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When defining indicators on the environment, the use of existing initiatives should be a priority rather than redefining indicators each time. From an Information, Communication and Technology perspective, data interoperability and standardization are critical to improve data access and exchange as promoted by the Group on Earth Observations. GEOEssential is following an end-user driven approach by defining Essential Variables (EVs), as an intermediate value between environmental policy indicators and their appropriate data sources. From international to local scales, environmental policies and indicators are increasingly percolating down from the global to the local agendas. The scientific business processes for the generation of EVs and related indicators can be formalized in workflows specifying the necessary logical steps. To this aim, GEOEssential is developing a Virtual Laboratory the main objective of which is to instantiate conceptual workflows, which are stored in a dedicated knowledge base, generating executable workflows. To interpret and present the relevant outputs/results carried out by the different thematic workflows considered in GEOEssential (i.e. biodiversity, ecosystems, extractives, night light, and food-water-energy nexus), a Dashboard is built as a visual front-end. This is a valuable instrument to track progresses towards environmental policies.

Item does not contain fulltext, Ideomotor theory of human action control proposes that activation of a motor representation can occur either through internally-intended or externally-perceived actions. Critically, sometimes these alternatives of eliciting a motor response may be conflicting, for example, when Intending one action and perceiving another, necessitating the recruitment of enhanced action-control to avoid motor mimicry Based on previous neuroimaging evidence, suggesting that reduced mimicry is associated with self-related processing, we aimed to experimentally enhance these action-control mechanisms during motor contagion by inducing self-focus In two within-subjects experiments, participants had to enforce their action intention against an external motor contagion tendency under heightened and normal self-focus During high self-focus participants showed reduced motor mimicry, induced either by mirror self-observation or self-referential judgments. This indicates that a self-focus provoking situation can enhance online action-control mechanisms. needed to resist unintentional motor contagion tendencies and thereby enables a modulation Of automatic mirroring responses

Item does not contain fulltext, Background - Anecdotal evidence has noted that individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) frequently exhibit heightened spontaneous imitative behavior, with symptoms of echolalia and echopraxia. This is contrasted by empiric reports that ASC results in decreased imitation and an underlying deficit in the mirror system, leading to impaired social understanding. Thus, it remains unclear whether automatic imitation is enhanced in ASC and how this is related to poorer social abilities. Methods - This study investigated spontaneous imitation in 18 high-functioning adults with ASC and 18 age-and IQ-matched control participants during a simple imitation inhibition task. Mentalizing was experimentally assessed in the same participants using both behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging measures, as was social interaction using an observational measure. Results - Individuals with ASC showed increased imitation of hand actions compared with control participants and this was associated with reduced mentalizing and poorer reciprocal social interaction abilities. In the functional magnetic resonance imaging mentalizing paradigm, ASC participants with increased imitation scores showed less brain activation in areas often found to be active in mental state attribution, namely the medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction. Conclusions - The results confirm the presence of hyperimitation in ASC, which is accompanied by reduced social cognition, suggesting that a general imitation impairment and a global mirror system deficit are absent. These findings offer an explanation for echopractic features based on theories of atypical functioning of top-down modulation processes in autism.

Item does not contain fulltext, Perception and execution of actions share a common representational and neural substrate and thereby facilitate unintentional motor mimicry. Controlling automatic imitation is therefore a crucial requirement of such a oshared representationalo system. Based on previous findings from neuroimaging, we suggest that resisting motor mimicry recruits the same underlying computational mechanisms also involved in higher-level social cognitive processing, such as self - other differentiation and the representation of mental states. The aim of the present study was to investigate on a behavioral level whether there is a functional association between the inhibition of imitation and tasks, assessing the understanding of mental states and of different perspectives of self and other. In a sample of neuropsychological patients with frontal lesions, a correlation between the ability for mental state attribution and the control of imitation was found, with a similar effect in the control group. Temporo-parietal lesioned patients showed a highly significant correlation between imitative control and visual and cognitive perspective-taking. Even after controlling for executive functions, the results remained significant, indicating the functional specificity of this relationship. These findings provide new insight into the functional processes underlying the control of shared representations and suggest a novel link between embodied and higher-level social cognition.

Contains fulltext : 76766.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access), Previous research demonstrated that observing an action seems to automatically activate a corresponding motor representation in the observer. It has been argued that this direct matching of observed on executed actions is modulated by contextual factors. An open question is whether observing another person being physically restrained has an influence on action execution in the observer. Using performance measures we found a slowing of response times when perceiving others' hands being physically restrained (Experiment 1). We did not find a slowing effect when participants responded with their feet ruling out a general perceptual interpretation of the present findings (Experiment 2). To further test our hypothesis, we measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The ERP results demonstrate that the observed slowing effect is reflected in a decrease of motor-related ERP components (Experiment 3). Perceiving others' hands physically restrained impairs motor preparation in the observer. Our findings suggest that observed environmental constraints are automatically mapped onto the observer's motor system. Such a mapping of motor restraints might facilitate action understanding.