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Late-Night Salivary Cortisol: Cut-Off Definition and Diagnostic Accuracy for Cushing’s Syndrome in a Portuguese Population
Publication . Lages, Adriana De Sousa; Oliveira, Diana; Paiva , Isabel; Oliveira, Patrícia; Rebelo-Marques, Alexandre; Carrilho, Francisco; Frade, João Gonçalo Leal de Oliveira e Silva
Introduction: Diagnosis of Cushing’s syndrome remains a challenge in clinical endocrinology. Even though late-night salivary cortisol is used as screening tool, individualized cut-off levels for each population must be defined.Material and Methods: Three groups of subjects were studied: normal subjects, suspected and proven Cushing’s syndrome. Salivary cortisol was measured using an automated electrochemiluminescence assay. The functional sensitivity of the assay is 0.018 μg/dL. The diagnostic cut-off level was defined by Receiver Operating Characteristic curve and Youden’s J index.Results: We studied 127 subjects: 57 healthy volunteers, 39 patients with suspected and 31 with proven Cushing’s syndrome. 2.5th- 97.5th percentile of the late-night salivary cortisol concentrations in normal subjects was 0.054 to 0.1827 μg/dL. Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.9881 (p < 0.0001). A cut-off point of 0.1 μg/dL provided a sensitivity of 96.77% (95% CI 83.3 - 99.92%) and specificity of 91.23% (95% CI 80.7 - 97.09%). There was a significant correlation between late-night salivary cortisol and late-night serum cortisol (R = 0.6977; p < 0.0001) and urinary free cortisol (R = 0.5404; p = 0.0025) in proven Cushing’s syndrome group.Discussion: The mean ± SD late-night salivary cortisol concentration in patients with proven Cushing’s syndrome (0.6798 ± 0.52 μg/dL) was significantly higher (p < 0.0001). In our population, the late-night salivary cortisol cut-off was 0.1 μg/dL with high sensitivity and specificity.Conclusion: Late-night salivary cortisol has excellent diagnostic accuracy, making it a highly reliable, noninvasive, screening tool for outpatient assessment. Given its convenience and diagnostic accuracy, late-night salivary cortisol may be added to other traditional screening tests on hypercortisolism
Response of fabric insert injection overmolding PP based composites subjected to single and muti-impact
Publication . Ferreira, José; Febra, Tiago; Costa, José; Capela, Carlos
This paper presents the results of a current study on the development and impact response of composite plates manufactured by injection overmolding on the two sides of a single reinforcement fibre mat. The injection polymer is a talc-filled polypropylene, nowadays used for structural purposes. Three configurations with different insert fibre mats were used: Kevlar, biaxial and multiaxial glass fibre mats. The parameters studied were the fibre mat type and the impact energy. For single impact tests, it was concluded that the highest impact energy required to achieve impactor perforation is obtained with Kevlar insert, while the highest percentage of energy recovered is achieved with biaxial glass fibre netting. Kevlar insert also allows for the maximum impact stiffness. For the multi-impact tests, the recovered energy and the dynamic stiffness show the same tendencies of the single impact tests. On low energy impacts, the effect of the insert fibre and of the previous impact are quite reduced, while for impact energies above 6J, previous impacts reduce significantly the recovered energy and the impact energy for which the perforation was achieved.
How happiness mediates the organizational virtuousness and affective commitment relationship
Publication . Rego, Arménio; Ribeiro, Neuza; Cunha, Miguel Pina e; Jesuino, Jorge Correia; Ribeiro, Neuza
Recent moral and financial collapse of high profile organizations around the world led the business community, the popular and business press, and researchers to rediscover the worthiness of organizations' virtues. Aiming to contribute to this momentum, this empirical study investigates how perceptions of organizational virtuousness (OV) predict affective well-being (AWB) and affective commitment (AC). Two hundred five individuals participate. The findings show that perceptions of OV predict AC both directly and through the mediating role of AWB. The study suggests that fostering organizational virtuousness (e.g., through honesty, interpersonal respect, and compassion; combining high standards of performance with a culture of forgiveness and learning from mistakes) improves employees' AWB and promotes a more committed workforce. Considering these findings and mirroring the growing contributions of the positive psychology, positive organizational behavior, and positive organizational scholarship movements, the study suggests that a "positive-people-management" perspective should be considered, both by practitioners and scholars.
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Publication . Pereira, Alexandra; Coelho, Vânia; Gillain, Romain
Fiducials Marks Detection to Assist Visually Impaired People Navigation
Publication . Costa, Paulo; Fernandes, Hugo; Vasconcelos, Veronica; Coelho, Paulo; Barroso, Joao; Hadjileontiadis, Leontios
Assistive technology enables people to achieve independence in the accomplishment of their daily tasks and enhance their quality of life. Visual information is the basis for most navigational tasks, so visually impaired individuals are at disadvantage due to the lack of information or given unsufficient information about their surrounding environment. With the recent advances in inclusive technology it is possible to extend the support given to people with visual disabilities during their mobility. In this context we propose and describe the SmartVision project, whose global objective is to assist visually impaired people in their navigation through unknown indoor and outdoor environments. This paper is focused mainly on the Computer Vision module of the SmartVision prototype, were we propose a new algorithm to recognise fiducials marks suitably placed on sidewalks, revealing to be a promising solution.