In the framework of a new program on housing and health, the World Health Organization has undertaken a field survey on panel block housing estates in Eastern Germany, Lithuania and Slovakia aiming at a preliminary assessment of housing conditions in Eastern European countries and their potential health consequences. It also aimed to highlight housing and health problems of Eastern European tra...

The paper describes a novel approach to building interactive 3D web applications. In this approach, called Meta-VR, an application consists of a number of interconnected visualization models. Each virtual scene sent to a user is dynamically generated based on one of the available visualization models and the current set of data. Before generating a virtual scene, the system automatically determ...

Virtual reality (VR) has recently emerged as a potentially effective way to provide general and specialty health care services, and appears poised to enter mainstream psychotherapy delivery. Because VR could be part of the future of clinical psychology, it is critical to all psychotherapists that it be defined broadly. To ensure appropriate development of VR applications, clinicians must have a...

This study estimates the percentage of health care expenditures in the non-institutionalized United States (U.S.) adult population associated with levels of physical activity inadequate to meet current guidelines. Leisure-time physical activity data from the National Health Interview Survey (2004-2010) were merged with health care expenditure data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (2006...

Recently developed information technology, such as interactive multimedia and virtual reality, has a profound impact the way people deal with information. Often, they engender a strong feeling of presence, of being an active part of the reality that is portrayed. It is this feeling of presence that differentiates the new learning technologies from the old; and it is this same feeling of presenc...

Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have transformed the landscape of intelligent computer based instruction and offer unique new viewpoints on the core goals of education and training. What distinguishes VR from all preceding technology is the sense of immediacy and control created by the immersion process: the feeling of “being there”. Over the last ten years, Singapore manufacturing industries...

Sixty percent to 70% of pedestrian injuries in children under the age of 10 years are the result of the child either improperly crossing intersections or dashing out in the street between intersections. The purpose of this injury prevention research study was to evaluate a desktop virtual reality (VR) program that was designed to educate and train children to safely cross intersections. Specifi...

A survey done in 2007 of VR Artworks (Immersive Virtual Environments or VEs) showed that women have created the majority of these immersive works. While this may seem counter to popular ideas that the field has been dominated by men, it seems rather, that the truly unique works appear to emerge from a feminine approach. Such an approach seems well suited to immersive environments as it incorpor...