Os media participativos e o poder da identidade na oncologia: O cidadão e a instituição enquanto marcas interactivas

Neste artigo procuramos averiguar a relevância que as marcas e identidades têm nas plataformas participativas no contexto da saúde, em particular na oncologia. Apesar de estas plataformas disponibilizarem aos cidadãos e instituições as mesmas ferramentas, a sua capacidade de mobilização não é a mesma. As instituições parecem ter maior facilidade, mas nem sempre tal acontece. Discutir o conceito de marca e de identidade contribuirá para responder a esta questão, bem como compreender porque é que as diferenças entre os cidadãos e as instituições se podem atenuar nos novos media. Baseamos a nossa análise na observação de páginas do Facebook, de instituições oncológicas e de grupos de apoio de cidadãos; num conjunto de entrevistas a doentes e familiares oncológicos; e em diferentes estudos na saúde. No fim, procura-se esclarecer a importância do estudo das marcas e da identidade, como possível directriz de novas soluções nos media participativos, que contribuam para atenuar o problema individual do cidadão que se relaciona com o cancro.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

'Is your city pretty anyway?' Perspectives on graffiti and the urban landscape

Drawing on survey and focus group research completed in New Zealand in 2009 this article examines young peoples’ perspectives on graffiti and tagging. The results further demonstrate that graffiti writing is an activity invested with considerable cultural meaning by many of those engaged in it and that their understanding of graffiti is considerably at odds with prevailing political, media and policy discourse that sees it purely in terms of criminal damage and antisocial behaviour. While graffiti can be conceptualised as an alternative way of ‘reading’ urban space, the results of this study show that writers recognised that graffiti had damaging consequences and was inappropriate in some contexts. Graffiti was not simply nihilistic destructive behaviour but one in which perceptions of criminality were leavened by aesthetic judgements and the allure and excitement of potential local celebrity

An integrated multi-omics approach identifies the landscape of interferon-α-mediated responses of human pancreatic beta cells

Interferon-α (IFNα), a type I interferon, is expressed in the islets of type 1 diabetic individuals, and its expression and signaling are regulated by T1D genetic risk variants and viral infections associated with T1D. We presently characterize human beta cell responses to IFNα by combining ATAC-seq, RNA-seq and proteomics assays. The initial response to IFNα is characterized by chromatin remodeling, followed by changes in transcriptional and translational regulation. IFNα induces changes in alternative splicing (AS) and first exon usage, increasing the diversity of transcripts expressed by the beta cells. This, combined with changes observed on protein modification/degradation, ER stress and MHC class I, may expand antigens presented by beta cells to the immune system. Beta cells also up-regulate the checkpoint proteins PDL1 and HLA-E that may exert a protective role against the autoimmune assault. Data mining of the present multi-omics analysis identifies two compound classes that antagonize IFNα effects on human beta cells

Consequences Of On-Track Competition In Railways By Use Of Simulations

Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Faculty of Economics and Business. The University of Sydne

An integrated multi-omics approach identifies the landscape of interferon-α-mediated responses of human pancreatic beta cells

Interferon-α (IFNα), a type I interferon, is expressed in the islets of type 1 diabetic individuals, and its expression and signaling are regulated by T1D genetic risk variants and viral infections associated with T1D. We presently characterize human beta cell responses to IFNα by combining ATAC-seq, RNA-seq and proteomics assays. The initial response to IFNα is characterized by chromatin remodeling, followed by changes in transcriptional and translational regulation. IFNα induces changes in alternative splicing (AS) and first exon usage, increasing the diversity of transcripts expressed by the beta cells. This, combined with changes observed on protein modification/degradation, ER stress and MHC class I, may expand antigens presented by beta cells to the immune system. Beta cells also up-regulate the checkpoint proteins PDL1 and HLA-E that may exert a protective role against the autoimmune assault. Data mining of the present multi-omics analysis identifies two compound classes that antagonize IFNα effects on human beta cells.This article is freely available via Open Access. Click on the Publisher URL to access it via the publisher's site.P30 DK097512/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States UC4 DK104166/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States MR/P010695/1/MRC_/Medical Research Council/United Kingdompublished version, accepted version, submitted versio

Deviant leisure: A criminological perspective

This article explains why an understanding of deviant leisure is significant for criminology. Through reorienting our understanding of ‘deviance’ from a contravention of norms and values to encompassing engagement in behaviour and actions that contravene a moral ‘duty to the other’, the new ‘deviant leisure’ perspective outlined here describes activities that through their adherence to cultural values inscribed by consumer capitalism, have the potential to result in harm. Using the ideological primacy of consumer capitalism as a point of departure, we explore the potential for harm that lies beneath the surface of even the most embedded and culturally accepted forms of leisure. Such an explanation requires a reading that brings into focus the subjective, socially corrosive, environmental and embedded harms that arise as a result of the commodification of leisure. In this way, this article aims to act as a conceptual foundation for diverse yet coherent research into deviant leisure

