A data-driven analytics approach in the study of pneumonia’s fatalities

As huge amounts of data become available in organizations and society, specific data analytics skills and techniques are needed to explore this data and extract from it useful patterns, tendencies, models or other useful knowledge, which could be used to support the decision-making process, to define new strategies or to understand what is happening in a specific field. Only with a deep understanding of a phenomenon it is possible to fight it. In this paper, a data-driven analytics approach is used for the analysis of the increasing incidence of fatalities by pneumonia in the Portuguese population, characterizing the disease and its incidence in terms of fatalities, knowledge that can be used to define appropriate strategies that can aim to reduce this phenomenon, which has increased more than 65% in a decade.

Safety classification using GIS in decision-making process to define priority road interventions

Given the current economic situation of the Portuguese municipalities, it is necessary to identify the priority investments in order to achieve a more efficient financial management. The classification of the road network of the municipality according to the occurrence of traffic accidents is fundamental to set priorities for road interventions. This paper presents a model for road network classification based on traffic accidents integrated in a geographic information system. Its practical application was developed through a case study in the municipality of Barcelos. An equation was defined to obtain a road safety index through the combination of the following indicators: severity, property damage only and accident costs. In addition to the road network classification, the application of the model allows to analyze the spatial coverage of accidents in order to determine the centrality and dispersion of the locations with the highest incidence of road accidents. This analysis can be further refined according to the nature of the accidents namely in collision, runoff and pedestrian crashes.

Step towards multiplatform framework for supporting pediatric and neonatology care unit decision process

Children are an especially vulnerable population, particularly in respect to drug administration. It is estimated that neonatal and pediatric patients are at least three times more vulnerable to damage due to adverse events and medication errors than adults are. With the development of this framework, it is intended the provision of a Clinical Decision Support System based on a prototype already tested in a real environment. The framework will include features such as preparation of Total Parenteral Nutrition prescriptions, table pediatric and neonatal emergency drugs, medical scales of morbidity and mortality, anthropometry percentiles (weight, length/height, head circumference and BMI), utilities for supporting medical decision on the treatment of neonatal jaundice and anemia and support for technical procedures and other calculators and widespread use tools. The solution in development means an extension of INTCare project. The main goal is to provide an approach to get the functionality at all times of clinical practice and outside the hospital environment for dissemination, education and simulation of hypothetical situations. The aim is also to develop an area for the study and analysis of information and extraction of knowledge from the data collected by the use of the system. This paper presents the architecture, their requirements and functionalities and a SWOT analysis of the solution proposed.

Gamification e game-based learning: uma abordagem lúdica à aprendizagem

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ensino de Informática

Honours students: good marks and what else?

Currently in Portugal academic excellence in higher education is given recognition through merit prizes. Because honours students can be seen as having the potential to achieve imporant levels of professional expertise, especially if they have some personal skills, it is important to know not only the marks of the students but also the personal characteristics that contribute to academic success and which may also be important for career success. Some theoretical models of giftedness and excellence agree with this idea and this work considers the latest contribution of Renzulli (2005) where it is pointed out that excellent achievements result from the combination of motivational, intellectual and creative factors as well as from co-cognitive factors which are most associated with personality functioning in a particular context. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze how honours students differ from their classmates in various psychological dimensions: Cognition-creativity, Motivation and Learning Strategies, Persistence, Social Interaction, Drive for Excellence and Cultural Interest. These dimensions were measured by the Inventory of Psychological Characteristics Associated with Academic Performance (ICPADA), which was constructed taking into consideration the previous study of Scaeger et al. (2012). The sample included 914 Portuguese higher educatoin students from a first cycle degree in the Bologna process. Participants were selected from three different fields of study: Social and Human Sciences; Science and Technology; Arts and Humanities. The data collected through the administration of the ICPADA was presented, and the results revealed a higher self-perception by honours students in all areas analyzed, with the exception of the dimension of social interaction. In addition an interaction effect was revealed for persistence, social interaction, and cultural interest. The field of study and whether the participants were honours students or not were also taken into account. Some implications for future studies are presented here along with possible interventions for honours students.

Relatório de atividade profissional

Relatório de atividade profissional de mestrado em Ciências – Formação Contínua de Professores (área de especialização em Biologia e Geologia)

Beeswax organogels: Influence of gelator concentration and oil type in the gelation process

This work focused on how different types of oil phase, MCT (medium chain triglycerides) and LCT (long chain triglycerides), exert influence on the gelation process of beeswax and thus properties of the organogel produced thereof. Organogels were produced at different temperatures and qualitative phase diagrams were constructed to identify and classify the type of structure formed at various compositions. The microstructure of gelator crystals was studied by polarized light microscopy. Melting and crystallization were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry and rheology (flow and small amplitude oscillatory measurements) to understand organogels' behaviour under different mechanical and thermal conditions. FTIR analysis was employed for a further understanding of oil-gelator chemical interactions. Results showed that the increase of beeswax concentration led to higher values of storage and loss moduli (G, G) and complex modulus (G*) of organogels, which is associated to the strong network formed between the crystalline gelator structure and the oil phase. Crystallization occurred in two steps (well evidenced for higher concentrations of gelator) during temperature decreasing. Thermal analysis showed the occurrence of hysteresis between melting and crystallization. Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) analysis allowed a better understanding in terms of how crystal conformations were disposed for each type of organogel. The structuring process supported by medium or long-chain triglycerides oils was an important exploit to apprehend the impact of different carbon chain-size on the gelation process and on gels' properties.