A proteome analysis of conditioned media from human neonatal fibroblasts used in the maintenance of human embryonic stem cells

The pathways involved in the maintenance of human embryonic stem (hES) cells remain largely unknown, although some signaling pathways have been identified in mouse embryonic stem (mES) cells. Fibroblast feeder layers are used to maintain the undifferentiated growth of hES cells and an examination of the conditioned media (CM) of human neonatal fibroblasts (HNFs) could provide insights into the maintenance of hES cells. The neonatal foreskin fibroblast line (HNF02) used in this study was shown to have a normal 2n = 46, XY chromosomal complement and to support the undifferentiated growth of the Embryonic Stem Cell International Pte. Ltd.-hES3 cell line. The CM of HNF02 was examined using two-dimensional liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (2-D LCMS) and two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) followed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight tandem mass spectrometry (2-DE/MALDI). A total of 102 proteins were identified, 19 by 2-DE/MALDI, 53 by 2-D LCMS and 30 by both techniques. These proteins were classified into 15 functional groups. Proteins identified in the extracellular matrix and differentiation and growth factor functional categories were considered most likely to be involved in the maintenance of hES cell growth, differentiation and pluripotency as these groups contained proteins involved in a variety of events including cell adhesion, cell proliferation and inhibition of cell proliferation, Writ signaling and inhibition of bone morphogenetic proteins.

Informação ou dramatização do risco: os media e os novos riscos

Também transversal a todos os casos analisados é o importante papel desempenhado pelos meios de comunicação social. Nas sociedades contemporâneas, os conflitos sociais apenas adquirem existência na esfera pública quando recebem cobertura mediática. No caso particular das questões de risco, tal é especialmente verdade. Os mass media, por via do chamado efeito do Agenda Setting, conferem existência a problemas que de outra forma estariam ausentes da esfera pública. Ao divulgarem um caso de risco, pressionam o poder político para tomar medidas ou justificar as opções tomadas, assim como a comunidade científica para sustentar o aconselhamento prestado.

How new online communication tools and the availability of content influence the audiences and the creative process

We live in a changing world. At an impressive speed, every day new technological resources appear. We increasingly use the Internet to obtain and share information, and new online communication tools are emerging. Each of them encompasses new potential and creates new audiences. In recent years, we witnessed the emergence of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other media platforms. They have provided us with an even greater interactivity between sender and receiver, as well as generated a new sense of community. At the same time we also see the availability of content like it never happened before. We are increasingly sharing texts, videos, photos, etc. This poster intends to explore the potential of using these new online communication tools in the cultural sphere to create new audiences, to develop of a new kind of community, to provide information as well as different ways of building organizations’ memory. The transience of performing arts is accompanied by the need to counter that transience by means of documentation. This desire to ‘save’ events reaches its expression with the information archive of the different production moments as well as the opportunity to record the event and present it through, for instance, digital platforms. In this poster we intend to answer the following questions: which online communication tools are being used to engage audiences in the cultural sphere (specifically between theater companies in Lisbon)? Is there a new relationship with the public? Are online communication tools creating a new kind of community? What changes are these tools introducing in the creative process? In what way the availability of content and its archive contribute to the organization memory? Among several references, we will approach the two-way communication model that James E. Grunig & Todd T. Hunt (1984) already presented and the concept of mass self-communication of Manuel Castells (2010). Castells also tells us that we have moved from traditional media to a system of communication networks. For Scott Kirsner (2010), we have entered an era of digital creativity, where artists have the tools to do what they imagined and the public no longer wants to just consume cultural goods, but instead to have a voice and participate. The creativity process is now depending on the public choice as they wander through the screen. It is the receiver who owns an object which can be exchanged. Virtual reality has encouraged the receiver to abandon its position of passive observer and to become a participant agent, which implies a challenge to organizations: inventing new forms of interfaces. Therefore, we intend to find new and effective online tools that can be used by cultural organizations; the best way to manage them; to show how organizations can create a community with the public and how the availability of online content and its archive can contribute to the organizations’ memory.

Destruction of the tar present in syngas by combustion in porous media

The cleaning of syngas is one of the most important challenges in the development of technologies based on gasification of biomass. Tar is an undesired byproduct because, once condensed, it can cause fouling and plugging and damage the downstream equipment. Thermochemical methods for tar destruction, which include catalytic cracking and thermal cracking, are intrinsically attractive because they are energetically efficient and no movable parts are required nor byproducts are produced. The main difficulty with these methods is the tendency for tar to polymerize at high temperatures. An alternative to tar removal is the complete combustion of the syngas in a porous burner directly as it leaves the particle capture system. In this context, the main aim of this study is to evaluate the destruction of the tar present in the syngas from biomass gasification by combustion in porous media. A gas mixture was used to emulate the syngas, which included toluene as a tar surrogate. Initially, CHEMKIN was used to assess the potential of the proposed solution. The calculations revealed the complete destruction of the tar surrogate for a wide range of operating conditions and indicated that the most important reactions in the toluene conversion are C6H5CH3 + OH <-> C6H5CH2 + H2O, C6H5CH3 + OH <-> C6H4CH3 + H2O, and C6H5CH3 + O <-> OC6H4CH3 + H and that the formation of toluene can occur through C6H5CH2 + H <-> C6H5CH3. Subsequently, experimental tests were performed in a porous burner fired with pure methane and syngas for two equivalence ratios and three flow velocities. In these tests, the toluene concentration in the syngas varied from 50 to 200 g/Nm(3). In line with the CHEMKIN calculations, the results revealed that toluene was almost completely destroyed for all tested conditions and that the process did not affect the performance of the porous burner regarding the emissions of CO, hydrocarbons, and NOx.

Development of CO-releasing molecular for the treatment of inflammatory diseases

Dissertation presented to obtain a Ph.D. degree (Doutoramento) in Chemistry at the Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica e Biol6gica da Universidade Nova de Lisboa

The role of objects in creative collaborations

Objects matter when professionals collaborate to create new products. Chapter 1 explains the intention of this work, to apply theories on objects in the empirical context of fashion design. Chapter 2 addresses the question of how creative professionals learn about and use strategy tools to turn their artistic fame into a commercial success. For Chapter 3 I collected ethnographic data on the development of a seasonal collection from the idea to the presentation at Fashion Week. The result is a deep insight into the collaborative processes and material objects used when a stable team of designers works with several outside experts. Chapter 4 applies the knowledge of the role of objects in fashion design gained during the ethnography in the context of online co-creation and crowd sourced fashion items. The synthesis of the empirical studies allows me to present the conceptual leap in Chapter 5. In the theoretical essay I review the findings on the role of objects in collaborations in relation to practice theory, present the new concept of the comprehensive object and conclude by stating the possibilities for future research.

Artes dos novos media

Artes dos novos media: interatividade entre o corpo do visitante e a obra de arte; Hipertexto; O espaço da galeria ou do evento enquanto elemento estético; Autoria; O visitante como co-autor. Digitextualidade: A digitextualidade do corpo; Convergência / digitextualidade; Convergência de media e textos do sujeito e do objeto. Audiência ativa. Estratégias estéticas digitais: arte genómica e biomedia; a Genética nas Ciências e nas Artes; Stelarc: braço mecânico; Stelarc: o corpo é um híbrido; Stelarc: implantação de orelha em braço; ‘Ciborguização’ dos corpos; genética: nuvem semântica; Arte pós-humana; Biocibernética; Christa Sommerer e Laurent Mignonneau; Obras; Eduardo Kac; Obras; Uma arte trans-animal?

Development of Janus hydrogel microcapsules as novel biomaterials-stem cells construct for 3D co-culture applications

Co-cultures of two or more cell types and biodegradable biomaterials of natural origin have been successfully combined to recreate tissue microenvironments. Segregated co-cultures are preferred over conventional mixed ones in order to better control the degree of homotypic and heterotypic interactions. Hydrogel-based systems in particular, have gained much attention to mimic tissue-specific microenvironments and they can be microengineered by innovative bottom-up approaches such as microfluidics. In this study, we developed bi-compartmentalized (Janus) hydrogel microcapsules of methacrylated hyaluronic acid (MeHA)/methacrylated-chitosan (MeCht) blended with marine-origin collagen by droplet-based microfluidics co-flow. Human adipose stem cells (hASCs) and microvascular endothelial cells (hMVECs) were co-encapsulated to create platforms of study relevant for vascularized bone tissue engineering. A specially designed Janus-droplet generator chip was used to fabricate the microcapsules (<250â μm units) and Janus-gradient co-cultures of hASCs: hMVECs were generated in various ratios (90:10; 75:25; 50:50; 25:75; 10:90), through an automated microfluidic flow controller (Elveflow microfluidics system). Such monodisperse 3D co-culture systems were optimized regarding cell number and culture media specific for concomitant maintenance of both phenotypes to establish effective cell-cell (homotypic and heterotypic) and cell-materials interactions. Cellular parameters such as viability, matrix deposition, mineralization and hMVECs re-organization in tube-like structures, were enhanced by blending MeHA/MeCht with marine-origin collagen and increasing hASCs: hMVECs co-culture gradient had significant impact on it. Such Janus hybrid hydrogel microcapsules can be used as a platform to investigate biomaterials interactions with distinct combined cell populations.

Energy from waste (EfW): a feasibility study on the economic and the environmental co-benefits of biogas production within rural communities

Energy from waste (E/W) technologies in the form o f biogas plants, CHP plants and other municipal solid waste (MSW) conversion technologies, have been gaining steady ground in the provision o f energy throughout Europe and the UK. Urban Waste Water Treatment Plants (UWWTP) are utilising much o f the same biochemical processes common to these E/W plants. Previous studies on Centralised Anaerobic Digestion (CAD) within Ireland found that the legislative and economic conditions were not conducive to such an operation on the grounds o f low energy price for electric and heat energy, and due to the restrictive nature o f the allowable feedstocks. Recent changes to the Irish REFIT tariff on energy produced from Anaerobic digestion; alterations to the regulation o f the allowable use o f animal by products(ABP); the recent enactment o f the Renewable Energy D irective (09/28/EC) and a subsequent review o f the draft Biowaste Directive (2001) required that the issue o f decentralised energy production in Ireland be reassessed. In this instance the feasibility study is based on a extant rural community, centred around the village o f Woodford Co Galway. The review found that the prevailing conditions were now such that it was technically and economically feasible for this biochemical process to provide energy and waste treatment facilities at the above location. The review also outlines the last item which is preventing this process from becoming achievable, specifically the lack o f a digestate regulation on land spreading which deals specifically with biowaste. The study finds that the implementation o f the draft EU biowaste regulations, with amendments for Cr and Hg levels to match the proposed Irish regulation for compost, would ensure that Ireland has some o f the most restrictive regulations in Europe for this application. The delay in completing this piece o f legislation is preventing national energy and waste issues from being resolved in a planned and stepwise fashion. A proposed lay out for the new Integrated Waste from Energy Plant (IW/EP) is presented. Budget economic projections and alternative revenue streams are outlined. Finally a review o f the national policies regarding the Rural Development Plan (RDP), the Rural Planning Guidelines (RPG) and the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) are examined against the relevant EU directives.

Contractions in the 2-wasserstein lenght space and thermalization of granular media

An algebraic decay rate is derived which bounds the time required for velocities to equilibrate in a spatially homogeneous flow-through model representing the continuum limit of a gas of particles interacting through slightly inelastic collisions. This rate is obtained by reformulating the dynamical problem as the gradient flow of a convex energy on an infinite-dimensional manifold. An abstract theory is developed for gradient flows in length spaces, which shows how degenerate convexity (or even non-convexity) | if uniformly controlled | will quantify contractivity (limit expansivity) of the flow.

The Instrumental voter goes to the news-agent: demand for information, election closeness, and the media

This paper studies the impact of instrumental voting on information demand and mass media behaviour during electoral campaigns. If voters act instrumentally then information demand should increase with the closeness of an election. Mass media are modeled as profit-maximizing firms that take into account information demand, the value of customers to advertisers and the marginal cost of customers. Information supply should be larger in electoral constituencies where the contest is expected to be closer, there is a higher population density, and customers are on average more profitable for advertisers. The impact of electorate size is theoretically undetermined. These conclusions are then tested with comfortable results on data from the 1997 general election in Britain.