This book explores the benefits to online teaching incorporating extended reality technologies both from a teacher’s and from a students’ perspective. As we are all aware, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a worldwide lock down which is clearly visible in individuals’ shifting behaviour as they are keeping away from public contact, large events, weddings, places of worship, public transportation, restaurant, flights, shopping malls, etc. People across the world have adopted to Work From Home (WFH) concept using digital technology. They are teaching, learning, conducting meetings, seminars, etc., using digital medium. As people were not allowed to go out and buy things, online shopping was in demand and extensible reality helped in marketing the products and customers could also have a better shopping experience. Gaming industry has always brought in many new games for children and adults. Healthcare sector also leveraged the benefits of this technology to the fullest extent. The use of augmented and virtual reality in art and museum is also highlighted. Our book presents the different sectors that have benefitted using this technology during this time of crisis. This book will be very useful for students, professionals and researchers working in the area of virtual, augmented or mixed reality. Our aim is to bring out the use of this technology during the COVID-19 pandemic so that the readers are exposed to the various applications of this technology.

Tourism is often described as an industry with high growth rates, and it is subject to radical change in how it is produced and consumed. However, there is still a relatively poor understanding of how such changes are brought about – that is, through innovation. This book is the first to provide a comprehensive review of innovation in tourism, while also considering how tourism itself contributes to innovative local, regional and national development strategies. This timely book places tourism innovation in the context of current academic and policy concerns relating to knowledge, competition, and the management of change. A substantial introductory chapter provides an overview of what makes innovation in tourism both distinctive from, and similar to innovation in other economic sectors. This is followed by three general scene setting chapters which explore how competition and the search for competitiveness drive tourism innovation, how knowledge transfers and knowledge creation lead the process, and how institutions shape innovation. These provide a coherent theoretical framework for understanding the roles of different agencies in innovation, ranging from the state, to the firm, to the consumer. The next four chapters analyze innovation at different scales. Two chapters review the territorial dimensions of innovation through the fresh perspectives of the national and regional innovation systems, followed by reviews of the determinants of innovation in the firm, and the contested and complex role of entrepreneurship. The final chapter summarises the importance of understanding tourism innovation. This is a groundbreaking volume which provides an accessible introduction to a key but neglected topic. It provides a readable account of the multidisciplinary research on innovation and relates the emerging theoretical framework to tourism. A clear conceptual framework is complemented by fifty boxes which provide a range of illustrative international case studies. This book will be a useful guide for researchers and students of tourism studies, management and business and geography.

This book features the latest research in the area of immersive technologies, presented at the 5th International Augmented and Virtual Reality Conference, held in Munich, Germany in 2019. Bridging the gap between academia and industry, it presents the state of the art in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies and their applications in various industries such as marketing, education, healthcare, tourism, events, fashion, entertainment, retail and the gaming industry. The volume is a collection of research papers by prominent AR and VR scholars from around the globe. Covering the most significant topics in the field of augmented and virtual reality and providing the latest findings, it is of interest to academics and practitioners alike.

This book provides an overview of current issues and challenges in the fashion industry and an update on data-driven artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and their potential implementation in response to those challenges. Each chapter starts off with an example of a data-driven AI technique on a particular sector of the fashion industry (design, manufacturing, supply or retailing), before moving on to illustrate its implementation in a real-world application

This two-volume set LNCS 14218 and LNCS 14219 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Extended Reality, XR Salento 2023, held in Lecce, Italy, during September 6-9, 2023. The 59 full papers presented together with 11 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 97 submissions. They cover a wide range of many different research topics such as: eXtended reality; digital twin; artificial intelligence; user experience in eXtended reality; virtual reality for neurofeedback, biofeedback and emotion recognition; eXtended reality in education; eXtended reality and metaverse in cultural heritage; eXtended reality in health and medicine; and eXtended reality in industrial field.

Within the last few years, devices that are increasingly capable of offering an immersive experience close to reality have emerged. As devices decrease in size, the interest and application possibilities for them increase. In the healthcare sector, there is an enormous potential for virtual reality development, as this technology allows, on the one hand, the execution of operations or processes at a distance, decoupling realities; and on the other hand, it offers the possibility of simulation for training purposes, whenever there are contexts of risk to the patient or to the health professional. However, virtual reality devices and immersion in virtual environments still requires some improvement as complaints such as headaches and nausea are still common among users, and so continuous research and development is critical to progress the technology. Emerging Advancements for Virtual and Augmented Reality in Healthcare synthesizes the trends, best practices, methodologies, languages, and tools used to implement virtual reality and create a positive user experience while also discussing how to implement virtual reality into day-to-day work with a focus on healthcare professionals and related areas. The application possibilities and their impact are transversal to all areas of health and fields such as education, training, surgery, pain management, physical rehabilitation, stroke rehabilitation, phobia therapy, and telemedicine. Covering topics such as mental health treatment and virtual simulations, it is ideal for medical professionals, engineers, computer scientists, researchers, practitioners, managers, academicians, teachers, and students.

This is an open access book. FACTUM Conference proceedings are the output of one of the few academic events of its nature happening globally, researching fashion communication from different angles and perspectives. It includes contributions from scholars studying communication and marketing, management, digital transformation, and cultural heritage, among other disciplines. This book presents papers from the third bi-annual Conference, which aims to become the major reference point in the field. These proceedings seek to promote theoretical and empirical interdisciplinary work on how various communication practices impact both the fashion industry and societal fashion-related practices and values. With these proceedings, several objectives are aimed to be achieved, namely: - to establish and consolidate an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars in the field of fashion communication; - to share methodological approaches; - to expand the dialogue between communications studies and fashion-related disciplines; - to encourage junior researchers to pursue their scientific interests in this field. Finally, the book can be used by professionals in the field of fashion communication and marketing, who are eager to access sound research in a field that is developing very fast due to its digital transformation.