Study of the one dimensional and transient bioheat transfer equation: Multi-layer solution development and applications

: In this work we derive an analytical solution given by Bessel series to the transient and one-dimensional (1D) bioheat transfer equation in a multi-layer region with spatially dependent heat sources. Each region represents an independent biological tissue characterized by temperature-invariant physiological parameters and a linearly temperature dependent metabolic heat generation. Moreover, 1D Cartesian, cylindrical or spherical coordinates are used to define the geometry and temperature boundary conditions of first, second and third kinds are assumed at the inner and outer surfaces. We present two examples of clinical applications for the developed solution. In the first one, we investigate two different heat source terms to simulate the heating in a tumor and its surrounding tissue, induced during a magnetic fluid hyperthermia technique used for cancer treatment. To obtain an accurate analytical solution, we determine the error associated with the truncated Bessel series that defines the transient solution. In the second application, we explore the potential of this model to study the effect of different environmental conditions in a multi-layered human head model (brain, bone and scalp). The convective heat transfer effect of a large blood vessel located inside the brain is also investigated. The results are further compared with a numerical solution obtained by the Finite Element Method and computed with COMSOL Multi-physics v4.1 (c). (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Efeito da eletrolipólise na gordura abdominal em doentes cardíacos - fase manutenção

Objetivo: Verificar se a eletrolipólise pode ser um método coadjuvante na Reabilitação Cardíaca (RC) de modo a diminuir a gordura abdominal em indivíduos com Doença Cardiovascular (DCV). Métodos: Seis indivíduos, de ambos os sexos, da classe de RC do Centro Clinico de Gaia (CCG), foram distribuídos aleatoriamente em dois grupos, grupo controlo (GC) (n=3) e grupo experimental (GE) (n=3). O GE realizou 8 sessões (duas vezes por semana) de eletrolipólise por microcorrentes 30 minutos antes da classe de RC. Utilizaram-se como meios de avaliação a perimetria, adipometria, bioimpedância e ultrassonografia, análise sanguíneas, bem como a aplicação da Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Questionário Internacional de Actividade Física (IPAQ) e Questionário Semi-Quantitativo de Frequência Alimentar (QSQFA). Resultados: Através do cálculo da mudança mínima detetável (MMD) verificou-se diminuição do perímetro ao nível do umbigo (3,7cm e 1,5cm) e barriga (4,2cm e 2,83cm) em dois indivíduos do GE e diminuição nas avaliações da ultrassonografia (de 1,3mm a 8,4mm) no GE. Conclusão: Do presente estudo foi possível concluir que nesta amostra existiu uma tendência para a diminuição da gordura abdominal localizada através dos dados obtidos pela perimetria e ultrassonografia.

Tracking of physical activity from adolescence to adulthood: a population-based study

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between regular physical activity in adolescence and leisure-time physical activity in adulthood, with emphasis on gender differences. METHODS: A population-based cross-sectional study was carried out in Pelotas, Southern Brazil, in 2003. A representative sample of households was selected in multiple stages and subjects aged 20-59 years were interviewed. Leisure-time physical activity was evaluated using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Data on adolescent physical activity were based on subjects' recall. RESULTS: Of 2,577 subjects interviewed, 27.5% were classified as adequately active, and 54.9% reported regular physical activity in adolescence. Subjects who engaged in regular physical activity during adolescence were more likely to be adequately active in adulthood (adjusted prevalence ratio 1.42; 95% CI: 1.23; 1.65). This effect was stronger in women (adjusted prevalence ratio: 1.51; 95% CI: 1.22; 1.86) than men (adjusted prevalence ratio: 1.35; 95% CI: 1.10; 1.67). CONCLUSIONS: Promoting physical activity in school age may be a successful intervention against the epidemic of adult inactivity. Although women were less likely to report regular physical activity in adolescence, the effect of this experience on adult behavior was stronger than in men.

Implications of the Intervention Program for Physical Activity (IPPA) in the perception of illness and wellbeing in people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

The aim of this study is to examine the implications of the IPPA in the perception of illness and wellbeing in MS patients. Methods - This is a quasi experimental study non-randomized study with 24 MS patients diagnosed at least 1 year before, and with an EDSS score of under 7. We used the IPPA in 3 groups of eight people in 3 Portuguese hospitals (Lisbon, Coimbra, and Porto). The sessions were held once a week for 90 minutes, over a period of 7 weeks. The instruments used were: We asked the subjects the question “Please classify the severity of your disease?” and used the Personal Wellbeing Scale (PWS) at the beginning (time A) and end (time B) of the IPPA. We used the SPSS version 20. A non-parametric statistical hypothesis test (Wilcoxon test) was used for the variable analysis. The intervention followed the recommendations of the Helsinki Declaration. Results – The results suggest that there are differences between time A and B, the perception of illness decreased (p<0.08), while wellbeing increased (p<0.01). Conclusions: The IPPA can play an important role in modifying the perception of disease severity and personal wellbeing.

Genotoxic effects in occupational exposure to formaldehyde: A study in anatomy and pathology laboratories and formaldehyde-resins production

Background - According to the Report on Carcinogens, formaldehyde ranks 25th in the overall U.S. chemical production, with more than 5 million tons produced each year. Given its economic importance and widespread use, many people are exposed to formaldehyde environmentally and/or occupationally. Presently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies formaldehyde as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1), based on sufficient evidence in humans and in experimental animals. Manyfold in vitro studies clearly indicated that formaldehyde can induce genotoxic effects in proliferating cultured mammalian cells. Furthermore, some in vivo studies have found changes in epithelial cells and in peripheral blood lymphocytes related to formaldehyde exposure. Methods - A study was carried out in Portugal, using 80 workers occupationally exposed to formaldehyde vapours: 30 workers from formaldehyde and formaldehyde-based resins production factory and 50 from 10 pathology and anatomy laboratories. A control group of 85 non-exposed subjects was considered. Exposure assessment was performed by applying simultaneously two techniques of air monitoring: NIOSH Method 2541 and Photo Ionization Detection equipment with simultaneously video recording. Evaluation of genotoxic effects was performed by application of micronucleus test in exfoliated epithelial cells from buccal mucosa and peripheral blood lymphocytes. Results - Time-weighted average concentrations not exceeded the reference value (0.75 ppm) in the two occupational settings studied. Ceiling concentrations, on the other hand, were higher than reference value (0.3 ppm) in both. The frequency of micronucleus in peripheral blood lymphocytes and in epithelial cells was significantly higher in both exposed groups than in the control group (p < 0.001). Moreover, the frequency of micronucleus in peripheral blood lymphocytes was significantly higher in the laboratories group than in the factory workers (p < 0.05). A moderate positive correlation was found between duration of occupational exposure to formaldehyde (years of exposure) and micronucleus frequency in peripheral blood lymphocytes (r = 0.401; p < 0.001) and in epithelial cells (r = 0.209; p < 0.01). Conclusions - The population studied is exposed to high peak concentrations of formaldehyde with a long-term exposure. These two aspects, cumulatively, can be the cause of the observed genotoxic endpoint effects. The association of these cytogenetic effects with formaldehyde exposure gives important information to risk assessment process and may also be used to assess health risks for exposed workers.

Comorbidity adjustment index for the international classification of diseases, 10

OBJECTIVE: To develop a Charlson-like comorbidity index based on clinical conditions and weights of the original Charlson comorbidity index. METHODS: Clinical conditions and weights were adapted from the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision and applied to a single hospital admission diagnosis. The study included 3,733 patients over 18 years of age who were admitted to a public general hospital in the city of Rio de Janeiro, southeast Brazil, between Jan 2001 and Jan 2003. The index distribution was analyzed by gender, type of admission, blood transfusion, intensive care unit admission, age and length of hospital stay. Two logistic regression models were developed to predict in-hospital mortality including: a) the aforementioned variables and the risk-adjustment index (full model); and b) the risk-adjustment index and patient's age (reduced model). RESULTS: Of all patients analyzed, 22.3% had risk scores >1, and their mortality rate was 4.5% (66.0% of them had scores >1). Except for gender and type of admission, all variables were retained in the logistic regression. The models including the developed risk index had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.86 (full model), and 0.76 (reduced model). Each unit increase in the risk score was associated with nearly 50% increase in the odds of in-hospital death. CONCLUSIONS: The risk index developed was able to effectively discriminate the odds of in-hospital death which can be useful when limited information is available from hospital databases.

