Cohesion in multiteam systems : effects of type of training and adaptation triggers on levels of social and task cohesion - an experimental study

Tese de mestrado, Psicologia (Secção de Psicologia dos Recursos Humanos, do Trabalho e das Organizações), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2016Verificou-se, na última década, uma expansão significativa da literatura sobre sistemas multiequipa, apontando-se a necessidade de melhor compreender a variável coesão nestes sistemas. Os sistemas multi-equipa operam frequentemente em ambientes extremos e imprevisíveis, que requerem treino especializado e elevados níveis de coesão. O efeito do treino sobre a coesão, ao nível dos multi-sistemas, é uma área de investigação que tem recebido pouca atenção. A presente investigação pretende colmatar esta lacuna ao investigar a variação nos níveis de coesão social e de tarefa afectada por tipo de treino, e na presença de um estímulo espontâneo indutor de stress. Para tal criou-se um desenho experimental 2x2 inter-sujeitos. Pediu-se aos participantes que imaginassem um cenário fictício onde fizessem parte de uma de duas equipas. Estas equipas estariam envolvidas num projecto de investigação. As condições foram manipuladas de modo a que ambas as equipas treinassem em conjunto, ou separadamente. Também foi manipulada uma situação de crise indutora de stress. Durante o projecto de investigação poderia ocorrer uma crise que afectaria a multiequipa, ou poderia não ocorrer. Seguidamente, os participantes tinham que responder a um questionário que media coesão social e de tarefa. Verificou-se um maior nível de coesão de tarefa para treino conjunto do que para treino separado. Esta diferença não foi verificada para coesão social. As condições de crise tiveram como resultado menores níveis de coesão social e de tarefa. Por fim, não se verificou que os níveis de coesão social e de tarefa fossem maiores em multi-equipas que treinassem em conjunto, em condições de crise, do que em multi-equipas que treinassem separadamente. Futuras oportunidades de investigação sobre coesão em sistemas multi-equipa são exploradas na discussão.The literature regarding multiteam systems (MTSs) has increased significantly over the last decade, however there is still a need to comprehend how task and social cohesion work in these systems. Multiteam systems often work in fast-changing, extreme environments, which require specialized training and high levels of cohesion in order to adequately deal with possible challenges. One area where little research has been conducted is on the effects of training on cohesion at the multisystem level. The present research addresses this gap by investigating how social and task cohesion levels vary by type of training, and in the presence of acute stress-inducing triggers. An experimental 2x2 between subjects design was created, which required individual participants to picture a fictitious scenario in which they belonged to one of two teams participating in a research project. Conditions were manipulated so as to indicate that teams either trained together or separately. A stress-inducing crisis situation was also manipulated. During the project, a crisis affecting the team could occur or not occur. Participants would then complete a questionnaire measuring social and task cohesion. It was found that joint training resulted in higher task cohesion over separate training; no such difference was found for social cohesion. Crisis conditions resulted in lower social and task cohesion levels. Finally, no support was found for higher social and task cohesion for multiteams who trained together when facing an adaptation trigger, over multiteams who trained separately. Future research opportunities into MTS cohesion are explored in the discussion

Selecção e caracterização de leveduras 'starter' a partir de populações autóctones de mosto

