Tamoxifeno e Espessamento Endometrial Assintomático

Tamoxifen is a first-line agent for adjuvant treatment of estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer, and is used to reduce the risk of this condition in high-risk individuals. Retrospective studies established an association between tamoxifen use, endometrial thickness and endometrial cancer. There have been many attempts to identify an effective screening program for tamoxifen-related endometrial cancer, which have led to the use of transvaginal ultrasound and invasive procedures. The use of a 5mm endometrial cut-off in vaginal ultrasound is known to raise the number of endometrial biopsies with no gain in early cancer diagnosis. A review of the scientific literature was performed in order to establish the best available evidence for endometrial evaluation of asymptomatic breast cancer patients on tamoxifen.

Tradução, adaptação e legendagem de textos poéticos

A legendagem, sendo um modo de tradução audiovisual muito peculiar, implica verter um discurso oral, real ou ficcionado, para texto escrito. A primeira questão que nos colocamos é, como será isto exequível, sem se perder uma parte significativa do discurso oral: os elementos paralinguísticos? Depois, o que acontece nesta passagem da oralidade para a escrita? Haverá forma de contornar as perdas evidentes? Como ponto de partida para este projecto de legendagem, escolhemos dois filmes ainda não legendados em português, cujos argumentos, coincidentemente, também ainda não se encontravam traduzidos em português. Os filmes escolhidos foram Pull My Daisy e The Last Clean Shirt, documentos visuais da cultura da Beat Generation, movimento sediado nos Estados Unidos da América. A partir da tradução, adaptação e legendagem destas obras, procurámos, então, analisar as dificuldades levantadas pela tradução e introdução das marcas de oralidade existentes nos textos de partida, bem como as suas possibilidades de adaptação, tendo em conta as características do público-alvo e os constrangimentos impostos pela própria natureza deste modo de tradução. Procurou tomar-se em consideração também os problemas relacionados com a transferência da cultura da língua de partida para a língua de chegada. A legendagem destas duas curtas-metragens foi realizada através do programa de software SPOT. Depois de concluído, foi analisado todo o processo de tradução, adaptação e legendagem, considerando a necessidade de contextualizar os filmes a nível literário, artístico e cultural, bem como as decisões relativamente a alguns aspectos do resultado final da legendagem, nomeadamente no que respeita às dificuldades impostas pela transposição da oralidade para a escrita. O argumento de Pull My Daisy, nas palavras do autor Jack Kerouac, baseia-se no Acto III da peça “The Beat Generation”. Esta peça foi escrita em 1957, mas foi recentemente redescoberta em 2005, em forma manuscrita, num armazém de New Jersey. Na sua essência, este argumento consiste num improviso de Kerouac elaborado em voz off durante o filme realizado por Robert Frank e Alfred Leslie, em 1959. Desde então, ambos os realizadores desenvolveram as suas criações artísticas, tendo, por exemplo, Alfred Leslie estreado o seu trabalho mais recente, o vídeo The Cedar Bar no London Film Festival em 2002 e Robert Frank realizado vídeos para canções dos New Order, Run de 1989, e de Patti Smith, em 1996, para Summer Cannibals. A curta-metragem começa com um canção cuja letra é um excerto do poema Pull My Daisy de Allen Ginsberg e Jack Kerouac. Depois, Jack Kerouac representa e encarna com a sua própria voz cada uma das personagens do filme, enquadrando, descrevendo e comentando a acção. O argumento do filme é, assim, um exercício livre de improviso sobre as imagens montadas pelos realizadores. The Last Clean Shirt é um filme experimental de Alfred Leslie, realizado em 1964, cujas legendas originais incluídas no filme são textos do poeta americano Frank O’Hara. Este filme tem sempre o mesmo enquadramento de câmara, ao passo que a “acção” nos é sugerida pelo conteúdo das legendas que integram a obra. Isto é, se por um lado o cenário e os protagonistas do filme são os mesmos do início ao fim do filme, é o texto de O’Hara, associado ao momento da inserção dos segmentos no filme, que atrai ou distrai a atenção do espectador para uma viagem que pode ter vários destinos. Estas duas curtas-metragens constituem textos-limite que põem em evidência os desafios do processo de legendagem, graças às suas características muito especiais, enquanto obras de arte cinematográfica. Para além das dificuldades emergentes que todos os trabalhos de tradução envolvem, neste trabalho considerou-se essencial tentar tratar da melhor forma a estrutura poética livre e conferir significado suficiente e coeso no texto de chegada ao fluxo de pensamento exteriorizado no texto de partida, procurando, especialmente, não prejudicar a característica poética dos textos.

Optimal Cut-Off Value for Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA) Index of Insulin-Resistance in a Population of Patients Admitted Electively in a Portuguese Cardiology Ward

INTRODUCTION: Insulin resistance is the pathophysiological key to explain metabolic syndrome. Although clearly useful, the Homeostasis Model Assessment index (an insulin resistance measurement) hasn't been systematically applied in clinical practice. One of the main reasons is the discrepancy in cut-off values reported in different populations. We sought to evaluate in a Portuguese population the ideal cut-off for Homeostasis Model Assessment index and assess its relationship with metabolic syndrome. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We selected a cohort of individuals admitted electively in a Cardiology ward with a BMI < 25 Kg/m2 and no abnormalities in glucose metabolism (fasting plasma glucose < 100 mg/dL and no diabetes). The 90th percentile of the Homeostasis Model Assessment index distribution was used to obtain the ideal cut-off for insulin resistance. We also selected a validation cohort of 300 individuals (no exclusion criteria applied). RESULTS: From 7 000 individuals, and after the exclusion criteria, there were left 1 784 individuals. The 90th percentile for Homeostasis Model Assessment index was 2.33. In the validation cohort, applying that cut-off, we have 49.3% of individuals with insulin resistance. However, only 69.9% of the metabolic syndrome patients had insulin resistance according to that cut-off. By ROC curve analysis, the ideal cut-off for metabolic syndrome is 2.41. Homeostasis Model Assessment index correlated with BMI (r = 0.371, p < 0.001) and is an independent predictor of the presence of metabolic syndrome (OR 19.4, 95% CI 6.6 - 57.2, p < 0.001). DISCUSSION: Our study showed that in a Portuguese population of patients admitted electively in a Cardiology ward, 2.33 is the Homeostasis Model Assessment index cut-off for insulin resistance and 2.41 for metabolic syndrome. CONCLUSION: Homeostasis Model Assessment index is directly correlated with BMI and is an independent predictor of metabolic syndrome.

Nós callcentristas somos o novo proletariado. Identidades e resistências do trabalho em call center

Dissertação de mestrado em Antropologia - Direitos Humanos e Movimentos Sociais

Predição de Pré-Eclâmpsia no Primeiro Trimestre em Gravidezes de Baixo Risco: Determinação do Cut-Off numa Amostra da População Portuguesa

Objective:We aimed to identify the cut-off for risk of pre-eclampsia (PE) in Portuguese population by applying the first trimester prediction model from Fetal Medicine Foundation (FMF) in a prospective enrolled cohort of low risk pregnant women. Population and methods: A prospective cohort of low risk singleton pregnancies underwent routine first-trimester scree - ning from 2011 through 2013. Maternal characteristics, blood pressure, uterine artery Doppler, levels of pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A) and free b-human chorionic gonadotropin were evaluated. The prediction of PE in first trimester was calculated through software Astraia, the outcome obtained from medical records and the cutoff value was subse quently calculated. Results:Of the 273 enrolled patients, 7 (2.6%) developed PE. In first trimester women who developed PE presented higher uterine arteries resistance, represented by higher values of lowest and mean uterine pulsatility index, p <0.005. There was no statistical significance among the remaining maternal characteristics, body mass index, blood pressure and PAPP-A. Using the FMF first trimester PE algorithm, an ideal cut-off of 0.045 (1/22) would correctly detect 71% women who developed PE for a 12% false positive rate and a likelihood ratio of 12.98 (area under the curve: 0.69; confidence interval 95%: 0.39-0.99). By applying the reported cutoff to our cohort, we would obtain 71.4% true positives, 88.3% true negatives, 11.4% false positives and 28.6% false negatives. Conclusion: By applying a first trimester PE prediction model to low risk pregnancies derived from a Portuguese population, a significant proportion of patients would have been predicted as high risk. New larger studies are required to confirm the present findings.

The determinants of variation in firm leverage across European countries

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Analysis of benefits of the process of certification on international standars: ISO 9001-2008 for Mapfre Assistencia Portugal

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Education for sustainable development – How are Portuguese children being educated in order to become responsible consumers

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Towards cryogenic liquid –vapor energy storage units for space applications

Dissertation to obtain the Doctoral degree in Physics Engineering

Study of multi-component systems in polybenzimidazole membrane formation and their impact on membrane performance

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Química e Bioquímica

Effect of surfactant on PDLC films with and without permanent memory effect

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Química e Bioquímica

Análise e melhoria do processo de order-picking num sistema produtivo: caso de estudo

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial

Fixed-mobile integration

Often, fixed-line incumbents also own the largest mobile network. We consider the effect of this joint ownership on market outcomes. Our model predicts that while fixed-to-mobile call prices to the integrated mobile network are more efficient than under separation, those to rival mobile networks are distorted upwards, amplifying any incumbency advantage. As concerns potential remedies, a uniform off-net pricing constraint leads to higher welfare than functional separation and even allows to maintain some of the efficiency gains.

Endogenous spillovers in the trade-off between centralization and decentralization

In this paper, we revisit the classical trade-off between centralized and decentralized provision of local public goods, in a setting where interregional spillovers depend on the level of a national public good. We compare the standard benevolent planner approach with a political economy in which decisions, in a centralized system, are undertaken by a non-cooperative legislature with no separation of powers. We observe that the policy-maker in a centralized system is able to play both with local public goods and spillovers, a mechanism that is not available under a decentralized system. When compared to the traditional exogenous spillovers assumption, this improves the case for centralization under the standard benevolent planner approach. However, the same is not necessarily true in the non-cooperative legislature, as in this case the interests of the legislator do not need to be aligned with those of the society. Finally, we extend the traditional political economy analysis by considering a legislature in which decisions are undertaken by different committees (separation of powers), and show that it performs better than the original non-cooperative legislature, greatly improving the case for centralization.

Improving contact center cost efficiency and customer experience in a retail company

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics