Validation and adaptation of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) in fitness group exercisers

Background: Recently, Mullen et al. (2011) presented an 8-item version of the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) providing a valid instrument for assessing enjoyment in physical activity. The present paper investigated the psychometric properties of a Portuguese adaptation of PACES.Methods: After a process of back-to-back translation into Portuguese, 395 members of fitness centers who ranged in age from 18 to 66 years (31.11 ± 8.90, mean ± SD) completed the translated version of the PACES. On average, participants had 3.2 years of experience in fitness group classes and practiced for approximately 3.3 times per week.Results: An initial exploratory factor analysis (n = 139) revealed a unidimensional structure with factor loadings ranging from 0.79 to 0.89. Results also showed acceptable internal consistency. A confirmatory factor analysis in an independent sample (n = 256) provided additional support for the unidimensional structure of the questionnaire. In addition, moderate positive correlations between enjoyment and intrinsic and identified regulation, and moderate negative correlations between enjoyment and external and amotivation demonstrate the convergent validity of the instrument. Finally, measurement invariance between two independent samples was also found.Conclusion: The 8-item Portuguese version of PACES is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring enjoyment of physical activity in Portuguese adult's fitness exercisers, therefore suitable to use as a measure of affect in exercise adherence interventions studies

Reflexiones sobre la información en salud y su dimensión ética1

It is argued that, in health, the ethical problems that beset or occur in the handling of information reaching under a special dimension of meaning that this information is for the health of the population. In the case of health care between ethical abominations not only the classical expressions observed in any field, such as plagiarism, false authorship or duplicate publications. It also has what is distorted, which is said to mean, what is hidden and what is invented. Using real and recent examples, illustrates how the press, scientist and specialized journals may incur into these serious faults in communicating and disseminating health information, regardless of the area in question, be it clinical, epidemiological or the basic sciences. They can occur under scientific ignorance suffering in the least alarming case, or because of a mere irresponsible behavior, in more serious cases, but also as derivative commercial greed and desire in the worst and most common of them

Perceptions of parenting practices and psychological variables of elite and sub-elite youth athletes

Drawing from the model of parental involvement in sport, the overall purpose was to examine the associations of perceptions of parenting practices (encouragement, reinforcement, instruction, and role modeling) and athletes’ psychological variables (self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, self-regulation, and intrinsic motivation) of elite and sub-elite youth athletes. Participants were elite (n = 210) and sub-elite (n = 635) athletes aged between 14 and 18 years (Mage = 16.58, SD = 1.33). Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that young elite athletes’ perceptions of sport-related parenting practices are associated with their psychological skills and performance level in sport. Specifically, in comparison with their sub-elite peers, perceptions of parental encouragement had a significantly different strong effect on intrinsic motivation. Moreover, perceptions of parental modeling revealed different effects on performance level, as well as on intrinsic motivation, and self-regulation. These perceptions of parenting practices may promote a positive learning environment, resulting in an increased likelihood of achieving a high level of sport performance in comparison with their sub-elite peers

Parental involvement in sport:psychometric development and empirical test of a theoretical model

The purposes of the present multistudy were to develop and provide initial construct validity for measures based on the model of parental involvement in sport (Study 1) and examine structural relationships among the constructs of the model (Study 2). In Study 1 (nparents = 342, nathletes = 223), a confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify the psychometric properties of the measures. Content and construct validity were evaluated, as well individual and composite reliability. Multi-group analysis with two independent samples provided evidence of factorial invariance. In Study 2 (nparents = 754, nathletes = 438), structural equation modeling analysis supported the hypothesised model in which athletes’ perceptions of parents’ behaviours mediated the relationship between parents’ reported behaviours and the athletes’ psychological variables conducive to their achievement in sport. The findings provide support for the parental involvement in sport model and demonstrate the role of perceptions of parents’ behaviours on young athletes’ cognitions in sport

Reflexiones sobre la información en salud y su dimensión ética1

It is argued that, in health, the ethical problems that beset or occur in the handling of information reaching under a special dimension of meaning that this information is for the health of the population. In the case of health care between ethical abominations not only the classical expressions observed in any field, such as plagiarism, false authorship or duplicate publications. It also has what is distorted, which is said to mean, what is hidden and what is invented. Using real and recent examples, illustrates how the press, scientist and specialized journals may incur into these serious faults in communicating and disseminating health information, regardless of the area in question, be it clinical, epidemiological or the basic sciences. They can occur under scientific ignorance suffering in the least alarming case, or because of a mere irresponsible behavior, in more serious cases, but also as derivative commercial greed and desire in the worst and most common of them

Critical success factors for the adoption of activity streams in enterprise context

The deployment of social technology within the corporate sector is evolving and increasingly demonstrating its value for connecting people. At a time when social media’s pervasiveness has shaped the business sector, it is important to explore new ways of optimizing its use and harness its benefits to their fullest extent, to engage the employees and the customers as well as to increase revenue. In the context of enterprises, the use of social media can profit from the organisation that activity streams offer. By grouping the actions of users in social media, an activity stream can offer a customized and organized visualization of events that can assist companies to make sense and manage their social media activities. This paper draws extensively from existing research on the application of information systems within enterprises to create a set of critical success factors for the implementation of activity streams. The critical success factors that this paper proposes were assessed through an online survey that was completed by 360 social networks’ users. The survey analysis showed a complete acceptance of the factors by the majority of the respondents, with a particular focus on factors deriving from three categories: effective communication, processes and activities, and strategy and purpose.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Olá marketing plan: the launching of an ice cream for the senior market

This master project has the objective to develop a marketing strategic and operational plan to support the launching of a range of ice cream products specifically designed to target to the senior consumer. This range of products will be launched in the Portuguese market by Olá during the summer of 2012. In this project we have identified the potential market and verified the value of the new product for Olá. To achieve this we made a strategic and operational study that will allow to evaluate the impact the new product will have for the brand and what will be the need of resources to implement the project. A marketing strategy was defined and marketing-mix components were designed to create an ice cream that will respond effectively to the senior needs. Finally, we provided several insights about senior consumer and his needs. We adapted this new range of products to what we find as the expectations of senior people about the ice cream category and Olá.Este projecto de mestrado tem como objectivo o desenvolvimento de um Plano de Marketing ao nível estratégico e operacional de forma a suportar o lançamento de uma gama de gelados especificamente direccionada para o público sénior. Esta gama de produtos será lançada no mercado português no Verão de 2012. Neste projecto identificámos o Mercado potencial e verificamos o valor do novo produto para a Olá. Neste sentido foi elaborado um estudo estratégico e operacional que permitirá avaliar o impacto do novo produto para a marca e quais serão os recursos necessários para implementar o projecto. Foi definida uma estratégia de marketing e construído um marketing-mix que permitirá a criação de um gelado que responde efectivamente às necessidades do mercado sénior. Finalmente, providenciamos também um conjunto de informações importantes sobre o consumidor sénior e as suas necessidades. Adaptámos a nova gama de produtos ao que consideramos serem as expectativas do mercado sénior sobre a categoria de gelados e sobre a Olá

SHStream: Self-Healing Framework for HTTP Video-Streaming

HTTP video-streaming is leading delivery of video content over the Internet. This phenomenon is explained by the ubiquity of web browsers, the permeability of HTTP traffic and the recent video technologies around HTML5. However, the inclusion of multimedia requests imposes new requirements on web servers due to responses with lifespans that can reach dozens of minutes and timing requirements for data fragments transmitted during the response period. Consequently, web- servers require real-time performance control to avoid playback outages caused by overloading and performance anomalies. We present SHStream , a self-healing framework for web servers delivering video-streaming content that provides (1) load admit- tance to avoid server overloading; (2) prediction of performance anomalies using online data stream learning algorithms; (3) continuous evaluation and selection of the best algorithm for prediction; and (4) proactive recovery by migrating the server to other hosts using container-based virtualization techniques. Evaluation of our framework using several variants of Hoeffding trees and ensemble algorithms showed that with a small number of learning instances, it is possible to achieve approximately 98% of recall and 99% of precision for failure predictions. Additionally, proactive failover can be performed in less than 1 secon

Results of socio-environmental strategies and pratices in flexographic processes

This study aims to identify the results of social and environmental sustainability strategies in flexographic printing processes of labels and labels. The research consisted of a literature review, followed by an exploratory-descriptive study of qualitative nature. Data collection took place in a primary way through a semi-structured on-site interview with the company's owner, and also involved access to documents. In conclusion, the article analyzes the results of two years in relation to social and environmental practices and the identification of sustainability practices obtained in the company