Relationships between the perceived quality of life and the personality styles measured with the The Millon Index of Personality Styles Revised (MIPS-R)

This exploratory study aims to determine whether the personality styles measured with the Portuguese adaptation of Millon Index of Personality Styles Revised, MIPS-R affect the perceived quality of life. The MIPS-R is a theory-based inventory that measures 24 personality styles in normally functioning adults. Life satisfaction was measured with the Portuguese version of the Quality of Life Inventory, QOLI (Fagulha, Duarte & Miranda, 2000). It refers to a person’s subjective evaluation of the degree to which his/her most important needs, goals and wishes have been fulfilled. This study was carried out with a sample of 43 college students, 36 females (age mean = 19,7; SD = 3,1) and 7 males (age mean = 27,4; SD = 11,4). Based on the participants’ overall life satisfaction score three groups were defined: (1) Low/Very Low quality of life, (2) Average quality of life, (3) High quality of life. Discriminant Factor Analysis (DFA) and the Kruskal-Wallis Test were used to identify the styles that most differentiate these groups and to compare each style in the groups. The Other-Nurturing style is the one that best differentiates the groups. DFA results will be further exploited. Considering the Kruskal-Wallis Test, differences are observed in the Pleasure-Enhancing (p=.006), the Actively Modifying (p=.002), the Gregarious/Outgoing (p=.012), the Passively Accommodating (p=.027), the Asocial/Withdrawing (p=.036), the Unconventional/Dissenting (p=.041) and in the Dissatisfied/Complaining (p=.019) styles. Multiple comparisons were used to compare these styles in the groups. The authors believe that the discussion of these results will provide a better understanding of the MIPS-R.Instituto de Psicologia das Relações Humana

Mechanisms of fate decision and lineage commitment during haematopoiesis.

Blood stem cells need to both perpetuate themselves (self-renew) and differentiate into all mature blood cells to maintain blood formation throughout life. However, it is unclear how the underlying gene regulatory network maintains this population of self-renewing and differentiating stem cells and how it accommodates the transition from a stem cell to a mature blood cell. Our current knowledge of transcriptomes of various blood cell types has mainly been advanced by population-level analysis. However, a population of seemingly homogenous blood cells may include many distinct cell types with substantially different transcriptomes and abilities to make diverse fate decisions. Therefore, understanding the cell-intrinsic differences between individual cells is necessary for a deeper understanding of the molecular basis of their behaviour. Here we review recent single-cell studies in the haematopoietic system and their contribution to our understanding of the mechanisms governing cell fate choices and lineage commitment.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/icb.2015.9

Unveiling the early events of Pseudomonas aeruginosa adaptation in cystic fibrosis airway environment using a long-term in vitro maintenance

Pseudomonas aeruginosa chronic infections are the major cause of high morbidity and mortality in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients due to the use of sophisticated mechanisms of adaptation, including clonal diversification into specialized CF-adapted phenotypes. In contrast to chronic infections, very little is known about what occurs after CF lungs colonization and at early infection stages. This study aims to investigate the early events of P. aeruginosa adaptation to CF environment, in particular, to inspect the occurrence of clonal diversification at early stages of infection development and its impact on antibiotherapy effectiveness. To mimic CF early infections, three P. aeruginosa strains were long-term grown in artificial sputum (ASM) over 10 days and phenotypic diversity verified through colony morphology characterization. Biofilm sub- and inhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin were applied to non- and diversified populations to evaluate antibiotic effectiveness on P. aeruginosa eradication. Our results demonstrated that clonal diversification might occur after ASM colonization and growth. However, this phenotypic diversification did not compromise ciprofloxacin efficacy in P. aeruginosa eradication since a biofilm minimal inhibitory dosage would be applied. The expected absence of mutators in P. aeruginosa populations led us to speculate that clonal diversification in the absence of ciprofloxacin treatments could to be driven by niche specialization. Yet, biofilm sub-inhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin seemed to overlap niche specialization as fitter variants had emerged, such as mucoid, small colony and pinpoint variants, known to be highly resistant to antibiotics. The pathogenic potential of all emergent colony morphotypes-associated bacteria, distinct from the wild-morphotypes, revealed that P. aeruginosa evolves to a non-swimming phenotype. Impaired swimming motility seemed to be one of the first evolutionary steps of P. aeruginosa in CF lungs that could pave the way for further adaptation steps including biofilm formation and progress to chronic infection. Based on our findings, impaired swimming motility seemed to be a candidate to disease marker of P. aeruginosa infection development. Despite our in vitro CF model represents a step forward towards in vivo scenario and it provided valuable insights about the early events, more and distinct P. aeruginosa strains should be studied to strengthen our results.This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/ BIO/04469 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. The authors also acknowledge COMPETE2020 and FCT for the project POCI-01-0145FEDER-029841.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Estilos de personalidade e vulnerabilidade à sugestão no contexto de uma relação interpessoal

A compreensão do papel das diferenças individuais na exactidão dos testemunhos, em particular na sugestionabilidade, é o objectivo deste trabalho. Consideramos que existem diferenças individuais na vulnerabilidade à sugestão e que estas se relacionam com características da personalidade dos indivíduos. Uma amostra de 258 indivíduos (média de idades de 31.8 anos, desvio padrão de 12.0), participou em sessões individuais e respondeu às adaptações portuguesas da Escala de Sugestionabilidade de Gudjonsson (GSS1) e da Edição Revista do Índice de Estilos da Personalidade de Millon (MIPS-R). Consideraram-se três grupos com diferentes graus de vulnerabilidade à sugestão: pouco sugestionáveis, moderadamente sugestionáveis, muito sugestionáveis. Na Análise Factorial Discriminante (AFD), observa-se que os estilos do MIPS-R que melhor discriminam os grupos são: Realista/Sensitivo(a), Imaginativo(a)/Intuitivo(a), Orientado(a) pelo pensamento, Cooperante/Condescendente. Na Análise de Variância Multivariada (MANOVA) verifica-se um efeito significativo, de média dimensão, da vulnerabilidade à sugestão sobre os estilos do MIPS-R, sendo elevada a potência do teste (λMaior Raiz de Roy = .22, p = .005, η2p = .18, π = .99). Os resultados da AFD e da MANOVA são consistentes e evidenciam a importância dos estilos de personalidade da dimensão modos cognitivos, na caracterização de pessoas com diferentes graus de vulnerabilidade à sugestão

Procedure validation and laboratory performance monitoring for the measurement of moisture, ash and volatile matter mass fractions in solid biofuels

Participation in interlaboratory comparisons is a requirement of the accreditation bodies for granting laboratory accreditation by EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005 as external quality control. Proficiency testing (PT) is used to demonstrate the individual performance of a laboratory for a specific test or measurement. Monitoring PT performance over time shows the continuing performance and allows the identification of potential problems related to random and systematic errors. In this study, it is shown that the procedures applied to measure mass fractions of moisture, ash and volatile matter in solid fuels fulfill the conditions stated in the European standards EN 14774-3, EN 14775 and EN 15148:2009 regarding target uncertainty, repeatability and reproducibility. Repeatability was assessed from sample duplicate analysis and combined standard uncertainty. Limits of detection and quantification were also estimated although no target values are stated. The obtained values fulfill the requirements for specifications and classes of solid biofuels. Laboratory performance over the time from 2011 to 2013 regarding such measurements was evaluated with 18 materials provided by WEPAL within the BIMEP program. Apart from monitoring the individual z-scores, their sequence was checked with summarizing parameters including the ‘rescaled sum z-scores’, RSZ, the ‘sum squared z-scores’, SSZ, and J-scores. For none of the analytes, the parameters indicated a trend over time and therefore it was not necessary to trigger any investigation or correcting procedure.

Personality Styles and Suggestibility: A Differential Approach

This study addresses the relationship between personality styles measured with the Portuguese adaptation of the Millon Index of Personality Styles Revised – MIPS-R and interrogative suggestibility assessed by the Portuguese adaptation of the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale – GSS1. Hypotheses predicted individual differences in suggestibility and that these differences correspond to differences in individuals’ personality styles. The study was conducted with a sample of 258 individuals (M age = 31.8 years, SD = 12.0). Results showed that there were individual differences in suggestibility and that these differences corresponded to certain personality characteristics, mainly related to the Thinking Styles and some Behaving Styles

Contribuição das suiniculturas na selecção e disseminação de Enterococcus spp resistentes às tetraciclinas

Apesar dos antibióticos terem sido abolidos na União Europeia como promotores de crescimento, uma elevada percentagem de Enterococcus spp resistentes às tetraciclinas e genes que lhes conferem resistência (tetM, tetL, tetS) foram detectados em amostras animais e ambientais de suiniculturas portuguesas. Estes dados são preocupantes e podem estar associados a um elevado consumo destes antibióticos em medicina veterinária. A presença de tais estirpes em amostras de ar e de estrume usado como fertilizante agrícola pode ainda promover a sua dispersão fora das explorações animais. Although antibiotics were banned from European Union as animal growth promoters, a high percentage of Enterococcus spp resistant to tetracyclines and genes conferring resistance to these agents (tetM, tetL, tetS) were detected in animal and environmental samples collected in Portuguese piggeries. These data are of concern and might be associated to the consumption of high amounts of these antibiotics in veterinary medicine. The presence of such strains in air and manure used as fertilizer in agriculture might promote their dissemination outside the animal production setting

Portuguese adaptation of the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales (GSS1 and GSS2): empirical findings

In study 1 (n = 51, M age = 21.4 years, SD = 5.7), the validity of the Portuguese adaptation of the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales (Pires, 2011) was shown through the comparison of means of the original (Gudjonsson, 1997) and the translated scales and the analysis of the correlations between the GSS1 and GSS2 scores. The relationships between interrogative suggestibility and the big five were also addressed and the results point to independence between suggestibility and personality, which is in line with Polczyk’s findings (2005). Study 2 (n = 87, M age = 48.9 years, SD = 20.7) explored the relationships among interrogative suggestibility, the state-trait anxiety and demographic variables (i.e., age and gender). There were no significant relationships between anxiety and suggestibility. These results are in line with other studies that point to a lack of relationship between suggestibility and anxiety in normal samples (Polczyk, 2005; Wolfradt & Meyer, 1998). As for the relationships between age and interrogative suggestibility, ANCOVA confirmed that the increased suggestibility in old age was not due to age differences but rather to the limited memory capacity of the older adults group. There were no significant gender differences in the GSS1 subscales

Chapter Above‐Ground Biomass Estimation with High Spatial Resolution Satellite Images

Assessment and monitoring of forest biomass are frequently done with allometric functions per species for inventory plots. The estimation per area unit is carried out with an extrapolation method. In this chapter, a review of the recent methods to estimate forest above‐ground biomass (AGB) using remote sensing data is presented. A case study is given with an innovative methodology to estimate above‐ground biomass based on crown horizontal projection obtained with high spatial resolution satellite images for two evergreen oak species. The linear functions fitted for pure, mixed and both compositions showed a good performance. Also, the functions with dummy variables to distinguish species and compositions adjusted had the best performance. An error threshold of 5% corresponds to stand areas of 8.7 and 5.5 ha for the functions of all species and compositions without and with dummy variables. This method enables the overall area evaluation, and it is easily implemented in a geographic information system environment

Atypical Bartonellosis in Children: What do We Know?

Aim: To characterise Bartonella infections in a paediatric population requiring hospital admission and review its treatment. Methods: Longitudinal observational retrospective data analysis of children and adolescents admitted with Bartonella infection at a paediatric tertiary hospital from 2010 to 2019. Results: We identified 16 cases of bartonellosis, with a mean age of 8.0 ± 4.5 years old, no sex predominance and 14 had contact with cats. Most of the cases occurred in fall and winter. Clinical presentations included osteomyelitis/arthritis (n = 9), hepatosplenic disease (n = 2), lymphadenitis (n = 2), neuroretinitis (n = 2) and encephalitis (n = 1). Clinical diagnosis was confirmed by serology (n = 16) and Bartonella DNA detection in patient's lymph nodes/hepatic lesion (n = 3). Therapeutic approach varied according to the clinical presentation: azithromycin in lymphadenitis, rifampicin plus ciprofloxacin in hepatosplenic disease, rifampicin and doxycycline in neuroretinitis, ceftriaxone in encephalitis and azithromycin, cotrimoxazole or rifampicin plus azithromycin, cefuroxime, ciprofloxacin or doxycycline in osteomyelitis/arthritis. Immunodeficiency was excluded in seven patients. Seven patients' cats were screened by veterinarians and treated when infected (n = 5). Conclusions: In these clinical presentations, where other infections may be involved, a high index of suspicion is necessary, with emphasis on the epidemiological context. The association of systemic forms with immunodeficiency did not occur in our study. The lack of recommendations for treatment of atypical infection makes the approach of these cases a challenge. Randomised control studies are essential to define the best approach in each case.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio