Investigating the binding capabilities of triazole-calix[4]arene functionalized microcantilever sensors toward heavy metals in aqueous solution

The main objective of this work was to investigate the binding capabilities of gold-coated micro-cantilever sensors functionalized with a bimodal triazole-calix[4]arene towards select heavy metals (e.g. Hg²⁺, Fe³⁺, Ni²⁺, Zn²⁺, and Pb²⁺). The interaction between the triazole-calix[4]arene functionalized micro-cantilevers and the target analytes resulted in the formation of a differential surface stresse, which in turn, resulted in a mechanical deflection of the microcantilever. Results showed that microcantilever arrays modified with triazole-calix[4]arene were capable of detecting trace concentrations of Hg²⁺ ions as low as 10⁻¹¹ M, which is sufficiently low for most applications. Results also showed that triazolecalix[4]arene functionalized microcantilevers were capable of detecting the presence of Pb²⁺ ions in aqueous solution of Hg²⁺. A new functionalization unit was also constructed to functionalize all 8 microcantilevers in an array with different sensing layers simultaneously, thus increasing the accuracy and reliability of the experimental results

Managing cultural tourism in a post-conflict region: the Kurdistan Federal Region of Iraq

During any period marked by conflict, potential investors (domestic and foreign) are reluctant to invest in the tourism sector of a country or region, owing to weak investor protection and the general climate of instability, in parallel with the lack of comprehensive planning for the tourism industry. Moreover, after a period of conflict, major challenges have to be faced in rebuilding the social, cultural, educational, service and economic infrastructure. Thus, the tourism industry in conflict and post-conflict areas often suffers a number of challenges, in the form of poor infrastructure, low investment and a lack of proper tourism management planning, or, poor implementation. In the case of the Kurdistan Federal Region of Iraq (KFR), conflict caused major challenges to heritage protection and consequently to the development of cultural tourism. The region was subject to ethnic conflict between the Iraqi government and Kurdish opposition, in particular the armed conflict in 1961 to 2003. There was lack investment in transport infrastructure. The absence of essential facilities such as motorways, rail networks and airports severely restricted the development of a tourism industry from 1991 (the year in which Kurdish autonomy in the region was achieved) to 2005 (when the KFR was officially recognised in Iraq's Constitution of 2005) and continued until 2006. Thereafter, the tourism industry recorded an increase of approximately 700% from 2007 to 2013, after the building of two international airports and thousands of miles of motorways in the KFR. However, so far, in the KFR, no consideration has been given to the conservation of cultural heritage, either as a legacy to the nation or in terms of its potential use to develop tourism. This underdevelopment is attributable to a number of problems, but notably the conflict, which led to the lack of an integrated tourism policy, lack of knowledge on how to protect heritage assets, poor infrastructure and low investment. The preservation of heritage assets has been discussed in the literature, but mostly the focus is on preservation of resources in the context of sustainable tourism (often in the context of over-utilization), and there is a lack of studies undertaken to investigate how post-conflict issues affect the protection of heritage assets, that is, what the potential challenges are to the conservation of heritage assets in post-conflict countries, and how these challenges impact on the future potential for cultural tourism development. This thesis investigates how post-conflict issues affect heritage protection and cultural tourism, in terms of both planning and management, by exploring heritage protection and cultural tourism in the KFR as an example of both a post-conflict area and a new autonomous region. It suggests solutions and makes recommendations for the development of successful, competitive and sustainable cultural heritage tourism in the KFR. The results show that the KFR is rich in cultural resources, but currently not enough governmental consideration is given to cultural heritage conservation. The managerial issues caused by lack of legislation and poor government administration, in parallel with some other challenges, notably a lack of funding, are the core barriers to investment in heritage protection in the KFR, and consequently creating major problems to the development of cultural tourism. Other issues include: a lack of investment and poor implementation, a negative destination image and marketing difficulties. The findings will help decision makers to develop a strategy for cultural protection and to establish a proper cultural tourism policy in the KFR through recommendations to government. The findings will also be of interest to other post-conflict nations and regions. The thesis reports data from a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted in 2015 and 2017

Managing cultural tourism in post-conflict areas: the Kurdistan Federal Region, Iraq

Conflict and post-conflict areas often suffer several challenges regarding tourism development owing to poor infrastructure, low investment, a lack of appropriate tourism management planning, and poor implementation mechanisms. Much research has been undertaken regarding cultural tourism management issues, challenges and sustainability, yet there is a lack of knowledge on how post-conflict issues affect cultural tourism planning and management. The aim of this paper is to understand the challenges posed in post-conflict regions, for cultural tourism development and to propose solutions and recommendations for successful, competitive and sustainable cultural tourism sectors. The context for the research is the Kurdistan Federal Region (KFR) in Iraq. The study revealed several challenges facing cultural tourism in KFR. The paper reports data from a series of focus groups conducted with residents and tourists, and a number of in-depth interviews with tourism policymakers and experts in KFR

A Atuação de correspondentes bancários como atrativo para empreendedores que desejam investir no ramo de empréstimos e financiamentos: o caso da empresa alfaciamentos

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Sócio Econômico, Curso de Administraçã

Thermoresponsive magnetic colloidal gels for in vitro cell expansion

Recent studies and clinical trials have shown the potential of cell-based therapies for the treatment of a number of diseases and organ/ tissue damages. However, limited availability of some therapeutically important cells (i.e. adult stem cells) still remain as main challenges in the development of tissue engineering through to the clinic. Healthy cells are required in large numbers to form a tissue-engineered construct and primary cells must therefore be expanded in vitro for both scientific and clinical applications. Various strategies have been developed to expand cells in vitro with increasing emphasis on 3D matrices because it can provide microenvironments which more closely mimic in vivo systems. In this way the inherent difficulties associated with 2D culture such as loss of phenotype could be overcome. Moreover, 3D matrices provide higher surface areas to support expansion of larger cell numbers compared to monolayer culture. Although each 3D method has certain advantages, there is no single technique that can be used to produce material assemblies that address all the fundamental problems linked to 3D cell seeding (penetration into the scaffold), passaging (use of enzymes), and harvesting (cell yield). Recently, thermally reversibly-associating particles have been studied for the growth and support of multiple cell types and for delivery of therapeutic cells. But coupling of thermoresponsive properties to magnetic microspheres would enhance the 3D culture and expansion of multiple cell types, and facilitate rapid recovery of the expanded cell population by simple magnetic separation. In this study, it was proposed that the thermoresponsive properties would allow simple cell seeding at temperatures below the LCST of polymer stabiliser when the suspension is flowing and upon heating to above the LCST cells would be encapsulated and cultured within the particle gels (every cells surrounded by a number of particles, as the size of the particles are much smaller than the cells). The magnetic responsive property would allow efficient and scaffold free cell recovery after expansion without the need for using trypsin or enzymatic treatment. The ‘switchable’ component of reversibly associating colloidal microparticles were prepared via two different strategies. In the first strategy, thermoresponsive PDEGMA was physically adsorbed onto the surface of PS microspheres, whereas, in the second strategy, PDEGMA was chemically grafted from functionalised PCMS microspheres via SI-ATRP. The most simple method i.e. physical adsorption is rapid and can be adapted to many microparticle surfaces but has the drawback of possible desorption of polymer chains during extended use. The chemical grafting method i.e. the formation of covalent bonds between the polymer corona and the microparticle core provides robust and well defined materials but is more complex and time-consuming. In both cases, particle aggregation in their suspensions occurred on increasing the temperature to above the LCST of PDEGMA, but could be reversed by cooling the suspensions back to below the LCST. This confirmed the presence of the thermoresponsive polymer on the surface of the microspheres using both methods (adsorption and grafting). Rheological measurements demonstrated that the viscoelasticity of the prepared particle gels can be tuned, enabling these gels to have the mechanical properties that should facilitate their applications as 3D cell scaffolds for in vitro expansion of cells. Cell culture studies showed that these microparticle based scaffolds can support expansion of clinically relevant cell types (human MSC) and allowed efficient cell recovery after proliferation without the need for using trypsin or enzymatic treatment. Overall, those results suggest that the designed scaffolds had great potential for 3D in vitro cell expansion. The new developed materials have excellent biocompatibility, allow simple and rapid cell seeding and cell recovery after expansion, and possess mechanical strength and stability to support cell growth and proliferation. The materials developed and studied in this thesis may represent a significant contribution to the fields of biomaterials, tissue engineering, 3D cell culture and even bio-separation

Managing cultural tourism in a post-conflict region: the Kurdistan Federal Region of Iraq

During any period marked by conflict, potential investors (domestic and foreign) are reluctant to invest in the tourism sector of a country or region, owing to weak investor protection and the general climate of instability, in parallel with the lack of comprehensive planning for the tourism industry. Moreover, after a period of conflict, major challenges have to be faced in rebuilding the social, cultural, educational, service and economic infrastructure. Thus, the tourism industry in conflict and post-conflict areas often suffers a number of challenges, in the form of poor infrastructure, low investment and a lack of proper tourism management planning, or, poor implementation. In the case of the Kurdistan Federal Region of Iraq (KFR), conflict caused major challenges to heritage protection and consequently to the development of cultural tourism. The region was subject to ethnic conflict between the Iraqi government and Kurdish opposition, in particular the armed conflict in 1961 to 2003. There was lack investment in transport infrastructure. The absence of essential facilities such as motorways, rail networks and airports severely restricted the development of a tourism industry from 1991 (the year in which Kurdish autonomy in the region was achieved) to 2005 (when the KFR was officially recognised in Iraq's Constitution of 2005) and continued until 2006. Thereafter, the tourism industry recorded an increase of approximately 700% from 2007 to 2013, after the building of two international airports and thousands of miles of motorways in the KFR. However, so far, in the KFR, no consideration has been given to the conservation of cultural heritage, either as a legacy to the nation or in terms of its potential use to develop tourism. This underdevelopment is attributable to a number of problems, but notably the conflict, which led to the lack of an integrated tourism policy, lack of knowledge on how to protect heritage assets, poor infrastructure and low investment. The preservation of heritage assets has been discussed in the literature, but mostly the focus is on preservation of resources in the context of sustainable tourism (often in the context of over-utilization), and there is a lack of studies undertaken to investigate how post-conflict issues affect the protection of heritage assets, that is, what the potential challenges are to the conservation of heritage assets in post-conflict countries, and how these challenges impact on the future potential for cultural tourism development. This thesis investigates how post-conflict issues affect heritage protection and cultural tourism, in terms of both planning and management, by exploring heritage protection and cultural tourism in the KFR as an example of both a post-conflict area and a new autonomous region. It suggests solutions and makes recommendations for the development of successful, competitive and sustainable cultural heritage tourism in the KFR. The results show that the KFR is rich in cultural resources, but currently not enough governmental consideration is given to cultural heritage conservation. The managerial issues caused by lack of legislation and poor government administration, in parallel with some other challenges, notably a lack of funding, are the core barriers to investment in heritage protection in the KFR, and consequently creating major problems to the development of cultural tourism. Other issues include: a lack of investment and poor implementation, a negative destination image and marketing difficulties. The findings will help decision makers to develop a strategy for cultural protection and to establish a proper cultural tourism policy in the KFR through recommendations to government. The findings will also be of interest to other post-conflict nations and regions. The thesis reports data from a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted in 2015 and 2017

Validation of the inverted adsorption structure for free-base tetraphenyl porphyrin on Cu(111)

Utilising normal incidence X-ray standing waves we rigourously scrutinise the “inverted model” as the adsorption structure of free-base tetraphenyl porphyrin on Cu(111). We demonstrate that the iminic N atoms are anchored at near-bridge adsorption sites on the surface displaced laterally by 1.1 ± 0.2 Å in excellent agreement with previously published calculations

Production of Biocellulosic Ethanol from Wheat Straw

Wheat straw is an abundant lignocellulosic feedstock in many parts of the world, and has been selected for producing ethanol in an economically feasible manner. It contains a mixture of sugars (hexoses and pentoses).Two-stage acid hydrolysis was carried out with concentrates of perchloric acid, using wheat straw. The hydrolysate was concentrated by vacuum evaporation to increase the concentration of fermentable sugars, and was detoxified by over-liming to decrease the concentration of fermentation inhibitors. After two-stage acid hydrolysis, the sugars and the inhibitors were measured. The ethanol yields obtained from by converting hexoses and pentoses in the hydrolysate with the co-culture of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia stipites were higher than the ethanol yields produced with a monoculture of S. cerevisiae. Various conditions for hysdrolysis and fermentation were investigated. The ethanol concentration was 11.42 g/l in 42 h of incubation, with a yield of 0.475 g/g, productivity of 0.272 gl ·h, and fermentation efficiency of 92.955 %, using a co-culture of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia stipite