Search Results (417)

Interior built environments influence user behavior through more than deliberate rational evaluation. They shape attention, movement, affective comfort, perceived safety, wayfinding, and well-being through bounded cognition, affective appraisal, heuristics, embodied perception, and automatic approach–avoidance processes. The research gap addressed in this review concerns the fact that prior work on interior environments, wayfinding, indoor environmental quality, neuroarchitecture, atmospherics, and behavioral decision-making remains fragmented across separate studies, and existing reviews rarely explain how these mechanisms can be organized into a design-usable framework for interior built environments. This narrative review synthesizes foundational and recent literature across building design, environmental psychology, neuroarchitecture, virtual reality, indoor environmental quality, wayfinding, and behavioral decision-making to clarify how decision mechanisms translate into interior design variables such as lighting, color, spatial organization, materiality, form, sensory atmosphere, environmental legibility, thermal comfort, and controllability. The review distinguishes bounded rationality, heuristics and biases, dual-process accounts, affective and atmospheric processing, prospect–refuge dynamics, mere exposure, and room-effect research rather than treating them as a single “non-rational” category. It proposes an integrative framework in which interior cues are processed through perceptual and affective appraisal; moderated by individual, cultural, contextual, temporal, and ethical factors; and expressed through behavioral outcomes such as navigation, approach or withdrawal, dwell time, perceived quality, usability, stress regulation, and well-being. The paper contributes to human-centered building design by formalizing a mechanism-based account of how interior environments can support behavior without reducing users to passive recipients of environmental manipulation. It concludes with practical implications for design briefing, post-occupancy evaluation, VR-based testing, healthcare and workplace audits, safety-critical settings, and future longitudinal validation. Full article

This work addresses the design and implementation of an automated system for the handling and transportation of parts, integrating speed sensors, an optimized PID controller, an HMI interface, and an industrial robotic system. The speed sensors, powered by 5 V DC, enable continuous measurement of the conveyor belt’s speed and direction of rotation, providing the feedback signal required for the control loop. The core element of the system is the implementation of a PID controller applied to a direct current motor responsible for driving the conveyor belt. This controller regulates the motor speed by analyzing the error between the reference speed and the measured speed, using proportional, integral, and derivative actions to improve system stability, reduce steady-state error, and minimize oscillations. The application of PID control makes it possible to achieve an appropriate dynamic response, ensuring accuracy and reliability in the transportation process. System monitoring and operation are carried out through a human–machine interface (HMI) developed in LOGO Web Editor, which communicates with the PLC (LOGO V8) to visualize and control the status of the conveyor belt, sensors, and control elements in real time. This interface facilitates interaction between the operator and the system, allowing both virtual and physical operation. In addition, RAPID programming is used to control the IRB 14000 industrial robot, enabling the reading of PLC signals and the execution of coordinated trajectories between both arms. The operating sequence includes picking up a part with the left arm, placing it on the conveyor belt, and, after detection by sensors and PLC control, subsequent manipulation by the right arm to a specific point. Finally, both arms return to their original position, ensuring synchronized and collision-free operation. Lastly, this work integrates scientific knowledge related to the modeling, analysis, and control of dynamic systems, particularly in the implementation of closed-loop PID control optimized using genetic algorithms. This control is applied directly to an embedded system through the use of an Arduino board as the processing and control platform. Likewise, technological knowledge associated with industrial automation, PLC programming, HMI development, and industrial robotics is incorporated. The convergence of these scientific and technological approaches results in a comprehensive and compelling project that demonstrates the practical application of theoretical concepts in a functional automated system representative of real industrial environments. Full article

The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in social media marketing has accelerated the emergence of AI-generated virtual influencers. While these influencers offer brands advantages such as scalability and message control, they also raise concerns regarding manipulation and ethical persuasion. Grounded in the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM), this study examines how different AI disclosure conditions influence perceived manipulation, perceived ethics, and purchase intention in AI influencer marketing. A three-condition between-subjects experimental design was employed to compare a human influencer, a disclosed AI influencer, and an undisclosed AI influencer using identical Instagram stimuli. Data were collected from 762 Generation Z female consumers in Türkiye. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed relationships. The findings revealed that both disclosed and undisclosed AI influencer conditions significantly increased perceived manipulation. Perceived manipulation negatively affected perceived ethics, whereas perceived ethics positively influenced purchase intention. In addition, AI literacy positively affected perceived manipulation and perceived ethics while negatively affecting purchase intention. The findings further demonstrated that disclosure conditions indirectly influenced purchase intention through sequential cognitive and ethical evaluation processes. The study contributes to the AI influencer and digital persuasion literature by demonstrating that disclosure cues shape consumer responses through interconnected psychological mechanisms. Full article

