Searching for Green

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University

Jardineiros-Botânicos em Lisboa (1764-1919). Contributos para a história dos seus jardins

Mestrado em Arquitetura Paisagista / Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Universidade de LisboaA presente dissertação de mestrado tem como objectivo contribuir para um conhecimento mais actual sobre um conjunto de jardineiros que, entre a reconstrução de Lisboa após o terramoto de 1755 e as primeiras décadas do século XX, trabalharam nos jardins da capital contratados por privados, estabelecimentos botânicos, casa real e câmara municipal. Eram grandes conhecedores de plantas e do seu cultivo, detentores de sólidos conhecimentos botânicos e de jardinagem e foram os responsáveis pela aplicação de um novo modelo florístico, caracterizado pela introdução e aclimatação de uma nova flora exótica que transformou, até aos nossos dias, a paisagem de Lisboa. Foram estudados catorze jardineiros-botânicos, na sua maioria estrangeiros: Domenico Vandelli, Félix de Avelar Brotero, John Rosenfelder, Fernando de Saxe-Coburgo-Gotha, Jean-Baptiste Bonnard, João Francisco da Silva, Friedrich Welwitsch, Pierre Maurier, Jacob Weiss, Edmond Goeze, Jules Daveau, Ernest Pissard, Henri Cayeux e Henri Navel. Estes jardineiros-botânicos participaram na construção, plantação, renovação e conservação de quintas, parques, passeios e jardins, contribuindo de forma inequívoca para um valioso património botânico que, através de uma flora universal, transformou a imagem de LisboaN/

FBLN2 (fibulin 2)

Fibulin-2 is an extracellular matrix glycoprotein with an important function in maintaining elastic properties in different tissues. Fibulin-2 belongs to a protein family with seven members characterized by sharing a globular domain at the carboxy-terminus, which is called ""fibulin-like"", ""FC domain"" or domain III. Together with fibulin-1, fibulin-2 forms the so called subgroup 1 in the fibulin family which contains three anaphylatoxin modules in their sequence. Fibulin-2 does not only form part of elastic fibers but is also present in basement membranes and other connective tissue structures. Besides its structural function, alterations in fibulin-2 expression have also been related to several pathological processes. Thus, fibulin-2 has been shown to be implicated in blood pressure regulation, vascular injury protection or with a protective role in some heart malfunctioning. Also, fibulin-2 participation has been described in cancer showing both oncogenic or tumor-suppressor properties

Identification and characterization of human polyserase-3, a novel protein with tandem serine-protease domains in the same polypeptide chain

BACKGROUND: We have previously described the identification and characterization of polyserase-1 and polyserase-2, two human serine proteases containing three different catalytic domains within the same polypeptide chain. Polyserase-1 shows a complex organization and it is synthesized as a membrane-bound protein which can generate three independent serine protease domains as a consequence of post-translational processing events. The two first domains are enzymatically active. By contrast, polyserase-2 is an extracellular glycosylated protein whose three protease domains remain embedded in the same chain, and only the first domain possesses catalytic activity. RESULTS: Following our interest in the study of the human degradome, we have cloned a human liver cDNA encoding polyserase-3, a new protease with tandem serine protease domains in the same polypeptide chain. Comparative analysis of polyserase-3 with the two human polyserases described to date, revealed that this novel polyprotein is more closely related to polyserase-2 than to polyserase-1. Thus, polyserase-3 is a secreted protein such as polyserase-2, but lacks additional domains like the type II transmembrane motif and the low-density lipoprotein receptor module present in the membrane-anchored polyserase-1. Moreover, analysis of post-translational mechanisms operating in polyserase-3 maturation showed that its two protease domains remain as integral parts of the same polypeptide chain. This situation is similar to that observed in polyserase-2, but distinct from polyserase-1 whose protease domains are proteolytically released from the original chain to generate independent units. Immunolocalization studies indicated that polyserase-3 is secreted as a non-glycosylated protein, thus being also distinct from polyserase-2, which is a heavily glycosylated protein. Enzymatic assays indicated that recombinant polyserase-3 degrades the α-chain of fibrinogen as well as pro-urokinase-type plasminogen activator (pro-uPA). Northern blot analysis showed that polyserase-3 exhibits a unique expression pattern among human polyserases, being predominantly detected in testis, liver, heart and ovary, as well as in several tumor cell lines. CONCLUSION: These findings contribute to define the growing group of human polyserine proteases composed at present by three different proteins. All of them share a complex structural design with several catalytic units in a single polypeptide but also show specific features in terms of enzymatic properties, expression patterns and post-translational maturation mechanisms

Upwelling and outwelling effects on the benthic regime of the continental shelf off Galicia, NW Spain

The benthic regime off the Galician coast of NW Spain was surveyed to assess biogenic enrichment from coastal upwelling and detritus outwelling from the rías, large coastal embayments: the Rías Altas along the northern and the Rías Bajas along the western coast, which have intense mussel aquaculture. Sediment samples were collected from 1984 to 1986 and used for geological, microbiological, and macrofaunal studies. Sub-bottom acoustic profiler records and grab and core samples identified two main mud deposits on the western shelf that were aligned north to south and parallel with the coastline. The major axis of the mud deposit, which extended south to the Portuguese border, is associated with the three most southern rías (Arosa, Pontevedra and Vigo) along the western shelf. Sediment particle size analysis showed that sediments on the western shelf were heterogeneous, and grain size increased from the inner shelf to the shelf break. On the northern shelf, sediments exhibited a more homogeneous textural distribution. Sediment organic matter followed a similar pattern with that of particle size. The highest organic matter values, 10%, occurred on the western shelf nearest the Rías Bajas, but these values decreased offshore to between 2 and 4%. On the northern shelf organic matter content was generally less than 4% but with patches of higher organic content. The composition and structure of macroinfauna on the northern shelf, where seasonal coastal upwelling results in benthic enrichment, showed mainly small, surface feeding, and fast growing polychaetes. In contrast, macroinfauna on the western shelf showed more subsurface, deposit-feeding polychaetes. A main difference between the two shelves is that off the rías Bajas, besides coastal upwelling, outwelling from the highly productive rías Bajas, with their intense mussel aquaculture, also enriches the coastal sediment regime with a steady source of organic matter. Although seasonal and interannual variations occurred in the benthic bacteria, their general density distribution followed the pattern of organic matter content and particle grain size seasonally and interannually. The highest numbers of bacteria occurred in the upwelling region off the northern shelf and nearest the Rías Bajas on the western shelf. Both coastal upwelling and organic outwelling from the rías Bajas support benthic production alongthe western Galician shelf. The main commercialdemersal finfishalongthis coast is hake, Merluccius merluccius and blue-whiting, Micomesistius poutassou. The norwegian lobster, Nephrops norvegicus is also an important crop, and is more abundant off the rías Bajas in the finer and organic-richsediments where there are abundant prey resources of benthic infauna

Coastal upwelling off the Rías Bajas, Galicia, Northwest Spain. II. Benthic studies

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Iterative determination of clinical beam phase space from dose measurements

Monte Carlo (MC) method can accurately compute the dose produced by medical linear accelerators. However, these calculations require a reliable description of the electron and/or photon beams delivering the dose, the phase space (PHSP), which is not usually available. A method to derive a phase space model from reference measurements that does not heavily rely on a detailed model of the accelerator head is presented. The iterative optimization process extracts the characteristics of the particle beams which best explains the reference dose measurements in water and air, given a set of constrain

Detection of heat flux failures in building using a soft computing diagnostic system

The detection of insulation failures in buildings could potentially conserve energy supplies and improve future designs. Improvements to thermal insulation in buildings include the development of models to assess fabric gain - heat flux through exterior walls in the building- and heating processes. Thermal insulation standards are now contractual obligations in new buildings, and the energy efficiency of buildings constructed prior to these regulations has yet to be determined. The main assumption is that it will be based on heat flux and conductivity measurement. Diagnostic systems to detect thermal insulation failures should recognize anomalous situations in a building that relate to insulation, heating and ventilation. This highly relevant issue in the construction sector today is approached through a novel intelligent procedure that can be programmed according to local building and heating system regulations and the specific features of a given climate zone. It is based on the following phases. Firstly, the dynamic thermal performance of different variables is specifically modeled. Secondly, an exploratory projection pursuit method called Cooperative Maximum-Likelihood Hebbian Learning extracts the relevant features. Finally, a supervised neural model and identification techniques constitute the model for the diagnosis of thermal insulation failures in building due to the heat flux through exterior walls, using relevant features of the data set. The reliability of the proposed method is validated with real data sets from several Spanish cities in winter time