The effect on the GHG emissions and energy consumption of MSW management practices on Porto City

The present case study was developed for the municipality of Porto, the second largest city of Portugal that has near 300 000 inhabitants. Due to legislative evolution, some changes have been implemented on MSW management practices since 1990 leading to meaningful improvements on energy consumption and greenhouse gases emissions. Two situations were compared: (i) the first one concerns the situation in 1990 where the MSW produced was collected, a meaningful fraction of it was composted and the residual waste dumped; and, (ii) the second situation where the EU legislation on recycling targets for packaging material and diversion of organic waste from landfills was taken into account, including an incineration plant on the management system. Greenhouse gas emissions from these two management scenarios were calculated based on an inventory model developed by White et al (1992). Weighting factors for the different gases based on the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were used to aggregate the emissions values and obtain a simple and comparable result for each situation. Results show the advantage of the 2000 practices both in terms of energy consumption and emissions of gases with greenhouse effect

Aplasia Cutis Congenita: An Often Isolated Clinical Finding

Aplasia cutis congenita (ACC) is a rare congenital condition characterised by the absence of skin, with or without the absence of underlying structures. Can appear as an isolated lesion or associated with other congenital malformations. The approach can be conservative or surgical. We report a case of a full-term male newborn with two adjacent ulcerated lesions with well-demarcated limits in the upper occipital region (20 and 4-5 mm diameter). Other alterations that could be associated with aplasia cutis were identified at examination, so the patient was referred to several consultations, and other system involvement was excluded. Re-evaluation at the first month of life revealed complete healing and conservative treatment was kept. After identification of ACC should be excluded other associated congenital malformations. Particularly if large skin defects or bone involvement is detected (higher risk of complications and mortality)

Aplasia Cutis Congenita: An Often Isolated Clinical Finding

Aplasia cutis congenita (ACC) is a rare congenital condition characterised by the absence of skin, with or without the absence of underlying structures. Can appear as an isolated lesion or associated with other congenital malformations. The approach can be conservative or surgical. We report a case of a full-term male newborn with two adjacent ulcerated lesions with well-demarcated limits in the upper occipital region (20 and 4-5 mm diameter). Other alterations that could be associated with aplasia cutis were identified at examination, so the patient was referred to several consultations, and other system involvement was excluded. Re-evaluation at the first month of life revealed complete healing and conservative treatment was kept. After identification of ACC should be excluded other associated congenital malformations. Particularly if large skin defects or bone involvement is detected (higher risk of complications and mortality)

Undernutrition risk at hospital admission and length of stay among pulmonology inpatients

Background: There is a lack of evidence regarding the association between the undernutrition risk at hospital admission with adverse clinical outcomes amongst pulmonology inpatients. The aim of this study was to quantify the association between undernutrition risk at hospital admission and time to discharge alive. Methods: A retrospective cohort study including patients consecutively admitted to a pulmonology unit was conducted. Undernutrition risk at hospital admission was identified using the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool. Survival analyses (Kaplan–Meier curves and Cox regression) were carried out. Results: The sample was composed of 683 patients. Patients who presented high undernutrition risk on hospital admission had a longer length of hospital stay (approximately 50% were discharged to home after 14 days of hospitalization). In the multivariable Cox regression, high undernutrition risk was shown to be independently associated with a lower probability of discharge alive over time (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.70; 95% confidence interval: 0.55–0.90). Conclusions: Pulmonology inpatients with high undernutrition risk have a longer length of hospital stay and had a lower probability of being discharged to home. In particular, lung cancer patients had a lower probability of being discharged to home, which corroborates a worse prognosis for these patients. Keywords: Malnutrition, Nutritional status, Respiratory medicine, Length of sta