Long-Term Drug Misuse Increases the Risk of Cognitive Dysfunctions in Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators: Key Intervention Targets for Reducing Dropout and Reoffending

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a major public health problem, with an important mortality rate in women across the world. In this regard, it has been well-established that drug misuse explains (at least in part) an increased risk of IPVAW perpetration. Even though alcohol is the most widely studied drug underlying IPVAW, other drugs, such as cannabis and cocaine also seem to be significant indicators of this type of violence. Nonetheless, little is known about mediators, such as cognitive domains that facilitate proneness to violence after drug consumption. Therefore, the primary objective of the present study was to compare drug misuse patterns and cognitive performance in a carefully selected sample of IPVAW perpetrators (n = 63) and a group of non-violent men (control group; n = 39). Second, we also aimed to study the association between different patterns of drug misuse and cognitive performance and several facets of IPVAW perpetration (i.e., severity of injuries and type of aggression). Our results revealed that IPVAW perpetrators showed considerably higher levels of sustained drug misuse (alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, and heroin) for years and worse cognitive performance than controls. Moreover, the highest drug misuse sustained over time was related to the worst cognitive performance and the highest IPVAW severity. Finally, alcohol and cocaine seemed to be related to IPVAW and risk of reo ending. Whereas, cannabis, heroin, and MDMA were related to the existence of a previous criminal record (delinquency without violence). Hence, research in this field would help to develop coadjutant treatments and intervention packages to reduce drug misuse in the initial stages, which in turn would reduce cognitive impairments in IPVAW perpetrators. These expected improvements migh

Ground truth annotation of traffic video data

This paper presents a software application to generate ground-truth data on video files from traffic surveillance cameras used for Intelligent Transportation Systems (IT systems). The computer vision system to be evaluated counts the number of vehicles that cross a line per time unit intensity-, the average speed and the occupancy. The main goal of the visual interface presented in this paper is to be easy to use without the requirement of any specific hardware. It is based on a standard laptop or desktop computer and a Jog shuttle wheel. The setup is efficient and comfortable because one hand of the annotating person is almost all the time on the space key of the keyboard while the other hand is on the jog shuttle wheel. The mean time required to annotate a video file ranges from 1 to 5 times its duration (per lane) depending on the content. Compared to general purpose annotation tool a time factor gain of about 7 times is achieved.This work was funded by the Spanish Government project MARTA under the CENIT program and CICYT contract TEC2009-09146.Mossi García, JM.; Albiol Colomer, AJ.; Albiol Colomer, A.; Oliver Moll, J. (2014). Ground truth annotation of traffic video data. Multimedia Tools and Applications. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-013-1396-xS114Albiol A et al (2011) Detection of parked vehicles using spatiotemporal maps. IEEE Trans Intell Transport Syst 12(4):1277–1291Blunsden SJ, Fisher R (2010) The BEHAVE video dataset: ground truthed video for multi-person behavior classification. Annal British Mach Vis Assoc 4:1–12Bradski G, Kaehler A (2008) Learning OpenCV: Computer vision with the OpenCV library. O'Reilly Media, IncorporatedBrooke J. SUS: a “quick and dirty” usability scale. Usability evaluation in industry. Taylor and FrancisBrostow GJ et al (2009) Semantic object classes in video: a high-definition ground truth database. Pattern Recognit Lett 30(2):88–97Buch N et al (2011) A review of computer vision techniques for the analysis of urban traffic. IEEE Trans Intell Transp Syst 12(3):920–939D’Orazio T et al. (2009) A semi-automatic system for ground truth generation of soccer video sequences. Advanced Video and Signal Based Surveillance, 2009. AVSS’09. Sixth IEEE International Conference on (Sep. 2009), 559–564Dollar P et al (2012) Pedestrian detection: an evaluation of the state of the art. IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell 34(4):743–761Faro A et al (2011) Adaptive background modeling integrated with luminosity sensors and occlusion processing for reliable vehicle detection. IEEE Trans Intell Transport Syst 12(4):1398–1412Giro-i-Nieto X et al (2010) GAT: a graphical annotation tool for semantic regions. Multimed Tool Appl 46(2–3):155–174i-LIDS. Image Library for Intelligent Detection Systems: www.ilids.co.uk . Home Office Scientific Development Branch, United Kingdom. Last Accessed February 2013Kasturi R et al (2009) Framework for performance evaluation of face, text, and vehicle detection and tracking in video: data, metrics, and protocol. IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell 31(2):319–336Laganière R (2011) OpenCV 2 computer vision application programming cookbook. Packt Pub LimitedLorist MM et al (2000) Mental fatigue and task control: planning and preparation. Psychophysiology 37(5):614–625Russell B et al (2008) LabelMe: a database and web-based tool for image annotation. Int J Comput Vis 77(1):157–173Serrano M, Gracía J, Patricio M, Molina J (2010). Interactive video annotation tool. Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence, 325–332Traffic City Cameras. Ajuntament de València, Spain. http://camaras.valencia.es . Last Accessed February 2013TREC video retrieval evaluation. http://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/trecvid/Vezzani R, Cucchiara R (2010) Video Surveillance Online Repository (ViSOR): an integrated framework. Multimed Tool Appl 50(2):359–380ViPER: the video performance evaluation resource: http://viper-toolkit.sourceforge.net/Volkmer T et al. (2005) A web-based system for collaborative annotation of large image and video collections: an evaluation and user study. Proceedings of the 13th annual ACM international conference on Multimedia (New York, NY, USA, 2005), 892–901Zhang HB, Li SA, Chen SY, Su SZ, Duh DJ, Li SZ (2012) Adaptive photograph retrieval method. Multimedia Tools and Applications, Published online September 2012.Zou Y et al (2011) Traffic incident classification at intersections based on image sequences by HMM/SVM classifiers. Multimed Tool Appl 52(1):133–14

Design of the laboratory script by the students in chemistry practicals: Analysis of water

Comunicació presentada a INTED2018, 12th International Technology, Education and Development Conference. (March 5-7, 2018, Valencia, Spain).The laboratory practices during the Degree in Chemistry are currently designed so that the student must learn and execute a fully developed experimental protocol, previously written up by the professor, which contains all the information and requirements for the correct development of each laboratory session. Under these conditions, students do not need to take any initiative and, consequently, they do not put enough effort in reaching practical abilities with a well-based scientific criterion and do not try to think over the purpose of each lab operation, as well as the reason to use each material and/or each reagent. Thus, with the aim to promote a more active role of the students in their learning process and to improve their autonomy, a new laboratory practices design has been developed in this work, which follows methodologies on project-based cooperative learning: the students have been requested to elaborate themselves the laboratory script by pairs. With this innovative design, we pursue to involve the students in both elaboration and execution steps of the laboratory practicals, and then to increase their attention on them. Besides, the required bibliographic research would improve their knowledge about the studied topic and all aspects about the work at the laboratory. The practicals to-be-developed were related to the study of the physico-chemical quality of natural water, which has a high social relevance

Management of diversity in master classroom: an increasing challenge for science education in valencian universities

Comunicació presentada a INTED2018, 12th International Technology, Education and Development Conference. (March 5-7, 2018, Valencia, Spain).Currently, many foreign students study a Master degree at the Valencian Universities. We can find students, which have immigrated to Spain in the recent years, and then have partially or fully follow the Spanish curricula (High School and/or Grade), and others which have come specifically to study the Master, attracted by the reputation of the Universities and the job and way-of-life offered by the country, and then have achieved their Grade in their countries. This has increased the diversity of the students in the classrooms, related to the ethnic origin, mother language, study practices, background and integration in the society. The present work gives an overview on how students and teacher manage the heterogeneity and diversity in a Master classroom related to chemistry. The term “diversity” is first detailed prior to discussing explicit studies. Different aspects of diversity are stated. The personal experience of the foreign students to adapt to the Spanish courses and environment was investigated. The actions taken by the lecturer to take advantage of diversity and minimize its negative effects were examined. A comparison between the academic results obtained by international and national students is given. Finally, the attention will be focused on language, study practices and background, since these dimensions are frequently discussed in the Valencian context. The implications and opportunities that offer diversity for national but also for international science research are presented

Hormonal differences in intimate partner violence perpetrators when they cope with acute stress: A pilot study

Background: Only a few studies have paid attention to the ability of perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPVAW) against women to cope with acute stress, including hormonal pa-rameters. In fact, previous studies assessed how salivary testosterone (Tsal) and cortisol (Csal) changed after coping with an acute emotional stressor (directly related to IPVAW), and they con-cluded that an imbalance between the two hormones might be characteristic of these men. Never-theless, they neglected to examine the role of other hormones, such as salivary oxytocin (OXsal), which also seemed to play an important role in behavioral regulation, and whether this response could be generalized to other types of stress not directly related to IPVAW. Methods: This study aims to assess whether IPVAW perpetrators (n = 19) present differential hormonal (Tsal, Csal, OXsal and their ratios) and psychological state (anxiety, anger, and general affect) responses when coping with an acute cognitive laboratory stressor (a set of neuropsychological tests performed in front of an expert committee) in comparison with non-violent men (n = 16). This quasi-experimental study also assessed whether the psychological state variables drive this different hormonal response. Re-sults: Our results revealed that IPVAW perpetrators had lower Csal and higher Tsal/Csal ratio levels during the post-task period, as well as higher total levels (average) of OXsal than controls. We also found that, only in IPVAW perpetrators, high levels of baseline anxiety and negative affect were related to high rises in Csal during the stress task. Conclusions: These data present a background showing that IPVAW perpetrators and non-violent men cope differently with stress. These findings might help to identify idiosyncratic profiles of IPVAW perpetrators that can then be employed to establish their therapeutic needs. Moreover, we reinforced the importance of combining biological markers with self-reports, thus increasing the reliability of these forensic assessments. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in chemically disordered FePd-FeV(100) alloy thin films

