Concepções prévias, mudança conceptual e obstáculos de aprendizagem em alunos do 1º CEB sobre excreção urinária

Tese de mestrado em Estudos da Criança, área de Promoção da Saúde e do Meio Ambiente.Com este estudo pretendeu-se conhecer e classificar as concepções prévias bem como as dificuldades e obstáculos que os alunos do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (CEB) apresentam relativamente à aprendizagem do tópico de Biologia Humana “Aparelho Urinário”, sua estrutura e função. Para tal foi necessário identificarem-se: (i) as concepções prévias dos alunos, antes do ensino formal que só ocorre no 3º ano de escolaridade; (ii) as concepções adquiridas como resultado imediato das aprendizagens desta matéria no 3º ano; (iii) e ainda o resultado destas aprendizagens a médio prazo, isto é, um ano após a introdução do tópico, no 4º ano de escolaridade. Pretendeu-se, pois, identificar padrões de dificuldade na aprendizagem da Biologia Humana que possam contribuir para o conhecimento, ainda controverso, sobre a forma como as crianças constroem o seu conhecimento em assuntos de Biologia Humana. Reconhecendo-se que cada aluno constrói os seus conhecimentos através da confrontação entre as suas concepções prévias e as situações de aprendizagem em que se encontra, as concepções dos mesmos podem ser um obstáculo a aprendizagens específicas. Logo, para ocorrer uma efectiva mudança conceptual será necessário identificar tudo aquilo que possa funcionar como obstáculo às aprendizagens pretendidas. A amostra foi composta por alunos dos quatro anos de escolaridade de escolas de Vizela, tendo-se aplicado questionários que envolveram o trajecto da água e da droga no organismo os quais permitiram implementar a técnica de expressão por desenho, complementada por expressão verbal, tanto textual como oral. Na maioria das respostas, antes do ensino formal, predomina a ideia de que o percurso da água é “boca-orificio urinário”: um tubo contínuo digestãoexcreção enquadrado na categoria “A1”. Relativamente ao percurso da droga, este é representado de modo “direccionado ao corpo e com saída”. O trajecto efectuado pelo percurso da água e da droga é directo, sendo também frequente a não distinção de órgãos dos aparelhos digestivo, circulatório e urinário. As respostas textuais denotam uma causalidade linear e simples. Após o ensino formal, predomina a representação do percurso da água como tubo contínuo “boca-orificio urinário”, apesar das percentagens diminuírem em detrimento de outras concepções com valores dispersos. As respostas textuais apresentam conteúdos decorrentes da memorização de conceitos e um maior domínio sobre algumas terminologias, observando-se representações icónicas como fiéis reproduções da imagem do manual. Relativamente ao percurso da droga, este é representado de modo “direccionado com saída” no último ano estudado, e “generalizado com saída” logo após o ensino formal. Para os alunos não estão claros os percursos quer da água quer da droga no organismo, isto é, para substâncias introduzidas pela boca ou pelas veias. Observam-se muito poucas respostas assentes na relação dos vários aparelhos. Em suma, apesar de, após o ensino formal, ser maior a frequência de respostas próximas das versões científicas, elas são muitas vezes providas de alguma inconsistência e pouca sistematização. Pretende-se, assim, que este estudo venha a constituir um contributo para repensar a metodologia do ensino das ciências, podendo vir a servir de referência à adopção de novas estratégias de ensino-aprendizagem.This investigation stands for the awareness and classification of the previous conceptions as well as the difficulties and obstacles that the First Level students have related to the learning of Human Biology subject specifically “Urinary Apparatus”, its structure and function. To achieve that, it was necessary to know: (i) students’ previous conceptions, before the formal learning that occurs only in the 3rd year of school; (ii) the acquired conceptions as an immediate result of the learning of the 3rd year subject; (iii) and also the result of these learnings in a medium period of time, this means, an year after the introduction of the topic, in the 4th year of school. It was intended to identify patterns of the difficulty in the Human Biology learning that could contribute to the knowledge, however, still arguable and controversial, on the way that children construct their knowledge on Human Biology issues. Knowing that each student constructs their own knowledges through confrontation between previous conceptions and learning situations in which the student is in, their own conceptions can be an obstacle to specific learning. So, to occur an effective conceptual change it will be necessary to identify everything that can work as an obstacle to the desired learnings. The sample was made by students from Vizela schools, it had been used questionnaires that involved water and drug courses in the organism which allowed to implement the drawing technique, being complemented by using verbal expression, as well as written and spoken. In the major answers, before formal teaching, it carries on the idea that the water course is “mouth-urinary opening”: a continuous tube digestion-excretion which is fitted in “A1” category. In relation to the drug course, this is represented as “directed to the body and with a way out”. The track made by the water and drug course is direct, being also constant the non distinction of the digestive, circulatory and urinary organs. The written answers portray a simple and linear causality. After formal teaching, the representation of the water as a continuous tube “mouth-urinary opening” is the predominant aspect, despite the percentages diminishing in relation to other conceptions with scattered values. The written answers present subjects derived from memorisation of concepts and a major domain about other terminologies, being observed icons representations as faithful reproductions of the course book pictures. Relative to the drug course, this is represented as “directed with a way out” in the last year studied, and “generalised with a way out” immediately after formal teaching. For the students, drug and water courses aren’t clear in the organism, this means, substances introduced through the mouth or through veins. Few answers agreed in the relation of the various apparatus were observed. To sum up, despite, after formal teaching, being huge the frequency of answers connected to scientific versions, quite often they are provided with some inconsistency and few systematisation. It’s aspired that this study can constitute a contribute to rethink about a methodology in what science teaching is concerned, and even becoming a reference to the adoption of new strategies of the teaching-learning process.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - Projecto Operacional "Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação" (POCTI/CED/44187/2002)

Literacia em saúde e práticas de sustentabilidade nas organizações, nas comunidades

Uma Agenda 2030 das Nações Unidas e os seus “17 Objetivos de Desenvolvimento Sustentável” servem para nos fazer refletir. No âmbito da Pós-Graduação em Literacia em Saúde na Prática, ISPA, na Unidade Curricular de Marketing em Saúde a oportunidade para debater o tema surge facilmente. Até porque estamos a falar de pessoas, de serviços, de valor, distribuição e promoção. A sustentabilidade encaixa em todas estas matérias que movimentam continuamente pessoas, produtos e serviços no mundo, e estes estão necessariamente acoplados em ideias, estratégias, e , sobretudo com a finalidade de implementação em algumas ações concretas. Para concretizar este objetivo solicitou-se aos participantes uma reflexão conjunta numa primeira fase, e, depois uma análise individual sobre o contributo de cada um no processo de melhorar a sustentabilidade dentro das suas comunidades e das organizações. Este e-book resulta assim no delineamento de estratégias muito concretas de melhorar, ampliar, reconhecer a importância de alguns dos 17 objetivos sustentáveis do milénio (17 ODS), e depois a sua aplicação no terreno em situações de “pequenos grandes passos” face ao efeito ampliado que tem cada uma destas soluções agora apresentadas e que podem ser replicadas por outras organizações. Num pensamento sempre crítico e construtivo, propõem-se assim um renovado desenvolvimento de competências de literacia em saúde, destes autores, que no final de 2023 aumentarão as boas e úteis fileiras dos Especialistas em Literacia em Saúde em Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/draf

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Streptococcus pyogenes Causing Skin and Soft Tissue Infections Are Enriched in the Recently Emerged emm89 Clade 3 and Are Not Associated With Abrogation of CovRS

Although skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) are the most common focal infections associated with invasive disease caused by Streptococcus pyogenes (Lancefield Group A streptococci - GAS), there is scarce information on the characteristics of isolates recovered from SSTI in temperate-climate regions. In this study, 320 GAS isolated from SSTI in Portugal were characterized by multiple typing methods and tested for antimicrobial susceptibility and SpeB activity. The covRS and ropB genes of isolates with no detectable SpeB activity were sequenced. The antimicrobial susceptibility profile was similar to that of previously characterized isolates from invasive infections (iGAS), presenting a decreasing trend in macrolide resistance. However, the clonal composition of SSTI between 2005 and 2009 was significantly different from that of contemporary iGAS. Overall, iGAS were associated with emm1 and emm3, while SSTI were associated with emm89, the dominant emm type among SSTI (19%). Within emm89, SSTI were only significantly associated with isolates lacking the hasABC locus, suggesting that the recently emerged emm89 clade 3 may have an increased potential to cause SSTI. Reflecting these associations between emm type and disease presentation, there were also differences in the distribution of emm clusters, sequence types, and superantigen gene profiles between SSTI and iGAS. According to the predicted ability of each emm cluster to interact with host proteins, iGAS were associated with the ability to bind fibrinogen and albumin, whereas SSTI isolates were associated with the ability to bind C4BP, IgA, and IgG. SpeB activity was absent in 79 isolates (25%), in line with the proportion previously observed among iGAS. Null covS and ropB alleles (predicted to eliminate protein function) were detected in 10 (3%) and 12 (4%) isolates, corresponding to an underrepresentation of mutations impairing CovRS function in SSTI relative to iGAS. Overall, these results indicate that the isolates responsible for SSTI are genetically distinct from those recovered from normally sterile sites, supporting a role for mutations impairing CovRS activity specifically in invasive infection and suggesting that this role relies on a differential regulation of other virulence factors besides SpeB

Streptococcus canis Are a Single Population Infecting Multiple Animal Hosts Despite the Diversity of the Universally Present M-Like Protein SCM

Streptococcus canis is an animal pathogen which occasionally causes infections in humans. The S. canis M-like protein (SCM) encoded by the scm gene, is its best characterized virulence factor but previous studies suggested it could be absent in a substantial fraction of isolates. We studied the distribution and variability of the scm gene in 188 S. canis isolates recovered from companion animals (n = 152), wild animal species (n = 20), and humans (n = 14). Multilocus sequence typing, including the first characterization of wildlife isolates, showed that the same lineages are present in all animal hosts, raising the possibility of extensive circulation between species. Whole-genome analysis revealed that emm-like genes found previously in S. canis correspond to divergent scm genes, indicating that what was previously believed to correspond to two genes is in fact the same scm locus. We designed primers allowing for the first time the successful amplification of the scm gene in all isolates. Analysis of the scm sequences identified 12 distinct types, which could be divided into two clusters: group I (76%, n = 142) and group II (24%, n = 46) sharing little sequence similarity. The predicted group I SCM showed extensive similarity with each other outside of the N-terminal hypervariable region and a conserved IgG binding domain. This domain was absent from group II SCM variants found in isolates previously thought to lack the scm gene, which also showed greater amino acid variability. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the possible host interacting partners of the group II SCM variants and their role in virulence

Práticas artísticas no ensino básico e secundário

A mediação entre os conteúdos culturais e a Educação Artística formal tem emergido como uma distinta área de inovação e de intervenção, como o mostram os 18 artigos selecionados nesta nona edição da revista Matéria-Prima.Entre a identidade, fundada nos focos de conhecimento local, e uma inserção integrada nos problemas e conteúdos globais joga-se a problematização da Educação Artística. As propostas articulam quer discursos curatoriais (museu, bienal, exposição), como ações de mediação visando uma expansão das atividades, a que se juntam as reflexões sobre a realidade da formação de professores, nas suas diversas modalidades, em diversas realidades sociais.Propiciam-se oportunidades de ações de intervenção, concertadas ou não, entre os agentes artísticos e os educadores. O resultado pode ser potenciado se se conseguir uma perspetiva informada e integrada das realidades artísticas: pede-se a todos os intervenientes mais integração e disponibilidade para um conhecimento mútuo consequente.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat