This article aims to assist readers in understanding the current status of studies on the subject by providing a descriptive bibliometric analysis of publications on virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) technologies in cultural heritage. A bibliometric analysis of 1214 publications in this discipline in the Scopus database between 2014 and the beginning of June 2024 was performed. We used VOSviewer and Bibliometrix as the analysis tools in this investigation. The outcome of this study provides a detailed overview of the descriptive bibliometric analysis based on seven categories, including the annual count of articles and citations, the most productive author, the primary affiliation, the publication source, and the subject areas. The contribution of this research lies in offering valuable insights for practitioners and researchers, helping them make informed decisions on the use of immersive technologies, for example, VR, AR, and MR, in the context of cultural heritage.

A reflective plasmonic humidity sensor based on an Au–PVA–Au nanohole sandwich structure is investigated. The device consists of a periodic gold nanohole array, a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) spacer, and a continuous gold film. A humidity-dependent model considering both the refractive-index decrease and thickness swelling of PVA is established to analyze the optical response and resonance-modulation mechanism. Within the relative humidity range of 20–98%RH, the reflection resonance dip exhibits a continuous blueshift with a total wavelength shift of approximately 135 nm. Piecewise linear fitting shows sensitivities of 1.3857 nm/%RH in the 20–74%RH range and 2.5000 nm/%RH in the 74–98%RH range. At approximately 74%RH, the resonance wavelength, full width at half maximum, and quality factor are about 830 nm, 19 nm, and 43.7, respectively. Decoupling analysis confirms that both PVA refractive-index reduction and thickness swelling contribute to the blueshift, while their combined effect produces the largest response. These results demonstrate that the proposed structure converts humidity-induced optical and geometric variations in PVA into a pronounced wavelength response, providing a mechanism-guided design route for reflective nanoplasmonic humidity sensors based on polymer-assisted cavity modulation.

Introduction: Under the background of sustainable development, aesthetic education is becoming increasingly important in primary education programs. This study integrates the principles of sustainable development with aesthetic education and, based on the characteristics of primary education majors, proposes the “Four-Dimensional Aesthetic Education” (4DAE) framework. This framework includes four progressive dimensions: “Process Path,” “Capacity Building,” “Individual Growth,” and “Value Orientation.” It aims to build a coordinated system that connects aesthetic perception, educational ability, personal development, and value cultivation.Objective: The study explores the feasibility and effectiveness of applying the 4DAE framework in the Art course for primary education majors, and examines its impact on students’ overall competencies.Methods: The participants were 49 first-year students majoring in primary education at a teacher training college in Jiangsu Province, China. A 12-week aesthetic education intervention was designed and implemented, focusing on the first dimension, which includes four sub-dimensions: “Perception and Experience,” “Thinking and Judgment,” “Practice and Innovation,” and “Education and Transmission.” Pre- and post-course paired questionnaires were used to assess changes in students’ overall abilities.Conclusion: The results showed that the 4DAE framework significantly improved students’ artistic perception, critical thinking, creativity, and teaching communication skills (p < 0.05). The course satisfaction rate reached 90%, showing that the course design and content met student needs. The study suggests that the 4DAE framework helps improve curriculum structure and supports the development of pre-service teachers’ core abilities. It also provides theoretical and practical guidance for implementing aesthetic education under the goal of sustainable development.

The potential of serious games to improve students' engagement and knowledge retention in design historical education has gained significant attention in recent years. This study proposes a learning strategy integrating AI virtual characters into a role-playing serious game designed to teach design history. Utilizing the Arts and Crafts Movement as the narrative foundation, the game employs AI-driven characters to provide adaptive guidance, interactive storytelling, and personalized feedback. A quasi-experimental design was adopted with two groups of college students (N = 60): an experimental group using the AI-supported game and a control group playing the same game without AI integration. Results show that the inclusion of AI virtual characters significantly enhances students' engagement and knowledge acquisition compared to the traditional game. These findings highlight the potential of AI-powered serious games to transform historical education by fostering active participation and deep learning.

The accurate segmentation of gastric cancer cells is important in pathology for diagnosing and detecting diseases early. However, current approaches still suffer from limitations such as expensive annotation, fuzzy lesion boundaries, and weak feature expression. In order to solve these problems, we present MSAF-Net, a novel U-Net framework optimized both architecturally and in terms of the loss function. In particular, we incorporate a Multi-scale Dilated Pooling Fusion Block into the encoder stage to achieve enhanced interaction of multi-paths and thus improve features’ diversity and boundary sensitivity. We also introduce a Dual-Channel Attention Block in place of traditional convolution block in the decoder stage to restore better details and reconstruct the fuzzy boundaries. Meanwhile, a Diagonal Mahalanobis Consistency Loss is incorporated into our framework to facilitate class compactness. Experiments performed on the SEED-Gastric Carcinoma Stage 1 dataset show that the designed algorithm can reach 0.776 in Dice score and 0.821 in Accuracy, which outperforms the baseline method U-Net. It is clear that these results have shown the effectiveness and robustness of our proposed approach. The introduced algorithm allows for more precise quantification of gastric cancer cell morphology.

The potential of educational augmented reality systems to improve students’ learning performance, motivation, and cognitive load has been demonstrated by recent studies. To help students learn the design history material, this study suggests an AR-integrated learning application strategy. In this study, we use Modernism as the theoretical underpinning for the creation of an augmented reality-integrated learning program. We compare the motivation and performance test results of 60 college students ( N = 60) studying design history between the AR-supported and a corresponding traditional multimedia learning environment. The experimental findings show that students’ learning performance and motivation are much enhanced by this educational mobile augmented reality system approach and that their unnecessary cognitive load during the study was greatly decreased.