Modeling user navigation

This paper proposes the use of neural networks as a tool for studying navigation within virtual worlds. Results indicate that the network learned to predict the next step for a given trajectory. The analysis of hidden layer shows that the network was able to differentiate between two groups of users identified on the basis of their performance for a spatial task. Time series analysis of hidden node activation values and input vectors suggested that certain hidden units become specialised for place and heading, respectively. The benefits of this approach and the possibility of extending the methodology to the study of navigation in Human Computer Interaction applications are discussed

Towards an Info-Symbiotic Decision Support System for Disaster Risk Management

This paper outlines a framework for an info-symbiotic modelling system using cyber-physical sensors to assist in decision-making. Using a dynamic data-driven simulation approach, this system can help with the identification of target areas and resource allocation in emergency situations. Using different natural disasters as exemplars, we will show how cyber-physical sensors can enhance ground level intelligence and aid in the creation of dynamic models to capture the state of human casualties. Using a virtual command & control centre communicating with sensors in the field, up-to-date information of the ground realities can be incorporated in a dynamic feedback loop. Using other information (e.g. Weather models) a complex and rich model can be created. The framework adaptively manages the heterogeneous collection of data resources and uses agent-based models to create what-if scenarios in order to determine the best course of action

Intelligent Systems in Context-Based Distributed Information Fusion

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THE BASE SYSTEM: A SCHOOL-WIDE POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT TOOL TO FACILITATE EVIDENCE-BASED DIGITAL INTERVENTION PRACTICES

The Positive Behaviour Intervention and Support system is a framework aimed to introduce a change at school-wide level. It promotes a disciplinary system change process, from a reactive punishment- based strategies of specific student misbehaviours to a proactive system, where different behavioural principles such as the modelling and reinforcement of positive prosocial students’ behaviours are applied to improve school values and to create a positive climate. This paper presents the Behavioural Assessment to improve School Environment (BASE) system and the BASE repository. The BASE system supports evidence-based digital intervention practices for stimulating the academic, social, emotional, and behavioural competencies of all students. The BASE repository is a collection of good practices, tools, and instructional contents. Both of the tools are able to support and facilitate, through the use of mobile devices and a web-based responsive system, different prevention and instructional practices at the three-tiers PBS model. At the first level of prevention (Tier 1) the system allows to the school PBS team to define the Expectation Matrix, a set of positive behaviours grouped according to predefined school values and locations. Moreover, the PBS team members are able to define the list of problem behaviours, classifying them in minor and major. The matrix and the list of minor and major problem behaviours are at the base of the development of a screening tool for identifying behavioural risk problems, the Positive Office Referral and the Office Disciplinary Referral tools. At the target prevention level (Tier 2) the BASE application provides the Check-in/Check-out (CICO) tool, as PBIS recommends. It is addressed to a targeted group of students, resulted unresponsive to the Tier I, and implements the practice of ‘Positive reinforcement contingent on meeting behavioural goals’ throughout a reward system. At the intensive prevention level (Tier 3) the system allows users to perform Functional Behaviour Assessment for students considered unresponsive to Tier I and II and to create customized measurement tools for designing single case studies. The measure can be assigned to the observers able to collect data and organize them in phases. A TAU analysis algorithm is applied to the gathered data for showing the effectiveness of intervention. In the BASE application, each student can access to the system with personal credentials and to visualize his significant progresses into a smart dashboard. The BASE repository represents a hub for digital resources collection concerning both theoretical and methodological aspects of the PBIS approach. The Internet users interested to know the European experience of the involved partner schools, and to enlarge their knowledge about the principles to implement the PBIS in their own school, can find a first set of multimedia contents, webinars, collection of good practices gathered during the lifespan of the European Erasmus+ BASE project. The repository facilitates the finding of high-quality contents and represents a learning corner and an important knowledge repository for teachers and health professionals to understand and apply this approach

White matter microstructure of the neural emotion regulation circuitry in mild traumatic brain injury

Emotion regulation is related to recovery after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). This longitudinal tractography study examined white matter tracts subserving emotion regulation across the spectrum of mTBI, with a focus on persistent symptoms. Four groups were examined: (a) symptomatic (n = 33) and (b) asymptomatic (n = 20) patients with uncomplicated mTBI (i.e., no lesions on computed tomography [CT]), (c) patients with CT-lesions in the frontal areas (n = 14), and (d) healthy controls (HC) (n = 20). Diffusion and conventional MRI were performed approximately 1- and 3-months post-injury. Whole-brain deterministic tractography followed by region of interest analyses was used to identify forceps minor (FM), uncinate fasciculus (UF), and cingulum bundle as tracts of interest. An adjusted version of the ExploreDTI Atlas Based Tractography method was used to obtain reliable tracts for every subject. Mean fractional anisotropy (FA), mean, radial and axial diffusivity (MD, RD, AD), and number of streamlines were studied per tract. Linear mixed models showed lower FA, and higher MD, and RD of the right UF in asymptomatic patients with uncomplicated mTBI relative to symptomatic patients and HC. Diffusion alterations were most pronounced in the group with frontal lesions on CT, particularly in the FM and UF; these effects increased over time. Within the group of patients with uncomplicated mTBI, there were no associations of diffusion measures with the number of symptoms nor with lesions on conventional MRI. In conclusion, mTBI can cause microstructural changes in emotion regulation tracts, however, no explanation was found for the presence of symptoms

Lessons learned from the use of the SlideWiki OpenCourseWare platform in different learning contexts

A major obstacle to increasing the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of education is the lack of widely available, accessible, multilingual, timely, engaging and high-quality educational material, i.e. OpenCourseWare (OCW). The creation of comprehensive OCW is often a tedious, time-consuming and expensive process, with the effect that courseware employed by educators and trainers can be incomplete and outdated, as well as inaccessible to those with disabilities. With the open-source and open-access SlideWiki platform, the effort of creation, translation and evolution of highly-structured remixable OCW can be widely shared. Similarly to Wikipedia for encyclopaedic content, SlideWiki allows to collaboratively create comprehensive OCW (curricula, slide presentations, self-assessment tests, illustrations etc.) online in a crowdsourcing manner. SlideWiki has won the OpenCourseWare Consortium’s Excellence Award and is used by hundreds of educators and thousands of learners. Several hundred comprehensive course materials are available on SlideWiki in different languages. The SlideWiki large-scale trial project is further maturing the SlideWiki platform by improving its usability and accessibility. The SlideWiki project is performing a wide range of trials covering different levels of education (i.e. from secondary to higher education) and different types of learning (i.e. formal learning, informal learning, vocational learning). Each of these large-scale trials is carried out with hundreds of educators and thousands of learners in different countries across Europe. A particular focus of the technology development and testing in the trials is the suitability for academics, teachers and learners with disabilities. This paper will present the lessons learned from piloting the SlideWiki platform in different learning contexts and scenarios. In particular, we will describe the learning scenarios considered in each pilot and how these scenarios have been implemented with the use of SlideWiki. We will then describe the methodology followed in each pilot, in terms of the authoring, teaching and learning activities performed by educators and learners using SlideWiki. Finally, the lessons learned from each pilot will be discussed, focusing on the challenges faced in each pilot, how these challenges have been addressed, as well as the best practices that have emerged from the pilots regarding the collaborative authoring and sharing of OCW

Intelligent Systems in Context-Based Distributed Information Fusion

Research on Intelligent Systems and context-based information fusion has matured during the last decade and many effective applications of this technology are now deployed. Context-based information fusion provides large quantities of information obtained from network sensors with heterogeneous characteristics, that needs to be efficiently processed. This paper proposes an intelligent system aimed at processing context information in health care environments. The system monitors patients and maintains a permanent fix on their location within a given context. The system uses information provided by sensors distributed throughout the environment. The intelligent agents take the information they receive and fuse it to improve the decisions and actions involved in their processing. This paper describes the proposed approach, focusing on the solutions provided by the agents through the information flow for the system

Epileptiform Activity in Alcohol Dependent Patients and Possibilities of Its Indirect Measurement

Background: Alcohol dependence during withdrawal and also in abstinent period in many cases is related to reduced inhibitory functions and kindling that may appear in the form of psychosensory symptoms similar to temporal lobe epilepsy frequently in conditions of normal EEG and without seizures. Because temporal lobe epileptic activity tend to spread between hemispheres, it is possible to suppose that measures reflecting interhemispheric information transfer such as electrodermal activity (EDA) might be related to the psychosensory symptoms. Methods and Findings: We have performed measurement of bilateral EDA, psychosensory symptoms (LSCL-33) and alcohol craving (ACQ) in 34 alcohol dependent patients and 32 healthy controls. The results in alcohol dependent patients show that during rest conditions the psychosensory symptoms (LSCL-33) are related to EDA transinformation (PTI) between left and right EDA records (Spearman r = 0.44, p,0.01). Conclusions: The result may present potentially useful clinical finding suggesting a possibility to indirectly assess epileptiform changes in alcohol dependent patients

Cancer therapy and cardiotoxicity: The need of serial Doppler echocardiography

Cancer therapy has shown terrific progress leading to important reduction of morbidity and mortality of several kinds of cancer. The therapeutic management of oncologic patients includes combinations of drugs, radiation therapy and surgery. Many of these therapies produce adverse cardiovascular complications which may negatively affect both the quality of life and the prognosis. For several years the most common noninvasive method of monitoring cardiotoxicity has been represented by radionuclide ventriculography while other tests as effort EKG and stress myocardial perfusion imaging may detect ischemic complications, and 24-hour Holter monitoring unmask suspected arrhythmias. Also biomarkers such as troponine I and T and B-type natriuretic peptide may be useful for early detection of cardiotoxicity. Today, the widely used non-invasive method of monitoring cardiotoxicity of cancer therapy is, however, represented by Doppler-echocardiography which allows to identify the main forms of cardiac complications of cancer therapy: left ventricular (systolic and diastolic) dysfunction, valve heart disease, pericarditis and pericardial effusion, carotid artery lesions. Advanced ultrasound tools, as Integrated Backscatter and Tissue Doppler, but also simple ultrasound detection of "lung comet" on the anterior and lateral chest can be helpful for early, subclinical diagnosis of cardiac involvement. Serial Doppler echocardiographic evaluation has to be encouraged in the oncologic patients, before, during and even late after therapy completion. This is crucial when using anthracyclines, which have early but, most importantly, late, cumulative cardiac toxicity. The echocardiographic monitoring appears even indispensable after radiation therapy, whose detrimental effects may appear several years after the end of irradiation

Evaluation of sub-acute changes in cardiac function after cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy for testicular cancer

Long-term cardiovascular morbidity is increasingly observed in chemotherapy-treated testicular cancer survivors, but little is known of early sub-clinical changes in cardiac function. We prospectively evaluated cardiac function in testicular cancer patients by echocardiography. Systolic (Wall Motion Score Index) and diastolic (E/A-ratio and Tissue Velocity Imaging (TVI)) parameters, and serum levels of N-Terminal pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide (NT-proBNP) were assessed before the start of chemotherapy and 1 year later. Echocardiography data were compared with an age-matched group of healthy controls. Forty-two patients treated with bleomycin, etoposide and cisplatin were evaluated (median age 27 years, range 18–50). Systolic function and E/A-ratio did not change, whereas the median TVI decreased (12.0 vs 10.0 cms−1; P=0.002). Median levels of NT-proBNP increased (5 vs 18 pmoll−1, P=0.034). Compared with controls, TVI before the start of chemotherapy was not significantly different. In conclusion, we found that at a median of 10 months after cisplatin-based treatment for testicular cancer, TVI decreased significantly, indicating a deterioration of diastolic cardiac function. Serum levels of NT-proBNP increased. The prognostic significance of these changes for future cardiovascular morbidity is not clear