Search results for: Ana Sofia Torres Pereira

Authors: Filomena Lopes, Miguel Magalhaes, Carla Santos Pereira, Natercia Durao, Cristina Costa-Lobo

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The option to implement curricular internships with undergraduate students is a pedagogical option with some good results perceived by academic staff, employers, and among graduates in general and IT (Information Technology) in particular. Knowing that this type of exercise has never been so relevant, as one tries to give meaning to the future in a landscape of rapid and deep changes. We have as an example the potential disruptive impact on the jobs of advances in robotics, artificial intelligence and 3-D printing, which is a focus of fierce debate. It is in this context that more and more students and employers engage in the pursuit of career-promoting responses and business development, making their investment decisions of training and hiring. Three decades of experience and research in computer science degree and in information systems technologies degree at the Portucalense University, Portuguese private university, has provided strong evidence of its advantages. The Human Interaction Skills development as well as the attractiveness of such experiences for students are topics assumed as core in the Ccnception and management of the activities implemented in these study cycles. The objective of this paper is to gather evidence of the Human Interaction Skills explained and valued within the curriculum internship experiences of IT students employability. Data collection was based on the application of questionnaire to intern counselors and to students who have completed internships in these undergraduate courses in the last decade. The trainee supervisor, responsible for monitoring the performance of IT students in the evolution of traineeship activities, evaluates the following Human Interaction Skills: Motivation and interest in the activities developed, interpersonal relationship, cooperation in company activities, assiduity, ease of knowledge apprehension, Compliance with norms, insertion in the work environment, productivity, initiative, ability to take responsibility, creativity in proposing solutions, and self-confidence. The results show that these undergraduate courses promote the development of Human Interaction Skills and that these students, once they finish their degree, are able to initiate remunerated work functions, mainly by invitation of the institutions in which they perform curricular internships. Findings obtained from the present study contribute to widen the analysis of its effectiveness in terms of future research and actions in regard to the transition from Higher Education pathways to the Labour Market.

Keywords: human interaction skills, employability, internships, information technology, higher education

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Authors: Ana-María Gómez-Carvajal, Hernando Santamaría-García, Mateo Bernal, Mario Valderrama, Daniela Lizarazo, Juliana Restrepo, María Fernanda Barreto, Angélica Parra, Paula Torres, Diana Matallana, Jaime Silva, José Santamaría-García, Sandra Baez

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Higher levels of oxytocin are associated with better performance on social cognition tasks. However, higher levels of oxytocin have also been associated with increased levels of envy and schadenfreude. Considering these antecedents, this study aims to explore social emotions (i.e., envy and schadenfreude) and other components of social cognition (i.e. ToM and empathy), in women in the puerperal period and their respective partners, compared to a control group of men and women without children or partners. Control women should be in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle or taking oral contraceptives as they allow oxytocin levels to remain stable. We selected this population since increased levels of oxytocin are present in both mothers and fathers of newborn babies. Both groups were matched by age, sex, and education level. Twenty-two parents of newborns (11 women, 11 men) and 15 controls (8 women, 7 men) performed an experimental task designed to trigger schadenfreude and envy. In this task, each participant was shown a real-life photograph and a description of two target characters matched in age and gender with the participant. The task comprised two experimental blocks. In the first block, participants read 15 sentences describing fortunate events involving either character. After reading each sentence, participants rated the event in terms of how much envy they felt for the character (1=no envy, 9=extreme envy). In the second block, participants read and reported the intensity of their pleasure (schadenfreude, 1=no pleasure, 9=extreme pleasure) in response to 15 unfortunate events happening to the characters. Five neutral events were included in each block. Moreover, participants were assessed with ToM and empathy tests. Potential confounding variables such as general cognitive functioning, stress levels, hours of sleep and depression symptoms were also measured. Results showed that parents of newborns showed increased levels of envy and schadenfreude. These effects are not explained by any confounding factor. Moreover, no significant differences were found in ToM or empathy tests. Our results offer unprecedented evidence of specific differences in envy and schadenfreude levels in parents of newborns. Our findings support previous studies showing a negative relationship between oxytocin levels and negative social emotions. Further studies should assess the direct relationship between oxytocin levels in parents of newborns and the performance in social emotions tasks.

Keywords: envy, empathy, oxytocin, schadenfreude, social emotions, theory of mind

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Authors: Amanda T. Badaró, Douglas F. Barbin, Sofia T. Garcia, Maria Teresa P. S. Clerici, Amanda R. Ferreira

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Food fortification is the intentional addition of a nutrient in a food matrix and has been widely used to overcome the lack of nutrients in the diet or increasing the nutritional value of food. Fortified food must meet the demand of the population, taking into account their habits and risks that these foods may cause. Wheat and its by-products, such as semolina, has been strongly indicated to be used as a food vehicle since it is widely consumed and used in the production of other foods. These products have been strategically used to add some nutrients, such as fibers. Methods of analysis and quantification of these kinds of components are destructive and require lengthy sample preparation and analysis. Therefore, the industry has searched for faster and less invasive methods, such as Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR). NIR is a rapid and cost-effective method, however, it is based on indirect measurements, yielding high amount of data. Therefore, NIR spectroscopy requires calibration with mathematical and statistical tools (Chemometrics) to extract analytical information from the corresponding spectra, as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). PCA is well suited for NIR, once it can handle many spectra at a time and be used for non-supervised classification. Advantages of the PCA, which is also a data reduction technique, is that it reduces the data spectra to a smaller number of latent variables for further interpretation. On the other hand, LDA is a supervised method that searches the Canonical Variables (CV) with the maximum separation among different categories. In LDA, the first CV is the direction of maximum ratio between inter and intra-class variances. The present work used a portable infrared spectrometer (NIR) for identification and classification of pure and fiber-fortified semolina samples. The fiber was added to semolina in two different concentrations, and after the spectra acquisition, the data was used for PCA and LDA to identify and discriminate the samples. The results showed that NIR spectroscopy associate to PCA was very effective in identifying pure and fiber-fortified semolina. Additionally, the classification range of the samples using LDA was between 78.3% and 95% for calibration and 75% and 95% for cross-validation. Thus, after the multivariate analysis such as PCA and LDA, it was possible to verify that NIR associated to chemometric methods is able to identify and classify the different samples in a fast and non-destructive way.

Keywords: Chemometrics, fiber, linear discriminant analysis, near-infrared spectroscopy, principal component analysis, semolina

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Authors: Joao Vicente Pereira Fernandez

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In the context of a democratic crisis, a new wave of authoritarianism prompts domineering male figures to leadership posts worldwide. Although the gendered aspect of this phenomenon has been reasonably documented, recent studies have focused on high-level commanding posts, such as those of president and prime-minister, leaving other positions of political power with limited attention. This natural focus of investigation, however powerful, seems to have restricted our understanding of the phenomenon by precluding a more thorough inquiry of its gendered aspects and its consequences for political representation as a whole. Trying to fill this gap, in recent research, we examined the election results of Jair Bolsonaro’s party for the Legislative Branch in 2018. We found that the party's proportion of non-male representatives was on average, showing it provided reasonable access of women to the legislature in a comparative perspective. However, and perhaps more intuitively, we also found that the elected members of Bolsonaro’s party performed very gendered roles, which allowed us to draw the first lines of the representative profiles gathered around the new-right in Brazil. These results unveiled new horizons for further research, addressing topics that range from the role of women for the new-right on Brazilian institutional politics to the relations between these profiles of representatives, their agendas, and political and electoral strategies. This article aims to deepen the understanding of some of these profiles in order to lay the groundwork for the development of the second research agenda mentioned above. More specifically, it focuses on two out of the three profiles that were grasped predominantly, if not entirely, from masculine subjects during our last research, with the objective of portraying the masculinity standards mobilized and promoted by them. These profiles –the entrepreneur and the army man – were chosen to be developed due to their proximity to both liberal and authoritarian views, and, moreover, because they can possibly represent two facets of the new-right that were integrated in a certain way around Bolsonaro in 2018, but that can be reworked in the future. After a brief introduction of the literature on masculinity and politics in times of democratic crisis, we succinctly present the relevant results of our previous research and then describe these two profiles and their masculinities in detail. We adopt a combination of ethnography and discourse analysis, methods that allow us to make sense of the data we collected on our previous research as well as of the data gathered for this article: social media posts and interactions between the elected members that inspired these profiles and their supporters. Finally, we discuss our results, presenting our main argument on how these descriptions provide a further understanding of the gendered aspect of liberal authoritarianism, from where to better apprehend its political implications in Brazil.

Keywords: Brazilian politics, gendered politics, masculinities, new-right

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Authors: Alejandra Torres-Landa López

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Introduction: Can architecture students be creative in spaces conformed by an educational infrastructure build with paradigms of the past?, this question and others related are answered in this paper as it presents the PhD research: An anthropic conflict in Mexican Higher Education Institutes, problems and challenges of the educational infrastructure in teaching and learning History of Architecture. This research was finished in 2013 and is one of the first studies conducted nationwide in Mexico that analysis the educational infrastructure impact in learning architecture; its objective was to identify which elements of the educational infrastructure of Mexican Higher Education Institutes where architects are formed, hinder or contribute to the teaching and learning of History of Architecture; how and why it happens. The methodology: A mixed methodology was used combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. Different resources and strategies for data collection were used, such as questionnaires for students and teachers, interviews to architecture research experts, direct observations in Architecture classes, among others; the data collected was analyses using SPSS and MAXQDA. The veracity of the quantitative data was supported by the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient, obtaining a 0.86, figure that gives the data enough support. All the above enabled to certify the anthropic conflict in which Mexican Universities are. Major findings of the study: Although some of findings were probably not unknown, they haven’t been systematized and analyzed with the depth to which it’s done in this research. So, it can be said, that the educational infrastructure of most of the Higher Education Institutes studied, is a barrier to the educational process, some of the reasons are: the little morphological variation of space, the inadequate control of lighting, noise, temperature, equipment and furniture, the poor or none accessibility for disable people; as well as the absence, obsolescence and / or insufficiency of information technologies are some of the issues that generate an anthropic conflict understanding it as the trouble that teachers and students have to relate between them, in order to achieve significant learning). It is clear that most of the educational infrastructure of Mexican Higher Education Institutes is anchored to paradigms of the past; it seems that they respond to the previous era of industrialization. The results confirm that the educational infrastructure of Mexican Higher Education Institutes where architects are formed, is perceived as a "closed container" of people and data; infrastructure that becomes a barrier to teaching and learning process. Conclusion: The research results show it's time to change the paradigm in which we conceive the educational infrastructure, it’s time to stop seen it just only as classrooms, workshops, laboratories and libraries, as it must be seen from a constructive, urban, architectural and human point of view, taking into account their different dimensions: physical, technological, documental, social, among others; so the educational infrastructure can become a set of elements that organize and create spaces where ideas and thoughts can be shared; to be a social catalyst where people can interact between each other and with the space itself.

Keywords: educational infrastructure, impact of space in learning architecture outcomes, learning environments, teaching architecture, learning architecture

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Authors: M. Shukry

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According to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, every human being is entitled to rights in life that should be respected by others and protected by the state and community. Such rights are inherent regardless of colour, ethnicity, gender, religion or otherwise, and it is expected that all humans alike have the right to live without discrimination of any sort. However, that has not been the case with Aborigines in Australia. Over a long period of time, the governments of the State and the Territories and the Australian Commonwealth denied the Aboriginal and Indigenous inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands such rights. Past Australian governments set policies and laws that enabled them to forcefully remove Indigenous children from their parents, which resulted in creating lost generations living the trauma of the loss of cultural identity, alienation and even their own selfhood. Intending to reduce that population of natives and their Aboriginal culture while, on the other hand, assimilate them into mainstream society, they gave themselves the right to remove them from their families with no hope of return. That practice has led to tragic consequences due to the trauma that has affected those children, an experience that is depicted by Jane Harrison in her play Stolen. The drama is the outcome of a six-year project on lost children and which was first performed in 1997 in Melbourne. Five actors only appear on the stage, playing the role of all the different characters, whether the main protagonists or the remaining cast, present or non-present ones as voices. The play outlines the life of five children who have been taken from their parents at an early age, entailing a disastrous negative impact that differs from one to the other. Unknown to each other, what connects between them is being put in a children’s home. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the play’s text in light of the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, using it as a lens that reflects the atrocities practiced against the Aborigines. It highlights how such practices formed an outrageous violation of those natives’ rights as human beings. Harrison’s dramatic technique in conveying the children’s experiences is through a non-linear structure, fluctuating between past and present that are linked together within each of the five characters, reflecting their suffering and pain to create an emotional link between them and the audience. Her dramatic handling of the issue by fusing tragedy with humour as well as symbolism is a successful technique in revealing the traumatic memory of those children and their present life. The play has made a difference in commencing to address the problem of the right of all children to be with their families, which renders the real meaning of having a home and an identity as people.

Keywords: aboriginal, audience, Australia, children, culture, drama, home, human rights, identity, Indigenous, Jane Harrison, memory, scenic effects, setting, stage, stage directions, Stolen, trauma

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Authors: Maritza Estela Garay-Rodriguez, Mirella Gutierrez-Arzaluz, Miguel Torres-Rodriguez, Violeta Mugica-Alvarez

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Arsenic is an element present in the earth's crust and is dispersed in the environment through natural processes and some anthropogenic activities. Naturally released into the environment through the weathering and erosion of sulphides mineral, some activities such as mining, the use of pesticides or wood preservatives potentially increase the concentration of arsenic in air, water, and soil. The natural arsenic release of a geological material is a threat to the world's drinking water sources. In aqueous phase is found in inorganic form, as arsenate and arsenite mainly, the contamination of groundwater by salts of this element originates what is known as endemic regional hydroarsenicism. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) categorizes the inorganic As within group I, as a substance with proven carcinogenic action for humans. It has been found the presence of As in groundwater in several countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Bangladesh, Canada and the United States. Regarding the concentration of arsenic in drinking water according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establish maximum concentrations of 10 μg L⁻¹. In Mexico, in some states as Hidalgo, Morelos and Michoacán concentrations of arsenic have been found in bodies of water around 1000 μg L⁻¹, a concentration that is well above what is allowed by Mexican regulations with the NOM-127- SSA1-1994 that establishes a limit of 25 μg L⁻¹. Given this problem in Mexico, this research proposes the use of a natural Mexican zeolite (clinoptilolite type) native to the district of Etla in the central valley region of Oaxaca, as an adsorbent for the removal of arsenic. The zeolite was subjected to a conditioning with iron oxide by the precipitation-impregnation method with 0.5 M iron nitrate solution, in order to increase the natural adsorption capacity of this material. The removal of arsenic was carried out in a column with a fixed bed of conditioned zeolite, since it combines the advantages of a conventional filter with those of a natural adsorbent medium, providing a continuous treatment, of low cost and relatively easy to operate, for its implementation in marginalized areas. The zeolite was characterized by XRD, SEM/EDS, and FTIR before and after the arsenic adsorption tests, the results showed that the modification methods used are adequate to prepare adsorbent materials since it does not modify its structure, the results showed that with a particle size of 1.18 mm, an initial concentration of As (V) ions of 1 ppm, a pH of 7 and at room temperature, a removal of 98.7% was obtained with an adsorption capacity of 260 μg As g⁻¹ zeolite. The results obtained indicated that the conditioned zeolite is favorable for the elimination of arsenate in water containing up to 1000 μg As L⁻¹ and could be suitable for removing arsenate from pits of water.

Keywords: adsorption, arsenic, iron conditioning, natural zeolite

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Authors: Dinesh Munjurulimana, Anil Tiwari, Tingwen Li, Carlos Pereira, Sreekanth Pannala, John Waters

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With the rapid transition to electric vehicles (EVs) across the globe, car manufacturers are in need of integrated and lightweight solutions for the battery packs of these vehicles. An integral part of a battery pack is the battery tray, which constitutes a significant portion of the pack’s overall weight. Based on the functional requirements, cost targets, and packaging space available, a range of materials –from metals, composites, and plastics– are often used to develop these battery trays. This paper considers the design and development of integrated thermoplastic-intensive battery trays, using the available packaging space from a representative EV battery pack. Presented as a proposed alternative are multiple concepts to integrate several connected systems such as cooling plates and underbody impact protection parts of a multi-piece incumbent battery pack. The resulting digital prototype was evaluated for several mechanical performance measures such as mechanical shock, drop, crush resistance, modal analysis, and torsional stiffness. The performance of this alternative design is then compared with the incumbent solution. In addition, insights are gleaned into how these novel approaches can be optimized to meet or exceed the performance of incumbent designs. Preliminary manufacturing feasibility of the optimal solution using injection molding and other commonly used manufacturing methods for thermoplastics is briefly explained. Then numerical and analytical evaluations are performed to show a representative Pareto front of cost vs. volume of the production parts. The proposed solution is observed to offer weight savings of up to 40% on a component level and part elimination of up to two systems in the battery pack of a typical battery EV while offering the potential to meet the required performance measures highlighted above. These conceptual solutions are also observed to potentially offer secondary benefits such as improved thermal and electrical isolations and be able to achieve complex geometrical features, thus demonstrating the ability to use the complete packaging space available in the vehicle platform considered. The detailed study presented in this paper serves as a valuable reference for researches across the globe working on the development of EV battery packs – especially those with an interest in the potential of employing alternate solutions as part of a mixed-material system to help capture untapped opportunities to optimize performance and meet critical application requirements.

Keywords: thermoplastics, lightweighting, part integration, electric vehicle battery packs

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Authors: Maria Lucia G. Lourenco, Keylla H. N. P. Pereira, Vivane Y. Hibaru, Fabiana F. Souza, Joao C. P. Ferreira, Simone B. Chiacchio, Luiz H. A. Machado

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Neonatal sepsis is a systemic response to the acute generalized infection caused by one or more bacterial agents, representing the main infectious cause of neonatal mortality in dogs during the first three weeks of life. This study aims to describe the incidence of sepsis in neonate dogs, as well as the main clinical signs and mortality rates. The study included 735 neonates admitted to the Sao Paulo State University (UNESP) Veterinary Hospital, Botucatu, Sao Paulo, Brazil, between January 2018 and November 2019. Seven hundred thirty-five neonates, 14% (98/703) presented neonatal sepsis. The main sources of infection for the neonates were intrauterine (72.5%, 71/98), lactogenic (13.2%, 13/98), umbilical (5.1%, 5/98) and unidentified sources (9.2%, 9/98). The main non-specific clinical signs observed in the newborns were weakness, depression, impaired or absent reflexes, hypothermia, hypoglycemia, dehydration, reduced muscle tonus and diarrhea. The newborns also manifested clinical signs of severe infection, such as hyperemia in the abdominal and anal regions, omphalitis, hematuria, abdomen and extremities with purplish-blue coloration necrosing injuries in the pads, bradycardia, dyspnea, epistaxis, hypotension and evolution to septic shock. Infections acquired during intrauterine life led to the onset of the clinical signs at the time of birth, with fast evolution during the first hours of life. On the other hand, infections acquired via milk or umbilical cord presented clinical signs later. The total mortality rate was 5.4% (38/703) and the mortality rate among the neonates with sepsis was 38.7% (38/98). The early mortality rate (0 to 2 days) accounted for 86.9% (33/38) and the late mortality rate (3 to 30 days) for 13.1% (5/38) of the deaths among the newborns with sepsis. The main bacterial agents observed were Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Proteus spp. Mannheimia spp. and Escherichia coli. Neonatal sepsis evolves quickly and may lead to high mortality in a litter. The prognosis is usually favorable if the diagnosis is reached early and the antibiotic therapy instituted as soon as possible, even before the results of blood cultures and antibiograms. The therapeutic recommendations should meet the special physiological conditions of a neonate in terms of metabolism and excretion of medication. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the veterinarian is knowledgeable regarding neonatology to provide effective intervention and improve the survival rates of these patients.

Keywords: Neonatal infection , bacteria, puppies, newborn

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Authors: Zainab S. Ahmed, Mohammed S. Ali, Nadia A. Elshiekh, Sami Adam Ibrahim, Ghada M. El-Tayeb, Ahmed H. Elsadig, Rihab A. Omer, Sofia B. Mohamed

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Maple syrup urine (MSUD) is an autosomal recessive disease that causes a deficiency in the enzyme branched-chain alpha-keto acid (BCKA) dehydrogenase. The development of disease has been associated with SNPs in the DBT gene. Despite that, the computational analysis of SNPs in coding and noncoding and their functional impacts on protein level still remains unknown. Hence, in this study, we carried out a comprehensive in silico analysis of missense that was predicted to have a harmful influence on DBT structure and function. In this study, eight different in silico prediction algorithms; SIFT, PROVEAN, MutPred, SNP&GO, PhD-SNP, PANTHER, I-Mutant 2.0 and MUpo were used for screening nsSNPs in DBT including. Additionally, to understand the effect of mutations in the strength of the interactions that bind protein together the ELASPIC servers were used. Finally, the 3D structure of DBT was formed using Mutation3D and Chimera servers respectively. Our result showed that a total of 15 nsSNPs confirmed by 4 software (R301C, R376H, W84R, S268F, W84C, F276C, H452R, R178H, I355T, V191G, M444T, T174A, I200T, R113H, and R178C) were found damaging and can lead to a shift in DBT gene structure. Moreover, we found 7 nsSNPs located on the 2-oxoacid_dh catalytic domain, 5 nsSNPs on the E_3 binding domain and 3 nsSNPs on the Biotin Domain. So these nsSNPs may alter the putative structure of DBT’s domain. Furthermore, we detected all these nsSNPs are on the core residues of the protein and have the ability to change the stability of the protein. Additionally, we found W84R, S268F, and M444T have high significance, and they affected Leucine, Isoleucine, and Valine, which reduces or disrupt the function of BCKD complex, E2-subunit which the DBT gene encodes. In conclusion, based on our extensive in-silico analysis, we report 15 nsSNPs that have possible association with protein deteriorating and disease-causing abilities. These candidate SNPs can aid in future studies on Maple Syrup Urine Disease type II base in the genetic level.

Keywords: DBT gene, ELASPIC, in silico analysis, UCSF chimer

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Authors: Yan Torres, Fernanda Simoes, Francisco Petrucci-Fonseca, Freddie-Jeanne Richard

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The non-invasive samples are an alternative of collecting genetic samples directly. Non-invasive samples are collected without the manipulation of the animal (e.g., scats, feathers and hairs). Nevertheless, the use of non-invasive samples has some limitations. The main issue is degraded DNA, leading to poorer extraction efficiency and genotyping. Those errors delayed for some years a widespread use of non-invasive genetic information. Possibilities to limit genotyping errors can be done using analysis methods that can assimilate the errors and singularities of non-invasive samples. Genotype matching and population estimation algorithms can be highlighted as important analysis tools that have been adapted to deal with those errors. Although, this recent development of analysis methods there is still a lack of empirical performance comparison of them. A comparison of methods with dataset different in size and structure can be useful for future studies since non-invasive samples are a powerful tool for getting information specially for endangered and rare populations. To compare the analysis methods, four different datasets used were obtained from the Dryad digital repository were used. Three different matching algorithms (Cervus, Colony and Error Tolerant Likelihood Matching - ETLM) are used for matching genotypes and two different ones for population estimation (Capwire and BayesN). The three matching algorithms showed different patterns of results. The ETLM produced less number of unique individuals and recaptures. A similarity in the matched genotypes between Colony and Cervus was observed. That is not a surprise since the similarity between those methods on the likelihood pairwise and clustering algorithms. The matching of ETLM showed almost no similarity with the genotypes that were matched with the other methods. The different cluster algorithm system and error model of ETLM seems to lead to a more criterious selection, although the processing time and interface friendly of ETLM were the worst between the compared methods. The population estimators performed differently regarding the datasets. There was a consensus between the different estimators only for the one dataset. The BayesN showed higher and lower estimations when compared with Capwire. The BayesN does not consider the total number of recaptures like Capwire only the recapture events. So, this makes the estimator sensitive to data heterogeneity. Heterogeneity in the sense means different capture rates between individuals. In those examples, the tolerance for homogeneity seems to be crucial for BayesN work properly. Both methods are user-friendly and have reasonable processing time. An amplified analysis with simulated genotype data can clarify the sensibility of the algorithms. The present comparison of the matching methods indicates that Colony seems to be more appropriated for general use considering a time/interface/robustness balance. The heterogeneity of the recaptures affected strongly the BayesN estimations, leading to over and underestimations population numbers. Capwire is then advisable to general use since it performs better in a wide range of situations.

Keywords: algorithms, genetics, matching, population

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Authors: Lenon M. Pereira, Helen J. Khoury, Marcos E. A. Andrade, Dean L. Cutajar, Vinicius S. M. Barros, Anatoly B. Rozenfeld

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With the increase of beam widths and the advent of multiple-slice and helical scanners, concerns related to the current dose measurement protocols and instrumentation in computed tomography (CT) have arisen. The current methodology of dose evaluation, which is based on the measurement of the integral of a single slice dose profile using a 100 mm long cylinder ionization chamber (Ca,100 and CPPMA, 100), has been shown to be inadequate for wide beams as it does not collect enough of the scatter-tails to make an accurate measurement. In addition, a long ionization chamber does not offer a good representation of the dose profile when tube current modulation is used. An alternative approach has been suggested by translating smaller detectors through the beam plane and assessing the accumulated dose trough the integral of the dose profile, which can be done for any arbitrary length in phantoms or in the air. For this purpose, a MOSFET dosimeter of small dosimetric volume was used. One of its recently designed versions is known as the MOSkin, which is developed by the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics at the University of Wollongong, and measures the radiation dose at a water equivalent depth of 0.07 mm, allowing the evaluation of skin dose when placed at the surface, or internal point doses when placed within a phantom. Thus, the aim of this research was to characterize the response of the MOSkin dosimeter for X-ray CT beams and to evaluate its application for the accumulated dose assessment. Initially, tests using an industrial x-ray unit were carried out at the Laboratory of Ionization Radiation Metrology (LMRI) of Federal University of Pernambuco, in order to investigate the sensitivity, energy dependence, angular dependence, and reproducibility of the dose response for the device for the standard radiation qualities RQT 8, RQT 9 and RQT 10. Finally, the MOSkin was used for the accumulated dose evaluation of scans using a Philips Brilliance 6 CT unit, with comparisons made between the CPPMA,100 value assessed with a pencil ionization chamber (PTW Freiburg TW 30009). Both dosimeters were placed in the center of a PMMA head phantom (diameter of 16 cm) and exposed in the axial mode with collimation of 9 mm, 250 mAs and 120 kV. The results have shown that the MOSkin response was linear with doses in the CT range and reproducible (98.52%). The sensitivity for a single MOSkin in mV/cGy was as follows: 9.208, 7.691 and 6.723 for the RQT 8, RQT 9 and RQT 10 beams qualities respectively. The energy dependence varied up to a factor of ±1.19 among those energies and angular dependence was not greater than 7.78% within the angle range from 0 to 90 degrees. The accumulated dose and the CPMMA, 100 value were 3,97 and 3,79 cGy respectively, which were statistically equivalent within the 95% confidence level. The MOSkin was shown to be a good alternative for CT dose profile measurements and more than adequate to provide accumulated dose assessments for CT procedures.

Keywords: computed tomography dosimetry, MOSFET, MOSkin, semiconductor dosimetry

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Authors: Nilson Rogério Da Silva, Ingrid Casagrande, Isabela Chicarelli Amaro Santos

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Introduction: People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may face difficulties in social inclusion in different segments of society, especially in entering and staying at work. In Brazil, although there is legislation that equates it to the condition of disability, the number of people at work is still low. The United Nations estimates that more than 80 percent of adults with autism are jobless. In Brazil, the scenario is even more nebulous because there is no control and tracking of accurate data on the number of individuals with autism and how many of these are inserted in the labor market. Pereira and Goyos (2019) found that there is practically no scientific production about people with ASD in the labor market. Objective: To describe the experience of people with ASD inserted in the work, facilities and difficulties found in the professional exercise and the strategies used to maintain the job. Methodology: The research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee. As inclusion criteria for participation, the professional should accept to participate voluntarily, be over 18 years of age and have had some experience with the labor market. As exclusion criteria, being under 18 years of age and having never worked in a work activity. Participated in the research of 04 people with a diagnosis of ASD, aged 22 to 32 years. For data collection, an interview script was used that addressed: 1) General characteristics of the participants; 2) Family support; 3) School process; 4) Insertion in the labor market; 5) Exercise of professional activity; (6) Future and Autism; 7) Possible coping strategies. For the analysis of the data obtained, the full transcription of the interviews was performed and the technique of Content Analysis was performed. Results: The participants reported problems in different aspects: In the school environment: difficulty in social relationships, and Bullying. Lack of adaptation to the school curriculum and the structure of the classroom; In the Faculty: difficulty in following the activities, ealizar group work, meeting deadlines and establishing networking; At work: little adaptation in the work environment, difficulty in establishing good professional bonds, difficulty in accepting changes in routine or operational processes, difficulty in understanding veiled social rules. Discussion: The lack of knowledge about what disability is and who the disabled person is leads to misconceptions and negatives regarding their ability to work and in this context, people with disabilities need to constantly prove that they are able to work, study and develop as a human person, which can be classified as ableism. The adaptations and the use of technologies to facilitate the performance of people with ASD, although guaranteed in national legislation, are not always available, highlighting the difficulties and prejudice. Final Considerations: The entry and permanence of people with ASD at work still constitute a challenge to be overcome, involving changes in society in general, in companies, families and government agencies.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), work, disability, autism

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Authors: E. Calil, L. A. Pereira

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The acquisition of orthography is a complex process, involving both lexical and grammatical questions. This learning occurs simultaneously with the domain of multiple textual aspects (e.g.: graphs, punctuation, etc.). However, most of the research on orthographic acquisition focus on this acquisition from an autonomous point of view, separated from the process of textual production. This means that their object of analysis is the production of words selected by the researcher or the requested sentences in an experimental and controlled setting. In addition, the analysis of the Spelling Problems (SP) are identified by the researcher on the sheet of paper. Considering the perspective of Textual Genetics, from an enunciative approach, this study will discuss the SPs recognized by dyads of newly literate students, while they are writing a text collaboratively. Six proposals of textual production were registered, requested by a 2nd year teacher of a Portuguese Primary School between January and March 2015. In our case study we discuss the SPs recognized by the dyad B and L (7 years old). We adopted as a methodological tool the Ramos System audiovisual record. This system allows real-time capture of the text in process and of the face-to-face dialogue between both students and their teacher, and also captures the body movements and facial expressions of the participants during textual production proposals in the classroom. In these ecological conditions of multimodal registration of collaborative writing, we could identify the emergence of SP in two dimensions: i. In the product (finished text): SP identification without recursive graphic marks (without erasures) and the identification of SPs with erasures, indicating the recognition of SP by the student; ii. In the process (text in progress): identification of comments made by students about recognized SPs. Given this, we’ve analyzed the comments on identified SPs during the text in progress. These comments characterize a type of reformulation referred to as Commented Oral Erasure (COE). The COE has two enunciative forms: Simple Comment (SC) such as ' 'X' is written with 'Y' '; or Unfolded Comment (UC), such as ' 'X' is written with 'Y' because...'. The spelling COE may also occur before or during the SP (Early Spelling Recognition - ESR) or after the SP has been entered (Later Spelling Recognition - LSR). There were 631 words entered in the 6 stories written by the B-L dyad, 145 of them containing some type of SP. During the text in progress, the students recognized orally 174 SP, 46 of which were identified in advance (ESRs) and 128 were identified later (LSPs). If we consider that the 88 erasure SPs in the product indicate some form of SP recognition, we can observe that there were twice as many SPs recognized orally. The ESR was characterized by SC when students asked their colleague or teacher how to spell a given word. The LSR presented predominantly UC, verbalizing meta-orthographic arguments, mostly made by L. These results indicate that writing in dyad is an important didactic strategy for the promotion of metalinguistic reflection, favoring the learning of spelling.

Keywords: collaborative writing, erasure, learning, metalinguistic awareness, spelling, text production

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Authors: Leonardo Costa Pereira, Frederico Santos Santana, Mauro Karnikowski, Luís Sinésio Silva Neto, Aline Oliveira Gomes, Marisete Peralta Safons, Margô Gomes De Oliveira Karnikowski

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In Brazil, projections of population aging follow all world projections, the birth rate tends to be surpassed by the mortality rate around the year 2045. Historically, the population of Brazilian blacks suffered for several centuries from the oppression of dominant classes. A group, especially of blacks, stands out in relation to territorial, historical and social aspects, and for centuries they have isolated themselves in small communities, in order to maintain their freedom and culture. The isolation of the Quilombola communities generated socioeconomic effects as well as the health of these blacks. Thus, the objective of the present study is to verify the association of body composition parameters with lower and upper limb strength and functional capacity in Quilombola remnants. The research was approved by ethics committee (1,771,159). Anthropometric evaluations of hip and waist circumference, body mass and height were performed. In order to verify the body composition, the relationship between stature and body mass (BM) was performed, generating the body mass index (BMI), as well as the dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) test. The Time Up and Go (TUG) test was used to evaluate the functional capacity, and a maximum repetition test (1MR) for knee extension and handgrip (HG) was applied for strength magnitude analysis. Statistical analysis was performed using the statistical package SPSS 22.0. Shapiro Wilk's normality test was performed. For the possible correlations, the suggestions of the Pearson or Spearman tests were adopted. The results obtained after the interpretation identified that the sample (n = 18) was composed of 66.7% of female individuals with mean age of 66.07 ± 8.95 years. The sample’s body fat percentage (%BF) (35.65 ± 10.73) exceeds the recommendations for age group, as well as the anthropometric parameters of hip (90.91 ± 8.44cm) and waist circumference (80.37 ± 17.5cm). The relationship between height (1.55 ± 0.1m) and body mass (63.44 ± 11.25Kg) generated a BMI of 24.16 ± 7.09Kg/m2, that was considered normal. The TUG performance was 10.71 ± 1.85s. In the 1MR test, 46.67 ± 13.06Kg and in the HG 23.93±7.96Kgf were obtained, respectively. Correlation analyzes were characterized by the high frequency of significant correlations for height, dominant arm mass (DAM), %BF, 1MR and HG variables. In addition, correlations between HG and BM (r = 0.67, p = 0.005), height (r = 0.51, p = 0.004) and DAM (r = 0.55, p = 0.026) were also observed. The strength of the lower limbs correlates with BM (r = 0.69, p = 0.003), height (r = 0.62, p = 0.01) and DAM (r = 0.772, p = 0.001). In this way, we can conclude that not only the simple spatial relationship of mass and height can influence in predictive parameters of strength or functionality, being important the verification of the conditions of the corporal composition. For this population, height seems to be a good predictor of strength and body composition.

Keywords: African Continental Ancestry Group, body composition, functional capacity, strength

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Authors: Divyansh Goel, Varun Jain

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Classical economics works on the principle that people are rational and analytical in their decision making and their choices fall in line with the most suitable option according to the dominant strategy in a standard game theory model. This model has failed at many occasions in estimating the behavior and dealings of rational people, giving proof of some other underlying heuristics and cognitive biases at work. This paper probes into the study of these factors, which fall under the umbrella of behavioral economics and through their medium explore the solution to a problem which a lot of nations presently face. There has long been a wide disparity in the number of people holding favorable views on organ donation and the actual number of people signing up for the same. This paper, in its entirety, is an attempt to shape the public policy which leads to an increase the number of organ donations that take place and close the gap in the statistics of the people who believe in signing up for organ donation and the ones who actually do. The key assumption here is that in cases of cognitive dissonance, where people have an inconsistency due to conflicting views, people have a tendency to go with the default choice. This tendency is a well-documented cognitive bias known as the status quo bias. The research in this project involves an assay of mandated choice models of organ donation with two case studies. The first of an opt-in system of Germany (where people have to explicitly sign up for organ donation) and the second of an opt-out system of Austria (every citizen at the time of their birth is an organ donor and has to explicitly sign up for refusal). Additionally, there has also been presented a detailed analysis of the experiment performed by Eric J. Johnson and Daniel G. Goldstein. Their research as well as many other independent experiments such as that by Tsvetelina Yordanova of the University of Sofia, both of which yield similar results. The conclusion being that the general population has by and large no rigid stand on organ donation and are gullible to status quo bias, which in turn can determine whether a large majority of people will consent to organ donation or not. Thus, in our paper, we throw light on how governments can use status quo bias to drive positive social change by making policies in which everyone by default is marked an organ donor, which will, in turn, save the lives of people who succumb on organ transplantation waitlists and save the economy countless hours of economic productivity.

Keywords: behavioral economics, game theory, organ donation, status quo bias

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Authors: E. Fabre, C. Vale, E. Pereira, C. M. Silva

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Introduction: Mercury is one of the most troublesome toxic metals responsible for the contamination of the aquatic systems due to its accumulation and bioamplification along the food chain. The 2030 agenda for sustainable development of United Nations promotes the improving of water quality by reducing water pollution and foments an enhance in wastewater treatment, encouraging their recycling and safe water reuse globally. Sorption processes are widely used in wastewater treatments due to their many advantages such as high efficiency and low operational costs. In these processes the target contaminant is removed from the solution by a solid sorbent. The more selective and low cost is the biosorbent the more attractive becomes the process. Agricultural wastes are especially attractive approaches for sorption. They are largely available, have no commercial value and require little or no processing. In this work, banana peels were tested for mercury removal from low concentrated solutions. In order to investigate the applicability of this solid, six water matrices were used increasing the complexity from natural waters to a real wastewater. Studies of kinetics and equilibrium were also performed using the most known models to evaluate the viability of the process In line with the concept of circular economy, this study adds value to this by-product as well as contributes to liquid waste management. Experimental: The solutions were prepared with Hg(II) initial concentration of 50 µg L-1 in natural waters, at 22 ± 1 ºC, pH 6, magnetically stirring at 650 rpm and biosorbent mass of 0.5 g L-1. NaCl was added to obtain the salt solutions, seawater was collected from the Portuguese coast and the real wastewater was kindly provided by ISQ - Instituto de Soldadura e qualidade (Welding and Quality Institute) and diluted until the same concentration of 50 µg L-1. Banana peels were previously freeze-drying, milled, sieved and the particles < 1 mm were used. Results: Banana peels removed more than 90% of Hg(II) from all the synthetic solutions studied. In these cases, the enhance in the complexity of the water type promoted a higher mercury removal. In salt waters, the biosorbent showed removals of 96%, 95% and 98 % for 3, 15 and 30 g L-1 of NaCl, respectively. The residual concentration of Hg(II) in solution achieved the level of drinking water regulation (1 µg L-1). For real matrices, the lower Hg(II) elimination (93 % for seawater and 81 % for the real wastewaters), can be explained by the competition between the Hg(II) ions and the other elements present in these solutions for the sorption sites. Regarding the equilibrium study, the experimental data are better described by the Freundlich isotherm (R ^ 2=0.991). The Elovich equation provided the best fit to the kinetic points. Conclusions: The results exhibited the great ability of the banana peels to remove mercury. The environmental realist conditions studied in this work, highlight their potential usage as biosorbents in water remediation processes.

Keywords: banana peels, mercury removal, sorption, water treatment

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Authors: Jhonnatan Eduardo Zamudio Palacios, Oscar Leonardo Mosquera Dussan, Daniel Guzman Perez, Daniel Alfonso Botero Rosas, Oscar Fabian Rubiano Espinosa, Jose Antonio Garcia Torres, Ivan Dario Chavarro, Ivan Ramiro Rodriguez Camacho, Jaime Orlando Rodriguez

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The training of cilsitas with some type of disability finds in the technological development an indispensable ally, generating every day advances to contribute to the quality of life allowing to maximize the capacities of the athletes. The performance of a cyclist depends on physiological and biomechanical factors, such as aerodynamic profile, bicycle measurements, connecting rod length, pedaling systems, type of competition, among others. This study particularly focuses on the description of the dynamic model of a transtibial prosthesis for Paralympic cyclists. To make the model, two points are chosen: in the radius centers of rotation of the plate and pinion of the track bicycle. The parametric scheme of the track bike represents a model of 6 degrees of freedom due to the displacement in X - Y of each of the reference points of the angles of the curve profile β, cant of the velodrome α and the angle of rotation of the connecting rod φ. The force exerted on the crank of the bicycle varies according to the angles of the curve profile β, the velodrome cant of α and the angle of rotation of the crank φ. The behavior is analyzed through the Matlab R2015a software. The average strength that a cyclist exerts on the cranks of a bicycle is 1,607.1 N, the Paralympic cyclist must perform a force on each crank about 803.6 N. Once the maximum force associated with the movement has been determined, it is continued to the dynamic modeling of the transtibial prosthesis that represents a model of 6 degrees of freedom with displacement in X - Y in relation to the angles of rotation of the hip π, knee γ and ankle λ. Subsequently, an analysis of the kinematic behavior of the prosthesis was carried out by means of SolidWorks 2017 and Matlab R2015a, which was used to model and analyze the variation of the hip angles π, knee γ and ankle of the λ prosthesis. The reaction forces generated in the prosthesis were performed on the ankle of the prosthesis, performing the summation of forces on the X and Y axes. The same analysis was then applied to the tibia of the prosthesis and the socket. The reaction force of the parts of the prosthesis varies according to the hip angles π, knee γ and ankle of the prosthesis λ. Therefore, it can be deduced that the maximum forces experienced by the ankle of the prosthesis is 933.6 N on the X axis and 2.160.5 N on the Y axis. Finally, it is calculated that the maximum forces experienced by the tibia and the socket of the transtibial prosthesis in high performance competitions is 3.266 N on the X axis and 1.357 N on the Y axis. In conclusion, it can be said that the performance of the cyclist depends on several physiological factors, linked to biomechanics of training. The influence of biomechanical factors such as aerodynamics, bicycle measurements, connecting rod length, or non-circular pedaling systems on the cyclist performance.

Keywords: biomechanics, dynamic model, paralympic cyclist, transtibial prosthesis

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Authors: Elaine Lima Da Fonseca, Eliomar Pereira Da Silva Filho

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The modeling of areas susceptible to soil loss by hydro erosive processes consists of a simplified instrument of reality with the purpose of predicting future behaviors from the observation and interaction of a set of geoenvironmental factors. The models of potential areas for soil loss will be obtained through binary logistic regression, artificial neural networks, and support vector machines. The choice of the municipality of Colorado do Oeste in the south of the western Amazon is due to soil degradation due to anthropogenic activities, such as agriculture, road construction, overgrazing, deforestation, and environmental and socioeconomic configurations. Initially, a soil erosion inventory map constructed through various field investigations will be designed, including the use of remotely piloted aircraft, orbital imagery, and the PLANAFLORO/RO database. 100 sampling units with the presence of erosion will be selected based on the assumptions indicated in the literature, and, to complement the dichotomous analysis, 100 units with no erosion will be randomly designated. The next step will be the selection of the predictive parameters that exert, jointly, directly, or indirectly, some influence on the mechanism of occurrence of soil erosion events. The chosen predictors are altitude, declivity, aspect or orientation of the slope, curvature of the slope, composite topographic index, flow power index, lineament density, normalized difference vegetation index, drainage density, lithology, soil type, erosivity, and ground surface temperature. After evaluating the relative contribution of each predictor variable, the erosion susceptibility model will be applied to the municipality of Colorado do Oeste - Rondônia through the SPSS Statistic 26 software. Evaluation of the model will occur through the determination of the values of the R² of Cox & Snell and the R² of Nagelkerke, Hosmer and Lemeshow Test, Log Likelihood Value, and Wald Test, in addition to analysis of the Confounding Matrix, ROC Curve and Accumulated Gain according to the model specification. The validation of the synthesis map resulting from both models of the potential risk of soil erosion will occur by means of Kappa indices, accuracy, and sensitivity, as well as by field verification of the classes of susceptibility to erosion using drone photogrammetry. Thus, it is expected to obtain the mapping of the following classes of susceptibility to erosion very low, low, moderate, very high, and high, which may constitute a screening tool to identify areas where more detailed investigations need to be carried out, applying more efficient social resources.

