TURISMO E DESENVOLVIMENTO LOCAL: MITOS, AMEAÇAS E OPORTUNIDADES

Este artigo objetiva discutir a questão das oportunidades de desenvolvimento local propiciadas pelo turismo, bem como os possíveis danos que ele pode causar. A discussão ainda pretende elucidar as conseqüências da atividade turística em localidades pouco desenvolvidas, desmitificar a imagem do turismo como uma solução para todos os problemas e propor uma discussão em torno do planejamento participativo de um nível ótimo de turism

Transição para o Ensino Superior Politécnico: Expectativas e dificuldades antecipadas e experienciadas por estudantes de licenciatura

Em Portugal, nas últimas décadas, as candidaturas ao Ensino Superior (ES) aumentaram substancialmente, com a consequente diversificação das características dos/as estudantes e suas famílias, assim como dos cursos e formas de acesso. Este estudo visa descrever as expectativas académicas e dificuldades antecipadas de estudantes de licenciatura, no início da frequência do ES Politécnico, assim como explorar relações entre essas variáveis, características sociodemográficas, nota de acesso ao ES, crenças de autoeficácia, e as dificuldades experienciadas pelos/as estudantes durante o primeiro semestre de frequência do ES. Participaram no estudo 360 estudantes que ingressaram em licenciaturas. Os resultados indicaram que, à entrada no ES, os/as estudantes de licenciatura apresentavam expectativas positivas e antecipavam poucas dificuldades. Após seis meses, tendiam a ser relatadas mais dificuldades por estudantes: (a) que tinham antecipado mais dificuldades, (b) com perceção de autoeficácia mais baixa, (c) que saíram do seu ambiente familiar para estudarem (i.e., estudantes deslocados/as). Esta investigação poderá contribuir para ampliar o conhecimento científico acerca da transição para o ES Politécnico, dada a investigação ser mais abundante no contexto universitário. Este estudo, ao permitir conhecer melhor as expectativas e vivências destes/as estudantes, pode ter implicações na organização das ofertas educativas e num melhor apoio na adaptação dos/as estudantes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Portugal at the cross road of international chronic respiratory programmes

July 1-4, 2015 two meetings will be held with the Directorate General of Health in Lisbon, Portugal to discuss chronic respiratory programmes of the WHO Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases (GARD)1,2 and European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA)3 (AIRWAYS ICPs: Integrated Care Pathways for airway diseases).4 The goals of these meetings will be to make an update of these two international actions and to strengthen the WHO noncommunicable disease (NCD) action plan (2013---2020)

The Portuguese Severe Asthma Registry: Development, Features, and Data Sharing Policies

The Portuguese Severe Asthma Registry (Registo de Asma Grave Portugal, RAG) was developed by an open collaborative network of asthma specialists. RAG collects data from adults and pediatric severe asthma patients that despite treatment optimization and adequate management of comorbidities require step 4/5 treatment according to GINA recommendations. In this paper, we describe the development and implementation of RAG, its features, and data sharing policies. The contents and structure of RAG were defined in a multistep consensus process. A pilot version was pretested and iteratively improved. The selection of data elements for RAG considered other severe asthma registries, aiming at characterizing the patient's clinical status whilst avoiding overloading the standard workflow of the clinical appointment. Features of RAG include automatic assessment of eligibility, easy data input, and exportable data in natural language that can be pasted directly in patients' electronic health record and security features to enable data sharing (among researchers and with other international databases) without compromising patients' confidentiality. RAG is a national web-based disease registry of severe asthma patients, available at asmagrave.pt. It allows prospective clinical data collection, promotes standardized care and collaborative clinical research, and may contribute to inform evidence-based healthcare policies for severe asthma.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Crop variety management for climate adaptation supported by citizen science

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Dysregulation of glycerophospholipid metabolism during Behçet's disease contributes to a pro-inflammatory phenotype of circulating monocytes

Behcet's disease (BD) is a relapsing, multisystem and inflammatory condition characterized by systemic vasculitis of small and large vessels. Although the etiopathogenesis of BD remains unknown, immune-mediated mechanisms play a major role in the development of the disease. BD patients present leukocyte infiltration in the mucocutaneous lesions as well as neutrophil hyperactivation. In contrast to neutrophils, whose involvement in the pathogenesis of BD has been extensively studied, the biology of monocytes during BD is less well known. In this study, we analyzed the phenotype and function of circulating monocytes of 38 BD patients from Hospital of Braga. In addition, we evaluated the impact of inflammatory and metabolomic plasma environment on monocyte biology. We observed a worsening of mitochondrial function, with lower mitochondrial mass and increased ROS production, on circulating monocytes of BD patients. Incubation of monocytes from healthy donors with the plasma of BD patients mimicked the observed phenotype, strongly suggesting the involvement of serum mediators. BD patients, regardless of their symptoms, had higher serum pro-inflammatory TNF-alpha and IP-10 levels and IL-1 beta/IL-1RA ratio. Untargeted metabolomic analysis identified a dysregulation of glycerophospholipid metabolism on BD patients, where a significant reduction of phospholipids was observed concomitantly with an increase of lysophospholipids and fatty acids. These observations converged to an enhanced phospholipase A2 (PLA(2)) activation. Indeed, inhibition of PLA(2) with dexamethasone or the downstream cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme with ibuprofen was able to significantly revert the mitochondrial dysfunction observed on monocytes of BD patients. Our results show that the plasma inflammatory environment coupled with a dysregulation of glycerophospholipid metabolism in BD patients contribute to a dysfunction of circulating monocytes

International recommendations for the assessment of autoantibodies to cellular antigens referred to as anti-nuclear antibodies.

Anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA) are fundamental for the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases, and have been determined by indirect immunofluorescence assay (IIFA) for decades. As the demand for ANA testing increased, alternative techniques were developed challenging the classic IIFA. These alternative platforms differ in their antigen profiles, sensitivity and specificity, raising uncertainties regarding standardisation and interpretation of incongruent results. Therefore, an international group of experts has created recommendations for ANA testing by different methods. Two groups of experts participated in this initiative. The European autoimmunity standardization initiative representing 15 European countries and the International Union of Immunologic Societies/World Health Organization/Arthritis Foundation/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention autoantibody standardising committee. A three-step process followed by a Delphi exercise with closed voting was applied. Twenty-five recommendations for determining ANA (1-13), anti-double stranded DNA antibodies (14-18), specific antibodies (19-23) and validation of methods (24-25) were created. Significant differences between experts were observed regarding recommendations 24-25 (p<0.03). Here, we formulated recommendations for the assessment and interpretation of ANA and associated antibodies. Notably, the roles of IIFA as a reference method, and the importance of defining nuclear and cytoplasmic staining, were emphasised, while the need to incorporate alternative automated methods was acknowledged. Various approaches to overcome discrepancies between methods were suggested of which an improved bench-to-bedside communication is of the utmost importance. These recommendations are based on current knowledge and can enable harmonisation of local algorithms for testing and evaluation of ANA and related autoantibodies. Last but not least, new more appropriate terminologies have been suggested