Botulism: a laboratory investigation on biological and food samples from cases and outbreaks in Brazil (1982-2001)

Laboratory investigation of botulism from 1982 to 2001 confirmed the occurrence of eight positive outbreaks/cases of botulism in Brazil. From those, type A botulism was observed in seven of them. Biological material of one case (serum and feces) was positive in the first step of the bioassay, but the amount of sample was not sufficient for typification. One of the outbreaks that occurred in 2001 was negative for botulinum toxin in samples of serum, gastric washing and feces, collected eight days before the onset of the symptoms in the affected person who was clinically diagnosed as presenting the disease. Other two cases presenting compatible clinical diagnoses presented negative results. However, in those cases, the collection of samples was (1) after antiserum administration or (2) later than eight days of the onset of symptoms. Investigation was performed by mouse bioassay, as described in the Compendium of Methods for the Microbiological Examination of Foods (compiled by American Public Health Association - APHA)11, using specific antiserum from Centers for Disease Control (CDC), USA.

Development of Biomimetic Robots in the EPS Engineering Programme Capstone Project

This paper proposes the development of biologically inspired robots as the capstone project of the European Project Semester (EPS) framework. EPS is a one semester student centred international programme offered by a group of European engineering schools (EPS Providers) as part of their student exchange programme portfolio. EPS is organized around a central module (the EPS project) and a set of complementary supportive modules. Project proposals refer to open multidisciplinary real world problems. Its purpose is to expose students to problems of a greater dimension and complexity than those faced throughout the degree programme as well as to put them in contact with the socalled real world, in opposition to the academic world. Students are organized in teams, grouping individuals from diverse academic backgrounds and nationalities, and each team is fully responsible for conducting its project. EPS provides an integrated framework for undertaking capstone projects, which is focused on multicultural and multidisciplinary teamwork, communication, problem-solving, creativity, leadership, entrepreneurship, ethical reasoning and global contextual analysis. The design and development of biologically inspired robots allows the students to fulfil the previously described requirements and objectives and, as a result, we recommend the adoption of these projects within the EPS project capstone module for the benefit of engineering students.

Development of Biomimetic Robots in the EPS Engineering Programme Capstone Project

This paper presents the development of a fish-like robot called Bro-Fish. Bro-Fish aims to be an educational toy dedicated to teaching mechanics, programming and the physics of floating objects to youngsters. The underlying intention is to awaken the interest of children for technology, especially biomimetic (biologically inspired) approaches, in order to promote sustainability and raise the level of ecological awareness. The main focus of this project was to create a robot with carangiform locomotion and controllable swimming, providing the opportunity to customize parts and experiment with the physics of floating objects. Therefore, the locomotion principles of fishes and mechanisms developed in related projects were analysed. Inspired by this background knowledge, a prototype was designed and implemented. The main achievement is the new tail mechanism that propels the robot. The tail resembles the undulation motion of fish bodies and is actuated in an innovative way, triggered by an elegant movement of a rotating helicoidal. First experimental tests revealed the potential of the proposed methodology to effectively generate forward propulsion.

The biological meaning of anti-HBC positive result in blood donors: relation to HBV-DNA and to other serological markers

In order to assess the potential risk of anti-HBc-positive blood donors for post-transfusional hepatitis and to investigate whether other HBV serological markers are capable of identifying the presence of the virus, 1000 first-time blood donors were enrolled between June and July 1997. These donors were screened using routine Brazilian blood center tests (HIV 1 and 2, HTLV 1 and 2, Chagas disease, Syphilis, HCV, HBsAg, anti-HBc and ALT ). The 120 (12%) found to be anti-HBc-positive underwent further tests: HBe, anti-HBe, anti-HBs and HBV-DNA by PCR. Ten cases were HBsAg positive and all were HBV-DNA positive by PCR. Three HBsAg-negative donors were HBV-DNA-positive. Two HBV-DNA-positive donors were also anti-HBs-positive. All the HBV-positive donors had at least one HBV marker other than anti-HBc. Anti-HBc is an important cause of blood rejection. Testing for HBsAg alone is not fully protective and anti-HBc remains necessary as a screening test. The presence of anti-HBs is not always indicative of absence of the virus. The addition of other HBV serological markers could represent an alternative in predicting the presence of the virus when compared with PCR. It is recommended that other studies should be carried out to confirm this finding.

Sarcosine oxidase composite screen-printed electrode for sarcosine determination in biological samples

As the prostate cancer (PCa) progresses, sarcosine levels increase both in tumor cells and urine samples, suggesting that this metabolite measurements can help in the creation of non-invasive diagnostic methods for this disease. In this work, a biosensor device was developed for the quantification of sarcosine via electrochemical detection of H2O2 (at 0.6 V) generated from the catalyzed oxidation of sarcosine. The detection was carried out after the modification of carbon screen printed electrodes (SPEs) by immobilization of sarcosine oxidase (SOX) on the electrode surface. The strategies used herein included the activation of the carbon films by an electrochemical step and the formation of an NHS/EDAC layer to bond the enzyme to the electrode, the use of metallic or semiconductor nanoparticles layer previously or during the enzyme immobilization. In order to improve the sensor stability and selectivity a polymeric layer with extra enzyme content was further added. The proposed methodology for the detection of sarcosine allowed obtaining a limit of detection (LOD) of 16 nM, using a linear concentration range between 10 and 100 nM. The biosensor was successfully applied to the analysis of sarcosine in urine samples.

Sarcosine oxidase composite screen-printed electrode for sarcosine determination in biological samples

XIX Meeting of the Portuguese Electrochemical Society - XVI Iberic Meeting of Electrochemistry

Measurement of lead concentration in biological tissues by atomic spectroscopy techniques

Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics

Protein glycosylation of exosomes from ovarian carcinoma cells: structures and biological roles

Dissertation presented to obtain the Ph.D. degree in Biology

The removal of xenobiotic compounds from wastewater through the use of biological processes and advanced oxidation technologies

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Química e Bioquímica pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

Introducing numerical analysis tools in engineering: a Scilab user case in electronics course

Software tools in education became popular since the widespread of personal computers. Engineering courses lead the way in this development and these tools became almost a standard. Engineering graduates are familiar with numerical analysis tools but also with simulators (e.g. electronic circuits), computer assisted design tools and others, depending on the degree. One of the main problems with these tools is when and how to start use them so that they can be beneficial to students and not mere substitutes for potentially difficult calculations or design. In this paper a software tool to be used by first year students in electronics/electricity courses is presented. The growing acknowledgement and acceptance of open source software lead to the choice of an open source software tool – Scilab, which is a numerical analysis tool – to develop a toolbox. The toolbox was developed to be used as standalone or integrated in an e-learning platform. The e-learning platform used was Moodle. The first approach was to assess the mathematical skills necessary to solve all the problems related to electronics and electricity courses. Analysing the existing circuit simulators software tools, it is clear that even though they are very helpful by showing the end result they are not so effective in the process of the students studying and self learning since they show results but not intermediate steps which are crucial in problems that involve derivatives or integrals. Also, they are not very effective in obtaining graphical results that could be used to elaborate reports and for an overall better comprehension of the results. The developed tool was based on the numerical analysis software Scilab and is a toolbox that gives their users the opportunity to obtain the end results of a circuit analysis but also the expressions obtained when derivative and integrals calculations, plot signals, obtain vector diagrams, etc. The toolbox runs entirely in the Moodle web platform and provides the same results as the standalone application. The students can use the toolbox through the web platform (in computers where they don't have installation privileges) or in their personal computers by installing both the Scilab software and the toolbox. This approach was designed for first year students from all engineering degrees that have electronics/electricity courses in their curricula.

Autonomous guided vehicles applied to industrial engineering and management studies

This article presents a framework to an Industrial Engineering and Management Science course from School of Management and Industrial Studies using Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGV) to supply materials to a production line as an experimental setup for the students to acquire knowledge in the production robotics area. The students must be capable to understand and put into good use several concepts that will be of utmost importance in their professional life such as critical decisions regarding the study, development and implementation of a production line. The main focus is a production line using AGVs, where the students are required to address several topics such as: sensors actuators, controllers and an high level management and optimization software. The presented framework brings to the robotics teaching community methodologies that allow students from different backgrounds, that normally don’t experiment with the robotics concepts in practice due to the big gap between theory and practice, to go straight to ”making” robotics. Our aim was to suppress the minimum start point level thus allowing any student to fully experience robotics with little background knowledge.

Photoelectron spectroscopy of nitrogen containing molecules of biological and industrial interest

A thesis submitted for the degree of Ph. D. in Physics