Spontaneous blink rate as an index of attention and emotion during film clips viewing

Spontaneous blinking is a non-invasive indicator known to reflect dopaminergic influence over frontal cortex and attention allocation in perceptual tasks. 38 participants watched eighteen short film clips (2 min), designed to elicit specific affective states, and arranged in six different emotional categories, while their eye movements were recorded from the vertical electroculogram. The largest blink rate inhibition, reflecting greater attention allocation to the movie, was observed during the presentation of Erotic clips, excerpts on wilderness depicting beautiful landscapes (Scenery), as well as clips showing crying characters (Compassion). Instead, the minimum blink rate inhibition was found for Fear clips, which induced a defensive response with stimulus rejection. Blink rate across time evidenced how Compassion clips elicited early inhibition while Sadness clips induced a slower, later inhibition. Correlation analyses also revealed a negative correlation (r < -0.40) between total blink rate recorded during Erotic and Compassion clips and self-reported interest. Overall, the main variable explaining blink rate was emotional Valence. Results suggest that blink modulation is related with the motivational relevance and biological significance of the stimuli, tracking their differential recruitment of attentional resources. Furthermore, they provide a solid background for studying the emotion-attention patterns and their deficits also in clinical samples (e.g., neurological and psychiatric patients) using spontaneous blinking as a not-interfering psychophysiological measure

Evaluation of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) as a measure of cell wall degradation during enzymatic treatment of microalgae

The feasibility of using Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) measurements as a means to assess the efficacy of an enzyme-assisted pretreatment on the recovery of lipids from microalgae was investigated. Attention was focused on Nannochloropsis sp., a marine microalga of great biotechnological interest for its ability to accumulate large amounts of lipids and other valuable compounds. The enzymatic pretreatment was carried out using two commercial enzyme preparations, one (CEL) rich in cellulase and the other (GMA) rich in galactomannase. Experiments were performed according to a fractional two-level factorial design. The factors studied were temperature (15–75 °C), pH (2–8), pretreatment time (30–270 min), CEL dosage (0–20mg/g) and GMA dosage (0–2 mg/g). DOC was determined by a TOC analyzer and used as the response variable. Under the experimental design conditions, temperature, pH, pretreatment time and CEL dosage were found to be statistically significant (p < 0.05), with the former factor being the most influential. No significant interactions were observed between the main factors, indicating that each of them exerted its effect independently of the others. A good correlation was also found between the measured DOC values and the yields of lipid extraction from the enzymatically treated biomass, demonstrating that DOC measurements can be used to quantify the enzyme-induced degradation of algal cell walls

Sex differences in emotional evaluation of film clips: interaction with five high arousal emotional categories

The present study aimed to investigate gender differences in the emotional evaluation of 18 film clips divided into six categories: Erotic, Scenery, Neutral, Sadness, Compassion, and Fear. 41 female and 40 male students rated all clips for valence-pleasantness, arousal, level of elicited distress, anxiety, jittery feelings, excitation, and embarrassment. Analysis of positive films revealed higher levels of arousal, pleasantness, and excitation to the Scenery clips in both genders, but lower pleasantness and greater embarrassment in women compared to men to Erotic clips. Concerning unpleasant stimuli, unlike men, women reported more unpleasantness to the Compassion, Sadness, and Fear compared to the Neutral clips and rated them also as more arousing than did men. They further differentiated the films by perceiving greater arousal to Fear than to Compassion clips. Women rated the Sadness and Fear clips with greater Distress and Jittery feelings than men did. Correlation analysis between arousal and the other emotional scales revealed that, although men looked less aroused than women to all unpleasant clips, they also showed a larger variance in their emotional responses as indicated by the high number of correlations and their relatively greater extent, an outcome pointing to a masked larger sensitivity of part of male sample to emotional clips. We propose a new perspective in which gender difference in emotional responses can be better evidenced by means of film clips selected and clustered in more homogeneous categories, controlled for arousal levels, as well as evaluated through a number of emotion focused adjectives

From Invention to Innovation: teaching business models to manufacturing researchers

This work presents the constructively aligned design and implementation of the doctoral course “business driven production development” at KTH in Stockholm. The educational unit was launched in 2016: evaluation suggests that learners perceive the content as a much-required complement to their technical education towards an increase of their contribution´s impact. &nbsp;&nbsp

E-MOVIE - Experimental MOVies for Induction of Emotions in Neuroscience: an innovative film database with normative data and sex differences.

The need for a validated set of emotional clips to elicit emotions in more ecological experiments is increasing. Here we present the validation of a new database of emotional films, named E-MOVIE, which includes, in this first validation phase, 39 excerpts arranged in six categories, three negative (Fear, Sadness and Compassion), two positive (Erotic and Scenery) and a Neutral category. Notably, Compassion and Scenery are new in the field as they were not included in other databases. The clips in E-MOVIE are characterized by homogenous durations of approximately two minutes, which make them suitable for psychophysiological research. In order to study the affective profile prompted by each category 174 participants (112 women) rated the movies on multiple dimensions, namely valence and arousal, intensity and discreteness of the induction of one of the six basic emotions and, finally, intensity of the experience of the emotional states defined by a series of emotional adjectives. Erotic clips were effective in the elicitation of a positive emotional state, characterized by high levels of arousal and excitement. On the other hand, Fear clips (selected without blood to avoid disgust reaction) prompted an affect characterized by high arousal, low valence and high levels of reported fear and anxiety. Women reported greater unpleasantness, distress, anxiety and jittery than men to the three negative categories. Compassion clips, characterized by the depiction of crying characters, were able to induce an affective state dominated by sadness and feeling touched, consistent with an empathic reaction to emotional sufferance. Sadness clips, instead, elicited an affective state characterized by sadness together with distress and angst. We also demonstrated that clips depicting natural environments (i.e. Scenery) prompted in the viewer a surprised, inspired affective state, characterized by high valence and arousal (especially in males), a result which suggests that their past categorization as neutral stimuli was inaccurate and problematic

Enhanced lipid extraction from unbroken microalgal cells using enzymes

The marine microalga Nannochloropsis sp. was chosen as a model organism to investigate the feasibility of using cell wall-degrading enzymes to enhance the recovery of intracellular lipids. An enzyme cocktail containing galactomannanase, 1,4-β-cellobiosidase and β-glucosidase as main components was prepared from commercial enzyme preparations. The effects of pretreatment time (P), enzyme dosage (D), pH and temperature (T) on the amount of extracted lipids were investigated using response surface methodology. Under the best conditions (P = 90 min, D = 1.3 mg g–1, pH = 5, T = 36°C) over 70% of the lipids present in the microalga were recovered. SEM and TEM characterization of enzyme-treated microalgae showed extensive cell damage with significant disruption of the cell wall and release of algal material. Overall, the results of this study strongly support the use of commercial enzyme preparations to improve lipid recovery from microalgae and provide useful information on the influence of process conditions on the treatment efficiency

The digital transformation of Engineering curricula: the categories that preserve Constructive Alignment

Scientific publications discussing online/distance learning have significantly increased throughout the last decade. The COVID-19 pandemic represented an unexpected condition that significantly changed people´s lifestyle along with the education domain boosting even further its digitalization, mostly at higher levels. In this work, we assume that Teaching Learning Activities (TLA) and Assessment Tasks (AT) should be adjusted to achieve the same Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO) set before distance learning. In view of the above, this paper assesses two courses selected from the Industrial Engineering study program offered in two prominent European higher education institutions. The Constructive Alignment (CA) approach is the baseline of this work and is used to analyse how the TLA and AT of the selected courses are adjusted to maintain alignment with the ILO defined before the digital transition. The main contribution is defining a set of categories to guide the digital transaction in engineering and beyond by maintaining the alignment on ILO-TLA-AT

A pilot study on bioactive constituents and analgesic effects of MyrLiq&#174;, a Commiphora myrrha extract with a high furanodiene content

The analgesic properties of myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) have been known since ancient times and depend on the presence of bioactive sesquiterpenes with furanodiene skeletons. MyrLiq is a C. myrrha extract with a standardized content of curzerene, furanoeudesma-1,3-diene, and lindestrene (12.31±0.05 g kg−1, 18.84±0.02 g kg−1, and 6.23±0.01 g kg−1, resp.) and a high total furanodiene content (40.86±0.78 g kg−1). A balanced sample of 95 female and 89 male volunteers (with ages ranging from 18 to older than 60 years) exhibiting different pain pathologies, including headache, fever-dependent pain, joint pain, muscle aches, lower back pain, and menstrual cramps, was divided into two groups. The experimental group received 1 capsule/day containing either 200 mg or 400 mg of MyrLiq (corresponding to 8 mg and 16 mg of bioactive furanodienes, resp.) for 20 days, and the placebo group was given the same number of capsules with no MyrLiq. A score was recorded for all volunteers based on their previous experience with prescribed analgesics. For the male volunteers, pain alleviation was obtained with 400 mg of MyrLiq/day for almost all pathologies, whereas, for female volunteers, alleviation of lower back pain and fever-dependent pain was observed with only 200 mg of MyrLiq/day. These results indicate that MyrLiq has significant analgesic properties

Experimental calibration and validation of a simulation model for fault detection of HVAC systems and application to a case study

Automated fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) could provide a cornerstone for predictive maintenance of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems based on the development of simulation models able to accurately compare the faulty operation with respect to nominal conditions. In this paper, several experiments have been carried out for assessing the performance of the HVAC unit (nominal cooling/heating capacity of 5.0/5.0 kW) controlling the thermo-hygrometric comfort inside a 4.0 × 4.0 × 3.6 m test room at the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design of the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli (Italy); then, a detailed dynamic simulation model has been developed and validated by contrasting the predictions with the measured data. The model has also been used to analyze the dynamic variations of key parameters associated to faulty operation in comparison to normal performance, in order to identify simplified rules for detection of any non-optimal states of HVAC devices. Finally, the simulated performance of the HVAC unit has also been investigated while serving a typical Italian building office with and without the occurrence of typical faults with the main aim of assessing the impact of the faults on thermo-hygrometric comfort conditions as well as electric energy consumption