Infectious diseases, as COVID-19 is proving, pose a global health threat in an interconnected world. In the last 20 years, resistant infectious diseases such as SARS, MERS, H1N1, Ebola, Zika and now COVID-19 have been impacting global health defences, and aggressively flourishing within the rise of global travel, urbanization, climate change and ecological degradation. In parallel, this extraordinary episode in global human health highlights the potential for artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled disease surveillance to collect and analyse vast amounts of unstructured and real-time data to inform epidemiological and public health emergency responses. The uses of AI in these dynamic environments are increasingly complex, challenging the potential for human autonomous decisions. In this context, our study of qualitative perspectives will consider a responsible AI framework to explore its potential application to disease surveillance in a global health context. Thus far, there is a gap in the literature in considering these multiple and interconnected levels of disease surveillance and emergency health management through the lens of a responsible AI framework.

Psoriasis is a chronic recurrent inflammatory autoimmune pathology, with a major genetic component and several interferences of immunological cells and their cytokines. The complex orchestration of psoriasis pathogenesis is related to the synergic effect of immune cells, polygenic alterations, the presence of autoantigens and several external factors. The major act of IL-23/IL-17 axis, strongly influencing the inflammatory pattern established during the disease activity, is visible as a continuous perpetuation of the pro-inflammatory response and keratinocyte activation and proliferation leading to the development of psoriatic lesions. Genome wide association studies (GWAS) along offered a better view of psoriasis pathogenic pathways, with approximately one third of psoriasis genetic impact on psoriasis development is associated to MHC region, with genetic loci located on chromosome 6. The most eloquent genetic factor of psoriasis, PSORS1, was identified in the MHC I site. Between the several factors involved in its complex etiology, dysbiosis, due to genetic or external stimulus, exhibiting less variety and the involvement of pathogenic bacteria, cand induce a burst of proinflammatory consequences, both cutaneous and gut microbiome being involved in psoriasis pathogenic process. A complex understanding of the major pathways that interplay in order to initiate and perpetuate psoriatic diseases and its associated comorbidities can help the current clinical practice by properly evaluating completely and individualized each patient and establish the proper therapeutic management.

Melatonin is a ubiquitous molecule found in living organisms, ranging from bacteria to plants and mammals. It possesses various properties, partly due to its robust antioxidant nature and partly owed to its specific interaction with melatonin receptors present in almost all tissues. Melatonin regulates different physiological functions and contributes to the homeostasis of the entire organism. In the human eye, a small amount of melatonin is also present, produced by cells in the anterior segment and the posterior pole, including the retina. In the eye, melatonin may provide antioxidant protection along with regulating physiological functions of ocular tissues, including intraocular pressure (IOP). Therefore, it is conceivable that the exogenous administration of sufficiently high amounts of melatonin to the eye could be beneficial in several instances: for the treatment of eye pathologies like glaucoma, due to the IOP-lowering and neuroprotection effects of melatonin; for the prevention of other dysfunctions, such as dry eye and refractive defects (cataract and myopia) mainly due to its antioxidant properties; for diabetic retinopathy due to its metabolic influence and neuroprotective effects; for macular degeneration due to the antioxidant and neuroprotective properties; and for uveitis, mostly owing to anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties. This paper reviews the scientific evidence supporting the use of melatonin in different ocular districts and provides data suggesting that the topical administration of melatonin as eye drops is a real possibility. This way, its distribution and concentration in different ocular tissues may support its pleiotropic therapeutic effects.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a prevalent congenital disorder diagnosed with high frequency, affecting approximately 0.8% to 1.2% of all live births. Research has demonstrated that the use of pulse oximetry and clinical examination as a screening tool for CHD diagnosis has proven extremely valuable. We conducted a retrospective longitudinal study over a 3-year period that involved screening 1188 newborns admitted to the NICU during the first 72 hours of life within this timeframe. 201 newborns were diagnosed with CHD. Almost all (n=198) had a positive screening test during the 72-hour period, while 3 had a negative screening test, but were later diagnosed using echocardiography. The prevalence rate was 16.67%. A confusion matrix was constructed with 198 true positives (TP), 3 false negatives (FN), no false positives (FP), and 987 true negatives (TN). The sensitivity of the screening test was 98.51%, while the specificity 100%, with no false positives. In our study, a total of 9 deaths occurred. Using the Kaplan-Meier method, the survival probability appeared to be slightly above 0.9 (95.5%), indicating that almost all patients survived past 72 hours after being diagnosed with CHD. Pulse oximetry is an effective, low cost and easy-to-use method and a useful tool to assess and lead to the diagnosis of CHD.

Gastric cancer is an aggressive disease with increasing global incidence in recent years. Human epidermal growth receptor 2 (HER2) is overexpressed in approximately 10-20% of gastric cancers. The implementation of targeted therapy against HER2 as part of the standard of care treatment in metastatic disease has improved the prognosis of this subset of patients. However, gastric cancer still has high mortality rates and urgently requires new treatment strategies. The combination of immunotherapy with HER2-targeted therapies has shown synergistic effects in preclinical models, being the rationale behind exploring this combination in clinical trials in locally advanced and metastatic settings. Additionally, the irruption of antibody-drug conjugates and other novel HER2-targeted agents has led to the development of numerous clinical trials showing promising results. This review presents the molecular mechanisms supporting the use of HER2-targeted drugs in combination with immunotherapy and provides an overview of the therapeutic scenario of HER2-positive disease. We focus on the role of immunotherapy but also summarize emerging therapies and combinations under clinical research that may change the standard treatment in HER-2 positive disease in the future.

Shrubland and forestland covers are highly prone to fire. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been widely used for biomass quantitative assessment. This study aims were the following: (1) to compute the NDVI annual curve for two types of land cover eucalypts and shrubland areas; (2) to collect field data in these two types of land cover to estimate aboveground biomass (AGB); and (3) to produce AGB maps for eucalypts and shrubland areas by modelling AGB with NDVI and validate them with other data sources. A study area in the central inland Portugal was considered. The Sentinel-2 MSI imagery for the year of 2022 and 2023 were used to compute the NDVI. The NDVI annual curve for 2022 showed a minimum observed between July and August, in accordance with the climatological data, and allowed differentiating eucalypts from shrubland areas. Spectral signatures also confirmed this differentiation. The fitted linear models for AGB prediction using the NDVI imagery showed good fitting performances (R2 of 0.76 and 0.69). The AGB maps provide a relevant decision support tool for forest management and for fire hazard and fire severity mitigation. Further research is needed using more robust data sets for models’ independent validation.

Early discharge after childbirth has led to a rise in neonatal readmission, becoming a major concern in recent decades. Our research aimed to identify the risk factors and incidence of neonatal readmission, as well as explore preventive measures. Our study at the Clinical Hospital of Pediatrics in Ploiești, Romania included 108 neonates admitted during the neonatal period. This accounted for 2.06% of all admissions (5226). The most prevalent cases were malnutrition (25%), fever (20.3%) and bronchiolitis (17.5%). Diarrhea and infectious gastroenteritis were also observed (14.8%), along with acute rhinoconjunctivitis (9.2%) and late onset sepsis (3.7%). No deaths were recorded. The most significant characteristics identified were number of children (p<0.001) and age at maternity discharge (p<0.001). By following the prevention rules, malnutrition, feeding errors, and infections can be avoided. This includes practicing proper hand hygiene for both mothers and medical staff, as well as educating and demonstrating to mothers the benefits of breastfeeding. In addition, all newborns discharged from the maternity ward should benefit from follow-up at 7-10 days of life. Our results confirm the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary team and endorse promoting breastfeeding. Implementing quality control measures and regularly evaluating the surveillance program will help improve its effectiveness.

Salmorejo is a homogenate based on tomato, olive oil and breadcrumbs commercialized as a “fresh-like” cold puree in Spain and other European countries. Salmorejo is thermolabile and requires pasteurising upon High Temperature, Short Time (HTST) conditions to inhibit microbes and enzymes. Due to its penetration, dielectric heating by radiofrequency (RF) might improve pasteurisation results of conventional heating (CH) in viscous products. The objective was to validate the pasteurisation temperature (70-100 °C, at 5 ºC intervals) for salmorejo processed by radiofrequency (operating at 27.12 MHz for 9.08 s) or conventional continuous heating. Salmorejo was prone to thermal damage upon HTST conditions. Main heat-induced changes include: orangeness, flavour homogenisation, loss of freshness, thickening, loss of vitamin C and lipid oxidation. A ‘fresh-like’ good quality salmorejo can be obtained using either conventional or radiofrequency pasteurisers. Both CH and RF equivalent treatments allowed a strong reduction of total and sporulated mesophilic microorganisms, and an adequate inhibition of the pectinmethylesterase, peroxidase and, to a lesser extent, polyphenoloxidase, but did not inhibit the polygalacturonase enzyme. Pasteurisation at 80 °C for 9.8 s (RF) or 10.9 s (CH) provided a good equilibrium in levels of microbiological and enzymatic inhibition and thermal damage to the product. Increasing this temperature does not improve enzyme inactivation levels and salmorejo may become overheated.

Landiolol is an ultra-short-acting, selective ß1- adrenergic receptor blocker that was originally approved by Japan for the treatment of intraoperative tachyarrhythmias. It has gained attention for its use in the management of tachyarrhythmias and perioperative tachycardia, especially atrial fibrillation for both cardiac and non-cardiac surgeries. It can be the ideal agent for heart rate control due to its high β1‐selectivity, the potent negative chronotropic effect, a limited negative inotropic potential, and an ultrashort elimination half‐life (around 4 min); moreover, it may have a potential therapeutic effect for sepsis and pediatric patients. Landiolol seems to be superior to other short‐acting and selective beta‐blockers such as esmolol. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of landiolol, a new ultra-short-acting ß1 selective antagonist, including its pharmacology, clinical applications, efficacy, safety profile, and future directions in research and clinical data.

The aim of this research involves investigating the elimination of nitrogen ions from groundwater through the application of dynamic permeable reactive barriers (PRB) utilizing A400-nZVI. The aim also implyies determining barrier parameters, as well as assessing the overall retention capacity of nitrogen ions through percolation with a potassium nitrate solution. The research involves obtaining zero valent iron nanoparticles (nZVI), which were synthesized and doped onto an anionic resin support material (A400) through the reduction reaction of ferrous ions with sodium borohydride (NaBH4). This was achieved by preparing a ferrous sulfate solution, contacting it with the ion exchange resin at various solid-liquid mass ratios, and gradually adding sodium borohydride under continuous stirring in an oxygen-free environment to create the A400-nZVI barrier. The outcomes of this study, focusing on the development of permeable reactive barriers composed of nanovalent iron and ion exchangers, demonstrate significant potential in purification processes when appropriately dimensioned. The research specifically evaluated the efficacy of NO3- removal using the A400-nZVI permeable reactive barrier, conducting laboratory tests that simulated a naturally stratified aquifer with high nitrate contamination.

Due to the progression of antimicrobial resistance, Photodynamic (aPDT) and Sonodynamic (SDT) Therapies arose as promising approaches for microbial control. Recently, the combination of both therapies, called Sonophotodynamic Therapy (SPDT), have shown greater effects than the single treatments. This study evaluated the effects of aPDT, SDT and SPDT mediated by curcumin on the metabolism, adhesion capacity, biofilm formation ability and structural alteration in the Staphylococcus aureus biofilm. Moreover, possible antimicrobial mechanisms involved, such as the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the degradation spectrum of curcumin by light, ultrasound and light+ultrasound, were measured. SPDT was more effective to inactivate the biofilm than aPDT and SDT. All treatments reduced the adhesion ability of the bacteria and it is probably related to the metabolism cell reduction. Regarding to the biofilm formation ability, all treatments reduced the total biomass. One possible mechanism involved in the inactivation is the ROS production observed. Curcumin had a significantly decay in its absorbance with the application of light, and a slighter one caused by the ultrasound. Finally, all treatments impacted the biofilm components and structure, reducing the cells and matrix. In conclusion, SPDT was more effective in the inactivation, and all treatments had the same effect in the virulence factors evaluated.

The notion of Golden structure was introduced 15 years ago by the present authors and know a constant interest by several geometers. Now, we propose a new generalization apart of that called metallic structure and considered also by the authors. By adding a compatible Riemannian metric we focus on the study of submanifolds in this setting.

Abstract: Arterial hypertension is the main preventable risk factor for premature death and stroke worldwide and anxiety is a real public health problem. Stress is the common denominator for both cases. In the last 3 years, the aggressive exposure of the population to negative emotions (fear of disease in a pandemic, fear of war, financial instability) was the trigger factor. The psycho-neuro-endocrine mechanisms include the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and induce sympathetic-parasympathetic imbalance, hypercortisolemia, endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress, inflammation, cytokine growth, and atherosclerosis. The individual’s vulnerability to stress depends on many factors, but the key role in the perception of stress belongs to immunogenic personality traits. Among them, self-efficacy is a protective factor against stress. Our research aimed to evaluate the connections between psycho-emotional factors and hypertension, using psychometric tests, to identify vulnerability to stress, perceived stress level, anxiety, self-efficacy, and psychobehavioral type, for 215 patients, 104 hypertensive and 111 non-hypertensive patients. The results of the study confirmed that there is a statistically significant difference, which requires psychological screening measures to identify patients vulnerable to stress, as well as medical education courses for doctors in the field of psychology.

The tissue micro environment or milieu consists of a highly dynamic population of cellular and non-cellular components which constitute a complex regulatory network aimed at maintaining the organ homeostasis. In the modern medicine the discovery of miRNAs is undoubtedly a promising field of research and they are essential in orchestrating immune system logic and their release in the gut micro milieu can directly affect bacterial gene expression. Here, we briefly review the role of microRNAs, focuses on their role on immune system components in physiological and pathophysiological gut micro milieu.

Background: Peritoneal sclerosis (PS) and its most severe form, encapsulating PS (EPS), are rare entities that can occur in various procedures (liver transplantation, intraperitoneal chemotherapy), secondary to medications ( beta-blockers); however, PS or EPS typically occur in patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis as a form of renal function substitution. Medical or surgical treatments can be applied, but morbidity and mortality have high rates . This condition typically presents clinically as an intestinal obstruction caused by the inclusion of the intestinal loops in the peritoneal fibrous membrane. Methods: Herein we present data from a single tertiary surgery center that has dedicated teams for patients receiving dialysis. In 12 years we analyzed a group of 63 patients admitted for catheter replacement/removal or for acute surgical pathology. In 5 cases (7,9%) we diagnosed EPS . Two patients with EPS presented with atypical abdominal pathologies requiring emergency surgery: one case of hemoperitoneum caused by a ruptured ovarian cyst and one case of uterine fibroids and metrorrhagia. Results: The definitive diagnoses were established intraoperatively and by analyzing the morpho-pathological changes of the peritoneum. The possible intraoperative challenges included laborious dissection, difficulties in restoring the correct anatomical landmarks, increased duration of the surgical intervention and a high rate of incidents and accidents Conclusions: The aim of the present study was to emphasize the possibility of other surgical pathologies overlapping with EPS, increasing the complexity of the surgical intervention. Also, we sought to determine whether there is a correlation between the morpho-pathological results of these patients who underwent emergency surgery and the common EPS morpho-pathological changes.

Most research on colostrum quality and colostrum management focuses on maternal IgG transfer to the newborn calf. However, in addition to being a source of antibodies, colostrum has other components that influence passive immune transfer, nutrition, gut maturation, and thermoregulation. In this review, the constituents in the bovine colostrum, as well as their variation, are explored and it is discussed the biological role of colostrum on the newborn calf. Protein is the nutrient in higher concentration and fat is the nutrient with the most variation. There is a pronounced amplitude in the total solids content of colostrum, but the average concentration does not vary much between studies (24.7%). Bovine colostrum major components can vary with several factors, such as the region, season, breed, dry period length, and nutritional aspects of the dam. Bioactive components, cells, and microbiome variability are less understood, besides IgG. Regardless, they play crucial distinct roles in the physiological development of the newborn. However, a multi-interactive effect between these components, cells, and microorganisms is more likely to occur. Recently researched components in colostrum like miRNA, nucleo(t)sides, the milk fat globule membrane, oligosaccharides, minor proteins, and the microbiome are examples of promising interest areas of study.

In the context of the Education-2030 Framework for Action, an important goal for initial STEM teacher education is to provide professional development on equality and gender awareness. This study explored whether STEM prospective secondary teachers are prepared to implement a sustainable gender-sensitive practice upon graduation. To this end, we cross-culturally validated the TEGEP (Teacher Self-Efficacy for Gender Equality practice) scale and compared STEM student teachers’ perceptions of self-efficacy by country and sex. Participants were 205 STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) secondary school student teachers (136 Greek and 69 Spanish) drawn from seven public universities (six Greek, one Spanish). Statistical analysis confirmed the structure and factor invariance of the TEGEP across country and between sexes showing evidence that gender equality self-efficacy level is only moderate and that perceived competence in gender knowledge was significantly higher in Greek than in Spanish STEM student teachers, while the latter felt more competent than the Greek in developing values and attitudes in regards to gender. The study provides a cross-validated instrument to measure gender equality self-efficacy in STEM teacher education and evaluate sustainable changes after planned interventions.

Glycine in its neutral form can exist in the gas phase while its zwitterion form is more stable in water solution.But how many waters are actually necessary to stabilize the zwitterionic structure in the gas phase? Are the intramolecular isotropic spin spin coupling constants sensitive enough to accuse the change in the environment? or the conformer observed? These and related questions have been investigated by a computational study at the level of density functional theory employing the B3LYP functional and the 6-31++G**-J basis set. We found that at least two water molecules explicitly accounted in the super-molecule structure are necessary to stabilize both conformers of glycine within a water polarizable continuum model. At least half of the SSCC’s of both conformers are very stable to changes in the environment and at least four of them differ significantly between Neutral and Zwitterion conformation.

Omentin is an adipokine mainly produced by visceral fat tissue, and it has two isoforms: omentin-1 and omentin-2. Omentin-1 is predominantly secreted by visceral adipose tissue, deriving specially from the stromal vascular fraction cells of white adipose tissue (WAT). Levels of omentin-1 are also expressed in other WAT depots, like epicardial adipose tissue. Omentin-1 exerts several beneficial effects in glucose homeostasis in obesity and diabetes. In addition, research has suggested that omentin may have atheroprotective (protective against the development of atherosclerosis) and anti-inflammatory effects, potentially contributing to cardiovascular health. This review highlights the potential therapeutic targets of omentin-1 in metabolic-related disorders.

We review the topological gauge theory description of Josephson junction arrays (JJA), fabricated systems which exhibit the superconductor to insulator transition (SIT). This description revealed the topological nature of the phases appearing at the SIT and lead to the discovery of a new state of matter, the superinsulator, characterized by an infinite resistance, even at finite temperature, due to linear confinement of electric charges. This discovery is particularly relevant for the physics of superconducting films with emergent granularity, which are modeled by JJA, and share the same phase diagram.

Relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) represents a continuous challenge for the clinician. Despite recent advances in treatment, the risk of relapse remains significant. The clinical, biological, cytogenetic, and molecular characteristics may be different at the time of relapse. Current comprehensive genome sequencing studies suggest that most relapsed patients, especially those with late relapses, acquire new genetic abnormalities, usually within a minor clone that emerges after ALL diagnosis. We report the case of a 23-year-old young woman diagnosed with Philadelphia chromosome negative B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The patient underwent allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) after complete remission. Although having favorable prognostic factors at diagnosis, the disease relapsed early after allo-HSCT. The cytogenetic and molecular exam at relapse was positive for the Philadelphia chromosome, respectively for the bcr-abl transcript. What exactly led to the relapse of this disease in a more aggressive cytogenetic and molecular form, although there were no predictive elements in the diagnosis of this relapse?

The present paper brings to the fore issues relating to the meaning and construction of ethics in online team communication by exploring the discursive strategies that contribute to the construction of a team’s sense of duty and individual virtuousness. The study relies on a complex toolkit which includes ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse and conversation analysis. Data consist in a one-day interaction unit as part of a larger set of real communication exchanges (ca. 34,000) over a time period of six months, observation notes, as well as unstructured interviews. Our empirical analysis has revealed that individual virtuousness and sense of duty are actually interrelated. A virtuous team climate leads team members to share positive perceptions about the team, which in turn increases team commitment. Furthermore, we argue that the blurring of private and professional life not only allows for the enactment of ethic-driven discourse strategies that result in enhanced cooperation and improved team performance but also for high levels of interconnectivity and improved social interaction. The results of the analysis supplement organisational literature based on ethics-centred observations on the effectiveness of virtual work, and show how a discourse-driven approach can provide tools for further theorisations about the practices and the ecology of digital communication.

Bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) surface has a negative charge that allows the adsorption of calcium ions to initiate the nucleation of different calcium phosphate phases. The aim of this study was to investigate different methods of mineralization on three-dimensional microporous bacterial nanocellulose, to mimetize the composition, structure, and biomechanical properties of natural bone. To generate 3D microporous biomaterial, the porogen particles were incorporated during the BNC fermentation with the strain Komagataeibacter medellinensis. Calcium phosphates (CPs) were deposited on BNC scaffolds by five alternating immersing cycles with calcium and phosphate solutions. Scanning electron microscopy micrograph showed that the scaffolds have different pore sizes, between 70 and 350 µm, but the porous interconnectivity was affected by the biomineralization method and time. The crystals on the BNC surface are shown to be rod-shaped with a calcium phosphate ratio similar to that of immature bone, increasing from 1.13 to 1.6 with cycle numbers. The main mineral phases obtained by X-ray diffraction were Octacalcium Dihydrogen Hexakis (phosphate (V)) Pentahydrate (OCP). In vitro cell studies showed good cellular adhesion and higher cell viability to 95% in all the scaffolds. Osteogenic differentiation of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells on the scaffolds was evaluated by bone expression markers like alkaline phosphatase, osteocalcin, and osteopontin. In conclusion, it is possible to prepare 3D BNC scaffolds with controlled microporosity, which could allow osteoblast adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation.

The growing demand for nutritious foods has spurred investigations into alternative sources of nutrition beyond traditional options. For this reason, the present study approaches the amaranth, which is a plant with high potential, highlighting the morphological growth, grain biomass pro-duction, and quantitative traits of seven varieties of amaranth cultivated in the pedoclimatic con-ditions of Somes meadow in Transylvania. A bifactorial trial was implemented with factors ama-ranth species and amaranth varieties. Two amaranth species and seven varieties were studied. Differences are reported between morpho-productive and quantitative traits of the seven amaranth varieties studied in this research. The interrelationships between amaranth morphological traits quantified by using Pearson simple correlations show that morphological traits moderately con-tribute to grain fresh biomass yield, while morphological traits and fresh biomass strongly con-tributed to grains dry biomass yield. Our study shows that morpho-productive, and nutritional characteristics of the seven amaranth varieties comprised by our study recommend the plans to be used in various nutritional aims, being a valuable replacer of traditional raw materials in specific food and feed industry sectors.

Objective: To evaluate the direct costs of treating patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) in outpatient care, from a hospital and Unified Health System (SUS) perspective. Methods: Observational study with data collection by microfunding, carried out with patients diagnosed with neuromyelitis optics, treated at a university hospital, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Mann-Whitney tests were performed to measure cost differences between patient groups by disease severity and analysis perspective. Results: Nine individuals with a median age of 48 years (IQR 30 - 59 years) were included. The median total costs for patients with greater severity from the perspective of the SUS and the hospital were R$ 21,638.22 (IIQ: R$ 15,614.63; R$ 25,985.32) and R$ 32,094.11 (IIQ: R$ 25,610 .60; R$ 38,617.25) respectively. For patients with moderate severity the median was R$ 7,339.85 (IIQ: R$ 6,235.45; R$ 11,912.05) from the SUS perspective and R$ 11,505.80 (IIQ: R$ 7,339.85; R$ 22,424.76) from the perspective of the hospital, where the use of medications had a major impact. Conclusion: The main cost drivers were medicines, especially those used off-label, and procedures.

In this study, sodium alginate (SA) was oxidized with potassium periodate to produce an alginate-based tanning agent. Using OSA as a biodegradable tanning agent and a nano-hydroxyapatite (nano-HAp) low concentration suspension to give flame retardancy to leather, eco-design concepts were applied to establish a chrome-, aldehyde-, and phenol-free tanning process. Micro-DSC, 1H NMR, attenuated total reflection mode Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) were used to investigate the complex matrix collagen-OSA-nano-HAp. Micro-differential scanning calorimetry (micro-DSC) was used to assess OSA's ability to interact with collagen and stabilize the collagen-OSA matrix, while 1H unilateral nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was used to investigate the aqueous environment and limitations around collagen molecules caused by their association with OSA and nano-HAp. Industrial standard tests were used to assess mechanical properties and fire resistance of the new leather prototype. The findings reported here indicate that both OSA and nano-HAp are suitable alternatives for cleaner tanning technologies and more sustainable leather.

We report the relative humidity (R.H.) sensing response of a resistive sensor, employing sensing layers based on a ternary nanohybrid comprising holey carbon nanohorns (CNHox), potassium chloride (KCl), and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) at mass ratios 7/1/2, 6.5/1.5/2, and 6/2/2 (w/w/w/w). The sensing structure comprises a silicon substrate, a SiO2 layer, and interdigitated transducer (IDT) electrodes. The sensing film is deposited on the sensing structure via the drop-casting method. The sensing layers' morphology and composition are investigated through Scanning Electron Microscopy (S.E.M.) and RAMAN spectroscopy. The ternary hybrid-based thin film resistance increases when the sensors are exposed to R.H., ranging from 0% to 100%. The manufactured devices show a room temperature response comparable to a commercial capacitive R.H. sensor and are characterized by excellent linearity, rapid response time, and good sensitivity. The presented sensors exhibit superior performance in terms of sensitivity compared to other similarly manufactured and tested sensors that employ a CNHox-based sensing layer. We explain the sensing role of each constituent of the ternary hybrid nanocomposites based on their chemical and physical properties, electronic properties, and affinity for water molecules. Different alternative sensing mechanisms are considered and discussed, such as the decreasing number of holes in the holey CNHox at the interaction with water molecules, proton conduction, and PVP swelling.

The craft beers are outlined as a distinctively flavored, brewed and distributed regionally, using top-fermenting (ale) yeast, bottom-fermenting (lager) yeast or spontaneously fermentation. Craft beers are largely consumed and produced in Brazil and presents great level of polyphenols, which would affect the consumer’s preference. In this way, we analyzed the relation between polyphenols, bitterness and composition of main different styles of craft beers and the consumer´s preference. Six different styles were analyzed according its polyphenol content, bitterness, chemical composition, sensory profile and preference. For preference, a panel with 62 non-trained assessors was used. For sensory profile, the quantitative descriptive analysis was performed, using expert assessors (n = 8). The preferred style was Classic American Pilsner and the style less preferred was Standard American Lager. The craft beer more preferred showed a decreased bitterness (9.52), polyphenol content (0.61 mg EAG/mL), total solids (6.75 ºBrix) and turbidity (7.27 NTU). This beer exhibited reduced sensory notes of malty, fruity, smoked, hoppy and phenolic, but a higher perception of floral, sweet and yeast notes. The bitter attribute has a reduced perception. This study advances understanding the sensory profile and complexity of craft beers styles from Southern Brazilian.

Climate change is expected to influence cooling and heating energy demand of residential buildings and affect overall thermal comfort. Towards this end, the heating degree-day (HDD), the cooling degree-day (CDD) and the HDD+CDD were computed from an ensemble of 7 high-resolution bias-corrected simulations attained from EURO-CORDEX under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. These three indicators were analyzed for 1971-2000 (from E-OBS) and 2011-2040 and 2041-2070, under both RCPs. Results show that the overall spatial distribution of HDD trends for the 3 time-periods points out an increase of energy demand to heat internal environments in Portugal's northern-eastern regions, most significant under RCP8.5. It is projected an increase of CDD values for both scenarios; however, statistically significant linear trends were only found for 2041-2070 under RCP4.5. The need for cooling is almost negligible for the remaining periods, though linear trend values are still considerably higher for 2041-2070 under RCP8.5. By the end of 2070, higher amplitudes for all indicators are depicted for southern Algarve and Alentejo regions, mainly under RCP8.5. For 2041-2070 the Centre and Alentejo (North and Centre) regions present major positive differences for HDD(CDD) under RCP4.5(RCP8.5), within the 5 NUTS II regions predicting higher heating(cooling) requirements for some locations.

Objective: The aim of our study was to perform a retrospective analysis of the volume of cervical screening tests, the number of patients treated with an excision method, and the incidence of invasive and non-invasive cervical during a pandemic and pre-pandemic period of 24 months. Results: There was a statistically significant age difference between the two study periods, both by the average age of patients and by age group. The mean difference was 32 years before the pan-demic and 35 years during the pandemic (p-value >0.05). The majority of patients presenting for investigations before and during the pandemic were in the 30-39-year-old age group (31.95%, respectively; 34.2% (p-value = 0.003). The biggest patient loss ratio identified by age group was in the 50–59 years: 14,53% in the pre-pandemic period and 9,1% in the pandemic period. In the pan-demic period, patients from rural areas presented in the clinical trial with a lower rate of 39.52% (83 patients) vs. 60.47% (127 patients) in urban areas. A higher percentage of patients experiencing cervicorrhagia as a clinical manifestation in the pandemic period vs. the prepandemic period, with an increase in more severe lesions in the pandemic period, has a statistical significance of 8% more newly diagnosed compared to the pre-pandemic period. Conclusion: The addressability of the patients during the COVID period was not affected in a drastic way in our study. We encountered a decrease in appointments in the age group 50–59 years and a decrease in patients with rural residence. In our study, we found an increase in cervicorrhagia as a reason for consultation in the pandemic period with a higher lesion degree, both on a pap smear and on a cervical biopsy.

Metabolomic analysis of biological fluids and tissues has become an increasingly routine tool in the biological toolbox. However, challenges remain to be overcome, including developing strategies to maximise coverage of the metabolome without requiring large sample volumes. Here we describe a multimodal strategy that combines data using both LC-MS and GC-MS from a unique vial with a sample of plasma (20µl) or a sample of brain tissue (3mg). Using a split phase extraction the non-aqueous phase was analyzed by reversed phase (RP) LC-MS, whilst the aqueous phase was analyzed using hydrophilic liquid interaction chromatography (HILIC)LC-MS, with both phases also analysed using GC-MS after derivatization of the extract. Analytical performance was assessed in 7 rat cerebellum samples and a pilot study of 40 plasma samples (20 vs. 20: AD vs. healthy controls). The method, which uses four hours of instrument time, measured 20,707 metabolite features in brain samples and 17,266 in plasma samples, from those 44.1% features displayed CV’s below 15% and 75.2% below 30%. The method has potential to resolve subtle biological differences and to correlate metabolite composition directly to clinical outcomes including MMSE, age and ADCS-ADL. This method can acquire in the order of 20K metabolic features when low volumes are available.

Many neurodegenerative diseases are directly related to the formation of toxic protein aggregates, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, which are associated with the aggregation of alpha-synuclein (α-syn) and beta-amyloid (Aβ ), respectively. In this context, protein fibrils are the hallmark of these neurodegenerative diseases. In this sense, planning or designing compounds that are capable of preventing or reducing the formation of protein aggregation in the brain can be of fundamental importance for the curative treatment of these diseases. This work presents an in silico and experimental study to investigate the inhibitory potential of the ligands Octovespin (bioinspired by the wasp venom Polybia Occidentalis) and Fraternine-10 (bioinspired by the wasp venom Parachartergus fraternus wasp) against the aggregation of fibrils of the peptides Aβ(17-42) and α-syn, respectively. Using molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations with 100 ns, the disaggregation capacity of these ligands was studied. The results obtained indicate that Octovespin and Fraternine-10 interact with the Aβ and α-syn protein fibrils throughout the simulation time. The RMSD values and the interactions with amino acids responsible for fibril aggregation demonstrate that both Octovespin and Fraternine-10 have a significant disaggregation potential, which corroborates the observations in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, experimental results of Fraternine-10 demonstrate an anti-aggregation effect, indicating that it can promote the disaggregation of fibrils and prevent them from aggregating again to form oligomers. These discoveries qualify these molecules as potential candidates to become medicines against Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

(1) Background: Globally, about 600 million people are afflicted with diabetes, and one of its most prevalent complications is neuropathy, a debilitating condition. At present, the exploration of novel therapies for alleviating diabetic neuropathy-associated pain is genuinely captivating, considering that current therapeutic options are characterized by poor efficacy and significant risk of side effects. In the current research, we evaluated the antihyperalgesic effect of sildenafil (phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor) – metformin (antihyperglycemic agent) combination and its impact on biochemical markers in alloxan-induced diabetic neuropathy in rats; (2) Methods: The study comprised a cohort of 70 diabetic rats and 10 non-diabetic rats which were submitted to hot, cold, and tactile stimulus tests. Morover, we investigated the influence of this combination on TNF-α, IL-6 nitrites and thiols levels in brain and liver tissues; (3) Results: The results demonstrated that all sildenafil-metformin combinations decreased the pain sensitivity in von Frey test, Hot-plate test and Cold-plate test. Furthermore, alterations in nitrites and thiols concentrations and pro-inflammatory cytokines (specifically TNF-α and IL-6) were noted following a 15-day regimen of various sildenafil-metformin combinations. (4) Conclusions: The combination of sildenafil and metformin has a synergistic effect in alleviating pain in alloxan-induced diabetic neuropathy rats. Additionally, the combination effectively decreased inflammation, inhibited the rise in NOS activity, and provided protection against glutathione depletion.

There are complex ethical dilemmas inherent in medicine teaching, particularly in clinical prac-tice involving actual patients. Questions must be raised on fulfilling medical students' training needs while still respecting patients' fundamental rights to autonomy and privacy. We aimed to assess patients' perspectives regarding medical students' involvement in their medical care. An observational, cross-sectional study was developed, and an interview-like questionnaire was ap-plied randomly to patients waiting for a consult/admitted to three distinct departments: General Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynaecology, and Infectious Diseases. Of the 77% interviewed patients who reported previous experiences with medical students, only 59% stated that they were asked for consent for their participation and 28% that students had adequately introduced themselves. Pa-tients from Gynaecology/Obstetrics were the ones who reported lower rates of these practices and were also the ones who were most bothered by students' presence, stating that they would refuse students' participation in the future. Male patients received more explanations than female pa-tients regarding the same matters. 35% of patients stated they would feel more comfortable without the medical students' presence. The study shows a need to pay closer attention to ful-filling patients' fundamental rights.

Although ovarian cystic teratoma is the most common ovarian tumor, complications are quite rare. However, it is important to be recognized by the radiologist in order to avoid inaccurately diagnosing them as malignant lesions. This case report describes a 61-year-old postmenopausal woman, who presented to the emergency room with abdominal pain following a minor blunt abdominal trauma. In this context, a CT scan was performed, which showed the presence of round, hypodense masses randomly distributed in the peritoneum, with coexisting ascites in moderate amount; ovarian carcinoma with peritoneal carcinomatosis was suspected. The patient was hospitalized and an MRI of the abdomen and pelvis was recommended for a more detailed lesion characterization. Following this examination, the patient was diagnosed with mature cystic ovarian teratoma complicated by rupture. Surgery was performed, and the outcome was favorable. The cases of ruptured cystic teratomas are rare, and to our knowledge, this is the first occurrence described in literature. Special attention must be paid when confronting with such a case in medical practice, since it can easily misdiagnosed as peritoneal carcinomatosis

Land and climate are strongly connected through multiple interface processes and climate change may lead to significant changes in land use. In this study, high-resolution observational gridded datasets are used to assess modifications in the Köppen-Geiger and Worldwide Bioclimatic (WBCS) Classification Systems, from 1950‒1979 to 1990‒2019 in Portugal. A compound Bioclimatic-Shift Exposure Index (BSEI) is also defined to identify the most exposed regions to recent climatic changes. The temporal evolution of land cover with vineyards and olive groves between 1990 and 2018, as well as correlations with areas with bioclimatic shifts, are analyzed. Results show an increase (decrease) of CSa Warm Mediterranean climate with hot summer (CSb, warm summer) of 18.1% (‒17.8%). The WBCS Temperate areas also reveal a decrease of ‒5.11%. Arid and semi-arid ombrotypes areas increased, conversely to humid to sub-humid ombrotypes. Thermotypic horizons depict a shift towards warmer classes. BSEI highlights the most significant shifts in northwestern Portugal. Vineyards have been displaced towards regions that are either the coolest/humid, in the northwest, or the warmest/driest, in the south. For oliviculture, the general trend for a relative shift towards cool/humid areas suggests an attempt of the sector to adapt, despite the cover area growth in the south. As vineyards and olive groves in southern Portugal are commonly irrigated, options for the intensification of these crops in this region may threaten the already scarce water resources and challenge the future sustainability of these sectors.

The WASP-Index is computed over Iberia for three monthly timescales in 1961-2020, based on an observational gridded precipitation dataset (E-OBS), and in 2021-2070, based on bias-corrected precipitation generated by a six-member climate model ensemble from EURO-CORDEX, under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The WASP performance in identifying extremely dry or wet events, reported by the EM-DAT disaster database, is assessed for 1961–2020. An overall good agreement between the WASP spatial patterns and the EM-DAT records is found. The areolar mean values revealed an upward trend in the frequency of occurrence of intermediate-to-severe dry events over Iberia, which will be strengthened in the future, particularly for the 12m-WASP intermediate dry events under RCP8.5. Besides, the number of 3m-WASP intermediate-to-severe wet events is projected to increase, mostly the severest events under RCP4.5, but no evidence was found for an increase in the number of more persistent (12m-WASP) wet events under both RCPs. Despite important spatial heterogeneities, an increase(decrease) of the intensity, duration, and frequency of occurrence of the 12m-WASP intermediate-to-severe dry(wet) events is found under both scenarios, mainly in the southernmost regions of Iberia, thus becoming more exposed to prolonged and severe droughts in the future, corroborating the results from previous studies.

(1) Background: To investigate the effect of phosphohistone H3 (PHH3) and vitamin D receptor (VDR) in the risk assessment of endometriosis, in two cohorts of women with this pathology, those receiving hormonal treatment, and those without treatment; (2) Methods: In 60 cases of women with endometriosis, the paraffin-embedded endometriosis tissue samples, retrieved after surgery, were immunohistochemically (IHC) analyzed aiming to determine the expression status of PHH3 and VDR; (3) Results: The IHC positive index of PHH3 and VDR of these two groups were compared. PHH3 levels were positively correlated with vitamin D levels, both being increased in patients without treatment. Within the group without treatment, PHH3 and VDR expressions were positively associated; (4) Conclusions: IHC analysis of PHH3 and VDR can be used as an additional tool for risk stratification and prognostic assessment in patients with endometriosis.

Portugal Mainland has hundreds of thousands of people living in the Atlantic coastal zone, with numerous high economic value activities and a high number of infrastructures that must be protected from natural coastal hazard, namely extreme storms and sea level rise (SLR). In the context of climate change adaptation strategies, a reliable and accurate assessment of the physical vulnerability to SLR is crucial. This study is a contribution to the implementation of flooding standards imposed by the European Directive 2007/60/EC, which requires each member state to assess the risk associated to SLR and floods caused by extreme events. Therefore, coastal hazard in the Continental Atlantic coast of Portugal Mainland was evaluated for 2025, 2050 and 2100 in the whole coastal extension with different sea level scenarios for different extreme event return periods and due to SLR. A coastal flooding probabilistic map was produced based on the developed methodology using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. The Extreme Flood Hazard Index (EFHI) was determined on flood probabilistic bases through five probability intervals of 20% of amplitude. For a given SLR scenario, the EFHI is expressed, on the probabilistic flooding maps for an extreme tidal maximum level, by five hazard classes ranging from 1 (Very Low) to 5 (Extreme).

Dissimilar welds between ferritic and austenitic steels represent a good solution for exploiting the best performance of stainless steels at high and low temperatures and in aggressive environments, while minimizing costs. Therefore, they are widely used in nuclear and petrochemical plants, however, due to the different properties of the steels involved, the welding process can be challenging. Fusion welding can be specifically addressed to connect low-carbon, or low-alloy steels, with high-alloy steels, which have similar melting point. Welding of thick plates can be performed with electric arc in multiple passes or in a single pass by means of a laser beam equipment. Since microstructure and consequently mechanical properties of the weld are closely related to composition, the choice of the filler metal and processing parameters, which in turn affects the dilution rate, plays a fundamental role. Numerous technical solutions were proposed for welding dissimilar steels and much research was developed on the weldment metallurgy; therefore, this article is aimed at a review of the most recent scientific literature on the issues relating to the fusion welding of ferritic / austenitic steels. Two specific sections are dedicated respectively to electric arc and laser beam welding; finally, metallurgical issues, related to dilution and thermal field are debated in the discussion section.

The present paper proposes a fractal analysis of the Covid-19 dynamics in 45 European countries. We introduce a new idea of using the box-counting dimension of the epidemiologic curves as a means of classifying the Covid-19 pandemic in the countries taken into consideration. The classification can be a useful tool in deciding upon the quality and accuracy of the data available. We also investigated the reproduction rate, which proves to have significant fractal features, thus enabling another perspective on this epidemic characteristic. Moreover, we studied the correlation between two meteorological parameters: global radiation and daily mean temperature and two Covid-19 indicators: daily new cases and reproduction rate. The fractal dimension differences between the analysed time series graphs could represent a preliminary analysis criterion, increasing research efficiency. Daily global radiation was found to be stronger linked with Covid-19 new cases than air temperature (with a greater correlation coefficient -0.386, as compared with -0.318), and consequently it is recommended as the first-choice meteorological variable for prediction models.

This paper aims to contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social workers and the social work profession in Romania. Research has shown that social work is a profession at high risk for developing the burnout syndrome, which has many detrimental effects on both social workers and the clients that they serve. Two conceptual models are used to frame the discussion: the theoretical framework of VUCA (volatility, uncer-tainty, complexity, and ambiguity) to discuss the challenges of the unprecedented context the COVID-19 pandemic has created for social workers; stress and burnout to explain the negative impact of this period of time. Based on convergent mixt methods, the study sample consisted of 83 social workers employed in statutory and private social services in Romania, from different fields of intervention. Results show that 25,3% of respondents suffer from a high level of burnout and 44.6% scored in a range that indicate a medium level of burnout. A group of 31.1% have managed to handle stress factors in a healthy manner. Main stressors found are especially personal (fear of contamination, personal and family) and work-related factors (workload, new legislative rules and decisions, inconsistency, instability, ambiguity of managerial decisions, or even their absence or non-assumption, lack of clarity of working procedures, limited managerial and supervisory support, limited financial resources), less than client related factors (lack of direct contact, risk of contami-nation in two ways, managing beneficiaries fears, difficulties related to technology and digital skills). Study results point to the importance of organizational support and developing a self-care plan that help protect against occupational stress and burnout. Recommendations are made putting forward the voice of fieldworkers and managers fostering initiatives and applications of sustainability-based measures and activities designed to deal with the challenges of the VUCA environment.

Logistics in urban areas are currently suffering a radical transformation due to increasingly population concentration and the massive use of cars as the preferred transport mode. These issues have resulted in higher pollution levels in urban environments and traffic congestion impacting the world globally. Facilitating the use of sustainable transport modes is widely regarded as a necessity to cope with these adverse effects on citizens’ life quality. Hence, some regions, as the European Union, are encouraging bus transport firms to make their business models more environmentally and socially sustainable. The aim of this research is thus to explore how practices adopted by urban bus companies can improve cities’ sustainability. With this in mind, a combined Importance Performance Analysis (IPA)-Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was applied. In this way, both environmental and social sustainability effects of developed practices were represented through hierarchical structures separately. Subsequently, importance and performance ratings of practices in each sustainability dimension were estimated, and thus two IPA grids were generated. These grids support managers in the establishment of more effective action plans to improve logistics sustainability in cities. Findings also provide guidance to governments on the practices that should be promoted in future urban mobility plans.

Triclopyr is an auxin-like herbicide extensively employed to manage weeds in food crops and pastures. Triclopyr has been detected in environmental matrices, with a notable presence within aquatic ecosystems. Given the limited understanding of its fate in the environment, potential implications for environmental and human health, and the lack of adequate monitoring in various environmental compartments, triclopyr is now considered a contaminant of emerging concern (CEC). The present study was undertaken to investigate the impact of triclopyr on zebrafish development, with a specific focus on assessing its embryotoxic, behavioral, and neurotoxic effects at environmentally realistic concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 50 µM on zebrafish embryos. Our results revealed that triclopyr caused sublethal effects on zebrafish embryos, such as delayed hatchability at 50 µM, yolk sac retention at 0.5, 1, 5, and 10 µM, and uninflated swim bladder at 50 µM concentration of triclopyr. Moreover, a subtle alteration in the swimming activity of larvae was observed in the 10 µM triclopyr after 144 hours of exposure. However, the activity of acetylcholinesterase, remained unchanged after triclopyr exposure. Taken together, these comprehensive findings suggest that triclopyr can induce adverse effects on the early development of zebrafish, even at concentrations detected in aquatic environments.

This work focuses on an inland area of North Sardinia (Italy), which is currently subject to depopulation and economic crisis because it is not affected by the summer tourism typical of the region. Despite this, the area shows an interesting architectural and natural heritage, as of today insufficiently known and valued. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to illustrate the application of the Conjoint Analysis methodology on this case study aimed at supporting processes of valorisation, diversification of the tourist offer and promotion of the through the detection of the preferences of a sample of residents and visitors on a set of 9 cards (itinerary profiles) which also promote the peculiarities of small rural centres. Thus, by valorising the material and immaterial heritage and their intrinsic characteristics, it is shown that inland areas can generate an economy by offering new types of tourism, not just the typically invasive summer and maritime tourism. The research, therefore, seeks to estimate the economic value of the area from a public point of view through the WTP measured by a questionnaire of 600 interviews between inhabitants (300) and tourists (299).

Continuous water resources monitoring is needed for sustainable urban water supply. Remote sensing techniques have proven useful for monitoring some water qualitative parameters with optical characteristics. The study area was the Marateca reservoir in central inland Portugal. The aims were the following: (1) to explore the water quality parameters at the monitoring points of the Marateca reservoir that may explain the event; (2) to validate optical water quality parameters with the monitoring points data; and (3) to model the reservoir water characteristics regarding its deepness, trophic state, and turbidity. The parameters total phosphorus, total nitrogen, and chlorophyll-a were used to compute a trophic level index. The Sentinel-2 imagery was used to compute spectral indices and bands image ratio; to obtain spectral signatures for the monitoring points, and to model water characteristics. The water parameters were above the recommended values at the reservoir entry point from the Ocreza River. The reservoir trophic level was Hypereutrophic and Eutrophic. The spectral signatures confirmed a Hypereutrophic pattern in the entry point. The Marateca reservoir’s water characteristics modeling forecasted problematic zones by contamination. The methodological approach developed can be easily applied to other reservoirs and is a key support tool for decision-makers.

Forest fires though part of a natural forest renewal process, when frequent and assuming large-scale proportions have detrimental impacts on biodiversity, agroforestry systems, soil erosion, air and water quality, infrastructures, and economy. Portugal (PT) endures extreme forest fires, with a record of burned area in 2017. These extreme wildfire events (EWE) concentrated in few days but with high burned areas, are among other factors, linked to severe fire weather conditions. In this study a comparison between several fire danger indices is performed for a reference period 2001‒2021 and 2017 (May‒October) for the Fire Weather Index (FWI), Continuous Haines Index (CHI), Keetch-Byram drought index (KBDI), Burning Index (BI) and Fire Danger index (FDI). A daily analysis for the so-called Pedrogão Grande wildfire (June 17th) and the October major fires (October 15th) included the Spread Component (SP) and Ignition Component (IC). Results revealed high above average values for all indices for 2017 in comparison with 2001‒2021 particularly, for October. High statistically significant monthly correlations between FWI, FDI and BI were found, along with lower between FWI and CHI. These correlations are depicted in the spatial patterns between FWI and FDI for the two EWE. The spatial distribution of FDI, SC and IC had the best performance in capturing the locations of the occurrence of the two EWEs’. The outcomes allowed to conclude, that since fire danger depends on several factors a multi-index’s diagnosis is highly relevant, though calibration and scale adjustment are needed for PT. The implementation of a Multi-index’s Prediction System should be able to further enhance the ability of tracking and forecast unique EWE, since the shortcomings of some indices are compensated by the information retrieved by others as shown in this study. Overall, a new forecast system can help ensuring the development of appropriate spatial preparedness plans, proactive responses by the civil protection regarding firefighter’s management, suppression efforts to minimize the detrimental impacts of wildfires in Portugal.

In the present study we tested the effect of small molecular weight redox molecules on collagen-induced platelet aggregation. We used N-acetylcysteine amide (AD4), the amide form of N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a thiol antioxidant with improved lipophilicity and bio-availability compared to NAC, and the thioredoxin mimetics (TXM) peptides, TXM-CB3, TXM-CB13, and TXM-CB30. All compounds significantly inhibited platelet aggregation induced by collagen, with TXM-peptides and AD4 being more effective than NAC. The levels of TxB2 and 12-HETE, the main metabolites derived from the cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase pathways following platelet activation, were significantly reduced in the presence of AD4, TXM-peptides, or NAC, when tested at the highest concentration (0.6 mM). The effect of AD4, TXM-peptides, and NAC was tested also on the clotting time (CT) of whole blood. TXM-CB3 and TXM-CB30 showed the highest increase of CT. Furthermore, two representative compounds, TXM-CB3, and NAC, showed an increase in the an-ti-oxidant free sulfhydryl groups of plasma detected by Ellman’s method, suggesting a contribution of plasma factors to the antiaggregating effects. Our results suggest that these small molecular weight redox peptides might become useful for the prevention and/or treatment of oxidative stress conditions associated with platelet activation.

Adolescence is a stage of change and transition, which together with the COVID-19 situation, has been a huge source of vulnerability and facilitated the development of emotional disorders. This study aims to analyse internalising (anxiety and depression) and externalising (anger and aggression) symptoms in adolescence according to gender, as well as personal resources (self-esteem, social competence and integration, and awareness of problems) put in place as a mechanism of protection and coping after the situation of the pandemic. The study population encompassed 445 adolescents, of whom 230 were boys and 215 were girls, between the ages of 12 and 17. A self-reported Likert-type test was used. Findings indicate that girls show greater levels of internalising (anxiety and depression) and externalising problems (anger), finding no differences for the variable aggression between the two groups. Personal resources are closely linked to emotional symptomatology, providing a source of protection in both genders. The findings indicate a maladaptive pattern for adolescents that requires early intervention within the field of education.

Multimedia resources, such as instructional videos, are currently enjoying a certain popularity in training programmes for medical and dental students. The major challenge is to create such resources that have quality content and are acceptable to students. We investigated the opinions of a sample of 551 students from 4 medical universities in Romania in order to identify the characteristics of the instructional videos that students prefer and we comparatively analysed these characteristics according to gender, age group, but also according to their general preferences for using Internet services. We used univariate (hypothesis testing) and multivariate (Two-Step Clustering) data analysis techniques and revealed three clusters of students, primarily determined by perceptions of the visual appearance of instructional videos. The structure of the clusters by gender and age group is relatively similar, but we recorded differences between them associated with students' expressed preferences for certain Internet services compared to others. Students who prefer instructional videos to contain images used only for aesthetic purposes, to fill in breaks, use Internet services mainly for communication, while students who prefer in videos the use of already drawn explanatory diagrams are slightly younger than the others and use Internet services mainly for information and communication.

In the study, a lipid mixture was developed and optimized using a broad range of excipients of different po-larities. Initially, the excipients were classified according to their behavior in water. Then binary mixtures were prepared using cetyl palmitate (Crodamol™ CP pharma) as the solid lipid. The miscibility between the excipients was evaluated using Raman chemical images obtained by classical least squares (CLS). Based on the results, the excipients Crodamol™ CP pharma (cetyl palmitate, hydrophobic), Super Refined™ DMI (di-methyl isosorbide; hydrophilic) and Super Refined™ Lauryl Lactate (medium polarity) were chosen to com-pose the lipid core. The ideal proportion of these excipients was determined using a Mixture Design and the standard deviation of image histograms as responses. The main goal was to develop a versatile lipid core for ‘brick-dust type of drugs’. After statistical evaluation of the DOE results, the final composition was deter-mined and drugs with different logP (0 to 10) and physiochemical characteristics were evaluated in the opti-mized mixture. The drugs butamben, tacrolimus, atorvastatin calcium and resveratrol presented a homoge-neous distribution in the optimized lipid core, indicating that the core has indeed the capability to be used in NLC formulations of such type of drugs.

(1) Background: Painful nervus intermedius neuropathy (e.g., geniculate neuralgia) involves continuous or near-continuous pain affecting the distribution of the intermedius nerve(s). The diagnosis of this entity is challenging, particularly when the clinical and demographic features do not resemble the typical presentation of this condition. To the best of our knowledge, only three case reports have described the occurrence of nervus intermedius neuropathy in young patients. (2) Case Description: A 13-year-old female referred to the Orofacial Pain clinic with a complaint of pain located deep in the right ear and mastoid area. The pain was described as a constant throbbing and dull, with an intensity of 7/10 on numerical rating scale, characterized by superimposed brief paroxysms of severe sharp pain. The past treatments included ineffective pharmacological and irreversible surgical approaches. After a comprehensive evaluation, a diagnosis of idiopathic painful nervus intermedius neuropathy was given, which was successfully managed with the use of gabapentin. (3) Conclusions and Practical Implications: The diagnosis and treatment of neuropathic pain affecting the nervus intermedius can be challenging due to the complex nature of the sensory innervation of the ear. The diagnosis can be even more challenging in cases of atypical clinical and demographic presentations, which in turn may result in unsuccessful, unnecessary, and irreversible treatments. Multidisciplinary teams and constant knowledge update are fundamental to provide good quality of care to our patients and to not overlook any relevant signs or symptoms.

Background and Objectives: Mechanical and biological complications can lead to system fracture or screw loss on dental implants. Narrow and regular platforms have been used without a consensus about the effect of distance the abutment from the prosthetic platform margin. The aim of this study is to evaluate different insertion torques in the deformation of tri-channel platform connections through two- and three-dimensional measurements with micro-CT. Materials and Methods: 164 implants were divided into groups (platform diameter and type): 3.5, 3.75, and 4.3 mm NP (Narrow Platform), and 4.3 mm RP (Regular Platform). Each implant-platform group was then divided into four subgroups (n = 10) with different torques: T45 (45 Ncm), T80 (80 Ncm), T120 (120 Ncm) and T150 (150 Ncm). The implant-abutment-screw assemblies were scanned and the images obtained were analyzed. Results: A significant difference was observed for the linear and volume measures between the different platforms (p <0.01) and the different implant insertion torques (p <0.01). Qualitative analysis suggested higher deformation resistance for the 3.75 NP compared to the 3.5 NP, and RP was more resistant compared to the NP. Conclusions: The 0.25-mm increment in the implant platform did not increase the resistance to the applied insertion torques; the 4.3-mm implant was significantly stronger compared to the 3.5-mm implant and the proposed micro-CT analysis was considered valid for both 2D and 3D analyses of micro gaps, qualitatively and quantitatively.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a heterogeneous malignancy with complex carcinogenesis. Although there has been significant progress in the treatment of HCC over the past decades, drug resistance to chemotherapy remains a major obstacle in its successful management. In this study we were able to reduce chemoresistance in cisplatin-resistant HepG2 cells by either silencing the expression of transglutaminase type 2 (TG2) using siRNA or by pre-treatment of cells with the TG2 enzyme inhibitor cystamine. Further analysis revealed that, whereas the full-length TG2 isoform (TG2-L) was almost completely cytoplasmic in its distribution, the majority of the short TG2 isoform (TG2-S) was membrane-associated in both parental and chemoresistant HepG2 cells. Following induction of cisplatin toxicity in non-chemoresistant parental cells, TG2-S together with cisplatin quickly relocated to the cytosolic fraction. Conversely, no cytosolic relocalisation of TG2-S or nuclear accumulation cisplatin was observed following identical treatment of chemoresistant cells, where TG2-S remained predominantly membrane-associated. This suggests that deficient subcellular relocalisation of TG2-S from membranous structures into the cytoplasm may limit the apoptic response to cisplatin toxicity in chemoresistant cells. Structural analysis of TG2 revealed the presence of binding motifs for interaction of TG-S with the membrane scaffold protein LC3/LC3 homologue that could contribute to a novel mechanism of chemotherapeutic resistance in HepG2 cells.

This paper focuses on the impact that urban traffic has on the environment. The study characterizes the global effect of GHG emissions, including the ecologic evaluation and the characterization, normalization, and evaluation factor. The work makes a detailed survey of the different modes of driving and their influence on engine performance as one of the principal causes of gas emissions during the combustion process. The article analyzes six types of vehicles equipped with different engine configurations: diesel and gasoline, GLP and GNC, hybrid electric, and plug-in hybrid electric. Simulation of the driving mode under various operational conditions for every type of engine results in energy consumption, thus, in GHG emissions, carbon dioxide and monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and Sulphur dioxide. The study concludes that a reduction in vehicle speed, thus in the engine revolutions, has positive effects on engine combustion and gasses emissions, which is reduced by 27.5%. The study also concludes that the limitation in driving mode, avoiding sharp and sudden acceleration, may reduce up to 45% of GHG emissions. The changes applied in the driving mode improve the air quality in the urban environment, reducing the content of GHG from 39% to 61%.

This work presents the possibility of using a synthetic membrane for pretracing mucosal penetration studies. The permeability of two types of membranes, porcine oral mucosa and a synthetic Nuclepore membrane, to water was compared. Moreover, the water permeability of membranes modified with waterproofing formulations was measured to study their ability to protect against the penetration of viruses, toxins, etc. A very good correlation was obtained between the transmucosal water loss (TMWL) values of the artificial membrane and the mucosa. These results support the possible use of this synthetic membrane in the screening of the water permeability of formulations. In addition, studies of the permeation of different actives, drugs and biocides through the two membranes were carried out, and these results were compared with their skin permeation data. The synthetic membrane does not seem to discern between compounds in terms of permeability, which could be due to the lack of lipids in the composition of this synthetic membrane. Therefore, Nuclepore alone cannot be used as a model for the release of actives. Additionally, the permeation of caffeine through intact or modified membranes incorporating waterproofing formulations was also studied. In this case, similar permeation profiles through the synthetic membrane and mucosa were found. The results from these assays should lend support to the use of this synthetic membrane when screening formulations to be applied in oral penetration studies.

Nowadays, the identification and characterization of grapevine cultivars resilient to climate and water stress while preserving quality traits is crucial for the wine industry. Therefore, the objective of this work was to characterize according to their aromatic potential 9 white and 6 red minority cultivars recently recovered from Castilla-La Mancha region (Spain), subjected at two different water deficit regimes: rainfed, with subsistence irrigation, and irrigated. For this, the varietal aromatic potential index (IPAv) and the detailed aromatic composition were analyzed by HS-SBSE-GC/MS, in extracts of two different ph. For IPAv values, red varieties did not show a clear trend with respect to irrigation. However, in white minority varieties, higher values were obtained under irrigation conditions. Thus, a clear differentiation of the minority varieties in comparison to the references was observed, primarily attributed to the content of esters and acids, in both white and red varieties. A notable contrast was observed at different pH, indicating a greater extractability of certain compounds like linalool, under more acidic conditions. This suggests that some recovered minority cultivars could be promising for cultivation in semi-arid regions with limited water, contributing to the wine sector sustainability in the future.

Background: The purpuse was to investigate the influence induced by magnesium chloride (MgCl2) and zinc gluconate (ZnG) supplementation on liver and kidney injuries experimentally-induced with acetaminophen (AAPh) and potentiated by ciprofloxacin addition in rats. Material and methods: The experiment was performed on 5 animals groups: group 1 – control, treated for 6 weeks with normal saline, 1mL/kg; group 2 – AAPh, treated for 6 weeks with AAPh, 100 mg/ kg/day; group 3 – AAPh+C, treated AAPh 100 mg/kg/ day for 6 weeks and ciprofloxacin, 50mg /kg/day, only in the last 14 days of the experiment; group 4 – AAPh+C+Mg, with the same treatment as group 3, but, and in the last 14 days, MgCl2 10 mg/ kg/day was added; group 5 – AAPh+C+Zn, with the same treatment as group 3, but, and in the last 14 days, zinc gluconate (ZnG),10 mg/kg/day was added. All administrations were performed by oral gavage. At the end of the experiment, the animals were sacrificed and blood samples were collected for biochemistry examinations. Results: Treatment with AAPh for 6 weeks determined an alteration of the liver function (increases in alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, lactic dehydrogenase and, and gamma-glutamyl transferase) and of renal function (increases in serum urea and creatinine) (P < 0.001 group 2 vs. group 1 for all mentioned parameters). Also, the antioxidant defense capacity was impaired in group 2 vs. group 1 (superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase activity decreased in group 2 vs. group 1, 0.001 < P < 0.01, respectively 0.01 < P < 0.05). The addition of ciprofloxacin, 50 mg/kg/day during the last 14 days resulted in further increases in alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, urea and creatinine (0.01 < P < 0.05, group 3 vs. group 2). MgCl2 provided a slight protection against liver enzymes increase and a more pronounced protection against the increase in serum urea and creatinine (0.001 < P < 0.01 group 4 vs. group 3). MgCl2 provided a slight protection against the decrease in superoxide dismutase (0.01 < P < 0.05 group 4 vs. group 3), but not against decrease of glutathione peroxidase. The improvement of mentioned parameters could also be seen in case of ZnG, to a higher extent especially in the case of alanine aminotransferase and lactic dehydrogenase (0.01 < P < 0.05 group 5 vs. group 4). Conclusions: This study represents a furthermore proof for beneficial effect of magnesium and zinc salts against toxicity induced by different agents, including antibacterials added to the analgesic and antipyretic acetaminophen; the protection is proven on the liver and kidney’s function; the antioxidant profile improvement has a key role, especially in case of zinc gluconate.

Tumor to stroma ratio is a highly debated prognostic factor in the management of several solid tumors and there is no universal agreement on its practicality. In our study we proposed to confirm or dismiss the hypothesis that a simple measurement of stroma quantity is an easy-to-use and strong prognostic tool. We have included 74 consecutive patients with colorectal cancer who underwent primary curative abdominal surgery. The tumors have been grouped into stroma-poor (stroma &lt;10%), medium-stroma (between 10 and 50%) and stroma-rich (over 50%). The proportion of tumor stroma ranged from 5% to 70% with a median of 25%. Very few, only 6.8% of patients had stroma-rich tumors, 4% stroma-poor tumors and 89.2%tumors with a medium quantity of stroma. The proportion of stroma, at any cut-off, had no statistically significant influence on the disease specific survival. This can be explained by the low proportion of stroma-rich tumors in our patient group and the inverse correlation of stroma proportion with tumor grade. The real-life proportion of stroma-rich tumors and the complex nature of the stroma-tumor interaction has to be further elucidated.

The efficient and sustainable management of hospitals is an increasingly relevant challenge in the healthcare sector. With limited financial resources, regulatory pressures and increasing demands for quality services, hospitals are faced with the want to approve sound policies to certify financial and operational sustainability. Management accounting is critical in this instance. In Portugal the DL nº 284, of July 26, 1999, allow us to confirm the need to reinforcement of profitability and efficiency in the provision of healthcare. Management accounting is an essential tool for monitoring and controlling costs, making strategic decisions, efficiently allocating resources and evaluating performance in the hospital environment. It allows a comprehensive view of financial and operational aspects, providing valuable information for management and strategic planning. However, the sustainability of hospital management accounting is a critical and complex topic that deserves special attention. Hospitals face several challenges, such as the complexity of hospital costs, the integration of information systems and the measurement of healthcare value. These challenges can compromise the effectiveness of management accounting and its ability to provide relevant and reliable information for decision making. As a result, it is required to address the sustainability of hospital management accounting by identifying the specific challenges faced in this area and exploring opportunities to overcome them. By addressing these challenges and seizing opportunities, hospitals can strengthen their position in the healthcare sector, improve their operational efficiency, optimize resource allocation and ensure the provision of quality services to patients. In this article, the challenges faced by hospital management accounting will be analysed, such as the complexity of costs, the integration of information systems and the measurement of value in healthcare. Additionally, opportunities to improve financial and operational management will be highlighted through the adoption of advanced technologies, an emphasis on value-based management and collaborative partnerships. By exploring these themes, this essay aims to make a contribution. to the advancement of hospital management accounting and the sustainability of hospitals in the current healthcare scenario.

Defectively manufactured and deliberately damaged composite laminates fabricated with different continuous reinforcing fibres (respectively, carbon and glass) and polymer matrices (respectively, thermoset and thermoplastic) were inspected in magnetic resonance imaging equipment. Two pulse sequences were evaluated during non-destructive examination conducted in saline solution-immersed samples to simulate load-bearing orthopaedic implants permanently in contact with biofluids. The orientation, positioning, shape, and especially the size of translaminar and delamination fractures were determined according to stringent structural assessment criteria. The spatial distribution, shape, and contours of water-filled voids were sufficiently delineated to infer the amount of absorbed water if thinner image slices than this study were used. The surface texture of composite specimens featuring roughness, waviness, indentation, crushing, and scratches was outlined, with fortuitous artefacts not impairing the image quality and interpretation. Low electromagnetic shielding glass fibres delivered the highest, while electrically conductive carbon fibres produced the poorest quality images, particularly when blended with thermoplastic polymer, though reliable image interpretation was still attainable.

This study analyzes the convergence between artificial intelligence (AI) and management accounting in hospital contexts. Management accounting plays a central role in the effectiveness of planning, control and decision-making in healthcare institutions such as hospitals. The application of AI in this scenario offers powerful tools to improve accounting processes, optimize operational efficiency and maximize the use of available resources, resulting in an improvement in the quality of care provided to patients. Through in-depth analysis, the article explores how AI is bringing about a revolution in hospital management accounting, presenting case studies illustrating its successful implementation, outlining the tangible benefits.

The development of dispersed urbanism in Spain ran parallel to the real estate boom and consolidated a new model of city sprawl based on the expansion of suburban areas. This process, which started in the mid 1980s, came to a halt with the onset of the economic crisis in 2007. With it, construction stopped, mobility fell and urban growth came to a standstill. The purpose of this article is to carry out an analysis of the recent evolution and chronology of the expansion of dispersed urbanism in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR) in order to gain an insight into some of the explanatory factors of such expansion and to deal with the future prospects of middle-term development of dispersed urbanism in the BMR and in Spain. To do this, we examine the trends in the housing market, in residential mobility and we take stock of the impact of business cycles. The conclusion is that dispersed areas retain their appeal in the stages of creation and expansion of households. For this reason, an effective economic recovery and a renewed rise in the price of housing in denser cities may contribute to an upturn in the popularity of the dispersed residential model, which nowadays could be considered to be in a ‘lethargic’ stage, waiting for certain factors to coincide and re-activate its expansion.

POH (Peri Orbital Hyperpigmentation) represents a minor clinical entity that attracts immense aesthetic damages and it generates social integration difficulties. This review focuses on the etiopathogenic causes of this entity, differentiating and reclassifying this defect as having, on the one hand, genetic causes of melanic hyperproduction – for Fitzpatrick cutaneous phototypes IV and V – and, on the other hand, both genetic and acquired vascular causes, in individuals with light-coloured skin phototypes. Hence, there is a big difference in the field of pathogenic treatment, for the two entities. In addition, this study notes the direct relationship between skin aging and POH, especially for aquired vascular causes. In this reasoning, other aesthetic deficiencies of the skin in the palpebral area should be also considered, like: blepharochalasis, wrinkles, the anatomical causes of the lower eyelid shading, symmetrical or asymmetric suborbital oedema. All of these issues will complicate the therapeutic decision and subsidiary, the pharmaceutical advice. In this context, the review shows the guidelines for a honest councelling of the patients, pointing the efficiency limit for the topical pharmaceutical medication (depigmentants, exfoliants) versus the necessity of minimally invasive or/ and surgical treatments (in blefarochalasis).

The per capita availability of freshwater resources on a global scale is gradually decreasing due to population growth, rapid urbanization, industrialization, and modern lifestyles. In this situation, wastewater management becomes a major concern. Conventional treatment processes used to treat wastewater discharges are not adequate for the advanced removal of pollutants, especially refractory organic pollutants, which are mainly organic compounds that are not easily biodegradable in the environment. The use of photocatalytic membrane reactors (PMRs) for tertiary wastewater treatment has attracted much interest in recent periods, and various configurations have been investigated. The performance of a PMR using an iron doped titanium photo catalyst and Polysulfone-based polymeric membrane for municipal wastewater treatment was evaluated under natural and simulated solar light. Obtained results proved that solar driven PMRs can remove organic loading (COD) with high efficiencies and may represent a suitable alternative for the tertiary treatment step of municipal wastewater.

Objective: To analyse the association between maternal risk factors such as age, body mass index (BMI) and cigarette smoking, with perinatal outcomes. Materials and Methods: This a retrospective analysis from prospectively collected data performed at Hospital Universitario de Torrejón (Madrid, Spain), between September 2017 and December 2019. All pregnant women with singleton pregnancies and non-malformed live fetuses attending their routine ultrasound examination at 11+0 to 13+6 weeks' gestation were invited to participate. Association between preeclampsia, preterm birth, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), small for gestational age (SGA) or fetal growth restricted (FGR) neonates and type of delivery according to maternal age, BMI, and cigarrete smoking was studied. Logistic mixed models were used to analyze the data. Results: 1921 patients were included in the analysis. Women of 40 years old had a significantly higher risk of having GDM (Odds Ratio (OR) 1.61, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.08 to 2.36), and SGA neonates (OR 1.54, 95% CI 1.00 to 2.37). Women with a BMI &lt;18 had an increased rate of birth SGA and FGR neonates (OR 3.28, 95% CI 1.51 to 7.05, and OR 3.73, 95% CI 1.54 to 8.37, respectively), whereas women with a BMI ≥35 had a higher risk of GDM (OR 3.10, 95% CI 1.95 to 4.89). Smoking increased the risk of having SGA and FGR neonates (OR 1.83, 95% CI 1.36 to 2.46, and OR 1.91, 95% CI 1.29 to 2.78). Conclusions: Advanced maternal age, low or high BMI, and smoking status are significant risk factors for pregnancy complications. Both clinicians and society should concentrate their efforts on addressing these factors to enhance reproductive health.

On the eve of the Brexit process, in the context of a rising Euroscepticism that fuels the modest confidence of European citizens in their national and European institutions, the article assesses the efficiency and effectiveness of the European Parliament within the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision). After defining and formulating the main indicators, the paper analyses the micro- and macro-performance of the European Parliament within the decision-making process from a quantitative-qualitative and a qualitative-quantitative perspective, highlighting the relativizing factors and the responsiveness of the European decision-making process to the Europeans’ needs.

Taking advantage of tourists’ intensive flow, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread causing thousands of deaths globally. Trying to contain the already pandemic virus, government travel restrictions were suddenly imposed. Consequently, the tourism industry, which at that moment employed one in ten workers globally, suddenly collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of workers immediately lost their income. Flights were cancelled, and thousands of tourists were stuck abroad with no means to return to their home countries. The gravity of the situation raised the question of whether there was scholarly knowledge that could have helped manage tourism during the current pandemic. To answer this question, a methodical literature review was performed, allowing for up to 900 publications to be analysed. Keywords used were pandemic, tourism, tourist and travel. Based on this process, 63 publications were selected for further analysis. Among these, less than 5% were focused on the tourism side of the problem. As such, this research concludes that, by the time the novel coronavirus emerged, there was, virtually, no scholarly knowledge on how to manage tourism during pandemic times so as to avoid chaos, and that the scholarly community studying related issues is very small. Moving forward, this article recommends that research funding agencies and universities encourage the sound development of this area of knowledge. Aspects that should be investigated include when, how and by whom should tourism be halted, as well as the feasibility of a Tourism World Fund for supporting related costs.

Many approaches have been developed over time to counter the bioavailability limitations of poorly soluble drugs. With advances in nanotechnology in recent decades, science and industry have been approaching this issue through the formulation of drugs as nanocrystals, which consist of pure drugs and a minimum of surface active agents required for stabilization. They are carrier-free submicron colloidal drug delivery systems with a mean particle size in the nanometer range, typically between 10 and 800 nm. By reducing particle size to nanoscale, the particle surface area available for the molecule dissolution in the direction of dissolution medium is increased, and thus bioavailability is enhanced. This approach has proven successful, as demonstrated by the number of such drug products on the market. R&D and industry have offered many technological solutions to reduce the particle size to nanoscale, and also devised solutions for the handling of particle of nanodimensions, such as methods to accurately measure nanoparticle size and techniques to prevent physicochemical and stability related problems, such as aggregation. The present work provides an overview of the more recent achievements in improving the bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs according to their administration route, and describes the methods developed to overcome physicochemical and stability related problems.

Keywords: gender equality policy; initial teacher education; teacher educators’ perceptions; gender perspective; university teaching; sustainable development; SDG5; SDG4.

The impact of systemic vascular resistance (SVR) in hypertrophic (HCM) and amyloid cardio-myopathies has been seldom investigated. We studied pressure-strain loop derived myocardial work (MW) indices and SVR in patients with either sarcomere HCM or wild type transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR), presented with heart failure and preserved left ventricular ejection fraction (HFpEF) at the outpatient cardiology units at Messina and Catania University Hospitals (Italy). Patients were in sinus rhythm and needed to have good transthoracic ultrasound imaging quality to undergo transthoracic strain-echocardiography. Other than conventional parameters, SVR and GWI (global work index) were measured. Based on cross-tabulation (a way to assess the ventricular-arterial coupling), the patients were then classified in 4 classes according to the cut-off values suggested by previous studies of 1,440 dyne/s/cm-5 for SVR (Stefadouros et al., 1973) and 1576 mm Hg% for GWI (Olsen et al., 2022). Sixty patients, 30 in each group, aged 61±16 years, 78% males, were studied. HCM were younger than ATTR patients and in a better clinical status (23% HCM vs 77% ATTR were NYHA class 3, p<0.001). Overall, 51 patients (85%) showed high SVR, of whom 21 were HCM (70%) and 30 ATTR (100%) (p<0.005). Both, SVR and GWI were impaired (the poorest class C) in 43% HCM patients (with greater left ventricular concentric hypertrophy) vs 93% of ATTR patients (in advanced NYHA class) (p<0.001). In conclusion, assessing SVR and GWI in HFpEF patients with HCM or ATTR can help clinicians to interpret the pathophysiological and clinical features of such complex diseases.

This study is based on the fatty acid and amino acid profile of 7 edible insect species: Acheta domesticus, Alphitobius diaperinus, Blaptica dubia, Galleria mellonella, Locusta migratoria, Tenebrio molitor and Zophobas morio. The fatty acid distribution within lipid classes (neutral lipids, glycolipids and phospholipids) was studied, while the amino acid profile was used to calculate the species-specific nitrogen-protein conversion factor (Kp). The profiles were used to evaluate the nutritional quality of the lipids and proteins. Oleic acid was the predominant fatty acid in all insects except for A. domesticus, in which a larger percentage of linoleic acid was found. The majority of the lipids were neutral lipids. L. migratoria showed a remarkably high content of α-linolenic acid in its phospholipid fraction, while T. molitor phospholipids were the only fraction in which a measurable amount of docosahexaenoic acid was found. Overall, in most insects, the phospholipid fraction had the highest polyunsaturated fatty acid content compared to the other classes, which may be protective in terms of autoxidative stability. Kp values in the range of 4.17 to 6.43 were obtained. Within the nutritional quality indices, all insects showed healthy fatty acid and high quality amino acid profiles.

The thyroid-heart relationship has a long and articulated history of its own, a history that en-compasses physiological and pathophysiological knowledge, the latter particularly in the context of cardiac diseases such as heart failure, arrhythmias and ischaemic heart disease. In recent years, molecular biology studies, in an experimental context, have highlighted the extraordinary dialogue that exists among the two systems in the field of cardioprotection, being an extremely important area for the treatment of cardiac diseases in both acute and chronic phases. In addi-tion, in the last few years, several studies have been carried out on the prognostic impact of al-terations in thyroid function, including subclinical ones, in heart disease, in particular in heart failure and acute myocardial infarction, with evidence of a negative prognostic impact of these and therefore with the suggestion to treat these alterations in order to prevent cardiac events, such as death. This review provides a comprehensive summary of the heart-thyroid relation-ship.

Road Safety Education (RSE) is widely known as a reliable determinant of future results for what concerns health and welfare, and as an undisputable factor which contributes to the social behavior of individuals and to their mid and long-term road safety outcomes. However, its development has been relatively scarce in most countries, fact which has contributed to letting matters as delicate as traffic crashes produced by road misbehaviors continue to be a prevalent problem, thus affecting the health of the community. Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the relationship between demographic and RSE-related variables and the self-reported road risky behavior of Spanish students. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, a representative sample of 4,062 (51.5 males and 48.5% females) participants attending primary (47.5%), secondary (40.7%) and high school (11.7%) was gathered through a national survey on RSE and road behaviors. Results: A set of significant associations between demographic factors, RSE variables and self-reported road behaviors was found. Furthermore, the SEM modelling allowed us to establish that age, observed misbehaviors, attitudes towards road safety and risk perception keep a direct link with the road risky behavior of children and young people. The knowledge of traffic rules was not a significant predictor of road behavior. Conclusions: The results of this study show that, together with demographic factors such as age, RSE-related variables have an effect on the road behavior of children and young people. They also suggest the need of strengthening actions to be implemented in road safety (Road Safety Education), into scholar and community levels.

Access to health services compromises therapeutic adherence in patients with HTN, which is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. The aim of the research is to determine the influence of access to health services on adherence to antihypertensive treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic. We included a cross-sectional analytical study. A survey was applied to 241 hypertensive patients at the Daniel Alcides Carrión Hospital, Callao-Peru. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. Absolute and relative frequencies were reported and the chi-square test was applied with a statistical significance level of p&lt;0.05. In addition, multiple logistic regression analysis was performed using the Stepwise method. An association was found between non-adherence to treatment and health expenses (ORa: 1.9 CI 95% 1.7-2.2), not receiving care due to lack of a doctor (ORa: 2.8 CI 95% 1.5-3.2), having difficulty with schedules (ORa: 3.7 CI 95% 2. 3-5.5), fear of receiving care at the hospital (ORa: 4.5 CI 95 % 2.7-6.8), trust in health personnel (ORa: 7.5 CI 95% 2.3-10.5) and considering that the physician does not have enough knowledge (ORa: 3.1 CI 95% 2.4-7.8). Therapeutic adherence was associated with physician availability for care, difficulty with schedules, fear of being seen in the hospital, trust in health personnel, and waiting time.

This research is aimed at the knowledge of the effectiveness of the material resources in the sensa-tions of exploratory procedures in 365 older people who take part in the physical activity that the Sport Municipal Institute (SMI) offers in the different sports centers assigned to it in the city of Se-ville, using a descriptive design and with a questionnaire developed and validated previously by the Delphi method; showing the relationship between the basic emotions that seniors experience when handling sport, and the materials. So it is claimed that exist a relation between older people, which practice exercise with the materials that they use on it.

Fungal infections caused by Candida spp. are responsible for high hospital morbidity and mortality rates. Therefore, there is a continuous search for new antifungal medicines, particularly ones with anti-Candida activity. This review analyzed articles published between 2002 and 2023 considering the anti-Candida activity of chemical compounds identified or isolated in plants of the Anacardiaceae family. In addition, the in-silico prediction of the isolated compounds described was performed. The analysis of 35 studies showed that extracts, essential oils, and compounds from the anti-Candida activity were frequently determined in vitro using the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). The most commonly tested species were Candida albicans, C. tropicalis, C. parapsilosis, C. glabrata, C. krusei, and C. guilliermondii, respectively. Essential oils were the most used form (37% of the studies). The isolated compounds with antifungal effects include cardanol, estragole, trans-anethole, β-caryophyllene, myrcene, catechin-3-o-rhamnoside, β-sitosterol-3-O-glucoside, 24Z-isomasticadienolic acid, oleanolic acid, and oleanolic aldehyde. The in-silico evaluation of those isolated compounds revealed the compounds' drug-likeness and possible antifungal activity. However, some of them showed high toxicity. In conclusion, compounds from the Anacardiaceae family show promise for developing new therapeutic antifungal drugs, especially in combination with conventional antifungals.

Populational aging is marked by chronic non-communicable diseases, such as metabolic syndrome (MetS). IL-10 and IL-1β are pleiotropic cytokines with multiple biological effects linked to metabolic disorders. This cross-sectional study assessed 193 participants' IL-10 and IL-1β serum levels regarding their role in developing MetS, clinical characteristics, and their IL1B rs1143627 and IL10 rs1800890 variants' genotype frequencies in a population over 60. IL-10 levels correlated weakly with HDL levels and fat mass and inversely with triglycerides, glucose, glycated hemoglobin, and estimated average blood glucose levels. IL-10 levels were also indirectly influenced by the patient's T2DM duration, lean mass amount, and bone mineral content. Participants with altered HDL, elevated serum glucose, raised HbA1c levels, or those over 80 had reduced serum IL-10 levels compared to those with normal levels or other age groups, respectively. Women also had higher serum IL-10 levels than men. Dissimilarity, IL-1β levels correlated directly only with the number of total leukocytes and segmented neutrophils, showing only significant variations with self-reported alcohol consumption. Our study also found that those with the IL10 AA genotype (lower IL-10 levels) had a significantly higher risk of developing MetS. These findings may help direct future research and more targeted therapeutic approaches in older adults.

Beef meat production in Uruguay is based on pasture or concentrate feeding systems, leading to differences in meat quality. The objective of this study was to compare the oxidative and color stability during refrigerated retail display of beef meat from these two systems. For this, ten Aberdeen Angus steers were reared and fed on pasture and other ten were finished on a concentrate diet. After slaughter, the Semimembranosus muscle was cut into slices and put in a refrigerated showcase for 3, 6, and 9 days simulating commercial conditions. The β-carotene, α-tocopherol, and fatty acid content were determined before the display, and the lipid and protein oxidation, color parameters, and heme iron content were determined before and during the display. Meat from steers fed pasture had a lower content of intramuscular fat, monounsaturated fatty acids, n-6/n-3 ratio, lipid and protein oxidation, L* and a* values, and a higher content of linolenic acid, DHA, total n-3, β-carotene, and α-tocopherol. In conclusion, meat from pasture-fed steers was more stable during the retail display, which can probably be explained by a higher content of antioxidant compounds, such as β-carotene and α-tocopherol, and presented a healthier fatty acid profile.

Prototype of a family of at least nine members, c-src tyrosine kinase is a therapeutically interesting target, because its inhibition might be of interest not only in a number of malignancies, but also in a diverse array of conditions, from neurodegenerative pathologies to certain viral infections. Computational methods in drug discovery are considerably cheaper than conventional methods and offer opportunities of screening very large numbers of compounds in conditions that would be simply impossible within the wet lab experimental settings. We have explored the use of global QSAR models and molecular ligand docking in the discovery of new c-src tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Using a data set of 1038 compounds from ChEMBL and 19 blocks of molecular descriptors, we have developed over 200 QSAR classification models, based on six machine learning algorithms and 17 feature selection methods. We have selected 49 with reasonably good performance (positive predictive value and balanced accuracy higher than 70% in nested cross validation) and the models were assembled by stacking with a simple majority vote and used for the virtual screening of over the “named” ZINC data set (over 100,000 compounds). 744 compounds were predicted by at least 50% of the QSAR models as active, 147 compounds were within the applicability domain and predicted by at least 75% of the models to be active. The latter 147 compounds were submitted to molecular ligand docking using Vina and Ledock, and a number of 90 were predicted to be active based on the binding energy. External data from CHEMBL and PUBCHEM confirmed that at least 7.83% (in the case of QSAR) or 6.67% (in the case of integrated QSAR and molecular docking) of the compounds are active on the c-src target.

In a previous Argentine study, we found that, in the critical con-text of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were changes in maternal practices that influenced the relationship with their children. We also found that the impact of mandatory isolation was moderated positively by protective factors such as positive parenting and maternal school support, or negatively by risk factors such as maternal stress. Although this study only analyzed maternal behavior, we were interested in studying the behavior of both parents, comparing the parenting (positive parenting, parental stress, and school support) of the father and mother and the perceived behavioral changes in their children. The sample consisted of 120 Argentinean parents (70 mothers and 50 fathers) aged be-tween 27 and 56 years (M = 38.84; SD = 5.03). Questionnaires were administered on sociodemo-graphic and behavioral data of the children, as well as a brief scale to assess parenting. Mann Whitney U and MANOVA were used to analyze the influence of gender on perceived changes in children's behavior and perceived parenting, respectively. Mothers perceived more significant changes than fathers in their children's behavior. In addition, women reported more parental stress, greater child school sup-port, and greater perceived positive parenting, compared to men. These findings support the hypothesis that parenting developed differently in fathers and mothers which is likely influenced by culture.

One of the major problem of photovoltaic grid integration is limiting the solar-induced imbalances since these can undermine the security and stability of the electrical system. Improving the forecast accuracy of photovoltaic generation is becoming essential to allow a massive solar penetration. In particular, improving the forecast accuracy of large solar farms generation is important both for the producers/traders to minimize the imbalance costs and for the Transmission System Operators to insure stability. In this article, we provide a benchmark for the day-ahead forecast accuracy of utility scale PV plants in 1325 locations spanning the country of Italy. We then use these benchmarked forecasts and real energy prices to compute the economic value of forecast accuracy and accuracy improvement in the context of the Italian energy market regulatory framework. Through this study, we further point out some several important criticisms of the Italian “single pricing” system that brings to paradoxical and counterproductive effects regarding the need to reduce the imbalance volumes. Finally, we propose a new market-pricing rule and innovative actions to overcome these undesired effects of the current dispatching regulations.

Zinc protection of galvanized steel is initially dissolved in alkaline solutions. However, passive layer is formed over time which protects the steel from corrosion. The behavior of galvanized steel exposed to strong alkaline solutions (pH values of 12.7) with a fixed concentration of sulfate ion of 0.04M is studied. Electrochemical measurement techniques such as corrosion potential, linear polarization resistance and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy are used. Synergistic effect of sulfate ion is also studied together with other anions such as chloride Cl- or bicarbonate ion HCO3- and with other cations such as calcium Ca2+, ammonium NH4+ and magnesium Mg2+. Presence of sulfate ions can depassivate the steel, leading to corrosion density of 0.3 µA/cm2 at the end of the test. The presence of other ions in the solution increases this effect. The increase in corrosion density caused by cations and anions responds to the following order (greater to lesser influence): NH4+&gt;Ca2+&gt;Mg2+ and HCO3- &gt;Cl- &gt;SO42-.

After three years of the onset of the pandemic, there is scarce evidence about how COVID-19 disease affect the female reproductive system, and consequently, the menstrual cycle. Since the common causes of secondary amenorrhea are considered as exclusion criteria in the studies about menstrual changes following SARS-CoV-2 infection, the prevalence of this event and the influencing factors in formerly menstruating women remains unknown. A retrospective observational cross-sectional study was conducted on Spanish adult women (N= 17,512), using an online survey; a subpopulation of SARS-CoV-2-infected-formerly menstruating women was included in the present analysis (n= 72). Collected data included general characteristics, medical history, and specific information about COVID-19 disease. 38.9% of the respondents experienced menstrual-related disturbances after suffering from the COVID-19 disease, unexpected vaginal bleeding being the most common (20.8%). Other alterations related with the length – “shorter” by 12.5% − and the flow − “heavier than usual” 30.3% − of the menstrual bleeding were reported. The binary logistic regression showed that being a perimenopausal woman (AOR 4.608, CI 95%, 1.018 – 20.856, p = 0.047) and having heavy menstrual bleeding (AOR 4.857, CI 95%, 1.239 – 19.031, p=0.023) are influential factors. This evidence could help health professionals to provide scientifically up-to-date information to their patients, empowering them to actively manage their reproductive health, especially in those societies where menstrual health is still a taboo.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is an environmental toxicant of health concern. The brain is a major target in acute H2S poisoning. This study was to test the hypothesis that acute and subchronic ambient H2S exposures alter the brain metabolome. Male 7-8 week-old C57BL/6J mice were exposed by whole-body inhalation to 1000 ppm H2S for 45 min and euthanized at 5 min or 72 h for acute exposure. For subchronic study, mice were exposed to 5 ppm H2S 2 h/day, 5 days/week for 5 weeks. The brainstem was removed for metabolomic analysis. Enrichment analysis showed the metabolomic profiles in acute and subchronic H2S exposures matched with those of cerebral spinal fluid from patients with seizures or Alzheimer’s disease. Acute H2S exposure decreased excitatory neurotransmitters, aspartate and glutamate, while the inhibitory neurotransmitter, serotonin, was increased, which may explain H2S-induced loss of consciousness. Branched-chain amino acids and glucose were increased by acute H2S exposure. Subchronic H2S exposure within OSHA guideline surprisingly decreased serotonin altering central nervous system. In subchronic H2S exposure, glucose was decreased while polyunsaturated fatty acids, inosine, and hypoxanthine were increased. Collectively, these results provide important mechanistic clues of acute and subchronic ambient H2S poisonings and show that H2S alters brainstem metabolome.

Fighting corruption and enhancing tax compliance through digital public services represent key factors for increasing sustainable development in Romania. We argue that fighting corruption may increase the level of sustainable development, through digital pubic services. Using digital public services leads to the increase of the level of tax compliance, because entrepreneurs will feel more confident and responsible and they will decide to better comply. Tax regulations can affect the level of tax compliance through the additional costs they generate. The discussion is based on the consideration of the costs generated by compliant behavior and we explain how such costs influence the entrepreneurs’ decision in the fiscal environment. If the costs are higher, entrepreneurs will take evasive initiatives and will refuse to comply. Among the numerous tools developed to fight corruption, the use of communication technologies has recently been researched and there is still need for further research in the Romanian economic environment. The use of digital public services reduces costs for entrepreneurs and increases their confidence in state institutions due to higher levels of transparency. We argue for increasing sustainable development in Romania through digital public services, thus fighting corruption and enhancing tax compliance.

Obesity is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality, and food addiction has been considered one of its phenotypes. The study aims to determine the effectiveness of physical activity (PA), exercise, and sedentary behaviour management in attenuating food addiction in obese and overweight healthy adults. A search strategy was undertaken using MEDLINE, CENTRAL, PsycINFO, and CINAHL until April 2019. A total of 295 studies were found from which seven studies, after duplicates were removed, were included. The acute effect of PA of moderate intensity had an effect on attentional bias, craving, and sweet taste perception, although no difference was observed between genders and body mass index groups. No effect was observed on the hedonic and reward value. The acute effects of PA of moderate intensity may be a useful tool to control the levels of food addiction. More research is needed to clarify if this effect also occurs during chronic application, at different doses and types of PA, and for all populations.

This research mapped significant social networks of victims of childhood sexual abuse, identifying relationships between childhood trauma and social bonds in adult life. Ten adult women, aged between 20 and 40 years, in psychiatric care for the consequences of trauma suffered in childhood participated in the research. For data collection, the map of significant social networks was used and analyzed through the structure, functions and attributes of the bonds. The network is composed of people from the Friendship, Family, Community, Work/Study and Health Teams group. The networks of friendships, family, co-workers or studies play a predominant role of emotional support, while the Health Teams also offer emotional support, but primarily provide clinical support in overcoming trauma and its consequences. The network of relationships has specific functions that maintain psychosocial integrity and help women to overcome the abuse suffered.

A growing number of studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 could interfere with homeostatic mechanisms in the lung but the implications of this possible interference have not been fully explored in the literature. In this work, we examine the consequences that can be drawn from this hypothesis according to currently available knowledge. We suggest that one such consequence is the potential disruption of normal ventilation and perfusion of lung regions that may be distant from the infection sites. Loss of ventilation might result in local alveolar hypoxia and contribute to hypoxemia, which in turn could trigger homeostatic responses that enhance blood oxygenation by redistributing pulmonary blood circulation. Sudden changes in perfusion might then lead to the development of hydrostatic edema and eventually to vascular remodeling and inflammation. Therefore, the immune response might not be the only source of the substantial inflammation observed in lung tissues of patients with severe COVID-19, as is often assumed in the literature. The balance between the homeostatic and the immune reaction in each patient could account for the observed heterogeneity of the clinical manifestations of COVID-19.

Background. The measurement of physical performance constitutes an indicator of physical functional capacity and allows the design of physical exercise programs adapted to the individual abilities and needs of older adults with and without frailty. Aim. To present a synthesis of knowledge on the effect of exercise programs on physical performance in older adults with and without frailty in the community. Method. A systematic review was carried out in accordance with the PRISMA-2020 criteria. The search for articles was made until May 4, 2023 in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, SciELO and LILACS. The outcome variable was physical performance, measured through the SPPB (Short Physical Performance Battery). The mean difference (MD) was estimated to evaluate the effect. Results. We found 2,483 studies, of which 12 met the eligibility criteria for the systematic review and 9 for the meta-analysis. The effect of exercise on SPPB score was significantly higher in the exercise group compared to control in non-frail older adults with MD=0.51 [95% CI, 0.05 to 0.96, p&lt;0.05]. Likewise, in older adults with frailty, the effect of exercise on the global SPPB score was significantly higher in the exercise group compared to the control with an MD=0.66 [95% CI, 0.09 to 1.24, p&lt;0.05 ]. Conclusion. Our findings suggest that exercise programs are effective in increasing and/or maintaining physical performance in older adults with and without frailty, whose effect is more evident in older adults with frailty, probably due to the greater margin of recovery of intrinsic capacity.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a zoonotic foodborne virus with an annual infection prevalence of 20 million human cases, which seriously affects public health and economic development in both developed and developing countries. To better understand the epidemiology of HEV in the Centre of Portugal, a cross-sectional study was conducted from 2016 to 2023 with sera samples from wild ungulates. The seroprevalence and risk factors for HEV seropositivity were evaluated in the present study. Specifically, antibodies against HEV were determined by a commercial enzyme-linked immune-sorbent assay (ELISA). Our results show that in the 650 sera collected from 298 wild red deer and 352 wild boars from Portugal, 9.1% red deer (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.312.9%) and 1.7% wild boar (95% CI: 0.63.3%) were positive for antibodies to HEV. Regarding age, the seropositivity in juvenile wild ungulates was 1.3% (95% CI: 0.273.72%) and 7.2% in adults (95% CI: 4.910.11%). Logistic regression models investigated risk factors for seropositivity. The odds of being seropositive was 3.6 higher in adults than in juveniles (95% CI: 1.7218.11%) and the risk was 4.2 higher in red deer than in wild boar (95% CI: 1.64–10.69%). Both wild ungulate species were exposed to HEV. The higher seroprevalence in red deer suggests that this species may have a major contribution to the ecology of HEV in the Centre of Portugal. Further research is important to understand how wildlife affects the epidemiology of HEV infection in Portugal.

Background: Neonatal sepsis associated with severe morbidity and mortality defines the systemic condition arising from the bacterial, viral, fungal origin associated with hemodynamic and clinical alterations. Symptomatology can be different, from subclinical to severe, focal or systemic disease. The causal agent comes from maternal flora or can be of community/hospital origin. Material and method: Our retrospective study evaluated 121 newborns (both preterm and term), divided into three groups: early onset sepsis (35), late onset sepsis (39), and control group (47), from 0 to 28 days old. Blood samples and cultures were collected at admission, after 24 hours, and 72 hours. Results: The two-sample Wilcoxon signed rank test revealed a statistically significant difference between the initial and final measures of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and ferritin within the early onset sepsis (EOS) and late onset sepsis (LOS) groups. No significant differences were observed for those two variables within the control group. There were significant differences for first and last measurements of C-Reactive Protein (CRP) (p = 0.029), leukocyte count (p = 0.002), and platelets (TR) (p = 0.00001). Conclusions: Ferritin is a potential biomarker that can be associated with systemic response and sepsis in both cases of early and late onset sepsis.

Materials based on platinum metals with very good catalytic activity were tested in the reduction of p–nitrophenol (pNP) to p–aminophenol (pAP). The majority of presented catalytic materials are based on the adsorption of p–nitrophenol on the surface of the catalyst simultaneously with molecular hydrogen, coming from sodium borohydride in an aqueous medium, which reduces it. In the present paper, a catalytic material based on osmium dispersed in n–decanol or n–dodecanol is presented, which also works as an emulsion membrane, for the absorption of p–nitrophenol and molecular hydrogen at the n–alcohol aqueous solution interface. The hydrogenation of p–nitrophenol is carried out in a reaction and separation column in which the acid receiving phase emulsion is dispersed in the osmium nanodispersion, in n–alcohols. This emulsion circulates from the base of the column to its upper part in co-current or counter-current with the source phase consisting of p–nitrophenol and sodium borohydride. Experiments show that the circulation of counter-current phases is superior to that in co-current, and the emulsion based on n–decanol is more efficient than the one based on n–dodecanol. The increase in the pH difference between the source and receiving phases leads to the increase in the conversion of p–nitrophenol to p–aminophenol. The efficiency of separation of the reaction product in the receiving phase is lower than the conversion at the same operating time. The apparent catalytic rate constant (kapp) of the new catalytic material based on the emulsion membrane with nanodispersion of osmium nanoparticles (0.1×10−3 for n–dodecanol and 0.9×10−3 for n-decanol) is lower by an order of magnitude compared to those based on adsorption on catalysts from platinum metal group. The advantage of the tested membrane catalytic material is that it extracts p–aminophenol in the acid receiving phase. The paper proposes a mechanism of the studied reduction system.

This article presents a method that uses a semi-automatic algorithm for the detection and analysis of microcracks in steel test specimens using binarized image analysis. It obtains the length along the crack path in contrast to previous methods that have obtained linear length, thereby achieving a closer approximation to its actual value. Additionally, this method automatically calculates the COD and COA parameters with measurement deviations in micrometres, thus providing greater precision than previous methods proposed to date.

The purpose of this work was analysing the compaction of a cohesive material using different DEM simulators to determine the equivalent contact models and identify how some parameters of the simulations affect the compaction results (maximum force and compacts appearance) and computational costs. For that purpose, three cohesion contact models were tested (‘linear cohesion’ in EDEM; ‘SJKR’ and ‘SJKR2’ in LIGGGHTS). The influence of the particle size distribution (PSD) on the results was also investigated. Further assessments were performed on the effect of selecting different timesteps, using distinct conversion tolerances for exporting the 3D models to STL files and moving the punch with different speeds. Consequently, it was possible to determine that a timestep equal to a 10% Rayleigh timestep, a conversion tolerance of 0.01 mm and a punch speed of 0.2 m/s are adequate for simulating the compaction process using the contact models in this work. In addition, the results determined that the maximum force was influenced by the PSD because of the rearrangement of the particles. The PSD was also related to the computational cost because of the number of simulated particles and their sizes. Finally, an equivalence was found between the linear cohesion and SJKR2 contact models

In this study, the distribution patterns of southern horse mackerel are examined using commercial fine-scale resolution data. Using landings by size category and VMS data from the Portuguese commercial bottom trawl fishery, which consistently targets horse mackerel, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of horse mackerel age distributions spanning a decade (2010-2020). Importantly, the study addresses potential biases in commercial effort data and establishes the usefulness of commercial bottom-trawl gear as a suitable method for sampling and evaluate southern horse mackerel stock dynamics. Ordered regression models were applied to allow for the modelling of the distribution of multiple age categories and investigate spatio-temporal migrations off the Portuguese coast. Southern horse mackerel shows a widespread age distribution range and stable abundance with indications of seasonal and spatial patterns in the distribution of specific age groups. The insights derived from this research contribute valuable knowledge for understanding the dynamics and distribution patterns of fish populations.

The sense of uncertainty and fragility due to the effects and magnitude of global challenges we are facing (from pandemic circumstances to climate change impacts) requires – much more than in the past – the capacity to generate a visionary and forefront design approach in the young gen-erations aiming at stimulating their reaction attitude rather than providing consolidated tools from past conditions that no longer exist or will rapidly evolve. Within this general framework, we have investigated the effectiveness and impacts of experienced-based methods of learning and innovative educational tools in architecture aimed at shaping expertise in which the environ-mental dimension and the climate-change challenge dialogues with the context's complexity in terms of socio-cultural dynamics, real potentialities and constrains, addressing their transdisci-plinary trajectories. The paper analyses 5 international pioneering teaching experiences that provide the opportunity to understand the outcomes of collaborative and experiential learning processes in which the educational activities leverage a dialogue between diverse communities (academia-citizens-policymakers-practitioners). The study outcomes show that shifting the pedagogical paradigm towards in-field-experience-based models can improve the awareness of future practitioners for climate implications of architectural design, implement their analysis and project skills while triggering processes of knowledge transfer and co-production at community level, and allow them to better address the societal and cultural issues involved within decision making.

The sea level rise, a consequence of climate change, is one of the biggest challenges that countries and regions with coastal lowland areas will face in the medium term. This study proposes a methodology for assessing the vulnerability to sea level rise (SLR) on the Atlantic coast of Portugal mainland. Some scenarios of extreme sea level for different return periods and extreme flooding events were estimated for 2050 and 2100, as proposed by the European Union Directive 2007/60/EC. A set of physical parameters are considered for the multi-attribute analysis technique implemented by the Analytic Hierarchy Process, in order to define a Physical Vulnerability Index fundamental to assess coastal vulnerability. For each SLR scenario, coastal vulnerability maps, with spatial resolution of 20 m, are produced at national scale to identify areas most at risk of SLR, constituting key documents for triggering adaptation plans for such vulnerable regions. For 2050 and 2100, it is estimated 903 km² and 1146 km² of vulnerable area, respectively, being the district of Lisbon the most vulnerable district in both scenarios. Results are available through a Web Map Service, for Portuguese public entities, and through a web map viewer for public and communities in general.

Social support in working with beggars and vagrants has always been and still is a challenge for all social protection systems. This paper aims to analyze the social work system in working with vagrants and beggars, starting with the presentation of the concept and seeking to evaluate the evolution of this particular sector of the social protection system in Romania, presenting, on one hand, the legislative changes and, also, the situation found in reality which could be (slightly) different. In the paper we describe two research models, a case study, which starts from the situation found in Romania and is based on the model of good practice (social enterprises) developed by Nicolae Minovici in the interwar period (1934) and also presents the opinion of citizens from Craiova city, investigated during a sociological survey conducted in 2021-2022 on a sample of 1494 persons, on the opportunity to set up such centers for beggars and vagrants in Romania. The article seeks to extract the good practices used by the national system for the purpose of comparing and issuing proposals to regulate and improve the current situation in Romania.

This study was carried out to identify the behaviour of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and of Listeria monocytogenes inoculated in Maronesa breed beef with different ultimate pH (pHu) (Normal and DFD), and stored at two different temperatures (4 and 9 ºC), during 28 days post mortem (pm). The main objective was to illustrate the problematic feature of dealing with beef meat showing high pHu and stored at mild abusive temperatures (9 ºC). Beef steaks (ms. longissimus dorsi) were inoculated with low levels (ca. 2 or 3 log CFU/g) of these both pathogens and packed in air, vacuum and three gaseous mixtures with decreasing O2 and increasing CO2 concentrations (MAP70/20, MAP50/40 and MAP30/60). At 4 ºC, the growth of E. coli O157:H7 presented the same pattern on Normal and DFD meat. On contrary, the growth of L. monocytogenes was higher on DFD meat, revealing the effect of the pHu and its psychotropic character. At abusive temperature, both pathogens grew, achieving high levels on DFD meat. In these cases, the MAP with the highest CO2 concentration (60%) revealed to be more effective against the development of E. coli O157:H7, presenting the lowest number of counts.