Polyelectrolyte based sensors as key to achieve quantitative electronic tongues: Detection of triclosan on aqueous environmental matrices

This work was supported by the Project “Development of Nanostructures for Detection of Triclosan Traces on Aquatic Environments” (PTDC/FIS-NAN/0909/2014). The Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research CENSE and Centre of Physics and Technological Research CEFITEC,which is financed bynational funds from FCT/MEC (UID/AMB/04085/2019 and UID/FIS/00068/2019). This research was anchored by the RESOLUTION LAB, an infrastructure at NOVA School of Science and Technology. J. Pereira-da-Silva and P. Zagalo acknowledge their fellowships PD/BD/142768/2018, PD/BD/142767/2018 from RABBIT Doctoral Program, respectively. C. Magro acknowledges to Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia for her PhD fellowship (SFRH/BD/114674/2016).Triclosan (TCS) is a bacteriostatic used in household items that promotes antimicrobial resistance and endocrine disruption effects both to humans and biota, raising health concerns. In this sense, new devices for its continuous monitoring in complex matrices are needed. In this work, sensors, based on polyelectrolyte layer-by-layer (LbL) films prepared onto gold interdigitated electrodes (IDE), were studied. An electronic tongue array, composed of (polyethyleneimine (PEI)/polysodium 4-styrenesulfonate (PSS))5 and (poly(allylamine hydrochloride/graphene oxide)5 LbL films together with gold IDE without coating were used to detect TCS concentrations (10−15–10−5 M). Electrical impedance spectroscopy was used as means of transduction and the obtained data was analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). The electronic tongue was tested in deionized water, mineral water and wastewater matrices showing its ability to (1) distinguish between TCS doped and non-doped solutions and (2) sort out the TCS range of concentrations. Regarding film stability, strong polyelectrolytes, as (PEI/PSS)n, presented more firmness and no significant desorption when immersed in wastewater. Finally, the PCA data of gold IDE and (PEI/PSS)5 sensors, for the mineral water and wastewater matrices, respectively, showed the ability to distinguish both matrices. A sensitivity value of 0.19 ± 0.02 per decade to TCS concentration and a resolution of 0.13 pM were found through the PCA second principal component.publishersversionpublishe

Adoecimento docente e sofrimento psíquico em tempos de Pandemia de Covid 19 / Teacher Illness and psychic suffering in times of the Covid 19 Pandemic

O trabalho pretende discutir o adoecimento docente e o sofrimento psíquico causado pelas condições de trabalho. Para tanto foi realizada uma revisão bibliográfica sobre o assunto e um levantamento de dados publicados pela Organização Mundial de Saúde (OMS, 2017), Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores da Educação (CNTE, 2018), OCDE (Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico, 2019), a fim de discutir as condições adversas que têm culminado nas patologias que afastam, impossibilitam ou prejudicam o trabalho docente a fim de colaborar para a construção de políticas públicas eficazes que melhorem as condições do trabalho docente

Subsídios para o planejamento estratégico costeiro do município de Jaguaruna, Santa Catarina

The unplanned occupation of the Coastal Zone has promoted the replacement of the original natural environment by the anthropic environment. This transformation generates conditions that unbalance the Environmental Diversity (abiotic and biotic natures) and prejudice the anthropic environment. This problem tends to continue and worsen in small municipalities; as is the case of municipality of Jaguaruna, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The present paper presents the method of structuring the irst steps of a coastal strategic plan developed in Camacho Balneary/Jaguaruna through actions and scenarios of management based on conlict conditions mapping, the application of the Legal - Environmental Criticality Index (ICLA, in Portuguese), the paradigm of Geodiversity and the local sedimentary dynamics. In a Geographic Information System environment, the regionalization of the Environmental Diversity landscape was carried out by "map algebra" of abiotic and biotic information. After identifying and ranking the main conlict conditions by applying the ICLA, each conlict condition with an area over 1,000 m2 was evaluated. There were 71 conlict conditions, which cover 79.91% of the areas occupied with urban or agricultural activities. When comparing the results with the current management instruments, the main restrictions observed were: disrespect for legal and environmental constraints of occupation; poor sanitation; territory and urban zoning incoherent with the socio-spatial dynamics of Jaguaruna; lack of inancial investment; and insuicient technical staf

