Compound-Specific Isotope Analysis of Amino Acids in Biological Tissues: Applications in Forensic Entomology, Food Authentication and Soft-Biometrics in Humans

In this work we demonstrate the power of compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) to analyze proteinaceous biological materials in three distinct forensic applications, including: 1) linking necrophagous blow flies in different life stages to their primary carrion diet; 2) identifying the harvesting area of oysters for food authentication purposes; and 3) the ability to predict biometric traits about humans from their hair. In the first application, we measured the amino-acid-level fractionation that occurs at each major life stage of Calliphora vicina (Robineau-Desvoidy) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) blow flies. Adult blow flies oviposited on raw pork muscle, beef muscle, or chicken liver. Larvae, pupae and adult blow flies from each carrion were selected for amino acid CSIA. Canonical discriminant analysis showed that flies were correctly classified to specific carrion types in 100% (original rules) and 96.8% (leave-one-out cross-validation [LOOCV]) of cases. Regarding life stages, we obtained 100% and 71% of correct classification in original rules and LOOCV, respectively. Most of the essential amino acids did not significantly change between life stages (at 95% CI). However, some non-essential (Ala, Ser, and Glu) and conditionally essential amino acids (Gly and Pro) were isotopically depleted in the adult stage. Except for the essential amino acids, the amino acids in larvae and pupae were enriched in 13C and adult blow flies were depleted in 13C relative to the carrion on which they fed. These results make it possible to exclude potential sources of carrion as larval food. In addition, amino-acid-specific IRMS could help inform entomologists whether a fly has just arrived from another location to feed on a corpse or has emerged from a pupa whose feedstock was the corpse. Regarding the source inference of oysters, we investigated the bulk, amino-acid compound-specific stable isotopes, cadmium and lead concentrations of the popular Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica. This species has been one of the most popular species for the oyster harvesting business in the United States, despite its claimed reduced availability due to excessive harvesting and some parasitic diseases. The results from specimens collected from different Gulf of Mexico bays were subjected to multivariate statistical analysis to assess whether we could predict the oysters’ harvest area. Our results indicate that the combination of trace elements and isotope ratios can predict geographic provenance of oysters with greater than 70% correct classification using LOOCV, which is superior to using only CSIA or only trace elements. The δ13C values of serine and glycine could also discriminate between two adjacent harvest areas within the same Apalachicola bay. One of these areas is fishable in the winter season and the other is fishable in the summer season, so the ability to differentiate oysters from these two areas is a valuable capability for the Florida Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for enforcement. The use of chemical signatures to identify harvest areas is a valuable tool to protect consumers from food fraud, food-borne diseases and to help regulatory agencies enforce harvesting regulations. Finally, we describe the use of amino-acid CSIA and amino acid quantitation of scalp hair of American individuals to predict soft biometrics in humans. We measured the isotope ratios and respective quantities of 13 amino acid peaks. Correlation analysis of the multivariate data provided the degree of correlation between essential and non-essential amino acids with factors such sex and age of the hair donors. The isotope ratios of each amino acid were first corrected for the extent of C4-based carbon in the diet to reveal relationships between metabolic or phenotypic factors and the isotope ratios of 13C in the amino acids in the hair shafts. Multivariate analysis revealed that the sex of a donor could be correctly predicted with cross-validated accuracies of 80% and 89% using the isotope ratios or quantities of amino acids, respectively. The continuous dependent variables of donor age and body mass index (BMI) were also predicted using the amino acid isotope ratios or quantities, but the predictions were not as reliable as for sex determination. Unexpectedly, the δ13C values of hair reflected the frequency of alcohol consumption in two groups of subjects

Precarious Labour in Portuguese Call Centres: An Anthropological Study

This thesis explores the themes of alienation and exploitation within the Portuguese call centre sector by focusing on the nature of value-creation in the organisation of labour, the effects this regime has on workers’ consciousness and agency, and how these effects are expressed in terms of class, gender and age. These questions are examined within the broader political and economic context. In recent years the ‘call centre domain’ in Portugal has been transformed into the main symbol of precariedade laboral (labour precariousness). The categories of trabalho precário (precarious labour), trabalhador precário (precarious worker) and precariedade laboral (labour precariousness) have recently entered into everyday language in Portugal. They are used by politicians and journalists as well as social movements and citizens as a way of protesting against the growing insecurity, contingency and vulnerability of formal wage employment as is found, for instance, in the increase of ‘atypical forms of employment’ such as temporary agency work. Call centres have been described as ‘electronic sweatshops’ because of such characteristics as repetitive tasks, high turnover, stress and burnout, psychological aggression from ‘angry’ customers, low autonomy in work tasks and automatism (scripting), leading to the stereotype of call centre workers as ‘human answering machines’. My research argues that, in the call centre labour regime workers are subjected to management by tight surveillance which robs humans of their defining characteristics of creative/symbolic thinking and complex communication and language. This management also imposes a gendered division of labour which separates men working in technical support help lines from women working in commercial help lines. The dispossession of call centre operators from what they do comes both from the gap between their expectations of and aspirations to social mobility, which were inculcated through their circles of socialization (family, state, school), and the feeling of ‘falling from grace’ after finishing their college degrees and having to enter into call centre work. This is a form of work which is not only socially perceived as unskilled, inferior and lacking career options, but most importantly as a form of work in which humans are disguised as robots. I conclude by situating my main findings within the anthropological and sociological scholarship related to the nature of value-creation in the capitalist labour process, gender commodification and the subjective experience of dispossession, downward class mobility and stigma

IMPACTOS DA COOPERAÇÃO? O CASO DOS BANCOS NACIONAIS DE DESENVOLVIMENTO DO BRASIL E DE ANGOLA

Importing institutional solutions is a theoretical alternative to cases non-identified with the transplants approach. Studying the context of the creation of the Brazilian development banks and the Angolan bank, the BDA, illustrates the utility of such approach. Judgment regarding convenience and suitability of institutional solutions is beyond our scope in this paper, which also did not aim at contributing to the critical literature on institutional transplants. By taking an exploratory qualitative research based on the comparison of cases, our core purpose was reflecting if Angola imported the Brazilian institutional model when it decided to create the BDA, noting as well how it has been consolidating locally.A importação de soluções institucionais é uma alternativa teórica para casos não identificados com a noção de transplantes. O estudo do contexto de surgimento dos bancos de desenvolvimento brasileiros e do banco criado pelo governo angolano, o BDA, ilustra a utilidade de tal ferramenta teórica. O juízo de valor acerca da conveniência e adequabilidade dos bancos de desenvolvimento como solução específica foge ao escopo desse trabalho, que também não pretendeu dialogar com a literatura crítica sobre transplantes institucionais. O objetivo primordial do artigo foi, por meio de uma pesquisa qualitativa exploratória baseada na comparação de casos, refletir sobre os indícios de importação por Angola de um modelo institucional brasileiro quando da estruturação do BDA, observando também como ele está se consolidando localmente

Tyrosine phosphorylation modulates cell surface expression of chloride cotransporters NKCC2 and KCC3

Introduction: Cellular chloride transport has a fundamental role in cell volume regulation and membrane potential, both in normal and tumour cells (1,2). Cellular chloride entry or exit are mediated at the plasma membrane by cotransporter proteins of the solute carrier 12 family. For example, NKCC2 resorbs chloride with sodium and potassium ions at the apical membrane of epithelial cells in the kidney, whereas KCC3 releases chloride with potassium ions at the basolateral membrane. Their ion transport activity is regulated by protein phosphorylation in response to signaling pathways. An additional regulatory mechanism concerns the amount of cotransporter molecules inserted into the plasma membrane. Experimental: Co-transporter constructs were transfected into HEK293 cells and the activity of SYK kinase modulated by incubation with SYK inhibitors or by co-transfection with siRNAs, kinase-dead, or constitutively active SYK mutants. Co-transporter abundance in the plasma membrane was analyzed by biotinylation of cell surface proteins. Results: Here we describe that tyrosine phosphorylation of NKCC2 and KCC3 regulates their plasma membrane expression levels. We identified that spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) phosphorylates a specific N-terminal tyrosine residue in each cotransporter. Experimental depletion of endogenous SYK or pharmacological inhibition of its kinase activity increased the abundance of NKCC2 at the plasma membrane of human embryonic kidney cells. In contrast, overexpression of a constitutively active SYK mutant decreased NKCC2 membrane abundance. Intriguingly, the same experimental approaches revealed the opposite effect on KCC3 abundance at the plasma membrane, compatible with the known antagonistic roles of NKCC and KCC cotransporters in cell volume regulation. Conclusions: We identified a novel pathway modulating the cell surface expression of NKCC2 and KCC3 and show that this same pathway has opposite functional outcomes for these two cotransporters. The findings have several biomedical implications considering the role of these cotransporters in regulating blood pressure and cell volume.Funding: UID/MULTI/04046/2019 (BioISI); PTDC/BIA-CEL/28408/2017; Fellowship SFRH/BD/52488/2014 to CAL.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

E-inclusion: Beyond individual sociodemographic characteristics

The changing demographic structure of the population, resulting in unparalleled growth of the elderly population, means that e-inclusion of this population group is considered to be a social and political priority in the context of the Information Society. Most research studies have only considered individual variables -such as age, gender, education, income and health- in the explanatory models of e-inclusion of senior citizens, while ignoring macro variables, such as the welfare systems and public policies in each country. Simultaneously, most studies focus on small-scale samples, lack international comparisons and do not consider the combined effect of several variables that influence Internet use. This study aims to analyse possible differences between two countries that have different welfare systems and public policies, after controlling for the effects of the individual variables that have been identified in the literature as relevant for Internet use. The study focuses on a sample of 8639 individuals, aged 50 years and over, residing in Portugal and Estonia, who participated in the SHARE project (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe). The results of the logistic regression analysis demonstrate that welfare systems and public policies have an impact on the likelihood of Internet use, thus reinforcing the importance of developing public policies to foster e-inclusion of senior citizens.The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT

Measuring the quality of the strategic financial planning information (Q-FPI) in the local government

Having quality information about strategic financial planning is very important for any organization. In the Local Government (LG) it is pivotal, as it is expected to impact strategic decision-making and overall management of local public resources. Yet, empirical research has failed to assess the quality of financial planning information, which must be assured both for management and accountability purposes. By proposing a quality index for strategic financial planning information – the Q-FPI Index – based on programming documents made available on the municipalities’ websites, this research contributes to address this gap. The paper describes the multidimensional conceptual model followed to build the Index, considering the identification of data quality requirements and defining indicators to operationalize them. The Index is then tested through a pilot application, using data from five Portuguese municipalities. The Q-FPI Index constitutes a flexible tool, capable of fostering continuous improvement of local government performance.This study was partially conducted at the Research Center in Political Science [UIDB/CPO/00758/2020], University of Minho and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT -Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, I.P) and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds. It has also been funded by national funds through FCT, Project UIDB/05037/2020

INCIDÊNCIA DE LESÃO POR PRESSÃO EM PACIENTES INTERNADOS E FATORES DE RISCO ASSOCIADOS

Objetivo: avaliar incidência de lesão por pressão em pacientes internados em unidades de internação e fatores de riscos associados. Método: estudo prospectivo, longitudinal, observacional. Os dados foram coletados por 60 dias consecutivos, utilizando-se formulário próprio, inspeção da pele, prontuário e prescrição médica. A análise foi realizada por estatística descritiva, teste de qui-quadrado e teste exato de Fisher. Resultados: amostra constituída de 70 pacientes: 65,7% idosos, 30,0% diabéticos e 61,4% hipertensos. A incidência de lesão por pressão foi de 24,3% e houve associação estatisticamente significante entre uso de fraldas, mobilidade física prejudicada e mudança de decúbito. Quanto à classificação de Braden, 70,6% apresentaram risco severo e 64,7% das lesões foram classificadas como estágio I. Conclusão: a imobilidade, o uso de fraldas e risco severo no momento da admissão foram encontrados nos pacientes que desenvolveram lesão.Descritores: Lesão por Pressão. Segurança do Paciente. Enfermagem. Fatores de Risco.

O processo orçamentário do Ministério da Fazenda sofre influência do modelo de orçamento incremental?

O artigo analisa o processo de elaboração do orçamento do Ministério da Fazenda no período de 2010 a 2018. A hipótese testada é que o orçamento o MF é incremental, elaborado através de ajustes marginais nos seus itens de despesa e de programação dos anos anteriores. Foram analisados os dados orçamentários dos Programas do MF obtidos do Sistema de Planejamento e Orçamento do Governo Federal – SIOP. Verificou-se que os programas do MF apresentam uma tendência de crescimento, sem grandes alterações no período. A conclusão foi que o orçamento do MF é uma repetição do orçamento anterior acrescido da variação de preços ocorrida no período e pequenos ajustes nas programações.27 páginasGestão PúblicaOrçamento e Finança