The 1755 earthquake in the Algarve (South of Portugal): what would happen nowadays?

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which reached a magnitude of 8.5, remains the most powerful and destructive to hit Europe so far. Within minutes, many lives were lost, populations displaced, livelihoods, homes and infrastructures were destroyed. Although frequently associated to the city of Lisbon, one of the most important European cities at the time, this earthquake caused similar damage and casualties, if not greater, in the southwest of the Algarve, where the seismic intensity was estimated at IX-X Mercalli Intensity Scale. Some time later a tsunami increased the number of victims and the amount of damage. In some locations the tsunami caused greater destruction than the earthquake itself. The tsunami hit both coasts of the North Atlantic; however, the more destructive damage occurred in the Portuguese coast, south from Lisbon, in the Gulf of Cadiz and in the Moroccan coast. The downtown of Lisbon was flooded by waves that reached a height of 6 m. The water flooded an area with an extension of around 250 m from the coast. In the Southwest part of Algarve the waves reached a height between 10 and 15 m and the flooded area was much larger. Through the analysis of recent research works on the assessment of the 1755 tsunami parameters and the interpretation of the more reliable historical documents, it is our intention to analyse the destructive power of the tsunami in the Algarve and delimit the flooded area. Using simple techniques of simulation it is our intention to assess the impacts nowadays of the occurrence of a tsunami similar to the one that hit the Algarve in 1755, which would probably affect a greater number of people, buildings and infrastructures. This assessment is an important instrument not only in terms of disaster preparedness but also for the integration of risk mitigation measures in land use planning

Environmental behaviour and ecotoxicity of cationic surfactants towards marine organisms

Cationic surfactants are surface-active compounds that can be found in many products, including household and cleaning agents. As a consequence, they tend to be discarded into water streams, ultimately ending up in the aquatic environment. In spite of this environmental issue, studies describing their effects towards marine species are lacking. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the short-term exposure effects of two commercial cationic surfactants and three novel gemini surfactants on four marine species, the green microalgae Nannochloropsis gaditana and Tetraselmis chuii, the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, and the crustacean Artemia salina. Furthermore, biodegradation and size distribution of the cationic surfactants in artificial seawater were also studied by UV–vis spectrophotometry and dynamic light scattering, respectively. Ecotoxicity tests revealed that the commercial cationic surfactant N-cetyl-N,N,N-trimethylammonium bromide is toxic to all tested marine species while N-dodecyl-N,N,N-trimethylammonium chloride and 1,4-bis-[N-(1-dodecyl)-N,N-dimethylammoniummethyl]benzene dibromide showed the lowest toxicity among the tested cationic surfactants. Besides the novel insights regarding the effects caused by these five cationic surfactants, this work opens prospects for the replacement of commercially available surfactants by more environmentally friendly alternatives.publishe

Neuro-Behçet: MR study of a group of patients

Acta Med Port. 2006 Nov-Dec;19(6):494-8. Epub 2007 May 14. [Neuro-Behçet: MR study of a group of patients] [Article in Portuguese] Ramos C, Sá G, Tedim Cruz V, Lopes A, Xavier J, Cruz R. Serviço de Neurorradiologia, Hospital Geral de Santo António, Porto, Portugal. Abstract Behçet's disease is a chronic inflammatory, multisystemic disease of unknown aetiology. Central nervous system involvement occurs in a variable proportion of cases (4 to 49%) and is due to intracranial hypertension secondary to dural sinus thrombosis, inflammatory parenquimal lesions or recurrent meningoencephalitis. We reviewed 12 patients, 7 men and 5 women, aged between 27 to 40 years at the time of diagnosis. Neurological manifestations were secondary to parenquimal lesions in 7 patients, meningoencephalitis in 3 patients (including one with extensive medullary lesion) and dural sinus thrombosis in 2. Magnetic Resonance (MR) findings in Neuro-Behçet are non-specific. Nevertheless, MR has a role in characterizing brain lesions topography, helping in the diagnosis and in the follow-up of these patients. PMID: 17583610 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Free Articl

Applicability study of a multitask cognitive and motor exercise program for individuals with Parkinson´s disease: The COGWEB® MOVE Program

Poster presented at the 20th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders. Berlin, 23 June 2016"Objective: To test the applicability of a new rehabilitation program for people with Parkinson´s disease combining web-based cognitive training with motor exercises (COGWEB ® CNS Move Program)."N/

Negligent and intentional fires in Portugal: spatial distribution characterization

In the European context, Portugal is the country with the highest number of wildfires and the second with more burnt area. The vast majority of these events are of human origin, whether caused by accident, negligence or arson, reason why it is particularly important to know the regime of these wildfires for forest and wildfire management activities. The study focuses on the most recent years of 20012014, when wildfire ignition's coordinates are known, and aims to identify and characterize the wildfire incidence spatial patterns of variability as well as their main drivers. After grouping wildfires with human cause into negligent and intentional, we studied their spatial distribution in terms of normalized number of wildfires (NNF) and burnt area (NBA) in the five Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics II regions of mainland Portugal. Results disclose an uneven spatial distribution of the fire incidence, characterized by a south-north gradient, much higher values in Norte region and more evident for intentional than for negligent wildfires. Human and biophysical drivers strongly influence NNF and NBA, at regional and national scales. Distribution patterns at regional scale, for negligent and intentional wildfires are quite different from entire mainland and all wildfires. Drivers' influence is higher for intentional than for negligent wildfires, for southern than for northern regions and for NBA than for NNF. The leading drivers of NNF are distance to roads (d) population density (pd) and altitude (h) while of NBA are h, d, slope and pd, and this influence is higher for intentional than for negligent wildfires

Characterization of surface species on mesoporous TiO2 prepared by TiC oxidation

Surface species responsible for low pH values of zero charge point and high sorption capacity of mesoporous TiO2 powder obtained by TiC oxidation with nitric acid were studied by FTIR, EPR and XPS methods. It was found that during the titania synthesis the oxide surface was modified by nitrate-nitrite, carboxylic groups, NOx and ·С≡ radicals which determined adsorption properties of the TiO2 powder.publishe

Daily alcohol intake triggers aberrant synaptic pruning leading to synapse loss and anxiety-like behavior

Alcohol abuse adversely affects the lives of millions of people worldwide. Deficits in synaptic transmission and in microglial function are commonly found in human alcohol abusers and in animal models of alcohol intoxication. Here, we found that a protocol simulating chronic binge drinking in male mice resulted in aberrant synaptic pruning and substantial loss of excitatory synapses in the prefrontal cortex, which resulted in increased anxiety-like behavior. Mechanistically, alcohol intake increased the engulfment capacity of microglia in a manner dependent on the kinase Src, the subsequent activation of the transcription factor NF-κB, and the consequent production of the proinflammatory cytokine TNF. Pharmacological blockade of Src activation or of TNF production in microglia, genetic ablation of Tnf, or conditional ablation of microglia attenuated aberrant synaptic pruning, thereby preventing the neuronal and behavioral effects of the alcohol. Our data suggest that aberrant pruning of excitatory synapses by microglia may disrupt synaptic transmission in response to alcohol abuse.This work was financed by FEDER -Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional funds through the COMPETE 2020 -Operacional Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Portugal 2020, and by Portuguese funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior in the framework of the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030647 (PTDC/SAU-TOX/30647/2017) in TS lab. The projects FEDER Portugal (Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000008000008—Porto Neurosciences and Neurologic Disease Research Initiative at I3S, supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-021333) and FCT (PTDC/MED-NEU/31318/2017) supported work in JBR lab. CCP and RS hold employment contracts financed by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the context of the program-contract described in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of art. 23 of Law no. 57/2016, of August 29, as amended by Law no. 57/2017 of July 2019. TC is supported by FCT (SFRH/BD/117148/2016). RLA was supported by FCT (PD/BD/114266/2016). AM was supported by FCT (IF/00753/2014). Author contributions: RS, TS, and JBR designed the project. RS, JFH, CCP, TOA, JTM, RLA, TC, CS, and AM performed experiments. RS, TS, and JBR co-supervised the study. RS and JBR wrote the original draft. RS, CCP, TS, and JBR reviewed and edited the manuscript. TS and JBR acquired funding

PEO Coatings with Active Protection Based on In-Situ Formed LDH-Nanocontainers

In the present work, for the first time Zn-Al layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanocontainers were grown in-situ on the surface and in the pores of plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO) layer and then loaded with a corrosion inhibitor to provide an active protection. The developed LDH-based conversion process ensures partial sealing of the pores and provides an effective corrosion inhibition on demand leading to increased fault-tolerance and self-healing properties. The structure, morphology and composition of the LDH-sealed PEO coatings on 2024 aluminum alloy were investigated using SEM, TEM/FIB, XRD and GDOES. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and scanning vibrating electrode techniques show a remarkable increase in the corrosion resistance and fault tolerance when PEO coating is sealed with a LDH-inhibitor treatment

Insights into corrosion behaviour of uncoated Mg alloys for biomedical applications in different aqueous media

MgCa and MgGd series of alloys are often reported as promising candidates for biomedical applications. In the present study, cytotoxicity and corrosion behavior of Mg1Ca and Mg10Gd alloys in different electrolytes (NaCl, PBS, MEM) have been investigated in order to make a direct comparison and understand the mechanisms behind their performance. Potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed to analyze corrosion processes depending on media composition, whereas X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to evaluate crystalline structure, phase composition and surface morphology of the corroded substrates after immersion in the different electrolytes. Moreover, cytotoxicity of the Mg alloys was assessed using the WST-1 reduction and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release assays in L929 mouse fibroblasts. The electrochemical results showed that Mg1Ca has a lower degradation rate when compared to Mg10Gd, due to the lower microgalvanic effects and the presence of Ca as an alloying element. Furthermore, the corrosion activity is reduced in MEM, for both alloys, when compared to NaCl and PBS. The cytotoxicity assays revealed that Mg10Gd was cytotoxic in all the conditions tested, while the toxicity of Mg1Ca was low. Overall, these findings show that Mg1Ca alloy presents a higher corrosion resistance and biocompatibility and is a promising material to be used in biomedical implants.This work was financed by Portugal 2020 through European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in the frame of Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (POCI), in the scope of the project MAGICOAT POCI-01-0145-FEDER016597/PTDC/CTM-BIO/2170/2014 and in the scope of the project CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020, financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/ MCTES. Furthermore, thanks are due to Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES for the financial support through national funds to EPI Unit (UIDB/04750/2020).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluating COVID-19 in Portugal: Bootstrap confidence interval

In this paper, we consider a compartmental model to fit the real data of confirmed active cases with COVID-19 in Portugal, from March 2, 2020 until September 10, 2021 in the Primary Care Cluster in Aveiro region, ACES BV, reported to the Public Health Unit. The model includes a deterministic component based on ordinary differential equations and a stochastic component based on bootstrap methods in regression. The main goal of this work is to take into account the variability underlying the data set and analyse the estimation accuracy of the model using a residual bootstrapped approach in order to compute confidence intervals for the prediction of COVID-19 confirmed active cases. All numerical simulations are performed in R environment ( version. 4.0.5). The proposed algorithm can be used, after a suitable adaptation, in other communicable diseases and outbreaks