Virtual Connections Research Articles

Home virtuality and the platformized life of Chinese international students in the United Kingdom

AbstractThis article examines a nascent phenomenon in which a cluster of digital platforms mimicking popular Chinese apps has popped up in various cities in the United Kingdom (UK). They have been eagerly adopted by a strong clientele composed mainly of Chinese international students and young working migrants from China. Drawing on data we gathered from the British city of Manchester, one of the most popular destinations for Chinese international students, we propose the concept of home virtuality to illustrate how Chinese student migrants’ frequent surfing of these Chinese‐style digital platforms has created a ‘virtual home’ that is quite reminiscent of the platformized lifestyle in China, and that thus offers them a sense of connection to home. We argue that this ‘home virtuality’ does not only imply a virtual connection but is also a home environment materialized through the familiar app services of the new Chinese platform businesses in the UK.

Powered Knee and Ankle Prosthesis Control for Adaptive Ambulation at Variable Speeds, Inclines, and Uneven Terrains.

Ambulation in everyday life requires walking at variable speeds, variable inclines, and variable terrains. Powered prostheses aim to provide this adaptability through control of the actuated joints. Some powered prosthesis controllers can adapt to discrete changes in speed and incline but require manual tuning to determine the control parameters, leading to poor clinical viability. Other data-driven controllers can continuously adapt to changes in speed and incline but do so by imposing the same non-amputee gait patterns for all amputee subjects, which does not consider subjective preferences and differing clinical needs of users. Here, we present a controller for powered knee and ankle prostheses that can continuously adapt to different walking speeds, inclines, and uneven terrains without enforcing a specific prosthesis position, impedance, or torque. A virtual biarticular muscle connection determines the knee flexion torque, which changes with both speed and slope. Adaptation to inclines and uneven terrains is based solely on the global shank orientation. Continuously variable damping allows for speed adaptation. Minimum-jerk programming defines the prosthesis swing trajectory at variable cadences. Experiments with one individual with an above-knee amputation suggest that the proposed controller can effectively adapt to different walking speeds, inclines, and rough terrains.

Dynamic Analysis of a Large Deployable Space Truss Structure Considering Semi-Rigid Joints

Joints are widely used in large deployable structures but show semi-rigidity due to performance degradation and some nonlinear factors affecting the structure’s dynamic characteristics. This paper investigates the influence of semi-rigid joints on the characteristics of deployable structures in orbit. A virtual connection element of three DOFs is proposed to model the semi-rigid joints. The governing equations of semi-rigid joints are established and integrated into the dynamic equation of the structures. A series of numerical experiments are carried out to validate the proposed model’s accuracy and efficiency, and the deployable truss structures’ static and dynamic responses are analyzed. The results show that semi-rigid joints exacerbate the effects of an in-orbit microvibration on the stability of deployable truss structures. Semi-rigid joints lower the dominant frequencies of structures, leading to a ‘closely-spaced-frequencies’ phenomenon and altering the dynamic responses significantly. The effects of semi-rigid joints on deployable truss structures are long-term and can be used to establish a relationship model between structural performance and service life. Nonlinear effects vary with the external load and depend on the structures’ instantaneous status. These results indicate that semi-rigid joints significantly influence the characteristics of deployable structures, which must be considered in the design and analysis of high-precision in-orbit deployable structures.

Podążanie za zadaną trajektorią grupy robotów kołowych z użyciem wirtualnych połączeń sprężysto-tłumiących

The article presents the solution to the problem of trajectory tracking of a self-organized group of wheeled robots in the environment without obstacles. The group of robots is tracking a trajectory realized as following a reference point by the geometric center of the group, as well as simultaneously, reaching and maintaining a given distance between neighboring robots. The proposed method is based on virtual forces from virtual spring-damper connections between robots, which allows for the trajectory tracking of the previously self-organized group while maintaining its desired shape. The presented method of control is described in detail with the description of i-th robot dynamics and was tested numerically and experimentally. The paper presents the results of numerical tests and experimental research and ends with discussion and conclusions. The paper’s results could be expanded for applications related to robotic group trajectory tracking.

Maternal and child nutrition programme of investigation within the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort: study protocol

IntroductionThere is a limited understanding of the early nutrition and pregnancy determinants of short-term and long-term maternal and child health in ethnically diverse and socioeconomically vulnerable populations within low-income and...

The femtech revolution-A new approach to pregnancy management: Digital transformation of maternity care-The hybrid e-health perinatal clinic addressing the unmet needs of low- and middle-income countries.

Prenatal care and infant mortality rates are crucial indicators of healthcare quality. However, millions of women in low-income countries lack access to adequate care. Factors such as high-risk pregnancies and unmanaged diet increase the risk of developing complications during pregnancy, highlighting the need for continuous monitoring of maternal health. The increasing burden of non-communicable diseases represents a significant threat to fragile health systems. The lack of access to appropriate prenatal care and poor maternal and newborn health outcomes are major concerns in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It emphasizes the need for innovative, integrative approaches to healthcare delivery, especially in pregnant women. The health services need to be reorganized holistically and effectively, focusing on factors that directly impact maternal, neonatal, and infant mortality, resulting in improved access to maternity services and survival of "at-risk" mothers and their offspring in many LMICs. Based on the FIGO (the International Federation of Gynecology & Obstetrics) recommendations of extending preconception care to the postpartum stage, the authors of this review have developed a new model of care-PregCare-based on the triple-intervention-based holistic and multidisciplinary maternal and fetal medicine model for low-risk pregnancies. This model will help transform the traditional model's high visitation frequency into a safe and reduced office visit, while increasing virtual connections, point of care and self-care with doctors, nurses, and community-based providers of self-care. This shall be based on a sophisticated central PregCare call center powered by innovative technologies combined with experienced personnel in perinatal management (doctors and nurses/midwives).

Simulation and comparative study of the effect of the electrical connection between the battery electrodes on the battery thermal behavior

Accurately simulating and characterizing the thermal behavior of lithium batteries is vital for thermal design and management. Currently, the widely used simulation method for studying battery module thermal behavior and management is the virtual electrical connection. However, this method overlooks the presence of the busbar. Therefore, this study utilizes a physical electrical connection simulation method to investigate the impact of busbar heat generation and transfer on the thermoelectric behavior of the battery module. The results indicate that the busbar's heat production and transfer significantly affect the current density and temperature distribution, as well as the temperature uniformity of the battery module. The physical electrical connection simulation method accurately models the actual current transfer process between the battery electrodes, aligning with the real-world operation. In comparison to the virtual electrical connection simulation method, the physical electrical connection approach shows elevated local temperatures at the battery electrodes and the upper area in proximity to the busbar. It also exhibits more significant temperature gradients and worse temperature uniformity. Under real-world driving conditions, the temperature and heat generation of the battery undergo more frequent and wider fluctuations compared with constant-current discharge. The impact of the busbar's heat production and transfer on battery thermal behavior becomes more evident in these conditions. For example, under the FTP75, NEDC, and WLTC conditions, the maximum temperature increased by 8.04 °C, 28.43 °C, and 27.35 °C respectively, and the maximum temperature difference increased by 7.91 °C, 28.41 °C, and 27.19 °C respectively. Thus, the physical electrical connection simulation method significantly enhances the realism of battery module thermoelectric behavior simulations, contributing to the accuracy and effectiveness of thermal management analysis and product design.

Visitation restriction and decision making: Healthcare surrogate experiences

ObjectivesWe sought to discover whether hospital visitation restrictions imposed during COVID, and remaining at some institutions, influenced surrogate decision-making. MethodsThematic analysis of semi-structured interviews of people who served as healthcare surrogates for patients admitted to the intensive care unit with a palliative care consultation in January of 2021 at a large tertiary care hospital. ResultsThirteen healthcare surrogates agreed to be interviewed out of the fifty-six who were identified and invited to participate. The following themes emerged: 1) Decision-making was delayed as surrogates desire to make decisions in conjunction with the patient; 2) visitation restriction disrupted processes of grief and end-of-life rituals; 3) it prevented healing that occurs with closeness to loved ones; 4) visitation permission was poorly communicated and inconsistent; 5) virtual connection was inconsistent and proved ineffective in context; 6) communication was often stressful and confusing. ConclusionFrom the point of view of healthcare surrogates, visitation restriction disrupted the normal process of decision-making by impeding important healing and grief rituals, and making connection difficult, despite policies and technology that was meant to assist.Practice Implications: Visitation restriction carries risk such as delaying decision-making and the perceived healing benefits of visitation.

Innovation and inter-city knowledge spillovers: Social, geographical, and technological connectedness and psychological openness

Knowledge spillovers across economic agents are central to the process of technological innovation. Yet, the mechanisms by which spillovers travel and manifest as innovation are poorly understood. To fill that gap, we study how knowledge spillovers emanating from other cities (knowledge pools) diffuse and get absorbed. We refine the notion of connectedness by comparing three mechanisms through which knowledge spillovers occur between cities (geographically, technologically, and socially via social media links). We also examine how local psychological openness facilitates this diffusion and absorption process. Using 360 U.S. cities as our empirical context, we find geographically mediated and socially mediated (but not technologically mediated) knowledge spillovers to show positive relationships with the rate of patenting. Moreover, results confirm a positive moderation effect of psychological openness on the relationship between socially mediated knowledge spillovers and the rate of patenting. By providing a more comprehensive test of knowledge spillover mechanisms, our study indicates that the often-quoted physical proximity to knowledge pools remains a robust driver. However, a city's virtual connection to knowledge pools (e.g., via social media links between people) also matter, particularly if that city is psychologically more open. This catalyst of local openness might occur because open populations better absorb inflowing knowledge and utilize it more effectively via key innovators. We discuss implications for research and policy with a particular focus on virtual human (vs. geographically bounded) connectedness and psychological openness as intertwined key areas of a new human geography of innovation.

Real-time multi-factory scheduling in Industry 4.0 with virtual alliances

The ever-changing and dynamic market environment requires applying job shop systems based on real-time data. The establishment of physical-virtual systems in the production process has led to the emergence of intelligent factories. Compared with those employing traditional production methods, such factories manufacture products with higher quality, higher production speed, and other economic benefits. Regarding the virtual connections of factories, events such as the arrival of new jobs, and machine breakdowns, are identified by Radio Frequency Identification System between different production units, and related decisions are made quickly and carefully. In this intelligent job shop scheduling, it is assumed that independent factories create virtual production networks in which, each factory focuses on its own interests. Regarding the importance of this issue in today’s industry, this research explores the real-time scheduling problem in multi-agent production networks distributed in smart factories. Since this problem is a combination of static scheduling and real-time scheduling, a bi-objective model of mixed-integer linear programming is first developed. An approach is then proposed to solve the dynamic real-time scheduling problem. In addition, a learning-based memetic algorithm for solving large-size bi-objective instances is proposed due to the NP-hardness of the considered problem. Afterward, the results of the proposed algorithm are compared with the hybrid Pareto-based tabu search algorithm. The computational results show that in large-size instances, the proposed algorithm outperforms the competing algorithm.

When the Clock Strikes: A Multimethod Investigation of On-the-Hour Effects in Online Learning

Online learners often experience a lack of sustained motivation given the self-paced nature of online learning, resulting in inefficiency and a high dropout rate. It is important to explore options that help users optimize their learning behavior and improve their learning performance. Using a multimethod approach, we show that (a) starting learning sessions at on-the-hour time points activates users’ implemental mindset, which supports them in building greater learning persistence and achieving better learning performance, and (b) social presence significantly attenuates the effects of on-the-hour time points in online learning. Based on our findings, we suggest that both learners and instructors on online learning platforms can leverage common temporal cues, such as on-the-hour time points, to schedule learning activities in order to motivate online learners, enhance their learning persistence, and improve their learning performance. Additionally, online learning platforms can also adopt designs that facilitate virtual connections among geographically separated users to enhance their learning productivity.

Using telepresence robots as a tool for virtual research during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractBackgroundLong‐term care (LTC) settings have been disproportionately affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic. It is necessary to investigate unmet needs and explore practical strategies for supporting LTC residents and staff. However, visitation restrictions and staff shortages have created barriers to conducting research in healthcare settings. Innovative methods and tools are needed for conducting research to support the research process. Telepresence robots enable virtual connections via videoconferencing and give a feeling of the person’s presence from a remote location. This study focuses on exploring the researchers’ experiences of using a telepresence robot as an interview tool.MethodWe interviewed a team of 10 researchers who used a telepresence robot to virtually conduct research during the COVID‐19 pandemic in British Columbia, Canada. The team includes academic researchers, graduate students and people living with dementia. Semi‐structured one‐to‐one interviews were conducted by Zoom virtual meetings. Thematic analysis was performed to identify themes.ResultAnalysis of the data produced five themes on benefits and challenges with respect to using a telepresence robot to conduct interviews with residents in LTC. Themes of benefits: (1) Use as a Research Enabler, (2) More accessible and engaged research process, and (3) Increased Environmental Inclusion and Engagement. Themes of challenges: (4) Lack of Infrastructure and Resources, and (5) Training and Technical Obstacles. Based on the results, we offer “ROBOT” – an acronym created for actionable recommendations that inspire and support others to use telepresence robots for research. These recommendations include Realign to adapt, Organize with champions, Blend strategies, Offer timely technical assistance, and Tailor training to individual needs.ConclusionThis study offers unique and practical insights into using telepresence robots as a safe and innovative tool for conducting research remotely. Our results demonstrate that people living with dementia can be engaged meaningfully in research during the pandemic. Future research should apply more creativity and flexibility in adopting technology to expand possibilities for involving people with dementia in research.

Who do we trust and how do we cope with COVID-19? A mixed-methods sequential exploratory approach to understanding supportive messages across 35 cultures

Based upon a mixed-methods follow-up exploratory model, we examined the link between trust and coping during the early outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic at the society level. Qualitative data were collected from the supportive messages written by 10,072 community adults across 35 societies. Trust and coping were used as the two pre-defined themes in the conceptual content analysis. Five subthemes emerged from the theme trust, depicting five distinct trusted targets: God, a larger us, country/government, science/healthcare, and the affected. Six subthemes emerged from the theme coping, depicting six distinct coping strategies: interpersonal/social coping, religious/spiritual coping, acceptance, blame, wishful thinking, and strength-based coping. A follow-up quantitative investigation also showed that four society-level factors (viz., individualism, cultural tightness, globalization, and severity of pandemic) had differential effects on people’s trusted targets and ways of coping with the pandemic. Our study made both methodological and practical contributions to cross-cultural research on COVID-19 by using a mixed-methods approach in a multinational study and demonstrating the importance of making meaningful virtual connection during a time of physical distancing.

WM–STGCN: A Novel Spatiotemporal Modeling Method for Parkinsonian Gait Recognition

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that causes gait abnormalities. Early and accurate recognition of PD gait is crucial for effective treatment. Recently, deep learning techniques have shown promising results in PD gait analysis. However, most existing methods focus on severity estimation and frozen gait detection, while the recognition of Parkinsonian gait and normal gait from the forward video has not been reported. In this paper, we propose a novel spatiotemporal modeling method for PD gait recognition, named WM–STGCN, which utilizes a Weighted adjacency matrix with virtual connection and Multi-scale temporal convolution in a Spatiotemporal Graph Convolution Network. The weighted matrix enables different intensities to be assigned to different spatial features, including virtual connections, while the multi-scale temporal convolution helps to effectively capture the temporal features at different scales. Moreover, we employ various approaches to augment skeleton data. Experimental results show that our proposed method achieved the best accuracy of 87.1% and an F1 score of 92.85%, outperforming Long short-term memory (LSTM), K-nearest neighbors (KNN), Decision tree, AdaBoost, and ST–GCN models. Our proposed WM–STGCN provides an effective spatiotemporal modeling method for PD gait recognition that outperforms existing methods. It has the potential for clinical application in PD diagnosis and treatment.

Digital Health Inclusion: A Pilot Study of Health Services Deployment Using Communications Satellite for the Underserved in Nigeria

Health service delivery in Nigeria is constrained by: brain drain, insufficient infrastructure and technology, poor and inadequate medical facilities and paucity of medical specialists in rural and remote regions - thus leading to a high rate of “medical tourism”. With increasing mobile phone ownership in Nigeria, mobile technology-based telemedicine has the potential to improve Nigeria’s healthcare delivery with enabling infrastructural facilities. In this paper, a pilot study that uses Nigeria’s communication satellite system for virtual Telemedicine connection between health practitioners and underserved communities using the “one2one” mobile telemedicine application is reported. This pilot study aimed to deploy Nigeria’s communication satellite system to enable virtual telemedicine connection between health practitioners and underserved communities using the “one2one” mobile telemedicine app. Successful deployment of a 1.8m VSAT dish at the pilot clinic and testing showed robust internet connectivity with a time delay of 250ms per hop. Furthermore, the One2one app was successfully installed on health practitioners’ tablets/phone and patients’ phone/tablets. Over 100 patients were treated using the one2one app connected through the satellite internet. The one2one app was highly rated by patients and healthcare providers in terms of usability with the highest score being ease of use 87%. This study shows that Nigeria’s communications satellite can be deployed to support mobile telemedicine as part of the effort to increase access to doctors and specialists in medically underserved areas of Nigeria.

Receiving Routing Approach for Virtually Coupled Train Sets at a Railway Station

Elaborated in several forms before being formally defined, virtually coupled train sets (VCTS) have become an issue for capacity increase with obvious shorter train intervals. As the station organization strategy is still ambiguous due to the lack of literature, the receiving routing problem for VCTS is studied in particular. First, the existing concept of VCTS is explained, which refers to the virtual connection of trains through safe and reliable communication technology, allowing short-interval collaborative operations without the need for physical equipment. Subsequently, the operating characteristics and receiving requirements are analyzed. With a summary of factors affecting receiving operations, a mathematical model is proposed with the objectives of minimizing operation duration and maximizing effectiveness, which is solved by an improved genetic algorithm (GA) with an elitist and adaptive strategy. Numerical tests are carried out 250 times based on a practical station and EMU parameters. The macro results show the valid pursuit of designed objectives with an average duration of 204.95 s and an efficiency of 91.76%. Microevolution of an optimal scheme indicates that safety requirements are met while the process duration is only 35.83% of the original CTCS-3 mode.

Obstacle avoidance of a wheeled robotic swarm using virtual spring-damper mesh

Swarm robotics, in which groups of robots coordinate to achieve a common goal, has the potential to revolutionize a wide range of industries. However, one of the key challenges in developing effective swarm systems is enabling the robots to navigate around obstacles while maintaining cohesion. In this article, the problem of trajectory tracking for a self-organized swarm of wheeled robots in the shape of a regular polygon operating in an environment with obstacles is addressed. The goal is for the swarm to follow a reference point by the geometric center of the swarm, while avoiding collision with obstacles and maintaining a given distance between neighboring robots and the reference point. To solve this problem, a method based on virtual forces that act on each individual robot in the swarm is proposed. These virtual forces are derived from virtual spring-damper connections acting from the obstacles, adjacent robots, and the reference point. The virtual forces allow the robots to dynamically adjust their trajectories to avoid obstacles and maintain the shape of the swarm. The proposed approach is evaluated through simulation and experiment with a swarm of two-wheeled robots. During the experiment the maximum deviation of inter-robot distances was equal to 0.08 m. With the set limit distance to obstacles equal to 0.2 m, from which virtual forces start to push the robot away from the edge of the obstacle, the shortest distance to obstacles was 0.11 m. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in enabling the swarm to accurately follow the reference point while avoiding obstacles and maintaining the desired distances between robots. Overall, the approach represents a step forward in the development of virtual force-based algorithms for obstacle avoidance in swarm robotics.

Is physical co-presence a prerequisite for Durkheimian collective effervescence? Reflections on remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This paper explores why it is that so many of us regard virtual communication technologies as imperfect substitutes for co-present organisational interaction. In so doing, it invokes Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence; that is, the bonding phenomenon experienced between people in physical proximity. Initially, ethnographic data are presented from a Scottish commune known as the Findhorn Foundation, where the word ‘energy’ is widely used by participants to describe the feelings associated with co-present interaction. Macrosocial data are then drawn from the ‘Return, Reimagine, Reinvent’ series of reports published by McKinsey & Co. which documents remote working experiences during the pandemic. Both data sets suggest that even in an era of advanced virtual connectivity, physical co-presence remains a prerequisite for collective effervescence. Furthermore, the data reveal that while virtual connections are useful for routine communication, our sense of collective effervescence must be periodically ‘recharged’ by means of intermittent physical assembly.

Online-Network-Group Use and Political-Participation Intention in China: The Analysis Based on CSS 2019 Survey Data

Although there are many studies discussing the effect of Internet use on political participation, the literature has rarely focused on the relationship between the use of online-network groups and the political-participation intention in contemporary China. The discussion of this relationship is significant, as it offers a new perspective on reviewing the mobilization theory of media, especially in the context of online-network groups, and potentially provides a new channel for mobilizing a wider range of people for politics once the relationship is significant. This study aims to answer the following question: Can we predict the political-participation intention of Chinese citizens through the use of online-network groups? Based on the data of the China Social Survey 2019, this study uses the hierarchical logistic-regression method. The research finds that the specific online-network groups that can predict political-participation intention are mainly concentrated in the category of emotional relationships. Among them, although most of the online-network groups are positively correlated with political-participation intention, the possibility of generating political-participation intention of those who join the relative network group is significantly lower than for those who do not. The virtual connection built by online communication technology, the social relations, and the influence of social groups on individuals can help to explain the correlation between them.

Research on automatic correlation technology of virtual circuit in secondary system of intelligent substation

In this paper, an automatic connection method of virtual terminals based on the distance weight vector optimization model is proposed to realize the automatic connection of virtual terminals. The method defines the similarity of virtual terminal connections based on the edit distance, establishes an optimization model based on the sample data of virtual connections, and uses the particle swarm optimization to calculate the distance weight vector, so that the edit distance similarity can be adapted to the equipment produced by various manufacturers. Finally, the dummy terminals in the two pending IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices) are matched based on the similarity, and the matching reliability is given. The calculation example results show that this method can accurately realize the automatic connection of virtual terminals, effectively reduce the workload of substation construction, and improve the design quality of virtual terminals.