Search Results (23)

High-risk industries like mining must address occupational safety to reduce accidents and fatalities. Training through role-playing, simulations, and Serious Games (SGs) can reduce occupational risks. This study aims to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) on SG methodologies for the mining sector. This review was based on a methodology inspired by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. Three research questions were formulated to explore how SGs contribute to immediate feedback, brain stimulation, and training for high-risk scenarios. The review initially identified 1987 studies, which were reduced to 30 relevant publications following a three-phase process: (1) A search string based on three research questions was defined and applied to databases. (2) Publications were filtered by title and abstract. (3) A full-text reading was conducted to select relevant publications. The SLR showed SG development methodologies with structured processes that are adaptable to any case study. Additionally, it was found that Virtual Reality, despite its implementation costs, is the most used technology for safety training, inspection, and operation of heavy machinery. The first conclusion of this SLR indicates the lack of methodologies for the development of SG for training in the mining field, and the relevance of carrying out specific methodological studies in this field. Additionally, the main findings obtained from this SLR are the following: (1) Modeling languages (e.g., GML and UML) and metamodeling are important in SG development. (2) SG is a significant mechanism for cooperative and participative learning strategies. (3) Virtual Reality technology is widely used in safe virtual environments for mining training. (4) There is a need for methodologies that integrate the specification of cognitive functions with the affective part of the users for SGs suitable for learning environments. Finally, this review highlights critical gaps in current research and underscores the need for more integrative approaches to SG development. Full article

Recent studies have increasingly focused on using virtual reality (VR) exercise video games (exergames) to boost motivation for physical activity among the elderly. However, there is little discussion about the factors influencing the performance and effort expectancy of immersive exergames in older adults. The study was based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. UTAUT model was tested and extended by investigating two predicted factors—Physical Safety (PPS) and Physical Postures (PP)—of immersive exergames among older adults. PP, PPS, Performance Expectancy (PE), and Effort Expectancy (EE) relationships were analyzed. In this study, 40 healthy older adults were divided into 2 groups to play an immersive exergame for at least 5 min, either sitting or standing. Then, a list of measurement items based on the extended UTAUT model was completed by one-on-one interviews. The t-test results showed that PP was significantly correlated with PPS (t = −6.598, p < 0.001) and PE (t = 6.465, p < 0.001). The path analysis showed that PPS as a negative correlation was verified as a factor of PE (β = −0.438, p < 0.01). Both PP and PPS had no significant effect on EE. Overall, valuable insights and theoretical guidelines for older adults accepting immersive exergames are supported in this study. Full article

Background: Serious games (SGs) are primarily aimed at promoting learning, skills training, and rehabilitation. Artificial intelligence, immersive technologies, the metaverse, and neurotechnologies promise the next revolution in gaming. Meta-skills are considered the “must-have” skills for thriving in the era of rapid change, complexity, and innovation. Μeta-skills can be defined as a set of higher-order skills that incorporate metacognitive, meta-emotional, and meta-motivational attributes, enabling one to be mindful, self-motivated, self-regulated, and flexible in different circumstances. Skillfulness, and more specifically meta-skills development, is recognized as a predictor of optimal performance along with mental and emotional wellness. Nevertheless, there is still limited knowledge about the effectiveness of integrating cutting-edge technologies in serious games, especially in the field of meta-skills training. Objectives: The current systematic review aims to collect and synthesize evidence concerning the effectiveness of advanced technologies in serious gaming for promoting meta-skills development. Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology was employed to identify experimental studies conducted in the last 10 years. Four different databases were employed: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Results: Forty-nine studies were selected. Promising outcomes were identified in AI-based SGs (i.e., gamified chatbots) as they provided realistic, adaptive, personalized, and interactive environments using natural language processing, player modeling, reinforcement learning, GPT-based models, data analytics, and assessment. Immersive technologies, including the metaverse, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, provided realistic simulations, interactive environments, and sensory engagement, making training experiences more impactful. Non-invasive neurotechnologies were found to encourage players’ training by monitoring brain activity and adapting gameplay to players’ mental states. Healthy participants (n = 29 studies) as well as participants diagnosed with anxiety, neurodevelopmental disorders, and cognitive impairments exhibited improvements in a wide range of meta-skills, including self-regulation, cognitive control, attention regulation, meta-memory skills, flexibility, self-reflection, and self-evaluation. Players were more self-motivated with an increased feeling of self-confidence and self-efficacy. They had a more accurate self-perception. At the emotional level, improvements were observed in emotional regulation, empathy, and stress management skills. At the social level, social awareness was enhanced since they could more easily solve conflicts, communicate, and work in teams. Systematic training led to improvements in higher-order thinking skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving skills, reasoning, decision-making ability, and abstract thinking. Discussion: Special focus is given to the potential benefits, possible risks, and ethical concerns; future directions and implications are also discussed. The results of the current review may have implications for the design and implementation of innovative serious games for promoting skillfulness among populations with different training needs. Full article

Software-defined networking (SDN) represents a transformative approach to network management, enabling the centralized and programmable control of network infrastructure. This paradigm facilitates enhanced scalability, flexibility, and security in managing complex systems. When integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT), SDN addresses critical challenges such as security and efficient network management, positioning the SDN-IoT paradigm as an emerging and impactful technology in modern networking. The rapid proliferation of IoT applications has led to a significant increase in security threats, posing challenges to the safe operation of IoT systems. Consequently, SDN-IoT-based applications and services have been widely adopted to address these issues and challenges. However, this platform faces critical limitations in ensuring scalability, optimizing energy consumption, and addressing persistent security vulnerabilities. To overcome these issues, we proposed a secure SDN-IoT environment for intrusion detection and prevention using virtual blockchain (V-Block). Initially, IoT users are registered and authenticated to the shadow blockchain nodes using a picture-based authentication mechanism. After that, authenticated user flows validation was provided by considering effective metrics utilizing the Trading-based Evolutionary Game Theory (TEGT) approach. Then, we performed a local risk assessment based on evaluated malicious flows severity and then the attack graph was constructed using an Isomorphism-based Graph Neural Network (IGNN) model. Further, multi-controllers were placed optimally using fox optimization algorithm. The generated global paths were securely stored in the virtual blockchain Finally, the two agents in the multi-controllers were responsible for validating and classifying the incoming suspicious flow packets into normal and malicious packets by considering the operative metrics using the Dueling Deep Q Network (DDQN) algorithm. The presented work was conducted by Network Simulator-3.26 and the different performance matrices were used to itemize the suggested V-Block model based on its malicious traffic, attack detection rate, link failure rate, anomaly detection rate, and scalability. Full article

Active learning techniques are taking the classroom by storm. Numerous research articles have highlighted the benefits of active learning techniques on student understanding, knowledge retention, problem solving, and teamwork. One avenue to introduce active learning into the classroom is the gamification of course learning content. Educational escape rooms are one such example in which students solve a series of puzzles related to course content to “escape” within a set time frame. Escape games play an interesting role in motivating students, building communication skills and allowing for multimodal learning, having been shown to increase students’ test results and enjoyment of the course content. In lieu of the traditional escape room format, a fully immersive room(s) with classical escape room puzzles (finding items, riddles, alternative locking mechanisms) is used alongside learning activities, and educators have begun to develop truncated activities for easier applications in larger classrooms. In this review, we explore several escape room activities: immersive, paper-based, Battle Boxes, condensed escape activities, and online/virtual, providing examples of the types of puzzles included therein. We similarly discuss the creation of escape room materials and recommendations for the interested educator, as well as the learning benefits of engaging in puzzle development. Finally, we provide an overview on methods to assess active learning through escape rooms, establishing an overview of empirical evidence towards their effectiveness as a learning tool. Full article

The commercialisation of virtual reality (VR) headsets has made them more affordable and popular in gaming and entertainment. The natural interaction between the VR environment and users can maximise immersion and is crucial to VR gaming. Despite their growing popularity, educational VR games prioritise learning over immersion and require users to learn to interact with and play games using tutorials. Herein, we developed a game named Numverse with an accompanying tutorial. After selecting the tutorial content, we programmed the user interface and proposed a delivery method for the tutorial. We evaluated the user experience based on the effects of the presence or absence of the tutorial and its mode of delivery. The tutorials were of three types: no tutorial, instruction-screen tutorial, and context-sensitive tutorial, with the latter being the most preferred. The evaluation results show that presence, ability to learn controls, intrinsic motivation, and learning effectiveness are higher for the instruction-screen and context-sensitive tutorials than for no tutorial. On average, users experienced more motion sickness in the no-tutorial case, with a significant difference in nausea items. This study asserts the importance of tutorials in VR games, and its findings could improve user experience in future VR games. Full article

During the last two decades, several cases of venous thrombosis (VTE) after a prolonged period at a computer have been described, denominated as “eThrombosis”. Video gaming on a computer has become very popular and can be a social activity where several players gather to play against each other or in a virtual environment for several days (“LAN (i.e., Local Area Network) parties”) where the participants are sedentary and consuming calorie-rich food items. The aim of this study was to investigate potential coagulation activation during a 42 h LAN party. Nine male gamers volunteered for the LAN party. Citrated blood was sampled before and every 6 h, and plasma was analyzed for thrombin generation, thrombin–antithrombin complexes (TAT), prothrombin fragment 1 + 2 (F1 + 2), and D-dimer. Thrombin generation increased slightly but not significantly during the LAN party, whereas the coagulation activation markers were unchanged. These results do not indicate that the coagulation system is activated significantly during 42 h of gaming with minimal physical activity. Although increased activity cannot be excluded, it does not directly indicate a risk of VTE in general. Full article

Background: The prevalence of neurological disorders is increasing worldwide. In recent decades, the conventional rehabilitation for people with neurological disorders has been often reinforced with the use of technological devices (robots and virtual reality). The aim of this systematic review was to identify the evidence on the economic cost of rehabilitation with robotic and virtual reality devices for people with neurological disorders through a review of the scientific publications over the last 15 years. Methods: A systematic review was conducted on partial economic evaluations (cost description, cost analysis, description of costs and results) and complete (cost minimization, cost-effectiveness, cost utility and cost benefit) studies. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed. The main data sources used were PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science (WOS). Studies published in English over the last 15 years were considered for inclusion in this review, regardless of the type of neurological disorder. The critical appraisal instrument from the Joanna Briggs Institute for economic evaluation and the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) were used to analyse the methodological quality of all the included papers. Results: A total of 15 studies were included in this review. Ten papers were focused on robotics and five on virtual reality. Most of the studies were focused on people who experienced a stroke. The robotic device most frequently used in the papers included was InMotion^® (Bionik Co., Watertown, MA, USA), and for those focused on virtual reality, all papers included used semi-immersive virtual reality systems, with commercial video game consoles (Nintendo Wii^® (Nintendo Co., Ltd., Kyoto, Japan) and Kinect^® (Microsoft Inc., Redmond, WA, USA)) being used the most. The included studies mainly presented cost minimization outcomes and a general description of costs per intervention, and there were disparities in terms of population, setting, device, protocol and the economic cost outcomes evaluated. Overall, the methodological quality of the included studies was of a moderate level. Conclusions: There is controversy about using robotics in people with neurological disorders in a rehabilitation context in terms of cost minimization, cost-effectiveness, cost utility and cost benefits. Semi-immersive virtual reality devices could involve savings (mainly derived from the low prices of the systems analysed and transportation services if they are applied through telerehabilitation programmes) compared to in-clinic interventions. Full article

Research into the design of serious games still lacks metrics to evaluate engagement with the experience so that users can achieve the learning aims. This study presents the new EPUX metric, based on playability and User eXperience (UX) elements, to measure the capability of any serious game to maintain the attention of players. The metric includes (1) playability aspects: game items that affect the emotions of users and that constitute the different layers of the game, i.e., mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics; and (2) UX features: motivation, meaningful choices, usability, aesthetics and balance both in the short and in the long term. The metric is also adapted to evaluate virtual reality serious games (VR-SGs), so that changes may be considered to features linked to playability and UX. The case study for the assessment of the EPUX metric is Hellblade, developed in two versions: one for 2D-screens and the other for VR devices. The comparison of the EPUX metric scores for both versions showed that (1) some VR dynamics augmented the impact of gameplay and, in consequence, engagement capacity; and (2) some game design flaws were linked to much lower scores. Among those flaws were low numbers of levels, missions, and items; no tutorial to enhance usability; and lack of strategies and rewards to increase motivation in the long term. Full article

Extended Reality (XR) is an emerging technology that enables enhanced interaction between the real world and virtual environments. In this study, we conduct a scoping review of XR engines for developing gamified apps and serious games. Our study revolves around four aspects: (1) existing XR game engines, (2) their primary features, (3) supported serious game attributes, and (4) supported learning activities. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) model to conduct the scoping review, which included 40 primary studies published between 2019 and 2023. Our findings help us understand how current XR engines support the development of XR-enriched serious games and gamified apps for specific learning activities. Additionally, based on our findings, we suggest a set of pre-established game attributes that could be commonly supported by all XR game engines across the different game categories proposed by Lameras. Hence, this scoping review can help developers (1) select important game attributes for their new games and (2) choose the game engine that provides the most support to these attributes. Full article

The metaverse is an upcoming computing paradigm aiming towards blending reality seamlessly with the artificially generated 3D worlds of deep cyberspace. This giant interactive mesh of three-dimensional reconstructed realms has recently received tremendous attention from both an academic and commercial point of view owing to the curiosity instilled by its vast possible use cases. Every virtual world in the metaverse is controlled and maintained by a virtual service provider (VSP). Interconnected clusters of LiDAR sensors act as a feeder network to these VSPs which then process the data and reconstruct the best quality immersive environment possible. These data can then be leveraged to provide users with highly targeted virtual services by building upon the concept of digital twins (DTs) representing digital analogs of real-world items owned by parties that create and establish the communication channels connecting the DTs to their real-world counterparts. Logically, DTs represent data on servers where postprocessing can be shared easily across VSPs, giving rise to new marketplaces and economic frontiers. This paper presents a dynamic and distributed framework to enable high-quality reconstructions based on incoming data streams from sensors as well as to allow for the optimal allocation of VSPs to users. The optimal synchronization intensity control problem between the available VSPs and the feeder network is modeled using a simultaneous differential game, while the allocation of VSPs to users is modeled using a preference-based game-theoretic approach, where the users give strict preferences over the available VSPs. Full article

A logogram is a type of writing system in which each character represents a word. Compared to segmental scripts where the alphabets reflect sounds, learning logograms are disengaging, since each character is not linked to its pronunciation. This paper presents Logogram VR, a virtual reality edutainment game that uses a treadmill and controllers to teach Hanja, which uses logograms. Hanja is a traditional Korean language writing system comprising over 8000 Chinese characters. The system leverages the logogram’s feature that each letter stands for each vocabulary item, as an embodied learning strategy. Specifically, it incorporates each character’s meaning into the VR learning environment, accompanied by gamified actions using a treadmill and VR controllers. We evaluated the system with 33 participants to test its overall usability, while determining the desirable playtime and number of characters for the further enhancement of it. We demonstrated and assessed the system with 125 visitors at an exhibition to disseminate it and verify the results with a wider population sample. The user studies revealed that the system provides a playful experience for learning Hanja without severe motion sickness. The differences in age groups showed that the embodiment approach utilizing meanings and actions in VR may be an effective logogram edutainment strategy, particularly among adolescents. Full article

The metaverse provides us with an attractive virtual space in which the value of the virtual property has been increasingly recognized. However, the lack of effective cross-metaverse trading tools and the reputation guarantee makes it difficult to trade items among different metaverses. To this end, a decentralized reputation system for virtual items trading forum named DVIT is devised. To the best of our knowledge, DVIT is the first decentralized cross-metaverse item trading prototype inspired by the online-game trading system. We designed the corresponding transaction function and realized the autonomous governance of the community by introducing the reputation mechanism. An improved election mechanism is proposed to improve efficiency based on Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS). Through token rewards associated with activity levels, users’ motivation can be stimulated. The experiments indicate that our proposed scheme could dynamically measure the trustworthiness degree of the users through the dynamic reputation value and thereby exclude malicious users from the blockchain within 20 epochs. Full article

Virtual reality spectatorship (VRS) is receiving the limelight as a new form of sports media consumption in the sports industry, but prolonged exposure to the virtual reality (VR) environment is likely to reduce the benefits of VR due to satiation or adaptation. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the experiential differences in telepresence, flow experience, and satisfaction between a two-dimensional (2D) screen, VRS without interruptions, and VRS with interruptions. For this purpose, 150 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. They watched a 12-min-long soccer game and then answered the measurement items. A total of 149 participants were used for the data analyses, including confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and repeated measures of analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that VRS offers more enhanced telepresence, flow experience, and satisfaction than a 2D screen. Furthermore, flow experience was enhanced in VRS with interruptions compared to VRS without interruptions. Lastly, satisfaction was found to increase depending on time lapses in VRS with interruptions. The experiential patterns in VRS depending on interruptions and time lapses imply that inserting interruptions such as commercials could be not only beneficial for viewing experiences but also effective practice for increasing revenue from advertising. Full article

In developed countries, the increasing number of older adults raises many public health challenges. Physical activity can enable healthy aging, as it is beneficial for both mental and physical health. Despite this, not all older adults engage in physical activity or have access to it. To counteract this, new physical practices such as Snacktivity^TM, giant games and immersive virtual reality exercises are being developed. The main objective of this rapid narrative review is to summarize the effects of Snacktivity^TM, giant games and immersive Virtual Reality (VR) exercise among older adults living in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. A scientific review was performed using the search engines PubMed, PsycInfo and Web of Science on 7 July 2022. Fifty-nine items are identified in total, and five items are included in the literature review. Synthesis of the studies shows that immersive virtual reality and giant games improve the motivation and enjoyment of older adults and are beneficial for their functional abilities. Furthermore, no interventional studies have tested the effect of Snacktivity^TM in older adults. This review suggests that future studies should be conducted to further explore the effects of these new physical activity practices in older adults living in nursing homes or long-term care facilities. Full article