Gennaro Cordasco

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Gennaro verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Salerno

This study investigates how the ability to recognize static facial emotional expressions changes over time, specifically through three developmental stages: childhood, preadolescence, and adolescence. A total of 301 Italian participants were involved and divided into three age groups: children (7–10 years), pre-adolescents (11–13 years), and adoles...

The EMPATHIC project aimed to design an emotionally expressive virtual coach capable of engaging healthy seniors to improve well-being and promote independent aging. In particular, the system's human sensing capabilities allow for the perception of emotional states to provide a personalized experience. This paper outlines the development of the emo...

Identifying and mitigating the spread of fake information is a challenging issue that has become dominant with the rise of social media. We consider a generalization of the Domination problem that can be used to detect a set of individuals who, once immunized, can prevent the spreading of fake narratives. The considered problem, named {\em Distance...

With the rise of social media, misinformation has significant negative effects on the decision-making of individuals, organizations and communities within society. Identifying and mitigating the spread of fake information is a challenging issue. We consider a generalization of the Domination problem that can be used to detect a set of individuals w...

We investigated the role of humanization in Visual Perspective-Taking (VPT) by testing whether and how agent’s human-likeness and attractiveness (‘hedonic quality’) interact with social cues (action and eye gaze) in influencing the participants’ disposition to embody another’s perspective. In a VPT task, participants viewed scenes displaying an act...

Graph burning is a deterministic, discrete-time process that can be used to model how influence or contagion spreads in a graph. In the graph burning process, each node starts as dormant, and becomes informed/burned over time; when a node is burned, it remains burned until the end of the process. In each round, one can burn a new node (source of fi...

All contributions were peer-reviewed.

Frontal asymmetry in the EEG alpha frequency allows to distinguish greater left activation relating to approach motivation from greater right activation relating to withdrawal motivation. It has been mostly studied in the context of affective empathy. Instead, it remains unknown whether it can be specifically related to one key component of the cog...

Negli ultimi decenni le conoscenze relative alla biologia delle malattie neurodegenerative sono cresciute in maniera esponenziale, tuttavia tali conoscenze non si sono ancora tradotte in interventi in grado di agire sulle cause, al fine di interrompere il processo degenerativo che ne sta alla base e le terapie sono, di fatto, ancora limitate ad azi...

Il presente lavoro illustra una serie di studi indaganti i fattori che determinano l’accettazione da parte degli utenti di sistemi di dialogo interattivi, quali ad esempio, robots, agenti virtuali e chatbots (intesi come interfacce vocali). L’accettazione è intesa come “la volontà dimostrabile all'interno di un gruppo di utenti di utilizzare la tec...

Parameterized complexity, introduced to efficiently solve NP‐hard problems for small values of a fixed parameter, has been recently used as a tool to speed up algorithms for tractable problems. Following this line of research, we design algorithms parameterized by neighborhood diversity () for several graph theoretic problems in : Maximum ‐ Matchin...

Based on a previous investigation, a quantitative study aimed to identify user’ preferences towards four synthetic voices of two different quality levels (classified through the sophistication of the synthesizer: low vs. high) is proposed. The voices administered to participants were developed considering two main aspects: the voice quality (high/l...

Questo lavoro descrive le metodologie usate per valutare l'accettazione, da parte degli utenti, di sistemi interattivi, come robot e agenti virtuali, fattore indispensabile per garantire la loro effettiva implementazione nei diversi ambiti della vita quotidiana per i quali sono stati progettati e sviluppati. Dopo una breve rassegna dei principali m...

This study contributes knowledge on the detection of depression through handwriting/drawing features, to identify quantitative and noninvasive indicators of the disorder for implementing algorithms for its automatic detection. For this purpose, an original online approach was adopted to provide a dynamic evaluation of handwriting/drawing performanc...

This research involved 88 young adults aged between 20 years and 35 years from two different countries, Spain and Italy. This work aims to explore preferences of the two groups toward synthetic voices, created for the experiment with variations in gender and quality for each language. The Spanish group was asked to evaluate the two high-quality voi...

The EMPATHIC project aimed to design an emotionally expressive virtual coach capable of engaging healthy seniors to improve well-being and promote independent aging. One of the core aspects of the system is its human sensing capabilities, allowing for the perception of emotional states to provide a personalized experience. This paper outlines the d...

Considering the possibility to exploit information and communication technologies (ICT) and specifically speaking chatbots, in the mental health domain, a study is proposed aimed at testing the perceptual features of different synthetic voices considering some fundamental aspects of human–computer interaction, namely users’ acceptance and expectati...

This study aims to contribute to the research on emotion recognition through facial cues during preschool age, which is a critical period for human cognitive development. The work investigates differences between 3-year and 5-year-old children in the ability to decode facial expressions of five emotions (happiness, anger, surprise, sadness and fear...

Hypergraphs have attracted increasing attention in recent years thanks to their flexibility in naturally modeling a broad range of systems where high-order relationships exist among their interacting parts. This survey reviews the newly born hypergraph representation learning problem, whose goal is to learn a function to project objects - most comm...

We consider the problem of keeping under control the spread of harmful items in networks, such as the contagion proliferation of diseases or the diffusion of fake news. We assume the linear threshold model of diffusion where each node has a threshold that measures the node’s resistance to the contagion. We study the parameterized complexity of the...

Graph burning is a deterministic, discrete-time process that can be used to model how influence or contagion spreads in a graph. In the graph burning process, each node starts as dormant, and becomes informed/burned over time; when a node is burned, it remains burned until the end of the process. In each round, one can burn a new node (source of fi...

With the aim to give an overview of the most recent discoveries in the field of socially engaging interactive systems, the present paper discusses features affecting users' acceptance of virtual agents, robots, and chatbots. In addition, questionnaires exploited in several investigations to assess the acceptance of virtual agents, robots, and chatb...

The events of the past 2 years related to the pandemic have shown that it is increasingly important to find new tools to help mental health experts in diagnosing mood disorders. Leaving aside the longcovid cognitive (e.g., difficulty in concentration) and bodily (e.g., loss of smell) effects, the short-term covid effects on mental health were a sig...

The present study aims to explore user’ acceptance and perceptions toward different quality levels of synthetical voices. To achieve this, four voices have been exploited considering two main factors: the quality of the voices (low vs high) and their gender (male and female). 186 volunteers were recruited and subsequently allocated into four groups...

The events of the past 2 years related to the pandemic have shown that it is increasingly important to find new tools to help mental health experts in diagnosing mood disorders. Leaving aside the long-covid cognitive (e.g., difficulty in concentration) and bodily (e.g., loss of smell) effects, the short-term covid effects on mental health were a si...

The need to establish an intelligent tool for semi-automatic diagnosis of depression on high-quality data, requires trustworthy, interoperable and multimodal data repositories. Such databases should be based on common collection and storage criteria and should enable advanced and open analysis modes without sacrificing data privacy. This paper laun...

Agent-based models (ABMs) are one of the most effective and successful methods for analyzing real-world complex systems by investigating how modeling interactions on the individual level (i.e., micro-level) leads to the understanding of emergent phenomena on the system level (i.e., macro-level). ABMs represent an interdisciplinary approach to exami...

Inspired by the implicit or explicit persuasion scenario, which characterizes social media platforms, we analyze a novel domination problem named Pervasive Partial Domination (PPD). We consider a social network modeled by a digraph \(G=(V,E)\) where an arc \((u,v)\in E\) represents the capability of an individual u to persuade an individual v. We a...

In social interactions, the reciprocity norm implies to adjust one’s behavior to that of the other agents. Conversely, behaving according to self-interest involves taking into account the reciprocity principle only if it does not hinder the achievement of one’s goals. However, reciprocity and self-interest may conflict with each other, as when retu...

The present investigation is part of the EMPATHIC project aiming at develop an Empathic Virtual Coach (VC) able to promote seniors’ healthy lifestyle and independent aging. To this end, it is fundamental to investigate users’ preferences towards the implemented automatic system refined on the basis of users’ preferences derived from previous field...

This paper proposes a systematic approach to investigate the impact of factors such as the gender and age of participants and gender, and age of faces on the decoding accuracy of emotional expressions of disgust, anger, sadness, fear, happiness, and neutrality. The emotional stimuli consisted of 76 posed and 76 naturalistic faces, differently aged...

Handwriting is an everyday life human activity. It can be collected off-line by scanning sheets of paper. The resulting images can then be processed by a computer-based system. Thanks to digitizing tablets, handwriting can also be collected on-line. From the collected raw signals (pen position, pressure over time), the dynamics of the writing can b...

The present study aims to explore user acceptance and perceptions toward different quality levels of synthetical voices. To achieve this, four voices have been exploited considering two main factors: the quality of the voices (low vs high) and their gender (male and female). 186 volunteers were recruited and subsequently allocated into four groups...

We introduce a novel domination problem, which we call Dual Domination (DD). We assume that the nodes in a network are partitioned into two categories: Positive nodes (V+) and negative nodes (V−). We study the Maximum Bounded Dual Domination, where, given a bound k, the problem is to find a set D⊆V+, which maximizes the number of nodes dominated in...

This paper investigates effects of participants’ gender and age (adolescents, young adults, and seniors), robots’ gender (male and female robots) and appearance (humanoid vs android) on robots’ acceptance dimensions. The study involved 6 differently aged groups of participants (two adolescents, two young adults and two seniors’ groups, for a total...

We consider the problem of controlling the spread of harmful items in networks, such as the contagion proliferation of diseases or the diffusion of fake news. We assume the linear threshold model of diffusion where each node has a threshold that measures the node’s resistance to the contagion. We study the parameterized complexity of the problem: G...

The detection of negative emotions through daily activities such as handwriting is useful for promoting well-being. The spread of human-machine interfaces such as tablets makes the collection of handwriting samples easier. In this context, we present a first publicly available handwriting database which relates emotional states to handwriting, that...

In this research, we analyse data obtained from sensors when a user handwrites or draws on a tablet to detect whether the user is in a specific mood state. First, we calculated the features based on the temporal, kinematic, statistical, spectral and cepstral domains for the tablet pressure, the horizontal and vertical pen displacements and the azim...

This work aims to suggest a research agenda for dementia, connecting the latest clinical understanding of such neurodegenerative disorders, with social behavioral changes and social cognitive impairments. The proposed framework considers the manual and automatized analysis of behavioral and biometric data involving caregivers, patients, and healthc...

Considered the increasing use of assistive technologies in the shape of virtual agents, it is necessary to investigate those factors which characterize and affect the interaction between the user and the agent, among these emerges the way in which people interpret and decode synthetic emotions, i.e., emotional expressions conveyed by virtual agents...

Currently, AI-based assistive technologies, particularly those involving sensitive data, such as systems for detecting mental illness and emotional disorders, are full of confidentiality, integrity, and security compromises. In the aforesaid context, this work proposes an algorithm for detecting depressive states based on only three never utilized...

Currently, the diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) and its subtypes is mainly based on subjective assessments and self-reported measures. However, objective criteria as Electroencephalography (EEG) features would be helpful in detecting depressive states at early stages to prevent the worsening of the symptoms. Scientific community has wid...

Based on the lessons learnt from the co-design, development and integration processes, the research findings and the outputs from the engagement with a network of stakeholders over the course of the EU funded initiatives, this chapter will aim to help sketching the future policies and research funding programmes for ageing well in Europe. The chapt...

This work deals with a generalization of the minimum Target Set Selection (TSS) problem, a key algorithmic question in information diffusion research due to its potential commercial value. Firstly proposed by Kempe et al., the TSS problem is based on a linear threshold diffusion model defined on an input graph with node thresholds, quantifying the...

This paper provides a general overview of the literature regarding advanced assistive technologies devoted to improving elders' life. Recent studies on assistive robots and embodied conversational agents are carefully examined in order to identify main seniors' preferences regarding their general design. While providing data on seniors' preferences...

The goal of active aging is to promote changes in the elderly community so as to maintain an active, independent and socially-engaged lifestyle. Technological advancements currently provide the necessary tools to foster and monitor such processes. This paper reports on mid-term achievements of the European H2020 EMPATHIC project, which aims to rese...

This paper reports on a study conducted as part of the EU EMPATHIC project, whose goal is to develop an empathic virtual coach capable of enhancing seniors' well-being, focusing on user requirements and expectations with respect to participants' age and technology experiences (i.e. participants' familiarity with technological devices such as smartp...

This paper outlines the EMPATHIC Research & Innovation project, which aims to research, innovate, explore and validate new interaction paradigms and plat-forms for future generations of Personalized Virtual Coaches to assist elderly people living independently at and around their home. Innovative multimodal face analytics, adaptive spoken dialogue...

This paper reports on experiments devoted to explore the role of specific attributes of humanoid virtual agents that may influence elderly users’ perception and attitude, determining their acceptance and adoption as assistive devices. In particular, it investigates elderly preference on agents’ gender and the role of the agents’ ability to use voic...

Agent-based simulations represent an effective scientific tool, with numerous applications from social sciences to biology, which aims to emulate or predict complex phenomena through a set of simple rules performed by multiple agents. To simulate a large number of agents with complex models, practitioners have developed high-performance parallel im...

In this work we combine time, spectral and cepstral features of the signal captured in a tablet to characterize depression, anxiety, and stress emotional state recognition on the EMOTHAW database. EMOTHAW contains the emotional states of users represented by capturing signals from sensors on the tablet and pen when the user is performing 3 specific...

We consider the problem of controlling the spread of harmful items in networks, such as the contagion proliferation of diseases or the diffusion of fake news. We assume the linear threshold model of diffusion where each node has a threshold that measures the node resistance to the contagion. We study the parameterized complexity of the problem: Giv...

It has become pressing to develop objective and automatic measurements integrated in intelligent diagnostic tools for detecting and monitoring depressive states and enabling an increased precision of diagnoses and clinical decision-makings. The challenge is to exploit behavioral and physiological biomarkers and develop Artificial Intelligent (AI) m...

The current study aims at examining the relationship between the perfectionism two-factor model (i.e., concerns and strivings) and burnout dimensions measured by using the BAT (Burnout Assessment Tool) through a longitudinal study. A two-wave cross-lagged study was conducted using path analysis in SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) of 191 workers....

Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) are essential measures that reduce and control a severe outbreak or a pandemic, especially in the absence of drug treatments. However, estimating and evaluating their impact on society remains challenging, considering the numerous and closely tied aspects to examine. This article proposes a fine-grain modelin...

Classical neurophysiological studies demonstrated that the monkey brain is equipped with neurons selectively representing the visual shape of the primate hand. Neuroimaging in humans provided data suggesting that a similar representation can be found in humans. Here, we investigated the selectivity of hand representation in humans by means of the v...

The EMPATHIC project develops and validates new interaction paradigms for personalized virtual coaches (VC) to promote healthy and independent aging. To this end, the work presented in this paper is aimed to analyze the interaction between the EMPATHIC-VC and the users. One of the goals of the project is to ensure an end-user driven design, involvi...

Assistive Ambient Living (AAL) in ageing refers to any device used to support ageing related psychological and physical changes aimed at improving seniors’ quality of life and reducing caregivers’ burdens. The diffusion of these devices opens the ethical issues related to their use in the human personal space. This is particularly relevant when AAL...

This work introduces the problem of social influence diffusion in complex networks, where vertices are linked not only through simple pairwise relationships to other nodes but with groups of nodes of arbitrary size. A challenging problem that arises in this domain is to determine a small subset of nodes S (a target-set) able to spread their influen...

This paper introduces a novel parameter, called iterated type partition, that can be computed in polynomial time and nicely places between modular-width and neighborhood diversity. We prove that the Equitable Coloring problem is W[1]-hard when parametrized by the iterated type partition. This result extends to modular-width, answering an open quest...

Cloud Computing is widely recognized as distributed computing paradigm for the next generation of dynamically scalable applications. Recently a novel service model, called Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), has been proposed, that enables users to exploit the computational power of cloud infrastructures, without the need to configure and manage complex...

The cloud computing paradigm has emerged as the backbone of modern price‐aware scalable computing systems. Many cloud service models are competing to become the leading doorway to access the computational power of cloud providers. Recently, a novel service model, called function‐as‐a‐service (FaaS), has been proposed, which enables users to exploit...

Real-world complex networks are usually being modeled as graphs. The concept of graphs assumes that the relations within the network are binary (for instance, between pairs of nodes); however, this is not always true for many real-life scenarios, such as peer-to-peer communication schemes, paper co-authorship, or social network interactions. For su...

This paper deals with the complexity of some natural graph problems when parametrized by {measures that are restrictions of} clique-width, such as modular-width and neighborhood diversity. The main contribution of this paper is to introduce a novel parameter, called iterated type partition, that can be computed in polynomial time and nicely places...

This work investigates disparities between children and middle aged adults in their ability to decode the six primary facial expressions of emotions when portrayed by contemporary children and adult faces. The analyses were conducted on a sample of 40 (20 females) very closely aged children (mean age=7.4; SD=±0.2), and 40 middle aged (mean age=54.3...

This work investigates disparities between children and middle aged adults in their ability to decode the six primary facial expressions of emotions when portrayed by contemporary children and adult faces. The analyses were conducted on a sample of 40 (20 females) very closely aged children (mean age=7.4; SD=±0.2), and 40 middle aged (mean age=54.3...

Humans are used to express their feelings of self-confidence/powerfulness or their distress/sadness through either expansive postures that occupy as much space as possible or closing postures occupying as less space as possible to avoid contact. This conduct suggests that feelings of self-confidence/powerfulness or distress/sadness change our body...

This paper is positioned inside a research project investigating elders’ preferences and acceptance toward robots, in order to collect insights for the design and implementation of socially assistive robots. To this aim, short video clips of five manufactured robots (Roomba, Nao, Pepper, Ishiguro, and Erica) were shown to 100 seniors (50 Female) ag...