Impact of bilateral, single‐sided and asymmetrical hearing loss on cognitive functions

Aim of the study was to investigate the impact of single sided, asymmetrical and bilateral sensorineural hearing loss on cognitive and psychological functions of postlingually hearing impaired adults

Artificial intelligence and the evolution of finance: opportunities, challenges and ethical considerations

The swift progression and widespread integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across numerous fields has been causing major shifts in conventional paradigms. One of the prime examples of such transformation is evident in the finance sector. This document delves into the immediate implications, future opportunities, the challenges being faced and the future outlook of AI in finance by conducting an exhaustive review of academic papers, industrial studies, and real-world case studies. Our research indicates that AI's impact on areas like risk management, trading, customer assistance, fraud detection, and personalization of financial services has been notably significant, boosting efficiency, security, and customer contentment. However, we also discuss the critical hurdles that arise with the implementation of AI, such as ethical concerns about data privacy and biases, the mystery surrounding AI's 'black box' problem, and the potential job losses due to automation. Our paper concludes that although AI has the potential to bring about significant changes in the finance industry, it is crucial to overcome the associated ethical, trust, and regulatory challenges to maximize its benefits. Future investigations should focus on creating ethically considerate, transparent, and robust AI tools that are compliant with and can excel in the Regulatory Landscape of the finance industry.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Project-based learning in distance learning: an appoach to organize events and develop competencies

Today the world is facing a great challenge that has a strong impact on the Mundial Educational System, the COVID-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the learning process and required that all students have to learn through online platforms which implies a distance learning process between teachers and students. In order to minimize this impact of COVID-19 on the students’ learning, the educational system has been forced to change, and new pedagogical activities have emerged, everything was adjusted to the digital learning environment. Teachers during the year 2020 were forced to adapt their pedagogical activities as well as learn a new one to become attractive and motivating for students to actively participate in the distance learning process. The objective of this article is to present an application of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) and understand the perception of students about the development of their transversal competencies acquired during this collaborative work. The project involved students from the second curricular year of a Higher Professional Training Course (HPTC) of Management Applied to the Development of Touristic Products (MADTP) at University of Aveiro, Portugal, during the fall/winter of 2020. Teachers shared the PBL methodology to join two disciplines for the same students: Animation, and Itineraries and Tourist Events and Tourism Quality Management. It was purposed as a practical activity that students should organize four webinars with different themes. The aim of this project was to explore how collaborative work within PBL methodology can motivate students and engage them in distance learning using several digital tools to support the learning process, team coordination, and interpersonal communication. The methodology used was initiated with exploratory research as a case study. One questionnaire was applied to better understand the perception of students to their competencies developed with this project. Implementing this methodology, teachers have a deeper knowledge about the transversal competencies that can be developed under this particular context. The study shows some evidence of the students’ perceptions about their competencies developed during a real-life learning context, such as communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, time management, collaboration, leadership, responsibility, self-direction, and work ethic. The results aggregate organizational and behavioural competencies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Persistent currents in n-fold twisted Moebius strips

We investigate the influence of the topology on generic features of the persistent current in n-fold twisted Moebius strips formed of quasi one--dimensional mesoscopic rings, both for free electrons and in the weakly disordered regime. We find that there is no generic difference between the persistent current for untwisted rings and for Moebius strips with an arbitrary number of twists.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Population expansion in the North African Late Pleistocene signalled by mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6

Background <br/> The archaeology of North Africa remains enigmatic, with questions of population continuity versus discontinuity taking centre-stage. Debates have focused on population transitions between the bearers of the Middle Palaeolithic Aterian industry and the later Upper Palaeolithic populations of the Maghreb, as well as between the late Pleistocene and Holocene. <br/> Results Improved resolution of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup U6 phylogeny, by the screening of 39 new complete sequences, has enabled us to infer a signal of moderate population expansion using Bayesian coalescent methods. To ascertain the time for this expansion, we applied both a mutation rate accounting for purifying selection and one with an internal calibration based on four approximate archaeological dates: the settlement of the Canary Islands, the settlement of Sardinia and its internal population re-expansion, and the split between haplogroups U5 and U6 around the time of the first modern human settlement of the Near East. <br/> Conclusions <br/> A Bayesian skyline plot placed the main expansion in the time frame of the Late Pleistocene, around 20 ka, and spatial smoothing techniques suggested that the most probable geographic region for this demographic event was to the west of North Africa. A comparison with U6's European sister clade, U5, revealed a stronger population expansion at around this time in Europe. Also in contrast with U5, a weak signal of a recent population expansion in the last 5,000 years was observed in North Africa, pointing to a moderate impact of the late Neolithic on the local population size of the southern Mediterranean coast

Using m-health apps in oncology : A review from 2015 to 2022

The increased use of smartphones and the COVID-19 pandemic directly influenced the development of remote tools in several areas. In the context of oncology, it was no different, as several studies address health care or services related to mobile devices. Apps aimed at the medical field (m-health) focus directly on monitoring symptoms and improving interaction between health professionals and patients, combined with the convenience of smartphones. In this context, this work aims to address recent studies on the use of m-health in the clinical practice of oncological diseases and report the characteristics of the apps involved. For this, a review of m-health focused on oncology was conducted using the PubMed and Science Direct databases. The investigation was carried out using tools inherent in international databases and was limited to articles published between 2015 and 2022. In total, 34 articles were analyzed, with a higher frequency of publications between 2019 and 2022. The resources observed were patient follow-up, prevention of signs and symptoms, monitoring of treatment and aid in prognosis and diagnosis of patients. It is concluded that a close collaboration among patients, health professionals, and information technology professionals is necessary to optimize symptom recognition and improve patientprofessional communication. Although the pandemic has intensified the increase in the use of m-health, its use is expected to increase in the post-pandemic scenario, bearing in mind the changes in social dynamics and the growing dissemination of technologies.This work has been supported by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) to CeDRI (UIDB/05757/2020 and UIDP/05757/2020), SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2021) and NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-072598 iSafety: Intelligent system for occupational safety and wellbeing in the retail sector. Laíres A. Lima thanks the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, for the Ph.D. Grant 2022.13393.BD.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Interdisciplinary pedagogical activity, collaborative teaching under COVID-19

The Mundial Higher Education System is facing diverse and several challenges in a very short period of time. The pandemic situation of COVID-19 the world is facing imposed some really important changes in the Higher Education System: (i) The presence of a hybrid classes system (the online class combined with face-to-face classes); (ii) The acquisition of appropriate technologies and skills in order to use online platforms; (iii) The social distaimposed between students, teachers and between students and teachers; and (iv) the continuous teaching/learning process is complemented with the utilization of different tools of communications that support online classes. In these circumstances, it is important to adopt innovative pedagogies that can better prepare students to ingress in the tourism profession, particularly in the context of the crisis that the tourism sector is facing. In order to bridge the gap between how different Tourism subjects can be taught in university and how Tourism Professional Teams Works in a real-life context under a pandemic situation, interdisciplinary pedagogical activities implemented within the classroom. This article aims to describe and present interdisciplinary pedagogical practices within the Planning and Politics of Tourism and Introduction of EconoTourism classes, under a particular context, in order to develop important competencies that will allow students to be better prepared to work in the tourism sector. Specifically, the principal goal is to investigate the students’ perception of competencies acquired through interdisciplinary active under a collaborative learning activity within a pandemic situation. This investigation adopted a case study method. In a quantitative approach, the students answered a questionnaire about self-assessment, motivatiskills, and competencies acquired along diff erent stages of collaborative teamwork between peers. Complementing these fi ndings, we used a qualitatapproach. We describe teacher’s and students´ cooperation, and coordination eff orts throughout the activity carried out along two diff erent disciplines This research also provides important and novel insights to understand how students can develop important competencies, under a pandemic contexts learning from a hybrid process using interdisciplinary pedagogies. Teachers cooperation working through collaborative teaching activities and design considered as a proper interdisciplinary activity in order to graduate better students. The world is living a unique moment within a pandemic situation. Ait has a strong impact on the Higher Education System and all academic communities. In this sense, teachers must be open-minded regarding the learn process, as well as the use of new technologies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

COMBAR COST EU. A mobile application proposal

Diagnosis and treatment options/strategies for helminth parasitic diseases are not standardized globally, or even across Europe, due to factors such as epidemiology, resources availability, socio-economics, and the lack of adequate information. Good communication of options can help to overcome some of these problems. In this sense, it is proposed to develop a mobile application (Abozeid et al., 2021) that allows the tailoring, and sharing, of knowledge (Abu-El-Noor et al., 2021; Kunkel et al., 2021) related to the various diagnoses and treatments in a format appropriate for all stakeholders (e.g. farmers, veterinarians, universities, researchers, laboratories, industries). The proposal aims to present the theoretical functionalities for the creation of a mobile application (Muashekele et al., 2021), the application should have a sequence of options that must be grounded in theoretical requirements. First of all, there is a necessity to have inputs standardized by the application (e.g. country/region, applicable legislation, animal typology, disease characteristics, symptoms) that should be entered into the application. The aim is to provide a range of tailored options to the end-user. Second, given the user's choices, the application can offer information and guidelines (including veterinarians available, laboratories, diagnosis, treatments, stores, among others). It is highlighted that the main gain may be the collection of information, whenever the user allows it. Finally, considering that most farmers use the language of their country, it is crucial to have the application in different European languages.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sensory perception nudge: insect-based food consumer behavior

The negative impact that animal protein sources have on the environment is a critical world problem. Finding new acceptable alternatives is crucial. Nevertheless, numerous factors influence the decision to try an unknown food. By adopting a consumer behavior perspective as well as approaching the possibility of overcoming neophobia, this research examined the influence of sensory perception on consumer behavior with regard to the experimentation with new foods, focusing on entomophagy. A theoretical model was developed, and path analysis and factor influence were based on the structural equation model (PLS-SEM), designed in SmartPLS, to test the model relationships. Despite the low level of awareness concerning the benefits of entomophagy, this study considered that many aspects influence experimentation with new food, specifically our sensorial system. Sensory perception is founded on the senses, such as the tactile, olfactory, visual, and gustatory senses, which can influence perception. In line with these assumptions, this research identified the three most important and decisive factors that can influence individuals’ sensory perceptions: preparation, visual and related aspects, and the presentation of the shape of food have an influence on sensory perception regarding entomophagy consumer behavior. People like to know the method of preparation as well as the ingredients and the color of the food. These findings are crucial to food business practitioners, policymakers, and marketers, who can adopt some food process strategies following sensory perception, that will contribute to changing the habits of consumers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway activation in actinic cheilitis and lip squamous cell carcinomas

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156448/2/jdv16420_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156448/1/jdv16420.pd