US Ignite: Focus Area 1: A Networked Virtual Reality Platform for Immersive Online Social Learning of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders

该项目探索了一种高速网络支持的沉浸式智能虚拟现实应用程序，称为vSocial，用于连接来自不同地理区域的自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童进行在线社交培训。2015年全国健康访谈调查（NHIS）显示，每45名儿童中就有1名（2%）被诊断患有自闭症谱系障碍。自闭症儿童的特点是社交技能受损，这可能导致生活质量低下，给儿童、家庭、学校和社会带来情感、经济和身体上的压力和负担。这个项目建立在项目团队过去五年的工作基础上，在这五年中，我们成功地开发和评估了一个社会能力干预（SCI）课程和一个基于计算机的虚拟学习应用程序，称为社会。social应用程序将面对面的SCI课程在线提供给患有ASD的青少年和公立学校，否则，由于地理和个人限制，他们无法获得专家提供的此类课程。vSocial将使用沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）媒介，通过学校的高速网络基础设施以及全球网络创新环境（GENI）机架中可用的云技术交付应用程序。这样的转变将使我们能够研究端到端网络性能调优需要如何跨多提供商路径进行协调，以及如何解决最后一英里网络瓶颈（例如，在学校或家庭），以便现场部署要求苛刻的千兆应用程序，如vSocial。具体来说，(a)它将通过使用网络沉浸式虚拟现实系统，弥合自闭症学生在线社交培训与现实社会技能之间的知识泛化差距。(b)它将提供智能感应能力，以有效监测和跟踪远程学生学习者的认知情感状态，以便进行早期个性化教学干预和结果评估。本项目将通过vSocial现场应用原型实验（在教师和学生参与的实际学校），研究在ASD学生教育中使用认知情感感知进行在线社会培训，使用VR眼镜，以及Unity3D VR内容创作平台来评估沉浸式学习体验。

This project explores a high-speed network-enabled, immersive, and smart virtual reality application, called vSocial, to connect children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from different geographical regions for online social training. The 2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) suggests that 1 in 45 children (2%) have been diagnosed with ASD. Children with ASD are characterized by impairments in social skills, which can result in low quality of life, bringing emotional, financial, and physical stress and burden on the children, families, schools, and society. This project builds on project team's work during the past five years within which we have successfully developed and evaluated a social competence intervention (SCI) curriculum and a computer-based virtual learning application called iSocial. The iSocial application makes the face-to-face SCI curriculum available online to youth with ASD and public schools, who would otherwise, due to geographical and personal limitations, have no access to such programs provided by experts.vSocial will use an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) medium for application delivery over high-speed networking infrastructures at schools as well as cloud technologies available within Global Environment for Network Innovation (GENI) Racks. Such a transformation will allow us to study how end-to-end network performance tuning needs to be orchestrated across multi-provider paths and how to troubleshoot last-mile network bottlenecks (e.g., at schools or homes) for field-deployment of demanding gigabit applications such as vSocial. Specifically, (a) it will bridge the knowledge generalization gap between online social training and real-world social skills for students with ASD through use of a networked immersive VR system. (b) It will provide smart sensing capabilities for effective monitoring and tracking of the cognitive-affective states of student learners at remote ends for early individualized pedagogical interventions and outcome assessment. Through vSocial application prototype experimentation in the field (at actual schools with teachers and students involvement), this project will investigate the use of cognitive-affective sensing for online social training in education of students with ASD, use of VR glasses, and Unity3D VR content creation platform to assess immersive learning experience.