SbCl5—wet acetonitrile: a new system for chemoselective O-desilylation

Abstract—A new efficient method for deprotection of TBDMS derivatives of phenols, primary alcohols, carboxylic acids and secondary amines, consisting of SbCl5 and MeCN with 0.1% water (w/v), is reported. It effects inter alia desilylation of a CH2OTBDMS group in the presence of a ketal function

Influence of growing sites and physicochemical features on the incidence of lenticel breakdown in 'Gala' and 'Galaxy' apples.

The origin of lenticels during apple fruit development growing in different altitudes, the physicochemical and physiological fruit features at harvest and storage, were studied in order to correlate these aspects to lenticel breakdown. "Gala" and "Galaxy" apples were harvested from orchards located at three traditional growing regions in Brazil: Vacaria, RS (971 m a.s.l.), Fraiburgo, SC (1048 m a.s.l.) and São Joaquim, SC (1353 m a.s.l.), during the 2008/09 season. The fruit were kept in cold storage (CS) at 0 ◦C and 90% RH for up to 120 days or at controlled atmosphere (CA) at 1.5% O2, 2.5% CO2, 0 ◦C and 90% RH for up to 210 days. Colour index was higher in ?Galaxy? apples and in fruit grown in São Joaquim, where the minimum temperatures were approximately 10 ◦C. The firmness was reduced at CS and CA, butit remained greater than 40 N in all the treatments. Acidity, except for ?Galaxy? apples, and sugars were influenced by the climatic conditions of the growing sites. There was no relationship between the lenticels dyeing and the incidence of lenticel breakdown. Contrary to the expectations, higher incidence of the disorder was noticed in ?Gala? apples grown in São Joaquim (SC) at the end of the both types of storage. The lenticel breakdown was featured by symptoms such as concentric depression around the lenticels, cell obliteration of the epidermis and subepidermal layers, with wide spaces formed by cell lysis. The origin of lenticels has no influence on the disorder development. It was not possible to establish a relationship among physicochemical, physiological and anatomical features from distinct growing sites and the predisposition to lenticel breakdown disorder

Multi-temporal SAR Interferometry for Monitoring of Man-Made Sfructures.

Multi-temporal InSAR (MTI) methods are effective tools for monitoring and investigating surface displacement on Earth based on conventional radar interferometry. These techniques allow us to measure deformation with uncertainties up to one millimeter per year, interpreting time series of interferometric phases at coherent/stable point scatterers. Considering the regular revisit time and wide-area coverage of satellite radar sensors, and that stable points usually correspond to buildings and other man-made structures, these techniques are particularly suitable for application in urban environments. In this paper we present some examples of the application of MTI techniques to study the stability of port structures and one example of dam monitoring. These promising results make it possible to think in the development of an interferometric methodology using the new high-resolution synthetic aperture radar satellites scenes for structural health monitoring

Work related stress and well-being: the roles of direct action coping and palliative coping

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the roles of direct action coping and palliative coping in the relationship between work stressors and psychological well-being, as well as their possible interactions, in a sample of 464 bank employees. Hierarchical regression analyses showed main effects of direct action coping on well-being. Palliative coping predicts higher levels of psychological distress. Contrary to what was expected, the interactions between work stressors and direct action coping were not significant. Palliative coping interacted with work stressors when predicting psychosomatic complaints. The interaction between the two types of coping was significant on psychosomatic complaints and psychological distress, but not on job satisfaction. The paper discusses theoretical and practical implications of these results, in order to design intervention strategies to prevent and manage job stress

Delincuencia juvenil, moralidad y exclusión social: resultados preliminares del ISRD-3 en Oporto

En las últimas décadas el fenómeno de la delincuencia juvenil ha sido un tema de gran interés en la literatura criminológica. En este sentido se han desarrollado instrumentos propios para medir las “cifras negras” de delincuencia juvenil, además del comportamiento antisocial. El proyecto colaborativo International Self- Reported Delinquency surgió en la década de los 90 con el propósito de dar respuesta a esta necesidad, a través de un instrumento de auto-relato implementando en contexto escolar, además de posibilitar el estudio de diferentes teorías criminológicas explicativas, permitiendo comparaciones trasnacionales. Uno de las teorías introducidas en ésta última versión es la teoría de la acción situacional (Winström, 2006), según la cual todas las acciones son el resultado de una persona en contacto con el medio ambiente específico y los actos de violencia son comportamientos guiados por valores morales. Tomando en consideración esta teoría, es esperable que las reglas morales interfieran más sobre la delincuencia y comportamiento violento en jóvenes provenientes de ambientes marginales. Partiendo de esta hipótesis de estudio, serán presentados, los resultados preliminares del estudio ISRD-3 llevado a cabo en la ciudad de Oporto entre los meses de Octubre de 2015 y Mayo de 2016. A través de un análisis estadístico de los datos, se mostrará la influencia de la transmisión de valores morales y el autocontrol, en dos contextos diferentes; comparando los datos de jóvenes provenientes de centros educativos TEIP, o centros considerados de “intervención especial”, con el resto de jóvenes encuestados. Las conclusiones de estudio pueden servir para gestionar los riesgos de forma correcta y mejorar el impacto de las políticas de prevención en el campo de la educación.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho (FCT R&D unit 317), PortugalNational Funds through the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) and co-financed by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Oxidative stress modulates the expression of VEGF isoforms in the diabetic retina

Funding: This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) with individual grants to S. Simão (SFRH/ BPD/78404/2011), D. Bitoque (SFRH/BD/52424/2013), S. Calado (SFRH/BD/76873/2011), GA Silva (EXPL-BIM-MEC-1433-2013, PIRG05-GA-2009-249314–EyeSee). FCT Research Center Grant UID/ BIM/04773/2013 CBMR 1334.publishersversionpublishe

Squid – a simple bioinformatics grid

BACKGROUND: BLAST is a widely used genetic research tool for analysis of similarity between nucleotide and protein sequences. This paper presents a software application entitled "Squid" that makes use of grid technology. The current version, as an example, is configured for BLAST applications, but adaptation for other computing intensive repetitive tasks can be easily accomplished in the open source version. This enables the allocation of remote resources to perform distributed computing, making large BLAST queries viable without the need of high-end computers. RESULTS: Most distributed computing / grid solutions have complex installation procedures requiring a computer specialist, or have limitations regarding operating systems. Squid is a multi-platform, open-source program designed to "keep things simple" while offering high-end computing power for large scale applications. Squid also has an efficient fault tolerance and crash recovery system against data loss, being able to re-route jobs upon node failure and recover even if the master machine fails. Our results show that a Squid application, working with N nodes and proper network resources, can process BLAST queries almost N times faster than if working with only one computer. CONCLUSION: Squid offers high-end computing, even for the non-specialist, and is freely available at the project web site. Its open-source and binary Windows distributions contain detailed instructions and a "plug-n-play" instalation containing a pre-configured example