Orchestration of heterogeneous middleware services and its application to a comand and control platform

MSC Dissertation in Computer Engineering

Fractional calculus: application in modelling and control

This contribution introduces the fractional calculus (FC) fundamental mathematical aspects and discuses some of their consequences. Based on the FC concepts, the chapter reviews the main approaches for implementing fractional operators and discusses the adoption of FC in control systems. Finally are presented some applications in the areas of modeling and control, namely fractional PID, heat diffusion systems, electromagnetism, fractional electrical impedances, evolutionary algorithms, robotics, and nonlinear system control.

Production, purification and characterisation of polysaccharides from pleurotus ostreatus with antitumor activity

Background: Mushroom polysaccharides play an important role in functional foods because they exhibit biological modulator properties such as antitumour, antiviral and antibacterial activities. The present study involved the production, purification and characterisation of intracellular and extracellular free and protein-bound polysaccharides from Pleurotus ostreatus and the investigation of their growth-inhibitory effect on human carcinoma cell lines. Results: Several fermentation parameters were obtained: batch polysaccharide productivities of 0.013 +/- 8.12 x 10-5 and 0.037 +/- 0.0005 g L-1 day-1 for intracellular and extracellular polysaccharides respectively, a maximum biomass concentration of 9.35 +/- 0.18 g L-1, Pmax = 0.935 +/- 0.018 g L-1 day-1, µmax = 0.218 +/- 0.02 day-1, YEP/X = 0.040 +/- 0.0015 g g-1 and YIP/X = 0.014 +/- 0.0003 g g-1. Some polysaccharides exhibited superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activity of 50-200 units. Fourier transform infrared analysis of the polysaccharides revealed absorption bands characteristic of such biological macromolecules. Cytotoxicity assays showed that both intracellular and extracellular polysaccharides exhibited antitumour activity towards several tested human carcinoma cell lines in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion - The polysaccharides of P. ostreatus exhibited high SOD-like activity, which strongly supports their biological effect on tumour cell lines. The extracellular polysaccharides presented the highest antitumour activity towards the RL95 carcinoma cell line and should be further investigated as an antitumour agent.

Production, purification and characterization of laccase from pleurottus ostreatus grown on tomato pomace

A strain of Pleurotus ostreatus was grown in tomato pomace as sole carbon source for production of laccase. The culture of P. ostreatus revealed a peak of laccase activity (147 U/L of fermentation broth) on the 4th day of culture with a specific activity of 2.8 U/mg protein. Differential chromatographic behaviour of laccase was investigated on affinity chromatographic matrices containing either urea, acetamide, ethanolamine or IDA as affinity ligands. Laccase exhibited retention on such affinity matrices and it was purified on a Sepharose 6B-BDGE-urea column with final enzyme recoveries of about 60%, specific activity of 6.0 and 18.0 U/mg protein and purification factors in the range of 14-46. It was also possible to demonstrate that metal-free laccase did not adsorb to Sepharose 6B-BDGE-urea column which suggests that adsorption of native laccase on this affinity matrix was apparently due to the specific interaction of carbonyl groups available on the matrix with the active site Cu (II) ions of laccase. The kinetic parameters (V (max), K (m) , K (cat), and K (cat)/K (m) ) of the purified enzyme for several substrates were determined as well as laccase stability and optimum pH and temperature of enzyme activity. This is the first report describing the production of laccase from P. ostreatus grown on tomato pomace and purification of this enzyme based on affinity matrix containing urea as affinity ligand.

Application of a control banding tool for risk level assessment and control of nanoparticles exposure in welding operations

Scope of study: welding operations result in harmful emissions of nanoparticles; the aim of emissions monitorisation is to evaluate exposure levels and to derive protection measures in order to protect exposed workers; however, the traditional approach of comparing measured concentrations with exposure limits cannot be used; but risk levels can be quantified by using Control Banding Strategies.

Strategic Planning and Organizational Effectiveness in Social Service Organizations in Portugal

This study aims to understand the reality of social service organizations, the level of implementation of the strategic planning as well as the impact of its application on organizational effectiveness. At first, we will group organizations in clusters according to the level of strategic planning implementation and its degree of effectiveness. Secondly, we will analyse all the different groups. Given the growing number of social service organizations and the consequent complexity of their structures, it turns out the need for these organizations adopt formal management techniques. Strategic planning is a valuable strategic management tool and one of its main objectives is to make organizations more effective. Therefore, the research has been conducted in order to determine if strategic planning is implemented in social service organizations and which effects has its application on organizational effectiveness. The survey, applied to 220 social service organizations, allowed us to gather them into different clusters, showing that different levels of strategic planning determine distinct degrees of organizational efficiency. Finally, it should be noted that findings of this research may be essential to decision makers of these organizations, because it was shown that the adoption of strategic planning has a positive influence on organizational effectiveness of social service organizations.

Inter-sectoral health policy in Portugal : competition, cooperation and control

Comunicação apresentada na «19th International Conference on Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services», Turku, Finlândia de 1 a 3 de Junho de 2011.

O lean construction e a gestão de projeto na abertura e remodelação de lojas Sonae MC

Trabalho de Projeto

Transparent oxide thin-film transistors: production, characterization and integration

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Nanotechnologies and Nanosciences by Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

Detection of mycoplasmas in urethral swabs from HIV-1 infected patients and control individuals using culture techniques and polymerase chain reaction

The objective of the present study was to determine the prevalence of certain mycoplasma species, i.e., Mycoplasma hominis, Ureaplasma urealyticum and Mycoplasma penetrans, in urethral swabs from HIV-1 infected patients compared to swabs from a control group. Mycoplasmas were detected by routine culture techniques and by the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technique, using 16SrRNA generic primers of conserved region and Mycoplasma penetrans specific primers. The positivity rates obtained with the two methods were comparable. Nevertheless, PCR was more sensitive, while the culture techniques allowed the quantification of the isolates. The results showed no significant difference (p < 0.05) in positivity rates between the methods used for mycoplasma detection.

Fractional Calculus: Application in modeling and control

This contribution introduces the fractional calculus (FC) fundamental mathematical aspects and discuses some of their consequences. Based on the FC concepts, the chapter reviews the main approaches for implementing fractional operators and discusses the adoption of FC in control systems. Finally are presented some applications in the areas of modeling and control, namely fractional PID, heat diffusion systems, electromagnetism, fractional electrical impedances, evolutionary algorithms, robotics, and nonlinear system control.

Modeling and Control of a Dragonfly-Like Robot

Dragonflies demonstrate unique and superior flight performances than most of the other insect species and birds. They are equipped with two pairs of independently controlled wings granting an unmatchable flying performance and robustness. In this paper it is studied the dynamics of a dragonfly-inspired robot. The system performance is analyzed in terms of time response and robustness. The development of computational simulation based on the dynamics of the robotic dragonfly allows the test of different control algorithms. We study different movement, the dynamics and the level of dexterity in wing motion of the dragonfly. The results are positive for the construction of flying platforms that effectively mimic the kinematics and dynamics of dragonflies and potentially exhibit superior flight performance than existing flying platforms.