Publications by authors named "Vasconcelos F"

Article Synopsis
  • The study looked at how the food options available around schools in Southern Brazil impact what ninth-grade students eat, focusing on both healthy and unhealthy food choices.
  • Data was collected from 449 students in two cities, with the food environment evaluated using a specific tool (AUDITNOVA) to assess both the types of foods available and their impact on student diets.
  • Results showed a significant relationship in Florianópolis where a poorer food environment was linked to higher unhealthy food consumption, while the smaller municipality revealed low healthy food intake with no significant findings on the relationship between food environment and consumption.
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Background: Evidence on the harmful effects of diet on serum lipids in adolescence has not been consistent. The present study sought to establish which dietary patterns are associated with biomarkers of dyslipidemia.

Methods: Data from 36,217 Brazilian adolescents participating in the Study of Cardiovascular Risk in Adolescents were evaluated.

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Advances in surface-assisted synthesis routes now allow for precise control in the preparation and modification of low-dimensional structures. The choice of molecular precursors plays a fundamental role in these processes since the structural details and properties of the resulting nanostructures directly depend on the molecular block used. From this perspective, units based on porphyrins have proven to be promising candidates for the construction of nanosystems with nontrivial geometry.

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Tubular aggregates (TA) are skeletal muscle structures that arise from the progressive accumulation of sarcoplasmic reticulum proteins, mainly with aging. Muscle regeneration plays a role in TA formation. TA quantification may aid in the evaluation of muscle aging and genetic muscle degeneration.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The first audit of LGBTQ+ inclusivity in UK fertility care reveals significant shortcomings in clinical knowledge and cultural competence, particularly affecting transgender and gender diverse patients.
  • - Despite some efforts to improve inclusivity, systemic barriers like cisheteronormativity and discrimination persist, leaving LGBTQ+ patients under-represented in both research and practice.
  • - A checklist for enhancing LGBTQ+ inclusivity was co-developed with community members, focusing on cultural competence, clinical considerations, and online presence, highlighting the urgent need for better support and understanding in fertility care.
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Reference growth curves are viable tools for monitoring somatic growth. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop reference growth curves for body mass, height, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) in Brazilian children and adolescents aged 7-14 years. The reference growth curves were constructed from a cross-sectional panel study using data from four surveys conducted in 2002, 2007, 2012/2013 and 2018/2019, with 9675 children and adolescents aged 7-14 years, of both sexes from Florianopolis, Southern Brazil.

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In obstetric ultrasound (US) scanning, the learner's ability to mentally build a three-dimensional (3D) map of the fetus from a two-dimensional (2D) US image represents a significant challenge in skill acquisition. We aim to build a US plane localization system for 3D visualization, training, and guidance without integrating additional sensors. This work builds on top of our previous work, which predicts the six-dimensional (6D) pose of arbitrarily oriented US planes slicing the fetal brain with respect to a normalized reference frame using a convolutional neural network (CNN) regression network.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates how ultrasound probe movement varies during mid-trimester anomaly scans in a UK teaching hospital.
  • Researchers recorded and analyzed video data of 17 scans, measuring various metrics like probe velocity, acceleration, and motion patterns in relation to the operators’ expertise and other factors.
  • Results showed that more experienced consultants had significantly slower probe speeds and smoother motion compared to fellows, but angular measurements showed no significant differences related to expertise or patient characteristics.
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Obesity has a multifactorial origin. Among the behavioural risk factors, excessive consumption of unhealthy foods, skipping breakfast and reduced physical activity stand out. The main objective of this article was to identify trends in dietary habits and their association with overweight/obesity over a 12-year period in schoolchildren aged 7 to 10 years in Florianópolis, southern Brazil.

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Article Synopsis
  • * By analyzing images of cells treated with 30,000 different compounds, researchers identified those that produced effects similar to positive controls using a specific measurement technique.
  • * The results indicate that utilizing cell painting could significantly boost success rates in screening, achieving 80% hits while testing 10 times fewer compounds in one case.
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  • - Cancer-related pain significantly impacts patients' quality of life, and while first-line treatments like opioids and NSAIDs are commonly used, they can have limitations and side effects.
  • - A systematic review of literature involving 735 patients found that hypophysectomy and other neuromodulation techniques can provide substantial pain relief for those who haven't responded to standard treatments.
  • - Among the various treatment methods examined, hypophysectomy showed promising results; however, complications, particularly diabetes insipidus, were noted, indicating the need for careful consideration in treatment planning.
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The present study evaluated the effects of heat stress on reproductive parameters of hairy rams. Six animals were subjected to scrotal insulation during four consecutive nights (6 PM - 6 AM). Day (D) 0 was the first day of insulation.

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Introduction: Tubular aggregates (TA) are skeletal muscle structures that arise from the progressive accumulation of sarcoplasmic reticulum proteins. Cytoplasmic aggregates in muscle fibers have already been observed in mice and humans, mainly during aging and muscle disease processes. However, the effects of muscle regeneration on TA formation have not yet been reported.

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Research Question: What can three-dimensional cell contact networks tell us about the developmental potential of cleavage-stage human embryos?

Design: This pilot study was a retrospective analysis of two Embryoscope imaging datasets from two clinics. An artificial intelligence system was used to reconstruct the three-dimensional structure of embryos from 11-plane focal stacks. Networks of cell contacts were extracted from the resulting embryo three-dimensional models and each embryo's mean contacts per cell was computed.

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Fetoscopy laser photocoagulation is a widely adopted procedure for treating Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS). The procedure involves photocoagulation pathological anastomoses to restore a physiological blood exchange among twins. The procedure is particularly challenging, from the surgeon's side, due to the limited field of view, poor manoeuvrability of the fetoscope, poor visibility due to amniotic fluid turbidity, and variability in illumination.

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Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between dietary patterns and biochemical markers related to diabetes mellitus (DM): glucose, insulin, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance index from 35 454 Brazilian adolescents 12 to 17 y of age.

Methods: Dietary patterns were derived using factor analysis by the principal components method. The data originated from the school-based study ERICA (Study of Cardiovascular Risk in Adolescents) carried out between 2013 and 2014.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The authors introduce a new learning-based framework that improves the process of fetoscopy by expanding the surgeon's field of view and enhancing the identification of these problematic vascular connections.
  • * Their framework outperforms existing methods in analyzing intraoperative sequences from TTTS surgeries, improving the accuracy and effectiveness of surgeries by providing better contextual information to the surgeons.
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Background & Aims: Fatty acids (FAs) of the omega-3 and omega-6 family are considered essential, and adequate intake seems to be associated with lower risk of developing chronic non-communicable diseases. The objective was to evaluate the association of omega-3 and omega-6 FAs dietary intake with the prevalence of MS and its components waist circumference (WC), blood pressure (BP), fasting blood glucose, triglycerides and High Density Lipoprotein - cholesterol (HDL-c) in Brazilian adolescents aged 12-17 years.

Methods: This is a school-based cross-sectional investigation, using data from the Study of Cardiovascular Risks in Adolescents (ERICA), carried out between 2013 and 2014.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to analyze trends in obesity, overweight, and thinness among Brazilian schoolchildren, focusing on differences by sex, age, and type of school using WHO and IOTF criteria.
  • Conducted between 2002 and 2018/19, the surveys revealed a significant increase in obesity prevalence among children, particularly in public schools, with rates rising by 72% (IOTF) and 44% (WHO) over the period.
  • The findings indicate that obesity is becoming more common, especially among children from public schools, while the prevalence of thinness did not significantly decrease during the same time span.
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Industrial Kitchens are very energy-intensive businesses, consuming between five and seven times more energy per square meter than other commercial spaces like office spaces and retail stores. Still, very little research has been carried out on improving the energy efficiency of this industry. This paper presents the FIKElectricity dataset, a collection of electricity data from three Portuguese restaurant kitchens during their daily operation.

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This paper introduces the "SurgT: Surgical Tracking" challenge which was organized in conjunction with the 25th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2022). There were two purposes for the creation of this challenge: (1) the establishment of the first standardized benchmark for the research community to assess soft-tissue trackers; and (2) to encourage the development of unsupervised deep learning methods, given the lack of annotated data in surgery. A dataset of 157 stereo endoscopic videos from 20 clinical cases, along with stereo camera calibration parameters, have been provided.

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Video streams are utilised to guide minimally-invasive surgery and diagnosis in a wide range of procedures, and many computer-assisted techniques have been developed to automatically analyse them. These approaches can provide additional information to the surgeon such as lesion detection, instrument navigation, or anatomy 3D shape modelling. However, the necessary image features to recognise these patterns are not always reliably detected due to the presence of irregular light patterns such as specular highlight reflections.

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Exotic 1D and 2D carbon nanostructures have been grown in the laboratory in the last few years by means of surface-assisted chemical routes. In these processes, the strategical choice of a molecular precursor plays a dominant role in the determination of the synthesized nanocarbon. Further variations of these techniques are able to produce non-benzoidal carbon quantum-dots (QDs).

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Despite its rarity, symptomatic micronutrient deficiency remains a public health problem. Scurvy is the differential diagnosis for bleeding disorders and hematological and rheumatological diseases, especially in patients with eating disorders. However, it is unrelated to autism spectrum disorders or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

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