COVID-19 outcomes in people living with HIV: Peering through the waves

Objective: To evaluate clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 patients infected with HIV, and to compare with a paired sample without HIV infection. Methods: This is a substudy of a Brazilian multicentric cohort that comprised two periods (2020 and 2021). Data was obtained through the retrospective review of medical records. Primary outcomes were admission to the intensive care unit, invasive mechanical ventilation, and death. Patients with HIV and controls were matched for age, sex, number of comorbidities, and hospital of origin using the technique of propensity score matching (up to 4:1). They were compared using the Chi-Square or Fisher's Exact tests for categorical variables and the Wilcoxon for numerical variables. Results: Throughout the study, 17,101 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized, and 130 (0.76%) of those were infected with HIV. The median age was 54 (IQR: 43.0;64.0) years in 2020 and 53 (IQR: 46.0;63.5) years in 2021, with a predominance of females in both periods. People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and their controls showed similar prevalence for admission to the ICU and invasive mechanical ventilation requirement in the two periods, with no significant differences. In 2020, in-hospital mortality was higher in the PLHIV compared to the controls (27.9% vs. 17.7%; p = 0.049), but there was no difference in mortality between groups in 2021 (25.0% vs. 25.1%; p > 0.999). Conclusions: Our results reiterate that PLHIV were at higher risk of COVID-19 mortality in the early stages of the pandemic, however, this finding did not sustain in 2021, when the mortality rate is similar to the control group

MAMMALS IN PORTUGAL : A data set of terrestrial, volant, and marine mammal occurrences in P ortugal

Mammals are threatened worldwide, with 26% of all species being includedin the IUCN threatened categories. This overall pattern is primarily associatedwith habitat loss or degradation, and human persecution for terrestrial mam-mals, and pollution, open net fishing, climate change, and prey depletion formarine mammals. Mammals play a key role in maintaining ecosystems func-tionality and resilience, and therefore information on their distribution is cru-cial to delineate and support conservation actions. MAMMALS INPORTUGAL is a publicly available data set compiling unpublishedgeoreferenced occurrence records of 92 terrestrial, volant, and marine mam-mals in mainland Portugal and archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira thatincludes 105,026 data entries between 1873 and 2021 (72% of the data occur-ring in 2000 and 2021). The methods used to collect the data were: live obser-vations/captures (43%), sign surveys (35%), camera trapping (16%),bioacoustics surveys (4%) and radiotracking, and inquiries that represent lessthan 1% of the records. The data set includes 13 types of records: (1) burrowsjsoil moundsjtunnel, (2) capture, (3) colony, (4) dead animaljhairjskullsjjaws, (5) genetic confirmation, (6) inquiries, (7) observation of live animal (8),observation in shelters, (9) photo trappingjvideo, (10) predators dietjpelletsjpine cones/nuts, (11) scatjtrackjditch, (12) telemetry and (13) vocalizationjecholocation. The spatial uncertainty of most records ranges between 0 and100 m (76%). Rodentia (n=31,573) has the highest number of records followedby Chiroptera (n=18,857), Carnivora (n=18,594), Lagomorpha (n=17,496),Cetartiodactyla (n=11,568) and Eulipotyphla (n=7008). The data setincludes records of species classified by the IUCN as threatened(e.g.,Oryctolagus cuniculus[n=12,159],Monachus monachus[n=1,512],andLynx pardinus[n=197]). We believe that this data set may stimulate thepublication of other European countries data sets that would certainly contrib-ute to ecology and conservation-related research, and therefore assisting onthe development of more accurate and tailored conservation managementstrategies for each species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite thisdata paper when the data are used in publications.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Uso de telas pela população pediátrica e seus impactos oftalmológicos a curto e a longo prazo: uma revisão sistemática : Use of screens by the pediatric population and its short and long-term ophthalmological impacts: a systematic review

Ao se discorrer sobre a formação e formatação da nossa sociedade, pode-se notar que cada vez mais esta está permeada pela tecnologia e pelos sistemas integrativos, processo esse benéfico para comunicação, gestão e tomada de decisões para além de ser uma ferramenta de trabalho e entretenimento, porém, com a progressiva quantidade de horas que ficamos expostos a este tipo de tecnologia também podem acarretar prejuízos a acuidade visual dos usuários. Juntamente a isso, nota-se que as crianças estão tendo cada vez mais precocemente acesso os equipamentos eletrônicos e deixando de lado as brincadeiras, desta forma a partir de uma pesquisa qualitativa, feita a partir de um levantamento bibliográfico, pode-se dispor que esta busca compreender quais são os sintomas e efeitos do uso excessivo deste tipo de ferramenta e algumas formas de tratamento e profilaxia que podem ser dispostas sobre o tema, com enfoque na população pediátrica

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016