E•CVoltera, Competence Assessment System

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia InformáticaThis document presents and discusses a project in the area of managing tools to support teaching. This project is part of the work in the second year of the Master degree in Informatics Engineering accomplished at Universidade do Minho in Braga, Portugal. The main result of this Master’s project is an application that allows the Monitor to plan his courses and activities; it also allows the participant to have a better performance in the course in which he is enrolled. From the point of view of Monitor, this tool is intended to facilitate the organization of a course or activity, linking to each task the materials/tools necessary to carry it out. From a Participant’s point of view, it aims to provide greater involvement of the participant in the course in which he is enrolled in order to have a better supported evolution. For that purpose, the Participant will be able to attend a course selected from the offer promoted by Escola Competências de Vida (E•CV), obtain more personalized and immediate feedback, increasing his motivation and engagement to learn more. Upon receiving this constant feedback, the participant feels more involved in the activity, acquiring knowledge more naturally, thus potentiating a faster evolution. On the other hand, Monitors, that are responsible for teaching the corses, will find their work easier as all the tasks concerned with each activity (both to provide learning resources to the students or to assess/grade them) are concentrated under the same platform. The system here described is called E•CVoltera. It was designed and fully implemented in order to satisfy the requirements specified by Escola Competências de Vida, an academy created and maintained by a group of professors/researchers of Escola de Psicologia of Universidade do Minho. The system was made accessible to the community as a web platform.Este documento apresenta e discute um projeto na área de ferramentas pedagógicas para apoiar o ensino. Este projeto insere-se no âmbito de trabalho do segundo ano do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, realizado na Universidade do Minho em Braga, Portugal. O principal resultado deste projeto de Mestrado é uma aplicação que permite ao professor planear os seus cursos e atividades e ao participante ter um desempenho melhor no curso em que está inscrito. No ponto de vista de Monitor, esta ferramenta visa facilitar a organização de um curso ou atividade, interligando a cada funcionalidade os materiais/ferramentas necessárias para a realização da mesma. Num ponto de vista de Participante, visa propor cionar um maior envolvimento do participante no curso em que está inscrito de forma, a ter uma evolução mais acompanhada. Para o efeito, o Participante poderá frequentar um curso seleccionado a partir da oferta promovida pela Escola Competências de Vida (E•CV), obter um feedback mais personalizado e imediato, aumentando a sua motivação e empenho para aprender mais. Ao receber esse feedback constante, o participante sente-se mais envolvido na atividade, adquirindo conhecimento com mais naturalidade, potencializando assim uma evolução mais rápida. Por outro lado, os Monitores, que são responsáveis pela gestão dos cursos, assim terão mais facilidade no seu trabalho quanto a todas as tarefas inerentes a cada atividade (tanto para fornecer recursos de aprendizagem aos alunos como para os avaliar/classificar) estão concentrados na mesma plataforma. O sistema aqui descrito é denominado E•CVoltera. Foi desenhado e totalmente implementado de forma a satisfazer os requisitos especificados pela Escola Competências de Vida, uma academia criada e mantida por um grupo de professores/investigadores da Escola de Psicologia da Universidade do Minho. O sistema foi disponibilizado para a comunidade como uma plataforma web

Basic Sanitation and Health - Challenges and Perspectives in Brazil and Brazilian Federal District

Basic sanitation has been considered an important environmental determinant of health. Mainly related to the services of drinking water availability, solid waste management, sanitation problems are aggravated by the unplanned growth of urban centers, affecting an important part of the total disease burden in the world. The Sanitation Ranking prepared by the Trata Brazil Institute (2020) was used as the basis for the studies presented here taking into account the data from the SNIS (National Sanitation Information System – Ministry of Regional Development, Brazil), which were consulted for the 100 largest Brazilian municipalities, in terms of inhabitants, in the year 2018. 27 out of the 100 largest municipalities in Brazil have 100% total water service, that is, they have universal water service. Only one municipality has 100% sewage collection (Piracicaba –SP). 14 municipalities have a sewage collection rate greater than or equal to 98%. The average indicator of sewage treatment in the municipalities is 56.07%, that is very worrying. According to SNIS 2018, the national average for the treatment of generated sewage is 46.3%; that is, the average of the 100 largest municipalities in the study is higher than the national average. However, in both cases, the indicator is at a very low level, pointing to an area whose challenges to be overcome are great. The Brazilian capital’ city (Brasilia, Federal District of Brazil) in the sanitation is ranked 27th among Brazilian capitals based on data from the National Sanitation Information System (2018). The new Basic Sanitation Legal Framework, signed on July 15, 2020 has as its main objective to universalize and qualify the provision of services in the sector. The Federal Government’s goal is to achieve universal access by 2033, ensuring that 99% of the Brazilian population has access to drinking water and 90% to sewage collection and treatment. The expectation is that the universalization of water and sewage services will reduce annual health costs by up to 290 million USD

Antimicrobial activity of phenyl isothiocyanate on escherichia coli and staphylococcus aureus cells in planktonic and biofilm states

Tese de mestrado integrado. Bioengenharia. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) in Portugal: location and innovative capacity

Within the service industry, the swift growth of the KIBS (Knowledge Intensive Business Service(s)) sector has played a crucial role in innovation processes. Above all, this role is confirmed by the fact that such entities do not turn in a simple performance in innovation activities as would be the case in simply meeting the needs of prevailing levels of demand or, more specifically, their clients. Instead, they establish bridges of knowledge and points of innovation between companies and science. The literature goes so far as to identify the origins of the third industrial revolution with the importance attributable to KIBS. While the debate on the growth of KIBS unfolds around these new specialist fields and the growth in the tertiary sector in general, there is ever growing recognition that both new manufacturing processes and new services and innovations in more general terms increasingly derive from KIBS. Our interest in KIBS derives from a position broadly defended by a wide range of authors (Muller, 2001; Howells and Tether, 2004; Toivonen, 2004; Koch and Stahlecker, 2006): the irrefutable role played by KIBS in the development of their surrounding regions. In the Thesis below, we have sought to study these companies across four fundamental research facets: (i) location; (ii) cooperation with universities; (iii) factors of innovation and (iv) innovative and competitive capacities. To approach factors of location, we deployed exploratory factorial analysis and Logit regression modelling and found that in this aspect, there was statistical significance for rural and urban KIBS. The results revealed that rural KIBS are essentially influenced by personal motivations and their owners tend to be younger and with fewer years of experience. In the case of urban KIBS, the main factor is the prevailing business conditions in the location with entrepreneurs tending to be older and with more years of experience. Our analysis of cooperation between KIBS and universities involved the application of exploratory factorial analysis and a logit regression model. Our findings show that the probability of KIBS establishing partnerships with universities rises in accordance with the levels of proximity and trust, the types of cost associated with such partnerships and the age of the entrepreneur. Furthermore, we encounter no difference in terms of either location or typology. The results also enable us to conclude that there is a statistically significant effect between the employment of staff with higher education, the age and academic background of the company owner, and the logistical probability of the company locating in rural areas. This means that, while there is little or no direct cooperation between universities and KIBS companies, there is a transfer of knowledge courtesy of the university graduates employed in these professions. The level of graduate employment is high at both rural and urban KIBS. To study the factors of innovation, we made recourse to confirmatory factorial analysis with the objective of verifying whether the strategy, the organisation, the learning, the networks and the process, influence the innovation activities ongoing at KIBS. We found that the network factor is of high importance to both KIBS types (professional and technological). However, professional KIBS also returned the strategy factor as the driver of innovation while technological KIBS attributed greatest priority to learning as a factor for innovation. Furthermore, no statistically significant differences were identified between rural and urban located KIBS. Finally, we applied structural equations for analysis of the innovative and competitive capacities of KIBS and evaluating up to just what point innovation depends on the nature of the service (technological or professional) and location (rural and urban). Firstly, the results of certain analytical processes found that the innovative capacities of the different types of rurally located KIBS displayed no statistical significance while at KIBS in urban locations, professional KIBS companies innovated less than their technological peers and the latter thereby proved able to simultaneously turn in better financial performance and hence may be deemed more competitive

Indoor air quality and sustainability management — case study in three portuguese healthcare units

Adequate management of indoor air quality (IAQ) in healthcare units has relevant impacts on sustainability performance due to its effects on patient safety, occupational health and safety, and energy consumptions. This study sought to identify improvement opportunities on IAQ management by collecting and analyzing experimental data of selected parameters in three healthcare units in Portugal: Two general hospitals and one primary healthcare center. Indoor air temperature, relative humidity, CO2, bacteria, and fungi concentrations were measured in summer and winter campaigns in June/July 2017 and in January/March 2018. Results show that the exclusive use of natural ventilation is not adequate when the affluence of users is high, but the analyzed parameters revealed acceptable results under low occupation intensity conditions. Results also show that keeping low indoor air relative humidity has a significant impact in reducing fungi concentration and that there is a significant correlation at the 0.05 level between indoor air CO2 concentration and bacterial loads. Therefore, as opportunities to improve sustainability, IAQ management in healthcare facilities should consider natural ventilation as a complement to mechanical ventilation systems and should focus on adequate control of indoor air relative humidity and CO2 concentration to reduce the risk of airborne infections.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Prevalence of seropositivity for toxoplasmosis in pregnant women in the Brazilian Federal District from 2014 to 2018

Toxoplasma gondii is found worldwide and infects up to one third of the world population, an infection that can be fatal to the fetus during pregnancy and in immunocompromised individuals. The prevalence of infection is variable in different countries, depending on its social and economic determinants. Considering the worldwide relevance of toxoplasmosis and its devastating effects in children infected during pregnancy, this study aims to estimate the prevalence of seropositivity for toxoplasmosis in pregnant women from the Federal District of Brazil, from January 2014 to December 2018. This is a retrospective study that included a historical series of 170,678 pregnant women screened by the Pregnant Women Protection Program (PWPP). The coverage of the Program was around 70%, being considered very good, since people seek assistance in the private service or face other types of barriers to access. The global prevalence of toxoplasmosis in pregnant women was 90,566 (53.21%; 95% CI 52.97-53.44). In the time course of the sample, the prevalence of toxoplasmosis infection dropped from 81.84% in 2014 to 38.65% in 2018. The prevalence of toxoplasmosis was higher in pregnant women aged 20 to 30 years. Another important factor was that the number of pregnancies and abortions also influenced, proportionally, the prevalence. This data indicates that the number of identified cases was similar to those observed in other countries and other regions in Brazil. However, over time, it showed a significant drop that may be due to the implementation of the PWPP in the current molds, based on public policies to protect pregnant women and newborns