The creation of conversational agents capable of expressive and communicative behaviors requires to define the relationship between the agent’s communicative intentions and how these intentions are expressed in a coordinated verbal and nonverbal message. Suppose an agent S (a Sender) has the goal of communicating something to an interlocutor A (Addressee) in a particular situation and context; ...

Approximately 1/5 of adolescents develop depressive symptoms. Given that youths spend a good deal of their lives at school, it seems plausible that supportive relationships with teachers could benefit their emotional well-being. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the association between emotionally supportive teacher relationships and depression in adolescence. The so-called principl...

As if confronting a potentially fatal disease were not depressing enough, many cancer patients also have to face of debilitating side effects induced by chemotherapy and radiation treatment. These range from fatigue and hair loss to life-threatening pneumonia, emboli or a crippling wastage of lean muscle mass. Sometimes conventional treatment and its side effects are more disabling than the dis...

We are designing a Conversational Agent that communicates at the same time by speech and expressive face. As we are engaged in face-to-face interaction or in any communicative acts where the visual modality is available along with the acoustic one, multimodal signals are at work. Our communicative acts are performed not only through words, but also through intonation, body posture, hand gesture...

Background: Diaper rash is a common but non life threatening condition during infancy. Different modalities of treatment are suggested. Sucralfate acts as a physical barrier to irritants and has antibacterial activities. Promising reports of the effect of topical sucralfate on wound epithelialization along with its bacteriostatic properties led us to carry out a trial to evaluate its role as a ...

Respiratory tract obstruction due to a blood clot may result in life threatening ventilatory impairment. Ball valve blood clot obstructions of the airways are rare. A ball valve blood clot acts as a one-way valve, allowing (near) normal air entry into the airways, but (completely) blocking expiration. In a near fatal case of obstruction of the airways by a ball valve blood clot, we performed 'w...

Metformin is an oral antidiabetic drug used for treatment of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).1 It acts by decreasing gluconeogenesis in the liver and absorption of glucose from the gastrointestinal system, in addition to increasing the peripheral utilization of glucose.2 Metformin is excreted unchanged through the renal route. Severe side effects are noted in patients with renal and/or hepatic ...

This work proposes, first, an approach to the agonal character of electoral debates, and then analyses nature acts (im)politeness that appear in them. From there, it presents a triangular theoretical-methodological framework, based on analysis functional impoliteness strategies, linguistic-discursive mechanisms for their implementation social repercussions impolite acts. Within first these thre...