6,333 research outputs found

    Anuário científico da Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Lisboa - 2021

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    É com grande prazer que apresentamos a mais recente edição (a 11.ª) do Anuário Científico da Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Lisboa. Como instituição de ensino superior, temos o compromisso de promover e incentivar a pesquisa científica em todas as áreas do conhecimento que contemplam a nossa missão. Esta publicação tem como objetivo divulgar toda a produção científica desenvolvida pelos Professores, Investigadores, Estudantes e Pessoal não Docente da ESTeSL durante 2021. Este Anuário é, assim, o reflexo do trabalho árduo e dedicado da nossa comunidade, que se empenhou na produção de conteúdo científico de elevada qualidade e partilhada com a Sociedade na forma de livros, capítulos de livros, artigos publicados em revistas nacionais e internacionais, resumos de comunicações orais e pósteres, bem como resultado dos trabalhos de 1º e 2º ciclo. Com isto, o conteúdo desta publicação abrange uma ampla variedade de tópicos, desde temas mais fundamentais até estudos de aplicação prática em contextos específicos de Saúde, refletindo desta forma a pluralidade e diversidade de áreas que definem, e tornam única, a ESTeSL. Acreditamos que a investigação e pesquisa científica é um eixo fundamental para o desenvolvimento da sociedade e é por isso que incentivamos os nossos estudantes a envolverem-se em atividades de pesquisa e prática baseada na evidência desde o início dos seus estudos na ESTeSL. Esta publicação é um exemplo do sucesso desses esforços, sendo a maior de sempre, o que faz com que estejamos muito orgulhosos em partilhar os resultados e descobertas dos nossos investigadores com a comunidade científica e o público em geral. Esperamos que este Anuário inspire e motive outros estudantes, profissionais de saúde, professores e outros colaboradores a continuarem a explorar novas ideias e contribuir para o avanço da ciência e da tecnologia no corpo de conhecimento próprio das áreas que compõe a ESTeSL. Agradecemos a todos os envolvidos na produção deste anuário e desejamos uma leitura inspiradora e agradável.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Socio-endocrinology revisited: New tools to tackle old questions

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    Animals’ social environments impact their health and survival, but the proximate links between sociality and fitness are still not fully understood. In this thesis, I develop and apply new approaches to address an outstanding question within this sociality-fitness link: does grooming (a widely studied, positive social interaction) directly affect glucocorticoid concentrations (GCs; a group of steroid hormones indicating physiological stress) in a wild primate? To date, negative, long-term correlations between grooming and GCs have been found, but the logistical difficulties of studying proximate mechanisms in the wild leave knowledge gaps regarding the short-term, causal mechanisms that underpin this relationship. New technologies, such as collar-mounted tri-axial accelerometers, can provide the continuous behavioural data required to match grooming to non-invasive GC measures (Chapter 1). Using Chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) living on the Cape Peninsula, South Africa as a model system, I identify giving and receiving grooming using tri-axial accelerometers and supervised machine learning methods, with high overall accuracy (~80%) (Chapter 2). I then test what socio-ecological variables predict variation in faecal and urinary GCs (fGCs and uGCs) (Chapter 3). Shorter and rainy days are associated with higher fGCs and uGCs, respectively, suggesting that environmental conditions may impose stressors in the form of temporal bottlenecks. Indeed, I find that short days and days with more rain-hours are associated with reduced giving grooming (Chapter 4), and that this reduction is characterised by fewer and shorter grooming bouts. Finally, I test whether grooming predicts GCs, and find that while there is a long-term negative correlation between grooming and GCs, grooming in the short-term, in particular giving grooming, is associated with higher fGCs and uGCs (Chapter 5). I end with a discussion on how the new tools I applied have enabled me to advance our understanding of sociality and stress in primate social systems (Chapter 6)

    Chinese Benteng Women’s Participation in Local Development Affairs in Indonesia: Appropriate means for struggle and a pathway to claim citizen’ right?

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    It had been more than two decades passing by aftermath the devastating Asia’s Financial Crisis in 1997, subsequently followed by Suharto’s step down from his presidential throne which he occupied for more than three decades. The financial turmoil turned to a political disaster furthermore has led to massive looting that severely impacted Indonesians of Chinese descendant, including unresolved mystery of the most atrocious sexual violation against women and covert killings of students and democracy activists in this country. Since then, precisely aftermath May 1998, which publicly known as “Reformasi”1, Indonesia underwent political reform that eventually corresponded positively to its macroeconomic growth. Twenty years later, in 2018, Indonesia captured worldwide attention because it has successfully hosted two internationally renowned events, namely the Asian Games 2018 – the most prestigious sport events in Asia – conducted in Jakarta and Palembang; and the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Bali. Particularly in the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting, this event has significantly elevated Indonesia’s credibility and international prestige in the global economic powerplay as one of the nations with promising growth and openness. However, the narrative about poverty and inequality, including increasing racial tension, religious conservatism, and sexual violation against women are superseded by friendly climate for foreign investment and eventually excessive glorification of the nation’s economic growth. By portraying the image of promising new economic power, as rhetorically promised by President Joko Widodo during his presidential terms, Indonesia has swept the growing inequality in this highly stratified society that historically compounded with religious and racial tension under the carpet of digital economy.Arte y Humanidade

    Hunting Wildlife in the Tropics and Subtropics

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    The hunting of wild animals for their meat has been a crucial activity in the evolution of humans. It continues to be an essential source of food and a generator of income for millions of Indigenous and rural communities worldwide. Conservationists rightly fear that excessive hunting of many animal species will cause their demise, as has already happened throughout the Anthropocene. Many species of large mammals and birds have been decimated or annihilated due to overhunting by humans. If such pressures continue, many other species will meet the same fate. Equally, if the use of wildlife resources is to continue by those who depend on it, sustainable practices must be implemented. These communities need to remain or become custodians of the wildlife resources within their lands, for their own well-being as well as for biodiversity in general. This title is also available via Open Access on Cambridge Core

    Graphical scaffolding for the learning of data wrangling APIs

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    In order for students across the sciences to avail themselves of modern data streams, they must first know how to wrangle data: how to reshape ill-organised, tabular data into another format, and how to do this programmatically, in languages such as Python and R. Despite the cross-departmental demand and the ubiquity of data wrangling in analytical workflows, the research on how to optimise the instruction of it has been minimal. Although data wrangling as a programming domain presents distinctive challenges - characterised by on-the-fly syntax lookup and code example integration - it also presents opportunities. One such opportunity is how tabular data structures are easily visualised. To leverage the inherent visualisability of data wrangling, this dissertation evaluates three types of graphics that could be employed as scaffolding for novices: subgoal graphics, thumbnail graphics, and parameter graphics. Using a specially built e-learning platform, this dissertation documents a multi-institutional, randomised, and controlled experiment that investigates the pedagogical effects of these. Our results indicate that the graphics are well-received, that subgoal graphics boost the completion rate, and that thumbnail graphics improve navigability within a command menu. We also obtained several non-significant results, and indications that parameter graphics are counter-productive. We will discuss these findings in the context of general scaffolding dilemmas, and how they fit into a wider research programme on data wrangling instruction

    Estudo do IPFS como protocolo de distribuição de conteúdos em redes veiculares

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    Over the last few years, vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) have been the focus of great progress due to the interest in autonomous vehicles and in distributing content not only between vehicles, but also to the Cloud. Performing a download/upload to/from a vehicle typically requires the existence of a cellular connection, but the costs associated with mobile data transfers in hundreds or thousands of vehicles quickly become prohibitive. A VANET allows the costs to be several orders of magnitude lower - while keeping the same large volumes of data - because it is strongly based in the communication between vehicles (nodes of the network) and the infrastructure. The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a protocol for storing and distributing content, where information is addressed by its content, instead of its location. It was created in 2014 and it seeks to connect all computing devices with the same system of files, comparable to a BitTorrent swarm exchanging Git objects. It has been tested and deployed in wired networks, but never in an environment where nodes have intermittent connectivity, such as a VANET. This work focuses on understanding IPFS, how/if it can be applied to the vehicular network context, and comparing it with other content distribution protocols. In this dissertation, IPFS has been tested in a small and controlled network to understand its working applicability to VANETs. Issues such as neighbor discoverability times and poor hashing performance have been addressed. To compare IPFS with other protocols (such as Veniam’s proprietary solution or BitTorrent) in a relevant way and in a large scale, an emulation platform was created. The tests in this emulator were performed in different times of the day, with a variable number of files and file sizes. Emulated results show that IPFS is on par with Veniam’s custom V2V protocol built specifically for V2V, and greatly outperforms BitTorrent regarding neighbor discoverability and data transfers. An analysis of IPFS’ performance in a real scenario was also conducted, using a subset of STCP’s vehicular network in Oporto, with the support of Veniam. Results from these tests show that IPFS can be used as a content dissemination protocol, showing it is up to the challenge provided by a constantly changing network topology, and achieving throughputs up to 2.8 MB/s, values similar or in some cases even better than Veniam’s proprietary solution.Nos últimos anos, as redes veiculares (VANETs) têm sido o foco de grandes avanços devido ao interesse em veículos autónomos e em distribuir conteúdos, não só entre veículos mas também para a "nuvem" (Cloud). Tipicamente, fazer um download/upload de/para um veículo exige a utilização de uma ligação celular (SIM), mas os custos associados a fazer transferências com dados móveis em centenas ou milhares de veículos rapidamente se tornam proibitivos. Uma VANET permite que estes custos sejam consideravelmente inferiores - mantendo o mesmo volume de dados - pois é fortemente baseada na comunicação entre veículos (nós da rede) e a infraestrutura. O InterPlanetary File System (IPFS - "sistema de ficheiros interplanetário") é um protocolo de armazenamento e distribuição de conteúdos, onde a informação é endereçada pelo conteúdo, em vez da sua localização. Foi criado em 2014 e tem como objetivo ligar todos os dispositivos de computação num só sistema de ficheiros, comparável a um swarm BitTorrent a trocar objetos Git. Já foi testado e usado em redes com fios, mas nunca num ambiente onde os nós têm conetividade intermitente, tal como numa VANET. Este trabalho tem como foco perceber o IPFS, como/se pode ser aplicado ao contexto de rede veicular e compará-lo a outros protocolos de distribuição de conteúdos. Numa primeira fase o IPFS foi testado numa pequena rede controlada, de forma a perceber a sua aplicabilidade às VANETs, e resolver os seus primeiros problemas como os tempos elevados de descoberta de vizinhos e o fraco desempenho de hashing. De modo a poder comparar o IPFS com outros protocolos (tais como a solução proprietária da Veniam ou o BitTorrent) de forma relevante e em grande escala, foi criada uma plataforma de emulação. Os testes neste emulador foram efetuados usando registos de mobilidade e conetividade veicular de alturas diferentes de um dia, com um número variável de ficheiros e tamanhos de ficheiros. Os resultados destes testes mostram que o IPFS está a par do protocolo V2V da Veniam (desenvolvido especificamente para V2V e VANETs), e que o IPFS é significativamente melhor que o BitTorrent no que toca ao tempo de descoberta de vizinhos e transferência de informação. Uma análise do desempenho do IPFS em cenário real também foi efetuada, usando um pequeno conjunto de nós da rede veicular da STCP no Porto, com o apoio da Veniam. Os resultados destes testes demonstram que o IPFS pode ser usado como protocolo de disseminação de conteúdos numa VANET, mostrando-se adequado a uma topologia constantemente sob alteração, e alcançando débitos até 2.8 MB/s, valores parecidos ou nalguns casos superiores aos do protocolo proprietário da Veniam.Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e Telemátic

    Uso de las histonas circulantes y sus modificaciones post-traduccionales como biomarcadores en sepsis y shock séptico

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    La sepsis es una afección potencialmente mortal causada por una respuesta anormal del huésped a una infección, produciendo respuestas fisiológicas alteradas que dañan los propios tejidos del paciente y pueden provocar disfunción orgánica e incluso la muerte. Asimismo, algunos pacientes sépticos progresan a shock séptico, caracterizado por alteraciones circulatorias, celulares y metabólicas sustanciales que aumentan el riesgo de mortalidad. A pesar de que la sepsis se caracteriza por un mal funcionamiento del sistema inmunológico, lo que a su vez conduce a una respuesta inmune alterada e inmunosupresión, la alta complejidad de la fisiopatología de la sepsis requiere una mayor investigación para comprender las respuestas inmunes que ocurren durante la sepsis. Asimismo, las histonas extracelulares circulantes han ganado relevancia como mediadores citotóxicos en la sepsis, ya que actúan como patrones moleculares asociados a daño, que inducen estrés oxidativo y activan el inflamasoma NLRP3. Estos mecanismos median la activación de la piroptosis, un mecanismo de muerte celular programada que produce inflamación mediante la expresión de IL-18, IL-1β and IL-1α. Sin embargo, a pesar de la evidencia de activación del inflamasoma en las células inmunes durante la sepsis, se desconoce si las histonas extracelulares son capaces de activar los inflamasomas endoteliales y sus consecuencias. En este trabajo destacamos el papel previamente desconocido de las histonas extracelulares, mediando la activación del inflamasoma NLRP3 y la piroptosis en las células endoteliales, contribuyendo a la disfunción endotelial y la desregulación de la respuesta inmune mediada por el endotelio. Asimismo, también demostramos cómo la acetilación de histonas disminuye la activación de la piroptosis. Además, demostramos que la piroptosis se produce en pacientes con shock séptico y los niveles de histonas circulantes se correlacionan con la expresión de citoquinas proinflamatorias y citoquinas piroptóticas, la liberación de factores de adhesión endotelial y la gravedad de la enfermedad. Proponemos la piroptosis mediada por histonas como un nuevo objetivo para desarrollar intervenciones clínicas. De manera similar, hemos analizado las respuestas inmunorelacionadas que ocurren durante las primeras etapas de la sepsis con el objetivo de proporcionar nuevos datos comparando las cantidades de citoquinas, inmunomoduladores y otros mediadores endoteliales en pacientes críticamente enfermos no sépticos, sépticos y de shock séptico. Nuestro enfoque ayudará a caracterizar rápidamente las respuestas inmunes alteradas en pacientes sépticos y de shock séptico ingresados en la Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos. Finalmente analizamos el papel de la metilación del ADN en el control del sistema inmune séptico. Nuestros resultados demostraron el papel central de la metilación del ADN modulando la respuesta molecular en los pacientes de shock séptico y contribuyendo a la inmunosupresión, a través de la alteración de los patrones de metilación de los promotores de IL-10 y TREM-2.Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by an abnormal host response to an infection that produce altered physiological responses which damages own tissues of the patient and can result in organ dysfunction and in some cases death. Likewise, a subset of septic patients progresses to septic shock, characterized by substantial circulatory, cellular and metabolic abnormalities, which substantially increase the risk of mortality. Sepsis is characterized by a malfunction of the immune system and it can lead to an altered immune response and immunosuppression. Moreover, the high complexity of the pathophysiology of sepsis requires of further investigation to characterize the immune responses in sepsis and septic shock. Likewise, circulating extracellular histones have gained relevance as cytotoxic mediators in sepsis pathophysiology, since they act as damage-associated molecular patterns, which induce oxidative stress and activate NLRP3 inflammasome. Subsequently, inflammasome mediates pyroptosis activation, a programmed cell death mechanism that produces inflammation through the release of IL-18, IL-1β and IL-1α. However, despite inflammasome activation may occur in immune cells during sepsis, it is unknown if this process also takes place in endothelial cells and particularly whether extracellular histones are capable of activating endothelial inflammasomes and their consequences. In this work we highlight a previously unknown role for extracellular histones, that mediates the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome and pyroptosis in endothelial cells by contributing to endothelial dysfunction and the dysregulation of the immune response mediated by endothelium. Likewise, we demonstrated how histone acetylation decreases pyroptosis activation. Furthermore, we show how pyroptosis occurs in septic shock patients and how circulating histone levels correlate with the expression of pro-inflammatory and pyroptotic cytokines, the release of endothelial adhesion factors and septic shock severity. We propose histone-mediated pyroptosis as a new target to develop clinical interventions. Similarly, we have analyzed the immune-related responses occurring during the early stages of sepsis with the aim of providing new data by comparing the amounts of cytokines, immune modulators and other endothelial mediators in critically-ill non-septic patients, septic and septic shock patients. Our approach will help to rapidly characterize the altered immune responses in septic and septic shock patients admitted in the Intensive Care Unit. Finally, we also analyzed the role of DNA methylation in the control of septic immune system. Our results demonstrated the central role of DNA methylation modulating the molecular response in septic shock patients and contributing to immunosuppression, through the alteration of DNA methylation patterns of IL-10 and TREM2 promoters
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