Objective: Quality of life is influenced by psychological and social factors. Our main objective is to better understand and characterize the impact of social and psychological characteristic in quality of life in aging population with and without diabetes and other chronic disease. Method: The data was collected at the national level. The sample is composed of 1,330 people 62,2% of which were female, with ages ranging between 55 and 75 years old. 48,2% of the sample mention having a chronic condition, 34,4% of which had diabetes. three regression models were created in order to understand the quality of life in aging population with and without chronic illness in a biopsychosocial perspective. Results: Results showed that quality of life in aging population is influenced by psychological factors (purpose of life and stress management skills) and by social factors (social support satisfaction and relationships with supervisor at work). Having a chronic disease, such as diabetes, can also influence quality of life. Conclusions: Our study allowed us to conclude that quality of life is influenced by physical health, psychological health and social health. The psychological factors presented a more systematic and strong influence in quality of life in population with and without chronic disease.

The Vulcano challenge is a new and innovative robotic challenge for legged robots in a physical and simulated scenario of a volcanic eruption. In this scenario, robots must climb a volcano’s escarpment and collect data from areas with high temperatures and toxic gases. This paper presents the main idea behind this challenge, with a detailed description of the simulated and physical scenario of the volcano ramp, the rules proposed for the competition, and the conception of a robot prototype, Vulcano, used in the competition. Finally, it discusses the performance of teams invited to participate in the challenge in the context of Azorean Robotics Open, the Azoresbot 2022. This first test for this challenge provided insights into what the participants found exciting and positive and what they found less positive.

This paper described the functionalities of a simple robot adopted in the classroom to promote computational thinking (CT) in the context of the project PeCOT—computational thinking with tangible objects. This robot, similar to some commercial educational robots, was developed to be used in primary education classroom contexts (second, third, and fourth grades) by children between 8 and 10 years old. PeCOT is a pedagogical intervention project and research project that will run over the next 2 years. The aim of this paper is to present the robot, how it works, and some activities that can be implemented in the educational context to promote CT skills, including learning in different subject areas, such as mathematics or natural science. Thus, we begin by presenting a general description of the robot. Next, we identify activities and formalize the programming steps for each of the activities. Finally, we discuss the potential that the robot and the proposed activities may have to promote the development of CT skills.