This text begins by analysing the reasons why most taxes depend on assessment activities, carried out through certain procedures, which both enable open and participatory decision-making and the enforcement of individual rights. We then proceed with the dogmatic justification of the specific public interest pursued by the tax administration, in order to the correctly manifest the functional will of the legislator, thus prohibiting any direct pursuit of financial interests by the tax authority. And finally, we see how the duty falling upon the administration to discover the material truth is, after all, an expression of its role as executor of tax legality and a condition for the impartiality of its activity.

Aceitando a ideia de lugar como construção intelectual e social, negociada na pluralidade de atores envolvidos na produção, experiência e representação do espaço, este artigo examina como as Pousadas de Portugal têm participado na territorialização de narrativas de identidade. Criadas em 1939 pelo Estado português, as Pousadas são uma rede de alojamentos turísticos majoritariamente localizados em espaço rural e instalados em edifícios patrimoniais, que fixam e geram narrativas sobre história e tradição em lugares particulares. O trabalho de campo, realizado em diferentes unidades, mostrou, todavia, como essas narrativas informam e são informadas por relações e práticas sociais que, diacrônicas e dinâmicas, se articulam com outras escalas territoriais e outras dimensões simbólicas. Novos valores e interações precisam, por isso ser considerados na forma como os indivíduos conhecem, vivem e imaginam um lugar na sobremodernidade, constituindo-o por meio da experiência e da representação.

We previously modeled the in vivo evolution of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) under drug selective pressure from cross-sectional viral sequences. These fitness landscapes (FLs) were made by using first a Bayesian network (BN) to map epistatic substitutions, followed by scaling the fitness landscape based on an HIV evolution simulator trying to evolve the sequences from treatment naïve patients into sequences from patients failing treatment. In this study, we compared four FLs trained with different sequence populations. Epistatic interactions were learned from three different cross-sectional BNs, trained with sequence from patients experienced with indinavir (BNT), all protease inhibitors (PIs) (BNP) or all PI except indinavir (BND). Scaling the fitness landscape was done using cross-sectional data from drug naïve and indinavir experienced patients (Fcross using BNT) and using longitudinal sequences from patients failing indinavir (FlongT using BNT, FlongP using BNP, FlongD using BND). Evaluation to predict the failing sequence and therapy outcome was performed on independent sequences of patients on indinavir. Parameters included estimated fitness (LogF), the number of generations (GF) or mutations (MF) to reach the fitness threshold (average fitness when a major resistance mutation appeared), the number of generations (GR) or mutations (MR) to reach a major resistance mutation and compared to genotypic susceptibility score (GSS) from Rega and HIVdb algorithms. In pairwise FL comparisons we found significant correlation between fitness values for individual sequences, and this correlation improved after correcting for the subtype. Furthermore, FLs could predict the failing sequence under indinavir-containing combinations. At 12 and 48 weeks, all parameters from all FLs and indinavir GSS (both for Rega and HIVdb) were predictive of therapy outcome, except MR for FlongT and FlongP. The fitness landscapes have similar predictive power for treatment response under indinavir-containing regimen as standard rules-based algorithms, and additionally allow predicting genetic evolution under indinavir selective pressure.

No presente estudo a autora procede a uma análise do âmbito de protecção conferido pela primeira parte da alínea f) do artigo 18.º da LCCG ao aderente, partindo de uma abordagem da faculdade da excepção de não cumprimento do contrato no respectivo âmbito natural, para, em seguida, ensaiar algumas hipóteses de extensão do mesmo, e, depois, dedicar-se ao estudo da admissibilidade da exclusão da excepção de não cumprimento, no âmbito de cláusulas contratuais não negociadas individualmente e no seu cruzamento com o princípio da boa fé constante do artigo 762.º, n.º 2 do Código Civil. Finalmente, a título de considerações finais, procede, a mesma autora, à apreciação da relevância desta disposição enquanto meio de protecção do aderente em relação ao regime geral.

BACKGROUND We investigated gender differences in treatment outcome during first line antiretroviral treatment (ART) in a hospital setting in Tanzania, assessing clinical, social demographic, virological and immunological factors. METHODS We conducted a cohort study involving HIV infected patients scheduled to start ART and followed up to 1 year on ART. Structured questionnaires and patients file review were used to collect information and blood was collected for CD4 and viral load testing. Gender differences were assessed using Kruskal-Wallis test and chi-square test for continuous and categorical data respectively. Survival distributions for male and female patients were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared using Cox proportional hazards models. RESULTS Of 234 patients recruited in this study, 70% were females. At baseline, women had significantly lower education level; lower monthly income, lower knowledge on ARV, less advanced HIV disease (33% women; 47% men started ART at WHO stage IV, p = 0.04), higher CD4 cell count (median 149 for women, 102 for men, p = 0.02) and higher BMI (p = 0.002). After 1 year of standard ART, a higher proportion of females survived although this was not significant, a significantly higher proportion of females had undetectable plasma viral load (69% women, 45% men, p = 0.003), however females ended at a comparable CD4 cell count (median CD4, 312 women; 321 men) signifying a worse CD4 cell increase (p = 0.05), even though they still had a higher BMI (p = 0.02). The unadjusted relative hazard for death for men compared to women was 1.94. After correcting for confounding factors, the Cox proportional hazards showed no significant difference in the survival rate (relative hazard 1.02). CONCLUSION We observed women were starting treatment at a less advanced disease stage, but they had a lower socioeconomical status. After one year, both men and women had similar clinical and immunological conditions. It is not clear why women lose their immunological advantage over men despite a better virological treatment response. We recommend continuous follow up of this and more cohorts of patients to better understand the underlying causes for these differences and whether this will translate also in longer term differences.