| 1. |
- Marto, João Pedro, et al.
(author)
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Safety and Outcome of Revascularization Treatment in Patients With Acute Ischemic Stroke and COVID-19: The Global COVID-19 Stroke Registry.
- 2023
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In: Neurology. - 1526-632X. ; 100:7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- COVID-19-related inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, and coagulopathy may increase the bleeding risk and lower the efficacy of revascularization treatments in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS). We aimed to evaluate the safety and outcomes of revascularization treatments in patients with AIS and COVID-19.This was a retrospective multicenter cohort study of consecutive patients with AIS receiving intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) and/or endovascular treatment (EVT) between March 2020 and June 2021 tested for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. With a doubly robust model combining propensity score weighting and multivariate regression, we studied the association of COVID-19 with intracranial bleeding complications and clinical outcomes. Subgroup analyses were performed according to treatment groups (IVT-only and EVT).Of a total of 15,128 included patients from 105 centers, 853 (5.6%) were diagnosed with COVID-19; of those, 5,848 (38.7%) patients received IVT-only and 9,280 (61.3%) EVT (with or without IVT). Patients with COVID-19 had a higher rate of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (SICH) (adjusted OR 1.53; 95% CI 1.16-2.01), symptomatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (SSAH) (OR 1.80; 95% CI 1.20-2.69), SICH and/or SSAH combined (OR 1.56; 95% CI 1.23-1.99), 24-hour mortality (OR 2.47; 95% CI 1.58-3.86), and 3-month mortality (OR 1.88; 95% CI 1.52-2.33). Patients with COVID-19 also had an unfavorable shift in the distribution of the modified Rankin score at 3 months (OR 1.42; 95% CI 1.26-1.60).Patients with AIS and COVID-19 showed higher rates of intracranial bleeding complications and worse clinical outcomes after revascularization treatments than contemporaneous non-COVID-19 patients receiving treatment. Current available data do not allow direct conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of revascularization treatments in patients with COVID-19 or to establish different treatment recommendations in this subgroup of patients with ischemic stroke. Our findings can be taken into consideration for treatment decisions, patient monitoring, and establishing prognosis.The study was registered under ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04895462.
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| 2. |
- Neves, Ana Luisa, et al.
(author)
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Determinants of the Use of Health and Fitness Mobile Apps by Patients With Asthma : Secondary Analysis of Observational Studies
- 2021
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In: Journal of Medical Internet Research. - : JMIR Publications. - 1438-8871. ; 23:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Health and fitness apps have potential benefits to improve self-management and disease control among patients with asthma. However, inconsistent use rates have been reported across studies, regions, and health systems. A better understanding of the characteristics of users and nonusers is critical to design solutions that are effectively integrated in patients' daily lives, and to ensure that these equitably reach out to different groups of patients, thus improving rather than entrenching health inequities. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the use of general health and fitness apps by patients with asthma and to identify determinants of usage. Methods: A secondary analysis of the INSPIRERS observational studies was conducted using data from face-to-face visits. Patients with a diagnosis of asthma were included between November 2017 and August 2020. Individual-level data were collected, including age, gender, marital status, educational level, health status, presence of anxiety and depression, postcode, socioeconomic level, digital literacy, use of health services, and use of health and fitness apps. Multivariate logistic regression was used to model the probability of being a health and fitness app user. Statistical analysis was performed in R. Results: A total of 526 patients attended a face-to-face visit in the 49 recruiting centers and 514 had complete data. Most participants were <= 40 years old (66.4%), had at least 10 years of education (57.4%), and were in the 3 higher quintiles of the socioeconomic deprivation index (70.1%). The majority reported an overall good health status (visual analogue scale [VAS] score>70 in 93.1%) and the prevalence of anxiety and depression was 34.3% and 11.9%, respectively. The proportion of participants who reported using health and fitness mobile apps was 41.1% (n=211). Multivariate models revealed that single individuals and those with more than 10 years of education are more likely to use health and fitness mobile apps (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.22, 95%CI 1.05-4.75 and aOR 1.95, 95%CI 1.12-3.45, respectively). Higher digital literacy scores were also associated with higher odds of being a user of health and fitness apps, with participants in the second, third, and fourth quartiles reporting aORs of 6.74 (95%CI 2.90-17.40), 10.30 (95%CI 4.28-27.56), and 11.52 (95%CI 4.78-30.87), respectively. Participants with depression symptoms had lower odds of using health and fitness apps (aOR 0.32, 95%CI 0.12-0.83). Conclusions: A better understanding of the barriers and enhancers of app use among patients with lower education, lower digital literacy, or depressive symptoms is key to design tailored interventions to ensure a sustained and equitable use of these technologies. Future studies should also assess users' general health-seeking behavior and their interest and concerns specifically about digital tools. These factors may impact both initial engagement and sustained use.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Albuquerque, João, et al.
(author)
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Generation and validation of a classification model to diagnose familial hypercholesterolaemia in adults.
- 2023
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In: Atherosclerosis. - 1879-1484. ; 383
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The early diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolaemia is associated with a significant reduction in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. While the recent use of statistical and machine learning algorithms has shown promising results in comparison with traditional clinical criteria, when applied to screening of potential FH cases in large cohorts, most studies in this field are developed using a single cohort of patients, which may hamper the application of such algorithms to other populations. In the current study, a logistic regression (LR) based algorithm was developed combining observations from three different national FH cohorts, from Portugal, Brazil and Sweden. Independent samples from these cohorts were then used to test the model, as well as an external dataset from Italy.The area under the receiver operating characteristics (AUROC) and precision-recall (AUPRC) curves was used to assess the discriminatory ability among the different samples. Comparisons between the LR model and Dutch Lipid Clinic Network (DLCN) clinical criteria were performed by means of McNemar tests, and by the calculation of several operating characteristics.AUROC and AUPRC values were generally higher for all testing sets when compared to the training set. Compared with DLCN criteria, a significantly higher number of correctly classified observations were identified for the Brazilian (p<0.01), Swedish (p<0.01), and Italian testing sets (p<0.01). Higher accuracy (Acc), G mean and F1 score values were also observed for all testing sets.Compared to DLCN criteria, the LR model revealed improved ability to correctly classify observations, and was able to retain a similar number of FH cases, with less false positive retention. Generalization of the LR model was very good across all testing samples, suggesting it can be an effective screening tool if applied to different populations.
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| 5. |
- Da Silva Santos Sundström, Admeire, et al.
(author)
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Filme de ficção para a Ciência da Informação : um estudo sobre as abordagens de organização e representação temática
- 2019
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In: Encontros Bibli. - : Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. - 1518-2924. ; 24:54, s. 124-134
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- O documento audiovisual é um material que integra a imagem em movimento e o som em sua essência. Constata-se que esse tipo documental está cada vez mais presente nas relações interpessoais e, concomitantemente, nas unidades de informação. O documento audiovisual em foco nesta pesquisa é o filme de ficção. Desse modo, questiona-se: como a Ciência da Informação está tratando a temática desses materiais? Assim, foi feito um levantamento bibliométrico em base de dados com o objetivo de analisar a literatura a respeito dos modos de tratamento temático de filmes de ficção no âmbito da Ciência da Informação e, também, entender como vem ocorrendo o tratamento temático desses materiais. O método é documental e bibliométrico. Como resultados destacam-se a baixa incidência de estudos que abordam a temática; a influência do Cinema enquanto disciplina nos processos de indexação de audiovisual e a presença de um campo vasto para o desenvolvimento de pesquisas.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Mota, Joao V. L., et al.
(author)
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Exploring structural and dynamical properties of polymer-ionic liquid ternary electrolytes for sodium ion batteries
- 2023
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In: Electrochimica Acta. - : Elsevier. - 0013-4686 .- 1873-3859. ; 461
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This work investigates the ion transport mechanisms in binary and ternary electrolyte systems based on polymers and ionic liquids for Na-ion batteries. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed on poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and ionic liquids (IL) based electrolytes, bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (TFSI)/N-methyl-N-propylpyrrolidinium (Pyr13) and bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (FSI)/Pyr13, varying the composition at 0, 5, 10 and 20 wt% over a range of temperatures from 313 to 400 K. The simulations could satisfactorily reproduce the experimental densities and trends in diffusivities and conductivity data. It was observed that there exists a stronger interaction between sodium ions and the FSI anions as compared to the TFSI counterparts, correlated to a difference in interaction energy between the ionic species. This controls how well the different ILs act as plasticizers for the Na-PEO system, with TFSI actually displaying lower conductivity for low IL loadings while the conductivity increases continuously for the FSI counterparts. Moreover, the simulations show that the sodium ions interact more strongly with the polymer at lower temperatures, leading to a lower polymer free volume which explains the trends in ionic transport. Thereby, these MD simulations unveil an interplay between the coordination chemistry and the dynamic properties in these ternary polymer-ionic liquid-salt electrolytes, and how the coordination strength controls the conductive properties.
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| 8. |
- Yaghoubi, Forough, 1988-, et al.
(author)
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A Techno-Economic Framework for 5G Transport Networks
- 2017
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In: IEEE wireless communications. - 1536-1284 .- 1558-0687.
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Wireless heterogeneous networks (HetNets) are a cost- and an energy-efficient alternative to provide high capacity to end users in the future 5G communication systems. However, the transport segment of a radio access network (RAN) poses a big challenge in terms of cost and energy consumption. In fact, if not planned properly its resulting high cost might limit the benefits of using small cells and impact the revenues of mobile network operators. Therefore, it is essential to be able to properly assess the economic viability of different transport techonolgies as well as their impact on the cost and profitability of a HetNets deployment (i.e., RAN + transport).This paper first presents a general and comprehensive techno-economic framework able to assess not only the total cost of ownership (TCO) but also the business viability of a HetNets deployment. It then applies it to the specific case study of a backhaul-based transport segment. In the evaluation work two technology options for the transport network are considered (i.e., microwave and fiber) assuming both a homogeneous (i.e., macro cells only) and a HetNet deployments. Our results demonstrate the importance of selecting the right technology and deployment strategy in order not to impact the economic benefits of a HetNet deployment. Moreover, the results also reveal that a deployment solution with the lowest TCO does not always lead to the highest profit.
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| 9. |
- Yaghoubi, Forough, 1988-, et al.
(author)
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A techno-economic framework for 5G transport networks
- 2018
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In: IEEE wireless communications. - : IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC. - 1536-1284 .- 1558-0687. ; 25:5, s. 56-63
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Wireless heterogeneous networks (HetNets) are a cost- and energy-efficient alternative to provide high capacity to end users in the future 5G communication systems. However, the transport segment of a RAN poses a big challenge in terms of cost and energy consumption. In fact, if not planned properly, its resulting high cost might limit the benefits of using small cells and impact the revenues of mobile network operators. Therefore, it is essential to be able to properly assess the economic viability of different transport technologies as well as their impact on the cost and profitability of a HetNet deployment (i.e., RAN plus transport). This article first presents a general and comprehensive techno-economic framework able to assess not only the TCO but also the business viability of a HetNet deployment. The framework is then applied to the specific case study of a backhaul-based transport segment. In the evaluation work two technology options for the transport network are considered (i.e., microwave and fiber) assuming both a homogeneous (i.e., macrocells only) and a HetNet deployment. Our results demonstrate the importance of selecting the right technology and deployment strategy in order not to impact the economic benefits of a HetNet deployment. Moreover, the results also reveal that a deployment solution with the lowest TCO does not always lead to the highest profit.
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