Search results for "pta"
showing 10 items of 4973 documents
Usability and acceptability assessment of an empathic virtual agent to prevent major depression
2016
In Human-Computer Interaction, the adaptation of the content and the way of how this content is communicated to the users in interactive sessions is a critical issue to promote the acceptability and usability of any computational system. We present a user-adapted interactive platform to identify and provide an early intervention for symptoms of depression and suicide. In particular, we describe the work performed to assess users' system acceptability and usability. An empathic Virtual Agent is the main interface with the user, and it has been designed to generate the appropriate dialogues and emotions during the interactions according to the detected user's specific needs. This personalizat…
Barriers and facilitators of older people's mHealth usage: a qualitative review of older people's views
2018
The aim of this qualitative evidence synthesis is to identify and assess existing\ud evidence on barriers to and facilitators of older people’s usage of mHealth. Existing\ud literature identified many factors that affect people’s experiences and perceptions of\ud mHealth, which are in turn influenced by their personal circumstances and biography.\ud The following themes were identified using the thematic synthesis approach: (a)\ud perception of usefulness, (b) user requirements, (c) self-efficacy, (d) sense of self and\ud control, (e) privacy and confidentiality, and (f) cost. MHealth devices and services are\ud complex interventions that have to be integrated into an older person’s life in…
User experiences of a mobile mental well-being intervention among pregnant women
2016
Postnatal depression affects 10 to 15 percent of women after childbirth. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is associated with better mental well-being and lower levels of depression. Digital ACT solutions enable providing potentially cost-effective access to interventions. This paper reports the user experiences of an ACT-based mobile mental well-being intervention among pregnant women. Twenty-nine mothers were recruited to a 6-month study. Usage rates were collected via usage logs and user experiences via questionnaires and interviews. The total usage time of the application was about 53 min per user. The application was perceived easy to use. The most common barriers of use were: co…
Reviewing the role of ecosystems services in the sustainability of the urban environment: A multi-country analysis
2020
The urban environment is characterised by many pressures caused by population growth, transport (and its related emissions), and the damage to green areas. Yet, there is a variety of ecosystem services available in urban areas, which may be deployed to ameliorate the current problems and foster their sustainability. This paper reviews the role of ecosystem services as tools for sustainability, based on an urban setting. It also describes a series of multi-country case studies, where an assessment of their functions using a set of benefits valuation approaches such as health benefits, economic benefits, social benefits and benefits to climate resilience, are provided, along with an appraisal…
The tougher the environment, the harder the adaptation? A psychological point of view in extreme situations
2021
IF: 2.8 (Q1); International audience; Grounded within a multidimensional and multilevel approach, the aim of this study was to investigate the time course of Psychological Adaptation Process (PAP) dimensions (social, emotional, occupational, and physical) during one-year polar winter-overs in Subantarctic and Antarctic stations. The effects of perceived control (PC) at the start of polar winter on the dynamics of the PAP dimensions were also examined. The present findings clarify some changes in PAP in extreme environments: (a) The dimensions of psychological adaptation evolved differently as a function of environmental conditions; and (b) PC influenced the trajectories of PAP dimensions. T…
Assessing Urban System Vulnerabilities to Flooding to Improve Resilience and Adaptation in Spatial Planning
2018
Fluvial, pluvial and coastal flooding are the most frequent and costly natural hazard. Cities are social hubs and life in cities is reliant on a number of services and functions such as housing, healthcare, education and other key daily facilities. Urban flooding can cause significant disruption to these services and wider impacts on the population. These impacts may be short or long with a variably spatial scale: urban systems are spatially distributed and the nature of this can have significant effects on flood impacts. From an urban-planning perspective, measuring this disruption and its consequences is fundamental in order to develop more resilient cities. Whereas the assessment of phys…
Adaptive Control of Soft Robots Based on an Enhanced 3D Augmented Rigid Robot Matching
2021
Despite having proven successful in generating precise motions under dynamic conditions in highly deformable soft-bodied robots, model based techniques are also prone to robustness issues connected to the intrinsic uncertain nature of the dynamics of these systems. This letter aims at tackling this challenge, by extending the augmented rigid robot formulation to a stable representation of three dimensional motions of soft robots, under Piecewise Constant Curvature hypothesis. In turn, the equivalence between soft-bodied and rigid robots permits to derive effective adaptive controllers for soft-bodied robots, achieving perfect posture regulation under considerable errors in the knowledge of …
Smart factory in the context of 4th industrial revolution: challenges and opportunities for Romania
2017
Manufacturing companies, independent of operation sector and size, must be able to produce lot size one products, just-in-time at a competitive cost. Coping with this high adaptability and short reaction times proves to be very challenging. New approaches must be taken into consideration for designing modular, intelligent and cooperative production systems which are easy to integrate with the entire factory. The coined term for this network of intelligent interacting artefacts system is cyber-physical systems (CPS). CPS is often used in the context of Industry 4.0 – or what many consider the forth industrial revolution. The paper presents an overview of key technological and social requirem…
K-nearest neighbor driving active contours to delineate biological tumor volumes
2019
Abstract An algorithm for tumor delineation in positron emission tomography (PET) is presented. Segmentation is achieved by a local active contour algorithm, integrated and optimized with the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classification method, which takes advantage of the stratified k-fold cross-validation strategy. The proposed approach is evaluated considering the delineation of cancers located in different body districts (i.e. brain, head and neck, and lung), and considering different PET radioactive tracers. Data are pre-processed in order to be expressed in terms of standardized uptake value, the most widely used PET quantification index. The algorithm uses an initial, operator selected re…
The impact of the volumetric swelling behavior on the water uptake of gas shale
2018
Abstract Water uptake of gas shales is commonly considered one of the most important factors responsible for fluid loss during flowback operations after hydraulic fracturing. Imbibition experiments cover a key role in this context to analyze the impact of several factors (such as mineralogical composition, fluids composition, anisotropic structure, volumetric swelling) that contribute to the water uptake in these unconventional reservoirs. The aim of this study is the quantification of the impact of the volumetric response (swelling and shrinkage) of gas shales on the water uptake during imbibition and desiccation processes. An experimental methodology to quantify the volumetric response du…