What Are the Effects of Vitamin A Oral Supplementation in the Prevention and Management of Viral Infections? A Systematic Review of Randomized Clinical Trials

Vitamin A (VA) deficiency is associated with increased host susceptibility to infections, but evidence on its role in the prevention and management of viral infections is still lacking. This review aimed at summarizing the effects of VA supplementation against viral infections to support clinicians in evaluating supplemental treatments. PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched. Randomized clinical trials comparing the direct effects of VA oral supplementation in any form vs. placebo or standard of care in the prevention and/or management of confirmed viral infections in people of any age were included. A narrative synthesis of the results was performed. The revised Cochrane Risk-Of-Bias tool was used to assess quality. Overall, 40 articles of heterogeneous quality were included. We found data on infections sustained by Retroviridae (n = 17), Caliciviradae (n = 2), Flaviviridae (n = 1), Papillomaviridae (n = 3), Pneumoviridae (n = 4), and Paramyxoviridae (n = 13). Studies were published between 1987 and 2017 and mostly conducted in Africa. The findings were heterogeneous across and within viral families regarding virological, immunological, and biological response, and no meaningful results were found in the prevention of viral infections. For a few diseases, VA-supplemented individuals had a better prognosis and improved outcomes, including clearance of HPV lesions or reduction in some measles-related complications. The effects of VA oral supplementation seem encouraging in relation to the management of a few viral infections. Difference in populations considered, variety in recruitment and treatment protocols might explain the heterogeneity of the results. Further investigations are needed to better identify the benefits of VA administration

Implementation of Aspect-oriented Business Process Models with Web Services

In software development, crosscutting concerns, such as security, audit, access control, authentication, logging, persistence, transaction, error handling etc. can be modularized using the aspect-oriented paradigm. In busi- ness process modeling, aspects have been used to reduce visualization complexity, increase reuse and improve model maintainability. There are techniques which address aspects in modeling and implementation phases of business process; however, these techniques adopt different semantic representations, hindering the integration of these phases into the BPM lifecycle. This work proposes an architecture for service discovery capable of selecting web services that implement crosscutting concerns and meet the goals established in the aspect modeling phase, executing them accordingly with a prioritization. A proof of concept to analyze the proposed architecture and generated artifacts was performed. Afterwards, the proposal was evaluated by means of an experiment. The results suggest that the def- inition of an operational goal enables the business spe- cialists to concentrate on the modeling of the aspect without necessarily concerning its implementation, since a proper option for implementation is discovered during the execution of the process

Representação e Transparência dos Processos da Secretaria da Escola de Informática Aplicada da UNIRIO

Este projeto possui como objetivo a identificação, descoberta, modelagem, análise, redesenho e implementação dos processos de negócio que tangem a interação entre os alunos e a secretaria da Escola de Informática Aplicada (EIA) a partir do requerimento padrão de pedidos, analisando e aprimorando também o requerimento em si. Não é abordado como será realizado o monitoramento e controle dos processos estudados a partir das melhorias sugeridas. Ao final será feita a divulgação e exibição dos modelos gerados durante o projeto, adaptados para facilitar o entendimento, no site do curso de bacharelado de sistemas de informação (BSI)

Mujeres y medios de comunicación: Reflexiones feministas en torno a diferentes paradigmas de investigación

El trabajo propone una revisión conceptual de los principales modos en que se ha teorizado la relación entre medios de comunicación y sujetos "mujeres" a partir de investigaciones concretas en el campo comunicacional. El recorte sugerido focaliza en tres perspectivas singulares, desde análisis de casos paradigmáticos, y considera dos dimensiones particulares. Por un lado, cómo en diferentes contextos históricos desde la teoría feminista se ha pensado la construcción de significaciones de género desde los medios y su intervención en la conformación de identidades. Por otro, cómo se ha contemplado la actuación de las mujeres en la recepción y/o el consumo de los productos comunicacionales en el marco de la vida cotidiana. Asimismo, se analiza la noción de "poder" en juego en cada caso.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Internet Addiction: a prevention action-research intervention

The aim of this paper was to present an action-research intervention for the prevention of Internet addiction (IA) in schools. Applying a pre-experimental research design model, a total of 90 young subjects (45 males and 45 females) were treated using a peer education programme. The Internet Addiction Test was used as a screening tool pre- and post-treatment and analysed using a paired t-test. The results showed a significant positive difference in the post-treatment values for both males and females. This research highlights the link between IA and cultural and social aspects of the disease in addition to discussing the difficulties of IA prevention.&nbsp

Cost minimization analysis of BoNT-As in the treatment of upper limb spasticity and cervical dystonia

Botulinum toxin type A (BoNT-A) injections are recommended for the management of upper limb spasticity (ULS) and cervical dystonia (CD). The main aim of this cost minimization analysis (CMA) was to compare the annual cost per patient for three BoNT-As (Botox®, Dysport® and Xeomin®) in the treatment of ULS or CD in Italy. A budget impact analysis (BIA) was also conducted. Methods The CMA was conducted from the perspective of the Italian National Health Service. Only direct medical costs (BoNT-A and standard therapy) were considered. By using a Delphi panel of twelve Italian Experts in the treatment of ULS and CD, data was collected about BoNT-As (dose, number of administrations and acquisition price) and standard therapy (concomitant medications, visits, Day-Hospital, hospitalizations, etc.). Costs were assessed in Euros 2014. The BIA was conducted to evaluate the pharmaceutical expenditure for the three BoNT-As on a five-year time horizon. A sensitivity analysis was conducted. Results The mean annual cost per patient with ULS was €1,840.20 with Dysport®, €2,067.12 with Botox® and €2,171.05 with Xeomin®. The mean annual cost per patient with CD was €1,353.79 with Dysport®, €1,433.12 with Botox® and €1,503.60 with Xeomin®. In the time horizon considered, the substitution process of Botox® and Xeomin® by Dysport® would result in a total saving of €620,000 when treating ULS and a total saving of €481,000 in the case of CD. Sensitivity and probabilistic analyses showed the robustness of results. Conclusions From the Italian National Health Service's perspective, Dysport® appears to be the cost-saving therapeutic option compared with Botox® and Xeomin® in the treatment of ULS or CD

Photogenerated Electrical Fields for Biomedical Applications

The application of electrical engineering principles to biology represents the main issue of bioelectronics, focusing on interfacing of electronics with biological systems. In particular, it includes many applications that take advantage of the peculiar optoelectronic and mechanical properties of organic or inorganic semiconductors, from sensing of biomolecules to functional substrates for cellular growth. Among these, technologies for interacting with bioelectrical signals in living systems exploiting the electrical field of biomedical devices have attracted considerable attention. In this review, we present an overview of principal applications of phototransduction for the stimulation of electrogenic and non-electrogenic cells focusing on photovoltaic-based platforms

High catalytic activity and pollutants resistivity using Fe-AAPyr cathode catalyst for microbial fuel cell application

© 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. For the first time, a new generation of innovative non-platinum group metal catalysts based on iron and aminoantipyrine as precursor (Fe-AAPyr) has been utilized in a membraneless single-chamber microbial fuel cell (SCMFC) running on wastewater. Fe-AAPyr was used as an oxygen reduction catalyst in a passive gas-diffusion cathode and implemented in SCMFC design. This catalyst demonstrated better performance than platinum (Pt) during screening in "clean" conditions (PBS), and no degradation in performance during the operation in wastewater. The maximum power density generated by the SCMFC with Fe-AAPyr was 167±6μWcm-2 and remained stable over 16 days, while SCMFC with Pt decreased to 113±4μWcm-2 by day 13, achieving similar values of an activated carbon based cathode. The presence of S2- and SO42- showed insignificant decrease of ORR activity for the Fe-AAPyr. The reported results clearly demonstrate that Fe-AAPyr can be utilized in MFCs under the harsh conditions of wastewater

0008/2009 - Levantamento de Informações para Modelagem de Processos

A Modelagem de Processos é uma prática adotada por diversas organizações em todo o mundo nos mais variados contextos. Apesar de sua importância, continua sendo uma atividade cara e complexa. Dentro desta atividade, o levantamento de informações é uma das etapas mais importantes, podendo comprometer todo o processo em caso de falha. Este trabalho realizou um levantamento bibliográfico sobre os avanços recentes do tema presente na área de elicitação de processos, elicitação de conhecimento e elicitação de requisitos de software, de modo a propor linhas gerais de uma possível solução para o problema apresentado. A proposta será empregada em um cenário real, em uma grande empresa brasileira de óleo e gás

Cobertura mediática de derechos sexuales y reproductivos: un discurso en transformación

Las últimas tres décadas, los medios de comunicación de Argentina atravesaron diferentes etapas en la cobertura de los temas de derechos sexuales y reproductivos, y específicamente de aborto. Desde las apariciones esporádicas del tema en los comienzos de la democracia, a la estrategia de las "dos campanas" a mediados de los '90, y la apertura hacia una mirada de derechos en la primera década del 2000. En El aborto en la prensa gráfica argentina -un monitoreo de medios realizado en 2008 y 2009 por Artemisa Comunicación- aparecen algunos de los rasgos de la cobertura actual: el aborto es un tema de agenda, la cobertura es aún predominantemente subjetiva y polémica, y algunos medios asumen posiciones muy definidas en el debate sobre el estatus jurídico. Este capítulo pretende ser un aporte a la cobertura informada sobre el tema en los medios de comunicación.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació