Sex education in schools: what teenagers really know?

In the current framework of guidance considers the obligation to address sexual education in schools in Portugal (Law No. 60/2009 of 6 August, Order No. 196-A / 2010 of 9 April). Objectives: To identify students knowledge in relation to new legislation and basics of sex education. Cross-sectional study with a sample with 530 students from secondary schools of a northern region of Portugal. The assessment protocol includes sociodemographic questionnaire (Correia 2004) and it was applied from October to December of 2011. Data analysis was performed using SPSS. The informed consent was obtain from schools. The proportion of students who know the current law on sex education in schools is 37.4%, the proportion of female students who know this law is greater than that of males (41.3% vs. 32.2%). Exist a statistical significant association between this knowledge and sex (p = 0.037), continuing the girls the most informed group. About 30% of students in this sample doesn't identify basic concepts of sexual and reproductive health and family planning neither sexually transmitted infections. In relation to knowledge about contraception also found a statistical significant association with sex (p <0.000), with a higher proportion of knowledge for the female group who also knows more than a contraceptive method (78.7% vs. 55.7%). The weak information of adolescents knowledge about sex education and gender differences still seem to persist in spite of the existence of sex education in schools from Portugal. Maybe sex education should be a subject in a curriculum from a school, being responsible for this subject a teacher that must be specialized in the area of sexuality

Sex education in schools: what teenagers really know?

Introduction: In the current framework of guidance considers the obligation to address sexual education in schools in Portugal (Law No. 60/2009 of 6 August, Order No. 196-A / 2010 of 9 April). Objectives: To identify students knowledge in relation to new legislation and basics of sex education. Methods: Cross-sectional study with a sample with 530 students from secondary schools of a northern region of Portugal. The assessment protocol includes sociodemographic questionnaire (Correia 2004) and it was applied from October to December of 2011. Data analysis was performed using SPSS. The informed consent was obtain from schools. Results: The proportion of students who know the current law on sex education in schools is 37.4%, the proportion of female students who know this law is greater than that of males (41.3% vs. 32.2%). Exist a statistical significant association between this knowledge and sex (p = 0.037), continuing the girls the most informed group. About 30% of students in this sample doesn't identify basic concepts of sexual and reproductive health and family planning neither sexually transmitted infections. In relation to knowledge about contraception also found a statistical significant association with sex (p <0.000), with a higher proportion of knowledge for the female group who also knows more than a contraceptive method (78.7% vs. 55.7%). Conclusions: The weak information of adolescents knowledge about sex education and gender differences still seem to persist in spite of the existence of sex education in schools from Portugal. Maybe sex education should be a subject in a curriculum from a school, being responsible for this subject a teacher that must be specialized in the area of sexuality

Manual da safra e contra safra do olival

O manual da safra e contra safra do olival é dirigido de forma particular a agricultores e técnicos da região de Trás-os-Montes e de outras zonas do país onde se mantenha interesse no olival tradicional de sequeiro. A rega, contudo, não foi esquecida, sendo vista como uma das poucas alternativas à revitalização do sector. O olival de sequeiro encontra-se hoje no limiar da viabilidade técnica e económica. Devido às condições marginais em que é cultivado, e a uma técnica cultural normalmente de qualidade insatisfatória, é nestes olivais que o fenómeno da safra e contra safra se torna mais evidente. Trás-os-Montes é uma região economicamente deprimida onde as pequenas aldeias têm perdido população a ritmo acelerado. Poucas freguesias mantêm ainda escola primária, devido à reduzida natalidade. Poucos são os jovens que projectam o seu futuro e o das suas famílias baseado na actividade agrícola. O interior do país nunca desenvolveu actividade económica relevante fora do sector agrícola. A actividade industrial é ténue. As cidades de maior dimensão como Vila Real, Bragança, Chaves e Mirandela têm resistido à perda de população nas sedes de concelho devido a algum investimento público (ensino superior, saúde, …) que assegura poder de compra às populações e permite o aparecimento de pequenas empresas de dimensão regional (construção, restauração, serviços, …). As vias de comunicação que lentamente foram sendo construídas nunca foram estímulo suficiente para cativar investimento industrial significativo para a região. O olival de sequeiro mantém ainda hoje importância social e económica determinante na região, sendo a olivicultura das poucas actividades em meio rural com capacidade para gerar rendimento e contribuir para a fixação da população. Os decisores políticos e as autoridades locais devem ter presente que todos os esforços devem ser feitos para manter estes sistemas em produção. É necessário ter a noção de que não há condições realistas para, a curto prazo/ médio prazo, se modificar a estrutura produtiva do olival. Os sistemas de plantação que actualmente se utilizam noutras regiões, designadamente os olivais de alta densidade (494) a 865 árvores/ha) e os super-intensivos (1482 a 2223 árvores/ha), necessitam de parcelas de terreno com área e fertilidade adequadas. Necessitam também de água para rega e que as explorações estejam electrificadas. Em Trás-os-Montes não há, actualmente, água armazenada para regar áreas relevantes de olival e a electrificação é um problema adicional devido à dispersão das parcelas. O declive dos terrenos é ainda um constrangimento suplementar. Tudo indica que a estrutura fundiária da região, com a propriedade pulverizada em pequenas parcelas, associada a dificuldades na electrificação dessas parcelas, disponibilidade limitada de água para rega, inclinação dos terrenos e idade avançada dos olivicultores vá atrasar a reestruturação do olival. É nossa convicção que nos próximos 10 anos o cenário da olivicultura em Trás-os-Montes não apresentará modificações de monta, excepcionando-se provavelmente o incremento da colheita mecanizada e um provável, mas ligeiro, aumento da área de regadio. Esperemos que a maior modificação não consista no abandono da actividade por parte de muitos produtores. É necessário lutar pela viabilidade do olival actual, mantendo presente a necessidade de o modernizar com a urgência possível. É necessário criar pressão política para que surjam infra-estruturas de regadio e para que os programas de apoio ao sector se mantenham ou sejam reforçados. Olivicultores, técnicos, associações de produtores, autarquias e decisores políticos devem unir esforços em torno daquela que é a principal actividade económica de muitas freguesias da região

Spatio-angular Minimum-variance Tomographic Controller for Multi-Object Adaptive Optics systems

Multi-object astronomical adaptive-optics (MOAO) is now a mature wide-field observation mode to enlarge the adaptive-optics-corrected field in a few specific locations over tens of arc-minutes. The work-scope provided by open-loop tomography and pupil conjugation is amenable to a spatio-angular Linear-Quadratic Gaussian (SA-LQG) formulation aiming to provide enhanced correction across the field with improved performance over static reconstruction methods and less stringent computational complexity scaling laws. Starting from our previous work [1], we use stochastic time-progression models coupled to approximate sparse measurement operators to outline a suitable SA-LQG formulation capable of delivering near optimal correction. Under the spatio-angular framework the wave-fronts are never explicitly estimated in the volume,providing considerable computational savings on 10m-class telescopes and beyond. We find that for Raven, a 10m-class MOAO system with two science channels, the SA-LQG improves the limiting magnitude by two stellar magnitudes when both Strehl-ratio and Ensquared-energy are used as figures of merit. The sky-coverage is therefore improved by a factor of 5.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Applied Optic

Limits of turbulence and outer scale profiling with non-Kolmogorov statistics

SLODAR (SLOpe Detection And Ranging) methods recover the atmospheric turbulence profile from cross-correlations of wavefront sensor (WFS) measurements, based on known turbulence models. Our work grows out of several experiments showing that turbulence statistics can deviate significantly from the classical Kolmogorov/ von Kármán models, especially close to the ground. We present a novel SLODAR-type method which simultaneously recovers both the turbulence profile in the atmosphere and the turbulence statistics at the ground layer - namely the slope of the spatial frequency power law. We consider its application to outer scale (L0)- reconstruction and investigate the limits of the joint estimation of such parameters.Peer reviewe

5.7 GHz on-chip antenna/RF CMOS transceiver for wireless sensor networkS

This paper describes a chip-size antenna for operation at 5.7 GHz, assembled with a low-power, low-voltage RF CMOS transceiver, fabricated in UMC RF CMOS 0.18 μm process. Measurements shown a patch antenna with the central frequency of 5.705 GHz, a bandwidth of 90 MHz at −10 dB of return loss, a directive gain of 0.3 dB, with an efficiency of 18%, and a transceiver with a measured total power consumption of 23 mW. This microsystem is intended for the use in each wireless node of a wireless sensor network mounted in a wireless electronic shirt, that monitors the cardio-respiratory function and posture

Nitrogen Fixation and Growth of Potted Olive Plants through Foliar Application of a Nitrogen-Fixing Microorganism

Given the importance of biological nitrogen (N) fixation in agroecosystems, using inoculants with phyllosphere N fixers effective across various crops would revolutionize agriculture. In this study, the application of an inoculant prepared from Methylobacterium symbioticum was tested on young olive trees. The pot experiment was arranged in a factorial design, with inoculant (Yes and No) and mineral N applied to the soil [0 (N0), 25 (N25), 50 (N50), and 100 (N100) kg ha(-1)], and four replicates. The inoculant application did not increase plant dry matter yield (DMY), whereas the application of mineral N had a significant and pronounced effect. The inoculant also did not significantly increase N concentration in tissues, unlike the strong increase observed with N applied to the soil. The inoculant significantly increased plant N recovery, a cumulative effect resulting from small increases in DMY and N concentration in tissues. This increase represented 5.2% more N in plants receiving the inoculant compared to untreated ones. However, only treatments receiving mineral N recorded positive values of fixed N, with the highest value observed in the N50 treatment (12.4%), whereas a negative value (-7.7%) was observed in the N0 treatment. Overall, these low values of fixed N question the economic rationale of using this inoculant by farmers and especially render it unsuitable for organic farming systems, where plants tend to have lower N levels in tissues.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support from national funds FCT/MCTES, to CIMO (UIDB/AGR/00690/2020), SusTEC(LA/P/0007/2020) and CITAB (UIDB/04033/2020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ground Management Through Grazing in Rainfed Olive Orchards Provides High Olive Yields and Has Other Potential Benefits for Both the Soil and the Farmer

Soil management in orchards can have several economic and environmental implications. In this study, three different soil management systems were compared in a dry-farmed olive grove: conventional tillage (tillage), glyphosate-based herbicide (herbicide) and sheep grazing. The experiment lasted eleven years (2011-2022) and was carried out after a previous trial conducted on the same plot with the same treatments and duration (2001-2011). However, in the earlier trial, the herbicide and sheep grazing treatments switched positions in the plot, while the tillage treatment remained in its original place. The average total accumulated olive yields between 2011 and 2022 were 225.1, 230.9, and 245.0 kg tree(-1) for the sheep grazing, tillage, and herbicide treatments, respectively. However, no significant differences were observed between the treatments. The levels of total organic carbon in the soil, measured in samples collected in the last year of the study, were 41.3, 33.7, and 37.3 g kg(-1), respectively, for the same treatments. These findings indicated that the tillage treatment exhibited lower soil organic matter content and reduced bioavailability of some nutrients, which raises concerns about its sustainability. On the contrary, employing sheep grazing with an appropriate stocking rate, effectively controlling vegetation in the spring, ensured favourable soil properties and olive yields comparable to the other treatments. Moreover, the sheep grazing approach provides supplementary advantages to the farmer, including revenue from the sale of animal products and the opportunity to transition to organic farming systems, which better align with the preferences of contemporary societies.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support from national funds FCT/MCTES, to CIMO (UIDB/AGR/00690/2020), SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2020), and CITAB (UIDB/04033/2020), and for Paulo Dimande's doctoral scholarship (PRT/BD/152095/2021).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio