Experiências de Cyberbullying relatadas por estudantes do ensino superior politécnico

As TIC trouxeram múltiplos benefícios mas acarretam também riscos, nomeadamente o cyberbullying, ou seja, a prática de atos agressivos, intencionais e repetidos com recurso a dispositivos eletrónicos para, por exemplo, enviar mensagens insultuosas ou criar websites que difamam e hostilizam os outros. Este estudo teve por objetivos conhecer a frequência e os tipos de cyberbullying praticados, sofridos e observados por estudantes do ensino superior politécnico; saber se se veriicam diferenças entre géneros e cursos; identiicar as emoções associadas aos diferentes papéis no cyberbullying; identiicar os motivos invocados pelos agressores para explicar este tipo de comportamento. Para o efeito construiu-se um questionário quantitativo que foi aplicado a 170 estudantes que frequentavam várias licenciaturas de uma instituição de ensino superior politécnico de Portugal. Os resultados revelaram que 30,6% dos estudantes já tinham sido vítimas de cyberbullying e 8,2% admitiu ter praticado cyberbullying, pelo menos algumas vezes. Um dos motivos mais evocados pelos agressores para esta prática foi a vingança relativamente a episódios ocorridos anteriormente. Não se veriicaram diferenças signiicativas entre sexos mas o fenómeno era mais frequente em cursos de engenharia comparativamente aos de educação e ciências humanas. Equaciona-se a prevenção do cyberbullying a partir da utilização dos próprios meios de comunicação social para promoção da partilha de informação sobre como utilizar as TIC de forma ética e segura, bem como através da criação de programas e plataformas envolvendo estudantes de vários níveis de ensino com vista à prevenção deste fenómeno

NGS4Cloud: Cloud-based NGS Data Processing

Motivation and challenges: Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies are greatly increasing the amount of genomic computer data, revolutionizing the biosciences field and leading to the development of more complex NGS Data Analysis techniques [2]. These techniques, known as pipelines or workflows, consist of running and refining a series of intertwined computational analysis and visualization tasks on large amounts of data. These pipelines involve the use of multiple software tools and data resources in a staged fashion, with the output of one tool being passed as input to the next one. To simplify the design and execution of biomedical workflows by end users, especially those that use multiple software tools and data resources, a number of scientific workflow systems have been developed over the past decade. Examples include Galaxy [1] and Swift [3]. However, most of these scientific workflow systems cannot be easily deployed and most of the times are only available to users with access to specialized IT support. There are two main issues to address in the design of an execution environment to these pipelines. First, due to the complexity of configuring and parametrizing pipelines, the use of NGS Data Analysis techniques is not an easy task for a user without IT knowledge. Second, knowing input data can be as much as terabytes and petabytes, pipelines execution require, in general, a great amount of computational resources.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mobile laboratories as an alternative to conventional remote laboratories

Remote laboratories have been playing an important role on the improvement of flexibility and the extent of practical activities in teaching and learning activities in engineering and technology. However, the current remote laboratories model does not consider dynamic scenarios including collaboration, peer-to-peer labs and mobile labs. This paper presents a set of tools for creating collaborative online mobile laboratories that allow students to develop their own labs and share them with classmates and teachers. The approach used is compatible with the machine and network configurations that the target user has in schools and at home, and provides the retrieval of information for learning evaluation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

VALIDAÇÃO DE PROTOCOLO ELETRÔNICO MULTIPROFISSIONAL PARA CIRURGIA DO APARELHO DIGESTIVO

Background: The creation of a computerized clinical database with the ability to collect prospective information from patients and with the possibility of rescue and crossing data enables scientific studies of higher quality and credibility in less time. Aim: To validate, in a single master protocol, the clinical data referring to Surgery of Digestive System in a multidisciplinary way, incorporating it in the SINPEâ platform, and to verify the incidence of digestive diseases based on the prospectively performed collections. Method: Organize in one software, in a standardized structure, all the pre-existing items in the SINPEâ database; the theoretical basis was computerized through the MIGRASINPEâ module creating a single multiprofessional master protocol for use as a whole. Results: The existing specific protocols were created and/or adapted – they correspond to the most prevalent digestive diseases - unifying them. The possibility of multiprofessional use was created by integrating all data collected from Medicine, Nursing, Physiotherapy, Nutrition and Health Management in a prospective way. The total was 4,281 collections, distributed as follows: extrahepatic biliary tract n=1,786; esophagus n=1015; anorectal n=736; colon n=550; small intestine n=86; pancreas n=71; stomach=23; liver n=14. Conclusions: The validation of the unification and structuring in a single master protocol of the clinical data referring to the Surgery of the Digestive System in a multiprofessional and prospective way was possible and the epidemiological study carried out allowed to identify the most prevalent digestive diseases in a tertiary university hospital.Racional: A criação de um banco de dados clínicos informatizado com a capacidade de coletar informações dos pacientes de forma prospectiva e com possibilidade de resgate e cruzamento viabiliza estudos científicos de maior qualidade e credibilidade em menor tempo. Objetivos: Validar em único protocolo mestre os dados clínicos referentes à Cirurgia do Aparelho Digestivo de forma multiprofissional incorporando-o na plataforma SINPEâ, e verificar a incidência das doenças digestivas com base nas coletas prospectivamente realizadas. Método: Organizar no software em estrutura padronizada todos os itens pré-existentes no banco de dados do SINPEâ, informatizou-se a base teórica através do módulo MIGRASINPE© criando-se um único protocolo mestre multiprofissional para uso como um todo. Resultados: Foram criados e/ou adaptados os protocolos específicos existentes - que correspondem às doenças mais prevalentes que assolam este aparelho – unificando-os. Criou-se a possibilidade de uso multiprofissional integrando todos os dados coletados da Medicina, Enfermagem, Fisioterapia, Nutrição e Gestão em Saúde de maneira prospectiva. O total foi de 4.281 coletas assim distribuídas: vias biliares extra-hepáticas n=1.786; esôfago n=1015; anorretais n=736; cólon n=550; intestino delgado n=86; pâncreas n=71; estômago=23; fígado n=14.  Conclusões: A validação da unificação e estruturação em único protocolo mestre dos dados clínicos referentes à Cirurgia do Aparelho Digestivo de forma multiprofissional e prospectiva foi possível e o estudo epidemiológico realizado permitiu identificar as doenças mais prevalentes nesse aparelho em um hospital universitário terciário

Salt effects on the solubility of aromatic and dicarboxylic amino acids in water

The salt effect on the solubility of the amino acids l-aspartic acid, l-glutamic acid, l-tryptophan, and l-tyrosine, seldomly found in the literature, was studied at 298.2 K, in aqueous solutions of KCl and (NH4)2SO4, for salt concentrations up to 2.0 mol·kg−1. In this concentration range, both salts are salting-in agents for glutamic acid and aspartic acid, with a stronger effect induced by (NH4)2SO4. Regarding the two aromatic amino acids, a slight increase in the solubility was obtained at low salt concentrations, followed by a stronger salting-out effect, more pronounced by (NH4)2SO4 than by KCl. The relative solubility data obtained in this work were compared to literature data for other amino acids in the same electrolyte solutions to establish a relative solubility ranking connected to their structure. Finally, the solubility data were modeled using the electrolyte Perturbed-Chain Statistical Association Theory (ePC-SAFT). The modeling requires parameters for the amino acids and ions as well as melting properties of the amino acids. All these parameters and properties were obtained from previous works. To quantitatively describe the solubility of amino acids upon salt addition, binary interaction parameters (kij) between any amino acid and anions were determined, while between any amino acid and the cations were fixed to kij = 0.08. The kij parameters between amino acid and the inorganic anions show very similar values for amino acids of the same chemical class (e.g. kij between anion and amino acid with apolar side chains), which may be used to systematically reduce the number of adjustable parameters in future work.publishe

Using COSMO-RS to design choline chloride pharmaceutical eutectic solvents

Deep eutectic solvents (DES) present interesting properties, mostly connected to their solvation ability, and have been subject to much research in the recent past. Currently, the discovery of new eutectic solvents is accomplished by experimentally measuring the eutectic point of random systems, often using choline chloride as a hydrogen bond acceptor. In this work, the eutectic temperatures of new choline chloride-based eutectic systems were experimentally assessed. These data, along with other previously reported in the literature, were used to evaluate a method based on COSMO-RS to predict the eutectic temperature of choline-chloride based mixtures. The predictive methodology herein developed allows for the quick scanning of a large matrix of systems in order to identify those more promising to be in the liquid state at a given temperature. To validate this method, the eutectic temperature of pharmaceutical drug mixtures was predicted and, then, assessed experimentally, showing that COSMO-RS is useful in the design of liquid drug-based formulations.This work was developed in the scope of the project CICECO e Aveiro Institute of Materials, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (Ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013) and Associate Laboratory LSRE-LCM, POCI- 01-0145-FEDER-006984 (Ref. FCT UID/EQU/50020/2013), and project MultiBiorefinery (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403), financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC and when appropriate cofinanced by FEDDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. FCT is also acknowledged for funding the project DeepBiorefinery (PTDC/AGRTEC/1191/2014). Marcos Larriba also thanks Ministerio de Eduación, Cultura y Deporte of Spain for awarding him a José Castillejo postdoctoral mobility grant (CAS17/00018).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

NGSPipes: from specification to automatic deployment of NGS pipelines

Biosciences have been revolutionized by next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies in last years, leading to new perspectives in medical, industrial and environmental applications. And although our motivation comes from biosciences, the following is true for many areas of science: published results are usually hard to reproduce either because data is not available or tools are not readily available, which delays the adoption of new methodologies and hinders innovation. Our focus is on tool readiness and pipelines availability. Even though most tools are freely available, pipelines are in general barely described and their configuration is far from trivial, with many parameters to be tuned.In this paper we discuss how to effectively build and use pipelines, relying on state of the art computing technologies to execute them without users need to configure, install and manage tools, servers and complex workflow management systems. A framework is also proposed showing that we can have public pipelines ready to process and analyse very high volume experimental data, produced for instance by high-throughput technologies, and that can be executed by users without effort. The NGSPipes framework and underlying architecture provides a major step towards open science and true collaboration in what concerns tools and pipelines among computational biology researchers and practitioners, which may share and replicate results in an easier and transparent way.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Relato de implantação e utilização de uma instância do laboratório remoto VISIR em uma instituição brasileira

Considerando laboratórios remotos como ferramentas de potencial para disponibilizar práticas laboratoriais de uma maneira eficiente, percebe-se o crescimento no desenvolvimento dessas soluções, este é o caso do laboratório remoto VISIR, que disponibiliza práticas relacionadas aos conteúdos de circuitos elétricos e eletrônicos, devido às vantagens oferecidas este tipo de tecnologias tem sido replicada e implantada em diversas instituições. Este trabalho visa apresentar o relato de instalação e utilização de uma instância do laboratório remoto VISIR junto a recursos desenvolvidos para facilitar sua utilização, em uma instituição de ensino brasileira, a UFSC, proporcionado a compressão sobre o funcionamento da plataforma e sobre possíveis aplicações da mesma, demonstrando a flexibilidade em relação aos níveis de ensino que a ferramenta pode ser utilizada, bem como os conteúdos que podem ser abordados.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Multidrug resistance 1 gene polymorphisms may determine Crohn's disease behavior in patients from Rio de Janeiro

OBJECTIVES: Conflicting data from studies on the potential role of multidrug resistance 1 gene polymorphisms in inflammatory bowel disease may result from the analysis of genetically and geographically distinct populations. Here, we investigated whether multidrug resistance 1 gene polymorphisms are associated with inflammatory bowel diseases in patients from Rio de Janeiro. METHODS: We analyzed 123 Crohn's disease patients and 83 ulcerative colitis patients to determine the presence of the multidrug resistance 1 gene polymorphisms C1236T, G2677T and C3435T. In particular, the genotype frequencies of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients were analyzed. Genotype-phenotype associations with major clinical characteristics were established, and estimated risks were calculated for the mutations. RESULTS: No significant difference was observed in the genotype frequencies of the multidrug resistance 1 G2677T/A and C3435T polymorphisms between Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients. In contrast, the C1236T polymorphism was significantly more common in Crohn's disease than in ulcerative colitis (p = 0.047). A significant association was also found between the multidrug resistance 1 C3435T polymorphism and the stricturing form of Crohn's disease (OR: 4.13; p = 0.009), whereas no association was found with penetrating behavior (OR: 0.33; p = 0.094). In Crohn's disease, a positive association was also found between the C3435T polymorphism and corticosteroid resistance/refractoriness (OR: 4.14; p = 0.010). However, no significant association was found between multidrug resistance 1 gene polymorphisms and UC subphenotypic categories. CONCLUSION: The multidrug resistance 1 gene polymorphism C3435T is associated with the stricturing phenotype and an inappropriate response to therapy in Crohn's disease. This association with Crohn's disease may support additional pathogenic roles for the multidrug resistance 1 gene in regulating gut-microbiota interactions and in mediating fibrosis. Understanding the effects of several drugs associated with multidrug resistance 1 gene variants may aid in the selection of customized therapeutic regimens

Brazilian Network for HIV Drug Resistance Surveillance: a survey of individuals recently diagnosed with HIV

Use of antiretrovirals is widespread in Brazil, where more than 200,000 individuals are under treatment. Although general prevalence of primary antiretroviral resistance in Brazil is low, systematic sampling in large metropolitan areas has not being performed