Development of an application for diagnosis, monitoring and rehabilitation of neurodegenerative diseases

The progress of healthcare over the last years led to an aging of the world population, increasing the prevalence of age-related diseases in the society, mainly neurodegenerative diseases. These pathologies currently affect more than 30 million people worldwide, and there is currently no cure for them. The high costs experienced by patients and their families are largely due to the individual monitoring performed by technicians. New technologies are providing alternatives for monitoring, diagnosis and rehabilitation of individuals with these diseases. This project includes the development of a web application which allows patients with neurodegenerative diseases to be monitored with less invasion and costs, enabling greater adherence. The application follows several examples from the literature for the construction of games, includes diagnostic assessments used in the medical field and promotes its use through gamification techniques. The construction of the web server used the Python language and the Flask framework because of the availability of useful modules, large supporting community and scalability. The software was specially designed for people with Parkinson’s disease, featuring a simple navigation between menus and an easy-to-use interface. The web application was named "Mentalist". The development of the application was followed by professional neurologists and the results obtained were guided by clinicians’ practice. According to these experts, the developed functionalities cover the most important aspects of diagnosis, monitoring and rehabilitation, making it a tool of high importance and applicability in daily clinical practiceA melhoria das condições de vida e dos cuidados de saúde nos últimos anos tem originado um envelhecimento da população mundial, aumentando a prevalência de doenças relacionadas com a idade. Neste grupo de doenças destacam-se as doenças neurodegenerativas, que afetam mais de 30 milhões de pessoas e não têm, atualmente, cura. Os elevados custos experienciados pelos pacientes e pelas suas famílias devem-se, em grande parte, ao acompanhamento individual realizado por técnicos. Novas tecnologias têm possibilitado alternativas para o acompanhamento, diagnóstico e reabilitação de indivíduos com estas doenças. Este projeto inclui o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação web que permite a monitorização de pacientes com menos invasão e custos, proporcionando uma maior adesão. A aplicação segue exemplos da literatura para a construção dos jogos, inclui questionários de diagnóstico utilizados no ramo médico e promove a sua utilização através de técnicas de gamificação. Foi utilizada a linguagem Python e o framework Flask para a construção do servidor devido à existência de módulos úteis, grande comunidade de desenvolvedores e escalabilidade. O software foi desenvolvido especialmente para pacientes com a doença de Parkinson, apresentando uma navegação simples entre menus e uma interface fácil de usar. A aplicação web foi denominada "Mentalist". O desenvolvimento da aplicação foi seguido por neurologistas profissionais e os resultados obtidos foram guiados pela experiência dos clínicos. De acordo com estes especialistas, as funcionalidades desenvolvidas contemplam os principais aspetos relativos ao diagnóstico, monitorização e reabilitação, tornando-a num instrumento de grande importância e aplicabilidade na prática clínica diári

