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

Homoallylic o-halobenzylamines: asymmetric diversity-oriented synthesis of benzo-fused cyclic amines

The presence of a halogen atom in the proximity of a homoallylic amine, obtained by asymmetric addition of allylzinc bromide to the corresponding tert-butyl sulfinimine, makes them versatile building blocks suitable to participate in several palladium-catalyzed processes, such as the intramolecular Heck reaction or the Sonogashira cross-coupling. The thus obtained orthoalkynyl derivatives display two unsaturated functional groups which may be further modified by means of the intramolecular Pauson–Khand reaction or the ring-closing enyne metathesis. In this way, a variety of benzo-fused amines can be obtained in 2–3 steps from readily available starting materials

Aboriginal Women Against Violence Project Evaluation Report

In 2008 Joan Harrison’s Support Services for Women received funding under the National Community Crime Prevention Programme (NCCPP) in relation to the Aboriginal Women Against Violence Project. The overall aim of the project was ‘to address family violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Liverpool and Campbelltown areas’ (Attorney General’s Funding schedule). The project identified two specific strategies to achieve this general aim: to train local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to become trainer, mentors and advocates in their own communities;to establish an Aboriginal Women Against Violence Committee. This evaluation reports on the agreed outcomes identified in the funding agreement as well as identifying broader lessons arising from the project in relation to addressing violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.Joan Harrison’s Support Services for Wome

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

Severe imported malaria in an intensive care unit: a review of 59 cases

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In view of the close relationship of Portugal with African countries, particularly former Portuguese colonies, the diagnosis of malaria is not a rare thing. When a traveller returns ill from endemic areas, malaria should be the number one suspect. World Health Organization treatment guidelines recommend that adults with severe malaria should be admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Severe cases of malaria in patients admitted to an ICU were reviewed retrospectively (1990-2011) and identification of variables associated with in-ICU mortality performed. Malaria prediction score (MPS), malaria score for adults (MSA), simplified acute physiology score (SAPSII) and a score based on WHO's malaria severe criteria were applied. Statistical analysis was performed using StataV12.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fifty nine patients were included in the study, all but three were adults; 47 (79,6%) were male; parasitaemia on admission, quantified in 48/59 (81.3%) patients, was equal or greater than 2% in 47 of them (97.9%); the most common complications were thrombocytopaenia in 54 (91.5%) patients, associated with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) in seven (11.8%), renal failure in 31 (52.5%) patients, 18 of which (30.5%) oliguric, shock in 29 (49.1%) patients, liver dysfunction in 27 (45.7%) patients, acidaemia in 23 (38.9%) patients, cerebral dysfunction in 22 (37.2%) patients, 11 of whom with unrousable coma, pulmonary oedema/ARDS in 22 (37.2%) patients, hypoglycaemia in 18 (30.5%) patients; 29 (49.1%) patients presented five or more dysfunctions. The case fatality rate was 15.2%. Comparing the four scores, the SAPS II and the WHO score were the most sensitive to death prediction. In the univariate analysis, death was associated with the SAPS II score, cerebral malaria, acute renal and respiratory failure, DIC, spontaneous bleeding, acidosis and hypoglycaemia. Age, partial immunity to malaria, delay in malaria diagnosis and the level of parasitaemia were not associated with death in this cohort.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Severe malaria cases should be continued monitored in the ICUs. SAPS II and the WHO score are good predictors of mortality in malaria patients, but other specific scores deserve to be studied prospectively.</p

Bioinspired architectures toward improving damage resistance on CFRP laminates

Carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) are widely used in advanced applications due to their high performance and low weight, however, under certain conditions, they tend to develop internal damages that may compromise the component performance in service. Low velocity impact (LVI) events are one of the most common and dangerous solicitations that CFRP laminates must face during their life time, under these conditions they tend to develop so-called barely visible impact damages (BVID) that may propagate in service. To improve damage tolerance to LVI events, three new bioinspired CFRP laminates were developed and their mechanical properties and impact behaviour were compared to a typical aeronautic standard laminate in this work. All these studied laminates, having approximately the same thickness of 4 mm, were produced by vacuum bag infusion and observed under scanning electron microscopes (SEM) for assessing their processing quality. Tensile, interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and LVI tests were performed in order to evaluate their Young’s modules, global delamination resistance and impact response. LVI tests were performed for all laminates at the four different impact energy levels of 13.5, 25, 40 and 80 J and damage shape and areas were subsequentially evaluated by ultrasonic C-scan. SEM observations and the good agreement between theoretical and experimental Young’s modules results demonstrated a processing quality. ILSS results have shown that the bioinspired hybrid laminate (HYB) presented better global resistance to delamination when compared to the other laminates. LVI tests and C-scan inspection have also demonstrated that HL and HL_S laminates exhibited higher resistance to damage propagation and smaller damaged area, respectively.FCT, Programa MIT Portugal, projeto “IAMAT – Introduction of advanced materials technologies into new product development for the mobility industries

Aligned carbon nanotube-based sensors for strain monitoring of composites

This paper presents a proof of concept of an aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) based strain sensor tested on the surface of a conventional aeronautic laminate. Two type of strain sensors were produced, type S and type T, in which the CNT alignment was parallel (Y) and transversal (X) to strain direction, respectively. Their electrical resistance response was thoroughly evaluated during cyclic tensile tests. Despite some disparities of the relative electrical resistance behavior in specific strain cycles, probably due to one-off interferences in the CNT conductive mechanism, the obtained gauge factor (GF) values were quite stable. Also, the electrical resistance anisotropy was evaluated and its opposite behavior when the samples were strained in Y- and X-directions may be used as strain direction indicator. Being able to quantify and indicate strain direction with just one 10 x 10 mm CNT patch, this sensor has proven to be suitable for strain sensing applications, namely for structure health monitoring of advanced composites.- Manuscript received March 4, 2021; revised March 25, 2021; accepted March 31, 2021. Date of publication April 5, 2021; date of current version June 30, 2021. This work was supported in part by the Project "Introduction of Advanced Materials Technologies Into New Product Development for the Mobility Industries-IAMAT," under the MIT-Portugal program exclusively financed by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia "FCT" under Grant MITP-TB/PFM/0005/2013 and in part by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020) under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreements through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Project "Technologies for Sustainable and Smart Innovative Products (TSSiPRO)" under Grant NORTE-01-0145FEDER-000015. The associate editor coordinating the review of this article and approving it for publication was Dr. Cheng-Sheng Huang. (Corresponding author: Ana Raquel Santos.

Thin veils strategically interleaved to reduce low velocity damages on CFRP

Low velocity impact (LVI) events on carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRP) are one of the most problematic issues in composite applications for advanced markets, such as aeronautic, aerospace and army. Due to their own brittleness and layer-by-layer nature, when exposed to LVI solicitations, composites tend to develop internal damages that may be barely visible at naked eye. The high complex field of internal stresses developed in composite laminates during impact usually causes crack initiation and defects between layers, which may propagate (delamination) due to the low toughness that this unreinforced resin rich region exhibits. In this work, to try minimizing this propagation problem, thin veils of different materials (glass, carbon, aramid and polyester), were interleaved between different layers of a carbon/epoxy laminate typically used to produce aircraft components. In addition, to decide between which layers could be better interleave the above referred veils a theoretical study was carried out to evaluate the stresses distribution across laminate thickness when a bending moment is applied, on a carbon/epoxy laminate under study. The new carbon/epoxy laminates using the thin interleaved veils were produced by vacuum bag infusion and their mechanical characteristics and LVI responses compared with those obtained on a non-interleaved one produced in the same processing conditions. Interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and LVI tests at four different energy impact levels were performed in order to evaluate the respective characteristics of the laminates, their damage tolerance and impact response. All laminates studied were also observed under scanning electron microscopes (SEM) for assessing their processing quality.FCT, Programa MIT Portugal, projeto “IAMAT – Introduction of advanced materials technologies into new product development for the mobility industries