Sudden onset of Cotard’s syndrome as a clinical sign of brain tumor

Letter to the editor[Excerpt] We report the clinical case where the sudden onset of a Cotard syndrome in a 69 year old lady lead to the discovery of a multifocal glioblastoma in the right temporo-parietal lobe. Cotard’s syndrome is a rare psychiatric disorder in which the afflicted patient believes he or she is dead. These nihilistic thoughts are the expression of a rare syndrome first described by Jules Cotard in late XIX century. The Cotard’s syndrome has been studied and it seems that its psychopathology can be ascribed to the temporoparietal cortex. Although the Cotard’s syndrome is not part of the DSM-V it is common in psychiatric literature and is included in ICD-10-CM within code F22. It has been described associated with organic lesions and atrophy of the non-dominant temporo-parietal cortex, in pathologies like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia1, subdural hemorrhage2, multiple sclerosis, brain atrophy3 and cerebral infarction4 among others5-7. We observed the case of a female patient, 69 years old, with no relevant past medical history, that was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford (UK) with an episode of numbness in the left hand and an episode of dizziness whilst at home, duration of symptoms was of 15 minutes and then resolved entirely. She had no history of head trauma. Neurological exam was unremarkable and the stroke team felt a CT scan was not required, however she failed occupational therapy assessment and was not sent home. [...](undefined

Consumo de álcool e vivência psicológica da gravidez em mulheres portuguesas

Este estudo exploratório teve como objetivo principal conhecer o fenómeno do consumo de álcool durante a gravidez assim como a prevalência e preditores de consumo, nomeadamente a vivência psicológica da gravidez, utilizando um grupo de grávidas portuguesas. Recorreu-se à metodologia quantitativa e os dados foram recolhidos através de um Questionário Online que incluiu três instrumentos – Formulário das Questões Sociodemográficas, Gravidez e Estilo de Vida, Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Teste (AUDIT) e a Escala de Atitudes sobre a Gravidez e Maternidade (EAGM). Os principais resultados prendem-se com a existência de associação entre o fumar antes da gravidez e o consumo de álcool antes da gravidez. Existência de diferenças altamente significativas entre a frequência de consumo de álcool antes e durante a gravidez no que concerne ao Item 1 do AUDIT e ao valor total do AUDIT. Por fim verifica-se uma correlação significativa positiva entre os 2 valores totais do AUDIT (antes e durante a gravidez). Face à escassez de informação sobre o fenómeno em Portugal, este trabalho espera ser um contributo para uma maior informação sobre tema, alertando para a importância deste fenómeno, fazendo parte de um estudo mais lato.The main purpose of this exploratory study was to identify the phenomenon of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, as well as the prevalence and predictors of consumption, namely the psychological experience of pregnancy, using a group of Portuguese pregnant women. A quantitative methodology was used, and data were collected through an Online Questionnaire which included three instruments - Sociodemographic, Pregnancy and Lifestyle Questions Form, Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Attitudes towards Pregnancy and Motherhood Scale (EAGM). The main results are related to the existence of an association between smoking before pregnancy and alcohol consumption before pregnancy. The existence of highly significant differences between the frequency of alcohol consumption before and during pregnancy regarding Item 1 of the AUDIT and the total AUDIT score. Finally, there is a significant positive correlation between the 2 total AUDIT scores (before and during pregnancy). Given the scarcity of information on the phenomenon in Portugal, this study hopes to contribute to provide more information on the subject, drawing attention to the importance of this phenomenon as part of a broader study

O Que Desencadeia o Sucesso em Alunos com Baixo Rendimento Escolar, no Projeto Fénix

© Copyright – Escola Superior de Educação Paula Frassinetti; Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Port

Dye-sensitized solar cells: A safe bet for the future.

This review describes the main features of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) and highlights recent breakthroughs in this promising thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology. After a brief presentation of the commercially available technologies, the general operation principles and the most relevant characteristics of DSCs are summarized. Recent major advances in high efficiency sensitizers, nanostructured semiconductors and robust electrolytes offer an opportunity for DSCs integration into the marketplace. With attractive features, like low-cost potential, simple processing, wide range of applicability - from low-power electronics to semi-transparent windowpanes for electricity generation - and good performance under typical operating conditions, these cells are one step from large-scale commercialization. We describe major strategies that are under way to make DSCs a key technology in the future PV paradigm

Technical Note : assessing predictive capacity and conditional independence of landslide predisposing factors for shallow landslide susceptibility models

The aim of this study is to identify the landslide predisposing factors' combination using a bivariate statistical model that best predicts landslide susceptibility. The best model is one that has simultaneously good performance in terms of suitability and predictive power and has been developed using variables that are conditionally independent. The study area is the Santa Marta de Penaguião council (70 km2) located in the Northern Portugal. In order to identify the best combination of landslide predisposing factors, all possible combinations using up to seven predisposing factors were performed, which resulted in 120 predictions that were assessed with a landside inventory containing 767 shallow translational slides. The best landslide susceptibility model was selected according to the model degree of fitness and on the basis of a conditional independence criterion. The best model was developed with only three landslide predisposing factors (slope angle, inverse wetness index, and land use) and was compared with a model developed using all seven landslide predisposing factors. Results showed that it is possible to produce a reliable landslide susceptibility model using fewer landslide predisposing factors, which contributes towards higher conditional independence

Desenvolvimento, meio ambiente e divisão internacional do trabalho: análise empírica para uma região de concentração de indústrias sujas e intensivas em recursos naturais no estado de Minas Gerais

