The quantified-Self and wearable technologies in the workplace: implications and challenges for their implementations

Introduction of technologies in the workplace have led to a dramatic change. These changes have come with an increased capacity to gather data about one’s working performance (i.e. productivity), as well as the capacity to track one’s personal responses (i.e. emotional, physiological, etc.) to this changing workplace environment. This movement of self-monitoring or self-sensing using diverse types of wearable sensors combined with the use of computing has been identified as the Quantified-Self. Miniaturization of sensors, reduction in cost and a non-stop increase in the computer power capacity has led to a panacea of wearables and sensors to track and analyze all types of information. Utilized in the personal sphere to track information, a looming question remains, should employers use the information from the Quantified-Self to track their employees’ performance or well-being in the workplace and will this benefit employees? The aim of the present work is to layout the implications and challenges associated with the use of Quantified-Self information in the workplace. The Quantified-Self movement has enabled people to understand their personal life better by tracking multiple information and signals; such an approach could allow companies to gather knowledge on what drives productivity for their business and/or well-being of their employees. A discussion about the implications of this approach will cover 1) Monitoring health and well-being, 2) Oversight and safety, and 3) Mentoring and training. Challenges will address the question of 1) Privacy and Acceptability, 2) Scalability and 3) Creativity. Even though many questions remain regarding their use in the workplace, wearable technologies and Quantified-Self data in the workplace represent an exciting opportunity for the industry and health and safety practitioners who will be using them.

Creep behaviour of cracked steel fibre reinforced self-compacting concrete laminar structures

Tese de Doutoramento - Civil Engineering

The greener grass: da autorrepresentação em Alanis Morissette

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Literatura - Especialidade em Teoria da Literatura

Para um (novo) modelo de intervenção penal na União Europeia: uma reflexão a partir do princípio de legalidade como limite material de atuação da Procuradoria Europeia

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências Jurídicas (área de especialização em Ciências Jurídicas - Públicas)

Stress, personalidade, coping e bem-estar: relação com o sucesso e excelência em contextos de realização desportiva

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Psicologia

Intra and inter-individual differences in social intelligence of Portuguese students

Social intelligence is a favorable condition for career decision-making and development. The social intelligence indices of Portuguese students in school years prior to a career transition are characterized and intra and interindividual differences are analyzed. Participants were 1095 students (552, 50.4% women) with a mean age of 14.78 years (SD = 1.86), in the 8th (542, 49.5%), 10th (295, 26.9%) and 11th (258, 23.6%) grades. The Cognitive Test of Social Intelligence (PCIS) was administered at two moments, six months apart. Results indicate that the 8th grade obtained higher average scores in Problem Solving, Motivation and Self-confidence (time 1), while the 10th grade obtained better results in Problem Solving, Motivation and Familiarity (time 2). Between the assessment moments, all school years register an increase in Problem Solving and Self-confidence in social situations. These results constitute favorable psychological conditions for the promotion of ethical questioning in career guidance interventions.

Psychological intervention in Portuguese college students: effects of two career self-management seminars

This article describes the evaluation of a psychological intervention—the Career Self-Management Seminar, Version A, for undergraduate students, and Version B for postgraduate students—developed to support Portuguese college students in career exploration, goal setting, design and implementation of action plans, and decision-making. A total of 120 participants from CSMS-A (experimental group, n = 58; control group, n = 62) and 98 from CSMS-B (experimental group, n = 62; control group, n = 36) were assessed by the Career Exploration Survey according to a pretest and posttest plan. Results demonstrate a significant increase in most of the cognitive, behavioral, and affective career exploration dimensions among the CSMS-A and CSMS-B experimental groups.

Intervention program on adolescent’s creativity representations and academic motivation

Creativity and its promotion are widespread concerns in education. However, few efforts have been made to implement intervention programs designed to promote creativity and other related aspects (e.g., academic motivation). The Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI), aimed for training creativity representations and creative problem solving skills in young people, has been one of the most implemented programs. This intervention’s materials and activities were adapted for Portuguese students, and a longitudinal study was conducted. The program was implemented during four months, in weekly sessions, by thirteen teachers. Teachers received previous training for the program and during the program’s implementation. Intervention participants included 77 Basic and Secondary Education students, and control participants included 78 equivalent students. Pretest-posttest measures of academic motivation and creativity representations were collected. Results suggest a significant increase, in the intervention group, in motivation and the appropriate representations of creativity. Practical implications and future research perspectives are presented.

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.

Self-narrative reconstruction after dilemma-focused therapy for depression: a comparison of good and poor outcome cases

Objective: The aim of this study is to improve the understanding of self-changes after an intervention for depression focused on implicative dilemmas, a type of cognitive conflict related to identity. As recent research has highlighted the relevance of identity-related dilemmas in clients with depression, we sought to assess the way in which clients resolve such inner conflicts after a tailored dilemma-focused intervention and how this is reflected in the clients’ self-narratives. Method: We used three instruments to observe differences between good (n = 5) and poor (n = 5) outcome cases: (i) the Repertory Grid Technique to track the resolution of dilemmas, (ii) the Change Interview to compile clients’ accounts of changes at posttreatment, and (iii) the Innovative Moments Coding System to examine the emergence of clients’ novelties at the Change Interview. Results: Groups did not differ in terms of the number and relevance of client-identified significantly helpful events. However, between-group differences were found for the resolution of dilemmas and for the proportion of high-level innovative moment (IM) types. Furthermore, a greater self-narrative reconstruction was associated with higher levels of symptom improvement. Conclusions: Good outcome cases seem to be associated with the resolution of conflicts and high-level IMs.

Effect of surface plasmon resonance in TiO2/Au thin films on the fluorescence of self-assembled CdTe QDs structure

The exceptional properties of localised surface plasmons (LSPs), such as local field enhancement and confinement effects, resonant behavior, make them ideal candidates to control the emission of luminescent nanoparticles. In the present work, we investigated the LSP effect on the steady-state and time-resolved emission properties of quantum dots (QDs) by organizing the dots into self-assembled dendrite structures deposited on plasmonic nanostructures. Self-assembled structures consisting of water-soluble CdTe mono-size QDs, were developed on the surface of co-sputtered TiO2 thin films doped with Au nanoparticles (NPs) annealed at different temperatures. Their steady-state fluorescence properties were probed by scanning the spatially resolved emission spectra and the energy transfer processes were investigated by the fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) microscopy. Our results indicate that a resonant coupling between excitons confined in QDs and LSPs in Au NPs located beneath the self-assembled structure indeed takes place and results in (i) a shift of the ground state luminescence towards higher energies and onset of emission from excited states in QDs, and (ii) a decrease of the ground state exciton lifetime (fluorescence quenching).

Multi-stacks of epitaxial GeSn self-assembled dots in Si: Structural analysis

We report on the growth and structural and morphologic characterization of stacked layers of self-assembled GeSn dots grown on Si (100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy at low substrate temperature T = 350 °C. Samples consist of layers (from 1 up to 10) of Ge0.96Sn0.04 self-assembled dots separated by Si spacer layers, 10 nm thick. Their structural analysis was performed based on transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and Raman scattering. We found that up to 4 stacks of dots could be grown with good dot layer homogeneity, making the GeSn dots interesting candidates for optoelectronic device applications.

Examining mindfulness and its relation to self-differentiation and alexithymia

Published online first in 10 July 2013

Postoperative self-efficacy and psychological morbidity in radical prostatectomy

Objective: evaluate the general and perceived self-efficacy, psychological morbidity, and knowledge about postoperative care of patients submitted to radical prostatectomy. Identify the relationships between the variables and know the predictors of self-efficacy. Method: descriptive, cross-sectional study, conducted with 76 hospitalized men. The scales used were the General and Perceived Self-efficacy Scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, in addition to sociodemographic, clinical and knowledge questionnaires. Results: a negative relationship was found for self-efficacy in relation to anxiety and depression. Psychological morbidity was a significant predictor variable for self-efficacy. An active professional situation and the waiting time for surgery also proved to be relevant variables for anxiety and knowledge, respectively. Conclusion: participants had a good level of general and perceived self-efficacy and small percentage of depression. With these findings, it is possible to produce the profile of patients about their psychological needs after radical prostatectomy and, thus, allow the nursing professionals to act holistically, considering not only the need for care of physical nature, but also of psychosocial nature.

Puberty in male collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) determined by quantitative analysis of spermatogenic cells

Biological studies are necessary for the management of wildlife in captivity, and knowledge of reproduction is one of the important features for increasing production. The objective of the research was to determine the age at which male collared peccaries reach puberty. Testicular samples of 15 animals, aged 7 to 16 months, distributed into five groups (G1, G2, G3, G4 and G5) were used. The testes showed considerably increased weight, length and width (p < 0.05) from G1 to G3, whereas, from this group onward, the development of this organ was slower. There was positive correlation (p < 0.001) between the following testicular parameters: weight and length (r = 0.97), weight and width (r = 0.88), length and width (r = 0.92). Regarding the diameter of seminiferous tubules, an increase was observed (p < 0.05) from G1 to G4. The total number of spermatogenic cells increased significantly (p < 0.05) until G3 and then it stabilized. There was also positive correlation between testis weight and tubular diameter (r = 0.99, p < 0.001), and testis weight and spermatogenic cells (r = 0.98, p < 0.001). The number of Sertoli cells decreased significantly (p < 0.05) from G1, when they were undifferentiated as support cells, to G5, when they occurred together with the complete line of spermatic cells. The results demonstrate that the reproductive development of peccaries can be classified into the following stages: impuberty (G1, 7-8 months); pre-pubertal (G2, 9-10 months); pubertal (G3, 11-12 months); post-pubertal 1 (G4, 13-14 months); and post-pubertal 2 (G5, 15-16 months). Based on the histological analyses, puberty in the male collared peccary was determined to occur between 11 and 12 months of age.