The relationship between virtual body ownership and temperature sensitivity.

In the rubber hand illusion tactile stimulation seen on a rubber hand, that is synchronous with tactile stimulation felt on the hidden real hand, can lead to an illusion of ownership over the rubber hand. This illusion has been shown to produce a temperature decrease in the hidden hand, suggesting that such illusory ownership produces disownership of the real hand. Here we apply immersive virtual reality (VR) to experimentally investigate this with respect to sensitivity to temperature change. Forty participants experienced immersion in a VR with a virtual body (VB) seen from a first person perspective. For half the participants the VB was consistent in posture and movement with their own body, and in the other half there was inconsistency. Temperature sensitivity on the palm of the hand was measured before and during the virtual experience. The results show that temperature sensitivity decreased in the consistent compared to the inconsistent condition. Moreover, the change in sensitivity was significantly correlated with the subjective illusion of virtual arm ownership but modulated by the illusion of ownership over the full virtual body. This suggests that a full body ownership illusion results in a unification of the virtual and real bodies into one overall entity - with proprioception and tactile sensations on the real body integrated with the visual presence of the virtual body. The results are interpreted in the framework of a"body matrix" recently introduced into the literature.

Measuring the effects through time of the influence of visuomotor and visuotactile synchronous stimulation on a virtual body ownership illusion

Previous studies have examined the experience of owning a virtual surrogate body or body part through specific combinations of cross-modal multisensory stimulation. Both visuomotor (VM) and visuotactile (VT) synchronous stimulation have been shown to be important for inducing a body ownership illusion, each tested separately or both in combination. In this study we compared the relative importance of these two cross-modal correlations, when both are provided in the same immersive virtual reality setup and the same experiment. We systematically manipulated VT and VM contingencies in order to assess their relative role and mutual interaction. Moreover, we present a new method for measuring the induced body ownership illusion through time, by recording reports of breaks in the illusion of ownership ("breaks") throughout the experimental phase. The balance of the evidence, from both questionnaires and analysis of the breaks, suggests that while VM synchronous stimulation contributes the greatest to the attainment of the illusion, a disruption of either (through asynchronous stimulation) contributes equally to the probability of a break in the illusion.

Historias de vida y educación social. Una experiencia de investigación y formación.

Peer-reviewed

A virtual mathematics learning environment for engineering students

Teachers of the course Introduction to Mathematics for Engineers at the UOC, an online distance-learning university, have designed,developed and tested an online studymaterial. It includes basic pre-university mathematics, indications for correct follow-up of this content and recommendations for finding appropriate support and complementarymaterials. Many different resources are used,depending on the characteristics of thecontents: Flash sequences, interactive applets, WIRIS calculators and PDF files.During the last semester, the new study material has been tested with 119 students. The academic results and student satisfaction have allowed us to outline and prioritise future lines of action.

A virtual learning environment for pregraduate mathematical students

Peer-reviewed

A Virtual Mathematics Learning Environment for Engineering Students

Teachers of the course Introduction to Mathematics for Engineers at the UOC, an online distance-learning university, have designed and produced online study material which includes basic pre-university mathematics, instructions for correct follow-up of this content and recommendations for finding appropiate support and complementary materials.

Interactive Calculus in a Virtual Learning Environment

The teaching of higher level mathematics for technical students in a virtual learningenvironment poses some difficulties, but also opportunities, now specific to that virtuality.On the other hand, resources and ways to do now manly available in VLEs might soon extend to all kinds of environments.In this short presentation we will discuss anexperience carried at Universitat Oberta deCatalunya (UOC) involving (an on line university), first, the translation of LaTeX written existent materials to a web based format(specifically, a combination of XHTML andMathML), and then the integration of a symbolic calculator software (WIRIS) running as a Java applet embedded in the materials, intending to achieve an evolution from memorising concepts and repetitive algorithms to understanding and experiment concepts and the use of those algorithms.

Simulation of a Virtual Campus at the Open University of Catalonia

Peer-reviewed

Un modelo realista para el desarrollo profesional en la formación inicial de maestros de educación infantil

This article first performs a review of the account that has had early childhood education, and the training of early childhood education teachers in particular, in diferent Spanish education laws since the arrival of democracy; and second instead describes a realistic training model has proven effective to promote professional skills of teachers in early childhood education

El aprendizaje reflexivo en la formación inicial del profesorado: un modelo para aprender a enseñar matemáticas = Reflective learning in the early formation of teachers: a model to learn to teach maths

In this study we analize the application of the reflective learning during initial formation mathematics teachers. This model is based on the sociocultural theories of the human learning and assumes that the interaction and the contrast make possible the coconstruction and the active reconstruction of knowledge.In order to make the study, it was left from a sample of 29 teaching students. The qualitative analysis allowed to identify factors that facilitate the incorporation of the reflective learning in university teaching, as well as the degree of effectiveness of this model to learn to teach mathematics

Percepciones del profesorado ante la incorporación de las competencias genéricas en la formación universitaria

What are the mindsets of teachers regarding the incorporation of generic competencies into university education within the framework of the European space for higher education? After clarifying the concept of competency and generic competencies, we selected a reference set of ten generic competencies and delimited the possible ways or strategies of intervention.A sample of 277 teachers in the University of Girona completed a questionnaire in which they evaluated the importance of each one of the competencies selected for the education profile and the preferred courses of action. There was a general acceptance on the part of the teaching staff of the need for the development of generic competencies. However, it is obvious they were reticent to incorporate them into the academic curriculum, which can be attributed to gaps in their teacher training. In order to make progress on this interesting aspect of higher education, a number of possible steps are put forward

Afrontamiento de situaciones de hostilidad y desempeño de la función directiva. Planteamientos y reflexiones a raíz de una actividad de formación permanente de directivos de centros educativos de titularidad pública

The intervention in the organized conflicts and, particularly, the confrontation of hostile situations (based on the emotional alteration, the strain, the verbal aggressiveness, etc) is one of the aspects that worry the principals of the educative centres and, therefore, a main attention must be given to the initial and permanent training to have managing duties. Throughout the text we take some aspects into account in the development of these managing skills:a) we set the distinctive features; b) we answer to the dilemma about the existence of improvement possibilities; c) we state the need to star from the motivation and the active participation of the principals in their own personal development and, finally, d) we contribute with the design of a training activity to develop skills to confront hostile situations, addressed to the principals of primary and secondary schools, that was done in Girona, in November 2005

Design and evaluation of learning algorithms for dynamic resource management in virtual networks

Network virtualisation is considerably gaining attentionas a solution to ossification of the Internet. However, thesuccess of network virtualisation will depend in part on how efficientlythe virtual networks utilise substrate network resources.In this paper, we propose a machine learning-based approachto virtual network resource management. We propose to modelthe substrate network as a decentralised system and introducea learning algorithm in each substrate node and substrate link,providing self-organization capabilities. We propose a multiagentlearning algorithm that carries out the substrate network resourcemanagement in a coordinated and decentralised way. The taskof these agents is to use evaluative feedback to learn an optimalpolicy so as to dynamically allocate network resources to virtualnodes and links. The agents ensure that while the virtual networkshave the resources they need at any given time, only the requiredresources are reserved for this purpose. Simulations show thatour dynamic approach significantly improves the virtual networkacceptance ratio and the maximum number of accepted virtualnetwork requests at any time while ensuring that virtual networkquality of service requirements such as packet drop rate andvirtual link delay are not affected.

Museos y periodistas. Análisis de la sala de prensa virtual como espacio de relaciones públicas

Las rutinas de producción periodística se vieron alteradas con la aparición de Internet y la evolución de las fuentes 2.0. Se han extendido los espacios virtuales corporativos para los medios de comunicación, entendidos como herramienta básica de Relaciones Públicas. Los responsables de las organizaciones museísticas han entendido la necesidad de establecer un vínculo relacional con los periodistas en la red, a través de los sitios web oficiales de los museos. No obstante, concluimos que no facilitan los contenidos necesarios para transmitirlos de forma apropiada.