Collaborative group support in e-Health

In critical areas such as decision making, the Collaborative Work has an uttermost importance. Being a complex problem, the collective decision taking is currently a popular form of taking decisions. In this work we present the VirtualECare project: an intelligent multi-agent system able to monitor, interact and serve its customers (in need of care services). In developed countries, recent census data report a sudden increase in the elderly community together with a decrease of child birth. This is a new reality that needs to be dealt by the health sector, particularly by the public one. In an early stage, this new situation appears mostly as a financial problem. The costs involved in the health care are considerable. Thus, alternative technological solutions that lead to straightforward solutions should be adopted. Recently, a growing interest in combining the advances in information society - computing, telecommunications and presentation - to create Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS), has been observed. It is our view that the use of the GDSS in the health care area will pursue the achievement of better results in terms of patients Electronically Clinical Profile (ECP). Additionally, we believe that the best way of managing health appointments is through the use of calendars - one application that can manage both the physicians and patients calendars and consequently their day schedule. Within this area, the approaches used in the VirtualECare and iGenda projects are presented.(undefined

Memory assist in ambient assisted living

Series : IFIP International Federation for Information ProcessingHuman collective set of experiences makes us who we are and help us delineate a path for our ongoing life. Ageing, however, progressively limits our ability to save, in our internal memory, these same experiences, or, at least, limits our capability to remember them. The capability to remember, intrinsic to our memory, is a very important one to us, as a human been, being this what deferent’s us from several other species. In this paper we present a memory assistant sub module of a bigger project, the VirtualECare, which ability will be to remember us, not our past experiences, but our routine day-to-day tasks and activities, in a somehow proactive manner, thus, allowing us to have some relaxation about them, and focus the remaining of our ability in most important facts

Memory assistant in everyday living

Memory is one’s mental ability to store, to retain, and recall information, representing past and future, our dreams and/or expectations. However, as the human been ages, the capacity of remembering decreases as well the ability to pile up new memories, therefore affecting our quality-of-living and lowering our self- esteem. This configures a social and human dilemma. With the present work we intend to address some of these problems, in terms of a Personal Memory Assistant (PMA), in order to help the user to remember things and occurrences, making it in a proactive mode. It will also cater for some form of relaxation on the part of the user

A dynamic user profiling technique in a AmI environment

Marques V., Costa A., Novais P., A Dynamic User Profiling Technique in a AmI Environment, World Congress on Information and Communication Technologies, IEEE Computer Society, Mumbai, India, ISBN: 978-1-4673-0125-1, pp 1251-1256, 2011.Currently there are many services that can assist the human being in his decision making. Many of these services provide aid as consistent as possible attending the characteristics and preferences of a user, which compiled results in a person’s profile. Without profiles, systems could not provide a coherent aid to a user. In addition we can consider the profiles as the basis of recommendation systems. Paramount with cognitive helping systems, that provide decisions and recommendations these actions can more accu- rate and user driven. However, the profiles need to be updated over time, as a human being changes of preferences or beliefs, the profiles also need to adapt to dynamic environments. It is introduced a project that applies the Bayesian Networks and Case- Based Reasoning techniques to create and modulate user profiles in a coherent and dynamic way, using stochastic models and high-level event relations and characteristics to devise an accurate suggestion of activities the user can perform, being integrated in an Ambient Assisted Living Project.(undefined

Uma dose de criatividade : uma revisão integrativa dos efeitos dos psicadélicos na criatividade

Background: Creativity is an important asset in the modern world. It can be defined as the ability to come up with ideas or artefacts that are original and valuable. Classic psychedelic drugs (i.e., dimethyltryptamine, psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide, and mescaline) have long been hailed as substances that can enhance creativity in their users. The recent resurgence in psychedelic research has brought with it the opportunity to understand the psychological, cognitive, and behavioural effects that these drugs exert in humans. This integrative review was conducted in order to summarize the knowledge pertaining to the effects that psychedelics can have on creativity by analyzing every study to date that assessed creativity through psychometric measures. Methods: A search was conducted on the MEDLINE, Web of Science, and PsycINFO databases for studies published until 17 November 2020, alongside other relevant sources, that assessed changes in creativity alongside psychedelic administration. Results: Out of the 314 studies identified, a total of 10 studies were included and analyzed, of which 5 were quasi-experiments, 4 were observational/naturalistic, and only 1 was a randomized controlled trial. All four of the main psychedelic compounds were represented. Every study assessed components and subcomponents of divergent and convergent thinking, with only one instance of product assessment. In most studies, divergent thinking increased during the acute stage of the drug intake and convergent thinking increased in the long-term. Conclusions: Psychedelics may be able to enhance divergent thinking in the acute phase and convergent thinking in later phases. However, evidence is limited due to the low number of studies available, small sample sizes, lack of randomized controlled trials, and significant methodological limitations throughout most studies. Potential mechanisms underlying these effects are discussed, along with suggestions for future studies.Introdução: A criatividade é um ativo valioso no mundo moderno que pode ser definida como a capacidade de criar ideias ou artefactos que são originais e valiosos. Os psicadélicos clássicos (i.e., dimetiltriptamina, psilocibina, dietilamida do ácido lisérgico e mescalina) são desde há muito valorizados como substâncias que podem aumentar a criatividade nos seus utilizadores. O ressurgimento recente na investigação psicadélica representa uma oportunidade de compreender os efeitos psicológicos, cognitivos e comportamentais que estas substâncias exercem no ser humano. Esta revisão integrativa teve como objetivo sumarizar o conhecimento relativo aos efeitos que os psicadélicos podem ter na criatividade, analisando todos os estudos realizados à data que avaliassem a relação entre psicadélicos e criatividade através de medidas psicométricos. Métodos: Foi realizada uma pesquisa nas bases de dados MEDLINE, Web of Science e PsycINFO por estudos publicados até 17 de novembro de 2020, bem como em outras fontes relevantes, que avaliassem mudanças na criatividade relacionadas com administração de psicadélicos. Resultados: Dos 314 estudos identificados, um total de 10 estudos foram incluídos e analisados, dos quais 5 eram quasi-experiências, 4 eram observacionais/naturalísticos e apenas 1 era um ensaio randomizado controlado. Todas as quatro principais substâncias psicadélicas estiveram representadas. Todos os estudos avaliaram componentes e subcomponentes de pensamento divergente e/ou convergente, enquanto que apenas um avaliou produção criativa. Na maioria dos estudos, o pensamento divergente aumentou durante a fase aguda da toma da substância e o pensamento convergente aumentou a longo-prazo. Conclusões: Os psicadélicos aparentam ser substâncias capazes de elevar o pensamento divergente na fase aguda e o pensamento convergente nas fases posteriores. No entanto, esta evidência é ainda limitada tendo em conta o baixo número de estudos disponíveis, o reduzido tamanho da amostra, a ausência de ensaios randomizados controlados e limitações metodológicas significativas na maioria dos estudos. São discutidos possíveis mecanismos na base destes efeitos e sugestões para estudos futuros

User recognition in AAL environments

Springer - Series Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, vol. 72Healthcare projects that intend to decrease the economical and social costs of the real ageing population phenomenon, through the de-localisation of healthcare services delivery and management to the home, have been arising in the scientific community. The VirtualECare project is one of those, so called, Ambient Assisted Living environments, which we have taken a step forward with the introduction of proactive techniques for better adapting to its users, namely elderly or chronic patients, once it is able to learn with their interaction based in contexts. This learning, however, causes the system need to know with whom it is interacting. Basic detection techniques based in possible devices that users carries along with them (e.g. RFID tags, mobile phones, ...) are not good enough, since they can lose/forgot/switch them. To obtain the expected results the technology used has to be more advanced and available in several platforms. One possible and already fairly developed technique is Facial Recognition, and it appears to be the most appropriate one to handle the problem.This document exposes the initial approach of the VirtualECare project to the Facial Recognition area

Train me if you can: decentralized learning on the deep edge

The end of Moore’s Law aligned with data privacy concerns is forcing machine learning (ML) to shift from the cloud to the deep edge. In the next-generation ML systems, the inference and part of the training process will perform at the edge, while the cloud stays responsible for major updates. This new computing paradigm, called federated learning (FL), alleviates the cloud and network infrastructure while increasing data privacy. Recent advances empowered the inference pass of quantized artificial neural networks (ANNs) on Arm Cortex-M and RISC-V microcontroller units (MCUs). Nevertheless, the training remains confined to the cloud, imposing the transaction of high volumes of private data over a network and leading to unpredictable delays when ML applications attempt to adapt to adversarial environments. To fill this gap, we make the first attempt to evaluate the feasibility of ANN training in Arm Cortex-M MCUs. From the available optimization algorithms, stochastic gradient descent (SGD) has the best trade-off between accuracy, memory footprint, and latency. However, its original form and the variants available in the literature still do not fit the stringent requirements of Arm Cortex-M MCUs. We propose L-SGD, a lightweight implementation of SGD optimized for maximum speed and minimal memory footprint in this class of MCUs. We developed a floating-point version and another that operates over quantized weights. For a fully-connected ANN trained on the MNIST dataset, L-SGD (float-32) is 4.20× faster than the SGD while requiring only 2.80% of the memory with negligible accuracy loss. Results also show that quantized training is still unfeasible to train an ANN from the scratch but is a lightweight solution to perform minor model fixes and counteract the fairness problem in typical FL systems.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. This work has also been supported by FCT within the PhD Scholarship Project Scope: SFRH/BD/146780/2019

Avaliação de uma intervenção formativa em sexualidade e gênero para professoras de educação infantil

As temáticas de sexualidade e gênero devem ser trabalhadas em todas as etapas da escolarização. Contudo, verifica-se certa invisibilidade no contexto da infância e uma carência de trabalhos com educadores/as. O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a eficácia de uma intervenção formativa em sexualidade e gênero para professoras/es de Educação Infantil, em relação ao nível de preconceito e de atitudes relacionadas à diversidade sexual e de gênero, aos papéis de gênero e as competências educacionais para trabalhar com estudantes LGBT. Trinta e sete professoras/es participaram. Foram realizadas estatísticas descritivas, análises bivariadas na forma de testes paramétricos (testes t de amostras pareadas) e uma análise temática. A intervenção foi avaliada de maneira positiva, o nível de preconceito reduziu significativamente e houve um imediato efeito em relação a aplicação dos conhecimentos. Sugerimos o desenvolvimento de intervenções sobre manifestações sutis de preconceito à diversidade sexual e aos papéis de gênero.Los temas de sexualidad y género deben ser abordados en todas las etapas de la escolaridad. Sin embargo, existe cierta invisibilidad en el contexto de la infancia y escasos trabajos con los/las educadores/as. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar la eficacia de una intervención formativa en sexualidad y género para profesores/as de Educación Infantil, con relación al nivel de prejuicios y actitudes relacionadas con la diversidad sexual y de género, roles de género y competencias educativas para el trabajo con estudiantes LGBT. Participaron 37 profesores/ras. Se realizaron estadísticas descriptivas, análisis bivariados en forma de pruebas paramétricas (pruebas t de muestras apareadas) y un análisis temático. La intervención fue evaluada positivamente, se redujo significativamente el nivel de prejuicio y hubo un efecto inmediato con relación a la aplicación de conocimientos. Se sugiere desarrollar intervenciones sobre manifestaciones sutiles de prejuicio a la diversidad sexual y los roles de género.The themes of sexuality and gender must be addressed at all stages of schooling. However, there is a certain invisibility during childhood, as well as a lack of interventions focused on educators. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a formative intervention about sexuality and gender in teachers of Early Childhood Education, in relation to the level of prejudice and attitudes related to sexual and gender diversity, gender roles, and educational competences for working with LGBT students. In total, 37 teachers participated in the study. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analyses were performed in the form of parametric tests (paired samples t-tests) and a thematic analysis. The intervention was positively evaluated, the prejudice level was significantly reduced and there was an immediate effect in relation to the application of knowledge. We suggest the development of interventions on subtle manifestations of prejudice towards sexual diversity and gender roles

The relationship between cork oak growth patterns and soil, slope and drainage in a cork oak woodland in Southern Portugal

The influence of soil type, slope and drainage on tree growth patterns (density, tree size, crown canopy cover and cork yield) was assessed in a cork oak montado, located in Central-western Portugal, based on a GIS approach followed by field survey. Five soil groups, that is, Arenosols, Regosols, Podzols, Luvisols and Gleysols, combined in three slope classes (flat, undulating and steep) under two different hydromorphic conditions (normal or deficient) were compared based on five cork oak stand parameters using ANOVA and PCA tests. The results showed a clear influence of soil type on cork oak growth patterns (cork yield, basal area, number of trees per hectare, crown canopy cover and circumference at breast height). In Arenosols all parameters showed maximum values and, in contrast, in Gleysols were found the minimum values. For instance, the average of the annual cork production for Gleysols (153 kg ha 1 year 1) was only 70% of the expected annual cork production of Arenosols (219 kg ha 1 year 1) and the average exploited tree density decreased from 56 trees ha 1 in Arenosols to 44 trees ha 1 in Gleysols, for an average exploited tree density of 53 trees ha 1 for the study area. Slope also seems to influence the cork oak growth patterns, as significant statistical differences were found for cork oak growth parameters between slope classes: steep slopes decreased the cork production, the tree size (circumference at breast height) and the tree density. An overall PCA test showed that three main soil groups could be identified: (i) Arenosols and Podzols; (ii) Regosols and (iii) Luvisols and Gleysols, showing that the former, which could allow the tree root development, have a positive influence on the cork oak growth. A two-way analysis of variance, for soil type and slope, showed that the cork yield and the exploited tree density are clearly affected by these two factors interaction