O Mosteiro de Sta. Maria da Vitória e a vocação moralizante das gárgulas do panteão duartino

The Portuguese monument called Batalha’s monastery has occupied an important place in Art History especially the unfinished chapels destined to be the Pantheon of the King D. Duarte. There we observe some interesting gargoyles, moral representations as an approach to the late medieval imaginary in the national context, but also common with the thoughts of King D. Duarte. Gargoyles mirrored the daily life of medieval men and women and displayed the confrontation between the religious and the social spheres by criticizing the behaviour of the sinful body, taking on an important educational role amongst audiences. This article aims to understand the moral sense and sexual behaviour that can observe in these gargoyles and its relation with the book Leal Conselheiro, written by D. Duarte some decades before.

Quality of life of hypertensive and diabetic patients: Who suffers the most?

Objective: Quality of life was measured using the EQ-5D index for Portugal and a Self-Assessed Ranking of Health (SARH) to understand which patients suffer the most decrease in quality of life: diabetics or hypertensive. Method: Using the National Health Survey (NHS), two analyses were conducted on 5649 respondents. The EQ-5D index was calculated by matching questions in the NHS with its dimensions. The SARH was calculated based on a specific question in the NHS. Results: Differences between diseases do not occur using the EQ-5D index. Using the SARH, type 1 diabetics suffer the most while hypertensive suffers the least.

The patent expiry as a major inflection point in a branded Rx drug's life and strategies to counter generic competition - exemplified at Pfizer's blockbuster drug Lipitor in the USA

A large number of expensive, but highly profitable branded prescription drugs will go off-patent in the USA between 2011 and 2015. Their revenues are crucial to fund the immense costs associated with the development of an innovative drug. The rising cost pressure on pharmaceutical stakeholders has increased the demand for more affordable medications, as provided by the branded drug's generic counterpart. Yet, research based incumbents are moving beyond the traditional late lifecycle strategies and deploy more aggressive tactics in order to protect their brands, as seen with Pfizer's Lipitor!. It is doubtful, whether these efforts will help the blockbuster business model to resist current market conditions.

Fatigue life assessment of endodontic instruments subjected to multi planar curvature

This present study aimed to investigate the fatigue life of unused (new) endodontic instruments made of NiTi with control memory by Coltene™ and subjected to the multi curvature of a mandibular first molar root canal. Additionally, the instrument‟s structural behaviour was analysed through non-linear finite element analysis (FEA). The fatigue life of twelve Hyflex™ CM files was assessed while were forced to adopt a stance with multiple radius of curvature, similar to the ones usually found in a mandibular first molar root canal; nine of them were subjected to Pecking motion, a relative movement of axial type. To achieve this, it was designed an experimental setup with the aim of timing the instruments until fracture while worked inside a stainless steel mandibular first molar model with relative axial motion to simulate the pecking motion. Additionally, the model‟s root canal multi-curvature was confirmed by radiography. The non-linear finite element analysis was conducted using the computer aided design software package SolidWorks™ Simulation, in order to define the imposed displacement required by the FEA, it was necessary to model an endodontic instrument with simplified geometry using SolidWorks™ and subsequently analyse the geometry of the root canal CAD model. The experimental results shown that the instruments subjected to pecking motion displayed higher fatigue life values and higher lengths of fractured tips than those with only rotational relative movement. The finite element non-linear analyses shown, for identical conditions, maximum values for the first principal stress lower than the yield strength of the material and those were located in similar positions to the instrument‟s fracture location determined by the experimental testing results.