A practical development of engineering simulation-assisted educational AR environments

Engineering simulations have opened several gates for today’s chemical engineers. They are powerful tools to provide technical content as physics-based numerical solvers. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), on the other hand, are already underway to digitize environments in many fields. The combination of AR/VR environments and simulations in engineering education has been attracting widespread interest. Literature has demonstrated a massive amount of digital educational environments in several contexts as being complementary to conventional educational methods. Nevertheless, hosting technical content produced by engineering simulations with educational AR/VR is still challenging and requires expertise from multiple disciplines throughout the technical development. Present work provides a facile and agile methodology for low-cost hardware but content-wise rich AR software development. Inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic, a case study is developed to teach chemical-engineering concepts using a liquid-soap synthesis process. Accordingly, we assess and conclude the digital development process to guide inexperienced developers for the digitalization of teaching content. The present contribution serves as an example of the power of integrating AR/VR with traditional engineering simulations for educational purposes. The digital tool developed in this work is shared in the online version.     

基于PBFT区块链技术的电网企业仓储系统

提出了一种基于实用拜占庭容错(PBFT)算法的区块链技术,首先对传统的实用拜占庭容错算法原理进行了阐述,该传统算法包含前期、需求、预准备、准备、确认、答复6个阶段,但传统算法具有实时性差、缺乏惩罚机制、带宽高的缺点。针对出现的这些问题,又对传统算法进行了改进,具体涉及记账节点、共识过程以及视图切换过程。通过测试进一步证明了该改进算法的实用性,并将该算法应用于电网企业中,构建的虚拟仓库实现了联储联备,降低了库存资金的耗费,并且提高了电网企业库存管理的效率。     

Deep reinforcement learning-based cooperative interactions among heterogeneous vehicular networks

Most real-world vehicle nodes can be structured into an interconnected network of vehicles. Through structuring these services and vehicle device interactions into multiple types, such internet of vehicles becomes multidimensional heterogeneous overlay networks. The heterogeneousness of the overlays makes it difficult for the overlay networks to coordinate with each other to improve their performance. Therefore, it poses an interesting but critical challenge to the effective analysis of heterogeneous virtual vehicular networks. A variety of virtual vehicular networks can be easily deployed onto the native network by applying the concept of SDN (Software Defined Networking). These virtual networks reflect their heterogeneousness due to their different performance goals, and they compete for the same physical resources of the underlying network, so that a sub-optimal performance of the virtual networks may be achieved. Therefore, we propose a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) approach to make the virtual networks cooperate with each other through the SDN controller. A cooperative solution based on the asymmetric Nash bargaining is proposed for co-existing virtual networks to improve their performance. Moreover, the Markov Chain model and DRL resolution are introduced to leverage the heterogeneous performance goals of virtual networks. The implementation of the approach is introduced, and simulation results confirm the performance improvement of the latency sensitive, loss-rate sensitive and throughput sensitive heterogeneous vehicular networks using our cooperative solution.     

云杉八齿小蠹Ips typographus L.虚拟模型构建方法研究

本文以云杉八齿小蠹Ips typographus Linnaeus为例,经标本选取,观察虫体整体形态,绘制整体结构草图,电子显微镜观察局部、得到局部数字图像,分别建立虫体每一部分的高精度细节。把模型每部分拼装在一起组成整体模型,构建出了云杉八齿小蠹三维虚拟昆虫数字化模型。     

基于信号增强的缓慢泄漏检测方法

目前管道泄漏检测方法可有效检测突发泄漏，对于缓慢泄漏则存在检测灵敏度低、定位不准确等问题。基于此，提出了一种基于信号增强的缓慢泄漏检测方法。通过信号压缩（抽取及移位）克服缓慢泄漏压力信号下降平缓的缺点；根据声波信号具有波形尖锐突出、对突发泄漏敏感的优点，通过建立以压力为输入、虚拟声波为输出的声波信号变送器模型，将压力信号转换为声波信号，克服了泄漏压力信号容易被淹没在管道压力波动及背景噪声中的缺点，实现了缓慢泄漏信号的增强；利用临近插值方法重构虚拟声波信号，基于延时互相关分析实现了缓慢泄漏的准确定位。实验结果表明，该方法具有显著的信号增强效果和定位精度，实现了缓慢泄漏的准确检测。     

Knowledge-Based Virtual Modeling and Simulation of Manufacturing Processes for Industry 4.0

Abstract

Industry 4.0 aims at providing a digital representation of a production landscape, but the challenges in building, maintaining, optimizing, and evolving digital models in inter-organizational production chains have not been identified yet in a systematic manner. In this paper, various Industry 4.0 research and technical challenges are addressed, and their present scenario is discussed. Moreover, in this article, the novel concept of developing experience-based virtual models of engineering entities, process, and the factory is presented. These models of production units, processes, and procedures are accomplished by virtual engineering object (VEO), virtual engineering process (VEP), and virtual engineering factory (VEF), using the knowledge representation technique of Decisional DNA. This blend of the virtual and physical domains permits monitoring of systems and analysis of data to foresee problems before they occur, develop new opportunities, prevent downtime, and even plan for the future by using simulations. Furthermore, the proposed virtual model concept not only has the capability of Query Processing and Data Integration for Industrial Data but also real-time visualization of data stream processing.     

Reality-based interaction affecting mental workload in virtual reality mental arithmetic training

ABSTRACT

The concept of digital game-based learning (DGBL) evolves rapidly together with technological enhancements of virtual reality (VR) and smart phones. However, the mental workload (MWL) that VR-training applications demand and motivational qualities originating from user experience (UX) should be identified in order to create effective and enjoyable training/learning challenges that fit with individual users’ capabilities. This study examined the effects of reality-based interaction (RBI) and VR on measures of student motivation and MWL, in a mental arithmetic game for secondary school pupils. In a randomised controlled trial with sixty school children, a mental arithmetic game was tested with three different interaction and two different presentation methods – VR RBI, VR head-mounted-display tapping and tablet flick-gesture. Results found a significant effect of RBI on MWL but no differences in enjoyment of training were found between VR-experience and tablet training-experience. In fact, adding the gaming-context to the mental arithmetic task created an enjoyable, motivating experience regardless of presentation or interaction-style.     

Differences between oculomotor and perceptual artifacts for temporally limited head mounted displays

We used perceptual and oculomotor measures to understand the negative impacts of low (phantom array) and high (motion blur) duty cycles with a high‐speed, AR‐likehead‐mounted display prototype. We observed large intersubject variability for the detection of phantom array artifacts but a highly consistent and systematic effect on saccadic eye movement targeting during low duty cycle presentations. This adverse effect on saccade endpoints was also related to an increased error rate in a perceptual discrimination task, showing a direct effect of display duty cycle on the perceptual quality. For high duty cycles, the probability of detecting motion blur increased during head movements, and this effect was elevated at lower refresh rates. We did not find an impact of the temporal display characteristics on compensatory eye movements during head motion (e.g., VOR). Together, our results allow us to quantify the tradeoff of different negative spatiotemporal impacts of user movements and make subsequent recommendations for optimized temporal HMD parameters.     

An architecture to support scalable distributed virtual environment systems on grid

A Distributed Virtual Environment (DVE) system offers a computer-generated virtual world in which individuals located at different places in the physical world can interact with one another. In order to achieve real-time response for a large user base, DVE systems need to have a scalable architecture. In this paper, we present the design of a grid-enabled service oriented framework for facilitating the construction of scalable DVE systems on computing grids. A service component called “gamelet” is proposed, whose distinctive mark is its high mobility for supporting dynamic load sharing. We propose a gamelet migration protocol which can ensure the transparency and efficiency of gamelet migration, and an adaptive gamelet load-balancing (AGLB) algorithm for making gamelet redistribution decisions at runtime. The algorithm considers both the synchronization costs of the DVE system and network latencies inherent in the grid nodes. The activities of the users and the heterogeneity of grid resources are also considered in order to carry out load sharing more effectively. We evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanisms through a multiplayer online game prototype implemented using the Globus toolkit. The results show that our approach can achieve faster response times and higher throughputs than some existing approaches. This research is supported in part by the China National Grid project (863 program) and the HKU Foundation Seed Grant 28506002.     

Evaluating the effects of frame of reference on spatial collaboration using desktop collaborative virtual environments

Spatial collaboration is an everyday activity in which people work together to solve a spatial problem. For example, a group of people will often arrange furniture together or exchange directions with one another. Collaborative virtual environments using desktop PCs are particularly useful for spatial activities when the participants are distributed. This work investigates ways to enhance distributed, collaborative spatial activities. This paper explores how different frames of reference affect spatial collaboration. Specifically, it reports on an experiment that examines different combinations of exocentric and egocentric frames of reference with two users. Tasks involve manipulating an object, where one participant knows the objective (director) and the other performs the interactions (actor). It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the different combinations for a spatial collaboration task. Findings from this study demonstrate that frames of reference affect collaboration in a variety of ways and simple exocentric-egocentric combinations do not always provide the most usable solution.