Instability in spatial evolutionary games

We investigate the aspects that influence the instability of spatial evolutionary games, namely the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Snowdrift games. In this paper instability is defined as the proportion of strategy changes in the asymptotic period of the evolutionary process. The results show that with the Prisoner's Dilemma, when the level of noise present in the decision process is very low, the instability decreases as the synchrony rate decreases. With the Snowdrift this pattern of behavior depends strongly on the interaction topology and arises only for random and scale-free networks. However, for large noise values, the instability in both games depends only on the proportion of cooperators present in the population: it increases as the proportion of cooperators approaches 0.5. We advance an explanation for this behavior

Care and Caregivers: the contribution of rehabilitation nursing care on preparing discharge in patients after stroke

A transição demográfica, que continua a ocorrer por todo o mundo ocidental, tem implícita a sobrevivência das pessoas com idade avançada por muitos anos, expondo-as de um modo acrescido ao risco de acidente vascular cerebral. É reconhecido, tanto pelos profissionais de saúde como pelo público, o esforço dos decisores políticos e de saúde no sentido de dotar as unidades de saúde de recursos que permitam o encaminhamento e atendimento mais rápido destes doentes, que associado à terapêutica trombolítica, tem permitido em muitos casos evitar sequelas graves e dependência de terceiros. Contudo, um número significativo de pessoas acometidas por este problema fica fora dos critérios destas abordagens, resultando da sua doença sequelas mais ou menos graves com graus de dependência muito variados. Nestes doentes, a diminuição do tempo médio de internamento é uma realidade tanto associada à optimização do desempenho das unidades de saúde, como a algum desinteresse suscitado pela evolução lenta do seu restabelecimento e pela reserva no prognóstico. Dos 9,6 dias de demora média em 1990, passou-se para uma meta de 6 dias de internamento como estabelecia o Plano Nacional de Saúde 2004-2010. O mesmo plano, refere a insuficiência nas respostas existentes, relativamente às pessoas que se encontram em situação de perda de funcionalidade ou com níveis de dependência que as fazem necessitar de apoio para a satisfação das suas necessidades mais básicas, tanto por número insuficiente de respostas como pela frágil articulação entre as mesmas, configurando-se a família como um recurso fundamental. As famílias em Portugal continuam a ser a principal fonte de cuidados e a responsabilidade de cuidar dos dependentes, continua a ser da família, que se vê de repente confrontada com as necessidades acrescidas e exposta a desequilíbrios diversos. Com o presente artigo de revisão pretende-se reflectir sobre alguns aspectos relacionados com continuidade de cuidados, após um episódio de doença aguda, o acidente vascular cerebral salientando a importância da família neste processo, e rever, elencando, um conjunto de intervenções relacionadas com os cuidados de enfermagem de reabilitação à família na transição para o seu novo papel. Duas ideias centrais nortearam a reflexão: a família e a gestão da dependência e os cuidados de enfermagem de reabilitação no planeamento da alta

Deployment of electric buses: Planning the fleet size and type, charging infrastructure and operations with an optimization-based model

The current awareness about climate change creates the urgency in adjusting the services provided in public transport towards more sustainable operations. Recent studies have shown that the integration of electric vehicles into existing fleets is an alternative that allows reducing CO2 emissions, thus contributing to a more sustainable provision of services in the sector. When the aim is to achieve a full electrification of a bus fleet, several decisions need to be planned, such as i) the number of buses that are required, ii) the types of batteries used in those vehicles, iii) the charging technologies and strategies, iv) the location of the charging stations, and v) the frequency of charging. Nevertheless, although several planning studies have focused on the full electrification of a bus fleet, no study was found considering all these planning decisions that are deemed as essential for an adequate planning. Our study thus contributes to this gap in the literature, by proposing an optimization-based planning model that considers all these planning dimensions in the decision-making process related to the integration of electric buses in a public bus transport system – the MILP4ElectFleet model. All these decisions are evaluated while ensuring the minimization of in-vestment and operating costs. The MILP4ElectFleet model is applied to the Car-ris case study, a Portuguese public transport operator in the metropolitan area of Lisbon.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Planning health workforce training in the detection and prevention of excessive alcohol consumption: an optimization-based approach