Bullying in hazing pratices : a study on higher education

7 th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (ICERI2014 Proceedings), Seville, Spain, 17-19 November 2014.

Hazing practices in higher education : a study with portuguese students

Hazing practices in higher education institutions are perceived controversially. This study looked at the perception towards hazing practices of students from the University of the Azores in first cycle (n=247). It analyses if their perception was positive, emphasizing the integrative aspects of hazing practices, or if it was negative, inclining to define those practises like being violent and humiliating. The applied questionnaire measures 3 factors to define individual’s perception with hazing practices (positive relation with hazing practices, negative relation and the social dimension of the practices). This study used descriptive analyses to observe the level of agreement with hazing practices and non-parametrical statistical test to analyse the relationship between their levels of agreement with hazing practices and socio-demographic variables. Results emphasised balanced proportion of students perceiving positively and negatively those practices and incline to define hazing practices with the same components in both perceptions. It didnot highlight a strong mandatory integrative component in students’ perception. Also, results stressed a large part of students disinterested in hazing practices. Additionally factors of hazing practices’ perception showed significant relationships with respondent’s sex, age and academic degree. Hazing practices in this study did not seem to meet their main objectives of welcoming and integrating freshmen in higher education institutions.

Thermal Residual Stresses in Functionally Graded Structures: a Didactic Case Study

Conferência: 2nd Experiment at International Conference - 18-20 September 2013

Electrochemical study of butylate: application to the analysis of water

The electroactivity of butylate (BTL) is studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and square wave voltammetry (SWV) at a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) and a hanging mercury drop electrode (HMDE). Britton–Robinson buffer solutions of pH 1.9–11.5 are used as supporting electrolyte. CV voltammograms using GCE show a single anodic peak regarding the oxidation of BTL at +1.7V versus AgCl/ Ag, an irreversible process controlled by diffusion. Using a HMDE, a single cathodic peak is observed, at 1.0V versus AgCl/Ag. The reduction of BTL is irreversible and controlled by adsorption. Mechanism proposals are presented for these redox transformations. Optimisation is carried out univaryingly. Linearity ranges were 0.10–0.50 mmol L-1 and 2.0–9.0 µmolL-1 for anodic and cathodic peaks, respectively. The proposed method is applied to the determination of BTL in waters. Analytical results compare well with those obtained by an HPLC method.

Electroanalytical study of the pesticide asulam

The electrochemical behaviour of the herbicide Asulam was studied by cyclic and square wave voltammetry. Asulam may be irreversibly oxidised at a glassy carbon electrode. Maximum currents were obtained at pH=1.9 in aqueous electrolyte solution. Based on the electrochemical behaviour of Asulam, two analytical methodologies were developed for its determination in water samples, using square wave voltammetry (SWV) and flow injection analysis (FIA) coupled with an amperometric detector. Limits of detection of 7.1x10-6 mol L-1 and 1.2x10-8 mol L-1 for SWV and FIA respectively, were achieved. Repeatability was calculated by assessing the relative standard deviation (%) for 10 consecutive determinations of one sample. The found values were 2.1% for SWV and 5.0% for FIA. Validation of the results provided by SWV and FIA methodologies was performed by comparison with results from an HPLC-DAD technique. Good relative deviations were found (<5%). Recovery trials were performed to assess the accuracy of the results and the obtained values were between 84% and 107% for both methods.

Health-related behavior and quality of life among the elderly: a population-based study

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between health-related behaviors and quality of life among the elderly. METHODS: A population-based cross-sectional study was carried out including 1,958 elderly living in four areas in the state of São Paulo, southeastern Brazil, 2001/2002. Quality of life was assessed using the Medical Outcomes Study SF-36-Item Short Form Health Survey instrument. This instrument's eight subscales and two components were the dependent variables. Independent variables were physical activity, weekly frequency of alcohol consumption and smoking. Multiple linear regression models were used to control for the effect of gender, age, schooling, work, area of residence and number of chronic conditions. RESULTS: Physical activity was positively associated with the eight SF-36 subscales. The stronger associations were found for role-physical (β=11.9), physical functioning (β=11.3) and physical component. Elderly individuals who consumed alcohol at least once a week showed a better quality of life than those did not consume alcohol. Compared to non-smokers, smokers had a poorer quality of life for the mental component (β=-2.4). CONCLUSIONS: The study results showed that physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption and no smoking are positively associated with a better quality of life in the elderly.

Phonological and articulation treatment approaches in Portuguese children with speech and language impairments: a randomized controlled intervention study

Background: In Portugal, the routine clinical practice of speech and language therapists (SLTs) in treating children with all types of speech sound disorder (SSD) continues to be articulation therapy (AT). There is limited use of phonological therapy (PT) or phonological awareness training in Portugal. Additionally, at an international level there is a focus on collecting information on and differentiating between the effectiveness of PT and AT for children with different types of phonologically based SSD, as well as on the role of phonological awareness in remediating SSD. It is important to collect more evidence for the most effective and efficient type of intervention approach for different SSDs and for these data to be collected from diverse linguistic and cultural perspectives. Aims: To evaluate the effectiveness of a PT and AT approach for treatment of 14 Portuguese children, aged 4.0–6.7 years, with a phonologically based SSD. Methods & Procedures: The children were randomly assigned to one of the two treatment approaches (seven children in each group). All children were treated by the same SLT, blind to the aims of the study, over three blocks of a total of 25 weekly sessions of intervention. Outcome measures of phonological ability (percentage of consonants correct (PCC), percentage occurrence of different phonological processes and phonetic inventory) were taken before and after intervention. A qualitative assessment of intervention effectiveness from the perspective of the parents of participants was included. Outcomes & Results: Both treatments were effective in improving the participants’ speech, with the children receiving PT showing a more significant improvement in PCC score than those receiving the AT. Children in the PT group also showed greater generalization to untreated words than those receiving AT. Parents reported both intervention approaches to be as effective in improving their children’s speech. Conclusions & Implications: The PT (combination of expressive phonological tasks, phonological awareness, listening and discrimination activities) proved to be an effective integrated method of improving phonological SSD in children. These findings provide some evidence for Portuguese SLTs to employ PT with children with phonologically based SSD

A study on security grade assignment model for mobile users in urban computing

The relation between the information/knowledge expression and the physical expression can be involved as one of items for an ambient intelligent computing [2],[3]. Moreover, because there are so many contexts around user/spaces during a user movement, all appplcation which are using AmI for users are based on the relation between user devices and environments. In these situations, it is possible that the AmI may output the wrong result from unreliable contexts by attackers. Recently, establishing a server have been utilizes, so finding secure contexts and make contexts of higher security level for save communication have been given importance. Attackers try to put their devices on the expected path of all users in order to obtain users informationillegally or they may try to broadcast their SPAMS to users. This paper is an extensionof [11] which studies the Security Grade Assignment Model (SGAM) to set Cyber-Society Organization (CSO).

Supporting conceptualisation processes in collaborative networks: a case study on an R&D project

The development of new products or processes involves the creation, re-creation and integration of conceptual models from the related scientific and technical domains. Particularly, in the context of collaborative networks of organisations (CNO) (e.g. a multi-partner, international project) such developments can be seriously hindered by conceptual misunderstandings and misalignments, resulting from participants with different backgrounds or organisational cultures, for example. The research described in this article addresses this problem by proposing a method and the tools to support the collaborative development of shared conceptualisations in the context of a collaborative network of organisations. The theoretical model is based on a socio-semantic perspective, while the method is inspired by the conceptual integration theory from the cognitive semantics field. The modelling environment is built upon a semantic wiki platform. The majority of the article is devoted to developing an informal ontology in the context of a European R&D project, studied using action research. The case study results validated the logical structure of the method and showed the utility of the method.