Picocyanobacteria From a Clade Of Marine Cyanobium Revealed Bioactive Potential Against Microalgae, Bacteria, And Marine

The production of bioactive compounds either toxic or with pharmacological applications by cyanobacteria is well established. However, picoplanktonic forms within this group of organisms have rarely been studied in this context. In this study, the toxicological potential of picocyanobacteria from a clade of marine Cyanobium strains isolated from the Portuguese coast was examined using different biological models. First, strains were identified by applying morphological and molecular approaches and cultured under lab conditions. A crude extract and three fractions reflecting a preliminary segregation of lipophilic metabolites were tested for toxicity with the marine microalga Nannochloropsis sp., the bacteria Pseudomonas sp., the brine shrimp Artemia salina, and fertilized eggs of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus. No significant apparent adverse effects were noted against Artemia salina. However, significant adverse effects were found in all other assays, with an inhibition of Nannochloropsis sp. and Pseudomonas sp. growth and marked reduction in Paracentrotus lividus larvae length. The results obtained indicated that Cyanobium genus may serve as a potential source of interesting bioactive compounds and emphasize the importance of also studying smaller picoplanktonic fractions of marine cyanobacteria.

Toxicity assessment of crude and partially purified extracts of marine Synechocystis and Synechococcus cyanobacterial strains in marine invertebrates

Among the Cyanoprokaryota, the genera Synechocystis and Synechococcus have rarely been studied with respect to potential toxicity. This is particularly true with marine environments where studies about the toxicity of cyanobacteria are restricted to filamentous forms at the warmer temperate and tropical regions and also to filamentous forms at cold seas such as the Baltic Sea. In this study, we describe the effects of cyanobacterial strains of the Synechocystis and Synechococcus genera isolated from the marine coast of Portugal, on marine invertebrates. Crude and partially purified extracts at a concentration of 100 mg/ml of freeze-dried material of the marine strains were tested for acute toxicity in nauplii of the brine shrimp Artemia salina, in the rotifer Brachionus plicatillis and in embryos of the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus and the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. The cyanobacterial extracts, especially the crude extract, had an impact on A. salina nauplii. No significant toxic effects were registered against the rotifer. A negative impact of all strains was recorded on the embryonic development of the sea urchin, with toxic effects resulting in an inhibition of embryogenesis or development of smaller larvae. To the mussel embryos, the effects of cyanobacterial extracts resulted in a complete inhibition of embryogenesis. The results of all assays indicate that Synechocystis and Synechococcus marine strains contained toxic compounds to marine invertebrates.

Safety climate and its relationship with furniture companies’ safety performance and workers’ risk acceptance

This study aims to analyse the relationship between safety climate and the level of risk acceptance, as well as its relationship with workplace safety performance. The sample includes 14 companies and 403 workers. The safety climate assessment was performed by the application of a Safety Climate in Wood Industries questionnaire and safety performance was assessed with a checklist. Judgements about risk acceptance were measured through questionnaires together with four other variables: trust, risk perception, benefit perception and emotion. Safety climate was found to be correlated with workgroup safety performance, and it also plays an important role in workers’ risk acceptance levels. Risk acceptance tends to be lower when safety climate scores of workgroups are high, and subsequently, their safety performance is better. These findings seem to be relevant, as they provide Occupational, Safety and Health practitioners with a better understanding of workers’ risk acceptance levels and of the differences among workgroups.

Safety and immunogenicity of hepatitis B vaccine ButaNG in adults

Recombinant yeast-derived hepatitis B vaccine manufactured by Instituto Butantan was administered in two groups of adult volunteers (I, II) following two different schedules of immunization. In the first trial (10 mg doses and 0, 1, 3 months vaccination schedule) 106 individuals completed the full immunization program. The results of seroconversion by age group varied from 70 to 100% and the GMT from 46.5 to 124.9 mIU mL-1. In the second trial with 68 individuals (for dosage comparison and 0, 1, 6 months vaccination schedule) indicated that the vaccine formulated in 20 mg was more effective than in 10 mg. The adverse reactions observed in the vaccinees were less frequent than the ones previously found since the introduction of similar vaccines.

The patient safety journey in Portugal : challenges and opportunities from a public health perspective

ABSTRACT - Despite improvements in healthcare interventions, the incidence of adverse events and other patient safety problems constitutes a major contributor to the global burden of diseases and a concern for Public Health. In the last years there have been some successful individual and institutional efforts to approach patient safety issues in Portugal, unless such effort has been fragmented or focused on specific small areas. Long-term and global improvement has remained elusive, and most of all the improvement of patient safety in Portugal, must evaluate not only the efficacy of a change but also what was effective for implementing the change. Clearly, patient safety issues result from various combinations of individual, team, organization, system and patient factors. A systemic and integrated approach to promote patient safety must acknowledge and strive to understand the complexity of work systems and processes in health care, including the interactions between people, technology, and the environment. Safety errors cannot be productively attributed to a single human error. Our objective with this paper is to provide a brief overview of the status quo in patient safety in Portugal, highlighting key aspects that should be taken into account in the design of a strategy for improving patient safety. With these key aspects in mind, policy makers and implementers can move forward and make better decisions about which changes should be made and about the way the needed changes to improve patient safety should be implemented. The contribution of colleagues that are international leaders on healthcare quality and patient safety may also contribute to more innovative research methods needed to create the knowledge that promotes less costly successful changes.---- ---------------------- RESUMO – As questões relacionadas com a Segurança do Doente, e em particular, com a ocorrência de eventos adversos tem constituído, de há uns tempos a esta parte, uma crescente preocupação para as organizações de saúde, para os decisores políticos, para os profissionais de saúde e para os doentes/utentes e suas famílias, sendo por isso considerado um problema de Saúde Pública a que urge dar resposta. Em Portugal, nos últimos anos, têm sido desenvolvidos esforços baseados, maioritariamente, em iniciativas isoladas, para abordar os aspectos da Segurança do Doente. O facto de essas iniciativas não serem integradas numa estratégia explícita e de dimensão regional ou nacional, faz com que os resultados sejam parcelares e tenham visibilidade reduzida. Paralelamente, a melhoria da qualidade dos cuidados de saúde (a longo prazo) resultante dessas iniciativas tem sido esparsa e nem sempre a avaliação tem sido feita tendo em conta critérios de efectividade e de eficiência. A Segurança do Doente resulta da interacção de diversos factores relacionados, por um lado, com o doente e, por outro, com a prestação de cuidados que envolvem elementos de natureza individual (falhas activas) e organizacional/estrutural (falhas latentes). Devido à multifactorialidade que está na base de «problemas/falhas» na Segurança do Doente, qualquer abordagem a considerar deve ser sistémica e integrada. Simultaneamente, tais abordagens devem contemplar a compreensão da complexidade dos sistemas e dos processos de prestação de cuidados de saúde e as suas interdependências (envolvendo aspectos individuais, tecnológicos e ambientais). O presente trabalho tem por objectivo reflectir sobre o «estado da arte» da Segurança do Doente em Portugal, destacando os elementos-chave que se consideram decisivos para uma estratégia de acção nesse domínio. Com esses elementos os responsáveis pela governação da saúde poderão valorizar os aspectos que consideram decisivos para uma política de Segurança do Doente mais eficaz. A contribuição de quatro colegas internacionalmente reconhecidos como líderes na área da Qualidade em Saúde e da Segurança do Doente, constitui, por certo, uma oportunidade ímpar para a identificação e discussão de alguns dos principais desafios, ameaças e oportunidades que s

Marine Operations with the SWORDFISH Autonomous Surface Vehicle

IEEE Robótica 2007 - 7th Conference on Mobile Robots and Competitions, Paderne, Portugal 2007

Field experiments for marine casualty detection with autonomous surface vehicles

In this paper we present a set of field tests for detection of human in the water with an unmanned surface vehicle using infrared and color cameras. These experiments aimed to contribute in the development of victim target tracking and obstacle avoidance for unmanned surface vehicles operating in marine search and rescue missions. This research is integrated in the work conducted in the European FP7 research project Icarus aiming to develop robotic tools for large scale rescue operations. The tests consisted in the use of the ROAZ unmanned surface vehicle equipped with a precision GPS system for localization and both visible spectrum and IR cameras to detect the target. In the experimental setup, the test human target was deployed in the water wearing a life vest and a diver suit (thus having lower temperature signature in the body except hands and head) and was equipped with a GPS logger. Multiple target approaches were performed in order to test the system with different sun incidence relative angles. The experimental setup, detection method and preliminary results from the field trials performed in the summer of 2013 in Sesimbra, Portugal and in La Spezia, Italy are also presented in this work.

Thermographic and visible spectrum camera calibration for marine robotic target detection

Oceans - San Diego, 2013

Toward a Run-Time Verification Framework for Real-Time Safety-Critical Systems

Presented at SEMINAR "ACTION TEMPS RÉEL:INFRASTRUCTURES ET SERVICES SYSTÉMES". 10, Apr, 2015. Brussels, Belgium.

A New Electronic Approach for the Surgical Safety Checklist

To improve surgical safety, and to reduce the mortality and surgical complications incidence, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Surgical Safety Checklist (SSC). The SSC is a support of information that aids health professionals to reduce the number of complications, induction of anaesthesia, period before skin incision and period before leaving the operating room (OR). The SSC was tested in several countries of the world and their results shown that after introduction of the SSC the incidence of patient complication lowered from 11.0% to 7.0% (P<0.001), the rate of death declined from 1.5% to 0.8% (P = 0.003) and the nurses recognized that patients identity was more often con rmed (81.6% to 94.2%, P<0.01) in many institutions. Recently the SSC was also implemented in Portuguese hospitals, which led us to its study in the real clinical environment. An observational study was performed: several health professionals were observed and interviewed, to understand the functioning of the SSC in an OR, during the clinical routine. The objective of this study was to understand the current use of the SSC, and how it may be improved in terms of usability, taking advantage of the technological advancements such as mobile applications. During two days were observed 14 surgeries, only 2 surgeries met the requirements for the three phases of the SSC, as de ned by the WHO. Of the remaining 12 observed surgeries, 9 surgeries completed the last phase at the correct time. It was also observed that only in 2 surgeries all the phases of the SSC were read aloud to the team and that, in 7 surgeries, several items were read aloud and answered but no one was checking the SSC, only after the end of the phase. The observational study results disclose that several health professionals do not meet with rules of the WHO manual. This study demonstrates that it is urgent to change the mindset of health professionals, and that di erent features in the SSC may be useful to make it more easy to use. With the results of the observational study, a SSC application proposal was developed with new functionalities to improve and aid the health professional in its use. In this application the user can chose between a SSC already created to a speci c surgery or to create a new SSC, adding and adapting some questions from the WHO standard. To create a new SSC, the application is connected to an online questionnaire builder (JotForm). The choice for this online questionnaire builder went through three essential characteristics: number of types of questions, mainly checkbox, radio button and text; the possibility of to create sections inside sections and the API. In addition, in this proposal the improvements are focused in forcing the user to focus in the work ow of the SSC and to save the input timestamps and any actions made by them. Therefore, the following features was implemented to achieve that goal: display one item of the SSC at a time; display the stage where the SSC is; do not allow going back to the previous step; do not allow going forward to the next item if the current is not lled; do not allow going forward to the next item if the time it took to ll the item was too short and log any action made by the user.

Multilevel model of safety climate for furniture industries

BACKGROUND: Furniture companies can analyze their safety status using quantitative measures. However, the data needed are not always available and the number of accidents is under-reported. Safety climate scales may be an alternative. However, there are no validated Portuguese scales that account for the specific attributes of the furniture sector. OBJECTIVE: The current study aims to develop and validate an instrument that uses a multilevel structure to measure the safety climate of the Portuguese furniture industry. METHODS: The Safety Climate in Wood Industries (SCWI) model was developed and applied to the safety climate analysis using three different scales: organizational, group and individual. A multilevel exploratory factor analysis was performed to analyze the factorial structure. The studied companies’ safety conditions were also analyzed. RESULTS: Different factorial structures were found between and within levels. In general, the results show the presence of a group-level safety climate. The scores of safety climates are directly and positively related to companies’ safety conditions; the organizational scale is the one that best reflects the actual safety conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The SCWI instrument allows for the identification of different safety climates in groups that comprise the same furniture company and it seems to reflect those groups’ safety conditions. The study also demonstrates the need for a multilevel analysis of the studied instrument.

Marine Cyanobacteria Compounds with Anticancer Properties: Implication of Apoptosis

Marine cyanobacteria have been proved to be an important source of potential anticancer drugs. Although several compounds were found to be cytotoxic to cancer cells in culture, the pathways by which cells are affected are still poorly elucidated. For some compounds, cancer cell death was attributed to an implication of apoptosis through morphological apoptotic features, implication of caspases and proteins of the Bcl-2 family, and other mechanisms such as interference with microtubules dynamics, cell cycle arrest and inhibition of proteases other than caspases.

Antiviral activity of the green marine alga Ulva fasciata on the replication of human metapneumovirus

We evaluated the antiviral activity of the marine alga, Ulva fasciata, collected from Rasa beach and Forno beach, Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the replication of human metapneumovirus (HMPV). The algae extracts were prepared using three different methodologies to compare the activity of different groups of chemical composites obtained through these different methodologies. Four out of the six extracts inhibited nearly 100% of viral replication. The results demonstrated that the majority of the extracts (five out of six) possess virucidal activity and therefore have the ability to interact with the extracellular viral particles and prevent the infection. On the other hand, only two extracts (from Forno beach, obtained by maceration and maceration of the decoction) were able to interact with cell receptors, hindering the viral entry. Finally, only the extract of algae collected at Forno beach, obtained by maceration presented intracellular activity. To our knowledge, this is a pioneer study on antiviral activity of marine algae against HMPV. It is also the first on antiviral activity against HMPV ever done in Brazil. The study also shows the effect of different environment factors and different chemical procedures used to obtain the extract on its biological properties.

Safety and skin delayed-type hypersensitivity response in vervet monkeys immunized with Leishmania donovani sonicate antigen delivered with adjuvants

In this study, we report on the safety and skin delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH), responses of the Leishmania donovani whole cell sonicate antigen delivered in conjunction with alum-BCG (AlBCG), Montanide ISA 720 (MISA) or Monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA) in groups of vervet monkeys. Following three intradermal injections of the inoculums on days 0, 28 and 42, safety and DTH responses were assessed. Preliminary tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interferon gamma (IFN-γ) levels were also measured and these were compared with DTH. Only those animals immunized with alum-BCG reacted adversely to the inoculum by producing ulcerative erythematous skin indurations. Non-parametric analysis of variance followed by a post-test showed significantly higher DTH responses in the MISA+Ag group compared with other immunized groups (p < 0.001). The MPLA+Ag group indicated significantly lower DTH responses to the sonicate antigen compared with the AlBCG+Ag group. There was a significant correlation between the DTH and cytokine responses (p < 0.0001). Based on this study we conclude that Leishmania donovani sonicate antigen containing MISA 720 is safe and is associated with a strong DTH reaction following immunization.