Innovative improvement of sintered ceramic electrolytes by salt infiltration

Previously sintered (1500 °C, 4 h) dense pellets of Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95 (GDC) were covered and heat treated with eutectic mixtures of Na2CO3 and Li2CO3 (NLC), and their electrical performance was assessed against pure GDC and chemically synthesized GDC + NLC. Microstructural analysis of NLC impregnated samples confirmed slight migration of the molten phase to the interior of the GDC pellets via grain boundaries, resulting in a significant improvement of the grain boundary conductivity, increasing with duration of heat treatment (0.5–2 h) and temperature (600–800 °C range). The observed total conductivity exceeded in almost 20% the corresponding values obtained for standard GDC samples. Cells tested before and after direct current polarization (0.5 V, 500 °C) showed the same electrical performance, discarding the possibility of parallel contributions of salt ions to the total conductivity. Grain boundary engineering using salt infiltration is an effective tool to improve the electrical performance of ceramic electrolytes.publishe

Strain sensitivity enhancement in suspended core fiber tapers

Suspended core fiber tapers with different cross sections (with diameters from 70 μm to 120 μm) are produced by filament heating. Before obtaining the taper, the spectral behavior of the suspended core fiber is a multimode interference structure. When the taper is made, an intermodal interference between a few modes is observed. This effect is clearly visible for low taper core dimensions. Since the core and cladding do not collapse, two taper regions exist, one in the core and the other in the cladding. The cladding taper does not affect the light transmission, only the core is reduced to a microtaper. The spectral response of the microtaper based-suspended core fiber is similar to a beat of two interferometers. The strain is applied to the microtaper, and with the reduction in the transverse area, an increase in sensitivity is observed. When the taper is immersed in a liquid with a different index of refraction or subjected to temperature variations, no spectral change occurs

Zika virus infections imported from Brazil to Portugal, 2015

Zika virus is an emerging arbovirus transmitted by Aedes sp. mosquitoes like the Dengue and Chikungunya viruses. Zika virus was until recently considered a mild pathogenic mosquito-borne flavivirus with very few reported benign human infections. In 2007, an epidemic in Micronesia initiated the turnover in the epidemiological history of Zika virus and more recently, the potential association with congenital microcephaly cases in Brazil 2015, still under investigation, led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on February 1, 2016. Here, we present the clinical and laboratory aspects related to the first four imported human cases of Zika virus in Portugal from Brazil, and alert, regarding the high level of traveling between Portugal and Brazil, and the ongoing expansion of this virus in the Americas, for the threat for Zika virus introduction in Europe and the possible introduction to Madeira Island where Aedes aegypti is present.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Multimode Interference In Tapered Single Mode-multimode-single Mode Fiber Structures For Strain Sensing Applications

Tapering single mode-multimode-single mode structures to enhance sensitivity is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. 50 mm-long coreless MMF sections are spliced between SMFs and tapered. They are characterized in strain and an increase in strain sensitivity is obtained with taper diameter reduction. Sensitivities as high as -23.69 pm/με for the 15 μm taper are attained. A combination of an untapered and tapered SMS is proposed as a sensing system for the simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature. © 2012 SPIE.8421Soldano, L., Pennings, E., Optical multi-mode interference devices based on self-imaging: Principles and applications (1995) Lightwave Technology, Journal of, 13, pp. 615-627. , AprilKumar, A., Varshney, R.K., Sharma, P., Transmission characteristics of sms fiber optic sensor structures (2003) Optics Communications, 219, pp. 215-219Wang, Q., Farrell, G., Yan, W., Investigation on single-mode-multimode-single-mode fiber structure (2008) J. Lightwave Technol., 26, pp. 512-519. , MarMehta, A., Mohammed, W., Johnson, E., Multimode interference-based fiber-optic displacement sensor (2003) Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE, 15, pp. 1129-1131. , augMohammed, W., Mehta, A., Johnson, E., Wavelength tunable fiber lens based on multimode interference (2004) Lightwave Technology, Journal of, 22, pp. 469-477. , febFrazão, O., Silva, S.O., Viegas, J., Ferreira, L.A., Araújo, F.M., Santos, J.L., Optical fiber refractometry based on multimode interference (2011) Appl. Opt., 50, pp. E184-E188. , SepMohammed, W.S., Smith, P.W.E., Gu, X., All-fiber multimode interference bandpass filter (2006) Opt. Lett., 31, pp. 2547-2549. , SepWang, Q., Farrell, G., Multimode-fiber-based edge filter for optical wavelength measurement application and its design (2006) Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, 48 (5), pp. 900-902Wang, P., Brambilla, G., Ding, M., Semenova, Y., Wu, Q., Farrell, G., High-sensitivity, evanescent field refractometric sensor based on a tapered, multimode fiber interference (2011) Opt. Lett., 36, pp. 2233-2235. , JunFrazão, O., Silva, S.F.O., Guerreiro, A., Santos, J.L., Ferreira, L.A., Araújo, F.M., Strain sensitivity control of fiber bragg grating structures with fused tapers (2007) Appl. Opt., 46 (36), pp. 8578-8582Biazoli, C.R., André, R.M., Frazão, O., Cordeiro, C.M.B., Tapering down optical fiber to ultra-high strain sensitivity (2012) Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE, , Submitte

PLANEAMENTO DA EMPRESA AGRÍCOLA -

NOTA INTRODUTÓRIA Este livro é um dos frutos da leccionação, ao longo dos anos, da disciplina de “Planeamento da Empresa Agrícola I”. Destina-se, por conseguinte, fundamentalmente a ser usado como livro de texto escolar e por isso foi publicado nesta colecção de “Manuais da Universidade de Évora”. Uma das características que marcou o perfil profissional, que o mercado de trabalho bem reconheceu ao longo do tempo, dos Licenciados em Engenharia Agrícola e em Engenharia Zootécnica da Universidade de Évora foi a de possuírem uma boa preparação nas matérias económicas e de gestão. Essa preparação resultou da inclusão na estrutura curricular dessas licenciaturas de um corpo de disciplinas dessas áreas do saber. A estrutura curricular da componente de Economia e Gestão Agrícola, pela ordem recomendada pelas comissões de curso das duas licenciaturas, começava com as disciplinas de “Economia I” e “Economia II”, em que os alunos aprendiam os princípios económicos básicos da microeconomia e da macroeconomia, respectivamente. Iniciavam, em seguida, as disciplinas de gestão. Na “Contabilidade Geral e Agrícola” leccionavam-se os princípios fundamentais da contabilidade e estudados os processos de registo dos documentos e de apuramentos dos resultados contabilísticos. Seguiam-se as disciplinas de “Planeamento da Empresa Agrícola I e II”, em que a principal ênfase eram os conceitos e métodos de planeamento. Na disciplina de “Economia e Política Agrícolas”, caracterizavam-se o sector agrícola de Portugal e da Região do Alentejo, estudavam-se as principais medidas de política agrícola em geral e da PAC em particular, realçando o impacto da sua aplicação em termos teóricos e em termos empíricos para a agricultura Portuguesa e Alentejana. O elenco de cadeiras obrigatórias terminava com a disciplina de “Comercialização dos Produtos Agro-Pecuários” em que eram leccionadas as matérias relacionadas com o mercado dos produtos agrícolas, com ênfase nas políticas e características de preço, de distribuição e de promoção dos produtos agrícolas. Na actual estrutura curricular dos cursos de licenciatura em Engenharia Agrícola e Zootécnica o número de disciplinas e de horas leccionadas da área das ciências económicas e empresariais é menor do que na anterior estrutura curricular. Essa nova estrutura contempla uma disciplina denominada exactamente “Planeamento e Gestão de Empresas Agrícolas”. Englobando as matérias leccionadas em três disciplinas (Contabilidade agrícola e Planeamento da Empresa Agrícola I e II) esta nova disciplina terá que incluir as matérias fundamentais relativas a essas disciplinas, pelo que o seu programa terá por base a disciplina de Planeamento da Empresa Agrícola I, reforçando os conteúdos da programação matemática, mas ficando muito aquém dos leccionados no Pllaneamento da Empresa Agrícola II e incluindo os aspectos da Contabilidade Agrícola relativos aos conceitos e à elaboração de informação contabilística. Com Bolonha e a adopção de uma estrutura europeia comum a estas formações de primeiro nível de cerca de 180 ECTS, o que corresponde a cerca de três anos de formação superior inicial, é provável que as matérias obrigatórias e as unidades curriculares das ciências económicas sejam ainda mais reduzidas, mas privilegiando este sistema a constituição de percursos diferenciados para os alunos essas matérias podem ser vir a ser opções para a construção desses perfis. Em qualquer dos casos, a especialização será determinada pela formação de Segundo Ciclo em que as matérias de Economia e Gestão determinarão uma especialização da formação superior em complemento da formação inicial de banda larga. Por essa razão a publicação deste manual, ainda que tendo por base as matérias leccionadas no Planeamento da Empresa Agrícola I da anterior estrutura curricular, também é fundamental para os alunos da actual estrutura curricular dos cursos de licenciatura em Engenharia Agrícola e Zootécnica e constituirá a base para uma eventual unidade curricular de Gestão Agrícola que venha a ser contemplada na adequação da oferta formativa em curso. É constituído por exercícios de aplicação e está organizado em blocos, que constituem as aulas práticas da disciplina, cada um abordando um conjunto de assuntos relativamente homogéneo e seguindo os tópicos do programa da disciplina de Planeamento da Empresa Agrícola I, considerados de maior relevância para desenvolvimento teórico-prático. Complementarmente, é fornecida em CD a informação técnico-económica em folhas de cálculo, por resolver e resolvidas, devidamente organizada para facilidade de acesso ao bloco e exercício pretendido. O formando pode, numa lógica de auto-aprendizagem e desenvolvimento de competências, utilizando as folhas fornecidas por resolver, ou seja, percebendo a forma que foi organizada e usada a informação para resolver o exercício, tentar responder, aplicando o seu raciocínio passo a passo e verificando nas folhas resolvidas que resolveu correctamente ou que tem que corrigir, percebendo em que errou na sua resposta. Os conteúdos dos exercícios derivam do objectivo que tem a inclusão dessa unidade curricular nas licenciaturas em Engenharia Agrícola e Engenharia Zootécnica que é o de os alunos das licenciaturas de Engenharia Agrícola e de Engenharia Zootécnica aprenderem e utilizarem os conceitos e métodos básicos de planeamento de uma empresa agrícola. A ordenação dos tópicos abordados, como não poderia deixar de ser, segue o programa e as aulas teóricas. O primeiro bloco refere-se á caracterização das funções da gestão, que incluem para além do planeamento a implantação e o controlo, e dos passos do processo de decisão bem como das suas particularidades quando se trata da gestão de empresas agrícolas. Os blocos seguintes apresentam os princípios económicos e as metodologias de planeamento da empresa agrícola. Nestes blocos são, sucessivamente, aplicados os conceitos económicos derivados da maximização do lucro, no bloco 2, os diferentes tipos e formatos de orçamentos e indicadores derivados, nos blocos 3 a 8, e os projectos de investimento no bloco 9. Seguem-se os exercícios relativos ao controlo, nos blocos 10 e 11, que se dedicam à análise da empresa e aos seus diferentes tipos. No último bloco apresenta-se o estudo de um caso com o objectivo de sensibilizar o aluno para as diferenças do processo de planeamento quando se passa da exploração agrícola, em que a adequação e a sustentabilidade da utilização dos recursos disponíveis face aos sistemas de produção a seleccionar é o ponto de partida e a principal linha de orientação, para a empresa agro-industrial em que no processo de planeamento essa orientação deixa de ser a fundamental e o processo passa a ter como linha de orientação a procura, ou seja, as potenciais vendas e os procedimentos de planeamento da empresa para as realizar

Antimicrobial activity of prophage endolysins against critical Enterobacteriaceae antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Enterobacteriaceae species are part of the 2017 World Health Organization antibiotic-resistant priority pathogens list for development of novel medicines. Multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae is an increasing threat to public health and has become a relevant human pathogen involved in life-threatening infections. Phage therapy involves the use of phages or their lytic endolysins as bioagents for the treatment of bacterial infectious diseases. Gram-negative bacteria have an outer membrane, making difficult the access of endolysins to the peptidoglycan. Here, three endolysins from prophages infecting three distinct Enterobacterales species, Kp2948-Lys from K. pneumoniae, Ps3418-Lys from Providencia stuartii, and Kaer26608-Lys from Klebsiella aerogenes, were purified and exhibited antibacterial activity against their specific bacterium species verified by zymogram assays. These three endolysins were successfully associated to liposomes composed of dimyristoyl phosphatidyl choline (DMPC), dioleoyl phosphatidyl ethanolamine (DOPE) and cholesteryl hemisuccinate (CHEMS) at a molar ratio (4:4:2), with an encapsulation efficiency ranging from 24 to 27%. Endolysins encapsulated in liposomes resulted in higher antibacterial activity compared to the respective endolysin in the free form, suggesting that the liposome-mediated delivery system enhances fusion with outer membrane and delivery of endolysins to the target peptidoglycan. Obtained results suggest that Kp2948-Lys appears to be specific for K. pneumoniae, while Ps3418-Lys and Kaer26608-Lys appear to have a broader antibacterial spectrum. Endolysins incorporated in liposomes constitute a promising weapon, applicable in the several dimensions (human, animals and environment) of the One Health approach, against multidrug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.F.F.V. was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through a project grant (PTDC/BTM-SAL/28978/2017) that supported this work. The work is partially supported by National funds from FCT, projects UIDB/04138/2020, UIDP/04138/2020, UIDB/00211/2020 and UIDB/04046/2020 (DOI https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/0404 6/2020)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cryptic Prophages Contribution for Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli Introgression

This article belongs to the Special Issue Bacteriophage Genomics.Campylobacter coli and C. jejuni, the causing agents of campylobacteriosis, are described to be undergoing introgression events, i.e., the transference of genetic material between different species, with some isolates sharing almost a quarter of its genome. The participation of phages in introgression events and consequent impact on host ecology and evolution remain elusive. Three distinct prophages, named C. jejuni integrated elements 1, 2, and 4 (CJIE1, CJIE2, and CJIE4), are described in C. jejuni. Here, we identified two unreported prophages, Campylobacter coli integrated elements 1 and 2 (CCIE1 and CCIE2 prophages), which are C. coli homologues of CJIE1 and CJIE2, respectively. No induction was achieved for both prophages. Conversely, induction assays on CJIE1 and CJIE2 point towards the inducibility of these prophages. CCIE2-, CJIE1-, and CJIE4-like prophages were identified in a Campylobacter spp. population of 840 genomes, and phylogenetic analysis revealed clustering in three major groups: CJIE1-CCIE1, CJIE2-CCIE2, and CJIE4, clearly segregating prophages from C. jejuni and C. coli, but not from human- and nonhuman-derived isolates, corroborating the flowing between animals and humans in the agricultural context. Punctual bacteriophage host-jumps were observed in the context of C. jejuni and C. coli, and although random chance cannot be fully discarded, these observations seem to implicate prophages in evolutionary introgression events that are modulating the hybridization of C. jejuni and C. coli species.F.F.V. is funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through an Assis tant Researcher grant CEECIND/03023/2017, and a project grant (PTDC/BTM-SAL/28978/2017) that supported this work. The work is partially supported by Na-tional funds from FCT, projects UIDB/04138/2020 and UIDP/04138/2020. Campylobacter strains were sequenced under the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020—Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Oper-ational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by FCT. This work was also supported by Fundos FEDER through the Programa Op eracional Factores de Competitivida-de—COMPETE and by Fundos Nacionais through the FCT within the scope of the project UID/BIM/00009/2019 (Centre for Toxicogenomics and Human Health-ToxOmics).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Severe feed restriction increases permeability of mammary gland cell tight junctions and reduces ethanol stability of milk.

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On the road to carbon reduction in a food supply network: a complex adaptive systems perspective

Purpose: In acknowledging the reality of climate change, large firms have set internal and external (supplier oriented) targets to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study explores the complex processes behind the evolution and diffusion of carbon reduction strategies in supply networks. Design/methodology/approach: The research uses complex adaptive systems (CAS) as a theoretical framework and presents a single case study of a focal buying firm and its supply network in the food sector. A longitudinal and multilevel analysis is used to discuss the dynamics between the focal firm, the supply network and external environment. Findings: Rather than being a linear and controlled process of adoption-implementation-outcomes, the transition to reduce carbon in a supply network is much more dynamic, emerging as a result of a number of factors at the individual, organizational, supply network and environmental levels. Research limitations/implications: The research considers the emergence of a carbon reduction strategy in the food sector, driven by a dominant buying firm. Future research should seek to investigate the diffusion of environmental strategies more broadly and in other contexts. Practical implications: Findings from the research reveal the limits of the control that a buying firm can exert over behaviours in its network and show the positive influence of consortia initiatives on transitioning to sustainability in supply networks. Originality: CAS is a fairly novel theoretical lens for researching environmental supply network dynamics. The paper offers fresh multilevel insights into the emergent and systemic nature of the diffusion of environmental practices in supply networks