Publications by authors named "Morais P"

(1) Background: Continuous health promotion systems are increasingly important, enabling decentralized patient care, providing comfort, and reducing congestion in healthcare facilities. These systems allow for treatment beyond clinical settings and support preventive monitoring. Wearable systems have become essential tools for health monitoring, but they focus mainly on physiological data, overlooking motor data evaluation.

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Polymeric coronary stents, like the ABSORB™, are commonly used to treat atherosclerosis due to their bioresorbable and cell-compatible polymer structure. However, they face challenges such as high strut thickness, high elastic recoil, and lack of radiopacity. This study aims to address these limitations by modifying degradable stents produced by additive manufacturing with poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) with degradable metallic coatings, specifically zinc (Zn) and magnesium (Mg), deposited via radiofrequency (rf) magnetron sputtering.

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  • Type 2 diabetes mellitus is becoming a major global health issue, expected to nearly double in prevalence from 194 million in 2003 to 333 million by 2025, with 90%-95% of cases being type 2.
  • New research focuses on developing dual inhibitors for type 2 diabetes through synthesizing ester and triazole derivatives of p-coumaric acid, using methods like Williamson synthesis and Microwave-assisted click reaction.
  • These synthesized compounds were tested and showed effective inhibition against two key enzymes, GSK-3β kinase and DPP-IV, indicating that p-coumaric acid derivatives are promising candidates for new diabetes treatments.
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The urgent need for new antimicrobial compounds has led scientists to explore antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and antimicrobial polymers as solutions for multidrug resistance. In this study, we synthesized copolymers with cationic and hydrophobic moieties by free-radical polymerization (FRP) using a chain transfer agent to control molecular weights. The potential of natural products as part of the hydrophobic moiety was evaluated, along with variations in their monomer content (13-25%) and the molecular weight (MW) of the copolymer (5000-20,000 g·mol).

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Abdominal ostomy surgery has a severe impact on individuals' daily lives. These procedures are typically indicated for conditions such as cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, or traumatic injuries. They involve creating an artificial opening, denominated the stoma, in the abdominal area to divert feces or urine, establishing a connection between the affected organs and the body's exterior.

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Mine waste can be transformed into technosol as an ecological strategy. Despite its importance to soil functions, biological activity is often overlooked. Biopolymers can serve as innovative tools for bioremediation, facilitating chemical reactions and creating networks to encapsulate contaminants.

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Yttrium (Y), an important rare earth element (REE), is increasingly prevalent in the environment due to industrial activities, raising concerns about its toxicity. Understanding the effects of Y on microorganisms is essential for bioremediation and biorecovery processes. This study investigates how J19, a strain with notable resistance to Y, manages iron homeostasis as a detoxifying mechanism under Y stress.

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The concentrations of heavy metals (HMs) can be increased by various anthropogenic activities such as mining, fuel combustion, pesticide use, and urban development, which can alter the mechanisms determining their spatial variability in the environment. Determining natural concentrations, monitoring, and assessing potential ecological risks are essential in the management of pollution prevention policies and soil conservation in watersheds. The aim of this study was to determine HMs natural concentrations, establish quality reference values (QRVs), and evaluate pollution indices in a watershed-scale.

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  • Two novel actinomycetal strains, CC-R113 and CC-R104, were isolated from macroalgae in northern Portugal, displaying significant genetic characteristics that suggest they are new species.
  • Genetic analysis revealed strain CC-R113, with a genome size of 7.27 Mb, is closely related to existing strains with high sequence similarity, while strain CC-R104, with a 5.34 Mb genome, is more distantly related to its closest known relatives.
  • Both strains thrive at pH 7.0, 28°C, and low salinity, and they exhibit unique chemotaxonomic features, leading to the proposal of their classification as novel species.
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  • - Diazepam (DZP) is a sedative used for anxiety and sleep, but it can have negative side effects; researchers aimed to develop nanocapsules to improve its effectiveness and reduce these side effects.
  • - The study involved creating and testing DZP nanocapsules using the nanoprecipitation method, ensuring they were stable and effective through various evaluations, including toxicity tests on C. elegans and mice.
  • - Results showed that the nanocapsules safely carried DZP, had high drug entrapment efficiency, and produced a hypnotic effect at lower doses without toxicity, making them a promising alternative to traditional DZP.
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  • Western equine encephalitis virus (WEEV) caused a significant outbreak in Argentina and Uruguay from December 2023 to April 2024, with 217 human cases and 2,548 equine cases reported.
  • The investigation focused on the Rio Grande do Sul state border area between Argentina and Uruguay, utilizing epidemiologic, entomological, and genomic methods to analyze the outbreak.
  • A novel lineage of the virus, proposed as lineage C, was identified in three fatal equine cases, emphasizing the need for ongoing monitoring and equine vaccination to prevent future outbreaks.
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Objective - Medical image segmentation is essential for several clinical tasks, including diagnosis, surgical and treatment planning, and image-guided interventions. Deep Learning (DL) methods have become the state-of-the-art for several image segmentation scenarios. However, a large and well-annotated dataset is required to effectively train a DL model, which is usually difficult to obtain in clinical practice, especially for 3D images.

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Gypsum plays a prominent role in agriculture, being considered an effective alternative to alleviate subsurface acidity due to its higher solubility and containing sulfur. However, another significant aspect is which pose long-term risks of groundwater contamination due to excessive applications of salts, pesticides, and other chemicals that will be leached, or even soil chemical depletion. So far, no study has focused on understanding the impacts of the atmospheric gypsum plume originating from gibbsite mining and processing on the leaching of soil bases and chemical degradation surrounding these sites.

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The physiological aging process is well known for functional decline in visual abilities. Among the components of the visual system, the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (DLG) and superior colliculus (SC) provide a good model for aging investigations, as these structures constitute the main visual pathways for retinal inputs reaching the visual cortex. However, there are limited data available on quantitative morphological and neurochemical aspects in DLG and SC across lifespan.

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Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common cause of peripheral compressive neuropathy and consists of compression of the median nerve in the wrist. Although there are several etiologies, idiopathic is the most prevalent origin, and among the forms of treatment for CTS, conservative is the most indicated. However, despite the high prevalence in and impact of this syndrome on the healthcare system, there are still controversies regarding the best therapeutic approach for patients.

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Nonsense mutations are genetic mutations that create premature termination codons (PTCs), leading to truncated, defective proteins in diseases such as cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis type 1, Dravet syndrome, Hurler syndrome, Beta thalassemia, inherited bone marrow failure syndromes, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and even cancer. These mutations can also trigger a cellular surveillance mechanism known as nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) that degrades the PTC-containing mRNA. The activation of NMD can attenuate the consequences of truncated, defective, and potentially toxic proteins in the cell.

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Aims: Yttrium (Y) holds significant industrial and economic importance, being listed as a critical element on the European list of critical elements, thus emphasizing the high priority for its recovery. Bacterial strategies play a crucial role in the biorecovery of metals, offering a promising and environmentally friendly approach. Therefore, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms behind bacterial resistance, as well as the processes of bioaccumulation and biotransformation, is of paramount importance.

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Objective: To classify the bibliometric indicators of online scientific research on placentophagy.

Methods: A bibliometric study was conducted to quantify the scientific production of authors and institutions with the aim of highlighting the growth and impact of these publications nationally and internationally. The Bradford Law, network maps, and textual statistics were used, with searches conducted in libraries and databases in October 2021.

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Controlling the microbial load in the environment is crucial to prevent the spread of organisms. The continuous spread of nosocomial infections in hospital facilities and the emergence of the coronavirus (COVID-19) highlighted the importance of disinfection processes in health safety. This work aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of LED-based disinfection lamps on bacteria from the ESKAPEE group and virus phage in vitro inactivation to be applied in hospital environments and health facilities disinfection.

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Papaya is a climacteric fruit, rapidly ripening after harvesting due to ethylene production and increased respiratory rate. This swift ripening results in softening of fruit tissues, shortening the fruit shelf life. Pre-cooling serves as an alternative to minimize fruit ripening and post-harvest losses by reducing metabolism.

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The objective was to evaluate the behavior of melon genotypes (Cucumis melo L.) in the physical, chemical and biochemical quality of melon fruits as a function of electrical conductivity irrigation water levels (ECw). The experimental design adopted was randomized blocks in a 5 x 3 factorial scheme with five replications.

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The Chikungunya Virus (CHIKV) already has endemic circulation in about 100 countries and the number of infected patients increases every year, due to the effectiveness of the vector and human universal susceptibility to infection. The virus can also be transmitted from mother to child, more frequently intrapartum. About 50 % of neonates with CHIKV symptoms will have neurodevelopmental delay.

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The occurrence of healthcare-associated infections is a multifactorial phenomenon related to hospital space contamination by bacteria. The ESKAPE group, specifically and , play a relevant role in the occurrence of these infections. Therefore, comprehensive research is needed to identify characteristics that justify the prevalence of these species in the healthcare environment.

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This study investigates the fabrication process of copper thin films via thermal evaporation, with precise control over film thickness achieved through-position adjustment. Analysis of the as-fabricated copper films reveals a discernible relationship between grain size (〈〉) and-position, characterized by a phenomenological equation〈D〉XRDn(Z)=〈D〉0n1+32rZ2+158rZ4, which is further supported by a growth exponent () of 0.41 obtained from the analysis.

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Article Synopsis
  • A recent outbreak of western equine encephalitis virus (WEEV) has been reported in South America, particularly in Brazil, where three horses have died from the infection.
  • Researchers sequenced the WEEV strains and discovered a new lineage responsible for these fatalities.
  • To reduce the impact of WEEV, ongoing monitoring and vaccination of horses are essential.
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