Perceived cognitive functioning in breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy compared to matched healthy women: Evidence from a Portuguese study

Aim: Cognitive concerns are one of the most frequently reported symptoms by breast cancer survivors. This study aimed to evaluate perceived cognitive functioning in Portuguese women with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy. Methods: A cross-sectional study enrolling 146 women (73 with breast cancer and 73 healthy) was conducted from August to October 2017, invited to participate through online dissemination. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires to collect sociodemographic and clinical data and assess perceived cognitive functioning and psychological adjustment variables (anxiety and depression). Results: Compared to healthy women, women with breast cancer showed significantly lower scores on the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cognitive Function (FACT-Cog) subscales and higher levels of depression. Both groups showed significant negative correlations between perceived cognitive functioning and anxiety and depression. Health status and depression seem to better explain perceived cognitive functioning, with health status adding significantly more explained variance beyond sociodemographic and psychological adjustment variables. Conclusion: The current findings provide evidence for the existence of more cognitive complaints among Portuguese women with breast cancer, compared to healthy individuals. Anxiety, depression, age and education also explain perceived cognitive functioning. Considering that health status and psychological adjustment seem to significantly explain perceived cognitive functioning, special attention should be given by health-care professionals, including nurses, to designing clinical interventions for breast cancer patients to help manage cognitive impairment

Potential for macro and micronutrients extraction from tomato plants with different soil water stresses

Different tomato cultivars may present differentiated water needs, making it indispensable to study water demand. Thus, the objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of six water stresses in the soil on the extraction potential of macro and micronutrients in the aerial part of tomato in vegetative stage, cultivar ‘Dominador’ F1, under protected cultivation and drip. The experiment was installed in a greenhouse with a randomized block design with four replications. The treatments consisted of six soil water stresses as indicative of the time of irrigation. The preset stresses were 20, 45, 70, 95, 120 and 145 kPa at 20 cm depth. At 140 days after transplanting, the variables evaluated were: the macro and micronutrient content of shoots. The results showed that to obtain higher levels of macro (P and S) and micronutrients (B and Cu) of the total aerial part of the ‘Dominador’ tomato plant F1, it was obtained at a voltage of 20 kPa, and its value was reduced linearly with the increase of the water tension in the soil

Feature Extraction and Classification of Biosignals - Emotion Valence Detection from EEG Signals

In thisworkavalencerecognitionsystembasedonelectroencephalogramsispresented.Theperformanceof the systemisevaluatedfortwosettings:singlesubjects(intra-subject)andbetweensubjects(inter-subject). The featureextractionisbasedonmeasuresofrelativeenergiescomputedinshorttimeintervalsandcertain frequencybands.Thefeatureextractionisperformedeitheronsignalsaveragedoveranensembleoftrialsor on single-trialresponsesignals.Thesubsequentclassificationstageisbasedonanensembleclassifier,i.e.a random forestoftreeclassifiers.Theclassificationisperformedconsideringtheensembleaverageresponsesof all subjects(inter-subject)orconsideringthesingle-trialresponsesofsinglesubjects(intra-subject).Applying a properimportancemeasureoftheclassifier,featureeliminationhasbeenusedtoidentifythemostrelevant features of the decision making.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ERP correlates of error processing during performance on the HalsteadCategory Test

The Halstead Category Test (HCT) is a neuropsychological test that measures a person's ability to formulate and apply abstract principles. Performance must be adjusted based on feedback after each trial and errors are common until the underlying rules are discovered. Event-related potential (ERP) studies associated with the HCT are lacking. This paper demonstrates the use of amethodology inspired on Singular SpectrumAnalysis (SSA) applied to EEG signals, to remove high amplitude ocular andmovement artifacts during performance on the test. This filtering technique introduces no phase or latency distortions, with minimum loss of relevant EEG information. Importantly, the test was applied in its original clinical format, without introducing adaptations to ERP recordings. After signal treatment, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) wave, which is related to error-processing, was identified. This component peaked around 250ms, after feedback, in fronto-central electrodes. As expected, errors elicited more negative amplitudes than correct responses. Results are discussed in terms of the increased clinical potential that coupling ERP informationwith behavioral performance data can bring to the specificity of theHCT in diagnosing different types of impairment in frontal brain function.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The role of particle contact in densification of FLASH sintered potassium sodium niobate

Potassium sodium niobate, K0.5Na0.5NbO3 (KNN) is a lead‐free piezoelectric with the potential to replace lead zirconate titanate (PZT) in electromechanical applications. Due to its cuboid particle morphology and volatile elements, monophasic and dense ceramics are difficult to obtain via conventional sintering. In this work, isothermal FLASH sintering produced uniformly densified KNN ceramics at 900 °C, 200 °C lower than conventional sintering. Specific surface area (SSA) analysis of pre‐FLASH ceramics revealed that a 30 min isothermal hold at 900 °C, before the application of electric field, increased the contact area between particles and was crucial to promote uniform densification. Finite element modelling (FEM) revealed why density is more uniform when using isothermal heating compared with a constant heating rate, commonly used in FLASH sintering. These results extend our understanding of FLASH sintering and illustrate its relevance for the development of lead‐free piezoelectrics

Modelling the particle contact influence on the Joule heating and temperature distribution during FLASH sintering

FLASH sintering is a field-assisted technique that allows the densification of ceramics in a few seconds at temperatures significantly lower than those of conventional cycles. There is still discussion among the scientific community about the mechanism behind this sintering process, that has been typically attributed to Joule heating, defect creation and movement or liquid phase assisted sintering. Computational modelling can be a powerful tool in helping to explain and predict this process. Using potassium sodium niobate (KNN) as a case study, a lead-free piezoelectric, this work explores Finite Element Modelling to evaluate the dependence of Joule heating generation and temperature distribution as a function of the cubic particle orientation

Análise Espacial Da Produtividade De Serapilheira Em Uma Mata De Galeria

The gallery forests have great genetic diversity and important ecological functions, such as protecting the headwaters, controlling erosion, and functioning as buffer zones and filtering chemicals. Litterfall, which can be used as an indicator of ecological productivity, is widely collected using litter traps that are randomly distributed in a forest plot. However, vegetation distribution may present spatial dependence, thus the yield of the litterfall can be mapped using geostatistical techniques allowing the delineation of management zones. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of geostatistical methods using the zoning management productivity of litterfall on a gallery forest in central Brazil. The study was conducted on the gallery forest along the ‘Lava-pés’ stream in Goiás State, Brazil where the experimental site (3 ha) was structured in a grid of 60 litterfall traps, each of 0.33 m2 held 0.65 m above the ground, georeferenced, spaced at 32 x 32 m intervals. Litterfall was monthly collected from December 2011 to November 2012. All litterfall samples were manually separated into three fractions: leaves (LE), branch bark (BB), and reproductive parts (RP) and they were expressed in kg ha-1. Statistical analyses consisted of data description and geostatistics. The litterfall of for LE and total showed strong spatial dependence. The BB and RP showed pure nugget effect. The total litterfall maps obtained by the Kriging interpolation method indicated zones in the map ranging from 900 to 10,900 kg ha-1 per yr. The kriging interpolation technique delineate management zones of productivity in the gallery forest litterfall studied, which allowed the specific forest management of litterfall. © 2016, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. All Rights Reserved.26248950

Complex Ashtekar variables and reality conditions for Holst's action

From the Holst action in terms of complex valued Ashtekar variables additional reality conditions mimicking the linear simplicity constraints of spin foam gravity are found. In quantum theory with the results of You and Rovelli we are able to implement these constraints weakly, that is in the sense of Gupta and Bleuler. The resulting kinematical Hilbert space matches the original one of loop quantum gravity, that is for real valued Ashtekar connection. Our result perfectly fit with recent developments of Rovelli and Speziale concerning Lorentz covariance within spin-form gravity.Comment: 24 pages, 2 picture

Iodine supplementation: compliance and association with adverse obstetric and neonatal outcomes

Free PMC article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/34981750/Objectives: Over 1.9 billion people worldwide are living in areas estimated to be iodine insufficient. Strategies for iodine supplementation include campaigns targeting vulnerable groups, such as women in pre-conception, pregnancy and lactation. Portuguese women of childbearing age and pregnant women were shown to be mildly-to-moderately iodine deficient. As a response, in 2013, the National Health Authority (NHA) issued a recommendation that all women considering pregnancy, pregnant or breastfeeding, take a daily supplement of 150-200 μg iodine. This study explored how the iodine supplementation recommendation has been fulfilled among pregnant and lactating women in Portugal, and whether the reported iodine supplements intake impacted on adverse obstetric and neonatal outcomes. Design and methods: Observational retrospective study on pregnant women who delivered or had a fetal loss in the Braga Hospital and had their pregnancies followed in Family Health Units. Results: The use of iodine supplements increased from 25% before the recommendation to 81% after the recommendation. This was mostly due to an increase in the use of supplements containing iodine only. Iodine supplementation was protective for the number of adverse obstetric outcomes (odds ratio (OR) = 0.791, P = 0.018) and for neonatal morbidities (OR = 0.528, P = 0.024) after controlling for relevant confounding variables. Conclusion: The recommendation seems to have succeeded in implementing iodine supplementation during pregnancy. National prospective studies are now needed to evaluate the impact of iodine supplementation on maternal thyroid homeostasis and offspring psychomotor development and on whether the time of the beginning of iodine supplementation (how early during preconception or pregnancy) is relevant to consider.This work has been funded by National funds, through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) – project UIDB/50026/2020 and UIDP/50026/2020 and by the project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000039, supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Funding agencies did not participate in any part of the research or in data or manuscript preparationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Development of a mathematical model for apple juice compounds rejection in a spiral-wound reverse osmosis process

YesThe use of Reverse Osmosis (RO) membrane processes for the clarification and the concentration of apple juice is proposed as an alternative to the conventional concentration technique, which is based on evaporation and freezing. Several models have been published on RO process models relying on different assumptions that predict the permeate flux and aroma compounds rejections for aqueous solutions apple juice. The solution-diffusion model (Lumped model) has been applied for the previous models. The main instrument of this study is the use of the gPROMS software to develop a new distributed steady state model that will relax a number of earlier assumptions. The model has been validated with an observational data of apple juice filtration derived from the literature by analysing the permeate flux and the performance of membrane rejection at different concentrations, temperatures and pressures for a laboratory scale of spiral-wound RO module. Simulated results corroborate with experimental and model predictions