Examining the health and well-being experiences of singers in popular music

This study investigated the health and well-being experiences of professional singers in popular music. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of semi-structured interviews with five professional singers identified three main themes: (1) mental and physical experiences of health and support, (2) positive musical experiences and (3) barriers to health and well-being. Participants perceived health as important to their careers and viewed it as both physical and mental in nature. The singers relied on family and industry peers for support, whilst experiencing mental health challenges and physical health problems in the context of an emotionally intense landscape. Positive musical experiences involved the self-expression of songwriting, live music performance and relationships with fans, and barriers to health and well-being included touring, commercial challenges and a perceived lack of support. The findings suggest a need for increased awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by singers in popular music

Vescalagin and castalagin present bactericidal activity toward methicillin-resistant bacteria

"Published online 17 February 2021"Polyphenols have been extensively exploited in the biomedical field because of their wide range of bioactive properties and historical use as traditional medicines. They typically present antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiamyloidogenic, and/or antitumor activities. In particular, cork water extracts and their components, have been previously reported to present antioxidant and antiamyloidogenic properties. On the basis of this knowledge, we tested cork water extract (CWE), cork water enriched extract (CWE-E), vescalagin/castalagin (two of the main polyphenols present in CWE and CWE-E) for their antibacterial activity against four bacterial strains, namely, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis (MRSE), Staphylococcus aureus (SA), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA). Vescalagin and castalagin presented bactericidal activity against all the tested bacterial strains, in particular toward the methicillin-resistant ones, i.e., MRSA and MRSE, as well as the ability to inhibit the formation of biofilms and to disrupt preformed ones. Moreover, vescalagin/castalagin seem to modulate the normal assembly of the peptidoglycans at the bacteria surface, promoting the disruption of their cell wall, leading to bacterial cell death. We also demonstrate that vescalagin/castalagin can be loaded into alginate hydrogels to generate antibacterial biomaterials that are not toxic to eukaryotic cells.We acknowledge the financial support from the EC (FORECAST 668983 and MEPHOS 872648). A.R.A. acknowledges the “Programa Operacional Regional do Norte”, “Fundo Social Europeu”, and Norte2020 TERM&SC, for her PhD grant (NORTE-08-5369-FSE-000044)

Variação estacional do preço da melancia comercializada na região do Submédio São Francisco, período 1995-2005.

bitstream/CPATSA/36709/1/COT133.pd

Finding a Spherically Symmetric Cosmology from Observations in Observational Coordinates -- Advantages and Challenges

One of the continuing challenges in cosmology has been to determine the large-scale space-time metric from observations with a minimum of assumptions -- without, for instance, assuming that the universe is almost Friedmann-Lema\^{i}tre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW). If we are lucky enough this would be a way of demonstrating that our universe is FLRW, instead of presupposing it or simply showing that the observations are consistent with FLRW. Showing how to do this within the more general spherically symmetric, inhomogeneous space-time framework takes us a long way towards fulfilling this goal. In recent work researchers have shown how this can be done both in the traditional Lema\^{i}tre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) 3 + 1 coordinate framework, and in the observational coordinate (OC) framework. In this paper we investigate the stability of solutions, and the use of data in the OC field equations including their time evolution and compare both approaches with respect to the singularity problem at the maximum of the angular-diameter distance, the stability of solutions, and the use of data in the field equations. This allows a more detailed account and assessment of the OC integration procedure, and enables a comparison of the relative advantages of the two equivalent solution frameworks. Both formulations and integration procedures should, in principle, lead to the same results. However, as we show in this paper, the OC procedure manifests certain advantages, particularly in the avoidance of coordinate singularities at the maximum of the angular-diameter distance, and in the stability of the solutions obtained. This particular feature is what allows us to do the best fitting of the data to smooth data functions and the possibility of constructing analytic solutions to the field equations.Comment: 31 page

Variação estacional do preço do maracujá comercializado na região do Submédio São Francisco, Período 1995-2005.

bitstream/CPATSA/36710/1/COT134.pd