Interactive design for everyone: from folding to programing

In our society today technology is already part of the normal day life, but it is something still not available to everyone. There are some that cannot reach it the same way as others do, either because of less resources or because learning can be quite a challenge. After the development of several works with a partnership between VFabLab and EPIS that involved basic level schools, the workshop that will be explained, describes how students in special learning programs get in touch with subjects like digital fabrication; interactive architecture, design, and programing

Superficial Venous Aneurysms. Casuistic, Case Reports and Literature Review

Os aneurismas venosos são uma entidade patológica pouco frequente, embora a sua deteção possa vir a aumentar como consequência da crescente utilização do ecodoppler como meio complementar de diagnóstico. Podem apresentar-se, clinicamente, como massas dos tecidos moles, ocasionalmente simulando hérnia ou adenopatia da região inguinal, particularmente os que surgem no sistema venoso superficial dos membros inferiores. Estão descritos na literatura casos de aneurismas venosos superficiais associados a tromboembolismo pulmonar. Considerando a potencial morbimortalidade, a abordagem terapêutica é cirúrgica na maioria dos casos. Os autores apresentam a sua casuística de aneurismas venosos superficiais num período de 20 anos, três casos clínicos mais exemplificativos e fazem uma revisão da literatura.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tratamento de Infeções Protésicas com Desbridamento e Preservação do Implante - Resultados da Aplicação Prospetiva de um Protocolo Pré-estabelecido

Objetivo: O tratamento de infeções protésicas é complexo e os resultados do desbridamento com preservação da prótese são frequentemente imprevisíveis. A nossa hipótese é que é possível oferecer uma boa probabilidade de sucesso desde que sejam cumpridas algumas regras simples para correta seleção e tratamento dos doentes. O objetivo deste estudo é apresentar os resultados obtidos com a aplicação prospetiva desses pressupostos ao longo dos últimos anos na nossa instituição. Material e Métodos: Trata-se de um estudo clínico prospetivo que inclui todos os doentes com infeção protésica tratados desde Janeiro/2012 e com um seguimento mínimo de 12 meses após o fim do tratamento. Apenas foram candidatos ao desbridamento com preservação do implante doentes com prótese estável, sem sinais de descolamento, boa condição de partes moles e curta duração dos sintomas. O desbridamento cirúrgico foi realizado pelo mesmo cirurgião e incluiu sempre troca de partes móveis. Sempre que possível a antibioterapia incluiu fármacos com eficácia para bactérias no biofilme. Resultados: Foram estudados 24 doentes (15 joelhos e 9 ancas) com uma idade média de 65 anos. Um doente foi excluído da analise dos resultados por morte não relacionada. Registaram-se três casos de falência do tratamento o que resulta numa taxa de sucesso de 87% (20/23) com um seguimento médio de 30 meses após o término da antibioterapia. Conclusão: A aplicação de um protocolo pré-estabelecido de tratamento permite a obtenção de bons resultados no tratamento de infeções protésicas mesmo quando se opte pela preservação do implanteinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Diagnostic Accuracy of CT Angiography for A Infrapopliteal Lesions in Patientes with Diabetic Foot Ulcers Undergoing Endovascular Revascularization

Introdução: A angiografia por tomografia computorizada (AngioTC) é aceite como técnica para seleção de doentes com doença arterial periférica candidatos a terapêutica endovascular ou cirúrgica. Não existe suficiente evidencia em relação à sua acuidade em doentes com pé diabético e patologia infrapopliteia. Objetivo: Avaliar a acuidade diagnóstica da AngioTC nas artérias infrapopliteias em doentes com pé diabético. Métodos: Estudo unicêntrico retrospetivo dos achados AngioTC e da angiografia digital de subtração em 14 doentes submetidos a revascularização endovascular periférica com pé diabético. A sensibilidade e especificidade da AngioTC foram calculadas para cada segmento arterial de acordo com uma classificação modificada da classificação de Rutherford. Resultados: A sensibilidade e especificidade global da AngioTC na deteção de lesões estenóticas significativas foi de 1 (95% C.I. 0.89-1) e 0.7 (95% C.I. 0.35-0.93), respetivamente. Por segmento arterial a sensibilidade e especificidade foram de 0.96 (95% C.I. 0.88-0.99) e 0.86 (95% C.I. 0.57-0.98) na artéria tibial anterior, de 0.98 (95% C.I. 0.90-0.99) e 0.93 (95% C.I. 0.66-0.99) na artéria tibial posterior, de 0.93 (95% C.I. 0.83-0.98) e 0.72 (95% C.I. 0.42-0.92) na artéria peroneal, respetivamente. Conclusão: A AngioTC tem excelente acuidade diagnóstica e permite a triagem de doentes diabéticos com doença arterial periférica infrapopliteia.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Parasitic infections in two Benthopelagic fish from Amazon: the Arowana Osteoglossum bicirrhosum (Osteoglossidae) and Oscar Astronotus ocellatus (Cichlidae).

The parasitic fauna of wild Osteoglossum bicirrhosum from central Amazon (Brazil) and wild Astronotus ocellatus from eastern Amazon (Brazil) as well as the host-parasite relationship were evaluated. 87.5% O. bicirrhosum were parasitized only by Gonocleithrum aruanae (Monogenoidea). 92.8% A. ocellatus were parasitized by Ichthyophthirius multifiliis (Ciliophora), Gussevia asota (Monogenoidea), Posthodiplostomum sp. metacercariae (Diplostomidae), Procamallanus inopinatus adults and Contracaecum larvae (Anisakidae). High levels of infection by G. aruanae occurred in O. bicirrhosum while in A. ocellatus the highest levels of infection were caused by helminthes ectoparasites such as G. asota, and endoparasites such as Posthodiplostomum sp., P. inopinatus and Contracaecum sp. There was a significant (p>0.05) negative correlation between the intensity of helminthes species and the relative condition factor (Kn) from A. ocellatus, indicating that these parasites are pathogenic for hosts. The parasite fauna of O. bicirrhosum was scarce, while the parasites for A. ocellatus were mainly helminthes species, including adults and larval forms. Such differences on parasites fauna of both omnivore hosts may due to their history life as well as environmental and biological factors

Reliability analysis of a timber truss system subjected to decay

Assessing the safety of existing timber structures is of paramount importance for taking reliable decisions on repair actions and their extent. The results obtained through semi-probabilistic methods are unrealistic, as the partial safety factors present in codes are calibrated considering the uncertainty present in new structures. In order to overcome these limitations, and also to include the effects of decay in the safety analysis, probabilistic methods, based on Monte-Carlo simulation are applied here to assess the safety of existing timber structures. In particular, the impact of decay on structural safety is analyzed and discussed, using a simple structural model, similar to that used for current semi-probabilistic analysis

Role of paracrine factors released by mesenchymal progenitors from the umbilical cord in neurons/glial cell viability, proliferation and differentiation

[Excerpt] Umbilical Cord Stem Cells are able to integrate within the CNS upon injury and to improve the condition of animals suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. However the mechanisms by which such phenomena are mediated are unknown. Therefore the main objective of the present work was to understand how a population of umbilical cord mesenchymal progenitor cells isolated from the Wharton Jelly (HUCPVCs), regulates viability, proliferation and different ion of post-natal hippocampal neurons and cortical glial cells. Hippocampal neurons and glial cells were exposed to HUCPVCs conditioned media (CM) (obtained 24, 48, 72 and 96 after 3 days of culture of HUCPVCs) for 1 week. Cell viability (MTS test) experiments revealed that HUCPVCs CM obtained for all time points did not cause any deleterious effects on both cell populations when compared to the control condition. [...]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Microfluidic immunosensor for rapid and highly-sensitive salivary cortisol quantification

This paper presents a novel poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfluidic immunosensor that integrates a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) optical detection system for a rapid and highly-sensitive quantification of salivary cortisol. The simple and non-invasive method of saliva sampling provides an interesting alternative to the blood, allowing a fast sampling at short intervals, relevant for many clinical diagnostic applications. The developed approach is based on the covalent immobilization of a coating antibody (Ab), a polyclonal anti-IgG, onto a treated PDMS surface. The coating Ab binds the capture Ab, an IgG specific for cortisol, allowing its correct orientation. Horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-labelled cortisol is added to compete with the cortisol in the sample, for the capture Ab binding sites. The HRP-labelled cortisol, bonded to the capture Ab, is measured through the HRP enzyme and the tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) substrate reaction. The cortisol quantification is performed by colorimetric detection of HRP-labelled cortisol, through optical absorption at 450 nm, using a CMOS silicon photodiode as the photodetector. Under the developed optimized conditions presented here, e.g., microfluidic channels geometry, immobilization method and immunoassay conditions, the immunosensor shows a linear range of detection between 0.01-20 ng/mL, a limit of detection (LOD) of 18 pg/mL and an analysis time of 35 min, featuring a great potential for point-of-care applications requiring continuous monitoring of the salivary cortisol levels during a circadian cycle.FCT with the reference project UID/EEA/04436/2013, by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) with the reference project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006941. V C Pinto thanks the FCT for the SFRH/BD/81526/2011 PhD grant. P J Sousa thanks the FCT for the SFRH/BD/81562/2011 PhD grant. S.O. Catarino thanks the FCT for the SFRH/BPD/108889/2015 grant, supported by national funds from Ministérios da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior and by FSE through the POCH - Programa Operacional Capital Humanoinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Starch/gellan gum hybrid 3D guidance systems for spinal cord injury regeneration: Scaffolds processing, characterization and biological evaluation

[Excerpt] Spinal cord injury (SCI) represents a significant health and social problem and therefore it is urgent to find strategies that can specifically target this problem. In this sense the objective of the present work was to develop a new range of 3D tubular structures aimed at inducing the regeneration within SCI sites. Up to six different 3D tubular structures were initially developed by rapid prototyping-3D bioplotting–based on a biodegradable blend of starch. The mechanical properties of these structures were assessed by DMA, in both dry and wet conditions, and their morphologies/ porosities analysed by micro-CT and SEM. Afterwards, gellan gum hydrogel was injected in the central area of structures. [...]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio