An international innovative teaching group from different Spain) and biomedical scientists registered by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC, UK) are developing a complete e-learning package in medical parasitology for undergraduate and postgraduate students that study Health Sciences. This package, named DMU e-Parasitology, is accessible through the DMU website (http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk) and will present different modules including a virtual laboratory module for the study of traditional and novel biomedical laboratory techniques and equipment for detecting, identifying and studying human pathogens, specifically parasites. These techniques could also be potentially used to study other pathogens such as bacteria or viruses. The virtual biomedical laboratory is under development, but is available in the DMU website here: http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk/learn/laboratory.htm. To develop this new module of the DMU e-Parasitology, we are using Storyline 360 software and the scaffolding and methods used to build the theoretical module (Peña-Fernández et al., 2017) [1]. To facilitate the navigation, study and comprehension of the final user, we have divided the virtual laboratory into a series of sub-sections that include different units; the sub-sections so far are: microscopes (with units such as the electron microscope); molecular biology (e.g. polymerase chain reaction and gel electrophoresis); biological safety cabinets and cell/parasite culture; biochemical and immunological techniques (e.g. magnetic immunoseparation); histology (e.g. microtome) and staining techniques (e.g. Kinyoun staining). The virtual laboratory units are highly interactive and present short videos of academics and/or technicians working in real conditions with the different laboratory equipment such as a thermocycler, a microtome, or a biological safety cabinet, as well as performing a specific technique such as a staining to determine pathogens. Therefore, the user of this virtual environment will receive a complete and "real" experience of the work in a biomedical laboratory. The DMU e-Parasitology package, and specifically its virtual laboratory environment, could help technicians and students across the world to learn how to work in a biomedical laboratory as well as to perform techniques to identify and diagnose human pathogens such as microsporidia or Plasmodium spp. Thus, the virtual resource is supported by a virtual library that includes a real collection of clinical slides that will provide the user with the functionality of a light and/or an immunofluorescence microscope. In conclusion, the virtual laboratory may serve as a high quality and reliable on-line environment for the learning of techniques and equipment. These resources can be used to improve the learning of undergraduate and postgraduate students of human health sciences as well as to develop CPD training. Moreover, the virtual laboratory module may impact in the teaching of laboratory techniques and skills in developing countries due to their limited resou...
Cultivation of parasites is not a routine identification technique for human parasitic diseases but provides invaluable help in patient care, research and epidemiology, particularly in the diagnosis, management, control and prevention of these diseases. Moreover, culture facilitates students' learning and understanding of the complex morphology, physiology, life cycle and host-parasite relationships of parasites. However, cultivation of parasites can be fastidious and requires specific techniques, resources and skills that may not be available in many biomedical laboratories. Thus, among other factors, cultivation of specific forms of some parasites or species requires in vitro culture of cells to be successful. For example, the emerging human protozoan pathogen Enterocytozoon bieneusi, the most frequently diagnosed microsporidial species in humans, has been successfully cultured only in short term cultures (6 months) and requires animal cells. An innovative teaching group of academics from
All multimedia services must be accessible. Accessibility for multimedia content is typically provided by means of access services, of which subtitling is likely the most widespread approach. To date, numerous recommendations and solutions for subtitling classical 2D audiovisual services have been proposed. Similarly, recent efforts have been devoted to devising adequate subtitling solutions for VR360 video content. This paper, for the first time, extends the existing approaches to address the challenges remaining for efficiently subtitling 3D Virtual Reality (VR) content by exploring two key requirements: presentation modes and guiding methods. By leveraging insights from earlier work on VR360 content, this paper proposes novel presentation modes and guiding methods, to not only provide the freedom to explore omnidirectional scenes, but also to address the additional specificities of 3D VR compared to VR360 content: depth, 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DoF), and viewing perspectives. The obtained results prove that always-visible subtitles and a novel proposed comic-style presentation mode are significantly more appropriate than state-of-the-art fixed-positioned subtitles, particularly in terms of immersion, ease and comfort of reading, and identification of speakers, when applied to professional pieces of content with limited displacement of speakers and limited 6DoF (i.e., users are not expected to navigate around the virtual environment). Similarly, even in such limited movement scenarios, the results show that the use of indicators (arrows), as a guiding method, is well received. Overall, the paper provides relevant insights and paves the way for efficiently subtitling 3D VR content.
Every (multimedia) service needs to be accessible. Accessibility for multimedia content is typically provided by means of access services, of which subtitling is likely the most widespread one. Up to date, many recommendations and solutions for subtitling classical 2D audiovisual services are available. Likewise, recent efforts have been devoted to devising adequate subtitling solutions for VR360 video content. This paper, for the first time, goes a step beyond, by exploring two key requirements to fulfill remaining challenges towards efficiently subtitling 3D Virtual Reality (VR) content: presentation modes, and guiding methods. By leveraging insights from earlier work on VR360 content, the paper proposes novel presentation modes and guiding methods to not only deal with the freedom to explore the omnidirectional scenes, but also with additional specificities of 3D VR compared to VR360 content: depth, 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DoF), and viewing perspectives. The obtained results prove that always-visible and a novel proposed comic-style presentation mode are far more appropriate than state-of-the-art fixed-positioned subtitles, mainly in terms of immersion, ease and comfort of reading, and identification of speakers, when applied to professional pieces of content with limited displacement of speakers and with limited 6DoF (i.e. users are not expected to largely navigate around the virtual environment). Likewise, even in such limited movement scenarios, the results show that the use of indicators (arrows), as guiding methods, is well received. Overall, the paper provides relevant insights and paves the way toward efficiently subtitling 3D VR content.
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