Tese de mestrado. Biologia (Microbiologia Aplicada). Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2010O sabor do vinho, propriedade organoléptica, varia consoante o indivíduo, o ambiente em que se enquadra e a composição química do produto. Resultante de uma miríade de interacções sensoriais, é influenciado por inúmeras variáveis como a casta da uva, as condições geográficas e ambientais do cultivo, o microbioma local e as práticas de fermentação e vinificação. As leveduras, responsáveis pela fermentação alcoólica, ao converterem o mosto de uva em vinho exercem um papel predominante na determinação da constituição química deste. No entanto, o microbioma autóctone é altamente variável resultando, muitas vezes, em vinhos de qualidade incerta. Uma cultura ‘starter’, preparação constituída por um número elevado de células de pelo menos um microrganismo, pode ser adicionada ao mosto, acelerando e dirigindo o seu processo fermentativo. Contudo, o uso de estirpes ‘starter’ comerciais pode mitigar as propriedades regionais características de alguns vinhos, originando uma procura crescente de estirpes autóctones, representativas das propriedades enológicas características de uma determinada região. Neste trabalho estudou-se uma colecção de 768 leveduras, isoladas de mostos provenientes de quatro regiões DOC e fornecidos pela empresa Sogrape Vinhos S.A. em 2007, em busca de leveduras ecotípicas com potencial aplicação como ‘starter’. A estratégia de selecção envolveu a aplicação de métodos moleculares de ‘fingerprinting’, para caracterização genómica e estudo da variabilidade da colecção, e microfermentações de mosto a diferentes condições. Durante o estudo, eliminaram-se sequencialmente as leveduras com desempenho menos promissor relativamente a uma estirpe ‘starter’ comercial usada como referência. Na parte final do trabalho procedeu-se ainda a uma análise comparativa de diferentes métodos moleculares de diferenciação, de forma a encontrar potenciais ‘fingerprints’ passíveis de utilização como marcadores moleculares para rastreio inequívoco dos isolados durante futuras fermentações industriais.Wine flavor, as the culmination of a myriad of sensorial interactions carried out by subtle changes in the chemical composition of the wine, varies from individual to individual, depending on particular taste, local ambience and even mood. Nonetheless, the chemical composition of the wine is the cornerstone of the whole taste experience. As byproduct of alcoholic fermentation of must carried out by yeasts, the chemical composition of the wine is determined by many factors such as grape variety, geographical and viticultural conditions of grape cultivation and microbial ecology of grapes. The natural yeast microbiota plays a dominant role in the composition of the final product affecting overall quality. Due to fluctuations in yeast population, spontaneous fermentations are unreliable, forcing the use of starter cultures to guarantee wine quality and consistence. Unfortunately, commercial starter strains sometimes mask the regional characteristics of a particular wine reducing uniqueness and value. As such, there is a growing demand for the use of autochtonous strains as starters in the production of wine from a particular region, guaranteeing the consistency and quality of the product while safeguarding the local characteristics. In this study, 768 yeast isolates, belonging to Sogrape Vinhos S.A and originating from four DOC regions in Portugal, were studied for their potential use as starter cultures. The selection protocol consisted in the application of molecular fingerprinting methods for determination of variability and genetic characterization, followed by microfermentations in must at different conditions. Throughout the study, by comparison of performance with a commercial wine starter strain, the isolates with the worst scores where removed. The final part of the study encompassed a comparative analysis of molecular fingerprinting methods in search of molecular markers suitable for traceability of strains at the industrial level.QREN - Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividad

Green functions for generalized point interactions in 1D: A scattering approach

Recently, general point interactions in one dimension has been used to model a large number of different phenomena in quantum mechanics. Such potentials, however, requires some sort of regularization to lead to meaningful results. The usual ways to do so rely on technicalities which may hide important physical aspects of the problem. In this work we present a new method to calculate the exact Green functions for general point interactions in 1D. Our approach differs from previous ones because it is based only on physical quantities, namely, the scattering coefficients, $R$ and $T$, to construct $G$. Renormalization or particular mathematical prescriptions are not invoked. The simple formulation of the method makes it easy to extend to more general contexts, such as for lattices of $N$ general point interactions; on a line; on a half-line; under periodic boundary conditions; and confined in a box.Comment: Revtex, 9 pages, 3 EPS figures. To be published in PR

Exploiting Locally Imposed Anisotropies in (Ga,Mn)As: a Non-volatile Memory Device

Progress in (Ga,Mn)As lithography has recently allowed us to realize structures where unique magnetic anisotropy properties can be imposed locally in various regions of a given device. We make use of this technology to fabricate a device in which we study transport through a constriction separating two regions whose magnetization direction differs by 90 degrees. We find that the resistance of the constriction depends on the flow of the magnetic field lines in the constriction region and demonstrate that such a structure constitutes a non-volatile memory device

The Virtual Insect Brain protocol: creating and comparing standardized neuroanatomy

BACKGROUND: In the fly Drosophila melanogaster, new genetic, physiological, molecular and behavioral techniques for the functional analysis of the brain are rapidly accumulating. These diverse investigations on the function of the insect brain use gene expression patterns that can be visualized and provide the means for manipulating groups of neurons as a common ground. To take advantage of these patterns one needs to know their typical anatomy. RESULTS: This paper describes the Virtual Insect Brain (VIB) protocol, a script suite for the quantitative assessment, comparison, and presentation of neuroanatomical data. It is based on the 3D-reconstruction and visualization software Amira, version 3.x (Mercury Inc.) [1]. Besides its backbone, a standardization procedure which aligns individual 3D images (series of virtual sections obtained by confocal microscopy) to a common coordinate system and computes average intensities for each voxel (volume pixel) the VIB protocol provides an elaborate data management system for data administration. The VIB protocol facilitates direct comparison of gene expression patterns and describes their interindividual variability. It provides volumetry of brain regions and helps to characterize the phenotypes of brain structure mutants. Using the VIB protocol does not require any programming skills since all operations are carried out at an intuitively usable graphical user interface. Although the VIB protocol has been developed for the standardization of Drosophila neuroanatomy, the program structure can be used for the standardization of other 3D structures as well. CONCLUSION: Standardizing brains and gene expression patterns is a new approach to biological shape and its variability. The VIB protocol provides a first set of tools supporting this endeavor in Drosophila. The script suite is freely available at [2

