Enhancing Cultural Communication Competency in the Undergraduate Physiotherapy Course

Trabalho apresentado em 5th European Congress of the European Region WCPT on Physiotherapy Education, 2020, onlineN/

The State of the Art of Flow-Through Solid-Phase Spectrometry

Sample pretreatment is one of the bottlenecks in analytical chemistry, especially when dealing with complex matrices like environmental samples. When performed in a batch mode, sample handling methods are tedious and time consuming. Therefore, the hyphenation of these methods with flow-injection techniques yields many advantages. The possibility of automation not only increases the determination rate, but also decreases sample and reagent consumption. As a consequence, analyte separation, enrichment, and elimination of sample matrix becomes possible with an increase in selectivity and sensitivity. This is a significant contribution for the analysis of environmental samples because the analyte is usually present at trace levels in a complex matrix. In this scenario, the state of the art of solid-phase spectrometry (SPS) with a focus on the lab-on-valve (LOV) platform is discussed. LOV facilitates the manipulation of bead suspension for SPS with lower reagents consumption and waste production.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterization and stability of co-amorphous systems containing Olanzapine and sulfonic acids

Abstract of the communication presented at the 4th International Congress of CiiEM - "Health, Well-being and Ageing in the XXI Century." 2-5 June 2019, Campus Egas Moniz, Monte de Caparica, PortugalN/

Co-formability, solubility enhancement and stability of Olanzapine co-amorphous systems produced with different co-formers

Abstract of the poster presented at the 4th International Congress of CiiEM - "Health, Well-being and Ageing in the XXI Century." 2-5 June 2019, Campus Egas Moniz, Monte de Caparica, PortugalN/

Membrane-based separation in flow analysis for environmental and food applications

Membrane-based separation techniques have been used as an efficient process for analyte separation or enrichment and matrix removal. By coupling these techniques to flow-based analysis, sample preparation and analyte detection can be automated and miniaturized. Different membrane separation techniques are available but the most used in flow analysis are gas diffusion, dialysis, supported liquid membranes and polymer inclusion membranes. The current state of the art of membrane-based separations hyphenated with flow techniques is presented along with a discussion of the applications to environmental and food analysis. Moreover, a brief description of gas diffusion, dialysis and membrane extraction techniques is also included.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Delegation to autonomous agents promotes cooperation in collective-risk dilemmas

Home assistant chat-bots, self-driving cars, drones or automated negotiations are some of the several examples of autonomous (artificial) agents that have pervaded our society. These agents enable the automation of multiple tasks, saving time and (human) effort. However, their presence in social settings raises the need for a better understanding of their effect on social interactions and how they may be used to enhance cooperation towards the public good, instead of hindering it. To this end, we present an experimental study of human delegation to autonomous agents and hybrid human-agent interactions centered on a public goods dilemma shaped by a collective risk. Our aim to understand experimentally whether the presence of autonomous agents has a positive or negative impact on social behaviour, fairness and cooperation in such a dilemma. Our results show that cooperation increases when participants delegate their actions to an artificial agent that plays on their behalf. Yet, this positive effect is reduced when humans interact in hybrid human-agent groups. Finally, we show that humans are biased towards agent behaviour, assuming that they will contribute less to the collective effort

Comparison of the co-amorphization ability of Olanzapine with amino, carboxylic and sulfonic acids

Abstract of the poster presented at the 3rd European Conference on Pharmaceutics. 25-26 March 2019, Bologne, ItalyN/

Chemical characterization and bioactive properties of Geranium molle L.: from the plant to the most active extract and its phytochemicals

After a period of indifference, in which synthetic compounds were favored, there is an increasing interest in the study of the biological properties of plants and the active principles responsible for their therapeutic properties. Geranium molle L. has been used in the Portuguese folk medicine for the treatment of various ailments including cancer but, unlike many of the species from the Geranium genus, its phytochemical characterization and biological activity are virtually unexplored. In this study a G. molle sample from Trás-os-Montes, north-eastern Portugal, was chemically characterized regarding nutritional value, free sugars, organic acids, fatty acids and tocopherols, and several aqueous (decoction, infusion) and organic (n-hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, acetone, methanol) extracts of the plant were assessed for their bioactive properties. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by means of the free radicals scavenging activity, reducing power and inhibition of lipid peroxidation. The cytotoxicity of the different extracts was assessed in vitro against several human cancer cell lines (breast, lung, cervical and hepatocellular carcinomas) and, additionally, their hepatotoxicity was evaluated using a porcine liver primary cell culture. G. molle was shown to be rich in carbohydrates and proteins, providing tocopherols and essential fatty acids. Amongst the various extracts, the acetone extract was found to have the highest content of phenolic compounds (mainly ellagitannins, but also some flavone and flavonol glycosides) as well as the highest antioxidant and cytotoxic activities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the chemical composition and bioactive properties of G. molle.This work is supported by national funds by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project UID/AGR/04033/2013 and PEst-OE/AGR/UI0690/2014. V.C. Graça, M.I. Dias, R.C. Calhelha and L. Barros thank FCT for SFRH/BD/52542/2014, SFRH/BD/84485/2012, SFRH/BPD/68344/2010 and SFRH/BPD/107855/2015 grants, respectively

Bio-guided fractionation of extracts of Geranium robertianum L.: Relationship between phenolic profile and biological activity

Geranium robertianum L. is used in folk medicine and herbalism practice for the treatment of a variety of ailments. Recently, we studied the bioactivity of several aqueous and organic extracts of this plant. In this work, the more active extracts were fractionated and the fractions evaluated for their antioxidant activity and cytotoxicity against several human tumor cell lines and non-tumor porcine liver primary cells. Some of the fractions from the acetone extract consistently displayed low EC 50 and GI 50 values and presented the higher contents of total phenolic compounds in comparison to other fractions. The phenolic compounds profile of the fractions was determined. The bio-guided fractionation of the extracts resulted in several fractions with improved bioactivity relative to the corresponding extracts. Their lower compositional complexity allowed the identification of more than two dozen compounds, to the best of our knowledge, so far not reported in G. robertianum.This work was supported by European Investment Funds by FEDER/COMPETE/POCI- Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme, under Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006958 and National Funds by FCT − Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects UID/AGR/04033, UID/AGR/00690/2013 (CIMO) and UID/QUI/00616/2013 (CQ-VR). V.C. Graça, M.I. Dias and L. Barros thank FCT for SFRH/BD/52542/2014, SFRH/BD/84485/2012, and SFRH/BPD/107855/2015 grants, respectively.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio