Video streaming services: what do customers want

The increasing popularity of video streaming services has been around for some years, challenging traditional media companies to pay close attention to them. Among other aspects, Portugal is one of the European countries where people watch most television content, making it a relevant case to study in terms of these new services. This research analyses consumers’ preferences and willingness-to-pay and proposes segments for the streaming services market in Portugal. It employs conjoint analysis to pursue these goals as well as to identify possible avenues for future research. Content was found to be the main driver in opting between services. Keywords: Over-the-top (OTT); video streaming services; Conjoint analysis; Brand choice; Content design

Tailored digital interventions to reduce alcohol consumption: a secondary analysis of a systematic review

Dissertação de Mestrado realizada sob a orientação da Professora Doutora Marta Moreira Marques, apresentada no Ispa - Instituto Universitário, para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica.Introdução: O consumo nocivo de álcool é um dos principais fatores de risco para problemas de saúde em todo o mundo. Existem algumas evidências de que as intervenções digitais de mudança de comportamento em saúde (IDMCS) podem ajudar as pessoas a reduzir o consumo de álcool. A possibilidade de personalização do conteúdo ou estrutura destas intervenções permite um maior ajustamento ao utilizador. Porém, não existe ainda uma compreensão profunda das características dessa personalização. Objetivos: identificar os componentes chave das IDMCS para redução do consumo de álcool em termos de: (i) características da personalização, (ii) modo de implementação, (iii) dose, (iv) uso da teoria, (v) efeito da intervenção. Método: Foi realizada uma análise secundária de uma revisão sistemática (Beyer et al., 2022) focada em estudos randomizados de intervenções digitais personalizadas. Com base nas classificações estandardizadas disponíveis, um investigador procedeu à extração de todos os artigos e um segundo investigador extraiu de forma independente informação de 20% das publicações. Resultados: Foram incluídos oitenta e nove estudos que incluíam 116 intervenções digitais. Apesar de todos os estudos reportarem mecanismos e táticas de personalização, nenhum fez referência a sistemas de classificação existentes. Praticamente todas as intervenções reportaram as características individuais com base nas quais a personalização foi efetuada, bem como o modo de implementação. A relação entre a teoria e a personalização esteve presente em menos de metade das intervenções (45%) e uma descrição completa da dose foi feita em 29% das intervenções. Discussão: A compilação da informação sobre as componentes das intervenções constituiu um desafio devido à falta de clareza e descrições detalhadas, principalmente no que diz respeito à relação entre a personalização e os outros elementos da intervenção. Este conhecimento é essencial para perceber a ‘caixa negra’ da personalização, que pode contribuir para a melhoria das IDMCS.ABSTRACT: Background: The harmful use of alcohol is one of the major risk factors for poor health globally. There is some evidence that digital health behaviour change interventions (DHBCIs) can help people reduce their alcohol intake. These interventions allow for higher precision by tailoring the content or structuring it to the user. However, a deeper understanding of tailoring characteristics is still missing. Objectives: To identify the core components of DHBCIs for alcohol reduction in terms of (i) tailoring characteristics, (ii) modes of delivery, (iii) dose, (iv) use of theory, (v) intervention effect. Methods: A secondary analysis of a systematic review (Beyer et al., 2022) was performed covering randomized controlled trials reporting digitally delivered tailored interventions. Using available standardized classification systems, one researcher retrieved relevant data from all reports and a second researcher independently extracted information for 20% of the publications. Results: Eighty-nine studies were included, which reported 116 digital interventions. Despite all studies having reported tailoring mechanisms and tactics, none referred to the existing categorization. Reporting of individual factors in which tailoring was based on and of the mode of delivery was done for almost all interventions. Links between theory and tailoring were presented in less than half of the interventions (45%) and complete descriptions of dose were done in 29% of the interventions. Discussion: Due to a lack of clarity and detailed descriptions of the interventions, the compilation of information about its components was challenging, especially the reporting of the connections between tailoring and the other essential intervention elements. This knowledge is essential to understand the ‘black box’ of tailoring which can enhance DHBCIs

A pilot study evaluating the safety of vaginal administration of a multi-particulate pellet formulation

Aim: Quantitative evaluation of the effect caused by vaginal administration of gelatin capsules loaded with starch pellets and lyophilized powder, respectively, on vaginal pH and microflora. Method: Administration of gelatin capsules loaded with fast-disintegrating starch pellets (group P) or lyophilized lactose/skimmed milk (group L) was compared to no intervention (group C) in a 3-way randomized, double-blinded, parallel study with 18 volunteers. Follow-up visits were at day 6 (immediately after administration), day 14 (pill stop), day 22 (after withdrawal bleeding) and day 35 (midcycle). Vaginal pH was measured and swabs were taken for Gram staining and culture to assess the presence of hydrogen peroxide-producing lactobacilli. Colposcopy was performed to assess the occurrence of adverse effects on the vaginal and ectocervical mucosa. Results: No severe adverse events occurred. For all women, vaginal pH and Gram stain were normal from screening until pill stop. Although immediately after withdrawal bleeding, 8 out of 18 women had an elevated pH, a disturbed microflora or lacked hydrogen peroxide-producing lactobacilli, all women had hydrogen peroxide-producing lactobacilli and a normal vaginal pH at midcycle, and all but two had a normal Gram stain. Conclusion: No major differences could be observed between the groups, whereby all changes in pH and microflora could be ascribed to withdrawal bleeding, indicating that gelatin capsules, starch pellets and lyophilized powder are acceptable carrier materials for the vaginal delivery of probiotic strains

Reaction of Capsicum peppers commercialized in the Federal District to bacterial wilt.

To verify the bacterial wilt reaction on Capsicum peppers commercialized in the Federal District (DF), fruits of several genotypes within this genus were collected from six different fairs distributed in the satellite cities of Gama, Sobradinho and Guará

A MIL Approach for Anomaly Detection in Surveillance Videos from Multiple Camera Views

Occlusion and clutter are two scene states that make it difficult to detect anomalies in surveillance video. Furthermore, anomaly events are rare and, as a consequence, class imbalance and lack of labeled anomaly data are also key features of this task. Therefore, weakly supervised methods are heavily researched for this application. In this paper, we tackle these typical problems of anomaly detection in surveillance video by combining Multiple Instance Learning (MIL) to deal with the lack of labels and Multiple Camera Views (MC) to reduce occlusion and clutter effects. In the resulting MC-MIL algorithm we apply a multiple camera combined loss function to train a regression network with Sultani's MIL ranking function. To evaluate the MC-MIL algorithm first proposed here, the multiple camera PETS-2009 benchmark dataset was re-labeled for the anomaly detection task from multiple camera views. The result shows a significant performance improvement in F1 score compared to the single-camera configuration.Comment: 8 Pages, 4 Figure

Levels of manganese, iron, zinc and mercury in vegetarian foods

Abstract publicado em: https://icfc2023.com/bookofabstracts/The increasing popularity of vegetarian diet has induced science to better study this foods. As long as it includes the necessary intake of nutrients, such as minerals, can be beneficial to health. In addition, concern about food safety has increased in recent years, leading to studies to evaluate food contamination by toxic metals, regarding food poisoning prevention and public health improvement. The purpose of this work was to quantify manganese, iron, zinc and mercury contents in different foods for a plant-based diet. Mineral levels were determined by Inductive Plasma Coupled Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). Total mercury content was determined by a thermal decomposition and amalgamation atomic absorption spectrophotometry (TDA/AAS). Manganese level ranged from 0.10 mg/100g (<Limit of Quantification (LoQ)) in mushrooms, vegetable drinks and margarines to 22.6 mg/100g in seaweed Nori. Content of iron ranged from 0.22 mg/100g (<LoQ) in bamboo shoots mushrooms, brown mushrooms vegetable drinks, rice vegetable drink and margarines to 25.8 mg/100g in seaweed Nori. Level of zinc ranged from 0.22 mg/100g (<LoQ) in shoots, vegetable drinks and vegetable yogurt to 2.98 mg/100g in seaweed Nori. Regarding mercury content, all samples presented levels below LoQ (1.1 µg/kg), with exception of pleurotus mushrooms, that presented a low but quantified value (8.9 µg/kg). It was found that, in general, the analyzed foods presented mineral values below the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) per 100 g of food, with exception of seaweed Nori, that exceed the RDA of manganese and iron, and chickpea that surpasses the RDA of manganese. This study provides support for future studies regarding mineral content in vegetarian foods and supply the Portuguese Food Composition Table. As expected, vegetarian food samples presented low levels of studied minerals, with the exception of grain and seaweed. Since mercury is a contaminant, pleurotus mushrooms may require attention to its presence, despite there is no legislation for mercury levels in mushrooms. It is concluded, therefore, that the vegetarian dietary pattern must be well planned, taking into account the importance of a varied, balanced and complete diet, including adequate food choices, in order to supply the deficit and reduce exposure to toxic substances.N/