Publications by authors named "Pedro Esteves"

Objectives: The objective of this study was to describe the effects of an extra hour of a structured motor program on the motor competence (MC) of children 6-10 years old..

Design: The need for movement interventions to enhance MC among school-aged children has gained vital importance in the last years, given the negative secular trends reported.

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Viruses are responsible for many devastating rabbit diseases that impact their health and welfare and put their conservation and economic revenue at risk [...

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The penalty kick is a crucial action in a football match that may determine the final outcome. It features a direct interaction between the shooter and goalkeeper where both search for relevant information as a means to achieve their respective performance goals. A case study, composed of an on-field intervention, was designed to analyze the influence of providing in advance penalty kicking tendencies of the shooters on a youth goalkeeping movement onset and saving performance.

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  • Portugal has a lot of different plants and animals because of its unique geography and history, but these species are in danger from things like climate change and over-exploitation.
  • Researchers in Portugal are working together through a project called Biogenome Portugal to study and document biodiversity, which means looking closely at the genes of different species.
  • The goal is to create a library of genetic information to help protect endangered species and promote conservation efforts in Portugal, especially for unique plants and animals found only there.
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Handball is a body-contact Olympic ball sport that is characterized by fast-paced defensive and offensive actions. Players must coordinate explosive movements (e.g.

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The present study investigated the mediating effects of emotional intelligence and self-esteem between youth sports participation and life satisfaction, as well as the comparative effects of different types of sports involvement (team, individual, and non-participation) on these selected variables. A sample of 1053 Portuguese adolescents (612 girls and 441 boys), aged between 12 and 18 years ( = 14.40; = 1.

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  • Guanylate binding proteins (GBPs) are crucial to the innate immune response against infections and have undergone evolutionary changes primarily studied in primates and rodents, indicating a birth-and-death evolution pattern.
  • This study focused on bats, revealing a complex history of gene expansion and loss among different bat species, with some families retaining certain genes while others lost them entirely.
  • Understanding the evolution of GBPs in bats is important, as they are significant virus reservoirs, and further research could clarify their immune functions and influence on zoonotic diseases.
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Guanylate binding proteins (GBPs) are an evolutionarily ancient family of proteins that are widely distributed among eukaryotes. They belong to the dynamin superfamily of GTPases, and their expression can be partially induced by interferons (IFNs). GBPs are involved in the cell-autonomous innate immune response against bacterial, parasitic and viral infections.

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Studying proteins associated with sex chromosomes can provide insights into sex-specific proteins. Membrane proteins accessible through the cell surface may serve as excellent targets for diagnostic, therapeutic, or even technological purposes, such as sperm sexing technologies. In this context, proteins encoded by sex chromosomes have the potential to become targets for X- or Y-chromosome-bearing spermatozoa.

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  • - The innate immune system in mammals relies on a complex network of proteins, particularly the E3-ubiquitin ligase TRIM family, which plays a key role in fighting off retroviruses like HIV.
  • - Genes such as TRIM5 and TRIM22 are crucial for restricting HIV, but many mammalian species lack these genes entirely, indicating variation in their immune defenses.
  • - A comprehensive analysis of mammalian genomes reveals significant evolutionary differences in TRIM gene accumulation across species, suggesting that the immune systems of eutherians have adapted uniquely to combat retrovirus infections.
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The purpose of this study was to understand the contribution of each performance indicator to evaluate match performance of football referees. Thirty-four elite Referee Match Observers (RMOs) from the Portuguese FA participated voluntarily in the study. From the official assessment sheet of each game, the referee's game score was categorized in two groups according to referee's game score: i) Referees with a Low Score (LFS) and ii) Referees with High Score (HFS).

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Background: Immunoglobulin A (IgA) is the mammalian mucosal antibody, providing an important line of defense against pathogens. With 15 IgA subclasses, the European rabbit has an extremely complex IgA system, strikingly more complex than most other mammals, which have only one IgA or, in the case of hominoids, two IgA subclasses. Similar to the two hominoid primate genes, the expansion of the rabbit genes appears to have begun in an ancestral lagomorph since multiple IgA copies were found by Southern blot analysis for the genera , , and .

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  • IFITMs are proteins that help our immune system fight off viruses and come in two main types: those grouped closely together on a chromosome and those that are scattered around the genome.
  • Researchers found three new groups of these proteins in different types of primates, which they named with new labels.
  • They think that the way these proteins have changed over time includes unique processes, like how some genes can create copies of themselves and how some genes can disappear in different species.
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The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) populations of the Iberian Peninsula have been severely affected by the emergence of the rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) Lagovirus europaeus/GI.2 (RHDV2/b). Bushflies and blowflies (Muscidae and Calliphoridae families, respectively) are important RHDV vectors in Oceania, but their epidemiological role is unknown in the native range of the European rabbit.

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The control of infections by the vertebrate adaptive immune system requires careful modulation to optimize defense and minimize harm to the host. The Fc receptor-like () genes encode immunoregulatory molecules homologous to the receptors for the Fc portion of immunoglobulin (FCR). To date, nine different genes (, , and ) have been identified in mammalian organisms.

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Introduction: Toll like receptors (TLRs) are at the front line of pathogen recognition and host immune response. Many TLR genes have been described to date with some being found across metazoans while others are restricted to specific lineages. A cryptic member of the TLR gene family, TLR15, has a unique phylogenetic distribution.

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  • Dogs and cats can carry Q fever, a zoonotic disease caused by the pathogen Coxiella burnetii, with concerns about transmission during events like birthing and abortion, potentially involving ticks as vectors.
  • A study conducted in Portugal in 2012 and 2021 tested 294 dogs and cats for C. burnetii exposure using blood samples and DNA from uterine samples and ticks.
  • Results showed a significant decrease in seropositivity for C. burnetii in both dogs (from 12.6% to 1.7%) and cats (from 17.2% to 0.0%) over the nine years, indicating that exposure is low, especially in rural areas, although monitoring
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  • - The study examines the transcytosis process of immunoglobulins IgA and IgM across epithelial barriers, focusing on the polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (pIgR), its variants, and its evolutionary significance in lagomorphs versus other mammals.
  • - Researchers sequenced pIgR genes from various leporid species and aligned them with sequences from all mammalian orders, discovering that the lagomorph pIgR evolves at a higher rate and shows strong positive selection in certain domains.
  • - The findings suggest that the unique evolutionary patterns of pIgR in lagomorphs may be linked to species-specific adaptations or expansions of IgA genes, necessitating further research to better understand the underlying evolutionary mechanisms.*
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The European rabbit () was the first animal model used to understand human diseases like rabies and syphilis. Nowadays, the rabbit is still used to study several human infectious diseases like syphilis, HIV and papillomavirus. However, due to several mainly practical reasons, it has been replaced as an animal model by mice ().

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Estimation of the diagnostic performance of serological tests often relies on another test assumed as a reference or on samples of known infection status, yet both are seldom available for emerging pathogens in wildlife. Longitudinal disease serological data can be analysed through multi-event capture-mark-recapture (MECMR) models accounting for the uncertainty in state assignment, allowing us to estimate epidemiological parameters such as incidence and mortality. We hypothesized that by estimating the uncertainty in state assignment, MECMR models estimate the diagnostic performance of serological tests for rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) and myxoma virus (MYXV).

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Immunoglobulin A provides a major line of defence against pathogens and plays a key role in the maintenance of the commensal microbiota in the intestinal tract. Having been shown to be more effective at tumour cell killing than IgG and strongly active against pathogens present in the mucosae, IgA antibodies have been attracting significant attention in recent years for use as therapeutic antibodies. To improve their therapeutic potential, bioengineered IgA forms with increased serum half-life and neutralizing abilities have been developed but the IgA hinge, which impacts susceptibility to bacterial proteases and ability to bridge between target and effector cells, has not yet been explored.

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This study aims to examine youth players' physiological responses and technical-tactical performance when playing simulated 3x3 and 5x5 basketball games. Fifteen well-trained male basketball players (16.6 ± 0.

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We examined the effect of physiological workload on gaze behaviour during defensive performance in 2 vs. 1 +goalkeeper game situations in football. Twenty-two players were assigned to either a high- or low-performing group based on a validated measure of tactical performance.

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