Nurses' training on dealing with alcohol and drug abuse: a question of necessity

The purpose of this article is to present a brief review on the need for changes in nurses' undergraduate education concerning alcohol and drugs. Specialized literature makes it clear that nurses have difficulties giving care to psychoactive substance users as part of their functions in the various health care sites. This may be associated with a deficiency in formal education. In the face of the social importance concerning these related questions in the scope of research, care, and education, we made an attempt at deepening the study on this theme, which could contribute to changes in practice, care, and undergraduate nursing education.

Prevalência da C.trachomatis entre homens que fazem sexo com homens (HSH) que frequentam um centro clínico comunitário alternativo em Barcelona

RESUMO - Enquadramento: A infeção por Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) é considerada um grave problema de Saúde Pública. É causa de infeções sintomáticas tanto no homem como na mulher, bem como, de infeções assintomáticas que podem ter consequências muito graves a longo prazo. A presença de CT sem tratamento aumenta o risco de transmissão do vírus da imunodeficiência humana. Existem vários estudos publicados de prevalência da CT por todo o mundo, no entanto, estudos de prevalência da CT em populações assintomáticas, envolvendo homens que fazem sexo com homens (HSH) são raros na Europa. Assim, o presente estudo, ao estimar a prevalência e ao descrever as caraterísticas epidemiológicas e de conduta dos HSH, pretende contribuir para o plano de ação contra as IST´s e VIH na Catalunha, através de estratégias concretas para deteção e prevenção da CT. Métodos: Trata-se de um estudo observacional, transversal de prevalência da CT em HSH utentes de um serviço comunitário em Barcelona, com recurso a técnicas de diagnóstico de biologia molecular e a um questionário. Durante Março e Junho de 2015, foram recrutados 200 voluntários de um serviço comunitário em Barcelona que foram testados para CT e NG em três locais anatómicos através de uma PCR em tempo real utilizando o ensaio Anyplex™ CT/NG Real-time Detection. Resultados: O presente estudo permitiu uma caraterização da situação atual quanto á prevalência e aos fatores de risco associados á infeção por CT em HSH. A prevalência nesta população específica foi de 12,6% e os fatores risco associados foram o facto de serem VIH e praticarem sexo anal insertivo/recetivo com parceiro estável. Conclusões: Os resultados obtidos reforçam a necessidade do desenvolvimento de estratégias adequadas de controlo e prevenção da CT nesta população de risco, tais como: rastreios frequentes e tratamento dos casos positivos para quebrar a cadeia de transmissão, promoção da saúde, educação e notificação dos parceiros sexuais. Também demonstram a importância destes rastreios nos três locais anatómicos: uretra, reto e faringe.

The relationship between the education level of successor's and the firm performance in German publicly listed family firms- an empirical analysis

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how far the education level of the second or third generation of publicly traded German family firms affects the post-succession firm performance. By conducting a correlational and regression design, the aim is to examine how several variables influence the performance of family firms. Performance measures, for example ROA and Tobin’s q and variables, like Education level and succession periods, examine analytically that a positive succession trend will occur. However, with the used model, only a less rigid model shows empirical evidence.

The reasons behind the progression in PISA scores: An education production function approach using semi-parametric techniques

Research Masters

The impact of PBL on transferable skills development in management education

Attention to transferable skills is growing in higher education. Problem-based learning (PBL) is increasingly used in management education for its promising potential to, amongst others, promote transferable skills, including problem-solving, critical thinking and teamwork skills. However, this relationship is seldom assessed. In this study, I use structural equation modelling to examine the effectiveness of PBL, measured through students’ perceptions of satisfaction and skills development. Results show the development of transferable skills is explained by interaction with tutors and a host company, and defining teamwork rules. Satisfaction is explained by skills development, assessment issues, defining teamwork rules and understanding how organisations work. I draw conclusions and recommendations.

Environment, health and safety policy in small construction sites: an analysis of the situation in Brazil

This paper analyzes the safety, environmental and occupational health of workers in the small construction industry in Brazil. In this sector there are still many unsafe practices, which are very common in small work sites. We used a qualitative approach to understand these problems by long interviews with people who work directly in small construction sites, including occupational physicians, civil engineers, safety engineers, safety technicians, general foremen, construction workers, labor unionists and auditors. This paper aims to demonstrate that the "invisibility" of the small sites workers makes them less safe and therefore more prone to accidents, also weakening their health. The results show that small constructions workers are less visible to society and supervision because of their short periods of work. Therefore, they are also uncovered to the rigorous applicability of principles of safety and accident prevention. Thus, it has been seen in this field of work a precarious application of NR - 18, which was specifically made for the construction sites and it needs simplification to meet normative characteristics of small construction sites. In the State of Rio de Janeiro, some laws on small sites were recently created and implemented. This study concludes that the rules to work are not being taken as seriously as the legislation determinates, remaining practically unknown by many professionals, from the plot command, supervisors, engineers, architects and technicians who work on construction sites. This ignorance creates space for the lack of safety and consequently to accidents, leading to by weakness in the workers health. Therefore, the work process needs to be modified, the safety regulation must be disseminated through safer practices, promoting employee health and ensure that the work of small sites can be visible, especially ensuring the construction workers health and safety.

Sustainability education in PBL education: the case study of IEM-UMINHO

Sustainability-related skills are becoming more and more relevant for a proficient and professional engineering practice. Industrial engineers in particular, given their broad field of intervention and being at the heart of industrial activity, hold a great deal of potential and responsibility in providing and delivering best industrial practices, that support enhanced industrial systems and products. Therefore making a real contribution in generating wealth and income for all the companies’ stakeholders, including local communities, as well as adding up to more sustainable ecosystems. Previous work by the authors focused on studying the inclusion of this subject on the education of industrial engineers, especially through active-learning methodologies, as well as presenting results on the use of one such approach. The study conducted tried to identify the impacts on sustainability learning using a given specific activity, i.e. a workshop on industrial ecology, held in the 2014/2015 academic year on the Integrated MSc degree on Industrial Engineering and Management at the University of Minho, Portugal. The study uses content analysis of student teams’ reports for two consecutive academic years. The former did not include one such workshop, while the latter did. The Fink taxonomy was used in the discussion of results and reflection. The study outcomes aimed at supporting decision making on worthiness of investment on similar education instruments for sustainability competency development. Some results of the study highlight that: (1) the workshop seem to globally have a positive contribution on the sustainability learning; (2) a number of dimensions of the Life cycle design strategy wheel was developed, but the approach was not broadly used, (3) There was a mismatch on the workshop schedule; (4) students enjoy the workshop; (5) a clearer endorsement on relevance of this aspect is required. Suggestions for future work are also issued.

Pervasive business intelligence platform to improve the quality of decision process in primary and secondary education – A Portuguese case study

Business Intelligence (BI) can be seen as a method that gathers information and data from information systems in order to help companies to be more accurate in their decision-making process. Traditionally BI systems were associated with the use of Data Warehouses (DW). The prime purpose of DW is to serve as a repository that stores all the relevant information required for making the correct decision. The necessity to integrate streaming data became crucial with the need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the decision process. In primary and secondary education, there is a lack of BI solutions. Due to the schools reality the main purpose of this study is to provide a Pervasive BI solution able to monitoring the schools and student data anywhere and anytime in real-time as well as disseminating the information through ubiquitous devices. The first task consisted in gathering data regarding the different choices made by the student since his enrolment in a certain school year until the end of it. Thereafter a dimensional model was developed in order to be possible building a BI platform. This paper presents the dimensional model, a set of pre-defined indicators, the Pervasive Business Intelligence characteristics and the prototype designed. The main contribution of this study was to offer to the schools a tool that could help them to make accurate decisions in real-time. Data dissemination was achieved through a localized application that can be accessed anywhere and anytime.

Changes in institutional governance and management of higher education in Laos: National University of Laos

PhD thesis in Educational Sciences (specialization in Politics of Education).

Adult learning and education policies in Germany, Portugal and Sweden: An analysis of national reports to CONFINTEA VI

The chapter presents a theoretical proposal of three analytical models of Adult Learning and Education (ALE) policies. Some analytical categories and the corresponding dimensions are organised according to the ALE rationale which is typical of each social policy model. Historical, cultural and educational features are mentioned in connexion with the different policy models and its interpretative capacity to making sense of policies and practices implemented in Germany, Portugal and Sweden. !e analysis includes the states of the art and the official representations of ALE produced by the respective national authorities through national reports which were presented to CONFINTEA VI (2009).

The importance of the category of consciousness and education for sustainability in methodologies for eco‐efficiency in school buildings

This document reports the importance of the category of consciousness and education for sustainability in the school environment. Education in school has a potential to make the benefits of the building construction visible for society and media, showing to the students, parents and communities how sustainability in built environment could improve the people life in economic, social and environment aspects. Thus, this paper addresses the main events related to sustainability, such as the Stockholm Conference, the Brundtland report, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and Agenda 21, until reaching the necessity of the elaboration of Methodologies for environmental assessment of building, and later, the development of the specific methodologies according to the buildings. It is also described some examples of sustainability in schools in Germany, Finland and Italy and what kind of sustainable systems those countries are currently using.

Does dosage in abstinence education matter?

Although past reviews uniformly criticized the efficacy and effectiveness of sexual abstinence in adolescents, new studies dispute the earlier findings. Studies that unpackage intervention programs provide one means of understanding why they succeed in some settings and not in others. This study examined 3183 students spread over 35 schools on the number of hours that they received in sexual abstinence education, in a context of health behaviors promotion. A multi-level analysis (HLM) was performed. The number of hours did not appear to make any difference in the outcome scores. Reasons for this finding are presented and their implications are provided.

Fine-root production in two secondary forest sites with distinct ages in Eastern Amazon

The objective of this work was to assess the fine-root (≤ 2 mm diameter) production dynamics of two forest regrowths at different ages. Fine-root production was monitored by the ingrowth core method in one 18-year-old site (2 ha) and one 10-year-old site (0.5 ha), both localized in the Apeú region, Northern Pará State, Brazil. The sites were abandoned after successive shifting cultivation, beginning in 1940. Monthly production of live fine-root was similar between sites and was influenced by rainfall seasonality, with higher production during the dry season than the wet season for mass and length. However, mortality in terms of mass was higher in the 10-year-old site than in the 18-year-old site. The seasonality influenced mortality only in the 18-year old site following the pattern observed for live fine-root. The influence seasonal on mortality in terms of length was different between sites, with higher mortality during the wet season in the 10-year-old site and higher mortality during the dry season in the 18-year-old site. Specific root length was higher during the wet season and at the 10-year-old site. Fine-root production was not influenced by the chronosequence of the sites studied, probably fine-root production may have already stabilized in the sites or it depended more on climate and soil conditions. The production of fine-roots mass and length were indicators that generally showed the same pattern.

Preschool education in Brazil: does public supply crowd out private enrollment?

Expanding access to preschool education is a particularly important policy issue in developing countries, where enrollment rates are generally much lower, and where private institutions constitute a much larger share of the formal preschool sector, than in developed countries. This paper examines if an expansion in the supply of public preschool crowds-out private enrollment using rich data for municipalities in Brazil from 2000 to 2006, where federal transfers to local governments change discontinuously with given population thresholds. Results from a regression-discontinuity design reveal that larger federal transfers lead to a significant expansion of local public preschool services, but show no evidence of crowding-out of private enrollment, nor of negative impacts on the quality of private providers. This finding is consistent with a theory in which households differ in willingness-to-pay for preschool services, and private suppliers optimally adjust prices in response to an expansion of lower-quality, free-of-charge public supply. In the context of the model, the absence of crowding-out effects of more public preschool providers can be rationalized by the existence of relatively large differences in willingness-to-pay for preschool services across different demand segments. Our theoretical and empirical findings therefore suggest that in developing country settings characterized by relatively high income inequality, an expansion in public preschool supply will likely significantly increase enrollment among the poorest segments of society, and need not have adverse effects on the quantity or quality of local private supply.

Ionic, paramagnetic and photophysical properties of a new biohybrid material incorporating copper perchlorate

The sol-gel method was employed in the synthesis of di-urethane cross-linked poly(-caprolactone) (d-PCL(530)/siloxane biohybrid ormolytes incorporating copper perchlorate, (Cu(ClO4)2). The highest ionic conductivity of the d PCL(530)/siloxanenCu(ClO4)2 system is that with n = 10 (1.4 x 10-7 and 1.4 x 10-5 S cm-1, at 25 and 100 ºC, respectively). In an attempt to understand the ionic conductivity/ionic association relationship, we decide to inspect the chemical environment experienced by the Cu2+ ions in the d-PCL(530)/siloxane medium. The observed EPR spectra are typical of isolated monomeric Cu2+ ions in axially distorted sites. The molecular orbital coefficients obtained from the EPR spin Hamiltonian parameters and the optical absorption band suggests that bonding between the Cu2+ and its ligand in the ormolytes are moderately ionic. Investigation by photoluminescence spectroscopy did not evidence or allow selective excitation of transitions corresponding to complexed Cu2+ species.