Controlo de TCA e outros off-flavours na cortiça

A elaboração deste relatório teve como finalidade o trabalho desenvolvido e o conhecimento adquirido durante a realização do trabalho na empresa Equipar na Unidade Industrial Amorim & Irmãos que se dedica à produção de rolhas técnicas de cortiça. O estágio decorreu no laboratório de controlo de qualidade durante 6 meses, entre Janeiro de 2014 e Junho de 2014. No início do mesmo, foi necessário tomar conhecimento do processo produtivo para compreender melhor as necessidades de controlo a efectuar. As funções desempenhadas no laboratório compreenderam o controlo de qualidade do processo de produção de rolhas e o controlo de qualidade da recepção dos discos de cortiça. Este controlo é feito com base em ensaios físico-químicos e organolépticos, para verificar a conformidade dos produtos, nomeadamente o cumprimento das especificações pré-definidas para os mesmos, de acordo com cada tipo. Durante o período de estágio realizaram-se e analisaram-se inúmeros ensaios de rotina diários, a rolhas e discos de cortiça. Analisaram-se amostras e resultados de Teor de TCA, Teor de pó, Ensaio de torção, Teor de peróxidos, Massa volúmica, Humidade, Ensaio dimensional de rolhas e Análise sensorial. Verificou-se que nos ensaios efectuados os parâmetros analisados, apesar de apresentarem alguns valores próximos dos limites das especificações, estavam dentro do limite estabelecido para o produto. Da análise aos grandes grupos de produtos, conclui-se que os discos apresentam maior incidência de TCA tendo em conta a especificação, da análise do Teor de Pó conclui-se que os resultados estão muito abaixo do limite da especificação. Na análise ao Teor de Peróxidos observámos que para o produto semi - acabado os resultados obtidos estavam igualmente dentro da especificação. Da Análise sensorial observou-se que o descritivo TCA manifesta-se mais vezes, a classe A é a classe com menor percentagem de off-flavours. Uma vez que a rolha é o produto mais importante de todo o sector industrial corticeiro e que a sua classificação é feita em função de alguns parâmetros de qualidade, o conhecimento da cortiça o tipo de rolhas que a partir dela se produzem e os métodos analíticos utilizados no seu controlo qualidade são os aspectos mais relevantes da aprendizagem efectuada durante este estágio.Instituto Politécnico de Toma

Cardiovascular effort in different head-out aquatic exercise routines: influence of limbs action and floating equipment.

Introduction Head-out aquatic exercise classes comprise limbs action with or without equipment to diversity and change the intensity of the session. Instructors use arms only, legs only action or full mode of exercise to induce different forms of effort. Although acute physiological response can be dependent from the number of limbs in action or by the inclusion of floating material (Costa et al., 2008), there is a need to stagger those routines for health and conditioning purposes. Methods Ten young and healthy women (22.2±2.6 years, 59.3±12.5 kg of body mass and 1.63±0.08 m of height) were recruited to perform five head-out aquatic exercises: (i) horizontal arms abduction (Ab); (ii) horizontal arms abduction with dumbbells (AbDum); (iii) frontal kick (Fk); (iv) frontal kick with leggings (FkLeg), and; (v) aquatic skiing (Ski). Subjects were randomly assigned to each routine that was performed for three minutes at the cadence of 132 bpm. Cardiovascular response was assessed by heart rate, systolic blood pressure, double product and rating of perceived exertion. Results There were significant and strong variations in all variables according to the routine performed (p 0.64 for all). The heart rate was higher in FkLeg (140.40±25.50 bpm) compared to Ab (110.30±23.75 bpm, p = 0.03) and AbDum (110.00±22.70 bpm, p = 0.04). The systolic blood pressure showed higher values in Fk (120.60±15.20 mmHg) when compared to Ab (104.50±10.80 mmHg, p = 0.05). The double product also showed higher values in Fk (15962.80) and FkLeg (16990.40) when compared to Ab (11608, p < 0.01 and p = 0.01, respectively). Interestingly, the rating of perceived exertion showed lower values in Ski (10.40) than AbDum (13.60, p = 0.01) and FkLeg (15.80, p < 0.01). Conclusions It can be concluded that different head-out aquatic exercise routines, encompassing different limbs or with the aid of floating devices, induce different cardiovascular responses. Actions by the lower limbs are the most intense, while upper limbs elicit a lower exertion. Exercising the four limbs (e.g. aquatic skiing) seems to be less demanding than eliciting only two limbs with the aid of a floating device

Automatic detection of relevant information, predictions and forecasts in financial news through topic modelling with Latent Dirichlet Allocation

Financial news items are unstructured sources of information that can be mined to extract knowledge for market screening applications. They are typically written by market experts who describe stock market events within the context of social, economic and political change. Manual extraction of relevant information from the continuous stream of finance-related news is cumbersome and beyond the skills of many investors, who, at most, can follow a few sources and authors. Accordingly, we focus on the analysis of financial news to identify relevant text and, within that text, forecasts and predictions. We propose a novel Natural Language Processing (NLP) system to assist investors in the detection of relevant financial events in unstructured textual sources by considering both relevance and temporality at the discursive level. Firstly, we segment the text to group together closely related text. Secondly, we apply co-reference resolution to discover internal dependencies within segments. Finally, we perform relevant topic modelling with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to separate relevant from less relevant text and then analyse the relevant text using a Machine Learning-oriented temporal approach to identify predictions and speculative statements. Our solution outperformed a rule-based baseline system. We created an experimental data set composed of 2,158 financial news items that were manually labelled by NLP researchers to evaluate our solution. Inter-agreement Alpha-reliability and accuracy values, and ROUGE-L results endorse its potential as a valuable tool for busy investors. The ROUGE-L values for the identification of relevant text and predictions/forecasts were 0.662 and 0.982, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first work to jointly consider relevance and temporality at the discursive level. It contributes to the transfer of human associative discourse capabilities to expert systems through the combination of multi-paragraph topic segmentation and co-reference resolution to separate author expression patterns, topic modelling with LDA to detect relevant text, and discursive temporality analysis to identify forecasts and predictions within this text. Our solution may have compelling applications in the financial field, including the possibility of extracting relevant statements on investment strategies to analyse authors’ reputations.Universidade de Vigo/CISUGXunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B-2021-118Xunta de Galicia | Ref. ED481B-2022-09

EGFR-Based Immunoisolation as a Recovery Target for Low-EpCAM CTC Subpopulation

Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) play a key role in the metastasis process, as they are responsible for micrometastasis and are a valuable tool for monitoring patients in real-time. Moreover, efforts to develop new strategies for CTCs isolation and characterisation, and the translation of CTCs into clinical practice needs to overcome the limitation associated with the sole use of Epithelial Cell Adhesion Molecule (EpCAM) expression to purify this tumour cell subpopulation. CTCs are rare events in the blood of patients and are believed to represent the epithelial population from a primary tumour of epithelial origin, thus EpCAM immunoisolation is considered an appropriate strategy. The controversy stems from the impact that the more aggressive mesenchymal tumour phenotypes might have on the whole CTC population. In this work, we first characterised a panel of cell lines representative of tumour heterogeneity, confirming the existence of tumour cell subpopulations with restricted epithelial features and supporting the limitations of EpCAM-based technologies. We next developed customised polystyrene magnetic beads coated with antibodies to efficiently isolate the phenotypically different subpopulations of CTCs from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with metastatic cancer. Besides EpCAM, we propose Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) as an additional isolation marker for efficient CTCs detection.This work was supported by Axencia Galega de Innovación (Xunta de Galicia) and InveNNta (Innovation in Nanomedicine), cofinanced by the European Union (EU) through the Operational Programme for Cross-border Cooperation: Spain-Portugal (POCTEP 2007-2013), and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)S

Combinatory effect of BRCA1 and HERC2 expression on outcome in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer

BACKGROUND: BRCA1 is a main component of homologous recombination and induces resistance to platinum in preclinical models. It has been studied as a potential predictive marker in lung cancer. Several proteins modulate the function of BRCA1. The E3 ubiquitin ligase HERC2 facilitates the assembly of the RNF8-UBC13 complex to recruit BRCA1 to DNA damage sites. The combined analysis of multiple components of the pathway leading to the recruitment of BRCA1 at DNA damage sites has the potentiality to improve the BRCA1 predictive model. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 71 paraffin-embedded tumor samples from advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with first-line platinum based chemotherapy and measured the mRNA expression levels of BRCA1, RNF8, UBC13 and HERC2 using real-time PCR. The mRNA expression was categorized using median value as cut-off point. RESULTS: The median progression-free survival of all 71 patients was 7.2 months whereas the median overall survival of the study population was 10.7 months. Among patients with low BRCA1 expression, the median PFS was 7.4 months in the presence of low HERC2 levels and 5.9 months for patients expressing high HERC2 levels (p\u2009=\u20090.01). The median OS was 15.3 months for patients expressing low levels of both genes and 7.4 months for those with low BRCA1 but high HERC2 (p\u2009=\u20090.008). The multivariate analysis showed that among patients with Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 0-1, the combined low expression of both BRCA1 and HERC2 clearly reduced the risk of progression (p\u2009=\u20090.03) and of death (p\u2009=\u20090.004). CONCLUSIONS: These findings confirm the potentiality of integrated DNA repair components analysis in predicting the sensitivity to platinum in lung cancer. The study indicates a predictive role for HERC2 mRNA expression and paves the way for further refinement of the BRCA1 predictive model

Exploring perceived barriers to physical activity among older adults living in low-population density regions: gender differences and associations with activity dimensions

Older people in low-population density regions tend to have fewer resources to engage in regular physical activity (PA) compared to their counterparts in urban areas. Moreover, PA assumes different dimensions, and the amount of PA related to each dimension may differ between women and men, predisposing them to different PA practices. Therefore, this cross-sectional study aims to describe the prevalence of barriers to PA, gender differences, and their associations with different PA dimensions. A total of 259 older adults (153 women and 106 men; age, 75.17 8.05 years old) living in the community in the region of Guarda (Portugal) were interviewed face to face to record their sociodemographic characteristics, general health status (comorbidity index and self-reported health), PA behaviour, and barriers to PA.Women were more likely to report “low” income and living alone (p 0.05), while men reported a higher negative health status than women (p < 0.05). Two intrinsic (“Fear of injury” (40.1%) and “Need for rest” (26.3%)) and two extrinsic barriers (“Lack of nearby facilities” (30.5%) and “I don’t have transport” (25.6%)) were the most prevalent. For women, age, self-reported health, comorbidity index, and intrinsic and extrinsic barriers were similarly associated with the different PA dimensions. However, only self-reported health and extrinsic barriers were the variables associated with the different PA dimensions in men. Therefore, strategies to promote active ageing in low-population density regions should be focused on reducing intrinsic and extrinsic barriers based on gender and the PA dimension to be achieved.This study was funded by PORTUGAL2020 and by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, I.P.), under project SAICT-POL/23811/2016 and through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., under project UIDB/04045/2020. The Polytechnic of Guarda partly supported the research reported in this publication.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Feasibility of a mobile-based system for unsupervised monitoring in Parkinson’s disease

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Mobile health (mHealth) has emerged as a potential solution to providing valuable ecological information about the severity and burden of Parkinson's disease (PD) symptoms in real-life conditions. Objective: The objective of our study was to explore the feasibility and usability of an mHealth system for continuous and objective real-life measures of patients' health and functional mobility, in unsupervised settings. Methods: Patients with a clinical diagnosis of PD, who were able to walk unassisted, and had an Android smartphone were included. Patients were asked to answer a daily survey, to perform three weekly active tests, and to perform a monthly in-person clinical assessment. Feasibility and usability were explored as primary and secondary outcomes. An exploratory analysis was performed to investigate the correlation between data from the mKinetikos app and clinical assessments. Results: Seventeen participants (85%) completed the study. Sixteen participants (94.1%) showed a medium-to-high level of compliance with the mKinetikos system. A 6-point drop in the total score of the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire was observed. Conclusions: Our results support the feasibility of the mKinetikos system for continuous and objective real-life measures of a patient's health and functional mobility. The observed correlations of mKinetikos metrics with clinical data seem to suggest that this mHealth solution is a promising tool to support clinical decisions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Real-time microscopic view of the relaxation of a glass

The understanding of glassy dynamics above the devitrification temperature of a glass remains poorly understood. Here, we use real-time AFM imaging to build a spatio-temporal map of the relaxation dynamics of a highly stable glass into its supercooled liquid. This new methodology enables a direct visualization of the progression of the liquid phase and clarifies and quantifies the presence of localized fast mobility regions separated by giant length scales. Our data permit to establish a clear correlation between dynamic length and time scales in glasses. This approach may also be applicable to unveil the microscopic structure and dynamics of other glass forming systems with much shorter length and time scales, including liquid-cooled glasses

Nanoencapsulation of bovine lactoferrin for food and biopharmaceutical applications

Lactoferrin has for long captured the interest of many researchers as a natural compound with a wide variety of uses. Lactoferrin is a monomeric, iron-binding 80 kDa glycoprotein, and appears to be the subfraction of whey with the best documented antiviral, antimicrobial, anticancer and immune modulating/enhancing effects. It belongs to the family of transferrin proteins, and serves to control iron levels in body fluids by sequestering and solubilizing ferric iron. In the present research effort, production of lactoferrin derivatives (starting from a purified commercial extract), encompassing full stabilization of its three-dimensional structure, has been attempted via nanoencapsulation within lipid nanovesicles, integrating a multiple water-in-oil-in-water emulsion. Long-term storage of the multiple nanoemulsions produced did not lead to leaching of protein, thus proving the effectiveness of the encapsulation procedure. Furthermore, lactoferrin nanovesicle derivatives prepared under optimal conditions were successfully employed at lab-scale antimicrobial trials.Financial support from Fundacao Ensino e Cultura Fernando Pessoa (FECFP, Porto, Portugal) and from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT, Lisbon, Portugal) as pluriannual funding, is gratefully acknowledged. Financial support to Victor M. Balcao, via an Invited Research Scientist fellowship (FAPESP Ref. No. 2011/51077-8) by Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP, Sao Paulo, Brazil), is hereby gratefully acknowledged. The authors are also grateful to Dr. Madalena Vieira (affiliated with the IBB) for technical help

Acute effects of isotonic eccentric exercise on the neuromuscular function of knee extensors vary according to the motor task: impact on muscle strength profiles, proprioception and balance

[EN] Introduction: Eccentric exercise has often been reported to result in muscle damage, limiting the muscle potential to produce force. However, understanding whether these adverse consequences extend to a broader, functional level is of apparently less concern. In this study, we address this issue by investigating the acute and delayed effects of supramaximal isotonic eccentric exercise on neuromuscular function and motor performance of knee extensors during tasks involving a range of strength profiles, proprioception, and balance. Methods: Fifteen healthy volunteers (23.2 ± 2.9 years old) performed a unilateral isotonic eccentric exercise of the knee extensors of their dominant lower limb (4 × 10 reps at 120% of one Repetition Maximum (1RM)). The maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVC), rate of force development (RFD), force steadiness of the knee extensors, as well as knee joint position sense and mediolateral (MLI) and anteroposterior stability (API) of the dominant lower limb, were measured pre-, immediately, and 24 h after the eccentric exercise. The EMG amplitude of the vastus medialis (VM) and biceps femoris (BF) were concomitantly evaluated. Results: MVC decreased by 17.9% immediately after exercise (P < 0.001) and remained reduced by 13.6% 24 h following exercise (P < 0.001). Maximum RFD decreased by 20.4% immediately after exercise (P < 0.001) and remained reduced by 15.5% at 24 h (P < 0.001). During the MVC, EMG amplitude of the VM increased immediately after exercise while decreasing during the RFD task. Both values returned to baseline 24 h after exercise. Compared to baseline, force steadiness during submaximal isometric tasks reduced immediately after exercise, and it was accompanied by an increase in the EMG amplitude of the VM. MLI and knee joint position sense were impaired immediately after isotonic eccentric exercise (P < 0.05). While MLI returned to baseline values 24 h later, the absolute error in the knee repositioning task did not. Discussion: Impairments in force production tasks, particularly during fast contractions and in the knee joint position sense, persisted 24 h after maximal isotonic eccentric training, revealing that neuromuscular functional outputs were affected by muscle fatigue and muscle damage. Conversely, force fluctuation and stability during the balance tasks were only affected by muscle fatigue since fully recovered was observed 24 h following isotonic eccentric exercise.SIThe author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, IP, under project UID04045/2020. The Polytechnic of Guarda partly supported the research reported in this publication.ARB and AB are part of the Highly Qualified Human Resources Project, reference number CENTRO-04-3559-FSE-000162. MR-A acknowledges the financial support received from the Spanish Ministry of Universities through the Grants for the Requalification of the Spanish University System under the Postdoctoral Margarita Salas Programme (RSUC.UDC.MS09), funded by the European Union – Next Generation