Caracterização da amostra portuguesa da área da saúde na Web of Science

Introdução: A produção e o uso da literatura científica são analisados, quantificados e interpretados pela bibliometria, ciência utilizada para estudos métricos da informação publicada e que estuda as questões relacionadas com a comunicação científica e a atividade científica. Objetivo: O estudo apresentado é uma análise bibliométrica da produção científica portuguesa da área da saúde indexada na Web of Science. Métodos: Analisa-se a produção referente ao período entre 1992 e final de 2011. A análise da produção científica centrou-se nas seguintes variáveis: categorias de classificação da Web of Science, tipologia de documentos indexados, títulos de revistas, distribuição por anos de publicação, afiliação institucional, idiomas, países de origem dos autores com quem foram estabelecidas relações de parceria científica e quem facultou os financiamentos à investigação científica. Resultados: Foram contabilizados 34.208 trabalhos. Destes, o artigo é a forma mais utilizada pelos autores portugueses para a divulgação dos resultados de investigação (58,5%). A década mais recente é contemplada com 75,4% dos registos. A maioria da produção com visibilidade internacional é oriunda de universidades e de centros de investigação hospitalar; institutos, laboratórios da indústria farmacêutica e universidades estrangeiras têm valores residuais. A colaboração com outros investigadores internacionais destaca-se no caso da Europa (73,2%). O financiamento da investigação científica é suportado basicamente pela Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (59,5%), seguida da Comissão Europeia (17,8%). O inglês é o idioma mais usado para a divulgação dos resultados de investigação nacional na área da saúde (97,8%). Conclusões: O uso de bases de dados ou de plataformas científicas para estudos bibliométricos é um processo moroso e difícil. O total de trabalhos em análise foi sempre o mesmo mas, em algumas variáveis, os valores não coincidem, quer porque alguns dos registos foram classificados em mais do que uma categoria temática, quer pelos trabalhos multidisciplinares oriundos das mesmas instituições, quer pelos trabalhos de colaboração internacional. Também no presente estudo os artigos são o veículo privilegiado para a divulgação dos resultados científicos. Apontamento final: deve encorajar-se a utilização de outras plataformas científicas e de outras bases de dados para uma mais completa recuperação da produção científica nacional na área da saúde. Introduction: The production and the use of the scientific literature are analyzed, quantified and interpreted by bibliometry. Bibliometry is the science used in published information metric studies and studies the questions of scientific communication and the scientific production. Aim of the study: This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the indexed Web of Science Portuguese scientific production in the health field. Methods: We analyzed the production from 1992 to the end of 2011. This analysis focused in several variables: general categories areas of Web of Science, indexed document types, source titles, publication years, group/corporate authors, languages, identification of the countries with scientific partnerships and identification of the funding agencies for scientific research. Results: We found 34.208 works. From this, the article is the most common channel for disseminating the research results (58.5%). The most recent decade has 75.4% of the total of records. Most of the production with international visibility becomes from universities and hospital research centers; institutes, pharmaceutical labs or foreign universities have residual values. Collaborating with other international researchers is very common, particularly with Europe (73.2%). In general, the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia supports the scientific research (59.5%), followed by the European Commission (17.8%). The language commonly used for disseminating the research results in health is the English (97.8%). Conclusions: Using databases or scientific platforms for bibliometric studies is a hard and difficult process. The total of works analyzed was always the same but, with some variables, the numbers does not coincide: a) some of the registries were classified in several categories; b) some of the multidisciplinary works were from the same institution; c) the large number of international partnership. In this study, articles are the privileged way for disseminating the scientific results. A last thought: the use of other scientific platforms and databases should be encouraged for a more complete retrieval of the national research production in health.

Information and investor behavior surrounding earnings announcements

Preliminary version

Individual pension information: Recommendations for the case of Spain based on the experiences of other countries

The aim of this paper is to establish some basic guidelines to help draft the information letter sent to individual contributors should it be decided to use this model in the Spanish public pension system. With this end in mind and basing our work on the experiences of the most advanced countries in the field and the pioneering papers by Jackson (2005), Larsson et al. (2008) and Sunden (2009), we look into the concept of “individual pension information” and identify its most relevant characteristics. We then give a detailed description of two models, those in the United States and Sweden, and in particular look at how they are structured, what aspects could be improved and what their limitations are. Finally we make some recommendations of special interest for designing the model for Spain.

Caracterização da amostra portuguesa da área da saúde na Web of Science

Introdução: A produção e o uso da literatura científica são analisados, quantificados e interpretados pela bibliometria, ciência utilizada para estudos métricos da informação publicada e que estuda as questões relacionadas com a comunicação científica e a atividade científica. Objetivo: O estudo apresentado é uma análise bibliométrica da produção científica portuguesa da área da saúde indexada na Web of Science. Métodos: Analisa-se a produção referente ao período entre 1992 e final de 2011. A análise da produção científica centrou-se nas seguintes variáveis: categorias de classificação da Web of Science, tipologia de documentos indexados, títulos de revistas, distribuição por anos de publicação, afiliação institucional, idiomas, países de origem dos autores com quem foram estabelecidas relações de parceria científica e quem facultou os financiamentos à investigação científica. Resultados: Foram contabilizados 34.208 trabalhos. Destes, o artigo é a forma mais utilizada pelos autores portugueses para a divulgação dos resultados de investigação (58,5%). A década mais recente é contemplada com 75,4% dos registos. A maioria da produção com visibilidade internacional é oriunda de universidades e de centros de investigação hospitalar; institutos, laboratórios da indústria farmacêutica e universidades estrangeiras têm valores residuais. A colaboração com outros investigadores internacionais destaca-se no caso da Europa (73,2%). O financiamento da investigação científica é suportado basicamente pela Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (59,5%), seguida da Comissão Europeia (17,8%). O inglês é o idioma mais usado para a divulgação dos resultados de investigação nacional na área da saúde (97,8%). Conclusões: O uso de bases de dados ou de plataformas científicas para estudos bibliométricos é um processo moroso e difícil. O total de trabalhos em análise foi sempre o mesmo mas, em algumas variáveis, os valores não coincidem, quer porque alguns dos registos foram classificados em mais do que uma categoria temática, quer pelos trabalhos multidisciplinares oriundos das mesmas instituições, quer pelos trabalhos de colaboração internacional. Também no presente estudo os artigos são o veículo privilegiado para a divulgação dos resultados científicos. Apontamento final: deve encorajar-se a utilização de outras plataformas científicas e de outras bases de dados para uma mais completa recuperação da produção científica nacional na área da saúde. Introduction: The production and the use of the scientific literature are analyzed, quantified and interpreted by bibliometry. Bibliometry is the science used in published information metric studies and studies the questions of scientific communication and the scientific production. Aim of the study: This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the indexed Web of Science Portuguese scientific production in the health field. Methods: We analyzed the production from 1992 to the end of 2011. This analysis focused in several variables: general categories areas of Web of Science, indexed document types, source titles, publication years, group/corporate authors, languages, identification of the countries with scientific partnerships and identification of the funding agencies for scientific research. Results: We found 34.208 works. From this, the article is the most common channel for disseminating the research results (58.5%). The most recent decade has 75.4% of the total of records. Most of the production with international visibility becomes from universities and hospital research centers; institutes, pharmaceutical labs or foreign universities have residual values. Collaborating with other international researchers is very common, particularly with Europe (73.2%). In general, the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia supports the scientific research (59.5%), followed by the European Commission (17.8%). The language commonly used for disseminating the research results in health is the English (97.8%). Conclusions: Using databases or scientific platforms for bibliometric studies is a hard and difficult process. The total of works analyzed was always the same but, with some variables, the numbers does not coincide: a) some of the registries were classified in several categories; b) some of the multidisciplinary works were from the same institution; c) the large number of international partnership. In this study, articles are the privileged way for disseminating the scientific results. A last thought: the use of other scientific platforms and databases should be encouraged for a more complete retrieval of the national research production in health.

Detection of anti-Giardia lamblia serum antibody among children of day care centers

OBJETIVES: To detect anti-Giardia lamblia serum antibodies in healthy children attending public day care centers and to assess serological tests as tools for estimating the prevalence of G. lamblia in endemic areas. METHODS: Three separate stool specimens and filter paper blood samples were collected from 147 children ranging from 0 to 6 years old. Each stool sample was processed using spontaneous sedimentation and zinc sulfate flotation methods. Blood samples were tested by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for Giardia IgG. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Of 147 individuals tested, 93 (63.3%) showed Giardia cysts in their feces. Using IIF and ELISA, serum antibodies were detected in 93 (63.3%) and 100 (68%) samples , respectively. Sensitivity of IIF and ELISA was 82% and 72%, respectively. However, ELISA revealed to be less specific (39%) than IIF (70%). IIF also showed a higher concordance with microscopic examination than ELISA.

Knowledge and technologies in innovative information systems

7th Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, MCIS 2012, Guimaraes, Portugal, September 8-10, 2012, Proceedings Series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, Vol. 129

Augmented LDPC Graph for Distributed Video Coding with Multiple Side Information

The advances made in channel-capacity codes, such as turbo codes and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, have played a major role in the emerging distributed source coding paradigm. LDPC codes can be easily adapted to new source coding strategies due to their natural representation as bipartite graphs and the use of quasi-optimal decoding algorithms, such as belief propagation. This paper tackles a relevant scenario in distributedvideo coding: lossy source coding when multiple side information (SI) hypotheses are available at the decoder, each one correlated with the source according to different correlation noise channels. Thus, it is proposed to exploit multiple SI hypotheses through an efficient joint decoding technique withmultiple LDPC syndrome decoders that exchange information to obtain coding efficiency improvements. At the decoder side, the multiple SI hypotheses are created with motion compensated frame interpolation and fused together in a novel iterative LDPC based Slepian-Wolf decoding algorithm. With the creation of multiple SI hypotheses and the proposed decoding algorithm, bitrate savings up to 8.0% are obtained for similar decoded quality.

Association between child-care and acute diarrhea: a study in Portuguese children

OBJECTIVE: To quantify the influence of the type of child-care on the occurrence of acute diarrhea with special emphasis on the effect of children grouping during care. METHODS: From October 1998 to January 1999 292 children, aged 24 to 36 months, recruited using a previously assembled cohort of newborns, were evaluated. Information on the type of care and occurrence of diarrhea in the previous year was obtained from parents by telephone interview. The X² and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare proportions and quantitative variables, respectively. The risk of diarrhea was estimated through the calculation of incident odds ratios (OR) and their respective 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), crude and adjusted by unconditional logistic regression. RESULTS: Using as reference category children cared individually at home, the adjusted ORs for diarrhea occurrence were 3.18, 95% CI [1.49, 6.77] for children cared in group at home, 2.28, 95% CI [0.92, 5.67] for children cared in group in day-care homes and 2.54, 95% CI [1.21, 5.33] for children cared in day-care centers. Children that changed from any other type of child-care setting to child-care centers in the year preceding the study showed a risk even higher (OR 7.65, 95% CI [3.25, 18.02]). CONCLUSIONS: Group care increases the risk of acute diarrhea whatsoever the specific setting.

VPPs information needs for effective operation in competitive electricity markets

The large increase of renewable energy sources and Distributed Generation (DG) of electricity gives place to the Virtual Power Producer (VPP) concept. VPPs may turn electricity generation by renewable sources valuable in electricity markets. Information availability and adequate decision-support tools are crucial for achieving VPPs’ goals. This involves information concerning associated producers and market operation. This paper presents ViProd, a simulation tool that allows simulating VPPs operation, focusing mainly in the information requirements for adequate decision making.

Decision support system with incomplete and domain incoherent information management

Many of the most common human functions such as temporal and non-monotonic reasoning have not yet been fully mapped in developed systems, even though some theoretical breakthroughs have already been accomplished. This is mainly due to the inherent computational complexity of the theoretical approaches. In the particular area of fault diagnosis in power systems however, some systems which tried to solve the problem, have been deployed using methodologies such as production rule based expert systems, neural networks, recognition of chronicles, fuzzy expert systems, etc. SPARSE (from the Portuguese acronym, which means expert system for incident analysis and restoration support) was one of the developed systems and, in the sequence of its development, came the need to cope with incomplete and/or incorrect information as well as the traditional problems for power systems fault diagnosis based on SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) information retrieval, namely real-time operation, huge amounts of information, etc. This paper presents an architecture for a decision support system, which can solve the presented problems, using a symbiosis of the event calculus and the default reasoning rule based system paradigms, insuring soft real-time operation with incomplete, incorrect or domain incoherent information handling ability. A prototype implementation of this system is already at work in the control centre of the Portuguese Transmission Network.

A study on dynamic state information (DSI) around users for safe urban life

To select each node by devices and by contexts in urban computing, users have to put their plan information and their requests into a computing environment (ex. PDA, Smart Devices, Laptops, etc.) in advance and they will try to keep the optimized states between users and the computing environment. However, because of bad contexts, users may get the wrong decision, so, one of the users’ demands may be requesting the good server which has higher security. To take this issue, we define the structure of Dynamic State Information (DSI) which takes a process about security including the relevant factors in sending/receiving contexts, which select the best during user movement with server quality and security states from DSI. Finally, whenever some information changes, users and devices get the notices including security factors, then an automatic reaction can be possible; therefore all users can safely use all devices in urban computing.

Histogram-based DNA analysis for the visualization of chromosome, genome and species information

We describe a novel approach to explore DNA nucleotide sequence data, aiming to produce high-level categorical and structural information about the underlying chromosomes, genomes and species. The article starts by analyzing chromosomal data through histograms using fixed length DNA sequences. After creating the DNA-related histograms, a correlation between pairs of histograms is computed, producing a global correlation matrix. These data are then used as input to several data processing methods for information extraction and tabular/graphical output generation. A set of 18 species is processed and the extensive results reveal that the proposed method is able to generate significant and diversified outputs, in good accordance with current scientific knowledge in domains such as genomics and phylogenetics.

Training control centers' operators in incident diagnosis and power restoration using intelligent tutoring systems

The activity of Control Center operators is important to guarantee the effective performance of Power Systems. Operators’ actions are crucial to deal with incidents, especially severe faults like blackouts. In this paper, we present an Intelligent Tutoring approach for training Portuguese Control Center operators in tasks like incident analysis and diagnosis, and service restoration of Power Systems. Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) approach is used in the training of the operators, having into account context awareness and the unobtrusive integration in the working environment. Several Artificial Intelligence techniques were criteriously used and combined together to obtain an effective Intelligent Tutoring environment, namely Multiagent Systems, Neural Networks, Constraint-based Modeling, Intelligent Planning, Knowledge Representation, Expert Systems, User Modeling, and Intelligent User Interfaces.

Information and communication technologies in education – a web-based intelligent tutoring system on teaching and learning electrical project

Electrical activity is extremely broad and distinct, requiring by one hand, a deep knowledge on rules, regulations, materials, equipments, technical solutions and technologies and assistance in several areas, as electrical equipment, telecommunications, security and efficiency and rational use of energy, on the other hand, also requires other skills, depending on the specific projects to be implemented, being this knowledge a characteristic that belongs to the professionals with relevant experience, in terms of complexity and specific projects that were made.

Analysis and visualization of chromosome information

This paper analyzes the DNA code of several species in the perspective of information content. For that purpose several concepts and mathematical tools are selected towards establishing a quantitative method without a priori distorting the alphabet represented by the sequence of DNA bases. The synergies of associating Gray code, histogram characterization and multidimensional scaling visualization lead to a collection of plots with a categorical representation of species and chromosomes.