Keywords: modeling, susceptibility to erosion, artificial intelligence, Amazon

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Authors: José Manuel Palma, Paula Pereira, Margarida Tomás

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Foreseen the future: Human factors integration in European Horizon Projects The development of new technology as artificial intelligence, smart sensing, robotics, cobotics or intelligent machinery must integrate human factors to address the need to optimize systems and processes, thereby contributing to the creation of a safe and accident-free work environment. Human Factors Integration (HFI) consistently pose a challenge for organizations when applied to daily operations. AGILEHAND and FORTIS projects are grounded in the development of cutting-edge technology - industry 4.0 and 5.0. AGILEHAND aims to create advanced technologies for autonomously sort, handle, and package soft and deformable products, whereas FORTIS focuses on developing a comprehensive Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) solution. Both projects employ different approaches to explore HFI. AGILEHAND is mainly empirical, involving a comparison between the current and future work conditions reality, coupled with an understanding of best practices and the enhancement of safety aspects, primarily through management. FORTIS applies HFI throughout the project, developing a human-centric approach that includes understanding human behavior, perceiving activities, and facilitating contextual human-robot information exchange. it intervention is holistic, merging technology with the physical and social contexts, based on a total safety culture model. In AGILEHAND we will identify safety emergent risks, challenges, their causes and how to overcome them by resorting to interviews, questionnaires, literature review and case studies. Findings and results will be presented in “Strategies for Workers’ Skills Development, Health and Safety, Communication and Engagement” Handbook. The FORTIS project will implement continuous monitoring and guidance of activities, with a critical focus on early detection and elimination (or mitigation) of risks associated with the new technology, as well as guidance to adhere correctly with European Union safety and privacy regulations, ensuring HFI, thereby contributing to an optimized safe work environment. To achieve this, we will embed safety by design, and apply questionnaires, perform site visits, provide risk assessments, and closely track progress while suggesting and recommending best practices. The outcomes of these measures will be compiled in the project deliverable titled “Human Safety and Privacy Measures”. These projects received funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe research and innovation program under grant agreement No101092043 (AGILEHAND) and No 101135707 (FORTIS).

Keywords: human factors integration, automation, digitalization, human robot interaction, industry 4.0 and 5.0

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Authors: Luís Miguel Cabeça Marques, Alberto Manuel Martinho Vale, José Pedro Miragaia Trancoso Vaz, Ana Sofia Baptista Fernandes, Rui Alexandre de Barros Coito, Tiago Miguel Prates da Costa

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The detection and localization of hidden radioactive sources are of significant importance in countering the illicit traffic of Special Nuclear Materials and other radioactive sources and materials. Radiation portal monitors are commonly used at airports, seaports, and international land borders for inspecting cargo and vehicles. However, these equipment can be expensive and are not available at all checkpoints. Consequently, the localization of SNM and other radioactive sources often relies on handheld equipment, which can be time-consuming. The current study presents the advantages of real-time analysis of gamma-ray count rate data from a mobile radiation detection system based on simulated data and field tests. The incorporation of profit functions and decision criteria to optimize the detection system's path significantly enhances the radiation field information and reduces survey time during cargo inspection. For source position estimation, a maximum likelihood estimation algorithm is employed, and confidence intervals are derived using the Fisher information. The study also explores the impact of uncertainties, baselines, and thresholds on the performance of the profit function. The proposed detection system, utilizing a plastic scintillator with silicon photomultiplier sensors, boasts several benefits, including cost-effectiveness, high geometric efficiency, compactness, and lightweight design. This versatility allows for seamless integration into any mobile platform, be it air, land, maritime, or hybrid, and it can also serve as a handheld device. Furthermore, integration of the detection system into drones, particularly multirotors, and its affordability enable the automation of source search and substantial reduction in survey time, particularly when deploying a fleet of drones. While the primary focus is on inspecting maritime container cargo, the methodologies explored in this research can be applied to the inspection of other infrastructures, such as nuclear facilities or vehicles.

Keywords: plastic scintillators, profit functions, path planning, gamma-ray detection, source localization, mobile radiation detection system, security scenario

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Authors: Glauberto S. Quirino, Emanuelly V. Pereira, Amana S. Figueiredo, Antonia T. F. Santos, Paulo R. A. Firmino, Denise F. F. Barbosa, Caroline B. Q. Aquino, Eveliny S. Martins, Cinthia G. P. Calou, Ana K. B. Pinheiro

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Introduction: During pregnancy there are adjustments in the physical, emotional, existential and sexual areas, which may contribute to changes in sexual behavior. The objective was to analyze the sexual behavior of pregnant women. Methods: Quantitative, exploratory-descriptive study, approved by the Ethics and Research Committee of the Regional University of Cariri. For data collection, it was used the Sexuality Questionnaire in Gestation and Sexual Quotient - Female Version. It was carried out in public institutions in the urban and rural areas of three municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Cariri, south of Ceará, Brazil from February to September 2016. The sampling was proportional stratified by convenience. A total of 815 pregnant women who were literate and aged 20 years or over were broached. 461 pregnant women were excluded because of high risk, adolescence, saturation of the extract, incomplete filling of the instrument, mental and physical handicap, without sexual partner, and the sample was 354 pregnant. The data were grouped, organized and analyzed in the statistical program R Studio (version 386 3.2.4). Descriptive frequency statistics and non-parametric tests were used to analyze the variables, and the results were shown in graphs and tables. Results: The women presented a minimum age of 20, maximum 35 and average of 26.9 years, predominantly urban area residents, with a monthly income of up to one minimum wage (US$ 275,00), high school, catholic, with fixed partner, heterosexuals, multiparous, multiple sexual partners throughout life and with the beginning of sexual life in adolescence (median age 17 years). There was a reduction in sexual practices (67%) and when they were performed, they were more frequent in the first trimester (79.7%) and less frequent in the third trimester (30.5%). Preliminary sexual practices did not change and were more frequent in the second trimester (46.6%). Throughout the gestational trimesters, the partner was referred as the main responsible for the sexual initiative. The women performed vaginal sex (97.7%) and provided greater pleasure (42.8%) compared to non-penetrative sex (53.9%) (oral sex and masturbation). There was also a reduction in the sexual disposition of pregnant women (90.7%) and partner (72.9%), mainly in the first trimester (78.8%), and sexual positions. Sexual performance ranged from regular to good (49.7%). Level of schooling, marital status, sexual orientation of the pregnant woman and the partner, sexual practices and positions, preliminaries, frequency of sexual practices and importance attributed to them were variables that influenced negatively sexual performance and satisfaction. It is concluded that pregnancy negatively changes the sexual behavior of the women and it is suggested to further investigations and approach of the partner, in order to clarify the influence of these variables on the sexual function and subsidize intervention strategies, with a view to the integrality of sexual and reproductive health.

Keywords: obstetric nursing, pregnant women, sexual behavior, women's health

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Authors: B. B. S. Pereira, M. O. Souza, L. P. Zanetti, L. C. S. Oliveira, J. R. P. Moreno, M. P. Souza, V. R. Colturato, C. M. Machado

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Background: The introduction of prophylactic or preemptive therapies has effectively decreased the CMV mortality rates after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). CMV antigenemia (pp65) or quantitative PCR are methods currently approved for CMV surveillance in pre-emptive strategies. Commercial assays are preferred as cut-off levels defined by in-house assays may vary among different protocols and in general show low reproducibility. Moreover, comparison of published data among different centers is only possible if international standards of quantification are included in the assays. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) established the first international standard for CMV detection. The real time PCR COBAS Ampliprep/ CobasTaqMan (CAP/CTM) (Roche®) was developed using the WHO standard for CMV quantification. However, the cut-off for the introduction of antiviral has not been determined yet. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study to determine: 1) the sensitivity and specificity of the new CMV CAP/CTM test in comparison with pp65 antigenemia to detect episodes of CMV infection/reactivation, and 2) the cut-off of viral load for introduction of ganciclovir (GCV). Pp65 antigenemia was performed and the corresponding plasma samples were stored at -20°C for further CMV detection by CAP/CTM. Comparison of tests was performed by kappa index. The appearance of positive antigenemia was considered the state variable to determine the cut-off of CMV viral load by ROC curve. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software version 19 (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA.). Results: Thirty-eight patients were included and followed from August 2014 through May 2015. The antigenemia test detected 53 episodes of CMV infection in 34 patients (89.5%), while CAP/CTM detected 37 episodes in 33 patients (86.8%). AG and PCR results were compared in 431 samples and Kappa index was 30.9%. The median time for first AG detection was 42 (28-140) days, while CAP/CTM detected at a median of 7 days earlier (34 days, ranging from 7 to 110 days). The optimum cut-off value of CMV DNA was 34.25 IU/mL to detect positive antigenemia with 88.2% of sensibility, 100% of specificity and AUC of 0.91. This cut-off value is below the limit of detection and quantification of the equipment which is 56 IU/mL. According to CMV recurrence definition, 16 episodes of CMV recurrence were detected by antigenemia (47.1%) and 4 (12.1%) by CAP/CTM. The duration of viremia as detected by antigenemia was shorter (60.5% of the episodes lasted ≤ 7 days) in comparison to CAP/CTM (57.9% of the episodes lasting 15 days or more). This data suggests that the use of antigenemia to define the duration of GCV therapy might prompt early interruption of antiviral, which may favor CMV reactivation. The CAP/CTM PCR could possibly provide a safer information concerning the duration of GCV therapy. As prolonged treatment may increase the risk of toxicity, this hypothesis should be confirmed in prospective trials. Conclusions: Even though CAP/CTM by ROCHE showed great qualitative correlation with the antigenemia technique, the fully automated CAP/CTM did not demonstrate increased sensitivity. The cut-off value below the limit of detection and quantification may result in delayed introduction of pre-emptive therapy.

Keywords: antigenemia, CMV COBAS/TAQMAN, cytomegalovirus, antiviral cut-off

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Authors: Areti Angeliki Veroniki, Sofia Tsokani, Evangelos Paraskevaidis, Dimitris Mavridis

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The plethora of diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) studies has led to the increased use of systematic reviews and meta-analysis of DTA studies. Clinicians and healthcare professionals often consult DTA meta-analyses to make informed decisions regarding the optimum test to choose and use for a given setting. For example, the human papilloma virus (HPV) DNA, mRNA, and cytology can be used for the cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2+ (CIN2+) diagnosis. But which test is the most accurate? Studies directly comparing test accuracy are not always available, and comparisons between multiple tests create a network of DTA studies that can be synthesized through a network meta-analysis of diagnostic tests (DTA-NMA). The aim is to summarize the DTA-NMA methods for at least three index tests presented in the methodological literature. We illustrate the application of the methods using a real data set for the comparative accuracy of HPV DNA, HPV mRNA, and cytology tests for cervical cancer. A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus from inception until the end of July 2019 to identify full-text research articles that describe a DTA-NMA method for three or more index tests. Since the joint classification of the results from one index against the results of another index test amongst those with the target condition and amongst those without the target condition are rarely reported in DTA studies, only methods requiring the 2x2 tables of the results of each index test against the reference standard were included. Studies of any design published in English were eligible for inclusion. Relevant unpublished material was also included. Ten relevant studies were finally included to evaluate their methodology. DTA-NMA methods that have been presented in the literature together with their advantages and disadvantages are described. In addition, using 37 studies for cervical cancer obtained from a published Cochrane review as a case study, an application of the identified DTA-NMA methods to determine the most promising test (in terms of sensitivity and specificity) for use as the best screening test to detect CIN2+ is presented. As a conclusion, different approaches for the comparative DTA meta-analysis of multiple tests may conclude to different results and hence may influence decision-making. Acknowledgment: This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) through the Operational Programme «Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020» in the context of the project “Extension of Network Meta-Analysis for the Comparison of Diagnostic Tests ” (MIS 5047640).

Keywords: colposcopy, diagnostic test, HPV, network meta-analysis

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Authors: Cheila Pereira, Sara C. Cunha, Miguel A. Faria, José O. Fernandes

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The increasing world population brings several concerns, one of which is food security and sustainability. To meet this challenge, aquaculture, the farming of aquatic animals and plants, including fish, mollusks, bivalves, and algae, has experienced sustained growth and development in recent years. Recent advances in this industry have focused on reducing its economic and environmental costs, for example, the substitution of protein sources in fish feed. Plant-based proteins are now a common approach, and while it is a greener alternative to animal-based proteins, there are some disadvantages, such as their putative content and intoxicants such as mycotoxins. These are naturally occurring plant contaminants, and their exposure in fish can cause health problems, stunted growth or even death, resulting in economic losses for the producers and health concerns for the consumers. Different works have demonstrated the presence of both AFB1 (aflatoxin B1) and ENNB1 (enniatin B1) in fish feed and their capacity to be absorbed and bioaccumulate in the fish organism after digestion, further reaching humans through fish ingestion. The aim of this work was to evaluate the bioaccessibility of both mycotoxins in samples of Sparus aurata muscle using a static digestion model based on the INFOGEST protocol. The samples were subjected to different cooking procedures – raw, grilled and fried – and different seasonings – none, thyme and ginger – in order to evaluate their potential reduction effect on mycotoxins bioaccessibility, followed by the evaluation of the intestinal transport of both compounds with an in vitro cell model composed of Caco-2/HT-29 co-culture monolayers, simulating the human intestinal epithelium. The bioaccessible fractions obtained in the digestion studies were used in the transport studies for a more realistic approach to bioavailability evaluation. Results demonstrated the effect of the use of different cooking procedures and seasoning on the toxin's bioavailability. Sparus aurata was chosen in this study for its large production in aquaculture and high consumption in Europe. Also, with the continued evolution of fish farming practices and more common usage of novel feed ingredients based on plants, there is a growing concern about less studied contaminants in aquaculture and their consequences for human health. In pair with greener advances in this industry, there is a convergence towards alternative research methods, such as in vitro applications. In the case of bioavailability studies, both in vitro digestion protocols and intestinal transport assessment are excellent alternatives to in vivo studies. These methods provide fast, reliable and comparable results without ethical restraints.

Keywords: AFB1, aquaculture, bioaccessibility, ENNB1, intestinal transport.

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Authors: Maria Sofia Palagonia, Doriano Brogioli, Fabio La Mantia

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In the last decade, lithium has become an important raw material in various sectors, in particular for rechargeable batteries. Its production is expected to grow more and more in the future, especially for mobile energy storage and electromobility. Until now it is mostly produced by the evaporation of water from salt lakes, which led to a huge water consumption, a large amount of waste produced and a strong environmental impact. A new, clean and faster electrochemical technique to recover lithium has been recently proposed: electrochemical ion pumping. It consists in capturing lithium ions from a feed solution by intercalation in a lithium-selective material, followed by releasing them into a recovery solution; both steps are driven by the passage of a current. In this work, a new configuration of the electrochemical cell is presented, used to study and optimize the process of the intercalation of lithium ions through the hydrodynamic condition. Lithium Manganese Oxide (LiMn₂O₄) was used as a cathode to intercalate lithium ions selectively during the reduction, while Nickel Hexacyano Ferrate (NiHCF), used as an anode, releases positive ion. The effect of hydrodynamics on the process has been studied by conducting the experiments at various fluxes of the electrolyte through the electrodes, in terms of charge circulated through the cell, captured lithium per unit mass of material and overvoltage. The result shows that flowing the electrolyte inside the cell improves the lithium capture, in particular at low lithium concentration. Indeed, in Atacama feed solution, at 40 mM of lithium, the amount of lithium captured does not increase considerably with the flux of the electrolyte. Instead, when the concentration of the lithium ions is 5 mM, the amount of captured lithium in a single capture cycle increases by increasing the flux, thus leading to the conclusion that the slowest step in the process is the transport of the lithium ion in the liquid phase. Furthermore, an influence of the concentration of other cations in solution on the process performance was observed. In particular, the capturing of the lithium using a different concentration of NaCl together with 5 mM of LiCl was performed, and the results show that the presence of NaCl limits the amount of the captured lithium. Further studies can be performed in order to understand why the full capacity of the material is not reached at the highest flow rate. This is probably due to the porous structure of the material since the liquid phase is likely not affected by the convection flow inside the pores. This work proves that electrochemical ion pumping, with a suitable hydrodynamic design, enables the recovery of lithium from feed solutions at the lower concentration than the sources that are currently exploited, down to 1 mM.

Keywords: desalination battery, electrochemical ion pumping, hydrodynamic, lithium

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Authors: Alba Barbara-i-Molinero, Rosalia Cascon-Pereira, Ana Beatriz Hernandez

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Students’ transitions from high school to the university have been challenged by the lack of continuity between both contexts. This mismatch directly affects students by generating feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, which increases the dropout rates and reduces students’ academic success. This discontinuity emanates because ‘transitions concern a restructuring of what the person does and who the person perceives him or herself to be’. Hence, identity becomes essential in these transitions. Generally, identity is the answer to questions such as who am I? or who are we? This is integrated by personal identity, and as many social identities as groups, the individual feels he/she is a part. A case in point to construct a social identity is the identification with a profession. For this reason, a way to lighten the generated tension during transitions is applying strategies orientated to enhance students’ professional identity in their point of entry to the higher education institution. That would create a sense of continuity between high school and higher education contexts, increasing their Professional Identity Strength. To develop the strategies oriented to enhance students Professional Identity, it is important to analyze what influences it. There exist several influencing factors that influence Professional Identity (e.g., professional status, the recommendation of family and peers, the academic environment, or the chosen bachelor degree). There is a gap in the literature analyzing the impact of these factors on more than one bachelor degree. In this regards, our study takes an additional step with the aim of evaluating the influence of several factors on Professional Identity using a cohort of university students from multiple degrees between the ages of 17-19 years. To do so, we used hierarchical regression analyses to assess the impact of the following factors: External Motivation Conditionals (EMC), Educational Experience Conditionals (EEC) and Personal Motivational Conditional (PMP). After conducting the analyses, we found that the assessed factors influenced students’ professional identity differently according to their bachelor degree and discipline. For example, PMC and EMC positively affected science students, while architecture, law and economics and engineering students were just influenced by PMC. Basing on that influences, we proposed three different strategies aimed to enhance students’ professional identity, in the short and long term. These strategies are: to enhance students’ professional identity before the incorporation to university through campuses and icebreaker activities; to apply recruitment strategies aimed to provide realistic information of the bachelor degree; and to incorporate different activities, such as in-vitro, in situ and self-directed activities aimed to enhance longitudinally students’ professional identity from the university. From these results, theoretical contributions and practical implications arise. First, we contribute to the literature by identifying which factors influence students from different bachelor degrees since there is still no evidence. And, second, using as a benchmark the obtained results, we contribute from a practical perspective, by proposing several alternative strategies to increase students’ professional identity strength aiming to lighten their transition from high school to higher education.

Keywords: professional identity, higher education, educational strategies , students

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Authors: Guilherme M. Pereira, Kimmo Teinïla, Danilo Custódio, Risto Hillamo, Célia Alves, Pérola de C. Vasconcellos

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South American large cities often present serious air pollution problems and their atmosphere composition is influenced by a variety of emissions sources. The South American Emissions Megacities, and Climate project (SAEMC) has focused on the study of emissions and its influence on climate in the South American largest cities and it also included Lima (Peru) and Medellin (Colombia), sites where few studies of the genre were done. Lima is a coastal city with more than 8 million inhabitants and the second largest city in South America. Medellin is a 2.5 million inhabitants city and second largest city in Colombia; it is situated in a valley. The samples were collected in quartz fiber filters in high volume samplers (Hi-Vol), in 24 hours of sampling. The samples were collected in intensive campaigns in both sites, in July, 2010. Several species were determined in the aerosol samples of Lima and Medellin. Organic and elemental carbon (OC and EC) in thermal-optical analysis; biomass burning tracers (levoglucosan - Lev, mannosan - Man and galactosan - Gal) in high-performance anion exchange ion chromatography with mass spectrometer detection; water soluble ions in ion chromatography. The average particulate matter was similar for both campaigns, the PM10 concentrations were above the recommended by World Health Organization (50 µg m⁻³ – daily limit) in 40% of the samples in Medellin, while in Lima it was above that value in 15% of the samples. The average total ions concentration was higher in Lima (17450 ng m⁻³ in Lima and 3816 ng m⁻³ in Medellin) and the average concentrations of sodium and chloride were higher in this site, these species also had better correlations (Pearson’s coefficient = 0,63); suggesting a higher influence of marine aerosol in the site due its location in the coast. Sulphate concentrations were also much higher at Lima site; which may be explained by a higher influence of marine originated sulphate. However, the OC, EC and monosaccharides average concentrations were higher at Medellin site; this may be due to the lower dispersion of pollutants due to the site’s location and a larger influence of biomass burning sources. The levoglucosan average concentration was 95 ng m⁻³ for Medellin and 16 ng m⁻³ and OC was well correlated with levoglucosan (Pearson’s coefficient = 0,86) in Medellin; suggesting a higher influence of biomass burning over the organic aerosol in this site. The Lev/Man ratio is often related to the type of biomass burned and was close to 18, similar to the observed in previous studies done at biomass burning impacted sites in the Amazon region; backward trajectories also suggested the transport of aerosol from that region. Biomass burning appears to have a larger influence on the air quality in Medellin, in addition the vehicular emissions; while Lima showed a larger influence of marine aerosol during the study period.

Keywords: aerosol transport, atmospheric particulate matter, biomass burning, SAEMC project

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Authors: Michelle S. Pereira, Analice C. Azevedo, Julliane D. Medeiros, Ana Claudia S. Martins, Didier S. Castellano-Filho, Claudio G. Diniz, Vania L. Silva

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Vaginal microbiota is a complex ecosystem, composed by aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, living in a dynamic equilibrium. Lactobacillus spp. are predominant in vaginal ecosystem, and factors such as immunity and hormonal variations may lead to disruptions, resulting in proliferation of opportunistic pathogens. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a polymicrobial syndrome, caused by an increasing of anaerobic bacteria replacing Lactobacillus spp. Microorganisms such as Gardnerella vaginalis, Mycoplasma hominis, Mobiluncus spp., and Atopobium vaginae can be found in BV, which may also be associated to other infections such as by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is highly prevalent in sexually active women, and is considered a risk factor for development of cervical cancer. As long as few data is available on vaginal microbiota of women with HPV-associated cervical lesions, our objectives were to evaluate the diversity in vaginal ecosystem in these women. To all patients, clinical and socio-demographic data were collected after gynecological examination. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee from Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Vaginal secretion and cervical scraping were collected. Gram-stained smears were evaluated to establish Nugent score for BV determination. Viral and bacterial DNA obtained was used as template for HPV genotyping (PCR) and bacterial fingerprint (REP-PCR). In total 31 patients were included (mean age 35 and 93.6% sexually active). The Nugent score showed that 38.7% were BV. From the medical records, Pap smear tests showed that 32.3% had low grade squamous epithelial lesion (LSIL), 29% had high grade squamous epithelial lesion (HSIL), 25.8% had atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) and 12.9% with atypical squamous cells that would not exclude high-grade lesion (ASC-H). All participants were HPV+. HPV-16 was the most frequent (87.1%), followed by HPV-18 (61.3%). HPV-31, HPV-52 and HPV-58 were also detected. Coinfection HPV-16/HPV-18 was observed in 75%. In the 18-30 age group, HPV-16 was detected in 40%, and HPV-16/HPV-18 coinfection in 35%. HPV-16 was associated to 30% of ASC-H and 20% of HSIL patients. BV was observed in 50% of HPV-16+ participants and in 45% of HPV-16/HPV-18+. Fingerprints of bacterial communities showed clusters with low similarity suggesting high heterogeneity in vaginal microbiota within the sampled group. Overall, the data is worrisome once cervical-cancer highly risk-associated HPV-types were identified. The high microbial diversity observed may be related to the different levels of cellular lesions, and different physiological conditions of the participants (age, social behavior, education). Further prospective studies are needed to better address correlations and BV and microbial imbalance in vaginal ecosystems which would be related to the different cellular lesions in women with HPV infections. Supported by FAPEMIG, CNPq, CAPES, PPGCBIO/UFJF.

Keywords: human papillomavirus, bacterial vaginosis, bacterial diversity, cervical cancer

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Authors: Vasiliki Kolake, Christos Kavalaris, Sofia Megoudi, Maria Maxouri, Panagiotis A. Karas, Aris Kyparissis, Efi Levizou

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Conservation agriculture (CA), is a production system approach that can tackle the challenges of climate change mainly through facilitating carbon storage into the soil and increasing crop resilience. This is extremely important for the vulnerable Mediterranean agroecosystems, which already face adverse environmental conditions. The agronomic practices used in CA, i.e. permanent soil cover and no-tillage, result in reduced soil erosion and increased soil organic matter, preservation of water and improvement of quality and fertility of the soil in the long-term. Thus the functional characteristics and processes of the soil are considerably affected by the implementation of CA. The aim of the present work was to assess the effects of CA on soil nitrification potential and mycorrhizal colonization about the above-ground production in a wheat field. Two adjacent but independent field sites of 1.5ha each were used (Thessaly plain, Central Greece), comprising the no-till and conventional tillage treatments. The no-tillage site was covered by residues of the previous crop (cotton). Potential nitrification and the nitrate and ammonium content of the soil were measured at two different soil depths (3 and 15cm) at 20-days intervals throughout the growth period. Additionally, the leaf area index (LAI) was monitored at the same time-course. The mycorrhizal colonization was measured at the commencement and end of the experiment. At the final harvest, total yield and plant biomass were also recorded. The results indicate that wheat yield was considerably favored by CA practices, exhibiting a 42% increase compared to the conventional tillage treatment. The superior performance of the CA crop was also depicted in the above-ground plant biomass, where a 26% increase was recorded. LAI, which is considered a reliable growth index, did not show statistically significant differences between treatments throughout the growth period. On the contrary, significant differences were recorded in endomycorrhizal colonization one day before the final harvest, with CA plants exhibiting 20% colonization, while the conventional tillage plants hardly reached 1%. The on-going analyses of potential nitrification measurements, as well as nitrate and ammonium determination, will shed light on the effects of CA on key processes in the soil. These results will integrate the assessment of CA impact on certain below and above-ground processes during wheat cultivation under the Mediterranean climate.

Keywords: conservation agriculture, LAI, mycorrhizal colonization, potential nitrification, wheat, yield

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