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This study aimed (a) to evaluate the spatiotemporal gait variables of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) before (pre-) and after the procedure (post-), and (b) to investigate the influence of the surgical side on these variables. Twenty-one volunteers (13 females and 8 males) participated, undergoing assessments pre-surgery and nine to 12 months post-surgery. Clinical tests indicated significant reductions in knee pain and improvements in active and passive extension post-surgery. TKA resulted in decreased pain, extension deficits, and functional assessments, with lower scores on the WOMAC questionnaire. A gait analysis showed post-surgery improvements in gait speed (5.8%), cycle time (−4.8%), step time (4.4%), double limb support time (−11.1%), step (4.4%) and stride (6.3%) lengths, and step (5.1%) and stride (5.0%) cadences. Comparisons between surgical side and limb dominance indicated significant differences in gait speed, stance, swing and step times, double limb support time, step and stride lengths, and step cadence. The non-dominant limb demonstrated greater improvements across most parameters compared to the dominant limb. These findings emphasize the importance of considering the limb dominance of patients with knee osteoarthritis when evaluating post-TKA function. These conclusions can be helpful for personalized rehabilitation programs, allowing tailored interventions for individuals undergoing knee surgery.

ABSTRACT Objective: Ascertain healthcare-associated infection (HAI) prevalence and identify risk factors associated with a higher incidence of infection in a Rehabilitation Ward. Materials and Methods: Two-year retrospective cohort study conducted in a post-acute Rehabilitation Ward of a tertiary-care, public, university-affiliated hospital. Demographic and clinical data were collected from electronic medical record. The assessment of risk factors was done by comparison of patients with or without HAI. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors. Results: There were 262 admissions to the Rehabilitation Ward during the study period. One-hundred thirty-one HAIs were detected in 95 (36.3%) of the 262 patients. The most common infections were urinary tract infections (87.8% of all infections). An age-sex adjusted multivariate logistic regression model showed that urinary catheter, surgery in the last 30 days and length of stay ≥ 30 days were independent risk factors for HAI. Length of stay was associated with an increased odd of developing HAI (median length of 28 days for those without HAI, 35 days for those with only one HAI and 55 days for patients having ≥ 2 HAI). Only one patient died of infection. Conclusions: HAI is a frequent complication in a post-acute Rehabilitation Ward. The logistic regression model identified patients with urinary catheter, surgery in the last 30 days and length of stay ≥ 30 days as having an higher risk for HAI, thereby being the main targets of surveillance and adoption of preventive measures. RESUMEN Objetivo: Determinar la prevalencia y los factores de riesgo de infección nosocomial en pacientes ingresados en una Unidad de Rehabilitación. Material y Métodos: Estudio de cohorte retrospectivo de dos años realizado en una Unidad de Rehabilitación posaguda de un hospital público. La evaluación de los factores de riesgo se realizó mediante la comparación de pacientes con o sin infección nosocomial. Se utilizó un análisis de regresión logística univariado y multivariado para identificar los factores de riesgo. Resultados: Hubo 262 ingresos a la Unidad de Rehabilitación durante el período de estudio. Se detectaron 131 infecciones nosocomiales en 95 (36,3%) de los 262 pacientes. Las infecciones más frecuentes fueron las del tracto urinario (87,8%). Un modelo de regresión logística multivariado ajustado por edad y sexo mostró que el catéter urinario, la cirugía en los últimos 30 días y la duración de la estancia ≥ 30 días fueron factores de riesgo independientes para infección nosocomial. La duración de la estancia se asoció con una mayor probabilidad de desarrollar una infección nosocomial (duración media de 28 días para aquellos sin infecciones, 35 días para aquellos con solo una infección y 55 días para pacientes con ≥ 2 infecciones). Solo un paciente murió de infección. Conclusiones: La infección nosocomial es una complicación frecuente en una Unidad de Rehabilitación. El modelo de regresión logística identificó a los pacientes con catéter urinario, cirugía en los últimos 30 días y estadía ≥ 30 días con mayor riesgo de infección, por lo que son los principales objetivos de la vigilancia y adopción de medidas preventivas.

The study of data quality in crowdsourcing campaigns is currently a prominent research topic, given the diverse range of participants involved. A potential solution to enhancing data quality processes in crowdsourcing is cognitive personalization, which involves appropriately adapting or assigning tasks based on a crowd worker’s cognitive profile. There are two common methods for assessing a crowd worker’s cognitive profile: administering online cognitive tests, and inferring behavior from task fingerprinting based on user interaction log events. This article presents the findings of a study that investigated the complementarity of both approaches in a microtask scenario, focusing on personalizing task design. The study involved 134 unique crowd workers recruited from a crowdsourcing marketplace. The main objective was to examine how the administration of cognitive ability tests can be used to allocate crowd workers to microtasks with varying levels of difficulty, including the development of a deep learning model. Another goal was to investigate if task fingerprinting can be used to allocate crowd workers to different microtasks in a personalized manner. The results indicated that both objectives were accomplished, validating the usage of cognitive tests and task fingerprinting as effective mechanisms for microtask personalization, including the development of a deep learning model with 95% accuracy in predicting the accuracy of the microtasks. While we achieved an accuracy of 95%, it is important to note that the small dataset size may have limited the model’s performance.

The massive industrialization of products in a factory environment requires testing the product at a stage before its exportation to the sales market. For example, the end-of-line tests at Continental Advanced Antenna contribute to the validation of an antenna’s functionality, a product manufactured by this organization. In addition, the storage of information from the testing process allows the data manipulation through automated machine learning algorithms in search of a beneficial contribution. Studies in this area (automatic learning/machine learning) lead to the search and development of tools designed with objectives such as preventing anomalies in the production line, predictive maintenance, product quality assurance, forecast demand, forecasting safety problems, increasing resources, proactive maintenance, resource scalability, reduced production time, and anomaly detection, isolation, and correction. Once applied to the manufacturing environment, these advantages make the EOL system more productive, reliable, and less time-consuming. This way, a tool is proposed that allows the visualization and previous detection of trends associated with faults in the antenna testing system. Furthermore, it focuses on predicting failures at Continental’s EOL.

In Portugal, the dropout rate of university courses is around 29%. Understanding the reasons behind such a high desertion rate can drastically improve the success of students and universities. This work applies existing data mining techniques to predict the academic dropout mainly using the academic grades. Four different machine learning techniques are presented and analyzed. The dataset consists of 331 students who were previously enrolled in the Computer Engineering degree at the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD). The study aims to detect students who may prematurely drop out using existing methods. The most relevant data features were identified using the Permutation Feature Importance technique. In the second phase, several methods to predict the dropouts were applied. Then, each machine learning technique’s results were displayed and compared to select the best approach to predict academic dropout. The methods used achieved good results, reaching an F1-Score of 81% in the final test set, concluding that students’ marks somehow incorporate their living conditions.

Currently, solutions based on the Internet of Things (IoT) concept are increasingly being adopted in several fields, namely, industry, agriculture, and home automation. The costs associated with this type of equipment is reasonably small, as IoT devices usually do not have output peripherals to display information about their status (e.g., a screen or a printer), although they may have informative LEDs, which is sometimes insufficient. For most IoT devices, the price of a minimalist display, to output and display the device’s running status (i.e., what the device is doing), might cost much more than the actual IoT device. Occasionally, it might become necessary to visualize the IoT device output, making it necessary to find solutions to show the hardware output information in real time, without requiring extra equipment, only what the administrator usually has with them. In order to solve the above, a technological solution that allows for the visualization of IoT device information in actual time, using augmented reality and a simple smartphone, was developed and analyzed. In addition, the system created integrates a security layer, at the level of AR, to secure the shown data from unwanted eyes. The results of the tests carried out allowed us to validate the operation of the solution when accessing the information of the IoT devices, verify the operation of the security layer in AR, analyze the interaction between smartphones, the platform, and the devices, and check which AR markers are most optimized for this use case. This work results in a secure augmented reality solution, which can be used with a simple smartphone, to monitor/manage IoT devices in industrial, laboratory or research environments.

The Portuguese population is aging at an increasing rate, which introduces new problems, particularly in rural areas, where the population is small and widely spread throughout the territory. These people, mostly elderly, have low income and are often isolated and socially excluded. This work researches and proposes an affordable Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)-based solution to monitor the activities of elderly individuals, inside their homes, in a pervasive and non-intrusive way, while preserving their privacy. The solution uses a set of low-cost IoT sensor devices, computer vision algorithms and reasoning rules, to acquire data and recognize the activities performed by a subject inside a home. A conceptual architecture and a functional prototype were developed, the prototype being successfully tested in an environment similar to a real case scenario. The system and the underlying concept can be used as a building block for remote and distributed elderly care services, in which the elderly live autonomously in their homes, but have the attention of a caregiver when needed.

The demand for online services is increasing. Services that would require a long time to understand, use and master are becoming as transparent as possible to the users, that tend to focus only on the final goals. Combined with the advantages of the unmanned vehicles (UV), from the unmanned factor to the reduced size and costs, we found an opportunity to bring to users a wide variety of services supported by UV, through the Internet of Unmanned Vehicles (IoUV). Current solutions were analyzed and we discussed scalability and genericity as the principal concerns. Then, we proposed a solution that combines several services and UVs, available from anywhere at any time, from a cloud platform. The solution considers a cloud distributed architecture, composed by users, services, vehicles and a platform, interconnected through the Internet. Each vehicle provides to the platform an abstract and generic interface for the essential commands. Therefore, this modular design makes easier the creation of new services and the reuse of the different vehicles. To confirm the feasibility of the solution we implemented a prototype considering a cloud-hosted platform and the integration of custom-built small-sized cars, a custom-built quadcopter, and a commercial Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. To validate the prototype and the vehicles’ remote control, we created several services accessible via a web browser and controlled through a computer keyboard. We tested the solution in a local network, remote networks and mobile networks (i.e., 3G and Long-Term Evolution (LTE)) and proved the benefits of decentralizing the communications into multiple point-to-point links for the remote control. Consequently, the solution can provide scalable UV-based services, with low technical effort, for anyone at anytime and anywhere.

Data and services are available anywhere at any time thanks to the Internet and mobile devices. Nowadays, there are new ways of representing data through trendy technologies such as augmented reality (AR), which extends our perception of reality through the addition of a virtual layer on top of real-time images. The great potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for carrying out routine and professional tasks has encouraged their use in the creation of several services, such as package delivery or industrial maintenance. Unfortunately, drone piloting is difficult to learn and requires specific training. Since regular training is performed with virtual simulations, we decided to propose a multiplatform cloud-hosted solution based in Web AR for drone training and usability testing. This solution defines a configurable trajectory through virtual elements represented over barcode markers placed on a real environment. The main goal is to provide an inclusive and accessible training solution which could be used by anyone who wants to learn how to pilot or test research related to UAV control. For this paper, we reviewed drones, AR, and human–drone interaction (HDI) to propose an architecture and implement a prototype, which was built using a Raspberry Pi 3, a camera, and barcode markers. The validation was conducted using several test scenarios. The results show that a real-time AR experience for drone pilot training and usability testing is achievable through web technologies. Some of the advantages of this approach, compared to traditional methods, are its high availability by using the web and other ubiquitous devices; the minimization of technophobia related to crashes; and the development of cost-effective alternatives to train pilots and make the testing phase easier for drone researchers and developers through trendy technologies.

The capability of drones to perform autonomous missions has led retail companies to use them for deliveries, saving time and human resources. In these services, the delivery depends on the Global Positioning System (GPS) to define an approximate landing point. However, the landscape can interfere with the satellite signal (e.g., tall buildings), reducing the accuracy of this approach. Changes in the environment can also invalidate the security of a previously defined landing site (e.g., irregular terrain, swimming pool). Therefore, the main goal of this work is to improve the process of goods delivery using drones, focusing on the detection of the potential receiver. We developed a solution that has been improved along its iterative assessment composed of five test scenarios. The built prototype complements the GPS through Computer Vision (CV) algorithms, based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), running in a Raspberry Pi 3 with a Pi NoIR Camera (i.e., No InfraRed—without infrared filter). The experiments were performed with the models Single Shot Detector (SSD) MobileNet-V2, and SSDLite-MobileNet-V2. The best results were obtained in the afternoon, with the SSDLite architecture, for distances and heights between 2.5–10 m, with recalls from 59%–76%. The results confirm that a low computing power and cost-effective system can perform aerial human detection, estimating the landing position without an additional visual marker.

The relative role of drift versus selection underlying the evolution of bacterial species within the gut microbiota remains poorly understood. The large sizes of bacterial populations in this environment suggest that even adaptive mutations with weak effects, thought to be the most frequently occurring, could substantially contribute to a rapid pace of evolutionary change in the gut. We followed the emergence of intra-species diversity in a commensal Escherichia coli strain that previously acquired an adaptive mutation with strong effect during one week of colonization of the mouse gut. Following this first step, which consisted of inactivating a metabolic operon, one third of the subsequent adaptive mutations were found to have a selective effect as high as the first. Nevertheless, the order of the adaptive steps was strongly affected by a mutational hotspot with an exceptionally high mutation rate of 10-5. The pattern of polymorphism emerging in the populations evolving within different hosts was characterized by periodic selection, which reduced diversity, but also frequency-dependent selection, actively maintaining genetic diversity. Furthermore, the continuous emergence of similar phenotypes due to distinct mutations, known as clonal interference, was pervasive. Evolutionary change within the gut is therefore highly repeatable within and across hosts, with adaptive mutations of selection coefficients as strong as 12% accumulating without strong constraints on genetic background. In vivo competitive assays showed that one of the second steps (focA) exhibited positive epistasis with the first, while another (dcuB) exhibited negative epistasis. The data shows that strong effect adaptive mutations continuously recur in gut commensal bacterial species.

O presente artigo baseia-se num estudo efectuado no âmbito do projecto de investigação Knowandpol sobre as políticas de autonomia e gestão escolar em Portugal, no período ente 1986 e 2009. O objectivo central da pesquisa incidiu na articulação entre conhecimento e acção pública e desenvolveu-se através das seguintes dimensões analíticas: os actores (mapa social e cognitivo); as ideias e sua evolução; a estruturação do campo político pelo conhecimento. No presente artigo irei apresentar alguns dos pressupostos teóricos que orientaram a pesquisa realizada, as características principais da política em estudo, a metodologia utilizada na sua análise e, finalmente, as principais conclusões obtidas a partir dos dados recolhidos.This paper is based on a study on the school autonomy and administration policies carried out in Portugal, between 1986 and 2009, within the Knowandpol research project. Its main focus is the relation between knowledge and public action. It was developed through the following analytic dimensions: actors (social and cognitive mapping); ideas and their evolution; and the structuring of the political field by knowledge. It presents some theoretical assumptions of the research, the main characteristics of the policy under consideration, the methodology adopted to carry out the study and, finally, the key conclusions resulting from data analysis.

O presente artigo tem como principal finalidade analisar e debater a evolução da intervenção do Estado na educação no quadro das transformações que ocorrem, em diferentes países, na regulação das políticas e da acção públicas. Partindo da elucidação do conceito de regulação, apresento um modelo interpretativo para análise dos processos de regulação em educação, identificando, em seguida, as principais convergências e divergências que se verificam, em alguns países europeus, neste domínio, nomeadamente no que se refere à emergência de modelos de regulação pós-burocráticos. A parte final do artigo é consagrada à discussão do papel do Estado na defesa e promoção da escola pública, tendo em conta as evoluções que foram detectadas nos modos de governação e coordenação das políticas e da acção públicas em educação.This paper mainly aims at analyzing and discussing the evolution of State interventions in Education within the framework of the on-going changes taking place in public action and policies in different countries. After clarifying the concept of regulation, it presents an interpretative model to analyze the regulation processes in Education. The main similarities and differences among some European countries are identified, namely the development of post-bureaucratic regulation models. The last section is devoted to discussing the State's role of protecting and promoting public education, considering the identified trends in the evolution of governance modes and in the co-ordination of public action and policies in Education.

In the first section of this article, a retrospective policy analysis is provided, concerning three specific moments when the rhetoric on school autonomy became a key issue in Portugal. This was built in a broader strategy of school administration reform, which its advocates claimed was intended to improve school management as well as the quality and effectiveness of its results. The second section presents an alternative view of the "legal fiction" which embodied the previous policies. This view is based on principles I advanced in the policy study requested by the Minister of Education Marçal Grilo, developed within a social and community perspective about the regulation of educational policy and practice.

O presente artigo visa a reflectir sobre a emergência de lógicas de mercado na regulação da oferta educativa, nomeadamente a partir de processos formais e informais de "escolha da escola" pelos alunos e suas famílias. Com base numa investigação em curso no Centro de Estudos da Escola da Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, da Universidade de Lisboa, foi possível identificar "desvios" às normas da "carta escolar" (que estabelece, em Portugal, a obrigatoriedade da frequência de uma determinada escola em função da residência dos alunos). Esses desvios configuram uma evolução, no planeamento da rede escolar, de "uma regulação pela oferta" para "uma regulação pela procura" e põem em evidência o aparecimento de novos espaços de interdependência/concorrência entre as escolas, com visível efeito sobre o modo como é (ou não) garantida a igualdade de oportunidades.This paper discusses the emergence of market logics in the regulation of the educational offer and provision, through the free school choice of students and parents. Based on the results of a research project we are developing at the School Studies Centre of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Lisbon, we were able to describe and identify differences between the rules established by the "school map" (in Portugal, students have to attend a given, determined by the place where they live) and reality. These differences seem to be the result of an evolution from a "regulatory supply" to a "regulatory demand" in the educational planning. Such differences are also good illustrations of the appearance of new areas of interdependence or competition between neighboring schools, and of how this may promote inequalities of opportunity.

No presente artigo proponho-me caracterizar a evolução recente do sistema educativo português (no nível dos ensinos básico e secundário) tomando como referência as transformações ocorridas nos processos de organização e regulação dos seguintes domínios: currículo, oferta escolar, recrutamento e formação de professores, gestão escolar e recursos financeiros, partenariado socio-educativo. Como eixo central de análise utiliza-se o conceito de "regulação institucional" como intervenção das autoridades públicas para introduzir "regras" e "constrangimentos" no mercado ou na acção social. O objectivo do presente texto consiste, por isso, em utilizar a evolução dos modos de regulação como analisador das transformações recentes do sistema educativo português, pondo em destaque a coexistência de medidas de reforço da autonomia das escolas e de novas formas de controlo, bem como a sua inserção nas políticas de combate às desigualdades escolares. Serão analisados, igualmente, os sentidos que essas medidas assumem num contexto de mudança global dos modos de regulação da educação, que ocorre em vários países, tendo em vista a redefinição do papel do "Estado educador" e a emergência de uma "regulação pelo mercado".Taking as its starting point the changes in the regulation and organization processes of such fields as curriculum, school provision, teacher training and recruitment, school management and financial resources and socio-educational partnership, this paper de scribes the recent evolution of the Portuguese educational system (at both primary and secondary level). This analysis is centered on the concept of "institutional regulation", understood as the intervention of public authorities to produce "rules" and "constraints" either on the market or in the social action. Thus, the main goal is to use the regulation mode evolution to analyze the recent changes that have affected the Portuguese educational system, highlighting the coexistence of political measures that reinforce school autonomy and of new forms of control and school inequality. The meaning of these political measures will also be analyzed within context of the global changes of the regulation modes in education that are taking place in several countries, which promote a redefinition of the role of the "State as Educator" and the emergence of a "market regulation".

The accumulation of adaptive mutations is essential for survival in novel environments. However, in clonal populations with a high mutational supply, the power of natural selection is expected to be limited. This is due to clonal interference--the competition of clones carrying different beneficial mutations--which leads to the loss of many small effect mutations and fixation of large effect ones. If interference is abundant, then mechanisms for horizontal transfer of genes, which allow the immediate combination of beneficial alleles in a single background, are expected to evolve. However, the relevance of interference in natural complex environments, such as the gut, is poorly known. To address this issue, we have developed an experimental system which allows to uncover the nature of the adaptive process as Escherichia coli adapts to the mouse gut. This system shows the invasion of beneficial mutations in the bacterial populations and demonstrates the pervasiveness of clonal interference. The observed dynamics of change in frequency of beneficial mutations are consistent with soft sweeps, where different adaptive mutations with similar phenotypes, arise repeatedly on different haplotypes without reaching fixation. Despite the complexity of this ecosystem, the genetic basis of the adaptive mutations revealed a striking parallelism in independently evolving populations. This was mainly characterized by the insertion of transposable elements in both coding and regulatory regions of a few genes. Interestingly, in most populations we observed a complete phenotypic sweep without loss of genetic variation. The intense clonal interference during adaptation to the gut environment, here demonstrated, may be important for our understanding of the levels of strain diversity of E. coli inhabiting the human gut microbiota and of its recombination rate.

The wide spread of food outlets has become an environmental and sanitation infrastructure problem, due to Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG). A grease box is used at the industrials facilities to collect the FOG, in a specific time window, while its quality is good for recycling (e.g., biodiesel) and it is economically valuable. After this period, it will be disposed at a cost. For the proper management of the grease boxes, it is necessary to know the quantity of FOG inside the boxes, which is a major problem, as the boxes are sealed and permanently filled with water. The lack of homogeneity of the FOG renders it not detectable by current probes for level detection in liquids. In this article, the design, development and testing of a set of probes for FOG level measurement, based on the principles used in sensors for the detection of liquids inside containers, is described. The most suitable probe, based on the capacitance principle, together with the necessary hardware and software modules for data acquisition and transmission, was developed and tested. After the development phase, the probe was integrated on a metropolitan system for FOG collection and grease box management in partnership with a grease box management company.