428 research outputs found

    Perceived affordances of a collaborative virtual teacher education course on CLIL and technologies during remote teaching

    Get PDF
    The objective of this paper is both to describe the course syllabus and the activities implemented in a course on CLIL and technologies for pre-service and in-service teachers from three public universities in Paraná, and also examine the perceived affordances of the initiative. The theoretical framework of affordances guided the analysis and results indicate that the interactions provided by the online course allowed teachers to learn about CLIL, have opportunities to practice their language skills, articulate the use of technological resources and also reflect about pedagogical issues specific to the English language. For the professors in charge of the initiative, it allowed them to collaborate through the course planning as well as through researching/learning together in an international online experience. The affordances for our institutions include the incorporation of new perspectives into their curriculum as well as the development of internationalization at home practices. The proposal also allowed some room for identifying some limitations such as lack of time, no interactions among peers from different regions; no involvement with proposed ethnographic case study activities, aspects which impaired community building

    AVALIAÇÃO DAS EXPECTATIVAS DOS USUÁRIOS QUANTO A FRASCOS DE PERFUME

    Get PDF
    This paper presents a practical study of Kansei Engineering in the evaluation of masculine perfume bottles. Kansei words more appropriate to the object of study and its relation to the design elements were identified. The understanding of user's kansei is essential for the designer make decisions based on an understanding closer to user's expectations.Este artigo apresenta um estudo da Engenharia Kansei na avaliação de frascos de perfume masculinos. Foram identificadas as palavras kansei mais adequadas para o objeto de estudo e sua relação com os elementos de design. O entendimento do kansei dos usuários é fundamental para que o designer tome decisões baseado em um entendimentomais próximo às expectativas do usuário

    Human Intestinal Cells Modulate Conjugational Transfer of Multidrug Resistance Plasmids between Clinical Escherichia coli Isolates.

    Get PDF
    Bacterial conjugation in the human gut microbiota is believed to play a major role in the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes and virulence plasmids. However, the modulation of bacterial conjugation by the human host remains poorly understood and there is a need for controlled systems to study this process. We established an in vitro co-culture system to study the interaction between human intestinal cells and bacteria. We show that the conjugation efficiency of a plasmid encoding an extended spectrum beta-lactamase is reduced when clinical isolates of Escherichia coli are co-cultured with human intestinal cells. We show that filtered media from co-cultures contain a factor that reduces conjugation efficiency. Protease treatment of the filtered media eliminates this inhibition of conjugation. This data suggests that a peptide or protein based factor is secreted on the apical side of the intestinal cells exposed to bacteria leading to a two-fold reduction in conjugation efficiency. These results show that human gut epithelial cells can modulate bacterial conjugation and may have relevance to gene exchange in the gut

    Biosurfactants: Promising Molecules for Petroleum Biotechnology Advances

    Get PDF
    The growing global demand for sustainable technologies that improves the efficiency of petrochemical processes in the oil industry has driven advances in petroleum biotechnology in recent years. Petroleum industry uses substantial amounts of petrochemical-based synthetic surfactants in its activities as mobilizing agents to increase the availability or recovery of hydrocarbons as well as many other applications related to extraction, treatment, cleaning and transportation. However, biosurfactants have several potential applications for use across the oil processing chain and in the formulations of petrochemical products such as emulsifying/demulsifying agents, anticorrosive, biocides for sulphate-reducing bacteria, fuel formulation, extraction of bitumen from tar sands and many other innovative applications. Due to their versatility and proven efficiency, biosurfactants are often presented as valuable versatile tools that can transform and modernise petroleum biotechnology in an attempt to provide a true picture of state of the art and directions or use in the oil industry. We believe that biosurfactants are going to have a significant role in many future applications in the oil industries and in this review therefore, we highlight recent important relevant applications, patents disclosures and potential future applications for biosurfactants in petroleum and related industries

    High-Throughput Analysis of Synthetic Peptides for the Immunodiagnosis of Canine Visceral Leishmaniasis

    Get PDF
    Globally, the number of new human cases of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is estimated to be approximately 500,000 per year. This is the most severe of all forms of leishmaniasis, and the zoonotic form of VL, caused by Leishmania infantum (also known as Leishmania chagasi), represents 20% of human visceral leishmaniasis worldwide; additionally, its prevalence is increasing in urban and peri-urban areas of the tropics. In Brazil, the identification and elimination of infected dogs, which act as a reservoir for Leishmania parasites, is a control measure employed in addition to the use of insecticides against the vectors and the identification and treatment of infected humans. Currently, the diagnostic methods employed to identify infected animals are not able to detect all of these dogs, which compromises the effectiveness of control measures. Moreover, one of the most important issues in controlling VL is the difficulty of diagnosing asymptomatic dogs, which act as parasite reservoirs. Therefore, to contribute to the improvement of the diagnostic methods for CVL, we aimed to identify and characterize new antigens that were more sensitive and specific and could be applied in epidemiologic surveys

    Architecture, Services and Protocols for CRUTIAL

    Get PDF
    This document describes the complete specification of the architecture, services and protocols of the project CRUTIAL. The CRUTIAL Architecture intends to reply to a grand challenge of computer science and control engineering: how to achieve resilience of critical information infrastructures (CII), in particular in the electrical sector. In general lines, the document starts by presenting the main architectural options and components of the architecture, with a special emphasis on a protection device called the CRUTIAL Information Switch (CIS). Given the various criticality levels of the equipments that have to be protected, and the cost of using a replicated device, we define a hierarchy of CIS designs incrementally more resilient. The different CIS designs offer various trade offs in terms of capabilities to prevent and tolerate intrusions, both in the device itself and in the information infrastructure. The Middleware Services, APIs and Protocols chapter describes our approach to intrusion tolerant middleware. The CRUTIAL middleware comprises several building blocks that are organized on a set of layers. The Multipoint Network layer is the lowest layer of the middleware, and features an abstraction of basic communication services, such as provided by standard protocols, like IP, IPsec, UDP, TCP and SSL/TLS. The Communication Support layer features three important building blocks: the Randomized Intrusion-Tolerant Services (RITAS), the CIS Communication service and the Fosel service for mitigating DoS attacks. The Activity Support layer comprises the CIS Protection service, and the Access Control and Authorization service. The Access Control and Authorization service is implemented through PolyOrBAC, which defines the rules for information exchange and collaboration between sub-modules of the architecture, corresponding in fact to different facilities of the CII’s organizations. The Monitoring and Failure Detection layer contains a definition of the services devoted to monitoring and failure detection activities. The Runtime Support Services, APIs, and Protocols chapter features as a main component the Proactive-Reactive Recovery service, whose aim is to guarantee perpetual correct execution of any components it protects.Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Frame-work Programme (2002-2006
    corecore