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Background and study aims Significant weight regain affects up to one-third of patients after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) and demands treatment. Transoral outlet reduction (TORe) with argon plasma coagulation (APC) alone or APC plus full-thickness suturing TORe (APC-FTS) is effective in the short term. However, no study has investigated the course of gastrojejunostomy (GJ) or quality of life (QOL) data after the first post-procedure year.

Portuguese school buildings are generally characterized by an in-service thermal discomfort, due to the poor envelope thermal properties and the lack of resources for paying energy consumption. Most Portuguese schools are free-running buildings with a natural ventilation strategy. Hundreds of high and basic schools have not been refurbished and still have problems or anomalies and inadequate in-service conditions and need to be rehabilitated in the near future. There will be, therefore, an opportunity to apply the acquired knowledge of comfort, habits, energy consumption and costs that have been studied since the last refurbishments (2008). This work studies the Portuguese Brandão schools model (from the ’70s), including about 100 non-refurbished basic schools. A prototype classroom was prepared in a Brandão school, in Porto. The in situ experimental campaign consisted of temperature, relative humidity, CO2 concentration and energy consumption measurements. The main tasks of this work are: (1) the validation of an advanced hygrothermal model with experimental measurements before and after the prototype refurbishment; (2) development of a sensitivity study in order to choose the best refurbishment and heating strategies for these buildings, regarding their typology, the local climate features and the actual capacity to support the operating costs; (3) assessment of the roof insulation thickness in Brandão schools; (4) quantification of discomfort indicators.

Measuring moisture content in building materials is crucial for the correct diagnosis of buildings’ pathologies and for the efficiency evaluation of the treatment solution applied. There are several different techniques available to measure the moisture content in construction materials. However, perform long-term minor-destructive measurements is still a great challenge. The TDR – Time Domain Reflectometry – technique is commonly used for moisture content measurements in soils, but is considered a relatively new method with regard to its application in construction materials. In the present state of research, the current use of the TDR technique for monitoring moisture content in all types of consolidated porous building materials is not possible yet. Indeed, the empirical conversion functions proposed for soils are mostly not suitable for building materials. Furthermore, to successfully use the TDR technique, a good contact between the TDR probe and the material under study is required, which may be difficult to achieve in hard materials. In this paper, the TDR technique was implemented in two limestone walls constructed in the lab to test experimentally the efficiency of a wall-base ventilation channel to speed up drying after a flood. Each wall was equipped with four two-rod TDR probes for continuous monitoring the moisture content in both situations: with and without the ventilation channel. All the equipment used, procedures followed during the drilling until the probes’ final installation, as well as the individual calibration required for each probe are explained in detail. Instead of using unsuitable functions proposed for soils, the evaluation of the moisture content from the apparent relative dielectric permittivity measured was established using as reference method the gravimetric method. The results obtained suggest that the TDR technique is suitable for moisture content monitoring in consolidated porous building materials.

Our global climate is changing and the problem got so serious that the European Commission is calling for a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. To reach such an ambitious and urgent goal, an energy efficient renovation of the existing building stock is needed. Nonetheless, some buildings must be treated with special attention because of their historical value. Thus, it is advisable to evaluate their retrofit with the aid of calibrated hygrothermal simulation models, whose calibration can be complex and time demanding. This work shows the strategy adopted for obtaining a calibrated model for a XVI-century construction located northern Italy, by means of indoor air temperature and relative humidity monitoring, plus CO2 measurements and in situ inspection. This study accounts for the first 9 months of measurements performed on the case study and it adopts HAMBase as a simulation tool because of its ability to combine heat and moisture calculations in monumental buildings with HVAC systems. This paper aims at showing the main problems found in developing and calibrating the simulation model while defining a procedure to overcome them. The major outcome of the study is that the stratification of temperature detected in the main monumental room could be successfully modelled via dividing this space into different zones, vertically, by introducing fictitious interzonal surfaces made of a material with high thermal conductivity and vapour permeability. All in all, the strategy adopted in this work can be used by other researchers and professionals to overcome problems that can be commonly met when modelling similar historic constructions.

Portuguese school buildings are generally characterized by an in service thermal discomfort. The refurbishments that the schools have recently undergone, have not fully considered the climatic diversity and the economic reality of the country and, for that reason, there are still some discomfort in these schools. This work studies the Portuguese Brandão schools model (from the 70’s), which comprises about 100 non-refurbished basic schools. A prototype classroom was prepared in a Brandão school, in Porto. The in situ experimental campaign consisted in temperature, relative humidity, CO2 concentration and energy consumption measurements. With this prototype, some studies were carried out regarding the thermal behavior before and after a refurbishment process, by experimental monitoring. The prototype construction has included the improvement of the envelope (roof insulation and solar protection) and of the technical systems (ventilation and heating). The main goal was the assessment of the discomfort in this prototype before and after the refurbishment in free-running conditions or with some intermittent heating strategies. Discomfort indexes have been developed for the assessment of the discomfort. This work presents the prototype thermal performance in pre-existing in service conditions and the improvement in the thermal behavior of the environment after the refurbishment.

Abstract Background Stratified keratinizing squamous epithelium in the ovary has been associated with the diagnosis of ovarian teratoma in cows. Recently, the diagnosis of “epidermoid cyst” has been proposed. A case of squamous metaplasia of the rete ovarii in a Zebu cow is described in this report. Case presentation A crossbreed Zebu cow had both ovaries enlarged with multiple cysts. Most cysts were lined by well differentiated keratinizing stratified squamous epithelium and filled with keratinized lamellar material. Some cysts were lined by an epithelial layer that ranged from single cuboidal, double cuboidal epithelium, stratified non keratinized epithelium, and areas of keratinizing stratified squamous epithelium. Single or double layered cuboidal epithelia of the cysts expressed low molecular weight cytokeratin 7, whose expression was absent in the keratinizing stratified squamous epithelia of same cysts. Conversely, high molecular weight cytokeratins 1, 5, 10, and 14 were strongly expressed by the keratinizing stratified epithelium. Conclusion Squamous metaplasia of the rete ovarii was diagnosed. Squamous metaplasia of the rete ovarii, may account for some of the previously described squamous lesions in the ovary, which may have been misinterpreted as teratoma or epidermoid cysts.