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Antioxidants as stabilizers of UV filters: an example for the UV-B filter octylmethoxycinnamate

Background: Sunlight is one of the main harmful exogenous factors that induce the reactive oxygen species formation. The human skin is the first line of photoprotection against harmful exogenous factors, such as UV radiations. The topical application of sunscreens, containing UV-B filters, is widely used to protect against UV-induced damage. Octylmethoxycinnamate is the world’s most widely used UV-B filter in sunscreens. However, recent studies have demonstrated that this substance is an endocrine disruptor compound and with potential to damage DNA. Thus, the safety of this organic filter is a current concern for human health, and it was urgent to develop new photoprotective strategies. In this sense, due to the potential to neutralize the UV-induced free radicals, the use of antioxidants as UV filter stabilizers presented as a novel promising strategy. Research: The purpose of this review was to assess the use of antioxidants as stabilizers for UV-B filter octylmethoxycinnamate. For this, we discuss the chemical and physical characteristics of UV-B filter octylmethoxycinnamate, emphasizing the stability, photostability, and reactivity of this UV filter. The use of antioxidants in sunscreens will also be addressed, from a perspective of the main characteristics that allowed their use in sunscreen formulations. Then, the concomitant use of both was described from a historical and physical chemical perspective, always emphasizing the advantages and disadvantages of this association. Conclusions: The combination of antioxidants with UV-B filter octylmethoxycinnamate in appropriated formulations represents a viable strategy to protect the human skin against UV-induced damage.UBI-Santander Totta (BID/FCS/2018)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Visualizing Paths in Context

Data about movement through a space is increasingly becoming available for capture and analysis. In many applications, this data is captured or modeled as transitions between a small number of areas of interests, or a finite set of states, and these transitions constitute paths in the space. Similarities and differences between paths are of great importance to such analyses, but can be difficult to assess. In this work we present a visualization approach for representing paths in context, where individual paths can be compared to other paths or to a group of paths. Our approach summarizes path behavior using a simple circular layout, including information about state and transition likelihood using Markov random models, together with information about specific path and state behavior. The layout avoids line crossovers entirely, making it easy to observe patterns while reducing visual clutter. In our tool, paths can either be compared in their natural sequence or by aligning multiple paths using Multiple Sequence Alignment, which can better highlight path similarities. We applied our technique to eye tracking data and cell phone tower data used to capture human movement

Fraudulent Tax Refunds: The Notorious Career of Harriette Walters

Harriette Walters embezzled more than $48 million from the District of Columbia by processing fraudulent real estate tax refunds. This paper describes the Walters scheme and discusses, from the perspective of the COSO framework, internal control weaknesses that enabled the fraud to go undetected for more than 20 years. While this analysis of the Walters fraud should be of interest to both accounting academics and audit professionals, it should be particularly helpful to students, fi nancial managers, and inexperienced auditors in understanding the importance of effective internal controls for preventing and detecting fraud in a wide variety of organizational settings

Journal Staff

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, SCIA 2013, held in Espoo, Finland, in June 2013. The 67 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 132 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on feature extraction and segmentation, pattern recognition and machine learning, medical and biomedical image analysis, faces and gestures, object and scene recognition, matching, registration, and alignment, 3D vision, color and multispectral image analysis, motion analysis, systems and applications, human-centered computing, and video and multimedia analysis

Efeitos genómicos do octilmetoxicinamato (OMC) a nível vascular

A aplicação tópica de protetores solares contra os efeitos nocivos da radiação ultravioleta é a proteção preferida a nível mundial. Atualmente, o octilmetoxicinamato (OMC) é um dos filtros ultravioleta-B mais utilizado na composição dos protetores solares. Estudos recentes demostraram que o OMC pode comportar-se como um disruptor endócrino, mas a nível vascular apenas um estudo inicou a avaliação dos seus efeitos. Neste sentido, o objetivo geral do presente trabalho consistiu no estudo do efeito do OMC no tónus arterial e na análise dos possíveis mecanismos envolvidos neste efeito. Para atingir este objetivo foram delineados os seguintes objetivos específicos: 1) Realizar com sucesso o isolamento e cultura de células musculares lisas da artéria umbilical humana (HUASMC); 2) Analisar o efeito do OMC em artérias umbilicais humanas (HUA) sem endotélio, e em HUASMC; 3) Analisar possíveis mecanismos envolvidos no efeito do OMC em HUA, principalmente o envolvimento dos nucleótidos cíclicos e dos canais de cálcio. Os resultados demonstraram que o OMC exerce um efeito relaxante arterial rápido (não genómico) e independente de endotélio. Também provoca relaxamento a nível das HUASMC. O mecanismo de ação do OMC pode ser, em parte, semelhante ao dos estrogénios, envolvendo a ativação da guanil ciclase solúvel, com aumento dos níveis de cGMP. Para além disso, este mecanismo não envolve a ativação dos canais de cálcio do tipo L. Estudos adicionais são necessários para compreender melhor o mecanismo de ação do OMC a nível vascular.The topical application of sunscreens against the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation is the preferred protection worldwide. Octylmethoxycinnamate (OMC) is one the most widely used ultraviolet-B filter in the composition of sunscreens. Recent studies have shown that the OMC behaves like an endocrine disruptor, but at vascular level only one study initiated the evaluation of its effects. In this sense, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of the OMC on the arterial tonus and the analysis of the possible mechanisms involved in this effect. To achieve this prupose, specific objectives were outlined: 1) To perform the isolation and culture of the human umbilical artery smooth muscle cells (HUASMC); 2) To analyse the effect of the OMC in human umbilical arteries (HUA) without endothelium, and in HUASMC; 3) To analyse the mechanism involved in the OMC effect on HUA, mainly the involvement of cyclic nucleotides and calcium channels. Our results demonstrated that the OMC exerts a rapid (non-genomic) relaxing arterial effect and independent of endothelium. It also causes a relaxation at HUASMC level. The mechanism of action of the OMC can be, in part, similar to that of oestrogens, involving the activation of soluble guanyl cyclase, with increase of the cGMP levels. In addition, it does not go through an activation of the L-type calcium channels. Further studies are needed to better understand the mechanism of action of the OMC at vascular level

Integração em contexto escolar de minorias em Portugal

As sociedades actuais caracterizam-se por uma crescente diversidade traduzida pela presença, no mesmo espaço social, de vários grupos étnicos, distintos da sociedade maioritária. O nosso estudo centra-se na questão da integração de minorias oriundas de diferentes grupos étnicos culturais e pretende conhecer as atitudes dos professores do 1º ciclo do ensino básico face à diversidade cultural existente nas escolas e os níveis de formação dos profesores do 1º ciclo do ensino básico na dimensão intercultural. (...

Vascular Pathways of Testosterone: Clinical Implications

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Testosterone (T) is an important sex hormone that triggers several genomic and non-genomic pathways, leading to improvements of several cardiovascular risk factors and quality of life in men. At the vascular level, the key effect of T is the vasorelaxation. This review discusses the molecular pathways and clinical implications of T in the vascular system. Firstly, the mechanisms involved in the T vasodilator effect will be presented. Then, it will be discussed the association of T with the main risks for CVD, namely metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus, obesity, atherosclerosis, dyslipidaemia and hypertension. Several studies have shown a correlation between low T levels and an increased prevalence of several CVD. These observations suggest that T has beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system and that testosterone replacement therapy may become a therapeutic reality for some of these disorders.UBI-Santander Totta (BID/FCS/2018)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Data-driven evaluation metrics for heterogeneous search engine result pages

Evaluation metrics for search typically assume items are homoge- neous. However, in the context of web search, this assumption does not hold. Modern search engine result pages (SERPs) are composed of a variety of item types (e.g., news, web, entity, etc.), and their influence on browsing behavior is largely unknown. In this paper, we perform a large-scale empirical analysis of pop- ular web search queries and investigate how different item types influence how people interact on SERPs. We then infer a user brows- ing model given people’s interactions with SERP items – creating a data-driven metric based on item type. We show that the proposed metric leads to more accurate estimates of: (1) total gain, (2) total time spent, and (3) stopping depth – without requiring extensive parameter tuning or a priori relevance information. These results suggest that item heterogeneity should be accounted for when de- veloping metrics for SERPs. While many open questions remain concerning the applicability and generalizability of data-driven metrics, they do serve as a formal mechanism to link observed user behaviors directly to how performance is measured. From this approach, we can draw new insights regarding the relationship be- tween behavior and performance – and design data-driven metrics based on real user behavior rather than using metrics reliant on some hypothesized model of user browsing behavior