Vision 2020 - A whole life-cycle information management system for built environments

A whole life-cycle information management vision is proposed, the organizational requirements for the realization of the scenario is investigated. Preliminary interviews with construction professionals are reported. Discontinuities at information transfer throughout life-cycle of built environments are resulting from lack of coordination and multiple data collection/storage practices. A more coherent history of these activities can improve the work practices of various teams by augmenting decision making processes and creating organizational learning opportunities. Therefore, there is a need for unifying these fragmented bits of data to create a meaningful, semantically rich and standardized information repository for built environment. The proposed vision utilizes embedded technologies and distributed building information models. Two diverse construction project types (large one-off design, small repetitive design) are investigated for the applicability of the vision. A functional prototype software/hardware system for demonstrating the practical use of this vision is developed and discussed. Plans for case-studies for validating the proposed model at a large PFI hospital and housing association projects are discussed.

Reverberant auditory environments: the effects of multiple echoes on distraction by 'irrelevant' speech

Two experiments examine the effect on an immediate recall test of simulating a reverberant auditory environment in which auditory distracters in the form of speech are played to the participants (the 'irrelevant sound effect'). An echo-intensive environment simulated by the addition of reverberation to the speech reduced the extent of 'changes in state' in the irrelevant speech stream by smoothing the profile of the waveform. In both experiments, the reverberant auditory environment produced significantly smaller irrelevant sound distraction effects than an echo-free environment. Results are interpreted in terms of changing-state hypothesis, which states that acoustic content of irrelevant sound, rather than phonology or semantics, determines the extent of the irrelevant sound effect (ISE). Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Auditory distraction from low-intensity noise: a review of the consequences for learning and workplace environments

The 'irrelevant sound effect' in short-term memory is commonly believed to entail a number of direct consequences for cognitive performance in the office and other workplaces (e.g. S. P. Banbury, S. Tremblay, W. J. Macken, & D. M. Jones, 2001). It may also help to identify what types of sound are most suitable as auditory warning signals. However, the conclusions drawn are based primarily upon evidence from a single task (serial recall) and a single population (young adults). This evidence is reconsidered from the standpoint of different worker populations confronted with common workplace tasks and auditory environments. Recommendations are put forward for factors to be considered when assessing the impact of auditory distraction in the workplace. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Case Study: Interacting with Volumetric Medical Datasets in Networked CAVE Environments

Virtual Reality (VR) is widely used in visualizing medical datasets. This interest has emerged due to the usefulness of its techniques and features. Such features include immersion, collaboration, and interactivity. In a medical visualization context, immersion is important, because it allows users to interact directly and closelywith detailed structures in medical datasets. Collaboration on the other hand is beneficial, because it gives medical practitioners the chance to share their expertise and offer feedback and advice in a more effective and intuitive approach. Interactivity is crucial in medical visualization and simulation systems, because responsiveand instantaneous actions are key attributes in applications, such as surgical simulations. In this paper we present a case study that investigates the use of VR in a collaborative networked CAVE environment from a medical volumetric visualization perspective. The study will present a networked CAVE application, which has been built to visualize and interact with volumetric datasets. We will summarize the advantages of such an application and the potential benefits of our system. We also will describe the aspects related to this application area and the relevant issues of such implementations.