Determinants of vaccination after the Colombian health system reform

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effects of individual, household and healthcare system factors on poor children's use of vaccination after the reform of the Colombian health system. METHODS: A household survey was carried out in a random sample of insured poor population in Bogota, in 1999. The conceptual and analytical framework was based on the Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Services Utilization. It considers two units of analysis for studying vaccination use and its determinants: the insured poor population, including the children and their families characteristics; and the health care system. Statistical analysis were carried out by chi-square test with 95% confidence intervals, multivariate regression models and Cronbach's alpha coefficient. RESULTS: The logistic regression analysis showed that vaccination use was related not only to population characteristics such as family size (OR=4.3), living area (OR=1.7), child's age (OR=0.7) and head-of-household's years of schooling (OR=0.5), but also strongly related to health care system features, such as having a regular health provider (OR=6.0) and information on providers' schedules and requirements for obtaining care services (OR=2.1). CONCLUSIONS: The low vaccination use and the relevant relationships to health care delivery systems characteristics show that there are barriers in the healthcare system, which should be assessed and eliminated. Non-availability of regular healthcare and deficient information to the population are factors that can limit service utilization.

Levantamento de anomalias nos sistemas impermeabilizantes de coberturas planas

As coberturas planas são um dos principais elementos construtivos de uma edificação, necessitando por isso de materiais com qualidade e certificados por organismos competentes, bem como de uma conceção e execução minuciosas. Em Portugal, os estudos sobre as anomalias realmente observadas em coberturas planas são ainda bastante reduzidos. Nesse âmbito, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo, efetuar o levantamento e a análise estatística das principais anomalias e causas identificadas em coberturas planas de 75 edifícios, permitindo assim a elaboração de um estudo que possa contribuir para a prevenção dessas anomalias e que indique também as medidas necessárias à reparação e os respetivos custos associados. As anomalias foram analisadas através da observação "in situ" das coberturas o que conduziu ao preenchimento de fichas de obra com os dados recolhidos. Da análise estatística efetuada aos edifícios, verificou-se que as principais anomalias detetadas estão relacionadas com perfurações e fissurações do sistema impermeabilizante, resultantes da falta de conhecimento dos utilizadores. Foi possível verificar erros de execução de remates em pontos singulares da cobertura, por falta de pormenores construtivos desses pontos ou erros de execução por parte do aplicador. Em muitos dos casos estudados, não foi detetada nenhuma anomalia, porque se considerou razoável considerar que o sistema impermeabilizante tenha atingido o fim de vida útil. O custo médio por metro quadrado associado à reabilitação de uma cobertura plana é influenciado principalmente por dois fatores: área e acessibilidade da cobertura. O tipo de anomalia e/ou a sua causa não determinaram o custo por metro quadrado da reparação efetuada, pois esta foi sempre de caracter integral e nunca pontual.

Content adaptation for an adaptive hypermedia system

The aim of this paper is presenting the recommendation module of the Mathematics Collaborative Learning Platform (PCMAT). PCMAT is an Adaptive Educational Hypermedia System (AEHS), with a constructivist approach, which presents contents and activities adapted to the characteristics and learning style of students of mathematics in basic schools. The recommendation module is responsible for choosing different learning resources for the platform, based on the user's characteristics and performance. Since the main purpose of an adaptive system is to provide the user with content and interface adaptation, the recommendation module is integral to PCMAT’s adaptation model.

Cooperation mechanism for team-work based multi-agent system in dynamic scheduling through meta-heuristics

This paper describes a Multi-agent Scheduling System that assumes the existence of several Machines Agents (which are decision-making entities) distributed inside the Manufacturing System that interact and cooperate with other agents in order to obtain optimal or near-optimal global performances. Agents have to manage their internal behaviors and their relationships with other agents via cooperative negotiation in accordance with business policies defined by the user manager. Some Multi Agent Systems (MAS) organizational aspects are considered. An original Cooperation Mechanism for a Team-work based Architecture is proposed to address dynamic scheduling using Meta-Heuristics.

ABS4GD: a multi-agent system that simulates group decision processes considering emotional and argumentative aspects

Emotion although being an important factor in our every day life it is many times forgotten in the development of systems to be used by persons. In this work we present an architecture for a ubiquitous group decision support system able to support persons in group decision processes. The system considers the emotional factors of the intervenient participants, as well as the argumentation between them. Particular attention will be taken to one of components of this system: the multi-agent simulator, modeling the human participants, considering emotional characteristics, and allowing the exchanges of hypothetic arguments among the participants.

Modeling group decision meeting participants with an Agent-based approach

This paper aims to present a multi-agent model for a simulation, whose goal is to help one specific participant of multi-criteria group decision making process.This model has five main intervenient types: the human participant, who is using the simulation and argumentation support system; the participant agents, one associated to the human participant and the others simulating the others human members of the decision meeting group; the directory agent; the proposal agents, representing the different alternatives for a decision (the alternatives are evaluated based on criteria); and the voting agent responsiblefor all voting machanisms.At this stage it is proposed a two phse algorithm. In the first phase each participantagent makes his own evaluation of the proposals under discussion, and the voting agent proposes a simulation of a voting process.In the second phase, after the dissemination of the voting results,each one ofthe partcipan agents will argue to convince the others to choose one of the possible alternatives. The arguments used to convince a specific participant are dependent on agent knowledge about that participant. This two-phase algorithm is applied iteratively.

ISEM: a multi-agent system that simulates competitive electronic marketplaces

With the increasing importance of large commerce across the Internet it is becoming increasingly evident that in a few years the Iternet will host a large number of interacting software agents. a vast number of them will be economically motivated, and will negociate a variety of goods and services. It is therefore important to consider the economic incentives and behaviours of economic software agents, and to use all available means to anticipate their collective interactions. This papers addresses this concern by presenting a multi-agent market simulator designed for analysing agent market strategies based on a complete understanding of buyer and seller behaviours, preference models and pricing algorithms, consideting risk preferences. The system includes agents that are capable of increasing their performance with their own experience, by adapting to the market conditions. The results of the negotiations between agents are analysed by data minig algorithms in order to extract rules that give agents feedback to imprive their strategies.

Ubiquitous ambient intelligence in a flight decision assistance system

In this paper a new free flight instrument is presented. The instrument named FlyMaster distinguishes from others not only at hardware level, since it is the first one based on a PDA and with an RF interface for wireless sensors, but also at software level once its structure was developed following some guidelines from Ambient Intelligence and ubiquitous and context aware mobile computing. In this sense the software has several features which avoid pilot intervention during flight. Basically, the FlyMaster adequate the displayed information to each flight situation. Furthermore, the FlyMaster has its one way of show information.

Animal Grazing System Efficiency

Copyright © 2013 Springer Netherlands.

Modelo de previsão meteorológica baseado em sistemas de inferência difusa

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

The electric vehicle integration into the power system: an application to the portuguese case

Electric vehicles (EV) offer a great potential to address the integration of renewable energy sources (RES) in the power grid, and thus reduce the dependence on oil as well as the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The high share of wind energy in the Portuguese energy mix expected for 2020 can led to eventual curtailment, especially during the winter when high levels of hydro generation occur. In this paper a methodology based on a unit commitment and economic dispatch is implemented, and a hydro-thermal dispatch is performed in order to evaluate the impact of the EVs integration into the grid. Results show that the considered 10 % penetration of EVs in the Portuguese fleet would increase load in 3 % and would not integrate a significant amount of wind energy because curtailment is already reduced in the absence of EVs. According to the results, the EV is charged mostly with thermal generation and the associated emissions are much higher than if they were calculated based on the generation mix.

EVIV: An end-to-end verifiable Internet voting system

Traditionally, a country's electoral system requires the voter to vote at a specific day and place, which conflicts with the mobility usually seen in modern live styles. Thus, the widespread of Internet (mobile) broadband access can be seen as an opportunity to deal with this mobility problem, i.e. the adoption of an Internet voting system can make the live of voter's much more convenient; however, a widespread Internet voting systems adoption relies on the ability to develop trustworthy systems, i.e. systems that are verifiable and preserve the voter's privacy. Building such a system is still an open research problem. Our contribution is a new Internet voting system: EVIV, a highly sound End-to-end Verifiable Internet Voting system, which offers full voter's mobility and preserves the voter's privacy from the vote casting PC even if the voter votes from a public PC, such as a PC at a cybercafe or at a public library. Additionally, EVIV has private vote verification mechanisms, in which the voter just has to perform a simple match of two small strings (4-5 alphanumeric characters), that detect and protect against vote manipulations both at the insecure vote client platform and at the election server side. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Diversidade de briófitos e alterações climáticas nos Açores: olhar para o futuro para delinear o presente

Jornadas "Ciência nos Açores – que futuro? Tema Ciências Naturais e Ambiente", Ponta Delgada, 7-8 de Junho de 2013.

Water-Based Cellulose Liquid Crystal System Investigated by Rheo-NMR

Water-based cellulose cholesteric liquid crystalline phases at rest can undergo structural changes induced by shear flow. This reflects on the deuterium spectra recorded when the system is investigated by rheo-nuclear magnetic resonance (rheo-NMR) techniques. In this work, the model system hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC)+water is revisited using rheo-NMR to clarify unsettled points regarding its behavior under shear and in relaxation. The NMR spectra allow the identification of five different stable ordering states, within shear and relaxation, which are well integrated in a mesoscopic picture of the system's structural evolution under shear and relaxation. This picture emerging from the large body of studies available for this system by other experimental techniques, accounts well for the NMR data and is in good agreement with the three distinct regions of steady shear flow recognized for some lyotropic LC polymers. Shear rates in between 0.1 and 1.0 s(-1) where investigated using a Taylor-Couette flow and deuterated water was used as solvent for the deuterium NMR (DNMR) analysis.