The use of new digital information and communication technologies in psychological counseling during the CoViD-19 pandemic

The use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) has enabled many professionals to continue to provide their services during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about the adoption of ICTs by psychologists and the impact of such technologies on their practice. This study aimed to explore psychologists’ practices related with the use of ICTs before and during the COVID-19 lockdown, to identify the main changes that the pandemic has brought and the impact that such changes have had on their practice with clients, and also identify the factors that potentially have affected such changes. The Portuguese Psychologists Association announced the study, and 108 psychologists responded to an online survey during the mandatory lockdown. The results showed that these professionals continued to provide their services due to having adopted ICTs. Comparing with face-to-face interventions, psychologists recognized that additional precautions/knowledge were needed to use such technologies. Despite the challenges identified, they described the experience with the use of ICTs as positive, meeting clients’ adherence, and yielding positive results. Psychologists with the most years of professional experience maintained their services the most, but those with average experience showed the most favorable attitudes toward the use of technologies and web-based interventionsThis research was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through R&D Units funding (UIDB/05210/2020), and through a doctoral grant (SFRH/BD/138723/2018) awarded to Andreia Geraldo.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Impact of Double Skin Façade on the Energy Consumption of Office Buildings under the Tropical Brazilian Climate

Double skin façade (DSF) is an attractive architectural element in modern office buildings that, while giving a transparent appearance to buildings, can potentially be able to moderate the indoor thermal conditions and reduce energy demands. Developments in warmer climate countries such as Brazil are beginning to consider the application of DSF technology as a solution to improve thermal and energy performance in their buildings. Building upon the experience of a comprehensive research programme on the study of the thermal performance of office buildings with DSF, from which key design parameters affecting the thermal behaviour of DSF have been identified and evaluated, this study aims to examine the impact on energy consumptions. Using an office building model with an optimised DSF, this study assesses the energy consumptions when the building is fully air conditioned or operated under a mixed mode ventilation strategy. Models with similar characteristics but with single skin façade are also studied for comparison. Computational models developed for this study are evaluated using the dynamic simulation program IESVE which integrates building fabric thermal behaviour and environmental systems operating under the climatic conditions of the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro. The results indicate that natural ventilation can provide the necessary thermal comfort in over 34% of the year in the building model with DSF under mixed mode ventilation strategy, that can potentially reduce 21% of annual cooling energy when compared to the fully air conditioned model. However, energy savings due to the addition of DSF alone are relatively small - 15% in full air conditioned model and 6% in mixed mode ventilation model. The benefit to thermal energy consumption is therefore marginal. However, comprehensive whole life evaluation is needed to provide a holistic assessment when other beneficial contributors, such as lighting, smart glazing and integrated PV are taken into consideration

Recognizing emotions through facial expressions: a largescale experimental study

Experimental research examining emotional processes is typically based on the observation of images with affective content, including facial expressions. Future studies will benefit from databases with emotion-inducing stimuli in which characteristics of the stimuli potentially influencing results can be controlled. This study presents Portuguese normative data for the identification of seven facial expressions of emotions (plus a neutral face), on the Radboud Faces Database (RaFD). The effect of participants' gender and models' sex on emotion recognition was also examined. Participants (N = 1249) were exposed to 312 pictures of white adults displaying emotional and neutral faces with a frontal gaze. Recognition agreement between the displayed and participants' chosen expressions ranged from 69% (for anger) to 97% (for happiness). Recognition levels were significantly higher among women than among men only for anger and contempt. The emotion recognition was higher either in female models or in male models depending on the emotion. Overall, the results show high recognition levels of the facial expressions presented, indicating that the RaFD provides adequate stimuli for studies examining the recognition of facial expressions of emotion among college students. Participants' gender had a limited influence on emotion recognition, but the sex of the model requires additional consideration

Jovian dust streams: Probes of the Io plasma torus

Jupiter was discovered to be a source of high speed dust particles by the Ulysses spacecraft in 1992. These dust particles originate from the volcanic plumes on Io. They collect electrostatic charges from the plasma environment, gain energy from the co-rotating electric field of the magnetosphere, and leave Jupiter with escape speeds over $\rm 200 km s^{-1}$. The dust streams were also observed by the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft. While Ulysses and Cassini only had a single encounter with Jupiter, Galileo has continuously monitored the dust streams in the Jovian magnetosphere since 1996. The observed dust fluxes exhibit large orbit-to-orbit variability due to both systematic and stochastic changes. By combining the entire data set, the variability due to stochatic processes can be approximately removed and a strong variation with Jovian local time is found. This result is consistent with theoretical expectations and confirms that the majority of the Jovian dust stream particles originate from Io rather than other potential sources.Comment: 4 pages, 1 b/w figure, 2 color figures, accepted for Geophysical Research Letter

Titan's Atomic and Molecular Nitrogen Tori

Shematovich et al. (2003) recently showed plasma induced sputtering in Titan's atmosphere is a source of neutral nitrogen in Saturn's magnetosphere comparable to the photo-dissociation source. These sources form a toroidal nitrogen cloud roughly centered at Titan's orbital radius but gravitationally bound to Saturn. Once ionized, these particles contribute to Saturn's plasma. When Titan is inside Saturn's magnetopause, newly formed ions can diffuse inward becoming inner magnetospheric energetic nitrogen where they can sputter and be implanted into icy satellite surfaces. Our 3-D simulation produces the first consistent Titan generated N and N2 neutral clouds; solar UV radiation and magnetospheric plasma subject these particles to dissociation and ionization. The cloud morphologies and associated nitrogen plasma source rates are predicted in anticipation of Cassini data. Since the amount of molecular nitrogen ejected from Titan by photo-dissociation is small, molecular nitrogen ions detection by Cassini will be an indicator of atmospheric sputtering.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Geophysical Research Letter

Global MHD simulations of Saturn's magnetosphere at the time of Cassini approach

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94588/1/grl19801.pd

Localization of gravity on a de Sitter thick braneworld without scalar fields

In this work we present a simple thick braneworld model that is generated by an intriguing interplay between a 5D cosmological constant with a de Sitter metric induced in the 3-brane without the inclusion of scalar fields. We show that 4D gravity is localized on this brane, provide analytic expressions for the massive Kaluza-Klein (KK) fluctuation modes and also show that the spectrum of metric excitations displays a mass gap. We finally present the corrections to Newton's law due to these massive modes. This model has no naked singularities along the fifth dimension despite the existence of a mass gap in the graviton spectrum as it happens in thick branes with 4D Poincare symmetry, providing a simple model with very good features: the curvature is completely smooth along the fifth dimension, it localizes 4D gravity and the spectrum of gravity fluctuations presents a mass gap, a fact that rules out the existence of phenomenologically dangerous ultralight KK excitations in the model. We finally present our solution as a limit of scalar thick branes.Comment: 11 pages in latex, no figures, title and abstract changed, a new section and some references adde