Erratum: Martins, M.S., et al. Wideband and wIde beam polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) acoustic transducer for broadband underwater. Sensors 2019, 19, 3991

The authors wish to make the following erratum to this paper [...].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A sensitive microextraction by packed sorbent-based methodology combined with ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography as a powerful technique for analysis of biologically active flavonols in wines

A new approach based on microextraction by packed sorbent (MEPS) and reversed-phase high-throughput ultra high pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) method that uses a gradient elution and diode array detection to quantitate three biologically active flavonols in wines, myricetin, quercetin, and kaempferol, is described. In addition to performing routine experiments to establish the validity of the assay to internationally accepted criteria (selectivity, linearity, sensitivity, precision, accuracy), experiments are included to assess the effect of the important experimental parameters such as the type of sorbent material (C2, C8, C18, SIL, and C8/SCX), number of extraction cycles (extract-discard), elution volume, sample volume, and ethanol content, on the MEPS performance. The optimal conditions of MEPS extraction were obtained using C8 sorbent and small sample volumes (250 μL) in five extraction cycle and in a short time period (about 5 min for the entire sample preparation step). Under optimized conditions, excellent linearity View the MathML source(Rvalues2>0.9963), limits of detection of 0.006 μg mL−1 (quercetin) to 0.013 μg mL−1 (myricetin) and precision within 0.5–3.1% were observed for the target flavonols. The average recoveries of myricetin, quercetin and kaempferol for real samples were 83.0–97.7% with relative standard deviation (RSD, %) lower than 1.6%. The results obtained showed that the most abundant flavonol in the analyzed samples was myricetin (5.8 ± 3.7 μg mL−1). Quercetin (0.97 ± 0.41 μg mL−1) and kaempferol (0.66 ± 0.24 μg mL−1) were found in a lower concentration. The optimized MEPSC8 method was compared with a reverse-phase solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure using as sorbent a macroporous copolymer made from a balanced ratio of two monomers, the lipophilic divinylbenzene and the hydrophilic N-vinylpyrrolidone (Oasis HLB) were used as reference. MEPSC8 approach offers an attractive alternative for analysis of flavonols in wines, providing a number of advantages including highest extraction efficiency (from 85.9 ± 0.9% to 92.1 ± 0.5%) in the shortest extraction time with low solvent consumption, fast sample throughput, more environmentally friendly and easy to perform

Os saberes e poderes da reforma de 1905

EntretextosNeste artigo, revisitamos a reforma de 1905 ao nível das inovações curriculares e dos dispositivos pedagógicos que a singularizaram. Como enfoques metodológicos, assumimos o currículo enquanto construção social, e estabelecemos uma conexão entre pedagogia do poder e do saber, na linha de Nietzsche e de Foucault de que, por detrás de todo o saber, o que está em jogo é uma luta de poder, estando o poder político intrinsecamente correlacionado com o saber. Abordamos, num primeiro momento, a nova configuração curricular proposta por este diploma - elaborado pelo director geral de Instrução Pública, Abel Andrade, e promulgado pelo ministro do Reino, Eduardo José Coelho - e colocamos em evidência, por um lado, os mecanismos que fizeram com que a educação física integrasse definitivamente o currículo dos alunos do liceu e, por outro, a forma como abriu caminho para um novo conhecimento e para uma nova construção do corpo. Num segundo momento, relevamos a importância do que designamos por novos mecanismos de regulação onde incluímos o caderno diário, o incentivo à prática pedagógica de arquivar e expor os trabalhos dos alunos e a cooperação entre o liceu e a família. Por fim, concluímos que esta reforma deve ser vista em articulação com a reforma anterior de Jaime Moniz e que ambas acabam por corresponder a duas peças fundamentais do movimento reformista cuja aposta, em última análise, era a formação da futura elite governante.In this paper, we intend to revisit the 1905 Reform focusing on the curriculum innovations and pedagogical measures that made it unique. As methodological focuses we assume the curriculum as social construction and we establish a link between the pedagogy of power and learning following Nietzsche and Foucault, considering that behind all learning and understanding what is at stake is a fight for power, being the political power intimately related with learning. We deal, at the beginning, with the new curriculum proposal of the above-mentioned document – drafted by the Director General of Public Instruction, Abel Andrade and undersigned by the Minister of the Reign, Eduardo José Coelho. We highlight, on one hand, the mechanisms that made physical education part of the students’ curriculum at grammar school, and on the other hand, the means that opened a new way to a new learning and to a new development of the human body. In a second moment, we highlight the importance of what we call the new mechanisms of regulation where we include the notebook, as an incentive to the pedagogical practice of filling and exhibiting the work done by the students and at the same time the cooperation between the grammar school and the family. At last, we assume that this Reform should be seen in articulation with the previous one by Jaime Moniz, and that both correspond to two fundamental pieces of the reform movement, which was the basis of the education of the future governmental elite

