Sistemas de reembolso de depósito para garrafas de bebidas e latas : um instrumento circular? : o caso português

Mestrado em Gestão e Estratégia IndustrialEm 2019, a Secretaria Geral do Ambiente, Operadora do Programa "Ambiente, Alterações Climáticas e Economia de Baixo Carbono" em Portugal, lançou o concurso "Sistema de reembolso de depósito para garrafas de bebidas e latas", financiando projetos nestas áreas. O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir se os Sistemas de Depósito e Reembolso (SDR) são os instrumentos mais custo-eficientes para fazer a transição de um sistema económico linear, para um sistema circular. Para alcançar este objetivo, esclareceram-se os conceitos de Economia Circular (EC) e de SDR para, depois, os aplicar na análise da circularidade dos projetos. Para o esclarecimento conceptual, fez-se uma revisão da literatura com dois objetivos: enquadrar historicamente o conceito de EC e definir os SDR enquanto instrumentos económicos de mercado simultaneamente custo-eficientes e respeitadores dos princípios da circularidade. Concluiu-se que a literatura aconselha a definição de EC proposta pela fundação Ellen MacArthur e que os SDR são instrumentos custo-eficientes para fechar o ciclo dos fluxos de materiais. Fez-se a análise qualitativa dos projetos de SDR propostos a concurso para avaliar o seu grau de circularidade. Concluiu-se que: aquilo que hoje se designa EC terá as suas raízes nos modelos de fluxos de materiais; que o conceito de EC ainda não está estabilizado; que os SDR são instrumentos de política ambiental mais custo-eficientes para fechar o ciclo de materiais; que, no curto prazo, os indicadores definidos no âmbito do concurso não serão todos cumpridos; e, por último, que nem todos os projetos vão ao encontro dos princípios da Economia Circular.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Patient-physician discordance in assessment of adherence to inhaled controller medication: a cross-sectional analysis of two cohorts

We aimed to compare patient's and physician's ratings of inhaled medication adherence and to identify predictors of patient-physician discordance.(SFRH/BPD/115169/2016) funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT); ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) through the operations: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029130 ('mINSPIRERS—mHealth to measure and improve adherence to medication in chronic obstructive respiratory diseases—generalisation and evaluation of gamification, peer support and advanced image processing technologies') cofunded by the COMPETE2020 (Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização), Portugal 2020 and by Portuguese Funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Identification of clusters of asthma control: A preliminary analysis of the inspirers studies

This work was funded by ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) through the operations: POCI- -01-0145-FEDER-029130 (“mINSPIRERS—mHealth to measure and improve adherence to medication in chronic obstructive respiratory diseases - generalisation and evaluation of gamification, peer support and advanced image processing technologies”) co-funded by the COMPETE2020 (Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização), Portugal 2020 and by Portuguese Funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia).© 2020, Sociedade Portuguesa de Alergologia e Imunologia Clinica. All rights reserved. Aims: To identify distinct asthma control clusters based on Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test (CARAT) and to compare patients’ characteristics among these clusters. Methods: Adults and adolescents (≥13 years) with persistent asthma were recruited at 29 Portuguese hospital outpatient clinics, in the context of two observational studies of the INSPIRERS project. Demographic and clinical characteristics, adherence to inhaled medication, beliefs about inhaled medication, anxiety and depression, quality of life, and asthma control (CARAT, >24 good control) were collected. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed using CARAT total score (CARAT-T). Results: 410 patients (68% adults), with a median (percentile 25–percentile 75) age of 28 (16-46) years, were analysed. Three clusters were identified [mean CARAT-T (min-max)]: cluster 1 [27(24-30)], cluster 2 [19(14-23)] and cluster 3 [10(2-13)]. Patients in cluster 1 (34%) were characterised by better asthma control, better quality of life, higher inhaler adherence and use of a single inhaler. Patients in clusters 2 (50%) and 3 (16%) had uncontrolled asthma, lower inhaler adherence, more symptoms of anxiety and depression and more than half had at least one exacerbation in the previous year. Further-more, patients in cluster 3 were predominantly female, had more unscheduled medical visits and more anxiety symp-toms, perceived a higher necessity of their prescribed inhalers but also higher levels of concern about taking these inhalers. There were no differences in age, body mass index, lung function, smoking status, hospital admissions or specialist physician follow-up time among the three clusters. Conclusion: An unsupervised method based on CARAT--T, identified 3 clusters of patients with distinct, clinically meaningful characteristics. The cluster with better asthma control had a cut-off similar to the established in the validation study of CARAT and an additional cut-off seems to distinguish more severe disease. Further research is necessary to validate the asthma control clusters identified.publishersversionpublishe

Liposomal Delivery of Newly Identified Prophage Lysins in a Pseudomonas aeruginosa Model

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative opportunistic bacterium that presents resistance to several antibiotics, thus, representing a major threat to human and animal health. Phage-derived products, namely lysins, or peptidoglycan-hydrolyzing enzymes, can be an effective weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Whereas in Gram-positive bacteria, lysis from without is facilitated by the exposed peptidoglycan layer, this is not possible in the outer membrane-protected peptidoglycan of Gram-negative bacteria. Here, we suggest the encapsulation of lysins in liposomes as a delivery system against Gram-negative bacteria, using the model of P. aeruginosa. Bioinformatic analysis allowed for the identification of 38 distinct complete prophages within 66 P. aeruginosa genomes (16 of which newly sequenced) and led to the identification of 19 lysins of diverse sequence and function, 5 of which proceeded to wet lab analysis. The four purifiable lysins showed hydrolytic activity against Gram-positive bacterial lawns and, on zymogram assays, constituted of autoclaved P. aeruginosa cells. Additionally, lysins Pa7 and Pa119 combined with an outer membrane permeabilizer showed activity against P. aeruginosa cells. These two lysins were successfully encapsulated in DMPC:DOPE:CHEMS (molar ratio 4:4:2) liposomes with an average encapsulation efficiency of 33.33% and 32.30%, respectively. The application of the encapsulated lysins to the model P. aeruginosa led to a reduction in cell viability and resulted in cell lysis as observed in MTT cell viability assays and electron microscopy. In sum, we report here that prophages may be important sources of new enzybiotics, with prophage lysins showing high diversity and activity. In addition, these enzybiotics following their incorporation in liposomes were able to potentiate their antibacterial effect against the Gram-negative bacteria P. aeruginosa, used as the model.FFV is funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through an Assistant Researcher grant CEECIND/03023/2017, and a project grant (project PTDC/BTM-SAL/28978/2017) that supported this work. JSV holds a research fellowship within the scope of project PTDC/BTM-TEC/3238/2020 (FCT). The work has been partially supported by National funds from FCT, projects UIDB/04138/2020 and UIDP/04138/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved