Proposta de uma escala portuguesa para a avaliação da qualidade do aconselhamento genético: uma nova ferramenta para os profissionais da saúde = Proposal of a portuguese tool for quality assessment of genetic counselling: a new tool for healthcare professionals

Introduction: The lack of tools for quality assessment of genetic counselling is recognized in national and international studies. The correlation of quality of healthcare practice with greater satisfaction of patients and affected families is also well established. The present study describes the development and validation of the first Portuguese scale for quality assessment of genetic counselling practice. It encompasses a proposal of a new tool for the evaluation of the process by professionals. Material and Methods: The definition of an initial pool of items and their organization was based on a literature review and identification of the main genetic counselling dimensions as well as the theoretical dimensions of the Reciprocal Engagement Model. After a pre-test validation the scale was submitted to psychometric validation using a sample of 30 participants who evaluated 81 genetic counselling sessions. Results: Based on statistical and empirical criteria the best items were selected. The final 50 items- version comprises five dimensions: education, counselees’ characteristics and decision-making, therapeutic relationship, effects of the process on the counselees and services organization. Discussion: Results showed consistent psychometric properties of the scale supported on theoretical and practice concepts of genetic counseling. The reduced number of participants involved in psychometric validation is a limitation of the study, which reflected the reduced number of professionals in genetic healthcare services. Conclusion: The scale proposed at this study is a novel and multidimensional instrument that aimed to contribute to the improvement of genetic counselling practice in Portugal

Efeito climático sobre a produção de leite de vacas Guzerá criadas em dois ambientes diferentes: Climate effect on milk production of Guzera cows reared in two diferente environments

O objetivo do presente trabalho foi avaliar o efeito climático sobre respostas fisiológicas de vacas zebuínas em fase de lactação criadas em dois ambientes diferentes. Para a presente pesquisa foram avaliadas 20 vacas da raça Guzerá criadas em ambiente com sombreamento e sem sombreamento. Durante o período experimental, foram realizadas medições das variáveis ambientais diariamente: temperatura do ar, umidade relativa do ar e temperatura de globo negro, para calcular os valores de ITGU. Também foram avaliados parâmetros fisiológicos como a frequência respiratória e temperatura retal; e parâmetro produtivo, como a produção de leite. Para a análise da produção de leite, o mesmo foi pesado semanalmente. Foram observadas alterações fisiológicas nos animais avaliados, com redução na produção leiteira no ambiente sem sombreamento. O ITGU atingiu valores classificados como de estresse para os animais criados em ambiente sem sombreamento, mostrando a importância do ambiente de criação animal sobre o seu desempenho. Vacas da raça guzerá criadas em pasto sem sombreamento sofrem alterações fisiológicas que indicam estresse e afetam a produção de leite

NÍVEIS DE INCLUSÃO DE CAULIM NA RAÇÃO DE CODORNAS JAPONESAS NO FINAL DO CICLO PRODUTIVO

O objetivo desse trabalho foi avaliar o melhor nível de inclusão de caulim na ração de codornas japonesas no final do ciclo produtivo sobre o desempenho, qualidade dos ovos e umidade das excretas. Foram utilizadas 256 codornas japonesas com 54 semanas de idade, distribuídas em delineamento inteiramente casualizado, com quatro tratamentos, oito repetições, contendo 8 aves por repetição. Os tratamentos foram: tratamento 1 = controle (dieta referência sem inclusão de caulim); tratamento 2 = dieta referência com inclusão de 1,5% de caulim; tratamento 3 = dieta referência com inclusão de 3,0% de caulim e tratamento 4 = dieta referência com inclusão de 4,5% de caulim. As variáveis estudadas: consumo de ração, produção de ovos, massa de ovos, conversão alimentar, viabilidade, Unidade Haugh, Índice de Gema (IG), porcentagem de componentes do ovo (casca, albúmen e gema); pigmentação da gema; pH da gema e do albúmen, espessura da casca, porcentagem da casca em e umidade das excretas.  A inclusão de caulim demonstrou comportamento quadrático melhorando o desempenho e aumentando o peso dos ovos no final do ciclo produtivo das codornas

Bryophilous Agaricomycetes (Fungi, Basidiomycota): A Review to Brazil

Bryophilous fungi have at least one stage of its life cycle linked to Bryophytes. There are few studies in relation to their taxonomy and ecology all around the world, including Brazil. The Agaricomycetes (Basidiomycota) have gained prominence worldwide and contained several species of economic interest. Based on a bibliographic review and discussion about identification methods and experimental models on this association a species list of bryophilous/Agaricomycetes found in Brazil was elaborated. In the works found among the techniques used to identify effective fungi/Bryophytes associations it can be cited: phylogenetics analysis, optical and electron microscopy, and cultivation experiments. In Brazil, four orders of Agaricomycetes (Basidiomycota), belonging to Agaricales, Boletales, Hymenochaetales, and Polyporales, with 33 species were found associated to Bryophytes in the literature. Information of the worldwide distribution of Brazilian muscicolous species and application of these groups were realized associating edibility, toxicity, and others. It was noted that in this country there is a scarcity of scientific knowledge of this subject, that needs to be better understood in terms of ecology and taxonomy

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Development and validation of HERWIG 7 tunes from CMS underlying-event measurements

This paper presents new sets of parameters (“tunes”) for the underlying-event model of the HERWIG7 event generator. These parameters control the description of multiple-parton interactions (MPI) and colour reconnection in HERWIG7, and are obtained from a fit to minimum-bias data collected by the CMS experiment at s=0.9, 7, and 13Te. The tunes are based on the NNPDF 3.1 next-to-next-to-leading-order parton distribution function (PDF) set for the parton shower, and either a leading-order or next-to-next-to-leading-order PDF set for the simulation of MPI and the beam remnants. Predictions utilizing the tunes are produced for event shape observables in electron-positron collisions, and for minimum-bias, inclusive jet, top quark pair, and Z and W boson events in proton-proton collisions, and are compared with data. Each of the new tunes describes the data at a reasonable level, and the tunes using a leading-order PDF for the simulation of MPI provide the best description of the dat