Mobi_System: A Personal Travel Assistance for Electrical Vehicles in Smart Cities

In this work it is proposed the design of a mobile system to assist car drivers in a smart city environment oriented to the upcoming reality of Electric Vehicles (EV). Taking into account the new reality of smart cites, EV introduction, Smart Grids (SG), Electrical Markets (EM), with deregulation of electricity production and use, drivers will need more information for decision and mobility purposes. A mobile application to recommend useful related information will help drivers to deal with this new reality, giving guidance towards traffic, batteries charging process, and city mobility infrastructures (e. g. public transportation information, parking places availability and car & bike sharing systems). Since this is an upcoming reality with possible process changes, development must be based on agile process approaches (Web services).

Ética e responsabilidade social das empresas cotadas da EURONEXT Lisboa (2008-2012)

Mestrado em Contabilidade

A high throughput colorimetric assay of beta-1,3-D-glucans by Congo red dye

Mushroom strains contain complex nutritional biomolecules with a wide spectrum of therapeutic and prophylactic properties. Among these compounds, β-d-glucans play an important role in immuno-modulating and anti-tumor activities. The present work involves a novel colorimetric assay method for β-1,3-d-glucans with a triple helix tertiary structure by using Congo red. The specific interaction that occurs between Congo red and β-1,3-d-glucan was detected by bathochromic shift from 488 to 516 nm (> 20 nm) in UV–Vis spectrophotometer. A micro- and high throughput method based on a 96-well microtiter plate was devised which presents several advantages over the published methods since it requires only 1.51 μg of polysaccharides in samples, greater sensitivity, speed, assay of many samples and very cheap. β-d-Glucans of several mushrooms (i.e., Coriolus versicolor, Ganoderma lucidum, Pleurotus ostreatus, Ganoderma carnosum, Hericium erinaceus, Lentinula edodes, Inonotus obliquus, Auricularia auricular, Polyporus umbellatus, Cordyseps sinensis, Agaricus blazei, Poria cocos) were isolated by using a sequence of several extractions with cold and boiling water, acidic and alkaline conditions and quantified by this microtiter plate method. FTIR spectroscopy was used to study the structural features of β-1,3-d-glucans in these mushroom samples as well as the specific interaction of these polysaccharides with Congo red. The effect of NaOH on triple helix conformation of β-1,3-d-glucans was investigated in several mushroom species.