On the social return of R&D projects and support programmes

This work is a part of an ongoing research focusing on the social impact of R&D projects and support programmes from the perspectives of the public and private sectors. The research project is based on interviews conducted as part of a case study methodology involving a marine-sector private company and the Technological Center in Vigo. The results indicate that the criteria chosen as being the most important for the evaluation of social return of R&D were the number of jobs created at the company, the environmental impact and the working conditions. Also included in the analysis were the criteria used in the process of evaluating applications for funding. From the analysis it becomes notorious that social return is not a priority in this evaluation process, with assigned weights for the related criteria ranging between 0 and -22%. The only exception was the Transnational Program of cooperation Atlantic Space where the weights of the variable related to the social character of the project sum about 50 %. The mostly used criteria are the environmental impact, the incorporation of new PhD´s and the presence of women investigator's in the project. Only in the Transnational Program of cooperation Atlantic Space include criteria like the transference of knowledge, diffusion of knowledge and platform growth

Artistas sobre outras Obras

Nesta edição da Revista Estúdio reunimos 14 artigos dos artistas e criadores, ao mesmo tempo que recordamos Josep Montoya, de Barcelona, membro da Comissão Científica do Congresso CSO: Criadores Sobre outras Obras e par académico da Revista Estúdio, que não resistiu à COVID-19. Habituado a acompanhar em Lisboa os Congressos Criadores Sobre outras Obras, Pep deixou obra escrita tanto sobre os seus mestres, como sobre os seus alunos. O desafio do Congresso foi fértil junto da sua generosidade.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterization of Antimicrobial, Antioxidant, and Leishmanicidal Activities of Schiff Base Derivatives of 4-Aminoantipyrine

Our main interest is the characterization of compounds to support the development of alternatives to currently marketed drugs that are losing effectiveness due to the development of resistance. Schiff bases are promising biologically interesting compounds having a wide range of pharmaceutical properties, including anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, and antimicrobial activities, among others. In this work, we have synthesized 12 Schiff base derivatives of 4-aminoantipyrine. In vitro antimicrobial, antioxidant, and cytotoxicity properties are analyzed, as well as in silico predictive adsorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) and bioactivity scores. Results identify two potential Schiff bases: one effective against E. faecalis and the other with antioxidant activity. Both have reasonable ADME scores and provides a scaffold for developing more effective compounds in the future. Initial studies are usually limited to laboratory in vitro approaches, and following these initial studies, much research is needed before a drug can reach the clinic. Nevertheless, these laboratory approaches are mandatory and constitute a first filter to discriminate among potential drug candidates and chemical compounds that should be discarded

Opportunistic infections and AIDS malignancies early after initiating combination antiretroviral therapy in high-income countries

Background: There is little information on the incidence of AIDS-defining events which have been reported in the literature to be associated with immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) after combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) initiation. These events include tuberculosis, mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), herpes simplex virus (HSV), Kaposi sarcoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), cryptococcosis and candidiasis. Methods: We identified individuals in the HIV-CAUSAL Collaboration, which includes data from six European countries and the US, who were HIV-positive between 1996 and 2013, antiretroviral therapy naive, aged at least 18 years, hadCD4+ cell count and HIV-RNA measurements and had been AIDS-free for at least 1 month between those measurements and the start of follow-up. For each AIDS-defining event, we estimated the hazard ratio for no cART versus less than 3 and at least 3 months since cART initiation, adjusting for time-varying CD4+ cell count and HIV-RNA via inverse probability weighting. Results: Out of 96 562 eligible individuals (78% men) with median (interquantile range) follow-up of 31 [13,65] months, 55 144 initiated cART. The number of cases varied between 898 for tuberculosis and 113 for PML. Compared with non-cART initiation, the hazard ratio (95% confidence intervals) up to 3 months after cART initiation were 1.21 (0.90-1.63) for tuberculosis, 2.61 (1.05-6.49) for MAC, 1.17 (0.34-4.08) for CMV retinitis, 1.18 (0.62-2.26) for PML, 1.21 (0.83-1.75) for HSV, 1.18 (0.87-1.58) for Kaposi sarcoma, 1.56 (0.82-2.95) for NHL, 1.11 (0.56-2.18) for cryptococcosis and 0.77 (0.40-1.49) for candidiasis. Conclusion: With the potential exception of mycobacterial infections, unmasking IRIS does not appear to be a common complication of cART initiation in high-income countries