The host galaxies and explosion sites of long-duration gamma-ray bursts: Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared imaging

We present the results of a Hubble Space Telescope WFC3/F160WSnapshot survey of the host galaxies of 39 long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) at z < 3. We have non-detections of hosts at the locations of four bursts. Sufficient accuracy to astrometrically align optical afterglowimages and determine the location of the LGRB within its hostwas possible for 31/35 detected hosts. In agreement with other work, we find the luminosity distribution of LGRB hosts is significantly fainter than that of a star formation rate-weighted field galaxy sample over the same redshift range, indicating LGRBs are not unbiasedly tracing the star formation rate. Morphologically, the sample of LGRB hosts is dominated by spiral-like or irregular galaxies. We find evidence for evolution of the population of LGRB hosts towards lower luminosity, higher concentrated hosts at lower redshifts. Their half-light radii are consistent with other LGRB host samples where measurements were made on rest-frame UV observations. In agreement with recent work, we find their 80 per cent enclosed flux radii distribution to be more extended than previously thought, making them intermediate between core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and superluminous supernova (SLSN) hosts. The galactocentric projectedoffset distribution confirms LGRBs as centrally concentrated, much more so than CCSNe and similar to SLSNe. LGRBs are strongly biased towards the brighter regions in their host light distributions, regardless of their offset. We find a correlation between the luminosity of the LGRB explosion site and the intrinsic column density, NH, towards the burst. © 2017 The Authors

UK experience of liver transplantation for erythropoietic protoporphyria

Erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP) is characterised by excess production of free protoporphyrin from the bone marrow, most commonly due to deficiency of the enzyme ferrochelatase. Excess protoporphyrin gives rise to the cutaneous photosensitivity characteristic of the disease, and in a minority of patients leads to end-stage liver disease necessitating liver transplantation (LT). There is limited information regarding the timing, impact and long-term outcome of LT in such patients, thus we aimed to identify the indications and outcomes of all transplants performed for EPP in the UK using data from the UK Transplant Registry. Between 1987 and 2009, five patients underwent LT for EPP liver disease. Median follow-up was 60 months, and there were two deaths at 44 and 95 months from causes unrelated to liver disease. The remaining recipients are alive at 22.4 years, 61 months and 55 months after transplant. A high rate of postoperative biliary stricturing requiring multiple biliary interventions was observed. Recurrent EPP-liver disease occurred in 4/5 (80%) of patients but graft failure has not been observed. Given the role of biliary obstruction in inducing EPP-mediated liver damage, we suggest that consideration should be given for construction of a Roux loop at the time of transplant. Thus we demonstrate that although EPP liver transplant recipients have a good long-term survival, comparable to patients undergoing LT for other indications, biliary complications and disease recurrence are almost universal, and bone marrow transplantation should be considered where possible

Sustainability marketing myopia: the lack of sustainability communication persuasiveness

Sustainability communication in accommodation businesses tends to be factual and descriptive, as companies are concerned with product-based messages that focus on what they do; they appear not to understand the potential benefits of constructing messages that would influence consumers to behave more sustainably, which is effectively sustainability marketing myopia. An analysis of 1,835 sustainability messages from award-winning businesses shows that messages communicate facts not emotions, and benefits for society as a whole rather than for the individual customer. The messages are explicit, but passive and not experiential hence they positively affect the cognitive but not the affective image of the business. The lack of message normalization and customer focus reinforces the image of sustainability being a niche concern. We reflect on the reasons for these shortcomings and highlight opportunities to improve persuasive communication, which we have now applied commercially in more than 400 website analyses and 60 training courses

Farmer seed networks make a limited contribution to agriculture? Four common misconceptions

The importance of seed provisioning in food security and nutrition, agricultural development and rural livelihoods, and agrobiodiversity and germplasm conservation is well accepted by policy makers, practitioners and researchers. The role of farmer seed networks is less well understood and yet is central to debates on current issues ranging from seed sovereignty and rights for farmers to GMOs and the conservation of crop germplasm. In this paper we identify four common misconceptions regarding the nature and importance of farmer seed networks today. (1) Farmer seed networks are inefficient for seed dissemination. (2) Farmer seed networks are closed, conservative systems. (3) Farmer seed networks provide ready, egalitarian access to seed. (4) Farmer seed networks are destined to weaken and disappear. We challenge these misconceptions by drawing upon recent research findings and the authors’ collective field experience in studying farmer seed systems in Africa, Europe, Latin America and Oceania. Priorities for future research are suggested that would advance our understanding of seed networks and better inform agricultural and food policy