Salto: da memória ao território

A proposta a apresentar assenta num conjunto de conceitos que abordam uma relação entre a revisitação a um passado familiar, através das fotografias de família, e a construção documental fotográfica e sonora tendo o território e a fronteira como resposta. As fotografias de família são a alavanca e é nestas que encontro o ponto de partida. Numa leitura exaustiva sobre as mesmas, entendo que existe uma relação importante com aquilo que foi a viagem clandestina do meu pai em 1971 para França. Nestas mesmas fotografias existe uma falha: não existem fotografias que documentem a viagem que realizou. É a partir destes conceitos, entre o que é um memento e a ausência de parte desta memória, que pretendo metaforizar a sua viagem “a salto”. A partir das fotografias de família (e depois de encontrar o ponto de partida) é criada uma relação com o conceito de território e fronteira. A utilização destes conceitos sustenta a construção de uma viagem, realizada, no presente, por mim enquanto autor. Utilizo o território e aquilo que o identifica visualmente (estradas, trilhos, sinalética, etc…) como proposta de reconstrução do percurso até à fronteira. As imagens e sons realizados descrevem uma possível viagem na atualidade sobre um território que teria sido o que o meu pai atravessou. O facto de o meu pai apenas se lembrar que teria sido em Melgaço o lugar de passagem, ajudou a que a minha construção pudesse ser ampla e plasticamente polissémica. Assim, através de uma exposição e livro de autor, bem como da teorização a partir deste ensaio, existe a revisitação a um passado familiar, inscrevendo um assunto global (a emigração clandestina em Portugal) criando uma resposta à problemática. Realizo aquilo que poderia ter sido a sua viagem, mas que, pela construção e abordagem, pretende ser mais. Ou seja, este trabalho formaliza conceptualmente a construção de uma viagem visual pelo território sustentada naquilo que é a história pessoal do meu pai.The proposal presented is based on a set of concepts that address the relationship between revisiting a familiar past, through family photographs, and the documental photographic and sound construction having the territory and the border as the response. The family photos are the lever and it is in these that I find the starting point. In a thorough reading of them, I understand that there is an important relationship with what was the illegal trip of my father in 1971 to France. These same photographs have a flaw: there are no photos documenting the journey he made. It is from these concepts, among what is a memento and the absence of part of this memory, which I intend to metaphor his trip "a salto". From family photographs (and after finding the starting point) a relationship with the concept of territory and border is created. The use of these concepts supports the construction of a journey, held in the present by me as the author. I use the territory and what visually identifies it (roads, trails, signage, etc ...) as the proposal for reconstruction of the path to the border. The images and sounds performed describe a possible trip in present time to a territory that would have been the one my father made. The fact that my father just remembers that the crossover was in Melgaço, supported that my construction could be broad and plastically polysomic. Therefore, through an exhibition and author’s book, as well as theorizing from this test, there is a revisiting to a familiar past, inscribing to a global issue (illegal immigration in Portugal) creating an answer to the problematic. I show what could have been his trip, but due to its construction and approach, is intended to be more. In other words, this work conceptually formalizes the construction of a visual journey through the territory sustained in what is the personal story of my father

Efeito da homeopatia Ammonium Carbonicum na minimização da lixiviação de nitrato.

Avaliou-se o efeito da solução homeopática Ammonium Carbonicum em duas dinamizações, CH3 e CH30, sobre a lixiviação de NO3 . A hipótese inicial foi a de que essas soluções homeopáticas atuariam na microbiota do solo otimizando a utilização de N pela planta. Esse estudo foi conduzido em casa-de-vegetação e utilizaram-se amostras deformadas do horizonte A de um Latossolo Vermelho distroférrico típico muito argiloso, 0 0,15 m, localizado no campus da UFLA. As colunas de solo foram semeadas com milho (Zea mays L.) e tinham 0,20 x 0,20 m. A irrigação e medição do volume lixiviado foi realizada diariamente. A aplicação dos tratamentos homeopáticos foi realizada via irrigação. As análises do lixiviado foram feitas duas vezes por semana. No lixiviado,mediram-se os teores de NO3 e NH4. Após 93 dias, as colunas foram seccionadas em camadas de 0,05 m e as amostras, analisadas quanto à fertilidade, incluindo NO3 , NH4 e N total. O delineamento experimental foi inteiramente casualizado, com três repetições,num esquema duplo-cego com placebo. O efeito da solução homeopática na minimização da lixiviação de NO3 não foi relevante nas condições deste estudo

The mycobacteriophage ms6 lysb n-terminus displays peptidoglycan binding affinity

Funding Information: Funding: This work was supported in part by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT-MCES, Portugal) Grant PTDC/IMI-MIC/0694/2012 to MP and PTDC/BIA-MIC/30746/2017 to SF. AG (SFRH/BD/87685/2012) was a recipient PhD fellowship from FCT-MCES, Portugal. Funding Information: This work was supported in part by Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e Tecnologia (FCT-MCES, Portugal) Grant PTDC/IMI-MIC/0694/2012 to MP and PTDC/BIA-MIC/30746/2017 to SF. AG (SFRH/BD/87685/2012) was a recipient PhD fellowship from FCT-MCES, Portugal. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Double-stranded DNA bacteriophages end their lytic cycle by disrupting the host cell envelope, which allows the release of the virion progeny. Each phage must synthesize lysis proteins that target each cell barrier to phage release. In addition to holins, which permeabilize the cytoplasmic membrane, and endolysins, which disrupt the peptidoglycan (PG), mycobacteriophages synthesize a specific lysis protein, LysB, capable of detaching the outer membrane from the complex cell wall of mycobacteria. The family of LysB proteins is highly diverse, with many members presenting an extended N-terminus. The N-terminal region of mycobacteriophage Ms6 LysB shows structural similarity to the PG-binding domain (PGBD) of the φKZ endolysin. A fusion of this region with enhanced green fluorescent protein (Ms6LysBPGBD-EGFP) was shown to bind to Mycobacterium smegmatis, Mycobacterium vaccae, Mycobacterium bovis BGC and Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Ra cells pretreated with SDS or Ms6 LysB. In pulldown assays, we demonstrate that Ms6 LysB and Ms6LysBPGBD-EGFP bind to purified peptidoglycan of M. smegmatis, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus subtilis, demonstrating affinity to PG of the A1γ chemotype. An infection assay with an Ms6 mutant producing a truncated version of LysB lacking the first 90 amino acids resulted in an abrupt lysis. These results clearly demonstrate that the N-terminus of Ms6 LysB binds to the PG.publishersversionpublishe

Acute, periprocedural and longterm antithrombotic therapy in older adults

The first international guidance on antithrombotic therapy in the elderly came from the European Society of Cardiology Working Group on Thrombosis in 2015. This same group has updated its previous report on antiplatelet and anticoagulant drugs for older patients with acute or chronic coronary syndromes, atrial fibrillation, or undergoing surgery or procedures typical of the elderly (transcatheter aortic valve implantation and left atrial appendage closure). The aim is to provide a succinct but comprehensive tool for readers to understand the bases of antithrombotic therapy in older patients, despite the complexities of comorbidities, comedications and uncertain ischaemic- vs. bleeding-risk balance. Fourteen updated consensus statements integrate recent trial data and other evidence, with a focus on high bleeding risk. Guideline recommendations, when present, are highlighted, as well as gaps in evidence. Key consensus points include efforts to improve medical adherence through deprescribing and polypill use; adoption of universal risk definitions for bleeding, myocardial infarction, stroke and cause-specific death; multiple bleeding-avoidance strategies, ranging from gastroprotection with aspirin use to selection of antithrombotic-drug composition, dosing and duration tailored to multiple variables (setting, history, overall risk, age, weight, renal function, comedications, procedures) that need special consideration when managing older adults. © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Complete blood count parameters as biomarkers of retinopathy of prematurity: a Portuguese multicenter study

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Purpose: To evaluate complete blood count (CBC) parameters in the first week of life as predictive biomarkers for the development of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods: Multicenter, prospective, observational study of a cohort of preterm infants born with gestational age (GA) < 32 weeks or birth weight < 1500 g in eight Portuguese neonatal intensive care units. All demographic, clinical, and laboratory data from the first week of life were collected. Univariate logistic regression was used to assess risk factors for ROP and then multivariate regression was performed. Results: A total of 455 infants were included in the study. The median GA was 29.6 weeks, and the median birth weight was 1295 g. One hundred and seventy-two infants (37.8%) developed ROP. Median values of erythrocytes (p < 0.001), hemoglobin (p < 0.001), hematocrit (p < 0.001), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (p < 0.001), lymphocytes (p = 0.035), and platelets (p = 0.003) of the group of infants diagnosed with ROP any stage were lower than those without ROP. Mean corpuscular volume (MCV) (p = 0.044), red blood cell distribution width (RDW) (p < 0.001), erythroblasts (p < 0.001), neutrophils (p = 0.030), neutrophils-lymphocytes ratio (p = 0.028), and basophils (p = 0.003) were higher in the ROP group. Higher values of MCV, erythroblasts, and basophils remained significantly associated with ROP after multivariate regression. Conclusion: In our cohort, the increase in erythroblasts, MCV, and basophils in the first week of life was significantly and independently associated with the development of ROP. These CBC parameters may be early predictive biomarkers for ROP.Open access funding provided by FCT|FCCN (b-on). This work was supported by the Laboratório de Genética and the Instituto de Saúde Ambiental (ISAMB) of the Faculdade de Medicina of Universidade de Lisboa and the Instituto de Investigação Científica Bento da Rocha Cabral. The writing of the manuscript was also supported by funds from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to ISAMB (ref. UIDB/04295/2020 and UIDP/04295/2020). This work was also part of a doctoral project funding by the company CUF with a PhD grant in Medicine awarded in 2021 and by the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology with a PhD grant awarded in 2019.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Genetic fine mapping and genomic annotation defines causal mechanisms at type 2 diabetes susceptibility loci.

We performed fine mapping of 39 established type 2 diabetes (T2D) loci in 27,206 cases and 57,574 controls of European ancestry. We identified 49 distinct association signals at these loci, including five mapping in or near KCNQ1. 'Credible sets' of the variants most likely to drive each distinct signal mapped predominantly to noncoding sequence, implying that association with T2D is mediated through gene regulation. Credible set variants were enriched for overlap with FOXA2 chromatin immunoprecipitation binding sites in human islet and liver cells, including at MTNR1B, where fine mapping implicated rs10830963 as driving T2D association. We confirmed that the T2D risk allele for this SNP increases FOXA2-bound enhancer activity in islet- and liver-derived cells. We observed allele-specific differences in NEUROD1 binding in islet-derived cells, consistent with evidence that the T2D risk allele increases islet MTNR1B expression. Our study demonstrates how integration of genetic and genomic information can define molecular mechanisms through which variants underlying association signals exert their effects on disease

Racial differences in systemic sclerosis disease presentation: a European Scleroderma Trials and Research group study

Objectives. Racial factors play a significant role in SSc. We evaluated differences in SSc presentations between white patients (WP), Asian patients (AP) and black patients (BP) and analysed the effects of geographical locations.Methods. SSc characteristics of patients from the EUSTAR cohort were cross-sectionally compared across racial groups using survival and multiple logistic regression analyses.Results. The study included 9162 WP, 341 AP and 181 BP. AP developed the first non-RP feature faster than WP but slower than BP. AP were less frequently anti-centromere (ACA; odds ratio (OR) = 0.4, P &lt; 0.001) and more frequently anti-topoisomerase-I autoantibodies (ATA) positive (OR = 1.2, P = 0.068), while BP were less likely to be ACA and ATA positive than were WP [OR(ACA) = 0.3, P &lt; 0.001; OR(ATA) = 0.5, P = 0.020]. AP had less often (OR = 0.7, P = 0.06) and BP more often (OR = 2.7, P &lt; 0.001) diffuse skin involvement than had WP.AP and BP were more likely to have pulmonary hypertension [OR(AP) = 2.6, P &lt; 0.001; OR(BP) = 2.7, P = 0.03 vs WP] and a reduced forced vital capacity [OR(AP) = 2.5, P &lt; 0.001; OR(BP) = 2.4, P &lt; 0.004] than were WP. AP more often had an impaired diffusing capacity of the lung than had BP and WP [OR(AP vs BP) = 1.9, P = 0.038; OR(AP vs WP) = 2.4, P &lt; 0.001]. After RP onset, AP and BP had a higher hazard to die than had WP [hazard ratio (HR) (AP) = 1.6, P = 0.011; HR(BP) = 2.1, P &lt; 0.001].Conclusion. Compared with WP, and mostly independent of geographical location, AP have a faster and earlier disease onset with high prevalences of ATA, pulmonary hypertension and forced vital capacity impairment and higher mortality. BP had the fastest disease onset, a high prevalence of diffuse skin involvement and nominally the highest mortality