Environmental risk assessment in a contaminated estuary: an integrated weight of evidence approach as a decision support tool

Environmental risk assessment of complex ecosystems such as estuaries is a challenge, where innovative and integrated approaches are needed. The present work aimed at developing an innovative integrative methodology to evaluate in an impacted estuary (the Sado, in Portugal, was taken as case study), the adverse effects onto both ecosystem and human health. For the purpose, new standardized lines of evidence based on multiple quantitative data were integrated into a weight of evidence according to a best expert judgment approach. The best professional judgment for a weight of evidence approach in the present study was based on the following lines of evidence: i) human contamination pathways; ii) human health effects: chronic disease; iii) human health effects: reproductive health; iv) human health effects: health care; v) human exposure through consumption of local agriculture produce; vi) exposure to contaminated of water wells and agriculture soils; vii) contamination of the estuarine sedimentary environment (metal and organic contaminants); viii) effects on benthic organisms with commercial value; and ix) genotoxic potential of sediments. Each line of evidence was then ordinally ranked by levels of ecological or human health risk, according to a tabular decision matrix and expert judgment. Fifteen experts scored two fishing areas of the Sado estuary and a control estuarine area, in a scale of increasing environmental risk and management actions to be taken. The integrated assessment allowed concluding that the estuary should not be regarded as impacted by a specific toxicant, such as metals and organic compounds hitherto measured, but by the cumulative risk of a complex mixture of contaminants. The proven adverse effects on species with commercial value may be used to witness the environmental quality of the estuarine ecosystem. This method argues in favor of expert judgment and qualitative assessment as a decision support tool to the integrative management of estuaries. Namely it allows communicating environmental risk and proposing mitigation measures to local authorities and population under a holistic perspective as an alternative to narrow single line of evidence approaches, which is mandatory to understand cause and effect relationships in complex areas like estuaries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The importance of geotechnical knowledge of terrains: Beja municipality, Alentejo, Portugal

The municipality of Beja, in Alentejo (Portugal), is presented as a case in which the insufficient knowledge of the geological and geotechnical characteristics of terrains contributes to serious problems in the establishment of building platforms. In Beja three main geotechnical units can be defined: fills, residual soils from gabbro-diorite weathering and gabbro-diorite bedrock. The knowledge of location, thickness and geotechnical properties of all these formations will contribute to the accurate engineering design and construction work, and also to support urban planning and therefore to minimize geological risk by avoiding zones with thick problematic soils as shown with a case study

Comparing reverse complementary genomic words based on their distance distributions and frequencies

In this work we study reverse complementary genomic word pairs in the human DNA, by comparing both the distance distribution and the frequency of a word to those of its reverse complement. Several measures of dissimilarity between distance distributions are considered, and it is found that the peak dissimilarity works best in this setting. We report the existence of reverse complementary word pairs with very dissimilar distance distributions, as well as word pairs with very similar distance distributions even when both distributions are irregular and contain strong peaks. The association between distribution dissimilarity and frequency discrepancy is explored also, and it is speculated that symmetric pairs combining low and high values of each measure may uncover features of interest. Taken together, our results suggest that some asymmetries in the human genome go far beyond Chargaff's rules. This study uses both the complete human genome and its repeat-masked version.Comment: Post-print of a paper accepted to publication in "Interdisciplinary Sciences: Computational Life Sciences" (ISSN: 1913-2751, ESSN: 1867-1462

Separate and combined effects of cyclic fasting and l-carnitine supplementation in red porgy (Pagrus pagrus, L. 1758)

We examined the e¡ects of cyclic fasting in red porgy (Pagrus pagrus) fed di¡erent dietary carnitine levels. Ju venile ¢sh (23.58 3.49 g) were divided into eight groups ^ four groups were fed every day to apparent sa tiation, while the other four were fasted for 7 days every 2 weeks. In each feeding regime, two replicates were fed an L-carnitine non-supplemented diet (46 mg kg 1 ) and the other two groups were fed an L-carnitine sup plemented diet (630 mg kg 1 ). Fish fed 630 mg L-carni tine accumulated two times more L-carnitine in muscle than ¢sh fed 46 mg L-carnitine. Cyclic fasting reduced the growth performance and lipid content in the liver. Carnitine supplementation did not a¡ect performance and body composition, but decreased the n-6 PUFA content. Moreover, the combined e¡ects of fasting and carnitine supplementation were observed on reducing the n-3 fatty acid content. Areas of steatosis were found in the livers of red porgy, but the results revealed that supplementation of L-carnitine in cyclic fasted ¢sh con tributed towards a lower degree of vacuolization than in ¢sh fed to apparent satiation. Regardless of the feed ing regime applied, the spleen of ¢sh fed the L-carni tine-supplemented diet was haemorrhagic and hyper activation of melanomacrophage cells was observed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Probabilistic clustering of interval data

In this paper we address the problem of clustering interval data, adopting a model-based approach. To this purpose, parametric models for interval-valued variables are used which consider configurations for the variance-covariance matrix that take the nature of the interval data directly into account. Results, both on synthetic and empirical data, clearly show the well-founding of the proposed approach. The method succeeds in finding parsimonious heterocedastic models which is a critical feature in many applications. Furthermore, the analysis of the different data sets made clear the need to explicitly consider the intrinsic variability present in interval data.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Identifying Special Structures in Interval-Data via Model-Base Clustering

In this paper we present a model-based approach to the clustering of interval data building on recently proposed parametric models. These methods consider configurations for the variance-covariance matrix that take the nature of the interval data directly into account. The proposed framework relies on parametrizations considering the inherent variability of the relevant data units and the relation that may exist between this variability and the corresponding value levels. Using both synthetic and real data sets the pertinence of the proposed methodology is shown, as the method effectively selects heterocedastic models with restricted covariance structures when they are the most suitable, even in situations with limited information. Moreover, considering special configurations of the variance-covariance matrix, adapted to nature of interval data, proves to be the adequate approach. The presented study also makes clear the need to consider both the information about position (conveyed by the MidPoints) and intrinsic variability (conveyed by the Log-Ranges) when analysing interval data.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Marketing socioambiental: o estudo de caso da participação popular em áreas de alta densidade de postes e linhas de alta tensão em Portugal

O presente artigo centra-se na análise do marketing socioambiental, promovido por empresas do setor energético, bem como o papel da sociedade civil, por intermédio, dos movimentos populares de reivindicação, contra os postes e linhas de alta e muito alta tensão em áreas residenciais na União Europeia e, especificamente, em Portugal. O processo de urbanização crescente e o modo de vida urbano desenfreado acarretaram mudanças substanciais no tecido urbano, sobretudo, no que diz respeito ao avanço das linhas aéreas de energia elétrica. Desde a década de 1960, uma série de estudos foram desenvolvidos sobre os efeitos destas infraestruturas tecnológicas em áreas residenciais. Apesar do intenso debate ainda não existem resultados consensuais quanto à sua influência na saúde das populações. Não obstante, diversos organismos internacionais, tais como, a Organização Mundia l de Saúde (OMS) e a Comissão Internacional de Proteção Contra Radiação Não - Ionizante (ICNIRP), já estabeleceram parâmetros de precaução, a partir da fixação de valores de exposição, tanto em termos ocupacionais , quanto para a população. Neste sentido, objetiva-se com a presente comunicação analisar o papel do marketing socioambiental, a partir da participação popular, dos movimentos internacionais e nacionais contra a alta tensão, sobretudo em Portugal. A pesquisa centrou-se numa abordagem qualitativa de fontes secundárias de dois blogues e cinco jornais nacionais que apresentavam notícias sobre a constituição e as manifestações realizadas pelo Movimento Nacional Contra Linhas de Alta Tensão em Zonas Habitadas. Este Movimento teve a sua origem no Sul de Portugal e difundiu-se por todo o país recrutando indivíduos preocupados com a instalação das novas e das já existentes linhas aéreas de energia elétrica. O Movimento ganhou força a nível nacional com o apoio de partidos políticos. Também foi realizado trabalho de campo em junho de 2014

Saúde e Ambiente – estudo de caso dos impactes da exposição ao ruído de baixa frequência no bem-estar da população de Serzedelo (Guimarães)

A exposição ao ruído tem efeitos nocivos e constitui um fator de risco para a saúde humana. O principal objetivo da presente pesquisa é analisar a exposição ao ruído de baixa frequência proveniente dos postes elétricos de alta tensão em áreas residenciais, especialmente em Sezerdelo (município de Guimarães) e os impactes na saúde da população que aí reside. A metodologia utilizada para as análises do ruído ambiental foi fundamentada no documento elaborado pelo Acoustics Research Centre (DEFRA), da Universidade de Salford, intitulado Procedure for the assessment of low frequency noise complaints (2011). Os níveis de ruído de Serzedelo ultrapassam os valores de referência do critério da curva nas faixas de 50Hz e 63Hz de 1/3 de oitava em todos os pontos de medição, concretizados em 2014. Neste caso, o nível de ruído proveniente dos postes de alta tensão pode ser incomodativo e suceptível de impacter na saúde da população que reside em Serzdelo

Purification of plasmids using aqueous two-phase systems with amino affinity ligands

The increasing development and future application of molecular therapies such as gene therapy and DNA vaccination is expected to have a great impact in health care. However for their wide application large amounts of plasmid DNA (pDNA) are required with a stringent clearance of impurities. This prompted the development of new, efficient and cost-effective large-scale processes for the production and purification of pDNA. Most of the purification processes described are based on chromatography but dispite their high resolution, frequently they are difficult to scale-up, have low capacity and present low yields. In order to overcome these disadvantages other methodologies are also being developed. Aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) are one of the most promising approaches for pDNA purification given their several advantages like easy scale-up, high capacity and the possibility of continuous operation. Despite their great potential ATPS have low selectivity, which limits the purification outcome. The addition of certain molecules with affinity for the target molecules (pDNA in this case) may increase their selectivity. In this work it was studied the possibility of using amino ligands for the affinity purification of pDNA from bacterial alkaline lysates. Two free amino acids, lysine and arginine, their respective Polyethylene glycol (PEG) conjugates, PEG-lysine and PEGarginine, and PEGamine were tested. The system used was composed of 16,2% (w/w) PEG 600 and 17,4% (w/w) dextran 100 (DEX) and it was evaluate the ability of each ligand to steer the pDNA to the phase where less impurities are accumulated (PEG rich phase). The results show that free amino acids did not have any effect on pDNA partitioning but the PEG conjugates were able to steer the pDNA to the PEG phase, at low concentrations. With the addition of 0,2% of PEG-lysine, or 0,5% of PEG-arginine or 4% of PEG-amine in relation to the total PEG, all the pDNA is recovered in the PEG phase. However it presents some RNA contamination, that could be removed by re-extracting with a new phase containing 30% of ammonium sulphate (NH4)2S04. The purified pDNA is obtained in the bottom phase of this new system with no measurable presence of RNA or proteins