Portuguese recommendations for the use of biological and targeted synthetic diseasemodifying antirheumatic drugs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis – 2020 update

Objective: To update the recommendations for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with biological and targeted synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs and tsDMARDs), endorsed by the Portuguese Society of Rheumatology (SPR). Methods: These treatment recommendations were formulated by Portuguese rheumatologists taking into account previous recommendations, new literature evidence and consensus opinion. At a national meeting, in a virtual format, three of the ten previous recommendations were re-addressed and discussed after a more focused literature review. A first draft of the updated recommendations was elaborated by a team of SPR rheumatologists from the SPR rheumatoid arthritis study group, GEAR. The resulting document circulated among all SPR rheumatologists for discussion and input. The level of agreement with each of all the recommendations was anonymously voted online by all SPR rheumatologists. Results: These recommendations cover general aspects such as shared decision, treatment objectives, systematic assessment of disease activity and burden and its registry in Reuma.pt. Consensus was also achieved regarding specific aspects such as initiation of bDMARDs and tsDMARDs, assessment of treatment response, switching and definition of persistent remission. Conclusion: These recommendations may be used for guidance of treatment with bDMARDs and tsDMARDs in patients with RA. As more evidence becomes available and more therapies are licensed, these recommendations will be updated.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Geographical distribution of American cutaneous leishmaniasis and its phlebotomine vectors (Diptera: Psychodidae) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) is a re-emerging disease in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is important to understand both the vector and disease distribution to help design control strategies. As an initial step in applying geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) tools to map disease-risk, the objectives of the present work were to: (i) produce a single database of species distributions of the sand fly vectors in the state of São Paulo, (ii) create combined distributional maps of both the incidence of ACL and its sand fly vectors, and (iii) thereby provide individual municipalities with a source of reference material for work carried out in their area.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A database containing 910 individual records of sand fly occurrence in the state of São Paulo, from 37 different sources, was compiled. These records date from between 1943 to 2009, and describe the presence of at least one of the six incriminated or suspected sand fly vector species in 183/645 (28.4%) municipalities. For the remaining 462 (71.6%) municipalities, we were unable to locate records of any of the six incriminated or suspected sand fly vector species (<it>Nyssomyia intermedia</it>, <it>N. neivai</it>, <it>N. whitmani</it>, <it>Pintomyia fischeri</it>, <it>P. pessoai </it>and <it>Migonemyia migonei</it>). The distribution of each of the six incriminated or suspected vector species of ACL in the state of São Paulo were individually mapped and overlaid on the incidence of ACL for the period 1993 to 1995 and 1998 to 2007. Overall, the maps reveal that the six sand fly vector species analyzed have unique and heterogeneous, although often overlapping, distributions. Several sand fly species - <it>Nyssomyia intermedia </it>and <it>N. neivai </it>- are highly localized, while the other sand fly species - <it>N. whitmani, M. migonei, P. fischeri </it>and <it>P. pessoai </it>- are much more broadly distributed. ACL has been reported in 160/183 (87.4%) of the municipalities with records for at least one of the six incriminated or suspected sand fly vector species, while there are no records of any of these sand fly species in 318/478 (66.5%) municipalities with ACL.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The maps produced in this work provide basic data on the distribution of the six incriminated or suspected sand fly vectors of ACL in the state of São Paulo, and highlight the complex and geographically heterogeneous pattern of ACL transmission in the region. Further studies are required to clarify the role of each of the six suspected sand fly vector species in different regions of the state of São Paulo, especially in the majority of municipalities where ACL is present but sand fly vectors have not yet been identified.</p

Micromechanical Properties of Injection-Molded Starch–Wood Particle Composites

The micromechanical properties of injection molded starch–wood particle composites were investigated as a function of particle content and humidity conditions. The composite materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction methods. The microhardness of the composites was shown to increase notably with the concentration of the wood particles. In addition,creep behavior under the indenter and temperature dependence were evaluated in terms of the independent contribution of the starch matrix and the wood microparticles to the hardness value. The influence of drying time on the density and weight uptake of the injection-molded composites was highlighted. The results revealed the role of the mechanism of water evaporation, showing that the dependence of water uptake and temperature was greater for the starch–wood composites than for the pure starch sample. Experiments performed during the drying process at 70°C indicated that the wood in the starch composites did not prevent water loss from the samples.Peer reviewe

Educomunicação e suas áreas de intervenção: Novos paradigmas para o diálogo intercultural

oai:omp.abpeducom.org.br:publicationFormat/1O material aqui divulgado representa, em essência, a contribuição do VII Encontro Brasileiro de Educomunicação ao V Global MIL Week, da UNESCO, ocorrido na ECA/USP, entre 3&nbsp;e 5 de novembro de 2016. Estamos diante de um conjunto de 104 papers executivos, com uma média de entre 7 e 10 páginas, cada um. Com este rico e abundante material, chegamos ao sétimo e-book publicado pela ABPEducom, em seus seis primeiros anos de existência. A especificidade desta obra é a de trazer as “Áreas de Intervenção” do campo da Educomunicação, colocando-as a serviço de uma meta essencial ao agir educomunicativo: o diálogo intercultural, trabalhado na linha do tema geral do evento internacional: Media and Information Literacy: New Paradigms for Intercultural Dialogue

Application of Green Surfactants in the Remediation of Soils Contaminated by Hydrocarbons

none6siarticolo in formato elettronico n. 1666Among the innovative technologies utilized for the treatment of contaminated soils, the use of green surfactants appears to be a biocompatible, efficient, and attractive alternative, since the cleaning processes that normally use synthetic surfactants as additives cause other problems due to toxicity and the accumulation of by-products. Three green surfactants, i.e., two biobased (biobased 1 and biobased 2) surfactants produced by chemical synthesis and a microbial surfactant produced from the yeast Starmerella bombicola ATCC 22214, were used as soil remediation agents and compared to a synthetic surfactant (Tween 80). The three surfactants were tested for their ability to emulsify, disperse, and remove different hydrophobic contaminants. The biosurfactant, which was able to reduce the water surface tension to 32.30 mN/m at a critical micelle concentration of 0.65 g/L, was then used to prepare a commercial formulation that showed lower toxicity to the tested environmental bioindicators and lower dispersion capacity than the biobased surfactants. All the green surfactants showed great emulsification capacity, especially against motor oil and petroleum. Therefore, their potential to remove motor oil adsorbed on different types of soils (sandy, silty, and clay soil and beach sand) was investigated either in kinetic (flasks) or static (packed columns) experiments. The commercial biosurfactant formulation showed excellent effectiveness in removing motor oil, especially from contaminated sandy soil (80.0 +/- 0.46%) and beach sand (65.0 +/- 0.14%) under static conditions, while, in the kinetic experiments, the commercial biosurfactant and the biobased 2 surfactant were able to remove motor oil from all the contaminated soils tested more effectively than the biobased 1 surfactant. Finally, the S. bombicola commercial biosurfactant was evaluated as a soil bioremediation agent. In degradation experiments carried out on motor oilcontaminated soils enriched with sugarcane molasses, oil degradation yield in the sandy soil reached almost 90% after 60 days in the presence of the commercial biosurfactant, while it did not exceed 20% in the presence of only S. bombicola cells. These results promise to contribute to the development of green technologies for the treatment of hydrophobic pollutants with economic gains for the oil industries.openda Silva, Israel Gonçalves Sales; de Almeida, Fabíola Carolina Gomes; da Rocha e Silva, Nathália Maria Padilha; de Oliveira, Joaquim Teodoro Romão; Converti, Attilio; Sarubbo, Leonie Asforada Silva, Israel Gonçalves Sales; de Almeida, Fabíola Carolina Gomes; da Rocha e Silva, Nathália Maria Padilha; de Oliveira, Joaquim Teodoro Romão; Converti, Attilio; Sarubbo, Leonie Asfor