SQI – A quality assessment index for rock slopes

In this work, an empirical system was developed to obtain a quality index for rock slopes in road infrastructures, named Slope Quality Index (SQI), and it was applied to a set of real slopes. The SQI is supported in nine factors affecting slope stability that contemplate the evaluation of different parameters. Consequently, each factor is classified by degree of importance and influence by assigned weights. These weights were established through a statistical analysis of replies to a survey that was distributed to several experienced professionals in the field. The proposed SQI varies between 1 and 5, corresponding to slopes in very good and very bad condition state, respectively. Besides the advantage linked to a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of slopes, the SQI also allows identifying the most critical factors on the slope stability, which is a fundamental issue for an efficient management of the slope network in the road infrastructure, namely in the planning of conservation and maintenance operations.

Total laparoscopic hysterectomy: impact of body mass index on outcomes

Total laparoscopic hysterectomy: impact of body mass index on outcomes

Programa com abordagem probabilística do sistema de avaliação de qualidade de taludes Slope Quality Index (SQI)

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Civil

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.