Relations Between Theory of Mind and Academic School Readiness: The Moderating Role of Child Gende

This study investigated the prospective relationship between preschoolers’ theory of mind (ToM) skills and academic school readiness, while exploring the possible mod erator role played by child gender. The participants were 75 children who were assessed at two time points: when enrolled in the second preschool year (T1) and again 4 months before school entry (T2). The results showed an association between children’s ToM abilities at T1 (but not at T2) and later academic readiness at T2, but only for girls, even after accounting for child IQ and maternal education. These find ings support the idea that girls and boys can differ in how they use their ToM abili ties in their daily life and highlight the relevance of further exploring gendeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Respostas imunitárias em Bathymodiolus azoricus desafiados com Vibrio : abordagens para caracterizar as estratégias de sobrevivência do mexilhão e suas adaptações fisiológicas em ambientes extremos do mar profundo

Tese de Doutoramento, Ciências do Mar, especialidade de Biologia Marinha, 18 de Dezembro de 2015, Universidade dos Açores.O ambiente marinho profundo representa uma excelente fonte de investigação para desenvolver e melhorar os conhecimentos sobre os animais que habitam em ambientes extremos e sobre as relações quimiossintéticas estabelecidas nesse ecossistema marinho. Dessa premissa surge a necessidade de entender o funcionamento do sistema imunitário em animais do fundo marinho, nomeadamente do mexilhão do mar profundo Bathymodiolus azoricus. O facto de este mexilhão habitar e desenvolver-se em ambientes extremos, como as fontes hidrotermais marinhas de profundidade, torna-o num interessante modelo para caracterizar as suas estratégias de sobrevivência e adaptações fisiológicas nesses ambientes. Nestas fontes hidrotermais, o seu sistema imunitário está constantemente a ser desafiado por compostos estranhos e microrganismos, como as bactérias do meio ambiente circundante. Contudo, as respostas imunitárias no B. azoricus após contacto com Vibrio não estão completamente compreendidas. As bactérias do género Vibrio são frequentemente patogénicos marinhos que causam grande mortalidade em bivalves. Assim, a presente tese pretende compreender as respostas imunitárias dos mexilhões após a exposição a diferentes estirpes de Vibrio, de modo a elucidar as principais vias de sinalização dos genes e proteínas intervenientes na defesa dos mexilhões durante um determinado estímulo bacteriano. Neste sentido, os métodos apresentados nesta tese têm como base a utilização de diferentes técnicas da biologia molecular, com destaque para o PCR quantitativo em tempo real baseado no princípio da reacção em cadeia da polimerase. Esta técnica foi realizada: em brânquia de mexilhões B. azoricus submetidos ao contacto com diferentes suspensões bacterianas de patogénicos marinhos (Capítulos I); no estudo comparativo da expressão de genes e proteínas entre o mexilhão de profundidade B. azoricus e o mexilhão costeiro Mytilus galloprovincialis (Capitulo II) e no estudo sobre a especificidade da resposta imunitária em diferentes tecidos, entre populações de B. azoricus provenientes das fontes hidrotermais Menez Gwen e Lucky Strike, após contacto com a bactéria Vibrio diabolicus (Capitulo III). [...].ABSTRACT: The deep-sea environment is excellent source for investigating and improving our knowledge in the field of marine biology of organisms living in extreme habitats and their relationships with chemosynthetic-based ecosystems. Along with the study of chemosynthetic-based ecosystems the necessity to understand immune system function in deep-sea hydrothermal animals such as in the mussel Bathymodiolus azoricus, has emerged gradually. Indeed, these mussels live and thrive in extreme environments as the deep-sea hydrothermal vents. B. azoricus species has become an interesting model to characterize the survival strategies and physiological adaptations in these environments. At such depths and under hydrothermal physico-chemical conditions, their immune system is constantly challenged by foreign vent compounds and microorganisms (e.g. bacteria). However, these immune responses in B. azoricus upon Vibrio challenges are not thoroughly understood. Vibrio bacteria are frequently pathogens in the aquatic environment that cause a high mortality in bivalves. This thesis was conceived and achieved with the aim of better understanding the immune response in B. azoricus mussels after several experimental challenges with different Vibrio strains. The core of this thesis consisted of elucidating signaling gene pathways and proteins involved in mussel defenses during bacterial stimuli. In this way, the thesis methods were undertaken using several molecular biology techniques, highlighting the qPCR. This technique was used: in gills from B. azoricus mussels infected with suspension of different marine bacterial pathogens (Chapter I); in comparative studies of gene expression and protein analyses between deep-sea hydrothermal vent mussel B. azoricus and the shallow-water mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis (Chapter II) and in an immune response tissue-specificity study in different tissues, and between Menez Gwen and Lucky Strike B. azoricus populations, after exposure to Vibrio diabolicus bacterium (Chapter III). [...]This thesis was supported by FCT grant SFRH/BD/68951/2010, Department of Oceanography and Fisheries, University of the Azores and Institute of Marine Research (IMAR)

Building up Undergraduate Skills – empirical evidence from a Portuguese University

This study presents preliminary results of the PSP Project, addressing students' soft skills development within the context of HEI. Theoretical framework is grounded in Person-Environment Fit theories (Rounds & Hesketh, 1994), and also in Evans (2001) starfish model. Study 1 aimed to identify Economics and Business graduates' Market-Valued Skills Profile, collecting data through semi-structured interviews with HR managers and former students focus groups. Study 2 assessed students' confidence level regarding skills using a self-report questionnaire (Miles & Grummon, 2006). Career development representations were also assessed (Savickas, 2002; Gonçalves, 2006). Additional data was collected through open-ended questions focusing on work and other extracurricular experiences. Results from Study 1 highlight soft skills as multidimensional construct where different interrelated skills contribute to graduates' employability. Study 2 reveals students' positive self-perception regarding those skills, although limited vocational experiences were reported.Soft Skills, Career development, higher education students; employability

A urbanização nos ecossistemas costeiros : implicações para a biodiversidade

A secção UAciência é coordenada pelo Professor Universitário Armindo Rodrigues.[…]. A urbanização dos habitats costeiros, incluindo a construção de estruturas de defesa costeiras, como paredões, quebra-mares ou espigões, tem vindo a aumentar como resposta às previsões para o aumento do nível do mar, maior ocorrência de tempestades e aumento do transporte marítimo. O efeito destes habitats artificiais numa variedade de organismos marinhos tem recebido pouca atenção, apesar de ser fundamental para estabelecer diretrizes para a correta gestão das áreas costeiras urbanizadas. Existe, por tanto, um claro interesse em compreender as consequências ambientais da urbanização, razão que esteve na base do desenvolvimento dum projeto de investigação levado a cabo pelo grupo de Investigação Aquática Macaronésia (IAM) entre os anos 2013 e 2015. O IAM, integrado no CIIMAR é composto por elementos do Departamento de Biologia da Universidade dos Açores, coordenou o projeto “Estruturas urbanas: um fator de mudança na biodiversidade dos ecossistemas costeiros”. O projeto foi financiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia e contou com a Prof. Ana I. Neto como investigadora responsável e com a Faculty of Science and Environment da Universidade de Plymouth como entidade colaboradora externa. […].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Escrita criativa: um caminho para a motivação

p. 45-49Este artigo apresenta uma breve descrição da forma como contribuímos para o desenvolvimento do projecto de investigação Escrita Criativa que implicou a utilização de um software. Começamos por fazer o enquadramento da nossa inves - tigação referindo o objecto de estudo, os objectivos, a população- alvo, a metodologia e os instrumentos utilizados. Segui damente descrevemos os procedimentos que antecederam a utilização do software e as actividades desenvolvidas e implementadas. Apresentamos também os resultados obtidos no nosso estudo e como conclusão reflectimos sobre todo o processo

Herb-Drug Interactions: A Holistic Decision Support System in Healthcare

Complementary and alternative medicine are commonly used concomitantly with conventional medications leading to adverse drug reactions and even fatality in some cases. Furthermore, the vast possibility of herb-drug interactions prevents health professionals from remembering or manually searching them in a database. Decision support systems are a powerful tool that can be used to assist clinicians in making diagnostic and therapeutic decisions in patient care. Therefore, an original and hybrid decision support system was designed to identify herb-drug interactions, applying artificial intelligence techniques to identify new possible interactions. Different machine learning models will be used to strengthen the typical rules engine used in these cases. Thus, using the proposed system, the pharmacy community, people's first line of contact within the Healthcare System, will be able to make better and more accurate therapeutic decisions and mitigate possible adverse events

On the importance of being flexible: early interrelations between affective flexibility, executive functions and anxiety symptoms in preschoolers

When children are confronted with an emotional problem, affective flexibility mobilizes their cognitive and emotional resources to optimally address it. We investigated the contribution of executive functions to cognitive and affective flexibility in preschoolers. We assessed affective flexibility in 67 preschoolers (30 girls; Mmonths = 61.77, SD = 11.08 months) using an innovative measure – the Emotional Flexible Item Selection Task (EM-FIST), plus cool measures of executive functions (working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility), anxiety symptoms and intelligence. Findings revealed that affective flexibility improves during the preschool years. While individual differences in age and proactive inhibition predicted cognitive flexibility, a different constellation of predictors (maternal education, proactive inhibition, working memory and age) were significant for affective flexibility. Cognitive flexibility didn’t contribute to affective flexibility beyond the predictors mentioned above. Anxiety exerted a negative effect on affective flexibility in a high anxious subgroup of preschoolers, but only when processing negative, relative to happy faces, supporting the Attentional Control Theory which predicts valence-related executive impairmentsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Empirically supported interventions in psychology: contributions of Research Domain Criteria

Empirically supported interventions in psychological disorders should provide (1) evidence supporting the underlying psychological mechanisms of psychopathology to target in the intervention and (2) evidence supporting the efficacy of the intervention. However, research has been dedicated in a greater extent to efficacy than to the acquisition of empirical support for the theoretical basis of therapies. Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) emerges as a new framework to provide empirically based theories about psychological mechanisms that may be targeted in intervention and tested for its efficacy. The current review aims to demonstrate the possible applications of RDoC to design empirically supported interventions for psychological disorders. Two RDoC-inspired interventions are reviewed, and the RDoC framework is broadly explored in terms of its contributions and limitations. From preliminary evidence, RDoC offers many avenues for improving evidence-based interventions in psyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Emotional dimensions of eating behavior and quality of life in adolescents/youth

The importance of eating behavior (EB) in quality of life is unquestionable. Hence, it will be interesting to identify the individual factors related to the emotional dimensions that influence the EB. This nonexperimental study aims to assess the relationship between eating behavior and the quality of life in adolescents and youth, namely the impact of the three eating emotional dimensions (restriction, disinhibition and hunger). Additionally, this paper discusses the socio educational intervention to promote healthy eating. This is an ex post facto study with a convenience sample of 108 Portuguese adolescents/youth with a mean age of 15.21 ± 1.42. The Portuguese version of the KINDL measuring quality of life and the Three Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ) measuring eating behavior and a sociodemographic questionnaire were applied on the sample. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS-IBM24, with a 95% confidence level. Results in the TFEQ revealed adolescents/youth with 1.84 ± .50, 1.99 ± .54, and 2.55 ± .56, respectively in the restriction, disinhibition and hunger. Adolescents/youth with low disinhibition and hunger in TFEQ showed better quality of life than individuals with higher levels of both eating emotional dimensions (p = .007 and p = .013, respectively). Restriction dimension seems independent of the quality of life. The relationship between the emotional dimensions of EB and quality of life justifies a socio educational intervention to promote a healthy eating behaviour among adolescents/youth. This relationship may be mediated by the effects of those dimensions on results on food balance and its organic repercussions. Thus, intervention should focus on awareness of those effects. However, this mediation needs to be better investigated.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio