Examining the structure of ideas of reference in clinical and community samples

Aims: This study addresses the psychometric properties of a Spanish validation of the REF scale of ideas of reference (IRs) in detecting and following at-risk mental states and psychosis. Methods: A total of 9447 participants were distributed in three groups: 676 patients with various diagnoses-154 with psychotic disorders, 6291 youths aged 11 to 20, and 2480 adult participants aged 21 to 84. Results: Youths had higher scores than adults on IRs, observing a progressive decrease and stabilization in the twenties. Exploratory factor analysis provided a structure for the overall IRs score, with five first-order dimensions and one second-order dimension. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the structure with excellent fit. The REF scale was invariant across sex and samples. The internal consistency of the complete scale was excellent and acceptable across the five first-order factors. Strong relationships were found with the positive dimension of the community assessment of psychic experience-42, as well as with aberrant salience. Low and moderate relationships were found with public self-consciousness, anxiety, and depression. Youths and patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders had a high mean IRs frequency. Male sex, greater age (among the adults), and the "causal explanations", "Songs, newspapers, books" and laughing and commenting" REF subscales showed predictive power in the diagnostic categories of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders

Agriculture 4.0: A systematic literature review on the paradigm, technologies and benefits

Demographics will increase the demand for food and reduce the availability of labour in many countries all over the world. Moreover, scarcity of natural resources, climate change and food waste these are issues that are strongly impacting the agricultural sector and undermining sus-tainability. Digitalisation is expected to be a driving force in tackling these problems that are characterising agriculture. In particular, the adoption of digital technologies to support processes in the primary sector goes by the name of Agriculture 4.0. Although the number of contributions related to these issues is constantly growing, several areas are still unexplored or not fully addressed. This paper addresses the adoption of digital technologies and investigates the appli-cation domain of these technologies, presenting a systematic review of the literature on this subject. Moreover, this research shed light on the technologies adopted and related benefits. Hence, the research has turned its attention to the description of the main pillars, such as the categorisation of its main application domains and enabling technologies. The results of the research show that the different technologies applied in the various fields of application provide benefits both in terms of efficiency (cost reduction, farm productivity) and reduced environ-mental impact and increased sustainability

The dark side of Instagram: Predictor model of dysmorphic concerns

Background/Objective: Dysmorphic concern are excessive preoccupation about one or several physical characteristics perceived as defects, usually unnoticeable by others. This study was Appearance-related intended to explore the relationship between Instagram use and dysmorphic concerns through appearance-related comparisons, ideas of reference and problems with emotion regulation, and find out whether this relationship is moderated by gender. Method: The sample was cornprised of 796 participants (M-age = 22.49; SD = 3.56; 54% women). Results: The results showed a non-significant direct effect between Instagram use and dysmorphic concerns. However, the relationship between these variables was statistically significant through appearance-related comparisons, ideas of reference about "laughing, commenting" and difficulties in emotion regulation. Gender did not moderate any relationship. Conclusions: Men and women who made the most use of Instagram were equally vulnerable to dysmorphic concerns when they tended to compare their appearance with other users, had problems regulating their emotions, and showed interpretative biases related to the belief that others could make comments about them or laugh at them because of their imperfections. The implications of the study are discussed. (C) 2020 Asociacion Espanola de Psicologia Conductual. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U

Asynchronous BCI control using high-frequency SSVEP

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP) is a visual cortical response evoked by repetitive stimuli with a light source flickering at frequencies above 4 Hz and could be classified into three ranges: low (up to 12 Hz), medium (12-30) and high frequency (> 30 Hz). SSVEP-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are principally focused on the low and medium range of frequencies whereas there are only a few projects in the high-frequency range. However, they only evaluate the performance of different methods to extract SSVEP.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This research proposed a high-frequency SSVEP-based asynchronous BCI in order to control the navigation of a mobile object on the screen through a scenario and to reach its final destination. This could help impaired people to navigate a robotic wheelchair. There were three different scenarios with different difficulty levels (easy, medium and difficult). The signal processing method is based on Fourier transform and three EEG measurement channels.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The research obtained accuracies ranging in classification from 65% to 100% with Information Transfer Rate varying from 9.4 to 45 bits/min.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our proposed method allows all subjects participating in the study to control the mobile object and to reach a final target without prior training.</p

Progress on the realization of a LoRa® based communication system for atmospheric monitoring probes

The work presents the progress on the realization of the communication system realized for atmospheric monitoring probes. The realization of a link based on the Long Range (LoRa®) technology to connect and exchange data between the probes and the base station located on the ground is the potential adopted solution. After a brief description of the whole project, the realization of the first prototypal transmission system using Adafruit® Feather 32u4 LoRa Radio RFM95 embedded modules is described. First propagation measurements and results are presented