Meditation is a practice that promotes improvements in physical and mental health, according to previous studies. The proven benefits, such as relaxation and stress reduction, have attracted people's interest in initiating training. However, practice demands discipline, time, and dedication. Despite the diversity of techniques available for training, beginners may find it difficult to concentrate during the learning phase of meditation. Technological advances have enabled the emergence of devices that offer guided meditation for users. In that sense, designers engaged with creating products that become tools to enrich the personal experience of users. Virtual Reality (VR) is one of the tools adopted for this purpose. The use of VR to stimulate meditative practice has been a topic of research in the field of technological media. However, research focuses on the practice known as Mindfulness. Also, researchers focus their attention on 3D graphics design. Therefore, this study explored the possibility of designing immersive technologies for the practice of guided meditation. More specifically, to investigate the effects of using 360-degrees Virtual Reality videos supporting the practice of Relaxation Response meditation exercise, developed by Dr. Herbert Benson, and Contemplative Inquiry presented by Robert Butera. Furthermore, the study aimed to explore if technology improves the meditation experience. Adopting the theoretical approaches of Positive Technology and Research through Design, the Aurora and Pandora prototypes were designed to explore the themes. The results indicate that guided meditation presented through immersive videos can provoke desirable emotional responses in people who practice meditation, such as calm and relaxation. However, undesirable physical effects were observed in the participants. The discomfort of vision, stress, and irritation were examples. Also, the experiments showed that it was possible to improve the experience of meditative practices.

Den här studien undersöker i vilken grad 360° video betraktad i en HMD kan ha för livskvalitetshöjande effekt på boende inom äldreomsorgen i Malmö. Ensamhet och depression är ett av de vanligaste hälsoproblemen bland personer över 65 år idag. En av anledningarna till detta är fysiska och psykiska hinder som minskar möjligheterna för dem att kontinuerligt delta i sociala sammanhang och få ett miljöbyte. Med 360° video kan vad som helst upplevas och med en HMD kan känslan av att vara närvarande på platsen förstärkas. Med hjälp av denna teknik har ett prototyptest utförts på 2 olika äldreboende i Malmö där 9 stycken deltagare har fått testa att betrakta 360° video i en HMD, i form av olika utflyktsmål i Malmö som har skapats som prototyp i denna studie. Utifrån observationer, ”think-aloud”-tekniken och enkätsvar har slutsatserna kunnat dras att prototyptestet behöver göras under en längre period för att påvisa ett säkert resultat om vilken livshöjande effekt 360° video kan ha på de boende. Resultatet av testet kunde även påvisa en ökad positivitet om deltagarna fick se en plats de besökt tidigare. / This study examines the degree to which 360 ° video viewed in an HMD can have a life-quality enhancing effect on residents of elderly care in Malmö. Loneliness and depression are one of the most common health problems today among people with an age over 65. One of the reasons for this is physical and mental barriers that reduces the opportunities for them to continuously participate in social contexts and get an environmental change. With 360° video, anything can be experienced and with an HMD the feeling of being present on the site can be enhanced. With the help of this technique, a prototype test has been performed on 2 different retirement homes in Malmö where 9 participants have been tested to view 360° video in an HMD, in the form of various excursion destinations in Malmö that have been created as a prototype in this study. Based on observations, think-aloud technology and questionnaire responses, the conclusions have been drawn that the test needs to be done for a longer period to be able to demonstrate a safe result on which life-enhancing effect 360° video can have on the residents. The result of the test could also show an increased positivity if the participants saw a place they visited in the past.

Neigung zum suizidalen Verhalten wird neurobiologisch durch eine einseitige Aktivierung der linken Hemisphäre begleitet (man spricht oft über einen "Tunnelblick" oder "Seelenschmerz" der suizidalen Menschen). Ihre psychologischen folgen wie mangelnde Affektregulation, Störungen der Selbstwahrnehmung und der polysemantischen (sinnstiftenden) Realitätswahrnehmung sowie Affektkonfundierung (d.h. atypische Hemmung des Selbstzugangs) wurden in dieser Arbeit analysiert. Die angenommenen Mechanismen der Selbststeuerung wie geschwächte Selbstregulation (z.B. rechtshemisphärische Selbstmotivierung) vs. verstärkte Willenshemmung (z.B. linkshemisphärische Zielfixierung) und erhöhter Alltagsstress (Belastung und Bedrohung), die den Zugang zum Selbst erschweren und den suizidalen Verhalten zugrunde liegen, wurden empirisch überprüft (Pfadanalyse) und aufgrund der PSI-Theorie (Kuhl, 1994, 2000) analysiert. Die auf psychologischer Ebene erfassten Befunde der interdisziplinären Forschungsarbeiten und einer hermeneutischen Analyse der biographischen Aussagen suizidgefährdeter Menschen folgt in dieser Arbeit einer holistischen Auffassung des Phänomens des suizidalen Verhalten.

Die Dissertation untersucht anhand von qualitativ geführten Interviews und Fragebogenerhebungen zur Lebenswirklichkeit von Beamtinnen und Beamten der Polizei Niedersachsen und umfangreicher Literaturrecherche die Erfordernis zur Umsetzung der Strategie Gender Mainstreaming als eine der Maßnahmen zur Herstellung von Geschlechtergerechtigkeit. Auf der Grundlage von Überlegungen zum sozialen Geschlecht Gender als interessengeleitetes Konstrukt männlich dominanter Denkstrukturen werden bereits vorhandene Frauenfördermaßnahmen in Beziehung zu Gender Mainstreaming positioniert. Reflexionen zur Lebenswirklichkeit von Polizeibeamten und Polizeibeamtinnen öffnen Einblicke in die Realität des Arbeitsfeldes Polizei als Beruf für Frauen und Männer. Eine Analyse vorhandener gesellschaftlicher Rahmenbedingen verdeutlicht individuelle und soziale Ursachen der Reproduktion eben dieser Rahmenbedingungen, denen beide Geschlechter unterworfen sind. Diskutiert wird die Zielsetzung von Gender Mainstreaming, Männern und Frauen Möglichkeiten zu öffnen, anstelle von geschlechtsbestimmten Zuweisungen von Lebensinhalten geschlechtsneutrale soziale Lebensräume zu gestalten. Verdeutlichend wird herausgestellt, dass hierzu sowohl Implementierung rechtlich verbindlicher Grundlagen innerhalb der Organisation Polizei (top down) als auch Herstellen individueller Denkbereitschaft aller Akteure im Sinne ihres beide Geschlechter tagtäglich einbeziehenden doing gender (bottom up) notwendig sind. Im letzten Teil werden praxisrelevante Vorschläge zu Gender Trainings und zur methodischen Umsetzung aufgezeigt.

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The research domain on the Quality of Experience (QoE) of 2D video streaming has been well established. However, a new video format is emerging and gaining popularity and availability: VR 360-degree video. The processing and transmission of 360-degree videos brings along new challenges such as large bandwidth requirements and the occurrence of different distortions. The viewing experience is also substantially different from 2D video, it offers more interactive freedom on the viewing angle but can also be more demanding and cause cybersickness. Further research on the QoE of 360-videos specifically is thus required.The first goal of this thesis is to complement earlier research by (Tran, Ngoc, Pham, Jung, and Thank, 2017) testing the effects of quality degradation, freezing, and content on the QoE of 360-videos. The second goal is to test the contribution of visual attention as influence factor in the QoE assessment. Data will be gathered through subjective tests where participants watch degraded versions of 360-videos through an HMD with integrated eye-tracking sensors. After each video they will answer questions regarding their quality perception, experience, perceptual load, and cybersickness.Results of the first part show overall rather low QoE ratings and it decreases even more as quality is degraded and freezing events are added. Cyber sickness was found not to be an issue. The effects of the manipulation on visual attention were minimal. Attention was mainly directed by content, but also by surprising elements. The addition of eye-tracking metrics did not further explain individual differences in subjective ratings. Nevertheless it was found that looking at moving objects increased the negative effect of freezing events and made participants less sensitive for quality distortions. The results of this thesis alone are not enough to successfully regard visual attention as an influence factor in 360-video.

The declining population of black rhinoceroses in Tsavo West national park, Kenya, has served as the driving force behind Project Ngulia, with Ngulia serving as an enclosed area within the park. As of now, the area is equipped with multiple cameras connected to a system that automatically classify animals and humans. This thesis aims to investigate the suitability of the Insta360 One X2 camera acting as a virtual watch tower for capturing and streaming 360° images. This will work in real-time, providing a remote surveillance experience for the park rangers thereby optimizing their work. A system was implemented to create a efficient workflow, which includes stitching of the 360° images, file transfer protocol for image transmission and storage, as well as socket programming to facilitate port monitoring and communication. Additionally, the compat- ibility of two single board computers, LattePanda and Rock 4 SE, with the implemented system was evaluated. User experience methods as field studies, workshops and a user interview were also performed. The work has been developed in Sweden, resulting in limited availability for testing at the target location during the initial months. The outcome was a both locally and remotely working system, together with LattePanda, capturing images of the waterhole in Ngulia. However, because of the conclusions drawn regarding the power supply and the lack of essential functions in the 360° camera, the system was taken home for further research. Propositions is presented regarding future work, some being that the projects within Ngulia team may collaborate to enhance hardware efficiency and explore the utilization of 360° images in educational and entertainment contexts.

As a cutting-edge technology, VR is applied to all aspects of life. Especially when the pandemic is spreading, the immersive experience of VR provides another possibility for people's virtual tours and online exhibitions. Limited by the high price of professional VR equipment, VR technology still exists in specific professional fields. This project mainly studies some of the challenges of immersive experience on mobile phones and improves the immersive experience to make the virtual tour convenient and straightforward on mobile phones. Through research, it is found that interactive 360-video may be a potential solution. Users can explore freely in 360-video and interact with people or things in the environment. The most important thing is that interactive 360-video can rely on mobile phones as a medium so that everyone can afford it, and it allows users to explore and discover anytime, anywhere. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

<p dir="ltr">Ensuring a high quality of experience for Internet applications is challenging owing to the significant variability (e.g., of traffic patterns) inherent to both cloud data-center networks and wide area networks. This thesis focuses on optimizing application performance by both conducting measurements to characterize traffic variability, and designing applications that can perform well in the face of variability. On the data center side, a key aspect that impacts performance is traffic burstiness at fine granular time scales. Yet, little is know about traffic burstiness and how it impacts application loss. On the wide area side, we focus on video applications as a major traffic driver. While optimizing traditional videos traffic remains a challenge, new forms of video such as 360◦ introduce additional challenges such as respon- siveness in addition to the bandwidth uncertainty challenge. In this thesis, we make three contributions.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>First</b>, for data center networks, we present Millisampler, a lightweight network traffic char- acterization tool for continual monitoring which operates at fine configurable time scales, and deployed across all servers in a large real-world data center networks. Millisampler takes a host-centric perspective to characterize traffic across all servers within a data center rack at the same time. Next, we present data-center-scale joint analysis of burstiness, contention, and loss. Our results show (i) bursts are likely to encounter contention; (ii) contention varies significantly over short timescales; and (iii) higher contention need not lead to more loss, and the interplay with workload and burst properties matters.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Second</b>, we consider challenges with traditional video in wide area networks. We take a step towards understanding the interplay between Content-Delivery-Networks (CDNs), and video performance through end-to-end measurements. Our results show that (i) video traffic in a session can be sourced from multiple CDN layers, and (ii) throughput can vary signifi- cantly based on the traffic source. Next we evaluate the potential benefits of exposing CDN information to the client Adaptive-Bit-Rate (ABR) algorithm. Emulation experiments show the approach has the potential to reduce prediction inaccuracies, and enhance video quality of experience (QoE).</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Third</b>, for 360◦ videos, we argue for a new streaming model which is explicitly designed for continuous, rather than stalling, playback to preserve interactivity. Next, we propose Dragonfly, a new 360° system that leverages the additional degrees of freedom provided by this design point. Dragonfly proactively skips tiles (i.e., spatial segment of the video) using a model that defines an overall utility function that captures factors relevant to user experience. We conduct a user study which shows that majority of interactivity feedback indicating Dragonfly being highly reactive, while the majority of state-of-the-art’s feedback indicates the systems are slow to react. Further, extensive emulations show Dragonfly improves the image quality significantly without stalling playback.</p>

Utilizing multiple videos is an upcoming approach for developing learning material. It consists of recording scenes from different perspectives using diverse recording approaches, for example, 360-degrees camera, a drone camera, and body cameras. Up until now, there is a lack of efficient ways to present such recordings and extract the benefits of applying this type of media in learning contexts. To close this gap, this thesis explores suitable manners for presenting this specific type of media, aiming to be helpful for the further training of emergency-related learners. To achieve this goal, we performed a study structured in three major blocks: design of the solution, development of the designed system, and assessment of the suitability of the presented solution. The design was informed by a literature review, a qualitative expert interview, and a preferences questionnaire. After the design process, the system named Theia was developed using web-based technologies. Finally, to validate the system’s suitability within the context of this project, an expert evaluation was carried out. It consisted of a mixed assessment combining qualitative methods, based on task performance and qualitative interview assessment, and the usage of a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaire, aiming for the usability and the ease of use of the developed tool. After the evaluation, the proposed system was concluded to incorporate a suitable layout, navigation, functionalities, and interactive mechanisms for an adequate video presentation of media footage from simultaneous recordings within an educational context for emergency-related students. Additionally, valuable insights were extracted from the analysis of the results for the future of the area of research, including recommendations for an optimal footage recording and the starting point for future work in the research community.