Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2025-02-10"
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- Perceived stress, well-being, and academic performance of university students during the first COVID-19 lockdown: a study of portuguese, spanish, and brazilian studentsPublication . Marques-Pinto, Alexandra; Curral, Luís; Costa, Maria R.; Quadros, Francisca; Neves de Jesus, Saúl; Martínez, Isabel Maria; Roazzi, António; Oliveira, SofiaBackground/Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affected university students globally, exacerbating their already existing academic stress. This study investigates how the first COVID-19 lockdown (March-July 2020) differently impacted Portuguese, Spanish, and Brazilian university students' perceived academic stress, personal well-being, academic engagement, and performance. Methods: An online survey collected responses from 1081 university students (78.17% female; Mage = 25.43 years, SD = 9.27). Qualitative data on academic stressors were analyzed using content analysis. Cross-country differences were assessed through chi-square analyses and ANOVAs. Hypotheses were tested with a mediation path analysis. Results: Emotional distress emerged as the most prevalent stressor (54%). The results evidence differences in how students from the three countries experienced their academic life during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Personal and academic well-being mediated stress' effects on performance. Conclusions: These findings underscore the need for context-tailored interventions and proactive measures to support students' academic engagement in challenging contexts, informing educators and policymakers alike.
- Accelerated dynamic light sheet microscopy: unifying time-varying patterned illumination and low-rank and sparsity constrained reconstructionPublication . Vitali, Marco Tobia; Candeo, Alessia; Farina, Andrea; Pozzi, Paolo; Brix, Alessia; Bassi, Andrea; Correia, TeresaLight Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy (LSFM) enables rapid and gentle 3D fluorescence imaging of dynamic processes over extended periods in translucent samples at the mesoscopic scale. However, its temporal resolution is constrained by the sequential acquisition of individual two-dimensional planes at varying depths, making it challenging to capture rapid dynamics such as the beating of a zebrafish heart. To address this limitation, we recently developed spatially modulated Selective Volume Illumination Microscopy, which utilizes a compressed sensing approach to reconstruct the entire imaging volume from measurements where multiple planes are illuminated simultaneously using spatially modulated light. Building on this advancement, we now introduce a novel spatio-temporal patterned illumination strategy and volume reconstruction method that incorporates low-rank and sparsity constraints, effectively leveraging the temporal and spatial redundancy present in sequential volumetric acquisitions. This method was applied to the volumetric imaging of embryonic zebrafish hearts, achieving an improvement in imaging speed of 4-fold compared to standard LSFM and a 2-fold improvement compared to traditional compressed sensing approaches, while preserving reconstruction accuracy and enabling the visualization of fast dynamic events with a resolution of a few tens of milliseconds. Our approach represents a step forward in enhancing the temporal resolution of LSFM for studying fast biological dynamics.