The Role Of Platelet Rich Plasma In Pain Management And Decrease In Opioid Use

Platelet-rich plasma, also known as PRP, has become increasingly popular for the treatment of orthopedic injuries and symptomatic pain that results from such injuries. By promoting a localized inflammatory response, PRP injections increase blood flow to the injured area and expedite the healing process, thereby leading to pain relief. PRP has the potential to be a key player in the future of pain management. However, current evidence of the impact of PRP on pain relief is controversial. This paper aims to review the most current randomized controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of PRP in pain relief in a variety of orthopedic injuries and diseases

Orff-Schulwerk approach and flow indicators in music education context: a preliminary study in Portugal

Extensive literature exists on Flow Theory. However there is a lack of published research investigating possible links between Orff-Schulwerk approach and Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow or optimal experience. Based on preliminary results from an ongoing research on Music / Music Pedagogy and (is links to) Musical Thought / Musical Cognition, the present paper aims to discuss the existence of optimal experiences / flow states boosted by Orff- Schulwerk approach activities / teaching music strategies in the context of Music Education in a Portuguese general public school (5th and 6th grades). Attempting to verify, analyze and understand these relationships, an empirical process was developed based on the Flow Theory - Optimal Experience (Csikszentmihalyi 1975, 1988, 1990) and consequently on FIMA - Flow Indicators in Musical Activity developed by Custodero (1998, 1999). Conventional flow methodology is adapted in order to define and to operacionalize cognitive strategies exhibited during Orff-Schulwerk approach activities in Music Eduction context. Results clearly validated this hipotesys and show how (and which) Orff-Schulwerk activities can provide children optimal experience /flow states in Music Education classes

The monopoly in sport events and competition law : the contribute of the international skating union´s eligibility rules anti-trust procedure to the change of paradigm

In the last decades, the sport has suffered a great development, especially in the economic level. In fact, the sport moves enormous sums of money and has acquired a very important role in the national and international markets. For this reason and many others, the regulation of the sport activity requires special attention. However, purely sporting issues are rare nowadays and the margin of autonomy for the sport governing bodies becomes smaller and smaller. One of the situations in which this is particularly evident is the organization and commercial exploitation of sports competitions. We propose to analyse the admissibility of the current scheme of the organization of such events. To that purpose, we analyse the investigation of the European Commission to the ISU regulations, in particular the eligibility rules. We found that such a structure is not compatible with competition rules. Thus, we present some proposals for structural reforms of sports governing bodies

Experimental evaluation of strategies to reduce plate waste in primary schools

[Resumo][Abstract

Risk and protective factors in criminal recidivist inmates

Poster presented at the 3rd International Congress of CiiEM - Research and Innovation in Human and Health Sciences. Campus Egas Moniz, Monte da Caparica, Portugal, 20-22 June 2018N/

Lost in time : a neurophilosophical quest to understand the perception of time in MCI patients

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências Biomédicas (Neurociências), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Medicina, 2017Introduction: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients often complaint about difficulties in dealing with time questions, an issue that compromises their daily planning and orientation. The conscious experience of duration has been the most studied time experience and is generally assessed through duration judgments and passage of time judgments. This temporal experience may also impact other aspects of human life, namely intertemporal decision making. In the same vein, the connexion between time and memory has long been debated among neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers. Among these scholars, Bergson, a 20th century French philosopher, was the leading proponent of a strong bond between time and memory, through the concept of duration. Time, for Bergson, is also interwoven with other dimensions of human consciousness, such as will. Thus, mild cognitive impairment can offer us a human disease model to see if and how memory impairments affect human time perception and to explore their broader effects upon subjects’ lives. Bergson seems to favour the idea of an affective and qualitative time experience interlinked with memory issues, akin of the situation of judging time passage. These ideas contrast with an Aristotelian idea of counting time intervals, similar to interval length judgments and currently conveyed by internal clock models, which neglects the role that feelings may play in time experience. In the case that the results obtained support Bergson’s intuitions, further avenues of work will be open to explore the relation between memory deficits and affective time experience. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the perception of time in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment. The experience of time duration, with respect to both interval length judgments and passage of time judgments, and the consequences for decision making, using an intertemporal choice, are assessed. We intend to see how the results obtained fit into a philosophical framework that interlink memory and time and make suggestions regarding future work. Methods: Fifty-five MCI patients and fifty-seven healthy controls undergo an experimental protocol for time perception on interval length, a questionnaire for the subjective passage of time, an intertemporal choices questionnaire and a neuropsychological evaluation. In the experimental protocol for interval Length judgements, participants have to estimate and produce the duration of short time intervals of 7 s, 32 s, 58 s, following a prospective paradigm (they are told in advance that they will have to estimate and produce time intervals). They also have to estimate a duration of the time to draw a clock and the duration of the neuropsychological interview, following a retrospective paradigm (they are not told that they will have to estimate time intervals). In the passage of time judgments protocol, participants are inquired about their subjective impressions about the speed of time course and have to rate their impressions into a scale ranging from the very fast to the very slow. To check decision-making, participants are submitted to an intertemporal choice questionnaire where they have to choose between small and immediate reward or a larger but delayed reward. Finally, participants undergo a neuropsychological evaluation, where they are submitted to tests of cognitive functions, particularly memory and executive functions, as well as scales to evaluate their emotional state, namely depressive and anxiety symptoms. Results: Patients with MCI present no changes in the perception of interval length. However, they report the time passing slower than controls. This experience is significantly correlated with memory deficits, but not with performance in executive tests, depressive or anxiety symptoms. Patients with MCI have no alterations in temporal preferences in comparison with the healthy controls. These results from a study in neuroscience, put into a philosophical framework, suggest that Bergson and Aristotle, at the end, consider different aspects of time perception, in the first case referring to feelings of time passage and in the second case to the estimation of time intervals. However, both philosophers highlight the connexions of different aspects of time perception with different types of memory. Thus, passage of time judgements is linked to long-term memory and interval length judgements is associated with working memory. Conclusions: Memory deficits do not affect either the perception of interval length or temporal preferences, but are associated with alterations in the subjective experience of time. Following Bergson’s footsteps, we may say that memory is associated with an affective and qualitative experience of time. Future works investigating time perception in patients with memory deficits should careful consider this dimension when designing the experimental protocols

Validação do Inventário de Ideação Delirante (PDI-21) para a População Portuguesa

Introdução: As abordagens dimensionais equacionam os delírios como situando-se num continuum com as crenças diárias, não estando circunscritos apenas à população clínica e podendo também ser encontrados na população geral. Devido à conceptualização multifacetada dos delírios, a análise das dimensões de desconforto, preocupação e convicção podem ser mais reveladoras do que o conteúdo da crença por si só, pelo que uma avaliação que incorpore estas dimensões é fundamental. Uma revisão de estudos mostrou uma lacuna de instrumentos para avaliar a ideação delirante na população geral, não existindo, no nosso conhecimento, nenhuma versão para a população portuguesa. Objetivos: Tradução, adaptação e estudo das propriedades psicométricas do Inventário de Ideação Delirante (PDI-21) para a população Portuguesa, com o intuito de avaliar a multidimensionalidade da ideação delirante na comunidade. Metodologia: A amostra é constituída por 249 adultos da população geral, com idades compreendidas entre 18 e 65 anos. Além do PDI-21, foi utilizado o Inventário de Sintomas Psicopatológicos (BSI), a subescala de Desejabilidade Social (DS) do Inventário de Personalidade de Eysenck – Forma Revista (EPQ-R) e o Instrumento de Avaliação da Qualidade de Vida da Organização Mundial de Saúde (WHOQOL-Bref). Resultados: A versão portuguesa do PDI-21 apresentou propriedades psicométricas adequadas no que respeita à sua consistência interna e estabilidade temporal. Demonstrou correlações positivas significativas com os sintomas psicopatológicos e associações negativas com a desejabilidade social e com a qualidade de vida, confirmando a sua validade convergente e divergente. A análise fatorial exploratória sugeriu a escala dicotómica do PDI ser constituída por um único fator. Por último, a análise da frequência de ideias delirantes (respostas positivas) para o total da amostra e em função do género revelou taxas de prevalência muito semelhantes às encontradas em estudos prévios. Discussão: A versão portuguesa do PDI-21 é caracterizada por propriedades psicométricas adequadas, podendo ser utilizada para avaliar a ideação delirante na população geral. Estudos futuros são necessários no sentido de replicar este estudo em populações mais jovens, bem como, comparar os resultados com uma amostra clínica. / Introduction: The dimensional approaches equate the delusions as placing themselves in a continuum with the daily beliefs, not being limited to the clinical population and it can also be found in the general population. Due to the delusions multifaceted conceptualization, the analysis of the dimensions of distress, preoccupation and conviction may be more revealing than the content of the belief by itself, whereby an evaluation that incorporates these dimensions is fundamental. A revision of studies has shown a gap of instruments to assess delusional ideation in the general population, not existing to our knowledge any version for the portuguese population. Objective: Translation, adaptation and study of the psychometric properties of the PDI-21 for the portuguese population, with the aim of assessing the multidimensionality of the delusional ideation in the community. Methods: The sample consists of 249 adults from the general population, with ages between 18 and 65 years. Beyond the PDI-21, the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the Social Desirability (SD) scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life – Bref (WHOQOL-Bref) were also used. Results: The portuguese version of the PDI-21 has shown good psychometric properties regarding its internal consistency and temporal stability. It demonstrated significant positive correlations with the psychopathological symptoms and negative associations with social desirability and with the quality of life, confirming its divergent and convergent validity. The exploratory factor analysis suggested the dichotomous scale of the PDI be constituted by one only factor. Lastly, the analysis of the frequency of delusional ideas (positive responses) for the total of the sample and on the basis of gender has revealed prevalence rates very similar to the ones found in previous studies. Discussion: The portuguese version of the PDI-21 is characterized by adequate psychometric properties, it can be used to assess the delusional ideation in the general population. Future studies are necessary in an effort to replicate this study in younger populations, as well as, compare results with a clinical sample

Antioxidant peptides produced from unexplored marine resources

The sea contains about one half of the global biodiversity, thereby being a good source for novel compounds of interest, such as bioactive peptides. Mussels are consumed and appreciated over the world, although commercialized mussels are pre-selected before being delivered for sale, so small or broken mussels are discarded. Microalgae are photosynthetic organisms, easy to cultivate since they do not require cultivable land. The microalgae used in this work are produced in a company in which the CO2 generated in the production of cement is injected to microalgae growth tubes transforming it in oxygen, resulting in a decrease of CO2 emission. The chosen species, Chlorella vulgaris and Nannochloropsis oceanica, have interesting protein content, making them a promising sustainable protein source. Discarded mussels from the specie Mytilus galloprovincialis, supplied by a national mussel trading company, and the microalgae grown up with CO2 generated from cement production, were used to produce water soluble extracts rich in proteins and bioactive peptides, showing potential to the development of sustainable industrial alternatives, promoting new perspectives for a circular economy. Four extracts were produced and analysed: Mussel_Sub, hydrolysed with subtilisin (1.5%,3h); Mussel_Cor, hydrolysed with corolase (3%,3h); Chlorella, hydrolysed with acetic acid (0.5%,1h), cellulase (5%,2h) and subtilisin (3.9%;2h); and Nannochloropsis, hydrolysed with cellulase (5%,2h) and subtilisin (1.7%,5h). The protein content was determined by Kjeldahl and the antioxidant activity by ORAC and ABTS assays. The Chlorella extract showed 44.71±1.75% protein, 462.83±39.37 (ORAC) and 76.12±7.53 (ABTS) μmol TE/g. Nannochloropsis showed 31.01±0.27% protein, 361.32±49.29 (ORAC) and 68.07±6.97 (ABTS) μmol TE/g. Mussel_Cor showed 48.00±0.15% protein, 389.50±0.29 (ORAC) and 62.76±8.88 (ABTS) μmol TE/g; Mussel_Sub showed 45.23±0.14% protein, 485.62±60.65 (ORAC) and 66.11±2.35 (ABTS) μmol TE/g. The enzymatic hydrolysis of marine species may allow to produce extracts rich in proteins and antioxidant peptides useful for industrial applications, contributing to the valorisation of these species and to a circular economy, since mussel commercialization generates waste and microalgae can transform CO2 from other industries to O2, reducing the environmental impact.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Employees Perceptions about Corporate Social Responsibility—Understanding CSR and Job Engagement through Meaningfulness, Bottom-Up Approach and Calling Orientation

This article analyses the effect of employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on job engagement, and we measure meaningfulness experienced and the role of cross-level sensemaking factors, such as the bottom-up approach and calling orientation. Drawing on qualitative data, collected among workers that had CSR implemented in their companies, our findings suggest that both calling orientation and meaningfulness influence the positive impact of the CSR perceptions on job engagement through sequential mediation. The calling orientation has an important role in this relationship because meaningfulness alone does not influence the relationship between CSR and job engagement. Additionally, employees’ perceptions of CSR positively influence job engagement. Furthermore, our research indicates that the meaningfulness experienced by workers increases in the presence of a bottom-up approach in what concerns the definition and implementation of CSR actions of the company. Overall, this research expands our understanding of how people find meaningfulness through individual experiences of CSR.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio