Primary rhabdomyosarcoma of the diaphragm: case report and literature review

The authors report a case of primary rhabdomyosarcoma of the diaphragm, an extremely rare presentation with only 14 cases reported in the literature. An 18-year-old male presented 2 spontaneous occurrences of pneumothorax. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance showed a tumoral mass on the right diaphragmatic surface, and after biopsy, the diagnosis was compatible with spindle cell rhabdomyosarcoma. Because the visceral pleura was invaded by the tumoral mass, a right pleuropneumonectomy was performed. The patient received adjuvant chemotherapy, and there was no evidence of disease 15 months after the operation. Based on the Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study Group (IRSG) criteria, which consider the extent of the disease and its surgical resectability, rhabdomyosarcomas can be classified into 4 groups. In clinical group I, which was the classification of our patient, the tumor is localized and completely resectable, which implies a good prognosis. Rhabdomyosarcoma is a rare tumor, and a good outcome may result if it is completely resected.

Complications of tracheobronchial foreign body aspiration in children: report of 5 cases and review of the literature

Foreign body aspiration (FBA) is one of leading causes of death in children, especially among those younger than 3 years of age. The inhalation of a foreign body may cause a wide variety of symptoms, and early diagnosis is highly associated with the successful removal of the inhaled foreign material. Despite the great advances in endoscopic procedures and anesthesia, a large number of difficulties and complications still result from foreign body aspiration. We describe 5 cases of serious acute complications following aspiration of foreign bodies that became lodged in the tracheobronchial tree, including pneumomediastinum, pneumothorax, total atelectasis, foreign body dislodgment, and need for thoracotomy in children admitted into our intensive care unit in 1999 and 2000; these were all situations that could have been prevented with early recognition and prompt therapeutic intervention.

Incisional hernia at the insertion site of the laparoscopic trocar: case report and review of the literature

Laparoscopic operations offer a myriad of advantages resulting in a rapid postoperative recovery. Incisional hernia is an uncommon cause of morbidity in operative procedures performed by laparoscopic access, and the diagnosis may not be easily made. In our service we identified 2 patients with incisional hernia the site of trocar insertion. The records of these 2 cases were reviewed. We report on these 2 cases and present a review of the literature.

Pulmonary artery catheter complications: report on a case of a knot accident and literature review

A particular event concerning a Swan-Ganz catheter complication is reported. A 41-year-old woman was admitted at the emergency room of our hospital with massive gastrointestinal bleeding. A total gastrectomy was performed. During the postoperative period in the intensive care unit , the patient maintained hemodynamic instability. Invasive hemodynamic monitoring with a pulmonary artery catheter was then indicated. During the maneuvers to insert the catheter, a true knot formation was identified at the level of the superior vena cava. Several maneuvers by radiological endovascular invasive techniques allowed removal of the catheter. The authors describe the details of this procedure and provide comments regarding the various techniques that were employed in overcoming this event. A comprehensive review of evidence regarding the benefits and risks of pulmonary artery catheterization was performed. The consensus statement regarding the indications, utilization, and management of the pulmonary artery catheterization that were issued by a consensus conference held in 1996 are also discussed in detail.

Anorectal leiomyomas: report of two cases with different anatomical patterns and literature review

Gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors comprise a rare group of gastrointestinal tract wall tumors that have long been a source of confusion and controversy, especially in terms of pathological classification, preoperative diagnosis, management strategies, and prognosis. This report describes the clinical manifestations and management of 2 rectal leiomyomas and reviews the pertinent literature. Case 1: A 44-year-old woman was admitted reporting a nodule in the right para-anal region for the previous 2 years. At proctological examination, a 4-cm diameter fibrous mass situated in the para-anal region that produced an arch under the smooth muscle on the right rectal wall just above the anorectal ring was noted. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging of the abdomen and pelvis showed the lesion and detected no other abnormalities. Surgical treatment consisted of wide local resection of the tumor through a para-anal incision, with no attempts to perform lymphadenectomy. Case 2: A 40-year-old male patient was admitted reporting constant anal pain for 4 months. He presented a 3-cm submucosal nodule at the anterior rectal wall just above the dentate line. After 2 inconclusive preoperative biopsies, transanal resection of the tumor was performed. Histological analysis of the specimen showed a benign leiomyoma. A review of the literature is presented, emphasizing some clinical and therapeutic aspects of this unusual rectal tumor.

The interception process in tropical rain forests: a literature review and critique (*).

A review of the literature on measurements of rain water interception processes by forests is made. Information on Africa, Central and South America, and Asia is given. A general analysis is made and the need to further the measurements under field conditions is stressed.

Visões do Império : a 1ª EXposição Colonial de 1934 e alguns dos seus álbuns

A Primeira Exposição Colonial Portuguesa realizada no Porto em 1934 foi a consequência visível do impulso que Salazar quis dar à «política colonial» portuguesa e a uma orientação imperial em que colonizar e civilizar as populações indígenas eram as palavras de ordem. Como corolário da exposição foram produzidos, entre outros, dois importantes álbuns, hoje documentos de inegável interesse histórico, não só enquanto discurso de propaganda do regime do Estado Novo, mas também enquanto narrativas visuais ou “visões do Império”. São eles, o Álbum Fotográfico da autoria do fotógrafo Domingos Alvão e o Álbum Comemorativo, com reproduções de pinturas e desenhos do pintor Eduardo Malta. Neste trabalho pretendemos reflectir sobre essas “visões do Império”, pois elas expressam uma visualidade e um imaginário que se traduz em práticas sociais, em valores e em relações de dominação que definem uma política do olhar, onde o corpo se torna um espaço de inscrição, bem como de categorização racial e cultural. Em suma, é através dessas imagens que vemos as relações de poder e as formas de dominação sobre o outro, que impregnaram a exposição.

Bone turnover markers for early detection of fracture healing disturbances: A review of the scientific literature

Imaging techniques are the standard method for assessment of fracture healing processes. However, these methods are perhaps not entirely reliable for early detection of complications, the most frequent of these being delayed union and non-union. A prompt diagnosis of such disorders could prevent prolonged patient distress and disability. Efforts should be directed towards the development of new technologies for improving accuracy in diagnosing complications following bone fractures. The variation in the levels of bone turnover markers (BTMs) have been assessed with regard to there ability to predict impaired fracture healing at an early stage, nevertheless the conclusions of some studies are not consensual. In this article the authors have revised the potential of BTMs as early predictors of prognosis in adult patients presenting traumatic bone fractures but who did not suffer from osteopenia or postmenopausal osteoporosis. The available information from the different studies performed in this field was systematized in order to highlight the most promising BTMs for the assessment of fracture healing outcome.

Workplace ergonomics in lean production environments: A literature review

BACKGROUND: Lean Production Systems (LPS) have become very popular among manufacturing industries, services and large commercial areas. A LPS must develop and consider a set of work features to bring compatibility with workplace ergonomics, namely at a muscular, cognitive and emotional demands level. OBJECTIVE: Identify the most relevant impacts of the adoption of LPS from the ergonomics point of view and summarizes some possible drawbacks for workplace ergonomics due to a flawed application of the LPS. The impacts identified are focused in four dimensions: work pace, intensity and load; worker motivation, satisfaction and stress; autonomy and participation; and health outcome. This paper also discusses the influence that the work organization model has on workplace ergonomics and on the waste elimination previewed by LPS. METHODS: Literature review focused LPS and its impact on occupational ergonomics conditions, as well as on the Health and Safety of workers. The main focus of this research is on LPS implementations in industrial environments and mainly in manufacturing industry workplaces. This is followed by a discussion including the authors’ experience (and previous research). RESULTS: From the reviewed literature it seems that there is no consensus on how Lean principles affect the workplace ergonomics since most authors found positive (advantages) and negative (disadvantages) impacts. CONCLUSIONS: The negative impacts or disadvantages of LPS implementations reviewed may result from the misunderstanding of the Lean principles. Possibly, they also happen due to partial Lean implementations (when only one or two tools were implemented) that may be effective in a specific work context but not suitable to all possible situations as the principles of LPS should not lead, by definition, to any of the reported drawbacks in terms of workplace ergonomics.

Business intelligence in banking: A literature analysis from 2002 to 2013 using Text Mining and latent Dirichlet allocation

telligence applications for the banking industry. Searches were performed in relevant journals resulting in 219 articles published between 2002 and 2013. To analyze such a large number of manuscripts, text mining techniques were used in pursuit for relevant terms on both business intelligence and banking domains. Moreover, the latent Dirichlet allocation modeling was used in or- der to group articles in several relevant topics. The analysis was conducted using a dictionary of terms belonging to both banking and business intelli- gence domains. Such procedure allowed for the identification of relationships between terms and topics grouping articles, enabling to emerge hypotheses regarding research directions. To confirm such hypotheses, relevant articles were collected and scrutinized, allowing to validate the text mining proce- dure. The results show that credit in banking is clearly the main application trend, particularly predicting risk and thus supporting credit approval or de- nial. There is also a relevant interest in bankruptcy and fraud prediction. Customer retention seems to be associated, although weakly, with targeting, justifying bank offers to reduce churn. In addition, a large number of ar- ticles focused more on business intelligence techniques and its applications, using the banking industry just for evaluation, thus, not clearly acclaiming for benefits in the banking business. By identifying these current research topics, this study also highlights opportunities for future research.

Extracting kinetic information from literature with KineticRE

To better understand the dynamic behavior of metabolic networks in a wide variety of conditions, the field of Systems Biology has increased its interest in the use of kinetic models. The different databases, available these days, do not contain enough data regarding this topic. Given that a significant part of the relevant information for the development of such models is still wide spread in the literature, it becomes essential to develop specific and powerful text mining tools to collect these data. In this context, this work has as main objective the development of a text mining tool to extract, from scientific literature, kinetic parameters, their respective values and their relations with enzymes and metabolites. The approach proposed integrates the development of a novel plug-in over the text mining framework @Note2. In the end, the pipeline developed was validated with a case study on Kluyveromyces lactis, spanning the analysis and results of 20 full text documents.

O outro lado da guerra colonial. Perspetiva salutogénica de inclusão

O projeto de investigação-intervenção aqui apresentado, denominado O outro lado da guerra colonial. Memórias na primeira pessoa, fundamenta-se nas conceções da Educação e Aprendizagem ao Longo da Vida, sendo direcionado para a área da Educação para a Saúde. Remete-nos para uma perspetiva salutogénica de saúde, de acordo com A. Antonovsky. Ao nível metodológico incorre no Paradigma da Complexidade. Utilizam-se métodos diversificados consoante os casos concretos, nomeadamente o método narrativo. Neste estudo, destacam-se as narrativas como forma de ação/intervenção junto de 11 participantes, veteranos da guerra colonial portuguesa. As narrativas foram determinantes, constituindo o modo de construção, de atribuição de significado e partilha de memórias pessoais subjetivas, que revelam perspetivas diversificadas e modos únicos de interpretar e compreender um evento histórico importante. A partir dos dados recolhidos foram-se descobrindo os Recursos Gerais de Resistência e foi-se conhecendo/reconhecendo o Sentido Interno de Coerência de cada participante, construindo-se planos de ação pessoais. Os participantes compreenderam o papel que desempenham na promoção da sua própria saúde e a importância que esta compreensão representa nas suas vidas. Neste sentido, este projeto de investigação/intervenção permitiu-nos analisar, comprender e valorizar as experiências de vida de caráter transformador que culminaram em momentos de grande aprendizagem pessoal; forneceu-nos elementos importantes para o estudo qualitativo dos veteranos de guerra, revelando dados significativos acerca das vivências da guerra colonial e acerca do modo como essas vivências influenciaram a vida dos participantes até aos días de hoje. A utilização de métodos exclusivamente qualitativos tornou-se essencial neste projeto de investigação/intervenção. Através da subjetividade discursiva tivemos acesso a mundos de significado próprios que proporcionaram um ambiente investigativo de proximidade e intimidade. Conclui-se que este estudo foi revelador porque permitiu a recolha de dados que contribuíram para a valorização das memórias pessoais mas também para a construção de futuros planos de ação e de investigação.

O outro lado da guerra colonial. Perspetiva salutogénica de inclusão

O projeto de investigação-intervenção aqui apresentado, denominado O outro lado da guerra colonial. Memórias na primeira pessoa, fundamenta-se nas conceções da Educação e Aprendizagem ao Longo da Vida, sendo direcionado para a área da Educação para a Saúde. Remete-nos para uma perspetiva salutogénica de saúde, de acordo com A. Antonovsky. Ao nível metodológico incorre no Paradigma da Complexidade. Utilizam-se métodos diversificados consoante os casos concretos, nomeadamente o método narrativo. Neste estudo, destacam-se as narrativas como forma de ação/intervenção junto de 11 participantes, veteranos da guerra colonial portuguesa. As narrativas foram determinantes, constituindo o modo de construção, de atribuição de significado e partilha de memórias pessoais subjetivas, que revelam perspetivas diversificadas e modos únicos de interpretar e compreender um evento histórico importante. A partir dos dados recolhidos foram-se descobrindo os Recursos Gerais de Resistência e foi-se conhecendo/reconhecendo o Sentido Interno de Coerência de cada participante, construindo-se planos de ação pessoais. Os participantes compreenderam o papel que desempenham na promoção da sua própria saúde e a importância que esta compreensão representa nas suas vidas. Neste sentido, este projeto de investigação/intervenção permitiu-nos analisar, comprender e valorizar as experiências de vida de caráter transformador que culminaram em momentos de grande aprendizagem pessoal; forneceu-nos elementos importantes para o estudo qualitativo dos veteranos de guerra, revelando dados significativos acerca das vivências da guerra colonial e acerca do modo como essas vivências influenciaram a vida dos participantes até aos días de hoje. A utilização de métodos exclusivamente qualitativos tornou-se essencial neste projeto de investigação/intervenção. Através da subjetividade discursiva tivemos acesso a mundos de significado próprios que proporcionaram um ambiente investigativo de proximidade e intimidade. Conclui-se que este estudo foi revelador porque permitiu a recolha de dados que contribuíram para a valorização das memórias pessoais mas também para a construção de futuros planos de ação e de investigação.

O outro lado da guerra colonial. Memórias na primeira pessoa

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