Determinants of Portuguese Exports to Spain: An analysis at the enterprise level

This study examines the evolution of Portuguese exports to Spain and its determinants in the period 2004-2008, based on a sample of the 97 largest exporters to Spain. The study uses various economic and financial indicators to characterize these companies and comparison is made between the sample's five largest companies and five of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis highlights the geographic concentration of companies in the districts of Porto and Aveiro and the better performance of large enterprises in terms of productivity, return on equity and average salary compared to SMEs. The econometric study, using panel data, considers as theoretically relevant explanatory variables the gross added value, net income, equity, the size of the company, the remuneration and expenditure onresearch and development (R&D). The results of the estimated model confirm the positive influence of these variables on the variation of exports, although the expenditure on R&D proved to be statistically insignificant.enterprises, exports, panel data, economic and financial indicators, Portugal, Spain.

Exports, productivity and innovation : evidence from Portugal using microdata

This study examines the evolution of Portuguese exports to Spain and its determinants in the period 2004-2008, based on a sample of the 97 largest exporters to Spain. The econometric study, using panel data and a static and dynamic analysis, considers as theoretically relevant explanatory variables productivity, equity capital, remuneration and innovation measured by the expenditure on research and development (R&D). The static results of the estimated models confirm the positive influence of productivity and equity capital on the variation of exports, and the negative effect of the labour costs. The variable R&D is statistically significant, with a positive effect on Portuguese exports in the dynamic model. The dynamic estimations also suggest that the exports in the previous period have a positive effect on contemporaneous exports

Factores determinantes das exportações portuguesas para Espanha : uma análise ao nível da empresa

Este estudo analisa a evolução das exportações portuguesas para Espanha e os seus factores determinantes no período 2004-2008, tendo por base uma amostra das 97 maiores empresas exportadoras para Espanha. O estudo utiliza vários indicadores económico-financeiros para caracterizar estas empresas e é feita a comparação entre as 5 maiores empresas e 5 pequenas e médias empresas (PMEs) da amostra. A análise evidencia a concentração geográfica destas empresas nos distritos de Porto e Aveiro e o melhor desempenho das grandes empresas em termos de produtividade, rendibilidade dos capitais próprios e salário médio quando comparadas com as PMEs. Quanto ao estudo econométrico, que utiliza dados em painel, consideraram-se como variáveis explicativas teoricamente relevantes, o valor acrescentado bruto, os resultados líquidos, os capitais próprios, a dimensão da empresa, a remuneração e as despesas em investigação e desenvolvimento (I&D). Os resultados do modelo estimado confirmam a influência positiva destas variáveis sobre a variação das exportações, embora as despesas em I&D e as remunerações se tenham revelado estatisticamente não significativas.This study examines the evolution of Portuguese exports to Spain and its determinants in the period 2004-2008, based on a sample of the 97 largest exporters to Spain. The study uses various economic and financial indicators to characterize these companies and comparison is made between the sample’s five largest companies and five of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis highlights the geographic concentration of companies in the districts of Porto and Aveiro and the better performance of large enterprises in terms of productivity, return on equity and average salary compared to SMEs. The econometric study, using panel data, considers as theoretically relevant explanatory variables the gross added value, net income, equity, the size of the company, the remuneration and expenditure on research and development (R&D). The results of the estimated model confirm the positive influence of these variables on the variation of exports, although the expenditure on R&D proved to be statistically insignificant

Semi-Automatization of Support Vector Machines to Map Lithium (Li) Bearing Pegmatites

Machine learning (ML) algorithms have shown great performance in geological remote sensing applications. The study area of this work was the Fregeneda–Almendra region (Spain–Portugal) where the support vector machine (SVM) was employed. Lithium (Li)-pegmatite exploration using satellite data presents some challenges since pegmatites are, by nature, small, narrow bodies. Consequently, the following objectives were defined: (i) train several SVM’s on Sentinel-2 images with different parameters to find the optimal model; (ii) assess the impact of imbalanced data; (iii) develop a successful methodological approach to delineate target areas for Li-exploration. Parameter optimization and model evaluation was accomplished by a two-staged grid-search with cross-validation. Several new methodological advances were proposed, including a region of interest (ROI)-based splitting strategy to create the training and test subsets, a semi-automatization of the classification process, and the application of a more innovative and adequate metric score to choose the best model. The proposed methodology obtained good results, identifying known Li-pegmatite occurrences as well as other target areas for Li-exploration. Also, the results showed that the class imbalance had a negative impact on the SVM performance since known Li-pegmatite occurrences were not identified. The potentials and limitations of the methodology proposed are highlighted and its applicability to other case studies is discussed.The authors would like to thank the financial support provided by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., with the ERA-MIN/0001/2017—LIGHTS project. The work was also supported by National Funds through the FCT project UIDB/04683/2020—ICT (Institute of Earth Sciences). Joana Cardoso-Fernandes is financially supported within the compass of a Ph.D. Thesis, ref. SFRH/BD/136108/2018, by national funds from MCTES through FCT, and co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) through POCH—Programa Operacional Capital Humano. The Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades (Project RTI2018-094097-B-100, with ERDF funds) and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (grant GIU18/084) also contributed economically

Oral anticoagulation on patients with atrial fibrillation: are we doing a good job?

Abstract in proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held at Egas Moniz’ University Campus in Monte de Caparica, Almada, from 3–5 June 2019.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Identification of potentially inappropriate medications with risk of major adverse cardio- and cerebrovascular events among elderly patients

Abstract in proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held at Egas Moniz’ University Campus in Monte de Caparica, Almada, from 3–5 June 2019.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Synbiobacther: engineering “therapeutic” bacteria

SYNBIOBACTHER – Engineering “therapeutic” bacteria Rodrigues LR, Rodrigues JL, Machado CD, Kluskens L, Mota M, Rocha I, Ferreira EC IBB-Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Centre of Biological Engineering, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal Statistics show that over 1.3 million persons will be diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide this year, hence this is an enormously important health risk, and progress leading to enhanced survival is a global priority. Several strategies have been pursued over the years, whether searching new biomarkers, drugs or treatments. Ultrasound is often used to treat solid tumours. However, this technique is not always successful, as sometimes it just heats the tumour without destroying it. If it would be possible to link this treatment with the expression/release of a therapeutic agent, the joint effect could be more effective. Some efforts have been made in this direction, although to date the results have not been very encouraging; potential reasons include lack of precise control over administration of the drug. Therefore, the idea is to overcome this barrier through the use of synthetic and systems biology strategies to engineer a model bacterium to trigger release of a therapeutic agent concurrent with ultrasound treatment. The search for new cancer-fighting drugs has traditionally driven research efforts in this field. Curcumin, due to its attractive properties as a novel drug has recently attracted increased attention. Nevertheless, it is well known that it has a poor bioavailability. Cellular uptake is slow, and it is quickly metabolised once inside cells, requiring repetitive oral doses to achieve sufficient concentration inside the cells for therapeutic activity. Hence, the possibility of synthesizing curcumin in situ in a controlled way, as proposed in this project, provides a powerful alternative. References [1] Katsuyama Y, Matsuzawa M, Funa N, Horinouchi S, “Production of curcuminoids by Escherichia coli carrying an artificial biosynthesis pathway”, Microbiology (2008) 154:2620-2628. [2] Forbes NS, “Engineering the perfect (bacterial) cancer therapy”, Nat, Rev. Cancer (2010) 10:785-794

A kinetic model of the central carbon metabolism for acrylic acid production in Escherichia coli

Acrylic acid is an economically important chemical compound due to its high market value. Nevertheless, the majority of acrylic acid consumed worldwide its produced from petroleum derivatives by a purely chemical process, which is not only expensive, but it also contributes towards environment deterioration. Hence, justifying the current need for sustainable novel production methods that allow higher profit margins. Ideally, to minimise production cost, the pathway should consist in the direct bio-based production from microbial feedstocks, such as Escherichia coli, but the current yields achieved are still too low to compete with conventional method. In this work, even though the glycerol pathway presented higher yields, we identified the malonyl-CoA route, when using glucose as carbon source, as having the most potential for industrial-scale production, since it is cheaper to implement. Furthermore, we also identified potential optimisation targets for all the tested pathways, that can help the bio-based method to compete with the conventional process.This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology(FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit. This article is also a result of the project 22231/01/SAICT/2016: “Biodata.pt – Infraestrutura Portuguesa de Dados Biolo´gicos”, by Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Alexandre Oliveira holds a doctoral fellowship (2020.10205.BD) provided by the FCT. Oscar Dias acknowledge FCT for the Assistant Research contract obtained under CEEC Individual 2018. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Treatment with somatostatin analogues and prrt in metastatic middle ear adenoma with neuroendocrine features

SUMMARY: Middle ear adenomas with neuroendocrine features (ANEF) are rare, with an estimated 150 reported cases. They usually pursue an indolent clinical course. Four reported cases of middle ear ANEF with distant metastases were treated with surgery, external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) and chemotherapy. To date, no successful systemic treatment for malignant behaviour of this rare tumour has been reported. Long-acting somatostatin analogues (SSAs) and peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) have been used in well-differentiated metastatic neuroendocrine tumours (NETs), but their use has never been described in cases of metastatic middle ear ANEF. We report two patients with grade 1 middle ear ANEF treated with surgery and EBRT. They had stable disease for several years, until clinical symptoms appeared and extensive metastases were detected on (68)Ga-DOTA(0)-Tyr(3)-octreotate (DOTATATE) PET/CT. Treatment with long-acting SSA was started, with stable disease for 1 year. Afterwards, despite undergoing local treatments, both patients presented progressive disease. Due to high-uptake metastases at (68)Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT, both cases underwent four cycles of PRRT with (177)Lu-DOTATATE, which secured disease control and improvement of quality of life in both. Similar to other well-differentiated NETs, SSA and PRRT could constitute efficacious therapeutic options in metastatic middle ear ANEF. Its neuroendocrine differentiation, potential to metastasize and somatostatin receptor type 2 expression prompt consideration and management of this disease as a neuroendocrine neoplasm. LEARNING POINTS: Our cases oppose the 2017 WHO classification of middle ear adenoma with neuroendocrine features as a benign disease. This entity warrants long-term follow-up, as local recurrence or persistence of disease is reported in up to 18% of surgically treated patients. PET/CT scan with (68)Ga-labelled somatostatin analogues (SSA) can be used for staging of metastatic middle ear adenoma with neuroendocrine features. Unlabelled SSA and peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with radiolabelled SSA can be the first systemic therapeutic options for patients with advanced middle ear adenoma with neuroendocrine features

Collagen-coated magnetic nanoparticles to capture pathogens from biological samples

Conventional methods of diagnosing bacterial infections such as microbial culture and molecular techniques, while highly sensitive, rely on expensive equipment and highly skilled operators. There is a need for affordable and portable diagnostic systems which are simple to operate while preserving reliability. Pre-enrichment of bacteria present in a sample coupled with subsequent bacterial identification steps can serve as a simple yet effective diagnostic technique. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) coated with collagen were used to demonstrate enrichment of E.coli recombinantly expressing adhesins YadA and UspA2 since these adhesins are known to target and adhere to host collagen. The MNPs were synthesized chemically and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Dynamic light scattering and the most stable MNPs were selected. Adhesion assays were performed together with fluorescent microscopy imaging to assess the pre-enrichment of bacteria by the collagen MNPs. Capture of bacteria by the collagen MNPs was successfully observed and capture efficiency of the collagen MNPs for E.coli YadA and E.coli UspA2 was calculated to be 50% and 68% respectively.VibrANT H2020-MSCA-ITN-2017, agreement no. 765042. FCT UIDB/04469/2020 unit and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio