5,506 research outputs found
The emotional contagion in children with autism spectrum disorder
Studies of the last decade have demonstrated that children with Autism
Spectrum Disorder (ASD) showed difficulties in language, social and relational
areas, but they had also impairment in the mechanisms of embodied simulation,
namely the imitative behaviors that allow the body to give an experiential
meaning to own and other’s emotions. The identification of this specific emotional
response in ASD children, also defined as emotional contagion, allows to move
the therapeutic focus from reducing the behavioral symptomatic expressions of
the child to promoting the expression of his ability of emotional regulation. The
aim of this study was to investigate the presence of emotional contagion in 53
ASD children aged between 22 and 66 months, through the Test of emotional
contagion and verify the presence of compromised emotional contagion areas.
Our findings have shown that the severity of the disorder is closely related to
the inability of the child to respond to the emotional stimuli, regardless from
cognitive abilities, and that emotion to which children responded most frequently
was happiness, while the one who responded less was anger
Identifying Galaxy Mergers in Observations and Simulations with Deep Learning
Mergers are an important aspect of galaxy formation and evolution. We aim to
test whether deep learning techniques can be used to reproduce visual
classification of observations, physical classification of simulations and
highlight any differences between these two classifications. With one of the
main difficulties of merger studies being the lack of a truth sample, we can
use our method to test biases in visually identified merger catalogues. A
convolutional neural network architecture was developed and trained in two
ways: one with observations from SDSS and one with simulated galaxies from
EAGLE, processed to mimic the SDSS observations. The SDSS images were also
classified by the simulation trained network and the EAGLE images classified by
the observation trained network. The observationally trained network achieves
an accuracy of 91.5% while the simulation trained network achieves 65.2% on the
visually classified SDSS and physically classified EAGLE images respectively.
Classifying the SDSS images with the simulation trained network was less
successful, only achieving an accuracy of 64.6%, while classifying the EAGLE
images with the observation network was very poor, achieving an accuracy of
only 53.0% with preferential assignment to the non-merger classification. This
suggests that most of the simulated mergers do not have conspicuous merger
features and visually identified merger catalogues from observations are
incomplete and biased towards certain merger types. The networks trained and
tested with the same data perform the best, with observations performing better
than simulations, a result of the observational sample being biased towards
conspicuous mergers. Classifying SDSS observations with the simulation trained
network has proven to work, providing tantalizing prospects for using
simulation trained networks for galaxy identification in large surveys.Comment: Submitted to A&A, revised after first referee report. 20 pages, 22
figures, 14 tables, 1 appendi
From the emotional integration to the cognitive construction: the developmental approach of Turtle Project in children with autism spectrum disorder
Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder show a deficit in neurobiological processes. This deficit
hinders the development of intentional behavior and appropriate problem-solving, leading the child to implement
repetitive and stereotyped behaviors and to have difficulties in reciprocal interactions, empathy and in the
development of a theory of mind. The objective of this research is to verify the effectiveness of a relationship-based
approach on the positive evolution of autistic symptoms.
Method: A sample of 80 children with autism spectrum disorder was monitored during the first four years of
therapy, through a clinical diagnostic assessment at the time of intake and then in two follow-up.
Results: The results showed that through the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule it is possible to
assess the socio-relational key elements on which the therapy is based. There was evidence, in fact, of significant
improvements after two and four years of therapy, both for children with severe autistic symptoms and for those in
autistic spectrum.
Conclusions: Socio-relational aspects represent the primary element on which work in therapy with autistic
children and can be considered as indicators of a positive evolution and prognosis that will produce improvements
even in the cognitive are
Ergodicity breaking in strong and network-forming glassy system
The temperature dependence of the non-ergodicity factor of vitreous GeO,
, as deduced from elastic and quasi-elastic neutron scattering
experiments, is analyzed. The data are collected in a wide range of
temperatures from the glassy phase, up to the glass transition temperature, and
well above into the undercooled liquid state. Notwithstanding the investigated
system is classified as prototype of strong glass, it is found that the
temperature- and the -behavior of follow some of the predictions
of Mode Coupling Theory. The experimental data support the hypothesis of the
existence of an ergodic to non-ergodic transition occurring also in network
forming glassy systems
Deep Learning for Galaxy Mergers in the Galaxy Main Sequence
Starburst galaxies are often found to be the result of galaxy mergers. As a
result, galaxy mergers are often believed to lie above the galaxy main
sequence: the tight correlation between stellar mass and star formation rate.
Here, we aim to test this claim. Deep learning techniques are applied to images
from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to provide visual-like classifications for
over 340 000 objects between redshifts of 0.005 and 0.1. The aim of this
classification is to split the galaxy population into merger and non-merger
systems and we are currently achieving an accuracy of 91.5%. Stellar masses and
star formation rates are also estimated using panchromatic data for the entire
galaxy population. With these preliminary data, the mergers are placed onto the
full galaxy main sequence, where we find that merging systems lie across the
entire star formation rate - stellar mass plane.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. For Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 34
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