Technology-Aided Spatial Cues, Instructions, and Preferred Stimulation for Supporting People With Intellectual and Visual Disabilities in Their Occupational Engagement and Mobility: Usability Study

Background Persons with severe or profound intellectual disability and visual impairment tend to be passive and sedentary, and technology-aided intervention may be required to improve their condition without excessive demands on staff time. Objective This study aims to extend the assessment of technology-aided interventions for supporting functional occupational engagement and mobility in 7 people with intellectual disability and visual impairment and to use a technology system that is simpler and less expensive than those previously used. Methods The technology system involved a Samsung Galaxy A10, 4 Philips Hue indoor motion sensors, and 4 mini speakers. Within each session, the participants were to collect 18 objects (ie, one at a time) from 3 different areas (stations) located within a large room, bring each of the objects to a central desk, and put away each of those objects there. For each object, the participants received verbal (spatial) cues for guiding them to the area where the object was to be collected, a verbal instruction (ie, request) to take an object, verbal (spatial) cues for guiding them to the central desk, a verbal instruction to put away the object collected, and praise and preferred stimulation. Results During baseline, the frequency of responses completed correctly (objects collected and put away independently) was 0 or near 0. During the intervention phase (ie, with the support of the technology setup), the frequency increased for all participants, reaching a mean of almost 18 (out of 18 response opportunities) for 6 participants and about 13 for the remaining participant. The mean session duration ranged from 12 to 30 minutes. Conclusions A program, such as the one used in this study, can be useful in promoting occupational engagement and mobility in persons with intellectual disability and visual impairment.

Asymmetry of cortical functional hierarchy in humans and macaques suggests phylogenetic conservation and adaptation

The human cerebral cortex is symmetrically organized along large-scale axes but also presents inter-hemispheric differences in structure and function. The quantified contralateral homologous difference, i.e., asymmetry, is a key feature of the human brain left-right axis supporting functional processes, such as language. Here, we assessed whether the asymmetry of cortical functional organization is heritable and phylogenetically conserved between humans and macaques. Our findings indicate asymmetric organization along an axis describing a hierarchical functional trajectory from perceptual/action to abstract cognition. Whereas language network showed leftward asymmetric organization, frontoparietal network showed rightward asymmetric organization. These asymmetries were heritable and comparable between humans and macaques, suggesting (phylo)genetic conservation. However, both language and frontoparietal networks showed a qualitatively larger asymmetry in humans relative to macaques and variable heritability in humans. This may reflect an evolutionary adaptation allowing for experience-dependent specialization, linked to higher-order cognitive functions uniquely developed in humans.

Striatal topographical organization: Bridging the gap between molecules, connectivity and behavior

The striatum represents the major hub of the basal ganglia, receiving projections from the entire cerebral cortex and it is assumed to play a key role in a wide array of complex behavioral tasks. Despite being extensively investigated during the last decades, the topographical organization of the striatum is not well understood yet. Ongoing efforts in neuroscience are focused on analyzing striatal anatomy at different spatial scales, to understand how structure relates to function and how derangements of this organization are involved in various neuropsychiatric diseases. While being subdivided at the macroscale level into dorsal and ventral divisions, at a mesoscale level the striatum represents an anatomical continuum sharing the same cellular makeup. At the same time, it is now increasingly ascertained that different striatal compartments show subtle histochemical differences, and their neurons exhibit peculiar patterns of gene expression, supporting functional diversity across the whole basal ganglia circuitry. Such diversity is further supported by afferent connections which are heterogenous both anatomically, as they originate from distributed cortical areas and subcortical structures, and biochemically, as they involve a variety of neurotransmitters. Specifically, the cortico-striatal projection system is topographically organized delineating a functional organization which is maintained throughout the basal ganglia, subserving motor, cognitive and affective behavioral functions. While such functional heterogeneity has been firstly conceptualized as a tripartite organization, with sharply defined limbic, associative and sensorimotor territories within the striatum, it has been proposed that such territories are more likely to fade into one another, delineating a gradient-like organization along medio-lateral and ventro-dorsal axes. However, the molecular and cellular underpinnings of such organization are less understood, and their relations to behavior remains an open question, especially in humans. In this review we aimed at summarizing the available knowledge on striatal organization, especially focusing on how it links structure to function and its alterations in neuropsychiatric diseases. We examined studies conducted on different species, covering a wide array of different methodologies: from tract-tracing and immunohistochemistry to neuroimaging and transcriptomic experiments, aimed at bridging the gap between macroscopic and molecular levels.

Technology-Aided Spatial Cues, Instructions, and Preferred Stimulation for Supporting People With Intellectual and Visual Disabilities in Their Occupational Engagement and Mobility: Usability Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Persons with severe or profound intellectual disability and visual impairment tend to be passive and sedentary, and technology-aided intervention may be required to improve their condition without excessive demands on staff time. OBJECTIVE This study aims to extend the assessment of technology-aided interventions for supporting functional occupational engagement and mobility in 7 people with intellectual disability and visual impairment and to use a technology system that is simpler and less expensive than those previously used. METHODS The technology system involved a Samsung Galaxy A10, 4 Philips Hue indoor motion sensors, and 4 mini speakers. Within each session, the participants were to collect 18 objects (ie, one at a time) from 3 different areas (stations) located within a large room, bring each of the objects to a central desk, and put away each of those objects there. For each object, the participants received verbal (spatial) cues for guiding them to the area where the object was to be collected, a verbal instruction (ie, request) to take an object, verbal (spatial) cues for guiding them to the central desk, a verbal instruction to put away the object collected, and praise and preferred stimulation. RESULTS During baseline, the frequency of responses completed correctly (objects collected and put away independently) was 0 or near 0. During the intervention phase (ie, with the support of the technology setup), the frequency increased for all participants, reaching a mean of almost 18 (out of 18 response opportunities) for 6 participants and about 13 for the remaining participant. The mean session duration ranged from 12 to 30 minutes. CONCLUSIONS A program, such as the one used in this study, can be useful in promoting occupational engagement and mobility in persons with intellectual disability and visual impairment. CLINICALTRIAL

Smoothness of Orlicz function spaces equipped with the p-Amemiya norm

In this paper, we will use the convex modular $$\rho ^{*}(f)$$ ρ ∗ ( f ) to investigate $$\Vert f\Vert _{\Psi ,q}^{*}$$ ‖ f ‖ Ψ , q ∗ on $$(L_{\Phi })^{*}$$ ( L Φ ) ∗ defined by the formula $$\Vert f\Vert _{\Psi ,q}^{*}=\inf _{k>0}\frac{1}{k}s_{q}(\rho ^{*}(kf))$$ ‖ f ‖ Ψ , q ∗ = inf k > 0 1 k s q ( ρ ∗ ( k f ) ) , which is the norm formula in Orlicz dual spaces equipped with p-Amemiya norm. The attainable points of dual norm $$\Vert f\Vert _{\Psi ,q}^{*}$$ ‖ f ‖ Ψ , q ∗ are discussed, the interval for dual norm $$\Vert f\Vert _{\Psi ,q}^{*}$$ ‖ f ‖ Ψ , q ∗ attainability is described. By presenting the explicit form of supporting functional, we get sufficient and necessary conditions for smooth points. As a result, criteria for smoothness of $$L_{\Phi ,p}~(1\le p\le \infty )$$ L Φ , p ( 1 ≤ p ≤ ∞ ) is also obtained. The obtained results unify, complete and extended as well the results presented by a number of paper devoted to studying the smoothness of Orlicz spaces endowed with the Luxemburg norm and the Orlicz norm separately.

A fronto-insular-parietal network for the sense of body ownership

Neuropsychological disturbances in the sense of limb ownership (DSO) provide a unique opportunity to study the neurocognitive basis of the sense of body ownership. Previous small sample studies focused on discrete cortical lesions and modular accounts, which cannot explain the modulations of DSO by multisensory, affective and cognitive manipulations. We tested the novel hypothesis that DSO would be associated not only with discrete cortical lesions, but also with disconnections of frontoparietal and fronto-insular white-matter tracts, supporting functional networks for multisensory integration and salience monitoring. To overcome the aforementioned methodological limitations, we drew on an advanced, probabilistic lesion-analysis and Bayesian statistics approach and tested this hypothesis in 49 right-hemisphere patients. Our results reveal that, as predicted, DSO is associated with lesions and disconnections of a fronto-insular-parietal network, suggesting that the sense of body ownership involves the convergence between bottom-up processes of multisensory integration and top-down control and monitoring of sensory salience.

User-Adapted Web Services by Extending the eIDAS Specification with Functional Attributes

To provide web services adapted to the users’ functional capabilities, diversity must be considered from the conceptualization and design phases of the services’ development. In previous work, we proposed a model that allows the provisioning of adapted interfaces based on users’ identity and their functional attributes to facilitate this task to software designers and developers. However, being these identities and attributes self-declared by the users may impact reliability and usability. In this work, we propose an extension of our model to resolve these deficiencies by delegating the identity and attributes provision to external certified entities. The European electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services (eIDAS) regulation established a solution to ensure the cross-border mutual recognition of Electronic Identification (eID) mechanisms among the European Member States. This research aims to provide an extension of this regulation mentioned above (eIDAS) to support functional attributes and connect our previously proposed model to this extended eIDAS network. Thanks to this proposal, web services can guarantee adapted and personalized interfaces while improving the functionalities offered without any previous configuration by users and, in a reliable way, since the functional attributes belong to the users’ official eID. As the attributes set provided by eIDAS nodes only contains citizens’ personal and legal ones, we also propose a mechanism to connect the eIDAS network to external attribute providers that could extend the eIDAS profile of users with their functional attributes. We have deployed a pilot to validate the proposed model consisting of an identity provider, an eIDAS node supporting the extended reference code and an attribute provider supporting functional attributes. We have also designed and implemented a simple service that supports eID authentication and serves adapted interfaces based on the retrieved extended eIDAS profile. Finally, we have developed an experience for getting feedback from a set of real users with different functional capabilities. According to the results, we conclude that the generalized adoption of the proposed solution in the European digital web services will significantly improve their accessibility in terms of ease of use and adaptability to users’ capacities.

FaviCoV -a comprehensive manually curated resource for functional genetic variants in SARS-CoV-2

The widespread and unprecedented adoption of genome sequencing to understand the genetic epidemiology of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has provided interesting insights into the evolution and spread of the pathogen. Further research has enabled the understanding of the functional implications of genetic variants. While a compilation of functionally relevant variants in the genome would significantly enhance the interpretation of genomes, there has been a paucity of resources systematically collecting and evaluating evidence on the functionality of genetic variants. To this end, we manually compiled evidence from literature and preprints on variants in SARS-CoV-2 genomes and their functional relevance, including assays used and interpretations. This compilation presently includes 430 unique variants including 79 variants which have experimental evidence supporting their functional consequences. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only resource providing a comprehensive collection of evidence supporting functional consequences of variants in SARS-CoV-2. While researchers across the world work coherently to sequence more genomes and also evaluate functions of genetic variants, we hope this resource would continue to play a central role in rapid dissemination of evidence. The resource is available at https://clingen.igib.res.in/favicov/