A evolução da qualidade na Administração Pública Portuguesa

In this article is made an analyse about how the different governments, in Portugal, since 1974, face the quality subject, how they define quality and what kind of measures they promote to encourage quality in Public Administration. The evolution of quality in Portugal is the basis of a comparative analysis between the quality strategies in the Portuguese and the European contexts, having for reference a theory presented in the 3rd Quality Conference for Public Administration, held in Rotterdam, between 15 and 17 of September

A evolução da qualidade na Administração Pública Portuguesa

In this article is made an analyse about how the different governments, in Portugal, since 1974, face the quality subject, how they define quality and what kind of measures they promote to encourage quality in Public Administration. The evolution of quality in Portugal is the basis of a comparative analysis between the quality strategies in the Portuguese and the European contexts, having for reference a theory presented in the 3rd Quality Conference for Public Administration, held in Rotterdam, between 15 and 17 of September

Projeto: adaptar o modelo CAF educação para promover a inovação na organização escolar

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo a apresentação de um projeto de adaptação e melhoria do modelo europeu de autoavaliação organizacional Common Assessment Framework (CAF / Estrutura Comum de Avaliação), específico para o setor da educação, com vista a potenciar o desenvolvimento de projetos inovadores e transformadores nas escolas. O ponto de partida foi a necessidade de compreender a falta de qualidade e equidade no ensino, evidenciada pela investigação. Esta necessidade conduziu-nos a um diagnóstico sobre a escola como organização, de modo a conhecermos as suas limitações e ambiguidades. Desta análise concluímos que a escola pode ser eficaz, pode fazer a diferença, pode oferecer um serviço de qualidade aos alunos e à sociedade, promovendo a verdadeira democratização do ensino. Dentro das características da eficácia da escola que contribuem para a qualidade do ensino, optámos por aprofundar a importância da avaliação organizacional e da autoavaliação e, em especial, a utilização do modelo CAF Educação. Ao longo do diagnóstico fomos colecionando constrangimentos, aprendizagens e oportunidades e, alicerçados na investigação feita, compreendemos que uma das formas para as escolas ultrapassarem os problemas organizacionais que fomos identificando, é através do desenvolvimento de projetos inovadores na gestão organizacional e na sala de aula. Assim, o projeto que apresentamos, no terceiro capítulo, constitui uma proposta de instrumento de autoavaliação que visa estimular a inovação e a transformação da gramática da escola com vista a melhorar a qualidade do serviço educativo.The present dissertation aims to build a project to adapt and improve the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) model specific to the education sector, in order to promote the development of innovative and transformative projects in schools. The starting point was the need to understand the lack of quality and equity in education, as evidenced by the research. This need led us to a diagnosis of the school as an organization, in order to know its limitations and ambiguities. From this analysis we conclude that the school can be effective, can make a difference, can provide quality service to students and society, promoting the true democratization of education. Within the school efficacy characteristics that contribute to the quality of education, we have chosen to deepen the importance of organizational assessment and self-assessment and, most of all, the use of the CAF Education model. Throughout the diagnosis, we collected constraints, learnings and opportunities and, based on performed research, we understood that one of the ways for schools to overcome the organizational problems that we identified was through the development of innovative projects in organizational management and in the classroom. Therefore, the project that we present in the third chapter is a proposal for a self-assessment instrument which seeks to stimulate innovation and the transformation of the school's grammar in order to improve the quality of the educational service

Chemically crosslinked PVA hydrogels for cartilage substitution

Abstract in proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held at Egas Moniz’ University Campus in Monte de Caparica, Almada, from 3–5 June 2019.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The apicomplexan parasite Toxoplasma gondii

PTDC/CVT-CVT/31840/2017EXPL/CVT-EPI/1945/2013Toxoplasma gondii is a ubiquitous zoonotic parasite with an obligatory intracellular lifestyle. It relies on a specialized set of cytoskeletal and secretory organelles for host cell invasion. When infecting its felid definitive host, T. gondii undergoes sexual reproduction in the intestinal epithelium, producing oocysts that are excreted with the feces and sporulate in the environment. In other hosts and/or tissues, T. gondii multiplies by asexual reproduction. Rapidly dividing tachyzoites expand through multiple tissues, particularly nervous and muscular tissues, and eventually convert to slowly dividing bradyzoites which produce tissue cysts, structures that evade the immune system and remain infective within the host. Infection normally occurs through ingestion of sporulated oocysts or tissue cysts. While T. gondii is able to infect virtually all warm-blooded animals, most infections in humans are asymptomatic, with clinical disease occurring most often in immunocompromised hosts or fetuses carried by seronegative mothers that are infected during pregnancy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Zebrafish model as a screen to prevent cyst inflation in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease

Funding Information: Funding: This work was supported by Sociedade Portuguesa de Nefrologia, iNOVA4Health-UID/Multi/04462/2013 (a program financially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnolo-gia (FCT)/Ministério da Educação e Ciência, through national funds and co-funded by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement) and FCT-ANR/BEX-BID/0153/2012 and PTDC/BEX-BID/1411/2014 research grants. M.R.R. was supported by national funds through FCT, first with an iNOVA post-doctoral fellowship and, more recently, with a contract in the context of the celebration of the program contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5, and 6 of article 23.◦ of D.L. no. 57/2016 of 29 August, as amended by Law no. 57/2017 of 19 July. S.S.L. had a FCT-Investigator contract, followed by NOVA NMS contracts and, at the moment, a FCT CEEC (Concurso Estímulo ao Emprego Científico) contract, as principal investigator. This article is supported by the LYSOCIL project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 811087. Zebrafish used as an animal model were reproduced and maintained in the CEDOC Fish Facility, with the support from the research infrastructure Congento, co-financed by Lisboa Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and FCT under the project LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-022170. Funding Information: This work was supported by Sociedade Portuguesa de Nefrologia, iNOVA4Health-UID/Multi/04462/2013 (a program financially supported by Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e Tecnolo-gia (FCT)/Minist?rio da Educa??o e Ci?ncia, through national funds and co-funded by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement) and FCT-ANR/BEX-BID/0153/2012 and PTDC/BEX-BID/1411/2014 research grants. M.R.R. was supported by national funds through FCT, first with an iNOVA post-doctoral fellowship and, more recently, with a contract in the context of the celebration of the program contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5, and 6 of article 23.? of D.L. no. 57/2016 of 29 August, as amended by Law no. 57/2017 of 19 July. S.S.L. had a FCT-Investigator contract, followed by NOVA NMS contracts and, at the moment, a FCT CEEC (Concurso Est?mulo ao Emprego Cient?fico) contract, as principal investigator. This article is supported by the LYSOCIL project. This project has received funding from the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 811087. Zebrafish used as an animal model were reproduced and maintained in the CEDOC Fish Facility, with the support from the research infrastructure Congento, co-financed by Lisboa Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and FCT under the project LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-022170. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.In autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), kidney cyst growth requires the recruitment of CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator), the chloride channel that is defective in cystic fibrosis. We have been studying cyst inflation using the zebrafish Kupffer’s vesicle (KV) as model system because we previously demonstrated that knocking down polycystin 2 (PC2) induced a CFTR-mediated enlargement of the organ. We have now quantified the PC2 knock-down by showing that it causes a 73% reduction in the number of KV cilia expressing PC2. According to the literature, this is an essential event in kidney cystogenesis in ADPKD mice. Additionally, we demonstrated that the PC2 knockdown leads to a significant accumulation of CFTR-GFP at the apical region of the KV cells. Furthermore, we determined that KV enlargement is rescued by the injection of Xenopus pkd2 mRNA and by 100 µM tolvaptan treatment, the unique and approved pharmacologic approach for ADPKD management. We expected vasopressin V2 receptor antagonist to lower the cAMP levels of KV-lining cells and, thus, to inactivate CFTR. These findings further support the use of the KV as an in vivo model for screening compounds that may prevent cyst enlargement in this ciliopathy, through CFTR inhibition.publishersversionpublishe

Balancing act: tubulin glutamylation and microtubule dynamics in Toxoplasma gondii

