Does dance expertise enhance sensitivity? A comparative study

The overall aim was to study the impact of dance expertise in relation to emotional expressivity and emotional sensitivity, by comparing dance experts and nonexperts. The results are based on a survey answered by 120 individuals, consisting of the Berkeley Emotional Expressivity Questionnaire (BEQ) and the Emotional Sensitivity Questionnaire (ESS). Dance experts in comparison to nonexperts scored higher on ESS, more specifically, other-directed sensitivity, that is, the positive interpersonal sensitivity subscale. No significant differences were obtained on negative egocentric sensitivity, the other subscale of ESS, and neither regarding emotional expressivity. However, it was found that those with more frequent dance habits scored higher on the Impulse Strength subscale of the BEQ. Our findings point out the relationship between dance and our ability to perceive emotions, which could have interesting educational and clinical implications. Lastly, we discuss current and future perspectives on the topic.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets

This research was conducted with two main goals—to contribute to knowledge on the development of empathy from early adolescence to adulthood, including its contribution to decoding emotion expression, and to improve the understanding of the nature of empathy by simultaneously assessing empathy toward two different targets—humans and animals. It unfolded into two cross-sectional studies: One (S1) obtaining measures of empathy toward humans and animals as targets across five age groups (from pre-adolescents to adults); and another (S2) where a subset of the adolescents who participated in S1 were assessed in emotion expression decoding and subjective and physiological responses to emotional video clips. The results of S1 showed that empathy toward animals and most dimensions of empathy toward humans increase toward adulthood, with important gender differences in empathy to animals and humans, and empathy levels in girls starting off in the age trajectory at higher levels, A moderate correlation between empathy toward human and toward animal targets was also found. S2 showed that the expression of positive emotion is better recognized than that of negative emotion, surprise, or neutral expression, and that the measure of human-directed empathy predicts successful decoding of negative emotion, whereas skin conductance responses (SCRs) and subjective valence ratings predicted successful identification of positive emotion. Gender differences emerged but not across all age groups nor all subscales. Results yield keys to the developmental “pace” and trajectory of the various dimensions of empathy and to how empathy relates to emotion decoding.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Implementation of a cognitive radio access system

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologi

The Central Role of Cytochrome P450 in Xenobiotic Metabolism—A Brief Review on a Fascinating Enzyme Family

Funding: The elaboration of this manuscript was in part funded by grant UID/BIM/0009/2020 of the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) for the Research Center for Toxicogenomics and Human Health (ToXomics).publishersversionpublishe

Playing for better or for worse? Health and Social outcomes with electronic gaming

Of the many of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products, electronic games are considered as having great potential for improving health and social outcomes. This chapter considers the factors that may be involved in facilitating health and social outcomes and also those factors that might be considered risk factors by reviewing studies that have shown both positive and detrimental effects on people’s physical and mental health. The authors also debate some research questions that remain unanswered and suggest guidelines for practitioners, researchers, and game designers.This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT) under the grant PTDC/PSI-PSO/099985/2008

Coproducing leadership: a reason to resist destructive leaders

Purpose: Follower's individual differences have been receiving increased attention in studying destructive leadership because followers may enable or disable it. One of these yet under-researched features is the role of followers' leadership coproduction beliefs (a role construal) in explaining their resistance to destructive leaders. Departing from the proactive motivation theory, this paper explores the robustness of coproduction beliefs by testing its ability to predict followers' resistance to destructive leaders across four situations – abusive supervision, exploitative leadership, organization directed behaviors and laissez-faire. Design/methodology/approach: With a sample of 359 participants that answered a scenario-based survey, the present study tests the relationship between coproduction beliefs and resistance behaviors in the four mentioned groups, while controlling for alternative explanations. A multigroup analysis was conducted with PLS-SEM. Findings: Constructive resistance is always favored by coproduction beliefs independently of the leader's type of destructive behavior. Dysfunctional resistance, however, is sensitive to the leader's type of destructive behavior. Originality/value: This paper extends knowledge on the role of coproduction beliefs as an individual-based resource against destructive leaders.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Access to data for personalized pricing: can it raise entry barriers and abuse of dominance concerns?

This paper offers some insights for competition policy agencies in charge of determining whether the use of data by dominant firms can harm competition and consumers. When the welfare criterion is consumer surplus we show that in markets characterized by sufficiently low entry costs, the ability of the incumbent firm to price discriminate is not enough to exclude the rival from the market. In this case, we show that price discrimination intensifies competition and overall consumer surplus is above its non-discrimination counterpart. In these markets there are no reasons to block price discrimination. In contrast, in markets with intermediate values of entry costs, the incumbent access to data for personalised prices, might act as an important barrier to entry. With no intervention, the entrant would decide to stay out and the incumbent would be able to increase profits at the expense of consumer welfare.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT