The enemy within:designing a cell-based gameplay system for cancer education

This paper outlines the design and preliminary evaluation of The Enemy Within, a browser-based game produced to raise awareness of the nature of cancer as a progressive disease. Aimed at high school and young adult audiences, the ambition with the game is to make visible to players the myriad ways in which healthy cells can mutate and ultimately inherit hallmarks of cancer, whilst also demonstrating how both real-world behaviours and underlying genetics impact both positively and negatively on cell health

A Knowledge Based System for Supporting Sustainable Industrial Management in a Clothes Manufacturing Company Based on a Data Fusion Model

In this paper we propose a knowledge based system (KBS), based on smart objects and a data fusion model to support industrial management decision making applied to a clothes manufacturing enterprise. The management processes cover factory-production levels to higher decision-making levels. Therefore, the proposed KBS contributes to solving different kind of decision problems, including factory supervision, production planning and control, productivity management, real-time monitoring, and data acquisition and processing. The web access via different middleware devices and tools at different process levels, along with the use of integrated algorithms, decision methods, and smart objects, promote an optimized use of knowledge and resources. In this paper the proposed KBS is introduced and an example of its use is illustrated with an example of a clothes manufacturing resources selection, using the embedded dynamic multi-criteria fusion model.This work was supported by FCT “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia” under the program: PEST2015-2020, reference: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Zircon dating and inheritance of a pre-Variscan granite, SW Iberia

The Portalegre pluton is an aligned series of Pre-Variscan granitoids located along the boundary of the Central Iberian/ Ossa Morena Zones (SW Iberian Massif, Portugal). Singlezircon geochronology (U-Pb SHRIMP and Pb/Pb stepwise evaporation) yield an Upper Cambrian/Lower Ordovician age (492.7 ± 3.5 Ma) interpreted as the magmatic crystallization age. The inherited zircon cores indicate the involvement of sources with a wide range age-components: an important Late Neoproterozoic (548 ± 7 Ma and c. 611-681 Ma) population and a Mesoproterozoic (c. 0.95-1.1 Ga) and older (c. 2.6 Ga) components. Younger zircon ages of 358 ± 36 and 387 ± 7 Ma were also found and interpreted as the record of a Variscan metamorphic event. The presence of Grenvillian zirconforming events in the protholiths of Portalegre granites is significant in the regional geodynamic context of the Iberian Massif (Central Iberian affinity?). At present, the Grenvillian ages are not noticeable in the Late Neoproterozoic/Early Cambrian record of the Ossa-Morena Zone, that has been correlated with West African Craton [1]. These data suggests that the Central Iberian Zone and Ossa-Morena Zone were independent peri-gondwana terrains with diferent paleogeographic affinities before the Ordovician times. The overall chemistry for the Portalegre granites shows they are very differentiated (SiO2=74-76 wt %), peraluminous (A/CNK=1.1–1.4); have low Zr=36-125ppm, Th/Ta=2-10, ΣREE= 22-134 and 1000Ga/Al >3. Their isotopic signatures (87Sr/86Sr)493=0.7050-0.7065, εNd493(-2.88 to -0.85) and δ18O=10.5-10.8‰, are compatible with partial melting of relatively young recycled metaigneous ± enriched mantle sources. The age pattern from the inherited zircon cores in the Portalegre granites shows that the late Neoproterozoic age (Cadomian) basement was actively involved in their magma generation. The Grenvillian and Archaean zircons can be accounted for by that source component but they do not imply the presence of an older pre-Neoproterozoic basement rocks beneath SW Iberia

Spatial-temporal business partnership selection in uncertain environments

Small and Medium (SME) companies are facing growing challenges while trying to implement globalized business strategies. Contemporary business models need to account for spatial-temporal changeable environments, where lack of confidence and uncertainty in data are a reality. Further, SMEs are finding it increasingly difficult to include all required competences in their internal structures; therefore, they need to rely on reliable business and supplier partnerships to be successful. In this paper we discuss a spatial-temporal decision approach capable of handling lack of confidence and imprecision on current and/or forecast data. An illustrative case study of business' partner selection demonstrates the approach suitability, which is complemented by a statistical analysis with different levels of uncertainty to assess its robustness in uncertain environments.The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, through the grant: "Projeto Estrategico - PEst2015-2020, reference: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Syn-rift unconformities punctuating the lower-middle Cambrian transition in the Atlas Rift, Morocco

The Cambrian Tamdroust and Bab n’Ali Volcanic Complexes represent two magmatic episodes developed in the latest Ediacaran–Cambrian Atlas Rift of Morocco. Their rifting pulses were accompanied by accumulation of volcanosedimentary edifices (dominated by effusive lava flows in the former and explosive acidic aprons in the latter) associated with active tilting and uplift. Sealing of their peneplaned horst-and-graben palaeotopographies led to the onset of distinct onlapping geometries and angular discordances capping eroded basements ranging from the Ediacaran Ouarzazate Supergroup to the Cambrian Asrir Formation. Previous interpretations of these discordances as pull-apart or compressive events are revised here and reinterpreted in an extensional (rifting) context associated with active volcanism. The record of erosive unconformities, stratigraphic gaps, condensed beds and onlapping patterns across the traditional “lower–middle Cambrian” (or Cambrian Series 2–3) transition of the Atlas Rift must be taken into consideration for global chronostratigraphic correlation based on their trilobite content

Aplicação de nanomateriais na oxidação avançada de poluentes orgânicos

A constante preocupação com a preservação da saúde humana impulsiona o necessário desenvolvimento de novos e mais sustentáveis processos de tratamento para remoção de micropoluentes das águas, dado que alguns deles, quando em presença da matéria orgânica natural (MON), podem ser percussores de substâncias potencialmente cancerígenas e apresentar comportamento refratário às tecnologias convencionais instaladas na grande maioria das estações de tratamento de água (ETA). O presente trabalho de investigação teve como objetivos o desenvolvimento e a avaliação da eficiência da aplicação de técnicas de oxidação avançada na remoção de constituintes presentes na MON, com nanopartículas suspensas de dióxido de titânio (TiO2). Neste documento são apresentadas as metodologias utilizadas neste estudo e a análise dos resultados obtidos em ensaios de degradação de ácido húmico (AH), simulando a MON, num reator do tipo batch, sob incidência de radiação solar (RS) e radiação UV com e sem o contributo catalítico das nanopartículas de TiO2. A otimização das condições de degradação foi estudada procedendo-se à avaliação do efeito da dosagem de TiO2. A melhor eficiência de degradação de MON foi de 99%, tendo sido obtida sob incidência de radiação UV, com uma concentração inicial de AH igual a 8 mg/L e uma concentração de TiO2 de 5 mg/L. Os testes de toxicidade realizados às soluções resultantes do processo fotocatalítico de degradação do AH mostraram que os compostos formados não induziram toxicidade na matriz aquosa.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

An MCDM approach to the selection of novel technologies for innovative in-vehicle information systems

Driving a car is a complex skill that includes interacting with multiple systems inside the vehicle. Today’s challenge in the automotive industry is to produce innovative In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS) that are pleasant to use and satisfy the costumers’ needs while, simultaneously, maintaining the delicate balance of primary task vs. secondary tasks while driving. The authors report a MCDM approach for rank ordering a large heterogeneous set of human-machine interaction technologies; the final set consisted of hundred and one candidates. They measured candidate technologies on eight qualitative criteria that were defined by domain experts, using a group decision-making approach. The main objective was ordering alternatives by their decision score, not the selection of one or a small set of them. The authors’ approach assisted decision makers in exploring the characteristics of the most promising technologies and they focused on analyzing the technologies in the top quartile, as measured by their MCDM model. Further, a clustering analysis of the top quartile revealed the presence of important criteria trade-offs.Operational Competitiveness Program – COMPETE, QREN (Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional), European Regional Development Funds (European Union), R&D project in joint-promotion (HMIEXCEL-2013-2015 36265/2013) HMIEXCEL - I&D crítica em torno do ciclo de desenvolvimento e produção de soluções multimédia avançadas para automóvelStrategic program FCT-UID/EEA/00066/2013Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (IF/00217/2013)Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (PD/BD/105966/2014

Purification, crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of the seryl-tRNA synthetase from Candida albicans

The seryl-tRNA synthetase (SerRS) from Candida albicans exists naturally as two isoforms resulting from ambiguity in the natural genetic code. Both enzymes were crystallized by the sitting-drop vapour-diffusion method using 3.2-3.4 M ammonium sulfate as precipitant. The crystals belonged to the hexagonal space group P6(1)22 and contained one monomer per asymmetric unit, despite the synthetase existing as a homodimer (with a molecular weight of ∼116 kDa) in solution. Diffraction data were collected to 2.0 Å resolution at a synchrotron source and the crystal structures of unliganded SerRS and of its complexes with ATP and with a seryl-adenylate analogue were solved by molecular replacement. The structure of C. albicans SerRS represents the first reported structure of a eukaryotic cytoplasmic SerRS.publishe