Direito na lusofonia: cultura, direito humanos e globalização

O presente livro de Actas recolhe as comunicações apresentadas no I Congresso Direito na Lusofonia realizado na Escola de Direito da Universidade do Minho em Fevereiro de 2014, o qual reuniu um conjunto de juristas de distintos países de expressão oficial portuguesa. O âmbito temático dos trabalhos foi, propositadamente, desenhado de modo amplo e transversal, tendo os organizadores procurado que aqueles se agregassem em torno de tópicos omnipresentes neste início do século XXI: Direito, língua e cultura; A tutela dos Direitos Humanos; Direito e globalização; Transnacionalidade, governação e segurança.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Direito na lusofonia: diálogos constitucionais no espaço lusófono

Vol. 2II Volume de Atas do III Congresso Direito na Lusofonia.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Methods for in vitro evaluating antimicrobial activity of medicinal plants : the need for standardization.

A crescente incid?ncia de pat?genos resistentes aos medicamentos atuais incentiva a busca de novos agentes antimicrobianos. Neste contexto, as plantas medicinais se destacam, sendo uma importante fonte de novos f?rmacos. Existem diversos m?todos para avaliar a atividade antibacteriana e antif?ngica de extratos, fra??es, ?leos essenciais e subst?ncias isoladas de vegetais. Os mais conhecidos incluem m?todos de difus?o, dilui??o e bioautografia. A proposta desse trabalho ? apresentar os m?todos mais utilizados atualmente, juntamente com suas vantagens, desvantagens e fatores interferentes. Entre os artigos indexados na biblioteca SciELO, abrangendo os ?ltimos dez anos, somente 4,4% das pesquisas com plantas medicinais est?o relacionadas com atividade antimicrobiana. O m?todo mais utilizado foi a microdilui??o (57,9%), o mais recomendado devido ? alta sensibilidade, ? quantidade m?nima de reagentes e amostra e ? possibilidade de um maior n?mero de r?plicas. Nos trabalhos que utilizaram esse m?todo, foram verificadas diverg?ncias de fatores que podem interferir nos resultados. A fim de facilitar a obten??o de resultados compar?veis e reprodut?veis, destaca-se a necessidade da padroniza??o dos m?todos utilizadas pelos pesquisadores. Recomenda-se utilizar como refer?ncia as normas estabelecidas pelo CLSI para meio de cultura e concentra??o de in?culo nos testes. Al?m disso, tamb?m recomenda-se a inclus?o de um controle negativo da forma de solubiliza??o das amostras, com quantifica??o do crescimento microbiano, para evitar a interfer?ncia nos resultados.The increasing incidence of resistant pathogens to current drugs encourages the search for new antimicrobial agents. In this context, medicinal plants are an important source of new drugs. There are several methods for evaluating the antibacterial and antifungal activity of extracts, fractions, essential oils and isolated substances from the plant. The most known include diffusion, dilution and bioautography methods. The purpose of this paper is to present the most used methods currently, along with their advantages, disadvantages and interfering factors. Among the works available in the SciELO database, covering the last ten years, only 4,4% of research on medicinal plants are related to the antimicrobial activity. The most used method is microdilution (57,9%), the best recommended due to high sensitivity, the minimum quantity of reagents and sample and the possibility of a more significant number of replicates. In articles that used this method, differences were observed in factors that may affect the results. Thereby, there is the need for standardization of methods used by researchers to facilitate obtaining comparable and reproducible results. To achieve comparable and reproducible results, there is the need to standardize the methods used by the researchers. It is recommended to use as reference the standards established by CLSI for culture medium and inoculum concentration in the tests. It also recommended the inclusion of negative control of the solubilization of the samples with quantification of microbial growth to avoid interference with the results

IRAK4 gene polymorphism and odontogenic maxillary sinusitis

Objectives This study aimed to evaluate whether a specific interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase-4 (IRAK4) gene polymorphism had any influence on the development of changes in maxillary sinus, particularly in the presence of etiological factors of dental origin.Materials and methods The study population included 153 Portuguese Caucasians that were selected from a database of 504 retrospectively analysed computed tomography (CT) scans. A genetic test was performed, and a model was created through logistic analysis and regression coefficients. The statistical methodologies included were the independent Chi test, Fisher's exact test, binary logistic regression and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.Results The estimated prevalence of IRAK4 gene polymorphism found in a Portuguese Caucasian population was 26.8 % (CI 95 %) [20.1, 34.7 %]. A model to predict the inflammatory response in the maxillary sinus in the presence etiological factors of dental origin was constructed. This model had the following as variables: previously diagnosed sinusitis, sinus pressure symptoms, cortical bone loss observed on CT, positive genetic test result and radiographic examination that revealed the roots of the teeth communication with the maxillary sinus, which are interpreted as risk factors.Conclusions The constructed model should be considered an initial clinical tool. The area under the ROC curve found, AUC=0.91, revealed that the model correctly predicts the outcome in 91.1 % of cases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

In-situ upgrading of Napier grass pyrolysis vapour over microporous and hierarchical mesoporous zeolites

This study presents in-situ upgrading of pyrolysis vapour derived from Napier grass over microporous and mesoporous ZSM-5 catalysts. It evaluates effect of process variables such catalyst–biomass ratio and catalyst type in a vertical fixed bed pyrolysis system at 600 °C, 50 °C/min under 5 L/min nitrogen flow. Increasing catalyst–biomass ratio during the catalytic process with microporous structure reduced production of organic phase bio-oil by approximately 7.0 wt%. Using mesoporous catalyst promoted nearly 4.0 wt% higher organic yield relative to microporous catalyst, which translate to only about 3.0 wt% reduction in organic phase compared to the yield of organic phase from non-catalytic process. GC–MS analysis of bio-oil organic phase revealed maximum degree of deoxygenation of about 36.9% with microporous catalyst compared to the mesoporous catalysts, which had between 39 and 43%. Mesoporous catalysts promoted production olefins and alkanes, normal phenol, monoaromatic hydrocarbons while microporous catalyst favoured the production of alkenes and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. There was no significant increase in the production of normal phenols over microporous catalyst due to its inability to transform the methoxyphenols and methoxy aromatics. This study demonstrated that upgrading of Napier grass pyrolysis vapour over mesoporous ZSM-5 produced bio-oil with improved physicochemical properties

Spatial distribution of the risk of dengue fever in southeast Brazil, 2006-2007

Background: Many factors have been associated with circulation of the dengue fever virus and vector, although the dynamics of transmission are not yet fully understood. The aim of this work is to estimate the spatial distribution of the risk of dengue fever in an area of continuous dengue occurrence. Methods: This is a spatial population-based case-control study that analyzed 538 cases and 727 controls in one district of the municipality of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, from 2006-2007, considering socio-demographic, ecological, case severity, and household infestation variables. Information was collected by in-home interviews and inspection of living conditions in and around the homes studied. Cases were classified as mild or severe according to clinical data, and they were compared with controls through a multinomial logistic model. A generalized additive model was used in order to include space in a non-parametric fashion with cubic smoothing splines. Results: Variables associated with increased incidence of all dengue cases in the multiple binomial regression model were: higher larval density (odds ratio (OR) = 2.3 (95%CI: 2.0-2.7)), reports of mosquito bites during the day (OR = 1.8 (95%CI: 1.4-2.4)), the practice of water storage at home (OR = 2.5 (95%CI: 1.4, 4.3)), low frequency of garbage collection (OR = 2.6 (95%CI: 1.6-4.5)) and lack of basic sanitation (OR = 2.9 (95%CI: 1.8-4.9)). Staying at home during the day was protective against the disease (OR = 0.5 (95%CI: 0.3-0.6)). When cases were analyzed by categories (mild and severe) in the multinomial model, age and number of breeding sites more than 10 were significant only for the occurrence of severe cases (OR = 0.97, (95%CI: 0.96-0.99) and OR = 2.1 (95%CI: 1.2-3.5), respectively. Spatial distribution of risks of mild and severe dengue fever differed from each other in the 2006/2007 epidemic, in the study area. Conclusions: Age and presence of more than 10 breeding sites were significant only for severe cases. Other predictors of mild and severe cases were similar in the multiple models. The analyses of multinomial models and spatial distribution maps of dengue fever probabilities suggest an area-specific epidemic with varying clinical and demographic characteristics