Large-scale optimization with the primal-dual column generation method

The primal-dual column generation method (PDCGM) is a general-purpose column generation technique that relies on the primal-dual interior point method to solve the restricted master problems. The use of this interior point method variant allows to obtain suboptimal and well-centered dual solutions which naturally stabilizes the column generation. As recently presented in the literature, reductions in the number of calls to the oracle and in the CPU times are typically observed when compared to the standard column generation, which relies on extreme optimal dual solutions. However, these results are based on relatively small problems obtained from linear relaxations of combinatorial applications. In this paper, we investigate the behaviour of the PDCGM in a broader context, namely when solving large-scale convex optimization problems. We have selected applications that arise in important real-life contexts such as data analysis (multiple kernel learning problem), decision-making under uncertainty (two-stage stochastic programming problems) and telecommunication and transportation networks (multicommodity network flow problem). In the numerical experiments, we use publicly available benchmark instances to compare the performance of the PDCGM against recent results for different methods presented in the literature, which were the best available results to date. The analysis of these results suggests that the PDCGM offers an attractive alternative over specialized methods since it remains competitive in terms of number of iterations and CPU times even for large-scale optimization problems.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figure, minor revision, scaled CPU time

Measuring final inspectors’ discrimination ability of metal structures in the automotive industry

Purpose – The main objective of this paper is to present an approach for understanding the discrimination ability of the operators responsible for the final inspection at a metal structures’ production line in the automotive industry. Another important goal is to show how this type of analysis can help to improve the way quality inspectors carry out their daily activities. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology followed consisted in selecting a sample of 30 metal structures (15 conforming and 15 non-conforming), over a time period of two months, and then asking 10 quality inspectors to classify each of the structures. Afterwards the performance of the inspectors was analysed using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Analysis. Findings – The results indicate that inspectors are generally working efficiently and also that there is a low risk of rejecting conforming parts and of accepting non-conforming ones. These risks depend on the inspector that judges the structure so the differences between their individual performances were analysed. Improvement actions were then recommended and implemented. Research implications – The work presented is an exploratory study and reports on the results of the proposed approach that underline the possibility of quantifying the discrimination ability of inspectors in industrial environments. Practical implications – The quantification of the inspectors’ performances of the company was completed. Afterwards, it was possible to plan and implement improvement actions regarding those performances. All the inspectors, as well as the production line responsible, felt comfortable with the results. Originality/value – As the approach used has not been addressed by scientific literature, it is considered that the outcomes of the work are valuable for researchers on quality evaluation of inspectors. Additionally, this study may help practitioners implement the proposed method in other environments

Case Studies of a Trans-Generational Pedagogy of Art and Design

This study reports on pedagogical practices aimed at bridging knowledge between retired researchers and professors in art and design, and current art and design students. Ethnographic interviews were carried out with artists and designers who attended the School of Fine Arts of Porto during the 1960s and 1970s, some of them later becoming professors; these interviews enabled the identification of best pedagogical practices during this period. The interviews further revealed knowledge of artistic practices and experiences beyond the school context. Based on the outcomes of the interviews, two workshops were held at two universities with art and design BA courses, aiming at promoting transgenerational knowledge transfer through illustrated and typographic narratives. Materials collected in the interviews were presented to students, who based their work on this source material, complementing it with further research carried out using their own initiative. The results were promising: most of the students gained an awareness of the interviewed artists, who are ultimately part of local history despite the relative anonymity of some; the workshops contributed toward an inscription of these artists’ legacy into curricular repertoire; students benefited from sharing experiences between peers with different backgrounds and, in specific cases, benefited from direct contact with these retired artists, thus increasing the flow of trans-generational knowledge and experiences. The outcomes of the workshops are now a source for ongoing public exhibitions and editions, both amplifying the resonance of the content among cultural and academic contexts and potentiating further inter-generational dynamics

Math requirements for admission in elementary school teacher education programs: does it matter?

In Portugal, the initial training of teachers for the first three levels of education (children from 3 to 12 years old) is carried out through a single 3-years undergraduate degree, called Basic Education. This training is completed with a professional master's degree where future teachers choose which levels they will teach. Most master's degrees cover two levels of education: pre-school and 1st cycle or 1st and 2nd cycles. This means that most teachers become qualified to teach the 1st cycle, usually known as elementary school. First cycle teachers teach all educational areas, including mathematics. It is, therefore, essential that they finish their degree in Basic Education with a solid background in Mathematics. Until the academic year 2017-18 there was no mandatory entry requirement in Mathematics to the Basic Education Degree and many students were admitted without having had any Mathematics in secondary education. To ensure a better pre-university training in Mathematics, the Portuguese government imposed an admission exam, as from the academic year 2018-19. This work aims to assess the impact of the government measure on the training of future teachers in the area of mathematics, through the analysis of the performance of students in the 1st year of the Basic Education Degree, from a Portuguese university, in a mathematics course of the 1st semester, over the academic years 2017-18 to 2019-20. The statistical study carried out reveals that there were significant improvements in the results of the students. An analysis of the gender tendency in the choice of the teaching profession was also done and showed that there is a disproportion between men and women in pre-service teachers, since most young people who want to become teachers are female. This study contributes to a better understanding of the impact certain measures and policies can have on the quality of Higher Education academic training. This type of approach can be applied to other similar situations, for other programs and other courses, helping, in this way, decision making in Higher Education admission policies, as well as researchers in this field.publishe