Acute Generalized Exanthematous Pustulosis Associated with Diltiazem

Acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis (AGEP) usually presents with the acute appearance of oedematous and erythematous lesions, on which multiple sterile pustules appear, associated with fever. Almost 90% of cases are associated with drugs, with antibiotics (penicillins and macrolides) being the most frequent causative agents. We describe a 36-year-old female patient, which started diltiazem 120mg/day for hypertension. After 6 days of therapy, multiple erythematous and oedematous lesions appeared, with associated multiple small non-follicular pustules. Oral corticosteroids were started, with progressive and complete improvement. Patch-tests were performed, which revealed positivity for diltiazem. Although a rare entity, AGEP must be considered in cases of acute eruptions with disseminated pustules and fever. The use of patch tests in this disease may be useful as positive reactions are frequent

Implementation of six sigma methodology for the elimination of contamination in Fine Pitch connectors

Quality drives companies to evolve, providing what customers need or even exceeding their expectations through products and services that play their functions properly during their lifetime. From this perspective, this study aims to solve a concrete defect that occurs during the assembly process of an electronic product for the automotive industry. One of the new challenges in the electronics industry is the contamination issue in Printed Circuit Boards (PCB). Contamination can be defined as any type of particles (residues) that are deposited on PCB surface or within a component, causing unwanted behaviours in the electronic device. In the present study, the investigated contamination is organic in nature and is originated by the solder flux. The solder flux is released during the welding process, being deposited inside the PCB Fine Pitch connectors. The DMAIC method was adopted as a Problem Solving tool. This method was selected to ensure the elimination of this type of defect. To support the investigation, the 5W2H and Is/Is Not quality tools were used. The investigation was developed by a multidisciplinary team. After the root-cause identification, the connectors provider was involved to assist in the development of an effective and low cost solution. The final solution resulted in the placement in the connectors of a protective cap. This solution, besides protecting the connectors, allowed a new collaborative relationship along the supply chain

An empirical analysis of the influence of macroeconomic determinants on World tourism demand

This paper considers three econometric models to determine the relationship between macroeconomic variables and tourism demand. Tourism demand is measured by the inbound visitor's population and also by on-the-ground expenditures. Macroeconomic determinants include the exchange rate, the relative domestic prices, and the World GDP per capita. The database is an unbalanced panel of 218 countries over the period 1995-2012. There is evidence that an increase in the World's GDP per capita, a depreciation of the national currency, and a decline of relative domestic prices do help boosting the number of arrivals and the correspondent expenditure level. The World's GDP per capita is more relevant when explaining arrivals, but relative prices become more important when we use expenditures as the proxy for tourism demand. In particular, we cannot reject the hypothesis of a relative prices unitary elasticity of expenditures. Additionally, we have also partitioned our data by income level and by continent. Results are robust in the first partition, but less robust in the second, although the main conclusions still hold.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The relationship between tax rates and tax revenues in eurozone member countries - exploring the Laffer curve

We estimate Laffer Curves for direct and indirect taxes for each Eurozone country, using panel data from 1995 to 2011, by means of Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) models. We choose the three taxes that contribute the most to the government tax revenue: the value added tax (VAT), the corporate income tax (CT), and the labour income tax (LT). From our estimated significant parameters, which have the expected signs according to the Laffer Curve theory, we obtained a maximum/optimal tax rate for VAT for Greece, Portugal, and Slovakia and for the majority of the Eurozone countries for direct taxes. We also take into consideration the business cycle. Many countries do not present differences in regime, and when they do, the optimal tax rate is higher during recessions. Finally, we compare the observed tax rates in 2012 to the estimated optimal tax rates, to assess if the 2012 policy was located at the prohibitive range of the Laffer Curve. Our results are important for the discussions about fiscal discipline and harmonization in the Eurozone, since they exhibit important disparities between countries and taxes. We can see that, especially for CT and LT, there is a strong divide between the values of the optimal maximum tax rates for Eastern European countries and Western European economies. Additionally, the economic and financial conditions of each country also influence the value for the tax rate.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Context-aware information in mobile devices

This paper describes a novel approach for indoor location and integration of other services in a university campus using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices. These BLE devices broadcast a Bluetooth signal in a limited and configured range/area, thus functioning as beacons that provide useful context-aware information to nearby devices operating with custom applications. Such applications can interpret the received signals as location and provide a range of useful services to the end user (students, events attendees), namely, indoor location and navigation or personalized complex workflows that require the interaction of the end user with multiple services within the university campus.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The use of robots in the workplace: Conclusions from a health promoting intervention using social robots

Workplace wellness programs constitute a preventive measure to help avoid healthcare costs for companies, with additional benefits for employee productivity and other organizational outcomes. Interventions using social robots may have some advantages over other conventional telemedicine applications, since they can deliver personalized feedback and counseling. This investigation focused on a health-promoting intervention within work environments, and compared the efficacy of the intervention on two distinct groups, one guided by a human agent and the other by a robot agent. Participants (n = 56) were recruited from two Portuguese organizations and led through eight sessions by the social agent, the goal being to encourage health behavior change and adoption of a healthier lifestyle. The results indicate that the group led by the robot agent revealed better post-intervention scores than the group led by the human agent, specifically with regard to productivity despite presenteeism and regard of their level of mental well-being. No effects were found concerning the work engagement level of participants in either group. By demonstrating the potential of using social robots to establish therapeutic and worth relationships with employees in their workplaces, this study provides interesting new findings that contribute to the literature on health behavior change and human–robot interaction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Public debt, economic growth, and inflation in African economies

We analyse the relationship between public debt, economic growth and inflation in a group of 52 African economies between 1950 and 2012. The results indicate that the limits of public debt are negatively related to economic growth and exhibit, from a given level of debt, an inverted U behaviour regarding the relationship between economic growth and public debt. Briefly, the high levels of public debt are coincident with reduced rates of economic growth and rising levels of inflation. Our results for three specific geographical areas resemble those of the overall analysis, despite some differences. In North African countries, the growth rates of the GDP and inflation also show an inverted U behaviour as the ratio of public debt/GDP increases. The highest rate of economic growth is recorded when the ratio public debt/GDP is below 30% of GDP and corresponds to an average inflation rate of 5.33%. Identical behaviour of the GDP growth rates and inflation also appears in Sub-Saharan countries until the third interval (60-90%). However, the highest growth rate of the GDP and GDP per capita is registered when the public debt/GDP ratio is in the second interval (30-60%). For SADC countries, the highest average rate of economic growth (6.8%) is similar to North African countries, when the ratio public debt/GDP is below 30% of GDP, with an average inflation rate of 11%. A number of robustness analyses were performed and the great majority of them confirm the general analysis.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Development of liquid xenon detectors for medical imaging

In the present paper, we report on our developments of liquid xenon detectors for medical imaging, positron emission tomography and single photon imaging, in particular. The results of the studies of several photon detectors (photomultiplier tubes and large area avalanche photodiode) suitable for detection of xenon scintillation are also briefly described.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, presented on the International Workshop on Techniques and Applications of Xenon Detectors (Xenon01), ICRR, Univ. of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan, December 3-4, 2001 (submitted to proceedings

Trajectories of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms over Five Years since Breast Cancer Diagnosis: Results of the NEON-BC Prospective Study

Anxiety and depression symptoms are frequent among patients with breast cancer (BCa) and may last after initial treatments. We aimed to identify five-year trajectories of anxiety and depression symptoms among women with BCa. Neuro-oncological complications of BCa (NEON-BC) cohort included 506 patients admitted at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Porto in 2012, who were evaluated with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale before cancer treatment and after one, three, and five years (7.9% attrition rate). Mixed-effect models were used to model anxiety and depression scores over time and model-based clustering to identify the different trajectories. Three trajectories of anxiety symptoms were identified: (1) high scores at baseline and increasing over time (21.7%); (2) consistently low scores over time (63.6%); (3) mid-range scores at baseline, decreasing over time (14.6%). Three trajectories were identified for depression symptoms: (1) high scores at baseline and increasing over time (21.1%); (2) mid-range scores at baseline, which decreased afterward (58.7%); (3) consistently low levels over time (20.2%). Age, education, baseline, and one-year anxiety/depression status predicted the worst five-year trajectories. These results show that assessing anxiety and depression symptoms before treatment and after one year may contribute to identifying the patients who could benefit the most from psychological support. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This research was funded by the European Regional Development Funds (POCI-01-0145-FEDER016867) and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), under the project “A five-year prospective cohort study on the neurological complications of breast cancer: frequency and impact in patient-reported outcomes” (PTDC/DTP-EPI/7183/2014), and by FCT under EPIUnit-Instituto de Saúde Pública da Universidade do Porto (UIDB/04750/2020) and Laboratório para a Investigação Integrativa e Translacional em Saúde Populacional (LA/P/0064/2020). NA receives funding from FCT under the project NeurodegCov19-Neurological Complications after COVID-19 (PTDC/SAU-EPI/6275/2020) and C.L., from FCT under the project NEON-PC: neuro-oncological complications of prostate cancer-longitudinal study of cognitive decline (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032358, Ref. PTDC/SAU-EPI/32358/2017). Data management activities up to the first year of follow-up were supported by the Chair on Pain Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, and the Grünenthal Foundation—Portugal