Evaluation of current antiemetic therapy response in patients undergoing MEC or HEC regimens in Portugal

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) negatively impact cancer patients' quality of life and treatment outcomes. This study evaluated the achievement of complete response to CINV prophylaxis during the first five days after chemotherapy in adult outpatient cancer clinics with solid malignant tumours receiving Moderate or Highly Emetogenic Chemotherapy (MEC or HEC) in Portugal. During the study, patients completed three evaluations, and nausea severity and CINV impact on patients' daily life was assessed. A complete response (no emetic episodes, no use of rescue antiemetic medication, and no more than mild nausea) was observed in 72% of the cycles (N = 161) throughout the five days after chemotherapy. Amongst the patient population, 25% classified their CINV episodes as severe. Though more than half of the patients achieved a complete response, suggesting that a therapeutic effort is being made to minimise this side effect, the overall scenario is barely optimistic. Significantly, new CINV-control measures in MEC/HEC patients should be adopted, specifically avoiding the single use of dexamethasone and 5-HT3 and raising awareness of using NK1-RAs. Thus, it is critical to improve CINV prophylactic treatment and implement practical international antiemetic guidelines in Portuguese clinical practice, envisaging the improvement of supportive care for cancer patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

High accuracy monitoring of honey bee colony development by a quantitative method

Honey bees are key insect pollinators, providing important economic and ecological value for human beings and ecosystems. This has triggered the development of several monitoring methods for assessing the temporal development of colony size, food storage, brood and pathogens. Nonetheless, most of these methods are based on visual assessments that are observer-dependent and prone to bias. Furthermore, the impact on colony development (invasiveness), as well as accuracy, were rarely considered when implementing new methods. In this study, we present and test a novel accurate and observer-independent method for honey bee colony assessment, capable of being fully standardized. Honey bee colony size is quantified by assessing the weight of adult bees, while brood and provision are assessed by taking photos and conducting image analysis of the combs with the image analysis software DeepbeeVR . The invasiveness and accuracy of the method were investigated using field data from two experimental apiaries in Portugal, comparing results from test and control colonies. At the end of each field experiment, most of the tested colonies had the same colony size, brood levels and honey production as the control colonies. Nonetheless, continuous weight data indicated some disturbance in tested colonies in the first year of monitoring. The overall accuracy of the image analysis software was improved by training, indicating that it is possible to adapt the software to local conditions. We conclude that the use of this fully quantitative method offers a more accurate alternative to classic visual colony assessments, with negligible impact on colony development.This work was supported by European Food Safety Authority under grant OC/EFSA/SCER/2017/02; FCT provided financial support by national funds (FCT/MCTES) to CFE (UIDB/04004/2020) and CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020); NC was financed by FCT under PhD grant SFRH/BD/133352/2017; YLD by DCE (Danish Centre for Environment and Energy) under grant 21628-82105.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bridging the Gap between Field Experiments and Machine Learning: The EC H2020 B-GOOD Project as a Case Study towards Automated Predictive Health Monitoring of Honey Bee Colonies.

Honey bee colonies have great societal and economic importance. The main challenge that beekeepers face is keeping bee colonies healthy under ever-changing environmental conditions. In the past two decades, beekeepers that manage colonies of Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) have become increasingly concerned by the presence of parasites and pathogens affecting the bees, the reduction in pollen and nectar availability, and the colonies' exposure to pesticides, among others. Hence, beekeepers need to know the health condition of their colonies and how to keep them alive and thriving, which creates a need for a new holistic data collection method to harmonize the flow of information from various sources that can be linked at the colony level for different health determinants, such as bee colony, environmental, socioeconomic, and genetic statuses. For this purpose, we have developed and implemented the B-GOOD (Giving Beekeeping Guidance by computational-assisted Decision Making) project as a case study to categorize the colony's health condition and find a Health Status Index (HSI). Using a 3-tier setup guided by work plans and standardized protocols, we have collected data from inside the colonies (amount of brood, disease load, honey harvest, etc.) and from their environment (floral resource availability). Most of the project's data was automatically collected by the BEEP Base Sensor System. This continuous stream of data served as the basis to determine and validate an algorithm to calculate the HSI using machine learning. In this article, we share our insights on this holistic methodology and also highlight the importance of using a standardized data language to increase the compatibility between different current and future studies. We argue that the combined management of big data will be an essential building block in the development of targeted guidance for beekeepers and for the future of sustainable beekeeping

@Twitter: rastreio de reações a notícias políticas

Playing a massive impact on how the general population interacts with each other, and how they access and share opinions on news, namely on themes of political nature, social media became part of the daily lives of society. Such influence encouraged the creation of a set of techniques to build profiles and identify patterns in opinion. Moved by this potential, the main purpose of this dissertation was to develop a system to perform Sentiment Analysis on posts from Twitter with political theme, categorizing opinions between Positive, Neutral or Negative. The collected information can than be grouped in different topics like organizations or people, using Named Entity Recognition methods, that enable filtering the information on relevant themes. The results were analysed on a dashboard that compiles the information, by displaying the data in various intuitive ways, allowing a more concrete comparison between different political themes. Identifying relevant and specific study cases on the stored data enabled a subjective review on the different Sentiment Analysis methods.Tendo imenso impacto na forma como a população em geral interage e como acede e partilha opiniões sobre notícias, nomeadamente sobre temas de natureza política, as redes sociais passaram a fazer parte do quotidiano da sociedade. Tal influência proporcionou a criação de um conjunto de técnicas para a formação de perfis e identificação de padrões de opinião. Movido por esse potencial, o objetivo principal desta dissertação foi desenvolver um sistema que efetuasse Análise de Sentimentos em publicações do Twitter com temática política, categorizando as opiniões entre Positivas, Neutras ou Negativas. As informações recolhidas puderam então ser agrupadas por diferentes tópicos como instituições ou pessoas, utilizando métodos de Reconhecimento de Entidades Mencionadas, possibilitando a filtragem das informações em temáticas relevantes. Os resultados foram analisados numa dashboard que compilou as informações, exibindo os dados de várias formas intuitivas, permitindo uma comparação mais concreta entre os diferentes temas políticos. A identificação de casos de estudo pertinentes e específicos sobre os dados armazenados permitiu uma revisão subjetiva sobre os diferentes métodos de análise de sentimento.Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e Telemátic

Climate change effects on Porcellionides sexfasciatus (Isopoda) inhabiting metalcontaminated sites

Dissertação de Mestrado em Ecologia, apresentada ao Departamento de Ciências da Vida da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra.Os isópodes são organismos de solo que ajudam na decomposição da matéria orgânica, desempenhando um papel importante nos ciclos de carbono e de nutrientes. Na natureza, os isópodes estão sujeitos a um conjunto de stresses que influenciam o seu comportamento, distribuição e balanço energético. Um desses stresses, de origem antropogénica, é a contaminação por metais. Populações que vivem sob contaminação de metais precisam de utilizar energia do seu metabolismo para lidar com esse stress, podendo ser mais afectados por stresses adicionais, tais como alterações climáticas. Os cenários de alterações climáticas prevêem um aumento na temperatura e de eventos extremos (cheias / secas). Estas alterações podem levar a mudanças na biodisponibilidade e toxicidade dos metais e a mudanças na resposta dos organismos a contaminantes. Quando expostas à contaminação por metais, as populações de isópodes tendem a evitar a contaminação; se não tiverem sucesso, precisam de desenvolver tolerância a metais, para podere-.m viver e reproduzir-se, através de alterações fenotípicas ou genotípicas. Para testar os efeitos das alterações climáticas em populações de isópodes expostas a metais, foi estudada uma população de Porcellionides sexfasciatus, cujo habitat se localiza perto de uma mina abandonada em São Domingos (Sul de Portugal). Essa população (Santana de Cambas – SC), juntamente com uma população de referência (Lago – LG), foi sujeita a testes de mortalidade e de consumo. No capítulo 2 foi feita uma avaliação do efeito das alterações climáticas na mortalidade e consumo. O capítulo 3 avalia como é que as alterações climáticas influenciam a tolerância a metais dessas populações, comparando a resposta de ambas quando expostas a um gradiente de cádmio. Os objectivos principais desta dissertação são: (1) avaliar se as populações de isópodes que vivem em locais contaminados por metais são mais sensíveis às alterações climáticas, testando 3 temperaturas (20, 25 and 30°C) e 3 níveis de moisture (20, 40 and 60%) (capítulo 2); (2) estimar se as alterações climáticas afectam a sua tolerância a metais, e se essa tolerância está relacionada com a exposição prévia a metais, testando também 3 temperaturas (20, 25 and 30°C) e 2 níveis de humidade do solo (20 e 40%) (capítulo 3). No capítulo 2, as populações apenas mostraram diferenças nos tratamentos com humidade de solo a 60%, tendo a população SC uma maior taxa de sobrevivência. No capítulo 3, a população SC foi mais afectada pela subida de temperatura, tornando-se mais susceptível à contaminação por cádmio. Além das diferenças entre populações, foi registada uma resposta comum à temperatura: o seu aumento estimulou maiores taxas de consumo. Foi também registado que a humidade do solo a 60% (ambiente molhado) provocou 100% de mortalidade em 20 dias, enquanto a humidade do solo a 20% (ambiente seco) não afectou a resposta das populações. Este trabalho permitiu concluir que as alterações climáticas afectam as populações que habitam locais contaminados, com uma redução da tolerância a metais com o aumento de temperatura; afectam a sobrevivência de ambas as populações em caso de chuvas intensas; e promovem as taxas de decomposição dos isópodes com o aumento da temperatura, pelo menos até aos 30ºC.Isopods are soil organisms that help on organic matter decomposition, playing an important role in the carbon and nutrient cycles. In nature, isopods are subjected to several stressors that influence their distribution, ecology, behavior, and physiology (including their energy balance). One of those stressors, from anthropogenic origin, is metal contamination. Populations that live under metal contamination need to use energy from their metabolism to deal with metals, becoming prone to be more affected by additional stressors such as climate variations. With the present climate change scenarios, an increase in temperature and in extreme rainfall events (floods / drought) is predicted. These climate events can change metals’ bioavailability and toxicity, and may affect isopods’ response to contaminants. When facing metal contamination, isopod populations tend to avoid contamination; if they fail to do it they will need to develop tolerance to metals, in order to live and reproduce, by phenotypic or genotypic alterations. In order to test the effects of climate change in metal-exposed isopod populations, a Porcellionides sexfasciatus population living near an abandoned mine in São Domingos (south of Portugal) was studied. That population (Santana de Cambas - SC), along with a reference one (Lago – LG), were subjected to lethal and sub-lethal tests (feeding). The main goals of this thesis were: (1) to evaluate if isopod populations living under metal contamination are more sensitive to climate change, testing in a full factorial experiment 3 temperature (20, 25 and 30°C) and 3 moisture levels (20, 40 and 60%) (Chapter 2); and (2) to estimate if climate change affects isopods’ metal tolerance and if that tolerance is connected with their previous exposure to metals (testing also in a full factorial design, 3 temperature (20, 25 and 30°C) and 2 moisture levels (20 and 40%) (Chapter 3). Results from chapter 2 showed differences between populations only at the 60% moisture treatments, with SC having higher survival rates. Besides differences between populations, it was registered a common response to temperature increase, enhancing food consumption rates. Moisture conditions showed that 60% moisture (wet environment) caused 100% mortality after 20 days. Results obtained when testing Cd tolerance (Chapter 3) showed that SC population was more affected by temperature rise than LG, becoming more susceptible to cadmium contamination along temperature rise. In both chapters, the 20% moisture treatment (dry environment) did not affect isopods’ response. This work allowed to conclude that climate change affected isopod populations from metal contaminated sites, with decreased tolerance to cadmium with temperature increment; affected isopod survival in cases of extreme rainfall, and enhanced consumption food rates (and therefore decomposition ability) with temperature increase at least until 30ºC

Marketing research - drivers of portuguese consumers using social media

: A perceptual map represents the associations between different benefits, and the relative positioning of brands across those benefits, at the customer’s eyes, suggesting a view on brand’s positioning. After an analysis of consumers’ main goals, and data gathered from the experts and different personas interviews, it can be concluded that there are 7 main factors that lead Portuguese consumers to use social media: Access to Information, Social Interaction, Status update, Network, Shop online, Self-Expression, and Entertainment

Solving multiple layer containment problems using iterative methods

The footwear industry’s need for an automatic containment algorithm is becoming increasingly important within the manufacturing process. Irregular containers, such as hides, have many different quality regions and holes that must be taken into account when containment is done because they represent an important cost. Automatic containment processes should be aware of these factors and still perform in practical time. We present an iterative containment algorithm that uses Minkowski operators and can be applicable to such containment problems. Although the iterative solution is not the optimal one, it can reach a solution in practical running times and it can get results that approximate the human made containment process

Modelling foraging strategies of honey bees as agents in a dynamic landscape representation

Introduction: Both intrinsic colony mechanisms and external environmental variables affect the honey bee colony development rates and response and a key aspect of this is the use of resources within the landscape by honey bees. Although several models have been developed to explore the foraging behaviour of bees, none fully considered the spatial and temporal dynamics of landscape resources and the role of the colony in the process.Methodology: Here, we introduce a new honey bee foraging model being developed as a part of the ApisRAM honey bee colony model. Based on agent-based modelling, we used a dynamic ALMaSS landscape model enhanced with floral resource modelling to assess the impacts of weather conditions and resource availability on the possible foraging behaviour of honey bees. Several possible mechanisms (defined, based on honey bee traits) for scouting and foraging were investigated, separately for nectar and pollen collection, including prioritising foraging polygons for nectar foraging according to their distance to the colony, the quality or the energetic efficiency and, for pollen foraging, according to their distance to the colony and pollen quantity.Results: If model foraging bees prioritised the polygons, based on their distance from the colony, the number of unsuccessful flights increased compared to other tested strategies and the total amount of sugar collected showed a high variability. Contrary to expectations, the energetic efficiency strategy did not provide the colony with the highest amount of sugar. Overall, the tested strategies provide different outcomes on the collection of resources, the number of performed flights and their success rate, evidencing that the model's outcome at the colony level arises from the individual types of behaviour.Conclusions and Relevance: Variability in the mass of collected nectar and pollen was found mostly when scout bees applied the distance strategy. This higher variability in sugar collection means that model bees were not able to find the most profitable foraging sites at the landscape level, but only at the local level. Other strategies showed less dependence on the surrounding landscape (i.e. quality or random), but it comes at a cost (i.e. lower production for both nectar and pollen collection). These outputs help us evaluate which strategies could be used for future model development and confirm the models' ability to create dynamic responses. These responses at the colony level were only possible thanks to the implementation of a dynamic landscape model and dynamic spatiotemporal resource model, as well as implementing a social communication mechanism for bees to share information about the resources. Plant nectar production and quality information is essential to predict honey bee foraging distribution. In future model development, the implementation of pollen quality should also be explored to evaluate if it influences the overall pollen collection

Perfil de prescrição antibiótica no tratamento das infecções das vias aéreas superiores

Objectivos: Determinar a proporção de infecções das vias aéreas superiores (IVAS) tratadas com antibiótico numa Unidade de Saúde Familiar (USF); verificar quais os antibióticos mais prescritos nas IVAS; avaliar se existe relação entre a prescrição de antibióticos e a idade e o sexo do doente; avaliar se existe relação entre o antibiótico prescrito e a idade do doente. Tipo de estudo: observacional, analítico e transversal. Local: Unidade de Saúde Familiar (USF) Serpa Pinto, no Porto. População: Utentes inscritos na USF com pelo menos um contacto médico codificado como IVAS. Métodos: Recolheu-se a informação a partir dos sistemas MedicineOne® e SAM® e incluíram-se as consultas classificadas, segundo a International Classification of Primary Care-2, como: R21; R72; R74; R75; R76. Resultados: Das 299 consultas estudadas, 61,2% foram realizadas a mulheres. A média de idades foi de 26,4 anos (± 22,3). Os diagnósticos mais frequentes foram R76 (48,1%) e R74 (38,7%). Foi prescrito antibiótico em 68,2% das consultas, sendo a classe das penicilinas a mais prescrita (90,6%). Não existiu relação entre a prescrição de antibióticos e o sexo ou a idade do doente. Verificou-se uma diferença estatisticamente significativa entre a idade e a classe de antibiótico prescrita: penicilinas (25,1 anos ± 22,1) vs restantes classes (39,7 anos ± 20,1) (p < 0,001). Conclusões: A classe dos beta-lactâmicos foi a mais usada para o tratamento de IVAS, com uma maior proporção de penicilinas prescritas, em relação a outros estudos. Por outro lado, verificou-se existir relação entre a idade e a classe terapêutica de antiótico prescrita

Endoscopic Treatment of Early Gastric Obstruction After Sleeve Gastrectomy: Report of Two Cases

Morbid obesity is an epidemic and complex disease which imposes a multidisciplinary approach. Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy has become a frequent procedure given its efficacy and safety compared to other surgical options. However, it isn’t free from complications. Lax gastric fixation or incorrect positioning of the stomach during surgery can result in early gastric outlet obstruction caused by a volvulus-like mechanism by rotation of the stomach around its anatomic axes. This report refers to two cases of post sleeve gastric torsion resulting in persisting vomiting after initiating oral intake. The diagnosis was confirmed by upper gastrointestinal-contrast study and gastroscopy. In both cases, a fully covered self-expandable metallic stent was inserted which prompted the gastric lumen to become permeable resulting in symptomatic resolution. The stents were removed endoscopically after two and three months. Beyond more than three years of follow-up, the patients remain asymptomatic and no recurring “stenosis” was noticed. In these cases the use of fully covered self-expandable metallic stents demonstrated to be effective and safe in the treatment of post sleeve gastric torsion