Maria Joao Research Articles

Olhos de safira: introdução à leitura de O cão de Dürer, um conto de Maria João Cantinho

Este ensaio promove uma leitura do conto ‘O cão de Dürer’, da escritora portuguesa Maria João Cantinho, publicado em 2006, evidenciando a sua correspondência com a gravura renascentista Melencolia I, de Albrecht Dürer (1514), além de outras obras do artista. A compreensão do protagonista da narrativa acerca da arte de Dürer se processa em uma viagem para dentro de si mesmo, a fim de acessar a sua própria memória. Por isso, fazemos aqui uso do conceito de ‘memória estética’ de Mario Praz (1982), veiculado em pesquisa sobre a correspondência entre literatura e artes visuais. Em razão da afinidade acadêmica da autora com os estudos acerca da obra de Walter Benjamin, discussões diversas do filósofo alemão igualmente comparecem como instrumento de leitura para o conto.

The recognizability and consequentiality of mistakes: Some notes on the article by Klemp et al.

In a documentary called Attrazione D’amore, the cinematographer Frank Scheffer provides footage from a lunch concert at Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw. When the orchestra starts to play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, it becomes apparent that the renowned pianist Maria Joao Pires had made a mistake. As the director of the concert, Riccardo Chailly, recounts in the film: “She was shocked because she was expecting us to play another concerto. So when I started the first bar of the D...

IMAGEM CORPORAL E QUALIDADE DE VIDA NA OBESIDADE PEDIÁTRICA

Obesity is a serious pediatric health condition that is associated with poorer quality of life and higher levels of body image dissatisfaction (BID). However, the role of body image in the psychosocial adjustment of these youth as well as the developmental and gender specificities remains unknown. Therefore, this study aims to compare the levels of quality of life and BID of boys and girls, children and adolescents, with normal-weight and obesity. Specifically, it aims to explore whether the association between weight status and quality of life is mediated by BID as well as the moderating role of youth's gender on these associations. The sample comprised 362 children and adolescents aged 8-18 years with normal weight (n = 155) and obesity (n = 207). All participants completed KIDSCREEN-10 and Collins Body Image scale. Obese children and adolescents reported poorer quality of life and higher BID compared with their normal-weight counterparts. Additionally, girls reported poorer quality of life and higher rates of BID than boys. BID mediated the relationship  Rua do Colegio Novo, 3000-115 Coimbra. Email: maria.rgouveia@gmail.com Maria Joao Gouveia, Roberta Frontini, Maria Cristina Canavarro, & Helena Moreira 53 www.sp-ps.pt between weight status and quality of life, but only for youth above 12 years old. Pediatric obesity is associated with poorer psychosocial adjustment, which underlines the need for preventive and early interventions in multidisciplinary teams. An important target in psychological interventions seems to be BID, which proved to be an important mechanism linking obesity and decreased quality of life among adolescents.

FAP in India: a first genetically proven case

A 28 year old male with a background of abdominal tuberculosis living in Tekhand slum district of Delhi presented with two and half year history of recurrent loose stools following tingling sensation in the upper and lower limbs, as well as weakness in the lower limbs. He also reports erectile dysfunction and postural hypotension. He had lost weight : kilos. Upon examination the patient has lost all sensory perception in the lower limbs up to the upper thigh with severe wasting and dull lower limb reflexes. There was pes cavus and a high stepping gait. Investigations revealed persistent circumferential thickening in the abdomen on CT. Sural nerve biopsy showed inflammation with demyelination and amyloidosis. There was a loss of parasympathic/sympathetic reactivity. Bone marrow biopsy revealed amyloid deposits compatible with secondary AA with increase in anti-LKM antibodies. Endoscopy revealed increased inflammation in the lamina propia. Familial amyloid polyneuropathy was suspected, and TTR Sanger sequencing revealed detection of a missense mutation of Val30Ala at a heterozygous state. Transthyretin familial amyloid polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP) is a rare systemic disease due to endoneurial amyloid deposit, and is one of the most severe disabling hereditary peripheral neuropathies in adults. It has been described clinicopathologically in 1952 by Corino Andrade in north of Portugal and genetically in 1984 by Maria Joao Saraiva. TTR-FAP has long been considered an endemic disease in Portugal, Sweden and Japan, although sporadic cases have also been reported in Europe initially in France and the UK. There is genetic heterogeneity in TTR-FAP, with Val30Met being the most frequent genotype in the world. Val30Ala is a rare mutation, which have previously been described in the Chinese population. In this manuscript, we document to our knowledge the first genetically proven case of FAP in India, a populated country of more than 1.2 billion inhabitants, and a detailed description of the patient case, as well as family investigations are provided. The patient is awaiting for anti-amyloid treatment. Written informed consent for publication of their clinical details and/or clinical images was obtained from the patient /parent/guardian/ relative of the patient.

APOB/APOA-I ratio, and major cardiovascular risk factors in Azores and Lisbon populations – A comparison study

The authors are grateful to Jorge Morgado (Health Centre of Nordeste), Jorge Oliveira (Health Centre of Povoacao), Emiliana Dias (Health Centre of Sta Cruz das Flores), Joaquim Ferreira da Silva (Health Centre of Sta Cruz da Graciosa), Jose Aires Raposo (Health Centre of Ribeira Grande), Cesar Goncalves (Health Centre of Velas Sao Jorge), and Maria Joao Carreiro and Teresa Teles Costa (Health Centre of Ponta Delgada,) and to all the technical staff for their support in blood collection and in the determination of serum lipid profile. Also, we would like to thank all participants who voluntary enrolled in this study. Lisbon Project Grant FCT_PIC /IC/83020/2007; RF is supported by a FRC Post-Doc grant (M3.1.7/F/020/2011), AL is supported by FRC PhD grant (M3.1.2/F/017/2011), and ACA was funded by FCT SFRH / BD / 27990 / 2006 and FCT_PTDC/SAU-GMG/101874/2008.

Molecular Mechanisms of NAFLD in Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are increasing worldwide, as often mentioned in this special issue. Lifestyles (with diet being one of the relevant factors) play an important role as preventive determinants of MetSyn and NAFLD, conversely being potential inducers of MetSyn and NAFLD. Liver steatosis has been considered not only the hepatic MetSyn manifestation but also one of the earliest MetSyn signs. Liver steatosis represents the initial step of the whole spectrum of NAFLD. Review and experimental articles including both basic and clinical data, pursuing the cross-talk between obesity/insulin resistance/MetSyn features and diet, lipid metabolism, redox state, oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammatory processes and mediators, glucocorticoid excess, developmental programming, and gut microbiota in NAFLD, are included in this special issue. Possible strategies for intervention against NAFLD are also presented and discussed. There is growing evidence that the transcription factor nuclear factor erythroid-2 related factor 2 (Nrf2), a key regulator of cellular antioxidant responses, is also implicated in the regulation of hepatic lipid metabolism. The topic is addressed in the article of S. S. Chambel et al. N. Duarte et al. comprehensively reviewed the role of Kupffer cells on inflammation under conditions of hepatic fat deposition. E. Lau et al. analyzed in detail the recent research on the contribution of gut microbiota to NAFLD. A broad and extensive review on the growing evidences regarding the developmental programming of NAFLD by both maternal obesity and undernutrition is presented (M. Li et al.). E. Maslak et al. showed that rats fed with a MetSyn-inducing diet supplemented with conjugated linoleic acid isomers (c9t11 and t10c12) had (globally) beneficial effects on the hepatic lipid content and glycogen accumulation as well as on the circulating lipid profile; the isomers also modulated the fatty acid composition and decreased lipogenic enzymes mRNA expression in the liver. A. Cordeiro et al. found that, in class III obesity, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol and insulin levels (as well as insulin resistance index and waist circumference values), independently considered MetSyn features, linked to NAFLD, diagnosed by liver biopsy. The analyzed topics included in the present special issue allow a better mechanistic understanding of NAFLD pathology in the context of the MetSyn and further contribute to the possible implementation of important countermeasures, either preventive or therapeutic, against the disease. Therefore, we hope that this special issue will be of interest to a wide audience in basic and applied biomedical areas, especially those that embrace with excitement the search for new hypothesis and approaching challenges regarding NAFLD pathophysiology in the context of the MetSyn. Maria Joao Martins Antonio Ascensao Jose Magalhaes Maria Carmen Collado Piero Portincasa

Nobles and nobility in medieval Europe: concepts, origins, transformations

Part 1 Early Middle Ages: the origins of the nobility in Francia, Paul Fouracre the nearly men - Boso of Vienne and Arnulf of Bavaria, Stuart Airlie nobility in the 9th century, Janet L. Nelson continuity and change in the 10th-century nobility, Regine Le Jan the Old English vocabulary of nobility, Jane Roberts nobles and others - the social and cultural expression of power relations in the Middle Ages, Timothy Reuter. Part 2 Central Middle Ages: princely nobility in an age of ambition (circa 1050-1150), T.N. Bisson words, concepts, and phenomena - knighthood, lordship, and the early Polish nobility, circa 1100-1350, Piotr Gorecki nobles and nobility in the narrative works of Hartmann von Aue, Martin H. Jones a noble in politics - Roger Mortimer in the period of baronial reform and rebellion, 1258-1265, David Carpenter King Magnus and his liegemen's Hirdskra - a portrait of the Norwegian nobility in the 1270s, Steinar Imsen. Part 3 Late Middle Ages: the nobility of medieval Portugal (11-14th centuries), Maria Joao Violante Branco noblewomen, family, and identity in later medieval Europe, Jennifer C. Ward the Western nobility in the late Middle Ages - a survey of the historiography and some prospects for new research, Martin Aurell.

Production of recombinant human transthyretin with biological activities toward the understanding of the molecular basis of familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy (FAP)

Transthyretin (TTR) is a plasma protein interacting with thyroxine T4 and retinol binding protein (RBP). Several variants of TTR with single amino acid substitutions have been identified as the major components of the amyloid fibrils of familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy (FAP), a fetal, autosomal dominant genetic disease. The elucidation of the molecular nature of the variants distinct from that of the wild-type TTR is crucial for understanding the amyloidogenesis in FAP, but our understanding is very poor mainly because of the unavailability of pure variant TTRs. In the present study, we used an Escherichia coli OmpA secretion vector (Ghrayeb et al., 1984) and achieved an effective production of the variant TTRs related to FAP including Met-30, Ile-33, Ala-60, Tyr-77, Met-111, and Ile-122 types. The variant TTRs produced in this system were efficiently secreted to the culture media. The chemical analysis showed that the secreted TTR (Met-30 type) has the same N-terminus as the native one. IEF analyses also indicated that the secreted product is properly processed as assessed by its pI. Furthermore, the secreted TTR was shown to have biological activities, namely, the thyroxin binding activity and the ability to associate with retinol binding protein, indicating that the secreted TTR polypeptide is properly folded. The present work also demonstrated that the processing/secretion of the recombinant TTR molecules in E. coli was strongly affected by single amino acid substitutions.