Development of a water-in-oil-in-water multiple emulsion system integrating biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanodroplets for protein entity stabilization. Part I: experimental factorial design

Lipid nanoballoons integrating multiple emulsions of the type water-in-oil-in-water enclose, at least in theory, a biomimetic aqueous-core suitable for housing hydrophilic biomolecules such as proteins, peptides and bacteriophage particles. The research effort entertained in this paper reports a full statistical 23x31 factorial design study (three variables at two levels and one variable at three levels) to optimize biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanoballoons for housing hydrophilic protein entities. The concentrations of protein, lipophilic and hydrophilic emulsifiers, and homogenization speed were set as the four independent variables, whereas the mean particle hydrodynamic size (HS), zeta potential (ZP) and polydispersity index (PI) were set as the dependent variables. The V23x31 factorial design constructed led to optimization of the higher (+1) and lower (-1) levels, with triplicate testing for the central (0) level, thus producing thirty three experiments and leading to selection of the optimized processing parameters as 0.015% (w/w) protein entity, 0.75% (w/w) lipophilic emulsifier (soybean lecithin) and 0.50% (w/w) hydrophilic emulsifier (poloxamer 188). In the present research effort, statistical optimization and production of protein derivatives encompassing full stabilization of their three-dimensional structure, has been attempted via housing said molecular entities within biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanoballoons integrating a multiple (W/O/W) emulsion.

Educação literária: a hora do conto no 1º ciclo do ensino básico

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

The greener grass: da autorrepresentação em Alanis Morissette

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Literatura - Especialidade em Teoria da Literatura

Extending the reservoir of bla IMP-5: the emerging pathogen Acinetobacter bereziniae

Acinetobacter bereziniae clinical relevance is starting to be recognized; however, very few descriptions of its carbapenem resistance currently exist. Here we characterize two carbapenem-resistant A. bereziniae isolates. Materials & methods: Isolates were obtained from environmental and clinical samples. Carbapenemases were searched by phenotypic, biochemical and PCR assays. Clonality was studied by ApaI-PFGE and genetic location for carbapenemase genes were assessed by I-CeuI and S1 hybridizations. Results: Isolates were not clonally related but both produced the exclusively Portuguese IMP-5, with the clinical isolate also producing an OXA-58. The carbapenemase genes were plasmid located. Conclusion: Our results emphasize the role of non-baumannii Acinetobacter species as important reservoirs of clinically relevant resistance genes that could also contribute to their emergence as nosocomial pathogens

Reconstructing transcriptional regulatory networks using data integration and text mining

Transcriptional Regulatory Networks (TRNs) are powerful tool for representing several interactions that occur within a cell. Recent studies have provided information to help researchers in the tasks of building and understanding these networks. One of the major sources of information to build TRNs is biomedical literature. However, due to the rapidly increasing number of scientific papers, it is quite difficult to analyse the large amount of papers that have been published about this subject. This fact has heightened the importance of Biomedical Text Mining approaches in this task. Also, owing to the lack of adequate standards, as the number of databases increases, several inconsistencies concerning gene and protein names and identifiers are common. In this work, we developed an integrated approach for the reconstruction of TRNs that retrieve the relevant information from important biological databases and insert it into a unique repository, named KREN. Also, we applied text mining techniques over this integrated repository to build TRNs. However, was necessary to create a dictionary of names and synonyms associated with these entities and also develop an approach that retrieves all the abstracts from the related scientific papers stored on PubMed, in order to create a corpora of data about genes. Furthermore, these tasks were integrated into @Note, a software system that allows to use some methods from the Biomedical Text Mining field, including an algorithms for Named Entity Recognition (NER), extraction of all relevant terms from publication abstracts, extraction relationships between biological entities (genes, proteins and transcription factors). And finally, extended this tool to allow the reconstruction Transcriptional Regulatory Networks through using scientific literature.

Mechanical ventilation for the treatment of severe excessive dynamic airway collapse

[Excerpt] We read with interest the case report by Ismael et al1 describing a patient with Sjo¨gren’s syndrome and cystic lung disease who could not be weaned from a ventilator due to severe central excessive dynamic airway collapse (EDAC) of the lower part of the trachea and proximal bronchi. EDAC corresponds to the expiratory bulging of the tracheobronchial wall without known airway structural abnormalities, leading to a decrease of at least 50% in internal diameter.2 It is a rare and underdiagnosed entity, commonly confused with other respiratory diseases such as asthma and COPD. Although noninvasive procedures such as cervicothoracic computed tomography scan on inspiration and expiration may suggest the disorder, the accepted standard method for diagnosis is bronchoscopy.3-7 (...).

Gestão de fluxos de pessoas num serviço hospitalar

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Industrial (área de especialização em Gestão Industrial)

Método de desagregação temporal para a previsão da taxa de desemprego em Portugal

Dissertação de mestrado em Estatística

Apoio à decisão na análise inteligente de reclamações

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão de Sistemas de Informação

Business intelligence no suporte às autarquias locais e à sua gestão orçamental

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão de Sistemas de Informação

Enquadramento para a compreensão dos impactos do Open Government Data

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão de Sistemas de Informação

Coordenação de segurança em obra: metodologia, técnicas e ferramentas

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Civil

Micro/nano-structured superhydrophobic surfaces in the biomedical field: part I: basic concepts and biomimetic approaches.

Inspired by natural structures, great attention has been devoted to the study and development of surfaces with extreme wettable properties. The meticulous study of natural systems revealed that the micro/nano-topography of the surface is critical to obtaining unique wettability features, including superhydrophobicity. However, the surface chemistry also has an important role in such surface characteristics. As the interaction of biomaterials with the biological milieu occurs at the surface of the materials, it is expected that synthetic substrates with extreme and controllable wettability ranging from superhydrophilic to superhydrophobic regimes could bring about the possibility of new investigations of cellâ material interactions on nonconventional surfaces and the development of alternative devices with biomedical utility. This first part of the review will describe in detail how proteins and cells interact with micro/nano-structured surfaces exhibiting extreme wettabilities.

Indisciplina, violência e delinquência na escola: a perspetiva dos professores

Dissertação de mestrado em Crime, Diferença e Desigualdade

A invalidade na coligação de contratos de crédito e venda para consumo

Dissertação de mestrado em Direito dos Contratos e da Empresa