The adequate training of health workforce in the field of excessive alcohol consumption is essential to provide health professionals with the necessary tools for an adequate provision of care, thus leading to a decrease in alcohol consumption. Proper planning of such training is thus essential, but literature in this area is still scarce. This paper proposes an optimization model based on mathematical programming for supporting the planning of health workforce training in the field of excessive alcohol consumption in National Health Service-based countries – the WFTMalcohol. The model aims at informing on (i) how many health professionals (physicians and nurses) should be trained per year and health unit, and (ii) which training packages should be available per year. The model allows exploring the impact of considering different objectives relevant in this sector, including the minimization of costs and the maximization of multiple performance indicators. Acknowledging that several sources of uncertainty may affect planning decisions, a sensitivity analysis on key parameters of the model is performed. To illustrate the applicability of the model, a case study based on the Oeste Sul ACES in Lisbon is analyzed. Results confirm that there is a shortage of trained professionals in this field in Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Living bacteria rheology: population growth, aggregation patterns and cooperative behaviour under different shear flows

The activity of growing living bacteria was investigated using real-time and in situ rheology -- in stationary and oscillatory shear. Two different strains of the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus -- strain COL and its isogenic cell wall autolysis mutant -- were considered in this work. For low bacteria density, strain COL forms small clusters, while the mutant, presenting deficient cell separation, forms irregular larger aggregates. In the early stages of growth, when subjected to a stationary shear, the viscosity of both strains increases with the population of cells. As the bacteria reach the exponential phase of growth, the viscosity of the two strains follow different and rich behaviours, with no counterpart in the optical density or in the population's colony forming units measurements. While the viscosity of strain COL keeps increasing during the exponential phase and returns close to its initial value for the late phase of growth, where the population stabilizes, the viscosity of the mutant strain decreases steeply, still in the exponential phase, remains constant for some time and increases again, reaching a constant plateau at a maximum value for the late phase of growth. These complex viscoelastic behaviours, which were observed to be shear stress dependent, are a consequence of two coupled effects: the cell density continuous increase and its changing interacting properties. The viscous and elastic moduli of strain COL, obtained with oscillatory shear, exhibit power-law behaviours whose exponent are dependent on the bacteria growth stage. The viscous and elastic moduli of the mutant have complex behaviours, emerging from the different relaxation times that are associated with the large molecules of the medium and the self-organized structures of bacteria. These behaviours reflect nevertheless the bacteria growth stage.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

Towards a Computational Case-Based Model for Creative Planning

This paper describes a computational case-based model for the creative planning process. Our approach is inspired in Wallas’ model for the creative process in that we consider that creativity involves a sequence of four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. Preparation includes problem acquisition and assimilation of background knowledge, which is represented by cases, i.e., documented past experiences. With the aim of achieving a flexible knowledge representation, as a means to potentiate specific creative abilities like Fluency, Synthesis and Analysis, we structure each case as a network of hierarchically and temporally related case pieces. These case pieces can be considered individually, providing better recombinations of them. These recombinations, rather than made by chance, are guided by those hierarchical and temporal case piece relations (or explanations). We explain the role of opportunistic knowledge acquisition at the incubation stage. We sustain that illumination may comprise recursive calls of the sequence of the first three stages. This computational model is implemented in the system INSPIRER (ImagiNation1 taking as Source Past and Imperfectly RElated Reasonings). An application in musical composition domain is presented. We also show how a musical composition task may be cognitively modelled and treated as a planning task. We also present a short example illustrating how INSPIRER generates music

Meta-Performativity: Being in Shakespeare’s Moment

In the dramatic performance of text, linguistic performativity is inherent within the utterances provided by the playwright for the character, to be used as if they were in normal use in the world of the play. The actor, however, is required to speak memorised lines many times as if the spoken language just happened to occur in that instant, in response to the need to express a specific thought. When performing Shakespearean drama, codes of linguistic performativity must be balanced with those of the verse and the heightened language as well as the needs of public performance – or the demands of the film set. Often, a second level of ‘para’-performativity overlays the text as it is spoken by the actor, and the utterance resounds with the acts of remembering and/or quoting (the memorised lines). I propose that when the illusion of ‘honesty’ is achieved without reducing the language to a contemporised ‘naturalness’, it owes its existence to a second order, or ‘meta’-performative quality adhering in the voice.The conference was sponsored by A.D.S.A., the Department of Performance Studies, the School of Letters, Arts and Media, and the Faculty of Arts of the University of Sydney

Mammals in Portugal: A data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in Portugal

Open Research: The complete data set is available as Supporting Information and are also available in Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14938437Mammals are threatened worldwide, with ca. 26% of all species being included in the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associated to habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mammals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change and prey depletion for marine mammals. Mammals play a key role in maintaining ecosystems functionality and resilience, and therefore information on their distribution is crucial to delineate and support conservation actions. MAMMALS IN PORTUGAL is a publicly available data set compiling unpublished georeferenced occurrence records of 92 terrestrial, volant, and marine mammals in mainland Portugal and archipelagos of Azores and Madeira that includes 107,852 data entries between 1873 and 2021 (72% of the data occurring in 2000 and 2021). The methods used to collect the data were: live observations/captures (42%), sign surveys (38%), camera trapping (16%), bioacoustics surveys (4%) and radio-tracking and inquiries that represent less than 1% of the records. The data set includes 13 types of records: 1) burrows | soil mounds | tunnel, 2) capture, 3) colony, 4) dead animal | hair | skulls | jaws, 5) genetic confirmation, 6) inquiries, 7) observation of live animal, 8), observation in shelters, 9) photo trapping | video, 10), predators diet | pellets | pine cones/nuts, 11) scat | track | ditch, 12) telemetry and 13) vocalization | echolocation. The spatial uncertainty of most records ranges between 0 and 100 m (76%). Rodentia (n = 34,754) has the highest number of records followed by Chiroptera (n = 18,858), Carnivora (n = 18,594), Lagomorpha (n = 17,679), Cetartiodactyla (n = 11,568) and Eulipotyphla (n = 6,400). The data set includes records of species classified by the IUCN as threatened (e.g., Oryctolagus cuniculus (n = 12,407), Monachus monachus (n = 1512), and Lynx pardinus (n = 197)]. We believe that this data set may stimulate the publication of other European countries data sets which would certainly contribute to ecology and conservation-related research, and therefore assisting on the development of more accurate and tailored conservation management strategies for each species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this data paper when the data are used in publicationsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

mHealth Applications to Monitor Lifestyle Behaviors and Circadian Rhythm in Clinical Settings: Current Perspective and Future Directions

Metabolic diseases are a global rising health burden, mainly due to the deleterious interaction of current lifestyles with the underlying biology of these diseases. Daily habits and behaviors, such as diet, sleep, and physical exercise impact the whole-body circadian system through the synchronization of the peripheral body clocks that contribute to metabolic homeostasis. The disruption of this system may promote the development of metabolic diseases, including obesity and diabetes, emphasizing the importance of assessing and monitoring variables that affect circadian rhythms. Advances in technology are generating innovative resources and tools for health care management and patient monitoring, particularly important for chronic conditions. The use of mobile health technologies, known as mHealth, is increasing and these approaches are contributing to aiding both patients and healthcare professionals in disease management and education. The mHealth solutions allow continuous monitoring of patients, sharing relevant information and data with physicians and other healthcare professionals and accessing education resources to support informed decisions. Thus, if properly used, these tools empower patients and help them to adopt healthier lifestyles. This article aims to give an overview of the influence of circadian rhythms disruption and lifestyle habits in the progression of metabolic diseases while also reviewing some of the mobile applications available to monitor lifestyle behaviors and individual chronobiology. Herein is also described the design and development of the NutriClock system, an mHealth solution developed by our team to monitor these variables