Care, Education, protection – the Associação Protectora dos Diabéticis de Portugal goes from strength to strength

The Portuguese Diabetes Association is the world’s oldest diabetes association and a senior Member Association of the International Diabetes Federation. From the moment it was founded, early in the 20th century, to the present day, the Associação has been driven by a single overarching objective: to improve the quality of life of people with diabetes. Involved nationally in diabetes advocacy and the provision of education, as well as the delivery of care, APDP has become a key player in the healthcare arena in Portugal and its activities reach many thousands of people with diabetes

PREPARAÇÃO E MODIFICAÇÃO DE FIBRAS DE CARBONO ACTIVADAS A PARTIR DE FIBRAS TÊXTEIS ACRÍLICAS

Activated carbon fibres were produced using three textile acrylic fibres from FISIPE-Fibras Sintéticas de Portugal, with a kidney bean cross section which is maintained after the activation, as seen by scanning electron microscopy. The carbon materials were produced by stabilisation of the precursors at 300ºC during 2 hours followed by carbonisation at 800ºC during 1 hour, both under a constant nitrogen flow. The fibres were then activated with carbon dioxide at 800 and 900ºC and kept at the final temperature for the appropriate time in order to obtain burn-offs within the range 10-90%. The structural properties were determined by nitrogen adsorption at 77K and the isotherms analysed by s, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and Dubinin-Radushkevich (DR) methods. The analysis showed that the fibres produced are microporous with apparent BET areas between 330 and 1535m2g-1, total micropore volumes within the range 0.16-0.73cm3g-1 and pore widths between 0.735 and 1.723nm. As the burn-off increases the total micropore volumes and pore widths also increase. The results show that the properties of the activated carbon fibres produced in this work have more interesting porosity characteristics than those produced from non-textile poliacrylonitrile, kevlar and nomex. The chemical properties of these materials were analysed by Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), elemental composition and point of zero charge (pzc). All the fibres have basic properties with pzc between 8-10 and contain a significant amount of nitrogen (>4%). The surface functional groups identified were amines, amides, lactones, pyrones, nitro, carbonyls and hydroxyls (free OH and phenol). Selected samples were modified by thermal treatment using a microwave device. The results show that the treatment affects the porosity of the activated carbon fibres, causing a reduction in micropore volume and micropore size. More important, the results also show that the microwave treatment is a very effective and easy method for modifying the surface chemistry of the materials with a rapid obtention of very basic samples, with pzc approximately equal to 11. After storage in closed flasks for five months, without any precautions to prevent reoxidation, the samples were analysed and showed pzc’s and elemental compositions analogous to the as prepared materials, indicating that these samples are stable and do not suffer any significant ageing process. Carbon vapour deposition by benzene pyrolisis (CVDb) at 800 and 900ºC reduces the pore widths and the micropore volumes (Vs in 47 and 59% and V0 in 40 and 52% respectively for the deposition at 800 and 900ºC), showing that during this treatment the carbon is deposited mainly on the pore walls. The best results for the improvement of molecular sieving properties for gas separation were obtained for the deposition at 900ºC. The final section of this work deals with studies of the kinetics of adsorption at 25ºC of various gases of commercial importance, namely O2, N2, CO2 and CH4. The microwave thermal treatment did not produce good results in improving the ability for molecular sieving because the maximum adsorption capacity decreases after the treatment. The only exception is the sample F1-0m15 which showed a selective adsorption behaviour for CO2. Better performances were achieved by CVDb, mainly for the separation CO2/CH4 and with the sample F1-53d912

O cidadão

A segurança dos cidadãos, neste caso particular dos doentes ou consumidores de fármacos, é a peça central no processo de farmacovigilância e o seu objectivo máximo. Neste processo, a contribuição dos cidadãos/doentes é fundamental para a criação de um sistema robusto e eficaz. A notificação de efeitos adversos directamente pelos cidadãos/doentes aporta ao sistema uma nova dimensão e tem diversas vantagens, com a inclusão de aspectos não considerados pelos outros actores do sistema, tais como o impacto na qualidade de vida, ser um reporte directo e não filtrado ou interpretado pelos técnicos de saúde, fornecer uma descrição mais fiável dos efeitos adversos, potenciar a detecção precoce de sinais e contribuir para a detecção de efeitos adversos de medicamentos de venda livre e complementares. A percentagem de notificações efectuadas directamente pelos cidadãos/doentes é ainda muito baixa sendo necessário promover cada vez mais este reporte, por exemplo, através de iniciativas conjuntas com as associações de doentes. O cidadão/doente deve ser o centro do sistema de saúde e, neste caso em particular do sistema de farmacovigilância, deve ser envolvido a todos os níveis no processo a começar pela integração na equipa de gestão, seguindo as boas práticas da União Europeia

Diabetes at the wheel - the need for safety and fairness under the law

Hypoglycaemia at the wheel is the most common acute risk for drivers with diabetes, and a concern for public road safety. Drivers with diabetes worldwide are subject to special legislation, although the restrictions and requirements vary considerably from one country to another. But are drivers with diabetes really a danger? Are they more likely to provoke an accident than people without the condition? João Manuel Valente Nabais steers us through the related research and reports from Europe on the EU’s latest laws on driving with diabete

State Elimination Ordering Strategies: Some Experimental Results

Recently, the problem of obtaining a short regular expression equivalent to a given finite automaton has been intensively investigated. Algorithms for converting finite automata to regular expressions have an exponential blow-up in the worst-case. To overcome this, simple heuristic methods have been proposed. In this paper we analyse some of the heuristics presented in the literature and propose new ones. We also present some experimental comparative results based on uniform random generated deterministic finite automata.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127

Production and characterization of activated carbons made from sunflower stems

Activated carbons (ACs) are artificial materials, prepared from natural or synthetic precursors that are worldwide extensively used. The ACs main characteristics are the noticeable adsorption capabilities provided by the highly developed porous structure and the rich surface chemistry. Because of their versatility and properties the final material can be tailored to have specific properties suitable for a wide range of applications such as medical uses, gas storage, removal of pollutants and odours, gas separation and purification as well as in catalysis. With the increase of activated carbon demand, one of the main challenges lies in the attempt to find new precursors, which are cheap and accessible with good valorisation potential, like industrial and agricultural residues. In the present work we report the production of ACs from sunflower stems, an agricultural by-product, through a physical activation process by CO2 and H2O, using a single step carbonisation at 400ºC, which as far as it came to our knowledge was never made for this precursor

Dissecting the rules underlying de novo centrosome biogenesis

"The centrosome is the main microtubule organising centre (MTOC) in animal cells, regulating cell motility and polarity during interphase and organising the mitotic spindle in mitosis. Each centrosome has two centrioles, a mother and a daughter, which are surrounded by a multi-layered protein network called pericentriolar material (PCM) (Loncarek and Bettencourt-Dias, 2018; Nigg and Holland, 2018). The PCM contains critical components that anchor and nucleate microtubules (MTs). Centriole biogenesis is a highly regulated process that occurs only once per cell-cycle in proliferating cells (Breslow and Holland, 2019).(...)

Technological tattoo: in-between art and science

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The Museum Today. Towards a participatory and emancipated heterology

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Ronald Bogue: a monument

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