Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) play a crucial role in implementing practices for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This implementation should be done in different dimensions according to a holistic and whole-school approach. Different tools have been adapted and developed to assess this integrated approach. The aim of this research is to critically reflect the existing tools to assess and benchmark ESD implementation and to discuss their applicability in two case studies. Two public Universities in Southern Europe, with headquarters in the capitals of Portugal and Spain were selected to assess and compare the integration of ESD according to a whole-school approach-Universidade Aberta in Portugal and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain. After a critical analysis of the existing tools based on literature review and a list of criteria classified by experts, two tools were selected to be applied in the case studies. The online Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System Reporting Tool was used in Universidade Aberta and Green Metrics tool was used in Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. The tools were complemented with focus group with key-actors in both universities. The results obtained allowed to identify the need to define a common objective of the assessment tools and limitations they still have. The tools need improvements on their development namely to integrate the external impact of Higher Education Institutions on sustainability, to integrate participatory processes and to assess non-traditional aspects of sustainability. This research hopes to contribute to the continuous research about the usefulness of these assessment and benchmarking tools as drivers to HEIs improve their sustainability performance and their role as agents of changes.
The literature emphasizes depression and poor sleep quality as problems that affect many elderly individuals. However, these problems have been related in few studies and there is no meta-analysis performed so far on this relationship. The present research reviewed the studies performed on the subjective sleep quality in order to understand how it relates to depression in older adults. The review was conducted in January 2016 and comprised publications between 2005 and 2015. Based on the electronic databases Web of Science and EBSCO, we used the keywords 'sleep quality', 'depression', and 'older' to identify the empirical studies performed. After assessing the collected studies, we selected those that presented the elderly as participants, resulting in nine papers (N = 3069). A random-effects method was used to evaluate the relationship between depression and sleep. We found that an older person's lack of good sleep quality is significantly related with depression. The main limitation of this study was the difficulty in collecting a greater number of studies. Future research should consider the importance of additional variables (e.g. moderators) in order to understand and investigate viable interventions for prevention and health promotion in the elderly.
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