Main factors in the Escudo Zone Monetary Union (1963-71)

An extensive literature praises economic integration and monetary unions as powerful means for economic convergence between, and the growth of, nations. Several potential factors have been flagged for successful economic convergence, such as labor availability and mobility and the role of initial levels of development (for positive business contagion effects). However, the relevance of this literature can be read differently in the context of a failed monetary union: the Escudo Zone Monetary Union (EZMU, 1963-1971), where policies key for sustainability were in place. This article investigates the operation of the EZMU and examines the important factors in its demise, thereby contributing to the discussion of (un)sustainability of convergence and economic integration.publishersversionpublishe

Assessment of the presence of Hepatitis E virus in surface water and drinking water in Portugal

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a non-enveloped single-stranded positive-sense RNA virus, belonging to the Hepeviridae family, resistant to environmental conditions, and transmitted by the consumption of contaminated water. This virus is responsible for both sporadic and epidemic outbreaks, leading to thousands of infections per year in several countries, and is thus considered an emerging disease in Europe and Asia. This study refers to a survey in Portugal during 2019, targeting the detection and eventual quantification of enteric viruses in samples from surface and drinking water. Samples positive for HEV RNA were recurrently found by reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), in both types of matrix. The infectivity of these samples was evaluated in cultured Vero E6 cells and RNA from putative viruses produced in cultures evidencing cytopathic effects and was subjected to RT-qPCR targeting HEV genomic RNA. Our results evidenced the existence of samples positive either for HEV RNA (77.8% in surface water and 66.7% in drinking water) or for infectious HEV (23.0% in surface water and 27.7% in drinking water). These results highlight the need for effective virological control of water for human consumption and activities.This research was funded by Empresa Portuguesa das Águas Livres (EPAL) and Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) Portugal through a Ph.D. grant to D. Salvador (PDE/BDE/114582/2016) and FCT/MCTES projects UIDP/50017/2020+UIDB/50017/2020 and UIDB/04295/2020 through national funds.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A ação e os valores éticos numa perspetiva de género : propostas para o ensino-aprendizagem do programa de Filosofia do 10º ano

Dissertação de Mestrado em Estudos sobre as Mulheres apresentada à Universidade AbertaEste trabalho consiste na apresentação de propostas sobre uma nova forma de lecionar os conteúdos do programa de Filosofia do 10º ano, apresentando atividades diversificadas para os vários temas, com recurso ao pensamento produzido por filósofas e à discussão de questões levantadas pela temática da igualdade de género no ensino da Filosofia. Pretende-se contribuir para promover nos e nas jovens uma atitude crítica e reflexiva que os prepare para o exercício da cidadania, através de um desenvolvimento alternativo do programa, sem deixar de seguir os objetivos curriculares definidos. Para cada proposta são especificados os objetivos a alcançar e os recursos utilizados para a prossecução desses objetivos, bem como explicitada uma metodologia de aprendizagem para cada atividade. O breve percurso que apresentamos pela razão ocidental, onde se mostra que sempre existiram filósofas desde a antiguidade grega até à atualidade, bem como filósofos que refletiram sobre as questões de género, permite questionar: “Se existem, por que razão não se estudam na disciplina de Filosofia do ensino secundário?” Com o objetivo de responder a esta questão, foi feita uma análise crítica do programa da disciplina, com a finalidade de mostrar que os temas que dele constam permitem a integração de pensamento filosófico construído, quer por mulheres, quer por homens sobre as mulheres. Daí apresentarmos um breve corpus filosófico, constituído por pensadoras do século XX e que refletem as questões fundamentais do nosso tempo, sendo passíveis de ser integradas nos temas do programa em análise, com especial destaque para as questões de natureza ética, dado serem transversais ao programa da mesma. É a partir dessas teorias que foram criadas estas propostas de abordagem do programa de Filosofia do 10º ano, com recurso ao pensamento produzido por teóricas e à discussão de questões levantadas pela temática da igualdade de género no ensino da Filosofia.This work consists on the presentation of proposals of new ways to teach the contents of Philosophy of the 10th school grade. This is done by the suggestion of various activities for the diverse themes, based on the thinking produced by female philosophers as well as on the discussion about issues raised by the problematic of the equality of gender within the context of the teaching of Philosophy. One aims to contribute and to promote a critical and reflexive attitudein young people so as to foster active citizenship, by means of conceptualizing an alternative table of contents and at the same time respecting the predefined curricular objectives. For each proposal the aimed objectives are specified and so are the resources used for their achievement, alongside with the learning methodology for each activity. The brief overview on the western reasoning, in which it is shown that there have always been women philosophers ever since Ancient Greece until present time, together with the existence of male philosophers who have thought over the issues of gender, allows us to ask the question: «As women philosophers exist, why are they not included in the contents of the Philosophy subject in secondary studies?» Bearing this question in mind and aiming to answer it, a critical analysis of the programme of Philosophy was made, with the objective of showing that its themes enable the inclusion of the thinking developed either by women or by men over female philosophers. Hence the presentation of a brief philosophical corpus built by female thinkers of the 20th century, who have dealt with the fundamental issues of our times, and who are admissible to be included in the contents of this school subject. This was done with a special attention to the issues of ethics once these are transversal to the programme itself. Upon those theories, new proposals of approach of the contents of Philosophy of the 10th school grade were made. This been done with the resource of the thinking produced by women theorists and the discussion created over the issues of the equality of gender in the teaching of Philosophy

A dimensão afectiva na relação pedagógica : representações dos alunos dos 2º e 3º ciclos do ensino básico

Tese de mestrado em Ciências da Educação (Área de especialização em Teoria e Desenvolvimento Curricular), apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, 2007Na análise do processo educativo, a delimitação do conceito de relação pedagógica tem sido exaustivamente estudada, reafirmando-se sempre a sua complexidade devido à polissemia conceptual inerente às suas múltiplas dimensões e às diferentes perspectivas em que poderá ser abordada. No seu sentido mais restrito, a relação pedagógica pode ser vista como um dos domínios da relação interpessoal desenvolvida entre professor e aluno. A dimensão humana e social destas relações possui características cognitivas e afectivas que são essenciais ao desenvolvimento do aluno.Reconhecendo-se a complexidade da abordagem dos aspectos afectivos na relação pedagógica é, no entanto, evidente a necessidade de mudança na instituição escolar e no conceito de profissionalidade docente. Nesta perspectiva, apresentamos um estudo com o qual se pretende conhecer as representações dos alunos do 2° e 3° ciclos do ensino básico sobre a importância da dimensão afectiva na relação pedagógica, e para o qual recorremos a metodologias quantitativas e qualitativas. Para a recolha de dados, utilizamos dois tipos de instrumentos: uma subescala do Questionário de Vivências Académicas (QVA), focalizada no relacionamento com professores, aplicada a uma amostra de 142 alunos dos 6° e 9° anos, realização de entrevistas a 12 alunos dos mesmos anos de escolaridade. Os resultados obtidos através da nossa amostra permitem-nos concluir que os alunos expressam uma opinião globalmente positiva acerca da importância do relacionamento com os professores. Verificamos também que estes resultados variam significativamente, em função da idade e do ano de escolaridade, o que veio confirmar algumas das hipóteses por nós, inicialmente, formuladas. Através do discurso oral dos entrevistados, podemos também verificar que, na generalidade, estes atribuem maior importância às competências relacionais dos professores do que à sua preparação académica, na (qualidade) da relação pedagógica. Através dos diferentes estudos realizados sobre esta temática e referenciados ao longo do enquadramento teórico, podemos concluir que os resultados obtidos neste trabalho nos permitem reforçar o pressuposto da importância dos aspectos relacionais e afectivos na relação pedagógica.In the analysis of the educational process, the delimitation of the teacher-student relationship concept has been exhaustively studied, being its complexity always reaffirmed due to the conceptual polysemy inherent to its multiple dimensions and the different perspectives in which it can be approached. In its more restrictive sense, the teacher-student relationship can be seen as one of the domains of the interpersonal relationship developed between teacher and student. The social and human dimensions of these relationships possess cognitive and affective characteristics which are essential to the student's development. Although recognizing how complex it is to deal with the affective aspects of the teacher-student relationship, it is obvious, however, that the school institution needs to change, as does teaching professionalism concept. In this perspective, we present a study in which it is intended to know the representations produced by 2""* and year students from basic teaching about the importance of the affective dimension in the teacher-student relationship, using, for that effect, quantitative and qualitative methodologies. For collecting data we used two types of instruments: a subscale of the Life Experience Academic Questionnaire (QVA), centred in the relationship with teachers and which was applied to a sample of 142 students from the and grade, as well as interviews done to 12 students from the same school year. The results, obtained by both methods, allow us to conclude that the students express a general positive opinion about the importance of the relationship with the teachers. We may also verify that these results vary significantly according to the age and school year of the student, which confirms some of the hypothesis initially formulated by us. By the oral speech of the interviewed students, we can also verify that, in general, they attribute more importance to the teachers relationship competency than to their academic preparation in what concerns the quality of the teacher-student relationship. Through the different studies on this thematic, which we refered to along the theoretic exposition, we may conclude that the obtained results from this work allow us to reinforce the presupposition of the importance of the relational and affective aspects in the teacher-student relationship

Climate change prevention through community actions and empowerment: a scoping review

As society tries to tackle climate change around the globe, communities need to reduce its impact on human health. The purpose of this review is to identify key stakeholders involved in mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as the type and characteristics of community empowerment actions implemented so far to address the problem. Published and unpublished studies from January 2005 to March 2022 in English and Portuguese were included in this review. The search, conducted on PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO, and RCAAP (Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal), followed a three-step search strategy. Data extraction was performed by two independent reviewers, using an extraction tool specifically designed for the review questions. Twenty-seven studies were eligible for inclusion: six used interviews as a qualitative method, three were systematic reviews, three were case study analyses, three used surveys and questionnaires as quantitative methods, two used integrative baseline reviews, and three utilized a process model design. Six studies targeted local, public and private stakeholders. Community settings were the context target of fifteen studies, whereas twelve specifically referred to urban settings. Seven types of community actions were acknowledged across the globe, characterised as hybrid interventions and referring to the leading stakeholders: local governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society, universities, public health, and private sectors.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

longitudinal analysis of the EpiDoC cohort

Funding The present publication was funded by Fundação Ciência e Tecnologia, IP national support through CHRC (UIDP/04923/2020). NM has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 835577. The content refects the authors’ views only and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.BACKGROUND: Nutrition and particularly protein play a role in optimally stimulating muscle protein synthesis and maintaining function. Animal foods are excellent sources of high-quality protein. Therefore, we aimed to determine the association between the consumption of animal foods and mobility limitations in young-old adults. METHODS: The analytic sample was composed of 2860 community-dwelling adults aged 50 and over from a nationally representative longitudinal cohort of Portuguese adults who were followed up to 2.7 years. An animal food intake score was derived from the frequency of consumption of meat, fish, and dairy products. Mobility limitations were defined as the difficulty standing up from a chair, walking, and climbing stairs. To determine the association between animal food intake and mobility limitations mixed effects logistic models were fitted. RESULTS: Associations between quartiles of animal food intake and mobility limitations (for example, for walking outdoors Quartile 4 v Q1: OR: 0.29; 95%CI: 0.15, 0.56) in unadjusted models were present, but there was no difference in the rate of change of mobility limitations over time in unadjusted models. These associations were no longer present when models were adjusted for sociodemographic, lifestyle and health variables. For example, participants in Q4 of animal food intake were not more or less likely to have difficulty climbing stairs than those in Q1 (OR: 0.95; 95%CI: 0.65, 1.38) nor have a different rate of change over time (OR: 0.86; 95%CI: 0.54, 1.37). CONCLUSIONS: No convincing evidence was found to support an effect of animal foods intake measured at baseline on self-reported mobility limitations over a short period of time.publishersversionpublishe

Nursing interventions to reduce health risks from climate change impact in urban areas: a scoping review protocol

Considering that the public health sector has been considered as a key stakeholder in climate action, it seems important to understand what interventions are carried out globally by trusted professionals such as nurses engaged in health promotion and environmental health in optimizing the health of individuals, families, and communities toward the dissemination of lifestyle decarbonization and guidance on healthier climate-related choices. The objective of this review was to understand the extent and type of evidence related to the community-based interventions of nurses that are being led or have been implemented thus far with the aim of reducing the health risks from climate change impact in urban areas. The present protocol follows the JBI methodological framework. Databases to be searched include PubMed, MEDLINE complete, CINAHL, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), and BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine). Hand searched references were also considered for inclusion. This review will include quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies from 2008 onwards. Systematic reviews, text, opinion papers, and the gray literature in English and Portuguese were also considered. Mapping the nurse led interventions or those that have been implemented thus far in urban areas may lead to further reviews that may help identify the best practices and gaps within the field. The results are presented in tabular format alongside a narrative summary.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Analysis of the Equilibrium Distribution of Ligands in Heterogeneous Media–Approaches and Pitfalls

The equilibrium distribution of small molecules (ligands) between binding agents in heterogeneous media is an important property that determines their activity. Heterogeneous systems containing proteins and lipid membranes are particularly relevant due to their prevalence in biological systems, and their importance to ligand distribution, which, in turn, is crucial to ligand’s availability and biological activity. In this work, we review several approaches and formalisms for the analysis of the equilibrium distribution of ligands in the presence of proteins, lipid membranes, or both. Special attention is given to common pitfalls in the analysis, with the establishment of the validity limits for the distinct approaches. Due to its widespread use, special attention is given to the characterization of ligand binding through the analysis of Stern–Volmer plots of protein fluorescence quenching. Systems of increasing complexity are considered, from proteins with single to multiple binding sites, from ligands interacting with proteins only to biomembranes containing lipid bilayers and membrane proteins. A new formalism is proposed, in which ligand binding is treated as a partition process, while considering the saturation of protein binding sites. This formalism is particularly useful for the characterization of interaction with membrane proteins

Low Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet Is Associated with Poor Socioeconomic Status and Younger Age: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the EpiDoC Cohort

Funding: This research was funded by Fundação Ciência e Tecnologia, IP national support through CHRC (UIDP/04923/2020) and through FrailcareAI (DSAIPA/AI/0106/2019).The Mediterranean diet (MD) is recognized as one of the healthiest dietary patterns as it has been consistently associated with several beneficial health outcomes. Adherence to the MD pattern has been decreasing in southern European countries for the last decades, especially among low socioeconomic groups. The aim of this study was to assess the adherence to the MD in Portugal, to evaluate regional differences, and explore associated factors (sociodemographic, economic, and lifestyles behaviors). This study used the third data collection wave of the Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases Cohort Study (EpiDoC 3). MD adherence was assessed using the Portuguese-validated MD adherence score (MEDAS) questionnaire. Non-adjusted and adjusted logistic regression models were used to assess the risk factors for low MD adherence and individual MEDAS items. In this cross-sectional evaluation of the EpiDoC 3 cohort study (n = 5647), 28.8% of the Portuguese population had low adherence to a MD. Azores and Madeira had lower adherence to the MD than the rest of the country. Younger individuals in lower income categories (e.g., ORfinding it very difficult = 1.48; 95% CI 1.16–1.91) and with a lower educational level (e.g., OR0–4 years = 2.63; 95% CI 2.09–3.32) had higher odds of having a lower adherence to the MD. Portuguese adults have a high prevalence of low adherence to the MD, especially among those who are younger and have lower socioeconomic status. Public health policies to promote adherence to the MD should pay special attention to these groups.publishersversionpublishe

Analysis of the equilibrium distribution of Ligands in Heterogeneous Media – Approaches and pitfalls

The equilibrium distribution of small molecules (ligands) between binding agents in heterogeneous media is an important property that determines their activity. Heterogeneous systems containing proteins and lipid membranes are particularly relevant due to their prevalence in biological systems, and their importance to ligand distribution, which, in turn, is crucial to ligand’s availability and biological activity. In this work, we review several approaches and formalisms for the analysis of the equilibrium distribution of ligands in the presence of proteins, lipid membranes, or both. Special attention is given to common pitfalls in the analysis, with the establishment of the validity limits for the distinct approaches. Due to its widespread use, special attention is given to the characterization of ligand binding through the analysis of Stern–Volmer plots of protein fluorescence quenching. Systems of increasing complexity are considered, from proteins with single to multiple binding sites, from ligands interacting with proteins only to biomembranes containing lipid bilayers and membrane proteins. A new formalism is proposed, in which ligand binding is treated as a partition process, while considering the saturation of protein binding sites. This formalism is particularly useful for the characterization of interaction with membrane proteins.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio