Evaluation of health-related quality of life in a physically active senior population

Background: Physical activity (PA) is a strong determinant of health and one of the most important predictors of healthy aging and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The aim of the study was to understand the HRQoL of a senior population practicing PA and its association with some socio-demographic characteristics, the levels of PA, and functional independence.Methods: This is a correlational study with a sample of 376 individuals of both sexes. The data collection instruments were a socio-demographic and health questionnaire, the international PA questionnaire (IPAQ)-short version, the Katz index, the Lawton and Brody index, and the WHOQOL-OLD and WHOQOL-BREF questionnaires.Results: The sample revealed a good perception of HRQoL, especially in the “psychological” and “social relations” domains. Sex showed a greater association with quality of life (QoL) than age. Multiple linear regression revealed that the variables with the most significant influence on the individuals’ QoL were related to health (“Presence of chronic disease” and “habitual use of medication”). The QoL related to "social relationships" is the domain with more predictors, with a markedly socio-demographic focus.Conclusions: Practicing PA proved to be a HRQoL predictor, where “sensory function” and HRQoL related to “social relations” are included. Despite PA practice and socio-demographic characteristics being able to predict some HRQoL domains, health-related variables showed a more robust presence in this prediction

Design of a trigeneration system using a high temperature fuel cell

Fuel cells are one of the technologies available for CHCP, combined heat, cooling and power production, systems. They offer several advantages over more conventional systems, but they still need to overcome a number of barriers until they are readily available for commercialization. At this stage, it is important to fund demonstration projects that experiment with fuel cell technology in pre-commercial situations. In this context, a CHCP system, using a high temperature fuel cell (SOFC) and an absorption chiller, was designed in order to meet the energetic demands of a hospital for electricity, cooling, heating and hot water. The hospital load profile was determined taking into consideration the hourly energy consumption for four different typical days in the year. The CHCP system was designed so that the fuel cell meets the electrical demand of the hospital and, since the SOFC did not produce enough thermal energy, a boiler was considered. The artificial thermal efficiency of the CHCP system is 68%. The investment analysis is presented and it is concluded that, at the present and at three other scenarios, the system is not financially feasible. Despite this conclusion, it is important to invest on demonstration projects to help fuel cells reaching commercialization

Suporte à decisão para avaliação de soluções BYOD

Tese de mestrado, Segurança Informática, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2017Estamos cada vez mais dependentes das tecnologias de informação e dos sistemas tecnológicos. Até mesmo para executar as tarefas mais simples (como efetuar pagamentos, verificar os horários dos transportes, agendar reuniões ou verificar o email), recorremos à tecnologia. Esta dependência coloca-nos vulneráveis a questões relacionados com a confidencialidade, a integridade e disponibilidade da informação. O fenómeno BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) apesar de poder ser interpretado pela maioria das organizações como conduzindo a um aumento da produtividade, dada a disponibilidade do colaborador através da utilização de diferentes dispositivos móveis, sejam eles smartphones, pda’s, laptop’s ou tablet’s, pessoais ou da organização, apresenta riscos associados à segurança informática. Este trabalho propõe um modelo de suporte à decisão para avaliação de soluções BYOD, sendo composto por modelos que suportam: a análise dos requisitos legais obrigatórios; a avaliação dos ativos críticos; a análise de cenários de ameaças e riscos inerentes; a análise dos possíveis controlos de segurança e/ou medidas de mitigação; a análise custo-benefício e as diretrizes para o estabelecimento de uma Política de Segurança BYOD.We are increasingly dependent on information technology and system technology. Even to perform simple tasks (such as make payments, check schedules of transport, schedule meetings or send an e-mail), we turn to technology. This dependence puts us vulnerable to issues relating to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. The BYOD (Bring Your Device Own) phenomenon although can be interpreted by most organizations as leading to increased productivity, given the availability of the employees used different mobile devices, like Smartphone’s, PDA's, laptop's or tablet’s, personal or corporate, also brings risks related to computer security. This paper proposes a decision support model for the evaluation of BYOD solutions, which consists of models that support: the analysis of mandatory legal requirements; the assessment of critical assets; the analysis of threat scenarios and inherent risks; the analysis of possible safety controls and / or mitigation measures; the cost-benefit analysis and the guidelines for the establishment of a BYOD Security Policy

A perceção de alunos sem necessidades educativas especiais face à inclusão dos pares com perturbação do espetro do autismo no terceiro ciclo, do ensino básico

Em Portugal observa-se um aumento de alunos diagnosticados com Perturbação do Espetro do Autismo (PEA), possivelmente devido à existência de maior sensibilização e informação dos diversos profissionais que contatam com estes alunos, bem como à sua inclusão nas classes regulares. Contudo, continuam a existir poucos estudos sobre a inclusão dos alunos com PEA nas turmas regulares, principalmente no que diz respeito à opinião dos colegas sem NEE. O presente estudo tem como objetivo geral conhecer a perceção dos alunos sem necessidades educativas especiais (NEE) sobre a inclusão dos alunos com PEA, nas turmas do terceiro ciclo do ensino básico, de uma escola pública. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo de cariz quantitativo, no qual foi utilizado um questionário que foi preenchido pela maior amostra possível, cinquenta alunos. Verificou-se que a maioria dos inquiridos pertencia ao sexo feminino, com idades compreendidas entre os doze e os dezasseis anos e frequentavam, na sua maioria, o nono ano de escolaridade, sem qualquer retenção. Pode-se concluir que os alunos sem NEE não reconhecem mudanças físicas e estruturais nas aulas do ensino regular quando estão presentes os seus colegas com PEA. Em termos ambientais, transmitem haver alguma perturbação das aulas devido ao comportamento dos colegas com PEA. No entanto, não se verifica qualquer relação entre os resultados académicos e a inclusão dos alunos com PEA.Ao nível social e emocional, os alunos sem NEE tendem a aproximar-se mais dos seus colegas com PEA e a demonstrar atitudes de cooperação e proteção para com estes. Por último, os alunos sem NEE consideram que apenas os alunos com PEA que apresentam necessidades/dificuldades ligeiras ou os que conseguem acompanhar o currículo é que devem frequentar algumas aulas do ensino regular mais práticas, mas ir com maior regularidade a um Estabelecimento de Educação Especial.In Portugal, there has been an increase of children diagnosed with ASD, possibly because the professionals who deal with those children have a large sensibility and information toward this problem. At the same time inclusion of students with ASD in normal classrooms also increased. However, there are still few studies about the opinion of students without special needs, about inclusion of students with ASD in normal classrooms. This study aims to understand what students without special needs think about inclusion of students with ASD in their classrooms. We used a written questionnaire with 50 participants, with ages between 12 and 16 years, mostly girls and most of them attending the 9th year in school. We concluded that students without special educational needs think that there are no significant structural changes in their classrooms when including students with ASD. They also think that the behaviour of those students may cause some perturbation but there is no relation between the inclusion of students with ASD and learning results. At a social level we found out that students without special needs showed a strong will to help and support students with that problem. We also found out that students with no special needs think that only those students with a low degree of ASD should be included in some classes of regular teaching but should also attend more often to a school for children with Special Educational Needs

Case Report: Purple Urine Bag Syndrome

Purple urine bag syndrome (PUBS) was first reported in 1978. PUBS is rare, occurs predominantly in constipated women, chronically catheterized and associated with some bacterial urinary infections that produce sulphatase/phosphatase. The etiology is due to indigo (blue) and indirubin (red) or to their mixture that becomes purple. A chain reaction begins in the gastrointestinal tract with tryptophan as described in the article

Projecto de unidade integrada de atendimento à infância

A UIAI corresponde assim à tentativa de operacionalizar os princípios contidos na filosofia de base e à procura de resposta integrada e inovadora às necessidades referidas. Em termos da sua estrutura interna podemos referir que esta Unidade inclui 4 Valências de Atendimento: ➢ Serviço Técnico de Intervenção Precoce ➢ Creche 8 ➢ Jardim de Infância ➢ Centro de Animação para a Infância Dentro deste Centro de Animação está ainda prevista a dinamização de um espaço exterior para Campo de Jogos e Espaço de Aventuras. No global as várias Valências são encaradas como um conjunto integrado e articulado, visando os objectivos gerais referidos. No entanto, cada um deles por si, terá uma estrutura própria dado que os âmbitos de intervenção específicos, objectivos, metodologias e recursos têm características próprias. Com este projecto colocamos um desafio às várias entidades no âmbito da saúde, da educação e do social, e à própria Cerci no sentido de ao nível deste Concelho e concretamente deste projecto se materializar a tão desejada articulação de serviços e disponibilização de meios. Na nossa perspectiva, a realidade social não se compadece com a divisão artificial (embora em parte necessária) de sectores de actividade distintos. A procura de solução a problemas desta natureza terá de ser multideterminada sob pena de dispendermos esforços e verbas para não darmos respostas cabais e eficazes. Os problemas são multifacetados as respostas devem-no ser também. Cabe às estruturas que estão no terreno e conhecem de perto a realidade, equacionar os problemas, dinamizar a comunidade, propor soluções.info:eu-repo/semantics/draf

Exploring core cognitive skills of Computational Thinking

Although still innovative and not largely disseminated, Computational Thinking is being considered as a critical skill for students in the 21st century. It involves many skills, but programming abilities seem to be a core aspect since they foster the development of a new way of thinking that is key to the solution of problems that require a combination of human mental power and computing power capacity. This paper presents an exploratory study developed to select psychological assessment tests that can be used to identify and measure Computational Thinking cognitive processes, associated to the programming component, so that strategies can be developed to promote it. After the literature review, we identified four central cognitive processes implied in programming, therefore important to Computational Thinking, and accordingly selected a set of four tests that were administered to a sample of 12 introductory programming students. Our results suggest that spatial reasoning and general intelligence are crucial dimensions for introductory programming, being also correlated to the students’ academic success in this area. However, arithmetic reasoning and attention to detail tests did not correlate. Based on these results, directions for future research have been defined in order to effectively identify and develop the core cognitive processes of programming, ergo, to help develop Computational Thinking.University of Susse