990 resultados para Positive Fixed-points
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This thesis concerns organizing a workshop about interaction in the various communities represented by Helsinki city's social welfare department. There were seventeen workshops altogether and they were organized in different communities; for example, in a children's daycare centre. The aim was to gain experience in the planning and organizing of these kinds of workshop. The workshops focused on dealing with interactive quetions arising out of the very community which was taking part in the workshop. These questions were discussed and handled using a technique called forum-statues. This means that the problems arising from the community were presented as living pictures to the group. There was also a short theoretical element concerning interactions between people, self-esteem, the different phases in developing a group, and the effects of conflicts in groups. There was a high degree of interest in the research and places were soon filled. The workshops consisted of a warming part with a lot of playing, a deepening part with questions arising out of the group, and a relaxation and feedback part at the end. The basis of the workshop was similar for all seventeen workshops. The athmosphere in workshops was discussive and open. The participants were engouraged to express there opinions and point of views. Feedback from the participantswas very positive. The participants obtained new points of view, according there fellow workers, and the community spirit improved. Shortage of time was, unfortunately, a problem. With more time, it would have been possible to go deeper into the problems of interaction within the community. Ceratinly, the research proved that there would be great demand for this kind of workshop in future.
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Introduction: Glenoid bone volume and bone quality can render the fixation of a reversed shoulder arthroplasty (RSA) basis plate hazardous. Cadaveric study at our institution has demonstrated that optimal baseplate fixation could be achieved with screws in three major columns. Our aim is to review our early rate of aseptic glenoid loosening in a series of baseplates fixed according to this principle. Methods: Between 2005 and 2008, 48 consecutive RSA (Reversed Aequalis) were implanted in 48 patients with an average age of 74.4 years (range, 56 to 86 years). There were 37 women and 11 men. Twenty-seven primary RSAs were performed for cuff tear arthropathy, 3 after failed rotator cuff surgery, 6 for failed arthroplasties, 7 for acute fractures and 5 after failed ORIF. All baseplate fixations were done using a nonlocking posterior screw in the scapular spine, a nonlocking anterior screw in the glenoid body, a locking superior screw in the coracoid and a locking inferior screw in the pillar. All patients were reviewed with standardized radiographs. We reported the positions of the screws in relation to the scapular spine and the coracoid process in two different views. We defined screw positions as totally, partially or out of the target. Finally, we reported aseptic glenoid loosening which was defined as implant subsidence. Results: Four patients were lost to follow-up. Thus 44 shoulders could be reviewed after a mean follow-up of 16 months (range, 9 to 32 months). Thirty-seven (84%) screws were either partially or totally in the spine. Thus, 7 (16%) scapular spine screws were out of the target. No coracoid screw was out of the target. At final follow-up control, we reported no glenoid loosening. Conclusion: Early glenoid loosening occurred before the two years follow-up and is most of time related to technical problems and/or insufficient glenoid bone stock and bone quality. Our study demonstrate that baseplate fixation of a RSA according to the three columns principle is a reproducible technique and a valuable way to prevent early glenoid loosening.
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Résumé Ce travail vise à clarifier les résultats contradictoires de la littérature concernant les besoins des patients d'être informés et de participer à la prise de décision. La littérature insiste sur le contenu de l'information comme base de la prise de décision, bien qu'il existe des preuves que d'autres contenus sont importants pour les patients. La thèse essaie en outre d'identifier des possibilités de mieux répondre aux préférences d'information et de participation des patients. Les travaux ont porté en particulier sur les soins palliatifs. Une analyse de la littérature donne un aperçu sur les soins palliatifs, sur l'information des patients et sur leur participation à la prise de décisions thérapeutiques. Cette analyse résume les résultats d'études précédentes et propose un: modèle théorique d'information, de prise de décision et de relation entre ces deux domaines. Dans le cadre de ce travail, deux études empiriques ont utilisé des questionnaires écrits adressés à des personnes privées et à des professionnels de la santé, couvrant la Suisse et le Royaume Uni, pour identifier d'éventuelles différences entre ces deux pays. Les enquêtes ont été focalisées sur des patients souffrant de cancer du poumon. Les instruments utilisés pour ces études proviennent de la littérature afin de les rendre comparables. Le taux de réponse aux questionnaires était de 30-40%. La majorité des participants aux enquêtes estime que les patients devraient: - collaborer à la prise de décision quant à leur traitement - recevoir autant d'information que possible, positive aussi bien que négative - recevoir toutes les informations mentionnées dans le questionnaire (concernant la maladie, le diagnostic et les traitements), tenant compte de la diversité des priorités des patients - être soutenus par des professionnels de la santé, leur famille, leurs amis et/ou les personnes souffrant de la même maladie En plus, les participants aux enquêtes ont identifié divers contenus de l'information aux patients souffrant d'une maladie grave. Ces contenus comprennent entre autres: - L'aide à la prise de décision concernant le traitement - la possibilité de maintenir le contrôle de la situation - la construction d'une relation entre le patient et le soignant - l'encouragement à faire des projets d'avenir - l'influence de l'état émotionnel - l'aide à la compréhension de la maladie et de son impact - les sources potentielles d'états confusionnels et d'états anxieux La plupart des contenus proposés sont positifs. Les résultats suggèrent la coexistence possible de différents contenus à un moment donné ainsi que leur changement au cours du temps. Un modèle est ensuite développé et commenté pour présenter le diagnostic d'une maladie grave. Ce modèle est basé sur la littérature et intègre les résultats des études empiriques réalisées dans le cadre de ce travail. Ce travail analyse également les sources préférées d'information et de soutien, facteurs qui peuvent influencer ou faire obstacle aux préférences d'information et de participation. Les deux groupes de participants considèrent les médecins spécialistes comme la meilleure source d'information. En ce qui concerne le soutien, les points de vue divergent entre les personnes privées et les professionnels de la santé: généralement, les rôles de soutien semblent peu définis parmi les professionnels. Les barrières à l'information adéquate du patient apparaissent fréquemment liées aux caractéristiques des professionnels et aux problèmes d'organisation. Des progrès dans ce domaine contribueraient à améliorer les soins fournis aux patients. Finalement, les limites des études empiriques sont discutées. Celles-ci comprennent, entre autres, la représentativité restreinte des participants et les objections de certains groupes de participants à quelques détails des questionnaires. Summary The present thesis follows a call from the current body of literature to better understand patient needs for information and for participation in decision-making, as previous research findings had been contradictory. Information so far seems to have been considered essentially as a means to making treatment decisions, despite certain evidence that it may have a number of other values to patients. Furthermore, the thesis aims to identify ways to optimise meeting patient preferences for information and participation in treatment decisions. The current field of interest is palliative care. An extensive literature review depicts the background of current concepts of palliative care, patient information and patient involvement into treatment decisions. It also draws together results from previous studies and develops a theoretical model of information, decision-making, and the relationship between them. This is followed by two empirical studies collecting data from members of the general public and health care professionals by means of postal questionnaires. The professional study covers both Switzerland and the United Kingdom in order to identify possible differences between countries. Both studies focus on newly diagnosed lung cancer patients. The instruments used were taken from the literature to make them comparable. The response rate in both surveys was 30-40%, as expected -sufficient to allow stastical tests to be performed. A third study, addressed to lung cancer patients themselves, turned out to require too much time within the frame available. A majority of both study populations thought that patients should: - have a collaborative role in treatment-related decision-making -receive as much information as possible, good or bad - receive all types of information mentioned in the questionnaire (about illness, tests, and treatment), although priorities varied across the study populations - be supported by health professionals, family members, friends and/or others with the same illness Furthermore they identified various 'meanings' information may have to patients with a serious illness. These included: - being an aid in treatment-related decision-making - allowing control to be maintained over the situation - helping the patient-professional relationship to be constructed - allowing plans to be made - being positive for the patient's emotional state - helping the illness and its impact to be understood - being a source of anxiety - being a potential source of confusion to the patient Meanings were mostly positive. It was suggested that different meanings could co-exist at a given time and that they might change over time. A model of coping with the disclosure of a serious diagnosis is then developped. This model is based on existing models of coping with threatening events, as takeñ from the literature [ref. 77, 78], and integrates findings from the empirical studies. The thesis then analyses the remaining aspects apparent from the two surveys. These range from the identification of preferred information and support providers to factors influencing or impeding information and participation preferences. Specialist doctors were identified by both study populations as the best information providers whilst with regard to support provision views differed between the general public and health professionals. A need for better definition of supportive roles among health care workers seemed apparent. Barriers to information provision often seem related to health professional characteristics or organisational difficulties, and improvements in the latter field could well help optimising patient care. Finally, limitations of the studies are discussed, including questions of representativness of certain results and difficulties with or objections against questionnaire details by some groups of respondents.
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Background: normal weight obesity (NWO) is defined as an excessive body fat associated with a normal body mass index (BMI<25 kg/m2), but its prevalence in the general population is unknown. Objective: to assess the prevalence of NWO in Switzerland according to different cut points used to define excess body fat. Design: cross-sectional study including 3,213 women and 2,912 men aged 35-75 years. Body fat was assessed by bioimpedance and prevalence of NWO was assessed using four previously published definitions for excess body fat. Results: % body fat increased with age: in men, the values (mean SD) were 20.2 5.4, 23.0 5.4, 26.3 5.2 and 28.2 4.6 for age groups [35 - 44], [45 - 54], [55 - 64] and [65 - 75] years, respectively; the corresponding values for women were 29.9 7.8, 33.1 7.4, 36.7 7.5 and 39.6 6.9. In men, prevalence of NWO was <1% irrespective of the definition used. Conversely, in women, a one to twenty fold difference (from 1.4% to 27.8%) in NWO prevalence was found. The prevalence of NWO increased with age when age-independent cut points were used in women, but not in men. Conclusions: prevalence of NWO is low in the general population and higher in women than in men. The prevalence is highly dependent on the criteria used to define excess body fat, namely in women. The use of gender- and age-specific cut points to define excess body fat is better than fixed or gender-specific only cut points.
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Does additional government spending improve the electoral chances of incumbent political parties? This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on this question. Our research design exploits discontinuities in federal funding to local governments in Brazil around several population cutoffs over the period 1982-1985. We find that extra fiscal transfers resulted in a 20% increase in local government spending per capita, and an increase of about 10 percentage points in the re-election probability of local incumbent parties. We also find positive effects of the government spending on education outcomes and earnings, which we interpret as indirect evidence of public service improvements. Together, our results provide evidence that electoral rewards encourage incumbents to spend part of additional revenues on public services valued by voters, a finding in line with agency models of electoral accountability.
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Financial markets play an important role in an economy performing various functions like mobilizing and pooling savings, producing information about investment opportunities, screening and monitoring investments, implementation of corporate governance, diversification and management of risk. These functions influence saving rates, investment decisions, technological innovation and, therefore, have important implications for welfare. In my PhD dissertation I examine the interplay of financial and product markets by looking at different channels through which financial markets may influence an economy.My dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter is a co-authored work with Martin Strieborny, a PhD student from the University of Lausanne. The second chapter is a co-authored work with Melise Jaud, a PhD student from the Paris School of Economics. The third chapter is co-authored with both Melise Jaud and Martin Strieborny. The last chapter of my PhD dissertation is a single author paper.Chapter 1 of my PhD thesis analyzes the effect of financial development on growth of contract intensive industries. These industries intensively use intermediate inputs that neither can be sold on organized exchange, nor are reference-priced (Levchenko, 2007; Nunn, 2007). A typical example of a contract intensive industry would be an industry where an upstream supplier has to make investments in order to customize a product for needs of a downstream buyer. After the investment is made and the product is adjusted, the buyer may refuse to meet a commitment and trigger ex post renegotiation. Since the product is customized to the buyer's needs, the supplier cannot sell the product to a different buyer at the original price. This is referred in the literature as the holdup problem. As a consequence, the individually rational suppliers will underinvest into relationship-specific assets, hurting the downstream firms with negative consequences for aggregate growth. The standard way to mitigate the hold up problem is to write a binding contract and to rely on the legal enforcement by the state. However, even the most effective contract enforcement might fail to protect the supplier in tough times when the buyer lacks a reliable source of external financing. This suggests the potential role of financial intermediaries, banks in particular, in mitigating the incomplete contract problem. First, financial products like letters of credit and letters of guarantee can substantially decrease a risk and transaction costs of parties. Second, a bank loan can serve as a signal about a buyer's true financial situation, an upstream firm will be more willing undertake relationship-specific investment knowing that the business partner is creditworthy and will abstain from myopic behavior (Fama, 1985; von Thadden, 1995). Therefore, a well-developed financial (especially banking) system should disproportionately benefit contract intensive industries.The empirical test confirms this hypothesis. Indeed, contract intensive industries seem to grow faster in countries with a well developed financial system. Furthermore, this effect comes from a more developed banking sector rather than from a deeper stock market. These results are reaffirmed examining the effect of US bank deregulation on the growth of contract intensive industries in different states. Beyond an overall pro-growth effect, the bank deregulation seems to disproportionately benefit the industries requiring relationship-specific investments from their suppliers.Chapter 2 of my PhD focuses on the role of the financial sector in promoting exports of developing countries. In particular, it investigates how credit constraints affect the ability of firms operating in agri-food sectors of developing countries to keep exporting to foreign markets.Trade in high-value agri-food products from developing countries has expanded enormously over the last two decades offering opportunities for development. However, trade in agri-food is governed by a growing array of standards. Sanitary and Phytosanitary standards (SPS) and technical regulations impose additional sunk, fixed and operating costs along the firms' export life. Such costs may be detrimental to firms' survival, "pricing out" producers that cannot comply. The existence of these costs suggests a potential role of credit constraints in shaping the duration of trade relationships on foreign markets. A well-developed financial system provides the funds to exporters necessary to adjust production processes in order to meet quality and quantity requirements in foreign markets and to maintain long-standing trade relationships. The products with higher needs for financing should benefit the most from a well functioning financial system. This differential effect calls for a difference-in-difference approach initially proposed by Rajan and Zingales (1998). As a proxy for demand for financing of agri-food products, the sanitary risk index developed by Jaud et al. (2009) is used. The empirical literature on standards and norms show high costs of compliance, both variable and fixed, for high-value food products (Garcia-Martinez and Poole, 2004; Maskus et al., 2005). The sanitary risk index reflects the propensity of products to fail health and safety controls on the European Union (EU) market. Given the high costs of compliance, the sanitary risk index captures the demand for external financing to comply with such regulations.The prediction is empirically tested examining the export survival of different agri-food products from firms operating in Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Senegal and Tanzania. The results suggest that agri-food products that require more financing to keep up with food safety regulation of the destination market, indeed sustain longer in foreign market, when they are exported from countries with better developed financial markets.Chapter 3 analyzes the link between financial markets and efficiency of resource allocation in an economy. Producing and exporting products inconsistent with a country's factor endowments constitutes a serious misallocation of funds, which undermines competitiveness of the economy and inhibits its long term growth. In this chapter, inefficient exporting patterns are analyzed through the lens of the agency theories from the corporate finance literature. Managers may pursue projects with negative net present values because their perquisites or even their job might depend on them. Exporting activities are particularly prone to this problem. Business related to foreign markets involves both high levels of additional spending and strong incentives for managers to overinvest. Rational managers might have incentives to push for exports that use country's scarce factors which is suboptimal from a social point of view. Export subsidies might further skew the incentives towards inefficient exporting. Management can divert the export subsidies into investments promoting inefficient exporting.Corporate finance literature stresses the disciplining role of outside debt in counteracting the internal pressures to divert such "free cash flow" into unprofitable investments. Managers can lose both their reputation and the control of "their" firm if the unpaid external debt triggers a bankruptcy procedure. The threat of possible failure to satisfy debt service payments pushes the managers toward an efficient use of available resources (Jensen, 1986; Stulz, 1990; Hart and Moore, 1995). The main sources of debt financing in the most countries are banks. The disciplining role of banks might be especially important in the countries suffering from insufficient judicial quality. Banks, in pursuing their rights, rely on comparatively simple legal interventions that can be implemented even by mediocre courts. In addition to their disciplining role, banks can promote efficient exporting patterns in a more direct way by relaxing credit constraints of producers, through screening, identifying and investing in the most profitable investment projects. Therefore, a well-developed domestic financial system, and particular banking system, would help to push a country's exports towards products congruent with its comparative advantage.This prediction is tested looking at the survival of different product categories exported to US market. Products are identified according to the Euclidian distance between their revealed factor intensity and the country's factor endowments. The results suggest that products suffering from a comparative disadvantage (labour-intensive products from capital-abundant countries) survive less on the competitive US market. This pattern is stronger if the exporting country has a well-developed banking system. Thus, a strong banking sector promotes exports consistent with a country comparative advantage.Chapter 4 of my PhD thesis further examines the role of financial markets in fostering efficient resource allocation in an economy. In particular, the allocative efficiency hypothesis is investigated in the context of equity market liberalization.Many empirical studies document a positive and significant effect of financial liberalization on growth (Levchenko et al. 2009; Quinn and Toyoda 2009; Bekaert et al., 2005). However, the decrease in the cost of capital and the associated growth in investment appears rather modest in comparison to the large GDP growth effect (Bekaert and Harvey, 2005; Henry, 2000, 2003). Therefore, financial liberalization may have a positive impact on growth through its effect on the allocation of funds across firms and sectors.Free access to international capital markets allows the largest and most profitable domestic firms to borrow funds in foreign markets (Rajan and Zingales, 2003). As domestic banks loose some of their best clients, they reoptimize their lending practices seeking new clients among small and younger industrial firms. These firms are likely to be more risky than large and established companies. Screening of customers becomes prevalent as the return to screening rises. Banks, ceteris paribus, tend to focus on firms operating in comparative-advantage sectors because they are better risks. Firms in comparative-disadvantage sectors finding it harder to finance their entry into or survival in export markets either exit or refrain from entering export markets. On aggregate, one should therefore expect to see less entry, more exit, and shorter survival on export markets in those sectors after financial liberalization.The paper investigates the effect of financial liberalization on a country's export pattern by comparing the dynamics of entry and exit of different products in a country export portfolio before and after financial liberalization.The results suggest that products that lie far from the country's comparative advantage set tend to disappear relatively faster from the country's export portfolio following the liberalization of financial markets. In other words, financial liberalization tends to rebalance the composition of a country's export portfolio towards the products that intensively use the economy's abundant factors.
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OBJECTIVE: To identify predictors of improved asthma control under conditions of everyday practice in Switzerland. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A subgroup of 1380 patients with initially inadequately controlled asthma was defined from a cohort of 1893 asthmatic patients (mean age 45.3 + or - 19.2 years) recruited by 281 office-based physicians who participated in a previously-conducted asthma control survey in Switzerland. Multiple regression techniques were used to identify predictors of improved asthma control, defined as an absolute decrease of 0.5 points or more in the Asthma Control Questionnaire between the baseline (V1) and follow-up visit (V2). RESULTS: Asthma control between V1 and V2 improved in 85.7%. Add-on treatment with montelukast was reported in 82.9% of the patients. Patients with worse asthma control at V1 and patients with good self-reported adherence to therapy had significantly higher chances of improved asthma control (OR = 1.24 and 1.73, 95% CI 1.18-1.29 and 1.20-2.50, respectively). Compared to adding montelukast and continuing the same inhaled corticosteroid/fixed combination (ICS/FC) dose, the addition of montelukast to an increased ICS/FC dose yielded a 4 times higher chance of improved asthma control (OR = 3.84, 95% CI 1.58-9.29). Significantly, withholding montelukast halved the probability of achieving improved asthma control (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.33-078). The probability of improved asthma control was almost 5 times lower among patients in whom FEV(1) was measured compared to those in whom it was not (OR = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.09-0.55). Patients with severe persistent asthma also had a significantly lower probability of improved control (OR = 0.15, 95% CI = 0.07-0.32), as did older patients (OR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.97-0.99). Subgroup analyses which excluded patients whose asthma may have been misdiagnosed and might in reality have been chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) showed comparable results. CONCLUSIONS: Under conditions of everyday clinical practice, the addition of montelukast to ICS/FC and good adherence to therapy increased the likelihood of achieving better asthma control at the follow-up visit, while older age and more severe asthma significantly decreased it.
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Peroxisome proliferators regulate the transcription of genes by activating ligand-dependent transcription factors, which, due to their structure and function, can be assigned to the superfamily of nuclear hormone receptors. Three such peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR alpha, beta, and gamma) have been cloned in Xenopus laevis. Their mRNAs are expressed differentially; xPPAR alpha and beta but not xPPAR gamma are expressed in oocytes and embryos. In the adult, expression of xPPAR alpha and beta appears to be ubiquitous, and xPPAR gamma is mainly observed in adipose tissue and kidney. Immunocytochemical analysis revealed that PPARs are nuclear proteins, and that their cytoplasmic-nuclear translocation is independent of exogenous activators. A target gene of PPARs is the gene encoding acyl-CoA oxidase (ACO), which catalyzes the rate-limiting step in the peroxisomal beta-oxidation of fatty acids. A peroxisome proliferator response element (PPRE), to which PPARs bind, has been identified within the promoter of the ACO gene. Besides the known xenobiotic activators of PPARs, such as hypolipidemic drugs, natural activators have been identified. Polyunsaturated fatty acids at physiological concentrations are efficient activators of PPARs, and 5,8,11,14-eicosatetraynoic acid (ETYA), which is the alkyne homolog of arachidonic acid, is the most potent activator of xPPAR alpha described to date. Taken together, our data suggest that PPARs have an important role in lipid metabolism.
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The role of interferon-gamma in autoimmune diabetes was assessed by breeding a null mutation of the interferon-gamma receptor alpha chain into the nonobese diabetic mouse strain, as well as into a simplified T cell receptor transgenic model of diabetes. In contrast to a previous report on abrogation of the interferon-gamma gene, mutation of the gene encoding its receptor led to drastic effects on disease in both mouse lines. Nonobese diabetic mice showed a marked inhibition of insulitis-both the kinetics and penetrance-and no signs of diabetes; the transgenic model exhibited near-normal insulitis, but this never evolved into diabetes, either spontaneously or after experimental provocation. This failure could not be explained by perturbations in the ratio of T helper cell phenotypes; rather, it reflected a defect in antigen-presenting cells or in the islet beta cell targets.
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OBJECTIVEEvaluating how professionals of family health teams from three municipalities of Pernambuco perceive and interpret the effects of Hansen's disease training.METHODSA qualitative study using the perspective of Habermas. Six focus groups, totaling 33 nurses and 22 doctors were formed. The guide consisted of: reactions to training, learning, transfer of knowledge and organizational results.RESULTSThere were recurrent positive opinions on instructor performance, course materials, and an alert attitude to the occurrence of cases; the negative points were about lack of practical teaching, a lot of information in a short period of time and little emphasis on basic content. Low perceived self-efficacy and low locus of control, ambiguity, conflict of skills and the lack of support for the learning application. Nurses showed greater dissatisfaction with the organizational support.CONCLUSIONThe low effectiveness of training reveals the need to negotiate structured training from work problematization, considering performance conditions.
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We present a comparative analysis of satellite derived climatologies in the Cape Verde region (CV). In order to establish chlorophyll a variability, in relation to other oceanographic phenomena, a set of, relatively long (from five to eight years), time series of chlorophyll a, sea surface temperature, wind and geostrophic currents, were ensembled for the Eastern Central Atlantic (ECA). We studied seasonal and inter-annual variability of phytoplankton concentration, in relation to the rest of the variables, with a special focus in CV. We compared the situation within the archipelago with those of the surrounding marine environments, such as the North West African Upwelling (NWAU), North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre (NASTG), North Equatorial Counter Current (NECC) and Guinea Dome (GD). At the seasonal scale, CV region behaves partly as the surrounding areas, nevertheless, some autochthonous features were also found. The maximum peak of the pigment having a positive correlation with temperature is found at the end of the year for all the points in the archipelago; a less remarkable rise with negative correlation is also detected in February for points CV2 and CV4. This is behavior that none of the surrounding environments have shown. This enrichment was found to be preceded by a drastic drop in wind intensity (SW Monsoon) during summer months. The inter-annual analysis shows a tendency for decreasing of the chlorophyll a concentration.
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We present a comparative analysis of satellite derived climatologies in the Cape Verde region (CV). In order to establish chlorophyll a variability, in relation to other oceanographic phenomena, a set of, relatively long (from five to eight years), time series of chlorophyll a, sea surface temperature, wind and geostrophic currents, were ensembled for the Eastern Central Atlantic (ECA). We studied seasonal and inter-annual variability of phytoplankton concentration, in relation to the rest of the variables, with a special focus in CV. We compared the situation within the archipelago with those of the surrounding marine environments, such as the North West African Upwelling (NWAU), North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre (NASTG), North Equatorial Counter Current (NECC) and Guinea Dome (GD). At the seasonal scale, CV region behaves partly as the surrounding areas, nevertheless, some autochthonous features were also found. The maximum peak of the pigment having a positive correlation with temperature is found at the end of the year for all the points in the archipelago; a less remarkable rise with negative correlation is also detected in February for points CV2 and CV4. This is behavior that none of the surrounding environments have shown. This enrichment was found to be preceded by a drastic drop in wind intensity (SW Monsoon) during summer months. The inter-annual analysis shows a tendency for decreasing of the chlorophyll a concentration.
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