Social Emotion Mining Techniques for Facebook Posts Reaction Prediction

As of February 2016 Facebook allows users to express their experienced emotions about a post by using five so-called `reactions'. This research paper proposes and evaluates alternative methods for predicting these reactions to user posts on public pages of firms/companies (like supermarket chains). For this purpose, we collected posts (and their reactions) from Facebook pages of large supermarket chains and constructed a dataset which is available for other researches. In order to predict the distribution of reactions of a new post, neural network architectures (convolutional and recurrent neural networks) were tested using pretrained word embeddings. Results of the neural networks were improved by introducing a bootstrapping approach for sentiment and emotion mining on the comments for each post. The final model (a combination of neural network and a baseline emotion miner) is able to predict the reaction distribution on Facebook posts with a mean squared error (or misclassification rate) of 0.135.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures and accepted at ICAART 2018. (Dataset: https://github.com/jerryspan/FacebookR

The role of anterior cingulate cortex in the affective evaluation of conflict

An influential theory of anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) function argues that this brain region plays a crucial role in the affective evaluation of performance monitoring and control demands. Specifically, control-demanding processes such as response conflict are thought to be registered as aversive signals by ACC, which in turn triggers processing adjustments to support avoidance learning. In support of conflict being treated as an aversive event, recent behavioral studies demonstrated that incongruent (i.e., conflict inducing), relative to congruent, stimuli can speed up subsequent negative, relative to positive, affective picture processing. Here, we used fMRI to investigate directly whether ACC activity in response to negative versus positive pictures is modulated by preceding control demands, consisting of conflict and task-switching conditions. The results show that negative, relative to positive, pictures elicited higher ACC activation after congruent, relative to incongruent, trials, suggesting that ACC's response to negative (positive) pictures was indeed affectively primed by incongruent (congruent) trials. Interestingly, this pattern of results was observed on task repetitions but disappeared on task alternations. This study supports the proposal that conflict induces negative affect and is the first to show that this affective signal is reflected in ACC activation

Affective modulation of cognitive control is determined by performance-contingency and mediated by ventromedial prefrontal and cingulate cortex

Cognitive control requires a fine balance between stability, the protection of an on-going task-set, and flexibility, the ability to update a task-set in line with changing contingencies. It is thought that emotional processing modulates this balance, but results have been equivocal regarding the direction of this modulation. Here, we tested the hypothesis that a crucial determinant of this modulation is whether affective stimuli represent performance-contingent or task-irrelevant signals. Combining functional magnetic resonance imaging with a conflict task-switching paradigm, we contrasted the effects of presenting negative- and positive-valence pictures on the stability/flexibility trade-off in humans, depending on whether picture presentation was contingent on behavioral performance. Both the behavioral and neural expressions of cognitive control were modulated by stimulus valence and performance contingency: in the performance-contingent condition, cognitive flexibility was enhanced following positive pictures, whereas in the nonperformance-contingent condition, positive stimuli promoted cognitive stability. The imaging data showed that, as anticipated, the stability/flexibility trade-off per se was reflected in differential recruitment of dorsolateral frontoparietal and striatal regions. In contrast, the affective modulation of stability/flexibility shifts was mirrored, unexpectedly, by neural responses in ventromedial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, core nodes of the “default mode” network. Our results demonstrate that the affective modulation of cognitive control depends on the performance contingency of the affect-inducing stimuli, and they document medial default mode regions to mediate the flexibility-promoting effects of performance-contingent positive affect, thus extending recent work that recasts these regions as serving a key role in on-task control processes

The neural underpinnings of how reward associations can both guide and misguide attention

It is commonly accepted that reward is an effective motivator of behavior, but little is known about potential costs resulting from reward associations. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural underpinnings of such reward-related performance-disrupting effects in a reward-modulated Stroop task in humans. While reward associations in the task-relevant dimension (i.e., ink color) facilitated performance, behavioral detriments were found when the task-irrelevant dimension (i.e., word meaning) implicitly referred to reward-predictive ink colors. Neurally, only relevant reward associations invoked a typical reward-anticipation response in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), which was in turn predictive of behavioral facilitation. In contrast, irrelevant reward associations increased activity in a medial prefrontal motor-control-related region, namely the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA), which likely reflects the preemption and inhibition of automatic response tendencies that are amplified by irrelevant reward-related words. This view was further supported by a positive relationship between pre-SMA activity and pronounced response slowing in trials containing reward-related as compared with reward-unrelated incongruent words. Importantly, the distinct neural processes related to the beneficial and detrimental behavioral effects of reward associations appeared to arise from preferential-coding mechanisms in visual-processing areas that were shared by the two stimulus dimensions, suggesting a transfer of reward-related saliency to the irrelevant dimension, but with highly differential behavioral and neural ramifications. More generally, the data demonstrate that even entirely irrelevant reward associations can influence stimulus-processing and response-selection pathways relatively automatically, thereby representing an important flipside of reward-driven performance enhancements

Broadened assessments, health education and cognitive aids in the remote memory clinic

The prevalence of dementia is increasing and poses a health challenge for individuals and society. Despite the desire to know their risks and the importance of initiating early therapeutic options, large parts of the population do not get access to memory clinic-based assessments. Remote memory clinics facilitate low-level access to cognitive assessments by eschewing the need for face-to-face meetings. At the same time, patients with detected impairment or increased risk can receive non-pharmacological treatment remotely. Sensor technology can evaluate the efficiency of this remote treatment and identify cognitive decline. With remote and (partly) automatized technology the process of cognitive decline can be monitored but more importantly also modified by guiding early interventions and a dementia preventative lifestyle. We highlight how sensor technology aids the expansion of assessments beyond cognition and to other domains, e.g., depression. We also illustrate applications for aiding remote treatment and describe how remote tools can facilitate health education which is the cornerstone for long-lasting lifestyle changes. Tools such as transcranial electric stimulation or sleep-based interventions have currently mostly been used in a face-to-face context but have the potential of remote deployment—a step already taken with memory training apps. Many of the presented methods are readily scalable and of low costs and there is a range of target populations, from the worried well to late-stage dementia

Personas and learning paths for digitized research for non-computer scientists

The digitization of research requires the development of researcher’s digital skillset. However, most researchers are often not trained in these skills. Even worse, currently, we observe a lack of clear learning paths for obtaining these essential skills. In this workshop, we want to discuss avenues to improve this situation. First, we want to identify personas for researchers. On this basis, we discuss which learning topics are relevant for these groups and outline learning paths

Towards a Closed-Loop Data Collection and Processing Ecosystem

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Augsburg demonstrates the use of the shepard data management system using the example of robot-controlled production of an aircraft upper-shell with thermoplastic tape-laying processes. In the process, measured data from production and quality assurance is automatically gathered, interconnected and stored centrally. The data can then be searched and evaluated in shepard or analyzed in external applications

Impact of Nanocomposite Combustion Aerosols on A549 Cells and a 3D Airway Model

The use of nanomaterials incorporated into plastic products is increasing steadily. By using nano-scaled filling materials, thermoplastics, such as polyethylene (PE), take advantage of the unique properties of nanomaterials (NM). The life cycle of these so-called nanocomposites (NC) usually ends with energetic recovery. However, the toxicity of these aerosols, which may consist of released NM as well as combustion-generated volatile compounds, is not fully understood. Within this study, model nanocomposites consisting of a PE matrix and nano-scaled filling material (TiO$_{2}$, CuO, carbon nano tubes (CNT)) were produced and subsequently incinerated using a lab-scale model burner. The combustion-generated aerosols were characterized with regard to particle release as well as compound composition. Subsequently, A549 cells and a reconstituted 3D lung cell culture model (MucilAir™, Epithelix) were exposed for 4 h to the respective aerosols. This approach enabled the parallel application of a complete aerosol, an aerosol under conditions of enhanced particle deposition using high voltage, and a filtered aerosol resulting in the sole gaseous phase. After 20 h post-incubation, cytotoxicity, inflammatory response (IL-8), transcriptional toxicity profiling, and genotoxicity were determined. Only the exposure toward combustion aerosols originated from PE-based materials induced cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, and transcriptional alterations in both cell models. In contrast, an inflammatory response in A549 cells was more evident after exposure toward aerosols of nano-scaled filler combustion, whereas the thermal decomposition of PE-based materials revealed an impaired IL-8 secretion. MucilAir™ tissue showed a pronounced inflammatory response after exposure to either combustion aerosols, except for nanocomposite combustion. In conclusion, this study supports the present knowledge on the release of nanomaterials after incineration of nano-enabled thermoplastics. Since in the case of PE-based combustion aerosols no major differences were evident between exposure to the complete aerosol and to the gaseous phase, adverse cellular effects could be deduced to the volatile organic compounds that are generated during incomplete combustion of NC