The epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease at the wildlife-livestock interface in northern Tanzania

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a disease of cloven hooved animals caused by FMD virus (FMDV), is one of the most economically devastating diseases of livestock worldwide. The global burden of disease is borne largely by livestock-keepers in areas of Africa and Asia where the disease is endemic and where many people rely on livestock for their livelihoods and food-security. Yet, there are many gaps in our knowledge of the drivers of FMDV circulation in these settings. In East Africa, FMD epidemiology is complicated by the circulation of multiple FMDV serotypes (distinct antigenic variants) and by the presence of large populations of susceptible wildlife and domestic livestock. The African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) is the only wildlife species with consistent evidence of high levels of FMDV infection, and East Africa contains the largest population of this species globally. To inform FMD control in this region, key questions relate to heterogeneities in FMD prevalence and impacts in different livestock management systems and to the role of wildlife as a potential source of FMDV for livestock. To develop FMD control strategies and make best use of vaccine control options, serotype-specific patterns of circulation need to be characterised. In this study, the impacts and epidemiology of FMD were investigated across a range of traditional livestock-keeping systems in northern Tanzania, including pastoralist, agro-pastoralist and rural smallholder systems. Data were generated through field studies and laboratory analyses between 2010 and 2015. The study involved analysis of existing household survey data and generated serological data from cross-sectional livestock and buffalo samples and longitudinal cattle samples. Serological analyses included non-structural protein ELISAs, serotype-specific solid-phase competitive ELISAs, with optimisation to detect East African FMDV variants, and virus neutralisation testing. Risk factors for FMDV infection and outbreaks were investigated through analysis of cross-sectional serological data in conjunction with a case-control outbreak analysis. A novel Bayesian modeling approach was developed to infer serotype-specific infection history from serological data, and combined with virus isolation data from FMD outbreaks to characterise temporal and spatial patterns of serotype-specific infection. A high seroprevalence of FMD was detected in both northern Tanzanian livestock (69%, [66.5 - 71.4%] in cattle and 48.5%, [45.7-51.3%] in small ruminants) and in buffalo (80.9%, [74.7-86.1%]). Four different serotypes of FMDV (A, O, SAT1 and SAT2) were isolated from livestock. Up to three outbreaks per year were reported by households and active surveillance highlighted up to four serial outbreaks in the same herds within three years. Agro-pastoral and pastoral livestock keepers reported more frequent FMD outbreaks compared to smallholders. Households in all three management systems reported that FMD outbreaks caused significant impacts on milk production and sales, and on animals’ draught power, hence on crop production, with implications for food security and livelihoods. Risk factor analyses showed that older livestock were more likely to be seropositive for FMD (Odds Ratio [OR] 1.4 [1.4-1.5] per extra year) and that cattle (OR 3.3 [2.7-4.0]) were more likely than sheep and goats to be seropositive. Livestock managed by agro-pastoralists (OR 8.1 [2.8-23.6]) or pastoralists (OR 7.1 [2.9-17.6]) were more likely to be seropositive compared to those managed by smallholders. Larger herds (OR: 1.02 [1.01-1.03] per extra bovine) and those that recently acquired new livestock (OR: 5.57 [1.01 – 30.91]) had increased odds of suffering an FMD outbreak. Measures of potential contact with buffalo or with other FMD susceptible wildlife did not increase the likelihood of FMD in livestock in either the cross-sectional serological analysis or case-control outbreak analysis. The Bayesian model was validated to correctly infer from ELISA data the most recent serotype to infect cattle. Consistent with the lack of risk factors related to wildlife contact, temporal and spatial patterns of exposure to specific FMDV serotypes were not tightly linked in cattle and buffalo. In cattle, four serial waves of different FMDV serotypes that swept through southern Kenyan and northern Tanzanian livestock populations over a four-year period dominated infection patterns. In contrast, only two serotypes (SAT1 and SAT2) dominated in buffalo populations. Key conclusions are that FMD has a substantial impact in traditional livestock systems in East Africa. Wildlife does not currently appear to act as an important source of FMDV for East African livestock, and control efforts in the region should initially focus on livestock management and vaccination strategies. A novel modeling approach greatly facilitated the interpretation of serological data and may be a potent epidemiological tool in the African setting. There was a clear temporal pattern of FMDV antigenic dominance across northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. Longer-term research to investigate whether serotype-specific FMDV sweeps are truly predictable, and to shed light on FMD post-infection immunity in animals exposed to serial FMD infections is warranted.

Effects of modality, urgency and situation on responses to multimodal warnings for drivers

Signifying road-related events with warnings can be highly beneficial, especially when imminent attention is needed. This thesis describes how modality, urgency and situation can influence driver responses to multimodal displays used as warnings. These displays utilise all combinations of audio, visual and tactile modalities, reflecting different urgency levels. In this way, a new rich set of cues is designed, conveying information multimodally, to enhance reactions during driving, which is a highly visual task. The importance of the signified events to driving is reflected in the warnings, and safety-critical or non-critical situations are communicated through the cues. Novel warning designs are considered, using both abstract displays, with no semantic association to the signified event, and language-based ones, using speech. These two cue designs are compared, to discover their strengths and weaknesses as car alerts. The situations in which the new cues are delivered are varied, by simulating both critical and non-critical events and both manual and autonomous car scenarios. A novel set of guidelines for using multimodal driver displays is finally provided, considering the modalities utilised, the urgency signified, and the situation simulated.

Índice del perfil del donante renal (KDPI) como factor pronóstico del trasplante

La enfermedad renal crónica ha aumentado a nivel mundial y nacional, mientras que el número de donantes viene en descenso, y los pacientes en lista de espera aumentan. Los donantes cadavéricos son una opción para estos pacientes, y han sido utilizados en últimos años para aumentar los órganos disponibles. La evaluación de la calidad de estos es importante para optimizar su uso. Estudio analítico tipo cohorte retrospectiva, cálculo de KDPI en donantes cadavéricos, seguimiento función renal creatinina sérica 1 mes, 3 meses, 6 meses y un año. Correlación supervivencia del injerto, función renal, KDPI y EPTS. Análisis de supervivencia y regresión logística con variables del donante, receptor y acto quirúrgico.

Impacto do alcoolismo na díade conjugal

O alcoolismo é um fenómeno universal, significativo e complexo, com múltiplas implicações, assumindo-se a disfunção familiar como uma das que primeiro se manifesta, nomeadamente ao nível da díade conjugal. O presente estudo, de carácter exploratório e abordagem qualitativa, tem como objectivos identificar a percepção que o alcoólico e o cônjuge têm do impacto do alcoolismo na díade conjugal e alertar para a necessidade de adoptar estratégias de tratamento que visem a família do sujeito alcoólico. Os dados foram recolhidos junto de oito díades recorrendo à entrevista semi-estruturada e tratados através da análise de conteúdo. As conclusões reafirmam o impacto negativo do alcoolismo na díade e a pertinência de uma abordagem conjugal nesta problemática. Evidenciam-se alcoólicos e cônjuges insatisfeitos, com vivências conjugais marcadas por conflitos e problemas de ordem comunicacional, sexual, emocional e económica. Foram identificadas especificidades tanto do alcoolismo no feminino, como das respectivas diades. /ABSTRACT: Alcoholism is a universal, significant and complex phenomenon, with multiple implications, assuming the family dysfunction as one of its first manifestations, particularly in terms of the marital dyad. The present study, of exploratory and qualitative approach, aims to identify the perception that the alcoholic and the spouse have of the impact of the alcoholism in the marital dyad, and call attention to the need for treatment strategies aimed at the subject's family with alcoholic dependence syndrome. The information were collected from eight dyads through semi-structured interviews and processed by content analysis. The conclusions reaffirm the negative impact of alcoholism in the marital dyad and the relevance of marital approach in alcoholism. lt is shown alcoholics and spouses dissatisfied with their marital experiences marked by conflicts and problems of communication, sexual, emotional and economic order. Specificities were identified in women's alcoholism, as well as in their marital dyads.

Variedades e estilos na obra atribuída a Frei Carlos: novas perspetivas

Este trabalho de investigação centra-se no contributo dos exames de superfície e nas análises micro-analíticas no estudo de vinte e uma pinturas atribuídas à oficina de Frei Carlos, um dos grandes Mestres Luso-Flamengos ativos em território Nacional durante a primeira metade do século XVI. A "Pintura Luso-Flamenga" é uma expressão comummente usada na história da pintura Portuguesa do primeiro terço do século XVI e no seu sentido mais básico designa o trabalho de mestres flamengos que se instalaram em Portugal durante o reinado de D. Manuel I (1495- 1521) contribuindo decisivamente para o processo de renovação da pintura Portuguesa na época. O estudo integrado combina a pesquisa histórica em fontes documentais com exames de superfície e de caracterização material das obras de arte. O estudo material das pinturas foi realizado através de microscopia ótica, microscopia de infravermelhos com transformada de Fourier, espectroscopia de micro-Raman, microscopia eletrónica de varrimento acoplada com espectrometria de energia dispersiva de raios X, micro- difração de raios-X, cromatografia líquida de alta eficiência e pirólise acoplada à cromatografia gasosa /espectrometria de massa. Esta investigação envolveu técnicas complementares de análise de superfície e de ponto no estudo técnico e material das preparações, imprimitura, desenho subjacente, camadas pictóricas e sucessões estratigráficas, dando a conhecer os materiais utilizados na execução técnica das pinturas e evidenciando especificidades técnicas da produção artística. Este estudo pretende inclusivamente evidenciar alguns detalhes técnicos do artista que possivelmente estão relacionados com a herança das práticas Flamengas. O conhecimento de algumas particularidades da técnica deste Mestre também permitiu estabelecer comparações com duas pinturas que haviam sido atribuídas, com algumas reservas, a esta oficina de pintura Luso-Flamenga. Mais recentemente, como resultado de um estudo colaborativo, foi realizada uma ampla campanha de reflectografia infravermelhos, introduzindo novos dados acerca da execução técnica do desenho subjacente, o que contribuiu para diferenciar, nestas duas pinturas, outra "mão", atribuída então a um seguidor de Frei Carlos. Esta investigação introduz um novo e profundo conhecimento sobre a Oficina de Frei Carlos, permitindo estabelecer comparações com a obra do seu seguidor e com uma pintura também atribuída a esta oficina e que incorpora o Museu da National Gallery (NG5594), evidenciando os materiais utilizados na técnica de produção artística e especificidades técnicas aliadas aos processos criativos/ construtivos que permitem estabelecer os pontos de contacto e de diferenciação entre estas obras; Varieties and styles in the works attributed to Frei Carlos - new perspectives Abstract: This investigation is focused on the contributions of surface exams and micro-analytical research in the study of twenty one paintings attributed to Frei Carlos workshop, one of the most important Portuguese-Flemish painters active in our country during the first half of sixteen Century. "Portuguese-Flemish Painting" is a common expression used in the history of Portuguese painting of the first third of the sixteenth century and in its most basic meaning designates the work of Flemish masters who settled in Portugal during the reign of King Manuel I (1495-1521) contributing decisively to the process of renewal of Portuguese painting at the time. The integrated approach combines historical research on documental sources with surface examination and material characterization of the paintings by using state-of-art analytical techniques. Microanalysis was carried out by optical microscopy, micro-Fourier-transform infrared-spectroscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, micro-X-ray diffraction analysis, high performance liquid chromatography and Pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry. This complementary surface and analytical research was involved in the technical and material characterization of grounds, underdrawings, primings, paint layers and its multi-layered build-up, providing access to the painter´s materials used in the technical execution of the paintings and details of the technique of artistic production. This study also intends to expose some usual details of the artist’s technique which are possibly related to the Master´s Flemish influence. The knowledge of some particularities of the Master´s technique also allowed a new comparison with two paintings that had been attributed with some reserves to this Portuguese-Flemish workshop. More recently, as a result of a collaborative study, an extensive infrared reflectography campaign was made, giving new data concerning underdrawings technical execution and contributing to differentiate, in these two paintings, another “hand”, attributed to a follower of Frei Carlos. Complementary analytical research also added a new and deep insight into Frei Carlos workshop, his follower and a panel that still attributed to Frei Carlos workshop that integrates the National Gallery´s Museum (NG5594), evidencing the materials used in technical production, their models and sources of artistic inspiration, techniques and pictorial construction procedures that could specifically relate or distinguish between them.

Raising Awareness on Teacher Training Changes: Perspectives and Challenges

One of the numerous challenges in the educational processes is teacher training, particularly in the framework of neo-liberal global societies ruled by the competitiveness of regular and continuous education programs in teacher training. It is a matter of concern and, therefore, a matter of analysis, if we consider the deep impact in all contexts. Accordingly, this paper discusses the situation from a descriptive perspective as a basic requirement to go beyond the analysis on the urgency of having clear educational policies related to the variety and quality of curricular programs; and, above all, a strong awareness from teacher trainers to see themselves as the critical creative mass from which change can be made, based on socially human proposals.  

ANÁLISIS DE TENDENCIAS HIDROCLIMÁTICAS DE DOS CUENCAS REPRESENTATIVAS DE ISLA DE PUERTO RICO

El agua junto a las variaciones climáticas, encabezan discursos políticos y científicos globales en los que resurgen los debates sobre los conflictos acerca de este recurso, la geopolítica del agua, la gestión, la contaminación y la polución. Ante este panorama el IPCC (Panel Intergubernamental del Cambio Climático), la Organización Mundial de Meteorología (OMM),el Programa de la Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA) y distintas organizaciones medioambientales hanenfocado sus intereses científicos en estudios en los cuales se utilicen indicadores hidroclimáticos. En este contexto, este artículo analiza la evolución hidroclimática reciente en dos cuencas principales de la isla de Puerto Rico, utilizando como indicadores las temperaturas, las precipitaciones y los caudales de distintas estaciones de NOAA y el USGS. Inicialmente analizamos cada estación individualmente y luego se hizo un análisis conjunto de la cuenca. Con los resultados obtenidos,en ninguna de las cuencas se pudo establecer tendencias claras en cuanto a la precipitación total anual. Aunque algunas estaciones mostraron tendencias positivas y otras regresivas, ninguna alcanzó valores estadísticamente significativos que permita rechazar la hipótesis nula de no tendencia. Nuestro análisis indica también que en una cuenca la temperatura media anual mostró un ligero aumento, mientras que en la otra la temperatura manifestó descendió. Por otro lado, el volumen de agua anual que discurre por las cuencas ha disminuido en ambos ríos donde se pudo rechazar la hipótesis nula de no tendencia con el análisis de Mann-Kendall. No obstante, existen otros factores que no fueron objeto de estudio en este análisis y que tienen impactos sobre los recursos hídricos, así como los distintos mosaicos paisajísticos que componen una cuenca hidrográfica.Palabras Claves: recursos hídricos, tendencias hidroclimáticas, cambio climático.ABSTRACTToday, water resources and climatic oscillations dominate all political and scientific discourses where the principal debate is focused on water management, water pollution and the geopolitics of this resource. Against this background, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change), WMO(World Meteorology Organization), the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and other environmental organizations have focused their scientific research on hydro-climatic evolution. In this context, this article examines recent developments in hydro-climatic evolution on two mainrivers in Puerto Rico, using temperature, rainfall, stream-flow and discharge data from NOAA climatic stations and USGS hydrological stations. Initially, we analyze data from each individual station and then make an integrated analysis of the basins. With the obtained results, in none of the basins was it possible to establish clear trends as to total annual precipitation. Though some stations showed positive trends and others regressive, none reached statistically significant values.Our analysis also indicates that in one basin the annual average temperature showed a slight increase, whereas in the other basin a temperature decrease was confirmed. On the other hand, the volume of annual discharge from both rivers showed a decrease. However, there are other factors that were not considered in this analysis, such as land use, that impact water resources and the various landscape mosaics comprising a watershed.Key Words: water resources, hydro-climatic evolution, climate change

Rapid Control Prototyping of an L2+ Highway Assist System

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are proving to have huge potential in road safety, comfort, and efficiency. In recent years, car manufacturers have equipped their high-end vehicles with Level 2 ADAS, which are, according to SAE International, systems that combine both longitudinal and lateral active motion control. These automated driving features, while only available in highway scenarios, appear to be very promising towards the introduction of hands-free driving. However, as they rely only on an on-board sensor suite, their continuative operation may be affected by the current environmental conditions: this prevents certain functionalities such as the automated lane change, other than requiring the driver to keep constantly the hands on the steering wheel. The enabling factor for hands-free highway driving proposed by Mobileye is the integration of high-definition maps, thus leading to the so-called Level 2+. This thesis was carried out during an internship in Maserati's Virtual Engineering team. The activity consisted of the design of an L2+ Highway Assist System following the Rapid Control Prototyping approach, starting from the definition of the requirements up to the real-time implementation and testing on a simulator of the brand new compact SUV Maserati Grecale. The objective was to enhance the current Level 2 highway driving assistance system with hands-free driving capability; for this purpose an Autonomous Lane Change functionality has been designed, proposing a Model Predictive Control-based decision-maker, in charge of assessing both the feasibility and convenience of performing a lane-change maneuver. The result is a Highway Assist System capable of driving the vehicle in a traffic scenario safely and efficiently, never requiring driver intervention.

Investigating interpreter-mediated interaction in the Chinese bilingual courtroom: Analysis based on a multimodal corpus

This research project is based on the Multimodal Corpus of Chinese Court Interpreting (MUCCCI [mutʃɪ]), a small-scale multimodal corpus on the basis of eight authentic court hearings with Chinese-English interpreting in Mainland China. The corpus has approximately 92,500 word tokens in total. Besides the transcription of linguistic and para-linguistic features, utilizing the facial expression classification rules suggested by Black and Yacoob (1995), MUCCCI also includes approximately 1,200 annotations of facial expressions linked to the six basic types of human emotions, namely, anger, disgust, happiness, surprise, sadness, and fear (Black & Yacoob, 1995). This thesis is an example of conducting qualitative analysis on interpreter-mediated courtroom interactions through a multimodal corpus. In particular, miscommunication events (MEs) and the reasons behind them were investigated in detail. During the analysis, although queries were conducted based on non-verbal annotations when searching for MEs, both verbal and non-verbal features were considered indispensable parts contributing to the entire context. This thesis also includes a detailed description of the compilation process of MUCCCI utilizing ELAN, from data collection to transcription, POS tagging and non-verbal annotation. The research aims at assessing the possibility and feasibility of conducting qualitative analysis through a multimodal corpus of court interpreting. The concept of integrating both verbal and non-verbal features to contribute to the entire context is emphasized. The qualitative analysis focusing on MEs can provide an inspiration for improving court interpreters’ performances. All the constraints and difficulties presented can be regarded as a reference for similar research in the future.

Vision-Based Solutions for Human-Robot Collaboration in Industrial Workcells

Industrial robots are both versatile and high performant, enabling the flexible automation typical of the modern Smart Factories. For safety reasons, however, they must be relegated inside closed fences and/or virtual safety barriers, to keep them strictly separated from human operators. This can be a limitation in some scenarios in which it is useful to combine the human cognitive skill with the accuracy and repeatability of a robot, or simply to allow a safe coexistence in a shared workspace. Collaborative robots (cobots), on the other hand, are intrinsically limited in speed and power in order to share workspace and tasks with human operators, and feature the very intuitive hand guiding programming method. Cobots, however, cannot compete with industrial robots in terms of performance, and are thus useful only in a limited niche, where they can actually bring an improvement in productivity and/or in the quality of the work thanks to their synergy with human operators. The limitations of both the pure industrial and the collaborative paradigms can be overcome by combining industrial robots with artificial vision. In particular, vision can be exploited for a real-time adjustment of the pre-programmed task-based robot trajectory, by means of the visual tracking of dynamic obstacles (e.g. human operators). This strategy allows the robot to modify its motion only when necessary, thus maintain a high level of productivity but at the same time increasing its versatility. Other than that, vision offers the possibility of more intuitive programming paradigms for the industrial robots as well, such as the programming by demonstration paradigm. These possibilities offered by artificial vision enable, as a matter of fact, an efficacious and promising way of achieving human-robot collaboration, which has the advantage of overcoming the limitations of both the previous paradigms yet keeping their strengths.

Studio pancreatic cystic follow-up, an international collaboration (PACYFIC study). Valutazione prospettica della sorveglianza delle cisti pancreatiche basato sulla consensus Europea sui tumori cistici del pancreas.

Introduzione Nel 2014 è stato proposto un protocollo di studio riguardante la sorveglianza delle lesioni cistiche del pancreas (intese come IPMN) e denominato PACYFIC Study. Obiettivi Obiettivo primario era di stabilire l’impatto di un programma di sorveglianza in termini di pazienti arruolati e pazienti con indicazione chirurgica. Obiettivi secondari erano: 1) stabilire l’impatto dei fattori demografici, clinici, radiologici e della strategia di sorveglianza sull’indicazione chirurgica, sulla capacità individuare le lesioni maligne, sulla sopravvivenza. Materiali e Metodi Lo studio su cui si è basata la raccolta dei dati è uno studio di tipo prospettico, di coorte, multicentrico, internazionale. Lo studio ha incluso gli individui con una IPMN, di nuova o pregressa diagnosi, che giustifichi una sorveglianza o il trattamento chirurgico. I dati clinici, demografici, radiologici e chirurgici sono stati raccolti in un database prospettico. Le variabili discrete sono state espresse come frequenza e percentuale. Le continue come medie e deviazioni standard o mediane e range interquartile (IQR). Per l’analisi statistica sono stati utilizzati il test di Fischer, il test del Chi quadro, il test di Spearman, il test di Student. L’analisi multivariata è stata eseguita utilizzando la regressione logistica espressa come Odds Ratio e intervallo di confidenza al 95 %. Per la sopravvivenza è stato utilizzato il metodo di Kaplan-Meier. L’analisi multivariata sulle sopravvivenze è stata eseguita mediante la regressione di Cox. Risultati Il protocollo di sorveglianza ha permesso l'arruolamento di 516 pazienti. 53 pazienti hanno raggiunto l'indicazione chirurgica. La sopravvivenza globale della coorte è stata di 326.8± 9.1 mesi. I fattori predittivi la sopravvivenza sono risultati età (OR 1.07, P-value<0.001), sesso (OR 1.82, P-value=0.006), ittero, noduli murali (OR 4.84, P-value=0.018 e OR 2.19, P-value=0.016), chirurgia (OR 0.46, P-value 0.038). Conclusioni L'introduzione del protocollo di sorveglianza ha portato ad un aumento di identificazione di lesioni e ha avuto impatto sulla sopravvivenza

Data surveillance for infectious diseases: models, complex networks and machine learning

In this thesis, we investigate the role of applied physics in epidemiological surveillance through the application of mathematical models, network science and machine learning. The spread of a communicable disease depends on many biological, social, and health factors. The large masses of data available make it possible, on the one hand, to monitor the evolution and spread of pathogenic organisms; on the other hand, to study the behavior of people, their opinions and habits. Presented here are three lines of research in which an attempt was made to solve real epidemiological problems through data analysis and the use of statistical and mathematical models. In Chapter 1, we applied language-inspired Deep Learning models to transform influenza protein sequences into vectors encoding their information content. We then attempted to reconstruct the antigenic properties of different viral strains using regression models and to identify the mutations responsible for vaccine escape. In Chapter 2, we constructed a compartmental model to describe the spread of a bacterium within a hospital ward. The model was informed and validated on time series of clinical measurements, and a sensitivity analysis was used to assess the impact of different control measures. Finally (Chapter 3) we reconstructed the network of retweets among COVID-19 themed Twitter users in the early months of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. By means of community detection algorithms and centrality measures, we characterized users’ attention shifts in the network, showing that scientific communities, initially the most retweeted, lost influence over time to national political communities. In the Conclusion, we highlighted the importance of the work done in light of the main contemporary challenges for epidemiological surveillance. In particular, we present reflections on the importance of nowcasting and forecasting, the relationship between data and scientific research, and the need to unite the different scales of epidemiological surveillance.

Brazilian Natural Fiber (jute) As Raw Material For Activated Carbon Production.

Jute fiber is the second most common natural cellulose fiber worldwide, especially in recent years, due to its excellent physical, chemical and structural properties. The objective of this paper was to investigate: the thermal degradation of in natura jute fiber, and the production and characterization of the generated activated carbon. The production consisted of carbonization of the jute fiber and activation with steam. During the activation step the amorphous carbon produced in the initial carbonization step reacted with oxidizing gas, forming new pores and opening closed pores, which enhanced the adsorptive capacity of the activated carbon. N2 gas adsorption at 77K was used in order to evaluate the effect of the carbonization and activation steps. The results of the adsorption indicate the possibility of producing a porous material with a combination of microporous and mesoporous structure, depending on the parameters used in the processes, with resulting specific surface area around 470 m2.g-1. The thermal analysis indicates that above 600°C there is no significant mass loss.

Interplay Of Weak Interactions In The Atom-by-atom Condensation Of Xenon Within Quantum Boxes.

Condensation processes are of key importance in nature and play a fundamental role in chemistry and physics. Owing to size effects at the nanoscale, it is conceptually desired to experimentally probe the dependence of condensate structure on the number of constituents one by one. Here we present an approach to study a condensation process atom-by-atom with the scanning tunnelling microscope, which provides a direct real-space access with atomic precision to the aggregates formed in atomically defined 'quantum boxes'. Our analysis reveals the subtle interplay of competing directional and nondirectional interactions in the emergence of structure and provides unprecedented input for the structural comparison with quantum mechanical models. This approach focuses on-but is not limited to-the model case of xenon condensation and goes significantly beyond the well-established statistical size analysis of clusters in atomic or molecular beams by mass spectrometry.

Determination Of The Phenolic Composition From Brazilian Tropical Fruits By Uhplc-ms/ms.

Although Brazil is the third largest fruit producer in the world, several specimens consumed are not well studied from the chemical viewpoint, especially for quantitative analysis. For this reason and the crescent employment of mass spectrometry (MS) techniques in food science we selected twenty-two phenolic compounds with important biological activities and developed an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) method using electrospray (ESI) in negative ion mode aiming their quantification in largely consumed Brazilian fruits (açaí-do-Amazonas, acerola, cashew apple, camu-camu, pineapple and taperebá). Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) was applied and the selection of proper product ions for each transition assured high selectivity. Linearity (0.99580%), precision (CV<20%) and extraction recovery rate (>80%) were satisfactory and showed that the method provides an efficient protocol to analyze phenolic compounds in fruit pulp extracts.