Unveiling the Ancestral Function of a Neuroendocrine Regulator, POU-I/Pit1: Insights from Gene Expression Analysis in the Sea Anemone Nematostella vectensis

Cnidaria (i.e., sea anemones, jellyfish, corals) and Bilateria (i.e., vertebrates, sea stars, fruit flies), are sister groups that diverged around 600 million years ago. Despite the long evolutionary time, many cellular differentiation mechanisms, cell types, tissues and behaviors are conserved. Such as neurons, mechanosensory hair cells, feeding behaviors, peristaltic movements, and sleep. Recent advances in genomics, molecular biology and microscopy have fueled an increased interest in understanding cnidarian nervous and neuroendocrine systems. Understanding the developmental mechanisms and the mode of operation of Cnidarian nervous systems helps to reconstruct the ancestral nervous system of the last common ancestor of Cnidaria and Bilateria. Thus, also shedding light in fundamental aspects of Bilaterian nervous systems. Here, the ‘starlet sea anemone’ Nematostella vectensis, a powerful cnidarian model organism was used to address the gene expression pattern of Pit1, a conserved gene shared between Cnidaria and Bilateria. In Chapter 1, a method to extract DNA and genotype embryos of Nematostella without sacrificing the animal was established, with possible application to other non-sea anemone cnidarians. Early genotyping is fundamental for addressing phenotypes during development, thus opening the door to study the function of any gene of interest during larval pre-metamorphic stages. In Chapter 2, the expression pattern of Pit1 and detailed cellular morphology of Pit1-positive cells was characterized for the first time in Nematostella. Complex neuronal networks and diverse sensory cells were found. Furthermore, the foundation for future functional studies of Pit1 was laid by establishing stable CRISPR-Cas9 knockout and transgenic reporter lines

Unveiling the Ancestral Function of a Neuroendocrine Regulator, POU-I/Pit1: Insights from Gene Expression Analysis in the Sea Anemone Nematostella vectensis

Cnidaria (i.e., sea anemones, jellyfish, corals) and Bilateria (i.e., vertebrates, sea stars, fruit flies), are sister groups that diverged around 600 million years ago. Despite the long evolutionary time, many cellular differentiation mechanisms, cell types, tissues and behaviors are conserved. Such as neurons, mechanosensory hair cells, feeding behaviors, peristaltic movements, and sleep. Recent advances in genomics, molecular biology and microscopy have fueled an increased interest in understanding cnidarian nervous and neuroendocrine systems. Understanding the developmental mechanisms and the mode of operation of Cnidarian nervous systems helps to reconstruct the ancestral nervous system of the last common ancestor of Cnidaria and Bilateria. Thus, also shedding light in fundamental aspects of Bilaterian nervous systems. Here, the ‘starlet sea anemone’ Nematostella vectensis, a powerful cnidarian model organism was used to address the gene expression pattern of Pit1, a conserved gene shared between Cnidaria and Bilateria. In Chapter 1, a method to extract DNA and genotype embryos of Nematostella without sacrificing the animal was established, with possible application to other non-sea anemone cnidarians. Early genotyping is fundamental for addressing phenotypes during development, thus opening the door to study the function of any gene of interest during larval pre-metamorphic stages. In Chapter 2, the expression pattern of Pit1 and detailed cellular morphology of Pit1-positive cells was characterized for the first time in Nematostella. Complex neuronal networks and diverse sensory cells were found. Furthermore, the foundation for future functional studies of Pit1 was laid by establishing stable CRISPR-Cas9 knockout and transgenic reporter lines

Improving blue economy through industry 4.0: a service science perspective

Desenvolver a Economia Azul pela Indústria 4.0: Uma Perspetiva Service Science O objetivo desta dissertação é a avaliação do impacto das tecnologias digitais “Indústria 4.0” (I4.0), na competitividade da Economia Azul (BE) na União Europeia (EU). Nos Relatórios de 2018 e 2018 sobre Economia Azul a Comissão Europeia apresentou os desafios e o potencial da BE, propondo diretrizes para políticas e, identificou os facilitadores da competitividade nos diferentes sectores da BE no espaço Europeu. Da revisão sistemática da literatura efetuada, verificou-se que a Service Science (S-S), é uma área científica emergente e interdisciplinar que combina a organização dos sistemas, o conhecimento tecnológico com a Sustentabilidade do Planeta, permitindo suportar cientificamente novas abordagens à criação de valor. Ainda da revisão de literatura, foram identificadas diferentes tecnologias digitais, designadas por tecnologias Indústria 4.0. Orientada pelo paradigma pragmatista e utilizando uma metodologia mista de convergência paralela, nesta investigação foi conceptualizado um modelo empírico. Da aplicação deste modelo a onze casos-de-estudo da BE, conclui-se que o impacto na competitividade setorial da BE Europeia poderá ser de 26,5%. Conclui-se ainda, nesta investigação, que as tecnologias I4.0 poderão representar uma oportunidade as empresas da BE, sendo por isso mesmo, recomendável a sua adoção

Uma nova perspetiva cinematográfica. O género de terror no cinema interativo

O presente artigo pretende analisar uma reação específica do utilizador de cinema interativo: o medo e, consequentemente, as potencialidades do género de terror neste suporte, dando a conhecer, numa primeira instância, um breve resumo da sua novíssima história. O Cinema, é como sabemos, uma manifestação artística relativamente recente, bastante relevante e que continua em desenvolvimento numa época iminentemente tecnológica. O cinema interativo tem vindo a desenvolver-se nas últimas décadas com várias propostas diversificadas de forma a aguçar a curiosidade do espectador e fazer com que o público participe na história. Ao contrário do cinema tradicional, este cinema interativo permite que o espectador tenha uma ligação mais direta e individual ou coletiva com o filme, possibilitando-lhe as mais diversas formas de interação com o filme.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Missing signal restoration by means of an entropy criterion

Tese de mestrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Hardware-Backed Confidential Blockchain

Tese de Mestrado, Engenharia Informática, 2022, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de CiênciasIn the last few years, distributed computing has shifted towards execution using adversarial environments, mostly due to the rising costs of owning proprietary data centers. Due to privacy concerns, confidentiality guarantees are now es- sential to distribute computation of sensitive information. As such, this thesis focuses on those demands, delivering Con-BFT, a SMR-BFT protocol with confidentiality guaran- tees, using Intel SGX primitives, which allow for trusted execution. This trusted execution also allows for equivocation prevention, which can be used to improve the underly- ing consensus protocol, creating a more efficient SMR-BFT framework, while also providing a layer of confidentiality over the stored user-driven information. This thesis focuses on a possible solution for developing such a protocol, evaluating its overall level of usability for practical everyday use, and how Intel SGX affects the development of similar systems

Flexible-lean processes optimization: A case study in stone sector

During the downturn in demand in Engineering and Construction Architecture (AEC) activities registered in 2007, the Cluster of Mineral Resources of Portugal (CPMR) put into practice an initiative to boost the Ornamental Stone sector, based on incorporating lean thinking concepts, combined with techniques and technologies to make production processes more flexible. This was called the leanstone hornbook (LH). Since then, the LH has been adopted by several Portuguese Ornamental Stone (OS) companies. For these companies, using the LH means changing their operations to a new model based on (i) their participation in R&D consortium projects, (ii) incorporating the resulting innovations, and (iii) combining innovation with lean thinking. Based on a convenience sample of OS companies, the objective of this research was to assess the economic-financial impact of leanstone operations on Portuguese OS companies. Through a methodological framework based on Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Innovation Outcomes (IO), indexed to companies’ economic-financial performance, LH was found to generate a potentially positive impact in terms of sales volume, exports, investment capacity and net result.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards Industry 4.0 | A case study of BIM Deployment in Ornamental Stones Sector

The transition witnessed from the Third to the Fourth Industrial Age leads to the emergence of paradigms such as BIM, seeking efficiency in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) through a global approach and procurement oriented towards standardized products and I4.0, where production comes to be supported by Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Integrated in the AEC supply chain, the ornamental stone sector shows Portugal to be the eighth country in OS trade worldwide, and the second per capita, with its competitiveness coming from customization BIM represents threats for its business sustainability. Supported by the Service Science, the main objective of this research is to conceptualize an empirical framework, which, when applied to a sample of Ornamental Stone companies, allows a conclusive answer how to keep their competitive advantage of products customization in BIM-standardized procurement environment. By monitoring the entire sequence of events, it was found that the Ornamental Stone companies can retain their main current competitive advantage of customizing their products, which leads us to conclude that Industry 4.0 technologies, appears to respond positively to threat raised from BIM procurement