+me is an experimental soft interactive toy with a panda form designed in collaboration with developmental therapists. Thanks to embedded electronics, +me can emit attractive responses as colored lights and amusing sounds when touched on paws. The device is connected to a control tablet to allow an adult caregiver to modify the input-output contingencies, so as to produce several rewarding response patterns according to child’s reaction. These features make +me a potential support tool for therapy of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): the attractiveness and the functional versatility of the device could be exploited during play activities with a therapist to capture the interest of children, to encourage their social interactions, then reinforcing pivotal social skills as imitation, eye-contact, turn-taking. +me is currently in experimental phase, in pilot tests on children (24-48 months) with ASD and Typical Development (TD). The experiments are conducted in collaboration with the Sec. of Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry -Univ. of Rome “Sapienza”- whose researchers showed great interest to technological aid for therapy. +me is an indirect -yet really promising- outcome of the ongoing FET project “Goal-based Open-ended Autonomous Learning Robots, GOAL-Robots” (Grant Agreement No. 713010). The main goal of the proposal is to develop the +me from the current experimental prototype towards a “ready-for-market” product, certified for safe use in EU. The proposal aims to 1) engineer the prototype, through a third party company expert in electronic manufacturing, in order to realise a small-scale production of 10/20 working +me samples; 2) at the same time, continue the experimentation on TD and ASD children, to strengthen the scientific aspects of the device; 3) disclose the obtained results through scientific publications and participation to promotional events market-oriented, in forecast of a next possible commercialisation.

Cardiometabolic disorders (CMD), a group of conditions that include cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, are characterised by dysfunction of glycaemic and/or lipid metabolism. Clinical manifestations, severity and progression are different between sexes, the underlying mechanisms of which are largely unknown. The poorer prognosis in women globally calls for an urgent need for better women’s tailored prevention and treatment strategies. Still, for an efficient personalised strategy, female-specific mechanisms have to be identified. The SEMICYCLE project will systematically investigate female’s sex hormones-microbiota interactions to unravel female-specific microbiota features regulating glycaemic and lipid metabolism in women during homeostasis and diseases. Findings of this research project will pinpoint key mechanisms useful to improve current prevention and diagnostic tools as well as therapeutic options of CMD. SEMICYCLE will follow up 300 healthy women during one menstrual cycle and longitudinal cross-omics data (five layers of information from host genome, gut microbiome, gut metabolome, vaginal microbiome, plasma proteome) will be generated, analysed and integrated with female sex hormones variations, lifestyle and diet, glycaemic and lipid phenotypes using state-of-the-art methodologies and computational approaches. Subsequently, mechanisms identified during homeostasis will be investigated for association with CMD onset and progression, using already existing cohorts totalling more than 10,000 samples. This research is based on my expertise and that of my research group in generating and analysing omics data in large data sets. Findings will reveal previously unknown microbiota regulators of CMD in women thus offering alternative routes for prevention, diagnosis and treatments in women, a necessary step for an efficient personalised medicine.

This project aims to analyze the phenomenon of multiculturalism in four Mediterranean port cities of the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries. The research uses three identity markers (foodways, clothing, and language) to chart how differences in the political and physical environments affect the balance between marking and hybridizing identities in the port cities of Izmir, La Valletta, Livorno and Marseille. Although very different amongst themselves, these four cities, placed on a maritime trading route cutting the Mediterranean from east to west, share a highly developed cultural, ethnical, and religious pluralism. The comparative analysis adopted will shed light on the concept of multiculturalism(s) in the pre-modern Euro-Mediterranean space, explaining how members of the same group handled coexistence following different strategies. In analyzing identity as a dynamic process, the research enters into the historiographical debate on the One-Plural nature of the Mediterranean on two critical levels: the ways in which Mediterranean identities interact with one another and how they generate a multicultural zone. Through an interdisciplinary study, the project will shape the ineradicable ambiguous nature of multicultural zones in the Mediterranean. This goal will be undertaken through the analysis and verification of three main assumptions that form the basis of the research: 1. The role of the political factor in determining the type of multiculturalism which developed and the ethical role of politics in assuming tolerance as a tool for fostering a more vibrant and resourceful society. 2. The role played by internal members of the communities on the basis of social class, education and gender, and how these factors determined the individual positioning on the scale from integration to segregation. 3. The functionality of multicultural policies in enhancing urban welfare.