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A targeted approach to control Streptococcus pneumoniae infection
No full text"The human upper respiratory tract (URT) hosts diverse bacterial communities, with the Streptococcus genus playing a key role in health and disease. Among these, S. pneumoniae
can asymptomatically colonize the URT in biofilms, facilitating its persistence, transmission, and potential progression to diseases like pneumonia, meningitis, sepsis and severe
secondary infections after influenza A (IAV). While antibiotics and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) have successfully reduced the disease burden, challenges like antibiotic
resistance and limited serotype coverage require alternative approaches. Targeting colonization, leveraging colonization resistance by commensals such as S. mitis and S. oralis,
and using antimicrobial peptides like bacteriocins, offer promising strategies to inhibit pathogens and combat pneumococcal disease more effectively.(...)"N/
List of Publications of Yuri Karlovich
No full textPublisher Copyright: © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.Noauthorsversionpublishe
Uncovering heterogeneity and spatial distribution patterns of rare earth elements in phosphogypsum
No full textFunding Information:
This work was supported by the European Project Grant Reference ERA-MIN3/0008/2021, and FCT/0008/PG2CRM/Phosphogypsum: Processing to Critical Raw Materials. This publication was also partially supported by FCT R&D Units GEOBIOTEC - UID/04035: GeoBioCiências, GeoTecnologias e GeoEngenharias, and UID/FIS/04559/2019 to LIBPhys-UNL from the FCT/MCTES/PIDDAC, Portugal. This research was also partially supported by the National Center for Research and Development (NCBiR) in Poland in the frame of the ERAMIN3 action, which was co-funded by the European Union's Horizon2020 programme, contract number ERA-MIN3/1/98/PG2CRM/2022.
This work also received support by the Spanish State Research Agency of the Ministry of Science, Innovation & Universities (Grant Number: PCI2022-132999).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Elsevier LtdPhosphogypsum (PG), a by-product of the fertilizer industry, is a potential source of rare earth elements (REEs) such as Lanthanum (La), Cerium (Ce), Neodymium (Nd), and Yttrium (Y). These elements were efficiently detected using micro-Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (μ-EDXRF). Although a homogeneous REE distribution was expected in μ-EDXRF 2D maps, significant heterogeneity and variations in elemental associations (EA) were observed at a micrometric scale. To enhance and better interpret μ-EDXRF mapping results, a specialized image processing methodology was developed, incorporating Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Hierarchical Clustering (HC), and Multiple Linear Regression (MLA) which were applied to process and analyse 2D RGB pixel data. Identification of spatial overlaps, and multivariate correlations among the detected elements could be achieved. Notably, distinct EA patterns were found, with Ti, Ba, Y, and K playing a key role in REEs spatial distribution. Strong positive spatial correlations were identified between La and Ti, while Ce, Nd, and Y exhibited independent spatial distributions relative to La in certain sample areas. MLA further revealed strong EA between La, Ce, Nd, Y, and K, particularly in locations where Ti or Ba were also present. Additional elemental interactions were detected with Al, Cl, Ni, and Fe, with P and Cl showing significant correlations. Multicollinearity effects suggest strong interdependencies among elements. These findings highlight distinct REE spatial distributions within PG, demonstrating that mineralogical and compositional variations within the PG matrix influence REE spatial distribution patterns. Understanding these associations can improve strategies for REEs recovery from PG waste.proofpublishe
How mindset framing shapes moral judgments, emotional appraisals and privacy behavior
No full textNunes, J. R., Rita, P., Pinto, D. C., González-Jiménez, H., Akdim, K., & Wagner, R. L. (2025). Moral appraisals of generative AI: How mindset framing shapes moral judgments, emotional appraisals and privacy behavior. International Journal of Information Management, 84, Article 102940. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2025.102940 --- %ABS2% --- The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the project - UIDB/04152 - Centro de Investigação em Gestão de Informação (MagIC)/NOVA IMS)The rapid development of Generative AI (GenAI) and similar technologies has heightened ethical concerns, including privacy issues, discrimination, and data security. However, there is limited understanding of how mindset framing shapes users’ moral judgments and emotional responses toward these technologies. To address this gap, this research examines how framing GenAI, particularly in terms of growth or fixed mindset, influences moral appraisals, emotional reactions, and privacy behaviors. Using a mixed-methods approach, this research combines text mining of a large field dataset (n = 18,035 reviews) with two experimental studies (n = 255 participants). Findings reveal that mindset framing directly influences perceived morality, suggesting that GenAI framed in a growth mindset evokes more positive moral judgments compared to a fixed mindset framing. A growth mindset suggests learning and adaptability, whereas a fixed mindset framing implies that it is immutable and incapable of improvement. Perceived moral judgments mediate the effect of mindset framing (growth vs. fixed) on emotional appraisals. Moreover, mindset framing influences privacy behavior, with participants having low (vs. high) expertise disclosing more under a growth (vs. fixed) mindset. Theoretically, this paper contributes to the literature by integrating key theories on moral judgment, implicit theories, cognitive appraisal theory, and privacy calculus theory, thereby deepening the understanding of moral appraisals regarding GenAI. In practical terms, this research enables organizations to strategically frame GenAI capabilities, positively influencing users' privacy behavior and emotional responses.authorsversionepub_ahead_of_prin
Reputation-based resilient consensus with privacy guarantees
No full textPublisher Copyright: © 2014 IEEE.Reputation-based consensus methods have gained significant attention in distributed systems to mitigate the impact of malicious agents and ensure reliable decision-making. However, privacy concerns arise when sensitive information is shared among participants. In this paper, we propose a reputation-based consensus method that incorporates resilience and privacy guarantees, providing a balance between preserving participants' privacy and maintaining the accuracy of the resilient consensus process. Our approach leverages the notion of privacy to add noise to the agents' states, ensuring that individual contributions are masked while still enabling the detection of malicious behavior. We present a detailed analysis of the privacy-accuracy trade-off and demonstrate the effectiveness of our method through simulations. The results show that our reputation-based consensus method with privacy guarantees offers robustness against attacks while preserving the privacy of participants, making it a promising solution for privacy-conscious resilient distributed systems.authorsversioninpres
How Embedded AI Facilitates Agency Transference in Medical Services
No full textWagner, R. L., Pinto, D. C., Hildebrand, D., Pacheco, N. A., Dhillon, G., & Herter, M. M. (2025). Algorithm Delegation: How Embedded AI Facilitates Agency Transference in Medical Services. Psychology and Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.70016 --- %ABS3% --- Funding: ENSILIS ‐ Educação e Formação Unipessoal, Fundação Para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) (2024.07397. IACDC, UIDB/04152/2020), and European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) (101219225).Integrating insights from psychological distance and human-AI agency theories, this research explores embedded AI — algorithms physically integrated into tangible devices as a novel mechanism to help overcome resistance towards medical AI. Across four studies, including a large text-mining (n = 224,433 reviews) and three controlled experiments (n = 677 participants), we show that embedded AI reduces psychological distance between consumers and AI (Study 2B), which in turn enhances willingness to delegate medical decisions to algorithms (Studies 1-3). We further demonstrate that consumers expect better health outcomes when delegating decisions to embedded AI (Studies 2A, 2B, and 3). Moderation analysis further shows that these effects weaken when an analytical mode is primed using numerical accuracy information (Study 3). Our findings contribute to ongoing discussions on overcoming resistance to medical AI and offer implications for the design of AI-based technologies in medical services.authorsversionepub_ahead_of_prin
Tourism and local acceptance: a residents perspective on housing, tourist numbers, participation and community effects in St. Peter-Ording
No full textTourism in St Peter-Ording represents a dynamic interplay of economic benefits and socio ecological challenges. This thesis explores the complexity of tourism acceptance by analyzing
key issues such as housing shortage, increasing visitor numbers, social dynamics and local
participation. Using a mixed methods approach combining quantitative surveys and qualitative
interviews, it explores how residents perceive the impact of tourism on their personal lives and
the community. The application of theoretical models, including social exchange theory and the
Tourism Acceptance Score (TAS), reveals critical tensions between tourism development and
local well-being. The findings emphasize the urgency of implementing sustainable tourism
policies that take into account housing, participation and environmental protection for a
balanced future
multilayered congruence for the young
No full textUIDB/00183/2020
UIDP/00183/2020Political scientists often regard responsiveness as a measure of democratic representation. However, responsiveness is particularly difficult with regard to the young. Populations are ageing quickly, old-age dependency ratios are increasing, the young vote less than other age groups, and younger citizens feel they have no political clout. This paper proposes a series of instruments designed to justify the increased consideration of younger citizens’ interests in a manner consistent with the standard view of representation as responsiveness. It is divided into three sections. The first describes the current taxonomy of responsiveness, which differs depending on the agents, objects and viewpoints. A broader notion of responsiveness implies that it is multidimensional and that responsiveness in one dimension does not necessarily entail responsiveness in other dimensions. Despite this context, the young seem to have a representation deficit in all known dimensions of responsiveness. The second section challenges the very framework of political representation as it is tied to responsiveness, drawing on the recent constructivist trend in political representation. This section shows that criticisms of responsiveness prove insufficient to dismiss its importance from democratic forms of representation. The third section proposes three reforms that are likely to increase responsiveness on different dimensions based on age: the establishment of temporal electoral circles, the creation of mandatory youth-focused measurement indexes, and a normative strategy for promoting age-group responsiveness, consisting of attentiveness by representatives of the represented’s time-related objective interests.authorsversionepub_ahead_of_prin
How generative AI shapes consumer empowerment and goal desirability
No full textRicharde, A. P. M., Pinto, D. C., Dalmoro, M., & Prado, P. H. M. (2025). The power of GenAI nudges: How generative AI shapes consumer empowerment and goal desirability. International Journal Of Information Management, 85, Article 102955. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2025.102955 --- %ABS2% --- This work was supported by national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), under the project - UIDB/04152 - Information Management Research Center (MagIC)/NOVA IMS and Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Brazil (CAPES) under the scholarship PROEX - 88887.961057/2024-00.Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping consumer interactions by offering personalized guidance that ranges from broad suggestions to narrow recommendations. Yet, little is known about how these interactions influence decision-making and consumer empowerment. This research investigates how distinct types of GenAI nudges (narrow vs. broad) shape goal desirability and, in turn, consumer empowerment. Drawing upon Construal Level Theory (CLT), Goal Pursuit Theory, and Nudging Theory, we examine whether narrow (vs. broad) GenAI nudges enhance consumers' sense of empowerment by increasing goal desirability. Three mixed-method studies (one qualitative and two experimental) reveal that narrow GenAI nudges significantly heighten goal desirability, leading to greater consumer empowerment and key behavioral outcomes, including satisfaction, repurchase intentions, and advocacy (net promoter score). These findings advance theoretical perspectives on GenAI as a nudge for consumer decision-making and offer practical insights for designing AI systems that effectively guide consumer decisions within structured choice architectures.authorsversionepub_ahead_of_prin
Growth opportunities for a European impact investing firm using the business case of maze: product perspective
No full textThe emerging market for impact investments in Europe bears opportunities for financial
intermediaries to scale business activities. In recent years, the market experienced significant
growth, driven by market-building efforts and an increased deployment of capital. To equip
financial intermediaries to capitalize on the rising demand, this paper elucidates growth
opportunities to transition into a forerunning asset manager. Thereby, geographical market
expansion, portfolio diversification, and limited partnerships are investigated as building blocks
for this strategic shift. Insights on growth opportunities are applied to the business case of Maze,
a Portuguese impact financial intermediary, allowing a practical transfer of the paper’s findings