Comment on Bress et al. Effect of Intensive Versus Standard Blood Pressure Treatment According to Baseline Prediabetes Status: A Post Hoc Analysis of a Randomized Trial. Diabetes Care 2017;40:1401-1408.

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Experimental Study of Thermal Performance of Different Fruit Packaging Box Designs

Packaging was recently identified as an essential element in addressing the key challenge of sustainable food supply and is gaining interest among researchers. It is a central element in food quality preservation due to its role in heat and mass exchange with the external atmosphere, contributing to the preservation of food quality during storage and extending food shelf life. This work proposes three new packaging configurations with the same size but different geometry and ventilation hole sizes and geometry, that change the conditions in which the heat and mass exchange occurs, during either the cooling period of fruits, inside the cooling chamber, or during the period when the packaging is exposed to ambient conditions, outside the cooling chamber. For this purpose, packages with fruit models that replicate the properties of real fruit were subjected to a cooling process inside a cooling chamber for 8 h. Subsequently, during the heating phase, the packages were exposed to ambient conditions for 10 h. Thermal conditions were also monitored, both inside and outside the chamber. Additionally, for comparative purposes, the thermal behavior of commercial packaging was also evaluated for the same operating conditions in the cooling and heating phases. The results show that the new packages do not substantially promote the preservation of fruits in the cooling phase, but in the heating phase, they ensure an extension of the period with proper thermal conditions of up to 50% in relation to the conventional packaging. This result is particularly important since the heating phase, in which fruits are outside the storage chamber, is the period with the greatest impact on the fruits’ useful life.This study was conducted within the activities of project “Pack2Life—High performance packaging”, project IDT in consortium n. 33792, call n. 03/SI/2017, Ref. POCI-01-0247-FEDER- 033792, promoted by COMPETE 2020 and co-funded by FEDER within Portugal 2020. The authors are grateful for the opportunity and financial support to continue this project to Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and R&D Unit “Centre for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies” (C-MAST), under project UIDB/00151/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effect of portal hypertension in the small bowel: an endoscopic approach

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The effects of portal hypertension in the small bowel are largely unknown. The aim of the study was to prospectively assess portal hypertension manifestations in the small bowel. METHODS: We compared, by performing enteroscopy with capsule endoscopy, the endoscopic findings of 36 patients with portal hypertension, 25 cirrhotic and 11 non-cirrhotic, with 30 controls. RESULTS: Varices, defined as distended, tortuous, or saccular veins, and areas of mucosa with a reticulate pattern were significantly more frequent in patients with PTH. These two findings were detected in 26 of the 66 patients (39%), 25 from the group with PTH (69%) and one from the control group (3%) (P < 0.0001). Among the 25 patients with PTH exhibiting these patterns, 17 were cirrhotic and 8 were non-cirrhotic (P = 0.551). The presence of these endoscopic changes was not related to age, gender, presence of cirrhosis, esophageal or gastric varices, portal hypertensive gastropathy, portal hypertensive colopathy, prior esophageal endoscopic treatment, current administration of beta-blockers, or Child-Pugh Class C. More patients with these endoscopic patterns had a previous history of acute digestive bleeding (72% vs. 36%) (P = 0.05). Active bleeding was found in two patients (5.5%). CONCLUSIONS: The presence of varices or areas of mucosa with a reticulate pattern are manifestations of portal hypertension in the small bowel, found in both cirrhotic and non-cirrhotic patients. The clinical implications of these findings, as regards digestive bleeding, are uncertain, although we documented acute bleeding from the small bowel in two patients (5.5%)

Combined impact of diurnal type and time of day on children’s results in a battery of measurements probing reading abilities: Preliminary Results

The present work is part of a larger ongoing research project and it specifically aims to scrutinize whether diurnal-type (morningness- eveningness) and time-of-day have an impact (synchrony effect) on the results obtained by primary school children in standardized measures assessing reading skills and difficulties. Morning- and evening-type children attending the 2nd, 3rd or 4th grades were selected in a Portuguese “School Cluster” Using the Portuguese version of the Werner et al. (2009) Children Chronotype Questionnaire. The selected participants were randomly assigned to assessment sessions in the morning (9:00-10:30) or in the afternoon (16:00-17:30). There were 78 children (40 boys, 38 girls), 39 (50.0%) morning-type and 38 (50.0%) evening-type, 40 assessed in morning sessions and 38 in afternoon sessions. Reading abilities/difficulties were assessed using the Sucena & Castro (2011) battery ALEPE ‐ Avaliação da Leitura em Português Europeu [European Portuguese Reading Assessment battery], by a single evaluator who was blind to each child diurnaltype. Comparing morning and afternoon sessions, morning-types mainly showed similar scores, both in terms of answer correctness and reaction times, excepting for significantly higher scores in three tests in the morning sessions. Evening-types showed similar scores in most tests for answer correctness, but in two tests they achieved significantly higher scores in the morning, and mean reaction times were consistently shorter in the morning in comparison to the afternoon sessions. In 5 out of the 7 ALEPE tests that yield reaction time scores, differences reached, or were close to, statistical significance (p < 0.05, or p < 0.15, respectively). In conclusion, in spite of evening types’ performance seeming in most cases to be unaffected by time-of-day in a standardized battery of tests assessing reading abilities and difficulties, their shorter reaction times when tested in their nonoptimal time-of-day (i.e., in the morning) indicates an asynchrony effect. Contrarily to our initial expectations, results obtained so far in evening-type children suggest that specific tasks may benefit from non-optimal moments, as indicated by recent evidence. Support: FCT/COMPETE/QREN – research project PTDC/PSIEDD/120003/2010

Artificial reefs: from ecological processes to fishing enhancement tools

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ACTH-dependent Cushing's syndrome: a revision of 43 cases

AIM: To evaluate the characteristics and outcomes of the patients diagnosed as ACTH-dependent Cushing syndrome, registered in the department. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We reviewed the files of forty-three patients followed from 1974 to 2002. RESULTS: A progressive rise in the number of patients diagnosed was found, being 80% females. Clinical suspicion was based mostly on the typical fat distribution; hirsutism and amenorrhoea were important in women. The more reliable diagnostic tests were: 11 pm cortisol, day curve of ACTH and cortisol, and dexamethasone suppression tests. The ACTH response to CRH during inferior petrosal sinus sampling permitted the diagnosis of ectopic source. In thirty-seven patients a pituitary adenoma was diagnosed. The three patients diagnosed before 1985 went for bilateral adrenalectomy (Nelson's syndrome in two); the others were submitted to transsphenoidal pituitary adenomectomy, obtaining remission in twenty six at the first operation and in two others at the second. Three patients had a recidive. Of the six patients with persistent disease (all treated with metyrapone or ketoconazole), three were submitted to radiotherapy, two to bilateral adrenalectomy, and one was waiting for surgery. Four patients had a bronchial carcinoid, successfully removed in three. One patient was lost to follow-up and another was still being evaluated. CONCLUSIONS: We found a positive evolution in the capacity to diagnose and treat these patients. Neurosurgical ability to achieve remission was 80% in the operated cases. More effective technical methods and drugs, as well as a multidisciplinary and dedicated medical team, lead to long lasting remissions in most of the patients