Monitoring biological wastewater treatment processes: Recent advances in spectroscopy applications

Biological processes based on aerobic and anaerobic technologies have been continuously developed to wastewater treatment and are currently routinely employed to reduce the contaminants discharge levels in the environment. However, most methodologies commonly applied for monitoring key parameters are labor intensive, time-consuming and just provide a snapshot of the process. Thus, spectroscopy applications in biological processes are, nowadays, considered a rapid and effective alternative technology for real-time monitoring though still lacking implementation in full-scale plants. In this review, the application of spectroscopic techniques to aerobic and anaerobic systems is addressed focusing on UV--Vis, infrared, and fluorescence spectroscopy. Furthermore, chemometric techniques, valuable tools to extract the relevant data, are also referred. To that effect, a detailed analysis is performed for aerobic and anaerobic systems to summarize the findings that have been obtained since 2000. Future prospects for the application of spectroscopic techniques in biological wastewater treatment processes are further discussed.The authors thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) and the project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. The authors also acknowledge the financial support to Daniela P. Mesquita and Cristina Quintelas through the postdoctoral Grants (SFRH/BPD/82558/2011 and SFRH/BPD/101338/2014) provided by FCT - Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Plant vascular development: from early specification to differentiation.

Vascular tissues in plants are crucial to provide physical support and to transport water, sugars and hormones and other small signalling molecules throughout the plant. Recent genetic and molecular studies have identified interconnections among some of the major signalling networks that regulate plant vascular development. Using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model system, these studies enable the description of vascular development from the earliest tissue specification events during embryogenesis to the differentiation of phloem and xylem tissues. Moreover, we propose a model for how oriented cell divisions give rise to a three-dimensional vascular bundle within the root meristem

Auxin regulation of embryo development

Important steps in plant development are made shortly after fertilization. In a brief succession of cell divisions, the zygote is transformed into an embryo, a multicellular structure carrying all fundamental tissue types and the meristems. Hence, embryogenesis offers excellent opportunities to dissect the molecular control and cellular mechanisms underlying plant development. In the past decades, forward and reverse genetics studies have revealed that the plant hormone auxin plays a central role in the establishment of pattern and polarity in the Arabidopsis embryo. Here, we review the roles that localized auxin biosynthesis, directional transport and cell type-specific response play in embryo development. We focus on the molecular mechanisms, as well as the feedbacks that connect these disparate levels of regulation. Finally, we discuss the potential for hormonal cross-talk in auxin-dependent control of the key events during the earliest, formative phase of plant life.</p

Minho affective sentences (MAS): probing the roles of sex, mood, and empathy in affective ratings of verbal stimuli

Author's personal copyDuring social communication, words and sentences play a critical role in the expression of emotional meaning. The Minho Affective Sentences (MAS) were developed to respond to the lack of a standardized sentences battery with normative affective ratings: 192 neutral, positive, and negative declarative sentences were strictly controlled for psycholinguistic variables such as number of words and letters, and per million word frequency. The sentences were designed to represent examples of each of the five basic emotions (anger, sadness, disgust, fear, happiness) and of neutral situations. These sentences were presented to 536 participants who rated the stimuli using both dimensional and categorical measures of emotions. Sex differences were also explored. Additionally, we probed how personality, empathy and mood from a sub-set of 40 participants modulated the affective ratings. Our results confirmed that the MAS affective norms are valid measures to guide the selection of stimuli for experimental studies of emotion. The combination of dimensional and categorical ratings provided a more fine-grained characterization of the affective properties of sentences. Moreover, affective ratings of positive and negative sentences were not only modulated by participant’s sex, but also by individual differences in empathy and mood state.Together, our results indicate that, in their quest to reveal the neuro-functional underpinnings of verbal emotional processing, researchers should consider not only the influence of sex, but also of inter-individual differences in empathy and mood states, in the response to the emotional meaning of sentences.The authors gratefully acknowledge all the participants who collaborated in the study, and Vera Matos for her help with data acquisition. This work was supported by Grant Numbers IF/00334/2012 and PTDC/MHNPCN/3606/2012, funded by the Portuguese National Science Foundation (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [FCT], Portugal) and FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) through the European programs QREN (Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional) and COMPETE (Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade), awarded to A.P.P. Additionally, it received support from Grant Number EXPL/MHCPCN/0859/2013, awarded to A.P.S. by FCT and cofunded by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio