ESTGV - DMAT - Artigo em revista científica, não indexada ao WoS/Scopus
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- Derivation and validation of the SLE Disease Activity Score (SLE-DAS): a new SLE continuous measure with high sensitivity for changes in disease activityPublication . Jesus, Diogo; Cristina Bico Rodrigues de Matos, Ana; Henriques, C.; Zen, Margherita; Larosa, Maddalena; Iaccarino, Luca; Da Silva, José António Pereira; Doria, Andrea; Inês, Luís SousaObjectives To derive and validate a new disease activity measure for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), the SLE Disease Activity Score (SLE-DAS), with improved sensitivity to change as compared with SLE Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI), while maintaining high specificity and easiness of use. Methods We studied 520 patients with SLE from two tertiary care centres (derivation and validation cohorts). At each visit, disease activity was scored using the Physician Global Assessment (PGA) and SLEDAI 2000 (SLEDAI-2K). To construct the SLE-DAS, we applied multivariate linear regression analysis in the derivation cohort, with PGA as dependent variable. The formula was validated in a different cohort through the study of: (1) correlations between SLE-DAS, PGA and SLEDAI-2K; (2) performance of SLEDAI-2K and SLE-DAS in identifying a clinically meaningful change in disease activity (ΔPGA≥0.3); and (3) accuracy of SLEDAI-2K and SLE-DAS time-adjusted means in predicting damage accrual. Results The final SLE-DAS instrument included 17 items. SLE-DAS was highly correlated with PGA (r=0.875, p<0.0005) and SLEDAI-2K (r=0.943, p<0.0005) in the validation cohort. The optimal discriminative ΔSLE-DAS cut-off to detect a clinically meaningful change was 1.72. In the validation cohort, SLE-DAS showed a higher sensitivity than SLEDAI-2K (change ≥4) to detect a clinically meaningful improvement (89.5% vs 47.4%, p=0.008) or worsening (95.5% vs 59.1%, p=0.008), while maintaining similar specificities. SLE-DAS performed better in predicting damage accrual than SLEDAI-2K. Conclusion SLE-DAS has a good construct validity and has better performance than SLEDAI-2K in identifying clinically significant changes in disease activity and in predicting damage accrual.
- Relationship Between HbA1c And Capillary Blood Glucose Self-Monitoring In Type 2 DiabeticsPublication . Machado, Sara; Marques, Rui; Nascimento, Edite; Matos, Ana; Henriques, CarlaDiabetes Control and Complications Trial has established the importance of glycemic control in reducing the progression of retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy in type 1 diabetics. There is little literature linking the frequency of glycemic monitoring with glycated hemoglobin A (HbA1c) in type 2 diabetics. The objectives were to assess the influence of glycemic self-monitoring on HbA1c in three groups of patients with type 2 diabetes (with insulin, with oral antidiabetics and with combination therapy).
- Morbidity and mortality in preterm infants less than 29 weeks of gestational agePublication . Marques, B.R.; Dinis, A.C.; Rocha, G.; Flôr-de-Lima, F.; Matos, Ana; Henriques, C.; Guimarães, H.Background: Preterm birth is certainly a public health problem. Aside from being an important cause of mortality, prematurity increases the risk of serious lifetime disabilities. Objective: To assess the overall survival, causes of death and neonatal morbidities associated with prematurity of newborns less than 29 weeks of gestational age (GA). Methods: Retrospective study including all preterm infants less than 29 weeks of GA admitted to the level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Centro Hospital São João in Porto, Portugal, between January 1st, 2005 and December 31st, 2016. Newborns were grouped into three groups according to their GA: G23+0-24+6, G25+0-26+6, G27+0-28+6. Results: In this 12-year-period, 160 preterm neonates less than 29 weeks of GA admitted to this NICU met our inclusion criteria. Overall deaths were 60 (37.5%), variating between 25 (92.6%) in the G23+0-24+6, 23 (46%) in the G25+0-26+6 and 12 (14.5%) in the G27+0-28+6. The leading causes of death were intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) and sepsis. Early neonatal mortality was 20.6%. Among survivors, 41% had bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), 69% developed late sepsis, 56% retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), 44% IVH and 10% cystic periventricular leukomalacia (cPVL). Conclusions: Mortality rates in this preterm group were high in spite of all the technological and scientific advances. Pulmonary conditions (respiratory distress syndrome and BPD), sepsis and neurologic outcomes (ROP, IVH and cPVL) were still major causes of morbidity. In line with other series, the limit of viability in this cohort of preterm infants is 25 weeks of GA. Prenatal, perinatal and postnatal care still all have a long road ahead, especially when it comes to these “gray zone” newborns.
- A selection process as a gamePublication . Ferreira, Manuel Alberto M.; Matos, Maria Cristina Peixoto deThe aim of this paper is to exemplify how to solve the problem of selecting a candidate up to his/her acceptance trough game theory. The originality this paper proposes is how this problem will be approached: it will be treated as a single game which is made up of two parts, going as far as to state that the payoffs in the first part of the game will be the mediators of the second part of the game.
- Do consumers judge a book by its cover? A study of the factors that influence the purchasing of booksPublication . Leitão, Luís; Amaro, Suzanne; Henriques, Carla; Fonseca, PaulaResearch addressing the critical success factor of books and how people choose them is scarce. This study examines the factors that influence consumers when purchasing fictional books and explores whether there are differences between purchasing books for personal use or as gifts. Furthermore, it also studies mpulsiveness regarding the purchase. A quantitative empirical analysis was conducted based on 487 valid responses obtained through an online questionnaire. The results of this study show that approximately one third of books are purchased as gifts, women buy and read more books than men and higher educated and older consumers tend to read and buy more books. The purchase is less impulsive when the book is a gift and women are more impulsive, when buying for themselves. In the decision-making process, the features most valued in a book are: the "Title”, "Synopsis”, “Subject covered in book”, “Recommendation of family and friends” and “Books with discount/on sale”. Twenty-four items were considered based on these features and the same factor structure was found for both buying books for personal use and as gifts. Consumers tend to value more the “Recommendation of family and friends” when buying a book for themselves rather than as a gift. However, “Author and book recognition” is more important to the consumer when the book is purchased as a gift. The findings of this study provide important insights regarding consumer preferences, which will be useful for marketers to define strategies. Moreover, by comparing the factors that influence people to buy books for themselves as opposed to buying them as gifts, bookstores can strive to satisfy consumer demands, by conceiving and implementing new ideas in order to increase their book sales.
- Critérios de diagnóstico da Síndrome de Brugada. Podemos melhorar?Publication . Santos, Luís Ferreira; Pereira, Telmo; Rodrigues, Bruno; Correia, Emanuel; Moreira, Davide; Nunes, Luís; Costa, António; Elvas, Luís; Machado, José Carlos; Castedo, Sérgio; Henriques, Carla; Matos, Ana; Santos, OliveiraDiagnosis of Brugada syndrome (BS) currently requires documentation of a characteristic repolarization pattern (type 1 Brugada ECG). Mutations in the SCN5A gene, which codes for sodium channel Na(v) 1.5, are found in 38% of familial cases of BS. Sodium current dysfunction negatively affects the cardiac fast response action potential, particularly in atrial and ventricular myocytes and in the fast-conducting Purkinje system.
- On semiclassical orthogonal polynomials via polynomial mappingsPublication . Castilho, K.; Jesus, M.N.; Petronilho, J.Orthogonal polynomials via polynomial mappings in the framework of the semiclassical class are considered. It is proved that this class is stable under polynomial transformations. Several consequences of this fact are deduced. As an application cubic transformations for semiclassical orthogonal polynomials of class at most 2 are analyzed, recovering and extending some results proved recently for class 1, and producing new examples of semiclassical orthogonal polynomials of classes 1 and 2.
- The generating function of the generalized Fibonacci sequencePublication . Gonçalves, Armando; Jesus, M. N. deUsing tools of the theory of orthogonal polynomials we obtain the generating function of the generalized Fibonacci sequence established by Petronilho for a sequence of real or complex numbers {Qn} defined by Q0 = 0, Q1 = 1, Qm = ajQm−1 + bjQm−2, m ≡ j (mod k), where k ≥ 3 is a fixed integer, and a0, a1, . . . , ak−1, b0, b1, . . . , bk−1 are 2k given real or complex numbers, with bj #0 for 0 ≤ j ≤ k−1. For this sequence some convergence proprieties are obtained.
- Totality of product completionsPublication . Adámek, Jirí; Sousa, Lurdes; Tholen, WalterCategories whose Yoneda embedding has a left adjoint are kmown as total categories and are characterized by a strong cocompleteness property. We introduce the notion of multitotal category A by asking the Yoneda embedding A --> [A^{op}, Set] to be right multiadjoint and prove that this property is equivalent to totality of the formal ptoduct completiom of A. We also characterize multitotal categories with various types of generators; in particular, the existence of dense generators is inherited by the formal product completion iff measurable cardinals cannot be arbitrarily large.
- On the pullback stability of a quotient map with respect to a closure operatorPublication . Sousa, LurdesThere are well-known characterizations of hereditary quotient maps in the category of topological spaces, (that is, of quotient maps stable under pullback along embeddings), as well as of universal quotient maps (that is, of quotient maps stable under pullback). These are precisely the so-called pseudo-open maps, as shown by Arhangel'slii, and the bi-quotient maps of Michael, as shown by Day and Kelly, respectively. In this paper hereditary and stable quotient maps are characterized in the broader context given by a category eqquipped with a closure operator. To this end, we derive explicit formulae and conditions for the closure in the codomain of such a quotient map in terms of the closure in its domain.