Brand gender and consumer-based brand equity on Facebook: The mediating role of consumer-brand engagement and brand love

Brand gender has been suggested as a relevant source of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). The purpose of this paper is to deepen understanding of the relationship between brand gender and CBBE by analyzing the mediating roleofconsumer–brandengagement (CBE)andbrandlove(BL)onthisrelationship.Thisresearchwas conducted on Facebook, the dominant global social media platform. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Results support 6 of the 9 hypotheses, with a significant relationship between analyzed constructs. This study advances prior work by showing that brand gender has an indirect and relevant impact on CBBE through BL and CBE. Therefore, this research confirms the advantages of clear gender positioning and extends prior research by suggesting that brands with a strong gender identity will encourage BL and CB

Carbon nanotubes based multi-directional strain sensor

In this work a new carbon nanotubes (CNT) based multi-directional strain sensor capable of quantifying and indicate strain direction is foreseen. This work investigates the electromechanical behavior of an aligned CNT sensing patch strained at 45◦ in order to validate its multi-directional sensing capability. Vertically aligned CNT forests are produced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and then mechanically knocked down onto polyimide (PI) films. Two configurations, diamond (D sample) and square (Sq sample), are considered. The relative electrical resistance (ΔR/R0) and the electrical anisotropy (RB/RA) upon strain increments are analyzed and compared to previous work results (0◦ and 90◦ strain direction). Both 45◦ samples, D and Sq, are sensitive to strain. A correlation between electrical anisotropy behavior and strain direction (0◦, 45◦ and 90◦) is established. The results show that with only an aligned CNT small patch it is possible to quantify and indicate strain in three directions.This work was partially funded under the project “IAMAT – Introduction of advanced materials technologies into new product development for the mobility industries”, with reference MITP-TB/PFM/0005/2013, under the MIT-Portugal program exclusively financed by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. This work was also co-financed by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, with the scope of projects with references UIDB/05256/2020 and UIDP/05256/2020”

Electrochemical miRNA-34a-based biosensor for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common dementia type and a leading cause of death and disability in the elderly. Diagnosis is expensive and invasive, urging the development of new, affordable, and less invasive diagnostic tools. The identification of changes in the expression of non-coding RNAs prompts the development of diagnostic tools to detect disease-specific blood biomarkers. Building on this idea, this work reports a novel electrochemical microRNA (miRNA) biosensor for the diagnosis of AD, based on carbon screen-printed electrodes (C-SPEs) modified with two gold nanostructures and a complementary anti-miR-34a oligonucleotide probe. This biosensor showed good target affinity, reflected on a 100 pM to 1 M linearity range and a limit of detection (LOD) of 39 pM in buffer and 94 aM in serum. Moreover, the biosensors response was not affected by serum compounds, indicating selectivity for miR-34a. The biosensor also detected miR-34a in the cell culture medium of a common AD model, stimulated with a neurotoxin to increase miR-34a secretion. Overall, the proposed biosensor makes a solid case for the introduction of a novel, inexpensive, and minimally invasive tool for the early diagnosis of AD, based on the detection of a circulating miRNA overexpressed in this pathology.This work was supported by 0624_2IQBIONEURO_6_E, 2IQBioneuro, Promotion of an R&I network in biological chemistry for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases EP-INTERREG V Spain Portugal (POCTEP), and by Portuguese funds through FCT in the framework of the project PTDC/BTM-MAT/4156/2021. S.D.S acknowledges FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P.) for her contract under the Norma Transitória – DL57/2016/CP/CP1360/CT0013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Kinetics of Eucalypt Lignosulfonate Oxidation to Aromatic Aldehydes by Oxygen in Alkaline Medium

The oxidation kinetics of lignosulfonates (LS) from acidic magnesium-based sulfite pulping of Eucalyptus globulus wood with oxygen under alkaline conditions was studied. The analysis of oxidation products in the reaction system O(2)/NaOH revealed a predominance of aromatic aldehydes (vanillin and syringic aldehyde) though small amounts of vanillic and syringic acids and acetophenone/phenylacetaldehyde derivatives have also been detected. The rate constant of syringic aldehyde formation was roughly twice of that for vanillin. The effective activation energies for the oxidation of LS to aromatic aldehydes (ca. 60-70 kJ/mol) were rather different to those found for the formation of aromatic acids (ca. 110 kJ/mol) indicating different mechanisms involved in the rate-determining reaction step. The addition of catalyst (copper salt, 20% w/w) promoted the LS oxidation with increments of aromatic aldehyde yields by 25-50%. The maximum yields of syringic aldehyde and vanillin upon LS oxidation were 16.1 and 4.5%, respectively (150 degrees C, 20 min, P(O2) = 10 bar, 0.9 M NaOH solution). The highly negative effect of concomitant sugars in sulfite liquor to the yield of aromatic aldehydes was highlighted

Parent's reports of lexical and grammatical aspects of toddlers's language in European Portuguese: developmental trends, age and gender differences

The results from a large-scale study on toddlers’ language acquisition in European Portuguese are presented. Toddlers’ lexical and grammatical competencies were assessed using the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences. The results, based on 3012 reports completed by parents, indicate an increase in the lexical size and on five measures of grammatical development (production of regular morphology, irregular morphology, over-regularizations, mean length of utterances and sentence complexity) across age groups. A main effect of gender was found for lexical size, production of regular and irregular morphology, production of over-regularizations and sentence complexity, with girls obtaining overall higher scores than boys. All lexical and grammatical development measures are positively correlated, even after controlling for age and gender effects. These findings are discussed in terms of their consistency with those obtained for other languages.CiPsi - Psychology Research Centre, Uminho (UID/PSI/ 01662/2013), PortugalCIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho (FCT R&D unit 317), Portugalinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Relation between TNF-alpha and exercise induced bronchoconstriction

Introduction: Exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) describes an acute airway narrowing that occurs as a result of exercise. EIB is associated with a hyperosmolar environment that lead to airway smooth muscle contraction. The proinflammatory cytokine, TNF-alpha, has a prominent role in the development of airway hiperresponsiveness (AHR). A single bout of heavy exercise can trigger EIB. The aim of this research was to compare the response of TNF-alpha over time with the presence or absence of EIB in marathon runners. Methods: Thirty-eight male runners, who did not have any chronic or acute airway disease, performed maximal cardiopulmonary exercise testing on a treadmill coupled to the gas analyzer (FitMate ™, Cosmed, Italy). Was used a ramp protocol with fixed slope of 1% and an increase of load (1km/h) every minute. Spirometry was performed before (pre), immediately after, five, ten, fifteen and twenty minutes after exercise stress testing. Were considered positive for BIE those athletes that presented a decrease in expiratory volume in one second greater than 10% in any of the spirometric tests. Blood samples were obtained the day before the marathon, immediately and after 72 hours after the race. Cytokines were determined in serum by ELISA. Was used analysis of variance (ANOVA) with two factors, group and time of blood collection, considering repeated measures on the time factor. In the case of statistical significance for interaction group and blood was concluded that the behavior over time was significantly different between EIB negative (-) and EIB positive (+), in this case applied the method of Tukey\u27s multiple comparisons to determine the moment that occurred these differences (p\u3c0.05). Results: We observed a statistically significant difference (p=0.048) in the behavior of the concentration of TNF-alpha between groups EIB- and EIB+. The measure pre of the EIB+ have an higher concentration of TNF-alpha compared to those obtained immediately after the marathon for EIB+ and the results obtained at the three moments for EIB-. (Figure 1). Conclusion: Our results suggests that an inflammatory status in serum of the marathon runners presenting BIE, before the race may be associated with bronchoconstriction triggering

NSCs from groups to clusters: A catalogue of dwarf galaxies in the Shapley Supercluster and the role of environment in galaxy nucleation

© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are dense star clusters located at the centre of galaxies spanning a wide range of masses and morphologies. Analysing NSC occupation statistics in different environments provides an invaluable window into investigating early conditions of high-density star formation and mass assembly in clusters and group galaxies. We use HST/ACS deep imaging to obtain a catalogue of dwarf galaxies in two galaxy clusters in the Shapley supercluster: the central cluster Abell 3558 and the northern Abell 1736a. The Shapley region is an ideal laboratory to study nucleation as it stands as the highest mass concentration in the nearby Universe. We investigate the NSC occurrence in quiescent dwarf galaxies as faint as M I = −10 mag and compare it with all other environments where nucleation data is available. We use galaxy cluster/group halo mass as a proxy for the environment and employ a Bayesian logistic regression framework to model the nucleation fraction (f n) as a function of galaxy luminosity and environment. We find a notably high f n in Abell 3558: at M I ≈ −13.1 mag, half the galaxies in the cluster host NSCs. This is higher than in the Virgo and Fornax clusters but comparable to the Coma Cluster. On the other hand, the f n in Abell 1736a is relatively lower, comparable to groups in the local volume. We find that the probability of nucleation varies with galaxy luminosity remarkably similarly in galaxy clusters. These results reinforce previous findings of the important role of the environment in NSC formation/growth.Peer reviewe

Pharmacodynamic effect of gabapentin on central nervous system in patients with chronic low back pain: a [99mTc]Tc-ECD SPECT study

Background: Gabapentin is an effective therapeutic alternative for chronic low back pain, indicated in several guidelines for treating neuropathic pain as first-line medication. This study aimed to describe the pharmacodynamics of gabapentin in the central nervous system of patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) by using single-photon emission CT (SPECT) with [99mTc]Tc-ECD. Methods: We selected 13 patients with CLBP due to lumbar disc herniation. They underwent SPECT before and after using gabapentin, compared with a SPECT database of healthy volunteers. A second analysis compared regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) changes between responders and non-responders to gabapentin and the healthy controls. Results: The mean age of patients was 41 years, and the mean pain intensity was 5.92 points, measured by the Numeric Rating Scale. After using gabapentin, SPECT showed an increase of rCBF in the bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus and a decrease of rCBF in periaqueductal gray matter. Non-responder patients with gabapentin showed a post-treatment decrease of rCBF in the paracentral lobule of the brain. Conclusions: A lack of improvement in some patients with gabapentin may be associated with an activated affective circuit of pain, evidenced by the increase of rCBF of the anterior cingulate cortex. A maladaptive brain state in chronic pain can explain the decrease of rCBF in the default mode network structures. Gabapentin acts directly or indirectly on neurons of periaqueductal gray substance by increasing the pain threshold and decreasing the rCBF of this structure