THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF A HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION – THE STUDY CASE OF THE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF BEJA, PORTUGAL

It is widely recognized that the investment in human capital, innovation, and knowledge transfer is essential to sustainable development and growth. Within this context, the role and action of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are vital. This paper aims to reflect on the role and the economic impact of a higher education institution, based on the case study of a public HEIs in Portugal namely the Polytechnic Institute of Beja (IPBeja). This institution belongs to the subsystem of polytechnic higher education and is located in a region that has one of the lowest economic and population densities in Europ

Reactor design for a family production of spirulina spp. and parameters determination for a spirulina spp. culture

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Química. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto, Université Claude Bernard. 200

Wind Risk Assessment in Urban Environments: The Case of Falling Trees During Windstorm Events in Lisbon

Trees bring many benefits to the urban environment. However, they may also cause hazards to human population, being the major causes of injuries and infrastructural damage during strong wind events. In the city of Lisbon, strong winds rather frequently result in tree falls, depending on the season and meteorological conditions. This paper presents a methodology to analyse tree damage due to strong wind events in urban environments. Each occurrence has been recorded by the Lisbon Fire Brigade and Rescue Services (Regimento de Sapadores Bombeiros de Lisboa - RSBL). Information provided by RSBL relating to the period of 1990-2005 was considered along with hourly wind speed and direction, species, fitossanitary conditions and urban parameters. To ensure that the fallen trees were caused by strong winds, only days with three or more occurrences of fallen trees were selected. It was found that in summer, northerly winds are responsible for 11% of tree falls, with winds from other directions (west, southwest and south) responsible for 5%. From autumn to spring, perturbed weather conditions originating from the west, southwest and south are responsible for 84% of fallen trees. The majority of tree falls occurred when wind speed surpassed 7 m/s in the six hours prior to their fall. Some recommendations to the Civil Protection Agency and the Fire Department are presented to improve the mission of collecting information. This research is a contribution to the assessment of wind risk in Lisbon

Wind risk assessment in urban environments: the case of falling trees during windstorm events in Lisbon

Trees bring many benefits to the urban environment. However, they may also cause hazards to human population, being the major causes of injuries and infrastructural damage during strong wind events. In the city of Lisbon, strong winds rather frequently result in tree falls, depending on the season and meteorological conditions. This paper presents a methodology to analyse tree damage due to strong wind events in urban environments. Each occurrence has been recorded by the Lisbon Fire Brigade and Rescue Services (Regimento de Sapadores Bombeiros de Lisboa - RSBL). Information provided by RSBL relating to the period of 1990-2005 was considered along with hourly wind speed and direction, species, fitossanitary conditions and urban parameters. To ensure that the fallen trees were caused by strong winds, only days with three or more occurrences of fallen trees were selected. It was found that in summer, northerly winds are responsible for 11% of tree falls, with winds from other directions (west, southwest and south) responsible for 5%. From autumn to spring, perturbed weather conditions originating from the west, southwest and south are responsible for 84% of fallen trees. The majority of tree falls occurred when wind speed surpassed 7 m/s in the six hours prior to their fall. Some recommendations to the Civil Protection Agency and the Fire Department are presented to improve the mission of collecting information. This research is a contribution to the assessment of wind risk in Lisbon

Control Room Requirements for Voltage Control in Future Power Systems

In future power grids, a large integration of renewable energy sources is foreseen, which will impose serious technical challenges to system operators. To mitigate some of the problems that renewable energy sources may bring, new voltage and frequency control strategies must be developed. Given the expected evolution of technologies and information systems, these new strategies will benefit from increasing system observability and resources controllability, enabling a more efficient grid operation. The ELECTRA IRP project addressed the new challenges that future power systems will face and developed new grid management and control functionalities to overcome the identified problems. This work, implemented in the framework of ELECTRA, presents an innovative functionality for the control room of the cell operator and its application in assistance with the voltage control designed for the Web-of-Cells. The voltage control method developed uses a proactive mode to calculate the set-points to be sent to the flexible resources, each minute, for a following 15-min period. This way, the voltage control method developed is able to mitigate voltage problems that may occur, while, at the same time, contributes to reduce the energy losses. To enable a straightforward utilization of this functionality, a user interface was created for system operators so they can observe the network state and control resources in a forthright manner accordingly.The work presented in this paper was funded by the ELECTRA IRP project (Seventh Framework Programme FP7 2007/2013) under grant agreement No. 609687

Projecto de sistemas de climatização em salas limpas farmacêuticas

Pretende-se com este trabalho de projecto de Mestrado, conceber uma unidade fabril, do tipo farmacêutica, destinada ao enchimento asséptico de sacos com antibióticos injectáveis. O trabalho inicia-se com a definição dos principais objectivos de uma unidade fabril deste tipo. Nesta conformidade, como caso de estudo, apresenta-se o controlo de condição da qualidade do ar interior e o processo de classificação das salas limpas, constituintes de uma área de injectáveis de um laboratório farmacêutico existente, de acordo com a Norma ISO 14644-1:1999. O trabalho desenvolvido permite concluir que uma adequada renovação do ar é crítica no projecto e/ou na manutenção dos sistemas de AVAC das salas das áreas limpas de uma indústria farmacêutica. No decorrer da elaboração do projecto, será feita uma descrição do edifício e suas instalações técnicas necessárias para manter temperaturas, humidades e pressões adequadas no interior das salas. Serão analisados os enquadramentos técnico-funcional e as condições higieno-sanitárias exigidas para o funcionamento correcto desta unidade, de acordo com a regulamentação comunitária e nacional existente

Molecular biology techniques – A brief correlation between applied techniques in translational science and plant agriculture

This report aims to describe, how through my academic and professional life, I have developed a set of skills that allow me to apply for a “Hortofruticultura” Master’s degree. After finishing my 5 years degree in 2005, I worked for Jardim Vista SA as an Agronomist, afterwards I went to the UK where I worked as a Research Technician/Research Assistant for 9 years. In September 2016 I started working as a lab technician in Universidade do Algarve for 6 months. More recently, in April 2017, I joined the Syngenta team in Moncarapacho as a Senior Grower and Quality Management Designate. In the UK, I took part in several scientific projects, mainly related to molecular biology. Considering that I have been involved in completely different scientific subjects in these 9 years, I decided to talk about some of the molecular biology techniques that I have learnt throughout these years and that are also used in Molecular Farming. With an increase in the world population, the impact of climate change and its effect on plant pathogens and plant diseases there is a need for healthy plants with a high production and better yields to fulfil those needs. Development of modified plants has progress through plant breeding and biotechnology that plays a major role in understanding how to modify plant genome or plant physiology to respond to those needs. By sequencing and studying the plants genome it is possible to understand and manipulate the characteristics of plants. Molecular farming, produces valuable proteins, peptides and small molecules through the use of both these techniques, plant molecular breeding and biotechnology. Some routine molecular biology techniques used in plant biotechnology are common to the projects where I participated and are described in this report, namely DNA extraction, PCR, colony PCR, agarose gel electrophoresis, bacterial genetic transformation, protein expression, SDS-PAGE and Western Blot. These techniques are the base for the study of better ways to improve plants, preparing agriculture for the actual and future challenges. Keywords: Molecular biology, biotechnology, agriculture, plant breeding, molecular farming.O objetivo deste trabalho é descrever a minha formação e aptidões adquiridas ao longo do meu percurso profissional, e como estas contribuíram para o desenvolvimento das minhas competências, as quais me permitem requerer o grau de Mestre. Após concluir o meu curso de 5 anos letivos em 2005 fui trabalhar como Engenheira Agrónoma para a empresa Jardim Vista SA. Posteriormente fui para o Reino Unido onde trabalhei como Técnica de Laboratório/Assistente de Laboratório durante 9 anos. Em Setembro de 2016 comecei a trabalhar como técnica de laboratório na Universidade do Algarve. Mais recentemente, em Abril de 2017 integrei a equipa da Syngenta em Moncarapacho como Senior Grower e Quality Management Designate. No Reino Unido, fui colaboradora de vários projetos científicos, os quais estavam maioritariamente relacionados com a área da biologia molecular. Considerando que durante estes 9 anos fiz parte de projetos que abordavam temas completamente diferentes, decidi abordar algumas das técnicas de biologia molecular que aprendi ao longo destes anos e que também são usadas na área da Agricultura Molecular e Melhoramento de Plantas. Com o nível de população a aumentar e o impacto das alterações climáticas, a necessidade de produzir plantas sem elementos patogénicos e destas serem mais produtivas e atingir elevadas produções, e eventualmente apresentarem resistência a herbicidas, assim como a produção de proteínas de interesse específico (Agricultura Molecular) também aumentou. O melhoramento de plantas em conjunto com a Biotecnologia têm um papel extremamente importante na compreensão e na descodificação da informação do DNA associado a estas necessidades, pois através da manipulação genética é possível alterar o genoma das plantas de modo a satisfazer as exigências atuais. Com o estudo do genoma das plantas é possível perceber e manipular as características que pretendemos alterar e melhorar. “Molecular farming” produz proteínas, péptidos e pequenas moléculas bastante valiosas, resultado dos estudos de melhoramento de plantas acoplado aos progressos na área da biotecnologia. Algumas das técnicas utilizadas em biotecnologia descritas nesta tese são a extração de DNA, o PCR, o colony PCR, a eletroforese, a transformação genética, a expressão proteíca, SDS-PAGE e Western Blot. Estas técnicas permitem-nos estudar métodos mais eficazes de melhorar as plantas para que a agricultura esteja melhor preparada para os desafios atuais e futuros. Palavras-chave: Biologia molecular, biotecnologia, agricultura, melhoramento de plantas, agricultura molecular

Robust Identification of Target Genes and Outliers in Triple-negative Breast Cancer Data

Correct classification of breast cancer sub-types is of high importance as it directly affects the therapeutic options. We focus on triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) which has the worst prognosis among breast cancer types. Using cutting edge methods from the field of robust statistics, we analyze Breast Invasive Carcinoma (BRCA) transcriptomic data publicly available from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data portal. Our analysis identifies statistical outliers that may correspond to misdiagnosed patients. Furthermore, it is illustrated that classical statistical methods may fail in the presence of these outliers, prompting the need for robust statistics. Using robust sparse logistic regression we obtain 36 relevant genes, of which ca. 60\% have been previously reported as biologically relevant to TNBC, reinforcing the validity of the method. The remaining 14 genes identified are new potential biomarkers for TNBC. Out of these, JAM3, SFT2D2 and PAPSS1 were previously associated to breast tumors or other types of cancer. The relevance of these genes is confirmed by the new DetectDeviatingCells (DDC) outlier detection technique. A comparison of gene networks on the selected genes showed significant differences between TNBC and non-TNBC data. The individual role of FOXA1 in TNBC and non-TNBC, and the strong FOXA1-AGR2 connection in TNBC stand out. Not only will our results contribute to the breast cancer/TNBC understanding and ultimately its management, they also show that robust regression and outlier detection constitute key strategies to cope with high-dimensional clinical data such as omics data

The Economic Impact of a Higher Education Institution: The study case of the Polytechnic Institute of Beja

It is widely recognized that the investment in human capital, innovation, and knowledge transfer is essential to sustainable development and growth. Within this context, the role and action of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are vital. This paper aims to reflect on the role and the economic impact of a higher education institution, based on the case study of a public HEIs in Portugal namely the Polytechnic Institute of Beja (IPBeja). This institution belongs to the subsystem of polytechnic higher education and is located in a region that has one of the lowest economic and population densities in Europe