ICTs and Family Physicians Human Capital Upgrading.Delightful Chimera or Harsh Reality?

In the present paper we provide a quantitative assessment of ICTs role in Family Physicians/General Practitioners (GPs) medical daily practice and scientific performance. It focus on the Portuguese underexplored context, where the Health Sector has been under pressure for wide and profound reforms. These reforms have been extensively relying on ICTs, namely on the Internet. Based on the responses of 342 GPs, we concluded that 94% uses the Internet and 57% agrees that the Internet is essential to their medical daily practice. This is a slightly lower percentage than that observed for other European physicians (62%). GPs tend to use the Internet mainly for professional purposes. On average, they spend 10 hours/week on the Internet for professional purposes. Further data shows that to have or to be enrolled in advanced training fosters the use of the Internet for professional purposes, which in its turn, tends to grant GPs access to more and up-to-date information and knowledge on these matters. A worrisome evidence is that at the workplace, a substantial proportion of GPs (over 70%) do not use the Internet or other related ICTs, namely Telemedicine. Although Electronic Prescription is used by roughly 60% of the respondent GPs, for all other activities – teleconsultation, telediagnosis, and telemonitoring – only a meagre percentage of physicians (10%) claim to use such technologies. Thus, Telemedicine at the workplace is still a chimera. Notwithstanding such dishearten scenario, our data shows that the Internet for the respondent GPs has a critical role on updating and improving their professional knowledge basis. They recognise, however, that the vast majority of GPs lack specific and general training in ICT-related technologies. In fact, half of them agree that they need to attend specific training actions on ICTs. A large percentage of GPs admitted that in the previous year they did not take any professional training targeting ICTs and those who did undertook rather short-term (less than one week) courses: Because of that, such training handicap uncovers that a large part of Portuguese GPs may be unable to reap the benefits of ICTs in their daily medical practice.GPs; Human Capital; Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

Why they do what that they do? A study of purposes and strategic rules of Uruguayan's extensive beef farmers

Farmers must make decisions that are taken by different criteria, which are in all cases personal and circumstantial. From a technical point of view, at the moment to propose any change in the farm structure, or any application of some particular technique -or even in the government policy making- it is essential to know why a farm is like it is and why the farmers do what they do. To know the goals for which a farm operates seems to be a priority, or viewed in the opposite way, to ignore the farmer's objectives can lead to mistakes when planning any farm intervention programs. The objective of this study is to describe the farmers main Purposes (P) and the Strategic Rules (SR) associated, as they are defined by the Global Approach method. For this research twenty case farms were analyzed by two methods: Multivariate simple correspondence analysis and a text concept linking software (Redes2009). The results show that the most frequent P's were: i) "Those related to patrimony", ii) "Those related to guarantee a money income", and iii) "Those related to keep a rural way of life". The main SR associated to these P were, respectively, i) "To assure incomes" and "To keep herd as capital"; ii) "To manage work and family participation at farm tasks" and "To keep a comfortable way of life and life's quality"; and iii) "To assure incomes" and "To handle the indebtedness". The SR defined as "To assure incomes" was the most frequent, and it is strongly related with two economical P (i and ii, stated above), and to others SR like "To reduce cost and money management" and "To handle internal and external information". In conclusion, the most frequently mentioned P was related to economic and social issues, linked with economic and social SR. The agro-ecological P per se was no present in this study. (Résumé d'auteur

Information-reality complementarity: The role of measurements and quantum reference frames

Recently, a measure has been put forward which allows for the quantification of the degree of reality of an observable for a given preparation [A. L. O. Bilobran and R. M. Angelo, Europhys. Lett. 112, 40005 (2015)]. Here we employ this quantifier to establish, on formal grounds, relations among the concepts of measurement, information, and physical reality. After introducing mathematical objects that unify weak and projective measurements, we study scenarios showing that an arbitrary-intensity unrevealed measurement of a given observable generally leads to an increase of its reality and also of its incompatible observables. We derive a complementarity relation connecting an amount of information associated with the apparatus with the degree of irreality of the monitored observable. Specifically for pure states, we show that the entanglement with the apparatus precisely determines the amount by which the reality of the monitored observable increases. We also point out some mechanisms whereby the irreality of an observable can be generated. Finally, using the aforementioned tools, we construct a consistent picture to address the measurement problem.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, typos removed, closer to the published version, selected as Editors' Suggestio

The global 5G race: South Korea speeds ahead. IES Policy Brief Issue 2019/05, May 2019

South Korea has become the first country in the world to launch commercial 5G services on 3 April. 5G economic benefits are estimated to include worldwide revenues of €225 billion by 2025 and a wealth of job creation. The US, China, South Korea and the EU are economic powerhouses vying to lead the unfolding global 5G market. US and China are strongly positioned in the current telecom market, but their growing 5G competition is spilling over into geopolitical competition. Wary of being swept up in US-China rivalry, the Moon government is banking on building strong 5G market competitiveness and doubling down on the IT sector which represents a critical economic growth engine domestically

Local Knowledge, Agents and Models for the adaptation to climatic variability of livestock farmers in Uruguay

Basaltic soils in Uruguay occupy 3.5 million hectares, 25% of the country, and are mainly exploited by extensive family ranching production systems. These shallow soils have an extremely reduced capacity to accumulate water that make them more sensitive to drought with negative consequences in: forage production, animal production, feeding security, and high consequences on the economy and welfare of livestock farmers and the local communities living conditions, then on the whole beef supply chain and on national exports. Extreme events will be more frequent in the future as a consequence of current climatic changes. It is thus necessary to improve the adaptive capacities of the livestock producers. In order to understand the past effects of droughts, we developed an interactive agent based simulation model and we compared two different farmers' archetypal strategies. The design of the model was conducted in four steps: 1) we simulated the grass growth using a logistic growth equation calibrated with data originated from the MODIS satellite, 2) the natural dynamic life cycle of the cattle was collectively designed, 3) we simulated the interaction between the grass and big grazers, 4) we designed different strategies of farm management, by using the information gathered in 8 workshops with the participation of 156 livestock farmers. Thus, we collectively examined the simulation results with livestock farmers and development actors. Now, we are constructing a "serious game" called "Ganaderos y sequía" that will be accessible in our web page. The purpose is to get a flight simulator like game that will speed farmers' learning and adaptation to droughts. (Résumé d'auteur

Advancing Our Knowledge of ADHD in Latino Children: Psychometric and Cultural Properties of Spanish-Versions of Parental/Family Functioning Measures

The lack of available Spanish versions of assessment measures contributes to insufficient research and underutilization of mental health services for Latino children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Thus, the goal of the current study was to examine the psychometric and cultural properties of several Spanish versions of parental/family functioning measures commonly used in comprehensive ADHD assessments (i.e., the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale, Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, and Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale). Participants included 68 Spanish-speaking, Latino parents in Southeast Wisconsin. In general, the Spanish translations of the measures demonstrated good reliability and validity. Furthermore, the psychometrically-sound measures were significantly related to acculturation as predicted, suggesting that the scales are not only psychometrically valid, but also culturally valid for use with Spanish-speaking, Latino families

Resistina: una nueva hormona expresada en el tejido adiposo

La resistina es una proteína de 12,5 kDa rica en residuos de cisteína que se secreta principalmente en los adipocitos. El descubrimiento de la resistina pareció ser un principio prometedor para el tratamiento de la resistencia a la insulina inducida por la obesidad. Sin embargo, aunque en roedores su función parece estar relacionada con el empeoramiento de la sensibilidad a la insulina, en humanos todavía no se puede afirmar con claridad su papel. En los roedores, la resistina actúa de forma perjudicial en la ruta de señalización de la insulina en los principales tejidos diana, como son el tejido adiposo, el hígado y el músculo. Esta hormona también estimula la producción hepática de glucosa y sus niveles circulantes son elevados en animales obesos, mientras que estos niveles disminuyen de manera muy significativa después de la restricción alimenticia. Todos estos datos sugieren que además de la resistencia a la insulina, la resistina también ejerce una acción importante en la regulación de la homeostasis metabólica. Además, en humanos, dada su expresión en células mononucleares, es de suponer que esta proteína juega un papel importante en los procesos inflamatorios y/o inmunitarios. Aunque los trabajos que han estudiado sus acciones en relación a la resistencia a insulina inducida por la obesidad son bastante contradictorios, es de esperar que pueda ejercer múltiples funciones biológicas, teniendo en cuenta la variedad de tejidos en que es expresada

A new 130nm F.E readout chip for microstrip detectors

In the context of the Silicon tracking for a Linear Collider (SiLC) R&D collaboration, a highly compact mixed-signal chip has been designed in 130nm CMOS technology intended to read Silicon strip detectors for the experiments at the future International Linear Collider. The chip includes eighty eight channels of a full analog signal processing chain and analog to digital conversion with the corresponding digital controls and readout channels. The chip is 5x10mm2 where the analog implementation represents 4/5 of the total Silicon area.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, LCWS08 worksho