Shaking table tests of a two-storey log house

This paper presents the findings of an experimental campaign that was conducted to investigate the seismic behaviour of log houses. A two-storey log house designed by the Portuguese company Rusticasa® was subjected to a series of shaking table tests at LNEC, Lisbon, Portugal. The paper contains the description of the geometry and construction of the house and all the aspects related to the testing procedure, namely the pre-design, the setup, instrumentation and the testing process itself. The shaking table tests were carried out with a scaled spectrum of the Montenegro (1979) earthquake, at increasing levels of PGA, starting from 0.07g, moving on to 0.28g and finally 0.5g. The log house did not suffer any major damage and remained in working condition throughout the entire process. The preliminary analysis of the overall behaviour of the log house is also discussed.

Analysis of the seismic performance of a two storey log house

The dearth of knowledge on the load resistance mechanisms of log houses and the need for developing numerical models that are capable of simulating the actual behaviour of these structures has pushed efforts to research the relatively unexplored aspects of log house construction. The aim of the research that is presented in this paper is to build a working model of a log house that will contribute toward understanding the behaviour of these structures under seismic loading. The paper presents the results of a series of shaking table tests conducted on a log house and goes on to develop a numerical model of the tested house. The finite element model has been created in SAP2000 and validated against the experimental results. The modelling assumptions and the difficulties involved in the process have been described and, finally, a discussion on the effects of the variation of different physical and material parameters on the results yielded by the model has been drawn up.

Child abuse monitor system model: a health care critical knowledge monitor system

The Childhood protection is a subject with high value for the society, but, the Child Abuse cases are difficult to identify. The process from suspicious to accusation is very difficult to achieve. It must configure very strong evidences. Typically, Health Care services deal with these cases from the beginning where there are evidences based on the diagnosis, but they aren’t enough to promote the accusation. Besides that, this subject it’s highly sensitive because there are legal aspects to deal with such as: the patient privacy, paternity issues, medical confidentiality, among others. We propose a Child Abuses critical knowledge monitor system model that addresses this problem. This decision support system is implemented with a multiple scientific domains: to capture of tokens from clinical documents from multiple sources; a topic model approach to identify the topics of the documents; knowledge management through the use of ontologies to support the critical knowledge sensibility concepts and relations such as: symptoms, behaviors, among other evidences in order to match with the topics inferred from the clinical documents and then alert and log when clinical evidences are present. Based on these alerts clinical personnel could analyze the situation and take the appropriate procedures.

Desenvolvimento de sistema de alarmes para incontinentes

Dissertação de mestrado em redes e serviços telemáticos

Mapping numbers onto space in preschool children and adults

Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia - Especialidade em Psicologia Experimental e Ciências Cognitivas

Postharvest shelf life extension of blueberries using a chitosan-based edible coating containing aloe vera juice

Poster

Implementação de ferramentas Lean numa empresa de componentes para calçado

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Industrial

Relatório sobre “Surgical cases packages”

Problema apresentado pelo Hospital de Braga no 109th European Study Group with Industry 10 a 15 de maio de 2015. Departamento de Produção e Sistemas Escola de Engenharia da Universidade do Minho Guimarães Portugal 24 de julho de 2015

Strategies to combat infections of Acinetobacter baumannii biofilms

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Biomédica (área de especialização em Engenharia Clínica)

Effect of chitosan-Aloe vera coating on postharvest quality of blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) fruit

The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of chitosan-based edible coatings with Aloe vera extract on the postharvest blueberry fruit quality during storage at 5 °C. Firstly, A. vera fractions (pulp and liquid) were extracted from leaves and evaluated in terms of antifungal and antioxidant capacities. The choice of the most adequate chitosan and A. vera fraction concentrations to be incorporated in coating formulation was made based on the wettability of the corresponding coating solutions. Coatings with 0.5% (w/v) chitosan + 0.5% (w/v) glycerol + 0.1% (w/v) Tween 80 + 0.5% (v/v) A. vera liquid fraction presented the best characteristics to uniformly coat blueberry surface. Physico-chemical (i.e., titratable acidity, pH, weight loss) and microbiological analyses of coated blueberries (non-inoculated or artificially inoculated with Botrytis cinerea) were performed during 25 d. Microbiological growth and water loss levels were approximately reduced by 50% and 42%, respectively, in coated blueberries after 25 d compared to uncoated blueberries. After 15 d, weight loss values were 6.2% and 3.7% for uncoated and chitosanA. vera coated blueberries, respectively. Uncoated fruits presented mold contamination after 2 d of storage (2.0 ± 0.32 log CFU g1), whilst fruits with chitosan-based coatings with A. vera presented mold contamination only after 9 d of storage (1.3 ± 0.35 log CFU g1). Overall, coatings developed in this study extend blueberries shelf-life for about 5 d, demonstrating for the first time that the combination of chitosan and A. vera liquid fraction as edible coating materials has great potential in expanding the shelf-life of fruits.

Incorporation of antimicrobial peptides on functionalized cotton gauzes for medical applications

A large group of low molecular weight natural compounds that exhibit antimicrobial activity has been isolated from animals and plants during the past two decades. Among them, peptides are the most widespread resulting in a new generation of antimicrobial agents with higher specific activity. In the present study we have developed a new strategy to obtain antimicrobial wound-dressings based on the incorporation of antimicrobial peptides into polyelectrolyte multilayer films built by the alternate deposition of polycation (chitosan) and polyanion (alginic acid sodium salt) over cotton gauzes. Energy dispersive X ray microanalysis technique was used to determine if antimicrobial peptides penetrated within the films. FTIR analysis was performed to assess the chemical linkages, and antimicrobial assays were performed with two strains: Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive bacterium) and Klebsiella pneumonia (Gram-negative bacterium). Results showed that all antimicrobial peptides used in this work have provided a higher antimicrobial effect (in the range of 4 log–6 log reduction) for both microorganisms, in comparison with the controls, and are non-cytotoxic to normal human dermal fibroblasts at the concentrations tested.

Structural and enzymatic characterization of ABgp46, a novel phage endolysin with broad anti-Gram-negative bacterial activity

The present study demonstrates the antibacterial potential of a phage endolysin against Gram-negative pathogens, particularly against multidrug resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii. We have cloned, heterologously expressed and characterized a novel endolysin (ABgp46) from Acinetobacter phage vb_AbaP_CEB1 and tested its antibacterial activity against several multidrug-resistant A. baumannii strains. LC-MS revealed that ABgp46 is an N-acetylmuramidase, that is also active over a broad pH range (4.0-10.0) and temperatures up to 50°C. Interestingly, ABgp46 has intrinsic and specific anti-A. baumannii activity, reducing multidrug resistant strains by up to 2 logs within 2 hours. By combining ABgp46 with several organic acids that act as outer membrane permeabilizing agents, it is possible to increase and broaden antibacterial activity to include other Gram-negative bacterial pathogens. In the presence of citric and malic acid, ABgp46 reduces A. baumannii below the detection limit (> 5 log) and more than 4 logs P. aeruginosa and Salmonella Typhimurium strains. Overall, this globular endolysin exhibits a broad and high activity against Gram-negative pathogens, that can be enhanced in presence of citric and malic acid, and be used in human and veterinary medicine.

Antibacterial properties of multifunctional coatings Ag-ZrCN for biomedical devices: a novel approach

PhD in Sciences Specialty in Physics