This research was funded by FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. (Portugal) through CIISA - Centro de Investigação Interdisciplinar em Sanidade Animal, project UIDB/00276/2020 and Laboratório Associado para Ciência Animal e Veterinária (AL4AnimalS) project LA/P/0059/2020.The success of the intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii in invading host cells relies on the apical complex, a specialized microtubule cytoskeleton structure associated with secretory organelles. The T. gondii genome encodes three isoforms of both α- and β-tubulin, which undergo specific post-translational modifications (PTMs), altering the biochemical and biophysical proprieties of microtubules and modulating their interaction with associated proteins. Tubulin PTMs represent a powerful and evolutionarily conserved mechanism for generating tubulin diversity, forming a biochemical 'tubulin code' interpretable by microtubule-interacting factors. T. gondii exhibits various tubulin PTMs, including α-tubulin acetylation, α-tubulin detyrosination, Δ5α-tubulin, Δ2α-tubulin, α- and β-tubulin polyglutamylation, and α- and β-tubulin methylation. Tubulin glutamylation emerges as a key player in microtubule remodeling in Toxoplasma, regulating stability, dynamics, interaction with motor proteins, and severing enzymes. The balance of tubulin glutamylation is maintained through the coordinated action of polyglutamylases and deglutamylating enzymes. This work reviews and discusses current knowledge on T. gondii tubulin glutamylation. Through in silico identification of protein orthologs, we update the recognition of putative proteins related to glutamylation, contributing to a deeper understanding of its role in T. gondii biology.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Balancing act: tubulin glutamylation and microtubule dynamics in Toxoplasma gondii

The success of Toxoplasma gondii (intracellular parasite) host cell invasion relies on the apical complex, a specialized microtubule cytoskeleton structure associated with secretory organelles. The genome encodes three isoforms of both α- and β-tubulin which are altered by specific post-translational modifications (PTMs), changing the biochemical/biophysical proprieties of microtubules, and modulating their interaction with associated proteins. Tubulin PTMs are a powerful and evolutionarily conserved mechanism to generate tubulin diversity, forming a biochemical ‘tubulin code’ that can be ‘read’ by microtubule-interacting factors. The T. gondii tubulin PTMs are: α-tubulin acetylation, α-tubulin detyrosination, Δ5α-tubulin, Δ2α-tubulin, α- and β-tubulin polyglutamylation, and α- and α-tubulin methylation. Tubulin glutamylation is a key candidate to assist microtubule remodeling in Toxoplasma, being involved in the regulation of microtubule stability, dynamics, interaction with motor proteins, and severing enzymes. The correct balance of tubulin glutamylation is achieved by the coordinated action of polyglutamylases and deglutamylating enzymes. In this work, we will review and discuss the current knowledge on T. gondii tubulin glutamylation. By in silico identification of mammalian protein orthologs, we explored and updated the identification of putative proteins related to glutamylation, contributing to a better understanding of the role of tubulin glutamylation in T. gondii.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Independent estimates of marine population connectivity are more concordant when accounting for uncertainties in larval origins

Marine larval dispersal is a complex biophysical process that depends on the effects of species biology and oceanography, leading to logistical difficulties in estimating connectivity among populations of marine animals with biphasic life cycles. To address this challenge, the application of multiple methodological approaches has been advocated, in order to increase confidence in estimates of population connectivity. However, studies seldom account for sources of uncertainty associated with each method, which undermines a direct comparative approach. In the present study we explicitly account for the statistical uncertainty in observed connectivity matrices derived from elemental chemistry of larval mussel shells, and compare these to predictions from a biophysical model of dispersal. To do this we manipulate the observed connectivity matrix by applying different confidence levels to the assignment of recruits to source populations, while concurrently modelling the intrinsic misclassification rate of larvae to known sources. We demonstrate that the correlation between the observed and modelled matrices increases as the number of observed recruits classified as unknowns approximates the observed larval misclassification rate. Using this approach, we show that unprecedented levels of concordance in connectivity estimates (r = 0.96) can be achieved, and at spatial scales (20–40 km) that are ecologically relevant.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia | Ref. PTDC/BIA-BIC/120483/2010Xunta de Galicia | Ref. POS-A/2012/189Xunta de Galicia | Ref. POS-B/2016/032Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia | Ref. SFRH/BD/ 84263/2012CESAM | Ref. UID/AMB/50017 - POCI-01-0145-FEDER-00763