Search Results (173)

The problem of choosing an electric generator in order to increase the reliability and continuity of energy supply to households in Ukraine was considered. It was shown that this choice is made under conditions of uncertainty. The methods of choosing alternatives to technical systems under conditions of uncertainty, based on axiomatic, heuristic and verbal decision-making methods described in the sources, were analyzed, and the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) was selected to develop a model for choosing an electric generator. The technical, economic, operational and ergonomic criteria for choosing an electric generator were justified. The novelty of the article lies in the use of the developed structural hierarchical model for choosing an electric generator for a household, and the selection of the appropriate generator option for a household was carried out using the AHP. The selected F3001 generator model is characterized by the highest value of the generalized weighting factor due to the impact of estimates based on economic and operational criteria. The use of the cogeneration unit in an agricultural biogas plant was also indicated—as an alternative to household energy supply. Full article

Background and Clinical Significance: Avatar Therapy (AT) for individuals with treatment-resistant auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) in schizophrenia aims to address emotional responses, beliefs about voices, self-perception, and coping strategies. This study focuses on three participants who, during AT, shifted their belief about the origin of their most distressing voice from an external source to a self-generated one. Case Presentation: The objective of this study was to explore the evolution of the reattribution of the participants’ most distressing voice to oneself during AT and the patients’ perception of this reattribution. Immersive sessions and semi-structured interviews were transcribed and qualitatively described to provide a session-by-session account of the evolution of each participant’s AVH reattribution to themselves during the course of AT, along with their perceptions of this reattribution. This process led to the recognition that initially perceived as external voices were internally generated thoughts, reflecting how participants viewed themselves. Two participants reported a reduction in AVH severity. All three described positive changes in how they related to their voices and self-perception. Additional improvements were observed in emotional regulation, social functioning, and engagement in personal projects. Conclusions: This reassignment of the voice from an external source to an internal one suggests that AT can modify how individuals relate to their voices and may empower them to regain control over their hallucinations. However, given the exploratory nature of this study, the results should be interpreted as examples. Full article

Descola describes western culture, influenced by the Christian worldview, as “naturalist”. However, semiotic and ethnographic research shows that different perspectives about the relationship between humans and animals coexist with mainstream naturalism. In particular, the introduction of animals in churches is not rare in Italy today, even though it fuels an ongoing debate. The relationship with animals is central in Saint Anthony’s figure and feast, which includes the blessing of animals. This article first focuses on the figure of Saint Anthony, finding in its first sources the seeds of a worldview based on love for creation that fully flourishes centuries later with Saint Francis, then it contextualizes the blessing of animals in the context of a changing sensitivity towards animals, which are often considered from an affective perspective and as part of an ecological standpoint that is also expressed in the institutional discourse of the Catholic Church. Then, the patronal feast of Saint Anthony and the blessing of animals in two different urban communities of Turin (Italy) are the subject of an ethnosemiotic analysis highlighting the animals’ position (inside or at the border of the sacred space), the rite’s structure and the relation between the verbal discourse and the performance of celebrants and worshipers. The position of the animals is thus considered as the expression plane of semantic values about their status in relation to the family. Full article

The present study introduces a multidimensional approach to describing the composition of reflections, addressing previous inconsistencies in operationalization. The multidimensional approach was empirically explored in comparison to unidimensional reflection quality measures and examined in relation to reflection-related dispositions. Given the challenges of promoting reflection in teachers’ daily practice, low-threshold interventions—repeated practice and structuring prompts—were investigated regarding their potential to foster reflective competence. Using an integrated model of reflection, five proposed dimensions—describing, evaluating, naming alternatives, justification, and self-reference—were identified and assessed alongside the quality measures reflection depth and breadth, and holistic grading. N = 29 teachers reflected verbally on two teaching videos, first openly and then with structuring prompts. The transcribed reflections underwent qualitative and evaluative content analysis to extract quantitative data. Compared to existing quality measures, the multidimensional approach provided deeper insights into the complexity of the reflections. The correlations between different approaches to reflection measurement and the reflection-related dispositions were only partially as expected. While repeated practice did not yield a training effect, structuring prompts improved reflection quality. Overall, the findings confirm the usefulness of the multidimensional approach as a valuable means to describe the composition of reflections and highlight its potential for quality measurement. Full article

Background/objectives: Racial and ethnic minority patients are underrepresented in cancer clinical trials (CCTs) and multilevel strategies are required to increase participation. This study describes barriers and facilitators to minority CCT participation alongside feedback on a multilevel intervention (MLI) designed to reduce participation barriers, as posited by the socioecological model (SEM). Methods: Interviews with Moffitt Cancer Center (MCC) physicians, community physicians, patients with cancer, community residents, and clinical research coordinators (CRCs) were conducted from June 2023–February 2024. Verbal responses were analyzed using thematic analysis and categorized into SEM levels. Mean helpfulness scores rating interventions (from 1 (not helpful) to 5 (very helpful)) were summarized. Results: Approximately 50 interviews were completed. Thematic findings confirmed CCT referral and enrollment barriers across all SEM levels. At the community level, MCC patients and community residents felt that community health educators can improve patient experiences and suggested they connect patients to social/financial resources, assist with patient registration, and provide CCT education. While physicians and CRCs reacted positively to all institutional-level tools, the highest scored tool simultaneously addressed CCT referral and enrollment at the institution (e.g., trial identification/referrals) and interpersonal level (communication platform for community and MCC physicians) (mean = 4.27). At the intrapersonal level, patients were enthusiastic about a digital CCT decision aid (mean = 4.53) and suggested its integration into MCC’s patient portal. Conclusions: Results underscore the value of conducting formative research to tailor interventions to target population needs. Our approach can be leveraged by future researchers seeking to evaluate MLIs addressing additional CCT challenges or broader health topics. Full article

Social robots in Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environments offer a promising alternative for enhancing senior care by providing companionship and functional support. These robots can serve as intuitive interfaces to complex smart home systems, allowing seniors and caregivers to easily control their environment and access various assistance services through natural interactions. By combining the emotional engagement capabilities of social robots with the comprehensive monitoring and support features of AAL, this integrated approach can potentially improve the quality of life and independence of elderly individuals while alleviating the burden on human caregivers. This paper explores the integration of social robotics with ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies to enhance elderly care. We propose a novel framework where a social robot is the central orchestrator of an AAL environment, coordinating various smart devices and systems to provide comprehensive support for seniors. Our approach leverages the social robot’s ability to engage in natural interactions while managing the complex network of environmental and wearable sensors and actuators. In this paper, we focus on the technical aspects of our framework. A computational P2P notebook is used to customize the environment and run reactive services. Machine learning models can be included for real-time recognition of gestures, poses, and moods to support non-verbal communication. We describe scenarios to illustrate the utility and functionality of the framework and how the robot is used to orchestrate the AAL environment to contribute to the well-being and independence of elderly individuals. We also address the technical challenges and future directions for this integrated approach to elderly care. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the use of telehealth interventions for treating depression in older adults. We conducted a pilot study of a telephone-based brief psychological intervention, Behavioral Activation with Mental Imagery (BA-MI), for the treatment of depression in isolated older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. We achieved promising results regarding a reduction in depressive symptoms. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the participants’ experiences of the intervention and provide insight into how the intervention could be improved. Fourteen participants aged 67–85 years that completed the BA-MI intervention were purposively selected and interviewed. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis with a descriptive phenomenological approach. BA was experienced as a good way of increasing activities and improving mood, but the opinions on MI were divided. Telephone delivery reduced barriers due to pandemic restrictions but felt less personal and lacking non-verbal communication. Being recognized and talking to a therapist every week was described as healing. When using manual-based psychological interventions, one should aim to make them as person-centered as possible by making room for the patients as individuals with both a past and a present, rather than just focusing on intervention delivery. Full article

Although virtual reality (VR) was originally conceived of as a multi-sensory experience, most developers of the technology have focused on its visual aspects to the detriment of other senses such as hearing. This paper presents design patterns to make virtual reality fully accessible to non-visual users, including totally blind users, especially with non-verbal social interactions. Non-visual VR has been present in the blindness audio game community since the early 2000s, but the conventions from those interfaces have never been described to a sighted audience, outside of a few limited sonification interface papers. This paper presents non-visual design patterns created by five of the top English-speaking audio game developers through a three round Delphi method, encompassing 29 non-verbal social interactions grouped into 12 categories in VR, including movement, emotes, and self-expression. This paper will be useful to developers of VR experiences who wish to represent non-verbal social information to their users through non-visual conventions. These methods have only been rigorously tested through the commercial market, and not through scientific approaches. These design patterns can serve as the foundation for future investigation in exploring non-visual non-verbal social interactions in VR. Full article

The presented article is focused on presenting the methodology for design and content creation for presentation purposes using see-through displays which show digital information on transparent surfaces in combination with real objects. The main part of this article identifies the sequence of design and content creation for presentation purposes in the educational process, which is graphically interpreted with the addition of verbal descriptions. The described methodology is focused on the creation of digital content that will be optimally integrated into the real environment to enhance the efficiency of communication and interactivity within educational processes. The methodology also identifies options for selecting suitable technologies to ensure the creation of a visually appropriate and functional digital presentation through see-through displays. The PTC Creo Parametric program was used to create animations for the assembly of components, and the SharpDevelop integrated development environment was used to design the user interface for the visualization itself. The created methodology is also verified in a pilot case study, which focuses on the presentation of a model of a sample assembly for educational purposes. Full article

Historically, the field of discourse marker research has moved from relying on intuition to more and more ecological data, with written, spoken, and now multimodal corpora available to study these pervasive pragmatic devices. For some topics, video is necessary to capture the complexity of interactive phenomena, such as feedback in dialogue. Feedback is the process of communicating engagement, alignment, and affiliation (or lack thereof) to the other speaker, and has attracted a lot of attention recently, from fields such as psycholinguistics, conversation analysis, or second language acquisition. Feedback can be expressed by a variety of verbal/vocal and visual/gestural devices, from questions to head nods and, crucially, discourse or pragmatic markers such as “okay, alright, yeah”. Verbal-vocal and visual-gestural forms often co-occur, which calls for more investigation of their combinations. In this study, we analyze multimodal pragmatic markers of feedback in a corpus of French dialogues, where all feedback devices have previously been categorized into either “alignment” (expression of mutual understanding) or “affiliation” (expression of shared stance). After describing the distribution and forms within each modality taken separately, we will focus on interesting multimodal combinations, such as [negative oui ‘yes’ + head tilt] or [mais oui ‘but yes’ + forward head move], thus showing how the visual modality can affect the semantics of verbal markers. In doing so, we will contribute to defining multimodal pragmatic markers, a status which has so far been restricted to verbal markers and manual gestures, at the expense of other devices in the visual modality. Full article

Background/Objectives: Nonverbal synchrony—the temporal coordination of physical behaviors such as head movement and gesture—is a critical component of effective social communication. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often described as having impairments in such synchrony, but objective and scalable tools to measure these disruptions remain limited. This study aims to assess body motion synchrony in ASD using phase-based features as potential markers of social timing impairments. Methods: We applied a phase difference detection algorithm to high-resolution triaxial accelerometer data obtained during structured, unidirectional verbal communication. A total of 72 participants (36 typically developing TD–TD and 36 TD–ASD) were divided into dyads. ASD participants always assumed the listener role, enabling the isolation of receptive synchrony. Four distribution-based features—synchrony activity, directionality, variability, and coherence—were extracted from the phase difference data to assess synchrony dynamics. Results: Compared to the TD group, the ASD group exhibited significantly lower synchrony activity (ASD: 5.96 vs. TD: 9.63 times/min, p = 0.0008, Cohen’s d = 1.23), greater temporal variability (ASD: 384.4 ms vs. TD: 311.1 ms, p = 0.0036, d = 1.04), and reduced coherence (ASD: 0.13 vs. TD: 0.81, p = 0.036, d = 0.73). Although the mean phase difference did not differ significantly between groups, the ASD group displayed weaker and more irregular synchrony patterns, indicating impaired temporal stability. Conclusions: Our findings highlight robust impairments in nonverbal head motion synchrony in ASD, not only in frequency but also in terms of temporal stability and convergence. The use of phase-based synchrony features provides a continuous, high-resolution, language-independent metric for social timing. These metrics offer substantial potential as behavioral biomarkers for diagnostic support and intervention monitoring in ASD. Full article

Background/Objectives: Violence in healthcare settings, especially in emergency departments (ED), remains an important public health issue worldwide. Thus, additional insight into the effect of these incidents into nurses’ professional attitudes, their work life and related implications to patient safety issues may be valuable. We investigated ED nurses’ living experience of exposure to workplace violence by healthcare service users, with focus on the impact on them. Methods: Following a qualitative study design, data were collected (January–June 2024) through semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions and were analyzed according to an inductive, content analysis approach. Participants provided informed consent, and data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached. Results: The sample included six nurses. Various forms of workplace violence and its psychological, social, and professional consequences were identified. Violence was more frequently perpetrated by patients’ relatives, with verbal aggression being the most common form. A fundamental divergence in needs and expectation between patients and their family members/caregivers, on one side, and participants, on the other, revealed a pronounced empathy gap. Each group remained focused on its own priorities while struggling to recognize or accommodate others’ perspectives. This lack of mutual understanding contributed to tension that, in some cases, escalated even into physically violent incidents against the participants. A similar gap was identified between the participants’ needs and administrators’ attitudes and related policies. The failure of administrative measures to bridge this gap was described as a crucial factor in further escalating conflicts and tension in the ED. Conclusions: Further research on quality improvement projects, including all stakeholders, aiming to enhance empathy in all parties involved is proposed. Full article

Background/Objectives: Children with Down syndrome (DS) have distinct oral care needs and challenges, yet research on their care experiences, exploring caregiver and provider perspectives, is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to describe the barriers and facilitators to oral care for children with DS, as reported by caregivers and dental professionals. Methods: In this qualitative inquiry, semi-structured questions were used to elicit narratives describing oral care experiences from one caregiver focus group (n = 5), individual caregiver interviews (n = 9), and individual dentist interviews (n = 8). The transcripts were coded and thematically analyzed. Results: Three themes emerged in both groups. The first theme, Access, described the challenges in locating a dentist willing and knowledgeable about how to treat children with DS, and the variability in experiences between different contexts (i.e., community-based vs. specialty clinics). The second theme, Pre-visit Preparation, noted the potential impact of dental trauma on dental visits and recommended the use of preparation strategies, such as desensitization appointments, strategic scheduling, and visual or verbal scripts or social stories, to introduce dental encounters. The final theme, Dental Encounters, dealt with the importance of communication and interpersonal connection, as well as concerns about and support for active/passive immobilization techniques and pharmacological intervention. Sensory strategies for auditory, tactile, and vestibular input were discussed, in addition to distraction techniques, the timing and pacing of dental encounters, and parental presence/absence. Conclusions: Tailoring dental care around the unique sensory and behavioral needs of children with DS and building effective partnerships between children, parents, and dentists were emphasized for optimizing the dental care experiences of children with DS. Full article

The spontaneous use of verbal expressions to articulate and describe abstract auditory phenomena in everyday interactions is an inherent aspect of human nature. This occurs without the structured conditions typically required in controlled laboratory environments, relying instead on intuitive and spontaneous modes of expression. This study explores the relationship between auditory perception and descriptive language for abstract sounds. These sounds, synthesized without identifiable sources or musical structures, allow listeners to engage with sound perception free from external references. The investigation of correlations between subjective descriptors (e.g., “rough”, “bright”) and physical sound attributes (e.g., spectral and dynamic properties) reveals significant cross-modal linguistic associations in auditory perception. An international survey with a diverse group of participants revealed that listeners often draw on other sensory domains to describe sounds, suggesting a robust cross-modal basis for auditory descriptors. Moreover, the findings indicate a correlation between subjective descriptors and objective sound wave properties, demonstrating the effectiveness of abstract sounds in guiding listeners’ attention to intrinsic qualities. These results could support the development of new paradigms in sound analysis and manipulation, with applications in artistic, educational, and analytical contexts. This multidisciplinary approach may provide the foundation for a perceptual framework for sound analysis, to be tested and refined through theoretical modelling and experimental validation. Full article

The term incel is a neologism combining “involuntary” and “celibate”, describing men who experience involuntary absence from sexual and romantic relationships. Incels frequently espouse conspiratorial and misogynistic ideologies, often engaging in verbal aggression. The present study aimed at qualitatively exploring the emotional experiences and beliefs articulated within an online incel community, contributing to the formation of its collective identity. A thread (453 comments) sampled from an Italian “incel” forum was analyzed by two independent raters, using thematic analysis. Four themes emerged: (a) “non-persons (i.e., women) are not like us” revealed perceived gender inequality and misogynistic beliefs, (b) “without experiences in adolescence you are ruined” reflected the belief that early romantic and sexual experiences are crucial for later relationship satisfaction, (c) “I have no life” captured expressions of profound distress and life dissatisfaction, and (d) “only ours is true suffering” highlighted a sense of unique victimhood. Incel group identity was shaped by gender role stress, primarily stemming from the perceived failure to meet socially constructed expectations of hegemonic masculinity. Suffering emerged as the dominant emotional experience, seemingly exacerbated by feelings of hopelessness regarding romantic and sexual prospects. The perceived subordinate status of men and male suffering were exploited to rationalize and perpetuate misogyny. The observed incels’ openness in discussing experiences of suffering and trauma may present an opportunity for the development of preventive interventions aimed at increasing help-seeking behavior in this population. Full article