Medico-legal age estimation in a sub-adult portuguese population: validation of Atlas Schour and Massler and London

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited."Introduction: Age estimation in children and adolescents often depends on morphological methods, such as examination of dental development. Objectives: The aim of this project was to validate, in a Portuguese population, two forensic methods of dental age estimation – Schour and Massler charts and the London atlas. Materials and Methods: The test sample was composed by 108 dental radiographs of living and known-age individuals. Dental age was estimated according to each method. Chronological age was then compared to the estimated dental age using individual t-test and paired t-test. Results: Results showed that the Schour and Massler charts underestimated age and the London atlas overestimated age. Nevertheless, the London atlas performed better in all measures. Mean differences for both the London atlas and Schour and Massler were 0,1389 and -5,4167 months respectively. Schour and Massler charts showed significant statistical difference between dental age and chronological age (p <0.05). Discussion and Conclusions: We conclude that, in the evaluated sample, age estimation using the London atlas represents an improvement in forensic age estimation from developing teeth. Further studies should be done with a larger Portuguese population sample.

Bench-scale production of polyhydroxyalkanoates and other valuable biomaterials from xylose-rich lignocellulosic hydrolysates

Communication at the BioTech 2017 and 7th Czech-Swiss Symposium with Exhibition. June 13-17, 2017, Prague, Czech Republicinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Índices de agregação e teor de carbono intra-agregados como indicadores de qualidade do solo.

Esse trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar diferentes índices de agregação e teores de carbono em diferentes classes de agregados como ferramenta de diagnóstico de qualidade da estrutura do solo. O estudo foi realizado em uma microbacia localizada no Município de São Francisco de Itabapoana-RJ. Foram estudados três usos da terra: uma sucessão de abacaxi-aipim; um pastoreio-rotacionado e um remanescente de mata (referência), todos sob Latossolo Amarelo. Utilizou-se estatística multivariada (análise discriminante e canônica) para seleção dos índices que melhor indicam as mudanças na estrutura do solo e teste Dunnett para comparação de médias dos índices e do carbono em agregados. A mata e o pastoreio-rotacionado apresentaram os valores mais altos para as variáveis: Diâmetro Médio Ponderado (DMP), Diâmetro Médio Geométrico (DMG) e Índice de Estabilidade de Agregados (IEA), sendo respectivamente 2,94 mm, 2,83 mm, 92% e 2,92 mm, 2,75 mm, 91%. A sucessão de abacaxi-aipim apresentou os menores valores para esses índices, sendo 2,22 mm, 0,95 mm, 58% respectivamente. As variáveis que foram as melhores discriminantes para a estrutura e qualidade do solo foram a relação macro/microagregados e carbono intra-agregado, denotando a sensibilidade do C, tanto do macro quanto do microagregado da sucessão de culturas frente à mata (referência).bitstream/item/139866/1/BPD-250-Indice-Agregacao-Qualidade-Solos.pd

Ulva rigida valorization into poly(3-hydroxybutyrate), organic acids and functional ingredients

Halomonas elongata 1H9T is a moderate halophilic strain able to produce poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (P(3HB)), a biodegradable plastic, and gluconic acid, a valuable organic acid with wide industrial applications. In this work, the green alga Ulva rigida was used as platform to produce cultivation substrates for microbial conversion as well as functional ingredients, targeting its full valorization. The liquor obtained by autohydrolysis presented the highest concentration of oligosaccharides and protein, being an interesting feedstock to produce functional ingredients. The acid and/or enzymatic hydrolysis liquors are adequate as substrates for microbial processes. Shake flask assays with H. elongata revealed that the N-rich liquor produced after acidic treatment was the best suited for cell growth while the N-poor liquor produced by the enzymatic treatment of acid-pretreated algae residues produced the highest P(3HB) titers of 4.4 g/L. These hydrolysates were used in fed-batch cultivations as carbon and protein sources for the co-production of gluconic acid and polymer achieving titers of 123.2 g/L and 7.2 g/L, respectively. Besides gluconic acid, the Krebs cycle intermediate 2-oxoglutaric acid, also called alpha-ketoglutaric acid (KGA), was produced. Therefore, the co-production of P(3HB) and acids may be of considerable interest as an algal biorefinery valorization strategy.This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) project number (PTDC/BII-BIO/29242/2017). Funding received from FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the project UIDB/04565/2020 and UIDP/04565/2020 of the Research Unit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences—iBB and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy—i4HB is acknowledged. Funding received from FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2020 unit and LABBELS—Associate Laboratory in Biotechnology, Bioengineering and Microelectromechanical Systems, LA/P/0029/2020 project is also acknowledged.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Enhanced bioproduction of poly-3-hydroxybutyrate from wheat straw lignocellulosic hydrolysates

Project: EC/FP7/246449 - New tailor-made PNB-based nanocomposites for high performance applications produced from environmentally friendly production routesNOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in New Biotechnology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in New Biotechnology, [Vol. 31, Issue 1, (January 2014)] DOI 10.1016/j.nbt.2013.10.004"Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are bioplastics that can replace conventional petroleum derived products in various applications. One of the major barriers for their widespread introduction in the market is the higher production costs when compared with their petrochemical counterparts. In this work, a process was successfully implemented with high productivity based on wheat straw, a cheap and readily available agricultural residue, as raw material. The strain Burkholderia sacchari DSM 17165 which is able to metabolize glucose, xylose and arabinose, the main sugars present in wheat straw hydrolysates (WSH), was used. Results in shake flask showed that B. sacchari cells accumulated ca 70 % g P(3HB)/g cell-dry-weight with a yield of polymer on sugars (YP/S) of 0.18 g/g when grown on a mixture of commercial C6 and C5 sugars (control), while these values reached ca 60 % g P(3HB)/g cell-dry-weight and 0.19 g/g, respectively, when WSHs were used as carbon source. In fed-batch cultures carried out in 2L stirred tank reactors on WSH, a maximum polymer concentration of 105 g/L was reached after 61 h of cultivation corresponding to an accumulation of 72% of CDW. Polymer yield and productivity were 0.22 g P(3HB)/g total sugar consumed and 1.6 g/L. h, respectively. The selected feeding strategy successfully overcame the carbon catabolite repression phenomenon observed in sugar mixtures containing hexoses and pentoses. This is the first work describing fed-batch cultivations aiming at PHA production using real lignocellulosic hydrolysates. Additionally, the P(3HB) volumetric productivities attained are, by far, the highest achieved ever on agricultural wastes hydrolysates."U

Biodegradable polyesters from agro&industrial by-products

Poster presented at the 11th annual World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology. Studies on GRP were financed by the EU Integrated Project BIOPRODUCTION (contract nº 026515-2) and those on cellulosic hydrolysates are funded by the EU Collaborative Project BUGWORKERS (contract nº 246449). C. Almeida, J. Cavalheiro, T. Cesário and F. Ferreira were supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal (SFRH/BPD/26678/2006, SFRH/BD/45266/2008 and SFRH/BPD/68587/2010, IF/00442/2012). Waste glycerol was kindly provided by Torrejana, Fábrica de Biocombustíveis (Torres Vedras). Lignocellulosic hydrolysates were produced by biorefinery.de GmbH, Germany, in the framework of BUGWORKERS project.Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal / Biotrend S.A., Cantanhede, Portugal / Ecole Europeènne de Chimie, Polymères et Matériaux, Université de Strasbourg, Franc

Alterações recentes nas razões isotópicas de Pb em sedimentos do Canhão Submarino de Cascais, Portugal

Temporal variations in lead concentrations and stable lead isotopic ratios in two sediment cores from the Cascais Canyon shows changes in sources of Pb during the last two centuries. The increase of total Pb contents wIth the evolution of Pb ratio recorded in both cores reveals the Increase of Pb from industrial sources. Nevertheless, this increase is lower in deeper core location (252-32) due to dilution and mixing with uncontaminated marine materials. An isotopic shift towards lower Pb/Pb in the shallower core (252-35) during the 1970s may reflect the increasing number of vehicles in the Lisboa area during that time