Chronic effects of dredging-induced stress on the clam (Spisula solida): nucleic acid and lipid composition

Responses of the clam Spisula solida to stress imposed by dredging were analyzed in terms of changes in chronic indices of biochemical conditions (RNA/DNA ratio and neutral/polar (N/P) lipid ratio). Cumulative stress on undersized (<25 mm) S. solida from repeated habitat disturbance by dredging was simulated in the laboratory and measured with in situ studies off the southern coast of Portugal, in April and July 1999. Laboratory simulations on undersized bivalves indicated decreases in RNA/DNA and N/P lipid ratios. Responses were sublethal; however, even though survival was not directly threatened, decreases in condition suggest that bivalves are more susceptible to predation when they have been left in the seabed after the dredging activity. Moreover, the in situ study revealed that this effect could be especially critical during spawning

Disentangling the heterogeneity of allergic respiratory diseases by latent class analysis reveals novel phenotypes

Background Refined phenotyping of allergic diseases may unravel novel phenotypes. Conjunctivitis as an independent disorder has never been approached. Aim To identify distinct classes of allergic respiratory diseases using latent class analysis (LCA) and distinguish each class using classification and regression tree (CART) analysis. Methods Seven hundred and twenty‐eight adults from the Portuguese general population study ICAR had a structured medical interview combined with blood collection, skin prick tests, spirometry with bronchodilation, and exhaled nitric oxide. LCA was applied to 19 variables. The CART algorithm selected the most likely variables distinguishing LCA‐classes. Results A six‐class model was obtained. Class 1 (25%): nonallergic participants without bronchial or ocular symptoms. Classes 2 (22%) and 3 (11%): nasal and ocular (low levels) symptoms without nasal impairment, monosensitized (Class 2) or polysensitized (Class 3). Class 4 (13%): polysensitized participants with high levels of nasal and ocular symptoms, and nasal impairment. Classes 5 (16%) and 6 (14%): high level of nasal, bronchial and ocular symptoms with nasal impairment (non‐allergic or polysensitized, respectively). Participants in classes 5 and 6 had more bronchial exacerbations and unscheduled medical visits (P < 0.001). Ocular symptoms were significantly higher in classes with nasal impairment, compared to those without impairment (P < 0.001) or no nasal symptom (P < 0.001). CART highlighted ocular symptoms as the most relevant variable in distinguishing LCA‐classes. Conclusion Novel severe phenotypes of participants with co‐occurrence of ocular, nasal and bronchial symptoms, and exacerbation‐prone were identified. The tree algorithm showed the importance of the ocular symptoms in the expression of allergic diseases phenotypes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Metallurgical production evidences in the chalcolithic settlement of Moita da Ladra (Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal)

Poster apresentado na conferência realizada em Madrid de 1-3 de junho de 2015The archaeological site of Moita da Ladra is na emblematic settlement located at Vila Franca de Xira (Portugal), occupied predominantly during the second half of the 3rd millennia BC (Chalcolithic period). The presente study focuses on the chemical and microstructural characterization of selected artefacts and metallic nodules (metallurgical remains) found there. Its goal is to contribute to a better comprehension of the primitive copper-based metallurgy on the Portuguese estremadura, where other importante chalcolithic sites are located

Implementation of integral viscoelastic constitutive models in OpenFOAM® computational library

This work reports the implementation and verification of a new so lver in OpenFOAM® open source computational library, able to cope with integral viscoelastic models based on the integral upper-convected Maxwell model. The code is verified through the comparison of its predictions with analytical solutions and numerical results obtained with the differential upper-convected Maxwell modelCAPES, FCT projects PEsT-C/CTM/LA0025/2013, PTDC/MAT/121185/2010 and FEDE

A hybrid bi-objective optimization approach for joint determination of safety stock and safety time buffers in multi-item single-stage industrial supply chains

In material requirements planning (MRP) systems, safety stock and safety time are two well-known inventory buffering strategies to protect against supply and demand uncertainties. While the role of safety stocks in coping with uncertainty is well studied, safety time has received only scarce attention in the supply chain management literature. Particularly, most previous operations research models have typically considered the use of such inventory buffers in a separate fashion, but not together. Here, we propose a decision support system (DSS) to address the problem of integrating optimal safety stock and safety time decisions at the component level, in multi-supplier multi-item single-stage industrial supply chains under dynamic demands and stochastic lead times. The DSS is based on a hybrid bi-objective optimization approach that simultaneously optimizes upstream inventory holding costs and β-service levels, suggesting multiple non-dominated Pareto-optimal solutions to decision-makers. We further explore a weighted closed-form analytical expression to select a single Pareto-optimal point from a set of non-dominated solutions, thereby enhancing the practical application of the proposed DSS. We describe the implementation of our approach in a major automotive electronics company operating under a myriad of components with dynamic demand, uncertain supply and requirements plans with different degrees of sparsity. We show the potential of our approach to improve β-service levels while minimizing inventory-related costs. The results suggest that, in certain cases, it appears to be more cost-effective to combine safety stock with safety time compared to considering each inventory buffer independently.This work has been supported by the European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Pro-gram (COMPETE 2020) [Project No. 39479, Funding reference: POCI-01–0247-FEDER-39479]

Isolated Taylor Bubbles in Co-Current with Shear Thinning CMC Solutions in Microchannels—A Numerical Study

Slug flow is a multiphase flow pattern characterized by the occurrence of long gas bubbles (Taylor bubbles) separated by liquid slugs. This multiphase flow regime is present in many and diversified natural and industrial processes, at macro and microscales, such as in eruption of volcanic magmas, oil recovery from pre-salt regions, micro heat exchangers, and small-sized refrigerating systems. Previous studies in the literature have been mostly focused on tubular gas bubbles flowing in Newtonian liquids. In this work, results from several numerical simulations of tubular gas bubbles flowing in a shear thinning liquid in microchannels are reported. To simulate the shear thinning behavior, carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) solutions with different concentrations were considered. The results are compared with data from bubbles flowing in Newtonian liquids in identical geometric and dynamic conditions. The numerical work was carried out in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package Ansys Fluent (release 16.2.0) employing the volume of fluid (VOF) methodology to track the volume fraction of each phase and the continuum surface force (CSF) model to insert the surface tension effects. The flow patterns, the viscosity distribution in the liquid, the liquid film thickness between the bubble and the wall, and the bubbles shape are analyzed for a wide range of shear rates. In general, the flow patterns are similar to those in Newtonian liquids, but in the film, where a high viscosity region is observed, the thickness is smaller. Bubble velocities are smaller for the non-Newtonian cases.</jats:p

Comparison of Analytical Methods Of Serum Untargeted Metabolomics

Funding Information: IV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), grant DSAIPA/DS/0117/2020 and RNEM-LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-022125 (Portuguese Mass Spectrometry Network). Centro de Química Estrutural is a Research Unit funded by FCT through projects UIDB/00100/2020 and UIDP/00100/2020. Institute of Molecular Sciences is an Associate Laboratory funded by FCT through project LA/P/0056/2020. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 IEEE.Metabolomics has emerged as a powerful tool in the discovery of new biomarkers for medical diagnosis and prognosis. However, there are numerous challenges, such as the methods used to characterize the system metabolome. In the present work, the comparison of two analytical platforms to acquire the serum metabolome of critically ill patients was conducted. The untargeted serum metabolome analysis by ultraperformance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) enabled to identify a set of metabolites statistically different between deceased and discharged patients. This set of metabolites also enabled to develop a very good predictive model, based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with a sensitivity and specificity of 80% and 100%, respectively. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was also applied in a high-throughput, simple and rapid mode to analyze the serum metabolome. Despite this technique not enabling the identification of metabolites, it allowed to identify molecular fingerprints associated to each patient group, while leading to a good predictive model, based on principal component analysis-LDA, with a sensitivity and specificity of 100% and 90%, respectively. Therefore, both analytical techniques presented complementary characteristics, that should be further explored for metabolome characterization and application as for biomarkers discovery for medical diagnosis and prognosis.publishersversionpublishe

Physicochemical Characterization of Ionic Liquid Binary Mixtures Containing 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium as the Common Cation

FCT/MEC (Portugal), through "Investigador FCT 2014" (IF/00190/2014 to A.B.P and IF/00210/2014 to J.M.M.A.),; Projects PTD C/EQU-EQU/29737/2017; PTDC/QEQFTT/32,89/2014; IF/00210/2014/CP1244/CT0003. This work was also supported by the Associate Laboratory for Green Chemistry LAQV (financed by national funds from FCT/MCTES (UID/QUI/50006/2019)) and cofinanced by the ERDF under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007265).Mixing ionic liquids (as well as mixing an inorganic salt in an ionic liquid) constitutes an easy, elegant methodology for obtaining new ionic materials. In this study, 3 ionic liquids (ILs) sharing a common cation were synthesized and mixed in 9 different proportions giving rise to 27 binary mixtures. Specifically, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium nitrate, [C4C1Im][NO3], 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, [C4C1Im]Cl, and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium methanesulfonate, [C4C1Im][CH3SO3], were synthesized and characterized. They all share 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium as the common archetypal cation. None of them (or any of their binary mixtures) is liquid at room temperature (T = 298.15 K), and two of them are only in the liquid state above temperatures of 343-353 K. Despite belonging to commonly used families of ILs, their handling and the study of their liquid properties (neat and mixtures) have become particularly difficult, mainly because of their tendency to solidify and their high viscosity (caused by hydrogen-bonded networks). The main goal of this work is to evaluate the thermal, dynamic, and volumetric properties of these compounds and their mixtures as well as the solid-liquid equilibria of their binary mixtures. Thermal properties, such as melting and glass-transition temperatures, were determined or calculated. Therefore, both density and viscosity have been measured and were used for the calculation of the isobaric thermal expansion coefficient, molar volumes, excess molar volumes, and viscosity deviations to linearity.authorsversionpublishe

Project, development and test of an artificial multifunctional foot

The main purpose of this project is the development of a multifunctional artificial foot, capable of duplicate a human foot in a laboratory environment, in order to evaluate and simulate footwear’s performance under certain conditions. This foot is used as a laboratory prototype and is multisegmented, in order that each section is controlled independently in terms of heat generation and sweating rate, therefore it is possible to simulate more accurately the real behaviour of a human foot. The device produces thermal insulation values that will help to design footwear with better ability in terms of thermal comfort, replacing human volunteers in thermal comfort perception tests, which are very subjective. The prototype was already tested, and preliminary results indicated that thermal insulation values are within the range of expected values produced by other foot thermal manikins and by human volunteers’ tests. This fact suggests that this lab prototype can be used in future thermal comfort evaluations.This project was supported by FCT (the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) and CTCP (Fo otwear Technology Centre of Portugal) because of its poten tial interest and added value to the footwear industry, which is one of the most profitable business areas in Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Impact of the Serum Extraction Protocol on Metabolomic Profiling Using UPLC-MS/MS and FTIR Spectroscopy

Funding Information: This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Grants DSAIPA/DS/0117/2020 and RNEM-LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-022125 (Portuguese Mass Spectrometry Network). The Centro de Química Estrutural is a Research Unit funded by FCT through projects UIDB/00100/2020 and UIDP/00100/2020. The Institute of Molecular Sciences is an Associate Laboratory funded by FCT through project LA/P/0056/2020. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.Biofluid metabolomics is a very appealing tool to increase the knowledge associated with pathophysiological mechanisms leading to better and new therapies and biomarkers for disease diagnosis and prognosis. However, due to the complex process of metabolome analysis, including the metabolome isolation method and the platform used to analyze it, there are diverse factors that affect metabolomics output. In the present work, the impact of two protocols to extract the serum metabolome, one using methanol and another using a mixture of methanol, acetonitrile, and water, was evaluated. The metabolome was analyzed by ultraperformance liquid chromatography associated with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS), based on reverse-phase and hydrophobic chromatographic separations, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The two extraction protocols of the metabolome were compared over the analytical platforms (UPLC-MS/MS and FTIR spectroscopy) concerning the number of features, the type of features, common features, and the reproducibility of extraction replicas and analytical replicas. The ability of the extraction protocols to predict the survivability of critically ill patients hospitalized at an intensive care unit was also evaluated. The FTIR spectroscopy platform was compared to the UPLC-MS/MS platform and, despite not identifying metabolites and consequently not contributing as much as UPLC-MS/MS in terms of information concerning metabolic information, it enabled the comparison of the two extraction protocols as well as the development of very good predictive models of patient’s survivability, such as the UPLC-MS/MS platform. Furthermore, FTIR spectroscopy is based on much simpler procedures and is rapid, economic, and applicable in the high-throughput mode, i.e., enabling the simultaneous analysis of hundreds of samples in the microliter range in a couple of hours. Therefore, FTIR spectroscopy represents a very interesting complementary technique not only to optimize processes as the metabolome isolation but also for obtaining biomarkers such as those for disease prognosis.publishersversionpublishe