Relationship between Volatile Composition and Bioactive Potential of Vegetables and Fruits of Regular Consumption—An Integrative Approach

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in studying and exploring the potential health benefits of foods, mainly from vegetables and fruits from regular intake. The presence of secondary metabolites, namely polyphenols, carotenoids and terpenes, in certain food matrices seems to contribute to their functional properties, expressed through an increased prevention in the development of certain chronic diseases, namely coronary heart diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and diabetes. However, some foods’ volatile secondary metabolites also present important bioactive properties, although this is a poorly scientifically explored field. In this context, and in order to explore the potential bioactivity of volatile metabolites in different vegetables and fruits from regular consumption, the volatile composition was established using a green extraction technique, solid phase microextraction in headspace mode (HS-SPME), combined with gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS). A total of 320 volatile metabolites, comprising 51 terpenic compounds, 45 organosulfur compounds, 31 aldehydes, 37 esters, 29 ketones, 28 alcohols, 23 furanic compounds, 22 hydrocarbons, 19 benzene compounds, 13 nitrogenous compounds, 9 carboxylic acids, 7 ethers, 4 halogenated compounds and 3 naphthalene derivatives, were positively identified. Each investigated fruit and vegetable showed a specific volatile metabolomic profile. The obtained results revealed that terpenic compounds, to which are associated antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anticancer activities, are the most predominant chemical family in beetroot (61%), orange carrot (58%) and white carrot (61%), while organosulfur compounds (antiviral activity) are dominant in onion, garlic and watercress. Broccoli and spinach are essentially constituted by alcohols and aldehydes (enzyme-inhibition and antimicrobial properties), while fruits from the Solanaceae family are characterized by esters in tamarillo and aldehydes in tomato.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chemical fingerprint of free polyphenols and antioxidant activity in dietary fruits and vegetables using a non-targeted approach based on QuEChERS ultrasound-assisted extraction combined with UHPLC-PDA

Fruits and vegetables are considered a good source of antioxidants, which are beneficial in protecting the human body against damage induced by free radicals and other reactive oxygen (ROS) and nitrogen (RNS) species. In this work, we aimed to evaluate the integral antioxidant activity (AOA) and determine individual polyphenols in fruits and vegetables of frequent consumption. For this purpose, an innovative and high throughput analytical approach based on original QuEChERS assisted by ultrasound extraction (USAE), instead of the manual agitation used in the classical procedure, was optimized and implemented for the isolation of polyphenols. The total phenolic content (TPC), flavonoids, anthocyanins, and betalains were evaluated using different spectrophotometric assays. In addition, free radical scavenging by methods 2,2’-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate) (ABTS) and 2,20 -diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) were used to estimate the AOA of the investigated fruit and vegetable extracts. Red onion, tamarillo, and beetroot were the samples with the highest AOA. The quantification and identification of free low molecular weight polyphenols from QuEChERS-USAE extracts was carried out by ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography equipped with a photodiode array detection system (UHPLC-PDA). Catechin was the most abundant polyphenol, followed by gentisic and ferulic acids, mainly in the watercress sample. In relation to flavonols, quercetin and kaempferol were found mostly in onion samples, and in small quantities in tomato and watercress. The improved analytical approach, QuEChERS-USAE/UHPLC-PDA, offers an attractive alternative for the analysis of polyphenols from fruit and vegetable samples, providing several advantages over traditional extraction techniques, in terms of reproducibility, simplicity, low cost, analysis speed, and analytical performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Stereotype movement recognition in children with ASD

The Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) covers different events, being one of them body rocking, mouthing, and complex hand and finger movements [1]. The traditional methods for recording the number of occurrences and duration of stereotypes are inadequate and time consuming. Therefore, it was used a commercial system with accelerometers sensors that records the movement of wrist and sends the collected data through a wireless network to the computer. Statistical methods were used to characterize the signal acquired from a previously expressed stereotypy. The parameters that were analyzed are: RMS, Standard Variation, Peaks and Valleys. At the end, the proposed methodology facilitates to identify behavioral patterns special relevant when studying interaction skills in children with ASD

Video summary - Neptus, command and control infrastructure for heterogeneous teams of autonomous vehicles

This video shows a brief overview over Neptus, a command and control infrastructure for heterogeneous teams of autonomous vehicles. Having different,types of vehicles at our laboratory and from our partners, there was an increasing need to create a common infrastructure to all these systems. Additionally, a tool to support the entire mission life cycle (Planning, Execution, Review and Dissemination) was lacking. Neptus was created to provide vehicle independence and seamless inter-systems communications. Currently, Neptus has been already tested with Remotely Operated Vehicles, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, Unmanned Air Vehicles, Autonomous Surface Vehicles and Wireless Sensor Networks. Some of these systems were operated simultaneously by various operating consoles that were sharing the same communication infrastructure. The received data was being relayed to a web server that allowed for the real-time mission following by using a common web browser

A new pathway for Mannitol metabolism in yeasts suggests a link to the evolution of alcoholic fermentation

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.The yeasts belonging to the Wickerhamiella and Starmerella genera (W/S clade) share a distinctive evolutionary history marked by loss and subsequent reinstatement of alcoholic fermentation mediated by horizontal gene transfer events. Species in this clade also share unusual features of metabolism, namely the preference for fructose over glucose as carbon source, a rare trait known as fructophily. Here we show that fructose may be the preferred sugar in W/S-clade species because, unlike glucose, it can be converted directly to mannitol in a reaction with impact on redox balance. According to our results, mannitol is excreted to the growth medium in appreciable amounts along with other fermentation products such as glycerol and ethanol but unlike the latter metabolites mannitol production increases with temperature. We used comparative genomics to find genes involved in mannitol metabolism and established the mannitol biosynthesis pathway in W/S-clade species Starmerella bombicola using molecular genetics tools. Surprisingly, mannitol production seems to be so important that St. bombicola (and other W/S-clade species) deploys a novel pathway to mediate the conversion of glucose to fructose, thereby allowing cells to produce mannitol even when glucose is the sole carbon source. Using targeted mutations and 13C-labeled glucose followed by NMR analysis of end-products, we showed that the novel mannitol biosynthesis pathway involves fructose-6-phosphate as an intermediate, implying a key role for a yet unknown fructose-6-P phosphatase. We hypothesize that mannitol production contributed to mitigate the negative effects on redox balance of the ancient loss of alcoholic fermentation in the W/S clade. Presently, mannitol also seems to play a role in stress protection.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Transport on weighted Networks: when correlations are independent of degree

Most real-world networks are weighted graphs with the weight of the edges reflecting the relative importance of the connections. In this work, we study non degree dependent correlations between edge weights, generalizing thus the correlations beyond the degree dependent case. We propose a simple method to introduce weight-weight correlations in topologically uncorrelated graphs. This allows us to test different measures to discriminate between the different correlation types and to quantify their intensity. We also discuss here the effect of weight correlations on the transport properties of the networks, showing that positive correlations dramatically improve transport. Finally, we give two examples of real-world networks (social and transport graphs) in which weight-weight correlations are present.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure