From Heterogeneous Sensor Networks to Integrated Software Services: Design and Implementation of a Semantic Architecture for the Internet of Things at ARCES@UNIBO

The Internet of Things (IoTs) is growing fast both in terms of number of devices connected and of complexity of deployments and applications. Several research studies an- alyzing the economical impact of the IoT worldwide identify the interoperability as one of the main boosting factor for its growth, thanks to the possibility to unlock novel commercial opportunities derived from the integration of heterogeneous systems which are currently not interconnected. However, at present, interoperability constitutes a relevant practical issue on any IoT deployments that is composed of sensor platforms mapped on different wireless technologies, network protocols or data formats. The paper addresses such issue, and investigates how to achieve effective data interoperability and data reuse on complex IoT deployments, where multiple users/applications need to consume sensor data produced by heterogeneous sensor networks. We propose a generic three-tier IoT architecture, which decouples the sensor data producers from the sensor data consumers, thanks to the intermediation of a semantic broker which is in charge of translating the sensor data into a shared ontology, and of providing publish-subscribe facilities to the producers/consumers. Then, we describe the real-world implementation of such architecture devised at the Advanced Research Center on Electronic System (ARCES) of the University of Bologna. The actual system collects the data produced by three different sensor networks, integrates them through a SPARQL Event Processing Architecture (SEPA), and supports two front- end applications for the data access, i.e. a web dashboard and an Amazon Alexa voice service

The Social Mentalities Scale: A new measure for assessing the interpersonal motivations underlying social relationships

The evolutionary perspective on human emotions and motivations posits that all interpersonal interactions are shaped by an array of social mentalities, dwelling on our species' bio-behavioral disposition to pursue some evolutionarily valuable social goals (i.e., interpersonal motivational systems). The paucity of valid and reliable measures of such mentalities has limited empirical research into how these processes play out in everyday social exchanges. The Social Mentalities Scale (SMS) was developed to evaluate patterns of cognition, affect and behavior from basic interpersonal motivational systems. Two samples of young adults (18–35 years old) completed distinct instrument packets including the SMS and self-report questionnaires. An exploratory factor analysis (740 participants) revealed a six-factor solution: insecurity, prosociality, agonism, belongingness, sexuality, and playfulness. A confirmatory factor analysis (815 participants) supported the goodness of this factor model. Moreover, the SMS's subscales were correlated to specific dimensions of individual psychological functioning in a theoretically coherent way. These results supported the SMS's validity and reliability in assessing the complex and multifaceted portrait of social mentalities that inform human interactions and personality. The SMS is a user-friendly and easy to complete measure that promises to provide a significant contribution in a potentially wide range of clinical and research contexts

Is Covid-19 a natural event? Covid-19 pandemic and conspiracy beliefs

In this paper, antecedents and consequences of conspiracy beliefs are investigated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. 618 individuals residing in different geographical area of Italy participated in the study. We found that perceived mortality rate of COVID-19 is positively associated with adherence to conspiracy beliefs and, in turn, with negative outcomes such as: (a) a reduced support for the measures taken to deal with the pandemic emergency, (b) a weaker feeling of guilt for the violation of anti-COVID-19 government rules, and (c) a stronger utilitarian stance which prioritizes economic over health-related outcomes of lockdown. Also, framing pandemic within the "natural order of things" - fundamental and implicit expectations concerning how life and the world should function - was expected to moderate the relationship between perceived mortality rate and conspiracy beliefs: we found this relationship to be weaker when people believe that pandemic falls into the "natural order of things"