Muridae e Erinacidae da ilha de Santa Maria com uma nota sobre um ectoparasita de Erinaceus europaeus

XIV Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia - Santa Maria 2009.Realizámos capturas de Muridae e Erinacidae utilizando armadilhas Sherman e Tomahawk. Capturámos quatro indivíduos da espécie Mus musculus, um da espécie Rattus rattus e quatro da espécie Erinaceus europaeus, dos quais apresentamos dados morfométricos externos. Registamos o parasitismo de E. europaeus pela espécie de carraça Rhipicephalus sanguineus

Os roedores das ilhas Flores e Corvo : distribuição, fertilidade e morfometria

XIII Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia - Flores e Corvo 2007.O conhecimento da biologia e ecologia das espécies de roedores dos Açores é escasso. Integrado na XIII Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia da Universidade dos Açores, realizámos uma amostragem de roedores em três habitats distintos (pastagem, floresta e lixeira) na ilha das Flores, durante três noites, e num habitat (lixeira) na ilha do Corvo, durante uma noite. A espécie Mus musculus foi capturada nos três habitats, Rattus rattus foi capturada na floresta e na pastagem e Rattus norvegicus só foi capturada na lixeira. Na ilha do Corvo não conseguimos efectuar nenhuma captura de animais destas espécies. Apresentamos os dados da fertilidade potencial das fêmeas prenhas capturados e dados sobres as medidas de algumas características da morfologia externa. Sugerimos um padrão de distribuição das três espécies para o Arquipélago dos Açores e apresentamos uma forma simples e expedita para a identificação das espécies de Rodentia nos Açores

A neural network based fall detector

In this project we present an intelligent fall detector system based on a 3-axis accelerometer and a neural network model that allows recognizing several possible motion situations and performing an emergency call only when a fall situation occurs, with low false negatives rate and low false positives rate. The system is based on a two module platform. The first one is a Mobile Station (MS) and should be carried always by the person. An accelerometer is implemented in this module and its information is transferred via a radio-frequency channel (RF) to the Base Station (BS). The BS is fixed and is connected to a GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) module. A neural network model was built into the BS and is able to identify falls from other possible motion situations, based on the received information. According to the neural network response the system sends a SMS (Short Message Service) to a destination number requesting for assistance

Pesquisa de agentes entomopatogénicos na Ilha Terceira (Açores).

IX Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia - Terceira 1994.Durante a "Expedição Científica Terceira 1994" fez-se a recolha de amostras de solo para pesquisa de nemátodos e fungos entomopatogénicos no âmbito do projecto de colecção e caracterização da variabilidade genética de agentes entomopatogénicos nos Açores. Com o designado "Galleria trap method" isolaram-se 4 nemátodos do género Heterorhabditis, todos morfologicamente próximos de Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, e 1 fungo, identificado como Beauveria bassiana

On the nature of the (de)coupling of the magnetostructural transition in Er5_5Si4_4

In this report, a successful thermodynamical model was employed to understand the structural transition in Er$_5$Si$_4$, able to explain the decoupling of the magnetic and structural transition. This was achieved by the DFT calculations which were used to determine the energy differences at 0 K, using a LSDA+U approximation. It was found that the M structure as the stable phase at low temperatures as verified experimentally with a $\Delta F_0 = -$0.262 eV. Finally, it was achieved a variation of Seebeck coefficient ($\sim$ 6 $\mu$V) at the structural transition which allow to conclude that the electronic entropy variation is negligible in the transition.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Synthesis of red mud derived M-type barium hexaferrites with tuneable coercivity

Hexagonal ferrites can be employed in a multitude of applications, the most common hexaferrites are the M ferrites such as BaFe12O19 (barium hexaferrite, BaM). It is known that if Fe3+ is substituted with a combination of Ti4+/Co2+ the coercivity of BaM can be reduced to produce soft M ferrites with easily switchable magnetisation. They can be utilised as powders, films or bulk ceramics, and can be manufactured from a wide variety of synthesis methods. The production of hexaferrites usually requires commercial raw materials, but if an industrial waste can be utilised, this will help to ease waste disposal and storage costs, valorise a waste material and encourage circular economy. In this study, bauxite residue (red mud) from the production of alumina was used to synthesise M-type hexaferrites, using a simple ceramic process. BaCO3, or BaCO3+Co3O4, were added to the red mud, blended and heated at 1000 °C to produce the M-type hexaferrites. Without cobalt addition up to 81.1 wt% M ferrite was produced, and with Co addition up to 74.3 wt% M ferrite was formed. Without cobalt, the M ferrite phase closely resembled BaFe9Al3O19, and was a hard ferrite with a magnetisation of 12–19 A m2/kg for the whole powder (up to 23.6 A m2/kg for the M ferrite phase) and a coercivity of ~290 kA/m. When cobalt was added, secondary titanate phases vanished, and Ti4+/Co2+ partially substituted very soft M ferrite was formed with a low coercivity of ~16 kA/m but a higher magnetisation of 24.5 A m2/kg for the whole powder (up to 34.9 A m2/kg for the M ferrite phase). Therefore, not only can good quality magnetic materials be easily produced from this common waste material, but its magnetic properties can be tuned by varying the 2 + ions added during the process.publishe

Comparison of different extraction methods of soybean DNA from refined vegetable oils

Soybean is the most important genetically modified crop in the world, comprising almost 60% of the biotechnological planted area. The doubts raised by the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) lead to the compulsory labelling for food products containing more than 0.9% of authorised GMO in the EU. The analysis of DNA coupled with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been the technique of choice to monitor the presence of GMO in food

An antibiogram classificattion system based on an hybrid hough transform and gradient approach

The antibiogram performed by the disc diffusion method is a test frequently used in clinical microbiology. In this test, the result is given by the diameter of the inhibition zone formed around the antibiotic disco In general, this measurement is performed manually. The main objective of this work was to develop an automatic image analysis system to assess the susceptibility of microorganisms to different antibiotics. As a first step, several images of antibiograms were obtained. Subsequently the images were subjected to image processing techniques. After the elimination of noise, the Hough transform was used to detect the antibiotic discs. Next, from the center of each identified disc, the inhibition zone was detected recurring to a gradient method. According to the diameter of the inhibition zone a susceptibility classification was made. The results prove the validity of the developed tool to detect the antibiotics discs and to segment the inhibition zones used in microorganism's susceptibilfty evaluation