Trends in hypertension prevalence (1990-2005) and mean blood pressure (1975-2005) in Portugal: A systematic review

Aims. We aimed to describe the temporal trends of the mean blood pressure and prevalence of hypertension in studies that evaluated Portuguese adults. Methods. Pubmed was searched and 42 eligible studies were identified. Reference screening and data extraction were conducted independently by two researchers. We fitted linear regression models to compute ecological estimates of hypertension prevalence and mean blood pressure, adjusting for sex, age and significant interaction terms. Results. Between 1990 and 2005, the prevalence of hypertension defined as blood pressure ≥140/90 mmHg and/or drug treatment remained approximately constant in young adults and decreased in middle-aged and older adults, whereas the prevalence of self-reported hypertension increased 0.4% per year (95% confidence interval 0.10.7) overall. Between 1975 and 2005, mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures decreased in middle-aged and older adults, reaching a 32-mmHg decrease in systolic blood pressure among women at average age 70. Conclusion. The trends in the last decades show a decrease in blood pressure levels, probably attributable to increasing awareness and a higher treatment proportion. Although this absolute trend in blood pressure parallels the observed in other high income European countries, Portugal maintains its position above the mean levels in other Western settings. © 2012 Scandinavian Foundation for Cardiovascular Research.This study was funded by a grant from Funda ç ã o para a Ci ê ncia e a Tecnologia (PIC/IC/83006/2007) Conflicts of interest :There are no conflicts of interest to disclose

Monitoring wolf populations using howling points combined with sign survey transects

Wolves respond to simulated howling, especially during the mating and breeding seasons. Simulated howling points are, therefore, commonly used by many wolf researchers around the world to estimate pack numbers in a given area. A large amount of information is available on various pack breeding areas in Asturias, the only region in north-western Spain where the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus, Cabrera 1907) is not classed as a game species. Wolf research began there in the early 1980s. We present the results of the latest study on population status, conducted between July and November, 2001. Using sampling transects to detect wolf scat and scratch marks and designated howling and observation points, twenty one (21) wolf packs were definitely located, with two others considered “likely”. Nineteen (19) packs were detected using howling points (n=314). The results of this study show that simulated howling points and sampling transects are reliable and inexpensive way of detecting wolf packs

Oxide thermoelectrics prepared by laser melting: effects of processing atmosphere

Traditional thermoelectric materials suffer from two main problems, the toxicity/scarcity of the elements used and their stability at high temperatures or in non-inert atmospheres. Thermoelectric oxides appear to be a promising alternative to traditional materials due to natural abundance of the constituents and high thermal stability. This work focuses on the processing of these materials using the Laser Floating Zone (LFZ) technique. Particular emphasis is given to LFZ processing under various redox atmospheres, allowing unique opportunities for tuning the structural, microstructural and thermoelectric properties. This technique allows the growth of fully dense fibres, as well as the formation of metastable phases and/or promoting different oxidation states by adjusting the growth conditions. Here we report the processing of model manganite- and titanate-based materials including donorsubstituted Ca(Pr)MnO3 and Ti(Ta)O2 systems. XRD/SEM/EDS studies demonstrate some guidelines for tuning the phase composition and microstructure by adjusting the growth rate under different redox conditions. We report high power factor values of 303 μWm-1K -2 at 1120 K for the Ca(Pr)MnO3 system and 317 μWm-1K -2 for the Ti(Ta)O2 system. The obtained results suggest that LFZ is a suitable technique for processing thermoelectric oxides if optimized control over growth parameters and re-equilibration conditions is imposed.publishe

Statistically Motivated Second Order Pooling

Second-order pooling, a.k.a.~bilinear pooling, has proven effective for deep learning based visual recognition. However, the resulting second-order networks yield a final representation that is orders of magnitude larger than that of standard, first-order ones, making them memory-intensive and cumbersome to deploy. Here, we introduce a general, parametric compression strategy that can produce more compact representations than existing compression techniques, yet outperform both compressed and uncompressed second-order models. Our approach is motivated by a statistical analysis of the network's activations, relying on operations that lead to a Gaussian-distributed final representation, as inherently used by first-order deep networks. As evidenced by our experiments, this lets us outperform the state-of-the-art first-order and second-order models on several benchmark recognition datasets.Comment: Accepted to ECCV 2018. Camera ready version. 14 page, 5 figures, 3 table

Immature stages of the Selaginella-feeding Euptychia mollina(Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) from the Brazilian Amazon

The present paper describes the immature stages of the Neotropical satyrine butterfly Euptychia mollina (Hubner, [1813]) from the Brazilian Amazon Forest. Eggs were laid singly on the under surface of the fronds of its host plant, Selaginella sp. (Bryophyta: Selaginellaceae). Larvae are solitary in all instars, presenting a color pattern and shape that make them cryptic on its host plant. The pupa is short, smooth and varies from rusty brown to green. Despite the lack of a close phylogenetic relationship, larvae of Euptychia are very similar to those of the paleotropical satyrines Ragadia and Acrophtalmia, suggesting that camouflage is likely to be one of the factors explaining the similarities among them36CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESP563332/2010-7; 302585/2011-7; 421248/2017-3sem informação2016/15873-8; 2011/50225-3This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES – Finance Code 001). EPB thanks Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) for a post-doc fellowship (FAPESP 2016/15873-8). AVLF acknowledges support from FAPESP (Biota-Fapesp – grants 2011/50225-3), from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimen-to Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq fellowship 302585/2011-7, 421248/2017-3), from the National Science Foundation (DEB-1256742) and from the United States Agency for International Development – USAID/the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), under the PEER program (Sponsor Grant Award Num-ber: AID-OAA-A-11-00012) (Mapping and Conserving Butterfly Biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazon). This publication is part of the RedeLep ‘Rede Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação de Lepidópteros’ SISBIOTA-Brasil/CNPq (563332/2010-7). Butterfly species are registered in the SISGEN (A4E702A

Escuro: o que existe no espaço e no imaginário da criança

O estudo sociológico da noite tem-se centrado em temas como o risco, o desvio, a segurança, a solidão e, mais recentemente, o sono. Através do olhar das crianças, a noite é principalmente o escuro. De que modo é que as crianças percecionam o escuro? Que atores, rituais, regras e objetos dele fazem parte? Foi desenvolvido um estudo exploratório, de tipo qualitativo, com crianças com idades compreendidas entre os 7 e os 9 anos de idade. Numa primeira fase foi solicitado às crianças que realizassem um desenho sobre o modo como veem o escuro. Posteriormente, e tomando o desenho como recurso, foi aplicada uma entrevista-conversa. Os resultados obtidos permitem romper com uma leitura adultocêntrica e frequentemente limitada que opõe o dia e a noite como períodos de brincadeira e de descanso para as crianças e, dentro deste último, as crianças que têm e não têm medo do escuro

Evaluation of chondroprotective effect of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate by a proteomic approach

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