Panel I: Connecting 2nd Law Analysis with Economics, Ecology and Energy Policy

The present paper is a review of several papers from the Proceedings of the Joint European Thermodynamics Conference, held in Brescia, Italy, 1–5 July 2013, namely papers introduced by their authors at Panel I of the conference. Panel I was devoted to applications of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to social issues—economics, ecology, sustainability, and energy policy. The concept called Available Energy which goes back to mid-nineteenth century work of Kelvin, Rankine, Maxwell and Gibbs, is relevant to all of the papers. Various names have been applied to the concept when interactions between the system of interest and an environment are involved. Today, the name exergy is generally accepted. The scope of the papers being reviewed is wide and they complement one another well

Presence and rehabilitation: toward second-generation virtual reality applications in neuropsychology

Virtual Reality (VR) offers a blend of attractive attributes for rehabilitation. The most exploited is its ability to create a 3D simulation of reality that can be explored by patients under the supervision of a therapist. In fact, VR can be defined as an advanced communication interface based on interactive 3D visualization, able to collect and integrate different inputs and data sets in a single real-like experience. However, "treatment is not just fixing what is broken; it is nurturing what is best" (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi). For rehabilitators, this statement supports the growing interest in the influence of positive psychological state on objective health care outcomes. This paper introduces a bio-cultural theory of presence linking the state of optimal experience defined as "flow" to a virtual reality experience. This suggests the possibility of using VR for a new breed of rehabilitative applications focused on a strategy defined as transformation of flow. In this view, VR can be used to trigger a broad empowerment process within the flow experience induced by a high sense of presence. The link between its experiential and simulative capabilities may transform VR into the ultimate rehabilitative device. Nevertheless, further research is required to explore more in depth the link between cognitive processes, motor activities, presence and flow

Editorial: Positive Technology: Designing E-experiences for Positive Change

While there is little doubt that our lives are becoming increasingly digital, whether this change is for the better or for the worse is far from being settled. Rather, over the past years concerns about the personal and social impacts of technologies have been growing, fueled by dystopian Orwellian scenarios that almost on daily basis are generously dispensed by major Western media outlets. According to a recent poll involving some 1,150 experts, 47% of respondents predict that individuals’ well-being will bemore helped than harmed by digital life in the next decade, while 32% say people’s well-being will bemore harmed than helped. Only 21% of those surveyed indicated that the impact of technologies on people well-being will be negligible compared to now (Pew Research Center, 2018)

The use of video in educational research and teacher training in the digital classroom

Abstract The introduction of new technologies, video in particular, in educational and pedagogical research has not only changed how research is conducted in the educational field but has also brought about significant changes in teacher training. The advent of digitalisation, along with the miniaturisation of both video cameras and storage media, has led to a dramatic increase in the use of video, particularly in terms of video production. This has led to the introduction of new teaching practices and new training initiatives derived from the analysis of these practices. The use of video, at an educational and didactic level on the one hand, and as an instrument for field observation on the other, offers a variety of benefits, along with some critical issues. One of the advantages is the capacity to allow for an analytical vision of complex actions, which may be reviewed at different times, by a variety of interlocutors. The aim of this study is to present a reflection based on research conducted in nine digital classes, focussing on the use of video as both an instrument for recording, collecting and analysing data, as well as a training tool in the didactic practice of teachers

Improving social game engagement on Facebook through enhanced socio-contextual information

In this paper we describe the results of a controlled study of a social game, Magpies, which was built on the Facebook Online Social Network (OSN) and enhanced with contextual social information in the form of a variety of social network indices. Through comparison with a concurrent control trial using an identical game without the enhanced social information, it was shown that the additional contextual data increased the frequency of social activity between players engaged in the game. Despite this increase in activity, there was little increase in growth of the player-base when compared to the control condition. These findings corroborate previous work that showed how socio-contextual enhancement can increase performance on task-driven games, whilst also suggesting that it can increase activity and engagement when provided as context for non task-driven game environments

Smart welfare: the work of the educator at the time of Covid-19

The field of socio-educational services is focused on the value of relationships, proximity, support and intervention on site, at home or in users’ facilities, and all those elements are difficult to convert digitally. Nevertheless, during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, smart working also became part of the everyday life of social educators. This study discusses the role of technology in the work of the educator during the pandemic period and possible future developments. The study offers an insight into the influence of Covid-19 on socio-educational services, focusing on the function of technology both in maintaining contact with the users where the service was suspended and in reshaping the assistance that continued to be provided. The research study highlights that, despite the challenges and the initial disorientation faced by educators, digital technologies can constitute important working tools to assure the continuity of the pedagogical relationship also in the socio-educational and care contexts

Neuromotor Rehabilitation and Cognitive Outcomes in Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury through the Method BAPNE

After the acute phase of hospitalization, patients with severe brain injury, requiring interventions in health and social care in the long term: the work of rehabilitators is to facilitate the recovery of several disorders caused by trauma and involves all possible areas to return the patient to full functionality within the autonomy and satisfaction of basic needs, and psychological support they need.The recent use of body percussion through BAPNE method in neurorehabilitation offers the possibility of studying the development of motor skills, attention, coordination, memory and social interaction of patients with neurological diseases.The experimental protocol involves 52 patients with GCA selected on the basis of shared and structured requirements.The trial will provide the coaching protocol BAPNE (in two weekly sessions of 50 minutes to a maximum of 10 weeks in a group of patients), to the traditional rehabilitation activities. The control group will continue to perform exclusively the cognitive and neuromotor rehabilitation according to traditional protocols.All subjects will be: monitored the levels of cortisol in-time 0 - 75-180 days; recorded beats per minute through a heart rate monitor on your wrist; through the use of Lybra (equilibrium) and Kimeja (virtual reality) will be recorded data regarding the ability to adjust the balance of the patient in standing and sitting using the visual input and data relating to the patient's ability to coordinate fine motor skills in a virtual environment; through the administration of neuropsychological tests (HADS, NPI) will be detected improvements in mood and behavioral disturbances in the regression if available. At 6 months after administration of the protocol is expected to re-test to assess if present, the maintenance of the effects of rehabilitation obtained. The research is led by three neurologists from the center of neurorehabilitation Fondazione Roboris ASL RME in Rome

Experimental Validation of the Innovative Thermal Energy Storage Based on an Integrated System "Storage Tank/Steam Generator"

Abstract In the past years, an innovative thermal energy storage system at high temperature (up to 550C) for CSP plants was proposed by ENEA and Ansaldo Nucleare: a single storage tank integrated with a steam generator immersed in the heat storage medium. The idea is based on the exploitation of the thermophysical characteristics of the heat storage medium (a binary mixture of salts of NaNO3 at 60% and KNO3 at 40%) in order to maintain over time, in the single tank, a thermal stratification of the fluid. The thermal stratification is able to trigger, in the immersed steam generator, the natural circulation, shell side and downwards, of the hot molten salt cooled down by the water that flows upwards tube side, thus heating up and producing superheated steam. The advantages of such a system are: - efficient performances; - simple implementation; - compactness: - modularity; - and, overall, contained costs: only one storage tank instead of the two tanks and only one heat exchanger instead of the three exchangers of the classic configuration; reduced quantity of salt; minimization of piping, valves and other components. The technical feasibility of the proposed system, together with the stability over time of the stratification in temperature of the storage medium, have been already verified and assessed. This report has the aim of presenting the experimental results obtained by ENEA in the Casaccia Research Centre (Rome, Italy), with a small scale test section consisting of a 300 kWth steam generator inserted in a 8 m3 storage tank with molten salt at high temperature. The reported results relate to the behaviour of the system in steady state conditions, and show its promising performances

A motivational model of BCI-controlled heuristic search

Several researchers have proposed a new application for human augmentation, which is to provide human supervision to autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) systems. In this paper, we introduce a framework to implement this proposal, which consists of using Brain–Computer Interfaces (BCI) to influence AI computation via some of their core algorithmic components, such as heuristic search. Our framework is based on a joint analysis of philosophical proposals characterising the behaviour of autonomous AI systems and recent research in cognitive neuroscience that support the design of appropriate BCI. Our framework is defined as a motivational approach, which, on the AI side, influences the shape of the solution produced by heuristic search using a BCI motivational signal reflecting the user’s disposition towards the anticipated result. The actual mapping is based on a measure of prefrontal asymmetry, which is translated into a non-admissible variant of the heuristic function. Finally, we discuss results from a proof-of-concept experiment using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to capture prefrontal asymmetry and control the progression of AI computation of traditional heuristic search problems