Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2023-01"
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- Potential biological properties of lycopene in a self-emulsifying drug delivery systemPublication . Báo, Sônia Nair; Machado, Manuela; Silva, Ana Luisa da; Melo, Adma; Cunha, Sara; Sousa, Sérgio S.; Malheiro, Ana Rita; Fernandes, Rui; Leite, José Roberto S. A.; Vasconcelos, Andreanne G.; Relvas, João; Pintado, ManuelaIn recent years, lycopene has been highlighted due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, associated with a beneficial effect on human health. The aim of this study was to advance the studies of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory mechanisms on human keratinocytes cells (HaCaT) of a self-emulsifying drug delivery system (SEDDS) loaded with lycopene purified from red guava (nanoLPG). The characteristics of nanoLPG were a hydrodynamic diameter of 205 nm, a polydispersity index of 0.21 and a zeta potential of −20.57, providing physical stability for the nanosystem. NanoLPG demonstrated antioxidant capacity, as shown using the ORAC methodology, and prevented DNA degradation (DNA agarose). Proinflammatory activity was evaluated by quantifying the cytokines TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-8, with only IL-8 showing a significant increase (p < 0.0001). NanoLPG showed greater inhibition of the tyrosinase and elastase enzymes, involved in the skin aging process, compared to purified lycopene (LPG). In vitro treatment for 24 h with 5.0 µg/mL of nanoLPG did not affect the viability of HaCaT cells. The ultrastructure of HaCaT cells demonstrated the maintenance of morphology. This contrasts with endoplasmic reticulum stresses and autophagic vacuoles when treated with LPG after stimulation or not with LPS. Therefore, the use of lycopene in a nanoemulsion may be beneficial in strategies and products associated with skin health.
- Oncology-led early identification of nutritional risk: a pragmatic, evidence-based protocol (PRONTO)Publication . Muscaritoli, Maurizio; Bar-Sela, Gil; Battisti, Nicolo Matteo Luca; Belev, Borislav; Contreras-Martínez, Jorge; Cortesi, Enrico; de Brito-Ashurst, Ione; Prado, Carla M.; Ravasco, Paula; Yalcin, SuayibNutritional issues, including malnutrition, low muscle mass, sarcopenia (i.e., low muscle mass and strength), and cachexia (i.e., weight loss characterized by a continuous decline in skeletal muscle mass, with or without fat loss), are commonly experienced by patients with cancer at all stages of disease. Cancer cachexia may be associated with poor nutritional status and can compromise a patient’s ability to tolerate antineoplastic therapy, increase the likelihood of post-surgical complications, and impact long-term outcomes including survival, quality of life, and function. One of the primary nutritional problems these patients experience is malnutrition, of which muscle depletion represents a clinically relevant feature. There have been recent calls for nutritional screening, assessment, treatment, and monitoring as a consistent component of care for all patients diagnosed with cancer. To achieve this, there is a need for a standardized approach to enable oncologists to identify patients commencing and undergoing antineoplastic therapy who are or who may be at risk of malnutrition and/or muscle depletion. This approach should not replace existing tools used in the dietitian’s role, but rather give the oncologist a simple nutritional protocol for optimization of the patient care pathway where this is needed. Given the considerable time constraints in day-to-day oncology practice, any such approach must be simple and quick to implement so that oncologists can flag individual patients for further evaluation and follow-up with appropriate members of the multidisciplinary care team. To enable the rapid and routine identification of patients with or at risk of malnutrition and/or muscle depletion, an expert panel of nutrition specialists and practicing oncologists developed the PROtocol for NuTritional risk in Oncology (PRONTO). The protocol enables the rapid identification of patients with or at risk of malnutrition and/or muscle depletion and provides guidance on next steps. The protocol is adaptable to multiple settings and countries, which makes implementation feasible by oncologists and may optimize patient outcomes. We advise the use of this protocol in countries/clinical scenarios where a specialized approach to nutrition assessment and care is not available.
- Dark tourism, the holocaust, and well-being: a systematic reviewPublication . Magano, José; Fraiz-Brea, José António; Leite, ÂngelaDark tourists experience negative and positive feelings in Holocaust places, suggesting emotional ambivalence. The research question of this study is, “is feeling well-being, as a consequence of dark tourism, a way of banalizing the horror?”. The purpose of this study is threefold: to provide an updated systematic literature review (SLR) of dark tourism associated with Holocaust sites and visitors' well-being; to structure the findings into categories that provide a comprehensive overview of the topics; and to identify which topics are not well covered, thus suggesting knowledge gaps. Records to be included should be retrievable articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, books, and book chapters, all focused on the SLR's aims and the research question; other types of publications were outrightly excluded. The search was performed in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases with three keywords and combinations: “dark tourism”, “Holocaust”, and “well-being”. Methodological decisions were based on the Risk of Bias Assessment Tool for Nonrandomized Studies (RoBANS). This systematic review adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. During the process, 144 documents were included, of which 126 were journal articles, 8 were books, and 10 were book chapters. The results point out a hierarchical structure with the main category (Dark tourism - Holocaust - Well-being) and three second-order categories (Dark tourism - Holocaust, Dark tourism - Well-being, and Holocaust - Well-being), from which different subcategories emerge: motivations for visiting places and guiding; ambivalent emotional experience that leads to the transformation of the self; and intergenerational trauma. The gaps identified were the trivialization of horror in Holocaust places; dark tourist profile; motivations and constraints behind visiting dark places; Holocaust survivors and their descendants' well-being; how dark tourism associated with the Holocaust positively or negatively impacts well-being. Major limitations included: lack of randomized allocation; lack of standard outcome definitions; and suboptimal comparison groups. Positive and negative impacts on the well-being of the Holocaust dark tourist were sought, as they are associated with the marketing and management, promotion, digital communication, guiding, or storytelling design of such locations.
- MODeLING.Vis: a graphical user interface toolbox developed for machine learning and pattern recognition of biomolecular dataPublication . Martins, Jorge Emanuel; D’Alimonte, Davide; Simões, Joana; Sousa, Sara; Esteves, Eduardo; Rosa, Nuno; Correia, Maria José; Simões, Mário; Barros, MarleneMany scientific publications that affect machine learning have set the basis for pattern recognition and symmetry. In this paper, we revisit the concept of “Mind-life continuity” published by the authors, testing the symmetry between cognitive and electrophoretic strata. We opted for machine learning to analyze and understand the total protein profile of neurotypical subjects acquired by capillary electrophoresis. Capillary electrophoresis permits a cost-wise solution but lacks modern proteomic techniques’ discriminative and quantification power. To compensate for this problem, we developed tools for better data visualization and exploration in this work. These tools permitted us to examine better the total protein profile of 92 young adults, from 19 to 25 years old, healthy university students at the University of Lisbon, with no serious, uncontrolled, or chronic diseases affecting the nervous system. As a result, we created a graphical user interface toolbox named MODeLING.Vis, which showed specific expected protein profiles present in saliva in our neurotypical sample. The developed toolbox permitted data exploration and hypothesis testing of the biomolecular data. In conclusion, this analysis offered the data mining of the acquired neuroproteomics data in the molecular weight range from 9.1 to 30 kDa. This molecular weight range, obtained by pattern recognition of our dataset, is characteristic of the small neuroimmune molecules and neuropeptides. Consequently, MODeLING.Vis offers a machine-learning solution for probing into the neurocognitive response.
- Understanding personal stances on religion: the relevance of organizational behavior variablesPublication . Soares, Maria Eduarda; Teixeira, AlfredoThis paper develops a framework for analyzing two personal stances on religion—Adherence to Religion and Autonomy from Religion. We propose that the two stances are independent constructs rather than opposite poles of the same continuum. Each stance is conceptualized as a higher-order construct, with different first-order measures of motivations, beliefs and perceptions. With these conceptualizations, we explore the relevance of Organizational Behavior research for informing Religious Studies. We test a nomological network of personal stances on religion with structural equations modelling and a sample of 3072 Catholic participants. The results provide support for the use of higher-order constructs. The first-order measures that possess the highest influence are Relatedness Motivation for Adherence, and Perception of Church Politics for Autonomy. The model explains 23% of Religious Commitment, and thus identifies relevant predictors for participation in rituals, a crucial issue for the maintenance and development of the relationship with the Catholic Church.
