Call: special issue of Complexity, "Understanding Complexity via Immersive Environments"

Alongside my colleagues António Coelho (University of Porto, Portugal), Hugo Paredes (University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal), Jonathon Richter (Salish Kootenai College, USA), and Sylvester Arnab (Coventry University, UK)...

...I'm editing a special issue of the Complexity journal, devoted to the topic:

Understanding Complexity via Immersive Environments
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/complexity/si/461691/cfp/

We are looking for contributions that look at how immersive environments, both novel or traditional, can contribute to improve the understanding of complexity by individuals and/or organizations.
Understanding complexity may contribute to empower individuals and organizations to grasp the variety of impacts and interrelationships in many aspects of the current world and daily life, such as urban development, politics, citizenship, social relationships, economics, engineering, digital transformation, and more. Knowledge about complexity and its dynamics may also contribute to empower indivuals and communities against magical thinking, conspiracy theories, and obfuscation.

Complexity is a first-quartile (Q1) journal in Scopus and Web of Science JCR (impact factor 2017: 1.829).

Deadline: November 16th, 2

Authors can submit their manuscripts through the Manuscript Tracking System at https://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/complexity/lcie/. 018.


Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

    Hybrid learning about complexity in immersive environments
    Complex problem solving immersed in virtual reality
    Cooperative science using immersive environments for understanding complexity
    Pervasive learning about complexity in augmented environments
    Immersive environments for a deeper understanding about complexity
    Understanding emergence using virtual/augmented environments
    Understanding system dynamics in immersive environments
    Understanding chaos in immersive environments
    Serious games for training and certification of complex subjects
    Adaptive learning systems in virtual/augmented reality
    Multisensory virtual/augmented environments for understanding complexity
    Immersive environments for understanding complexity methodologies
    Chaos
    Genetic algorithms
    Cellular automata
    Neural networks
    Evolutionary game theory

Research scholaship/grant for software engineering of 3D animation

If you want to work on my research team, please apply to this recent grant/scholarship opportunity, until July 25th, 2018:

http://www.eracareers.pt/opportunities/index.aspx?task=global&jobId=101831

This is the follow-up to a previous grant, and we aim to pursue its outcomes. The major goal is to enable behaviours and actions in serious games and simulations to outlast the technology rendering them!

 

Your goal will be to program a proof-of-concept: show that using our methods we can play the same choreography of characters in both a virtual reality game and an augmented reality scenario: one choreography, multiple replay platforms. The virtual reality game can be an existing one or something created from scratch (we're open to ideas, since this is a proof-of-concept) and for augmented reality we are in the process of acquiring a Meta2 headset.

 

Use of games in training & education is being limited due to the loss of materials and know-how as newer technology requires abandoning all previous content... it's simply too much investment for small and medium companies, for non-profits, even for many educational organizations.

We are working to change that!

This slideshow present our view on the research goals:

https://pt.slideshare.net/leonelm/serious-games-and-virtual-worlds-for-learning-trends-and-perspectives

The workplace is in Coimbra's offices of Universidade Aberta, and my research group is within INESC TEC, the largest research unit on this field in Portugal.

You'll work in close online cooperation with other researchers, in the scope of the CHIC media industries project (axis A), as well as researchers developing this technology for other projects.

Here are some papers on the technology behind this, which we are pursuing further:

Silva, Emanuel; Silva, Nuno; Morgado, Leonel (2014). Model-Driven Generation of Multi-user and Multi-domain Choreographies for Staging in Multiple Virtual World Platforms. In Yamine Ait Ameur, Ladjel Bellatreche, & George A. Papadopoulos (eds.). "Model and Data Engineering, 4th International Conference, MEDI 2014, Larnaca, Cyprus, September 24-26, 2014. Proceedings", pp. 77 - 91, ISBN 978-3-319-11586-3. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

Cassola, Fernando; Iria, José; Paredes, Hugo; Morgado, Leonel; Coelho, António; Soares, Filipe. (2017, poster). Using choreographies to support the gamification process on the development of an application to reduce electricity costs. In "Games and Learning Alliance. 6th International Conference, GALA 2017". Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.