We find that the use of V(100) buffer layers on MgO(001) substrates for the epitaxy of FePd binary alloys yields to the formation at intermediate and high deposition temperatures of a FePd¿FeV mixed phase due to strong V diffusion accompanied by a loss of layer continuity and strong increase of its mosaic spread. Contrary to what is usually found in this kind of systems, these mixed phase structures exhibit perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) which is not correlated with the presence of chemical order, almost totally absent in all the fabricated structures, even at deposition temperatures where it is usually obtained with other buffer layers. Thus the observed PMA can be ascribed to the V interdiffusion and the formation of a FeV alloy, being the global sample saturation magnetization also reduced

Dropout from Court-Mandated Intervention Programs for Intimate Partner Violence Offenders: The Relevance of Alcohol Misuse and Cognitive Impairments

There is considerable interest in offering insight into the mechanisms that might explain why certain perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) drop out of interventions. Although several socio-demographic variables and attitudes towards IPVAW have been proposed as risk factors for IPVAW perpetrators' dropout, less attention has been paid to alcohol misuse, and its interactions with empathic and cognitive deficits, in the discontinuation of the treatment. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to compare the profile of a carefully selected sample of IPVAW perpetrators, divided into four groups: those who completed the intervention with low (n = 267) and high alcohol consumption (n = 67); and those who dropped out before the intervention ended with low (n = 62).and high alcohol consumption (n = 27). Furthermore, we also studied the initial risk before the intervention started and the o cial IPVAW recidivism during the first year after the intervention ended. Our results revealed that IPVAW perpetrators, especially those who did not complete the intervention and had high alcohol consumption/alcohol misuse, were less accurate in decoding emotional facial signals and presented more errors and perseverative errors than those who completed the intervention. These differences were particularly marked in comparison with those who showed less alcohol consumption. Furthermore, the first group also presented the highest risk (assessed by therapists) and official recidivism rate (o cial records). Conversely, the lowest rate of IPVAW reoffending was presented by IPVAW treatment completers with low alcohol consumption. Hence, our study identifies different targets that should be addressed during the initial stages of interventions in order to prevent or reduce IPVAW dropout, which in turn might reduce violence recidivism in the long term through their effects on emotional information processing and behavioural regulation

Structural and functional characterization of (110)-oriented epitaxial La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 electrodes and SrTiO3 tunnel barriers

La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 (LCMO) films have been deposited on (110)-oriented SrTiO3 (STO) substrates. X-ray diffraction and high-resolution electron microscopy reveal that the (110) LCMO films are epitaxial and anisotropically in-plane strained, with higher relaxation along the [1¿10] direction than along the [001] direction; x-ray absorption spectroscopy data signaled the existence of a single intermediate Mn3+/4+ 3d-state at the film surface. Their magnetic properties are compared to those of (001) LCMO films grown simultaneously on (001) STO substrates It is found that (110) LCMO films present a higher Curie temperature (TC) and a weaker decay of magnetization when approaching TC than their (001) LCMO counterparts. These improved films have been subsequently covered by nanometric STO layers. Conducting atomic-force experiments have shown that STO layers, as thin as 0.8 nm, grown on top of the (110) LCMO electrode, display good insulating properties. We will show that the electric conductance across (110) STO layers, exponentially depending on the barrier thickness, is tunnel-like. The barrier height in STO (110) is found to be similar to that of STO (001). These results show that the (110) LCMO electrodes can be better electrodes than (001) LCMO for magnetic tunnel junctions, and that (110) STO are suitable insulating barriers

An Innovative Project to Strengthen and Improve the Knowledge Acquisition in the Degree in Chemistry Using e-Learning Tools

Comunicació presentada a EDULEARN2018, 10th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (July 2-4, 2018, Palma, Mallorca, Spain).The subject "Chemistry II (QU910)" is taught at first academic year (second semester) of the Degree in Chemistry at the University Jaume I. Some of its specific and general competencies are selflearning and writing and oral communication, regarding the main chemical concepts: chemical reactions, elements of the periodic table and calculations of the concentrations of the formed products and the remaining reagents in acid/base, complex, precipitation and redox reactions. We have noticed that 65% of the students have not studied any chemistry subjects (or only one) in High School or Professional Training before undertaking the Degree in Chemistry. The present project aims firstly to help these students to overcome their lack of background, secondly to compare the academic results of the students with and without previous contact with chemistry and finally, to establish actions to solve this prejudicial situation. This objective was reached by the implementation of a zero course, a course including the basic content of chemistry taught in the last years of High School, the month before the beginning of the first academic year. After the first year, students having attended chemistry before university obtained only 0.75/10 points more than the others. The Virtual Classroom, the emails and tutorial played an important role in the achievement of this zero-course