JavaCO – uma variante do Java com um sistema de tipos baseado em covariância

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Petri nets based components within globally asynchronous locally synchronous systems

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e Computadores

Hemolymphatic components in vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi: study in several species of the subfamily Triatominae (Hemiptera: Reduviidae)

The members of the subfamily Triatominae (Hemiptera : Reduviidae) comprise a great number of species of medical importance in the transmission of the T. cruzi (American trypanosomiasis). The aim of this study was to contribute to the knowledge about the chemical composition in proteins, lipids, lipoproteins, and carbohydrates of vectors of Chagas' disease corresponding to twelve members of the subfamily Triatominae. This study was carried out in ninphs of the fifth instar and adult males of the species: T. delpontei, T. dimidiata, T. guasayana, T. infestans, T. mazzotti, T. pallidipennis, T. patagonica, T. platensis, T. rubrovaria, T. sordida of the Triatoma genus, and D. maximus and P. megistus of the Dipatalogaster and Panstrongylus genera respectively. The results show on one hand, qualitative differences in the protein composition, and on the other hand, similarity in the lipoprotein profiles. Lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates did not show significant differences between species or/and stages.

The development of the N1 and N2 components in auditory oddball paradigms: a systematic review with narrative analysis and suggested normative values

Auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) are widely used in diverse fields of today’s neuroscience, concerning auditory processing, speech perception, language acquisition, neurodevelopment, attention and cognition in normal aging, gender, developmental, neurologic and psychiatric disorders. However, its transposition to clinical practice has remained minimal. Mainly due to scarce literature on normative data across age, wide spectrumof results, variety of auditory stimuli used and to different neuropsychological meanings of AERPs components between authors. One of the most prominent AERP components studied in last decades was N1, which reflects auditory detection and discrimination. Subsequently, N2 indicates attention allocation and phonological analysis. The simultaneous analysis of N1 and N2 elicited by feasible novelty experimental paradigms, such as auditory oddball, seems an objective method to assess central auditory processing. The aim of this systematic review was to bring forward normative values for auditory oddball N1 and N2 components across age. EBSCO, PubMed, Web of Knowledge and Google Scholarwere systematically searched for studies that elicited N1 and/or N2 by auditory oddball paradigm. A total of 2,764 papers were initially identified in the database, of which 19 resulted from hand search and additional references, between 1988 and 2013, last 25 years. A final total of 68 studiesmet the eligibility criteria with a total of 2,406 participants from control groups for N1 (age range 6.6–85 years; mean 34.42) and 1,507 for N2 (age range 9–85 years; mean 36.13). Polynomial regression analysis revealed thatN1latency decreases with aging at Fz and Cz,N1 amplitude at Cz decreases from childhood to adolescence and stabilizes after 30–40 years and at Fz the decrement finishes by 60 years and highly increases after this age. Regarding N2, latency did not covary with age but amplitude showed a significant decrement for both Cz and Fz. Results suggested reliable normative values for Cz and Fz electrode locations; however, changes in brain development and components topography over age should be considered in clinical practice.

Linguagem de especificação leve Hoare-separação para java

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Petri net model decomposition - a model based approach supporting distributed execution

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica, Especialidade de Sistemas Digitais, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

The diagnostic importance of species specific and cross-reactive components of Taenia solium, Echinococcus granulosus, and Hymenolepis nana

Sera from patients infected with Taenia solium, Hymenolepis nana and Echinococcus granulosus were tested against homologous and heterologous parasite antigens using an ELISA assay, and a high degree of cross-reactivity was verified. To identify polypeptides responsible for this cross reactivity, the Enzyme Linked Immunoelectro Transfer Blot (EITB) was used. Sera from infected patients with T.solium, H.nana, and E.granulosus were assessed against crude, ammonium sulphate precipitated (TSASP), and lentil-lectin purified antigens of T.solium and crude antigens of.H.nana and E.granulosus. Several bands, recognized by sera from patients with T.solium, H.nana, and E.granulosus infections, were common to either two or all three cestodes. Unique reactive bands in H.nana were noted at 49 and 66 K-Da and in E.granulosus at 17-21 K-Da and at 27-32 K-Da. In the crude cysticercosis extract, a specific non glycoprotein band was present at 61-67 K-Da in addiction to specific glycoprotein bands of 50, 42, 24, 21, 18, 14, and 13 K-Da. None of the sera from patients with H.nana or E.granulosus infection cross reacted with these seven glycoprotein bands considered specific for T.solium infection.

RepComp - replicated software components for improved performance

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Effect of active components from Garlic on AGEs formation

Advanced glycation end-products are Maillard reaction products that are found in thermal processed food. This compounds are often referred as unhealthy for human diet, namely because of their capacity to form amino-acid dimers. There is a broad range of answers to get about how these products are formed, how they interact with the organism and how these reactions can be inhibited to prevent the referred effects. Some compounds from garlic are thought to be able to inhibit these reactions. This study using spectrophotometric, High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis, helps to understand better not only not only the effect of some compounds obtained from garlic, diallyl sulfide (DAS), diallyl disulfide (DADS) and diallyl trisulfide (DATS), on these AGEs production reaction, but also helped to understand better the reaction itself.

Molecular characterization of Dengue viruses type 1 and 2 isolated from a concurrent human infection

In 2001, an autochthonous case of dual viremia, resulting from naturally acquired dengue virus DEN-1 and DEN-2 infections was detected during the dengue outbreak that occurred in Barretos, a city with about 105,000 inhabitants in the North region of São Paulo State. Serotype identification was based on virus isolation to C6/36 mosquito cells culture and immunofluorescence assays using type-specific monoclonal antibodies. The double infection was also confirmed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Comparative analysis of the 240-nucleotide sequences of E/NS1 gene junction region between the genome of DEN-1 and DEN-2 isolates of the corresponding reference Nauru and PR 159S1 strains, respectively, showed some nucleotide differences, mainly silent mutations in the third codon position. Results of maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis of E/NS1 gene sequences indicated that both genotypes of DEN-1 and DEN-2 viruses recovered from double infection in Barretos belonged to genotypes I and III, respectively.

The effect of method, standard and sample components on the total antioxidant capacity of commercial waters assessed by optical conventional assays

The total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of 28 flavoured water samples was assessed by ferric reducing antioxidant potential (FRAP), oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) and total reactive antioxidant potential (TRAP) methods. It was observed that flavoured waters had higher antioxidant activity than the corresponding natural ones. The observed differences were attributed to flavours, juice and vitamins. Generally, higher TAC contents were obtained on lemon waters and lower values on guava and raspberry flavoured waters. Lower and higher TACs were obtained by TRAP and ORAC method, respectively. Statistical analysis suggested that vitamins and flavours increased the antioxidant content of the commercial waters.

JAVA Applets, um comboio em início de marcha

Java! Uma palavra nova e misteriosa que consegue conjugar imagens, movimento, internet, programação, café quente e o nome de uma das 10,000 ilhas dos nossos amigos da Indonésia. No entanto, é sobre os quatro primeiros conceitos que se trata este projecto de “JAVA Applets, um comboio em início de marcha”. Se o HTML vem ligar imagens à internet, o JAVA tenta dar uma certa interactividade utilizando programação mas, tentando também, que os utilizadores finais a possam utilizar sem grande esforço.

Constraint-based verification of imperative programs

work presented in the context of the European Master’s program in Computational Logic, as the partial requirement for obtaining Master of Science degree in Computational Logic

In vitro PHYTOTHERAPY OF VECTOR SNAILS BY BINARY COMBINATIONS OF LARVICIDAL ACTIVE COMPONENTS IN EFFECTIVE CONTROL OF FASCIOLIASIS

SUMMARY A food-borne trematode infection fascioliasis is one among common public health problems worldwide. It caused a great economic loss for the human race. Control of snail population below a certain threshold level is one of the important methods in the campaign to reduce the incidence of fascioliasis. The life cycle of the parasite can be interrupted by killing the snail or Fasciola larva redia and cercaria inside of the snail Lymnaea acuminata. In vitro toxicity of different binary combinations (1:1 ratio) of plant-derived larvicidal active components such as citral, ferulic acid, umbelliferone, azadirachtin and allicin against Fasciola redia and cercaria were tested. The mortality of larvae was observed at 2h, 4h, 6h and 8h of treatment. In in vitro condition azadirachtin + allicin (1:1 ratio) was highly toxic against redia and cercaria (8h LC50 0.006 and 0.005 mg/L). Toxicity of citral + ferulic acid was lowest against redia and cercaria larvae.