Developments in preparation and dyeing of CORONA discharged cellulosic materials

The preparation and dyeing of cellulosic fabrics hás important problems such as uniformity of aspect, cleaning efficiency, level of bleaching, conformity and fastness of colours, and ecological impact. Combination of preparation processes can give optimal solutions, regarding economy and ecology, especially if superior quality items are achieved in final products. In fact, high standards concerning whiteness, starch removal and hidrophilicity are considered a good basis for leveled, cleaner and intense dyeing. A better white basis, escellent hidrophilicity and enough removal of impurities are obtained if desizing is omitted and a CORONA discharge is made over dry grey material. Exhaustion dyeings with different classes of direct dyes show similar behavior concerning the positive influence of the discharge in the intensity of colours and their fastness. Good penetration of dyes in coronised cotton materials is assured and consequently a good fastness is abtained

Quality improvement and shortcut of preparation of CORONA discharged cotton fabrics

Textile industry has an important impact in world economy and consequently on environmental quality of life. Textile processing uses huge amount of water, chemicals and energy and it is quite easy to conclude about the enormous meaning of pollution control and rationalization of energetic demands. CORONA treatment in the wet processing of cotton textile materials has a great potential concerning the improvement of all the operations included in it, namely in preparation, dyeing, printing or final finishing. Physical and chemical surface changes in cotton structure are noticed after CORONA discharge. The increase in oxidation potential and the creation of channels through cuticle are referred as responsible for the variation in cotton properties after plasmatic discharge, specially concerning absorption of water and treatment baths. Advantages as the use of less chemicals, namely alkalis, oxidants and other auxiliaries, the reduction of times and temperatures, less damages in the materials surely can have a strong impact in economical and ecological aspects of the process. Complete hidrophilization of cellulosic materials renders very easy the access of baths and consequently conditions to more efficient operations are found. Bleaching processes aim to give textile materials the adequate whiteness degree, the removal of sizing agents, the increase of hidrophility and cleaning by extraction of seeds, husks and waxes. The use of hydrogen peroxide in alkaline medium is a flexible and more ecological process when compared with methods based in chlorinated compounds. The present work concerns the study of half bleaching process when this operation is preceded by a CORONA discharge made on dry grey fabrics. The influence in the whiteness degree, hidrophility, starch removal and uniformity of properties of the cellulosic material after preparation is studied

Biomechanical and bioenergetical evaluation of swimmers using fully-tethered swimming: A qualitative review

It is presented a qualitative review of the specialized literature on fully-tethered swimming, with the scopes of summarizing and highlighting published knowledge, identifying its gaps and limitations, and motivate future research. The major research conclusions can be summarized as follows: (i) tethered swimming is a reliable test to evaluate force exerted in water by swimmers; (ii) higher maximum values of force are obtained in breaststroke and butterfly, while average values are higher in front crawl; (iii) tethered forces present moderate to strong relationships with swimming velocity, and associations between forces diminish as swimming distance increases; (iv) 30 s maximal tethered swimming may be used as an adaptation of Wingate test for swimming; (v) differences in stroke mechanics can occur in tethered swimming but there is no evidence to suggest that they affect swimming performance; (vi) Tethered swimming is a valid methodology to evaluate aerobic energy contribution in swimming and recent investigations concluded that it can also provide information on the anaerobic contribution. Based on and stimulated by current knowledge, further research should focus on the following topics: (i) the usefulness of tethered swimming as a valid tool to evaluate other swimming techniques; (ii) differences in force parameters induced by gender or competitive level; (iii) defining accurate variables for estimation of anaerobic power and/or capacity using tethered swimming; (iv) bilateral asymmetries in exerted forces, and corresponding influence of breathing; (v) relative contribution of arms and legs for whole-body propelling forces.This project was supported by the National Funds through FCT – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (UID/DTP/ 04045/2013) – and the European Fund for Regional Development (FEDER) allocated by European Union through the COMPETE 2020 Programme (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006969) – competitiveness and internationalization (POCI)

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

Volatiles of the Inflorescences of the Madeiran Orchids, Goodyera macrophylla Lowe and Gennaria diphylla (Link) Parl. and Their Role in Pollination

Goodyera macrophylla, considered a rare endemic, and Gennaria diphylla are two native terrestrial Orchidaceae species that can be found mainly in Madeiran Laurisilva. The volatile compounds contributing to the floral scent of these two Madeiran orchids were analysed and compared for the first time. The volatiles, isolated by distillation-extraction in a Likens-Nickersontype apparatus, and those extracted by headspace sorption, were analysed by GC and GC-MS. The main volatile components isolated by distillation-extraction were γ-terpinene (13%) and n-nonanal (11%) in G. macrophylla and n-octacosane (19%) and n-heptacosane (13%) in G. diphylla. The main volatile components isolated by headspace sorption were p-cymene (21%), α-pinene (15%) and linalool (14%) in G. macrophylla and cis-arbusculone (28%) and lilac alcohol (26%) in G. diphylla. The importance of the volatiles in the pollination of these orchids is discussed.Portuguese Foundation for the Science and Technology (FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) has sponsored this work, through the Centre of Macaronesian Studies (CEM). The authors are also grateful to the Madeiran Centre of Science and Technology (CITMA) for financial support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Molecular mobility, composition and structure analysis in glycerol plasticised chitosan films

This study was developed with the purpose to investigate the effect of polysaccharide/plasticiser concentration on the microstructure and molecular dynamics of polymeric film systems, using transmission electron microscope imaging (TEM) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. Experiments were carried out in chitosan/glycerol films prepared with solutions of different composition. The films obtained after drying and equilibration were characterised in terms of composition, thickness and water activity. Results show that glycerol quantities used in film forming solutions were responsible for films composition; while polymer/total plasticiser ratio in the solution determined the thickness (and thus structure) of the films. These results were confirmed by TEM. \NMR\ allowed understanding the films molecular rearrangement. Two different behaviours for the two components analysed, water and glycerol were observed: the first is predominantly moving free in the matrix, while glycerol is mainly bounded to the chitosan chain.Authors Joana F. Fundo and Mafalda A.C. Quintas acknowledge Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (grants SFRH/BD/62176/2009 and SFRH/BPD/41715/2007, respectively), and Portuguese NMR Network

Predictive equations of pulmonar function for healthy children in Portugal

[resumo][abstract

CAN INTRA-CYCLIC FORCE VARIATION BE A VALUABLE PARAMETER TO EVALUATE THE FORCES EXERTED BY SWIMMERS?

The purpose of this study was to examine the force pattern produced during the front crawl swimming cycle, plus to analyze possible relationships of intra-cyclic force variation (dF) with swimming performance. Thirty four competitive swimmers, representing various levels of competitive performance (17.2 ± 2.72 yrs; 1.76 ± 0.09 m; 67.4 ± 9.94 kg; personal best 100 m long course freestyle swimming: 58.39 ± 2.19 s), randomly performed the tethered and free swimming tests. The free swimming velocity was found to be negatively correlated with dF (r = -0.85; p < 0.001). Adding dF with maximum impulse per cycle into a multiple regression model, it was possible to explain 87.6% of the 50 m performance variation. This novel parameter (dF) showed to be a valuable variable to evaluate the swimmers ability to effectively apply force in the water

Use of Wavelet Transforms and Detrended Fluctuation Analysis in the evaluation of human skin microcirculation

Laser Doppler Flowmetry (LDF) is a non-invasive technique used to assess microvascular flow oscillations. Skin microcirculation has been shown to contain oscillation components with characteristic frequency ranges. These are related to heart, respiration, and myogenic, sympathetic and metabolic activities. So, the evaluation of each component in time may hold important information regarding blood flow physiology. LDF measurements were done at the ankle of 9 female healthy subjects during ankle perfusion restriction using a cuff. Wavelet Transform and Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) were applied to LDF signals to derive component´s amplitude ratios and a exponents. Parameters were compared in rest, during perfusion restriction, and in recovery after the cuff release. During perfusion restriction a significant increase of heart, respiratory and myogenic components' parameters was observed, suggesting vasoconstriction. Metabolic parameters exhibited a decrease that could be related to NO release changes from the endothelium. Finally, after cuff release a recovery of both amplitude ratios and a exponents was noted, particularly in the respiratory, myogenic and metabolic components. Combined analysis of wavelet component amplitudes with DFAderived exponents can provide a new and more complete picture of microvascular blood-flow regulation

Machine learning for predicting fracture strain in sheet metal forming

Machine learning models are built to predict the strain values for which edge cracking occurs in hole expansion tests. The samples from this test play the role of sheet metal components to be manufactured, in which edge cracking often occurs associated with a uniaxial tension stress state at the critical edges of components. For the construction of the models, a dataset was obtained experimentally for rolled ferritic carbon steel sheets of different qualities and thicknesses. Two types of tests were performed: tensile and hole expansion tests. In the tensile test, the yield stress, the tensile strength, the strain at maximum load and the elongation after fracture were determined in the rolling and transverse directions. In the hole expansion test, the strain for which edge cracking occurs, was determined. It is intended that the models can predict the strain at fracture in this test, based on the knowledge of the tensile test data. The machine learning algorithms used were Multilayer Perceptron, Gaussian Processes, Support Vector Regression and Random Forest. The traditional polynomial regression that fits a 2nd order polynomial function was also used for comparison. It is shown that machine learning-based predictive models outperform the traditional polynomial regression method; in particular, Gaussian Processes and Support Vector Regression were found to be the best machine learning algorithms that enable the most robust predictive models.publishe