Quality of life of the caregivers of people with aphasia. A systematic review.

Purpose: Systematic review to identify the factors associated to the quality of life (QOL) of the caregivers of people with aphasia (PWA). Methods: Studies were searched using Medline, Pubmed, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Web of Science databases. Peer-reviewed papers that studied the QOL of PWA’s caregivers or the consequences of aphasia in caregivers’ life were included. Findings were extracted from the studies that met the inclusion criteria. Results: No data is available reporting particularly the QOL of PWA caregivers’ or their QOL predictors. Nevertheless, it was possible to extract aspects related to QOL from the studies that report the consequences of aphasia, and life changes in PWA’s caregivers. Nine (9) studies including PWA’s caregivers were found, but only 5 reported data separately on them. Methodological heterogeneity impedes cross-study comparisons, although some considerations can be made. PWA’s caregivers reported life changes such as: loss of freedom; social isolation; new responsibilities; anxiety; emotional loneliness; need for support and respite. Conclusions: Changes in social relationships, in emotional status, increased burden and need for support and respite were experienced by PWA’s caregivers. Stroke QOL studies need to include PWA caregivers’ and report separately on them. Further research is needed in this area in order to determine their QOL predictors and identify what interventions and referrals better suit their needs.

Assessment of nursing students and nurses' orientation towards patient-centeredness

Background - Being patient centered is a core value for nursing. Patient centered-care has been related to patient and health provider satisfaction, better health outcomes, higher quality of care and more efficient health care delivery. Objectives - The purpose was to assess the orientation adopted by nurses and students in patient care, using The Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale, as well as to compare the results between resident nurses and students from different academic years. Settings - Public School of Nursing and a Central Hospital, in Lisbon (Portugal). Participants - Students in the first, second and fourth year of nursing school and nurses participated in the study. Methods - For data collection, we used The Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale (European Portuguese version), an instrument designed to measure individual preferences toward the dimension of caring a sharing in health professional-patient relationship. Students and nurses also filled out two additional questions about their perception of competence in technical and communication skills. Additional demographic information was also collected, including gender, age, academic year and length of professional experience. Results - A total of 525 students (84.7% female) and 108 nurses (77.8% female) participated in this study. In general, caring sub-scores, measuring the preference of about attending to patient emotional aspects, were higher than sharing sub-scores, measuring beliefs about giving information and perceiving patient as a member of the health team. Students were significantly more patient-centered throughout their nursing education (p<0.001). Comparing to students in the second and fourth academic years (p<0.001) nurses' scores were significantly lower both in total PPOS and in caring and sharing subscales. Conclusions - These results reinforce the idea that patient centeredness may be developed in academic context. The scores obtained highlight the importance of studies that aim to identify factors that may explain the decrease of patient centeredness in professional practice.

On the hardware and software architecture of the robuter mobile platform: a hands-on approach

The Robuter is a robotic mobile platform that is located in the “Hands-On” Laboratory of the IPP-Hurray! Research Group, at the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. Recently, the Robuter was subject of an upgrading process addressing two essential areas: the Hardware Architecture and the Software Architecture. This upgrade in process was triggered due to technical problems on-board of the robot and also to the fact that the hardware/software architecture has become obsolete. This Technical Report overviews the most important aspects of the new Hardware and Software Architectures of the Robuter. This document also presents a first approach on the first steps towards the use of the Robuter platform, and provides some hints on future work that may be carried out using this mobile platform.

Impact of different moodle course designs on students? Performance

This work describes the impact of different teachers’ approaches in using Moodle, for supporting their courses, at the Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering. The study covers five different courses, from different degrees and different years, and includes a number of Moodle resources especially supporting laboratory classes. These and other active resources are particularly analyzed in order to evaluate students’ adherence to them. One particular course includes a number of remote experiments, made available through VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality) and directly accessible through links included in the Moodle course page. The collected data have been correlated with students’ classifications in the lab component and in the exam, each one weighting 50% of their final marks. This analysis benefited from the existence of different teachers’ approaches, which resulted in a diversity of Moodle-supported environments. Conclusions point to the existence of a positive correlation factor between the number of Moodle accesses and the final exam grade, although the quality of the resources made available by the teachers seems to be preponderant over its quantity. In addition, different students perspectives were found regarding active resources: while some seem to encourage students to participate (for instance online quiz or online reports), others, more demanding, are unable to stimulate the majority of them.

Engaging students by moodleing a course? Case studies at the Polytechnic of Porto–School of Engineering

This work presents a comparative study covering four different courses lectured at the Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering, regarding the usage of a particular Learning Management System, i.e. Moodle, and its impact on students' results. This study addresses teachers who used this platform as a complement to their courses (b-learning) and identifies some particular issues in order to potentiate students' engagement and learning. Even though positive correlation factors exist, e.g. between the number of Moodle accesses versus the final exam grade obtained by each student, the explanation behind it may not be straightforward. Mapping this particular factor to course numbers reveals that the quality of the resources might be preponderant and not only their quantity. These results point to the fact that some dynamic resources might enlarge students' engagement.

