Outpatient satisfaction during pharmacotherapy followup

This study aimed to investigate the satisfaction of patients with uncontrolled hypertension referred for pharmacotherapy followup. A cross-sectional study by semi-structured interview was used. The sample comprised patients undergoing pharmacotherapy followup, patients who had discontinued pharmacotherapy followup and patients who had not kept the appointments. A total of 80 (76.9 %) out of 104 patients registered were contacted. The majority of patients undergoing pharmacotherapy followup (91.1 %) were fully satisfied with the pharmacists' care given, their relationship with them (94.9 %), the manner in which their therapy was conducted (99.2 %) and the environment where it was carried out (85.3 %). The reasons for non-attendance were mostly forgetting the date, illness on the appointment day and other arrangements on the same day. Interestingly, all of these patients were completely satisfied with the pharmacists' care given. The satisfaction of patients with the pharmaceutical care is high among patients that have continuous followup, but a relevant proportion discontinued followup. Newer approaches to keep these patients under followup are necessary.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Outpatient satisfaction during pharmacotherapy followup

This study aimed to investigate the satisfaction of patients with uncontrolled hypertension referred for pharmacotherapy followup. A cross-sectional study by semi-structured interview was used. The sample comprised patients undergoing pharmacotherapy followup, patients who had discontinued pharmacotherapy followup and patients who had not kept the appointments. A total of 80 (76.9 %) out of 104 patients registered were contacted. The majority of patients undergoing pharmacotherapy followup (91.1 %) were fully satisfied with the pharmacists' care given, their relationship with them (94.9 %), the manner in which their therapy was conducted (99.2 %) and the environment where it was carried out (85.3 %). The reasons for non-attendance were mostly forgetting the date, illness on the appointment day and other arrangements on the same day. Interestingly, all of these patients were completely satisfied with the pharmacists' care given. The satisfaction of patients with the pharmaceutical care is high among patients that have continuous followup, but a relevant proportion discontinued followup. Newer approaches to keep these patients under followup are necessary.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Sensitivity and validity of a functional test for agility performance in water polo players

The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity and validity of the Functional Test for Agility Performance (FTAP) in water polo players. Six elite junior (aged 16.33±0.82 years) male players and 65 competitive men (aged 18.1±4.3 years) who were classified in three groups (G1-3), participated in different phases of the test. The scores accomplished in FTAP at two periods (initial and final) were compared. They were correlated with the scores in Sprint/Agility Test and differences between standards of competition (G1-3) were assessed. Performance differences were assessed using the paired t-test and Pearson’s correlation was used to determine the association with agility time in the Speed/Agility Test. Differences between standards of competition were assessed using ANOVA. The final Functional Test for Agility Performance was performed in fewer seconds compared to initial (p=.002, r=.94). No significant correlation was found between Functional Test for Agility Performance and Speed/Agility Test (r=.42, p=.40), as expected and evidencing the discriminant validity. Differences were found between G1 and G3 (p<.001) and G2 and G3 (p=.008). The Functional Test for Agility Performance showed adequate sensitivity and validity, and thus is a decision-making test that can be used to assess training and expertise

Water Productivity Modeling by Remote Sensing in the Semiarid Region of Minas Gerais State, Brazil

This chapter aimed to demonstrate the potential of monitoring water and vegetation parameters by combining weather and satellite measurements in mixed agroecosystems in the semiarid region of the northern Minas Gerais state, Southeast Brazil. Soil moisture indices and water productivity components were quantified with Landsat 8 images under different hydrological conditions along the year 2015. The surface resistance to the water fluxes (rs) performed better than the ratio of actual to the reference evapotranspiration (ETr) to detect soil moisture conditions. The mean pixel values for actual evapotranspiration (ET), biomass production (BIO), and water productivity based on evapotranspiration (WP), for irrigated crops (IC), ranged respectively from 2.5 ± 1.3 to 4.1 ± 1.6 mm d−1; 78 ± 62 to 132 ± 64 kg ha−1 d−1; and from 2.2 ± 0.8 to 3.3 ± 0.9 kg m−3. The corresponding ranges for natural vegetation (NV) were 0.1 ± 0.2 to 1.9 ± 1.3 mm d−1; 1 ± 1 to 44 ± 42 kg ha−1 d−1, and 0.6 ± 0.3 to 1.8 ± 0.8 kg m−3. The incremental values, resulting from the replacement of natural species by agricultural crops, were respectively 2.7 mm d−1 and 83 kg ha d−1. However, this replacement increased water productivity based on evapotranspiration (WP) by 264% during the studied year, what should be considered in land use and climate change studies in the Brazilian semiarid region

Isolation of rabies virus in Artibeus fimbriatus bat in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil

This is the first report of the isolation and identification of the rabies virus in the frugivorous bat Artibeus fimbriatus in the city of Sao José do Rio Preto, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. The virus was isolated from an animal found in an urban area. The animal was found on the ground under a tree, still alive. Diagnosis was made by direct immunofluorescence and intracerebral inoculation of mice.Descrevem-se, pela primeira vez, o isolamento e a identificação do vírus da raiva em morcego frugívoro Artibeus fimbriatus no município de São José do Rio Preto, Estado de São Paulo. O vírus foi isolado de exemplar encontrado em área urbana, caído sob uma árvore e ainda vivo. O diagnóstico foi realizado pelas técnicas de imunofluorescência direta e inoculação intracerebral em camundongos

The BLue Amazon Brain (BLAB): A Modular Architecture of Services about the Brazilian Maritime Territory

We describe the first steps in the development of an artificial agent focused on the Brazilian maritime territory, a large region within the South Atlantic also known as the Blue Amazon. The "BLue Amazon Brain" (BLAB) integrates a number of services aimed at disseminating information about this region and its importance, functioning as a tool for environmental awareness. The main service provided by BLAB is a conversational facility that deals with complex questions about the Blue Amazon, called BLAB-Chat; its central component is a controller that manages several task-oriented natural language processing modules (e.g., question answering and summarizer systems). These modules have access to an internal data lake as well as to third-party databases. A news reporter (BLAB-Reporter) and a purposely-developed wiki (BLAB-Wiki) are also part of the BLAB service architecture. In this paper, we describe our current version of BLAB's architecture (interface, backend, web services, NLP modules, and resources) and comment on the challenges we have faced so far, such as the lack of training data and the scattered state of domain information. Solving these issues presents a considerable challenge in the development of artificial intelligence for technical domains