BioRePortAP, an electronic clinical record coupled with a database : an example of its use in a single

Aims: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the treatment of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists in the Rheumatology Department of Hospital de Santa Maria using the BioRePortAP. Methods: The Portuguese Society of Rheumatology (SPR) developed an electronic medical chart coupled with a database for the follow up of PsA patients, the BioRePortAP, which was launched in May 2009. This evaluation was based on all the PsA patients that were on active treatment with TNF antagonists in September 2009 and were registered in the BioRePortAP. All the previous data on these patients were introduced in BioRePortAP using the prospective paper based follow up protocol that this Department was using since 1999. Only patients with more than 9 months of treatment were analyzed. Results: Forty-two patients with PsA, actively treated with anti-TNF agents in September 2009, for at least 9 months, were analyzed in BioRePortAP. Twenty-three patients were male (55%) and nineteen were female (45%). The average age of these patients was 49.8±10.9 years old, the average disease duration was of 10.7±5.6 years and the mean duration of biological therapy was of 37.8±27.8 months. For the 81% of patients with peripheral joint disease there was a mean reduction of more than 80% in the swollen and tender joint counts, and almost 50% in the health assessment questionnaire (HAQ) value. In the 19% of the patients with axial involvement the reduction of BASDAI and BASFI was not statistically significative. On top of that, PASI score suffered a reduction of 64%. Fourteen patients (33.3%) had to switch their TNF antagonist treatment. 58.8% of the switches were due to adverse effects and 41.2% due to therapy failure. Regarding the 56 adverse reactions registered, only one was a severe reaction. The remaining adverse reactions were not severe and 67% of them were due to infections. Discussion: The results of this first report of the use of the BioRePortAP in clinical practice confirm the efficacy and safety of TNF antagonist treatment in PsA. The results shown here elucidate the potential applications of BioRePortAP as a tool for efficacy and safety assessment of PsA patients treated with biotechnological drugs

Integration of Flight Simulator 2002 with an epidemic multicast protocol

Multi-player games are increasingly popular in the Internet. This growing interest results in the need to support a high number of participants, which raises the issue of scalability, namely in what regards the ability to offer good performance in such a large-scale setting. This paper addresses the issue of designing middleware solutions to support large-scale multi-player applications. In particular, we are interested in studying the feasibility of using epidemic multicast protocols for information dissemination in multi-player games based on a peer-to-peer architecture. We have integrated a comercial multiplayer game, the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002, with an epidemic multicast protocol appropriate to this kind of applications, the NEEM. The paper describes how this integration was achieved and presents evaluation results of the resulting prototype

Sport tourism: regional promotion strategies

The main purposes of this paper are (i) to analyze the regional promotion strategies of the UEFA Euro 2004 and (ii) to contribute for the improvement of planning and implementation strategies of tourism marketing at regional level. Data regarding these strategies were collected and synthesized. We verified if these strategies match some of the theoretical issues of promotion and tourism marketing. Despite the fact that already many studies have been made, internationally, on the impact of sport events, the present study contains something new as it introduces an ante analysis on the regional promotion strategies of major sport events. Unlikely, the results show that no specific and integrated regional promotion strategy was pursuit, and no substantial additional financial effort was made. In what concerns the private regional tourism agents, no promotion could be found. The main tourism promotion competition came from across the boarder, with dynamic promotion actions of the nearby Spanish regional tourism responsibles

Aspectos da aplicação do Delft Hydraulics 'SOBEK' no desenvolvimento de um sistema de gestão operacional da água em Alqueva

No âmbito do desenvolvimento de um Sistema de Suporte à Decisão (SSD) para a gestão da água no Empreendimento de Fins Múltiplos de Alqueva (EFMA) foi seleccionado, após uma avaliação de diferentes alternativas de software de modelação hidrodinâmica e de qualidade da água, o programa SOBEK (WL, 2005) para a modelação de problemas de qualidade da água unidimensionais. No presente trabalho apresentam-se as características mais importantes deste programa e descrevem-se os principais aspectos relacionados com a sua integração no ambiente hidroinformático em desenvolvimento para a gestão operacional das infra-estruturas, construídas e em fase de projecto, da rede primária do Subsistema de Alqueva a montante da barragem de Alvito. A construção do modelo hidrodinâmico foi precedida de um estudo pormenorizado das infraestruturas que constituem o sistema em análise, com recurso a informação constante dos seus projectos de execução. A caracterização geométrica das infra-estruturas foi desenvolvida com o detalhe correspondente ao de projecto de execução (ou levantamento no caso de infra-estruturas existentes), distinguindo-se duas situações físicas distintas: albufeiras e sistemas adutores. No casodas albufeiras consideraram-se os seguintes elementos de projecto: fundo ou topografia do terreno; planta correspondente aos níveis relevantes; cortes; características das barragens; descarga de fundo e de caudal ecológico; descarregadores intermédios; descarregadores de cheia. No caso dos canais, túneis e condutas em pressão consideraram-se os seguintes elementos de projecto: planta com traçado do eixo; perfil longitudinal; secções transversais e acessórios

Mathematical modelling of salt water intrusion in a Northern Portuguese estuary

Salinity intrusion is a key issue for estuarine water quality management. Aquatic ecosystem sustainability is highly dependent on salinity concentration dynamics and must be studied for each particular environment. Salinity intrusion into the estuary of the river Lima, in the north-western region of the Iberian Peninsula, was studied based on a two-dimensional hydrodynamic and mass transport model. Tide heights and river discharges are the major causes affecting salinity intrusion, and have been analyzed by means of estuarine circulation simulation for different scenarios. The upstream propagation of the salinity front under unfavorable conditions reaches a river section located at about 12 km upstream the river mouth. The developed model constitutes a powerful tool for evaluation of the salinity intrusion pattern in the river Lima estuary, and an auxiliary instrument for decision making in river basin water management

River water quality modelling in developing a catchment water safety plan

The primary aim of a catchment water safety plan is to reduce risks within the catchment to protect the quality of drinking water sources at the intake point. Even where effective arrangements for catchment management and control have been implemented, unexpected deterioration in raw water quality can pose a risk to treated drinking water quality. Thus potential sources of pollution impacting the area of influence of the intake should be identified and monitored. An important part of any catchment management strategy includes implementation of raw water monitoring programmes, targeted at the most likely microbiological threats to water treatment. When combined with good monitoring datasets, properly calibrated, tested and verified surface water models can be used to forecast or estimate risks under various scenarios. This allows a good insight into impacts associated with known and anticipated land use activities within the catchment. In this work a hybrid methodology based on river water quality data analysis and hydrodynamic and water quality modelling was developed to assess the surface water quality in the Portuguese river Cávado. This component constitutes the base for developing a catchment water safety plan at this river basin

Modelação matemática da produção primária em zonas costeiras

O estudo da dinâmica de produção primária apresenta um interesse especial quando realizado em zonas costeiras utilizadas de forma intensiva para a aquicultura, como é o caso da Ria de Arosa. Nesta ria, a cadeia alimentar é dominada pelas elevadas taxas de produção primária sustentadas pelo afloramento de águas oceânicas ricas em nutrientes, resultando em elevadas quantidades de fitoplâncton que, por sua vez, servem de sustento às culturas de mexilhão em bateas. Neste artigo apresenta-se um modelo da cadeia alimentar proposto para a Ria de Arosa. Procede-se à apresentação das principais variáveis de estado seleccionadas e à caracterização das cinéticas que lhes estão associadas, evidenciando-se ainda as principais potencialidades de um modelo deste tipo na avaliação e previsão de cenários de funcionamento da cadeia alimentar

Contribution to the preservation of healthy coastal ecosystems

The release of pollutants into coastal zones from municipal and/or industrial drainage systems is a problem with a considerable environmental impact. In order to minimize the contamination of coastal waters in certain places (e.g., along beaches and in aquacultures), solutions based on the construction of submarine sewer outfalls have been proposed. In order to ascertain the optimal conditions for the release of an emissary, in particular the place of release, it is necessary to characterize the hydrodynamic transport processes that govern the evolution and mixture of pollutants in the area of interest. Circulation in the coastal zone is complicated, given that it is determined by a set of forcing mechanisms of diverse origins (meteorological, astronomical, large-scale ocean circulation, etc.) that endow it with a considerable space-time variation. Wastewater plume behaviour and characteristics depend both on the receiving water conditions and on the discharge characteristics. Accordingly, the implementation of a submarine outfall system requires a prior study of the site where the outfall is to be constructed, in order to achieve optimal rates of dilution of the pollutants released to the environment. Mathematical modelling appears to be a very useful tool for coastal zone environmental management either for continuous monitoring analysis or in accidental ecosystem rupture. This work presents some results and conclusions of two case studies. The first is a study of the pollutant cloud released at the São Jacinto submarine sewer outfall, located about 3 km offshore and 3 km north of an important coastal lagoon (NW Portugal). The main focus of this study was to establish the hydrodynamic conditions in which the pollutant release might affect the coastline (principally the existing beaches and lagoon). The second case presents some hydrodynamic results and water quality aspects of the Ria de Arosa (NW Spain), and also includes an assessment of the environmental impact of wastewater discharges from nine submarine outfalls considered in the sanitation plan of this bay. Results of faecal matter concentration distribution were used in the discussion on the outfall discharges’ impact on the natural water system for different hydrodynamic scenarios. In both cases, 3D numerical models were used

Oil spills in coastal zones : environmental impacts and practical mitigating solutions

A computational structure that has been developed to forecast the time-space evolution of oil spills in marine environments is presented. This structure was developed considering widely used mathematica formulations for oil spreading and weathering processes. A Eulerian transport model, that uses hydrodynamic results obtained with a two-dimensional and a quasi three-dimensional hydrodynamic model, was used to predict the oil slick transport and spread. General characteristics of the computational structure and the results of its application to a real case study - the “Cercal” accident in October 1994 - are presented. Georeferenced data are processed via a Geographical Information System tool. Data on the N/T “Prestige” oil spill processed by means of this information system and simulation results are also included.(undefined

Ferramenta de modelação desenvolvida em ambiente web para apoio à gestão de albufeiras

A utilização das tecnologias de informação e comunicação no caso específico da gestão de recursos hídricos, em que a incerteza associada aos processos hidrológicos determina um grau de dificuldade acrescido, revela-se essencial. Desta forma, o desenvolvimento de ferramentas que permitam a consulta de dados de redes de monitorização hidrológica, de previsões meteorológicas e de resultados de simulação em ambientes de múltiplas plataformas, fixas ou móveis, é uma das tarefas fundamentais para a incorporação das tecnologias de informação nos processos correntes de gestão de recursos hídricos. No presente trabalho apresenta-se uma ferramenta, desenvolvida para ambiente web, que permite consultar informação e operar modelos hidráulicos de simulação de barragens e respetivas albufeiras. A interface é adaptável a cada caso de estudo e poderá ser desenvolvida com diferentes tipos de software de modelação hidrológica e hidrodinâmica, considerando as necessidades estabelecidas pelo conjunto dos seus utilizadores. A partir da interface é possível estabelecer as condições de fronteira definidas para cada modelo, aplicar o modelo e visualizar os resultados de simulações dinâmicas. A aplicabilidade da ferramenta desenvolvida é demonstrada em exemplos de implementação em diversas albufeiras situadas no rio Guadiana (Empreendimento de Fins Múltiplos de Alqueva, Portugal