Self-concept in university students of Mozambique: study of the relations and differences according to the students´ personal and contextual variables

O autoconceito é uma variável que acompanha a individualidade e os contextos de vida dos sujeitos. O Ensino Superior, pela sua complexidade, surge como um contexto que afeta a autoperceção dos estudantes, surgindo diferenças a ter em conta quando se trata de estudar os percursos de vida dos estudantes e como esses afectam a sua identidade. Neste artigo analisam-se as relações e diferenças no autoconceito em função de variáveis pessoais e de contexto dos alunos universitários de Moçambique. Participaram neste estudo 250 alunos da Universidade Pedagógica na Beira com idades entre 16 a 55 anos (M= 29.08; DP= 7.75), sendo 103 (41.2%) do sexo masculino. Destes 102(40.8%) tem até 23 anos de idade. Foi administrado o Questionário de Autoconceito para Estudantes Universitários de Moçambique. Os resultados mostram diferenças em função do género apenas nas dimensões do autoconceito religioso, do autoconceito académico e do autoconceito social, estas duas últimas dimensões a favor do género masculino. Tomando agora a variável idade, surgem diferenças com significado estatístico a favor dos estudantes com idade superior a 23 anos nas dimensões do autoconceito académico e autoconceito social. Finalmente verifica-se alguma associação do autoconceito com algumas variáveis, nomeadamente o ano do curso e o nível de escolaridade dos pais, sugerindo alguma diversidade nos alunos que frequentam hoje o Ensino Superior e que merece ser atendida pelas instituições.Self-concept is a variable that accompanies individuals' individuality and life contexts. Higher education, due to its complexity, is a context that influences students' selfperception, with differences to be taken into account when studying students' life paths and how they influence their identity. This article analyzes the relationships and differences in self-concept as a function of personal and context variables of university students in Mozambique. A total of 250 students from the Pedagogical University of Beira aged 16-55 years (M = 29.08, SD = 7.75) participated in this study, of which 103 (41.2%) were male. Of these 102 (40.8%) are aged up to 23 years. The Self-Concept Questionnaire for University Students of Mozambique was administered. The results show differences according to gender only in the dimensions of religious self-concept, academic selfconcept and social self-concept, the latter two dimensions favoring males. Taking into account the variable age, there are statistically significant differences in favor of students over the age of 23 in the dimensions of academic self-concept and social self-concept. Finally, there is an association of self-concept with some variables, namely the year of the course and the parents’ academic background, suggesting some diversity in the students who attend Higher Education, which should be observed by the institutions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Overview and future challenges of nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) design in Southern Europe

In times of great transition of the European construction sector to energy efficient and nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB), a market observation containing qualitative and quantitative indications should help to fill out some of the current gaps concerning the EU 2020 carbon targets. Next to the economic challenges, there are equally important factors that hinder renovating the existing residential building stock and adding newly constructed high performance buildings. Under these circumstances this paper summarises the findings of a cross-comparative study of the societal and technical barriers of nZEB implementation in 7 Southern European countries. The study analyses the present situation and provides an overview on future prospects for nZEB in Southern Europe. The result presents an overview of challenges and provides recommendations based on available empirical evidence to further lower those barriers in the European construction sector. The paper finds that the most Southern European countries are poorly prepared for nZEB implementation and especially to the challenge opportunity of retrofitting existing buildings. Creating a common approach to further develop nZEB targets, concepts and definitions in synergy with the climatic, societal and technical state of progress in Southern Europe is essential. The paper provides recommendations for actions to shift the identified gaps into opportunities for future development of climate adaptive high performance buildings. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Gatayes e Sor: professori di chitarra in scuole per fanciulle a Parigi?

Alla fine del secolo XVIII, dopo la Rivoluzione francese, furono aperti a Parigi alcuni collegi laici per fanciulle e signorine. Tra essi, diventò molto famosa la Pensione di Madame Campan a Saint-Germain con la quale rivaleggiò in seguito quella diretta da Madame Migneron- Remy. Menzioniamo queste due scuole perché nella prima probabilmente teneva lezioni di arpa e di chitarra Guillaume Gatayes e perché nella seconda, come veniamo a sapere da nuovi dati rivelati dalla nostra ricerca, fu docente Fernando Sor. Seguendo l’ordine temporale degli avvenimenti, inizieremo parlando della casa della signora Campan dove studiò Hortense de Beauharnais, figlia di Giuseppina Bonaparte e futura Regina d’Olanda, e dove potrebbe essere stato professore il chitarrista e arpista Guillaume Gatayes. Pensiamo che tra queste tre figure vi sia stato un legame e più avanti presenteremo la nostra ipotesi. Tuttavia, per poter procedere ad un’esposizione più chiara dei due soggetti fondamentali che motivano il nostro scritto, è importante, a nostro avviso, conoscere prima alcune informazioni sulla vita e l’opera di Guillaume-Pierre- Antoine Gatayes, musicista francese molto famoso alla sua epoca ma alquanto dimenticato ai nostri giorni.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Assess and enhancing attention in learning activities

The rapid progress of technologies has enabled the development of innovative environment in learning activities when the student used computer devices with access to Internet. The goal of this paper is to propose an ambient intelligent (AmI) system, directed at the teacher that indicates the level of attention of the students in the class when it requires the use of the computer connected to the Internet. This AmI system captures, measures, and supervises the interaction of each student with the computer (or laptop) and indicates the level of attention of students in the activities proposed by the teacher. When the teacher has big class, he/she can visualize in real time the level of engagement of the students in the proposed activities and act accordingly when necessary. Measurements of attention level are obtained by a proposed model, and user for training a decision support system that in a real scenario makes recommendations for the teachers so as to prevent undesirable behaviour and change the learning styles.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A neural network to classify fatigue from human-computer interaction

Fatigue, especially in its mental form, is one of the most worrying health problems nowadays. It affects not only health but also motivation, emotions and feelings and has an impact both at the individual and organizational level. Fatigue monitoring and management assumes thus, in this century, an increased importance, that should be promoted by private organizations and governments alike. While traditional approaches are mostly based on questionnaires, in this paper we present an alternative one that relies on the observation of the individual's interaction with the computer. We show that this interaction changes with the onset of fatigue and that these changes are significant enough to support the training of a neural network that can classify mental fatigue in real time. The main outcome of this work is the development of non-invasive systems for the continuous classification of mental fatigue that can support effective and efficient fatigue management initiatives, especially in the context of desk jobs.This work is part-funded by ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within projects FCOMP-1-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEISII/1386/2012) and within the Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Demonstrating that medical devices satisfy user related safety requirements

One way of contributing to a demonstration that a medical device is acceptably safe is to show that the device satisfies a set of requirements known to mitigate hazards. This paper describes experience using formal techniques to model an IV infusion device and to prove that the modelled device captures a set of requirements. The requirements chosen for the study are based on a draft proposal developed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A major contributor to device related errors are (user) interaction errors. For this reason the chosen models and requirements focus on user interface related issues.FEDER - Federación Española de Enfermedades Raras(000062)This work has been funded by the EPSRC research grant EP/G059063/1: CHI+MED (Computer–Human Interaction for Medical Devices). J. C. Campos was funded by project NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-00006

Anticipating the unexpected: between desire and alchemy

This paper discusses the practice of the unknown in the realm of research. Why the unknown? Simply stated, it has the potency for actual change. Research tends to be bound to predetermined methods, the means of which knowledge is produced. Here the opposite is explored: how to research with a practice in which both method and knowledge are unknown? It considers two premises: (a) there is an attachment between method and the produced knowledge; (b) if you follow certain and predetermined methods you constrain the knowledge to ‘what you already know’ (past), limiting the possibilities of discovering the unknown. A good example is that important discoveries in science were made by chance or mistake. Here the explored practice contains a strong instability and uncertainty. The experience is unstable; the result is unpredictable and unexpected. In this realm, the predictable and the expected are not synonymous with anticipation. This implies that the challenge is not to anticipate the predictable but the opposite, overcoming the linearity of history and the simplistic views of deterministic cause-effect. The tools for anticipating the unexpected are desire, philia, potency, and alchemy. Desire is explored from the Gilles Deleuze perspective; it is by the means of the process of desire itself that things become actual, which is different from the common notion that considers the desire for something that is lacking, i.e., as an object. Philia, the Greek word for love, friendship, is looked at through the lens of Spinoza, Epicurus, and also Joseph Campbell’s maxim to ‘follow your bliss’. Potency, stimulated by Nietzsche, is the power to overcome what instability, that which causes the judgmental self-talk of wrongness. Developed at the School of Architecture of University of Minho, each tool is explored through innovative research projects that share a common ground: embracing uncertainty, moving forward with no predetermined plan, through which unexpected knowing is created about the everyday places we inhabit. Cedric Price’s (1996) ideas of “anticipating the unexpected” are also integrated into this discussion. Alchemy is the device for continuous transmutation of the ‘me into you,’ the ‘not-known into the known,’ which aims to make a responsible contribution “toward (...) effectively addressing the pressing challenges confronting humanity [places] of today.” Although generated in the field of architecture, this approach could be a catalyst for change in other fields of knowledge.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Yeast biodiversity in vineyard environments is increased by human intervention

One hundred and five grape samples were collected during two consecutive years from 33 locations on seven oceanic islands of the Azores Archipelago. Grape samples were obtained from vineyards that were either abandoned or under regular cultivation involving common viticultural interventions, to evaluate the impact of regular human intervention on grape yeast biota diversity in vineyards. A total of 3150 yeast isolates were obtained and 23 yeast species were identified. The predominant species were Hanseniaspora uvarum, Pichia terricola, Starmerella bacillaris and Issatchenkia hanoiensis. The species Barnettozyma californica, Candida azymoides and Pichia cecembensis were reported in grapes or wine-associated environments for the first time. A higher biodiversity was found in active vineyards where regular human intervention takes place (Shannon index: 1.89 and 1.53 in the first and second years, respectively) when compared to the abandoned ones (Shannon index: 0.76 and 0.31). This finding goes against the assumptions that human intervention can destroy biodiversity and lead to homogeneity in the environment. Biodiversity indices were considerably lower in the year with the heaviest rainfall. This study is the first to report on the grape yeast communities from several abandoned vineyards that have undergone no human intervention.Joao Drumonde Neves is the recipient of a fellowship of the Azorean Government (M321/006/F/2008) and PROEMPREGO. This work was supported by the strategic programme UID/BIA/04050/2013 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007569) funded by national funds through the FCT I.P. and by the ERDF through the COMPETE2020 - Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI), and by national funds through FCT by the projects FCOMP-01-0124-008775, PTDC/AGR-ALI/103392/2008 and PTDC/AGR-ALI/121062/2010.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

O novo quadro-negro nas mãos dos estudantes: desafios emergentes para a educação

O cenário de mudanças na área das tecnologias avança numa velocidade acelerada e a escola, uma instituição tradicional, ainda encontra resistência em acompanhar a dinâmica das reconfigurações que as tecnologias digitais de informação e comunicação (TDIC) causam nos âmbitos sociais, econômico, político e educacional. Assim, muda-se a forma de aprender e ensinar, modifica-se o papel do professor e altera-se a finalidade da escola. Este artigo apresenta reflexões sobre as mudanças ocorridas na educação com a inserção das tecnologias digitais em contraponto com a resistência da escola em se adaptar a estas mudanças por manterem o modelo pedagógico e de infraestrutura do século XIX. A primeira seção descreve este cenário antagônico de tecnologias subestimadas enquanto a concepção de pedagogia da transmissão predomina no contexto escolar. A segunda seção apresenta propostas inovadoras de integração das TDIC no cenário em que os tablets e smartphones são o novo quadro-negro nas mãos dos alunos.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mathematical and computational modelling in matlab for the study of an ORC solar system

The main objective of this paper was to acquire the necessary thermodynamic knowledge in order to perform a thermodynamic and economic analysis of a solar ORC system of capacity of 10KW. For this, a model and computer program were developed in Matlab R2008a, version 7.6.0, which analyses the efficiency of the collector based on the gross solar radiation introduced and the efficiency of the ORC cycle against the power of the respective radiation. Based on the behaviour of the collector and the ORC cycle, the program returns as outputs the area and quantity of manifold required for the desired power. Through this study it can be concluded that for the best scenario, the collector area required is 1044.1 m2 and collector 590 respectively. The annual profit is 48360€/year and an 8 year payback for the initial investment with the vacuum tube collectors.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio