Browsing by Author "Gaio, Rita"
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- Consumer Attitudes toward News Delivering: An Experimental Evaluation of the Use and Efficacy of Personalized RecommendationsPublication . Viana, Paula; Soares, Márcio; Gaio, Rita; Correia, AmilcarThis paper presents an experiment on newsreaders’ behavior and preferences on the interaction with online personalized news. Different recommendation approaches, based on consumption profiles and user location, and the impact of personalized news on several aspects of consumer decision-making are examined on a group of volunteers. Results show a significant preference for reading recommended news over other news presented on the screen, regardless of the chosen editorial layout. In addition, the study also provides support for the creation of profiles taking into consideration the evolution of user’s interests. The proposed solution is valid for users with different reading habits and can be successfully applied even to users with small consumption history. Our findings can be used by news providers to improve online services, thus increasing readers’ perceived satisfaction.
- Data Mining in HIV-AIDS Surveillance SystemPublication . Oliveira, Alexandra; Faria, Brigida Monica; Gaio, Rita; Reis, Luis PauloThe Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is an infectious agent that attacks the immune system cells. Without a strong immune system, the body becomes very susceptible to serious life threatening opportunistic diseases. In spite of the great progresses on medication and prevention over the last years, HIV infection continues to be a major global public health issue, having claimed more than 36 million lives over the last 35 years since the recognition of the disease. Monitoring, through registries, of HIV-AIDS cases is vital to assess general health care needs and to support long-term health-policy control planning. Surveillance systems are therefore established in almost all developed countries. Typically, this is a complex system depending on several stakeholders, such as health care providers, the general population and laboratories, which challenges an efficient and effective reporting of diagnosed cases. One issue that often arises is the administrative delay in reports of diagnosed cases. This paper aims to identify the main factors influencing reporting delays of HIV-AIDS cases within the portuguese surveillance system. The used methodologies included multilayer artificial neural networks (MLP), naive bayesian classifiers (NB), support vector machines (SVM) and the k-nearest neighbor algorithm (KNN). The highest classification accuracy, precision and recall were obtained for MLP and the results suggested homogeneous administrative and clinical practices within the reporting process. Guidelines for reductions of the delays should therefore be developed nationwise and transversally to all stakeholders.
- Data quality miningPublication . Oliveira, Alexandra; Gaio, Rita; Baylina, Pilar; Rebelo, Carlos; Reis, Luís PauloWe are living in a world of information abundance, surplus, and access. We have technologies to acquire any type of information but we still face the challenge of extracting the underlying valuable knowledge. Data analyses and mining processes may be severely impaired whenever data are corrupted by noise, ambiguity and distortions. This paper aims to provide a systematic procedure for data cleaning in single files data sources without schema that may be corrupted by the most common data problems. The methodology is guided by the dimensions of data quality standards and focuses on the goal of performing reasonable posterior statistical analyses.
- Influence of clinical and psychosocial factors on the adherence to topical treatment in psoriasisPublication . Teixeira, Ana; Teixeira, Maribel; Gaio, Rita; Torres, Tiago; Magina, Sofia; Dinis, Maria Alzira Pimenta; Sousa-Lobo, José; Almeida, Isabel; Peixoto, Miguel; Almeida, VeraPsoriasis is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease with different manifestations, affecting the quality of life at social, emotional, and professional dimensions and requiring long-term treatment. This study aimed to investigate the effect of psychosocial and clinical factors on adherence to topical treatment in psoriasis. Self-reported measures and weighing the medicines were used to assess adherence. Psychopathological symptoms were measured using the Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI). Social and clinical factors were assessed by a sociodemographic and clinical questionnaire. Adherence to treatment with topical medication was assessed using a sample of 102 psoriasis patients. The explanatory models of adherence to topical treatment in psoriasis translated into positive associations between adherence and the education level (higher education) (p = 0.03; φ = 0.23), the single-family household (p = 0.01; φ = 0.44), active employment status (p = 0.05; φ = −0.19), familiar history of psoriasis (p = 0.04; φ = −0.21), and the presence of obsessive-compulsive symptoms (p = 0.01; d = 0.29). (4) Conclusions: In patients who present the characteristics identified that influence non-adherence, instructions should be reinforced to increase adherence. The experimental mortality (39.6%) reduced the sample size, representing a limitation of the study.
- Modelling reporting delays in a multilevel structured surveillance system - application to portuguese HIV-AIDS dataPublication . Oliveira, Alexandra; Amorim, Humberta; Gaio, Rita; Reis, Luís PauloIn a deeply interconnected world of people and goods, infectious diseases constitute a serious threat. An active vigilance is required. The collection of adequate data is vital and coordinated by surveillance systems. It is widely-acknowledged that every case-reporting system has some degree of under-reporting and reporting delay in particular in HIV-AIDS Portuguese Surveillance System. To better understand the processes generating the reporting delays, which is an administrative process, it was used a flexible continuous time fully parametric survival analysis approach. It was taken into consideration the hierarchical administrative and organizational structure of the system as well as the relevant changes in the procedures throughout the time. The best multilevel structure to represent reporting delays in continuous time is the model where the individuals are nested into Reporting Entities (20.24% of the variance) which are nested into Type of services (8% of the variance) with the log-normal distribution.
- The challenges of european public health surveillance systems - an overview of the HIV-AIDS surveillancePublication . Oliveira, Alexandra; Reis, Luís Paulo; Gaio, RitaSurveillance has been defined as the continual scrutiny of all aspects in emerging and the spread of a disease that is pertinent to effective control, involving a systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of health data. Given their fragmentation several problems inherent to data must be recognized. This paper aims to provide an overview of European Public Health Surveillance Systems emphasizing their structure and main challenges. The HIV-AIDS surveillance is overview as a particular case. The most common issues are unrepresentativeness, changes in the implementation through time, inconsistent use of case definitions, miss diagnoses, miss or fail to report a case, reporting delay, and errors during completion of the form or data entry. The HIV - AIDS surveillance is one of the most complex mainly due to the special epidemiology of the disease surrounding the transmission modes and the lack of treatment and all the socio-ecological framework involved.