Characteristics and life styles of the homeless adults in the city of Porto, Portugal

The phenomenon of homelessness is steadily increasing in urban centers, including in Porto, Portugal, which is a reality not well characterized yet. Some studies have been conducted on this issue, although few focus on the homelessness lifestyle. However this topic seems to be of great interest to study, since it is known that lifestyle affects health and long term patterns of morbidity and mortality.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mental illness stigma in mental health professionals

Mental illness is still associated with myths, prejudices and stereotypes, despite the growing investment in research and treatment in this area. The stigma still one of the major obstacle to recovery of persons with severe mental illnesses. Stigma affects an individuaĺs self-esteem, increases dysfunction, and poses problems to patients with regard to housing and employment. Stigma is a culturally induced barrier to recovery. Although studies have examined experiences of stigma by users of mental health services and stigmatizing attitudes in the general public, little attention has been paid to the experiences and attitudes of mental health professionals.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Missing links in the study of solute and particle exchange between the sea floor and water column

Exchanges of solutes and solids between the sea floor and water column are a vital component of ecosystem functioning in marine habitats around the globe. This review explores particle and solute exchange processes, the different mechanisms through which they interact at the ecosystem level, as well as their interdependencies. Solute and particle exchange processes are highly dependent on the characteristics of the environment within which they takes place. Exchange is driven directly by a number of factors, such as currents, granulometry, nutrient, and matter inputs, as well as living organisms. In turn, the occurrence of exchanges can influence adjacent environments and organisms. Major gaps in the present knowledge include the temporal and spatial variation in many of the processes driving benthic/pelagic exchange processes and the variability in the relative importance of individual processes caused by this variation. Furthermore, the accurate assessment of some anthropogenic impacts is deemed questionable due to a lack of baseline data and long-term effects of anthropogenic actions are often unknown. It is suggested that future research should be transdisciplinary and at ecosystem level wherever possible and that baseline surveys should be implemented and long-term observatories established to fill the current knowledge gaps

Mepiquat chloride application on cotton at variable rate.

Mepiquat chloride (1.1 - dimethylpiperidinium chloride) are used to control excessive vegetative growth in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) broadcast sprayed by ground or air. As proven by previous researches the variability of the cotton plants height in the field is large enough to justify the application of Mepiquat at variable rate. The major advantages of it are: (i) yield increase; (ii) economy of the applied input; (iii) reducing the potential of environmental pollution. The main objective of this project was to develop a prototype device capable to accomplish the application of Mepiquat at variable rate in real time. This project used an equipment previously developed for automatic mapping of the cotton plants height based on ultrasound transducers. An electronic control device for ground sprayers was designed and constructed based on microcontroller PIC, using open source tools as Java, Linux operational system and IDE Netbeans. The device controls the pressure and flow in the spray line and uses Varitarget® nozzles due to its characteristics of linearity of flow and pressure. The calculation of the Mepiquat dosage to be applied is based on the obtained information of the plants heights and the map of previous application. The laboratory results demonstrate the accuracy of the equipment, with low response time considering the commercial sprayers velocity (3 m.s-1 to 5 m.s-1)

Probability densities for the sums of iterates of the sine-circle map in the vicinity of the quasi-periodic edge of chaos

We investigate the probability density of rescaled sum of iterates of sine-circle map within quasi-periodic route to chaos. When the dynamical system is strongly mixing (i.e., ergodic), standard Central Limit Theorem (CLT) is expected to be valid, but at the edge of chaos where iterates have strong correlations, the standard CLT is not necessarily to be valid anymore. We discuss here the main characteristics of the central limit behavior of deterministic dynamical systems which exhibit quasi-periodic route to chaos. At the golden-mean onset of chaos for the sine-circle map, we numerically verify that the probability density appears to converge to a q-Gaussian with q<1 as the golden mean value is approached.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

Strictly and asymptotically scale-invariant probabilistic models of NN correlated binary random variables having {\em q}--Gaussians as N→∞N\to \infty limiting distributions

In order to physically enlighten the relationship between {\it $q$--independence} and {\it scale-invariance}, we introduce three types of asymptotically scale-invariant probabilistic models with binary random variables, namely (i) a family, characterized by an index $\nu=1,2,3,...$, unifying the Leibnitz triangle ($\nu=1$) and the case of independent variables ($\nu\to\infty$); (ii) two slightly different discretizations of $q$--Gaussians; (iii) a special family, characterized by the parameter $\chi$, which generalizes the usual case of independent variables (recovered for $\chi=1/2$). Models (i) and (iii) are in fact strictly scale-invariant. For models (i), we analytically show that the $N \to\infty$ probability distribution is a $q$--Gaussian with $q=(\nu -2)/(\nu-1)$. Models (ii) approach $q$--Gaussians by construction, and we numerically show that they do so with asymptotic scale-invariance. Models (iii), like two other strictly scale-invariant models recently discussed by Hilhorst and Schehr (2007), approach instead limiting distributions which are {\it not} $q$--Gaussians. The scenario which emerges is that asymptotic (or even strict) scale-invariance is not sufficient but it might be necessary for having strict (or asymptotic) $q$--independence, which, in turn, mandates $q$--Gaussian attractors.Comment: The present version is accepted for publication in JSTA

A Roadmap to Gamify Programming Education

Learning programming relies on practicing it which is often hampered by the barrier of difficulty. The combined use of automated assessment, which provides fast feedback to the students experimenting with their code, and gamification, which provides additional motivation for the students to intensify their learning effort, can help pass the barrier of difficulty in learning programming. In such environment, students keep receiving the relevant feedback no matter how many times they try (thanks to automated assessment), and their engagement is retained (thanks to gamification). While there is a number of open software and programming exercise collections supporting automated assessment, up to this date, there are no available open collections of gamified programming exercises, no open interactive programming learning environment that would support such exercises, and even no open standard for the representation of such exercises so that they could be developed in different educational institutions and shared among them. This gap is addressed by Framework for Gamified Programming Education (FGPE), an international project whose primary objective is to provide necessary prerequisites for the application of gamification to programming education, including a dedicated gamification scheme, a gamified exercise format and exercises conforming to it, software for editing the exercises and an interactive learning environment capable of presenting them to students. This paper presents the FGPE project, its architecture and main components, as well as the results achieved so far. 2012 ACM Subject Classification Social and professional topics ! Computer science education