Distributed Visual Crowdsensing Framework for Area Coverage in Resource Constrained Environments.

Visual crowdsensing applications using built-in cameras in smartphones have recently attracted researchers' interest. Making the most out of the limited resources to acquire the most helpful images from the public is a challenge in disaster recovery applications. Proposed solutions should adequately address several constraints, including limited bandwidth, limited energy resources, and interrupted communication links with the command center or server. Furthermore, data redundancy is considered one of the main challenges in visual crowdsensing. In distributed visual crowdsensing systems, photo sharing duplicates and expands the amount of data stored on each sensor node. As a result, if any node can communicate with the server, then more photos of the target region would be available to the server. Methods for recognizing and removing redundant data provide a range of benefits, including decreased transmission costs and energy consumption overall. To handle the interrupted communication with the server and the restricted resources of the sensor nodes, this paper proposes a distributed visual crowdsensing system for full-view area coverage. The target area is divided into virtual sub-regions, each of which is represented by a set of boundary points of interest. Then, based on the criteria for full-view area coverage, a specific data structure theme is developed to represent each photo with a set of features. The geometric context parameters of each photo are utilized to extract the features of each photo based on the full-view area coverage criteria. Finally, data redundancy removal algorithms are implemented based on the proposed clustering scheme to eliminate duplicate photos. As a result, each sensor node may filter redundant photographs in dispersed contexts without requiring high computational complexity, resources, or global awareness of all photos from all sensor nodes inside the target area. Compared to the most recent state-of-the-art, the improvement ratio of the added values of the photos provided by the proposed method is more than 38%. In terms of traffic transfer, the proposed method requires fewer data to be transferred between sensor nodes and between sensor nodes and the command center. The overall reduction in traffic exceeds 20% and the overall savings in energy consumption is more than 25%. It was evident that in the proposed system, sending photos between sensor nodes, as well as between sensor nodes and the command center, consumes less energy than existing approaches due to the considerable amount of photo exchange required. Thus, the proposed technique effectively transfers only the most valuable photos needed.

Virtual patient simulator for distributed collaborative medical education.

Project TOUCH (Telehealth Outreach for Unified Community Health; http://hsc.unm.edu/touch) investigates the feasibility of using advanced technologies to enhance education in an innovative problem-based learning format currently being used in medical school curricula, applying specific clinical case models, and deploying to remote sites/workstations. The University of New Mexico's School of Medicine and the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawai'i face similar health care challenges in providing and delivering services and training to remote and rural areas. Recognizing that health care needs are local and require local solutions, both states are committed to improving health care delivery to their unique populations by sharing information and experiences through emerging telehealth technologies by using high-performance computing and communications resources. The purpose of this study is to describe the deployment of a problem-based learning case distributed over the National Computational Science Alliance's Access Grid. Emphasis is placed on the underlying technical components of the TOUCH project, including the virtual reality development tool Flatland, the artificial intelligence-based simulation engine, the Access Grid, high-performance computing platforms, and the software that connects them all. In addition, educational and technical challenges for Project TOUCH are identified.

Distributed interactive virtual environments for collaborative experiential learning and training independent of distance over Internet2.

Medical knowledge and skills essential for tomorrow's healthcare professionals continue to change faster than ever before creating new demands in medical education. Project TOUCH (Telehealth Outreach for Unified Community Health) has been developing methods to enhance learning by coupling innovations in medical education with advanced technology in high performance computing and next generation Internet2 embedded in virtual reality environments (VRE), artificial intelligence and experiential active learning. Simulations have been used in education and training to allow learners to make mistakes safely in lieu of real-life situations, learn from those mistakes and ultimately improve performance by subsequent avoidance of those mistakes. Distributed virtual interactive environments are used over distance to enable learning and participation in dynamic, problem-based, clinical, artificial intelligence rules-based, virtual simulations. The virtual reality patient is programmed to dynamically change over time and respond to the manipulations by the learner. Participants are fully immersed within the VRE platform using a head-mounted display and tracker system. Navigation, locomotion and handling of objects are accomplished using a joy-wand. Distribution is managed via the Internet2 Access Grid using point-to-point or multi-casting connectivity through which the participants can interact. Medical students in Hawaii and New Mexico (NM) participated collaboratively in problem solving and managing of a simulated patient with a closed head injury in VRE; dividing tasks, handing off objects, and functioning as a team. Students stated that opportunities to make mistakes and repeat actions in the VRE were extremely helpful in learning specific principles. VRE created higher performance expectations and some anxiety among VRE users. VRE orientation was adequate but students needed time to adapt and practice in order to improve efficiency. This was also demonstrated successfully between Western Australia and UNM. We successfully demonstrated the ability to fully immerse participants in a distributed virtual environment independent of distance for collaborative team interaction in medical simulation designed for education and training. The ability to make mistakes in a safe environment is well received by students and has a positive impact on their understanding, as well as memory of the principles involved in correcting those mistakes. Bringing people together as virtual teams for interactive experiential learning and collaborative training, independent of distance, provides a platform for distributed "just-in-time" training, performance assessment and credentialing. Further validation is necessary to determine the potential value of the distributed VRE in knowledge transfer, improved future performance and should entail training participants to competence in using these tools.