a qualitative study

UIDB/04038/2020 UIDP/04038/2020In Tanzania, adolescent pregnancy results in a denial of the girl's fundamental right to education. School expulsion of pregnant adolescents is a common practice exercised by teachers in this country for decades. This study aimed to explore the perceptions and feelings of secondary school teachers towards this practice. METHODS: The study used a qualitative approach comprising focus groups and individual semistructured interviews with a purposive sample of sixteen teachers and nine headmasters (n = 25) from nine secondary schools of the rural Igunga district, in Tabora region, Tanzania. Data was collected in March to June 2017 and submitted to thematic analysis. RESULTS: Though most participants were not satisfied with the practice, their role on the expulsion of pregnant students was perceived as mandatory by law and regulations. Main argument in favor was its deterrent effect, yet the review of schools' registries did not sustain that perception. Stigma and fear of contamination added a relevant contribution to its implementation. Conflicting feelings among teachers were also disclosed. CONCLUSION: This study was of most value to understand current perceptions and feelings of those who exercise the practice of banning pregnant adolescents from school in Tanzania, while having identified some of the cultural and social believes acting as influential factors in its pervasiveness. International and national human rights organizations should increase their efforts and campaigns in order to strength social awareness of the benefit of females' education to society as a whole and of adopting policies and practices in support of their equal right to education.publishersversionpublishe

The relative age effect among elite youth competitive swimmers

The aim of this study was to analyse the relative age effect (RAE) in competitive swimming. The best 50 Portuguese swimmers (12- to 18-year-olds) for the main individual swimming pool events of both genders were considered. Analysis was conducted on 7813 swimming event participants, taking account of respective swimmer birth dates and the Fédération Internationale de Natation points gained. Differences in the distribution of birth dates by quarter year were determined using the Chi-square. A one-way analysis of variance ANOVA was used to test for differences measured in points between individuals by quarterly birth year intervals. A two-way analysis of variance ANOVA was also conducted to test the interaction between gender and seasonal birth date with regard to performance. The results show an inequitable distribution (p<0.01) of birth dates by quarter for almost all age groups and both genders. However, the distribution of birth dates by quarter for each considered swim event shows that RAE seems to exist only for 12-year-old females and 12- to 15-year-old males. Analysing mean swimming performance, post-hoc results (p<0.01) show no consistency in RAE. Higher performance occurs among older swimmers only in 100 m butterfly (female 1998, 1st≠2nd quarter, p=0.003). The results also show no interaction between gender and seasonal birth date (p<0.01). Findings of this study show that a higher number of swimmers, particular males, are born in the first two quarters of the year, although there is mostly no effect of seasonal birth date on performance differences within the top 50 swimmers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lisboa entre dois mundos

UID/HIS/04209/2013Os roteiros culturais assumem-se hoje como uma ferramenta que aproxima públicos e patrimónios. O mesmo sucede para o património industrial. Importantes meios de conhecimento e fruição permitem, simultaneamente, que os espaços que se encontrem à nossa volta adquiram uma espessura diversa. O envolvimento das populações locais, sensibilizando-as para esta temática é um caminho a percorrer, uma vez que só se pode proteger aquilo que se conhece. Por outro lado, convocar antigos trabalhadores (técnicas, artefactos e saberes) garante a perpetuação de uma determinada cultura técnica. Neste sentido, o território transforma-se numa enorme potencialidade, nomeadamente o de Lisboa. Espera-se que os roteiros de património industrial do eixo Alcântara-Belém e do eixo Oriental da cidade a desenvolver, num primeiro momento, possam contemplar a visita a antigas fábricas, seus escritórios, bairros operários ou outras estruturas sociais existentes, ou então já a alguns museus resultantes da descativação de muitas destas unidades produtivas. Trata-se de um projeto piloto aplicado a Lisboa, que se pretende, a longo prazo, ser alargado a todo o território nacional. Estão, assim, previstas várias parcerias essenciais para atingir os objetivos acima propostos: instituições de poder (locais ou de poder central), comerciantes locais, associações recreativas e culturais ligadas a bairro operários e museus.publishersversionpublishe

Recent Advances in Sustainable Organocatalysis

The recent advances on green and sustainable organocatalysis are revised in this chapter. An important focus on one of the 12 principles of green chemistry, organocatalysis pursues to reduce energy consumption as well as to optimize the use of different resources, targeting to become a sustainable strategy in organic chemical transformations. In last decades, several experimental methodologies have been performed to make organocatalysis an even greener and sustainable alternative to stoichiometric approaches as well as non-catalytic conditions by the use of benign and friendlier reaction media. In this line, several approaches using water as preferential solvent, alternative solvents such as ionic liquids including chiral ones, deep eutectic solvents, polyethylene glycol (PEG), supercritical fluids and organic carbonates or solvent-free methodologies have been reported. In this chapter, we mainly focus on the recent remarkable advancements in organocatalysis using green and sustainable protocols

Improving Understanding of Participation and Attrition Phenomena in European Cohort Studies : Protocol for a Multi-Situated Qualitative Study

Background: Cohort studies represent a strong methodology for increasing one's understanding of human life-course development and etiological mechanisms. Retention of participants, especially during long follow-up periods, is, however, a major challenge. A better understanding of the motives for participation and attrition in cohort studies in diverse sociogeographic and cultural settings is needed, as this information is most useful in developing effective retention strategies. Objective: This study aims to improve our understanding of participation and attrition phenomena in a European cohort study of very preterm/very-low-birth-weight (VPT/VLBW) infants from various sociogeographic and cultural settings to better understand variability and ultimately contribute to developing novel and more "in-context" strategies to improve retention. Methods: This study uses a triangulation of multisituated methods to collect data on various cohorts in the Research on European Children and Adults Born Preterm (RECAP) network, which include focus group discussions, individual semidriven interviews, and a collaborative, reflexive visual methodology (participant-generated VideoStories) with relevant key actors involved with these cohort studies such as adult participants, parents (caregivers), cohort staff, health care professionals, and academic researchers. The methodological strategy aims to provide a shared flexible framework of various qualitatively driven methods to collect data on VPT/VLBW adult and child cohorts, from which research partners may choose and combine those most pertinent to apply in their own specific contexts. Data from all sources and sites will be submitted to a triangulation of phenomenological thematic analysis with discourse analysis. Results: As of January 2020, in this study, we enrolled 92 participants variously involved with child and adult RECAP partnering cohorts from six countries. Multisite enrollment and data collection are expected to be completed in all seven study settings by June 2020. Findings will be reported in future publications. Conclusions: Qualitative research methods are a useful complement for enriching and illuminating quantitative results. We expect that opting for a multisituated study approach addressing the interplay of the lived experience of individuals in both researcher and researched stances of particular cohort study settings will contribute to filling some gaps in the understanding of participation variability and effectiveness of different implemented strategies in context. Moreover, health research subjects have traditionally been positioned as passive objects of study rather than active participants, even though they have the greatest stake in improving health care policies and practices. Including collaborative methods allows us to counteract the "top-down" model by handing over some research control to the very people who are providing the data on which research findings will be based while also acknowledging the value of their involvement.Peer reviewe

Ambipolar Pentacyclic Diamides with Interesting Electrochemical and Optoelectronic Properties

Developing organic semiconductors (OSCs) for organic thin film transistors (OTFT) and optoelectronic applications is a challenge. We developed highly crystalline pentacyclic diamides (3) and (4) which showed good OTFT and OLED potential and energy gaps of 2.60 eV and 2.54 eV. They exhibited interesting photo and eletroluminescence activity. Both compounds showed good quantum yields (0.56 for (3) and 0.6 for (4))

Effective cytocompatible nanovectors based on serine-derived gemini surfactants and monoolein for small interfering RNA delivery

Supplementary data to this article can be found online athttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2020.09.077.Non-viral gene therapy based on gene silencing with small interfering RNA (siRNA) has attracted great interest over recent years. Among various types of cationic complexation agents, amino acid-based surfactants have been recently explored for nucleic acid delivery due to their low toxicity and high biocompatibility. Monoolein (MO), in turn, has been used as helper lipid in liposomal systems due to its ability to form inverted nonbilayer structures that enhance fusogenicity, thus contributing to higher transfection efficiency. In this work, we focused on the development of nanovectors for siRNA delivery based on three gemini amino acid-based surfactants derived from serine (12Ser)2N12, amine derivative; (12Ser)2COO12, ester derivative; and (12Ser)2CON12, amide derivative individually combined with MO as helper lipid. The inclusion of MO in the cationic surfactant system influences the morphology and size of the mixed aggregates. Furthermore, the gemini surfactant:MO systems showed the ability to efficiently complex siRNA, forming stable lipoplexes, in some cases clearly depending on the MO content, without inducing significant levels of cytotoxicity. High levels of gene silencing were achieved in comparison with a commercially available standard indicating that these gemini:MO systems are promising candidates as lipofection vectors for RNA interference (RNAi)-based therapies.The authors acknowledge Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnolo-gia (FCT) for financial support through projects UIDB/00081/2020 and UIDB/50006/2020. This work was supported by the‘‘Contrato-Programa” UIDB/04050/2020 funded by national fundsthrough the FCT I.P. Dr. Marisa Passos is gratefully acknowledged for help with the statistical analysis of cytotoxicity data. Fundingby the CCDR-N/NORTE2020/Portugal2020 through project DESign-BIOtechHealth (ref. Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000024) is also acknowledged. I. S. Oliveira and S.G. Silva also acknowledge finan-cial support from FCT through PhD grant SFRH/BD/108629/2015 and Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus - CEEC Indi-vidual grant CEECIND/01932/2017, respectivelyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Niobium and niobium-iron coatings on API 5LX 70 steel applied with HVOF

The present study aimed to create and characterize niobium and niobium-iron60% coatings applied to steel API 5L X70 using the hypersonic thermal spray process (HVOF). The morphologies of the coatings were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and profilometry, while the coatings’ hardnesses was evaluated using the Vickers hardness test. The coatings’ corrosion resistance was evaluated by monitoring their open circuit potential and potentiodynamic polarization and performing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in a 0.05 M NaCl solution. The results showed that the niobium-iron coating contained minor porosity regions, while such defects occurred over large regions of the niobium coating. In terms of corrosion resistance, the coatings obtained in this work promoted a reduction in the substrate’s corrosion rate, but the presence of discontinuities such as porosity compromised the barrier effects of these coatings

Significance of glycolytic metabolism-related protein expression in colorectal cancer, lymph node and hepatic metastasis

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignancies and a leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Most cancer cells display high rates of glycolysis with production of lactic acid, which is then exported to the microenvironment by monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs). The main aim of this study was to evaluate the significance of MCT expression in a comprehensive series of primary CRC cases, lymph node and hepatic metastasis. Methods: Expressions of MCT1, MCT4, CD147 and GLUT1 were studied in human samples of CRC, lymph node and hepatic metastasis, by immunohistochemistry. Results: All proteins were overexpressed in primary CRC, lymph node and hepatic metastasis, when compared with non-neoplastic tissue, with exception of MCT1 in lymph node and hepatic metastasis. MCT1 and MCT4 expressions were associated with CD147 and GLUT1 in primary CRC. These markers were associated with clinical pathological features, reflecting the putative role of these metabolism-related proteins in the CRC setting. Conclusion: These findings provide additional evidence for the pivotal role of MCTs in CRC maintenance and progression, and support the use of MCTs as biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets in primary and metastatic CRC.This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) grant ref. PTDC/SAU-FCF/104347/2008, under the scope of ‘Programa Operacional Temático Factores de Competitividade’ (COMPETE) of ‘Quadro Comunitário de Apoio III’ and co-financed by the Fundo Europeu De Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER). Ricardo Amorim was recipient of the fellowship SFRH/BD/98002/2013, from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT Portugal).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio