Building an ecologically valid facial expression database – Behind the scenes

Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, together with a general increased computational performance, allow nowadays exploring the use of Facial Expression Recognition (FER) as a method of recognizing human emotion through the use of neural networks. The interest in facial emotion and expression recognition in real-life situations is one of the current cutting-edge research challenges. In this context, the creation of an ecologically valid facial expression database is crucial. To this aim, a controlled experiment has been designed, in which thirty-five subjects aged 18–35 were asked to react spontaneously to a set of 48 validated images from two affective databases, IAPS and GAPED. According to the Self-Assessment Manikin, participants were asked to rate images on a 9-points visual scale on valence and arousal. Furthermore, they were asked to select one of the six Ekman’s basic emotions. During the experiment, an RGB-D camera was also used to record spontaneous facial expressions aroused in participants storing both the color and the depth frames to feed a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to perform FER. In every case, the prevalent emotion pointed out in the questionnaires matched with the expected emotion. CNN obtained a recognition rate of 75.02%, computed comparing the neural network results with the evaluations given by a human observer. These preliminary results have confirmed that this experimental setting is an effective starting point for building an ecologically valid database

Maternal exposure to air pollutants, PCSK9 levels, fetal growth and gestational age – An Italian cohort

Objective: Exposure to airborne pollutants during pregnancy appears to be associated with uterine growth restriction and adverse neonatal outcome. Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type (PCSK9), the key modulator of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) metabolism, increases following particulate matter (PM10) exposure. Because maternal cholesterol is required for fetal growth, PCSK9 levels could be used to evaluate the potential impact of airborne pollutants on fetal growth. Design: A cohort of 134 healthy women during early pregnancy (11–12 weeks of gestational age) was studied. Results: A significant association between circulating PCSK9 levels and three tested air pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, nitric oxide (NO2)) was found. Of importance, gestational age at birth was reduced by approximately 1 week for each 100 ng/mL rise in circulating PCSK9 levels, an effect that became more significant at the highest quartile of PM2.5 (with a 1.8 week advance in delivery date for every 100 ng/mL rise in circulating PCSK9; p for interaction = 0.026). This finding was supported by an elevation of the odds ratio for urgent cesarean delivery for each 100 ng/mL rise in PCSK9 (2.99, 95% CI, 1.22–6.57), similar trends being obtained for PM10 and NO2. Conclusions: The association between exposure to air pollutants during pregnancy and elevation in PCSK9 advances our understanding of the unforeseen influences of environmental exposure in terms of pregnancy associated disorders

Procoagulatory state in inflammatory bowel diseases is promoted by impaired intestinal barrier function

Inflammatory and immune mediated disorders are risk factors for arterial and venous thromboembolism. Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) confer an even greater risk of thromboembolic events than other inflammatory conditions. It has been shown that IBD patients display defective intestinal barrier functions. Thus, pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) coming from the intestinal bacterial burden might reach systemic circulation and activate innate immunity receptors on endothelial cells and platelets, promoting a procoagulative state. Aim of the study was to test this hypothesis, correlating the presence of circulating PAMPs with the activation of innate immune system and the activation of the coagulatory cascade in IBD patients. Specifically, we studied lipopolysaccharide (LPS), Toll-like receptor (TLR) 2, TLR4, and markers of activated coagulation (i.e., D-Dimer and prothrombin fragment F1 + 2) in the serum and plasma of IBD patients. We found that LPS levels are increased in IBD and correlate with TLR4 concentrations; although a mild correlation between LPS and CRP levels was detected, clinical disease activity does not appear to influence circulating LPS. Instead, serum LPS correlates with both D-Dimer and F1 + 2 measurements. Taken together, our data support the role of an impairment of intestinal barrier in triggering the activation of the coagulatory cascade in IBD

Autoimmunity in gestational diabetes mellitus in Sardinia: a preliminary case-control report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We previously reported a high prevalence (22.3%) of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in a large group of Sardinian women, in contrast with the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes. Sardinia has an unusual distribution of haplotypes and genotypes, with the highest population frequency of HLA DR3 in the world, and after Finland, the highest prevalence of Type 1 diabetes and Autoimmune-related Diseases. In this study we preliminarily tested the prevalence of serological markers of Type 1 diabetes in a group of Sardinian GDM patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We determined glutamic decarboxylase antibodies (anti-GAD65), protein tyrosine phosphatase ICA 512 (IA2) antibodies (anti-IA2), and IAA in 62 GDM patients, and in 56 controls with matching age, gestational age and parity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found a high prevalence and very unusual distribution of antibodies in GDM patients (38.8%), the anti-IA2 being the most frequent antibody. Out of all our GDM patients, 38.8% (24 of 62) were positive for at least one antibody. Anti-IA2 was present in 29.0 % (18 out of 62) vs. 7.1% (4 out of 56) in the controls (P < 0.001). IAA was present in 14.5% (9 out of 62) of our GDM patients, and absent in the control subjects (P < 0.001). Anti-GAD65 was also present in GDM patients, with a prevalence of 3.2% (2 out of 62) while it was absent in the control group (P = NS). Pre-gestational weight was significantly lower (57.78 ± 9.8 vs 65.9 ± 17.3 <it>P </it>= 0.04) in auto-antibodies- positive GDM patients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results are in contrast with the very low prevalence of all antibodies reported in Italy. If confirmed, they could indicate that a large proportion of GDM patients in Sardinia have an autoimmune origin, in accordance with the high prevalence of Type 1 diabetes.</p

Driving emotions: using virtual reality to explore the effect of low and high arousal on driver's attention

The role played by emotions and attention is crucial for the development of advanced driver assistance systems that improve safety by flexibly adapting to the current state of the driver. In the present study, we used immersive virtual reality as a testing tool to investigate how different emotional states affect drivers' attention in a divided attention task. Two different emotional states, diversified by valence and arousal, were induced before performing a divided attention task in a driving simulation. The experimental task developed for this study allowed us to explore if and how two different emotional states can affect the way drivers divide their attention between a central driving-related task and a peripheral visual task. Our results showed that scared drivers presented lower reaction times at the central task compared to relaxed drivers. On the contrary, the emotional state did not affect the performance at the peripheral task, which revealed instead a significant effect of the eccentricity at which the visual stimuli were presented, influencing both the accuracy of targets’ perception and participants' reaction times

Total and excess bed occupancy by age, specialty and insulin use for nearly one million diabetes patients discharged from all English Acute Hospitals

To investigate total diabetes bed occupancy and prolonged inpatient length of stay (LOS) in all English Acute Hospitals, we analysed hospital episode statistics (HES) discharge data for all English Acute Hospitals over 4 years for ICD10 discharge codes of E10 (‘insulin-dependent diabetes’) or E11 (‘non-insulin dependent diabetes’) by age-band (18–60, 61–75 and >75 years) and specialties. We matched these data to control discharges without these codes. There were 943,613 diabetes discharges (6,508,668 bed days) and 10,724,414 matched controls. Mean diabetes LOS increased with age for each specialty and both E10 and E11 codes, but excess diabetes LOS decreased with age. Excess diabetes LOS was <1.0 days in most groups and highest (1.2 days) in insulin-dependent surgical patients under 60 years old, where 19.7% of bed days were excess. A similar pattern was seen for 76,570 diabetes inpatients with key cardiac or surgical conditions. Excess bed occupancy due to prolonged mean LOS accounted for 325,033 bed days under general medical and surgical codes. There were 25,525 discharges with diabetic ketoacidosis (126,495 bed days) in these 4 years. Excess diabetes LOS is concentrated in younger age groups. Excess bed occupancy due to prolonged LOS in medical and surgical inpatients is three times greater than bed occupancy due to diabetic ketoacidosis. Strategies to reduce excess diabetes bed occupancy should emphasize reducing inpatient LOS in younger inpatients

ACCEPT – A SENSORIZED CLIMBING WALL FOR MOTOR REHABILITATION

We are designing a novel set of sensors optimized to be inserted in a climbing wall, and we are optimizing the wall and holds geometry for usage in training as well as rehabilitation. In this abstract, we illustrate preliminary results on the design of a version of this wall, called ACCEPT, optimized for use with children with cerebral palsy