, and a design architecture based on the insights gathered during the educational design research process, we also included detailed information on how they can be applied. Such information in the context of VEEs is new to literature, and has the potential to help teachers and instructional designers to design high quality VEEs.

A Hadoop-Based Online Teaching Model of "VisibleBody"

It is the responsibility of nursing educators to cultivate community nursing professionals who can adapt to the post and meet social needs. However, there exist some problems in current community nursing curriculum education such as inconsistent teaching content and different levels of teachers’ lecturing. In this study, a good educational resource ecosystem was established in virtue of the mighty flexibility and expansibility of hadoop technology, the resources in community nursing teaching courses are stored in the hadoop cloud resource library. At the same time, community nursing online course resources were newly designed and improved through HdoopYarn resource scheduling algorithm, thereby realizing the establishment of a virtual experimental environment for nursing major. VisibleBody virtual medical software was applied to the internship and practical training, specifically in 12 knowledge units of 5 modules according to the characteristics of this course, demonstrating a deep-level human body structure and accurate nursing operation. An objective structured clinical examination mode was adopted in the teaching method, which could create a simulated community nursing situation during teaching, so that students could complete standardized patient assessment and examination within the given time, and accept testers’ questions and acquire results. It was found from the teaching practice that the application of teaching model is conductive to enhancing students' academic performance and improving community nursing capabilities, including problem-solving competence, communication skills, teamwork ability, etc.

Retracted] The Construction of Immersive Learning System Based on Virtual Testing Technology of Virtual Reality

Objective. To explore the construction of immersive learning system based on virtual reality (VR) and test its learning effect. Methods. 20 qualified subjects were divided into two groups, each tending to agree, each with 5 boys and 5 girls. Experimental group 1 is in the real operating environment, and experimental group 2 is in the VR virtual disassembly experimental environment. The task process errors, knowledge questionnaire scores and user subjective satisfaction were analyzed statistically. Results. The significance probability P of knowledge questionnaire in the Levene test was 0.777, greater than 0.05, and the variance homogeneous, so the final P of independent sample t‐test was subject to “assumed variance equal”; the significance probability was 0.613, greater than 0.05; the questionnaire scores of two groups showed no significant difference, so VR virtual environment can achieve the learning effect of the real environment. The number of errors in a VR virtual situation is significantly lower than the number of errors in the real environment, the VR virtual environment can achieve the learning effect of the real environment, and the VR virtual environment can achieve more interaction, with good interaction. Conclusion. The immersive learning system based on VR detection technology can realize the cognition of three‐dimensional model structure and has a certain learning effect.

Open Source Framework for Enabling HPC and Cloud Geoprocessing Services

Geoprocessing is a set of tools that can be used to efficiently address several pressing chal-lenges for the global economy ranging from agricultural productivity, the design of transport networks, to the prediction of climate change and natural disasters. This paper describes an Open Source Framework developed, within three European projects, for Ena-bling High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Cloud geoprocessing services applied to agricultural challenges. The main goals of the European Union projects EUXDAT (EUro-pean e-infrastructure for eXtreme Data Analytics in sustainable developmenT), CYBELE (fostering precision agriculture and livestock farming through secure access to large-scale HPC-enabled virtual industrial experimentation environment empowering scalable big data analytics), and EOPEN (opEn interOperable Platform for unified access and analysis of Earth observatioN data) are to enable the use of large HPC systems, as well as big data management, user-friendly access and visualization of results. In addition, these projects focus on the development of software frameworks, and fuse Earth-observation data, such as Copernicus data, with non-Earth-observation data, such as weather, environmental and social media information. In this paper, we describe the agroclimatic-zones pilot used to validate the framework. Finally, performance metrics collected during the execution (up to 182 times speedup with 256 MPI processes) of the pilot are presented.

Research and Design of Digital Logic Virtual experiment system

The realization of the virtual laboratory includes the construction of the website and the design of the learning system. The design of the learning system is introduced in this paper. In the system, the popular EDA tool Quartus EDA ModelSim is used to construct the virtual experimental environment, and the virtual FPGA is used as the carrier. EDA is used to design, modify, debugs and verifies the circuit. As a learning tool for digital circuit design and experimental simulation verification, it has obvious advantages. The course, theory and technology involved in the teaching of digital circuits are integrated to form a virtual experimental teaching simulation platform for digital circuits which is rich in content, advanced in technology, theory, experiment and simulation, and enriches the teaching methods. The paper presents research and Design of Digital Logic Virtual experiment system.

Teleoperation for space manipulator based on complex virtual fixtures

This paper presents a kind of complex virtual fixture (VF) to help space robots perform on-orbit operations in complex environments while ensuring operations safety. The main purpose of the VF is to provide virtual force feedback to adjust the manners of the operator throughout the remote operation process. The complex VF is comprised of a tube-type VF and a velocity-based VF. The tube-type VF ensures that the end effector approaches the target safely and at high speeds over long distances, and the velocity-based VF enables the end of the robot to observe the target within a safe and short distance near the target. Combined with dynamic prediction and path planning, the complex VF can improve the flexibility and efficiency of the operation, and avoid collisions in dynamic environments. The proposed methods are verified by several typical space manipulation tasks, the virtual experiment environment of which is built in CHAI3D. The comparative results indicate that the complex VF can reduce operation time and improve efficiency and accuracy.

Study of Robot Localization and Control Based on Motion Capture in Indoor Environment

This paper researches a robotic localization system based on motion capture indoor environment. We apply motion capture technology to realize multi-robot positioning which achieves the multi-robots’ localization in indoor environment. It includes motion capture system, some robots, and main computer for data calibration and communication. Motions capture system based on the theory of photogrammetry which was analyzed. And the virtual experiment environment was established according to the actual experimental environment. The performance is demonstrated by numerical simulation and experiment.

Relations between students' perceived levels of self-regulation and their corresponding learning behavior and outcomes in a virtual experiment environment

Virtual Experiment Environments (VEEs) have been shown as effective preparation steps for laboratory classes in natural science education. Given the self-directed nature of VEEs, students need adequate Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) skills. This study explores the relation between students' perceived SRL level and their behavior and outcomes in a VEE in the field of enzymology. Ninety-seven higher education students were divided into three groups of perceived SRL level (high, medium, and low). The VEE learning behavior (e.g., number of attempts and hints accessed) and VEE outcomes of these groups were compared while keeping prior knowledge as a covariate. While low self-regulated learners showed the least level of engagement with the VEE, high self-regulated learners showed the most optimum learning activity. Medium self-regulated learners engaged more in gaming the system behavior, and consequently learned the least. These results suggest that there is a nonlinear relationship between perceived SRL level and outcomes, since the intermediate level seems to be detrimental to learning, as explained through behavior. The intermediate level was characterized by an increase in agency, but a lack of goal-directed and planning behavior. Implications for self-regulated learning theory and the design of VEEs in the best interest of students are discussed.