Wednesday, September 24, 2014

2014 PEOPLE: THERAPY: Amputees, prosthetics, virtual therapy is real. The Drax Files

Amputees, prosthetics, virtual therapy is real.   
The Drax Files 
“Second Life is the perfect place for amputees to overcome emotional trauma by sharing stories and realizing they are not alone!” says Sandra L. Winkler, assistant professor at NOVA University in Florida, teaching occupational therapy.     Her Virtual Health Adventures project is using Second Life to find out if virtual reality can offer a better learning environment for amputees than a traditional website. 

Dr. Winkler’s 3-year study is funded by the United States for Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality  and is currently mid-way through the 3-year study period.
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She adds that while it would be too early to state conclusions on the project, preliminary results clearly show that virtual worlds with their unique ability to create a sense of "being-there", are a powerful tool to facilitate a peer-network: a place where amputees from all over the world help others [veterans of wars and non-military amputees alike] and offer emotional peer support to families.
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"Second Life offers a space where clinicians can learn from patients what they might not be able to glean from textbooks", Sandra Winkler says: a space where amputees can share insight into their lives so that able-bodied students or any other interested party can experience what it feels like to lose a limb.
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News and Notes

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Events in the virtual worlds  

How to handle a Hypergrid address 

From any Hypergrid-enabled grid, paste the address into the address bar of Firestorm and press enter. Or paste it into the world map search bar of any viewer, search, and click Teleport when the destination is found. If it doesn't work, don't give up. Try again later. Some hypergrid destinations are offline part of the day.
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Contests and dated calls/invitations

    Machinima - 2014 Project SciFi Competition (Registrations by 3 Oct)

    2014 Project SciFi Competition in partnership with Screen My Shorts and sponsored by the Parramatta City Council is giving filmmakers, Machinima makers and animators 30 days to write, shoot, edit, produce and upload a 3-10min short film with $5,500 (Australian Dollars) in cash prizes. -All films that enter into this years Project SciFi will be screened at Riverside Theatres.  Teams must register by 3rd October 2014 and nominate 2 scifi subjects that they would like to make their film about. For registrations visit ... 

    Subjects for Machinima makers, 2014 Project SciFi Competition

    • Sci-Romance – Love between Aliens, Robots and more! (Can be Happy, Sad or Tragedy) 
    • Sci-Comedy – Science fiction that is humorous in nature. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a good example of SciFi Comedy. 
    • Save the Environment – A theme focuses on saving the dying planet and/or ecosystem 
    • Zombie / Disease – A theme focuses on the effect of a disease in the future. 
    • Apocalyptic / Post-Apocalyptic SciFi – Stories about the extinction or near extinction of humankind either by forces of nature or by our own means. Post- focuses on telling the tale of the survivors of an apocalypse. 
    • Spy-Fy – Science fiction about futuristic spies and espionage, and the effects of technological advancement on their professions. 
    • Super Hero – Stories related to super heroes who get their powers from technology or because they are from another world. Often focuses on futuristic superheroes. 
    • Robots / AI – Fiction in which the science of Artificial Intelligence and robotics is a central theme, typically relating to Robot stories. 
    • First Contact / Alien – This sub genre imagines the various scenarios in which humanity makes contact with other civilizations. 
    • Social Science Fiction - Fiction in which future societies are extrapolated, explained and often criticized, usually for the purpose of social satire. The social sciences are the overriding theme in this type of fiction; however, science and technology will usually play a central role in the structure of the extrapolated society.

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    National Agenda 2014 focuses on the battle for control of congress midway through the Obama second term, with some of the biggest and most experienced names in American politics
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    Midtown Arts Museum is launching its first participation storybuild on Monday, 9.1.2014, Wear Your Goggles to the Goldrush. All elements are ready for visitors, explorers and amateur sleuths to plunder. A storybuild mystery is not an event that is attended. Rather clues and story are collected, assembled and written by the participants who journey through it. It is writing via pictures and conversation - - the natural, entertaining and effortless way. Oakes Valley blog. 
    Hypergrid address:  grid.kitely.com:8002:Oakes Valley  
    Kitely World page:http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Ruby-ODegee-2/Oakes-Valley
    Companion websites:http://oakesvalley.blogspot.co.uk/http://immersivestorybuilder.blogspot.co.uk/
    Longer summary and pictures on HG Destinations websitehttp://destinations.virtual-memoirs.co.uk/kitely-oakes-valley/
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    The theme is 'TRANSCENDING BORDERS.' Artists & filmmakers can interpret the theme as they see fit. Whether transcending borders between time and space, past and present, one nation and another, one language and another, a culture or civilization or any other of the innumerable borders that present themselves as we navigate our lives. You the artist... You the machinimatographer...You decide.
    Entries Close at Midnight SLT 31st October 2014. Winners will be announced in December 2014.   
    UWA Art & Film Challenges 2014 with L$1.03 Mil in Prizes, early entries 
    And don't forget the many imagined borders, walls, that we make for ourselves.   Those are the worst kind.--TKR

    Newcomer Help in Virtual Worlds


    Education




        Entrepreneurs call

        Entrepreneurs of the virtual worlds unite: Think Avatar Land! The Disney park

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        Video-Machinima in virtual worlds
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