- Portugal’s dictatorship and the early days of the Spanish civil war: censorship and propagandaPublication . Coutinho, Manuel Carvalho
- COVID-19 and sustainability in textile, apparel and fashion use: an assessment of trendsPublication . Filho, Walter Leal; Dinis, Maria Alzira Pimenta; Paço, Arminda do; Herédia-Colaco, Vera; Avila, Lucas Veiga; Dennis, Karen; Tyler, David; Neiva, Samara; Liakh, OlenaApart from the many social and health problems it has caused, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on most sectors of the economy worldwide. One of the areas where such impact is noticeable is the textile, apparel, and fashion (TAF) industry. The lockdowns and limited access to retailer outlets resulted in a considerable drop in consumption, creating problems related to the excess of stock, the decrease of sales, and the disposal of non-used items. This paper outlines the implications of the COVID-19 on the TAF sectors and European retailers. It analyzes how the current supply chains exacerbated stock control problems, and it reports on the changes in consumption during the pandemic. The worldwide restrictive measures implemented to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic were responsible for significant profit losses. Also, the decrease in consumption, caused by several geographically wide lockdowns, prompted a subsequent reduction in orders and sales, resulting in a significant number of constraints. The implementation of more environmentally friendly processes, including sustainable circularity as a competitiveness source to keep the TAF sectors in the loop and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, may help address the problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in the sustainability context, as reported in this paper.
- Self-other differences in social mindfulness: beliefs about other people's selfishness are grounded in one's own selfish impulsesPublication . Simão, Cláudia; Mata, AndréThere is a robust tendency for people to expect others to be more immoral than them, for instance, more selfish. Where do these pessimistic beliefs come from? We explore a socio-metacognitive account whereby those beliefs originate in one's own impulses to act selfishly. In two studies, we used the social mindfulness paradigm, a task that provides the initial chooser the opportunity to be socially mindful about other people or not. Results show 1) that people expect others to be more selfish than them, and 2) that this belief in the selfishness of others is related to one's own impulses to act selfishly. Thus, even when people are kind in their choices, they tend to be less generous in their beliefs about the kindness of others, and this is particularly the case when those selfless choices did not come easily to them, but rather required suppressing an impulse to act selfishly.
- Burgueses e nobres: imaginários e modos de vida em Copacabana e PetrópolisPublication . Corbo, William; Rocha, Everardo; Feix, IsabelEste trabalho analisa como, nas décadas de 1940, 1950 e 1960, a elite brasileira experimentava hábitos burgueses em Copacabana e, nas férias de verão, finais de semana e feriados, vivenciava aspectos de um estilo de vida de nobres em Petrópolis. No bairro da Zona Sul do Rio de Janeiro, as novidades de entretenimento e consumo proporcionavam ares cosmopolitas; nas serras do estado, a recuperação de espaços históricos e a retomada de símbolos aristocráticos remetiam ao passado imperial. Realizamos entrevistas com informantes que moraram ou frequentaram as duas localidades e analisamos reportagens e anúncios de duas importantes publicações da época: o jornal O Globo e a revista O Cruzeiro. Em suma, este estudo revela as formas pelas quais uma ideologia que projetava a imagem do Brasil como uma grande communitas (DaMatta, 1973) possibilitou uma resposta particular à ambiguidade típica do mundo moderno entre burgueses e nobres: viver ora uma coisa, ora outra; burgueses em Copacabana, nobres em Petrópolis
- EBV and MSI status in gastric cancer: does it matter?Publication . Nascimento, Catarina Neto do; Mascarenhas-Lemos, Luís; Silva, João Ricardo; Marques, Diogo Sousa; Gouveia, Catarina Ferreira; Faria, Ana; Velho, Sónia; Garrido, Rita; Maio, Rui; Costa, Andreia; Pontes, Patrícia; Wen, Xiaogang; Gullo, Irene; Cravo, Marília; Carneiro, FátimaWe investigated the impactof microsatellite instability (MSI) and Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) status in gastric cancer (GC), regarding response to perioperative chemotherapy (POPChT), overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS). We included 137 cases of operated GC, 51 of which were submitted to POPChT. MSI status was determined by multiplex PCR and EBV status by EBV-encoded RNA in situ hybridization. Thirty-seven (27%) cases presented as MSI-high, and seven (5.1%) were EBV+. Concerning tumor regression after POPChT, no differences were observed between the molecular subtypes, but females were more likely to respond (p = 0.062). No significant differences were found in OS or PFS between different subtypes. In multivariate analysis, age (HR 1.02, IC 95% 1.002–1.056, p = 0.033) and positive lymph nodes (HR 1.82, IC 95% 1.034–3.211, p = 0.038) were the only prognostic factors for OS. However, females with MSI-high tumors treated with POPChT demonstrated a significantly increased OS compared to females with MSS tumors (p = 0.031). In conclusion, we found a high proportion of MSI-high cases. MSI and EBV status did not influence OS or PFS either in patients submitted to POPChT or surgery alone. However, superior survival of females with MSI-high tumors suggests that sex disparities and molecular classification may influence treatment options in GC.