X-Ray Background Survey Spectrometer (XBSS)

The objective of this investigation was to perform a spectral survey of the low energy diffuse X-ray background using the X-ray Background Survey Spectrometer (XBSS) on board the Space Station Freedom (SSF). XBSS obtains spectra of the X-ray diffuse background in the 11-24 A and 44-84 A wavelength intervals over the entire sky with 15 deg spatial resolution. These X-rays are almost certainly from a very hot (10(exp 6) K) component of the interstellar medium that is contained in regions occupying a large fraction of the interstellar volume near the Sun. Astrophysical plasmas near 10(exp 6) K are rich in emission lines, and the relative strengths of these lines, besides providing information about the physical conditions of the emitting gas, also provide information about its history and heating mechanisms

Transition from University to the labour market: the impact of personal variables in graduates’ perceptions of self-efficacy

The transition from university to the labour market is a crucial period for graduates. It is typically characterized by a high degree of uncertainty. Self-efficacy may be a determinant in the process, but the research so far has only considered students or graduates shortly after graduation, strongly compromising its conclusions on the findings. This study aims at exploring the variables which explain the different levels of self-efficacy of graduates in transition to the labour market. A total of 694 graduates who completed their degrees at two Portuguese Higher Education Institutions in the last five years were subjected to a questionnaire. Regression and multivariate analyses based on decision trees (Recursive Partitioning for Classification) showed that (1) older graduates have higher self-efficacy in adapting to work; (2) male graduates have higher self-efficacy in emotional regulation when looking for a job; and (3) graduates with higher grades demonstrated more self-efficacy in job-seeking behaviours. The results also revealed that the graduates’ scientific area, the parents’ level of education and undergoing internships during higher education are also related to self-efficacy. Overall, the study contributed to a better understanding of the construction process of self-efficacy beliefs and its importance in the job-seeking process and in the adaptation to work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Empregabilidade e transição para o mercado de trabalho: perspetivas de estudantes/diplomados não-tradicionais do Ensino Superior

Considerando os desafios que os estudantes não-tradicionais enfrentam, quer na participação no Ensino Superior, quer na sua transição para o mercado de trabalho, foi nossa intenção compreender a) Qual a perspetiva dos estudantes sobre as competências/capacidades que os tornam empregáveis? e b) Quais os desafios que enfrentam na transição para o mercado de trabalho? Nesta lógica, foram realizadas 21 entrevistas biográficas a estudantes/diplomados não-tradicionais que frequentavam o último ano da licenciatura, mestrado ou mestrado integrado. As dimensões analisadas remetem para as questões de género, idade e experiência, e contexto socioeconómico. Os resultados sugerem uma internalização dos discursos sobre empregabilidade, entendida pelos participantes como uma responsabilidade individual para obter/manter um emprego. Os participantes referem alguma discriminação no que se refere à idade e ao género: diplomados maduros parecem ter mais dificuldades em mudar de carreira profissional e são considerados menos flexíveis e disponíveis para o trabalho, quando comparados com um diplomado jovem; o facto de ser mulher pode condicionar a empregabilidade devido à maternidade. Por último, os entrevistados mencionam alguns condicionantes em termos de emprego devido à crise económica: no setor público, existem limitações na política de contratação e poucas perspetivas de progressão de carreira; no setor privado, assistimos a pouca oferta de trabalhos qualificados, sobretudo na região do Algarve; no terceiro setor, parecem ser escassas as condições para contratar diplomados com salários justos e adequados.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Avaliação da implementação da educação sexual em contexto escolar, na região do Algarve a perspetiva de atores educativos responsáveis pela Educação para a Saúde/Educação Sexual.

O presente estudo assume-se como um estudo de caso, insere-se no paradigma interpretativo/qualitativo e pretendeu avaliar a implementação da Educação Sexual (ES) no Algarve. Realizaram-se entrevistas semidiretivas a oito coordenadores da Educação para a Saúde (EpS)/ES e a um diretor de agrupamento de escolas (AE). Os resultados indicaram que a ES foi integrada nos projetos educativos de todos os AE, sendo que os AE situados em concelhos com menos residentes apresentaram um percurso mais próximo das recomendações da lei. Foram nomeados professores-coordenadores para a EpS/ES e apenas um AE não tem o gabinete de apoio a funcionar. A disciplina de Ciências Naturais foi identificada como sendo a mais interveniente na ES. O aumento e a consolidação dos conhecimentos foram objetivos privilegiados numa vertente de prevenção. O pouco apoio do Ministério da Educação e Ciência e a falta de formação, de experiência e de à-vontade dos docentes nesta área foram apontados como limitações no processo de implementação da ES.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Findings of a review of spacecraft fire safety needs

Discussions from a workshop to guide UCLA and NASA investigators on the state of knowledge and perceived needs in spacecraft fire safety and its risk management are reviewed, for an introduction to an analytical and experimental project in this field. The report summarizes the workshop discussions and includes the visual aids used in the presentations. Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) methods, which are currently not used, would be of great value to the designs and operation of future human-crew spacecraft. Key points in the discussions were the importance of understanding and testing smoldering as a likely fire scenario in space and the need for smoke damage modeling, since many fire-risk models ignore this mechanism and consider only heat damage

Risk-based Spacecraft Fire Safety Experiments

Viewgraphs on risk-based spacecraft fire safety experiments are presented. Spacecraft fire risk can never be reduced to a zero probability. Probabilistic risk assessment is a tool to reduce risk to an acceptable level

180x120: Designing Alternate Location Systems

Background In October 2005, Anthony Burke with Eric Paulos of Intel Labs, Berkeley were invited to design a live media installation at the San Francisco Museum of Art for an event opening. The piece was titled 180x120, drawing in a crowd of over 180 people whose presence and activity over 120 minutes created the installation itself. Contribution 40% Design, fabrication, site and contract negotiation, installation and publicity. This work was a collaboration between information technologists and architects aimed at spatially visualizing real time data of crowd behaviours. My contribution was specifically with regard to the overlap of the material and information systems, and means through which the evolving digital display could be matched to a material substrate. Significance 180x120 is an early example of a live data driven media installation, created at the invitation of the creative director of the SFMoMA in 2005. Our research aims were to interrogate the relationship between private physical location and public consumption of this now easily available information, raising issues of privacy and the extent of personal boundaries in information space. This research explicitly explores the creative possibilities between digital information and encoded material systems marking a moment of temporal, material and digital synthesis. Our research aim was to explore and understand the spatial and visual consequences of this alignment. This blending of interactive media and performance based (crowd based) art was a novel contribution to new media practice and research at the time

Silages of agro-industrial by-products in lamb diets : effct on growth performance, carcass, meat quality and in vitro methane emissions

Research Areas: AgricultureABSTRACT - The use of agro-industrial by-products in animal feed is an opportunity to reduce imports, food waste and promote a clean and circular economy, turning worthless raw materials into high -quality and low-cost animal feeds, which does not compete with human food. This study aims to produce silages with by-products of carrot, sweet potato, potato, and tomato pomace and integrate them in lamb diets, replacing 50% of dry matter (DM) of a concentrate-based diet. Effects on growth performance, meat quality and methane production were evaluated. Three silages were produced using 350 g/kg tomato pomace, 200 g/kg wheat bran, 150 g/kg alfalfa hay and 300 g/kg potato (Psil) or 300 g/kg sweet potato (SPsil) or 300 g/kg carrot (Csil). Thirty-two lambs were housed individually and divided into four groups (8 animals/group) on the following diets: Control -850 g/kg concentrate and 150 g/kg hay; P -500 g/kg concentrate and 500 g/kg Psil in DM; SP - 500 g/kg concentrate and 500 g/kg SPsil in DM; C - 500 g/kg concentrate and 500 g/kg Csil in DM. The trial lasted 6 weeks after 1 week of adaptation. Methane production was assessed in vitro by the Ankom system, using as inoculum rumen content samples collected individually from 6 lambs on each diet at slaughter. Diet had no effect on DM intake, average daily gain and DM conversion ratio, averaging 1055 +/- 248 g, 320 +/- 61.1 g and 3.35 +/- 0.600, respectively. Also, carcass characteristics were not affected by the diet except for the lightness of subcutaneous fat which was increased by the silage diets (L* value, P = 0.016). The meat pa-rameters, pH, intramuscular fat, shear force, cooking losses and sensory attributes, were not affected by the diet. In meat color, the parameters a* and Chroma were highest in animals fed diet C, have an intermediate value with Control diet and are lowest with diets P and SP (P = 0.027 and P = 0.012, respectively). Diets had no impact on total methane emissions. The costs of the silage diets per kg live weight gain were lower than those of Control diet (P = 0.018). In summary, by-product silage can be a good option to replace concentrated feed in lamb diets without altering the growth performance and meat quality or methane production and thus contributing to the sustainability of livestock farms and the environment.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A genome-wide association study using a DNA pooling strategy identifies BBS9 and GLIS3 as novel loci influencing patient’s outcome after stroke

Stroke is a major cause of morbidity in developed countries and therefore finding adequate treatments to promote patient’s recovery is a priority task, requiring the elucidation of the molecular pathways influencing brain recovery. Few studies, however, have assessed the role of genes in stroke outcome. This study describes a pilot genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify genetic factors contributing to patient’s outcome, using a DNA pooling design. Methods: Patient’s outcome was assessed using the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) three months after stroke. Using the 250K Affymetrix GeneChip Mapping Assay® – Nsp I, we compared SNP allele frequencies in a pool of non-disabled stroke patients (N=87, mRS=0), with a pool of severely disabled or deceased patients (N=100, mRS>=3). The 100 most interesting SNPs were selected for validation by individual genotyping. Results: 36 SNPs were validated, showing significant differences between patients with extremely good and extremely poor outcome at three months (1.7x10-4 ).This work was supported by the grant PTDC/SAU-GMG/64426/2006, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT). Helena Manso and Tiago Krug were supported by FCT fellowships

Simplifying instanton corrections to N=4 SYM correlators

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