Il sistema di allenamento analogico/simbolico nello sport della pallavolo: Una valutazione delle componenti mnesitico/attentive

I benefici che l’attività motoria opera sia nell’età adulta che durante l’infanzia sono molteplici. Tra questi, si annoverano i miglioramenti delle abilità percettive, attentive e mnestiche. Lo scopo del presente lavoro è verificare se le capacità mnestiche ed attentive possano essere incrementate dalla messa in opera di un’offerta formativa specifica. Due gruppi di bambini, di età compresa tra i sei e i dieci anni sono stati avviati al gioco della pallavolo. Un gruppo è stato allenato con un metodo che carica di significati i movimenti corporei dell’allenatore e dei compagni al fine di associare tali movimenti allo svolgimento di future indicazioni da eseguire (Pittera, Pedata e Ligas, 2008). L’altro gruppo ha svolto esercizi propedeutici alla pallavolo attraverso la focalizzazione sull’apprendimento dei gesti tecnici. La differenza tra i dati raccolti all’inizio e alla fine del periodo di allenamento preso in esame evidenziarono un miglioramento della capacità di ricordare azioni motorie; nessun miglioramento apparve però per quanto ha riguardato il numero di posizioni spaziali o il numero di componenti verbali da ricordare. Sorprendentemente, poi, nessun miglioramento emerse nelle misure di attenzione sostenuta. I risultati suggeriscono come, focalizzando l’attenzione dei discenti sugli aspetti motori dell’esercizio, e facendo in modo che questi aumentino di significato al fine della successiva realizzazione di nuovi compiti, si possa aumentare una capacità basilare di ogni apprendimento sportivo, ovvero la capacità di ricordare nuove azioni

The positive impact of physical activity on working memory abilities: Evidence from a large Italian pre-adolescent sample

Physical activity (PA) is an essential component of people's well-being. Copious evidence argues for its protective effect across individuals' lifespan. However, its role as a factor of enhancement for human cognitive skills is still a matter of study. The present work aims to provide conclusive evidence about PA's role in modulating working memory skills in active pre-adolescent children. By enrolling a large number of participants, we tested the effect of PA on Digit Span Backwards (DSB), a well-consolidated test taxing primarily short-term auditory memory, i.e., less dependent on attention fluctuations. Higher working memory capacity was assumed to emerge in the participants practising PA compared to the less active ones. Moreover, due to the different activities participants reported to practice, we expected that children practising open-skill activities manifested better memory skills than the peers practising closed-skill activities, due to the intrinsic nature of the two forms of exercises. Data supported the previous hypothesis highlighting PA's positive effect; however, they did not keep the assumed differences for open vs closed skills. Results are discussed in the light of the cognitive efforts required to sport beginners, particularly in the light of what they are prompted to code, remember and recall in each step of the proposed exercises

L'effetto specifico delle discipline sportive nella predizione di un'azione di gioco: uno studio pilota su pallavolisti e calciatori

Nel presente studio sono stati testati tre diversi gruppi di atleti (Pallavolisti di Serie A1, pallavolisti under 16, calciatori under 16) al fine di indagare le loro capacita' di predire il risultato di un'azione di palleggio. Le azioni di palleggio sono state videoriprese durante partite reali di pallavolo di Serie A e somministrate a computer attraverso la tecnica di occlusione temporale. La capacita' predittiva e' risultata essere in funzione dello sport praticato, con migliori risultati da parte degli atleti piu' evoluti. Contrariamente a quanto atteso, non e', pero', emerso un vantaggio per gli atleti che erano usi compiere le stesse azioni mostrate in video (i.e., i palleggiatori). I risultati sono stati discussi alla luce delle informazioni motorie condivise tra chi osserva e chi compie l'azione. English abstract Title: The sport action prediction emerges in function of sport expertise: a pilot study with volleyball players and footballers. In the present study we tested three different groups of athletes (volleyball Serie A1, under-16 volleyball players, soccer players under 16) to investigate their ability to predict the results of volleyball settings performed by a professional setter. The settings were presented in videos recorded during real games played by team of the Major Italian League. They were administered using the technique of temporal occlusion to athletes sat in front of a computer screen. The ability to predict the result of the setting actions emerged to be in function of the practiced sport with expert athletes responding better. Contrary to what expected we did not find higher performance for those athletes who share the more the same motor repertoire with the observed setter. The results are discussed in light of amount of motor information shared between observer and observed

Abuses in dementia, and responses of care

In the paper, we provide a few comments on the phenomena of abuse on people with dementia. Alongside a description of the most frequent types of abuses, attention is driven towards theoretical models aimed at contextualizing the phenomena

Health care proxy and guardianship in Cecz Republic, Italy, The Netherlands, and Spain.

In the paper we report the situations of proxy services and facilities featuring some European countries

Italian Revised Memory and Behavior Problems Checklist

Nella pagine seguenti sono riportate le istruzioni di somministrazione della versione Italiana della check list RMBPC di Teri et al. (1992). Le proprietà psicometriche della versione italiana sono state descritte da Ottoboni et al. (In press)

A Multifunctional Adaptive and Interactive AI system to support people living with stroke, acquired brain or spinal cord injuries: A study protocol

Background: Acquired brain injury and spinal cord injury are leading causes of severe motor disabilities impacting a person's autonomy and social life. Enhancing neurological recovery driven by neurogenesis and neuronal plasticity could represent future solutions; however, at present, recovery of activities employing assistive technologies integrating artificial intelligence is worthy of examining. MAIA (Multifunctional, adaptive, and interactive AI system for Acting in multiple contexts) is a human-centered AI aiming to allow end-users to control assistive devices naturally and efficiently by using continuous bidirectional exchanges among multiple sensorimotor information. Methods: Aimed at exploring the acceptability of MAIA, semi-structured interviews (both individual interviews and focus groups) are used to prompt possible end-users (both patients and caregivers) to express their opinions about expected functionalities, outfits, and the services that MAIA should embed, once developed, to fit end-users needs. Discussion: End-user indications are expected to interest MAIA technical, health-related, and setting components. Moreover, psycho-social issues are expected to align with the technology acceptance model. In particular, they are likely to involve intrinsic motivational and extrinsic social aspects, aspects concerning the usefulness of the MAIA system, and the related ease to use. At last, we expect individual factors to impact MAIA: gender, fragility levels, psychological aspects involved in the mental representation of body image, personal endurance, and tolerance toward AT-related burden might be the aspects end-users rise in evaluating the MAIA project

Improving Harmonic Measurements with Instrument Transformers: a Comparison Among Two Techniques

The measurement of harmonics is essential in modern power systems in order to perform distortion level assessment, disturbances source detection and mitigation, etc. In this context, the role of Instrument Transformers (ITs) is crucial, as they are key elements in every power systems measuring instrument. However, inductive ITs, which are still the most widely used, suffer from both a filtering behavior due to their dynamics and from nonlinear effects due to their iron core. The target of this paper is to deeply analyze the performance of two digital signal processing techniques, recently proposed in literature, aimed at mitigating their nonlinear behavior: they are SINDICOMP and the compensation of harmonic distortion through polynomial modeling in the frequency domain. Their performance in improving the measurement of voltage harmonics are analyzed through numerical simulations, by adopting waveforms that can be typically encountered in power systems during normal operating conditions

cAMP Response Element-Binding Protein Controls the Appearance of Neuron-Like Traits in Chorion Mesenchymal Cells

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) from bone marrow have been reported to undergo the initial phases of neural differentiation in response to an increase of intracellular cAMP. We investigated the possibility that a similar effect applies to chorion-derived MSC