Evaluating continuous assessment quality in competence-based education online : the case of the e-Folio

The pedagogical model, in use at Universidade Aberta (UAb) since 2007, is based on four cornerstones: student-centered learning; flexibility; interaction; digital inclusion. The cornerstone of digital inclusion is particularly important in the context of a fully virtual learning environment such as the one offered at UAb. The article was the result of a research project developed at the Distance Education Laboratory (LE@D – Laboratório de Educação a Distância) of UAb, focused on assessment issues, namely the two main types of instruments (e-folios and p-folios) used in undergraduate fully online courses at UAb. The research work developed by the team (Alda Pereira; Isolina Oliveira; Luís Tinoca; Lúcia Amante; Maria de Jesus C. Relvas; Maria do Carmo T. Pinto; Darlinda Moreira), whose members produced this paper, was particularly focused on the e-folio which a) is a short digital document; b) should clearly demonstrate the student’s acquired or developed given competence; c) may include a critical reflection about the student’s own learning, or a report about field work, or a problem solving activity, or a reading review, or the production of an artifact. Two main research questions were therefore asked, as a basis for both the whole project and this paper: 1) what relationship is there between the concept of competence being used in the e-folios and our current working definition? 2) what are the main characteristics of the e-folios? The research is based on the analysis of a pool of 35 e-folios collected within a sample of volunteer teachers, representing seven different scientific areas (education; languages; culture; literature; natural sciences; economy; documental sciences), preceded by a group discussion and clarification period around the concept of competence, and followed up by the creation of an analysis grid centered on the following criteria: the course competences; the e-folio competences; types of competences; the assignment; types of task; assessment criteria; instructions; resources; timetable; and structure. From the analysed e-folios, it becomes clear that the assessed competences were all framed by the concept of competence assumed by this research group, although they are not always presented with a clear formulation; it also becomes clear that the most valued type of competence was “problem solving”, with a recurrent use of textual based resources, and that there were several interpretations of what an e-folio may be

Analysis of salivary levels of IL-1β, IL17A, OPG and RANK-L in periodontitis using the 2017 Classification of Periodontal Diseases - an exploratory observational study

Periodontitis is a chronic disease with a high overall prevalence. It involves a complex interplay between the immune-inflammatory pathways and biofilm changes, leading to periodontal attachment loss. The aims of this study were (i) to assess whether the salivary IL-1β, IL-17A, RANK-L and OPG levels have the potential to discriminate between the mild and severe periodontitis conditions; and (ii) to enable diagnostic/prognostic actions to differentiate between distinct levels of the disease. The analysis of the clinical parameters and the evaluation of the salivary immunomediators levels by means of a multiplex flow assay revealed a statistically significantly higher level of IL-1β in the periodontitis III/IV patients, as well as a higher level of RANK-L in the periodontitis III/IV and I/II patients, when compared to the healthy controls. Furthermore, the grade C periodontitis patients presented a significantly higher level of RANK-L compared to the grade B and grade A patients. In the grade C patients, IL-1β had a positive correlation with the PPD and CAL indices and RANK_L had a positive correlation with CAL. The evidence emerging from this study associates the salivary IL-1β and RANK-L levels with an advanced stage of periodontitis, stage III/IV, and with grade C, suggesting the possible cooperative action of both in the inflammatory and bone loss events. In addition to IL-1β, RANK-L could be considered a combined diagnostic biomarker for periodontitis.This research was funded by the University Institute of Health Sciences (IUCS-CESPU). The participation of Marta Relvas was funded by the project grants AMDNCPD_PI2RL_IINFACTS_2021 and ADMT1PD_GI2-CESPU_2022, while the participation of Luis Monteiro was funded by the project grant mTORORAL_GI2-CESPU_2022 from CESPU University, by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)–project UIDB/50026/2020 and UIDP/50026/2020, by the NORTE-01-0145- FEDER-000013 and NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000023 projects, and by the Norte Portugal Regional Operational Program (NORTE 2020) under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the FCT contracts 2021.07836.BD to AMF and CEECIND/00185/2020 to RS

Cistercian Pavements from Santa Maria de Alcobaça Abbey: first examples of tin-glazed tiles in Portugal

The Mosteiro de Alcobaça (Alcobaça Monastery, founded in 1153) was built to the image of Clairvaux Abbey, founded by the Cistercian abbot St. Bernard. In many ways Alcobaça mirrored the original concepts of the Cistercian Order, with an austere architectural style and shedding signs of richness. The glazed tiles found on the pavement of the deambulatory and some adjacent chapels are some of the first examples of lead-tin glazes in Christian Portugal. For the first time, these tiles were analytically characterized, to determine their chemical composition, production technology and decoration technique. The analytical techniques used were μ-PIXE (particle-induced X-ray emission), SEM-EDS (scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry), and μ-Raman spectroscopy

Caracterização de solos em uma topossequência sob terraços aluviais na região do médio rio Madeira (AM)Characterization of soils in a toposequence under alluvial terraces in the middle rio Madeira (AM)

Vários estudos preocuparam-se em investigar as relações existentes entre os atributos do solo e as paisagens em diferentes locais, neste contexto o objetivo do trabalho foi estudar a caracterização de solos em uma topossequência sob terraços aluviais na região do médio rio Madeira (AM). Estabeleceu-se um caminhamento e com base na vegetação e no relevo, a paisagem foi subdividida em quatro segmentos de vertente: a) campo natural; b) cerradão; c) floresta; e d) floresta de galeria. Foi aberta uma trincheira em cada unidade de vertente e realizado a sua caracterização morfológica, realizou-se as analises físicas (análise granulométrica, Ds, Dp e Pt) e químicas (pH em água e KCl, Ca, Mg, K, P disponivel, Al trocável, H+ Al e C orgânico). A textura do solo foi semelhante (franco argila siltosa, franco siltosa e argilo siltosa), a fração silte foi dominante em todos os solos analisados, a Pt do solo foi maior nos horizontes superficiais devido o menor valor de densidade do solo. Verificou-se que a topografia exprime solos completamente diferentes ao longo do relevo e que as mudanças deste interferem na capacidade de uso destes. Os solos foram classificados como Gleissolo Háplico, Cambissolo Háplico alítico e Cambissolo Háplico aluminico e Gleissolo Háplico. Observou-se que os solos apresentaram predominância de silte como a fração dominante. A saturação por bases e a soma de bases foram baixas, já a saturação por alumínio foi elevada em todos os solos, o que confere um caráter distrófico e álico respectivamente aos solos estudados

Glycan affinity magnetic nanoplatforms for urinary glycobiomarkers discovery in bladder cancer

Bladder Cancer (BC) presents one of the highest recurrence rates amongst solid tumours and constitutes the second deadliest disease of the genitourinary track. Non-invasive identification of patients facing disease recurrence and/or progression remains one of the most critical and challenging aspects in disease management. To contribute to this goal, we demonstrate the potential of glycan-affinity glycoproteomics nanoplatforms for urinary biomarkers discovery in bladder cancer. Briefly, magnetic nanoprobes (MNP) coated with three broad-spectrum lectins, namely Concanavalin A (ConA; MNP@ConA), Wheat Germ Agglutinin (WGA; MNP@WGA), and Sambucus nigra (SNA; MNP@SNA), were used to selectively capture glycoproteins from the urine of low-grade and high-grade non-muscle invasive as well as muscle-invasive BC patients. Proteins were identified by nano-LC MALDI-TOF/TOF and data was curated using bioinformatics tools (UniProt, NetOGlyc, NetNGlyc, ClueGO app for Cytoscape and Oncomine) to highlight clinically relevant species. Accordingly, 63 glycoproteins were exclusively identified in cancer samples compared with healthy controls matching in age and gender. Specific glycoprotein sets exclusively found in low-grade non-muscle invasive bladder tumours may aid early diagnosis, while those only found in high-grade non-invasive and muscle-invasive tumours hold potential for accessing progression. Amongst these proteins is bladder cancer stem-cell marker CD44, which has been associated with poor prognosis. Orthogonal validation studies by slot-blotting demonstrated an elevation in urine CD44 levels of high-grade patients, which became more pronounced upon muscle-invasion, in mimicry of the primary tumour. These observations demonstrate the potential of MNP@lectins for identification of clinically relevant glycoproteomics signatures in bladder cancer. Future clinical validation in a larger and well characterized patient subset is required envisaging clinical translation of the results.publishe

An analysis of the impacts of climatic variability and hydrology on the coastal fisheries, Engraulis encrasicolus and Sepia officinalis, of Portugal

The notion that climate change may impact coastal fish production suggests a need to understand how climatic variables may influence fish catches at different time scales. Evidence suggests that the effect of climatic variability and fishing effort on landed catches (as proxy of fish abundance) may vary at the regional scale. This study aims to assess the sensibility of two commercial species with a short life cycle (Engraulis encrasicolus and Sepia officinalis) to climatic and fisheries effects across different regions of the coast of Portugal: northwestern, southwestern and southern Portugal. The effect of environmental explanatory variables, i.e. NAO index, sea surface temperature (SST), upwelling (UPW) index, river discharge, wind magnitude (WmaG), wind direction (Wdir), and fishing variables (fishing effort) on catch rates time series were studied between 1989 and 2009. The sensibility of the species studied to climatic variability differed among regions and were explained by different climatic variables. River discharge had a significant effect on catch rates of the two species, region independently. However, wind driven phenomenon and UPW were the variables that better explained the observed fishing trends across the three regions. Changes in catch rate trends among the studied regions, at a given time, were mostly associated with the reproduction periods of the species. Therefore, regional analyses will significantly contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between climate change and coastal fisheries, aiming to improve integrated coastal zone management

Novel ocellatin peptides mitigate LPS-induced ROS formation and NF-kB activation in microglia and hippocampal neurons

© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Cre-ative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not per-mitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Cutaneous secretions of amphibians have bioactive compounds, such as peptides, with potential for biotechnological applications. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the primary structure and investigate peptides obtained from the cutaneous secretions of the amphibian, Leptodactylus vastus, as a source of bioactive molecules. The peptides obtained possessed the amino acid sequences, GVVDILKGAAKDLAGH and GVVDILKGAAKDLAGHLASKV, with monoisotopic masses of [M + H]± = 1563.8 Da and [M + H]± = 2062.4 Da, respectively. The molecules were characterized as peptides of the class of ocellatins and were named as Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21). Functional analysis revealed that Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21) showed weak antibacterial activity. However, treatment of mice with these ocellatins reduced the nitrite and malondialdehyde content. Moreover, superoxide dismutase enzymatic activity and glutathione concentration were increased in the hippocampus of mice. In addition, Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21) were effective in impairing lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and NF-kB activation in living microglia. We incubated hippocampal neurons with microglial conditioned media treated with LPS and LPS in the presence of Ocellatin-K1(1-16) and Ocellatin-K1(1-21) and observed that both peptides reduced the oxidative stress in hippocampal neurons. Furthermore, these ocellatins demonstrated low cytotoxicity towards erythrocytes. These functional properties suggest possible to neuromodulatory therapeutic applications.Alexandra Plácido is a recipient of a post-doctoral grant from the project FCT (PTDC/BII-BIO/31158/2017). Renato Socodato and Camila Cabral Portugal hold postdoctoral fellowships from FCT (Refs: SFRH/BPD/91833/2012 and FRH/BPD/91962/2012, respectively). This work was funded through project UID/QUI/50006/2013-POCI/01/0145/FEDER/007265 (LAQV/REQUIMTE) with financial support from FCT/MEC through national funds and co-financed by FEDER, under the Partnership Agreement PT 2020info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

O impacto psicológico da pandemia COVID-19 nos profissionais de emergência pré-hospitalar”: carta ao editor

No artigo “O impacto psicológico da pandemia COVID-19 nos profissionais de emergência pré-hospitalar[EPH (VMER, HELI, SIV, Bombeiros, …)]”, publicado no número 1 do volume 2 da Lifesaving Scientific, o autor aborda os principais riscos e problemas de saúde mental que a pandemia COVID-19 trouxe aos profissionais de saúde portuguesesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

O cartaz como forma de expressão: Pesquisa e prática na Oficina Arara

Esta investigação desenvolve uma pesquisa em relação à prática do design gráfico centrada no cartaz como expressão e meio de acção. A actividade desenvolvida pela Oficina Arara foi o objecto de estudo privilegiado para esta pesquisa. O cartaz aqui referido é o cartaz implicado ideologicamente, que revela questões políticas, sociais e culturais e que procura emancipar o cidadão. O cartaz que marca artisticamente o espaço público da segunda metade do séc. XIX, chega ao nosso tempo adaptando-se ou resistindo às circunstância e às novas formas de mediação. O tempo, que se sente como acelerado, e as condições de produção de um design normativo e massificado, de descarte rápido, conduziram a uma procura sobre como é possível, através de formas mais ‘artesanais’ de design gráfico, responder a estas problemáticas. Uma das possibilidades contemporâneas de resistência aos modos capitalistas de produção, passa por encontrar e pensar formas colaborativas/participativas de criação, de intervenção e comunicação. Uma das práticas recorrentes do colectivo Arara é a produção de cartazes, de carácter interventivo, cujos objectivos se prendem com questões sociais e com o apelo à intervenção pública. O estágio no colectivo Oficina Arara permitiu-me usufruir das condições necessárias para o desenvolvimento de uma investigação prática. Pretendi explorar as potencialidades do trabalho colectivo, através de uma aprendizagem feita num espaço real, com vantagens que não estão disponíveis em ambientes de aprendizagem individual. É nesta ‘arena’ que pretendo desenvolver um trabalho de carácter gráfico-experimental

Qualidade de vida promotora de psycap?: Estudo acerca da percepção da qualidade de vida dos indivíduos como promotora de psycap

Os conceitos de Qualidade de Vida e Psycap tem vindo a ganhar popularidade nas últimas décadas. Vários têm sido os fatores que têm contribuído para este crescente interesse nas questões que envolvem estes dois conceitos. Por um lado, temos a qualidade de vida e a sua importância para o desenvolvimento da sociedade e por outro, o psycap e todas as vantagens que traz o seu desenvolvimento nos indivíduos. Partindo da importância que a qualidade de vida tem para o individuo pretendeu-se com este trabalho compreender de que forma esta poderá fomentar o desenvolvimento de psycap nos indivíduos. Utilizando a amostra do estudo "Os Melhores Municípios para Viver", estudou-se de que forma as perceções de qualidade de vida dos indivíduos fomentam o surgimento de psycap. A análise dos resultados revelou que o psycap dos indivíduos é explicado, ainda que de uma forma moderada, pelos indicadores da qualidade de vida urbana. /ABSTRACT: The concepts of Quality of Life and PsyCap has gained popularity in the recent decades. There have been several factors that have contributed to this growing interest in issues surrounding these two concepts. On one hand, we have quality of life and its importance to the development of society and secondly, PsyCap and all the benefits it brings to their development on individuals. Starting from the importance that quality of life has for the individual, the goal of this research was to understand how quality of life can encourage the development of PsyCap individuals. Using the sample of the study "Os Melhores Municípios para Viver", we studied how the perceptions of quality of life of individuals foster the emergence of PsyCap on them. The results showed that the PsyCap of individuals is explained, although in a moderate way by the indicators of quality of urban life