Browsing by Author "Pinto, Ana"
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- Acceptance of industrial collaborative robots: Preliminar results of appliction of portuguese version of the Frankenstein Syndrome Questionnaire (FSQ)Publication . Pinto, Ana; Ferraz, Mariana; Nomura, Tatsuya; Santos, JoanaCobots are highly flexible and able to operate in the same workspace and at the same time with the worker. The use of these technologies allows for increased production performance while ensuring comfort and confidence for the worker. Robot acceptance is still a controversial topic with various approaches and methods to measure acceptance of humanoid robots. This study aimed to evaluate cobots acceptance after a motor assembly task in a collaborative workstation. 30 university students were divided into two groups, with group 1 having read the assembly instructions before the usage of the assembly workstation and group 2 without having any previous knowledge about the car engine. All participants completed the Portuguese version of the Frankenstein Syndrome Questionnaire (FSQ). Data analyses were carried out using descriptive and inferential statistics using IBM SPSS Statistics software, version 28.0. One correlations was found between the scales of the FSQ (p < 0.05). It was possible to conclude that the acceptance of robots by the participants in group 1 and group 2 was the same. This study can contribute to understanding which factors explain the acceptance of collaborative robots, to improve human-robot intercation.
- Adipocyte Secreted Factors Enhance Aggressiveness of Prostate Carcinoma CellsPublication . Moreira, Ângela; Pereira, Sofia S.; Costa, Madalena; Morais, Tiago; Pinto, Ana; Fernandes, Rúben; Monteiro, Mariana P.Obesity has been associated with increased incidence and risk of mortality of prostate cancer. One of the proposed mechanisms underlying this risk association is the change in adipokines expression that could promote the development and progression of the prostate tumor cells. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of preadipocyte and adipocyte secretome in the proliferation, migration and invasion of androgen independent prostate carcinoma cells (RM1) and to assess cell proliferation in the presence of the adiposity signals leptin and insulin. RM1 cells were co-cultured in with preadipocytes, adipocytes or cultured in their respective conditioned medium. Cell proliferation was assessed by flow cytometry and XTT viability test. Cell migration was evaluated using a wound healing injury assay of RM1 cells cultured with conditioned media. Cellular invasion of RM1 cells co-cultured with adipocytes and preadipocytes was assessed using matrigel membranes. Preadipocyte conditioned medium was associated with a small increase in RM1 proliferation, while adipocytes conditioned media significantly increased RM1 cell proliferation (p<0.01). Adipocytes also significantly increased the RM1 cells proliferation in co-culture (p <0.01). Cell migration was higher in RM1 cells cultured with preadipocyte and adipocyte conditioned medium. RM1 cell invasion was significantly increased after co-culture with preadipocytes and adipocytes (p <0.05). Insulin also increased significantly the cell proliferation in contrast to leptin, which showed no effect. In conclusion, prostate carcinoma cells seem to be influenced by factors secreted by adipocytes that are able to increase their ability to proliferate, migrate and invade.
- Avaliação do timing das respostas de curta latência na instabilidade crónica do tornozeloPublication . Valente, Isabel; Pinto, Ana; Santos, Rubim; Sousa, AndreiaO controlo postural (CP) envolve um processo complexo multisegmentar para manter o duplo propósito da orientação e estabilidade. Tem sido demonstrado que a informação propriocetiva proveniente do pé e tornozelo apresenta um papel fulcral na manutenção do CP. As alterações proprioceptivas decorrente de lesão capsuloligamentar do tornozelo parecem estar na origem da disfunção neuromuscular associada à instabilidade crónica do tornozelo. Apesar de vários estudos se terem dedicado ao estudo do timing dos ajustes posturais de curta latência (SLR), a análise desta condição patológica tem sido focada numa abordagem unilateral.
- Burnout and coping strategies among Professors during COVID-19: Portugal-Brazil comparative studyPublication . Pinto, Ana; Carvalho, Carla; Rodriguez, Susana; Simões, Ana; Carvalhais, Carlos; Gonçalves, Fernando J.; Santos, JoanaThe global pandemic experienced in recent years led Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to close their facilities to safeguard the health and safety of the academic community. This reality overloaded professors in terms of work, often leading them to the limit of exhaustion and impacting on their performance, quality of life and well-being, taking, in many cases, to burnout. This study aims to identify and characterize the frequency of burnout and strategies of coping in professors from HEIs of Portugal and Brazil. A sample of 132 professors answered to online self-administrated questionnaires: sociodemographic and telework conditions; Oldenburg-Burnout Inventory and Brief-COPE. The results suggest that: regarding burnout, the exhaustion dimension is higher among professors in Portugal; regarding coping strategies, professors in Brazil use more strategies designated as maladaptive. Appropriate coping strategies and resources made available to professors can contribute to their well-being at work and to their quality of life and happiness.
- Caso raro de massa nodular adiposa na região supraclavicularPublication . Pinto, Ana; Suárez, Marisa; Scigliano, HorácioAs massas adiposas na região cervical e supraclavicular são relativamente raras, sendo o lipoma a forma mais frequente e o hibernoma a mais rara. Neste trabalho relata-se o caso de uma paciente de 72 anos com história clínica de massa lipomatosa nodular, localizada na região supraclavicular direita, submetida a biopsia aspirativa por agulha fina. O diagnóstico citológico foi de provável hibernoma. O estudo histológico da peça cirúrgica confirmou a suspeita citológica.
- Cognitive workload and fatigue in a human-robot collaborative assembly workstation: A pilot studyPublication . Santos, Joana; Ferraz, Mariana; Pinto, Ana; Rocha, Luís Freitas; Costa, Carlos M.; Simões, Ana Correia; Bombeke, Klass; Vaz, MárioIndustry 5.0 represents a novel approach that builds upon the advancements of Industry 4.0 and is aimed at fostering a more harmonious relationship between humans and machines to prioritize resource efficiency and user-centered manufacturing.Objective: This paper presents a study, integrated in the COBOSHe project, for assessing and analyzing the cognitive workload and fatigue, using heart rate (HR) and a perceived scale related to fatigue, in a car engine assembly in which a robot and ahuman operator are performing tasks in a shared workspace. For this purpose, a sample of 30 subjects were divided into two groups, with group A having read the assembly instructions before the usage of the assembly workstation and group B without having any previous knowledge about the car engine. The data analysis was carried out using descriptive and inferential statistics (Kruskal-Wallis’s test and Spearman's correlation test) in the IBM SPSS Statistics software, version 28.0. The results showed thatHRand perceived fatigue didn’t had statistical differences between groups(p=0.380). There is insufficient statistical evidence, to state that the subscales of SOFI are not identical between the two groups(p >0.05). Therefore, we conclude that the usage of the augmented reality system in the assembly workstation for providing on demand instructions was intuitive and allowed the operators to learn how to assemble the car engine without requiring any previous knowledge about the assembly process. This type of study allows to improve collaborative workstations, as it increases the efficiency and productivity of production lines.
- Comparative study on burnout among higher education professors in Portugal and Brazil during COVID-19Publication . Pinto, Ana; Carvalho, Carla; Rodriguez, Susana; Simões, Ana; Carvalhais, Carlos; Gonçalves, Fernando; Santos, JoanaThe global pandemic context experienced in recent years has exacerbated the reality that the work environment does not always offer the necessary conditions for task completion. For example, in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), all over the world, were closing, to safeguard the health of professors, students, and education professionals had to change teaching methods, namely, remote teaching, involving new technologies. Faced with unprecedented stress situations, professors, students, and families have employed various coping and resilience strategies throughout the confinement period.
- Designing human-robot collaboration (HRC) workspaces in industrial settings: A systematic literature reviewPublication . Simões, Ana Correia; Pinto, Ana; Santos, Joana; Pinheiro, Sofia; Romero, DavidIn the pursuit of increasing efficiency, productivity and flexibility at production lines and their corresponding workstations, manufacturing companies have started to heavily invest in “collaborative workspaces” where close interaction between humans and robots promises to lead to these goals that neither can achieve on their own. Therefore, it is necessary to know the contributions, recommendations and guidelines that literature presents in terms of designing a manufacturing workplace where humans and cobots interact with each other to accomplish the defined objectives. These aspects need to be explored in an integrated and multidisciplinary way to maximize human involvement in the decision chain and to promote wellbeing and quality of work. This paper presents a systematic literature review on designing human-robot collaboration (HRC) workspaces for humans and robots in industrial settings. The study involved 252 articles in international journals and conferences proceedings published till 2019. A detailed selection process led to including 65 articles to further analysis. A framework that represents the complexity levels of the influencing factors presented in human-robot interaction (HRI) contexts was developed for the content analysis. Based on this framework the guidelines and recommendations of the analysed articles are presented in three categories: Category 1 – the first level of complexity, which considers only one specific influencing factor in the HRI. This category was split into two: human operator, and technology; Category 2 – the second level of complexity, includes recommendations and guidelines related to human-robot team’s performance, and thus several influencing factors are present in the HRI; and, finally, Category 3 – the third level of complexity, where recommendations and guidelines for more complex and holistic approaches in the HRI are presented. The literature offers contributions from several knowledge areas capable to design safe, ergonomic, sustainable, and healthy human-centred workplaces where not only technical but also social and psychophysical aspects of collaboration are considered.
- Enhancing cobot design through user experience goals: An investigation of human–robot collaboration in picking tasksPublication . Pinto, Ana; Duarte, Inês; Carvalho, Carla; Rocha, Luís; Santos, JoanaThe use of collaborative robots in industries is growing rapidly. To ensure the successful implementation of these devices, it is essential to consider the user experience (UX) during their design process. This study is aimed at testing the UX goals that emerge when users interact with a collaborative robot during the programming and collaborating phases. A framework on UX goals will be tested, in the geographical context of Portugal. For that, an experimental setup was introduced in the form of a laboratory case study in which the human–robot collaboration (HRC) was evaluated by the combination of both quantitative (applying the User Experience Questionnaire [UEQ]) and qualitative (semistructured interviews) metrics. The sample was constituted by 19 university students. The quantitative approach showed positive overall ratings for the programming phase UX, with attractiveness having the highest average value (M = 2 21; SD = 0 59) and dependability the lowest (M = 1 64; SD = 0 65). For the collaboration phase, all UX ratings were positive, with attractiveness having the highest average value (M = 2 46; SD = 0 78) and efficiency the lowest (M = 1 93; SD = 0 77). Only perspicuity showed significant differences between the two phases (t 18 = −4 335, p = 0 002). The qualitative approach, at the light of the framework used, showed that efficiency, inspiration, and usability are the most mentioned UX goals emerging from the content analysis. These findings enhance manufacturing workers’ well-being by improving cobot design in organizations.
- O Intérprete de Língua Gestual Portuguesa nos Serviços PúblicosPublication . Barbosa, Susana; Pinto, Ana; Oliveira, Ana