Background: Open Educational Resources (OER) are rising in popularity at higher education institutions to help combat high textbook costs. To date, little research has been published discussing the impact of OER in the health sciences context. This comparative case study seeks to fill this gap. Experience: The article shares OER programs and advocacy efforts at three institutions, including a brief history of OER work, barriers and failures, current successes, and future directions at each institution. Discussion: All three institutions are making efforts in OER outreach and advocacy, informed and impacted by their institutional community. Two institutions have an OER grant with increasing submissions from health sciences faculty. OER work is completed by one librarian at two of the institutions, while the third completes the work through a committee of stakeholders from across the institution. All cases include OER advocacy and outreach through library workshops and working to establish faculty partnerships. Barriers at all three institutions include a lack of time and funds to dedicate to finding or developing OER. Unique barriers include a desire to work with for-profit companies, concerns over disadvantaging students on their qualifying exams, and the sustainability of institutional efforts in OER.     Takeaways: Libraries are uniquely situated to support faculty and staff as they incorporate OER into their practices. While health sciences faculty are typically slower to adopt OER, once they do take this step, they become strong advocates for open practices, the librarian, and the library.

ABSTRACT The Lousal mine rehabilitation project proactively planned strategic milestones around key local geomorphic landforms and geochemical characteristics. GeoFluv™ method was used to design a rehabilitation topography mimicking natural landforms, on which a built-up soil cover with chemical buffering capabilities and open limestone channels were implemented across the intervention areas. Once these landform restoration works were completed, positive effects are observed in March 2022, with the native vegetation cover (the third main component of the restoration plan) established in most of the recovered area and a visible water quality improvement to the AMD treatment system water. Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs) concentrations have reduced significantly after the reclamation actions, especially Fe (404 to 34 mg L−1), Zn (65.7 to 15.8 mg L−1) and Cd (122 to 0.8 µg L−1) concentrations. Minor problems detected have been processes of rill erosion associated with the inflow of adjacent watersheds, and the creation of ephemeral reducing conditions resulting from the leaching of the organic amendment of the topsoil. The Lousal mine reclamation project is the first built example in Europe where the concept of geomorphic reclamation has been combined with geochemical remediation in an area with intense acid mine drainage formation. Detailed monitoring of this project’s restorative progression throughout 2024 and beyond, should offer learning opportunities and innovations which will benefit future rehabilitation projects, with comparable underlying features.

In this article, we consider the importance of learner well-being for a better performance during the learning process, taking into account their emotions and how they affect them. The CLIL approach is used to integrate learners’ language knowledge and provides strategies about how to manage their emotions and develop a positive mindset. In this context, we suggest three meaningful activities for teenage learners to identify and analyze their emotions while learning and encourage their critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative work. Furthermore, learners can learn about how emotions affect not only their school, but also their personal lives. Through these proposed activities, students may develop some tools and pieces of advice to take care of their emotional health.

Soil pollution scenarios are every time more often and bioremediation is a well-known strategy to remove pollutants from soil. In theory, only the bioavailable fractions of a pollutant might be degraded using bioremediation. This hypothesis was tested via the estimation of bioavailable petroleum-hydrocarbons in polluted clay soil and measurements on the biodegradation of the hydrocarbons in bioremediation systems at both laboratory (ideal conditions) and field conditions (treatment units of 120 m3 on landfarming and windrow configurations). A non-exhaustive extraction technique with 50% 1-propanol was used to estimate bioavailability. Treatment efficiencies (based on the total concentration of the pollutant) were 47.27 and 45.83% at laboratory and field conditions, respectively. Bioremediation efficiencies (based on the bioavailable fraction of the pollutant) were 92.66 and 88.76% for laboratory and field conditions, respectively. These results suggest that bioavailability might be used as a tool to set up feasible biodegradation goals.

This presentation aims to present the board game " The adventure to knowledge " as a tool to facilitate the teaching-learning process. It was created to help the dissemination and communication of science in the context of an international and interdisciplinary research project that studies the environmental changes that have occurred over the last 7500 years in the southeast coast of Mozambique. In the game, each player is invited to take on the role of a researcher participating in a fieldwork where they will create knowledge to write a book. To do so, he/she will need material and human resources to analyze several paleoenvironmental indicators, and the speed with which he/she will do so will depend on several constraints. This game is available at https://ccvalg.pt/inmoz/inmozEN.html This study had the support of national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), under the project LA/P/0069/2020 granted to the Associate Laboratory ARNET and UID/00350/2020 CIMA, and the project PTDC/HAR-ARQ/28148/2017, granted to the researcher with the following contract CEECINST/00146/2018/CP1493/CT0002.

European cancer research stakeholders met in October 2022 in Heidelberg, Germany, at the 5th Gago conference on European Cancer Policy, to discuss the current cancer research and cancer care policy landscape in Europe. Meeting participants highlighted gaps in the existing European programmes focusing on cancer research, including Europe's Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP), the Mission on Cancer (MoC), Understanding Cancer (UNCAN.eu), and the joint action CRANE, and put forward the next priorities, in the form of the Heidelberg Manifesto for cancer research. This meeting report presents all discussions that shed light on how infrastructures can be effectively shaped for translational, prevention, clinical and outcomes cancer research, with a focus on implementation and sustainability and while engaging patients and the public. In addition, we summarize recommendations on how to introduce frameworks for the digitalization of European cancer research. Finally, we discuss what structures, commitment, and resources are needed to establish a collaborative cancer research environment in Europe to achieve the scale required for innovation.

The anticipation of oncoming threats is emotionally challenging and related to anxiety. The current study aimed to investigate the neural regulatory processes during the anticipatory preparations in stressful situations in relation to trait anxiety, especially in an uncertainty-related stressful situation. To this end, we measured within-subject delta-beta amplitude-amplitude correlation (AAC) and phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) with electroencephalography using a well-defined stress-inducing paradigm in 28 high-trait-anxiety (HTA) and 29 low-trait-anxiety (LTA) college students. Specifically, we included certain, uncertain, and no threat conditions, as well as a resting state. Results showed a generally larger parietal delta-beta AAC in the LTA group relative to the HTA group, supporting the hypothesis that delta-beta AAC reflects the efficiency of stress regulation and the compromised effect of trait anxiety. An increased delta-beta AAC was also found under the (un)certain threat conditions at the frontal site and uniquely under the uncertain threat condition at the parietal site relative to the resting state, indicating stress-related and especially uncertainty-related mobilization of regulatory activity. The investigation of delta-beta PAC revealed similar patterns. That is, a tendency towards a larger frontal delta-beta PAC in the LTA group relative to the HTA group, as well as increased delta-beta PAC under the (un)certain threat conditions at the parietal site, and at the frontal site under the uncertain threat condition only, relative to the resting state. These findings demonstrate a general condition-independent decreasing effect of trait anxiety in mobilizing neural regulatory activity, as well as an increasing effect of stressful situations, especially for uncertain threats.

Within our program of physical characterization of trans-Neptunian objects and centaurs, we predicted a stellar occultation by the centaur (54598) Bienor to occur on January 11, 2019, with good observability potential. We obtained high accuracy astrometric data to refine the prediction, resulting in a shadow path favorable for the Iberian Peninsula. This encouraged us to carry out an occultation observation campaign that resulted in five positive detections from four observing sites. This is the fourth centaur for which a multichord (more than two chords) stellar occultation has been observed so far, the other three being (2060) Chiron, (10199) Chariklo, and (95626) 2002 GZ32. From the analysis of the occultation chords, combined with the rotational light curve obtained shortly after the occultation, we determined that Bienor has an area-equivalent diameter of 150 ± 20 km. This diameter is ~30 km smaller than the one obtained from thermal measurements. The position angle of the short axis of the best fitting ellipse obtained through the analysis of the stellar occultation does not match that of the spin axis derived from long-term photometric models. We also detected a strong irregularity in one of the minima of the rotational light curve that is present no matter the aspect angle at which the observations were done. We present different scenarios to reconcile the results from the different techniques. We did not detect secondary drops related to potential rings or satellites. Nonetheless, similar rings in size to that of Chariklo's cannot be discarded due to low data accuracy.

This article aims to present an experience report during an action developed in an Extension Project entitled Improvements in Family and Community Medicine for tuberculosis control in Primary Health Care at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Tuberculosis patients received home visits in order to reinforce adherence to the treatment as a means to figure out what they knew about the disease. In response, misunderstandings were observed and the intention to discontinue treatment was reported. Health education action was developed. The lack of knowledge detected and the social inequity observed in the territory stimulated a reflection on the proposal contained in the National Plan for the end of tuberculosis and the performance of related public policies. It was concluded that treatment abandonment is a multifactorial process and its causes should be better analyzed together with vulnerable populations.