Integrated didactics: an example of a curriculum model enhancing knowledge crossing

In this paper, we introduce an innovative course in the Portuguese Context, the Master's Course in “Integrated Didactics in Mother Tongue, Maths, Natural and Social Sciences”, taking place at the Lisbon School of Education and discussing in particular the results of the evaluation made by the students who attended the Curricular Unit - Integrated Didactics (CU-ID). This course was designed for in-service teachers of the first six years of schooling and intends to improve connections between different curriculum areas. In this paper, we start to present a few general ideas about curriculum development; to discuss the concept of integration; to present the principles and objectives of the course created as well as its structure; to describe the methodology used in the evaluation process of the above mentioned CU-ID. The results allow us to state that the students recognized, as positive features of the CU-ID, the presence in all sessions of two teachers simultaneously from different scientific areas, as well as invitations issued to specialists on the subject of integration and to other teachers that already promote forms of integration in schools. As negative features, students noted a lack of integrated purpose, applying simultaneously the four scientific areas of the course, and also indicated the need to be familiar with more models of integrated education. Consequently, the suggestions for improvement derived from these negative features. The students also considered that their evaluation process was correct, due to the fact that it was focused on the design of an integrated project for one of the school years already mentioned.

Conceiving modern engineers within the framework of the sustainability action plan (PASUS) of ISEP: sustainability matters!

Engineering education practices have evolved not only due to the natural changes in the contents of the curricula and skills but also, and more recently, due to the requirements imposed by the Bologna revision process. In addition, industry is becoming more demanding, as society is becoming more and more aware of the global needs and consequences of industrial practices. Under this scope, higher education needs not only to follow but also to lead these trends. Therefore, the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP), a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) training partner in Portugal, prepared and presented its Sustainability Action Plan (PASUS), with the main objective of creating a new kind of engineers, with Sustainable Development at the core of their graduation and MsC degrees. In this paper, the main strategies and activities of the referred plan along with the strategic approach, which guided its development and implementation, will be presented in detail. Additionally, a reflection about the above mentioned bridge between concept and application will be established and justified, in the framework of the action plan. Although in most of the situations, there was no prior discussion or specific request, many of the graduation and post-graduation programmes offered by ISEP already include courses that attend to PASUS philosophy. As a consequence, the number of Master thesis, Graduation projects and R&D projects that address sustainability problems has grown substantially, a proof that for ISEP community, sustainability really matters!

An Ethos Theory of Party Positions on European Integration: Poland and Beyond

Since 1989, five parliamentary elections have been the stage for the foundation and demise of political parties aspiring to govern the new democratic Polish state. The demise of the AWS before the 2001 elections after ten years of attempts to create a centre-right core party resulted in a new splintering of the right-wing, and the centre-right became again devoid of a pivotal formation. While Eurosceptic parties in average gain 8 percent of the vote, in the 2001 Polish parliamentary elections Eurosceptic parties gained around 20 percent of the vote. In Poland right-wing parties show an unusual propensity for Euroscepticism. The persistence and increased importance of nationalism in Poland, which has prevented the development of a strong Christian democratic party, effectively explains the levels of Euroscepticism on the right. After the autumn 2005 parliamentary elections the national conservative party, Law and Justice, formed a governing coalition with the national Catholic League of Polish Families, creating one of the first Eurosceptic governments. Although this work does not intend to provide a theorisation of party systems development, it shows that the context of European integration fostered nationalists’ divisiveness of, and provoked the splitting of the right the unusual propensity of parties for Euroscepticism makes Poland a paradigmatic case of the kind of conflicts over European integration emerging in Central and Eastern European party systems.

The cardinal and the idempotent number of various monoids of transformations on a finite chain

Bulletin of the Malaysian Mathematical Sciences Society, 2, 34 (1),(2011), p. 79–85

The cardinal of various monoids of transformations that preserve a uniform partition

Bulletin of the Malaysian Mathematical Sciences Society

How composite indicators of innovation can influence technology policy decision?

Based on the report for Project III of the PhD programme on Technology Assessment and prepared for the Winter School that took place at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica Campus on the 6th and 7th of December 2010.

On an acute case of Chagas disease in a region under vector control in the state of São Paulo, Brazil

No vector transmitted cases of Chagas disease had been notified in the state of São Paulo since the 1970s. However, in March, 2006, the death of a six-year-old boy from the municipality of Itaporanga was notified to the Center for Epidemiological Survey of the São Paulo State Health Secretariat: an autochthonous case of acute Chagas disease. The postmortem histopathological examination performed in the Hospital das Clínicas of the Botucatu School of Medicine confirmed the diagnosis. Reference to hospital records, consultation with the health professionals involved in the case and interviews with members of the patient's family supplied the basis for this study. We investigated parasite route of transmission, probable local reservoirs and vectors. No further human cases of acute Chagas disease were diagnosed. No locally captured vectors or reservoirs were found infected with Trypanosoma cruzi. Alternative transmission hypotheses - such as the possible ingestion of foods contaminated with vector excreta - are discussed, as well as the need to keep previously endemic regions and infested houses under close surveillance. Clinicians should give due attention to such signs as uni- or bilateral palpebral edema, cardiac failure, myocarditis, pericarditis, anasarca and atypical signs of nephrotic syndrome or nephritis and consider the diagnostic hypothesis of Chagas disease.

Technology governance in radiology: the example of magnetic resonance imaging

Based on the report for the unit “Project III” of the PhD programme on Technology Assessment in 2011. The unit was supervised by Prof. António B. Moniz (FCT-UNL).

Principal component analysis of the yield curve

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics