Intergenerational transmission of war-related trauma assessed 40 years after exposure

Background: The intergenerational transmission of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from parent to offspring has been suggested in the literature, but this is highly controversial. We aimed to study the association between veterans' war exposure and lifetime PTSD and the psychological characteristics of their respective offspring, 40 years after war-related trauma. Methods: Forty-four adult offspring of veterans with PTSD and 29 offspring of veterans without PTSD were included in the study, from a total of 46 veterans. War exposure intensity, lifetime PTSD, and the general psychopathology (with Brief Symptom Inventory - BSI) of the veterans were studied, as were childhood trauma, attachment, and the general psychopathology (with BSI) of their offspring. Results: Veterans' war exposure was associated with BSI in the offspring with regard to somatisation (ß = 0.025; CI 0.001, 0.050), phobic anxiety (ß = 0.014; CI: 0.000, 0.027), Global Severity Index (GSI) (ß = 0.022; CI 0.005, 0.038), and Positive Symptom Distress Index (ß = 0.020; CI 0.006, 0.033). The fathers' GSI mediated only 18% of the effect of the veterans' total war exposure on offspring's GSI. Fathers' war exposure was associated with offspring's physical neglect as a childhood adversity, although non-significantly (p = 0.063). None of the other variables was associated with veterans' war exposure, and veterans' lifetime PTSD was not associated with any of the variables studied. Conclusions: The offspring of war veterans showed increased psychological suffering as a function of their fathers' war exposure intensity, but not of their fathers' lifetime PTSD. These results could be used to suggest that mental health support for veterans' offspring should consider the war exposure intensity of their fathers, and not just psychopathology. This could spare offspring's suffering if this mental health support could be delivered early on, after veterans return from war

Extreme vortex pinning in the non-centrosymmetric superconductor CePt3_{3}Si

We report on the vortex dynamics of a single crystal of the non-centrosymmetric heavy-fermion superconductor CePt$_{3}$Si. Decays of the remnant magnetization display a clean logarithmic time dependence with rates that follow the temperature dependence expected from the Kim-Anderson theory. The creep rates are lower than observed in any other centrosymmetric superconductor and are not caused by high critical currents. On the contrary, the critical current in CePt$_{3}$Si is considerably lower than in other superconductors with strong vortex pinning indicating that an alternative impediment on the flux line motion might be at work in this superconductor.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Associations Between the Big Five Personality Traits and a Medical School Admission Interview

INTRODUCTION: Personality has became popular in medical student's selection. However, few research exists about the association between the big five personality traits and the existent medical school selection tools. Our aim was to study which personality traits were selected by a medical school admission interview. MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred ninety four graduate applicants that had applied to the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto through the graduate entry approach, after ranked on previous achievement, were interviewed between the academic years of 2011 and 2013. From these, 181 (93.3%) answered to the NEO Five-Factor Inventory that assesses high order personality traits of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Admission interview corresponded to the second phase of the seriation process. Every applicant was interviewed and scored by three interviewers on seven dimensions asesssed by Lickert scale (1-10). Interview score was the sum of the dimensions. Linear mixed effects model and respective regression coefficients were used to estimate the association between personality traits from each interviewer's score. Final models were adjusted for gender, interviewers and previous achievement. RESULTS: Openness to experience (Beta = 0.18: CI 95%: 0.05; 0.30) had the strongest association with interview score followed by the interaction effect between the extraversion and conscientiousness traits (Beta = 0.14; CI 95%: 0.02; 0.25). Also, applicants scored higher when their gender was opposite to the interviewers. DISCUSSION: Previous achievement and interview score had no association. CONCLUSION: Our admission interview selected different personality traits when compared to other selection tools. Medical schools should be aware of the implications of the adopted selection tools on the admitted medical student's personality because it can help providing beneficial interventions

Genomic wide-selection for tick resistance in Hereford and Braford cattle via reaction norm model.

The objective of this study was to compare a conventional genomic model (GBLUP) and its extension to a linear reaction norm model (GLRNM) specifying genotype by environment interaction (G*E) for tick resistance in Brazilian cattle. Tick counts (TC) from 4,363 Hereford and Braford cattle from 146 contemporary groups (CG) were available of which 3,591 animals had BovineSNP50 Illumina v2 BeadChip genotypes. The reaction norm covariate was based on CG estimates of TC from a first-step model. Analysis was conducted based on adapting the single step GBLUP/REML procedure. Fivefold cross validation based on K-means and random partitioning was used to compare the fit of the two models. Cross validation correlations were strong and not significantly different between models for either partitioning strategy. Nevertheless, it seems apparent that G*E for tick infestation exists and can captured by GLRNM models

Genotype by environment interaction for tick resistance of Hereford and Braford beef cattle using reaction norm model.

The cattle tick is a parasite that adversely affects livestock performance in tropical areas. Although countries such as Australia and Brazil have developed genetic evaluations for tick resistance, these evaluations have not considered genotype by environment (G*E) interactions. Genetic gains could be adversely affected, since breed-stock comparisons are environmentally dependent on the presence of G*E interactions, particularly if residual vari-ability is also heterogeneous across environments. The objective of this study was to infer upon the existence of G*E interactions for tick resistance of cattle based on various models with different assumptions of genetic and residual variability.Article 3

Volatilização de amônia, produção de matéria seca e teores foliares de N do azevém adubado com fontes nitrogenadas.

bitstream/item/29220/1/Circular66.pdfISSN 1981-208

A Relação Entre o Stress e os Estilos de Vida nos Estudantes de Medicina da Faculdade de Medicina do Porto

Diferentes estudos têm vindo a demonstrar que há mudanças significativas ao nível dos hábitos/estilos de vida dos estudantes do ensino superior e, verifica-se que, os estudantes de Medicina também evidenciam uma significativa propensão para a adopção de estilos de vida de risco para a saúde. Neste sentido, o presente trabalho pretende (i) caracterizar as principais fontes de stress académico dos estudantes da Faculdade de Medicina do Porto (FMUP) e a intensidade com que são experienciadas, (ii) investigar as variações com o sexo, ciclo de formação e deslocação da residência de origem, no stress académico e variáveis psicossociais associadas e, (iii) contribuir, pela primeira vez, para o estudo aprofundado do stress e estilos de vida dos estudantes de Medicina em Portugal. O estudo empírico contou com uma amostra de 251 estudantes dos sextos anos do Plano de Estudos da Licenciatura em Medicina da FMUP (160 do sexo feminino e 91 do sexo masculino), avaliados através dos seguintes instrumentos: (a) o Inventário de Fontes de Stress Académico no curso de Medicina (IFSAM), o Inventário de Respostas e Recursos Pessoais (IRRP), (b) o Questionário de Hábitos de Saúde, (c) o General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) e (d) o Inventário de Comportamento Interpessoal-breve (ICIbreve). Verificou-se uma prevalência de 58,2% de sintomas clínicos de stress e 47% dos estudantes revelam comportamentos de risco para a saúde, sendo as áreas de maior preocupação os hábitos alimentares, a prática de exercício físico, o consumo de álcool e tabaco, e a imagem corporal. O sexo e o ciclo de formação revelam uma influência significativa nas variáveis estudadas, sendo as estudantes do sexo feminino as que apresentam maiores níveis de stress académico, respostas de stress e baixa confiança na sua capacidade de coping; já os estudantes do ciclo básico revelam maiores níveis de stress geral, stress na gestão dos estilos de vida e nas respostas de stress. Este estudo poderá contribuir para alertar para a necessidade de intervir junto dos estudantes de Medicina, no sentido de prevenir as consequências negativas do stress académico e melhorar o bemestar e estilo de vida dos estudantes de Medicina, promovendo recursos individuais e sociais importantes