A Case Study in Macao

Funding Information: This research was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., Portugal, grant number UID/AMB/04085/2020, and the APC was funded by CENSE. Funding Information: The work developed was supported by The Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.Despite the levels of air pollution in Macao continuing to improve over recent years, there are still days with high-pollution episodes that cause great health concerns to the local community. Therefore, it is very important to accurately forecast air quality in Macao. Machine learning methods such as random forest (RF), gradient boosting (GB), support vector regression (SVR), and multiple linear regression (MLR) were applied to predict the levels of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) concentrations in Macao. The forecast models were built and trained using the meteorological and air quality data from 2013 to 2018, and the air quality data from 2019 to 2021 were used for validation. Our results show that there is no significant difference between the performance of the four methods in predicting the air quality data for 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic) and 2021 (the new normal period). However, RF performed significantly better than the other methods for 2020 (amid the pandemic) with a higher coefficient of determination (R2) and lower RMSE, MAE, and BIAS. The reduced performance of the statistical MLR and other ML models was presumably due to the unprecedented low levels of PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations in 2020. Therefore, this study suggests that RF is the most reliable prediction method for pollutant concentrations, especially in the event of drastic air quality changes due to unexpected circumstances, such as a lockdown caused by a widespread infectious disease.publishersversionpublishe

Chromium Adsorption by Modified Wood

Chromium is one of the most common heavy metals which exist in very high concentrations in wastewater. The removal is very expensive due to the high cost of normal adsorbents. Lignocellulosic materials and mainly treated materials have proven to be a good solution for this problem. Adsorption tests were performed at different pH, different times and with varying concentrations. Results show that is at pH 3 that treated wood absorbs more chromium ranging from 70% (2h treatment) to almost 100% (12 h treatment) much more than untreated wood with less than 40%. Most of the adsorption is made in the first 2-3 hours for untreated and heat treated wood. Modified wood adsorbs more chromium throughout the time. For all the samples, adsorption fitted relatively well the Langmuir model with correlation coefficient ranging from 0.85 to 0.97. The results show that heat treated wood is a good adsorbent ant that this might be a good utilization for sawdust from treating companies

Elección y planeamiento de carrera: la tiranía de los discursos tradicionales

Este trabalho pretendeu explorar como um grupo de 86 jovens de ambos os sexos e de diferentes classes sociais e níveis de ensino, a frequentar cursos considerados socialmente femininos e masculinos, efectuou as suas escolhas e está a delinear os seus planos de carreira. Adoptando uma perspectiva construcionista social feminista, a técnica de entrevista, e a metodologia de análise de discurso, observou-se a emergência de discursos opressivos, regulados pelas normas de género e classe social, reforçando a convicção que estas condições exercem um papel fundamental no desenvolvimento das carreiras dos participantes. Estas questões parecem justicar o crescimento de uma agenda de justiça social na Psicologia Vocacional.his study aimed to explore how 86 youths of both sexes and of different social classes and levels of education who were attending courses considered as traditionally feminine or masculine made their choices and traced their career plans. Adopting a feminist social constructionist perspective and the discourse analysis as a methodology, there were observed the emergence of oppressive discourses regulated by the norms of gender and social class, strengthening the conviction that these conditions play a key role in the career development of the participants. These issues seem to justify the development of a social justice agenda in Vocational Psychology.Este trabajo pretendió explorar cómo realizó sus elecciones y está delineando sus planes de carrera un grupo de 86 jóvenes de ambos sexos, de diferentes clases sociales y niveles de enseñanza, frecuentando cursos considerados socialmente femeninos o masculinos. Adoptando una perspectiva construccionista social feminista, la técnica de entrevista y la metodología de análisis de discurso, se observó la emergencia de discursos opresivos regulados por las normas de género y clase social reforzando la convicción de que estas condiciones ejercen un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de las carreras de los participantes. Estas cuestiones parecen justicar el crecimiento de una agenda de justicia social en la Psicología Vocacional.(undefined

Harmine and Piperlongumine Revert TRIB2-Mediated Drug Resistance.

Therapy resistance is responsible for most relapses in patients with cancer and is the major challenge to improving the clinical outcome. The pseudokinase Tribbles homologue 2 (TRIB2) has been characterized as an important driver of resistance to several anti-cancer drugs, including the dual ATP-competitive PI3K and mTOR inhibitor dactolisib (BEZ235). TRIB2 promotes AKT activity, leading to the inactivation of FOXO transcription factors, which are known to mediate the cell response to antitumor drugs. To characterize the downstream events of TRIB2 activity, we analyzed the gene expression profiles of isogenic cell lines with different TRIB2 statuses by RNA sequencing. Using a connectivity map-based computational approach, we identified drug-induced gene-expression profiles that invert the TRIB2-associated expression profile. In particular, the natural alkaloids harmine and piperlongumine not only produced inverse gene expression profiles but also synergistically increased BEZ235-induced cell toxicity. Importantly, both agents promote FOXO nuclear translocation without interfering with the nuclear export machinery and induce the transcription of FOXO target genes. Our results highlight the great potential of this approach for drug repurposing and suggest that harmine and piperlongumine or similar compounds might be useful in the clinic to overcome TRIB2-mediated therapy resistance in cancer patients.This work was supported by the FUNDAÇÃO PARA A CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA (FCT) Research Center Grant UID/BIM/04773/2013, Centre for Biomedical Research (CBMR), and by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through Grant RTI2018-094629-B-I00 to WL. B.I.F. was supported by FCT-SFRH/BPD/100434/2014 and the Marie Curie Individual Fellowship project TRIBBLES (#748585). This work was also supported by two LPCC-NRS/Terry Fox grants (2016/2017; 2017/2018). S. Machado is the recipient of a ProRegeM grant PD/BD/114258/2016. I. Duarte was supported by a scholarship from FCT Grant PTDC/BEX-BID/5410/2014S

MAMMALS IN PORTUGAL : A data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in P ortugal

Mammals are threatened worldwide, with 26% of all species being includedin the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associatedwith habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mam-mals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change, and prey depletion formarine mammals. Mammals play a key role in maintaining ecosystems func-tionality and resilience, and therefore information on their distribution is cru-cial to delineate and support conservation actions. MAMMALS INPORTUGAL is a publicly available data set compiling unpublishedgeoreferenced occurrence records of 92 terrestrial, volant, and marine mam-mals in mainland Portugal and archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira thatincludes 105,026 data entries between 1873 and 2021 (72% of the data occur-ring in 2000 and 2021). The methods used to collect the data were: live obser-vations/captures (43%), sign surveys (35%), camera trapping (16%),bioacoustics surveys (4%) and radiotracking, and inquiries that represent lessthan 1% of the records. The data set includes 13 types of records: (1) burrowsjsoil moundsjtunnel, (2) capture, (3) colony, (4) dead animaljhairjskullsjjaws, (5) genetic confirmation, (6) inquiries, (7) observation of live animal (8),observation in shelters, (9) photo trappingjvideo, (10) predators dietjpelletsjpine cones/nuts, (11) scatjtrackjditch, (12) telemetry and (13) vocalizationjecholocation. The spatial uncertainty of most records ranges between 0 and100 m (76%). Rodentia (n=31,573) has the highest number of records followedby Chiroptera (n=18,857), Carnivora (n=18,594), Lagomorpha (n=17,496),Cetartiodactyla (n=11,568) and Eulipotyphla (n=7008). The data setincludes records of species classified by the IUCN as threatened(e.g.,Oryctolagus cuniculus[n=12,159],Monachus monachus[n=1,512],andLynx pardinus[n=197]). We believe that this data set may stimulate thepublication of other European countries data sets that would certainly contrib-ute to ecology and conservation-related research, and therefore assisting onthe development of more accurate and tailored conservation managementstrategies for each species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite thisdata paper when the data are used in publications.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The European Reference Genome Atlas: piloting a decentralised approach to equitable biodiversity genomics.

ABSTRACT: A global genome database of all of Earth’s species diversity could be a treasure trove of scientific discoveries. However, regardless of the major advances in genome sequencing technologies, only a tiny fraction of species have genomic information available. To contribute to a more complete planetary genomic database, scientists and institutions across the world have united under the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), which plans to sequence and assemble high-quality reference genomes for all ∼1.5 million recognized eukaryotic species through a stepwise phased approach. As the initiative transitions into Phase II, where 150,000 species are to be sequenced in just four years, worldwide participation in the project will be fundamental to success. As the European node of the EBP, the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) seeks to implement a new decentralised, accessible, equitable and inclusive model for producing high-quality reference genomes, which will inform EBP as it scales. To embark on this mission, ERGA launched a Pilot Project to establish a network across Europe to develop and test the first infrastructure of its kind for the coordinated and distributed reference genome production on 98 European eukaryotic species from sample providers across 33 European countries. Here we outline the process and challenges faced during the development of a pilot infrastructure for the production of reference genome resources, and explore the effectiveness of this approach in terms of high-quality reference genome production, considering also equity and inclusion. The outcomes and lessons learned during this pilot provide a solid foundation for ERGA while offering key learnings to other transnational and national genomic resource projects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The European Reference Genome Atlas: piloting a decentralised approach to equitable biodiversity genomics

A genomic database of all Earth’s eukaryotic species could contribute to many scientific discoveries; however, only a tiny fraction of species have genomic information available. In 2018, scientists across the world united under the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), aiming to produce a database of high-quality reference genomes containing all ~1.5 million recognized eukaryotic species. As the European node of the EBP, the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) sought to implement a new decentralised, equitable and inclusive model for producing reference genomes. For this, ERGA launched a Pilot Project establishing the first distributed reference genome production infrastructure and testing it on 98 eukaryotic species from 33 European countries. Here we outline the infrastructure and explore its effectiveness for scaling high-quality reference genome production, whilst considering equity and inclusion. The outcomes and lessons learned provide a solid foundation for ERGA while offering key learnings to other transnational, national genomic resource projects and the EBP.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio