Comparative study of patients knowledge on osteoarthritis treatment options to ACR guidelines

Portuguese population is growing older, according to national data in 2011 the aging index was 129. The number of elderly population is higher than the younger; average life expectancy is 79,2 years (1). Because knee Osteoarthritis increases with age, and according to WHO 80% of these subjects will have some degree of impairment and 25% will not be able to do their daily living activities (2), OA has a big impact on the sustainability of both health and social care as populations grow older. Our goal was to compare current guidelines of managing knee OA, to the degree of information each patient has about their treatment options.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Salinidade em áreas irrigadas.

Os problemas decorrentes da acumulação de sais solúveis e sódio trocável nos solos irrigados das regiões áridas e semi-áridas são muito antigos e sua origem remonta à própria origem da irrigação.bitstream/item/143307/1/ID-31379.pd

Belongings and interactions negotiating portuguese speaking identities in Boston

This article aims to present and discuss some reflections about an ongoing research project on the current movement for affirmative action on behalf of Portuguese speakers in Metropolitan Boston, Massachusetts, through a cross-cutting perspective combining ethnography and social history within a socio-anthropological analysis. The focus is on the interactive relationships among different Portuguese speaking immigrants and its descendants within a nonprofit association, Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, MAPS. What makes so interesting the 'Portuguese-speaking' case is the way it includes within a single category a very disparate set of populations and identities, including their contrastive migratory history and pathways of incorporation and, also, their different mother tongues (Portuguese and Kriolu)

Improved maximum likelihood estimators in a heteroskedastic errors-in-variables model

This paper develops a bias correction scheme for a multivariate heteroskedastic errors-in-variables model. The applicability of this model is justified in areas such as astrophysics, epidemiology and analytical chemistry, where the variables are subject to measurement errors and the variances vary with the observations. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the performance of the corrected estimators. The numerical results show that the bias correction scheme yields nearly unbiased estimates. We also give an application to a real data set.Comment: 12 pages. Statistical Paper

Some Extended Classes of Distributions: Characterizations and Properties

Based on a simple relationship between two truncated moments and certain functions of the th order statistic, we characterize some extended classes of distributions recently proposed in the statistical literature, videlicet Beta-G, Gamma-G, Kumaraswamy-G and McDonald-G. Several properties of these extended classes and some special cases are discussed. We compare these classes in terms of goodness-of-fit criteria using some baseline distributions by means of two real data sets

Acompanhamento da evolução química dos solos da Estação Experimental do Perímetro Irrigado de São Gonçalo.

Frequentemente os problemas de sais estão associados com a presença de altos níveis do lençol freático com grande quantidade de sais dissolvidos, condições climáticas, topografia, natureza do material originário, características físicas e químicas do solo, qualidade de água de irrigação e particularmente por razões de água e solo em condições de irrigação.bitstream/item/132838/1/32056-1.pd

New Flexible Regression Models Generated by Gamma Random Variables with Censored Data

We propose and study a new log-gamma Weibull regression model. We obtain explicit expressions for the raw and incomplete moments, quantile and generating functions and mean deviations of the log-gamma Weibull distribution. We demonstrate that the new regression model can be applied to censored data since it represents a parametric family of models which includes as sub-models several widely-known regression models and therefore can be used more effectively in the analysis of survival data. We obtain the maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters by considering censored data and evaluate local influence on the estimates of the parameters by taking different perturbation schemes. Some global-influence measurements are also investigated. Further, for different parameter settings, sample sizes and censoring percentages, various simulations are performed. In addition, the empirical distribution of some modified residuals are displayed and compared with the standard normal distribution. These studies suggest that the residual analysis usually performed in normal linear regression models can be extended to a modified deviance residual in the proposed regression model applied to censored data. We demonstrate that our extended regression model is very useful to the analysis of real data and may give more realistic fits than other special regression models

Bias correction in a multivariate normal regression model with general parameterization

This paper develops a bias correction scheme for a multivariate normal model under a general parameterization. In the model, the mean vector and the covariance matrix share the same parameters. It includes many important regression models available in the literature as special cases, such as (non)linear regression, errors-in-variables models, and so forth. Moreover, heteroscedastic situations may also be studied within our framework. We derive a general expression for the second-order biases of maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters and show that it is always possible to obtain the second order bias by means of ordinary weighted lest-squares regressions. We enlighten such general expression with an errors-in-variables model and also conduct some simulations in order to verify the performance of the corrected estimates. The simulation results show that the bias correction scheme yields nearly unbiased estimators. We also present an empirical ilustration.Comment: 1 Figure, 17 page

Produtividade da cenoura em função da qualidade da água e condicionador de solo no Vale do São Francisco.

O experimento foi conduzido no Campo Experimental da Caatinga, Embrapa Semi-Árido em Petrolina - PE, no primeiro semestre de 1998 com o objetivo de avaliar o efeito de diferentes níveis de salinidade da água de irrigação e do condicionador de solo na produtividade de cenoura, cultivar Brasília. O delineamento experimental foi de blocos ao acaso com seis tratamentos e quatro repetições. Os tratamentos foram: água com condutividade elétrica de 0,1dS/m (água do rio São Francisco - testemunha), 4,0 e 8,0 dS/m e água com condutividade elétrica 0,1; 4,0 e 8,0 dS/m mais condicionador de solo. As produtividades da cenoura variaram de 33,1 a 82,3 t/ha para os tratamentos irrigados com água salina mais condicionador de solo e água do rio São Francisco, respectivamente. Não se verificou diferença significativa na produtividade quando o uso de água do São Francisco (0,1dS/m) comparado à água com condutividade elétrica de 4,0 dS/m, bem como quando foi adicionado o condicionador de solo