Consumer Advisory: Social Media Safety & Security, October 2013

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: Social Media Safety & Security

Information literacy: princípios, filosofia e prática

Surgida na literatura em 1974, a information literacy liga-se à necessidade de se exercer o domínio sobre o sempre crescente universo informacional. Incorporando habilidades, conhecimentos e valores relacionados à busca, acesso, avaliação, organização e difusão da informação e do conhecimento. A information literacy é a própria essência da competência em informação. O objetivo deste trabalho é definir a information literacy a partir do entendimento do conceito, objetivos e práticas relacionadas, com ênfase no papel educacional das bibliotecas e do bibliotecário. Inicialmente, apresenta-se a evolução do conceito segundo um referencial histórico. Examina-se a information literacy enquanto processo de interiorização de conhecimentos, habilidades e valores ligados à informação e ao aprendizado. Define-se a expressão, suas características e objetivos. Discutem-se diferentes concepções de information literacy, segundo três referenciais: informação, conhecimento e aprendizado. Em seguida, são elencados pontos relevantes de atuação de bibliotecas e bibliotecários na implementação de uma educação voltada para a information literacy. Explorando a information literacy education, evidencia-se a necessidade de construção de um novo paradigma educacional ante a sociedade atual que incorpore a competência em informação.

Information literacy - historical and conceptual bases: constructing meanings

Recent years have witnessed the increasing interest in studies focused on information literacy, which is reflected mainly in the number of publications on the subject and goes beyond the fields of Librarianship and Information Science. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to offer an outlook, historical and conceptual, of international researches on information literacy, trying to show some of the different ramifications which the discussion on the subject has exhibited in past few years in countries where its process of legitimation is already well established, in order to illuminate possible areas of research and action for the librarian professional. This research indicates that if the initial studies on this topic tended to be devoted to conceptualize it, discussing its relevance and determine the skills and knowledge related to information literacy, in the last decade can be noticed a proliferation of researches aimed at describing initiatives or proposing models in areas beyond the usual field such as Medical Sciences, Law, Politics or Computers, among others. The first results of this research refer to a philosophical and educational perspective of information literacy, which suggests the need for deeper understanding and characterization of information literacy in four dimensions: technical, aesthetic, ethical and political, serving both to competence as to information.

Diabetes and pre-diabetes are associated with cardiovascular risk factors and carotid/femoral intima-media thickness independently of markers of insuline resistance and adiposity

Background Impaired glucose regulation (IGR) is associated with detrimental cardiovascular outcomes such as cardiovascular disease risk factors (CVD risk factors) or intima-media thickness (IMT). Our aim was to examine whether these associations are mediated by body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (waist) or fasting serum insulin (insulin) in a population in the African region. Methods Major CVD risk factors (systolic blood pressure, smoking, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol,) were measured in a random sample of adults aged 25-64 in the Seychelles (n=1255, participation rate: 80.2%). According to the criteria of the American Diabetes Association, IGR was divided in four ordered categories: 1) normal fasting glucose (NFG), 2) impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and normal glucose tolerance (IFG/NGT), 3) IFG and impaired glucose tolerance (IFG/IGT), and 4) diabetes mellitus (DM). Carotid and femoral IMT was assessed by ultrasound (n=496). Results Age-adjusted levels of the major CVD risk factors worsened gradually across IGR categories (NFG < IFG/NGT < IFG/IGT < DM), particularly HDL-cholesterol and blood pressure (p for trend <0.001). These relationships were marginally attenuated upon further adjustment for waist, BMI or insulin (whether considered alone or combined) and most of these relationships remained significant. With regards to IMT, the association was null with IFG/NGT, weak with IFG/IGT and stronger with DM (all more markedly at femoral than carotid levels). The associations between IMT and IFG/IGT or DM (adjusted by age and major CVD risk factors) decreased only marginally upon further adjustment for BMI, waist or insulin. Further adjustment for family history of diabetes did not alter the results. Conclusions We found graded relationships between IGR categories and both major CVD risk factors and carotid/femoral IMT. These relationships were only partly accounted for by BMI, waist and insulin. This suggests that increased CVD-risk associated with IGR is also mediated by factors other than the considered markers of adiposity and insulin resistance. The results also imply that IGR and associated major CVD risk factors should be systematically screened and appropriately managed.

¿Activos desde cuándo? la edad de acceso al mercado de trabajo en la España del siglo XVIII

Este trabajo trata sobre la edad a la que niños y niñas accedían al trabajo remunerado en la España del siglo XVIII. Utilizando como fuente los Memoriales del Catastro de Ensenada (1751-1753), se propone la edad de diez años como edad media de acceso, a partir de la cual se puede calcular la tasa de actividad. La Mancha era una región rica en industria rural, sobre todo de manufacturas textiles, que abastecían al mercado madrileño, el de otras ciudades e incluso al colonial, y que generaban una fuerte demanda de trabajo femenino. Esta estructura productiva explica por qué las niñas se incorporaban al trabajo remunerado antes que los niños, por qué eran escolarizadas desde muy pequeñas en las ‘escuelas de labor’ y no en las escuelas de primeras letras como los niños, y por qué, en definitiva, sus tasas de alfabetización un siglo después eran inferiores a la ya muy baja media femenina española. En la España del siglo XVIII mujeres y niñas estaban masivamente empleadas en las manufacturas, sobre todo textiles, como ocurría en gran parte de Europa. Entender y contabilizar el trabajo realizado por mujeres y niñas, mucho más difundido de lo que se cree habitualmente, y centrado en manufacturas y servicios, transforma nuestra visión de la estructura de la actividad en la España pre-industrial, normalmente identificada con el trabajo agrícola y ganadero.

Self-potentials in partially saturated media: the importance of explicit modeling of electrode effects

Self-potential (SP) data are of interest to vadose zone hydrology because of their direct sensitivity to water flow and ionic transport. There is unfortunately little consensus in the literature about how to best model SP data under partially saturated conditions, and different approaches (often supported by one laboratory data set alone) have been proposed. We argue that this lack of agreement can largely be traced to electrode effects that have not been properly taken into account. A series of drainage and imbibition experiments were considered in which we found that previously proposed approaches to remove electrode effects were unlikely to provide adequate corrections. Instead, we explicitly modeled the electrode effects together with classical SP contributions using a flow and transport model. The simulated data agreed overall with the observed SP signals and allowed decomposing the different signal contributions to analyze them separately. After reviewing other published experimental data, we suggest that most of them include electrode effects that have not been properly taken into account. Our results suggest that previously presented SP theory works well when considering the modeling uncertainties presently associated with electrode effects. Additional work is warranted to not only develop suitable electrodes for laboratory experiments but also to assure that associated electrode effects that appear inevitable in longer term experiments are predictable, so that they can be incorporated into the modeling framework.

De la Analítica al Social Media Intelligence : Una nueva oportunidad de liderar el mercado mediante una importante ventaja competitiva : saber identificar las necesidades del cliente en el Social Media : La reinvención de las investigaciones de mercado

La revolución que significó Internet a finales del siglo XX supone una oportunidad inmensa para el mundo corporativo. Con la aparición del Social Media y, en concreto, de las redes sociales, se han abierto un sinfín de nuevas oportunidades.No existe ningún otro invento que haya penetrado con tanta facilidad como lo han hecho estas plataformas; es el momento de que las empresas saquen provecho de ello.El objetivo principal de este proyecto consiste en identificar los beneficios potenciales para las empresas que conlleva actuar a través del Social Media. No contentos con eso, nos disponemos a mostrar las grandes razones por las que actuar: la posibilidad deidentificar las necesidades de tu público objetivo, huecos en el mercado y, por consiguiente, conseguir una ventaja competitiva clave en tu sector. ¿Cómo? La clave está en saber gestionar grandes volúmenes de información aplicando soluciones de inteligencia competitiva.Teniendo en cuenta que el proyecto gira entorno al Social Media, la estructura del mismo está dividida en dos grandes partes: en primer lugar estudiamos las claves de la investigación de mercados actual y, seguidamente, utilizamos una perspectiva más corporativa para mostrar las principales inquietudes que surgen en las empresas.Mediante ejemplos de casos prácticos muy relevantes, estudios que aporten datos clave y, sobre todo, las opiniones de profesionales del sector dentro y fuera de España, seremos capaces de deducir la importancia que tiene este terreno, así como el largo camino que nos queda a todos por delante.