Predicting Graduation in High School Seniors from Protective and Other Factors

The purpose of the current study was to examine factors that discriminated between high school students who graduated from those who did not. High school graduation was chosen as a discriminating outcome for the comparisons groups due to the positive implications graduation has on students\u27 future professional and emotional development. Data were collected from students enrolled in their fourth year of high school. Specifically, the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC-2) and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) were used to assess students\u27 internalizing and externalizing behaviors as they related to academic achievement. Seventy-eight fourth year high school students agreed to participate in the study. The current study failed to identify predictor variables due to the large discrepancy in the sizes of the two outcome groups. No significant differences were found between the groups with respect to the independent variables. Significant differences were found between gender and graduation outcome. Additionally, differences in grade point average and school attendance were significant between groups. In addition to these statically significant findings, moderate and large effect sizes were identified among the independent variables and high school graduation

Hepatotoxic Cyanobacterial Blooms in Louisiana\u27s Estuaries: Analysis of Risk to Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus) Following Exposure to Microcystins

The most common toxins detected following freshwater harmful algal blooms are microcystins, a group of hepatotoxins produced by cyanobacteria (e.g., Microcystis and Anabaena spp.). Preference for filter-feeding prey, including bivalves, makes the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, vulnerable to microcystin contamination and makes the commercially important crab a potential vector of microcystins. I used a combination of field and laboratory studies to determine blue crab vulnerability to microcystin contamination and consequent impacts on crab physiology. Samples collected from a hyper-eutrophic freshwater lake, Lac des Allemands, Louisiana, were analyzed for cyanobacterial abundances and microcystins in surface water and blue crabs using light-microscopy and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Alternating blooms of Microcystis and Anabaena spp. occurred throughout the sampling period. Highest microcystins concentration in surface water (1.42 &181;g/l) was above tolerable daily intake (TDI) guidelines set by the World Health Organization (WHO). Highest microcystin concentrations in crab tissue were 820, 65, and 105 &181;g microcystins/ kg in hepatopancreas, viscera, and muscle, respectively, which were close to or exceeding the WHO-TDI guidelines. The study demonstrated the ability of Microcystis and Anabaena blooms to produce toxins that accumulate in blue crab tissues and are possibly transferred to higher level consumers, including humans. Laboratory studies were aimed at understanding distributions and physiological effects of two microcystin congeners, microcystin-LR and -RR, in orally exposed blue crabs. Crabs administered 0, 10, 100, 500, or 1000 &181;g microcystin/kg of crab body weight of either congener were sacrificed 48-hours following exposure. Using ELISA, microcystins were detected in hepatopancreas and viscera, but not in muscle or hypodermis for both microcystin-LR and -RR exposed crabs. There was significant correlation between microcystin-LR uptake in hepatopancreas and crab weight loss after 48-hours (P\u3c0.050). In crabs administered daily doses of 50 &181;g microcystin-RR/kg of crab body weight for 7-days, significant (P\u3c0.050) accumulation was seen in hepatopancreas and viscera, but not in muscle, hypodermis, or gills. Lipid hydroperoxides in hepatopancreas were significantly (P\u3c0.050) altered following exposure, indicating oxidative stress. These studies indicate that natural populations of blue crabs may be subjected to physiological stress following microcystin accumulation

Análise da materialidade: abordagens no planeamento sustentável em saúde

Os desafios da implementação da Agenda 2030 para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável têm gerado necessidades conceptuais e metodológicas específicas no âmbito do planeamento estratégico, na procura de modelos, nos vários setores da sociedade, baseados num referencial que integre os três pilares do desenvolvimento sustentável: ambiental, social e económico. A análise da materialidade é um dos métodos analíticos que apoiam o planeamento estratégico das organizações no âmbito do desenvolvimento sustentável. Com origem na área financeira, há vários anos que o conceito de materialidade tem sido alargado às áreas da sustentabilidade, sendo atualmente definido como o limiar a partir do qual as questões com potencial impacto na capacidade de uma organização para criar, preservar ou lesar o valor económico, ambiental e social para si própria, para os stakeholders e para a sociedade, se tornam suficientemente importantes para que passem a ser abordadas no respetivo planeamento estratégico. Largamente utilizada no setor empresarial, admite-se que a análise da materialidade possa contribuir para a integração das dimensões do desenvolvimento sustentável no planeamento em saúde. O objetivo desta comunicação é descrever as diferentes abordagens metodológicas da análise da materialidade e a sua potencial adequação ao setor da saúde.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Análise da materialidade: abordagens no planeamento sustentável em saúde

Os desafios da implementação da Agenda 2030 para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável têm gerado necessidades conceptuais e metodológicas específicas no âmbito do planeamento estratégico, na procura de modelos, nos vários setores da sociedade, baseados num referencial que integre os três pilares do desenvolvimento sustentável: ambiental, social e económico. A análise da materialidade é um dos métodos analíticos que apoiam o planeamento estratégico das organizações no âmbito do desenvolvimento sustentável. Com origem na área financeira, há vários anos que o conceito de materialidade tem sido alargado às áreas da sustentabilidade, sendo atualmente definido como o limiar a partir do qual as questões com potencial impacto na capacidade de uma organização para criar, preservar ou lesar o valor económico, ambiental e social para si própria, para os stakeholders e para a sociedade, se tornam suficientemente importantes para que passem a ser abordadas no respetivo planeamento estratégico. Largamente utilizada no setor empresarial, admite-se que a análise da materialidade possa contribuir para a integração das dimensões do desenvolvimento sustentável no planeamento em saúde. O objetivo desta comunicação é descrever as diferentes abordagens metodológicas da análise da materialidade e a sua potencial adequação ao setor da saúde.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ACoPla: a Multiagent Simulator to Study Individual Strategies in Dynamic Situations

One important issue in multi-agent systems is how to define agents’ interaction strategies in dynamic open environments. Generally, agents’ behaviors, such as being cooperative/altruistic or competitive/adversarial, are defined a priori by their creators. However, this is a weak premise when considering interaction among anonymous self-interested agents. Whenever agents meet, there is always a decision to be made: what is the best group interaction strategy? We argue that the answer depends on the amount of information required to make a decision and on the deadline proximity for accomplishing the task in hand. In certain situations, it is to the agents’ advantage to exchange information with others, while in other situations there are no incentives for them to spend time doing so. Understanding effective behaviors according to the decision- making scenario is still an open issue in multi-agent systems. In this paper, we present a multi-agent simulator (ACoPla) to understand the correlations between agents’ interaction strategy, decision-making context and successful task accomplishment rate. Additionally, we develop a case study in the domain of site evacuation to exemplify our findings. Through this study, we detect the types of conditions under which cooperation becomes the preferred strategy, as the environment changes

Factores psicológicos asociados com la conducta sexual en adolescentes : el papel de la autoestima y la autoeficácia

Sexually transmitted infections are increasing in Brazilian adolescents and youth. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and other psychosocial variables with condom use behavior and sexual debut in a sample of adolescents from Santa Maria-RS. Data was collected with 452 adolescents (57% girls), mean age of 15.9 years (SD = 1.4), using the Bra-zilian Youth Questionnaire – Phase II. Condom use behavior was not associated with self-esteem or self-efficacy in the logistic regression model, contrary to the main hypothesis. General self-efficacy was positively associated with sexual debut, while religiosity was negatively associated with this outcome. Family support was associated with older age at sexual debut. The findings support the importance of analyzing different sexual behaviors separately, as they may have distinct predictors. Studies should use specific measures of self-efficacy when studying sexual behavior and measure how participants value different sexual behaviorsA incidência de infecções sexualmente transmissíveis vem aumentando entre adolescentes brasileiros. Este estudo investigou a associação de autoestima, autoeficácia e outras variáveis psicossociais com o uso de preservativo e o início da vida sexual em adolescentes de Santa Maria, RS. Foram coletados dados com 452 adolescentes (57% meninas), de idade média de 16 anos (DP=1,4), usando o Questionário da Juventude Brasileira – Fase II. Desses, 52% haviam iniciado a vida sexual. Dentre os resultados, o uso de camisinha não esteve associado com a autoestima ou a autoeficácia no modelo de regressão logística, contrariando a hipótese principal. A autoeficácia associou-se com início da vida sexual, enquanto a religiosidade com sua não ocorrência. Já o apoio familiar esteve associado com início da vida sexual mais tardio. Os resultados sugerem a importância de analisar comportamentos sexuais separadamente, pois eles podem ter preditores distintos. Estudos futuros devem utilizar medidas de autoeficácia específicas para com-portamentos sexuais e mensurar a importância atribuída aos comportamentos.Las infecciones de transmisión sexual están aumentando en ado-lescentes brasileños. El objetivo de este estudio fue investigar la asociación de autoestima, autoeficacia, y otras variables psicosociales con el comportamiento sexual en adolescentes. Los datos fueron recolectados con 452 adolescentes (56% niñas), con edad promedia de 15.9 años (DP=1,4), utilizando el Cuestionario de la Juventud Brasileña. El uso del condón no se asoció con la autoestima o la autoeficacia en el modelo de regresión logística, contrario a la hipótesis principal. La autoeficacia general se asoció positivamente con el debut sexual, mientras que la religiosidad se asoció negativamente. El apoyo familiar se asoció con la edad avanzada en el debut sexual. Los hallazgos respaldan la importancia de analizar diferentes comportamientos sexuales por separado, ya que pueden tener predictores distintos. Lo uso de medidas específicas de autoeficacia y de importancia percibida es recomendado para estudiar comportamientos sexuales

Meaning in life: understanding this challenging field of study

Sentido de vida é uma variável que tem sido considerada central para compreensão do bem-estar humano nas últimas décadas. Entretanto, o estudo desse conceito é muito mais antigo e ele já recebeu contribuições da filosofia, da psicologia humanista, da logoterapia e, recentemente, da psicologia positiva e da psicometria, o que possibilitou que tal construto fosse mensurado. Este artigo explora os caminhos de sentido de vida enquanto construto ao longo do tempo, discutindo as contribuições que o conceito recebeu de diversas teorias psicológicas, incluindo o recente modelo tripartite de sentido de vida. Por fim, são discutidos os desafios enfrentados por pesquisadores e clínicos que buscam trabalhar com essa variável.Meaning in life has been considered a key variable to the understanding of human well-being in the last decades. However, the study of this concept is much older and has received contributions from Philosophy, Logotherapy and, recently, Positive Psychology and psychometric studies, thus becoming measurable. This article explores the paths of meaning in life as a construct over time and discusses the contributions of some psychology theories to the concept, including the tripartite view of meaning in life. Finally, we discuss the challenges faced by researchers and clinical psychologists to work with this construct

Perception and application of the concept “quality by design” (QbD) by the pharmaceutical industry in Portugal

The Quality by Design (QbD) paradigm states that in order to ensure predefined product quality, improve manufacturing quality performance, and serve customers’ needs one must fully understand the processes behind it. With the purpose of assessing the perception of the pharmaceutical industry in Portugal about the usefulness of a strategy for development, production optimization and control/quality management according to the QbD concept and its level of implementation, we conducted a survey amongst 28 licensed entities for the production of medicines and drug substances (excluding medicinal gases) in the Portuguese territory. This survey was applied between 16/12/2014 to 1/06/2014 and had 2 groups of questions: one to characterize the industries and the other one to answer to the research objective. Data treatment and results’ analysis were made with SPSS (v.21). Of the 12 companies that answered the survey, just one (8,3%) did not use or did not initiate the implementation of QbD, although all of them (100%) knew the concept in the context of the guidelines ICH Q8, Q9 and Q10, meaning that Portuguese industries are indeed aware of regulatory proceedings and are keeping pace towards global regulatory harmonisation. Significantly, QbD was considered of greater importance (in terms of dedicated budget and human resources) among the industries having R&D activities (p-value=0,024, assuming a significance level of 5%). The industries’ two most used QbD tools are “Quality Risk Assessment and Quality Risk Management” (27%) followed by “Design of Experiments (DoE)” (18,9%). The most frequently pointed scopes of use and implementation of QbD are “the development and improvement of analytical methods for quality control” (28%) and “process improvements” (28%). Quality management (27,5%) and manufacturing (22,5%) are the most relevant industry sectors under these ICH guidelines’ influence. Of the several benefits indicated as possibly achieved through QbD, the most expressive (32,1%) was “greater robustness in the final product quality and reduction of the risks of "non-compliance" and costs”. Yet, 9 responses (42,9%) stated that “inability/difficulty of allocating time and qualified staff” was the main obstacle towards implementation, followed by “uncertainties on how to actually implement the principles of QbD” (23,8%). This suggests that in spite of Portuguese industries’ ambition to succeed throughout this integrative strategy, there’s still the need to better learn the “know how” and master the skills underlying QbD. To be able to invest time and manpower might be indeed essential to go beyond theoretical knowledge and to acquire the tools and competences for approaching more efficiently this concept. In conclusion, Portuguese industries still have a long path ahead of them towards full adoption of QbD and proving its benefits. This might be done with straight cooperation of regulatory agencies (EMA, ICH, FDA) and experts of this field. However, we propose that the Portuguese academy should also participate, giving pharmacy students the awareness and competences in the use of QbD tools and concepts.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contribution of HIA to governance of health systems and community well-being

Apresentação sobre a contribuição de Health Impact Assessment (HIA) para a governação para a saúde e bem-estar das comunidades.N/

Health Planning in Portugal

Apresentação efetuada na reunião de cooperação bilateral entre Portugal e a Noruega no âmbito do Programa "Iniciativas em Saúde Pública", onde se enquadra o INSEF (Inquérito Nacional de Saúde com Exame Físico).N/