[IERW#04] Importance of VR technology in Psychiatry

VR technology has become an indispensable technology in education, medical, and architecture as well as games. VR technology enables people to experience their virtual reality realized within a computer by using their special glasses and gloves. The use of VR in the medical field is noteworthy among the various areas. Especially, since many modern people are suffering from various mental illnesses due to fatigue and stress, psychiatric fields emphasize the importance of VR technology to treat them effectively.

In the psychiatric field, VR technology is effective in the treatment of various phobias such as claustrophobia and public speaking phobia. For example, a person who has a specific phobia is trained to be properly exposed to the fear through experience virtual reality. Such training can be effective as treating phobias because it is safe, can be stopped immediately if necessary, or can repeat the same conditions. In March 2016, Samsung Electronics carried out a campaign called "Be Fearless" in Europe and the Middle East using gear VR to alleviate phobias. It is a way to implement the VR environment, such as fear of heights and 27 patients from various countries participant the campaign. As their heart rate measurement, average fear of patients decreased by 23.6% after 2 weeks of experiment. VR technology is a vital technology for modern people because of the increase of various phobias due to extreme work stress.

A vital area of VR technology in the psychiatric field is the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a disease that feels frightened and feels trauma after experiencing events such as war, natural disaster, crime, and terrorism. Accordingly, VR technology has been treating PTSD based on the principle of prolonged-exposure therapy, which has proven to be the most effective treatment for PTSD treatment. In the past, for prolonged-exposure therapy, the patient was asked to imagine and recall the events by the doctor. However, the patient was reluctant to recall the memory .According to the NCBI study, if the patient does not visualize the memory of trauma vividly, effective therapy is difficult .This is why VR technology is effective for prolonged-exposure therapy. Instead of asking the patient to recollect his memory, ones use the virtual reality to get into the situation.

The VR technology has been applied to soldiers who have experienced trauma in the Iraq war. The soldier wears a display (HMD) on his head and enters a realistic war in Iraq.  Through a variety of options, counselors can create a variety of situations in which soldiers have caused trauma. As a result, soldiers were able to vividly imagine the war, find the cause of the trauma, and effectively treat it. Although wars are rare these days, innumerable victims are on the increase as various social crimes and terrorism. Therefore, VR technology has become a very important technology to effectively treat them.

VR technology is an essential technology to effectively treat modern people suffering from various mental illnesses by chronic fatigue and stress. Because this mental illness may cause another social crime it must be treated. In addition, it is our duty to help the innocent victims of terrorism and social crime overcome the trauma. Therefore, VR technology is a necessary technology in modern society in terms of crime prevention and effective psychiatric treatment.

[IERW #3] The Hybrid Car for Earth and Future Generations

Due to continuous development, the environmental pollution problem of the Earth is getting worse. Thus, many governments have made various domestic and international efforts. Most focusing is on efforts to reduce Carbon emissions by limiting vehicle using. Because greenhouse gases from cars are making air pollution worse on Earth. Such air pollution can also cause environmental problems such as global warming. In addition, Petroleum and Gasoline used in automobiles are limited, so there is a problem that cannot satisfy future generations' needs. So, we have to use hybrid cars as a solution for the problem of air pollution and resource depletion on Earth

Many companies have launched several low-pollution vehicles as a part of their carbon emissions regulations. Among them, 'hybrid cars' running on electric motors and small engines have the lowest CO2 emissions. The hybrid car is a vehicle that has two or more engines together. Generally, the internal combustion engine and the battery engine are installed at the hybrid car. In other words, because it has a gasoline or diesel engine and an electric engine, it can reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, etc. up to 90% compared with general automobiles. According to the Hybrid car released by Hyundai Motor Company, it has reduced CO2 emissions by about 28%, which is equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by 1200 trees of 30-year-old pines. Therefore, modern people who are inevitable to use automobiles should use hybrid cars as an alternative and solve the problem of global warming by reducing carbon emissions.

Hybrid cars solve not only air pollution problems but also resource exhaustion problems. Hybrid cars are also famous for their advanced fuel economy. When the hybrid stopped, the ignition is automatically turned off, preventing fuel loss in standby mode. In addition, when the engine is switched on, it uses a battery engine rather than an internal combustion engine, so that it is more energy efficient than regular cars. This high fuel economy reduces the use of petroleum, so we can pass down more resources to future generations. Therefore, we must use hybrid cars to solve the resource depletion problem.

Like this, hybrid cars are a good alternative to air pollution and resource depletion. Therefore, a government have to encourage more people to use hybrid cars by various way. For example, economic benefits such as discount tolls, public parking lots, and so on must be provided to hybrid car users because hybrid cars are more expensive than regular cars. Also, many countries offer these benefits, yet, governments must strive to provide more benefits as a reward for environmental protection.

To reduce pollution, the best thing is to use public transportation, bicycles, etc. However, if you inevitably need a car because the modern people cannot help using these days, what about try to use hybrid cars, which are green vehicles, instead of ordinary cars to pass down a better global environment and more resources to future generations. Although promoting the use of hybrid cars can be challenging for both the government and users, this should be mandatory, not optional.