Sensing technologies and machine learning methods for emotion recognition in autism: Systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Human Emotion Recognition (HER) has been a popular field of study in the past years. Despite the great progresses made so far, relatively little attention has been paid to the use of HER in autism. People with autism are known to face problems with daily social communication and the prototypical interpretation of emotional responses, which are most frequently exerted via facial expressions. This poses significant practical challenges to the application of regular HER systems, which are normally developed for and by neurotypical people. OBJECTIVE: This study reviews the literature on the use of HER systems in autism, particularly with respect to sensing technologies and machine learning methods, as to identify existing barriers and possible future directions. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of articles published between January 2011 and June 2023 according to the 2020 PRISMA guidelines. Manuscripts were identified through searching Web of Science and Scopus databases. Manuscripts were included when related to emotion recognition, used sensors and machine learning techniques, and involved children with autism, young, or adults. RESULTS: The search yielded 346 articles. A total of 65 publications met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. CONCLUSIONS: Studies predominantly used facial expression techniques as the emotion recognition method. Consequently, video cameras were the most widely used devices across studies, although a growing trend in the use of physiological sensors was observed lately. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise were most frequently addressed. Classical supervised machine learning techniques were primarily used at the expense of unsupervised approaches or more recent deep learning models. Studies focused on autism in a broad sense but limited efforts have been directed towards more specific disorders of the spectrum. Privacy or security issues were seldom addressed, and if so, at a rather insufficient level of detail.

Sex, rurality and socioeconomical status in Spanish centennial population (2017).

World's population is exponentially aging as people reaching 100 years old has increased. The number of areas with the highest centennial population rates (Blue Zones), are significantly higher. Are there any determinant factors that favor this situation in Spain? The goal of this study was to determine the possible influence of sex, rurality and socioeconomic factors (Gross Domestic Product (GDP)) on the prevalence of the centennial population of the Spanish society. The Spanish register of inhabitants was published in 2017 by the National Statistics Institute. The analysis was carried out both by Autonomous Communities and by provinces in phases: a first descriptive analysis, followed by an inferential analysis, based on statistical tests (independent T- Student test, Pearson correlation and ANOVA). There were significant interactions between: i) sex and longevity (in favor of the female population); ii) female and rural housing and iii) female, GDP and urban areas. Feminization was proven in the longevity revolution, but, in general, GDP per Capita was not a significant survival factor on its own. This study was the first step of further analysis related to extreme longevity in Spain, which will include other dependent variables such as state of health and well-being as well as social factors.

Bilateral cataract surgery combined with implantation of a brown diaphragm intraocular lens after trabeculectomy for congenital aniridia.

A 17-year-old male patient was referred for poorly controlled glaucoma on maximal medication, congenital aniridia, cataract, nystagmus, and hypoplasia of the macula. A bilateral filtering procedure was performed to control the glaucoma. Three months later, a slow motion phacoemulsification and implantation of a brown diaphragm intraocular lens (IOL) was attempted. Despite the presence of nystagmus and hypoplasia of the macula, the visual acuity improved from 20/300 to 20/100 in the right eye and from 20/400 to 20/150 in the left eye. Both aniridia IOLs were well centered, the anterior segment was quiet with normal intraocular pressure without medication, and all of the patient's glare symptoms disappeared. A single-piece iris diaphragm and optical lens offer a safe alternative for patients who previously had no viable options for iris reconstruction. The most serious postoperative problem, glaucoma, should be addressed before the cataract and lens implantation is performed to avoid a possible acceleration of the glaucoma progression by the large aniridia IOL.