Modulation of neuroinflammation by phenolic sulfates metabolites

"Within the central nervous system, microglial cells are key regulators of a set of inflammatory processes. The microglial inflammatory response is the main contributor to the process of neuroinflammation. Inside the brain, under certain abnormal conditions, a sustained microglial activation may lead to an exacerbation of the inflammatory state, causing chronic pathological conditions such as neurodegeneration. (...)"N/

Short-term effects of underwater treadmill therapy on ground reaction forces of canine orthopaedic patients

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Medicina VeterináriaThis dissertation aimed to use kinetic gait analysis to study the effects of an underwater treadmill therapy (UWT) session on ground reaction forces of dogs with lameness caused by an orthopaedic condition, located in one or both contralateral limbs of a pair. Fourteen clientowned dogs presenting appendicular orthopaedic conditions were recruited. All dogs had previously undergone UWT. The nine selected candidates were divided into two groups: Group A comprised dogs diagnosed with an orthopaedic condition in the forelimbs, and Group B individuals diagnosed with orthopaedic conditions in the hindlimbs. Pressure plate gait analysis was performed to determine ground reaction forces baseline data of all individuals. Afterwards, the dogs completed an UWT session, and gait analysis was repeated to determine postsession values. Peak and impulse of vertical forces (PFz and IFz), stance phase duration (SPD), paw pressure contact area (PCA), and step length were measured. A correlation between step length and withers height was assessed using the collective data of all participants. Contralateral limb pair symmetry was calculated using a symmetry index (SI) for the parameters PFz, IFz, SPD and PCA (SIPFz, SIIFz, SISPD and SIPCA, respectively). Nonlame dogs were excluded, using a SI cut-off value of <3% for PFz and IFz between contralateral limbs. All participants presented baseline hindlimb lameness, regardless of their diagnosis. Before and after measurements were evaluated using a paired student t-test. No statistically significant alterations were observed in any of the parameters. However, baseline and post-session values showed a strong positive correlation in Group A step length and forelimb SIPFz and SIIFz, as well as in Group B step length, mean velocity, hindlimb SIPFz and forelimb SIPCA. In Group B, post-UWT measurements showed an overall decrease in hindlimb SIPFz. In both groups, mean SIPCA increased in the forelimbs and decreased in the hindlimbs. Mean step length increased in 6 dogs and remained equal in 2 dogs. Step length and withers height exponential correlation presented a R value of 0.78. After UWT, 1 out of the 9 participants was considered nonlame. Further research is required to determine the shortterm effects of UWT in temporospatial and pressure gait parameters of dogs with orthopaedic lameness.RESUMO - EFEITOS A CURTO-PRAZO DE HIDROTERAPIA EM PASSADEIRA AQUÁTICA NAS FORÇAS DE REAÇÃO AO SOLO DE CANÍDEOS COM PATOLOGIA ORTOPÉDICA - Esta dissertação teve como objetivo estudar o efeito de uma sessão de terapia em passadeira aquática (UWT) nas forças de reação ao solo de cães com claudicação de origem ortopédica, localizada em um ou ambos membros do mesmo par, através de análise de movimento. Foram pré-avaliados 14 cães que apresentavam condições ortopédicas apendiculares, e já submetidos a UWT anteriormente. Os 9 candidatos selecionados foram separados em dois grupos: o Grupo A incluiu cães com claudicação dos membros torácicos e o Grupo B indivíduos com claudicação dos membros pélvicos. Realizou-se análise de movimento com placa de pressão para determinar os valores base das forças de reação ao solo. Depois de terem completado uma sessão de UWT, os animais foram novamente submetidos a análise de movimento para determinar os valores pós-sessão. Mediu-se o pico e impulso das forças verticais (PFz e IFz), duração da fase de estação (SPD), área de contacto do membro (PCA), e comprimento da passada. A correlação entre o comprimento da passada e a altura do garrote foi avaliada usando os dados de todos os participantes. A simetria dos membros contralaterais foi calculada através de um índice de simetria (SI) para os parâmetros PFz, IFz, SPD e PCA (SIPFz, SIIFz, SISPD and SIPCA). Cães com um valor de SIPFz e SIIFz inferior a 3% foram considerados não claudicantes e excluídos. Todos os participantes apresentaram valores de claudicação nos membros pélvicos, independentemente do diagnóstico. Os valores pré e pós-UWT foram avaliados com o teste t de student para amostras emparelhadas. Não se observaram alterações significativas em nenhum dos parâmetros. No entanto, no Grupo A os valores pré e pós-UWT do comprimentos da passada, e do SIPFz e SIIFz nos membros torácicos demonstraram uma forte correlação positiva, o que também se verificou nos valores do comprimento da passada, velocidade média, SIPFz dos membros pélvicos e SIPCA dos membros torácicos no Grupo B. No Grupo B, observou-se uma diminuição geral no SIPFz dos membros pélvicos. Em ambos grupos, o valor médio de SIPCA aumentou nos membros torácicos e diminuiu nos pélvicos. O valor médio do comprimento da passada aumentou em 6 cães, e manteve-se inalterado em 2. A correlação exponencial entre o comprimento da passada e a altura do garrote apresentou um valor de R = 0.78. Após UWT, 1 dos 9 participantes passou a ser considerado não claudicante. Investigação adicional é necessária para determinar os efeitos a curto prazo da UWT nos parâmetros temporo-espaciais e pressão ao solo em cães com claudicação de origem ortopédica.N/

Synthesis and characterization of abiotic electrocatalysts based on reduced graphene oxide for oxygen reduction reaction

Tese de mestrado, Química (Química) Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2019The use of low-temperature fuel cells as power supplies of energy conversion devices is attracting considerable interest because of the direct electrochemical conversion of a fuel, e.g. hydrogen and glucose, and an oxidant, such as oxygen, producing electrical current. The sluggish kinetic of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) on the cathode half-reaction is particularly investigated since its acceleration relies on the development of efficient electrocatalysts. Unfortunately, the most promising catalysts for ORR are platinum-based materials that exhibit poor durability, limited resource and high cost. Under such circumstances, the development of non-noble, efficient and low-cost electrocatalysts has attracted a great deal of attention. The present dissertation focuses on the synthesis and physicochemical characterization of graphene-based materials doped with nitrogen and 2 and 10 wt % transition metals (Fe, Co, Mn, Cu, Ni and Rh), denoted as rGO/M 2 and 10 %, capable of reducing molecular oxygen. Firstly, nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide with atomically dispersed transition metal materials were synthesized using commercial graphene as precursor. A sequential extra-exfoliation and oxidation of the graphene increased the d-spacing between carbon layers and created porosity on the structure, which is essential for the diffusion of reactants on the material. Further simultaneous N doping and reduction of graphene oxide using thermal and low-temperature plasma treatment allowed the formation of M-Nx active sites that contribute greatly on the ORR activity. The obtained carbon structure exhibited a large specific surface area (c.a. 800 m2 g-1) doped with c.a. 1.98 wt % of nitrogen. The incorporation of atomically dispersed metal reached 21 % of 2 wt %, 3 % and 0.46 % of 10 wt % using different reduction methods. The engagement of aromatic macrocycle molecules, particularly iron and cobalt metalloporphyrins, in the graphene oxide structure was also studied. The synthesis of these hybrid materials was based on a procedure described previously, relying on the addition of the metalloporphyrin to the graphene structure, followed by its pyrolysis under N2 atmosphere. The ORR electrochemical characterization of the materials was performed using hydrodynamic convective systems: the rotating disk electrode (RDE) and the rotating ring-disk electrode (RRDE), in acidic, alkaline and neutral media. Among all the synthesized materials, iron- and cobalt-based materials showed the highest performance towards ORR. In particular rGO/Fe 2 % exhibited a remarkable activity in acidic (Eonset 0.76 V vs. RHE), alkaline (Eonset 0.91 V vs. RHE) and neutral (Eonset 0.78 V vs. RHE) media, comparable to Pt/C catalysts. A mixed 2- and 4-electron pathway was observed for rGO/Fe 2 % in acidic and alkaline media due to the contributions of several functional groups in the structure. The remaining materials displayed lower onset potential in acidic (0.44 to 0.71 V vs. RHE), alkaline (0.80 to 0.87 V vs. RHE) and neutral (0.64 to 0.74 V vs. RHE) media. The outstanding ORR performance of these materials is attributed to the presence of M-Nx actives sites dispersed in the carbon structure and intrinsic ORR activity of metalloporphyrins

A COO study towards the portuguese preference for national food goods

Summary: Country of Origin (COO) has become a highly discussed topic, since consumers are constantly exposed to products from different countries due to the wide-ranging effects of globalization. COO image is a powerful tool that can be used to gain competitive advantage and change consumers attitude. For this matter, stereotypical bias may change perceived quality ratings once consumers are well aware that good chocolate usually comes from Switzerland or Belgium and good coffee from Brazil or Colombia. COO’s heuristic nature, also, saves consumers from extensive product evaluation. The present dissertation aims to identify to which extent Portuguese people prefer to buy domestic food items, what are the main reasons leveraging this choice and under which conditions. An online survey (targeted to Portuguese people) was run gathering 155 valid answers. The results analysis showed that there is a significant difference for preference on Portuguese food depending on its stereotype. Specifically, Portuguese revealed to have a higher preference and purchase intention for domestic food goods when these are stereotypically Portuguese or when they do not carry any stereotype. When a certain food product is stereotypically better to be foreign, Portuguese lean towards this option. The preference for Portuguese food in each of these three scenarios is leveraged by the consumers Patriotism and leveraged by COO image only for stereotypically Portuguese food. Different levels of time constraint did not show relevant differences in the participants attitudes

Index

Proceedings index of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held in the Egas Moniz University Campus at Monte de Caparica, Portugal, from 3–5 June 2019.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Text Mining of Airbnb Reviews: A holistic approach on reviewers’ opinions and topics distribution

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Marketing IntelligenceThis thesis aims to perform a holistic investigation concerning how Airbnb accommodation features and hosts’ attributes influence guest’s reviews and how are the main topics distributed. A dataset containing almost 4 million reviews from major touristic cities in the world (Milan, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Toronto, San-Francisco, and Sydney) was used for the text mining analysis to uncover the reviews’ social and market norms, as well as the guests’ sentiments and topics distribution. This research uses both Mallet LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) and Word2Vec methods to unveil the semantic structure and similarity between data in this study. This approach will allow hospitality providers to understand the impact of underlying factors on reviewers’ opinions for further improvement of their services. Finally, this study develops a predictive unbiased model to forecast the review’s scores, with an accuracy of 90.70%

The platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and the clinical impact on the outcome of stroke patients under previous aspirin therapy

Introdução: Plaquetas e linfócitos desempenham um papel crítico nas vias fisiopatológicas dos estadios iniciais do AVC isquémico agudo (AIS). O rácio plaquetas-linfócitos (PLR) é um parâmetro acessível para avaliar a resposta inflamatória, pois pode ser calculada a partir de um hemograma regular. A aspirina/ácido acetilsalicílico (AAS) desempenha um papel central na prevenção secundária de doenças cardiovasculares, no entanto, o seu impacto no PLR e consequente prognóstico não são completamente compreendidos. Objetivos: Explorar a relação entre aspirina e PLR e os consequentes efeitos na mortalidade e recorrência de AVC em pacientes com AVC isquémico. Métodos: 424 pacientes foram incluídos neste estudo observacional. Os valores do PLR foram calculados a partir da primeira amostra de sangue na admissão. O efeito do PLR na mortalidade e recorrência de AVC foi avaliado usando a metodologia de Kaplan-Meier, teste de log-rank, modelos de risco proporcional de Cox e Análise Bootstrap. Resultados: Os nossos resultados indicam uma associação do PLR alto (>170) com má sobrevida global em pacientes com AVC (HR 1,880, IC 95% 1,176 - 3,005, p = 0,008), principalmente naqueles sem registo de terapia com aspirina (p = 0,018). A modelação do risco de um segundo evento (recorrência) no período de 36 meses demonstrou capacidade preditiva do PLR (p=0,004) confirmada pela análise Bootstrap (p = 0,001; 1000 repetições). A inclusão do PLR nas equações dos modelos de simulação proporciona um ganho de quase 20% na capacidade preditiva (índice C 0,779 aumenta para 0,946). Conclusões: O rácio plaquetas-linfócitos (PLR) está ligado a um impacto clínico com piores desfechos para pacientes com AVC e isso é demonstrado pela primeira vez em relação à terapia prévia com aspirina.Background: Platelets and lymphocytes play a critical role in the pathophysiological pathways of the early stages of acute ischemic stroke (AIS). Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) is an accessible parameter to evaluate inflammatory response as it can be calculated from a regular hemogram. Aspirin/acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) plays a central role in the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, however, its impact on PLR levels and consequent prognostics are not completely understood. Aims: Explore the relationship between aspirin and PLR and the consequent effects on mortality and stroke recurrence in patients with AIS. Methods: 424 patients were included in this observational study. PLR values were calculated from the first blood sample at admission. The effect of PLR on mortality and stroke recurrence was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier methodology, log-rank test, Cox proportional hazard models, and Bootstrap Analysis. Results: Our results indicate an association of high PLR (>170) with a poor overall survival on stroke patients (HR 1.880, 95%CI 1.176 - 3.005, p = 0.008), particularly in those with no record of aspirin therapy (p = 0.018). Modeling the risk of a second event (recurrence) in the timeframe of 36 months demonstrated a predictive capacity for PLR (p=0.004) confirmed by Bootstrap analysis (p = 0.001; 1000 replications). The inclusion of PLR in simulating models' equations provides a gain of nearly 20% in the predictive ability (C-index 0.779 increases to 0.946). Conclusions: The platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) has a link to clinical impact with worse outcomes for stroke patients and this is firstly demonstrated related to previous aspirin therapy

Fourth International Congress of CiiEM : Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century

Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held at Egas Moniz’ University Campus in Monte de Caparica, Almada, from 3–5 June 2019.The 4th edition of the CiiEM Congress “HEALTH, WELL-BEING AND AGEING IN THE XXI CENTURY” followed the trend of previous editions and kept the open and demanding spirit of Egas Moniz scientific dynamics, with the participation of a 15 high-quality communications from 15 world-renowned speakers, and about 200 communications focussing on subjects of importance to the scientific activity of Egas Moniz. This spreads across the biomedical and human sciences.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Diabetes in the Portuguese population: an analysis of e_COR study

[PT] As doenças cardiovasculares são umas das principais causas de morbilidade e mortalidade a nível mundial, sendo um importante problema de saúde pública. A diabetes mellitus é um fator de risco cardiovascular e a sua incidência tem vindo a aumentar mundialmente. No estudo e_COR avaliou-se a prevalência, tratamento e controlo da diabetes numa amostra da população portuguesa. Participaram 1688 indivíduos, distribuídos pelas 5 regiões continentais. Foram determinados os níveis de glicose e de HbA1c. A prevalência da diabetes na população estudada foi de 8,9%, salientando-se que esta prevalência foi baseada somente nos valores de glicose em jejum. Verificou-se que os níveis de glicose aumentam com a idade, sendo significativamente superiores no sexo masculino, e que os valores de HbA1c apresentam um comportamento similar. Dos indivíduos com diabetes, 82% estavam medicados farmacologicamente, mas apenas 60,7% estavam controlados. A identificação e o conhecimento do controlo dos fatores de risco é uma medida fundamental para as autoridades de saúde implementarem medidas de promoção de saúde adequadas. As baixas taxas de controlo dos fatores de risco, como é o caso da diabetes, são um problema sério de saúde pública que precisa de intervenção através de políticas de saúde locais e nacionais.[EN] Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and a major public health problem. Diabetes mellitus is a cardiovascular risk factor and its incidence is increasing worldwide. The e_COR study evaluated the prevalence, treatment and control of diabetes in a sample of the Portuguese population. A total of 1688 individuals, distributed among the five continental regions, participated in this study. Levels of glucose and HbA1c were determined. The prevalence of diabetes in this population was 8.9%, but this prevalence was only based on glucose fasting values. It was found that glucose levels increase with age and is significantly higher in males, and that HbA1c values behave similarly. From the individuals with diabetes, 82% were treated pharmacologically, but only 60.7% were controlled. The identification and knowledge of the degree of management of risk factors is a key measure for the health authorities implement appropriate health promotion measures. The low control rates of risk factors such as diabetes, is a serious public health problem that needs intervention through local and national health policies

The effect of a design label on product choice in FMCG

The concept of User Innovation is not very familiar to consumers, but a growing number of companies are starting to invest on users to assist their R&D process. Thompson and Malaviya’s Skepticism-Identification model explain why companies should encourage but at the same be careful when communicating that a product was designed by users. This experimental study aims to understand the influence of the level of user input in product design on product choice. The design continuum: (1) firm-designed; (2) user-designed and (3) co-creation (the collaboration between the two) is applied to the FMCG industry and tested whether product nature (hedonic and utilitarian) influences consumers’ responses. Firstly, the results indicated that co-creation is the preferred design label, regardless of the product nature. A co-created label enhances perceptions of product quality and for this reason, managers should use this increase in product value to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Secondly, the results indicated that utilitarian products draw the most benefits from a user design label. When looking at communicating the product design mode, companies should first look at the nature of their products.Os consumidores não se encontram muito familiarizados com o conceito de “inovação do consumidor”. Contudo, um número crescente de empresas começa a investir cada vez mais no seu contributo para o processo de I&D. O modelo “Ceticismo-Identificação” de Thompson e Malaviya explica as razões que incentivam e alertam sobre os cuidados da comunicação de que um produto foi concebido pelos consumidores. O presente estudo experimental tem como objectivo perceber a influência do grau de contribuição dos consumidores (na fase de concepção) na escolha do mesmo. O contínuo (1) concebido por profissionais (2) por consumidores e (3) cocriação (colaboração entre as duas partes) é aplicado em Bens de Consumo e é testado perante naturezas de produto distintas (hedónica e utilitária). Os resultados indicam que, em primeiro lugar, a cocriação é a opção mais preferida dos consumidores, independentemente da natureza do produto. Os consumidores percepcionam uma qualidade superior nestes produtos, sendo que as empresas podem ganhar uma vantagem competitiva no mercado. Em segundo lugar, os resultados indicam que os produtos utilitários vão beneficiar fortemente da comunicação de que um produto foi concebido por utilizadores, o que sugere que as empresas devem analisar a natureza do produto antes de investirem neste tipo de estratégias