Child abandonment and illegitimacy in the Island of São Jorge (Azores-Portugal).

VII Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia - São Jorge e Topo - 1992.During the 1992 Scientific Expedition to São Jorge, parish registers were consulted referring to some villages of the district of Velas, according to the following described: Baptisms (1875-1900)- Variables include date of birth, place of birth, legitimacy/illegitimacy (Velas; Santo Amaro). Marriages (1876-l900)- Variables include place of birth of the couple, residency, age, marital status, occupation and consanguinity (Urzelina-146; Velas-279; Santo Amaro-148; Norte Grande-290; Manadas-136). Deaths (1876-1900)- Variables include date of burial, sex, age, marital status and legitimacy (Santo Amaro; Velas). For purposes of this report, only data referring to the baptisms were dealt with, giving particular emphasize to the variable of illegitimacy

Evolution of ochratoxin A content from must to wine in Port wine microvinification

To study the evolution of ochratoxin A (OTA) content from must to wine during the making of Port Wine, grapes from the five most common varieties of Port Wine were harvested and combined in equal percentages in order to perform microvinifications. Three sets of assays were studied: a blank (A), where the most common Port Wine-making process was used; in the second (B), a solution of OTA was added to the initial must; in the third (C), the grapes were aspersed with an inoculating solution of OTA-producing fungi. Samples were collected, in duplicate, on four different occasions throughout the process. The influence of the addition of SO_2 to the must was also assessed in each set. The quantification of OTA was based on the standard reference method for wines (European Standard prEN 14133), which includes clean-up via immunoaffinity columns and HPLC with fluorescence detection. The limits of detection were 0.076 μg/l for wine and 0.114 μg/l for must. The method was validated by assessing the precision, accuracy and by obtaining an estimate of the global uncertainty. Overall, the levels of OTA observed during the vinifications dropped by up to 92%, and no grapes used in this work were contaminated naturally.The authors wish to thank the support of the INIAP—Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e das Pescas (Portugal), through the Program AGRO, Medida 8.1, and all the personnel and facilities at the Centro de Estudos Vitivinícolas do Douro (Peso da Régua, Portugal) and the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto (Porto, Portugal)

Supporting the design of an ambient assisted living system using virtual reality prototypes

APEX, a framework for prototyping ubiquitous environments, is used to design an Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) system to enhance a care home for older people. The environment allows participants in the design process to experience the proposed design and enables developers to explore the design by rapidly developing alternatives. APEX provided the means to explore alternative designs through a virtual environment. It provides a mediating representation (a boundary object) allowing users to be involved in the design process. A group of residents in a city-based care home were involved in the design. The paper describes the design process and lessons learnt for the design of AAL systems.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Immersiveness of ubiquitous computing environments prototypes: A case study

The development of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) environments raises several challenges in terms of their evaluation. Ubicomp virtual reality prototyping tools enable users to experience the system to be developed and are of great help to face those challenges, as they support developers in assessing the consequences of a design decision in the early phases of development. Given the situated nature of ubicomp environments, a particular issue to consider is the level of realism provided by the prototypes. This work presents a case study where two ubicomp prototypes, featuring different levels of immersion (desktop-based versus CAVE-based), were developed and compared. The goal was to determine the cost/benefits relation of both solutions, which provided better user experience results, and whether or not simpler solutions provide the same user experience results as more elaborate one.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through Projecto Estratégico – LA 9 – 2014-2015 (PEst-OE/EEI/LA0009/201

Spillover events of rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus 2 (recombinant GI.4P-GI.2) from Lagomorpha to Eurasian badger

Rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) is a major threat to domestic and wild European rabbits. Presently, in Europe, the disease is caused mainly by Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus 2 (RHDV2/b or Lagovirus europaeus GI.2), the origin of which is still unclear, as no RHDV2 reservoir hosts were identified. After the RHDV2 emergence in 2010, viral RNA was detected in a few rodent species. Furthermore, RHDV2 was found to cause disease in some hare species resembling the disease in rabbits, evidencing the ability of the virus to cross the species barrier. In this study, through molecular, histopathologic, antigenic and morphological evidences, we demonstrate the presence and replication of RHDV2 in Eurasian badgers (Meles meles) found dead in the district of Santarém, Portugal, between March 2017 and January 2020. In two of these seven animals, we further classify the RHDV2 as a Lagovirus europaeus recombinant GI.4P‐GI.2. Our results indicate that Meles meles is susceptible to RHDV2, developing systemic infection, and excreting the virus in the faeces. Given the high viral loads seen in several organs and matrices, we believe that transmission to the wild rabbit is likely. Furthermore, transmission electron microscopy data shows the presence of Calicivirus compatible virions in the nucleus of hepatocytes, which has not been demonstrated before and constitutes a paradigm shift for caliciviruses’s replication cycle

Espectrometria de infravermelho próximo na predição da textura de solos desenvolvidos de basalto.

A textura dos solos tem sido determinada através de métodos analíticos que muitas vezes são caros e lentos. Ademais, em solos muito argilosos, a dispersão química e mecânica nem sempre é eficiente em separar a fração silte da fração argila, superestimando o conteúdo de silte dos solos. O objetivo do trabalho foi testar a espectroscopia de reflectância de infravermelho próximo (NIRS) na avaliação da textura de solos de basalto. Foram coletadas 214 amostras de terra na região Norte do Estado do Paraná, Brasil, nos municípios de Bela Vista do Paraíso e Londrina, em áreas com predominância de Latossolos, Nitossolos e Neossolos, classificados. As amostras foram coletadas nas profundidades de 0-20 cm e 60-80 cm. Foi realizada análise textural pela dispersão química e mecânica e em seguida as amostras foram escaneadas em um espectrômetro modelo FOSS NIRS SYSTENS XDS, na banda de reflectância entre 400 e 2500 nm. Os dados espectrais foram analisados e comparados aos resultados obtidos com o método da pipeta, através do software WinISI III v. 1.61e. Foi possível verificar que na camada 60-80 cm os teores de argila foram superiores aos da camada 0-20 cm, em função de pequenas translocações de argila verificadas nesses solos. Em relação à predição da textura pelo NIRS, não foi possível obter boa acurácia para nenhuma das frações granulométricas analisadas, uma vez que os coeficientes de correlação da calibração foram apenas 0,55; 0,55 e 0,53 para argila, silte e areia, respectivamente. Nesta situação o indicado seria testar novos métodos de análise de referência e novos tratamentos estatísticos para se ter um melhor indicativo do potencial de uso da técnica

Aetiology and factors associated with bacterial diarrhoeal diseases amongst urban refugee children in Eastleigh, Kenya: A case control study

Introduction: Kenya is home to over 400 000 refugees from neighbouring countries. There is scanty information about diarrhoea amongst urban refugees in Kenya. Objectives: We investigated the enteric bacteria causing diarrhoea amongst urban refugee children and described the associated factors. Method: During the period of August–December 2010, urban refugee children between the ages of two and five who attended Eastleigh County Council Health Centre were enrolled into the study. Diarrhoeal cases were compared with age-matched children with no diarrhoea (controls). Stool specimens were collected and enteric bacteria isolated. A questionnaire was administered to identify risk factors. Results: A total of 41 cases and 41 controls were enrolled in the study. The age and country of origin were similar for cases and controls. The bacterial isolation rates amongst the cases were: non-pathogenic Escherichia coli 71%, Shigella dysenteriae 2.4%, Shigella flexneri 2.4%, Salmonella paratyphi 5%. For the controls, non-pathogenic E. coli 90% and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC)2.4% were amongst the organisms isolated. All isolates were resistant to amoxicillin; resistance to other antibiotics varied by isolate type. Factors associated independently with diarrhoea included children not washing their hands with soap (aOR 5.9, p < 0.05), neighbour(s) having diarrhoea (aOR 39.8, p < 0.05), children not exclusively breastfed for their first 6 months (aOR 7.6, p < 0.05) and children eating food cooked the previous day (aOR 23.8, p = 0.002). Conclusions: Shigella species, Salmonella species and ETEC were found to be responsible for diarrhoea amongst the urban refugee children. Measures to control and guide the use of antibiotics are critical for the prevention of antibiotic resistance. Efforts to improve personal and domestic hygiene, including educational campaigns to promote appropriate handwashing, should be encouraged

Soft Dynamics simulation: 2. Elastic spheres undergoing a T1 process in a viscous fluid

Robust empirical constitutive laws for granular materials in air or in a viscous fluid have been expressed in terms of timescales based on the dynamics of a single particle. However, some behaviours such as viscosity bifurcation or shear localization, observed also in foams, emulsions, and block copolymer cubic phases, seem to involve other micro-timescales which may be related to the dynamics of local particle reorganizations. In the present work, we consider a T1 process as an example of a rearrangement. Using the Soft dynamics simulation method introduced in the first paper of this series, we describe theoretically and numerically the motion of four elastic spheres in a viscous fluid. Hydrodynamic interactions are described at the level of lubrication (Poiseuille squeezing and Couette shear flow) and the elastic deflection of the particle surface is modeled as Hertzian. The duration of the simulated T1 process can vary substantially as a consequence of minute changes in the initial separations, consistently with predictions. For the first time, a collective behaviour is thus found to depend on another parameter than the typical volume fraction in particles.Comment: 11 pages - 5 figure