The migrant character in As maçãs azuis

Este artigo analisa a possibilidade da narrativa autobiográfica As Maçãs Azuis: Portugal e Goa 1948-1961 (1987) de Edila Gaitonde ser considerada uma obra de literatura de migração. Para tal, analisar-se-ão duas questões consideradas centrais na Literatura de Migração: a questão da identidade híbrida da personagem migrante e a questão da fronteira, aspetos intimamente relacionados entre si. O percurso da protagonista é o de um ser migrante, marcado pela mudança e pelo movimento, que atravessou constantemente fronteiras, não só físicas, mas também, e sobretudo, culturais, sociais, linguísticas e político-ideológicas. Em virtude de ter contraído matrimónio com um médico nacionalista hindu e opositor ao regime colonial português, os desafios enfrentados pela personagem estão marcados pelo seu encontro com o Oriente (ou com as diversas realidades sociopolíticas e culturais da Índia) aquando da mudança para essa parte do globo, assim como pelo combate político ao partilhar com o esposo os valores da democracia e o sonho de uma Goa independente. A transposição constante de fronteiras repercutiu-se na identidade açoriana-portuguesa-católica-ocidental da protagonista, em resultado das relações de vária ordem (pessoais, familiares ou sociais) estabelecidas com a heterogeneidade de comunidades existentes em Goa ¾ a comunidade portuguesa constituída pela população oriunda da metrópole e que estava no território ao serviço do Estado Português, representando-o, e as comunidades autóctones cristã e hindu de Goa. A integração da personagem nesse espaço sociocultural levou a uma reconfiguração da sua identidade, que se traduziu na formação de uma identidade híbrida, a qual favoreceu, por seu turno, o equilíbrio almejado pela personagem com vista a conciliar a sua identidade cultural ocidental com a das comunidades existentes no Oriente, particularmente a hindu, procurando evitar ou minimizar o choque cultural.In this paper we analise the possibility to consider the autobiographical narrative In Search of Tomorrow (1987) by Edila Gaitonde to be considered migration literature. Therefore, we will study two issues considered central in Migration Literature: the issue of migrant fictional character’s hybrid identity and the issue of borders, items related the one to the other. The life course of the protagonist is identified as a “migrant”, emphasized by the changes and movements, who constantly crossed borders not only physical ones but mainly cultural, social, linguistic, political and ideological borders. When leaving to another country due to her marriage to a Hindustan nationalist doctor and an opponent to the Portuguese colonial regime, she deals with the challenges of the Eastern culture (or the different social, cultural and political realities of India). At the same time, the protagonist fights a political battle sharing with her husband the values of democracy and the dream of an independent Goa. The constant cross-border movement had consequences in the Azorean-Portuguese-catholic-western identity of the protagonist, because of the several types of relationships (personal, family or social) established within the heterogeneity of the communities of Goa. The Portuguese community came from the mainland and it was established in the territory to serve and to represent the Portuguese government as well as the Christian and Hindu autochthone communities of Goa. On the one hand, the integration of the protagonist in that social and cultural environment led to a reconfiguration of her identity which can be translated in the building up of a hybrid identity. On the other hand, expecting to diminished or avoid the cultural shock, that hybrid identity sought a balance in order to conciliate the protagonist’s cultural western identity with those of the Eastern communities, particularly the Hindi community.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Migratory short stories by Dora Nunes Gago

De acordo com a conceção de Søren Frank (2008), que defende que a migração só se pode inscrever na obra literária pela conjugação do conteúdo – as temáticas abordadas e / ou a condição migrante das personagens –, com a forma – as estratégias discursivas implementadas –, propomo-nos analisar os contos que constituem a obra Travessias – Contos Migratórios (2014) de Dora Nunes Gago. Partindo da reflexão em torno das designações “contos migratórios” e conto de/sobre migração, procurar-se-á identificar as estratégias discursivas postas ao serviço das temáticas tratadas e, desse modo, constatar em que medida o conceito de migração se converte numa característica intratextual da obra literária e não meramente um tema literariamente explorado.According to Søren Frank (2008), migration can only be inscribed in the literary work by the conjugation of the content – the themes and / or the migrant condition of the characters – with the form – the discursive strategies. We analyze the short stories included in the book Travessias – Contos Migratótios (2014) by Dora Nunes Gago. Our reflection starts by the distinction of the descriptions “migratory tales”, “tales of migration” or “tales on migration”. We identify the discursive strategies put at the service of the topics treated and, thus, to verify to what extent the concept of migration becomes a characteristic of the literary work and not merely a literarily explored theme.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Classificação de Argumentos Sintácticos: Aproximação preliminar

Este artigo apresenta uma aproximação preliminar de uma vertente pouco explorada do processamento de linguagem natural para a líıngua Portuguesa, a classificação de argumentos sintácticos. Primeiro é dada uma introdução à classificação de argumentos sintácticos, posteriormente são explicados os passos necessários à criação de um classificador utilizando a ferramenta MinorThird. O desempenho foi verificado nos argumentos sintácticos mais frequentes (predicado, sujeito e complemento directo) num subconjunto do Bosque 8.0. A mesma abordagem foi aplicada a um corpus da língua Inglesa utilizado no CONLL 2004 e os resultados foram comparados com os obtidos na tarefa conjunta do CONLL 2004

Situação atual de Marketing nos Estabelecimentos Hoteleiros em São Tomé e Príncipe

A presente investigação tem como objetivo avaliar a situação atual de marketing estratégico e operacional nos estabelecimentos hoteleiros de três a cinco estrelas em São Tomé e Príncipe, baseando nos atributos do instrumento de avaliação da eficácia de marketing, desenvolvido pelo autor Kotler. O setor de turismo é hoje em São Tomé e Príncipe uma importante indústria para o desenvolvimento económico e social, sendo um dos principais impulsionadores de uma evolução sustentável que se verifica na atualidade. Além de gerar receitas, criar diversos postos de trabalho, este setor tem efeitos multiplicadores em várias áreas no país. O desenvolvimento do turismo tem contribuído para a criação de ofertas turísticas, nomeadamente estabelecimentos hoteleiros. Todavia, é notório que nem todos os estabelecimentos hoteleiros têm a mesma capacidade financeira e de recursos humanos para investirem em departamentos de marketing que possam desenvolver estratégias de marketing bem definidas, o que os pode colocar em situações vulneráveis face à concorrência. Deste modo, tendo em conta o objetivo supracitado, desenvolveu-se uma investigação onde foi possível realizar uma análise situacional a nível macro e micro envolvente do mercado hoteleiros e turístico em São Tomé e Príncipe; realizar a análise dos inquiridos; dos estabelecimentos hoteleiros; da filosofia voltada para o cliente; da organização integrada do marketing; da informação de marketing adequada; da orientação estratégica e a eficiência operacional. Utilizou-se como instrumento de recolha de dados um questionário que foi aplicado online, a 25 gestores de topo de todos estabelecimentos hoteleiros de três a cinco estrelas e recolheu-se 15 respostas, que corresponde a uma taxa de 60% de respostas obtidas. De acordo com os resultados, concluiu-se que a amostra é maioritariamente do sexo masculino, com idades entre 45 e 55 anos e, com formação ao nível do curso profissional e licenciatura. Quanto aos estabelecimentos hoteleiros, prevalecem os estabelecimentos de 3 e 4 estrelas, sendo que nem todos têm um departamento para a área de marketingThe present investigation aims to evaluate the current strategic and operational marketing situation in three to five star hotel establishments in São Tomé and Príncipe, based on the attributes of the evaluation instrument of marketing effectiveness, developed by author Kotler. The tourism sector is today in São Tomé and Príncipe an important industry for economic and social development, being one of the main boosters of sustainable evolution that is happening today. Beyond to generate revenue, create several jobs, this sector has multiplier effects in various areas in the country. The development of tourism has contributed to the creation of tourist offers, namely hotel establishments. However, is notorious that not all hotel establishments have the same financial and human resource capacity to invest in marketing departments that can develop well-defined marketing strategies, which can put them in vulnerable situations in the face of competition. That way, having regard to the aforementioned objective, an investigation was developed where it was possible developed a investigation where it was possible to perform a situational analysis macro and micro level wraparound the hotel and tourist market in São Tomé and Príncipe; perform the analysis of respondents; of hotel establishments; of customer philosophy; of integrated marketing organization; of adequate marketing information; of strategic orientation and Operational Efficiency. It was used as a data collection instrument a questionnaire that was applied online, to 25 top managers of all three to five star hotel establishments and 15 responses were collected, which corresponds to a rate of 60% of responses obtained. According to the results, it was concluded that the sample is mostly male, aged between 45 and 55 years and, with training at the professional course and undergraduate level. As for hotel establishments, 3 and 4 star establishments prevail, not all of them have a department for the marketing are

