Materials handling in hospitals: An analysis of how the storage and materials handling system can be improved, using the example of Hospital Santa Maria

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

Humor impresso: cultura e política em O Espreitador do Mundo Novo

The aim of this paper is to identify, analyse and question the expressions of humour in O Espreitador do Mundo Novo, a monthly periodical published by José Daniel Rodrigues da Costa throughout 1802. It is a chapter of a PhD thesis in History and Theory of Ideas with the title “Correcting by laughter. Humour in Portuguese periodical press 1797-1834”. Positing humour as a social and cultural phenomenon, it is regarded here in a broad sense, comprehending wit, joke, ridicule, satire, jest, mockery, facetiousness or irony, displayed with recourse to various figures of speech. This interdisciplinary work intends listing and researching the themes and issues of the periodical and its targets, namely the social, age or gender stereotypes and to acknowledge its political stances. Another main purpose of this paper is to assess the role of humour as expressed in the printed periodical as a political and social weapon, criticizing ways (and which ways) and/or fashions, often ridiculing novelty just for being new in order to maintain the statu quo, and to establish in which senses humour was used in the context of late Ancien Régime and early liberalism culture. The humour of O Espreitador has also played a part in framing a public sphere in early nineteenth-century Portugal, as can be seen by the different “stages” and backgrounds where the monthly installments of the periodical take place: squares, coffee houses, fairgrounds, private houses, jailhouses, churches, public promenades, pilgrimages, bullfights, parties, the opera house – each of them a space of sociability and socialization. In this one, as in other periodicals of the time, printed humour stands at the crossroads of politics and culture, in spaces boldly widening before the reader. Albeit, there are quite a few loud silences in O Espreitador: not even the slightest remark to the church, the clergy or the Inquisition, only reverential references to the established order and the powers that be. The periodical criticizes the criticizers; it is against those who are against. The repeated disclaimers are intended not only to protect the author from libel suits or other litigation. They belong to a centuries-old tradition which, as early as the Middle Ages, has set apart escárnio (scorn) from maldizer (slander): José Daniel Rodrigues da Costa distinguishes satire from rebuking vice – a “cheerful criticism” forerunner of the ironic humour which was to become a trademark of Portuguese literature in the second half of the nineteenth century. Targeting those who deviate from the social norm (for example social climbers and older women who marry young men) or the followers of fashion (sometimes specifically “French fashion”), O Espreitador charges at liberal and progressive ideas. It ridicules the ways of the “New World” in order to perpetuate an idealized version of the “Old World”. Notwithstanding two exceptions – it condemns racism and bullfighting –, the humour of O Espreitador is conservative and conformist from a social and political standpoint.

Diffuse panbronchiolitis: an underdiagnosed disease? Study of 4 cases in Brazil

BACKGROUND: Diffuse panbronchiolitis is a clinical pathologic condition characterized by chronic inflammation of respiratory bronchioles, with clinical features that position it as a differential diagnosis among the sinopulmonary syndromes. METHODS AND RESULTS: We present 4 cases (1 Black, 2 Japanese descendants, and 1 Japanese), living in Brazil, in which the diagnosis was made by the clinical and radiological features and confirmed by transbronchial biopsy. The clinical findings included chronic sinusitis, productive cough, rhonchi, and wheezes. The pulmonary function tests showed an obstructive pattern. High resolution computerized tomography showed a diffuse nodular pattern, airway ectasia, and airway wall thickening. The biopsy showed interstitial accumulation of foam cells and lymphoid cells in the walls of respiratory bronchioles: 2 of our cases had bronchus-associated lymphoid tissue hyperplasia. We searched for the HLA Bw54 in all of our patients, but only 1 was positive. A low dose macrolide treatment was introduced, resulting in with clinical and functional improvement. A score that rated the extent of nodules, airway ectasia, mucus plugging, and airway wall thickening was applied on pre- and post-treatment High resolution computerized tomography results, revealing an improvement in tomographic pattern related to that observed in the pulmonary function tests. CONCLUSION: We conclude that diffuse panbronchiolitis is a systemic disease that is not exclusive to the Asian population, whose clinical and radiological features should be better known by occidental pulmonary physicians.

Deflation and monetary policy: A look into Japan and the Euro Area

With more than two decades of weak economic performance since the bubble burst in the ‘90s, the Japanese deflationary scenario has become the economic fate every developed economy fears to become. As the euro area continues to experience sustained low inflation, studying the Japanese monetary policy may shed light on how to prevent persistent deflation. Using an SVAR methodology to understand the monetary transmission mechanism, we find some evidence that the euro area may possess characteristics that would eventually lead to a deflationary scenario. The extent of whether it would suffer the same Japanese fate would depend on how macroeconomic policies are timely coordinated as a response to its liquidity problem and increasing public debt across member states.

An equity wealth preservation strategy: Following the macro trend

Financial crisis have happened in the past and will continue to do so in the future. In the most recent 2008 crisis, global equities (as measured by the MSCI ACWI index) lost a staggering 54.2% in USD, on the year. During those periods wealth preservation becomes at the top of most investor’s concerns. The purpose of this paper is to develop a strategy that protects the investment during bear markets and significant market corrections, generates capital appreciation, and that can support Millennium BCP’s Wealth Management Unit on their asset allocation procedures. This strategy extends the Dual Momentum approach introduced by Gary Antonacci (2014) in two ways. First, the investable set of securities in the equities space increases from two to four. Besides the US it will comprise the Japanese, European (excl. UK) and EM equity indices. Secondly, it adds a volatility filter as well as three indicators related to the business cycle and the state of the economy, which are relevant to decide on the strategy’s exposure to equities. Overall the results attest the resiliency of the strategy before, during and after historical financial crashes, as it drastically reduces the downside exposure and consistently outperforms the benchmark index by providing higher mean returns with lower variance.

Simulation of humidity fields in concrete: experimental validation and parameter estimation

The moisture content in concrete structures has an important influence in their behavior and performance. Several vali-dated numerical approaches adopt the governing equation for relative humidity fields proposed in Model Code 1990/2010. Nevertheless there is no integrative study which addresses the choice of parameters for the simulation of the humidity diffusion phenomenon, particularly in concern to the range of parameters forwarded by Model Code 1990/2010. A software based on a Finite Difference Method Algorithm (1D and axisymmetric cases) is used to perform sensitivity analyses on the main parameters in a normal strength concrete. Then, based on the conclusions of the sensi-tivity analyses, experimental results from nine different concrete compositions are analyzed. The software is used to identify the main material parameters that better fit the experimental data. In general, the model was able to satisfactory fit the experimental results and new correlations were proposed, particularly focusing on the boundary transfer coeffi-cient.

RoboCup Soccer Leagues

RoboCup was created in 1996 by a group of Japanese, American, and European Artificial Intelligence and Robotics researchers with a formidable, visionary long-term challenge: “By 2050 a team of robot soccer players will beat the human World Cup champion team.” At that time, in the mid 90s, when there were very few effective mobile robots and the Honda P2 humanoid robot was presented to a stunning public for the first time also in 1996, the RoboCup challenge, set as an adversarial game between teams of autonomous robots, was fascinating and exciting. RoboCup enthusiastically and concretely introduced three robot soccer leagues, namely “Simulation,” “Small-Size,” and “Middle-Size,” as we explain below, and organized its first competitions at IJCAI’97 in Nagoya with a surprising number of 100 participants [RC97]. It was the beginning of what became a continously growing research community. RoboCup established itself as a structured organization (the RoboCup Federation www.RoboCup.org). RoboCup fosters annual competition events, where the scientific challenges faced by the researchers are addressed in a setting that is attractive also to the general public. and the RoboCup events are the ones most popular and attended in the research fields of AI and Robotics.RoboCup further includes a technical symposium with contributions relevant to the RoboCup competitions and beyond to the general AI and robotics.

Rényi entropy and the thermodynamic stability of black holes

Thermodynamic stability of black holes, described by the Rényi formula as equilibrium compatible entropy function, is investigated. It is shown that within this approach, asymptotically flat, Schwarzschild black holes can be in stable equilibrium with thermal radiation at a fixed temperature. This implies that the canonical ensemble exists just like in anti-de Sitter space, and nonextensive effects can stabilize the black holes in a very similar way as it is done by the gravitational potential of an anti-de Sitter space. Furthermore, it is also shown that a Hawking–Page-like black hole phase transition occurs at a critical temperature which depends on the q-parameter of the Rényi formula.

Melhoria de desempenho da área de pintura numa empresa de mobiliário

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial

Female hippocampus vulnerability to environmental stress, a precipitating factor in tau aggregation pathology

Tau-mediated neurodegeneration is a central event in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other tauopathies. Consistent with suggestions that lifetime stress may be a clinically-relevant precipitant of AD pathology, we previously showed that stress triggers tau hyperphosphorylation and accumulation; however, little is known about the etiopathogenic interaction of chronic stress with other AD risk factors, such as sex and aging. This study focused on how these various factors converge on the cellular mechanisms underlying tau aggregation in the hippocampus of chronically stressed male and female (middle-aged and old) mice expressing the most commonly found disease-associated Tau mutation in humans, P301L-Tau. We report that environmental stress triggers memory impairments in female, but not male, P301L-Tau transgenic mice. Furthermore, stress elevates levels of caspase-3-truncated tau and insoluble tau aggregates exclusively in the female hippocampus while it also alters the expression of the molecular chaperones Hsp90, Hsp70, and Hsp105, thus favoring accumulation of tau aggregates. Our findings provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms through which clinically-relevant precipitating factors contribute to the pathophysiology of AD. Our data point to the exquisite sensitivity of the female hippocampus to stress-triggered tau pathology.

Associação do eletrocardiograma com diabete melito e síndrome metabólica em nipo-brasileiros

FUNDAMENTO: Ao migrarem para as Américas, os japoneses submeteram-se a processo de ocidentalização, com estilo de vida, especialmente dieta, muito diferente, podendo explicar o aumento de diabete melito (DM), síndrome metabólica (SM) e doenças cardiovasculares. OBJETIVO: Analisar a presença de necrose miocárdica e hipertrofia ventricular esquerda (HVE) pelo ECG e sua relação com DM e SM em população de nipo-brasileiros. MÉTODOS: Estudo transversal que avaliou 1.042 nipo-brasileiros acima de 30 anos, 202 nascidos no Japão (isseis) e 840 nascidos no Brasil (nisseis), provenientes da segunda fase do estudo Japanese-Brazilian Diabetes Study Group iniciado em 2000. A SM foi definida pelos critérios da NCEP-ATP III modificados para os japoneses. A presença de DM e SM se associou ao encontro de necrose miocárdica pelo critério de Minnesota e de HVE pelo critério de Perugia no ECG. Utilizou-se o método estatístico do qui-quadrado para rejeição da hipótese de nulidade. RESULTADOS: Dos 1.042 participantes 35,3% tinham DM (38,6% entre os isseis e 34,5% nos nisseis); 51,8% tinham SM (59,4% nos isseis e 50,0% nos nisseis). A presença de zona inativa nos isseis diabéticos não foi estatisticamente significante quando comparada com os não-diabéticos, porém entre os nisseis diabéticos a zona inativa estava presente em 7,5%. Houve correlação estatisticamente significante entre a SM e HVE nos isseis e nisseis. CONCLUSÃO: Distúrbios metabólicos tiveram alta prevalência em nipo-brasileiros com correlações significantes com necrose e hipertrofia pelo ECG.

Comparative review of Fascicularis-group species of macaques (Primates: Macaca) / Jack Fooden.

n.s. no.107(2006)

Research work in Tokyo Institute of Technology

Research carried out in Tokyo Institute of Technology. The objective is to determine the influence of Interfacial Transition Zone (ITZ) around Lightweight aggregate in concrete on Chloride ion diffusivity. The ITZ of conventional concretes is the weakest point of concrete. The accumulating water on ITZ zone forms the most permeable area inside the concrete. Hence ITZ paves the way for chloride ion diffusion. The quality of ITZ depends on type and quality of aggregates used, water-cement ratio and also the method used for the production of concrete. It has been used two types of lightweight aggregates will be used, Chinese and Japanese, with different absorption capacities. The idea is to produce concrete with same effective water - cement ratio, using the same aggregates in two different conditions, dry and saturated, and compare the chloride ion diffusivity in these concretes (by diffusion test). A comparison of ITZ thickness of these concretes by SEM and EDAX-maps is also proposed. The chloride ion diffusion of concretes produced with the same effective water – cement ratio and same aggregates (dry and ssd) will depend, mainly, on ITZ.

Cognition and psychopathology in nonagenarians and centenarians living in geriatric nursing homes in Switzerland: a focus on anosognosia.

BACKGROUND: The number of nonagenarians and centenarians is rising dramatically, and many of them live in nursing homes. Very little is known about psychiatric symptoms and cognitive abilities other than memory in this population. This exploratory study focuses on anosognosia and its relationship with common psychiatric and cognitive symptoms. METHODS: Fifty-eight subjects aged 90 years or older were recruited from geriatric nursing homes and divided into five groups according to Mini-Mental State Examination scores. Assessment included the five-word test, executive clock-drawing task, lexical and categorical fluencies, Anosognosia Questionnaire-Dementia, Neuropsychiatric Inventory, and Charlson Comorbidity Index. RESULTS: Subjects had moderate cognitive impairment, with mean ± SD Mini-Mental State Examination being 15.41 ± 7.04. Anosognosia increased with cognitive impairment and was associated with all cognitive domains, as well as with apathy and agitation. Subjects with mild global cognitive decline seemed less anosognosic than subjects with the least or no impairment. Neither anosognosia nor psychopathological features were related to physical conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Anosognosia in oldest-old nursing home residents was mostly mild. It was associated with both cognitive and psychopathological changes, but whether anosognosia is causal to the observed psychopathological features requires further investigation.

Multinational Firms’ Heterogeneity in Tax Responsiveness: the Role of Transfer Pricing

In this paper we show that the ability of multinational firms to manipulate transfer prices affects the tax sensitivity of foreign direct investment (FDI). We offer a model of international capital allocation where firms are heterogeneous in their ability to manipulate transfer prices. Perhaps paradoxically, we show that the ability to shift profits can make parent companies' investment more sensitive to host-country tax rates, as long as investors expect fisscal authorities to use price and profit detection methods. We then offer a comprehensive empirical study to test our predictions in the case of Japanese FDI. We exploit the finding that the unobservable ability to manipulate transfer prices is correlated with whole ownership of a±liates and R&D expenditure. Based on country, parent firm and sector characteristics, we estimate an investment equation on a sample of 3614 Japanese affiliates in 49 emerging countries. We obtain a greater semi-elasticity of investment to the statutory tax rate in a±liates that are wholly-owned and that have R&D intensive parents. We interpret these results as indirect evidence that abusive transfer pricing is one of the determinants of FDI activity.