Publications by authors named "Jose Alves Diniz"

AI-based software applications for personalized nutrition have recently gained increasing attention to help users follow a healthy lifestyle. In this paper, we present a knowledge-based recommendation framework that exploits an explicit dataset of expert-validated meals to offer highly accurate diet plans spanning across ten user groups of both healthy subjects and participants with health conditions. The proposed advisor is built on a novel architecture that includes (a) a qualitative layer for verifying ingredient appropriateness, and (b) a quantitative layer for synthesizing meal plans.

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The ubiquitous nature of smartphone ownership, its broad application and usage, along with its interactive delivery of timely feedback are appealing for health-related behavior change interventions mobile apps. However, users' perspectives about such apps are vital in better bridging the gap between their design intention and effective practical usage. In this vein, a modified technology acceptance model (mTAM) is proposed here, to explain the relationship between users' perspectives when using an AI-based smartphone app for personalized nutrition and healthy living, namely, PROTEIN, and the mTAM constructs toward behavior change in their nutrition and physical activity habits.

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Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and games set a new domain in understanding people's motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games (HCI-SGs). When the latter relate with people's health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process.

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There is a recent decline in HIV in a significant number of countries due to the adoption of preventive sexual behaviors, which demonstrates that HIV reduction is possible. The goal of this research was to deepen knowledge of preventive sexual behavior in adolescents, including knowledge and attitudes about HIV/AIDS, and assessing whether they changed from 2002 to 2010. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from the Portuguese sample of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children, a collaborative WHO study.

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The study examines the impact of body image in adolescents' well-being. Well-being was assessed with the scale Kidscreen10, with the Cantril ladder for satisfaction with life and with an ad hoc happiness scale. The study presents data on adolescent health from the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC)/World Health Organization study in Portugal (2006), with a sample of 4,877 adolescents, average age of 14 years old and gender distribution at 49,6% males.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of peer groups and parents on adolescents' health. It was examined how communication relationships with peer groups and parents affect youngsters life satisfaction, sadness, irritability, being nervous, fear and troubles in falling asleep. The sample was comprised of individuals that participated in the study in continental Portugal, integrating the European study HBSC - Health Behavior in School - aged Children.

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The current work aims to study both the peer group and family influence on adolescent behaviour. In order to achieve the aforementioned objective, an explanatory model based on the Structural Equations Modelling (SEM) was proposed. The sample used was the group of adolescents that participated in the Portuguese survey of the European study Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC).

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The incidence of infection with HIV/AIDS among the heterosexual population has been increasing in young adults. The goal of this research was to deepen knowledge of preventive sexual behavior in Portuguese adolescents, including knowledge and attitudes about HIV/AIDS, and assessing whether they changed from 2002 to 2006. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from the Portuguese sample of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC), a collaborative WHO study.

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