On the viability of dc homes: an economic perspective from domestic electrical appliances

The past few years witnessed a growing acclaim for dc power systems, which is mainly justified by the increasing use of energy storage systems and renewable energy sources based mainly on solar photovoltaic technologies. However, there is also a motivation from the point of view of domestic electrical appliances. Since the vast majority of these appliances is comprised by an ac-dc converter, it can be convenient to shift the domestic power supply from ac to dc. In this context, this paper presents an economic assessment of dc homes from the energy consumption perspective and its comparison with traditional homes supplied by ac electrical power grids. In order to perform such assessment, the main type of electronic loads is powered both by ac voltage and by dc voltage, comparing the efficiency and estimated energy cost for each case. The removal of the ac-dc converter present in these loads is also analyzed and compared with the two previously referred cases, supporting the supply of dc power to this type of loads. The analysis is performed by means of experimental results obtained with a laboratorial setup, aiming to validate the feasibility of dc homes under realistic operating conditions of the loads.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019. This work has been supported by FCT within the Project Scope DAIPESEV -Development of Advanced Integrated Power Electronic Systems for Electric Vehicles: PTDC/EEI-EEE/30382/2017. This work is part of the FCT project 0302836 NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-030283. Mr. Tiago Sousa is supported by the doctoral scholarship SFRH/BD/134353/2017 granted by the Portuguese FCT agency

Relación entre la condición corporal y medidas de grasa y de músculo obtenidas por ultrasonografía en tiempo real con vacas de raza Barrosã

publishedTomo I . Sección: Sistemas Ganaderos-Economía y Gestión. Sesión: Vacuno carne II. Ponencia nº 1

Spinal subdural haematoma

Spinal subdural haematoma is a rare pathology and may cause severe neurological deficit. In this paper a case of acute spinal subdural haematoma of multifactorial etiology--traumatic versus iatrogenic--is presented, in which the clinical evaluation, Computerized Tomography and Magnetic Resonance were of utmost importance as far as the early diagnosis is concerned, allowing therefore decompressive surgery to avoid neurological deficit development

New insights about the monomer and homodimer structures of the human AOX1

UID/MULTI/04378/2019. IF/01310/2013 . PhD Grant SFRH/BD/119206/2016.Human aldehyde oxidase (hAOX1) is a molybdenum dependent enzyme that plays an important role in the metabolism of various compounds either endogenous or xenobiotics. Due to its promiscuity, hAOX1 plays a major role in the pharmacokinetics of many drugs and therefore has gathered a lot of attention from the scientific community and, particularly, from the pharmaceutical industry. In this work, homology modelling, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations were used to study the structure of the monomer and dimer of human AOX. The results with the monomer of hAOX1 allowed to shed some light on the role played by thioridazine and two malonate ions that are co-crystalized in the recent X-ray structure of hAOX1. The results show that these molecules endorse several conformational rearrangements in the binding pocket of the enzyme and these changes have an impact in the active site topology as well as in the stability of the substrate (phthalazine). The results show that the presence of both molecules open two gates located at the entrance of the binding pocket, from which results the flooding of the active site. They also endorse several modifications in the shape of the binding pocket (namely the position of Lys893) that, together with the presence of the solvent molecules, favour the release of the substrate to the solvent. Further insights were also obtained with the assembled homodimer of hAOX1. The allosteric inhibitor (THI) binds closely to the region where the dimerization of both monomers occur. These findings suggest that THI can interfere with protein dimerization.publishe

Application of fluorescence in situ hybridisation using peptide nucleic acid probes in gastric samples for detection of Helicobacter pylori clarithromycin resistance

Microorganisms are responsible for several infectious diseases that can cause severe problems to patients and their treatment success is seriously correlated with the fast detection of the infectious agent. Some of the standard methods used, such as culturing methods are fastidious and time-consuming and do not give any information about the antibiotic resistance profile. Therefore, molecular methods have been developed during the last several years in order to overcome these shortcomings. In this work a new genotypic method that permits the identification of the microorganism in clinical samples in a prompt way is proposed. This technique is based on Fluorescence in situ hybridization with PNA probes that are synthetic molecules, complementary to a specific rRNA sequence of the microorganism. Methods: A set of PNA probes were designed concerning H. pylori point mutations regarding clarithromycin resistance which is the main problem of gastric diseases treatment failure. An additional probe concerning susceptibility was also designed. After hybridization conditions optimization, probes were applied to H. pylori smears to achieve their practical sensitivity and specificity. At the end they were applied to gastric biopsies in a retrospective study for method validation in real samples. E-test and PCR-sequencing were used to evaluate the results. Results: The probes concerning clarithromycin resistance hybridized only with the resistant strains that had the corresponding point mutations and as such presented 100% sensitivity (95% CI, 79.9-100) and 100% specificity (95% CI, 71.6-100). Results also showed that it is possible to discriminate susceptible from resistant H. pylori strains in gastric biopsy samples since it was presented similar results between the 3 tests used. Overall, the PNA-FISH method was in full agreement with PCR-sequencing although it was a little bit lower when compared to E-test that it was used as gold standard method in this retrospective study (86%). Conclusion: PNA-FISH proved to be an important in situ method for detection of microorganisms in clinical samples in a more prompt way than the standard methods. Due to high H. pylori probes sensitivity and specificity it is proved the applicability of PNA-FISH methodology to clinical material, thus overcoming the need of culturing steps and/or PCR/sequencing procedures and enabling rapid initiation of appropriate antibiotic therapy until culture confirmation several days later

Validation of a fluorescence in situ hybridization method using peptide nucleic acid probes for detection of helicobacter pylori clarithromycin resistance in gastric biopsy specimens

Here, we evaluated a previously established peptide nucleic acid-fluorescence in situ hybridization (PNA-FISH) method as a new diagnostic test for Helicobacter pylori clarithromycin resistance detection in paraffin-embedded gastric biopsy specimens. Both a retrospective study and a prospective cohort study were conducted to evaluate the specificity and sensitivity of a PNA-FISH method to determine H. pylori clarithromycin resistance. In the retrospective study (n 30 patients), full agreement between PNA-FISH and PCR-sequencing was observed. Compared to the reference method (culture followed by Etest), the specificity and sensitivity of PNA-FISH were 90.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 57.1% to 99.5%) and 84.2% (95% CI, 59.5% to 95.8%), respectively. In the prospective cohort (n 93 patients), 21 cases were positive by culture. For the patients harboring clarithromycin- resistant H. pylori, the method showed sensitivity of 80.0% (95% CI, 29.9% to 98.9%) and specificity of 93.8% (95% CI, 67.7% to 99.7%). These values likely represent underestimations, as some of the discrepant results corresponded to patients infected by more than one strain. PNA-FISH appears to be a simple, quick, and accurate method for detecting H. pylori clarithromycin resistance in paraffin-embedded biopsy specimens. It is also the only one of the methods assessed here that allows direct and specific visualization of this microorganism within the biopsy specimens, a characteristic that allowed the observation that cells of different H. pylori strains can subsist in very close proximity in the stomach

High voltage wiring harness test equipment

Projeto n.º 2013/34065 (Divmac - Projectos Automatismos e Periféricos Industriais, SA)[Excerto introdução] Este relatório tem por objetivo descrever as atividades desenvolvidas pela Associação Universidade - Empresa para o Desenvolvimento – TecMinho, no âmbito do projeto “High Voltage Wiring Harness Test Equipment”. (...)União Europeia - Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento RegionalQuadro de Referência Estratégica Nacional (QREN

Efeitos do Uso do Solo na Região de São João Del-Rei. Parte i: Ilha Térmica Urbana

Efeitos do uso do solo na região de São João del-Rei.Parte I: ilha térmica urban

Lactoferrin-based nanoparticles as a vehicle for iron in food applications: development and release profile

This study aims at developing and characterizing bovine lactoferrin (bLf) nanoparticles as an iron carrier. bLf nanoparticles were characterized in terms of size, polydispersity index (PdI), electric charge (-potential), morphology, structure and stability over time. Subsequently, iron release experiments were performed at different pH values (2.0 and 7.0) at 37 °C, in order to understand the release mechanism. bLf (0.2%, w/v) nanoparticles were successfully produced by thermal gelation (75 °C for 20 min). bLf nanoparticles with 35 mM FeCl3 showed an iron binding efficiency value of approximately 20%. The nanoparticles were stable (i.e. no significant variation of size and PdI of the nanoparticles) for 76 days at 4 °C and showed to be stable between 4 and 60 °C and pH 2 and 11. Release experiments at pH 2 showed that iron release could be described by the linear superposition model (explained by Fick and relaxation phenomenon). On the contrary, the release mechanism at pH 7 cannot be described by either Fick or polymer relaxation behaviour. In general, results suggested that bLf nanoparticles could be used as an iron delivery system for future food applications.Joana T. Martins, Ana I. Bourbon and Ana C. Pinheiro acknowledge the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for their fellowships (SFRH/BPD/89992/2012, SFRH/BD/73178/2010 and SFRH/BPD/101181/2014). This study was supported by FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684). This study was also supported by FCT under the scope of the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01- 0124-FEDER-027462). The authors would like to acknowledge Cristina Quintelas and Filomena Costa from CEB, University of Minho for helping with AAS and ICP analysis, respectively. Also, the authors would like to thank Rui Fernandes from IBMC, University of Porto for assistance with TEM analysi