Design of a case-based reasoner for information security in military organizations

Information security is concerned with the protection of information, which can be stored, processed or transmitted within critical information systems of the organizations, against loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability. Protection measures to prevent these problems result through the implementation of controls at several dimensions: technical, administrative or physical. A vital objective for military organizations is to ensure superiority in contexts of information warfare and competitive intelligence. Therefore, the problem of information security in military organizations has been a topic of intensive work at both national and transnational levels, and extensive conceptual and standardization work is being produced. A current effort is therefore to develop automated decision support systems to assist military decision makers, at different levels in the command chain, to provide suitable control measures that can effectively deal with potential attacks and, at the same time, prevent, detect and contain vulnerabilities targeted at their information systems. The concept and processes of the Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) methodology outstandingly resembles classical military processes and doctrine, in particular the analysis of “lessons learned” and definition of “modes of action”. Therefore, the present paper addresses the modeling and design of a CBR system with two key objectives: to support an effective response in context of information security for military organizations; to allow for scenario planning and analysis for training and auditing processes.

Occupational stress and coping among portuguese military police officers

This study describes the professional experience of military police officers from the Portuguese Republican National Guard (N = 95). We focused on the main sources and consequences of stress and the coping strategies used to deal with stress. The evaluation protocol included one closed-ended question and four open-ended questions. Data analysis of meaningful text segments was conceptually based and data categorization followed deductive content analysis. Results allowed the identification of 483 meaning units. Factors intrinsic to the job and the relationships at work were the main stressors referred by participants. The consequences of stressors were evident at an individual level, affecting family, psychological, and physical/health domains. The coping strategies used to deal with the main source of stress in the professional career were focused on problem solving (e.g., active confrontation) and emotional regulation (e.g., situation acceptance). Practical implications and future avenues of research with these professionals are discussed.

Influence of casting condition on the anisotropy of the fracture properties of Steel Fibre Reinforced Self-Compacting Concrete (SFRSCC)

Identification of the tensile constitutive behaviour of Fibre Reinforced Concrete (FRC) represents an important aspect of the design of structural elements using this material. Although an important step has been made with the introduction of guidance for the design with regular FRC in the recently published fib Model Code 2010, a better understanding of the behaviour of this material is still necessary, mainly for that with self-compacting properties. This work presents an experimental investigation employing Steel Fibre Self-Compacting Concrete (SFRSCC) to cast thin structural elements. A new test method is proposed for assessing the post-cracking behaviour and the results obtained with the proposed test method are compared with the ones resulted from the standard three-point bending tests (3PBT). Specimens extracted from a sandwich panel consisting of SFRSCC layers are also tested. The mechanical properties of SFRSCC are correlated to the fibre distribution by analysing the results obtained with the different tests. Finally, the stress-crack width constitutive law proposed by the fib Model Code 2010 is analysed in light of the experimental results.

Influence of river ecological condition on changes in physico-chemical water parameters along rivers

Dissertação de mestrado em Ecology

Postpartum Depression: Is it a condition affecting the mother-infant interaction and the development of the child across the first year of life?

Noting that maternal depression is common during a baby's first year, this study examined the interaction of depressed and non-depressed mother-child dyads. A sample of 26 first-time mothers with postpartum depression at the third month after birth and their 3-month-old infants was compared to a sample of 25 first-time mothers with no postpartum depression at the third month after birth and their 3-month-old infants. The observations were repeated at 6 months and again at 12 months postpartum. The samples were compared for differences in mother interaction behavior, mother's infant care, mother's concern with the baby, infant behavioral difficulties, infant mental and motor development, and infant behavior with the observer. Among the findings are the following: (1) depressed mothers' interaction behavior and care of their infants are less adequate than the non-depressed mothers' interaction behavior and care of their infants at 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum; (2) infants' interaction behaviors during feeding and face-to-face interaction with depressed mothers are less adequate than infants' interactions with non-depressed mothers at 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum; (3) mother-infant interactions are less adequate in the depressed mother dyads than the non-depressed dyads at 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum; (4) depressed mothers are less concerned about their infants than non-depressed mothers at 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum; (5) infants of depressed mothers have more behavioral difficulties at 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum than infants of non-depressed mothers; (6) infants of depressed mothers had lower mental and motor development rates at 6 and 12 months postpartum than infants of non-depressed mothers; and (7) infants of non-depressed mothers behaved in a more positive way with the observer than the infants of depressed mothers. (AS)

A Real-Time intelligent system for tracking patient condition

Hospitals have multiple data sources, such as embedded systems, monitors and sensors. The number of data available is increasing and the information are used not only to care the patient but also to assist the decision processes. The introduction of intelligent environments in health care institutions has been adopted due their ability to provide useful information for health professionals, either in helping to identify prognosis or also to understand patient condition. Behind of this concept arises this Intelligent System to track patient condition (e.g. critic events) in health care. This system has the great advantage of being adaptable to the environment and user needs. The system is focused in identifying critic events from data streaming (e.g. vital signs and ventilation) which is particularly valuable for understanding the patient’s condition. This work aims to demonstrate the process of creating an intelligent system capable of operating in a real environment using streaming data provided by ventilators and vital signs monitors. Its development is important to the physician because becomes possible crossing multiple variables in real-time by analyzing if a value is critic or not and if their variation has or not clinical importance.