EMORE Lab

About EMORE Lab

Founded in 2015 as a research group and recognized as a lab in 2025, EMORE is hosted by the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Perugia (UniPG). The lab conducts multidisciplinary research at the intersection of Affective Computing, Emotion Recognition, and Ethical & Responsible AI, with applications across health, education, and society.

Lab Members (University of Perugia)

• Valentina Franzoni – Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (Coordinator)
• Valentina Poggioni – Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
• Sergio Tasso – Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
• Stefano Marcugini – Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
• Nicolò Vescera – Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, PhD student
• Giulio Biondi – University IT Department
• Daniele Mezzetti – University Hospital of Perugia
• Teresa Zelante – Department of Medicine
• Gianluca Vascelli – Department of Medicine, PhD student
• Daniela Saetta – Department of Medicine
• Emanuele Florindi – PhD student, National PhD in Learning Sciences and Digital Technologies
• Mattia Polticchia – PhD student, National PhD in Learning Sciences and Digital Technologies

Collaborations

National:

• Sapienza University
• University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
• Link Campus University
• CINI Lab on Smart Cities & Communities (UniPG is an official member, node coordinator: V. Franzoni)

International:

• Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong) — university exchange agreement with UniPG (scientific coordination: V. Franzoni)
• Eurasian University of Astana (Kazakhstan)
• Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain)
• Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (India)
• Universidad Nacional del Litoral (Argentina)

Projects

Funded Projects

• SmartEDU — Kazakh Ministry of Research (2025–)
  Implementation of a scientific and technical program for AI development in education.
  Areas: AI, Affective Computing, Ethics of AI.
• ORGANOMICROLIFE — University of Perugia (competitive internal grant, 2022–)
  Innovative platform for human and animal organoid research to understand microenvironmental factors in tumor and inflammatory pathologies.
  Principal Investigator: Prof. Teresa Zelante, Department of Medicine, University of Perugia.

Ongoing Unfunded/Internal Projects

• Pain Recognition in Neonatal Intensive Care Units
  Collaborators: University Hospital of Perugia; Universidad Nacional del Litoral (Argentina).
  Team: V. Franzoni, V. Poggioni, D. Mezzetti, H. L. Rufiner.
• Decision Support System for Parenteral Nutrition in Infants
  Team: V. Franzoni, V. Poggioni, D. Mezzetti.
• AI for Narrative Medicine
  Team: V. Franzoni, G. Biondi.
• Prevention of Online Grooming through AI
  Team: E. Florindi, V. Franzoni, A. Milani.

Other Scientific Activities

Special Issues and Editorial Activities

• Journal of Big Data (Springer) — Advances in Multimodal Affective Computing and Human-Machine Interaction with Ethical AI Applications
• Sensors (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) — Emotion Recognition and Cognitive Behavior Analysis Based on Sensors

Workshops

Organized and co-organized mainly at:

• ICCSA — International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications
• IEEE/ACM/WIC WI-IAT — Web Intelligence / Intelligent Agent Technology
• BI — International Conference on Brain Informatics

Series of workshops:

• AAILT — Advances in Artificial Intelligence Learning Technologies: Blended Learning, STEM, Computational Thinking and Coding
• IWCES — International Workshop on Collective, Massive and Evolutionary Systems
• ACER EMORE — Affective Computing and Emotion Recognition
• EthicAI — Ethical Artificial Intelligence

Theses

Master’s Theses

• Federico Baldoni (2025) — Biomedical VR: Automated Generation of 3D models of organoids from microscopic sections
• Maria Vitina Sabia (2025) — Biomedical VR: Design and implementation of an interactive Virtual Reality interface for the exploration of organoids
• Ludovico Guercio (2025) — Towards Online Grooming Prevention: Classification of Emotional Arousal in the Early Phases of Online Grooming
• Marco Amici (2025) — Toward the Prevention of Online Grooming: Classification of Emotional Arousal in the Early Phases of Luring
• Iuri Fulgidi (2025) — Machine Learning Techniques for the Composition of Parenteral Nutrition Bags
• Alessio Pacconi (2024) — Tweet emotion analysis: an approach for the effective management of emotional content

Bachelor’s Theses

• Leonardo Arnone (2025) — Improving Sentiment Analysis in Narrative Medicine: Correcting Textual Errors and Multilingual Approaches
• Simone Seria (2025) — Generating sounds with words: critical investigation of AI frameworks for language-driven composition
• Teresa Liu (2024) — Artificial intelligence techniques applied to narrative medicine: analysis and perspectives
• Setareh Derakhshandara (2023) — A machine learning-based decision support tool for parenteral nutrition of NICU patients

Divulgation activities

• Sharper Night and pre-events on AI, Affective computing, Ethics of AI, applications to pain recognition in NICU and Narrative Medicine, AI for seniors 2015-2025
• VideoScience, videomapping on AI with Unipg, April and September 2025
• IBM project “Nerd: Non È Roba Per Donne” on divulgation of STEM topics, 2020-2025
• PNRR and PLS students orientation about Machine Learning, Affective Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Ethics of AI
• Round table "Viral sustainability. Social and responsibility: contemporary ethical issues'. 23 September 2023, Sala dei Notari, Perugia
• Seminar "Generative AI: where is the problem?" at the round table "WHAT IF? Artificial intelligence, collective values and decision-making processes", 19 April 2024 at the Models Laboratory (LAM), University of Naples "Federico II"
• Seminar “AI and generative neural networks: an ethical and scientific analysis to understand and choose our future” in the scientific workshop “Artificial Intelligence challenging Humanity”, meeting room in the Umbria National Gallery, Perugia, Italy, organized by the NIPS Lab of the Department pf Physics, University of Perugia, Italy, 21 April 2023
• ApeRicerca on “ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligences”, organized by Psiquadro in collaboration with University of Perugia, at Palazzo della Penna, Perugia, Italy, 16 March 2023
• Seminar “Emotion Recognition in Artificial Intelligence” at the WiMLDS (Women in Machine Learning and Data Science) Milan & Paris online international meetup, 4 June 2020

Selected Publications

• From Polarization to Pro-Sociality (Cinelli et al., 2024) — IEEE Access
• Advanced techniques for automated emotion recognition in dogs (Franzoni et al., 2024) — Neural Computing & Applications
• Evolving meta-correlation classes for binary similarity (Franzoni et al., 2024) — Pattern Recognition
• User to Vector: Encoding User Behavior from Co-occurrence of Observations (Milani et al., 2024) — IEEE Access
• Generative Models for Source Code: Fine-Tuning Techniques for Structured Pattern Learning (Franzoni et al., 2024) — Technologies
• Lie to Me: Shield Your Emotions from Prying Software (Baia et al., 2022) — Sensors
• Artificial intelligence visual metaphors in e-learning interfaces for learning analytics (Franzoni et al., 2020) — Applied Sciences
• Enhancing mouth-based emotion recognition using transfer learning (Franzoni et al., 2020) — Sensors
• Emotional sounds of crowds: spectrogram-based analysis using deep learning (Franzoni et al., 2020) — Multimedia Tools and Applications
• A Multistrain Bacterial Diffusion Model for Link Prediction (Franzoni et al., 2017) — IJPRAI

Full list available on Scopus on request.

Contact

Institution: University of Perugia — Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Coordinator: Prof. Valentina Franzoni
Email: valentina.franzoni@unipg.it