Entertainment education theory and practice in HIV/AIDS communication: a South Africa / United Kingdom comparison

Within development communication, gaps remain in theory and practice: communication innovations are taking place which either do not incorporate theory or fail to challenge the assumptions of development communication and HIV/AIDS theory. This can lead to the implementation of unsuccessful interventions that lack theoretical frameworks or to uninformed practice, making it difficult to replicate. Further, research has demonstrated that Entertainment Education (EE) interventions have a measurable impact on behaviour in areas such as HIV/AIDS prevention. Given the transitions in EE practice and evidence of its impact, EE theory and practice can contribute insight into these challenges. A pilot study investigated these dilemmas within the context of the monitoring and evaluation of development communication. Framing this discussion is the concept of South-North dialogue, using comparative analysis of EE interventions to distil lessons through contrasting experiences in two diverse settings. It holds as a principle that lessons from the experience of EE in the Southern context can inform lessons for the North. Further, comparison of the case studies can generate insights for the broader development communication field. We present four case studies, informed by key informant interviews, of EE interventions in the UK and South Africa. We address how communication is defined in planning, implementation and evaluation, highlighting how it often misses the importance of 'listening'. The case studies show that HIV/AIDS communication, and development communication more broadly, has not internalised ideas of evaluation and listening in communication. Successes in the case studies can be partially attributed to responsiveness and context-specificity rather than following rigid planning templates, such as those found in some development communication literature. This indicates the importance of flexibility and responsiveness to context for both development communication and HIV/AIDS communication.

The Provision and Use of Mental Health Services in Nursing Homes: Results from the National Medical Expenditure Survey

Data from the Institutional Population Component of the National Medical Expenditure Survey were used to provide national estimates of annual mental health service provision and use in nursing homes. In addition, the relationship between service provision and setting characteristics such as ownership, size, Medicaid certification, and chain status was examined. Although more than three quarters of residents with a mental disorder resided at a nursing home that provided counseling services, fewer than one fifth actually received any mental health services within the year.

Organizational, systems and human issues in production planning, scheduling and control

With global markets and global competition, pressures are placed on manufacturing organizations to compress order fulfillment times, meet delivery commitments consistently and also maintain efficiency in operations to address cost issues. This chapter argues for a process perspective on planning, scheduling and control that integrates organizational planning structures, information systems as well as human decision makers. The chapter begins with a reconsideration of the gap between theory and practice, in particular for classical scheduling theory and hierarchical production planning and control. A number of the key studies of industrial practice are then described and their implications noted. A recent model of scheduling practice derived from a detailed study of real businesses is described. Socio-technical concepts are then introduced and their implications for the design and management of planning, scheduling and control systems are discussed. The implications of adopting a process perspective are noted along with insights from knowledge management. An overview is presented of a methodology for the (re-)design of planning, scheduling and control systems that integrates organizational, system and human perspectives. The most important messages from the chapter are then summarized.

Planning, operations and data handling of planetary science missions

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Física

La palce de la spiritualité dans les soins infirmiers: une revue de littérature [The role of spirituality in nursing care: a literature review].

Spirituality addresses the need to give meaning to life events and is characterized by the relationship with oneself, others and the universe. This article aims to provide an overview of the empirical knowledge, and the prevailing thoughts about spirituality in nursing and suggest perspectives for future directions. The literature review was conducted using the main databases; 36 articles, published between 2008-2013, were selected. The themes covered include the definitions of the spirituality, the spiritual care and the spiritual well-being. Spirituality differs from, yet is not opposed to religion and takes different forms in multicultural and secular societies. Cancer incites existential questions and impacts quality of life, and spiritual well-being is recognized as a good indicator of quality of life for people living with cancer. Professional caregivers are concerned about the needs and spiritual well-being of their patients and often consider interventions to address them. This article reflects the depth of thought and research in nursing and touches on both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary issues.

Design and evaluation of web interface signs to improve web usability : a semiotic framework

Technological innovations, the development of the internet, and globalization have increased the number and complexity of web applications. As a result, keeping web user interfaces understandable and usable (in terms of ease-of-use, effectiveness, and satisfaction) is a challenge. As part of this, designing userintuitive interface signs (i.e., the small elements of web user interface, e.g., navigational link, command buttons, icons, small images, thumbnails, etc.) is an issue for designers. Interface signs are key elements of web user interfaces because ‘interface signs’ act as a communication artefact to convey web content and system functionality, and because users interact with systems by means of interface signs. In the light of the above, applying semiotic (i.e., the study of signs) concepts on web interface signs will contribute to discover new and important perspectives on web user interface design and evaluation. The thesis mainly focuses on web interface signs and uses the theory of semiotic as a background theory. The underlying aim of this thesis is to provide valuable insights to design and evaluate web user interfaces from a semiotic perspective in order to improve overall web usability. The fundamental research question is formulated as What do practitioners and researchers need to be aware of from a semiotic perspective when designing or evaluating web user interfaces to improve web usability? From a methodological perspective, the thesis follows a design science research (DSR) approach. A systematic literature review and six empirical studies are carried out in this thesis. The empirical studies are carried out with a total of 74 participants in Finland. The steps of a design science research process are followed while the studies were designed and conducted; that includes (a) problem identification and motivation, (b) definition of objectives of a solution, (c) design and development, (d) demonstration, (e) evaluation, and (f) communication. The data is collected using observations in a usability testing lab, by analytical (expert) inspection, with questionnaires, and in structured and semi-structured interviews. User behaviour analysis, qualitative analysis and statistics are used to analyze the study data. The results are summarized as follows and have lead to the following contributions. Firstly, the results present the current status of semiotic research in UI design and evaluation and highlight the importance of considering semiotic concepts in UI design and evaluation. Secondly, the thesis explores interface sign ontologies (i.e., sets of concepts and skills that a user should know to interpret the meaning of interface signs) by providing a set of ontologies used to interpret the meaning of interface signs, and by providing a set of features related to ontology mapping in interpreting the meaning of interface signs. Thirdly, the thesis explores the value of integrating semiotic concepts in usability testing. Fourthly, the thesis proposes a semiotic framework (Semiotic Interface sign Design and Evaluation – SIDE) for interface sign design and evaluation in order to make them intuitive for end users and to improve web usability. The SIDE framework includes a set of determinants and attributes of user-intuitive interface signs, and a set of semiotic heuristics to design and evaluate interface signs. Finally, the thesis assesses (a) the quality of the SIDE framework in terms of performance metrics (e.g., thoroughness, validity, effectiveness, reliability, etc.) and (b) the contributions of the SIDE framework from the evaluators’ perspective.

School Anxiety Inventory–Short Version: Factorial Invariance and Latent Mean Differences Across Gender and Age in Spanish Adolescents

This study examined the factorial invariance and latent mean differences of the School Anxiety Inventory–Short Version across gender and age groups for 2,367 Spanish students, ranging in age from 12 to 18 years. Configural and measurement invariance were found across gender and age samples for all dimensions of the School Anxiety Inventory–Short Version.

Browsing for information by highlighting automatically generated annotations:a user study and evaluation

The realization of the Semantic Web is constrained by a knowledge acquisition bottleneck, i.e. the problem of how to add RDF mark-up to the millions of ordinary web pages that already exist. Information Extraction (IE) has been proposed as a solution to the annotation bottleneck. In the task based evaluation reported here, we compared the performance of users without access to annotation, users working with annotations which had been produced from manually constructed knowledge bases, and users working with annotations augmented using IE. We looked at retrieval performance, overlap between retrieved items and the two sets of annotations, and usage of annotation options. Automatically generated annotations were found to add value to the browsing experience in the scenario investigated. Copyright 2005 ACM.

The Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPA) as a support tool for protected area planning, financing and reporting

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has developed, in consultation with many partners, the DOPA as a global reference information system to support decision making on protected areas (PAs) and biodiversity conservation. The DOPA brings together the World Database on Protected Areas with other reference datasets on species, habitats, ecoregions, threats and pressures, to deliver critical indicators at country level and PA level that can inform gap analyses, PA planning and reporting. These indicators are especially relevant to Aichi Targets 11 and 12, and have recently contributed to CBD country dossiers and capacity building on these targets. DOPA also includes eConservation, a new module that provides a means to share and search information on conservation projects, and thus allows users to see “who is doing what where”. So far over 5000 projects from the World Bank, GEF, CEPF, EU LIFE Programme, CBD LifeWeb Initiative and others have been included, and these projects can be searched in an interactive mapping interface based on criteria such as location, objectives, timeframe, budget, the organizations involved, target species etc. This seminar will provide an introduction to DOPA and eConservation, highlight how these services are used by the CBD and others, and include ample time for discussion.

Relação entre aptidão física e sucesso académico: em alunos de final de ciclo: 8º e 9º ano de escolaridade

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ensino de Educação Física nos Ensinos Básico e Secundário

Fatores de motivação ou desmotivação para a prática do desporto escolar

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ensino da Educação Física no Ensino Básico e Secundário

Utilização de jogos no desenvolvimento do sentido espacial

Relatório de Estágio apresentado para obtenção do grau de Mestre na área de Ensino do 1.º ciclo e do 2.º ciclo do Ensino Básico

Utilização de jogos no desenvolvimento do sentido espacial

Relatório de Estágio apresentado para obtenção do grau de Mestre na área de Ensino do 1.º ciclo e do 2.º ciclo do Ensino Básico