Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2020-04"
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- A complementaridade de pais e de profissionais na avaliação em Intervenção PrecocePublication . Pereira, Ana Paula Da Silva; Jurdi, Andréa Perosa Saigh; Reis, Helena I. S.O estudo teve por objetivo analisar a convergência entre pais e profissionais relativamente à avaliação da área da interação social em crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA), entre três e seis anos, apoiadas pelo sistema de intervenção precoce em Portugal.
- Designing a mobile app to promote healthy behaviors and prevent obesity: analysis of adolescents’ preferencesPublication . Frontini, R.; Sousa, P.; Dixe, M. A.; Ferreira, R.; Figueiredo, M. C.To ensure that adolescents adhere to programmes promoting healthy behaviors, these programmes must be appealing and interesting. This study aims to characterize and assess the devices, operating system and type of mobile apps frequently used by adolescents; understand the features that mHealth apps should have to be appealing; comprehend the facilitators and barriers for adolescents to use mHealth apps. The sample comprised 165 adolescents (12–18 years) from the main population, recruited in 2018. Most participants used smartphones and the Android system. Food and physical activity suggestions were considered the most important features for an mHealth app. 62.6% had never tried an mHealth app. For those who had tried one, 26.0% stated it was to improve health status/lifestyle. Their favorite feature was physical exercise tips/plans (41.8%). Adolescents pointed out that the reasons that made them keep using the app were utility and interest (35.7%). Regarding possible barriers, 48.4% reported a lack of a senseof need/practical utility, and 18.8% considered notifications as their least favorite feature. Lack of interest was pointed out for 38.2% as the main reason for stopping use. Results provide practical information for the planning, design, and implementation of future mHealth apps for the promotion of healthy behaviors–an important implication for future research in this area.
- Seismic damage scenarios for the Historic City Center of Leiria, Portugal: Analysis of the impact of different seismic retrofitting strategies on emergency planningPublication . Anglade, Elsa; Giatreli, Anna-Maria; Blyth, Anna; Di Napoli, Beatrice; Parisse, Francesco; Namourah, Zahir; Rodrigues, Hugo; Ferreira, Tiago MiguelAs a result of several impactful events, the focus of the international community on the effects of natural hazards in urban areas has been increasing in recent years. The framework for research and innovation on urban risk reduction and urban resilience is presently defined by several technical and societal challenges at different levels. In fact, urban risk is a very complex multi-dimensional matrix that can involve multiple elements at risk, multiple hazards, multiple temporal scales, and multiple sources of vulnerability. Understanding the impacts and interactions between these elements is an essential step towards the development of more effective risk reduction strategies, particularly in historical city centers, which, due to their characteristics, are even more demanding. Within this framework, the present paper takes advantage of a large-scale seismic vulnerability assessment method, specially developed to assess the vulnerability of masonry façade walls, to evaluate the vulnerability and to develop damage scenarios for the Historic City Center of Leiria. Based on these scenarios, obtained for the relevant seismic intensities of the region, a variety of probabilistic-based outputs related to emergency planning (inaccessible urban areas, isolated people, and possible evacuation routes) were generated and comprehensively discussed. Finally, the potential benefit resulting from the application of different seismic retrofitting strategies is also investigated, both in terms of expected damages and evacuation scenarios.
- Relationship Between Mental Health and the Education Level in Elderly People: Mediation of Leisure AttitudePublication . Belo, Pedro; Navarro-Pardo, Esperanza; Pocinho, Ricardo; Carrana, Pedro; Margarido, CristóvãoPurpose: The present study intends to explore the influence of education on the mental health of retired people and the mediating role of a leisure attitude in this relationship. Design/Methodology: The sample was simple random, and a confidentiality agreement was established. The sample was composed of 403 Portuguese participants (37.2% male; 62.8% female). The participants completed the MHI and the LAS. Findings: The hypothesized mediation model showed that a leisure attitude mediated the association between education and well-being. In addition, higher levels of distress were found in participants with higher levels of education. Scientific Contribution: Our results suggest that old-aged people with high education and a more positive leisure attitude have a better psychological adjustment concerning well-being. Also, a higher level of education can lead to a better perception of aging changes (physical, life, profession).
- Profiling IT Security and Interoperability in Brazilian Health Organisations From a Business PerspectivePublication . Rijo, Rui; Martinho, Ricardo; Oliveira, Adicinéia Aparecida; Alves, Domingos; Reis, Zilma Silveira Nogueira; Santos-Pereira, Cátia; Correia, Manuel E.; Antunes, Luís Filipe; Cruz-Correia, Ricardo JoãoThe proliferation of electronic health (e-Health) initiatives in Brazil over the last 2 decades has resulted in a considerable fragmentation within health information technology (IT), with a strong political interference. The problem regarding this issue became twofold: 1) there are considerable flaws regarding interoperability and security involving patient data; and 2) it is difficult even for an experienced company to enter the Brazilian health IT market. In this article, the authors aim to assess the current state of IT interoperability and security in hospitals in Brazil and evaluate the best business strategy for an IT company to enter this difficult but very promising health IT market. A face-to-face questionnaire was conducted among 11 hospital units to assess their current status regarding IT interoperability and security aspects. Global Brazilian socio-economic data was also collected, and helped to not only identify areas of investment regarding health IT security and interoperability, but also to derive a business strategy, composed out of recommendations listed in the paper.
- Statistical Modeling of Lower Limb Kinetics During Deep Squat and Forward LungePublication . Roeck, Joris De; Houcke, J. Van; Almeida, D.; Galibarov, P.; Roeck, L. De; Audenaert, Emmanuel A.Purpose: Modern statistics and higher computational power have opened novel possibilities to complex data analysis. While gait has been the utmost described motion in quantitative human motion analysis, descriptions of more challenging movements like the squat or lunge are currently lacking in the literature. The hip and knee joints are exposed to high forces and cause high morbidity and costs. Pre-surgical kinetic data acquisition on a patient-specific anatomy is also scarce in the literature. Studying the normal inter-patient kinetic variability may lead to other comparable studies to initiate more personalized therapies within the orthopedics. Methods: Trials are performed by 50 healthy young males who were not overweight and approximately of the same age and activity level. Spatial marker trajectories and ground reaction force registrations are imported into the Anybody Modeling System based on subject-specific geometry and the state-of-the-art TLEM 2.0 dataset. Hip and knee joint reaction forces were obtained by a simulation with an inverse dynamics approach. With these forces, a statistical model that accounts for inter-subject variability was created. For this, we applied a principal component analysis in order to enable variance decomposition. This way, noise can be rejected and we still contemplate all waveform data, instead of using deduced spatiotemporal parameters like peak flexion or stride length as done in many gait analyses. In addition, this current paper is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first to investigate the generalization of a kinetic model data toward the population. Results: Average knee reaction forces range up to 7.16 times body weight for the forwarded leg during lunge. Conversely, during squat, the load is evenly distributed. For both motions, a reliable and compact statistical model was created. In the lunge model, the first 12 modes accounts for 95.26% of inter-individual population variance. For the maximal-depth squat, this was 95.69% for the first 14 modes. Model accuracies will increase when including more principal components. Conclusion: Our model design was proved to be compact, accurate, and reliable. For models aimed at populations covering descriptive studies, the sample size must be at least 50.
- Basic psychological needs and subjective well-being in Portuguese older peoplePublication . Couto, Nuno; Antunes, Raul; Monteiro, Diogo; Moutão, João; Marinho, Daniel A.; Cid, LuísThe aim of this study is the validation of the Portuguese version of the Basic Need Satisfaction General Scale (BNSG-S) in a sample of Portuguese elderly, and analyze through a structural equations model the effect of the Portuguese elderly individuals’ global perception about the satisfaction of basic psychological needs on subjective well-being. Two samples of Portuguese elderly people aged between 60 and 90 years old were considered in this study. Results revealed that they Model 3 of the BNSG-S (three factors, 11 items) adjusted to the data a (Χ2 = 103.16, df = 41, SRMR =. 05, TLI =. 90, CFI =. 93, RMSEA =. 07, 90% CI =. 05-.08). Additionally, structural model analysis, showed a positive and significant effect between satisfaction of basic psychological needs and subjective well-being. In sum we concluded that the Portuguese version of the BNSG-S can be used as a means to evaluate the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of the older population and, their satisfaction, has a positive effect on subjective well-being in the Portuguese older population.
- Monocular Camera Calibration for Autonomous Driving — a comparative studyPublication . Martins, Pedro Filipe; Costelha, Hugo; Bento, Luís Conde; Neves, CarlosAutonomous driving is currently a widely researched topic worldwide. With a large research effort being taken by industrial research units in the automotive sector, it is no longer exclusive to academic research labs. Essential to this ongoing effort towards level-5 vehicle autonomy, are the sensors used for tracking and detection, mainly lasers, radars and cameras. Most of the cameras for automotive application systems use wide-angle or fish-eye lens, which present high distortion levels. Cameras need to be calibrated for correct perception, particularly for capturing geometry features, or for distance-based calculations. This paper describes a case-study concerning monocular camera calibration for a small scale autonomous driving vehicle vision system. It describes the fundamentals on camera calibration and implementation, with results given for different lenses and distortion models. The aim of the paper is not only to provide a detailed and comprehensive review on the application of these calibration methods, but to serve also as a reference document for other researchers and developers starting to use monocular vision in their robotic applications.
- Energy efficiency assessment of a public building resourcing a BIM modelPublication . Rodrigues, Fernanda; Isayeva, Anastasiya; Rodrigues, Hugo; Pinto, ArmandoThe construction sector high energy consumption and GHG emissions lead to the development of easier methodologies to achieve low carbon buildings. Currently, the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is growing in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operation (AECO) sector, and it assumes relevance in buildings energy simulation. Therefore, this work aims to explore the potential and limitations of applying BIM to energy management and simulation in the operation life cycle phase of a service building, and comparing it with a specific and customized tool for energy efficiency assessment of public buildings. A service building BIM model was developed in Autodesk Revit showing its utility when used as an asset for storing and organize energy-related data. The add-in Energy Analysis for Autodesk Revit allowed automatically generating the Building Energy Model (BEM) from the BIM model and performing a cloud-based simulation in Autodesk Green Building Studio (GBS). The energy consumption results obtained in GBS were compared with the results obtained with the energy simulation tool ECO.AP developed in the Portuguese National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC). It was possible to infer that the input limitations of GBS, mainly in HVAC systems customization, compromise the representation and energy performance evaluation of the building under actual operating conditions, making GBS more adequate for early buildings life cycle stages where energy simulation results may support decisions that aim to improve the buildings energy performance during the operation phase.
- Os efeitos da Inteligência Emocional do Gestor de Projeto no Sucesso do ProjetoPublication . Guimarães, Amanda; Carvalho, Henrique Amado; Espírito Santo, Pedro Manuel doA fim de alcançar o sucesso do projeto, a gestão de projetos exige dos líderes, além das suas competências técnicas, a capacidade de adaptação e competências para lidar com pessoas. Num ambiente de trabalho, as relações interpessoais da equipa influenciam o modo como o trabalho é realizado e as decisões são tomadas. Neste sentido, o uso da inteligência emocional é importante para ter consciência e gerir suas próprias emoções e a dos membros da equipa, melhorando a colaboração entre os membros da equipa e a coesão entre eles, e assim aumenta a possibilidade de sucesso no projeto. Esta investigação tem como objetivo o estudo dos efeitos da inteligência emocional do gestor no sucesso obtido nos projetos por si geridos. Para isso, foi construído um modelo de investigação, através da literatura revista que procurou analisar os efeitos da inteligência emocional na colaboração entre os membros da equipa, na coesão da equipa e no sucesso do projeto. Assim, através de uma amostra de 86 gestores de projetos brasileiros e portugueses, os dados recolhidos foram analisados pelo método de modelagem de equações estruturais pelos mínimos quadrados parciais (PLS-SEM). Dos resultados, conclui-se que a consciência das próprias emoções e a consciência das emoções dos outros membros da equipa, influenciam na gestão das próprias emoções e na gestão das emoções dos outros. Além disso, a gestão das emoções dos membros da equipa tem efeito positivo no sucesso do projeto. Os resultados evidenciam também que a coesão contribui para a colaboração entre os membros da equipa e influencia o sucesso do projeto. Deste modo, as organizações devem ter em atenção a importância da inteligência emocional dos seus gestores de projeto pelo que é relevante que os gestores desenvolvam essa competência.