Quantum tree-based planning

Reinforcement Learning is at the core of a recent revolution in Arti cial Intelligence. Simultaneously, we are witnessing the emergence of a new  eld: Quantum Machine Learning. In the context of these two major developments, this work addresses the interplay between Quantum Computing and Reinforcement Learning. Learning by interaction is possible in the quantum setting using the concept of oraculization of environments. The paper extends previous oracular instances to address more general stochastic environments. In this setting, we developed a novel quantum algorithm for near-optimal decision-making based on the Reinforcement Learning paradigm known as Sparse Sampling. The proposed algorithm exhibits a quadratic speedup compared to its classical counterpart. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the  first quantum planning algorithm exhibiting a time complexity independent of the number of states of the environment, which makes it suitable for large state space environments, where planning is otherwise intractable.This work is financed by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, within project UIDB/50014/2020

Policy gradients using variational quantum circuits

Variational quantum circuits are being used as versatile quantum machine learning models. Some empirical results exhibit an advantage in supervised and generative learning tasks. However, when applied to reinforcement learning, less is known. In this work, we considered a variational quantum circuit composed of a low-depth hardware-efficient ansatz as the parameterized policy of a reinforcement learning agent. We show that an epsilon-approximation of the policy gradient can be obtained using a logarithmic number of samples concerning the total number of parameters. We empirically verify that such quantum models behave similarly to typical classical neural networks used in standard benchmarking environments and quantum control, using only a fraction of the parameters. Moreover, we study the barren plateau phenomenon in quantum policy gradients using the Fisher information matrix spectrum.Open access funding provided by FCT-FCCN (b-on). This work is financed by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, within grants LA/P/0063/2020, UI/BD/152698/2022 and project IBEX, with reference PTDC/CCI-COM/4280/2021

Roadmap for implementing business intelligence systems in Higher Education Institutions: exploratory work

Higher Education Institutions must define and monitor strategies and policies essential for decision-making in their various areas and levels, in which Business Intelligence plays a leading role. This research addresses the problem of Business Intelligence system adoption in Higher Education Institutions, with a view, in the first instance, to identify and characterise the strategic objectives that underpin decision-making, activities, processes, indicators and information in Higher Education Institutions. After a literature review, it was found that the absence of a roadmap that can serve as a reference to implement a Business Intelligence system in Higher Education Institutions may limit the adoption of this type of solution. Therefore, this research intends to present the methodology of a proposed roadmap for the implementation of Business Intelligence systems in Higher Education Institutions, that allows for increasing its capacity for analysis and evaluation of the data and information available in the various systems and platforms.This work has received funding from FEDER Funds through COMPETE program and from National Funds through Portugal 2020 under the project "SATDAP - Capacitação da Administração Pública operation BI@UTAD", grant number POCI-05- 5762-FSE-000264. The authors acknowledge the work facilities and equipment provided by CeDRI (UIDB/05757/2020 and UIDP/05757/2020) to the project team.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Roadmap for implementing business intelligence systems in higher education institutions: systematic literature review

Higher education institutions (HEIs) make decisions in several domains, namely strategic and internal management, without using systematized data that support these decisions, which may jeopardize the success of their actions or even their efficiency. Thus, HEIs must define and monitor strategies and policies essential for decision making in their various areas and levels, in which business intelligence (BI) plays a leading role. This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) aimed at identifying and analyzing primary studies that propose a roadmap for the implementation of a BI system in HEIs. The objectives of the SLR are to identify and characterize (i) the strategic objectives that underlie decision making, activities, processes, and information in HEIs; (ii) the BI systems used in HEIs; (iii) the methods and techniques applied in the design of a BI architecture in HEIs. The results showed that there is space for developing research in this area since it was possible to identify several studies on the use of BI in HEIs, although a roadmap for its implementation was not identified, making it necessary to define a roadmap for the implementation of BI systems that can serve as a reference for HEIs.The study was developed under the project A-MoVeR—“Mobilizing Agenda for the Development of Products & Systems towards an Intelligent and Green Mobility”, operation no. 02/C05-i01.01/2022.PC646908627-00000069, approved under the terms of call no. 02/C05-i01/2022— Mobilizing Agendas for Business Innovation, financed by European funds provided to Portugal by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), in the scope of the European Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), framed in the Next Generation UE, for the period from 2021 to 2026. The authors acknowledge the work facilities and equipment provided by CeDRI (UIDB/05757/2020 and UIDP/05757/2020) to the project team.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio