Virtual reality (VR) has revolutionized many scienti®c disciplines by providing novel methods to visualize complex data structures and moreover by providing means to manipulate this data in real-time in a natural way. Among the most promising ®elds for the application of VR systems are engineering, education, entertainment, military simulations and medicine. This paper reviews applications of V...

Mental practice refers to the cognitive rehearsal of a physical activity. It is widely used by athletes to enhance their performance and its efficiency to help train motor function in people with physical disabilities is now recognized. Mental practice is generally based on motor imagery (MI), i.e., the conscious simulation of a movement without its actual execution. It may also be based on ver...

Pavel F. Bessarab,1,2 Valery M. Uzdin,2,3 and Hannes Jónsson1,4 1Science Institute and Faculty of Physical Sciences, VR-III, University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavı́k, Iceland 2Department of Physics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, 198504, Russia 3St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, St. Petersburg, 197101, Russia 4Dept. of A...

Fostering interaction in the online classroom is an important consideration in ensuring that students actively create their own knowledge and reach a high level of achievement in science courses. This study focuses on fostering interaction in an online introductory nutrition course offered in a public institution of higher education in Hawai'i, USA. Interactive features included synchronous dis...

The aircraft maintenance industry is a complex system consisting of several interrelated human and machine components. Recognizing this, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has pursued human factors related research. In the maintenance arena the research has focused on the aircraft inspection process and the aircraft inspector. Training has been identified as the primary intervention stra...

BACKGROUND The development of a virtual reality (VR) training platform provides an affordable interface. The learning effect of VR and the capability of skill transfer from the VR environment to clinical tasks require more investigation. METHODS Here, 14 medical students performed 2 fundamental surgical tasks-bimanual carrying (BC) and peg transfer (PT)-in actual and virtual environments. Par...

BACKGROUND Proficiency-based curricula using both virtual reality (VR) and videotrainer (VT) simulators have proven to be efficient and maximally effective, but little is known about the retention of acquired skills. The purpose of this study was to assess skill retention after completion of a validated laparoscopic skills curriculum. METHODS Surgery residents (n=14) with no previous VR or VT...

In terms of health and healthcare cyberspace and virtual reality can be used differently and for different purposes and consequently create different outcomes. The three main areas which we shall discuss here are: 1) cyberspace as provider of health information and self-help resources, since the anonymity cyberspace provides is particularly important in the highly stigmatized field of psychiatr...

OBJECTIVE This report presents national estimates on access to health care for five subgroups of Hispanic/Latino children in the United States: Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, and other Hispanic. For comparison, estimates are also presented for non-Hispanic white children. METHODS Data for persons of all ages in the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population are co...

background: the purpose of this investigation was to compare empirically predictive ability of an artificial neu­ral network with a logistic regression in prediction of low back pain. methods: data from the second national health survey were considered in this investigation. this data in­cludes the information of low back pain and its associated risk factors among iranian people aged 15 years a...