AMBIENTE OBESOGÉNICO EM CRIANÇAS DOS 7 AOS 9

Objectivo: Identificar elementos físicos e socioculturais nos micro-ambientes casa e comunidade, associados à obesidade infantil. Metodologia: O estudo foi realizado em 179 crianças, entre os 7 e os 9 anos de idade, das escolas do concelho da Calheta, Região Autónoma da Madeira (RAM). Os parâmetros antropométricos avaliados foram: peso, altura, perímetro do braço e prega cutânea triccipital. Aos pais foi entregue um questionário sobre: aspectos sócio-demográficos; ambiente às refeições; actividades e preferências na ocupação dos tempos livres; aquisição de refeições prontas; tempo de actividade/ inactividade física; infraestruturas habitacionais e recreativas; e estilo parental. Resultados: A prevalência obtida de pré-obesidade foi de 18,4% e a de obesidade infantil foi de 11,2%. Dos factores físicos e sócio culturais estudados os que foram observados na maioria das crianças foram: actividades edentárias (59% referiu ver televisão/ computador entre 1 a 2 horas durante a semana e mais de 2 horas ao fim-de-semana; mais de 70% referiu deslocar-se entre casa e a escola de carro/ autocarro); infra-estruturas habitacionais (82,3% referiu falta de passeios em pelo menos um dos lados da estrada); controlo parental (61% dos pais referiu assumir uma atitude controladora relativamente à alimentação dos filhos). Conclusões: As estratégias de prevenção da obesidade infantil no concelho da Calheta devem ter em conta os factores de risco ambientais identificados neste estudo. As acções devem ser dirigidas à família e envolver os diversos parceiros sociais, de modo a aumentar a actividade física, a reduzir as actividades sedentárias e a reforçar as competências parentais.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Informant Personality Is Associated With Ratings of Memory Problems in Older Adults

Memory complaints are a key diagnostic criterion for dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment. Rating scales can be used to capture information about individuals’ memory problems from informants such as family members. However, problems with scale reliability suggest that individual differences influence the ratings informants provide. This project tested whether informants’ neuroticism was associated with their ratings of an older adult’s memory. In an online study, 293 volunteers completed a Five Factor personality questionnaire and used two memory questionnaires to provide ratings of memory problems in an older individual they knew well. Rater neuroticism correlated positively with estimates of memory problems: more neurotic informants provided higher estimates of memory difficulties in the person they were rating. A second study replicated this finding with 786 volunteers and another widely used memory measure, the AD8. In both studies, exploratory analyses suggested the effect size was large enough to impact on clinical practice

Hemizygous deletion of the syntaxin 1A gene in individuals with Williams syndrome: Letters to the editor

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Rates of Low-Value Service in Australian Public Hospitals and the Association With Patient Insurance Status.

Importance: Low-value services have limited or no benefit to patients. Rates of low-value service in public hospitals may vary by patient insurance status, given that there may be different financial incentives for treatment of privately insured patients. Objective: To assess the variation in rates of 5 low-value services performed in Australian public hospitals according to patient funding status (ie, private or public). Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective cross-sectional study analyzed New South Wales public hospital data from January 2013 to June 2018. Patients included in the sample were over age 18 years and eligible to receive low-value services based on diagnoses and concomitant procedures. Data analysis was conducted from June to December 2020. Main Outcomes and Measures: Hospital-specific rates of low-value knee arthroscopic debridement, vertebroplasty for osteoporotic spinal fractures, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, oophorectomy with hysterectomy, and laparoscopic uterine nerve ablation for chronic pelvic pain were measured. For each measure, rates within each public hospital were compared by patient funding status descriptively and using multilevel models. Results: A total of 219 862 inpatients were included in analysis from 58 public hospitals across the 5 measures. A total of 38 365 (22 904 [59.7%] women; 12 448 [32.4%] aged 71-80 years) were eligible for knee arthroscopic debridement for osteoarthritis; 2520 (1924 [76.3%] women; 662 [26.3%] aged 71-80 years), vertebroplasty for osteoporotic spinal fractures; 162 285 (82 046 [50.6%] women; 28 255 [17.4%] aged 61-70 years), hyperbaric oxygen therapy; 15 916 (7126 [44.8%] aged 41-50 years), oophorectomy with hysterectomy; and 776 (327 [42.1%] aged 18-30 years), uterine nerve ablation for chronic pelvic pain. Overall rates of low-value services varied considerably between measures, with the lowest rate for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (0.3 procedures per 1000 inpatients [47 of 158 220 eligible inpatients]) and the highest for vertebroplasty (30.8 procedures per 1000 eligible patients [77 of 2501 eligible inpatients]). There was significant variation in rates between hospitals, with a few outlying hospitals (ie, <10), particularly for knee arthroscopy (range from 1.8 to 21.0 per 1000 eligible patients) and vertebroplasty (range from 13.1 to 70.4 per 1000 eligible patients), with higher numerical rates of low-value services among patients with private insurance than for those without. However, there was no association overall between patient insurance status and low-value services. Overall differences in rates among those with and without private insurance by individual procedure type were not statistically significant. Conclusions and Relevance: There was significant variation in rates of low-value services in public hospitals. While there was no overall association between private insurance and rate of low-value services, private insurance may be associated with low-value service rates in some hospitals. Further exploration of factors specific to local hospitals and practices are needed to reduce this unnecessary care

Critical evaluation of proteomic protocols for passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims) leaves, a crop with juice market benefits

Passion fruit grows practically all over Brazilian territory; its production is largely destined to juice industry and expanding to overseas markets. The suitability of four protein extraction protocols for plant proteome was  investigated to determine the best choice for studies concerning passion fruit leaf proteins. Trichloroacetic acid (TCA)/acetone extraction; isoelectric  focusing (IEF) buffer extraction; phenol (Phe) extraction and Phe-SDS extraction were tested. The Phe method produced the best results, showing higher reproducibility of resolved protein spots and clearer 2D gel  background staining. In comparison, the Phe-SDS method presented fewer spots and lower reproducibility. The TCA/acetone method produced the fewest identifiable spots and the IEF buffer produced the poorest results,displaying fewer reproducibly detected spots, more vertical streaks and darker 2D staining. Selected spots, obtained with Phe method, were identified by spectrometric analysis (MALDI-TOF-TOF) to exemplify the viability to perform more comprehensive proteomic studies with passion fruit leaves and, therefore increase information about stress-related and developmental responses in this fruit crop.Key words: Passion fruit, proteomic, protein extraction, juice industry

Cell walls of the dimorphic fungal pathogens Sporothrix schenckii and Sporothrix brasiliensis exhibit bilaminate structures and sloughing of extensive and intact layers

This work was supported by the Fundação Carlos Chagas de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), grants E-26/202.974/2015 and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), grants 229755/2013-5, Brazil. LMLB is a senior research fellow of CNPq and Faperj. NG acknowledged support from the Wellcome Trust (Trust (097377, 101873, 200208) and MRC Centre for Medical Mycology (MR/N006364/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

pGQL: A probabilistic graphical query language for gene expression time courses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Timeboxes are graphical user interface widgets that were proposed to specify queries on time course data. As queries can be very easily defined, an exploratory analysis of time course data is greatly facilitated. While timeboxes are effective, they have no provisions for dealing with noisy data or data with fluctuations along the time axis, which is very common in many applications. In particular, this is true for the analysis of gene expression time courses, which are mostly derived from noisy microarray measurements at few unevenly sampled time points. From a data mining point of view the robust handling of data through a sound statistical model is of great importance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We propose probabilistic timeboxes, which correspond to a specific class of Hidden Markov Models, that constitutes an established method in data mining. Since HMMs are a particular class of probabilistic graphical models we call our method Probabilistic Graphical Query Language. Its implementation was realized in the free software package pGQL. We evaluate its effectiveness in exploratory analysis on a yeast sporulation data set.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We introduce a new approach to define dynamic, statistical queries on time course data. It supports an interactive exploration of reasonably large amounts of data and enables users without expert knowledge to specify fairly complex statistical models with ease. The expressivity of our approach is by its statistical nature greater and more robust with respect to amplitude and frequency fluctuation than the prior, deterministic timeboxes.</p

The Precursors and Products of Justice Climates: Group Leader Antecedents and Employee Attitudinal Consequences

Drawing on the organizational justice, organizational climate, leadership and personality, and social comparison theory literatures, we develop hypotheses about the effects of leader personality on the development of three types of justice climates (e.g., procedural, interpersonal, and informational), and the moderating effects of these climates on individual level justice- attitude relationships. Largely consistent with the theoretically-derived hypotheses, the results showed that leader (a) agreeableness was positively related to procedural, interpersonal and informational justice climates, (b) conscientiousness was positively related to a procedural justice climate, and (c) neuroticism was negatively related to all three types of justice climates. Further, consistent with social comparison theory, multilevel data analyses revealed that the relationship between individual justice perceptions and job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, commitment) was moderated by justice climate such that the relationships were stronger when justice climate was high