Editorial: Reading Faces and Bodies: Behavioral and Neural Processes Underlying the Understanding of, and Interaction with, Others

The aim of this Research Topic was to offer an interdisciplinary forum for researchers interested in the interplay of face, eye gaze, and body perception in the understanding of others, with an emphasis on behavioural and neural processing. The papers included in this topic come from cognitive, neuroscience and social psychology perspectives and shed new light on how facial and body cues interact with each other and with social, ecological and contextual factors (such as for example social identification and group membership) to form a unified representation that can guide our perceptions and responses to other people. Altogether, they provide an up-to-date picture of advances in this fascinating research field

Integration of Blockchain and Auction Models: A Survey, Some Applications, and Challenges

In recent years, blockchain has gained widespread attention as an emerging technology for decentralization, transparency, and immutability in advancing online activities over public networks. As an essential market process, auctions have been well studied and applied in many business fields due to their efficiency and contributions to fair trade. Complementary features between blockchain and auction models trigger a great potential for research and innovation. On the one hand, the decentralized nature of blockchain can provide a trustworthy, secure, and cost-effective mechanism to manage the auction process; on the other hand, auction models can be utilized to design incentive and consensus protocols in blockchain architectures. These opportunities have attracted enormous research and innovation activities in both academia and industry; however, there is a lack of an in-depth review of existing solutions and achievements. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of these two research topics. We review the existing solutions for integrating blockchain and auction models, with some application-oriented taxonomies generated. Additionally, we highlight some open research challenges and future directions towards integrated blockchain-auction models

Analisi multidimensionale della conversazione di marca nei Social Network

Obiettivi= Il paper è finalizzato ad individuare i fattori dominanti delle tattiche comunicative e conversazionali dei brand che scelgono di promuoversi attraverso un profilo Facebook (Fb). L’analisi è volta a fornire alle imprese un quadro sinottico d’indicazioni per migliorare la relazione e l’interazione “brand-followers” nelle piattaforme social media. Metodologia=Grazie all’applicazione di un approccio multidimensionale tipico della ricerca sociologica, è stata svolta un’osservazione sistematica dei contenuti pubblicati su profili Fb di un panel di marche selezionate. I dati raccolti sono stati interpretati attraverso lo schema quadri-funzionale AGIL di Parson. Una dimensione in particolare permette di comprendere l'abilità conversativa dei brand. Risultati=Dallo studio emerge che la conversazione sui social network, realizzata dai brand, è carente di alcuni fattori di adattamento alle dinamiche d’interazione proprie dell’e-media scelto. Si sono riscontrate, invece, caratteristiche tipiche di tecniche di comunicazione e promozione di marketing di tipo tradizionale offline. Limiti della ricerca=Sebbene la letteratura di riferimento presenti alcune ricerche in ambito sociologico che si avvalgono dello schema quadri-funzionale AGIL, a tutt’oggi la sua applicazione all’analisi della conversazione della marca online ha un carattere ancora sperimentale. Implicazioni pratiche=Dalla ricerca emerge con chiarezza la necessità, per i brand, di un orientamento relazionale più efficace e coerente con il nuovo contesto “social” online. Originalità del lavoro=Lo studio si avvale di una metodologia multidisciplinare, adottando tecniche di analisi proprie della sociologia relazionale e del marketing relazionale, offrendo un’integrazione metodologica volta a colmare la mancanza di un paradigma univoco e una letteratura a tutt’oggi non integrata sull’argomento

BRAND CONVERSATION IN FACEBOOK: LA PERCEZIONE DEGLI UTENTI

L'obiettivo della ricerca è di comprendere la percezione degli utenti Facebook sulla presenza e funzione dei "Brand Profiles" in tale social network. La ricerca ha utilizzato strumenti online (seguendo le linee guida del Digital Method Initiative), con tecnica di intervista strutturata su 423 utenti Fb, basata su questionario CAWI. La ricerca offre spunti sia in relazione al comportamento online su Fb degli utenti, sia sulla loro propensione alla condivisione di contenuti di pagine e profili pubblici. Ne emergono prescrizioni utili alle imprese su linguaggi, codifiche, e profili relazionali adatti al nuovo contesto social online in cui i Brand desiderano "pro-muoversi”

Characterization of egg yolk immunoglobulin (IgY) against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli and evaluation of its effects on bovine intestinal cells

Escherichia coli (ETEC) infection is common in calves. Egg yolk antibodies (IgY) have been used to treat gastrointestinal infectious diseases. This study aimed to characterize IgY against bovine ETEC and to evaluate its effects on bovine intestinal cell culture challenged with a bovine ETEC strain. IgY was isolated from the egg yolks of hens immunized with ETEC. The characteristics of IgY were determined by Bradford, ELISA, gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting. Significant differences in anti-ETEC activity between anti-ETEC IgY and non-specific IgY were found in lyophilized fractions. In the bacterial growth assay, anti-ETEC IgY (40 mg/mL) showed growth inhibition of ETEC after 2 h of incubation (p<0.05). The difference in bacterial growth between anti-ETEC IgY and non-specific IgY groups was 0.51 log CFU/ml after an 8 h incubation (p<0.05). The bacterial adhesion assay indicated that anti-ETEC IgY (40 mg/ml) significantly decreased the adhesion of ETEC to bovine intestinal epithelial cells within 4 h (about 1.36 log units compared with the control group; p<0.05). This study demonstrates that anti-ETEC IgY inhibits the growth and adherence of ETEC to bovine intestinal cells and is a potential alternative to traditional treatments of infections.Fil: Bellingeri, Romina Valeria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Agronomía y Veterinaria. Departamento de Anatomía Animal; ArgentinaFil: Busso, Lucila. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Agronomía y Veterinaria. Departamento de Anatomía Animal; ArgentinaFil: Alustiza, Fabrisio Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Química; ArgentinaFil: Picco, Natalia Yanina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Agronomía y Veterinaria. Departamento de Anatomía Animal; ArgentinaFil: Molinero, Daniela Paola. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales. Laboratorio de Genética y Mutagenesis Ambiental; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Grosso, Maria Carolina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Agronomía y Veterinaria. Departamento de Anatomía Animal. Laboratorio de Radioisótopos; ArgentinaFil: Motta, Carlos. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Agronomía y Veterinaria. Departamento de Anatomía Animal; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Vivas, Adriana Beatriz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Agronomía y Veterinaria. Departamento de Anatomía Animal; Argentin

Simulating the universe on an intercontinental grid of supercomputers

Understanding the universe is hampered by the elusiveness of its most common constituent, cold dark matter. Almost impossible to observe, dark matter can be studied effectively by means of simulation and there is probably no other research field where simulation has led to so much progress in the last decade. Cosmological N-body simulations are an essential tool for evolving density perturbations in the nonlinear regime. Simulating the formation of large-scale structures in the universe, however, is still a challenge due to the enormous dynamic range in spatial and temporal coordinates, and due to the enormous computer resources required. The dynamic range is generally dealt with by the hybridization of numerical techniques. We deal with the computational requirements by connecting two supercomputers via an optical network and make them operate as a single machine. This is challenging, if only for the fact that the supercomputers of our choice are separated by half the planet, as one is located in Amsterdam and the other is in Tokyo. The co-scheduling of the two computers and the 'gridification' of the code enables us to achieve a 90% efficiency for this distributed intercontinental supercomputer.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Compute

Using Semantic Web Technologies to Query and Manage Information within Federated Cyber-Infrastructures

A standardized descriptive ontology supports efficient querying and manipulation of data from heterogeneous sources across boundaries of distributed infrastructures, particularly in federated environments. In this article, we present the Open-Multinet (OMN) set of ontologies, which were designed specifically for this purpose as well as to support management of life-cycles of infrastructure resources. We present their initial application in Future Internet testbeds, their use for representing and requesting available resources, and our experimental performance evaluation of the ontologies in terms of querying and translation times. Our results highlight the value and applicability of Semantic Web technologies in managing resources of federated cyber-infrastructures.EC/FP7/318389/EU/Federation for FIRE/Fed4FIREEC/FP7/732638/EU/Federation for FIRE Plus/Fed4FIREplu