First-trimester screening and small for gestational age in twin pregnancies: a single center cohort study.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the association between maternal factors and first-trimester biophysical and biochemical markers with small for gestational age (SGA) neonates in twin pregnancies (TwPs).

Methods: Single-center retrospective cohort study of TwPs followed from January 2010 to December 2022 at a tertiary perinatal center, Portugal. Maternal and pregnancy characteristics, mean arterial pressure, pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A), β-human chorionic gonadotropin (β-HCG), and uterine artery pulsatility index (UtA-PI) were analyzed.

Non-enzymatic cholesterol biosensor: Electrochemical sensing based on peptide-polylactic acid thin film.

Cholesterol is a fundamental lipid prevalent in eukaryotic cell membranes and circulating in the bloodstream bound to lipoproteins. It serves as a precursor to steroid hormones and is regarded as a biomarker for cardiovascular disease and other metabolic disorders. Numerous cholesterol detection methods predominantly rely on enzymes, which suffer from instability, leading to non-cost-effective biosensors with low sensitivity and poor reusability.

Cluster Analysis in Victims of Perceived Cyberbullying at the Higher Education Level.

A number of studies have demonstrated the prevalence of cyberbullying in university settings. The objective of this research is to conduct a cluster analysis to categorize victims according to the nature of the behavior they have received and to examine the relationship between gender and intention to drop out. To this end, the Online Victimization Questionnaire was administered to a sample of 800 first-year students at a university in northern Spain who had opted to participate in the study.

Portuguese Caregivers of Persons With Alzheimer's Disease in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of the Grieving Process.

This study addresses the experiences of informal caregivers caring for elderly family members with Alzheimer's disease (AD) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study includes a sample of eight informal caregivers who were evaluated through a semi-structured interview six months after the death of a loved one they cared for. A thematic content analysis was applied to the interviews and yielded two higher-order domains: (1) Experiencing the AD and the death of a family member and (2) The grieving process during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in a large European hemodialysis cohort.

Background: Hemodialysis patients have high-risk of severe SARS-CoV-2 infection but were unrepresented in randomized controlled trials evaluating the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. We estimated the real-world effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in a large international cohort of hemodialysis patients.

Methods: In this historical, 1:1 matched cohort study, we included adult hemodialysis patients receiving treatment from December 1, 2020, to May 31, 2021.

Quality of life in heterosexual menopausal women: The indirect effect of sexual and marital satisfaction, menopause representations, and psychological morbidity.

Menopause may negatively impact Quality of Life (QoL). Our study used a cross-sectional design and research participants were 99 women in natural menopause. In our study, we analyzed the relationship between age at menopause onset, hormone therapy use, duration of couple relationship, menopause duration, psychological morbidity, marital satisfaction, menopause representations, and QoL following the Wilson and Cleary Health-Related QoL conceptual model.

Relax to Heal? Perspectives of Patients with Diabetic Foot Ulcers and Health Professionals on Relaxation Sessions for Wound Healing.

Objective: To explore patients' and healthcare professionals' (HPs') perspectives on the suitability/acceptability of a relaxation intervention, its effects on patients' well-being and diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) healing, and its incorporation into the multidisciplinary management of patients with diabetic foot.

Methods: This qualitative study was nested within a three-arm pilot randomized controlled trial. Patients with a chronic DFU received four relaxation sessions.

Predictive model of the dropout intention of Chilean university students.

Dropping out of university studies is one of the current problems of Higher Education; the increased rates during the first year of the study programme is considerable around the world. Dropping out has negative social implications that are reflected at the personal, family, institutional, and educational levels. The aim of this study was to evaluate a predictive model considering the mediation of university social satisfaction and perceived academic performance within the relations between perceived social support, social self-efficacy and academic purposes with career satisfaction and dropout intention in Chilean university students.

Cortisol reactivity and negative affect among preterm infants at 12 months during a mother-infant interaction task.

The purpose of this study was to investigate correlates of preterm (PT) infant's cortisol reactivity and the association to infant negative affect, during a mother-infant interaction procedure. Participants included 48 infants born prematurely (gestational age < 37 weeks) and their mothers, assessed when infants were 12 months old corrected for prematurity. The examined variables comprised both neonatal and environmental dimensions including maternal interactive behavior.

Cosmeceutical Potential of Extracts Derived from Fishery Industry Residues: Sardine Wastes and Codfish Frames.

The fishery industry generates large amounts of waste (20-75% (/) of the total caught fish weight). The recovery of bioactive compounds from residues and their incorporation in cosmetics represents a promising market opportunity and may contribute to a sustainable valorisation of the sector. In this work, protein-rich extracts obtained by high-pressure technologies (supercritical CO and subcritical water) from sardine () waste and codfish () frames were characterized regarding their cosmeceutical potential.

Measuring Endocannabinoid System Interaction with Biomembranes.

Understanding the correct interaction among the different components of the endocannabinoid (eCB) system is fundamental for a proper assessment of the function of eCBs as signaling molecules. The knowledge of how the membrane environment modulates the intracellular trafficking of the eCB system and its interacting proteins holds a huge potential in unraveling new mechanisms of its modulation. This chapter deals with the application of fluorescence resonance energy transfer technique to measure the binding affinity of eCB proteins to model membranes (i.

University Dropout in Engineering: Motives and Student Trajectories.

Background: Dropout in higher education is a concern for students, families, educational institutions, and society. Tertiary education is an important mechanism for empowering people and STEM courses are vital to countries' development.

Method: The study combined quantitative and qualitative data.

Subcritical Water Extraction and Hydrolysis of Cod () Frames to Produce Bioactive Protein Extracts.

The valorization of Atlantic cod () frames from a filleting industry was investigated using subcritical water extraction and hydrolysis (SBW) at different temperatures (90, 140, 190 and 250 °C) and 100 bar to obtain extracts rich in proteins, peptides and amino acids. Up to 57.7 g of extract per 100 g of codfish frames were obtained, with nearly total recovery of the protein fraction.

The effects of time and relative humidity on dry-aged beef: Traditional versus special bag.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of relative humidity (RH) and different dry aging methods on the quality of beef. Sixteen loins, from eight carcasses, were used in this experiment. Each pair of loin was cut into eight sections with equal size, which were evenly assigned to eight treatments, by the combination of two dry aging methods (traditional and highly moisture-permeable special bag), two relative humidity (65 and 85% RH) and two aging times (21 and 42 days).

The Effects of Melatonin Supplementation on Sleep Quality and Assessment of the Serum Melatonin in ICU Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objectives: To evaluate whether the use of exogenous melatonin affects sleep, reduces the prevalence of delirium, and decreases the need for analgosedation and to assess whether serum melatonin indices correlate with exogenous administration in critically ill patients.

Design: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study.

Setting: Multicenter ICUs of two tertiary hospitals.

Evaluation of educational quality performance on virtual campuses using fuzzy inference systems.

The general objective of this study is to analyze student satisfaction with the use of virtual campuses in university teaching in order to discover the main variables influencing the overall online teaching-learning process that give quality to the virtual educational process. To this end, an ex-post-facto research methodology was applied to 1084 university students, who completed an ad hoc designed questionnaire, which allowed us to carry out descriptive analysis, classification trees and fuzzy inference systems using SPSS and Matlab software. The results suggest that four variables predominantly influence the quality of the teaching-learning processes in virtual campuses: satisfactory teacher responses to student questions and observations, the positive attitude of teachers towards the use of information and communication technologies, students having appropriate digital skills, and activities that encourage ideas and debate.

The Influence of Self-Regulation Behaviors on University Students' Intentions of Persistance.

The implementation of the European higher education area (EHEA) is a true paradigm change in university education in which the student, with particular consideration given to autonomous work, takes the place of the teacher as the central element of the teaching-learning process. In this autonomous work, the strategies the students regularly use become particularly important, given the supposition that doing that work will lead to academic success. The objective of this study is to analyze the variables that influence students' expectations of success, measured through their intention to persist on the course they are doing.

Comparison of methods for measuring shear force and sarcomere length and their relationship with sensorial tenderness of longissimus muscle in beef.

Slice shear force (SSF) and laser diffraction, considered faster methodologies, for measuring beef instrumental tenderness and sarcomere length, were compared with reference methodologies Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) and phase contrast microscopy. Striploin samples (n = 74) were analyzed for pH, sarcomere length, instrumental tenderness, myofibrillar fragmentation index, and sensorial tenderness. Pearson's correlation measured the association of meat evaluation methods with residual analysis of the multivariate analysis of variance model.

Dropout and transfer paths: What are the risky profiles when analyzing university persistence with machine learning techniques?

University dropout is a growing problem with considerable academic, social and economic consequences. Conclusions and limitations of previous studies highlight the difficulty of analyzing the phenomenon from a broad perspective and with bigger data sets. This paper proposes a new, machine-learning based method, able to examine the problem using a holistic approach.

Factors that determine the persistence and dropout of university students.

Background: The increase of students in higher education means a more heterogeneous student body, complicating the identification of the variables that influence students' decisions to stay in or drop out of university. The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of these variables on students' decisions by establishing specific groups of students based on performance.

Method: A study was carried out with 2,970 first-year university students from Portugal, using the decision tree technique.