This article presents the development and proof-of-concept testing of a vision-based safety monitoring tool for operators in simulated robotic cells in RoboDK. The proposed method uses a virtual camera placed above the cell and image processing techniques to analyze the relationship between the operator and the workspace swept by the robot. In an initial stage, the robot movement is recorded as a mask of the swept space, and areas irrelevant to the process can be excluded by user-defined polygons. In the monitoring stage, the operator is identified in the video stream by HSV segmentation, after which an adjustable clearance zone is generated around the detected contour. Based on the intersections between the operator, clearance, swept space mask and the mask of the current robot movement, the application provides four discrete states: SAFE, WARNING, DANGER and COLLISION. For the experimental validation in the virtual environment, the virtual contact moment is estimated separately, while the COLLISION state is defined as the intersection between the inflated operator contour and the current robot motion mask. Therefore, in this study, COLLISION does not indicate measured physical contact, but an image-based imminent-collision condition used for early warning. The test scenario was carried out in a virtual palletizing cell, which includes an articulated arm robot, conveyors, manipulated objects and a mobile dummy acting as an operator. The obtained results support the use of the method as an applicative simulation solution for the evaluation of the early detection of risk situations. The study is limited to the virtual environment and represents a basis for future research on the development of visual monitoring systems to increase safety in collaborative and industrial robotic cells. Full article

Wearable inertial sensing has considerable potential for process-level analysis of upper-limb function, but further evidence is needed to understand how it can be applied within ecologically structured immersive virtual reality (VR) tasks. Most VR-based functional assessments rely primarily on outcome-level indicators, such as task completion time, success rate, or error count, which may not fully capture how a task is executed. This exploratory study investigated whether wearable IMU signals collected during an immersive VR sushi-making task could support binary detection of a core upper-limb manipulation phase and provide additional information about task execution beyond global performance outcomes. A total of 45 participants contributed usable motion recordings for this study, with five Xsens DOT sensors placed on the hands, forearms, and waist. Three signal modalities were analysed, including acceleration (ACC), gyroscope angular velocity (GYR), and Euler angles. The downstream recognition problem was formulated as a binary classification task (Placing vs. Non-Placing), and a self-supervised learning (SSL) pretrain–fine-tune strategy was evaluated against conventional machine learning and from-scratch deep learning baselines using five subject-wise validation splits. The strongest overall performance was achieved with hand-mounted accelerometer signals, with LeftHand–ACC achieving a Macro-F1 of $0.712\pm 0.128$ and RightHand–ACC achieving $0.679\pm 0.118$. Under both hand-ACC settings, SSL fine-tuning showed higher mean Macro-F1 than the Balanced Random Forest baseline and the same deep architecture trained from scratch. Recognition performance varied substantially across sensor locations, signal modalities, and task segments, with distal upper-limb sensors generally outperforming waist-based configurations. Cross-age analyses further showed that within-cohort and cross-cohort performance did not fully align, indicating sensitivity to age-related distribution shift. Beyond classification, Log Dimensionless Jerk (LDLJ) derived from the Placing action showed a significant positive association with Cognitron motor control time cost ($r=0.636$, $p<0.001$). These findings suggest that wearable IMU sensing can provide preliminary process-level information during immersive VR functional tasks, including task-phase detection, sensing-configuration comparison, cross-cohort generalisation assessment, and exploratory motion-quality analysis. The results should be interpreted as evidence of feasibility rather than as a mature biomechanical or clinical assessment model. Full article

SQL Injection is a well-known vulnerability that has persisted in web applications for decades. A widely held assumption among developers is that even when SQL Injection is present, hashing or encrypting sensitive data using SQL-provided cryptographic functions, such as sha256() or md5(), renders stolen data unrecoverable. This paper challenges that assumption directly. We demonstrate that invoking cryptographic functions within SQL statements does not protect plaintext credentials against an attacker who already has SQL Injection access, not because the hash functions are weak but because their plaintext arguments are transiently exposed in DBMS in-memory monitoring views before the hash function executes. We exploit this window using a technique that we call SQLSnoop, which repurposes built-in SQL looping constructs to poll the monitoring view at high frequency within a single injected statement. We demonstrate SQLSnoop against four major RDBMS platforms: MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. Systematic quantitative evaluation is conducted on MySQL, while feasibility on MSSQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL is confirmed through working Proof-of-Concept implementations against each platform’s respective in-memory monitoring view. Our evaluation on MySQL shows attack success rates consistently above 90%, reaching 100% at 1.2 or more virtual CPU cores, and holding across all four Data Manipulation Language operations. The key practical implication is that SQL-layer hashing is fundamentally insufficient as a defense against SQL Injection, and sensitive data must be hashed at the application layer before the SQL statement is constructed. Full article

This article argues that Alejandro Amenábar’s first three features—Tesis (1996), Abre los ojos (1997), and The Others (2001)—constitute a systematic investigation of cinema’s fundamental operations through thriller form. These films employ different thriller subgenres to explore cinema’s psychic, phenomenological, and ontological dimensions, progressing from explicit apparatus representation (Tesis thematizes scopophilia) through phenomenological allegory (Abre los ojos uses virtual reality to allegorize cinema as dream machine) to ontological embodiment (The Others makes ghosts figures for cinematic images). Drawing on Martin Rubin’s concept of the thriller as metagenre, Lucien Dällenbach’s typology of the mise en abyme, and psychoanalytic film theory (Mulvey, Metz, Baudry), I show how the thriller’s sadomasochistic rhetoric, its aggressive manipulation of spectatorial response, makes it uniquely suited to metatextual exploration. The trilogy demonstrates that reflexivity intensifies rather than disrupts genre pleasure, challenging conventional oppositions between entertainment and critique, popular cinema and metacinematic practice. Full article

As robots and humans start to share common spaces and perform collaborative tasks, it has become critical to facilitate information exchange between them for communicating and interpreting each other’s intentions. By overlaying virtual objects on a view of the physical world, mixed reality (MR) technology offers a compelling approach for designing innovative models of human–robot interaction (HRI). For robot manipulators, mobile MR frameworks that allow a user to communicate a goal position for the robot’s end effector have been widely studied. However, HRI applications that may require other relevant information for the manipulator to complete more complex tasks remain unexplored. Thus, we propose an MR-enhanced HRI framework, deployed on a touchscreen tablet, that utilizes a virtual arrow object to communicate force intent (i.e., location, direction, and magnitude) to the manipulator and provide visual force feedback to the user. To evaluate the system performance and user experience, we conducted a user study with 25 participants who used a manipulator robot to complete four insertion subtasks, reporting a task success score of 96%, a usability overall mean score of 4.35 out of 5, and a low task load index of 21.49 out of 100. The results show that the MR-HRI framework is intuitive to operate, allowing users to successfully perform assigned tasks by effectively communicating their intentions through the virtual arrow. Full article

This paper addresses the tracking control problem of robotic manipulators under a universal symmetry constraint framework in the presence of lumped uncertainties and external disturbances. Unlike conventional constrained control schemes that treat tracking error bounds and state bounds separately, the proposed method explicitly exploits the symmetric structure of the prescribed constraints and formulates both tracking error constraints and full-state constraints in a unified manner. Based on the Euler–Lagrange dynamics of robotic manipulators, a universal symmetry constraint transformation is introduced to convert the original constrained system into an equivalent unconstrained form while preserving the intrinsic symmetry of the admissible sets. To enhance robustness against uncertainties and disturbances, a sliding-mode extended state observer is designed to estimate the total disturbance online. Meanwhile, a tracking differentiator is incorporated into the recursive design to avoid repeated differentiation of virtual control signals. On this basis, a disturbance-compensated backstepping controller is developed for the transformed manipulator system. It is shown that all closed-loop signals remain bounded, the prescribed symmetric tracking error and state constraints are never violated, and the tracking error converges asymptotically when the observer and differentiator errors vanish asymptotically. Simulation results obtained from a robotic manipulator verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy. Full article

We present a real-time virtual pottery simulation system providing interactive mesh deformation, vertex painting and triplanar texture projection. The system allows users to shape a virtual clay object using natural hand movements captured by a Leap Motion sensor. Two mesh-manipulation approaches are examined: a vertex-based touch simulation that utilizes neighborhood graphs and Laplacian smoothing, and a B-spline-based deformation that enables smooth global shaping. A texturing pipeline tailored to procedurally generated geometry that lacks UV coordinates is also presented. It enables flexible visual customization of the pottery without offline UV unwrapping. Full article

The design of active pneumatic upper limb exoskeletons is complicated by the challenge of reliably determining a kinematically safe workspace. Existing analytical kinematic methods are not sufficient to predict geometric collisions between elements of closed kinematic chains, which poses risks of mechanical damage and threats to user safety during exoskeleton operation. This paper proposes a hybrid algorithm for verifying the workspace of a pneumatic exoskeleton, combining analytical modelling in MATLAB R2020b based on the Product of Exponentials (PoE) method with high-performance static simulation in the Unity environment. At the initial stage, a discrete set comprising 758 million positions of the upper exoskeleton manipulator was generated. Subsequently, a multithreaded two-stage filtering process was implemented: analytical verification of rod stroke limits and angular constraints, followed by the detection of physical intersections of solid-state meshes using the PhysX engine. The results indicate that while the analytical model filters out 99.6% of invalid configurations. Yet, among the remaining positions—formally correct from a mathematical standpoint—up to 50% lead to critical geometric collisions or breaks in the kinematic chain. The computational efficiency of the proposed architecture enabled full static workspace verification in under 20 min. A reachable zone topology was established, revealing pronounced asymmetry and the presence of a “manoeuvrability core” in the user’s anterior hemisphere. The developed algorithm generates a verified set of kinematically safe exoskeleton states, providing a foundation for the kinematic safety layer of a hierarchical control system. These findings demonstrate the necessity of complementing analytical kinematics with physical collision detection when designing hybrid kinematic mechanisms, and the approach can be applied to verify collision-free movement trajectories in various robotic systems. The approach can be applied to verify collision-free movement trajectories in simulation, with physical validation deferred to future work. Full article

To address the challenge that existing soft grippers have difficulty achieving fine manipulation comparable to the human finger’s “circular twisting” motion, this paper proposes a four-chamber spatial bending soft actuator based on the principle of virtual work. The actuator incorporates an internal cross-shaped restricting layer that divides its cross-section into four independent pneumatic chambers. Through independent regulation of the pressure in each chamber, continuous and controllable bending in arbitrary spatial directions is achieved, replicating the bending and abduction/adduction degrees of freedom (DoFs) of a human finger and their composite motions on a single actuator. Based on the Yeoh hyperelastic constitutive model and the principle of virtual work, a static deformation model of the actuator is established. By introducing an engineering assumption of “deformation vector superposition” and correction coefficients fitted from experimental data, high-precision prediction from multi-chamber pressure input to spatial bending output is realized. Furthermore, a three-finger soft gripper is constructed based on this actuator, successfully demonstrating fingertip pinching and enveloping grasping. Through open-loop programmed control, the fine “circular twisting” manipulation is demonstrated (exemplified by light bulb installation). This study provides an effective structural design and modeling method for soft actuators to achieve decoupled multi-DoF motion control, showcasing their application potential in adaptability and dexterous manipulation. Full article

This paper presents a Digital Twin (DT)-based framework for the control, monitoring, and intelligent optimization of an Assembly/Disassembly/Repair Mechatronic Production Line (A/D/R MPL), developed as a laboratory platform aligned with Industry/Education 4.0/5.0 paradigms. The A/D/R MPL is assisted by two complementary cyber–physical robotic systems: an Assembly/Disassembly/Replacement Cyber–Physical Robotic System (A/D/R CPRS), and a Mobile Cyber–Physical Robotic System (MCPRS), enabling both fixed and mobile intelligent operations. The CPRS is equipped with an industrial robotic manipulator (IRM) responsible for A/D/R tasks, while the A/D Mechatronic Line (A/D ML) consists of seven interconnected workstations (WS1–WS7) dedicated to storage, transport, quality control, and final product handling. MCPRS includes a wheeled mobile robot (WMR), carrying a robotic manipulator (RM) and Mobile Visual Servoing System (MVSS). Each workstation is connected to a local slave programmable logic controller (PLC), which communicates via PROFIBUS with a master PLC located at the CPRS level. Additional communication infrastructures include LAN PROFINET and LAN Ethernet for local integration, and WAN Ethernet connectivity enabled through open platform Communication-Unified Architecture (OPC-UA), ensuring interoperability, scalability, and remote accessibility. Also, MODBUS TCP as serial industrial communication is used between the master PLC and the MCPRS. Virtual environment supports task planning through Augmented Reality (AR) and real-time monitoring through Virtual Reality (VR). The system behaviour is modelled with synchronized hybrid Petri Nets (SHPNs) which describe the discrete and hybrid dynamics of A/D/R processes. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are integrated into the DT framework for optimal task scheduling and adaptive decision-making. As a laboratory-scale implementation, the proposed system provides a comprehensive platform for experimentation, validation, and education. It supports Education 4.0/5.0 objectives by facilitating hands-on learning, human–machine interaction, and the integration of emerging technologies such as AI, Digital Twins, AR/VR, and cyber–physical systems. At the same time, it embodies Industry 4.0/5.0 principles, including interoperability, decentralization, sustainability, robustness, and human-centric design. Full article

This paper presents the application of a structural finite element model (FEM) of a light patrol aircraft for numerical flutter analysis. The thin-walled structure was developed using 2D shells and additional 1D beam elements. The virtual structure was supplemented with additional point elements imitating lumped masses of non-structural on-board components. The model was subjected to validation for qualities such as the mass distribution, its CG location, the structural stiffness of its airframe units, and the similarity of natural modes. The comparative analyses showed satisfactory consistency of the mass and stiffness properties of the FEM with the actual aircraft. Numerical flutter analysis was then performed with the MD Nastran for an integrated aeroelastic model consisting of the FEM and the simplified aerodynamic model. The critical velocities of basic flutter modes were determined. Using simplified kinematic models of flight control systems built into the FEM, an analysis of the sensitivity of control surface flutter due to the pilot’s influence was carried out. The stick grip and the support of control pedals with the pilot’s legs cause specific conditions related to the imposition of additional stiffness and mass on the control manipulators. These conditions directly affect the natural frequencies of control surface modes, which translates into a change in the critical flutter speed of the tail. For the established range of changes in stiffness and mass added to the stick and pedals, a series of analyses of natural vibrations and flutter were carried out. The influence of the change in the support conditions of control manipulators was illustrated in graphs. Full article

With the growing commercial prominence of virtual idol livestreaming, this study examines how gaze strategies employed by virtual idols in livestreaming contexts are associated with viewers’ online interaction intention and tests the mediating roles of social presence and trust. Drawing on the SOR model, this study conceptualizes gaze strategies through a two-layer stimulus structure that integrates virtual idol behavioral cues and viewers’ perceptual responses. A 3 × 3 experimental design was employed, manipulating gaze intensity and gaze dynamics at the behavioral layer using virtual idol livestream clips as stimuli, while participants’ perceived gaze was treated as a stimulus variable at the perceptual layer. Data from 398 participants were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling and multivariate analysis of variance. Results indicate that gaze intensity is positively associated with perceived gaze, which in turn is linked to higher levels of social presence and trust. By contrast, the overall effect of gaze dynamics appears more limited, although high-dynamics conditions are associated with lower levels of trust and online interaction intention. The structural model provides evidence that gaze strategies are indirectly associated with online interaction intention through the mediating roles of social presence and trust. The contributions of this study are twofold. First, it provides an empirical basis for subsequent research on virtual character behavior in livestreaming contexts. Second, it offers context-specific insight into a potential pathway through which gaze-related cues may be associated with online interaction intention. Full article