Low-cost internet of things and snapshot geolocation pipeline in marine sensing

Biologging and biotelemetry are commonly used as methods to assess marine biodiversity pop ulation. However, current state-of-the-art devices (commonly referred to as tags) remain at the greater cost of production while geolocation and georeferencing methods use proprietary satellite constellations, remain expensive and are prone to greater battery usage. This dissertation enhances such state-of-the-art devices, providing affordable tags for multipurpose usage. Dissertation contri bution is two-fold. In first, it describes the design of low-cost telecommunication system comprised from tag emitters and land receivers, evaluated during the sea-vessel field trips in pelagic area of Madeira island. In second, it also describes the software pipeline for deducing the position of tags, leveraging the raw signal from obtained GPS receivers.Bio-logging e biotelemetria são métodos de grande importância como métodos de avaliação da biodiversidade marítima. No entanto, os dispositivos atuais normalmente referidos por tags per manecem com um elevado custo de produção e, são suscetiveis a elevado consumo de energia. Esta dissertação procura melhorar o bio-logging e a biotelemetria para a estimativa da biodiversidade marítima, com três contribuições distintas: (i) realizar análise em detalhe de sistemas de última geração de bio-logging e de biotelemetria, (ii) desenvolver um sistema inovador usando Internet of things (IoT) e Long Range (LoRa), e (iii) melhorar o sistema fastloc com computação no CPU da tag, para estimar a posição de mamíferos marítimos na superfície do mar. O príncipal objetivo é reduzir o custo de tais sistemas de detecção, explorando o IoT, LoRa e fastloc na cricação de bio-loggers e sistemas de biotelemetria

The Role of Predisposition to Hallucinations on Non-Clinical Paranoid vs. Socially Anxious Individuals after Hearing Negative Affective-Laden Sounds: An Experimental Investigation

Background: Research suggested that negative affective-laden sounds act as environmental stressors that elicit negative affect (Bradley and Lang, 2000a). Aims: We tried to test for the role of an interaction between predisposition to hallucinatory experiences and exposure to negative affective laden sounds for the presence of paranoid ideation. Method: We used an experimental design that followed the vulnerability × stress model. We defined three groups from a sample of students: paranoia group vs. social anxiety group vs. control group. Their psychological characteristics were measured through self-reports of paranoia, anxiety, predisposition to hallucinations and depressive symptoms at Time 1 (before the experiment). Participants had to listen to either negative affective laden sounds (e.g. screaming) or positive affective laden sounds (e.g. sound of ocean waves). Their paranoid ideation and positive vs. negative emotional reactions to sounds were measured through self-reports at Time 2 (after the experiment). Results: Data showed that the paranoia group presented more serious psychological vulnerabilities than the social anxiety group. A MANCOVA also showed that the independent variables (“group” and “experimental sound conditions”) had statistically significant main effects on general paranoia ideation at Time 2. Furthermore, there was a significant three-way interaction between group x predisposition to hallucinatory experiences × experimental condition of sounds for the presence of general paranoid ideation at Time 2. Limitations included the small sample size and the effects of parasite variables, e.g. noise. Conclusions: Individuals’ predisposition for hallucinatory experiences increases the probability of possessing paranoid ideation. This tendency is a characteristic of paranoid nonclinical individuals

A new approach to explain the link between Social Support and Depression in a 2-years Arthritis Rheumatoid Sample. Is there any moderation effect of Acceptance?

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi

Concurrent effects of different psychological processes in the prediction of depressive symptoms - the role of cognitive fusion

Cognitive fusion refers to the dominance of verbal processes over behavior regulation, in detriment of being sensitive to contextual contingencies and pursuing valued life goals. It is a core process within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and seems to have a crucial role in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. The first goal of this investigation was to explore the factor structure, factorial invariance and psychometrics of the Portuguese version of the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (CFQ). A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis attested the invariant one-dimensional factor structure of the CFQ across three samples from the general population (n = 408; n = 291; n = 101) with different demographic characteristics. Additionally, the CFQ showed to be a psychometrically robust and reliable measure. A second major goal was to investigate the convergent and incremental validity of this version of CFQ (n = 408). Convergent validity was explored and attested with several psychological indicators. Regarding incremental validity, the predictive power of depressive symptoms of cognitive fusion and three related processes, with origin in different conceptual frameworks, was tested. Results showed that even when the effects of decentering, mindfulness and metacognitions were controlled for, cognitive fusion consistently maintained a significant and unique predictive power over depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that these processes relate differentially and independently with depressive symptoms and, moreover, that cognitive fusion has a superior contribution to its explanation. Given the evidence that cognitive fusion plays an important role in the comprehension of depressive symptoms, conceptual and clinical implications were discussed