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The CipherCAD testbed is a unique workplace for the development, design, testing, verification and teaching of the communications systems. CipherCAD is at the core of the workplace, which is an application primarily designed for solving cryptographic tasks. The application can also be used for communicating with hardware communications devices. The workplace is used in the Department of Communications Technologies at the University of Defense. The article will present selected examples used in this workplace. The introduction introduces CipherCAD and the possibilities for creating simple models. The first model to be selected shows how to control SDR IZ225 and process the signals received. The next model shows how selected modulated signals are generated in real time, and their transmission throughout the whole chain of communications. The models that follow show how they can be used in the field of communications protocols, VoIP transfer and changing any of the parameters of the transmitted information.

Various multiple-disciplinary terms and concepts (although most commonly “interdisciplinarity,” which is used herein) are used to frame education, scholarship, research, and interactions within and outside academia. In principle, the premise of interdisciplinarity may appear to have many strengths; yet, the extent to which interdisciplinarity is embraced by the current generation of academics, the benefits and risks for doing so, and the barriers and facilitators to achieving interdisciplinarity, represent inherent challenges. Much has been written on the topic of interdisciplinarity, but to our knowledge there have been few attempts to consider and present diverse perspectives from scholars, artists, and scientists in a cohesive manner. As a team of 57 members from the Canadian College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (the College) who self-identify as being engaged or interested in interdisciplinarity, we provide diverse intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives. The goal of this paper is to share our collective wisdom on this topic with the broader community and to stimulate discourse and debate on the merits and challenges associated with interdisciplinarity. Perhaps the clearest message emerging from this exercise is that working across established boundaries of scholarly communities is rewarding, necessary, and is more likely to result in impact. However, there are barriers that limit the ease with which this can occur (e.g., lack of institutional structures and funding to facilitate cross-disciplinary exploration). Occasionally, there can be significant risk associated with doing interdisciplinary work (e.g., lack of adequate measurement or recognition of work by disciplinary peers). Solving many of the world’s complex and pressing problems (e.g., climate change, sustainable agriculture, the burden of chronic disease, and aging populations) demands thinking and working across long-standing, but in some ways restrictive, academic boundaries. Academic institutions and key support structures, especially funding bodies, will play an important role in helping to realize what is readily apparent to all who contributed to this paper—that interdisciplinarity is essential for solving complex problems; it is the new norm. Failure to empower and encourage those doing this research will serve as a great impediment to training, knowledge, and addressing societal issues.

Spatial skills allow us to mentally imagine and manipulate objects and their spatial relations. These skills are crucial in both every day and expert tasks. The present paper reports on an evaluation of a 3D game developed to train a specific spatial skill known as penetrative thinking—the ability to imagine cross-sections of 3D objects from their surface features. In the game, users change the location and orientation of a virtual plane to make cuts through 3D objects in a series of spatial puzzles. Users operate an interface to position the virtual plane until a “slice” at the location of the plane matches a target cross-section of a virtual object. Multiple spatial puzzles with different properties are completed throughout the game. In one version of the game, users completed the puzzles in an immersive virtual environment and operated a tangible interface to move the virtual plane. A secondary version of the game required users to view the puzzles in a virtual environment displayed on a computer screen, and to position the slicing plane with a keyboard and mouse. Participants (n = 45) completed a measure of penetrative thinking (Santa Barbara Solids Test) before and after completing one of three interventions: the game with the tangible interface (n = 15), the game with the keyboard interface (n = 15), or a series of (control) questions (n = 15). Although there were no significant pre-/post-intervention changes in penetrative thinking in any of the groups, participants' performance in the game correlated with scores on a standardized test of penetrative thinking. These results provide evidence that the game and the standardized test accessed similar spatial skills and, as a consequence, indicate that the 3D game has the potential to be a valid approach for training penetrative thinking skills.

Tool-embodiment is said to occur when the representation of the body extends to incorporate the representation of a tool following goal-directed tool-use. The present study was designed to determine if tool-embodiment-like phenomenon emerges following different interventions. Participants completed body-part compatibility task in which they responded with foot or hand presses to colored targets presented on the foot or hand of a model, or on a rake held by the model. This response time (RT) task was performed before and after one of four interventions. In the Virtual-Tangible and the Virtual-Keyboard interventions, participants used customized controllers or keyboards, respectively, to move a virtual rake and ball around a course. Participants in the Tool-Perception intervention manually pointed to targets presented on static images of the virtual tool-use task. Participants in the Tool-Absent group completed math problems and were not exposed to a tool task. Results revealed that all four interventions lead to a pattern of pre-/post-intervention changes in RT thought to indicate the emergence of tool-embodiment. Overall, the study indicated that tool-embodiment can occur through repeated exposure to the body-part compatibility paradigm in the absence of any active tool-use, and that the paradigm may tap into more than just body schema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CipherCAD testbed is a unique workplace for the development, design, testing, verification and teaching of the communications systems. CipherCAD is at the core of the workplace, which is an application primarily designed for solving cryptographic tasks. The application can also be used for communicating with hardware communications devices. The workplace is used in the Department of Communications Technologies at the University of Defense. The article will present selected examples used in this workplace. The introduction introduces CipherCAD and the possibilities for creating simple models. The first model to be selected shows how to control SDR IZ225 and process the signals received. The next model shows how selected modulated signals are generated in real time, and their transmission throughout the whole chain of communications. The models that follow show how they can be used in the field of communications protocols, VoIP transfer and changing any of the parameters of the transmitted information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of museum exhibits incorporate multi-modal technologies and interactions; yet these media divert visitors' attention away from the cultural heritage artifacts on display. This paper proposes an overarching conceptual structure for designing tangible and embodied narrative interaction with cultural heritage artifacts within a museum exhibit so that visitors can interact with them to comprehend their cultural context. The Tangible and Embodied Narrative Framework (TENF) consists of three spectra (diegetic vs. non-diegetic, internal vs. external, and ontological vs. exploratory) and, considering how different interactions map along these three spectra, can guide designers in the way they integrate digital media, narrative, and embodiment. In this paper, we examine interactive narrative scholarship, existing frameworks for tangible and embodied interactions, and tangible and embodied narrative projects. We then describe the design of the TENF and its application to the pilot project, Mapping Place, and to the case study project, Multi-Sensory Prayer Nuts. The findings indicate that embodied engagement with artifacts through a narrative role can help visitors (1) contextualize the meaning of artifacts and (2) make personalized connections to the artifacts. Based on this work, we suggest design recommendations for tailoring the use of the TENF in the cultural heritage domain: simulate cultural practices, associate visitors with cultural perspectives, and provide simultaneous digital feedback. We conclude by describing future directions for the research, which include generating other possible projects using the TENF; collaborating with other designers and museum professionals; and exploring applications of the TENF in museum spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gestures play an important role in communication. They support the listener, who is trying to understand the speaker. However, they also support the speaker by facilitating the conceptualization and verbalization of messages and reducing cognitive load. Gestures thus play an important role in collaboration and also in problem-solving tasks. In human–computer interaction, gestures are also used to facilitate communication with digital applications, because their expressive nature can enable less constraining and more intuitive digital interactions than conventional user interfaces. Although gesture research in the social sciences typically considers empty-handed gestures, digital gesture interactions often make use of hand-held objects or touch surfaces to capture gestures that would be difficult to track in free space. In most cases, the physical objects used to make these gestures serve primarily as a means of sensing or input. In contrast, tangible interaction makes use of physical objects as embodiments of digital information. The physical objects in a tangible interface thus serve as representations as well as controls for the digital information they are associated with. Building on this concept, gesture interaction has the potential to make use of the physical properties of hand-held objects to enhance or change the functionality of the gestures made. In this paper, we look at the design opportunities that arise at the intersection of gesture and tangible interaction. We believe that gesturing while holding physical artifacts opens up a new interaction design space for collaborative digital applications that is largely unexplored. We provide a survey of gesture interaction work as it relates to tangible and touch interaction. Based on this survey, we define the design space of tangible gesture interaction as the use of physical devices for facilitating, supporting, enhancing, or tracking gestures people make for digital interaction purposes, and outline the design opportunities in this space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article profiles the inSpace project, a collaboration between the Georgia Institute of Technology and Steelcase to understand the designs of physical world and digital technologies and how to co-design these two layers. It notes the focus of inSpace which is on physical-digital co-design in a single shared space with patterns grounded in social behavior. The article also enumerates broad guidelines driving the physical-digital research, namely social practices are the key, need for emphasis in fluidity and technology needs a social voice.

Recent experiments show video games have a range of positive cognitive effects, such as improvement in attention, spatial cognition and mental rotation, and also overcoming of cognitive disabilities such as fear of flying. Further, game environments are now being used to generate scientific discoveries, and bring about novel phenomenological effects, such as out-of-body experiences. These advances provide interesting interaction design possibilities for video games. However, since the cognitive mechanisms underlying these experimental effects are unknown, it is difficult to systematically derive novel systems and interaction designs based on these results. We review the emerging cognitive mechanism known as common coding (which proposes a common neural representation connecting execution, perception and imagination of movements), and outline how this mechanism could provide an integrated account of the cognitive effects of video games. We then illustrate, using two ongoing projects, how novel video game interaction designs could be derived by extending common coding theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tangible interaction is a growing area of human-computer interaction research that has become popular in recent years. Yet designers and researchers are still trying to comprehend and clarify its nature, characteristics, and implications. One approach has been to create frameworks that help us look back at and categorize past tangible interaction systems, and look forward at the possibilities and opportunities for developing new systems. To date, a number of different frameworks have been proposed that each provide different perspectives on the tangible interaction design space, and which can guide designers of new systems in different ways. In this paper, we map the space of tangible interaction frameworks. We order existing frameworks by their general type, and by the facets of tangible interaction design they address. One of our main conclusions is that most frameworks focus predominantly on the conceptual design of tangible systems, whereas fewer frameworks abstract the knowledge gained from previous systems, and hardly any framework provides concrete steps or tools for building new tangible systems. In addition, the facets most represented in existing frameworks are those that address the interactions with or the physicality of the designed systems. Other facets, such as domain-specific technology and experience, are rare. This focus on design, interaction, and physicality is interesting, as the origins of the field are rooted in engineering methods and have only recently started to incorporate more design-inspired approaches. As such, we expected more frameworks to focus on technologies and to provide concrete building suggestions for new tangible interaction systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns the struggle between artistic expression and technological innovation. The perspective that is articulated is drawn from the work of the Interactive Cinema group at the MIT Media Laboratory Situated at the boundary of evolving technologies and media storytelling, research of the group iterates between shaping and presenting cinematic expressions using emerging technologies and developing the required tools and platforms to support its creation and delivery. This dynamic is integral to collaborative expression on large-scale projects, as well as in more individual research endeavours such as a current investigation which conjoins new tangible display technologies with interactive stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst the growing prevalence of chronic stress and its potential negative impacts on mental health, this review explores the use of virtual reality (VR) as a stress management solution, aiming to assess its viability and effectiveness in this context. A comprehensive search was conducted on MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase from inception until February 2024. Eligible studies were primary research papers that focused on the use of VR as an intervention to mitigate psychological stress and/or distress. We included studies where the assessment of stress levels primarily relied on self-report measures. A total of 50 studies involving 2885 participants were included in our systematic review. VR-based interventions varied across studies, implementing tools such as cognitive behavioural therapy, exposure therapy, mindfulness and relaxation, repetition tasks, and psychoeducation. The reviewed studies yielded mixed results; however, a strong indication was present in highlighting the promising potential of VR-based interventions. Many studies observed a decrease in psychiatric symptoms in participants and reported increased quality of life. Various studies also found VR to be a valuable tool in promoting stress reduction and relaxation. VR was proven useful in exposing participants to stressors in a safe, controlled way. These potential benefits appear to come with no risk of harm to the participants. Although the findings are heterogenous, there is sufficient evidence supporting the use of VR for stress management across a range of contexts and populations. Overall, VR appears to be a generally low-risk, feasible intervention for those struggling with stress., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work. Financial relationships: Venkat Bhat declare(s) a grant, non-financial support and employment from University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Brain & Behavior Foundation, Ontario Ministry of Health Innovation Funds, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Department of National Defence (Government of Canada), New Frontiers in Research Fund, Associated Medical Services Inc. Healthcare, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Roche Canada, Novartis, and Eisai. VB is supported by an Academic Scholar Award from the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry and has received research support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Brain & Behavior Foundation, Ontario Ministry of Health Innovation Funds, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Department of National Defence (Government of Canada), New Frontiers in Research Fund, Associated Medical Services Inc. Healthcare, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Roche Canada, Novartis, and Eisai. . Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work., (Copyright © 2024, Meshkat et al.)