Parallel Mean Curvature Surfaces in Symmetric Spaces

We present a reduction of codimension theorem for surfaces with parallel mean curvature in symmetric spaces

Natural variability of lotic Mediterranean ecosystems or wildfire perturbations: who will win?

This study evaluates the impacts of wildfires in lotic Mediterranean ecosystems. It was carried out at Monchique ridge after big wildfires occurred during 2002 and 2003. Deferential impacts were evaluated comparing historical results obtained before the wildfires (1999 and 2001), with the post fire ones (2006 and 2007). Physical and chemical parameters of the water, habitat morphology, diatoms, macrophytes, macroinvertebrates and fishes were evaluated at 10 collecting places, before and after wildfires. High recovering rates were observed to the vegetation, but it is still possible to found fire impacts over macrophytes and river morphology. Wildfires, contributed to canopy decrease and, consequently to the growth of plants that usually are controlled by shadow. As a result, vegetation biodiversity tend to increase. River banks tend also to be invaded by terrestrial plants. Higher post fires recover rates were observed to the more aquatic communities (diatoms, macroinvertebrates and fishes). For those communities, comparing spring situations before and after the fires no substantial differences were observed. Sometimes differences between consecutive years are even higher. So it can be concluded that magnitude of wildfire impacts is less than the natural inter-annual variability of Mediterranean rivers. Long-term effects of forest fires, resulting from large woody debries, were also detected by morphological alterations, like debries dams. Habitat diversity increase and impacts on aquatic communities are expected

Different intra- and inter-molecular hydrogen-bonding patterns in (3S,4aS,8aS)-2-[(2R,3S)-3-(2,5-X2-benzamido)-2-(2,5-X2-benzo-yloxy)-4-phenyl-butyl]-N-tert-butyldeca-hydro-iso-quinoline-3-carboxamides (X = H or Cl) : compounds with moderate aspartyl protease inhibition activity

We thank the EPSRC National Crystallography Service (University of Southampton) for the X-ray data collections.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Avaliação da qualidade ecológica de rios portugueses baseado nas comunidades de macroinvertebrados bentónicos

Com o desenvolvimento dum Programa Nacional de Monitorização de Sistemas Aquáticos, a Autoridade Florestal Nacional (AFN) pretendeu, baseado no Projecto AQUARIPORT, obter uma informação base de suporte ao ordenamento dos recursos piscícolas de Portugal e ainda contribuir para a avaliação da qualidade ecológica de rios tendo em conta os princípios emanados pela Directiva Quadro da Água (DQA). Neste âmbito, desde 2004 até 2009 foram monitorizadas as comunidades de peixes e de macroinvertebrados numa rede de amostragem apreciável (600) distribuídas pelos diferentes sistemas lóticos das bacias hidrográficas de Portugal. De forma complementar foram também utilizadas variáveis abióticas relacionadas com a qualidade da água, a hidromorfologia e a zona ripária dos sistemas aquáticos. Com base nas famílias de macroinvertebrados foram determinadas diferentes métricas, como a diversidade Shannon-Wiener (H’), EPT, IBMWP, e aplicado Índice Português de Invertebrados (IPtIN e IPtIS) recentemente desenvolvido pela DQA. Os impactos resultantes da poluição, regularização, corte da vegetação ribeirinha, entre outros, estão na base da detecção duma menor qualidade ecológica dos rios do litoral e sul de Portugal. Por sua vez, os parâmetros hidromorfológicos e ambientais que influenciam significativamente a composição das comunidades de macroinvertebrados foram a condutividade, profundidade e largura média do curso de água, presença de hidrófitos, urbanização nas áreas circundantes e as características do substrato e da mata rípícol

3D Lagrangian VPM: simulations of the near-wake of an actuator disc and horizontal axis wind turbine

The application of a 3-dimensional Lagrangian vortex particle method has been assessed for modelling the near-wake of an axisymmetrical actuator disc and 3-bladed horizontal axis wind turbine with prescribed circulation from the MEXICO (Model EXperiments In COntrolled conditions) experiment. The method was developed in the framework of the open- source Parallel Particle-Mesh library for handling the efficient data-parallelism on a CPU (Central Processing Unit) cluster, and utilized a O(N log N)-type fast multipole method for computational acceleration. Simulations with the actuator disc resulted in a wake expansion, velocity deficit profile, and induction factor that showed a close agreement with theoretical, numerical, and experimental results from literature. Also the shear layer expansion was present; the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the shear layer was triggered due to the round-off limitations of a numerical method, but this instability was delayed to beyond 1 diameter downstream due to the particle smoothing. Simulations with the 3-bladed turbine demonstrated that a purely 3-dimensional flow representation is challenging to model with particles. The manifestation of local complex flow structures of highly stretched vortices made the simulation unstable, but this was successfully counteracted by the application of a particle strength exchange scheme. The axial and radial velocity profile over the near wake have been compared to that of the original MEXICO experiment, which showed close agreement between results

Pectic polysaccharides from the infusions of P. tridentatum, F. angustifolia and M. suaveolens: structural characterization and modulation of the inflammatory activity

In Trás-os-Montes region (Portugal), the small shrub (Pterospartum tridentatum), the narrow-leafed ash (Fraxinus angustifolia), and the apple mint (Mentha suaveolens) are vegetable species used in the preparation of infusions for medicinal purposes, such as protection against diabetes, hypertension, high levels of cholesterol and uric acid [1]. These infusions contain several types of polysaccharides, such as pectic polysaccharides and galactomannans (GM´s), often reported as immunomodulators [2, 3]. Pectic polysaccharides are structurally complex polymers, exhibiting different polymeric building blocks: homogalacturonans (HG), type I rhamnogalacturonans (RG-I), type II rhamnogalacturonans (RG-II) and xylogalacturonans (XG) [4]. The backbone of RG-I can be partly substituted with, among others, type-II arabinogalactans (AG-I ) that form ramified regions responsible for the modulation of the immune response [2]. For GM´s, factors like chain length, degree of branching and degree of acetylation seem to influence their immunomodulating activity [3].Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), European Union, QREN, FEDER, and COMPETE for funding the QOPNA (project PEst-C/QUI/UI0062/2013; FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-037296) and CIMO research unit

Avaliação da qualidade ecológica de rios portugueses (Projecto AQUARIPORT): síntese dos resultados referentes à análise das comunidades de macroinvertebrados bentónicos

O projecto AQUARIPORT serve de base ao Programa Nacional de Monitorização de sistemas aquáticos e tem como objectivos (1) a recolha de informação base de suporte ao ordenamento dos recursos piscícolas nacionais; (2) o desenvolvimento e a implementação de índices bióticos, baseados na ictiofauna e nos macroinvertebrados bentónicos, que permitam a avaliação da qualidade ecológica de rios no enquadramento nos princípios da Directiva Quadro da Água. Neste âmbito, avalia-se, com base nas comunidades de macroinvertebrados, a integridade ecológica de 107 pontos localizados nas bacias hidrográficas dos rios Douro, Minho, Lima, Mondego, Vouga, Tejo, Sado, Mira e Guadiana das Ribeiras do Oeste e do Algarve. Complementarmente às amostragens de macroinvertebrados também se avalia a condição ambiental de cada ponto amostrado (e.g., estrutura da zona ripícola, substrato do leito, largura do rio, perturbações antropogénicas, condutividade, temperatura, oxigénio dissolvido). Com base nas famílias de macroinvertebrados presentes foram determinados para cada ponto os valores do índice biótico IBMWP. Verificou-se que em 62,3% dos pontos amostrados predominam grupos mais intolerantes à degradação ambiental o que indica que estes locais possuem boa qualidade ambiental (Classes I e II). 24,6% apresentam degradação moderada (Classe III). A qualidade ambiental dos restantes 13,1% encontra-se muito a fortemente degradada, uma vez que os grupos tolerantes ou muito tolerantes à degradação ambiental são dominantes (Classes IV e V). Os parâmetros morfológicos e ambientais que influenciam significativamente a composição das comunidades de macroinvertebrados, são a condutividade, profundidade e largura média do curso de água, presença de hidrófitos, intensidade da urbanização nas áreas circundantes, características do substrato e da mata rípícola

Creating shared value in Rock in Rio business model: case study

This discourse will attempt to discuss `Creation of Shared Value' (CSV) through the case study of the music festival "Rock in Rio" (RIR) in order to further understand the company's sustainability program. The main goal is to clearly recognize if RIR uses a genuine practice of CSV to accomplish their social policies. To commence, we started with the State of Art, studying the CSV theory created by Porter and Kramer, as well as the authors that were either in support of, or against, the strategy. Qualitative Research Method was used, thus focusing the enterprise case study, by analysing media interviews given by the managerial staff of RIR. Content analysis was used to process data and deliver results. The main limitation of the study was the lack of institutional information, due to an absence of responses, to the survey in sufficient time by RIR's managers, subsequently a triangulation of the information acquired could not be achieved.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Analysis of sources of risk and uncertainties in the electricity system

Electricity power planning is a serious national task that encompasses not only forecasts but more importantly the evolution in short, medium and long term of each element that composes the assumptions, the constraints and/or the parameters of the planning model. Deterministic models can bring simplicity to the electricity power planning but do not consider the uncertainties and sources of risk of the electricity system. On the other hand, stochastic models tend to include the behaviour of one or more uncertain parameters that are critical to obtain a robust solution, being however more detailed and lengthy than deterministic models. The aim of this work was to identify the major sources of risk and uncertainties facing electricity system, representing valuable input for the electricity planner task. From this study it can be observed that several different behaviours for each uncertain parameter can be found along a time horizon. Thus, it is concluded that reeling on average lowers can represent a reductionist approach and in order to obtain more reliable scenarios for future electricity system, the statistical characteristics of each parameter should be considered in the electricity power planning.This research was supported by a Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship within the 7th European Union Framework Programme, under project NETEP- European Brazilian Network on Energy Planning (PIRSES-GA-2013-612263)

Introdução da térmita da madeira seca Cryptotermes brevis (Walker) nos Açores

A secção Biologia é coordenada pelo Professor Universitário Armindo Rodrigues.A térmita de madeira seca Cryptotermes brevis (Walker) é uma praga urbana que causa danos graves a estruturas de madeira, afectando todos os tipos de equipamentos desde os rodapés, portas, mobiliário e partes estruturais da habitação. Existente principalmente nas zonas tropicais e subtropicais do globo, esta espécie é originaria do Chile e do Peru e poderá ter-se dispersado pelo mundo, numa fase inicial, através do tráfego elevado de navios de madeira espanhóis provenientes dessa zona no século XVI. Esta térmita passa a maior parte do seu ciclo de vida dentro da madeira, factor que facilita o seu transporte e dispersão, uma vez que a sua detecção é difícil por não especialistas. A sua presença nos Açores é conhecida desde o ano de 2000, altura em que foi identificada a sua presença na Ilha Terceira. Desde então a sua presença já foi confirmada para seis das nove ilhas do arquipélago dos Açores, nomeadamente Terceira, São Miguel, Santa Maria, Faial, São Jorge e Pico. […].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio