University of Coimbra

Community Pharmacy Involvement in Cardiovascular Patient Follow-Up: A Conceptual Framework for Integrated Ambulatory Pharmaceutical Care

Background/Objectives: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, requiring coordinated long-term management of cardiovascular risk factors, complex pharmacotherapy, and continuity of care across healthcare settings. Community pha...

Zirconium Dioxide Nanoparticles in Bone Tissue Engineering: Recent Advances, Biological Interactions, and Future Perspectives

Bone defects from trauma, tumor resection, infection, and degenerative disease remain a large clinical problem, and the grafting strategies used to treat them still carry familiar limitations: donor-site morbidity for autografts, variable integration and supply constraints for al...

A comparative study of mechanistic and hybrid model structures for microalgae-based tertiary wastewater treatment systems

Microalgae-based wastewater treatment (WWT) systems are a sustainable approach to nutrient removal with biomass valorisation. However, accurately modelling these systems remains complex due to the intricate relations between environmental input variability and biological processe...

Central nervous system manifestations in hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis: a cross-sectional study with 151 patients

Abstract Background Central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction is increasingly recognized in hereditary transthyretin (ATTRv) amyloidosis. We aimed to characterize CNS manifestations and assess associations with clinical variables and plasma neurofilament light chain (NfL), using h...

Optimal Participant Allocation in Individually‐Randomized Stepped‐Wedge Clinical Trials With One or More Treatments: Extensions to Realistic Settings

ABSTRACT In stepped‐wedge clinical trials the patients are randomized into separate groups. Each group transitions from no treatment to treatment at a different time period. The designs are useful when limited resources or geographical constraints make it impossible to treat all...

Advance directives knowledge among primary healthcare professionals: a cross-sectional study in Portugal

Advance directives (ADs) are legal documents allowing individuals to express preferences for future medical care when unable to make decisions. In Portugal, ADs are regulated by Law No. 25/2012 and may be recorded in the National Registry of Advance Directives of Will. Primary he...

Electrical signalling beyond diffusion-limited microbial interactions

Abstract Ecological communication is traditionally interpreted through diffusion-limited chemical signalling. Here, we argue that bioelectricity provides a complementary dimension of microbial ecological interaction, arising from ion-driven electrical signalling between responsiv...

Phytochemical, Nutritional and Physicochemical Characteristics of Fruits and Leaves from the Myrica L. Genus: A Systematic Review

The Myrica L. genus represents a group of plants commonly known as actinorhizal plants, which have been used as food, medicine, and natural dyes. This article aims to systematically review the available recent scientific evidence identified through a defined search strategy on th...

Electroconvulsive Therapy in Seronegative Paraneoplastic Encephalitis With Catatonia

Autoimmune encephalitis frequently presents with prominent psychiatric symptoms and may mimic primary psychiatric disorders, particularly in the early stages. We report the case of a 38-year-old man who presented with a 2-week history of behavioral disturbance, persecutory ideati...

Sustainable Manufacturing and Green Processing Methods, 2nd Edition

Manufacturing systems face increasing pressure to reduce energy use, material consumption, waste generation, and environmental emissions while maintaining product quality, productivity, and economic viability [...]

177Lu-trastuzumab radionuclide therapy: a promising strategy for trastuzumab-resistant brain metastases in HER2+ breast cancer

Abstract Brain metastases (BrM) are a frequent and devastating complication of HER2-positive (HER2+) breast cancer (BC), affecting up to 30% of patients with metastatic disease. Although trastuzumab has transformed HER2+ BC treatment, its efficacy against BrM remains limited by b...

Runtime Firmware Update for 32-Bit Microcontrollers with Instruction Cache Under Concurrent Task Execution

Smart sensor devices increasingly require remote firmware updates to deploy new functionality, security patches and algorithmic improvements without interrupting services. Runtime firmware updates remain a significant challenge in embedded sensing systems, particularly in real-ti...

Ultra-Stable Zinc Nitroprusside Cathode Operating at High Potentials for Inexpensive, Simpler-to-Scale Sodium-Ion Batteries

Abstract Driven by the demand for low-cost and environmentally sustainable energy storage technologies, sodium-ion batteries (NIBs) have emerged as a promising alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Among the various cathode candidates, Prussian blue analogs (PBAs) stand out due t...

Activation-independent capture of free fatty acids at the bacterial cell envelope by BrtB

ABSTRACT Fatty acids (FAs) are key metabolites in living organisms, shaping membrane architecture, and helping cellular acclimatization to changing conditions. Bacteria synthesize FAs de novo but can also reclaim them from membrane lipids or uptake them from the environment, usua...

DISCLAIMERS AND LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY IN DIGITAL CONTRACTS: THE CASE OF CLOUD COMPUTING AND SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE (SaaS) CONTRACTS

This article analyses the legal limits of clauses excluding or limiting civil liability in cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) contracts. The study focuses on the tension between the private autonomy of technology providers — who rely on standardised form contracts t...

Socioeconomic inequalities in sleep disturbances among school-aged children: evidence from socioeconomically vulnerable schools

Abstract Background Family socioeconomic inequalities have been consistently associated with children’s sleep disturbances. However, it remains unclear whether these inequalities are equally evident among children attending socioeconomically vulnerable schools, where many environ...

Unmasking ESG-washing: the power of transparency and gender diversity on firm value in the energy sector

Purpose Drawing from the legitimacy and signaling theories, this paper aims to investigate the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG)-Washing on the market value of energy companies, considering the role of the firm’s board gender diversity (BGD) and the disclosure...

Education and training of healthcare professionals in the application of non-invasive ventilation: a scoping review

Respiratory diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, often requiring ventilatory support. Non-invasive ventilation (NIV) is an effective strategy, but its implementation depends on adequate professional training. However, gaps in education and variability...

Assessing the Immunological Safety of Silk Fibroin Nanoparticles: An In Vitro Study With Primary Human Immune Cells

Biomaterials for drug delivery must be biodegradable, nontoxic, and must not trigger inflammatory or immune responses. Silk fibroin (SF) is a natural polymer with exceptional mechanical strength and notable biological properties. In this study, the immunogenicity and inflammatory...

Radon-induced backgrounds in the NEXT-100 experiment

A bstract The NEXT-100 detector at the LSC aims at the first competitive search for the 0 νββ decay using a high-pressure 136 Xe electroluminescent time projection chamber. The first low-background run of NEXT-100 at 3.95 bar has been devoted to the measurement of the radon-induc...