Applications of Artificial Intelligence in the Treatment of Behavioral and Mental Health Conditions

Introduction Artificial intelligence (AI) is the branch of science that studies and designs intelligent devices. For individuals unfamiliar with artificial intelligence, the concept of intelligent machines may bring up visions of attractive human-like computers or robots, like those described in science fiction. Others may consider AI technology to be mysterious machines limited to research facilities or a technical triumph that will come in the far future. Popular media accounts on the deployment of aerial drones, autonomous autos, or the potential dangers of developing super-intelligent technologies may have raised some broad awareness of the subject

Recent Developments in Smart Healthcare

Medicine is undergoing a sector-wide transformation thanks to the advances in computing and networking technologies. Healthcare is changing from reactive and hospital-centered to preventive and personalized, from disease focused to well-being centered. In essence, the healthcare systems, as well as fundamental medicine research, are becoming smarter. We anticipate significant improvements in areas ranging from molecular genomics and proteomics to decision support for healthcare professionals through big data analytics, to support behavior changes through technology-enabled self-management, and social and motivational support. Furthermore, with smart technologies, healthcare delivery could also be made more efficient, higher quality, and lower cost. In this special issue, we received a total 45 submissions and accepted 19 outstanding papers that roughly span across several interesting topics on smart healthcare, including public health, health information technology (Health IT), and smart medicine

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

Enriching companion robots with enhanced reminiscence abilities

In this document I will go on discussing a project conceived by Professor Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese and Alessandro Russo, both researchers and developers of some of the main aspects of project Mario at CNR Rome. MARIO is a robot, part of a robotics company called KOMPAÏ Robotics that deals with the production and management of Robots who take care of elderly people who suffer from dementia or who still need an aid; more generally speaking, there is talk of weak and lonely people within an organization and / or institutions (nursing homes ...) or in their own homes. There are numerous characteristics of MARIO, which ultimately contribute to all those which are the manufacturing objectives of KOMPAÏ Robotics. My project, or rather my contribution to MARIO, is to look for a specific method which let the robot show a specific set of photos to the user according to the expressions, feelings and emotions, the user will reveal. Example: the robot randomly chooses a marriage photo and the user suddenly start to laugh and to express positive feelings with positive words; the robot will try to understand if it’s a good photo for the user or not, and in the first case will continue to show the same kind of pictures while in the second case, will change completely set of photos to be shown. The pleasure of the subject expressed in relation to a photo must be subject to an index of interest between predefined and specified values that may be to show a certain interest in a picture or the subjects within the image or the situation that surrounds them

Decoding learning: the proof, promise and potential of digital education

With hundreds of millions of pounds spent on digital technology for education every year – from interactive whiteboards to the rise of one–to–one tablet computers – every new technology seems to offer unlimited promise to learning. many sectors have benefitted immensely from harnessing innovative uses of technology. cloud computing, mobile communications and internet applications have changed the way manufacturing, finance, business services, the media and retailers operate. But key questions remain in education: has the range of technologies helped improve learners’ experiences and the standards they achieve? or is this investment just languishing as kit in the cupboard? and what more can decision makers, schools, teachers, parents and the technology industry do to ensure the full potential of innovative technology is exploited? There is no doubt that digital technologies have had a profound impact upon the management of learning. institutions can now recruit, register, monitor, and report on students with a new economy, efficiency, and (sometimes) creativity. yet, evidence of digital technologies producing real transformation in learning and teaching remains elusive. The education sector has invested heavily in digital technology; but this investment has not yet resulted in the radical improvements to learning experiences and educational attainment. in 2011, the Review of Education Capital found that maintained schools spent £487 million on icT equipment and services in 2009-2010. 1 since then, the education system has entered a state of flux with changes to the curriculum, shifts in funding, and increasing school autonomy. While ring-fenced funding for icT equipment and services has since ceased, a survey of 1,317 schools in July 2012 by the british educational suppliers association found they were assigning an increasing amount of their budget to technology. With greater freedom and enthusiasm towards technology in education, schools and teachers have become more discerning and are beginning to demand more evidence to justify their spending and strategies. This is both a challenge and an opportunity as it puts schools in greater charge of their spending and use of technolog

Automatic emotion recognition in clinical scenario: a systematic review of methods

none4Automatic emotion recognition has powerful opportunities in the clinical field, but several critical aspects are still open, such as heterogeneity of methodologies or technologies tested mainly on healthy people. This systematic review aims to survey automatic emotion recognition systems applied in real clinical contexts, to deeply analyse clinical and technical aspects, how they were addressed, and relationships among them. The literature review was conducted on: IEEEXplore, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed, ACM. Inclusion criteria were the presence of an automatic emotion recognition algorithm and the enrollment of at least 2 patients in the experimental protocol. The review process followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Moreover, the works were analysed according to a reference model to deeply examine both clinical and technical topics. 52 scientific papers passed inclusion criteria. Most clinical scenarios involved neurodevelopmental, neurological and psychiatric disorders with the aims of diagnosing, monitoring, or treating emotional symptoms. The most adopted signals are video and audio, while supervised shallow learning is mostly used for emotion recognition. A poor study design, tiny samples, and the absence of a control group emerged as methodological weaknesses. Heterogeneity of performance metrics, datasets and algorithms challenges results comparability, robustness, reliability and reproducibility.openPepa, Lucia; Spalazzi, Luca; Capecci, Marianna; Ceravolo, Maria GabriellaPepa, Lucia; Spalazzi, Luca; Capecci, Marianna; Ceravolo, Maria Gabriell

Artificial Intelligence Through the Eyes of the Public

Artificial Intelligence is becoming a popular field in computer science. In this report we explored its history, major accomplishments and the visions of its creators. We looked at how Artificial Intelligence experts influence reporting and engineered a survey to gauge public opinion. We also examined expert predictions concerning the future of the field as well as media coverage of its recent accomplishments. These results were then used to explore the links between expert opinion, public opinion and media coverage

Designing interactive virtual environments with feedback in health applications.

One of the most important factors to influence user experience in human-computer interaction is the user emotional reaction. Interactive environments including serious games that are responsive to user emotions improve their effectiveness and user satisfactions. Testing and training for user emotional competence is meaningful in healthcare field, which has motivated us to analyze immersive affective games using emotional feedbacks. In this dissertation, a systematic model of designing interactive environment is presented, which consists of three essential modules: affect modeling, affect recognition, and affect control. In order to collect data for analysis and construct these modules, a series of experiments were conducted using virtual reality (VR) to evoke user emotional reactions and monitoring the reactions by physiological data. The analysis results lead to the novel approach of a framework to design affective gaming in virtual reality, including the descriptions on the aspects of interaction mechanism, graph-based structure, and user modeling. Oculus Rift was used in the experiments to provide immersive virtual reality with affective scenarios, and a sample application was implemented as cross-platform VR physical training serious game for elderly people to demonstrate the essential parts of the framework. The measurements of playability and effectiveness are discussed. The introduced framework should be used as a guiding principle for designing affective VR serious games. Possible healthcare applications include emotion competence training, educational softwares, as well as therapy methods