Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio

A model for providing emotion awareness and feedback using fuzzy logic in online learning

Monitoring users’ emotive states and using that information for providing feedback and scaffolding is crucial. In the learning context, emotions can be used to increase students’ attention as well as to improve memory and reasoning. In this context, tutors should be prepared to create affective learning situations and encourage collaborative knowledge construction as well as identify those students’ feelings which hinder learning process. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to label affective behavior in educational discourse based on fuzzy logic, which enables a human or virtual tutor to capture students’ emotions, make students aware of their own emotions, assess these emotions and provide appropriate affective feedback. To that end, we propose a fuzzy classifier that provides a priori qualitative assessment and fuzzy qualifiers bound to the amounts such as few, regular and many assigned by an affective dictionary to every word. The advantage of the statistical approach is to reduce the classical pollution problem of training and analyzing the scenario using the same dataset. Our approach has been tested in a real online learning environment and proved to have a very positive influence on students’ learning performance.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

Predictores emocionales y de personalidad que infl uyen en la aparición de las quejas somáticas en niños y en adultos

Personality and emotional factors may be contributing to the emergence of somatic complaints. The purpose of this study was to analyse the combined contribution of emotional awareness, moods and personality to somatic complaints in children and adults. Method: Participants were 1,476 children (M= 9.90 years, SD= 1.27, 52.10% girls) and 940 adults (M= 32.30 years, SD= 11.62, 64% women) who were administered self-reports. Analysis was performed using fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), an analytical technique that enables in-depth analysis of how a series of causal conditions contribute to a given outcome. Results: Emotional awareness, moods and personality account for 59% of high levels of somatic complaints in children and 69% in adults. In both samples, interaction between low levels of emotional awareness, high levels of negative moods and low levels of positive mood, high levels of neuroticism and low levels of the other personality factors appear to lead to high levels of somatic complaints (children: raw coverage = .18, consistency = .95; adults: raw coverage = .15, consistency = .97). Conclusion: A similar contribution of emotional and personality components was found to explain somatic complaints in children and adultsla personalidad y los factores emocionales pueden estar contribuyendo a la aparición de quejas somáticas. El objetivo del estudio fue analizar la contribución combinada de la conciencia emocional, los estados de ánimo y la personalidad, a las quejas somáticas en niños y adultos. Método: los participantes fueron 1.476 niños (M= 9.90 años, DT= 1.27, 52.10% niñas) y 940 adultos (M= 32.30 años, DT= 11.62, 64% mujeres) y completaron auto-informes. Se utilizó fuzzy qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), una técnica analítica que permite un análisis en profundidad de cómo una serie de condiciones causales contribuyen a un resultado dado. Resultados: la conciencia emocional, los estados de ánimo y la personalidad explican el 59% de los altos niveles de quejas somáticas en niños y el 69% en adultos. En ambos, la interacción entre bajos niveles de conciencia emocional, altos niveles de estados de ánimo negativos y bajos niveles de estados de ánimo positivos, altos niveles de neuroticismo y bajos niveles de los otros factores de personalidad, parecen conducir a altos niveles de quejas somáticas (niños: raw coverage= .18, consistency= .95; adultos: raw coverage= .15, consistency= .97). Conclusión: se encontró una contribución similar de los componentes emocionales y de personalidad a la explicación de las quejas somáticas en niños y adulto

Monitoring land use changes using geo-information : possibilities, methods and adapted techniques

Monitoring land use with geographical databases is widely used in decision-making. This report presents the possibilities, methods and adapted techniques using geo-information in monitoring land use changes. The municipality of Soest was chosen as study area and three national land use databases, viz. Top10Vector, CBS land use statistics and LGN, were used. The restrictions of geo-information for monitoring land use changes are indicated. New methods and adapted techniques improve the monitoring result considerably. Providers of geo-information, however, should coordinate on update frequencies, semantic content and spatial resolution to allow better possibilities of monitoring land use by combining data sets

An entrepreneurship model for assessing the investment attractiveness of regions

Аналіз результатів моделювання показав, що занадто багато показників усувають розбіжності в рівнях підприємницької моделі інвестиційної привабливості регіонів, тому при проведенні аналітичної роботи доцільно деталізувати напрям інвестицій. Отже, якщо врахувати рівень інвестиційної привабливості регіонів за факторами, ми можемо визначити чітких лідерів. Доведено, що при оцінці інвестиційної привабливості територіальних одиниць необхідно враховувати фактор "Захищеність інвестиційної діяльності" (криміногенний, екологічний, політичний). До останніх двох факторів слід віднести такі показники, як туристичний потенціал та національна самосвідомість населення регіону, які можна виразити в лінгвістичній формі та дослідити за допомогою нечіткої логічної апаратури.Analysis of the simulation results showed that too many indicators eliminate differences in an levels of entrepreneurship model the investment attractiveness of the regions, therefore, when conducting analytical work, it is advisable to detail the direction of investment. So, if we consider the level of investment attractiveness of the regions by factors, we can identify clear leaders. It is proved that in assessment the investment attractiveness of territorial units, it is necessary to take into account the factor "Security of investment activity" (criminogenic, environmental, political). The last two factors should be attributed to such indicators as tourism potential and national self-awareness of the population of the region, which can be expressed in linguistic form and investigated using fuzzy logic apparatus