Adiabatic Limit and the Fr\"olicher Spectral Sequence

Motivated by our conjecture of an earlier work predicting the degeneration at the second page of the Fr\"olicher spectral sequence of any compact complex manifold supporting an SKT metric $\omega$ (i.e. such that $\partial\bar\partial\omega=0$), we prove degeneration at $E_2$ whenever the manifold admits a Hermitian metric whose torsion operator $\tau$ and its adjoint vanish on $\Delta''$-harmonic forms of positive degrees up to \mbox{dim}_\C X. Besides the pseudo-differential Laplacian inducing a Hodge theory for $E_2$ that we constructed in earlier work and Demailly's Bochner-Kodaira-Nakano formula for Hermitian metrics, a key ingredient is a general formula for the dimensions of the vector spaces featuring in the Fr\"olicher spectral sequence in terms of the asymptotics, as a positive constant $h$ decreases to zero, of the small eigenvalues of a rescaled Laplacian $\Delta_h$, introduced here in the present form, that we adapt to the context of a complex structure from the well-known construction of the adiabatic limit and from the analogous result for Riemannian foliations of \'Alvarez L\'opez and Kordyukov.Comment: 32 page

SafeFollowing: A collaborative model for public security agents to assist people with disabilities and the elderly

In the last survey about the Brazilian population conducted by IBGE, more than 45.6 million of Brazilians declared that they have some kind of disability. Besides that, the same survey revealed that the number of elderly people has been increasing over the years and at that time it already represented 12.1 \% of the total. In this scenario, public policies that can efficiently ensure the rights of this share of the population became even more necessary. In the same manner, with the popularization of mobile devices, opportunities to develop new solutions are arising, offering more independence and quality of life to them. Ubiquitous accessibility support solutions have been proposed, such as the MASC model, which resorts to the concept of smart assistive city; and more recently the AccompCare, which predicts the monitoring of people with disabilities and the elderly. This article proposes the SafeFollowing, a model that enables integrated and collaborative acting of the community aiming to assist people with some kind of disability or elderly people. The SafeFollowing predicts the use of police cars mapping, in order to provide a specific follow-up in adverse daily situations. The validation of the model is also presented in the article, which was performed through experiments in real test scenarios

A INFLUÊNCIA DOS ENUNCIADOS E DOS MATERIAIS NO ENSINO DA ANÁLISE COMBINATÓRIA PARA ALUNOS SURDOS E PARA ALUNOS COM DEFICIÊNCIA VISUAL

O presente trabalho é um recorte de um estudo mais amplo, no qual foram adaptadas e aplicadas cerca de vinte atividades de análise combinatória para alunos com deficiência visual e para alunos surdos. Algumas atividades foram desenvolvidas pelos autores e outras adaptadas de livros didáticos e artigos. Temos como objetivos detalhar a aplicação e discutir a influência dos recursos e da formulação dos enunciados na resolução de dois problemas. Os percursos metodológicos incluíram as etapas de produção e adaptação de materiais; aplicação das atividades com apresentação em Libras (Língua Brasileira de Sinais); e discussão dos resultados observados. Corroborando com os referenciais pesquisados, foi possível concluir a importância da apresentação dos enunciados dos problemas em Libras e utilização de recursos visuais que facilitassem seu entendimento para os surdos, bem como a utilização de materiais táteis que pudessem permitir aos alunos com deficiência visual compreender os problemas, assim como auxiliar na resolução dos mesmos

Vitamin D-related polymorphisms and vitamin D levels as risk biomarkers of COVID-19 disease severity

© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Vitamin D is a fundamental regulator of host defences by activating genes related to innate and adaptive immunity. Previous research shows a correlation between the levels of vitamin D in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and the degree of disease severity. This work investigates the impact of the genetic background related to vitamin D pathways on COVID-19 severity. For the first time, the Portuguese population was characterized regarding the prevalence of high impact variants in genes associated with the vitamin D pathways. This study enrolled 517 patients admitted to two tertiary Portuguese hospitals. The serum concentration of 25 (OH)D, was measured in the hospital at the time of patient admission. Genetic variants, 18 variants, in the genes AMDHD1, CYP2R1, CYP24A1, DHCR7, GC, SEC23A, and VDR were analysed. The results show that polymorphisms in the vitamin D binding protein encoded by the GC gene are related to the infection severity (p = 0.005). There is an association between vitamin D polygenic risk score and the serum concentration of 25 (OH)D (p = 0.04). There is an association between 25 (OH)D levels and the survival and fatal outcomes (p = 1.5e-4). The Portuguese population has a higher prevalence of the DHCR7 RS12785878 variant when compared with its prevalence in the European population (19% versus 10%). This study shows a genetic susceptibility for vitamin D deficiency that might explain higher severity degrees in COVID-19 patients. These results reinforce the relevance of personalized strategies in the context of viral diseases.This project was supported by the “Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia”, program “Research 4 Covid-19 Apoio especial a projetos de implementação rápida para soluções inovadoras de resposta à pandemia de COVID-19”. It was also partially supported by each institution.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reprogramming energy metabolism and inducing angiogenesis : co-expression of monocarboxylate transporters with VEGF family members in cervical adenocarcinomas

Background: Deregulation of cellular energetic metabolism was recently pointed out as a hallmark of cancer cells. This deregulation involves a metabolic reprogramming that leads to a high production of lactate. Lactate efflux, besides contributing for the glycolytic flux, also acts in the extracellular matrix, contributing for cancer malignancy, by, among other effects, induction of angiogenesis. However, studies on the interplay between cancer metabolism and angiogenesis are scarce. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the metabolic and vascular molecular profiles of cervical adenocarcinomas, their co-expression, and their relation to the clinical and pathological behavior. Methods: The immunohistochemical expression of metabolism-related proteins (MCT1, MCT4, CD147, GLUT1 and CAIX) as well as VEGF family members (VEGF-A, VEGF-C, VEGF-D, VEGFR-1, VEGFR-2 and VEGFR-3) was assessed in a series of 232 cervical adenocarcinomas. The co-expression among proteins was assessed and the expression profiles were associated with patients’ clinicopathological parameters. Results: Among the metabolism-related proteins, MCT4 and CAIX were the most frequently expressed in cervical adenocarcinomas while CD147 was the less frequently expressed protein. Overall, VEGF family members showed a strong and extended expression with VEGF-C and VEGFR-2 as the most frequently expressed and VEGFR-1 as the less expressed member. Co-expression of MCT isoforms with VEGF family members was demonstrated. Finally, MCT4 was associated with parametrial invasion and HPV18 infection, CD147 and GLUT1 with distant metastasis, CAIX with tumor size and HPV18 infection, and VEGFR-1 with local and lymphnode metastasis. Conclusions: The results herein presented provide additional evidence for a crosstalk between deregulating cellular energetics and inducing angiogenesis. Also, the metabolic remodeling and angiogenic switch are relevant to cancer progression and aggressiveness in adenocarcinomas.CP received a post-doctoral fellowship (SFRH/BPD/69479/2010) and FM-S received a doctoral fellowship (SFRH/BD/87139/2012) from FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology). This work was supported by the FCT grant ref. PTDC/SAU-FCF/104347/2008, under the scope of "Programa Operacional Tematico Factores de Competitividade" (COMPETE) of "Quadro Comunitario de Apoio III" and co-financed by Fundo Comunitario Europeu FEDER, and also by FAPESP 2008/03232-1

Mucopolysaccharidosis I, II, and VI: Brief review and guidelines for treatment

Mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) are rare genetic diseases caused by the deficiency of one of the lysosomal enzymes involved in the glycosaminoglycan (GAG) breakdown pathway. This metabolic block leads to the accumulation of GAG in various organs and tissues of the affected patients, resulting in a multisystemic clinical picture, sometimes including cognitive impairment. Until the beginning of the XXI century, treatment was mainly supportive. Bone marrow transplantation improved the natural course of the disease in some types of MPS, but the morbidity and mortality restricted its use to selected cases. The identification of the genes involved, the new molecular biology tools and the availability of animal models made it possible to develop specific enzyme replacement therapies (ERT) for these diseases. At present, a great number of Brazilian medical centers from all regions of the country have experience with ERT for MPS I, II, and VI, acquired not only through patient treatment but also in clinical trials. Taking the three types of MPS together, over 200 patients have been treated with ERT in our country. This document summarizes the experience of the professionals involved, along with the data available in the international literature, bringing together and harmonizing the information available on the management of these severe and progressive diseases, thus disclosing new prospects for Brazilian patients affected by these conditions