Lung cancer: psychological and psychiatric aspects

According to the literature, lung cancer patients experience greater emotional distress than other cancer patients, with scores as high as 61,6%. Poor prognosis, guilt and stigma associated with a history of smoking, may be related with this morbidity. Several studies mention the prevalence of depression to be between 16 and 22%. As distress affects the family as well, mostly those members involved in the patient care, they should not be forgotten and must be involved in the treatment plan. The authors conclude that lung cancer patients' distress is highly prevalent and interferes with quality of live and, possibly, prognosis. Therefore, psychosocial care should be integrated early in cancer treatment

Shelf ready packaging in private label brands

The Portuguese food retail is in constant transformation: The only surviving mode is though adaptation, innovation, or both at the same time. Unfortunately for some and fortunately for others, the Portuguese market is increasingly competitive, volatile and filled with demanding consumers reactive to small price increases and quality reductions. If a ten-year retrospective was pursued, retailers would appear much more sceptical to the ongoing technological advances than what they are today, being now able to respond effectively to any obstacles they encounter. On the other hand, while there are internal processes common to all of them, proper conduct will make all the difference on the final annual profits. The following case-study will characterize a fundamental operational process capable of saving a great percentage of labour cost per year while improving in-store availability and organizational layout of products. The procedure consists in the implementation of shelf ready packaging displays on almost every type of article in a store, whose company of choice is SONAE and the targeted products are private labelled ones. This movement is gaining adherence not only by the national players but also by international retailers whose intentions are driven by the innumerable operational advantages, commercial revenues and efficiency of production. The case-study will start with a short and concise introduction of both International and Portuguese retailing industry as well as the trends that are triggering the success of current private label brands. As to finalize, there will be expressed senses of evolutional perspectives, challenges and limitations. The case will only consider SONAEmc and its seven distinct food categories, [such as the Salty unit (01), the Sweet unit (02), Hard and Soft drinks (03), Hygiene & Beauty (05), Home cleaning (06), Frozen products (07) and Milk derivatives (08)]

An analysis of how well serious games cover the PMBOK

Playing the role of project manager requires a certain level of knowledge and experience from previous projects, thus enabling better decision making. The use of serious games increasingly allows newer project managers to gain the necessary experience and knowledge in a controlled environment. Since several serious games have been developed, the need then arose to conduct a study to measure the level of coverage these simulators provide to the PMBOK. Fifteen games were included in this study and it is remarkable the effort that has been made to improve these tools, as it was found that of the 12 games, 7 covers at least 3 of the 5 process groups found in the PMBOK. It was also found that more than 80% of the serious games cover time management and that less than 20% of the games do not cover the procurement area. Our study recommends that comparative studies be done between simulators in ways to evaluate the improvements that newer simulators bring. Studies to evaluate the teaching learning method of the simulators should also be conducted so that the efficiency of this teaching learning method can be evaluated.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Magnetic systems for regenerative medicine

[Excerpt] Over the last decade, magnetic-based systems have made remarkable breakthroughs in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The ability for contactless manipulation of magnetic responsive biomaterials, or even living cells, has been leveraged to devise innovative concepts that are widening the available bioengineering design space that can be explored in this multidisciplinary field. From the fabrication of cellular constructs with bioinspired patterns and hierarchical structures up to the concepts of levitational bioassembly, magnetic systems are enabling to engineer 3D tissues that better recapitulate the complex biophysical and biological cues of their native counterparts. Moreover, the inherent magnetic responsiveness of this living systems is being explored as mechanical and electrical nanotransducers to further stimulate cell functions, not only in vitro but also in vivo. Remarkably, recent advances in the convergence of microfabrication technologies with magnetic materials is also opening prospects to further fabricate advanced living microrobots and microphysiological systems with new added functionalities. Due to their good track record of biological tolerance and biodegradability, iron oxide-based nanoparticles remain the first choice of (superpara)magnetic nanomaterials, but new variants and combinations of nanomaterial are being increasingly explored in this field. Altogether, magnetic systems are contributing in multiple ways to boost the regenerative potential of bioengineered constructs and may lead to the development of in vitro tissue/organ models with improved physiological relevance. [...

Twins prematurity--the influence of prenatal surveillance

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the influence of the local prenatal surveillance of twin pregnancies in the obstetrical results. METHODS: A prospective cohort study of multiple pregnancies delivered over a period of 16 years in a tertiary centre was conducted. In this study 861 twin pregnancies were included. They were compared for obstetric complications, gestational age at delivery, mode of delivery and birthweight, according to the place of the surveillance. RESULTS: Of the 861 cases examined, the following obstetric complications were significantly different: metrorrhagia (p = 0.039), infections (p < 0.001), HELLP (p = 0.007), PROMPT (p < 0.001) and fetal death (p = 0.024). The mode of delivery was similar but occurred mostly ≤32 weeks (p < 0.001), the birthweight was mostly <2000 g and occurred more NICU admission (p < 0.001) when surveillance was outside the MPC-MDM. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate the crucial importance of prenatal surveillance be carried in a differentiated referral centers with specific/strict protocols or the urgent implementation of same protocols in all other places of surveillance, since this straight surveillance greatly reduces the occurrence of prenatal complications, mainly PROMPT, PTD

Diversification processes between monogenoids (Dactylogyridae) and their marine catfish (Siluriformes: Ariidae) from the Atlantic coast of South America

Due to their high specificity, monogenoids from fish provide an interesting model to study historical associations of hosts and parasites. High agreement between host and parasite phylogeny is often interpreted as evidence of cospeciation. However, cophylogenetic signal may also arise from other, either adaptive or non-adaptive, processes. We applied the recently developed Cophylospace Framework to better understand the evolutionary relationship between monogenoids and marine catfish from the Atlantic coast of South America. The associations between 12 marine catfish and 10 monogenoid species were assessed. Molecular data of host and parasite species were used for phylogenetic reconstruction. We used anchor morphology based on Procrustes coordinates to evaluate whether closely related hosts are associated with morphologically similar parasites. To assess the association between parasite phylogeny and host morphology, we produced a distance matrix based on morphological characters of catfishes. Agreement between phylogenies and between phylogeny and morphology was measured using Procrustes R2 computed with PACo. The parasite phylogeny obtained in this study represents the first complete phylogenetic hypothesis of monogenoids parasitizing ariids from South America. The Cophylospace analysis suggested that phylogenetic and morphological distance of monogenoids contributes similarly to explain the pattern of host-parasite associations, whereas parasite phylogeny is more strongly associated with the morphological traits of the hosts than with host phylogeny. This evidence suggests that cospeciation is not a major force accounting for diversification in the monogenoids studied. Rather host morphological traits seem to be a more important driver, which conforms with evidence from other host‒monogenoid systems