Os desafios da qualificação profissional pós-secundária não-superior (nível 4) para a inovação empresarial no contexto da União Europeia e dos países da OCDE

A maioria das nações mais desenvolvidas deve, em larga medida, a sua prosperidade à produtividade da sua força de trabalho. Esta produtividade relaciona-se, fundamentalmente, com dois aspectos essenciais. Por um lado, com o nível e adequação das qualificações e competências da população activa, as quais permitem desenvolver o empreendedorismo e criar riqueza e, por outro, com a qualidade e grau de sofisticação dos equipamentos, tecnologias, modelos de organização e sistemas de gestão de que as empresas dispõem. Nesta comunicação, elaborada por convite para apresentação na sessão comemorativa do 20º aniversário da AFTEM, no Porto, após a contextualização das exigências do mercado de trabalho em resultado da inovação empresarial e da emergência das economias baseadas no conhecimento, apresentam-se alguns estudos recentemente concluídos em diversos países e regiões da OCDE, nomeadamente, Austrália, Irlanda, Reino Unido e Escócia – nos quais se foca a necessidade de incrementar o nível de qualificações para responder às necessidades do tecido produtivo por forma a manter a competitividade da indústria e serviços desses países e regiões à escala global; em particular realça-se a importância de se aumentar a percentagem de população activa com nível 4 de qualificação profissional. Aborda-se, ainda, a situação da formação pós secundária não superior em Portugal (nível 4). Conclui-se, formulando algumas recomendações em termos de estratégias e de trabalho futuro com vista a dinamizar as oportunidades de qualificação de nível 4, em estreita articulação com as empresas, como forma de o tecido produtivo nacional dispor de níveis de qualificação de recursos humanos que permitam a mobilidade para novas actividades com maior valor acrescentado e, por esta via, atingir níveis de rentabilidade semelhante à dos restantes estados membros da UE e de outros países da OCDE.

Insuficiência cardíaca: a utilidade da Ecocardiografia

Objetivos Os principais objetivos deste trabalho foram: 1) Rever as características da IC: epidemiologia, conceito, classificação, etiologia, fisiopatologia, diagnóstico e tratamento; 2) Demonstrar a importância da Ecocardiografia na IC: (a) no diagnóstico, (b) no acompanhamento e (c) na seleção da opção terapêutica. Como objetivo secundário: Reunir toda a informação com vista à produção de um manual de apoio às aulas. Metodologia Os estudos que serviram de base a este trabalho foram pesquisados a partir das palavras-chave “echocardiography”, “heart failure”, “diagnosis”, “treatment” utilizando as bases de dados PubMed, Scopus e ISI Web of Science. A pesquisa foi limitada a artigos publicados em português, inglês e espanhol, sem restrição por tipo de artigo ou ano de publicação. Ao longo da realização deste trabalho, foram sendo recolhidas referências de outros artigos citados nos estudos inicialmente selecionados, expandindo assim a bibliografia. Para conhecer a situação particular de Portugal, foram pesquisados estudos realizados com a população portuguesa. Foi dada particular atenção às várias recomendações existentes quer para a “Insuficiência Cardíaca” quer para a “Utilidade da Ecocardiografia”, disponíveis gratuitamente online, pois estas desempenham um papel fundamental quer na prática clínica, quer na investigação (estudos epidemiológicos, estudos obrigacionais e ensaios clínicos).

Modelling and segmentation of the vocal tract during speech production by using deformable models in magnetic resonance images

The first and second authors would like to thank the support of the PhD grants with references SFRH/BD/28817/2006 and SFRH/PROTEC/49517/2009, respectively, from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnol ogia (FCT). This work was partially done in the scope of the project “Methodologies to Analyze Organs from Complex Medical Images – Applications to Fema le Pelvic Cavity”, wi th reference PTDC/EEA- CRO/103320/2008, financially supported by FCT.

Analysis of tongue shape and motion in speech production using statistical modeling

The mechanisms of speech production are complex and have been raising attention from researchers of both medical and computer vision fields. In the speech production mechanism, the articulator’s study is a complex issue, since they have a high level of freedom along this process, namely the tongue, which instigates a problem in its control and observation. In this work it is automatically characterized the tongues shape during the articulation of the oral vowels of Portuguese European by using statistical modeling on MR-images. A point distribution model is built from a set of images collected during artificially sustained articulations of Portuguese European sounds, which can extract the main characteristics of the motion of the tongue. The model built in this work allows under standing more clearly the dynamic speech events involved during sustained articulations. The tongue shape model built can also be useful for speech rehabilitation purposes, specifically to recognize the compensatory movements of the articulators during speech production.

Life cycle analysis of biodiesel production

Biodieselhas attracted considerable attention as a renewable, biodegradable, and nontoxic fuel and can contribute to solving the energy problems, significantly reducing the emission of gases which cause global warming. The first stage of this work was to simulate different alternative processes for producing biodiesel. The method used for the production of biodiesel is the transesterification of vegetable oilswith an alcohol in the presence of a catalyst. The raw materials used were palm oils and waste cooking oil. The second stage was a life cycle analysis for all alternatives under study, followed by an economic analysis for the alternatives that present minor impacts and which are more promising from an economic point of view. Finally,we proceeded to compare the different alternatives fromboth the point of view of life cycle and economic analysis. The feasibility of all processes was proven and the biodiesel obtained had good specifications. From the standpoint of life cycle analysis, the best alternative was the process of alkaline catalysiswith acid pretreatment for waste cooking oil. The economic analysis was done to the previous mentioned process and to the process that uses raw virgin oils, methanol, and sodium hydroxide. This process has lower investment costs but the process of alkaline catalysis with acid pre-treatment, whose main raw material is waste oil, is much more profitable and has less environmental impacts.

Simulation and life cycle assessment of process design alternatives for biodiesel production from waste vegetable oils

This study uses the process simulator ASPEN Plus and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to compare three process design alternatives for biodiesel production from waste vegetable oils that are: the conventional alkali-catalyzed process including a free fatty acids (FFAs) pre-treatment, the acid-catalyzed process, and the supercritical methanol process using propane as co-solvent. Results show that the supercritical methanol process using propane as co-solvent is the most environmentally favorable alternative. Its smaller steam consumption in comparison with the other process design alternatives leads to a lower contribution to the potential environmental impacts (PEI’s). The acid-catalyzed process generally shows the highest PEI’s, in particular due to the high energy requirements associated with methanol recovery operations.

Antitumor activity of hierridin B, a cyanobacterial secondary metabolite found in both filamentous and unicellular marine strains

Cyanobacteria are widely recognized as a valuable source of bioactive metabolites. The majority of such compounds have been isolated from so-called complex cyanobacteria, such as filamentous or colonial forms, which usually display a larger number of biosynthetic gene clusters in their genomes, when compared to free-living unicellular forms. Nevertheless, picocyanobacteria are also known to have potential to produce bioactive natural products. Here, we report the isolation of hierridin B from the marine picocyanobacterium Cyanobium sp. LEGE 06113. This compound had previously been isolated from the filamentous epiphytic cyanobacterium Phormidium ectocarpi SAG 60.90, and had been shown to possess antiplasmodial activity. A phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene from both strains confirmed that these cyanobacteria derive from different evolutionary lineages. We further investigated the biological activity of hierridin B, and tested its cytotoxicity towards a panel of human cancer cell lines; it showed selective cytotoxicity towards HT-29 colon adenocarcinoma cells.

A new MILP based approach for unit commitment in power production planning

This paper presents a complete, quadratic programming formulation of the standard thermal unit commitment problem in power generation planning, together with a novel iterative optimisation algorithm for its solution. The algorithm, based on a mixed-integer formulation of the problem, considers piecewise linear approximations of the quadratic fuel cost function that are dynamically updated in an iterative way, converging to the optimum; this avoids the requirement of resorting to quadratic programming, making the solution process much quicker. From extensive computational tests on a broad set of benchmark instances of this problem, the algorithm was found to be flexible and capable of easily incorporating different problem constraints. Indeed, it is able to tackle ramp constraints, which although very important in practice were rarely considered in previous publications. Most importantly, optimal solutions were obtained for several well-known benchmark instances, including instances of practical relevance, that are not yet known to have been solved to optimality. Computational experiments and their results showed that the method proposed is both simple and extremely effective.

CYCLOTech - an innovative approach for the reliable production of 99mTc - technetium

CYCLOTech is a high-tech Project, related with an innovative method for direct production of a radioactive pharmaceutical, used in excess of 85% of 35 Million Nuclear Medicine procedures done yearly, worldwide, representing globally more than 3 Billion Euros. The CYCLOTech team has developed an innovative proprietary methodology based on the use of Cyclotron Centers, formally identified as the Clients (actually, there are around 450 of this Centers in function worldwide), to directly produce and deliver the radiopharmaceutical to the final users, at the Hospitals and other Health Institutions (estimating at around 25.000, worldwide). The investment still need to finish Research and Technological Development (RTD), Industrial, Regulatory and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues and allow the introduction in the Market is 4,35 M€, with a Payback of 3 years, with an Investment Return Rate (IRR) of 81,7% and a Net Present Value (NPV) of 60.620.525€ (in 2020).

Green production of zero-valent iron nanoparticles using tree leaf extracts

The interest in zero-valent iron nanoparticles has been increasing significantly since the development of a green production method in which extracts from natural products or wastes are used. However, this field of application is yet poorly studied and lacks knowledge that allows the full understanding of the production and application processes. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the viability of the utilization of several tree leaves to produce extracts which are capable of reducing iron(III) in aqueous solution to form nZVIs. The quality of the extracts was evaluated concerning their antioxidant capacity. The results show that: i) dried leaves produce extracts with higher antioxidant capacities than non-dried leaves, ii) the most favorable extraction conditions (temperature, contact time, and volume:mass ratio) were identified for each leaf, iii) with the aim of developing a green, but also low-cost,method waterwas chosen as solvent, iv) the extracts can be classified in three categories according to their antioxidant capacity (expressed as Fe(II) concentration): >40 mmol L−1; 20–40 mmol L−1; and 2–10 mmol L−1; with oak, pomegranate and green tea leaves producing the richest extracts, and v) TEManalysis proves that nZVIs (d=10–20 nm) can be produced using the tree leaf extracts.

Antitumor activity of hierridin B, a cyanobacterial secondary metabolite found in both filamentous and unicellular marine strains

Cyanobacteria are widely recognized as a valuable source of bioactive metabolites. The majority of such compounds have been isolated from so-called complex cyanobacteria, such as filamentous or colonial forms, which usually display a larger number of biosynthetic gene clusters in their genomes, when compared to free-living unicellular forms. Nevertheless, picocyanobacteria are also known to have potential to produce bioactive natural products. Here, we report the isolation of hierridin B from the marine picocyanobacterium Cyanobium sp. LEGE 06113. This compound had previously been isolated from the filamentous epiphytic cyanobacterium Phormidium ectocarpi SAG 60.90, and had been shown to possess antiplasmodial activity. A phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene from both strains confirmed that these cyanobacteria derive from different evolutionary lineages. We further investigated the biological activity of hierridin B, and tested its cytotoxicity towards a panel of human cancer cell lines; it showed selective cytotoxicity towards HT-29 colon adenocarcinoma cells.

Two-production-period in a duopoly with nonprofit and for-profit firms

We investigate endogenous roles in a competition between a nonprofit firm and a for-profit firm in a homogeneous goods market, by allowing two production periods. We find that the Cournot-type equilibrium and one Stackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the follower exist; however, another tackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the leader does not exist.

Using remote lab networks to provide support to public secondary school education level

The advantages of networking are widely known in many areas (from business to personal ones). One particular area where networks have also proved their benefits is education. Taking the secondary school education level into account, some successful cases can be found in literature. In this paper we describe a particular remote lab network supporting physical experiments accessible to students of institutions geographically separated. The network architecture and application examples of using some of the available remote experiments are illustrated in detail.

Recycling of pultrusion production waste into innovative concrete-polymer composite solutions

In this study, the added value resultant from the incorporation of pultrusion production waste into polymer based concretes was assessed. For this purpose, different types of thermoset composite scrap material, proceeding from GFRP pultrusion manufacturing process, were mechanical shredded and milled into a fibrous-powdered material. Resultant GFRP recyclates, with two different size gradings, were added to polyester based mortars as fine aggregate and filler replacements, at various load contents between 4% up to 12% in weight of total mass. Flexural and compressive loading capacities were evaluated and found better than those of unmodified polymer mortars. Obtained results highlight the high potential of recycled GFRP pultrusion waste materials as efficient and sustainable admixtures for concrete and mortar-polymer composites, constituting an emergent waste management solution.

Utilization of food industry wastes for the production of zero-valent iron nanoparticles

The proper disposal of the several types of wastes produced in industrial activities increases production costs. As a consequence, it is common to develop strategies to reuse these wastes in the same process and in different processes or to transform them for use in other processes. This work combines the needs for new synthesis methods of nanomaterials and the reduction of production cost using wastes from citrine juice (orange, lime, lemon and mandarin) to produce a new added value product, green zero-valent iron nanoparticles that can be used in several applications, including environmental remediation. The results indicate that extracts of the tested fruit wastes (peel, albedo and pulp fractions) can be used to produce zero-valent iron nanoparticles (nZVIs). This shows that these wastes can be an added value product. The resulting nZVIs had sizes ranging from 3 up to 300 nm and distinct reactivities (pulp > peel > albedo extracts). All the studied nanoparticles did not present a significant agglomeration/settling tendency when compared to similar nanoparticles, which indicates that they remain in suspension and retain their reactivity.