Cognitive emotions in e-learning processes and their potential relationship with students’ academic adjustment

In times of growing importance and emphasis on improving academic outcomes for young people, their academic selves/lives are increasingly becoming more central to their understanding of their own wellbeing. How they experience and perceive their academic successes or failures, can influence their perceived self-efficacy and eventual academic achievement. To this end, ‘cognitive emotions’, elicited to acquire or develop new skills/knowledges, can play a crucial role as they indicate the state or the “flow” of a student’s emotions, when facing challenging tasks. Within innovative teaching models, measuring the affective components of learning have been mainly based on self-reports and scales which have neglected the real-time detection of emotions, through for example, recording or measuring facial expressions. The aim of the present study is to test the reliability of an ad hoc software trained to detect and classify cognitive emotions from facial expressions across two different environments, namely a video-lecture and a chat with teacher, and to explore cognitive emotions in relation to academic e-selfefficacy and academic adjustment. To pursue these goals, we used video-recordings of ten psychology students from an online university engaging in online learning tasks, and employed software to automatically detect eleven cognitive emotions. Preliminary results support and extend prior studies, illustrating how exploring cognitive emotions in real time can inform the development and success of academic e-learning interventions aimed at monitoring and promoting students’ wellbeing.peer-reviewe

Neurologic and Psychiatric Manifestations of Bradykinin-Mediated Angioedema: Old and New Challenges

Neurologic manifestations have been occasionally described in patients with bradykinin-mediated angioedema. The existing literature is currently limited to case series and case reports mainly described in the hereditary forms (HAE) concerning central nervous system (CNS) involvement. On the contrary, very little is known about peripheral and autonomic nervous system manifestations. CNS involvement in HAE may present with symptoms including severe headaches, visual disturbance, seizures, and various focal and generalized deficits. In addition, a stroke-like clinical picture may present in HAE patients. In turn, some drugs used in patients with cardiovascular and neurologic disorders, such as recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (r-tPA) and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI), may produce medication-induced angioedema, resulting in a diagnostic challenge. Finally, most patients with HAE have higher levels of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression. With this review, we aimed to provide an organized and detailed analysis of the existing literature on neurologic and psychiatric manifestations of HAE to shed light on these potentially invalidating symptoms and lay the foundation for further personalized diagnostic pathways for patients affected by this protean disease

Sexual violence and eclampsia: analysis of data from Demographic and Health Surveys from seven low- and middle-income countries.

BACKGROUND: Scientific literature has provided clear evidence of the profound impact of sexual violence on women's health, such as somatic disorders and mental adverse outcomes. However, consequences related to obstetric complications are not yet completely clarified. This study aimed to assess the association of lifetime exposure to intimate partner sexual violence with eclampsia. METHODS: We considered all the seven Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) that included data on sexual violence and on signs and symptoms suggestive of eclampsia for women of reproductive age (15-49 years). We computed unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios (OR) to evaluate the risk of suggestive eclampsia by ever subjected to sexual violence. A sensitivity analysis was conducted restricting the study population to women who had their last live birth over the 12 months before the interview. RESULTS: Self-reported experience of sexual violence ranged from 3.7% in Mali to 9.2% in India while prevalence of women reporting signs and symptoms compatible with eclampsia ranged from 14.3% in Afghanistan to 0.7% in the Philippines. Reported sexual violence was associated with a 2-fold increased odd of signs and symptoms suggestive of eclampsia in the pooled analysis. The sensitivity analysis confirmed the strength of the association between sexual violence and eclampsia in Afghanistan and in India. CONCLUSIONS: Women and girls in low-and-middle-income countries are at high risk of sexual violence, which may represent a risk factor for hypertensive obstetric complication. Accurate counseling by health care providers during antenatal care consultations may represent an important opportunity to prevent adverse outcomes during pregnancy

Size-based effects of anthropogenic ultrafine particles on activation of human lung macrophages

The anthropogenic particulate matter (PM), suspended air dust that can be inhaled by humans and deposited in the lungs, is one of the main pollutants in the industrialized cities atmosphere. Recent studies have shown that PM has adverse effects on respiratory diseases. These effects are mainly due to the ultrafine particles (PM0.1, PM < 100 nm), which, thanks to their PM size, are efficiently deposited in nasal, tracheobronchial, and alveolar regions. Pulmonary macrophages are a heterogeneous cell population distributed in different lung compartments, whose role in inflammatory response to injury is of particular relevance. In this study, we investigated the effect of PM0.1 on Human Lung Macrophages (HLMs) activation evaluated as proinflammatory cytokines and chemokine release, Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) production and intracellular Ca2+concentration ([Ca2+]i). Furthermore, PM0.1, after removal of organic fraction, was fractionated in nanoparticles both smaller (NP20) and bigger (NP100) than 20 nm by a properlydeveloped analytical protocol, allowed isolating their individual contribution. Interestingly, while PM0.1 and NP20 induced stimulatory effects on HLM cytokines release, NP100 had not effect. In particular, PM0.1 induced IL-6, IL-1β, TNF-α, but not CXCL8, release from HLMs. Moreover, PM0.1, NP20 and NP100 did not induce β-glucuronidase release, a preformed mediator contained in HLMs. The long time necessary for cytokines release (18 h) suggested that PM0.1 and NP20 could induce ex-novo production of the tested mediators. Accordingly, after 6 h of incubation, PM0.1 and NP20 induced mRNA expression of IL-6, TNF-α and IL-1β. Moreover, NP20 induced ROS production and [Ca2+]i increase in a time-dependent manner, without producing cytotoxicity. Collectively, the present data highlight the main proinflammatory role of NP20 among PM fractions. This is particularly of concern because this fraction is not currently covered by legal limits as it is not easily measured at the exhausts by the available technical methodologies, suggesting that it is mandatory to search for new monitoring techniques and strategies for limiting NP20 formation

Evaluation of a Rehabilitation System for the Elderly in a Day Care Center

This paper presents a rehabilitation system based on a customizable exergame protocol to prevent falls in the elderly population. The system is based on depth sensors and exergames. The experiments carried out with several seniors, in a day care center, make it possible to evaluate the usability and the efficiency of the system. The outcomes highlight the user-friendliness, the very good usability of the developed system and the significant enhancement of the elderly in maintaining a physical activity. The performance of the postural response is improved by an average of 80%

Simulating Empathic Behavior in a Social Assistive Robot

When used as an interface in the context of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), a social robot should not just provide a task-oriented support. It should also try to establish a social empathic relation with the user. To this aim, it is crucial to endow the robot with the capability of recognizing the user’s affective state and reason on it for triggering the most appropriate communicative behavior. In this paper we describe how such an affective reasoning has been implemented in the NAO robot for simulating empathic behaviors in the context of AAL. In particular, the robot is able to recognize the emotion of the user by analyzing communicative signals extracted from speech and facial expressions. The recognized emotion allows triggering the robot’s affective state and, consequently, the most appropriate empathic behavior. The robot’s empathic behaviors have been evaluated both by experts in communication and through a user study aimed at assessing the perception and interpretation of empathy by elderly users. Results are quite satisfactory and encourage us to further extend the social and affective capabilities of the robot

Towards an Empathic Social Robot for Ambient Assisted Living

In the context of Ambient Assisted Living, assistance and care are delegated to the intelligence embedded in the environment that, in our opinion, should provide not only a task-oriented support but also an interface able to establish a social empathic relation with the user. This can be achieved, for instance, using a social assistive robot as interface towards the environment services. In the context of the NICA (Natural Interaction with a Caring Agent) project we developed the behavioral architecture of a social robot able to assist the user in the interaction with a smart home environment. In this paper we describe how this robot has been endowed with the capability of recognizing the user affective state from the combination of facial expressions and spoken utterances and to reason on in order to simulate an empathic behavior

Cognitive emotions in E-learning processes and their potential relationship with students' academic adjustment

In times of growing importance and emphasis on improving academic outcomes for young people, their academic selves/lives are increasingly becoming more central to their understanding of their own wellbeing. How they experience and perceive their academic successes or failures, can influence their perceived self-efficacy and eventual academic achievement. To this end, 'cognitive emotions', elicited to acquire or develop new skills/knowledges, can play a crucial role as they indicate the state or the "flow" of a student's emotions, when facing challenging tasks. Within innovative teaching models, measuring the affective components of learning have been mainly based on self-reports and scales which have neglected the real-time detection of emotions, through for example, recording or measuring facial expressions. The aim of the present study is to test the reliability of an ad hoc software trained to detect and classify cognitive emotions from facial expressions across two different environments, namely a video-lecture and a chat with teacher, and to explore cognitive emotions in relation to academic e-selfefficacy and academic adjustment. To pursue these goals, we used video-recordings of ten psychology students from an online university engaging in online learning tasks, and employed software to automatically detect eleven cognitive emotions. Preliminary results support and extend prior studies, illustrating how exploring cognitive emotions in real time can inform the development and success of academic e-learning interventions aimed at monitoring and promoting students' wellbeing