Development of diamond tracking detectors for high luminosity experiments at the LHC

Tracking detectors have become an important ingredient in high energy physics experiments. In order to survive the harsh detection environment of the LHC, trackers need to have special properties. They must be radiation hard, provide fast collection of charge, be as thin as possible and remove heat from readout electronics. The unique properties of diamond allow it to fulfil these requirements. Further, recent progress in the production of chemical vapour deposited diamond makes large surface area detectors now realistic. We propose a development programme which improves the charge collection properties of diamond, studies the radiation hardness of the material, designs various tracking devices, develops low noise, radiation hard electronics to read out the detectors and applies diamond as a thermal management tool for the LHC

Electrochemical treatment of effluent for the removal of contaminants of emergent concern and culturable microorganisms

project CEMOWAS2 (SOE2/P5/F0505) UIDB/04085/2020 CEECIND/04210/2017The present work aims to study the electrochemical (EC) process applied for the removal of contaminants of emergent concern (CECs) from wastewater after secondary treatment and the effect of the process on the total culturable microorganisms. The EC experiments were performed in a cylindrical open reactor with 500 mL of effluent, and a fixed current density of 8 mA/cm² was applied through mixed metal oxide electrodes. The experiments were conducted in different sets. In the first round (Set 1), the effluent sample was spiked with three CECs (200 ppb each): Caffeine (CAF), carbamazepine (CBZ), and oxybenzone (OXY). For the best treatment period, 6 h, electrodegradation rates ranged from 41 ± 7% for CAF to 95 ± 6% for OXY, with an 87% removal of total culturable microorganisms. In the second round (Set 2), aiming to assess EC process efficiency in a more complex CEC mixture, the effluent was spiked with six more CECs (200 ppb each): Diclofenac (DCF), triclosan (TCS), bisphenol A (BPA), 17β-estradiol (E2), 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2), and ibuprofen (IBU), giving a total of nine CECs. In this case, the EC process allowed decreasing the CEC content by 19-100% (below the limit of detection), depending on the effluent samples, and the culturable microorganisms by 99.98% after a 6 h treatment. By contributing to CEC degradation and microorganism removal, the EC process proved to be a viable remediation and disinfection technology for secondary effluent from wastewater treatment plants.publishersversionpublishe

Revealing cytotoxic substructures in molecules using deep learning

In drug development, late stage toxicity issues of a compound are the main cause of failure in clinical trials. In silico meth ods are therefore of high importance to guide the early design process to reduce time, costs and animal testing. Technical advances and the ever growing amount of available toxicity data enabled machine learning, especially neural networks, to impact the feld of predictive toxicology. In this study, cytotoxicity prediction, one of the earliest handles in drug discovery, is investigated using a deep learning approach trained on a highly consistent in-house data set of over 34,000 compounds with a share of less than 5% of cytotoxic molecules. The model reached a balanced accuracy of over 70%, similar to previ ously reported studies using Random Forest. Albeit yielding good results, neural networks are often described as a black box lacking deeper mechanistic understanding of the underlying model. To overcome this absence of interpretability, a Deep Taylor Decomposition method is investigated to identify substructures that may be responsible for the cytotoxic efects, the so-called toxicophores. Furthermore, this study introduces cytotoxicity maps which provide a visual structural interpretation of the relevance of these substructures. Using this approach could be helpful in drug development to predict the potential toxicity of a compound as well as to generate new insights into the toxic mechanism. Moreover, it could also help to de-risk and optimize compounds

Electrodialytic recovery of rare earth elements from coal ashes

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., Portugal, UIDB/04085/2020 (Research unit CENSE “Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research”). Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia is also acknowledged for N. Couto Contract established under Individual Call to Scientific Employment Stimulus (CEECIND/04210/2017).Rare earth elements (REE) are critical raw materials crucial for modern technologies and used in a variety of industries. There is a need of investment in REE recovery from secondary sources. The present work was designed to assess the potential of the electrodialytic process to recover REE from coal ash. The content of REE was evaluated in bituminous and anthracite ash. Anthracite presented higher REE concentration (447 ppm vs. 138 ppm) and a triple concentration of critical REE compared with bituminous ash. Anthracite ash was treated aiming to test the REE recover potential, including differences between light REE (LREE) and heavy REE (HREE) fractions as well as the specific recovery of REE with high criticality. A two-compartment electrodialytic cell was tested with the matrix placed in the anode compartment and a cation-exchange membrane separating the compartments. Experiments lasted a maximum of 7 days applying different current intensities and pH adjustment in the catholyte (≈ 2). Three main steps are observed in the removal process 1) REE solubilization - from the solid to the liquid phase (anolyte); 2) REE mobilization - movement from the anolyte towards the cathode end; 3) REE removal - presence in the catholyte. The extent of each step observed for the REE depends on their individual position in the periodic table with HREE removal being more regulated by step 1 and LREE by step 2. At the best tested conditions (50 mA, 3 days, pH adjustment), more than 70% of REE were extracted from the ash with the catholyte enclosing up to ≈ 50% of LREE and HREE. Combining the high criticality of neodymium with its high concentration in anthracite coal ash (65 ppm), the electrodialytic treatment is highly recommended to concentrate this REE in the catholyte. The results demonstrated the proof-of-concept for electro-assisted extraction of REE from anthracite coal ash, opening perspectives to a selective recovery of these elements from secondary sources.authorsversionpublishe

An activatable lanthanide luminescent probe for time-gated detection of nitroreductase in live bacteria

The development of a turn-on lanthanide luminescent probe for time-gated detection of nitroreductases (NTRs) in live bacteria is reported. The probe is activated through NTR-induced formation of the sensitizing carbostyril antenna and resulting energy transfer to the lanthanide center. This novel NTR-responsive trigger is virtually non-fluorescent in its inactivated form and features a large signal increase upon activation. We show that the probe is capable of selectively sensing NTR in lysates as well as in live bacteria comprising clinically highly relevant multiresistant pathogens of the ESKAPE family responsible for the majority of hospital infections. The results suggest that our probe could be used to develop diagnostic tools for bacterial infections

Transcultural adaptation to the Brazilian Portuguese of the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire for assessing the postpartum bond between mother and baby

The establishment of the bond between mother and baby in the postpartum period is important for ensuring the physical and psychological health of both. This short communication reports the first phase of the cross-cultural translation and adaptation to the Brazilian context of the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ). Four aspects of equivalence between the original scale and the Portuguese version were evaluated: the conceptual, semantic, operational and item equivalences. Literature review, the study of PBQ history, translation, expert evaluation, back-translation and pretests involving 30 mothers with children aging up to 7 months using a primary healthcare unit were conducted. Each step demonstrated the need for adjustments, which were made during the adaptation process. At the end of the study, a version of PBQ in Brazilian Portuguese equivalent to the original one was obtained, offering promise for national studies on the mother-baby bond, and its influence on health, and for use in health services

Single photon emitters based on Ni/Si related defects in single crystalline diamond

We present investigations on single Ni/Si related color centers produced via ion implantation into single crystalline type IIa CVD diamond. Testing different ion dose combinations we show that there is an upper limit for both the Ni and the Si dose 10^12/cm^2 and 10^10/cm^2 resp.) due to creation of excess fluorescent background. We demonstrate creation of Ni/Si related centers showing emission in the spectral range between 767nm and 775nm and narrow line-widths of 2nm FWHM at room temperature. Measurements of the intensity auto-correlation functions prove single-photon emission. The investigated color centers can be coarsely divided into two groups: Drawing from photon statistics and the degree of polarization in excitation and emission we find that some color centers behave as two-level, single-dipole systems whereas other centers exhibit three levels and contributions from two orthogonal dipoles. In addition, some color centers feature stable and bright emission with saturation count rates up to 78kcounts/s whereas others show fluctuating count rates and three-level blinking.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to Applied Physics B, revised versio