The State of Minas Gerais - and more particularly our study-region - specialized, since the 1970s, in attracting natural resources intensive dirty industries. That type of regional industrial growth is linked to Brazil's - and Minas Gerais's in particular - insertion within the New International Division of Labor in which peripheral countries become attractive to industries with high environmental impacts, with obvious consequences upon local environmental and life quality.In this paper we characterize economic development in the Piracicaba River Basin's municipalities, their capacity to attract highly polluting and environmental degrading industries, and the environmental implications of that industrialization model. We proceed onto a double analytical approach that combines a political economic critique of the structural causes determining the region's development and the empirical statistical analysis of economic and environmental indicators. Using data from municipalities in the Piracicaba River Basin we sought to investigate the correlations between economic and environmental indicators as well as the structural reasons for those relations in the face of the specific insertion of the study-region into the international division of labor with consequent specialization in resource and energy intensive intermediary goods industries.environment; local development; international division of labor; life quality; Brazil

Multi-level modelling of longitudinal child growth data: a comparison of growth models in the generation XXI birth cohort

Several methods have been used by different authors to estimate growth curves. In this paper, five growth models are compared using weight and height data from 6668 children from the Generation XXI birth cohort. The goal was to determine the model(s) that better describe the growth pattern from birth to 10 years of age using mixed-effect modelling. The study compared the fitness of four structural (Jenss-Bayley, adapted Jenss-Bayley, Berkey-Reed 1st order and Berkey-Reed 2nd order) and one non structural (cubic spline based) model. The goodness of t of the models was examined using standard deviation of the residuals, Akaike Information Criterion and Bayesian Criterion. The adapted Jenss-Bayley and the spline based model had the better tting for weight while for height the better models were Berkey-Reed 2nd order and the spline

A comparison of anomaly detection methods for industrial screw tightening

Within the context of Industry 4.0, quality assessment pro- cedures using data-driven techniques are becoming more critical due to the generation of massive amounts of production data. In this paper, we address the detection of abnormal screw tightening processes, which is a relevant industrial task. Since labeling is costly, requiring a manual effort, we focus on unsupervised approaches. In particular, we assume a low-dimensional input screw fastening approach that is based only on angle-torque pairs. Using such pairs, we explore three main unsuper- vised Machine Learning (ML) algorithms: Local Outlier Factor (LOF), Isolation Forest (iForest) and a deep learning Autoencoder (AE). For benchmarking purposes, we also explore a supervised Random Forest (RF) algorithm. Several computational experiments were held by us- ing recent industrial data with 2.8 million angle-torque pair records and a realistic and robust rolling window evaluation. Overall, high quality anomaly discrimination results were achieved by the iForest (99%) and AE (95% and 96%) unsupervised methods, which compared well against the supervised RF (99% and 91%). When compared with iForest, the AE requires less computation effort and provides faster anomaly detection response times.This work is supported by: European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internation- alization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project n 39479; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-39479]

NMR-metabolomics shows that bola is an important modulator of Salmonella typhimurium metabolic processes under virulence conditions

BolA is a ubiquitous global transcription factor. Despite its clear role in the induction of important stress‐resistant physiological changes and its recent implication in the virulence of Salmonella, further research is required to shed light on the pathways modulated by BolA. In this study, we resorted to untargeted1H‐NMR metabolomics to understand the impact of BolA on the metabolic profile of Salmonella Typhimurium, under virulence conditions. Three strains of S. Typhimurium SL1344 were studied: An SL1344 strain transformed with an empty plasmid (control), a bolA knockout mutant (ΔbolA), and a strain overexpressing bolA (bolA+). These strains were grown in a minimal virulence‐inducing medium and cells were collected at the end of the exponential and stationary phases. The extracts were analyzed by NMR, and multivariate and univariate statistical analysis were performed to identify significant alterations. Principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS‐DA) of1H‐NMR data allowed the discrimination between the metabolic profiles of these strains, revealing increased levels of acetate, valine, alanine, NAD+, succinate, coenzyme A, glutathione, and putrescine in bolA+. These results indicate that BolA regulates pathways related to stress resistance and virulence, being an important modulator of the metabolic processes needed for S. Typhimurium infection.publishersversionpublishe

Electrochemical sensing of the thyroid hormone thyronamine (T0AM) via molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs)

Recent studies have shown that besides the well-known T3 (triiodothyronine) and T4 (thyroxine) there might be other important thyroid hormones, in particular T0AM (thyronamine) and T1AM (3-iodothyronamine). The absence of a large number of studies showing their precise importance might be explained by the limited number of analytical methodologies available. This work aims to show an electroanalytical alternative making use of electropolymerized molecularly imprinted polymer (MIPs). The MIPs' polymerization is performed on the surface of screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs), using 4-aminobenzoic acid (4-ABA) as the building and functional monomer and the analyte T0AM as the template. The step-by-step construction of the SPCE-MIP sensor was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). After optimization, by means of square-wave voltammetry, the SPCE-MIP showed suitable selectivity (in comparison with other thyroid hormones and catechol amines), repeatability (intra-day of 3.9%), a linear range up to 10 μmol L-1 (0.23 × 103 μg dL-1) with an r2 of 0.998 and a limit of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) of 0.081 and 0.27 μmol L-1 (1.9 and 6.2 μg dL-1), respectively.This project was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), and FEDER/COMPETE (UID/QUI/00081/2013, UID/QUI/50006/2013, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006980 and NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000028). JGP (SFRH/BPD/101419/2014), PR (SFRH/BD/132384/2017) and LMG (SFRH/BPD/76544/2011) wish to acknowledge FCT for their research grants. FC thanks NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000028 grant.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio