Affective and physiological correlates of the perception of unimodal and bimodal emotional stimuli

Background: Despite the multisensory nature of perception, previous research on emotions has been focused on unimodal emotional cues with visual stimuli. To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence on the extent to which incongruent emotional cues from visual and auditory sensory channels affect pupil size. Aims: To investigate the effects of audiovisual emotional information perception on the physiological and affective response, but also to determine the impact of mismatched cues in emotional perception on these physiological indexes. Method: Pupil size, electrodermal activity and affective subjective responses were recorded while 30 participants were exposed to visual and auditory stimuli with varied emotional content in three different experimental conditions: pictures and sounds presented alone (unimodal), emotionally matched audio-visual stimuli (bimodal congruent) and emotionally mismatched audio-visual stimuli (bimodal incongruent). Results: The data revealed no effect of emotional incongruence on physiological and affective responses. On the other hand, pupil size covaried with skin conductance response (SCR), but the subjective experience was partially dissociated from autonomic responses. Conclusion: Emotional stimuli are able to trigger physiological responses regardless of valence, sensory modality or level of emotional congruence.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Benthic ecology of semi-natural coastal lagoons, in the Ria Formosa (Southern Portugal), Exposed to different water renewal regimes

Several studies in semi-natural coastal lagoons in the Ria Formosa lagoonal system have been carried out. These man-made water reservoirs behave as small lagoons with one opening to the tidal channels, which may be intermittent. Because of their size, these reservoirs are ideal sites for ecological studies. Water quality and macrobenthic fauna were analysed in five water reservoirs. All reservoirs received the same incoming water through a tidal channel, but they differed in water renewal regime. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) and Discriminant Analysis were used to evaluate the similarity among sites, stations and sampling occasions. Different levels of taxonomic resolution (family, large taxonomic groups and phylum level) were also evaluated. The separation of sites and stations became unclear using high taxonomic levels. Results from the multivariate analyses suggest a slight differentiation of the stations according to sampling occasion but a clear differentiation of the several water reservoirs. Some of the lagoons studied with low water renewal rates showed strong environmental variations. They were characterised by low diversity indexes and abundance of small-sized organisms. Other lagoons, with high water renewal rates, showed low environmental variation and well diversified and structured benthic communities. The main environmental factor that seems to affect the benthic communities was the variation in salinity between neap and spring tides, which is related with the water renewal regime. Coastal lagoons offer a protected shallow habitat, which can be highly productive. Well structured communities, controlled by k-strategists, can develop and settle in leaky lagoons, that is, lagoons with wide entrance channels and tidal currents which guarantee a good water renewal. In these lagoons, biomass can accumulate in large organisms. In contrast, lagoons with a single narrow entrance, that may be closed for long periods, are characterised by persistent physical stress and are dominated by communities of small-sized r-strategists

Grabbing attention while reading website pages: the influence of verbal emotional cues in advertising

The increasing use of the World Wide Web has promised a huge advertising platform for marketers. Investment in online advertising is growing and is expected to overcome traditional media. However, recent studies have reported that users avoid looking at advertising displayed on the World Wide Web. This study aimed at examining the impact of verbal emotional cues (negative/neutral/positive) to capture attention on website’s advertising areas through an eye tracker system. The results revealed significant statistical differences between fixations to negative, positive words and neutral words. Significant differences between the number of fixations and recognition of the target words were found only for the negative valence words. We conclude that negative emotional words could play a major role on user attention to advertising

Modelling 3D scanned data to visualise and analyse the Built Environment for regeneration

The renovation and refurbishment market is rapidly expanding in the construction industry. The regeneration and transformation of cities from the industrial age (unsustainable) to the knowledge age (sustainable) is essentially a "whole life cycle" process consisting of: planning, development, operation, reuse and renewal. Advanced digital mapping technologies are enablers for effective eplanning, consultation and communication of users' views during the planning, design, construction and lifecycle process of the built environment. Those technologies can be used to drive the productivity gains by promoting a free-flow of information between departments, divisions, offices, and sites; and between themselves, their contractors and partners. Such is the case of the 3D laser scanner which enables digital documentation of buildings, sites and physical objects for reconstruction and restoration. It also facilitates the creation of educational resources within the built environment, as well as the reconstruction of the built environment. The use of the 3D scanner in combination with the 3D printer provides the transformation of digital data from the captured CAD model back to a physical model at an appropriate scale - reverse prototyping. The use of these technologies is key enablers to the creation of new approaches to the ¿Whole Life Cycle¿ process within the built and human environment for the 21st century. The paper describes the research of a building data integration in the INTELCITIES project undertaken by a European consortium of researchers and practitioners under the Framework 6 research programme to develop a prototype system of the e-City Platform in order to pool advanced knowledge and experience of electronic government, planning systems and citizen participation from across Europe (www.intelcitiesproject.com). The scope includes capturing digital data of existing buildings using 3D laser scanning equipment and illustration of how digitised building data can be integrated with other types of city data, using nD modelling, to support integrated intelligent city systems for enhancing the refurbishment process in the built environment

Eye movement analysis and cognitive assessment: the use of comparative visual search tasks in a non-immersive vr application

Background: An adequate behavioral response depends on attentional and mnesic processes. When these basic cognitive functions are impaired, the use of non-immersive Virtual Reality Applications (VRAs) can be a reliable technique for assessing the level of impairment. However, most non-immersive VRAs use indirect measures to make inferences about visual attention and mnesic processes (e.g., time to task completion, error rate). Objectives: To examine whether the eye movement analysis through eye tracking (ET) can be a reliable method to probe more effectively where and how attention is deployed and how it is linked with visual working memory during comparative visual search tasks (CVSTs) in non-immersive VRAs. Methods: The eye movements of 50 healthy participants were continuously recorded while CVSTs, selected from a set of cognitive tasks in the Systemic Lisbon Battery (SLB). Then a VRA designed to assess of cognitive impairments were randomly presented. Results: The total fixation duration, the number of visits in the areas of interest and in the interstimulus space, along with the total execution time was significantly different as a function of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores. Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that CVSTs in SLB, when combined with ET, can be a reliable and unobtrusive method for assessing cognitive abilities in healthy individuals, opening it to potential use in clinical samples.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Identificação e caracterização nutricional de blends de farinha

Neste estudo efetuou-se uma caracterização nutricional de três blends de farinha de trigo mole (com a designação “Bolachas”, “Corrente” e “Melhorador”), fornecidos pelo Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária (Pólo de Elvas). Efetuaram-se análises físicas e químicas dos blends em grão e nas respetivas farinhas (peso e volume de mil grãos, densidade, cor, humidade, elementos minerais, cinzas, lípidos, ácidos gordos, açúcares solúveis, proteína, índice de queda e sedimentação SDS, glúten, farinografia e alveografia). Considerando a totalidade das análises efetuadas foi possível verificar que as características nutricionais estão diretamente relacionadas com os objetivos a que estes blends se destinam (produção de bolachas, pão ou correção de características).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Grabbing attention while reading website pages: the influence of verbal emotional cues in advertising

ABSTRACT The increasing use of the World Wide Web has promised a huge advertising platform for marketers. Investment in online advertising is growing and is expected to overcome traditional media. However, recent studies have reported that users avoid looking at advertising displayed on the World Wide Web. This study aimed at examining the impact of verbal emotional cues (negative/neutral/positive) to capture attention on website's advertising areas through an eye tracker system. The results revealed significant statistical differences between fixations to negative, positive words and neutral words. Significant differences between the number of fixations and recognition of the target words were found only for the negative valence words. We conclude that negative emotional words could play a major role on user attention to advertising

A two-stage growth model for gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) based on the thermal growth coefficient

Several authors have proposed models to describe fish growth taking the influence of temperature into account, and one of the most interesting is the "thermal unit growth coefficient" (TGC). Recent research has demonstrated that TGC varies throughout the growth cycle of fish, making it necessary to establish different stanzas. In this work, the original TGC model using 1/3 as an exponent was compared with a new model considering 2/3. Likewise, two stages for the growth of gilthead sea bream under commercial conditions in marine farms were detected by means of TGC seasonal models using the continuous temperature curve. A critical value for weight around 117g was obtained, which could mark the transition between two growth dynamics. To describe the weight evolution during a complete production cycle, the two growth stages were described by two separate seasonal TGC models (1/3-TGC model and 2/3-TGC model), and with an integrated model named the Mixed-TGC model, which presents interesting properties of continuity and differentiability and could be an important tool for fish farm management.V.D. Estruch and M. Jover were partially supported by the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, PAID 2009-2010.Mayer, P.; Estruch Fuster, VD.; Jover Cerdá, M. (2012). A two-stage growth model for gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) based on the thermal growth coefficient. Aquaculture. 358-359:6-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2012.06.016S613358-35