Diversity in the maps of a Lisbon neighbourhood: community and ‘official’ discourses about the renewed Mouraria

The neighbourhood of Mouraria in the center of Lisbon is today home to three main groups of residents: traditional residents, new gentrifiers, and immigrants. This diversity is simultaneously a strength of and a threat to its social cohesion and its current urban rehabilitation process, undertaken by the City Council of Lisbon (CCL). This study has three main goals: 1) to analyze how the ‘community identity’ maps of the neighbourhood are constructed by residents’ discourse; 2) to analyze how the ‘official’ cultural map of the neighbourhood is constructed in the discourses of the press and the CCL; and 3) to compare the ‘official’ and the ‘community’ maps. In drafting the ‘community’ maps, 22 interviews were conducted with traditional residents (14), new gentrifiers (6), and immigrants (2). The ‘official’ cultural map was re-constructed through a press analysis (four articles from two reference newspapers: Público, 2014; Expresso, 2013) and an in-depth interview with the coordinator of the CCL office in Mouraria. Findings show that the rehabilitation program is represented in the ‘official’ discourse in a more positive way than in residents’ discourses. The main divergence concerns the targets of the intervention. However, in both discourses there is agreement regarding the social problems of Mouraria. The stories of the past told by traditional residents, although mentioning the loss of the traditional character of Mouraria, show the importance of public spaces for place attachment and place identity. The discourses of new residents highlight the role of places in building connections between past and present, and in helping maintain a sense of continuity. We discuss the importance of community identity mapping in understanding the ‘battle of ideas’ around urban rehabilitation and the impact that different perspectives can have. The study can be a source of information for decision-makers, helping strengthen the communication bridge between them and the community.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Elementary processes governing the evolution of road networks

Urbanisation is a fundamental phenomenon whose quantitative characterisation is still inadequate. We report here the empirical analysis of a unique data set regarding almost 200 years of evolution of the road network in a large area located north of Milan (Italy). We find that urbanisation is characterised by the homogenisation of cell shapes, and by the stability throughout time of high-centrality roads which constitute the backbone of the urban structure, confirming the importance of historical paths. We show quantitatively that the growth of the network is governed by two elementary processes: (i) `densification', corresponding to an increase in the local density of roads around existing urban centres and (ii) `exploration', whereby new roads trigger the spatial evolution of the urbanisation front. The empirical identification of such simple elementary mechanisms suggests the existence of general, simple properties of urbanisation and opens new directions for its modelling and quantitative description.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Dynamics of growth differentiation factor 15 in acute heart failure

Aims: Risk stratification in acute heart failure (HF) patients can help to decide therapies and time for discharge. The potential of growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) in HF has been previously shown. We aimed to study the importance of GDF-15-level variations in acute HF patients. Methods and results: We retrospectively evaluated a cohort of patients hospitalized due to acute HF. GDF-15 was measured both at admission and on the discharge day. Patients were followed-up during a 3 year period. The endpoint under analysis was all-cause mortality. GDF-15 variation is equal to [(admission GDF-15 - discharge GDF-15)∕admission GDF-15] × 100. Variation was categorized in levels of increase or decrease of GDF-15. Patients were cross-classified according to admission and discharge GDF-15 cut-off points. A Cox regression analysis was used to assess the prognostic impact of GDF-15 variation and the impact of both admission and discharge GDF-15 according to the cross-classification. We studied a group of 249 patients with high co-morbidity burden. Eighty-one patients died at 1 year and 147 within 3 years. There was a modest decrease in GDF-15 during hospitalization from a median value of 4087 to 3671 ng/mL (P = 0.02). No association existed between GDF-15 variation and mortality. In multivariate analysis, patients with admission GDF-15 ≥ 3500 ng/mL and discharge GDF-15 ≥ 3000 ng/mL had a significantly higher 1 year death risk when compared with the remaining-hazard ratio = 2.59 (95% confidence interval: 1.41-4.76)-and a 3 year 1.76 (95% confidence interval: 1.08-2.87) higher death risk compared with those with both values below the cut-off. Conclusions: Growth differentiation factor 15 decreased during an acute HF hospitalization, but its variation had no prognostic implications. The knowledge of both admission and discharge GDF-15 added meaningful information to patients' risk stratification

O depósito de machados do Bronze Final de Cobidalto, Areosa (Viana do Castelo) : novos dados para a sua contextualização e interpretação

Pretende-se com este artigo dar a conhecer os resultados dos trabalhos arqueológicos levados a cabo no monu-mento funerário de Laceiras do Côvo 3, estrutura tumular enquadrável, provavelmente, na Idade do Bronze, localizada na freguesia de Arões, concelho de Vale de Cambra. Este monumento revela-se de particular inte-resse pela policromia intencional na matéria usada na sua construção e pela disposição cuidada dos elementos litológicos do tumulus, em que nada parece estar ao acaso. Tais características sugerem a intenção de manter o espaço dos mortos visível, assim como uma interligação simbólica entre rochas e minerais e as práticas relacio-nadas com a morte. Na linha de Tim Ingold (2000) consideramos, ainda, que a matéria do monumento seria portadora de determinadas propriedades, revelando-se como entidade viva e atuante na construção de sentidos e memórias associadas ao mundo dos mortos.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

High-Sensitivity Troponin T: A Biomarker for Diuretic Response in Decompensated Heart Failure Patients

Background. Patients presenting with acutely decompensated heart failure (ADHF) and positive circulating cardiac troponins were found to be a high-risk cohort. The advent of high-sensitive troponins resulted in a detection of positive troponins in a great proportion of heart failure patients. However, the pathophysiological significance of this phenomenon is not completely clear. Objectives. The aim of this study is to determine the early evolution and clinical significance of high-sensitivity troponin T (hsTnT) in ADHF. Methods. Retrospective, secondary analysis of a prospective study including 100 patients with ADHF. Results. Globally, high-sensitivity troponin T decreased from day 1 to day 3 (P = 0,039). However, in the subgroup of patients who remained decompensated no significant differences in hsTnT from day 1 to day 3 were observed (P = 0,955), whereas in successfully compensated patients a significant reduction in hsTnT levels was observed (P = 0,025). High-sensitivity troponin T decrease was correlated with NTproBNP reduction (P = 0,007). Patients with hsTnT increase had longer length of stay (P = 0,033). Conclusions. Episodes of ADHF are associated with transient increases in the blood levels of hsTnT that are reduced with effective acute episode treatment. The decrease in hsTnT can translate less myocardial damage along with favourable ADHF treatment

A vortex description of the first-order phase transition in type-I superconductors

Using both analytical arguments and detailed numerical evidence we show that the first order transition in the type-I 2D Abelian Higgs model can be understood in terms of the statistical mechanics of vortices, which behave in this regime as an ensemble of attractive particles. The well-known instabilities of such ensembles are shown to be connected to the process of phase nucleation. By characterizing the equation of state for the vortex ensemble we show that the temperature for the onset of a clustering instability is in qualitative agreement with the critical temperature. Below this point the vortex ensemble collapses to a single cluster, which is a non-extensive phase, and disappears in the absence of net topological charge. The vortex description provides a detailed mechanism for the first order transition, which applies at arbitrarily weak type-I and is gauge invariant unlike the usual field-theoretic considerations, which rely on asymptotically large gauge coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, uses RevTex. Additional references added, some small corrections to the tex