Reprocessing single-use devices: legislative issues in the EU

Reprocessing single-use medical devices raises issues of patient safety, ethics, the environment and costs. The aim of this paper is to raise awareness of the problems related to the reprocessing of single-use medical devices in the EU, with a focus on Portugal’s position regarding this issue.The financial funding from QREN, POFC, Vale Inovação Project Nº 2012/24228 is gratefully acknowledged.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Design and development of innovative non active medical devices: Clean air suits

Design fitting and comfort are an important subject to consider when we need clothes for protective and individual equipment. Construction of protective equipment requires ergonomics, fabrics and performance requirements studies. This paper is about the construction of clean air suits (CAS) for use in the operating room. This suits were developed to minimize the contamination in operating rooms. It’s important to develop clothing with good protective barriers, however attention must be given to comfort to obtain a suit that answers effectively for both protection and comfort requirements. Our study consists in selecting the best fabrics, woven and non-woven, that could manage protective and comfort requirements. We’re developing several designs, in order to foreseen the best design approach to a clean air suit. Normally these kind of suits need to be closed at the bottom legs and sleeves in order to minimize skin particles dispersion.The financial funding from QREN, POFC, Vale Inovação Project Nº 2012/24228 is also gratefully acknowledged

Dimensões e espaços da inovação social

DIMENSIONS AND SPACES OF SOCIAL INNOVATION. Following a period in which the idea of innovation was almost exclusively associated with the technological domain, the notion of social innovation has over the past few years gained increasing recognition and come to be used in a variety of contexts. In most of the of the market, usually without direct intervention by the State, and primarily aimed at social inclusion through the activity of the third sector. However, the conceptual discussion within the scope of Project LINKS has led us to further delimit the scope of the concept of social innovation, in order to define the conceptual framework of the research. Thus, we suggest that social innovation be regarded as consisting of any new response enjoying social recognition that both seeks and achieves social change while fulfilling three criteria: i) the satisfaction of human needs not met through market mechanisms; ii) the advancement of social inclusion; and iii) the empowerment of agents or actors that are actually or potentially subject to processes of social exclusion/marginalisation, thereby triggering changes of varying intensity in power relations. Having identified the central object of our research, it becomes indispensable to render operative the concept of social innovation, in order to produce a “roadmap” that makes it possible both to carry out a systematic comparative reading of the case studies and to define a set of indicators to be used in extensive analysis. In this paper, we begin by presenting the analytical dimensions that we consider to be most relevant: i) What is social innovation?; ii) Why is there social innovation?; iii) How does social innovation come about?; iv) Who produces social innovation?; and v) Where is social innovation produced? The discussion around these five analytical dimensions enables us to put forth a schematic roadmap that makes it possible to move forward in the analysis and interpretation of the actual social-geographical reality of social innovation. This roadmap emphasises certain aspects of social innovation, such as its nature, stimuli, resources and dynamics, as well as the characteristics of both its agents and its milieu, which, it is argued, tends to be characterised by a set of specificities that we can subsume under the concept of “plasticity”. In the second part of the article, we focus on the experience of microcredit in Portugal under the light of the conceptual framework presented in the first part. After a brief presentation of the concept and history of microcredit, we briefly describe its introduction in the national network space and then proceed to interpret it as an instance of social innovation – as such open to analysis according to the aforementioned dimensions. This interpretation of this particular example seems to confirm the heuristic value of the suggested roadmap, both in structuring the analysis of future case studies and in designing a set of indicators to be used in extensive research

Parental childhood vaccine hesitancy and the National Vaccination Programme, in Portugal

ABSTRACT - Introduction: Vaccine hesitancy is increasing in the European Union, despite the invaluable contribution of vaccination for populations’ health. This study aims to estimate the proportion of parental childhood vaccine hesitancy (PCVH) and to determine vaccination and Portuguese National Vaccination Programme (NVP) associated factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed using an anonymous online questionnaire directed to parents of children aged 17 months old or less living in Portugal. An exploratory factor analysis was performed and five dimensions were created: 1. vaccine confidence; 2. access to enough/reliable information about vaccines; 3. access to NVP; 4. vaccination schedule; 5. trust in healthcare professionals’ information about vaccines. Its scores were extracted, and used in crude and adjusted logistic regression analyses, to estimate its association with PCVH. Results: PCVH proportion was estimated at 1.8% (95% Confidence Interval – 95% CI: 1.0%-3.0%; n=790). Vaccine confidence (adjusted Odds Ratio – aOR=0.29, 95% CI: 0.14-0.54), vaccination schedule (aOR=0.31, 95% CI: 0.15-0.58) and trust in information about vaccines provided by health professionals (aOR=0.30, 95% CI: 0.16-0.53) were protective dimensions of PCVH. Discussion and Conclusion: The low proportion of PCVH observed is coherent with the high immunisation coverage in Portugal. High confidence in vaccines is closely linked to low vaccine hesitancy. Aspects of the vaccination schedule, such as the number of simultaneous vaccines, contribute to parents’ decision on child’s vaccination. Health professionals play an important role in addressing this problem. Strategies focused on these dimensions may contribute to PCVH reduction.RESUMO - Introdução: A hesitação vacinal está a aumentar na União Europeia, apesar do inestimável contributo da vacinação para a saúde da população. Este estudo pretende estimar a proporção de hesitação vacinal em pais de crianças (HVPC) e determinar que fatores da vacinação e do Programa Nacional de Vacinação (PNV) lhe estão associados. Métodos: Foi realizado um estudo transversal utilizando um questionário online anonimizado, dirigido a pais de crianças até aos 17 meses, residentes em Portugal. Foi efetuada uma análise fatorial exploratória e criadas cinco dimensões: 1. confiança nas vacinas; 2. acesso a informação suficiente/confiável sobre vacinas; 3. acesso ao PNV; 4. esquema vacinal; 5. confiança na informação sobre vacinas dada pelos profissionais de saúde. Os scores foram extraídos e utilizados em regressões brutas e ajustadas, para estimar a sua associação com a HVPC. Resultados: A proporção de HVPC foi de 1,8% (IC 95%: 1,0%-3,0%; n=790). Confiança nas vacinas (ORa=0,29, IC 95%: 0,14-0,54), esquema vacinal (ORa=0,31, IC 95%: 0,15- 0,58) e confiança na informação sobre vacinas dada pelos profissionais de saúde (ORa=0,30, IC 95%: 0,16-0,53) foram dimensões protetoras de HVPC. Discussão e Conclusão: A reduzida proporção de HVPC obtida é coerente com a elevada cobertura vacinal em Portugal. Uma elevada confiança nas vacinas está fortemente relacionada com reduzida hesitação vacinal. Aspetos do esquema vacinal, como o número de vacinas em simultâneo, contribuem para a decisão dos pais em vacinar as crianças. Os profissionais de saúde desempenham um papel importante neste âmbito. Estratégias focadas nestas dimensões podem contribuir para reduzir a HVPC

Clustering of renewable energy assets to enhance performance evaluation

This study clusters solar inverters and wind turbines to aid Enlitia’s clients in identifying assets similar to theirs based on historical power production, meteorological data, and power curve characteristics. This knowledge enables clients to optimize resource allocation and operational strategies, thereby avoiding unnecessary costs. This project falls under the category of Data Mining and follows the CRISP-DM methodology. A crucial step in this approach is data cleaning, which involves treating null and duplicated values and reducing unnecessary features. During data cleaning, outlier values are identified and removed using various methods. For wind turbines, outliers are treated based on their power curve, which is defined by the power produced and the wind speed. For solar inverters, outliers are treated using the I-V curve, representing the DC power through the DC voltage and DC current. Following datacleaning, the clustering phase begins. This project employs algorithms from three clustering categories: classical, ensemble, and time series clustering. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to the datasets to reduce computational costs while preserving at least 90% of the original variation in the data. If feature reduction results in less than the minimum variation, feature values are only normalized. The resultant datasets are used in classical and ensemble clustering. In classical clustering, five hierarchical, two partitional, one soft, one model-based, and two density-based algorithms are applied. Five evaluation indexes, such as the silhouettes core and the Davies-Bouldin index, assess the resulting segmentations. The top three classical algorithms proceed to ensemble clustering, where combinations of two and three algorithms are performed using major voting with weighted label assignment based on the best segmentations. Finally, two time series clustering algorithms are applied, with the data sets reduced to two components through the use of PCA. The final step involves evaluating all obtained segmentations. The scores of each algorithm indicate that timesignificantly explains the variation in the data. For both solar and wind datasets, time series clustering produces the best segmentations

Apanha-me se puderes: desconstrução e reconstrução de autores-criptas: how to catch a dead author running

Tese de mestrado, Teoria da Literatura, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, 200

Thermo-physiological behavior of single use scrub suits using a thermal manikin

Publicação em forma de e-book. ISBN 978 605 338 084 9In operationg room, the health professionals are exposed to stress situations that can influence their physical and psychological performance. The thermal properties are an important requirement for the best performance of OR medical clothing, that plays a crucial role in thermal comfort of the user, that involve the regulation of heat and mass transfer between a clothed body and the environment. This study evaluates thermal comfort of medical clothing under specified conditions. Twelve types of non-woven single-use scrub suits were tested. The experiments were conducted on a thermal dry manikin that simulates human body to measure the heat loss from manikin surface and determine clothing thermal insulation The total clothing insulation, IT (m2.°C/W), is used to define the insulation from the skin surface to the environment. Thermal insulation of scrub suits show statisticaly significant differences between them. SS7 and SS9 have the the lower and higuer values of total isolation of 0.23 m2.°C/W and 0.14 m2.°C/W, respectively.The financial funding from QREN, POFC, Vale Inovação Project Nº 2012/24228 is also gratefully acknowledged

Os novos desafios tecnológicos na reabilitação energética de paredes exteriores de edifícios

É um facto reconhecido pelos diversos actores do sector da construção que a reabilitação do parque habitacional português é necessária e que a sua importância na actividade global da construções de edifício deverá crescer, aproximando-se de valores praticados nos outros país a da União Europeia. A necessidade de travar o crescimento do consumos de energia para aquecimento (ou arrefecimento) nos edifícios e as evidentes melhorias do conforto de utilização que decorrem da "reabilitação energética" da envolvente fazem desta uma oportunidade a agarrar aquando de uma reabilitação funcional ou estética. O actual enquadramento regulamentar, a entrada em funcionamento do sistema de Certificação energética e da Qualidade do Ar Interior dos Edifícios (SCE) e as exigências globais de respeito pelo ambiente transformam essa oportunidade num imperativo. Há que identificar os desvios específicos que se colocam à concepção de soluções eficientes e inovadoras para reabilitação energética de paredes exteriores. A participação das autoras nos trabalhos da Agencia Internacional de Energia, IEA ECBCS Annex 50 - Prefabricated Systems for Low Energy Renovation of Residential Buildings motivou a reflexão que agora se apresenta.A participação das autoras nos trabalhos da Agência InternacionaI de Energia, I EA ECBCS Annex 50 -Prefabricated Systems for Low Energy Renavation of Residentia/ Buildings é levado a cabo no âmbito do projecto PTDC/ ECM/67373/2006 Reabilitação Energética de Edifícios financiado pela FCT à qual as autoras agradecem