Alina Rusu

This paper explores the relationship between emotional triggers and various types of (positive / negative) facially displayed emotions by a subject from custody, diagnosed with psychopathy. In this case study, FME were manually measured by using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS, Ekman, Friesen, Hager, 2002), which taxonomies human facial movements by their appearance. The analysis was done frame-by-frame, using a specific pattern to identify the Action Units. Our data allowed for the identification of patterns of the facial movements associated with specific emotional triggers. The same video material will be analyzed by using the automatic FACET system (iMotions).

... 16 The role of accounting in the global financial crisis. Assumptions and realities Neculai Tabără 1 , Alina Rusu 2 1“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, neculaitabara@yahoo.com 2“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, alina.ionela.rusu@gmail.com ...

In this paper, we describe the first results of using the robot Probo as a facilitator in Social Story Intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Four preschoolers diagnosed with ASD participated in this research. For each of them, a specific social skill deficit was identified, like sharing toys, saying Thank you, saying Hello, and an individualized Social Story

In this paper, we describe the first results of using the robot Probo as a facilitator in Social Story Intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Four preschoolers diagnosed with ASD participated in this research. For each of them, a specific social skill deficit was identified, like sharing toys, saying Thank you, saying Hello, and an individualized Social Story

There is considerable controversy around the factors influencing the attentional biases involved in anxiety, controversies pinpointing to the role of trait anxiety (TA) in these biases. Previous studies have disregarded psychophysiological factors, such as cardiac vagal control, from the relation between TA and attention biases to threat, though cardiac vagal control serves as a proxy of attention regulation. By using

ABSTRACT Background and Objectives: The aim of this exploratory study is to test whether social stories presented by a social robot have a greater effect than ones presented on a computer display in increasing the independency in expressing social abilities of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Although much progress has been made in developing interventions to improve social skills of children with ASD, a number of unresolved problems still remain. Social robots received increased attention as assisting tools for improving social skills on children with ASD. Methods: Twenty children with ASD (age between 4 and 9 years old) were randomly allocated to three groups: control group (n = 7), computer-presented social stories (n = 6), and robot assisted therapy (n = 7). Results: Overall, our data indicate that using the social robot to implement social story intervention was more effective for improving the independency of expressing social abilities for the participants, than the computer screen. Limitations: Future studies should include a bigger sample size, more intervention sessions, and a follow-up session in order to see if the effect persists in time. Conclusions: The preliminary outcomes of this exploratory research provide empirical bases for further investigations regarding the effectiveness of robot assisted therapy in improving social skills for children with autism through future randomized clinical trials.

ABSTRACT Children with autism spectrum disorders have difficulties in identifying situation-based emotions, which is a fundamental ability for mind reading. Social robots received increased attention as assisting tools for improving the social and emotional skills of children with autism. This study investigates whether the social robot Probo can help children with autism spectrum disorders to enhance their performance in identifying situation-based emotions. Three participants (age between 5 and 6) diagnozed with autism spectrum disorders were included in a single case AB experimental design, with intersubjects replications. The results show that children's performance improved with moderate to large effect sizes in identifying both sadness and happiness. Based on these results, we intend to perform more extensive investigations regarding the effectiveness of robot assisted therapy in improving social-emotional abilities for children with autism spectrum disorders.

ABSTRACT This paper aims to study the role of the social robot Probo in providing assistance to a therapist for robot assisted therapy (RAT) with autistic children. Children with autism have difficulties with social interaction and several studies indicate that they show preference toward interaction with objects, such as computers and robots, rather than with humans. In 1991, Carol Gray developed Social Stories, an intervention tool aimed to increase children’s social skills. Social stories are short scenarios written or tailored for autistic individuals to help them understand and behave appropriately in social situations. This study shows that, in specific situations, the social performance of autistic children improves when using the robot Probo, as a medium for social story telling, than when a human reader tells the stories. The robot tells Social Stories to teach ASD children how to react in situations like saying “hello”, saying “thank you” and “sharing toys”. The robot has the capability of expressing emotions and attention via its facial expressions and its gaze. The paper discusses the use of Probo as an added-value therapeutic tool for social story telling and presents the first experimental results. Keywords: social robot; ASD children; social story; robot assisted therapy

Female house mice (Mus domesticus) are known to perform communal breeding more often with kin than with non-kin partners. When mice are grouped in semi-natural enclosures, related females develop pre-reproductive alliances more frequently than unrelated ones. However, little is known about the behavioural mechanisms and the factors promoting kin preferential cooperative associations in female mice. Here we evaluate the relative importance of familiarity and age disparity on the pre-reproductive development of agonistic behaviour and spatial associations within groups of three related females, freely interacting in semi-natural indoor enclosures. We found that familiarity clearly promoted female alliance formation by reducing aggression and enhancing spatial cohabitation, while genetic relatedness per se did not alleviate the effects of unfamiliarity on female grouping. Older sisters clearly dominated younger ones, even if they had lower body weights, or if they had to confront two allied littermate sisters. Hence, our findings corroborate previous findings on familiarity as a proxy for kin-preferential alliance formation in female mice. Moreover, we observed a strong impact of age stratification on female aggression-mediated dominance development. We suggest that this age effect could be expected from a queuing-for-reproduction view of younger house mouse females.

The physiological basis for population differentiation of dispersal timing during individual development in male wild house mice is still unknown. As major urinary proteins (MUPs) are known to convey information about competitive ability in male mice, we examined individual MUP profiles defined by isoelectric-focusing (IEF) patterns in relation to developmental timing of dispersive motivation. As an experimental paradigm marking the development of the dispersal propensity, we used agonistic onset between litter mate brothers when kept in pairs under laboratory conditions. Agonistic onset is known to reflect the initiation of dispersive motivation. Hence, we compared individual MUP IEF patterns between fraternal pairs that did or did not develop agonistic relationships before the age of 2 months. Urine was collected on the day of weaning and at the beginning of adulthood. We investigated whether there was a significant co-occurrence of particular MUP IEF patterns with the agonistic onset in male mice. We assumed that, based on this co-occurrence, particular MUP IEF patterns and/or a particular dynamic of MUP IEF expression from weaning to adulthood may be considered a physiological predictor of a specific behavioral strategy in male mice (i.e. submissive-philopatric or agonistic-dispersive strategy). We found that agonistic males expressed more MUP IEF bands than amicable ones at weaning, but these differences disappeared later on. The presence of two particular IEF bands at weaning was significantly associated with early agonistic onset. Our study suggests that MUPs could have a predictive value for the onset of aggressive behavior and dispersal tendency in male wild house mice.

Little is known about the behavioural mechanisms facilitating kin-preferential communal breeding in wild house mice (Mus domesticus). We evaluated the effect of kinship and male availability on aggression, social structure and reproductive skew in groups of female mice freely interacting and reproducing in semi-natural indoor enclosures. Triplets of either sisters or non-sisters were established in enclosures provided with either one or three littermate males, which were unrelated and unfamiliar to the females. Sisters were more spatially associated and less aggressive than non-sisters, leading to higher incidences of communal breeding and reproduction. This is in agreement with theoretical considerations on kin selection in house mice. Reproductive success was highly skewed in favour of dominant females due to subordinate infertility or complete loss of first litters, which might have been caused by dominant females. In spite of this, subordinates only rarely dispersed from the enclosures, suggesting that perceived dispersal risk generally outweighed relatively reduced reproductive potentials. Aggression levels among females were significantly higher when one male was available, compared to when three males were available. We suggest that this might result from higher female-female competition for mates, due to the risk of missing fertilisation when synchronously oestrous females encounter limited numbers of males in a deme. Our results indicate that, first, communal nursing in house mice might have evolved to ‘make the best out of a bad job’ rather than to enhance offspring fitness; and, second, that female-female mate-competition might play an important role in shaping female social structure in this polygynous mammal.