Facilitating the Child–Robot Interaction by Endowing the Robot with the Capability of Understanding the Child Engagement: The Case of Mio Amico Robot

AbstractSocial Robots (SRs) are substantially becoming part of modern society, given their frequent use in many areas of application including education, communication, assistance, and entertainment. The main challenge in human–robot interaction is in achieving human-like and affective interaction between the two groups. This study is aimed at endowing SRs with the capability of assessing the emotional state of the interlocutor, by analyzing his/her psychophysiological signals. The methodology is focused on remote evaluations of the subject's peripheral neuro-vegetative activity by means of thermal infrared imaging. The approach was developed and tested for a particularly challenging use case: the interaction between children and a commercial educational robot, Mio Amico Robot, produced by LiscianiGiochi©. The emotional state classified from the thermal signal analysis was compared to the emotional state recognized by a facial action coding system. The proposed approach was reliable and accurate and favored a personalized and improved interaction of children with SRs

Small ruminant lentivirus genotype B and E interaction: evidences on the role of Roccaverano strain on reducing proviral load of the challenging CAEV strain

Live attenuated vaccines provide the most consistent protective immunity in experimental models of lentivirus infections. In this study we tested the hypothesis that animals infected with a naturally attenuated small ruminant lentivirus field strain of genotype E may control a challenge infection with a virulent strain of the caprine arthritis encephalitis virus (CAEV-CO). Within genotype E, Roccaverano strain has been described as attenuated since decreased arthritic pathological indexes were recorded in Roccaverano-infected animals compared to animals of the same breed infected with genotype B strains. Moreover, under natural conditions, animals double-infected with genotypes B and E appear less prone to develop SRLV-related disease, leading to a putative protective role of Roccaverano strain. Here we present evidence that goats experimentally infected with the avirulent genotype E SRLV-Roccaverano strain control the proviral load of a pathogenic challenge virus (CAEV-CO strain) more efficiently than naïve animals and appear to limit the spread of histological lesions to the contralateral joints

Malattie infettive degli animali

Le malattie infettive degli animali rappresentano una parte rilevante della sanità pubblica, sia per motivi sanitari sia economici, e storicamente sono state tra i primi problemi di popolazione a dover essere gestiti. I contenuti del libro, scelti in base ai programmi didattici svolti in diverse Facoltà italiane, comprendono un’ampia serie di argomenti: una parte introduttiva sui concetti di epidemiologia, sorveglianza, diagnosi, profilassi, controllo ed eradicazione delle malattie infettive, per poi passare in rassegna le diverse patologie che colpiscono gli animali da reddito, da compagnia, i lagomorfi e gli esotici. Vengono anche trattati argomenti riguardanti le principali malattie emergenti e le zoonosi. La stesura del volume ha coinvolto un gran numero di docenti, ricercatori (di diverse sedi universitarie) e professionisti, ciascuno con la sua specifica competenza, con l’obiettivo di produrre un testo condiviso. “Malattie infettive degli animali”, volume di agile e facile consultazione, mette a disposizione di studenti, ricercatori e docenti un’opera completa e di indubbia utilità, con lo scopo di fornire gli strumenti teorici e pratici per la sorveglianza, la diagnosi e il controllo delle malattie infettive