Impact of academic exposure on health status of university students

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of academic life on health status of university students. METHODS: Longitudinal study including 154 undergraduate students from the Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal, with at least two years of follow-up observations. Sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics were collected using questionnaires. Students' weight, height, blood pressure, serum glucose, serum lipids and serum homocysteine levels were measured. Regression analysis was performed using linear mixed-effect models, allowing for random effects at the participant level. RESULTS: A higher rate of dyslipidemia (44.0% vs. 28.6%), overweight (16.3% vs. 12.5%) and smoking (19.3% vs. 0.0%) was found among students exposed to the academic life when compared to freshmen. Physical inactivity was about 80%. Total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides, systolic blood pressure, and physical activity levels were significantly associated with gender (p<0.001). Academic exposure was associated with increased low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels (about 1.12 times), and marginally with total cholesterol levels (p=0.041). CONCLUSIONS: High education level does not seem to have a protective effect favoring a healthier lifestyle and being enrolled in health-related areas does not seem either to positively affect students' behaviors. Increased risk factors for non-transmissible diseases in university students raise concerns about their well-being. These results should support the implementation of health promotion and prevention programs at universities.

Carbon footprint of the academic community of Lisbon School of Health Technology, Portugal

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the average temperature of the Earth's surface has risen about 1º C in the last 100 years and will increase, depending on the scenario emissions of Greenhouse Gases. The rising temperatures could trigger environmental effects like rising sea levels, floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes. With growing concerns about different environmental issues and the need to address climate change, institutions of higher education should create knowledge and integrate sustainability into teaching programs and research programs, as well as promoting environmental issues for society. The aim of this study is to determine the carbon footprint of the academic community of Lisbon School of Health Technology (ESTeSL) in 2013, identifying possible links between the Carbon Footprint and the different socio-demographic variables.

Relatório de estágio em empresa de manutenção industrial

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção de grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica na Especialidade de Manutenção e Produção

Challenges and perspectives of academic evaluation

Academic evaluation has been an essential component of modern science since its inception, as science has moved away from personalized patronage toward its contemporary role as an essential enterprise of contemporary, democratic societies. In recent years, Brazil has experienced sustained growth in its scientific output, which is nowadays fully compatible with its status as a high middle-income country striving to become a fully developed, more equitable country in the years to come. Growth usually takes place amidst challenges and dilemmas and, in Brazil as elsewhere, academic evaluation is not exempt from such difficulties. In a large, profoundly heterogeneous country with a national evaluation system and nationwide on-line platforms disseminating information on the most disparate fields of knowledge, the main challenges refer to how to pay attention to detail without losing sight of comprehensiveness and how to handle social and regional diversity while preserving academic excellence as the fundamental benchmark.

Using the TRAILER tool for managing informal learning in academic and professional contexts: the learner perspective

Informal Learning plays an important role in everyone's life and yet we often are unaware of it. The need to keep track of the knowledge acquired through informal learning is increasing as its sources become increasingly diverse. This paper presents a study on a tool developed to help keeping track of learners' informal learning, both within academic and professional contexts, This tool, developed within the European Commission funded TRAILER project, will further integrate the improvements suggested by users during the piloting phase. The two studied contexts were similar regarding the importance and perception of Informal Learning, but differed concerning tool usage. The overall idea of managing one's informal learning was well accepted and welcomed, which validated the emerging need for a tool with this purpose.

Academic plagiarism : yielding to temptation

Scope: Everybody lies. Plagiarism is pervasive because people are used to lying to succeed. While bringing up someone else’s ideas may be an inadvertent case of cryptomnesia, or unintentional plagiarism, academic plagiarism is hardly ever that case. Building on the existing literature, the aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it contributes to the creation of a new framework for the definition of academic plagiarism within the larger scope of academic dishonesty, or academic misconduct; on the other hand, it identifies forms to recognize and discourage it. Aim: Our aim is to provide the basis for a subsequent empirical study on the phenomenon of plagiarism at LABS-ISCAL hoping to help diminish this practice that is deeply rooted in students in general.

Stress in university students and cardiovascular response to academic stressors

Introduction: University students are frequently exposed to events that can cause stress and anxiety, producing elevated cardiovascular responses. Repeated exposure to academic stress has implications to students’ success and well-being and may contribute to the development of long-term health problems. Objective: To identify stress levels and coping strategies in university students and assess the impact of stress experience in heart rate variability (HRV). Methods: 17 university students, 19-23 years, completed the University Students Stress Inventory, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire. Two 24h-Holter recordings were performed, on academic activity days, including one of them an exam situation. Results: Students tend to present moderate stress levels, and prefer problem-focused coping strategies in order to manage stress. Exam situations are perceived as significant stressors. Although we found no significant differences in HRV (SDNN), between days with and without an exam, we registered a lower SDNN score and a variation in heart rate (HR) related to exam situation (maximum HR peak at 10 minutes before the exam, and total HR recovery 20 minutes after the exam), reflecting sympathetic activation due to stress. Conclusions: These results suggest that academic events, especially those related to exam situations, are the cause of stress in university students, with implications at cardiovascular level, underlying the importance of interventions that help these students improve their coping skills and optimize stress management, in order to improve academic achievement and promote well-being and quality of life.

Academic effectiveness of VISIR remote lab in analog electronics

The effectiveness of VISIR is compared to other experimentation activities under the point of view presented by the professor Soysal in 2000. Advantages and limitations are discussed in terms of equipment availability, infrastructure cost, and contribution to various elements of experimental learning.

Frequency, diversity, and productivity study on the Aedes aegypti most preferred containers in the city of Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

The most preferred containers by Aedes aegypti were studied April and July (rainy and dry periods) in two Manaus neighbourhoods. In all, 2,700 premises and 13,912 containers were examined, most (87%) recorded outdoors. Out of the 13,100 inspected premises, only 1.6% showed to be positive for Aedes aegypti, summing up to 7,916 collected samples. Most frequently found containers outdoors in either neighbourhood regardless of rain or dry period were Bottles flasks and Storage, and indoors, Fixed, Flowerpots, and buckets. Productivity was estimated according to the number of premises and positive containers investigated, showing the actual container groups productivity. Considering both rainy and dry periods outdoors at Praça 14 the groups of Tyre, Flask, Bottle, Construction Equipment and Fixed, had the highest averages respectively. Construction Equipment and Flask groups were the most productive in Coroado in April. Flask, Construction Equipment and Storage groups stood out in July.

Exploring the long-term associations between adolescents’ music training and academic achievement

There is a positive relationship between learning music and academic achievement, although doubts remain regarding the mechanisms underlying this association. This research analyses the academic performance of music and non-music students from seventh to ninth grade. The study controls for socioeconomic status, intelligence, motivation and prior academic achievement. Data were collected from 110 adolescents at two time points, once when the students were between 11 and 14 years old in the seventh grade, and again 3 years later. Our results show that music students perform better academically than non-music students in the seventh grade (Cohen’s d = 0.88) and in the ninth grade (Cohen’s d = 1.05). This difference is particularly evident in their scores in Portuguese language and natural science; the difference is somewhat weaker in history and geography scores, and is least pronounced in mathematics and English scores (η2 p from .09 to .21). A longitudinal analysis also revealed better academic performance by music students after controlling for prior academic achievement (η2 p = .07). Furthermore, controlling for intelligence, socioeconomic status and motivation did not eliminate the positive association between music learning from the seventh to the ninth grade and students’ academic achievement (η2 p = .06). During the period, music students maintained better and more consistent academic standing. We conclude that, after controlling for intelligence, socioeconomic status and motivation, music training is positively associated with academic achievement.

Location-based Marketing: the academic framework

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Controller implementation using analog reconfigurable hardware (FPAA)

This Thesis has the main target to make a research about FPAA/dpASPs devices and technologies applied to control systems. These devices provide easy way to emulate analog circuits that can be reconfigurable by programming tools from manufactures and in case of dpASPs are able to be dynamically reconfigurable on the fly. It is described different kinds of technologies commercially available and also academic projects from researcher groups. These technologies are very recent and are in ramp up development to achieve a level of flexibility and integration to penetrate more easily the market. As occurs with CPLD/FPGAs, the FPAA/dpASPs technologies have the target to increase the productivity, reducing the development time and make easier future hardware reconfigurations reducing the costs. FPAA/dpAsps still have some limitations comparing with the classic analog circuits due to lower working frequencies and emulation of complex circuits that require more components inside the integrated circuit. However, they have great advantages in sensor signal condition, filter circuits and control systems. This thesis focuses practical implementations of these technologies to control system PID controllers. The result of the experiments confirms the efficacy of FPAA/dpASPs on signal condition and control systems.

Standarização no IKEA Industry de Paço de Ferreira

Standarização de um posto de trabalho não é mais que definir o melhor método de trabalho que vai ser seguido por todos os operadores que trabalham no mesmo. Uma vez definido esse método, é importante para uma empresa ter noção da produtividade que podem alcançar, dado que pode ser retirado a partir deste método, e é no seguimento disto que surge o estudo dos métodos e tempos, mais concretamente o estudo dos tempos por cronometragem. A aplicação deste estudo foi despoletada pela necessidade do IKEA Industry de Paços de Ferreira, em dar o próximo passo na standarização dos seus postos de trabalho, área a área, e da necessidade de terem uma pessoa em cada área que analisa-se o trabalho que estava a ser feito e calcula-se o tempo de cada rotina. Neste documento, é realizada uma interligação entre os conceitos teóricos que o método exige, como todo o conjunto de fórmulas, restrições, análises e ponderações, com o contexto laboral onde o mesmo foi aplicado e a estratégia desenvolvida pelo IKEA na realização do estudo. O estudo dos métodos e tempos por cronometragem, de todos os métodos existentes, pode ser considerado o mais completo e complexo, uma vez que é mais que observar, registar e retirar uma média ponderada das observações. Este método baseia-se num modelo matemático, que interliga uma série de conceitos e que tem sempre o operador em consideração, seja na avaliação e análise das tarefas que requerem mais esforço dos mesmos, físico ou psicológico, seja em termos de tempos de pausas pessoais que a lei obriga a que as empresas deem. Este detalhe, neste método, é de grande importância, uma vez que a standarização é sempre vista pelos operadores como uma punição. As desvantagens deste método estão no grau de conhecimento e capacidade de observação exigidas ao analista para o executar. Melhor dizendo, um analista que vá executar este trabalho necessita observar muito bem a rotina de trabalho e conhecer onde começa, acaba e tudo o que a ela não pertence, antes de começar a registar seja que tempos forem. Para além disso, é exigido ao analista que perceba o ritmo de trabalho dos operadores através da observação dos mesmos, de modo a que ninguém seja prejudicado. E por fim, é necessária uma grande disponibilidade da parte do analista para retirar o máximo de observações possíveis. Com o intuito de facilitar esta análise, o IKEA Industry criou um ficheiro que compila toda a informação relacionada com o método, e uma explicação de todos os parâmetros que o analista necessita ter em atenção. Esta folha de trabalho foi validada à luz do método, como é possível verificar no decorrer do documento. Um detalhe importante a referir, é que por muito fidedigno que seja este método, tal como qualquer método de standarização, a mínima alteração da rotina de trabalho invalida de imediato o tempo total da rotina, tornando necessário realizar o estudo novamente. Uma vantagem do documento criado pelo IKEA, está na rápida adaptação a estas alterações, uma vez que, caso seja acrescentado ou removido um elemento à rotina, basta alterar o documento, observar e cronometrar os operadores a executar esse novo elemento, e quase automaticamente é definido um novo tempo total padronizado na rotina. Este documento foi criado para fins académicos e de conclusão de um grau académico, mas o estudo quando aplicado na empresa deu origem a contratações, o que só por si mostra as vantagens e impacto que o mesmo pode ter em contexto laboral. Em termos de produtividade, uma vez que a sua aplicação não foi executada a tempo de ser estudada neste documento, não foi possível avaliar a mesma.

Impacts of climate change scenarios on terrestrial productivity and biomass for energy in the Iberian Peninsula: assessment through the JSBACH model

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente, Perfil de Gestão e Sistemas Ambientais