Oxygenated monoterpenes-rich volatile oils as potential antifungal agents for dermatophytes

Essential oils (EOs) extracted from Lavandula luisieri and Cymbopogon citratus were tested for their antifungal activity against ten clinical isolates of dermatophytes isolated from cases of tinea pedis. Inhibition of conidial germination and antifungal drug/EO combination assay were tested on two ATCC reference strains of Trichophyton rubrum and Trichophyton mentagrophytes. EOs were characterised by high amount of oxygenated monoterpenes in their composition. Strong antifungal activity was observed for the majority of clinical strains, and fungicidal activity was demonstrated. Positive interaction between L. luisieri EO combined with terbinafine was observed against terbinafine-resistant strain (Tr ATCC MYA-4438). Significative reduction of the germination was observed above 100 g mL1. Both oils were safe to macrophage mammalian cells at tested concentration. This study describes the antifungal activity of L. luisieri and C. citratus EOs against dermatophytes, which could be useful in designing new formulations for topical treatments.This work was supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) [grant number PEST-C/FIS/UI607/2013], [grant number UID/BIO/04469/2013], [grant number PEst-OE/EQB/LA0023/2013] and European Community fund FEDER [grant number FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-007025], [grant number RECI project: FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462].The authors thank the FCT Strategic Project PEst-OE/EQB/LA0023/2013. Nicolina Dias acknowledges the project “Consolidating Research Expertise and Resources on Cellular and Molecular Biotechnology at CEB/IBB”, Ref. FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462

Evaluation of an electronic tongue for honey classification according to its pólen analysis

Electronic tongues (ET) have attracted great interest due to its potential to obtain global information from complex samples that could hardly be obtained by traditional instrumental methods of analysis. These multi-sensor arrays provide a huge amount of sample information which, by applying chemometric methods, allows sample identification/classification, taste evaluation as well as, multicomponent analysis. The method of operation consists in obtaining a signal pattern which corresponds to the ove rall information on the sample using chemical sensors with high stability and cross sensitivity to different species in solution. In this work, a potenciometric electronic tongue or taste sensor array was used. The device had 20 sensors, based on all~solid ~ state electrodes with lipid polymeric membranes formed on solid conducting silver supports. This analytical system was used to analyse unifloral honeys, which honey pollen profiles were obtained by pa11inic analysis, that are representative of eight main types of pollens: Castanea sp., Echium sp., Erica sp., Eucalyptus sp., Lavandula sp., Prunus sp.t Rubus sp. and Trifolium sp .. The signal profile information obtained from the ET analysis of the honey samples was related with the pollinic analysis, using linear discriminant analysis. The results showed that ET could be used for classifying the type of honey according to their pollen profile, when the main pollen is in great abundance, being a possible alternative to traditional honey classification techniques that are time consuming and require expert labour. The influence of the second main pollen showed to be relevant in honey classification

Aplicação de uma língua electrónica na classificação de méis monoflorais

Analisou-se o perfil polínico de 51 amostras de mel nacional. Os pólens mais frequentes no mel são originários das plantas dos géneros Lavandula, Cistus, Echium, Erica, Castanea, Thymus, Prunus, Cytisus, Carduus, Trifolium e Citrus. Considerando a classificação de mel monofloral de Lavandula (pólen predominante superior a 15%), de Erica e de Echium (pólen predominante superior a 45%) seleccionaram-se 38 méis monoflorais: 18, 9 e 11 destes méis foram classificados como méis monoflorais de Lavandula, Erica e Echium, respectivamente. Contudo há méis que podem ser classificados como mel monofloral de dois géneros de pólen (Lavandula-Echium, Erica-Lavandula, Echium-Lavandula). Os méis monoflorais foram analisados com um sistema de multi-sensores químicos não específicos de sensibilidade cruzada (Língua Electrónica) e os resultados foram tratados através da análise de componentes principais e análise discriminante. Verificou-se que é possível discriminar razoavelmente o mel monofloral de acordo com o género do pólen predominante

Environmental risk assessment in a contaminated estuary: an integrated weight of evidence approach as a decision support tool

Environmental risk assessment of complex ecosystems such as estuaries is a challenge, where innovative and integrated approaches are needed. The present work aimed at developing an innovative integrative methodology to evaluate in an impacted estuary (the Sado, in Portugal, was taken as case study), the adverse effects onto both ecosystem and human health. For the purpose, new standardized lines of evidence based on multiple quantitative data were integrated into a weight of evidence according to a best expert judgment approach. The best professional judgment for a weight of evidence approach in the present study was based on the following lines of evidence: i) human contamination pathways; ii) human health effects: chronic disease; iii) human health effects: reproductive health; iv) human health effects: health care; v) human exposure through consumption of local agriculture produce; vi) exposure to contaminated of water wells and agriculture soils; vii) contamination of the estuarine sedimentary environment (metal and organic contaminants); viii) effects on benthic organisms with commercial value; and ix) genotoxic potential of sediments. Each line of evidence was then ordinally ranked by levels of ecological or human health risk, according to a tabular decision matrix and expert judgment. Fifteen experts scored two fishing areas of the Sado estuary and a control estuarine area, in a scale of increasing environmental risk and management actions to be taken. The integrated assessment allowed concluding that the estuary should not be regarded as impacted by a specific toxicant, such as metals and organic compounds hitherto measured, but by the cumulative risk of a complex mixture of contaminants. The proven adverse effects on species with commercial value may be used to witness the environmental quality of the estuarine ecosystem. This method argues in favor of expert judgment and qualitative assessment as a decision support tool to the integrative management of estuaries. Namely it allows communicating environmental risk and proposing mitigation measures to local authorities and population under a holistic perspective as an alternative to narrow single line of evidence approaches, which is mandatory to understand cause and effect relationships in complex areas like estuaries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Treatment of cork boiling wastewater using chemical oxidation and biodegradation

Three cultures were enriched from cork boiling wastewater using tannic acid as the selective carbon substrate, at 25 C and pH 7.2, 25 C and pH 4.7 and 50 C and pH 4.7. The enrichment culture obtained at neutral pH was composed of five culturable isolates, whereas from each acidic enrichment two bacterial strains were isolated. Mesophilic isolates were Gram negative bacteria belonging to the genera Klebsiella, Pseudomonas, Stenotrophomonas and Burkholderia. Thermophilic isolates were members of the genus Bacillus. Despite the capability of the enrichment cultures to use tannic acid as single carbon and energy source, those cultures were unable to reduce the total polyphenols or the total organic carbon content of cork boiling wastewater. In order to increase the bioavailability of the organic carbon in cork boiling wastewater, biodegradation was preceded by Fenton oxidation. It was demonstrated that the combined process, using small amounts of Fenton reagents and biodegradative inoculum added almost simultaneously to cork boiling wastewater, leads to TOC reductions of more than 90%

An electronic tongue for juice level evaluation in non-alcoholic beverages

An electronic tongue with 36 cross-sensibility polymeric membranes was built and used for semi-quantitative analysis of beverages. The objective was to differentiate 4 non-alcoholic beverage groups with different added fruit juice contents: higher than 30%, between 14%-30%, 5%-10% and 0.1%-2%. A set of 16 Portuguese beverages (4 for each group), purchased in commercial supermarkets, was analyzed and the respective signal profiles recorded by the electronic tongue device. The data obtained were treated by stepwise linear discriminant analysis, allowing a 100% overall correct classification for the original grouped cases and a 93.8% for the “leaving one-out” cross-validation procedur

A caracterização da investigação em fiscalidade

Este trabalho consiste na análise aos estudos empíricos publicados no Journal of the American Taxation Association e National Tax Journal, durante os anos 2004, 2009 e 2014, tendo sido definido como objetivo principal a caracterização da investigação em fiscalidade, mais concretamente analisar um conjunto de características inerentes aos investigadores e ao conteúdo dos artigos publicados nessas revistas. A investigação adota a metodologia de revisão dos estudos empíricos. Desta forma, foram identificadas e analisadas as seguintes variáveis: ano de publicação, autor, instituição e continente de afiliação dos autores, tipo de autoria, contribuição dos autores, temáticas mais investigadas e método de recolha de dados dos artigos. Os resultados apresentados confirmam que a área de estudo mais pesquisada é a dos incentivos fiscais, sendo utilizado mais frequentemente as bases de dados como recolha de informação. Em termos de autoria, conclui-se que os investigadores optam por trabalhar em conjunto, tendo a maioria optado por cooperar com apenas mais um investigador. Concluiu-se ainda que a maior parte dos investigadores são do continente Americano com uma maior presença da América do Norte.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Freiburgh Personality Inventory-Revised (FPI-R): Validation study with a Portuguese sample of university students

Neste estudo instrumental é apresentado o primeiro estudo de validação da versão portuguesa do Inventário de Personalidade de Freiburg-Revisto (FPI-R) junto de uma amostra de 1099 estudantes universitários. O FPI-R é composto por 138 itens de resposta dicotómica («verdadeiro» vs. «falso»), distribuídos por 12 escalas, 10 escalas standard (satisfação com a vida, orientação social, orientação para o desempenho, inibição, irritabilidade, agressividade, solicitação, queixas somáticas, preocupações com a saúde e sinceridade) e 2 escalas suplementares (extroversão e emocionalidade). Este inventário procura abarcar constructos relativamente amplos, que contêm sub-constructos delimitados, encontrando-se organizados em escalas unipolares (e.g. poucas queixas somáticas – muitas queixas somáticas) e bipolares (e.g. insatisfação com a vida – satisfação com a vida). Os principais resultados revelam que embora o instrumento apresente uma estrutura factorial semelhante ao original, foram encontradas fragilidades em termos de fidelidade das sub-escalas. Discutem-se os resultados obtidos, as limitações encontradas e são propostas possíveis soluções a desenvolver em estudos futuros